#it’s team against team and the bats are clearly winning and even joking around during it

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

I Don’t Like A Gold Rush || Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Summary: Jungkook is the golden boy, an excellent student, the star of you college's football team. Rumor has it, there's simply nothing he can't do. The same cannot be said about you, but you've never had an issue with that. You're happy with your small group of friends and your lack of talent in sports. And then, Jin befriends Jungkook, and you find yourself spending a lot of time with him. Before you know it, you've taken an interest in him — and you're sure you shouldn't. There's no way this can end well for you... right?

Also available on Ao3.

Word count: 17.3k

Genre: College AU, strangers to lovers, slice of life, mostly fluff

Warnings & Tags: discussed insecurities, alcohol consumption, reader almost has a panic attack at some point, shy jungkook, jungkook is bad at Feelings, Reader is bad at feelings too, mutual pining kinda, Jungkook has long hair, sfw, New Year’s Day themed.

A/N: I don’t know how I would name my stories without Taylor Swift. Anyway, this is more or less centered around the New Year (it was supposed to be more and then... it didn’t happen), and I hope you’ll enjoy it! Happy New Year everyone!

The first time you hear Jungkook’s name, it’s in the sentence “Man, is there anything Jungkook can’t do?”. You look up at your friend Jin from the book you’re studying. You have no idea who Jungkook is, but that doesn’t mean anything. Jin is always complaining about how you don’t know anyone on the campus, which you think is quite unfair.

…but then you really don’t know that many people on the campus.

“What’s going on?” you ask him, because he sounds extremely annoyed, and he shows you his phone. On it, there is a score for a basketball game. You think.

Your college is famous for its basketball team… Right?

“Uh-uh,” you still say with a nod, trying to make it look like you have any idea what you’re talking about.

“This kid is crushing it at school, the girls love him, and now this!” Jin complains, a little too loud, and shushing noises come from a spot behind you. You turn around to give the group an apologetic look. “I really shouldn’t have bet against him.”

Ah, there you know what to say.

“You really need to stop making bets. You never win them.”

Jin glares at you.

“And you are a terrible friend. You’re supposed to comfort me!”

“I’ll comfort you when you stop making the worst choices imaginable,” you mutter, going back to your work. Jungkook’s name, his supposed excellence, and that basketball match — if it even is basketball — leave your mind as fast as they entered it, without leaving a trace behind.

“So the school’s won another basketball game, huh?”

You look up at Namjoon who’s just arriving to the table, holding his tray in his hands. You know he can’t possibly be talking to you about that, so you’re not surprised when Jin appears behind him. That doesn’t stop you from throwing Namjoon a disgusted look.

“Really, Joon? Sports?”

Namjoon shoots you an amused glance from behind his glasses. It’s notorious in your friends’ group that you despise conversations around that subject. You hate anything that involves objects flying around and anything that’s played in a team, and, apparently, those are the only sports that people care about. They could discuss athletics, or swimming, which you wouldn’t enjoy but you wouldn’t hate, but that never happens.

“You were right, Jin. That Jungkook guy really is impressive.”

You tune them out. You don’t care about basketball.

“You’re talking about yesterday’s game?” Yoongi asks, coming out of thin air, and you sigh. You had been hoping you would have at least one person to talk to during lunch.

“Jungkook’s friends with Hoseok,” Jin says, leaning forward conspiratorially, which does get your attention. If that’s true, then that Jungkook guy can’t be a completely terrible person. Hoseok is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met.

That being said, he might have very low standards for his friends. You know him enough to appreciate him, not to judge his tastes.

“So I’m going to become friends with him,” Jin announces triumphantly, only to be rewarded by a chorus of groans and protests.

“But why, Jin?” you ask. “Please don’t talk about popularity. This isn’t high school anymore.”

“And that stuff was already stupid back then,” Namjoon adds, and you nod. You can always count on Namjoon to support you.

“And I hate people,” Yoongi says.

“And Yoongi hates people!” Namjoon immediately picks up. “Do you really want to make him go through that?”

You grin at the question. Yoongi’s misanthropy always comes in handy. Jin, however, is not amused, but he just shakes his head disapprovingly. He’s used to the three of you teaming up against him by now. Usually, it’s on academical subjects, but he isn’t phased by it anymore regardless of that. Not that there’s much that can phase Jin anyway.

“First of all, I said I was going to be his friend, not you lowly peasants, and second, he seems like a nice guy! Do I need another reason to want to make friends?”

You tilt your head.

“He’s protesting too much,” you say.

“I agree,” Namjoon nods. “That’s suspicious.”

“Very suspicious.”

“Come on,” Jin rolls his eyes, “do you really think that little of me?”

“And now he’s trying to guilt-trip us. Joon, can’t you analyze that conversation and figure out what it all means?”

“You know that’s not how literary analysis works, right?” Jin asks you, but you ignore him.

“Actually, it is,” Namjoon says, pushing his glasses back on his nose. “I’d say you were right with your comment,” he adds, looking at you. “I’d say… this is about parties.”

“You’re not going to actually believe—”

“Thanks, Joon,” you say, and the two of you high-five without looking at each other. Yoongi lets out an appreciate whistle.

Even if Namjoon and you aren’t being serious about this, parties actually make sense. Jin… isn’t quite a social butterfly but, unlike the three of you, he does enjoy people’s company to some degree. You know first hand that he’s been to a few this year — you had accompanied him for moral support — but they were pretty tame, and you’re aware that he at least wants to try some more intense stuff. The problem was that those were harder to be invited to. Hoseok could probably do something about it, but he tends to avoid parties on campus.

“Okay, then you should go for it,” you nod.

Yoongi and Namjoon, sitting on either side of you, approve. Jin looks a little surprised at your reaction.

“That changed your mind?”

“You said you wanted ‘the full college experience’,” Namjoon explains with a shrug. “If you think that’s part of it, we wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

“We will judge you for it, though,” Yoongi warns without batting an eyelid, pokerface perfect, and you laugh. You won’t be mean about it, of course. You just might tease him a little.

“Thank you,” Jin says. “I’ll do it, then.”

Good. If you’re lucky, it will be out of his system next time you all have lunch together.

Lady luck had never been on your side, for as long as you could remember. It wasn’t like you got the worst of things either, but usually, things that could go wrong, did go wrong. Because of that, you tried your best to remove those things from your path. Sometimes, though, you just didn’t manage to identify them.

And that’s why, when you hear Jin’s voice and look up from your food, being the first at the table as always, you see he’s accompanied by two people.

One of them has fluffy, dark brown hair, falling on either side of his face and in his eyes. He’s talking and laughing, and there’s something that you can’t help but identify as mischievous in his smile. The other is slightly taller, with jet black hair held up in a bun. He’s quiet, mouth opening for silent laughs when his friend jokes. Between them, there’s Jin, and you think that they look good together. All handsome, all holding themselves with confidence.

You had realized before that Jin felt out of place in your group, from an outside point of view at least, but it’s never been as striking as it is now, as he’s walking with people he clearly belongs with.

It makes you really thankful that he’s your friend.

“Hey,” Jin says, smiling widely, “these are—”

“You’re untying your hair before eating?” you say, looking at the guy with the bun who just sat opposite from you and took off his hair tie with a sigh. He looks up at you with wide round eyes, like you just caught him red-handed — doing what, you’re not quite sure.

That is the first thing you ever say to Jeon Jungkook.

“Um. Yes?”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get hair in your food?”

You know people find you too blunt sometimes, think you come off as aggressive, but you almost never intend for that to happen. In that case, you just think the logic here is a bit surprising.

“That’s… a good point, actually.”

“(Y/N),” Jin sighs, “let me introduce you to Jungkook” (he points to the man who’s now tying his hair back up) “and Taehyung.” (he points to the other guy, who’s flashing you a smile.)

“Oh,” you say, looking back at Jungkook. “You play basketball.”

He lets out an awkward laugh and avoids your eyes. Instead, he grabs his fork and focuses on it, twirling it in his hand.

“Yeah, I do— I do that.”

Huh. It takes you a second to piece things together, and you think Namjoon will be of great help once he’ll be there, but for now, one conclusion comes to you.

Jungkook is shy.

“I play basketball too,” Taehyung says, leaning over the table, grinning at you, and you can tell that it’s his way of swooping in to save Jungkook. You can appreciate that.

“She hates basketball,” Jin warns.

“That’s a strong word,” you say, but only half-heartedly, because, well, you definitely don’t like it.

“I think it works.”

“You think what works?”

Jin’s face falls while you grin. If Taehyung is Jungkook’s savior, Namjoon is yours. Your friend sends you a questioning look as he sits next to you, facing Taehyung. He gives polite nods to the two basketball players, like they sit with you at lunch every week, but you notice that he doesn’t quite meet their eyes. Namjoon is not particularly shy, nor a misanthrope like Yoongi, he just isn’t too comfortable around people he’s just met.

You and Jin, well, you’re perhaps a little too comfortable. Not everyone likes it.

“He says I hate basketball.”

“But that would imply you care about basketball.”

“Exactly.”

“And you don’t.”

“I know.”

“Which means you don’t hate basketball. As always, you’re wrong, Jin.”

Jin looks extremely, extremely done with you, but when you and Namjoon high-five, Jungkook laughs quietly and Taehyung nods in appreciation — for the gesture, not the debate.

That is the moment when Yoongi drops his tray on the table and sends a weird glance towards Taehyung and Jungkook.

“What did I miss?” he asks. His tone is a bit dry, and you see Jin’s shoulders straightening. He knows Yoongi is going to be the most difficult one to win over. Not that you’ve been won over yet, but you’re not that difficult. Usually, people don’t like you, not the other way around. You don’t blame them. You’re not sure you’d like yourself very much if you were in their place.

“Oh,” Jungkook says spontaneously, “we had a class together last year! You’re majoring in engineering, right?”

Yoongi looks at him. His eyes are shining with suspicion, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head. Knowing him, he’s definitely wondering why Jungkook would even remember him.

“Right,” he finally confirms, slowly.

There’s a moment of silence, which Namjoon breaks.

“I’m a literature major, by the way.”

“That’s really cool,” Jungkook comments honestly, with the same spontaneity he displayed earlier.

“And I’m in mathematics,” you say.

“Wow. I thought you people existed only in legends,” Taehyung says while Jungkook avoids your eyes. You decide that, yeah, you like Kim Taehyung.

“Don’t say that, I like maths,” Jungkook protests, voice soft, much to your surprise — and, judging by his reaction, Taehyung’s.

You were right, you decide. Jungkook is not a completely terrible person.

You didn’t expect it to become a routine, for Jungkook and Taehyung to eat with you guys, but it does, and as time goes on, other people join your little table. You’re not sure you like that. It’s clear that those people are orbiting around Jungkook, which, good for them, but you don’t see why you need to be there for that.

You do see that Jungkook is not completely comfortable with all of it. He’s good at handling people, good at making jokes and at laughing at the right times, you notice, but there is a stiffness in his shoulders more often than not, and it looks like he’s well-trained at it rather than enjoying it. It kind of reminds you of Jin, except Jin is not as quiet the rest of the time. Taehyung obviously does his best not to let his friend deal with things alone, which is sweet, but he can’t do everything for him.

You barely exchange a word with Jungkook during that time period. You’re usually trying to be forgotten when the table is buzzing with noise, finding refuge in Namjoon and Yoongi’s company. You thought Yoongi would be an ally in reclaiming what’s always been your spot, but it quickly becomes obvious that he has a crush on Taehyung’s friend Jimin, so he never complains about the recent invasion of the table by strangers.

You hear a lot of basketball vocabulary. More than you care for, to be honest. That’s one of the few moments when Jungkook’s face lights up and he gets truly excited, with an almost childish happiness. His demeanor changes, from shy to confident, and the transformation never ceases to amaze you. As soon as the conversation ends, his shoulders fall, he smiles awkwardly, and focuses back on his food or his phone.

You’ve met his eyes a few times in those moments, because he often looks around him like he’s afraid someone’s noticed. He averts his very quickly, though, so you’ve never said anything about it.

So, really, there’s not much that changes. You still only speak to your three friends — you think Taehyung is a good person, and you don’t think he hates you, but you don’t have anything to say to each other —, and sure, you have a little less space when you eat and more noise around you, but aside from that, it’s pretty much the same. You think that’s a relief. You’re not too fond of change.

Usually, you’re pretty decent at spotting it coming. You did miss it when Jin said he was going to become Jungkook’s friend, but other than that you’re able to do your best to avoid it. You don’t see anything coming the day Taehyung calls out your name, though. You look up at him from the book Namjoon is showing you, surprised. He has an arm slung over Jungkook’s shoulders, and Jungkook isn’t looking at you, of course.

“Do you think you could explain a maths-thing to Jungkook?”

You blink at him.

“What’s the ‘maths-thing’?”

“Does it matter?”

You raise an eyebrow, and Jungkook groans. You get the feeling that he didn’t really want Taehyung to ask you about it. He sends an annoyed glance to his friend, who is still smiling brightly at you, while pushing a lock of hair out of his face. His hair is tied, but this one traitorous lock always escapes.

“I’m struggling a little with probabilities,” he admits, glancing at you for half a second. “But I’m sure I’ll be fine once I can get my head back into it, I’ve just been training a lot recently and—”

“I can help you, if you want,” you say. “I’m not the most fond of probabilities, but it should be okay.”

“Great!” Taehyung says, patting his friend’s shoulder before Jungkook can answer. “You should do that then.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Jungkook asks, actually looking at you this time. You meet his eyes, notice that he looks worried about it. You can’t figure out why.

“I really don’t,” you shrug.

He smiles at you, a small, hesitant smile, but a smile nonetheless. Probably the first one he directs at you. It’s a nice sight, you decide, and you smile back.

Jin’s sentence “is there anything Jungkook can’t do” takes all its sense on the day you meet Jungkook at the library to study. You don’t know what you expected. You never thought Jungkook was dumb or anything, but since Taehyung asked you to help, you thought he would have some difficulties, at least. However, as it turns out, he either understands immediately when you explain something to him, or he’s already understood it. He asks for some clarifications here and there, but all in all, you feel kind of useless.

“You don’t need me at all,” you say after a little while, and Jungkook looks up from the book with the worried wide-eyed look you’ve gotten used to.

“No, no, you’re doing a great job,” he protests. “You’re really helping me out here.”

“No I’m not. It’s obvious that you could do that all on your own.”

He deflates a little at that, looks away from you.

“You help,” he mumbles. “I have a hard time focusing when I’m alone.”

Oh.

That makes a lot of sense to you, actually. You’re good at focusing all of your energy on one thing, perhaps even too good, to the point where you easily get obsessed and become unable to take care of anything else, but even you need the right conditions for that.

“Okay,” you say with a nod.

Jungkook gives you an anxious look.

“So you don’t mind helping me out?” he asks, and there’s something in his voice that catches you, but you can’t tell what it is exactly. Maybe it’s the hope, or maybe it’s the fear. You don’t understand what he’d be afraid of. Worst case scenario, you would say no. That wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“We can work together,” you offer. “You can ask me if you need help for anything and I’ll just work on some other stuff.”

He seems relieved, and again, you just don’t understand it. It’s not like you’re his only option. There are plenty of people out there who could help him. Plenty of people who would jump at the opportunity of helping him. You know that, because he’s always surrounded by those people, and everybody in school seems to know him. Even when you walked into the library with him earlier, before you got to the table you’re sitting at now, a few students greeted him. You don’t see why he would attach any importance to you, specifically, helping him. You barely know each other.

“Thanks,” he says, and he gives you a small smile. For some reason, that makes you drop the subject. Instead of asking about it — which, knowing yourself, you probably would have — you shrug it off and reply with a nod.

The silence that follows feels comfortable, to you at least. You’ve never minded silence. Jin hates it, though. You get to work, watching absent-mindedly as Jungkook goes through the lesson he was working on. He does ask you a couple of questions, but it’s probably to make you feel like you’re doing something rather than because he actually needs it. You still answer them, and watch him grin, satisfied with himself, when he turns out to be right every single time.

“Are you coming to Taehyung’s party this week-end?” he asks out of the blue after about an hour.

You look up, surprised. The two of you haven’t exchanged much, and certainly have not talked about anything other than— well, other than maths. His eyes are on his notebook, as usual, and you don’t get any insight as to why he asked the question.

“I don’t know. Is Jin coming?”

“Uh, I guess? Taehyung’s probably talked to him about it.”

“Then I’m probably going.”

Jungkook mulls over your answer for a few seconds, twirling his pencil between his fingers, and you feel like you have to clarify, which is not an urge you have often. Usually, you let people decipher for themselves what you meant. That works very well with Namjoon, sometimes with Yoongi, not so great with the rest of the world. Including Jin, though Jin compensates with his impressive ability to interpret everything you say in his favor.

“We always go to parties with Jin. For moral support.”

For all that you tease him, you genuinely care for him. You know he wants you to go with him, so you do. It’s as simple as that.

Jungkook doesn’t look at you, but he still smiles at what you say, and it’s— it’s interesting. There’s something about his behavior that makes you curious, like you are when you’re trying to solve a complicated equation.

“That’s nice,” he comments.

“So… you’ll be there?” you ask. It’s taken you a long time to come up with that simple question. It often takes you a long time to find things to say to keep a conversation going. You’re pretty bad at it.

“It’s at my fraternity,” Jungkook informs you, glancing at you briefly, and you smile. This is exactly the type of party Jin wanted to go to. He’s probably happy about it. “The entire basketball team should be there.”

Great. People.

“That’s nice,” you say, because you have no idea what to add at this point. Jungkook simply nods, and the conversation dies an awkward death.

It’s another half an hour until Jungkook looks at his watch and starts putting his stuff back in his bag.

“I have to go to practice,” he tells you, clearly in a hurry. “Can we— Would you mind if—”

“We can do this again. If that’s what you meant.”

He gives you a bright smile, and that actually surprises you. He looks relieved that you finished his sentence for him.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely.

And just like that, he’s gone, practically running out of the library. For someone who talks as little as he does, he sure leaves a void when he goes away, you think, looking at the empty chair.

But you quickly shrug it off. You’re used to being alone. You like being alone.

Jungkook isn’t going to change that.

You realize very quickly that, while accompanying Jin to parties was never something you particularly enjoyed, going to this one was downright a mistake.

You have this unspoken rule, with your friends, that you shouldn’t stick together the entire time. You’re supposed to wander off, find something to do for yourself, maybe talk to some people. Get that college experience. You’ve never had a problem to do that, even if you ended up quietly sipping soda in a corner more often than not.

Here, though, you simply cannot shake off the fact that you don’t belong here, that this is not your scene. The people here are loud, energetic, garish. They make you feel like a black and white picture, like a silent movie. You want to run away, but you can’t. You don’t want to leave Jin, Namjoon or Yoongi behind, even if you doubt they’re having the same kind of problems you do. You’re pretty sure you saw Yoongi talking with Jimin, and last time you saw Namjoon, you think a cheerleader was holding him by the hand and leading him out of the room. You don’t know what Jin’s doing, but you’re trusting that he’s okay.

You walk around aimlessly, find Jungkook and Taehyung playing beer-pong with some people. Maybe you should be happy to see people you know, but you’re not. If anything, it only drives the point home even more to see them so comfortable: you don’t belong here. Your chest tightens, and you turn around. You need a little peace and quiet. You need to get away.

“(Y/N)!”

You jump at the sound of your name. No one’s said it since you’ve entered the house. No one knows you here.

Except Jungkook, who’s right behind you.

He’s more confident than usual, and you guess, based on his slightly hazy eyes, that it has a lot to do with alcohol.

“Are you having fun? How long have you been here? It’s nice to see you!”

He’s speaking fast, excitedly, and as he does, he runs his fingers through his hair, which he’s let down. It looks good on him, you decide, even as you reply to him with a tense smile.

“Hey, you should join us, we’re—”

“Do you have a closet somewhere?”

Jungkook blinks.

“A closet?”

“Yeah.”

There are probably very few things that are less weird than asking a guy if he has a closet you can get into because you’re on the verge of having a panic attack and you can’t stay outside surrounded by people a second longer.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything about it, though. He just leads you through the house and opens the door to a closet for you. You get inside without giving it much more thought, and he looks at you, puzzled. He’s actually looking at you, which you decide confirms that he is drunk.

“Do you— Are you waiting for someone?”

“No,” you say. “I just need a little break.”

He thinks about your answer for a while, probably longer than needed, and nods.

And then, he gets into the closet with you and closes the door.

Inside, it’s dark, with only a ray of light coming in. You can’t see his face, which doesn’t help you understand why he just did that. The space is cramped, and you can smell alcohol coming from his breath, can feel the heat radiating from his body, but it doesn’t bother you that much. It’s still better in here than outside.

“Why did you do that?”

“I thought I would keep you company. Like you’re here to keep company to Jin, you know?”

He’s drunk, definitely, and yet you feel genuinely touched by his words. You shouldn’t, because you doubt they hold that much meaning, but you can’t help it. You don’t need company, but that’s besides the point. His intentions are what matters.

“Thank you,” you say.

“It’s not a problem. You’re helping me with my maths.”

Your first reaction is to laugh at that, because it feels completely unprompted, but then the logic of the reasoning kind of appears to you.

“I mean it!” Jungkook protests. “You haven’t talked about how I’m good at everything or how I’m the one who should help you.”

You frown.

“You shouldn’t help me. You’re good at maths, but I’m better than you.”

It’s Jungkook’s turn to laugh, and just like his earlier smile, it takes you completely by surprise. It’s not one of those quiet laughs that he usually has. It’s light and pleasant, and you briefly wonder what his face looks like when he laughs like that. You kind of want to see it.

“You’re a scary person,” he tells you when he’s stopped laughing. “You always say those things directly. It’s like you don’t even care.”

You’ve heard that before. Well, you haven’t been called scary until now, but people have said that you were intimidating. You, personally, believe you’re the least threatening person to have ever walked this Earth. You couldn’t hurt a fly if you wanted to.

Jungkook makes some sense here, though. Your filter is very limited, and there are a lot of things you say that feel acceptable to you, and that other people… don’t think are acceptable. You don’t mean to do it. It just happens.

“I think you’re good at a lot of things, though,” you say slowly.

Jungkook lets out a long sigh and then you hear him sliding down to the ground. You hesitate for about half a second before joining him down there. You fold your legs, holding your knees against your chest while you wait for him to say something.

“People are always saying that,” he finally mumbles. “But what if I’m not that good? What if I fail one day?”

It’s strange. You understand what he’s saying, understand the feeling of pressure, but you don’t understand the emotions that should come with it. In your case, you know that no one holds you to a higher standard than you do. It can be unhealthy, the way you can torture yourself if you don’t meet the standards you’ve set for yourself, but at least you’re the only one you have to answer to. Obviously, it’s not Jungkook’s case.

“Then you’ll try again,” you say, because that’s what you do when you fail. “Or, if you think it’s not that important, you won’t.”

“But what will they say?” he insists. “What if we lose the next game? Or the one after that? What if I fail a class? I can’t get anything done these days.”

“You’ll be fine,” you say soothingly, half-wondering how you ended up here, comforting the college’s golden boy in a closet after fighting off a panic attack. “It’s not like you’re the only one in your team. People will understand.”

You think they will. You hope they will. They should.

“You would understand.”

It’s true, but then, you really do not care for basketball, and it’s not like you have that sort of expectations for Jungkook. You wouldn’t think much of it, if he failed at something tomorrow. If it was the maths test you’ve helped him with, you would be surprised, but that’s because you saw him studying and it was obvious he had understood everything, not because you think he can inherently succeed at everything he does.

Which you guess might be the heart of the problem here.

You reach out to put your hand on his shoulder. It’s not that easy in the dark, and you wonder for a second if you’ve grabbed something else, until you feel hair tickling your skin. Yup, you were right.

“You have the right not to be good at something every once in a while,” you say softly. “No one can be on top of their game all of the time.”

You hear what sounds like a choked sob.

“I like that they’re counting on me, you know? I like that I’m helping them out by playing. I just— I don’t know what’s going to happen when I stop being as good.”

He said when, not if, and that breaks your heart.

Without thinking about it, you slide your hand down his arm and grab his hand. You squeeze it in yours, gently, and then you inch closer to put your head on his shoulder. You remember reading that physical touch was good for people who were in emotional pain. You hope it helps him.

“You locked yourself in here with me because you thought I needed company,” you whisper. “There’s so much more to you than just being good at sports or having good grades. And if people don’t see that, it’s their loss. Because you’re a great person.”

He hums, but the sound is quiet, and it’s then that you realize how tense he is.

Shit. You must have crossed a boundary. You start to remove your hand, but he closes his fingers around yours, keeping you in place. He’s still tense, you can feel it everywhere his body touches yours. But he doesn’t let go.

“You mean that,” he says. There are so many emotions in his voice that you can’t identify them all. Relief, happiness, amusement… You don’t know where to start.

“I usually mean what I say.”

“I’ve noticed,” he says, and you can hear the smile that’s dancing on his lips.

He’s still not letting go of your hand, but you don’t mind. Staying here, with Jungkook, in this small closet is as good a way of spending your evening as anything else you could do out there.

So you stay.

“Where did you all vanish Saturday?” Jin asks, and Namjoon, Yoongi and yourself immediately find your food a lot more interesting. You exchange panicked glances that mean ‘did none of you stay around? This was poorly coordinated’ before finally daring to look up.

“I talked to Jimin,” Yoongi says, face as inexpressive as always.

“I played some beer-pong with Taehyung,” Namjoon says.

That leaves only you.

“I talked to Jungkook,” you tell Jin. That is technically true. It omits the part where the two of you were together in a closet, but if you said that, there would be a lot of questions you don’t really want to answer to. Somehow, you think you would be more embarrassed to tell them that there was nothing going on there than if you told them you hooked up with him. You’re not sure why.

“Jungkook disappeared for a long time,” Jin says, narrowing his eyes at you.

You do your best to keep a straight face while you poke at your salad. You don’t want anyone here to have the wrong idea, and you finally manage to put your finger on what you’re afraid of. Humiliation. You’d feel humiliated at having to tell them that nothing happened and that there is nothing Jungkook could possibly see in you. They would be nice to you, of course they would, but you don’t want to see the look in their eyes.

“Did he? Maybe that was after I left. I didn’t stay that long.”

That’s a lie.

“Really?” Jin asks, clearly skeptical. “I think I saw you there pretty late.”

Maybe when you went down to get some snacks and drinks to bring back to the closet. Damn Jungkook and his stomach.

“Well, that depends what you mean by ‘late’ and ‘long’,” you say.

That’s you calling Namjoon for help, and he recognizes your SOS for what it is. From the way Jin’s face falls, so does he.

“She’s right,” Namjoon comments, so nonchalant you would almost believe he’s doing it naturally. “What is ‘late’, really? Isn’t it always—”

“Please stop,” Jin groans, burying his face in his hands. “Just because you’re a literature major doesn’t mean you’re the only one who understands words.”

“Actually it does,” you say with a nod. “That’s exactly what it means.”

You start lifting your hand for a high-five, relieved Jin’s attention is off you, but he sends the two of you a dark glare.

“You two are unbearable. Don’t do that.”

“We have to,” you protest. You would hate to miss a chance to high-five Namjoon.

“No you don’t, you—”

“Actually they do,” Yoongi says, and your jaw drops. Yoongi never intervenes, and you had always thought that if he did, it wouldn’t be in your favor. “That’s exactly how gravity works.”

Jin looks like his soul has left his body. He only comes back to himself after you, Yoongi and Namjoon have all exchanged high-fives.

“I hate you,” he says, sounding terribly tired. “I hate every single one of you.”

“Sorry Jin,” you smile warmly.

“No you’re not. You’re the worst.”

Except he sounds fond, affectionate, and you laugh before going back to your salad. You miss the quick glances your three friends exchange after that. They’ve all noticed you eluding and changing the subject. They don’t want to rush you, know you would hate it and that it’s better to drop it.

But they’ve noticed.

Working with Jungkook on Wednesday afternoons easily becomes a habit, so easily you don’t even notice it until it’s something you look forward to during the week. It adds to the time you already spend eating with him and Taehyung. Jungkook is, slowly, starting to become a part of your life. It’s a thought you refuse to dwell on, because it sounds so strange.

The Wednesdays afternoons are something special, though. You and Jungkook don’t really talk at lunch, even if he’s clearly more relaxed around you now, which you suspect is the reason why you’re ‘Taehyung-approved’. On Wednesdays, you— Well, you don’t talk much, either, but it’s different. It’s a time that only belongs to the two of you. You like that.

You slowly find out things about him, his family, his life. It’s never the main subject of conversation, but it makes you feel like you’re solving a puzzle.

“My father wanted me to focus on my classes and forget about basketball,” he comments once. “But I could do both.”

It makes you laugh, because he says it with obvious satisfaction, but it also makes you wonder if there’s more to it. Jungkook doesn’t add anything, though, and you don’t want to probe into his life, so you don’t ask. After that, small pieces of the puzzle keep falling into place.

“My high school coach told me I could train more if I didn’t work so hard for school.” But he could do both.

“My friends said I never hung out with them anymore and that I shouldn’t work so hard.” So he did both.

It’s always the same story. People telling him things, giving him opinions on what the should and shouldn’t do, and him stretching himself thinner and thinner. It’s almost a miracle he’s still doing as well as he is, honestly.

But his tone changes when he talks about his former relationships. He’s usually light and genuine, sharing with you just because. It’s clear that, as much as the stories make you frown, he doesn’t have an issue with them, and you guess that’s all that matters. The first time he says something about an ex-girlfriend of his, though, he’s guarded, almost careful. He sounds like he doesn’t want to tell you.

“My ex said I worked too much.”

He doesn’t add anything. Whatever it was she wanted, he couldn’t do it and work. Didn’t manage to do both. After that, he doesn’t look at you for the rest of the day, like he did when you first met.

You never get a name for the girlfriend. He talks about relationships again, but you don’t even know if he’s always talking about the same one. You doubt it, though, and it only makes things worse.

“My ex wanted me to attend fewer practices.”

“My ex said I didn’t care enough to make time for her.”

“My ex dumped me after I lost a game.”

That last one hurts you, because you remember him crying in the closet because of that exact fear. You want to take his hand again, but you can’t dare to.

“She’s stupid for that,” you say instead.

Jungkook looks surprised first, because you never comment on what he’s telling you, then a smile slowly forms on his lips.

“If the only reason she was with you was because you won a lot of games, you’re better off without her,” you add.

“That’s what Taehyung said.”

“Taehyung’s right.”

Jungkook goes quiet for a little while after that, to the point that you look up, worried that you might have offended him. When you do, he’s looking at you, something you can’t identify shining in his eyes.

“Everything okay?”

He blinks like he’d just woken up for a dream, then nods. He doesn’t tell you that he hadn’t believed what Taehyung said — until you said it and he looked at you and thought that yeah, maybe he was better off without her indeed.

You’re surprised to run into Jungkook late one night, as you’re walking back to your dorm. It shouldn’t shock you — you do go to the same college — but you’re so used to only ever seeing him in the library or the cafeteria that meeting him outside is almost confusing. At least he seems taken aback as well, if the way his already round eyes widen is anything to go by.

Then, his surprised face morphs into a smile, and a wave of warmth hits you without a warning. You don’t get any time to think about it before he waves at you. His shyness is not completely gone, and you see him waver, hesitate, even as he’s walking up to you. You’re quick to close the gap between you, meeting him in the middle. Just in case.

“Hey,” he says, voice a little raspy. He has what you identify as a sports bag, slung over his shoulder, and you wonder what he was doing out so late. You were working at the library until it closed, which is far from being rare for you, but that obviously wasn’t his case.

“Hey,” you reply, smiling back. “Were you— training?”

Amusement flashes in his eyes at the careful way you chose your words, afraid to get it wrong. As he grew more comfortable around you, he also started making fun of you for not knowing the first thing about basketball. Strangely, you don’t mind that much.

“I was at the gym,” he says. “Practice was earlier today.”

“Oh,” is all you can muster. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. Should you ask what he was doing at the gym? The answer would only leave you with more questions, you’re sure.

You’re still debating it when Jungkook clears his throat. He reaches for his ponytail and undoes it, shaking his head so the hair fall back into place. The sight is— interesting. Pretty. You’re not sure why you’re so fascinated by it.

“Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?” he asks, slight concern in his voice. “It’s late.”

“Is it on your way back?” you question, frowning. You would hate to be a bother.

“No, but—”

“I’m fine, then. I do that several times a week, I’ve never had a problem.”

That was, apparently, not the thing to say. Jungkook only looks more worried now.

“Several times a week? That’s really not careful.”

“I don’t see a problem, there’s no one around.”

“That’s exactly my p—” He stops and shakes his head, but gives a look you’ve seen before. A lot. It’s a look that says ‘I can’t believe someone as smart as you can also be so stupid’, in those exact terms. “Expected value,” he then says, and your eyes widen a little. Maths! Great. You can do maths. “Let’s say there’s a 99% chance nothing happens. Your gain is still minimal.”

Well, you get to study late and enjoy a walk home alone at night, but you’re willing to humor him.

“But in the one per-cent where something bad happens…”

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. You know exactly where this is going, and you let out a sigh. He’s not wrong. On that aspect, at least.

“Fine.”

He grins widely.

“I just beat you at maths.”

“You didn’t beat me, I—”

“I just beat you at maths!”

You roll your eyes, choose to let him have that. It’s not going to change anything to your behavior after tonight, because the day has not come where you’ll let probabilities rule your life, but, after all, you don’t mind sharing your night walk with him.

Jungkook starts showing up to walk you home whenever he can. It’s not every time, which you’re kind of thankful for — you like his company, but you like being alone just as much, and you need a healthy dose of that every week —, but it does happen regularly. You find him sitting in front of the library, freezing cold, and you take pity on him, buying him a coffee from the vending machine inside, seconds before they lock the building.

That’s how you find out he likes his coffee tasting as little like coffee as possible.

Sometimes, he joins you later, and you hear him jogging to catch up with you. You don’t have the heart to tell him that that defeats the purpose of everything he’s doing, because it’s absolutely terrifying.

As the days turn into weeks, the air becomes colder, and you start seeing Christmas decorations appearing over the campus. You don’t know who is in charge of doing that, but they must be excited about it, because tinsel and few strings of fairy lights start appearing around the campus at the end of November. Jungkook is delighted by it, and you enjoy watching his reactions. You’re not big on Christmas, personally. You enjoy the tradition, the gift-giving, spending time with your family — you’re visiting them briefly this year — but you mostly see Christmas as an excuse for all of that. Jungkook loves it, though, and you decide that his excitement makes you like the season a little more.

“Hey, we should make a stop,” he tells you one night.

You look at him like he’s crazy. It’s the middle of December and it’s already half past nine. You’re cold, it’s dark outside, and you want to go home.

“A stop?” you repeat.

“Oh, c’mon,” he says, and he has that wide, childish grin that you’ve seen only a handful of times. You haven’t learned how to resist it yet. “C’mon!”

You sigh. But you follow.

As it turns out, he takes you just a little way off your usual trajectory. Behind a building you’ve never really paid attention to, Jungkook leads you to a small basketball court. You eye the place suspiciously. It’s empty, well lit, but you never know. A ball might come out of nowhere to hit you in the face, as they had a tendency to do when you were in high school and playing for a team that had picked you last.

By the time you turn around to tell Jungkook that, okay, you’ve seen it, let’s go home now, he’s taken off his coat and pulled a basketball out of his bag. You don’t even want to ask. His grin is even wider than earlier.

“C’mon,” he says.

“Absolutely not.”

“Let me show you, okay?”

You want to say no but— It can’t hurt, right? And Jungkook loves basketball, and you’re his— friend or something, so you should try to take some interest in it.

You take off your coat and let him lead you onto the court. There, you watch him as he dribbles in what you guess is an effective way (you can’t know for sure, you’re barely able to catch the ball after it’s bounced once so your standards are incredibly low), and then demonstrates his ability to score a handful of times. It’s not that you’re not impressed — again, you can’t do anything with this unpredictable, devilish round thing — but you also can’t say this is a quality you think much of.

You liked it a lot better when he convinced you to let him walk you home by talking about the expected value.

“You want to try?” he offers, holding the ball out for you.

You would rather die.

But you take the ball from his hand and eye the basket like it’s personally offended you. That makes Jungkook laugh.

“You can get closer than that,” he says.

You hold back a groan, aim and, of course, fail. It’s almost a relief. You can cross that off your list, again, just like you did as a kid first, then as a teenager. You’re bad at sports, always have been and, considering the effort you’re putting into it those days, always will be. That’s something you can count on.

Before you can say anything, Jungkook’s caught the ball and is running back towards you.

“Okay, let me show you.”

Is he going to— No, he’s just demonstrating it. You’re kind of disappointed not to get your typical ‘guy teaching girl anything sports related’ moment, disappointed that he doesn’t come to stand behind you to show you like they do in movies, but you can’t unpack that right now. You do watch with some degree of interest as he shows you how to position yourself.

“So you really aim for the line above the basket, not the basket, okay?”

“If you think that just because I aim for something I hit it…”

He chuckles, then gives the ball back to you, and you sigh. This. This is why you hate sports. It’s not the one-off failure, that would be fine on its own. It’s the constant humiliation whenever you even try it. You’re going to fail this attempt, and the next one, and the one after that. You’re a lost cause. You’re fine with it, too, but you don’t particularly want to go through that again.

You do your best, though. Not because you think it will change something, but because you kind of want to prove that this isn’t all you. That, even if you’re trying your hardest, there’s just something that refuses to let you score or do it right.

“Wait!” Jungkook walks over to you, puts his hand on your back, and you freeze. “You need to straighten yourself a little,” he says, placing his hand between your shoulder blades, and you nod. His hand is warm and large, you can feel it even over your sweatshirt. “There.”

He removes the hand, and you’re left a little off balance without him by your side. You shake your head quickly, shoot, and, without any surprise, miss.

Jungkook is on the ball just as fast as before, but you’re as quick as him to grab your coat and put it back on. You’re already feeling warm all over, though.

“You don’t want to try again?” he asks, sounding genuinely disappointed.

Of course, you take pity on him.

“Maybe next time,” you say.

He gives you a bright smile, so genuinely happy, and you know that you won’t be able to deny him next time either.

Jin is the reason you’re here, and that is the version you will stick with. No, you didn’t want to go see a basketball game, even if Jungkook is playing. No, you didn’t feel the slightest bit curious about it. No, you would not be there if Jin hadn’t asked. It’s Jin’s fault if you’re here on a Friday night instead of being, well, at your place, likely doing something equally as unproductive.

You don’t even understand what is going on in the field. There’s a lot of running and throwing the ball, that’s for sure, but then, you’ve just learned that scoring from different places in the field and at different moments will not earn the players the same amount of points.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen your friends look at you with such consternation as when they had to explain it to you.

In that situation, you can’t say that you get much from looking at the field. You definitely follow Jungkook with your eyes, cheer and clap when he scores, and let out cries of disappointment with the rest of the crowd when he doesn’t, but truly, the only way you have any idea what’s going on is by looking at the score board. And the truth is, that score is a little too close for comfort.

You hate that it has that much of an impact on you, but it stresses you out. Your leg bounces on the floor, an habit of yours Jin hates, but he’s too focused to notice, which is only more stressful. Jin always notices, and if it doesn’t, it must mean that the situation is dire.

The remaining seconds are slowly ticking down. Jungkook’s team is ahead by only one point, which means that if the other team scores, they will win. You think. You’re not entirely sure, but for your defense, you’ve just heard about it. Jungkook seems to be everywhere on the field. Taehyung is his shadow, perhaps not as noticeable or as spectacular in his actions, but certainly effective.

Again, you have no knowledge of basketball whatsoever.

Jin grabs your thigh, and only then do you realize that something’s happened. The action was so quick, so smooth, that you missed it entirely — but maybe you were also kind of thinking of something else.

Someone from the other team — you don’t even know your school’s team’s players, you’re not going to learn the other ones — just made a break for it. Based on what you can tell, Taehyung blocked his path, pushing him straight into Jungkook’s arms. In a movement you cannot begin to comprehend, Jungkook takes the ball from him, without ever stopping his run.

After that, he’s unstoppable.

He crosses the field, looking almost like he’s dancing in the way he avoids his opponents, and, of course, scores.

The time falls to zero. The crowd stands up like one man, screaming and shouting, and you yourself find yourself jumping up to hug Jin. He hugs you back, but the two of you quickly separate, patting each other’s backs awkwardly.

Jin starts talking with Namjoon and Yoongi, but you tune them out — it’s not like you understand what they’re saying anyway — to look at the field. The players have lifted Jungkook on their shoulders and he’s laughing, holding on to them so he doesn’t fall, and you grin.

“Come on,” Jin says, “let’s go congratulate him!”

That sounds like a terrible idea, you think. You won’t be the only ones, as the crowd has already invaded the field, and you doubt you’ll be able to get very close.

You still follow him. You alternate between clinging to his arm and to his shoulders so you don’t lose him, and trust him to elbow his way through the crowd. You hear him apologizing profusely in front of you, but he does not stop. Slowly, you make it down. Once you’re off the stairs, people are not as compactly gathered, and you can just walk between them. Jin grins at you, and you give him a thumbs up. Yeah, he did good here. You can give him that.

“Hey, Jungkook!” he calls out.

Jungkook was talking with some girls, but he looks up at the sound of his name, excuses himself, and jogs towards the two of you.

And it is then, in the few seconds it takes him to get to you, that it hits you. Like a ton of bricks.

You had known that Jungkook was objectively attractive, of course. There was no ignoring that. But Jin was objectively attractive, too, and that had never changed anything between the two of you. With Jungkook, right now, it does. His skin is glistening with sweat, and he wipes his chin with his shirt, and oh no, you can see his well-defined biceps and the line of his abs, and some hair is escaping from his ponytail, and he’s grinning with a happy, proud smile, and his eyes are shining and—

Jungkook is hot. That’s your realization. You had been aware of it, technically, but it’s like it only clicks for you at that exact moment.

“You came,” he tells you with a bright smile, and you can feel your entire face heating up. You pray that it’s not visible.

“Yeah,” you squeak out. “Great, um, great game?”

It sounds like an interrogation because you have no idea if it was one. It looked difficult, but maybe that was because they played terribly today. You don’t know that.

Jungkook’s smile widens a little, and you know that he has you all figured out. He knows you don’t understand the first thing about this whole thing.

“Thanks,” he still says.

His chest is still heaving quickly, and it draws your attention to his— his everything. The way he’s leaning towards you as he’s trying to catch his breath doesn’t help either. You wait for Jin to say something, to save you, but when you look around, you realize the traitor has abandoned you completely.

Okay, he hasn’t technically abandoned you, he’s just gone to congratulate Taehyung, but it’s the same difference.

You hear someone else calling Jungkook’s name before you’ve figured out what to say. He looks around, then gives you an apologetic look.

“Sorry, I—”

“No problem, you should— I have to go anyway.”

This is not like you. You’re an awkward person, and you struggle in social situations, but you don’t usually trip over your words like that. You kind of hate it.

“Okay, so, um, I’ll see you…?”

“Wednesday, yeah. Or— before. At lunch. If you’re there.”

This is terrible.

“Okay.” Jungkook gives you one last smile, and then he’s off, and you’re standing alone in the middle of a crowd. Your chest is heavy and it feels painful.

You hate this.

It’s only after that that you start realizing how big of a part Jungkook now plays in your life. He walks you home at night sometimes. You eat with him once or twice a week. You study together for an entire afternoon on Wednesdays. He’s just— everywhere. And it’s not that it’s a bad thing, because the feeling you get when you see him is a pleasant one, but it is disconcerting. It’s something that you have no control over whatsoever and that’s not— that’s not good for you.

You realize how much attention you were already paying to him, too, which is even more annoying. The signs were there. You should have understood this sooner. If you had, maybe you could have prevented it.

Because that’s the thing. You know the situation is ridiculous. You believe Jungkook sees you as a friend, and you’re happy with that, but there is no way he thinks of you as anything else. That is not an idea you should even begin to entertain. You can handle rejection, you’re used to it in so many aspects, though it’s rarely romantic, but you cannot take getting your hopes up only for them to be crushed.

The thing is, you can’t help it at this point, can’t force your feelings back in. There is so much to like about him. The way he plays with his hair, the quiet laughs when he’s in public, the loud ones when he’s walking you home, the sparkle in his eyes when he asks you a question in maths and it turns out he already had it right, the look on his face when he talks about basketball,… There’s so much.

You briefly consider avoiding him, but that’s not really an option. You like being his friend. You see your feelings as annoying, pesky little things that have no business being there in the first place. You don’t even hate the rush that goes through you when you see him, the way just looking at him brings a smile to your lips that you simply can’t hold back.

But you really, really hate the wishful thinking. The hope.

The feelings are fine, as long as you don’t think too hard about it. As long as he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Because that would break your heart.

And it’s only a matter of time before that happens.

You really considered declining when Jin asked you to come to this New Year’s party. Your last experience had effectively convinced you that those new parties he was getting invited to were not for you. That was fine, to each their own, but that did mean you didn’t really want to go. He clearly didn’t need you there anyway. You didn’t even know why he asked.

But he did, and he insisted, and he gave you his best puppy eyes, and that’s the thing about Jin: he’s very, very good at giving puppy eyes.

So that’s why you’re there, wearing a red dress that’s way too flashy for you, leaning against a wall and staring into the void. You feel empty and, though you’re not alone, lonely. You’re surrounded by strangers, and there are people everywhere in the house, but you don’t know them, and you can’t just start a conversation with them. It’s not something you do, it’s not even something you want.

You haven’t felt the urge to lock yourself inside a closet yet, though, so you guess that’s an improvement compared to last time.

Looking around, you can see Jimin, perched on the counter, listening to Yoongi talk with a smile on his face. Jin is somewhere else in the room and, though you can’t see him, you sometimes hear him, so you know he has his flirting voice on. Namjoon is nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably a good sign. He always get lucky at those parties. You don’t know how he does it. It’s impressive, honestly. Hoseok showed up earlier, and everyone greeted him like he was a star — which is kind of accurate, actually, at the campus’ scale.

You know, of course, that Jungkook and Taehyung, as inseparable as ever, are by the pool table. You also hate that you know it, because now your mind is constantly wondering if it’s weird that you haven’t been there yet, or if it would be weird to show up. Neither, probably, because exactly no one cares except for you, but you’re the master of torturing yourself with useless considerations.

God, you hate having a crush. It’s just so— unpractical. You also hate that you didn’t see that one coming, and that you didn’t do anything about it until it was too late. Usually, you’re pretty good at nipping those kinds of feelings in the bud. Now, you can only wait it out.

With a sigh, you push yourself away from the wall to wander aimlessly around the house. You promised Jin you’d stay until midnight, and you intend to keep that promise. It’s not like there’s anything for you to do, but still, that way you can look like you’re doing something and look a little less weird. Or maybe you don’t. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Passing in front of the room with the pool table, you realize that Jungkook is gone. Taehyung is still there, playing with Hoseok, both looking pretty wasted, but Jungkook has vanished. That’s not good. You don’t want him to spring up on you out of nowhere like he did last time. You won’t know how to react if that happens, probably fumble for words, and it will be very unpleasant and very embarrassing for everyone.

You consider finding another closet, then decides against it. There’s just fifteen minutes left until midnight, anyway. That’s not too long. You can just wait it out.

You slowly make your way through the house. No sign of Jungkook anywhere. Maybe he left. Maybe he’s already back to the pool table and you missed him completely. Maybe he’s locked himself in a room with a girl and—

Oh you hate this. You hate feeling jealous. You hate that you have no control over it, you hate that it makes you sad, you hate that you have no right to feel like that. Jungkook isn’t yours. He’s probably even considered you for anything. You should consider yourself lucky you’re even friends with him in the first place.

You do your best to push everything out of your mind. Alcohol has never looked more tempting, but you don’t want the hangover with the morning, so you ignore the inviting bottles of beer and walk out.

It’s freezing — of course it’s freezing, it’s December you idiot, is there anything you can do right tonight — and you shiver, but you stay there. The cold is both numbing and soothing, and while you’re mentally complaining about it, you’re not thinking about anything else, so that’s good.

The door opens and closes behind you, and you guess someone is coming out to smoke. You move over to give them some space, but just as you do that, a jacket falls over your shoulders. You jump at first, and then the warmth makes you sigh in relief.

“You shouldn’t go out without a coat,” Jungkook says, because of course it’s him.

“I feel that you’ve been scolding me a lot recently,” you chuckle, glancing up at him.

He pouts, buries his hands in his pockets. He’s obviously cold as well, but at least his shirt covers his arms.

It also hugs his muscles real nice, but that’s besides the point.

“That’s because you make very poor decisions,” he mutters, looking at his feet. “You have to realize that.”

“You’re right. I could have taken my coat outside.”

“You know that walking back all alone in the middle of the night is way worse,” he protests, and then you laugh, because that’s exactly what you wanted, and he goes quiet for a second. “Don’t make fun of me,” he mumbles, looking away from you again.

“I’m not,” you say, and you take a step in his direction so you can bump your shoulder against his. “You shouldn’t worry that much, but I think it’s nice that you do. I was just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“That worked really well,” he says, and he sounds surprised about it. You wonder if it’s because he usually doesn’t get angry for stuff, but you can’t tell for sure. “Hey, you—”

People start shouting numbers inside, and you turn around to look at them.

“It’s midnight,” you say.

“Five!”

You look up at Jungkook. He’s significantly taller than you. Not as much as Namjoon, but still.

“Four!”

Jungkook looks back at you, smiles, and it takes your breath away. His hair looks very good like that, you think absent-mindedly, with the way it falls on either side of his face.

“Three!”

It’s too late to go back inside now. It would definitely be a weird thing to do. Which means you’re here, alone, with Jungkook.

“Two!”

Your eyes flicker to his lips. You wonder what it would be like to kiss them. You haven’t let yourself even consider it before, but right now your brain isn’t functioning all that well. Probably because of how loud your heart is beating in your chest.

“One!”

You look back up and his eyes are wide and focused on you. There’s that same tension in his shoulders as when you first met him, except, back then, he couldn’t look at you, and now it seems that he can’t look away.

“Happy new year!”

You decide you shouldn’t think about your next move. You get on your tiptoes to plant a kiss at the corner of his lips, right at the border between friends and something else, but he leans forward right at that moment, and his hands cup your face, and then he’s kissing you.

It’s like an explosion. You don’t know what you should focus on. How warm he is, how soft and large his hands are, how his lips move against yours, how he tastes, or simply the fact that he’s kissing you, Jungkook is kissing you!

The door slams open, and the two of you move away in a jump.

“Happy new year Jungkook!” Taehyung shouts, obviously drunk, soon joined by several other members of the basketball team. If he’s seen what happened, he doesn’t say anything, and you doubt Taehyung would have that kind of control over himself.

Soon, Jungkook is surrounded and they start to drag him back inside. He gives you a brief, apologetic look, then follows them, laughing. You remain there, frozen, unsure of what to do. You take a hesitant step towards the door, only to see a girl planting kisses on his cheeks while he blushes. What gets to you, though, is the arm he’s wrapped around her, the way he’s tracing circles on the naked skin of her shoulder. It makes the gesture look… intimate. Personal.

You let out a brief, bitter laugh, that there is fortunately no one to hear. You feel confused, but mostly, you feel stupid.

Fuck that.

It doesn’t take long for you to drop the jacket onto a chair and find your coat. You wish a happy new year to Namjoon, when you pass by him on your way out, and he looks a little surprised, like he hasn’t heard the shouting. You don’t want to know what he could have been up to.

You’ve kept your end of the bargain, you think as you leave. Jin won’t be able to complain to you. You feel some petty sort of satisfaction when you step outside and find yourself alone alone, finally. You like this. You like being alone. You’ve never asked for anything else.

You give one last look to the party, then vanish into the night. You’re better off on your own anyway.

“I don’t think I’ll be coming,” you say, nonchalantly, as everyone around the table is talking animatedly about a party for the next week-end.

You had hoped it would go unnoticed in the middle of the conversation, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t go as planned. Taehyung turns horrified eyes towards you, Jin, Namjoon and Yoongi all look surprised, and Jungkook… You don’t know how to read him. There’s that surprise, as well, but then he looks down before you can tell anything else. Not that that changes much. He’s barely looked at you today.

You haven’t talked to him since New Year’s Eve. You had other things on your mind, and then he didn’t show up at the library last Wednesday.

“What do you mean, you won’t be coming?” Jin asks. “You always come to parties.”

You shrug. You don’t miss the alarmed looks your friends are exchanging, and you’re sure Namjoon can see through you. Because it’s not like you to do something like that, whatever reason you may give.

“I don’t like them. They’re too loud, and I can’t say that I really enjoy standing alone for half the night.”

“You could stay with us,” Namjoon offers.

“And watch you pick up a girl every time? No thank you,” you reply with a disgusted shiver.

“You could stay with me,” Yoongi says.

You give him a look, and he grimaces, backing down immediately. Okay. He can see why you wouldn’t want that either. Plus he’s pretty sure that Jimin and him are about to get it on after weeks of flirting, so it’s probably not a great idea.

“What about me?” Jin asks. He doesn’t sound as energetic as usual, his voice almost quiet, and you realize that he probably feels bad because of what you said. He knows you come to those parties because of him, so knowing you don’t have fun at all when you’re attending — you understand that he might feel responsible.

“I think I would bore you very quickly,” you chuckle. “You’re not going to get the fun you want with me. But it’s fine, really. I tried it, and now I know it’s not for me. I can just—”

“No,” Taehyung says.

You blink.

“No?”

“I’m taking this personally,” he tells you, looking you dead in the eye. “You’re coming to this party and I’m going to make you enjoy yourself.”

You’ve never seen him so serious, and you can’t help it. You burst out laughing.

“Taehyung,” you say softly when you’re done. “I appreciate that, I do, but I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Taehyung opens his mouth, then winces and closes it. You’re not sure what happened there, but he gives Jungkook an offended look.

“I’m sorry,” you add. “I’m sure your parties can be great, but—”

“I get it,” he sighs. “But you owe me.”

You’re not sure why, but fine.

“And you can’t say anything bad about those parties, to anyone. Ever.” In that moment, he looks almost threatening, and you blink, confused. He can’t possibly take it that seriously, can he?

Then he yelps and rubs his leg. He gives Jungkook another annoyed look, but Jungkook doesn’t even look up from his food.

“Leave her alone,” he just mumbles.

Taehyung rolls his eyes, but doesn’t add anything. He does give you a long, pointed glance, though, before muttering under his breath something that sounds a lot like “I won’t let that slander stand,” and you think that’s hilarious too.

When you risk a glance at Jungkook, his arms are folded over his chest, and he looks deep in thought. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, eyes focused on his meal, though he’s not touching it. It’s stupid, but the image of a child that has just been scolded flashes in your mind.

“Jungkook? Is everything alright?”

He jumps at your question, looks at you like a deer caught in headlights. Your eyes meet, but it’s extremely brief, and your chest tightens. This sucks. You thought the two of you had gotten past that now, and you hate that you lost what you had. It’s not like it’s your fault. He kissed you, and then he bailed on you first chance he got. Why would he do that, why would he risk it, if he was going to react like that afterwards?

“I’m fine,” he says with a tense smile, and you doubt it’s true, but you don’t know what you should ask him to confront him about it. You don’t want to talk about the kiss ever again. You certainly don’t want to do it in front of your friends.

So you jump on the first chance you get to leave the table. You don’t ask yourself if it’s a weird thing to do. It probably is, but fuck it, you’re weird, and everyone else can deal with it. You refuse to subject yourself to something unpleasant longer than absolutely necessary.

Except the looks you get are mostly concerned ones, from Namjoon and Jin. Jungkook does look up as you walk away, eyes following you almost longingly, and then he lets out a long sigh that catches Taehyung’s attention. He doesn’t say anything, but he narrows his eyes at him.

God. He really has to get everything done here, doesn’t he?

At first, you think that this is it. Your— your whatever it was that you had with Jungkook is over. You’ll see him around every now and then, and maybe he’ll give you a polite nod, though it doesn’t look like he would even do that right now, but there won’t be anything else. You’ll go back to being basically strangers, and it will be fine, because really, nothing happened there, right? You had a crush on him, he kissed you once, and then nothing. It’s fine. You’ll be fine.

Sure, it makes you a little sad. Sure, you catch yourself looking at him while he’s surrounded by girls who are all so much better for him than you ever were, and it hurts a little. Sure, walking back home alone at night is a little more unpleasant than it used to be, but that’s the thing. It’s only a little. You would almost pat yourself on the back for it. Congrats, (Y/N). You made it out before you got too attached. You probably avoided a world of hurt.

Because you know. You know that if you had gotten in too deep, it would have hurt like hell to not have Jeon Jungkook. And sure, it hurts right now.

But only a little.

You’re good. You’re safe. You know that Namjoon and Yoongi would nod if you told them about it. They understand, in a way a lot of other people don’t. You don’t think that Jin would, for example. He would tell you to take the risk, not understanding that people like Jungkook used to pick you last for their teams when you were in high school, not understanding that as far as you’re concerned, you’ve handled more than enough rejection throughout your life. But Namjoon and Yoongi… They’re definitely more successful than you in matters of the heart, but they would still understand. Not that you’re going to tell them about it, because it’s a stupid story, because there never was anything there, and because you’d feel really dumb talking about how you thought, how you hoped that— You’re not going to tell them anything. At least everything’s okay now.

And then, Jungkook appears at your usual table at the library on a Wednesday afternoon. He drops his bag on the floor and takes a seat next to you. You’re surprised to see him when you look up, too focused on your studies to notice him approaching. He has big, wide doe eyes, and he watches your reaction carefully.

“You’re— This seat isn’t taken?”

You shake your head. No. People rarely come here, and you don’t really study with people. Well, didn’t, you suppose.

“Do you mind if I sit here?“

“The seat’s free. You can take it if you want.”

You don’t know what to do. You don’t know how to react. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You never considered that Jungkook would— That he would—

“I, um, I like studying with you. It helps me focus,” he says, eyes flickering away from you. “So, if you don’t mind I’ll— Can I come back here on Wednesdays?”

You want to tell him that you can’t stop him, that he can do whatever the hell he want, but even though it’s on the tip of your tongue, you don’t.

“Of course you can,” you say instead.

Jungkook looks up long enough to flash you a smile, and you know. This isn’t over, and you’re not going to be fine. You’re probably going to feel crushed, sooner than later, and you could have stopped it all right now.

You think about Yoongi and how not like him it is to be doing what he is with Jimin. How he’s taking a risk. How it could oh so easily not have paid off.

It’s going to, of course. You just need to look at Jimin’s eyes when he’s talking to Yoongi to know that. But Jungkook doesn’t look at you like that. Jungkook doesn’t look at you at all.

And yet here you are. Taking that exact same risk.

God. You can be so stupid some times.

Jungkook glances at you quickly while you’re deep in thought, tapping your pencil against your cheek, and a small smile forms on his lips. He’s quick to glance away, because he would hate it if you caught him, of course, but the smile doesn’t fade.

He couldn’t have forced it to do so if he tried.

“You have to come to the next game.”

“Taehyung, hey, nice to see you to, I’m doing fine, I—”

“I’m serious, (Y/N). I know you hate basketball and everything that breathes, but—”

“I don’t hate you.”

“—this is really important and— Wait, really? Thank you. I feel that means a lot coming from you.”

“Is that how you see me? I don’t hate everyone, Taehyung.”

“Can you give me a list of people you don’t hate?”

“Well, you, Jin, Yoongi, Namjoon…”

“Jungkook?”

“…Sure. Jungkook. Why do you want me to come to the next game?”

“Because we might lose.”

“And I’m supposed to change that how?”

“You owe me, remember?”

“I— Because of the parties? Seriously? I need to sit through hours of you guys running after a ball because I don’t like parties?”

“I would really appreciate it if you could avoid describing basketball as ‘guys running after a ball’.”

“I would really appreciate not having to go watch the game.”

“Don’t you want to support your friends on the team?”

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll be there. Just— stop that thing you’re doing with your eyebrows. Why are you even doing that?”

“You’re so slow. How are you so slow? I thought you were supposed to be smart!”

“Taehyung…”

“Just be there!”

“I will.”

“You better!”

“Or what, what will you— Taehyung! You can’t just run off like— Well. I guess he could.”

You hadn’t thought sitting through a basketball game could become a more painful experience to you than it already was. As it turns out, you were wrong. It was so much worse when the people you wanted to win were losing. Despite yourself, you found yourself getting invested, standing up and shouting encouragements along with Jin and Namjoon, and protesting loudly when things didn’t go your way.

You were not cut out for this. Not because you still didn’t understand half the rules — you could have by now if you had made the effort of memorizing them — but because of the stress. God, how did your friends handle that regularly? How did the players handle it? You kept looking at Jungkook. You could tell how unhappy he was with the situation, could see the disappointment settling in. He also seemed to get more nervous as time went by, which didn’t help his performance, and his words kept echoing in your mind.

”I don’t know what’s going to happen when I stop being as good.”

You’re half way through the game and things are not looking good when Taehyung waves you over. You run to the railway, straining to hear him, and when you finally understand what he’s saying, you regret making any effort at all.

“You can’t possibly be serious!”

But he is.

“You owe me, (Y/N)!”

“I’m already— What’s it even going to do?”

“Trust me on that one, okay?”

You glare at him, but he’s looking at you with his beautiful brown eyes, and there’s nothing you can do against that. You sigh deeply. Your heart is beating wildly in your chest just thinking about what he’s asking you to do. Maybe it’s not such a big deal for him, that sort of stuff, but for you— For you it’s downright insane to even consider.

“Kim Taehyung,” you hiss through gritted teeth, “if this goes bad, I’ll kill you and plant your head on a stick outside of my door to warn my enemies not to underestimate me.”

He has the audacity to shrug at that.

“It won’t go bad.”

You look up. Take a deep breath. And call Jungkook’s name.

The gym is insanely loud, and it takes both you and Taehyung’s efforts, as well as a lot of waving, for Jungkook to notice you. When he does, though, he runs towards you, worry obvious on his face. He’s looking directly at you for once, and the intensity of his stare almost makes you shiver.

“Is everything alright?” he asks when he gets there, eyes scanning you quickly to make sure that you’re okay.

“It’s fine, I just—”

“What are you doing here? You hate basketball. Did something happen?”

You shake your head. You don’t know how you’re supposed to do this, especially when he’s looking so puzzled and when he’s questioning your sanity for showing up at one of his games. You glance over at Taehyung who gives you a decided nod.

Ah. Fuck it.

Leaning over about as far as you can go, you cup Jungkook’s face, and as his expression turns to one of surprise, you kiss him. If people around notice or have a reaction, you can’t tell, because Jungkook pushes himself against you and buries his hand in your hair as he holds you. There’s not much space left for thinking in your mind, instead entirely consumed by thoughts of him. He’s completely sober this time, and you don’t taste alcohol on his tongue. He’s also not going as slow, almost desperately kissing you back, one strong hand supporting you so you don’t fall over, and you just melt.

It takes everything in you to push yourself away. When you do, you’re breathless, and he’s staring at you with eyes even wider than usual. You’re pretty sure Taehyung would want you to give an encouraging speech right now, but you don’t want to do that right now.

“I really don’t care if you’re winning or losing games,” you say instead. “If you’re sad, I’ll be sad with you, but it’s never going to change anything in how I see you. But I’ll be here encouraging you.”

He grabs your hand, squeezing it tight.

“Promise?” he asks, almost childishly.

You’re not sure which part he’s referring to, but they’re all true, so you nod.

“I promise.”

He smiles, and then both him and Taehyung are running back across the field and getting yelled at by their coach, but even from where you’re standing, you can see their smiles.

You guess that means you’re not going to murder Taehyung.

“This is actually insane. How is Jungkook even doing that?” Yoongi asks in disbelief after Jungkook scored extremely impressively yet again, and you fidget in your seat. You’re very happy to see that, though you don’t how you feel about the smug looks Taehyung is sending you, but you don’t want—

“It’s the power of love,” Jin says, nodding like he just gave an essential truth to the meaning of life.

—this. You, very specifically, don’t want this.

“Jin,” you sigh, “there’s no such thing as—”

“Actually,” Namjoon interrupts you, “I think he’s right. The power of love is a thing, and I think this is a perfect demonstration of it.”

You gape at him, in shock. He betrayed you?

“Did you just—”

“Namjoon’s right,” Yoongi nods. “This is how the power of love works. You take love, and you turn it into strength.”

And then, him, Jin and Namjoon high five, and you gasp. Traitors. All of them.

But after that, Jimin says off-handedly “Maybe you should come and kiss me before my next competition” and Yoongi’s brain visibly stops functioning, so you consider yourself avenged.

After the match, you wait for Jungkook outside of the locker room. Jin insisted you should go celebrate on the field, but you had declined. It felt like the situation required something a little more private, so now you’re here, leaning against the wall, looking at your phone so you’ll seem busy, even if there’s nothing on there to occupy yourself.

You’re not the only one there, and that doesn’t help soothing your nerves. There are a lot of girls, all pretty and smiling. It makes you feel like a groupie, and you don’t like it. You’re relieved for a second when the door opens and the team comes out, but it doesn’t last long, because the girls are soon surrounding them. You remain where you were standing, watching the whole thing happen. It takes a few moments before you notice Jungkook’s bun standing out of the group, and it makes you smile.

You catch Taehyung’s eye first, and, after you’ve sent him a glare that you hope was threatening, he pushes Jungkook out of the group. At first, he seems confused, before he finally finds you. You wave at him hesitantly. He blinks a few times, his eyes wide, then walks towards you.

“Hey,” he says when he joins you. He’s towering over you. Usually, you don’t like that, and you’ve complained about having to look up at Namjoon more than once, but you don’t necessarily mind right now.

“Hey,” you reply.

Silence stretches between the two of you as you try to think of something to say. You should have prepared a speech, you know that, but you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t have been able to say it either.

“Taehyung told me he told you to kiss me,” Jungkook blurts out after a while, looking away from you, and you give him a surprised glance. “So, you don’t have to—”

“No, I wanted to kiss you,” you interrupt him, a puzzled frown forming on your face.

Jungkook’s head whips back towards you, and you just stare at him in confusion.

“Do you really think I would have kissed you just because Taehyung asked me to?”

“Well you— you came to the game because he asked you to, right?”

“That’s not the same—”

“Jungkook!” someone from the team calls. “We’re going to grab a bite to celebrate, do you wanna come?”

Jungkook sighs, then gives you a sharp look.

“You wanted to kiss me,” he repeats.

You nod.

“Why?”

You bite your lower lip, and you’re not oblivious to the way his eyes fall to your mouth when you do.

“And I’m the blunt one,” you mumble.

“Sorry, I–”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s just— I wanted to kiss you because I like you. Obviously.”

Jungkook swallows, and you can see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He looks over his shoulder at his friends.

“You can go without me!”

There are some protests, but he ignores them to give you his entire attention. It’s… not an unpleasant feeling.

“You disappeared after I kissed you the last time,” he says.

“You left,” you protest immediately. “You kissed me, and then the second your friends arrived, you acted like nothing happened and you left.”

“I didn’t want to— I just— They’re really annoying about that stuff, you know? I thought it would probably be better if I talked to you after— ‘m sorry. I didn’t— didn’t realize it—”

You look at Jungkook, watch him fumbling for words, and it hits you like a ton of bricks, how much you do like him. Those words really don’t do it justice, and maybe you’re not quite ready to talk about love just yet, but you like him so much, so much it makes your heart swell, so much you don’t think what what he’s trying to tell you would change anything to it, and yet what he’s trying to say is exactly what prompts your realization. He didn’t want to hurt you. Wanted this to be private, for just the two of you, wanted to see how you felt about it. And maybe he went the wrong way about it, but it means everything that he was trying.

“Walk me home?” you ask.

Jungkook finally stops his rambling.

“Are you sure?”

Of course, he has to ask that now, after weeks of trying to convince him to let you walk on your own. Still, you smile and nod, and when you start walking side by side, you grab his hand. He freezes temporarily before grinning and squeezing your hand, pulling it into his pocket so you won’t be too cold, because the air of January is chilling.

“Congratulations for the game,” you say after a long, comfortable silence. You had almost forgotten about it.

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “I had some help.”

And then, he winks at you, and your heart misses a beat. That’s when you understand something you hadn’t even considered before: if Jungkook stops being shy around you, you’re done for. You’ll be the one constantly flustered.

“So,” you say, slowly, trying to keep yourself composed, “why did you kiss me?”

“Um. Same as you?” Jungkook’s confidence disappears, and he returns to his awkward self, and you see that, as much as you like it, you want him to be comfortable around you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tease him a little.

“What do you mean by that?” you ask innocently.

He gives you a horrified look that soon turns to an offended one when he notices you grinning widely.

“You’re so mean,” he says, but he’s smiling too, “you’re the meanest person I know.”

You’re laughing at that point, as you stop in front of your dorm.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Fine,” he sighs dramatically. “I kissed you because I like you.”

It’s funny. You knew that was what he was going to say, knew it was coming, and yet it gets to you all the same.

“With you, I don’t feel like I have to be the school’s star, you know? I can just be— Jungkook. You don’t expect me to be anything else.”

He’s right. You like Jungkook. With his insecurities and his flaws. You don’t want him to perform for you, and you don’t care what he’s doing right and wrong. Just studying maths in the library with him makes you happy.

He eyes your dorm and takes a deep breath.

“I should go,” he says.

You hum.

“Yes, it would be a really bad idea if you came up tonight.”

But you’re not letting go of his hand, and he’s close to you now, close enough that you can feel his breath catching in his throat. It makes you smile.

“You’re so mean,” he repeats.

This time, instead of laughing, you kiss him, and it’s completely different from the two previous times. There is no uncertainty in this kiss, no surprise, no pressure, no fear. It’s perfect. Jungkook’s hand comes to cup your cheek, his lips soft against your own. His long fingers gently stroke your jaw as he keeps the kiss chaste and sweet. It only makes you yearn for more and when he moves away, you can see in his eyes that he wants more as well.

You just don’t think he wants it now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” you ask.

“I’ll meet you for lunch,” he says solemnly, and it rings like a promise, which makes you smile.

When you move away, though, he doesn’t let go of you, and a pouty expression appears on his face before he releases you.

“I— Yeah. You should go.”

“You can come up if you want to, you know?”

He hesitates, rolls his lips together.

“I want to savor this,” he admits to you in a near whisper.

“Then I’ll go.”

“Yes. Good night.”

“Good night.”

You feel light and giddy as you walk through the door. It’s a nice and strange feeling, like you could just start floating any second.

You already can’t wait for the next day.

People are definitely weirded out by your relationship with Jungkook. Or, rather, by Jungkook’s relationship with you. You’re pretty sure most of the people who give you weird looks when you sit next to him and he wraps his arm around you, or when you walk hand in hand, wouldn’t pay attention to you if you went to class naked. But they all know who Jungkook is, and you guess it is weird to see you in conjunction with him.

They could ignore it and consider you mere part of the scenery when he ate with you, you suppose, but it is harder to do now. You’re not too fond of being the center of attention, to be honest. You don’t know how Jungkook does it.

What takes you by surprise the most is people being nice to you. That confuses you to no end, because you know for a fact they don’t care about you, not really, and you cannot fathom what they think they’re going to get out of this. You’re pretty sure there are a girl or two who are doing that to get closer to Jungkook, and some, you think, have decided to be nice to you because they think that if Jungkook likes you, you can’t be a total lost cause.

You don’t like that feeling. Not at all. You don’t like it when you’re going to class, you don’t like it during lunch, and you definitely, definitely do not like it when people rush towards you the second you get to a party.

Yeah, you’re giving Taehyung what he wanted, in the end. He said that both you and Jungkook owed him, because without him you wouldn’t be together, and you eventually gave in.

You thought it would be fine, now that you have someone to spend time with, but you understand with horror that your status has changed now. You’re not invisible anymore. You’re Jungkook’s girlfriendTM. Because of that, you spend much longer in the entrance making small talk than you would have wished to, and you’re stopped a couple of times while you’re desperately looking for your boyfriend to save you from this hell on earth.

You’re not surprised at all to find him playing beer pong with Taehyung and other guys from the team. He hasn’t gotten time to get drunk yet, so he’s quite impressive, but then again, they all are. That’s why they usually end up wasted.

The second he sees you, though, he abandons the game completely, and the smile on his face threatens to make your heart explode in your chest. Some of the guys turn around to look at you, give you a wave or a smile. Taehyung shouts a greeting.

“Hey,” Jungkook says, leaning in to press a quick kiss on your lips. He doesn’t like PDA all that much, but he never misses a chance to kiss you, and the thought makes you all giddy.

“Hey. Are you, um, having fun there?”

He shrugs.

“It’s not that bad. Wanna play?” He waits for your expression to turn to one of horror as you try to refuse politely before laughing. “Just kidding. Don’t worry about it.”

You let out a relieved breath. You know you and Jungkook are very different people, and you’re doing your best to take an interest in the things he likes. You’ve been learning the rules of basketball, for example, and though you still don’t believe you get the point, you like the way his eyes shine when you say something right about a game.

But you don’t take part in any of that stuff. Okay, you stop at that field that’s on your way home from the library every now and again, but that doesn’t count. It’s just you and him then, and you feel good and relaxed. You’ve even scored a couple of times now.

“Come on, I want to grab a drink,” Jungkook said, taking your hand in his, and you follow without protesting.

It’s probably your second mistake of the night: not realizing that getting a drink with and without Jungkook are two very different ordeals. On your way there, you get roped into several conversations. Those are fine. You can’t say you enjoy them, but they’re fine, and it’s not like those people are actually talking to you anyway.

What you genuinely dislike is that, when you’re by the table with the drinks, a girl starts openly flirting with your boyfriend. It’s not subtle, either, with the way she keeps touching his arm and how she laughs at his every word.

For a while, you just stare in disbelief. You know Jungkook is oblivious to that sort of things — probably one more reason why he likes how blunt you are — but you can’t believe her. You wouldn’t necessarily blame the girl for trying, either, if she didn’t know about you. Jungkook’s quite the catch after all, and you understand liking him better than anyone else.

No, it’s the fact that she’s doing it right in front of you, while Jungkook is holding your hand. It feels so— dismissive. So insulting. She’s not exactly saying to your face that she doesn’t take you seriously, but she might as well.

You watch incredulously when she puts her hand on his arm one more time. You don’t know how you’re supposed to handle that, so you just tug on Jungkook’s hand a little awkwardly. You’re pleased by how quickly his attention snaps to you, even while the girl is in the middle of her sentence. It’s a petty sentiment, for sure, but you can’t help it.

“Everything okay?” he asks. “Is it too loud in here?”

“Kind of, but—”

“Let’s find you a quieter place.”

He forgets about the drink he wanted to get, forgets about the girl, who he abandons there unceremoniously, gently pulling you through the room. Next thing you know, he’s carefully closing the doors of the closet he’s found for the two of you behind you.

“There,” he says, sounding satisfied with himself. “Better?”

You chuckle at that and, guessing for him in the half-light, you pull him towards you for a kiss. You press your body against his, pushing him against the back of the closet, and a groan forms in his throat. His hands tighten around you, sending shivers through your entire being, and you only lean into him more. You run your fingers over his chest, just to feel him tremble under your touch and he does, hissing with pleasure at the contact.

“Fuck,” he mumbles into your mouth. “Was that— was that what you had in mind?”

You shake your head, and he’s close enough to feel it.

“That girl was flirting with you,” you tell him.

“Oh. Are you sure?”

You are.

“So… are you jealous? Because that’s kind of hot.”

You laugh softly. Truth is, you really, really don’t want to be the jealous girlfriend, but Jungkook actually sounds happy about the idea.

“You really didn’t notice?”

There’s a moment of silence.

“I didn’t. Does that— Did it bother you, that she was doing that?”

“Kind of,” you shrug. “What about you? You’re— cool with that?”

“If it bothers you I don’t like it,” he replies simply, one of his hand leaving your waist to grab yours and squeeze it gently. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

That makes you chuckle.

“How didn’t you? She would have made it barely more obvious if she had started undressing herself.”

Jungkook has an awkward laugh, and you can feel his breath on your face. He starts fidgeting, but then you press a kiss right at the corner of his lips, and he calms down, if just a little.

“It’s— You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

“I won’t.”

He hesitates a second longer, as though he’s trying to judge your sincerity by looking at you — except, of course, he can barely see a thing in here. You kiss him again, following his jaw, and he finally gives in when you start making your way down his neck.

“When I’m with you, it’s like my vision narrows on you,” he says, voice low. “I know everything and everyone else is still there, but I just think about you. Sorry, it’s really stupid.”

“It’s not,” you say, shaking your head, wondering if he can feel your heart beating stupidly fast in your chest, all because his words make you feel like nothing else ever has before. “But I’m— I’m kind of boring. That can’t be fun.”

“You’re not boring,” he protests. “You listen to people, even when you don’t look like it. You always look like you have a thousand things on your mind but you always make time for your friends, and when you’re studying here, you play with your hair.” He twirls a lock of your hair around one of his fingers before releasing it, as if to demonstrate. “You’re a very, very interesting person to look at.”

The only thing you can do is stay there, frozen in his arms, after he’s said that. You may be blunt, but Jungkook is honest. Devastatingly so. His vulnerability always shatters the walls that you’ve built around yourself, and you still don’t know how to react when that happens.

So you push yourself on your tiptoes to kiss him again, except this time it’s slow and gentle and you’re trying to put everything he means to you into it. The tip of your fingers are on his cheeks, your mouth barely moving against his, soft noises filling the closet. Jungkook remains still, letting you in complete control, like he’s afraid he could break you if he moved.

“Thank you,” you whisper when you pull away from him.

“For what?” he asks, breathless.

“For being here with me tonight, and for coming with me at that first party.”

“Of course. Any time.”

He lets himself fall to the floor, taking you down with him and keeping you into his lap once he’s done that. You rest your head against his chest. You hear the noises of the party still going on outside, but Jungkook is your island of peace in the middle of the chaos.

“I think I’m going to stop basketball,” Jungkook blurts out without a warning, and you look at him, surprised.

“Really?” you ask.

“Yeah. Really. I just— I don’t want to be doing that anymore.”

You think about it for a few seconds, then nod.

“You probably should stop, in that case.”

“People are… not going to be happy about it.”

“I’m sure Taehyung won’t be mad at you. Well, not for too long.”

He laughs softly, but his hold on you doesn’t relax, and you know that this was hard for him to even consider. You know it’s a terrifying decision to take, too.

“Thank you,” he says. “For being here with me tonight, too.”

“Any time.”

The truth is, you wouldn’t give that moment away for anything in the world, and something tells you Jungkook wouldn’t either. It’s not ideal, it’s not perfect, but you don’t believe there is such a thing, and you’re happy to satisfy yourself with the imperfect.

But any moment you can spend in Jungkook is as close to perfect as can be.

“I love you,” he whispers in your ear, and you think that he might feels the same way, which almost makes you burst with happiness.

“And I love you,” you whisper back.

Not perfect, perhaps. But close enough.

#jungkook x reader #bts #bts imagine #bts x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook imagine #jungkook fluff #bts fic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook #jeon jungkook #candywrites

[drac-ho]

Hurt (Draco x Slytherin!Reader)

Summary: you get hurt during a Quidditch match, but the wound hurts Draco more than it hurts you

I got inspo for this on TikTok I hate myself

TW: blood, wounds, angst

“Ten points to Gryffindor!” Lee Jordan’s voice rang through the speakers as you furrowed your brows in frustration. The team’s performance was well below par today - yours included. Umbridge’s harsh study regiments meant that you had less and less time to practice, all the while half the team swanned around with Inquisitory Squad badges on their cloaks. If you were hoping to make a career out of Quidditch, you had to knock some sense into Draco and the rest of his cronies or else this would go down as the worst year Slytherin’s Quidditch team had had in decades. 

“Get your act together, Draco!” You shouted out as he buried his head in his hands after losing sight of the snitch for the third time this game. He immediately looked up, shooting a spiteful grimace in your direction and flew off towards Harry. Despite being a half-blood and a Slytherin, Draco had always had a vendetta against you. You weren’t sure why - you didn’t associate with Potter, only sometimes joking with the twins, and kept mainly to yourself, only ever speaking to Draco when you had to. In fact, you were always, in some ways, sweet to him; you didn’t go out of your way to flood him with compliments but you had never said anything bad to him before - more than what he could say about you. 

You headed back up toward your side of the pitch and waited for someone to bat the quaffle in your direction. Just as you caught it, Angelina Johnson was hot on your tail. You swerved in and out of various players, Draco coming up beside you to your right. “Where’s the snitch?” You quickly asked him, focusing your attention on Oliver Wood who was harbouring one of the hoops. Draco remained silent, instead attempting to blatch you. Assuming it was a mistake, you swerved to the left to move away from him. He moved his broomstick further into yours, causing you to lose balance. “Draco, what are you–”

Before you knew it, you were falling twenty feet to the ground, Lee Jordan’s voice calling out across the stadium. You landed with a snap, immediately feeling a painful burn soaring down the left side of your side. You laid still for a few seconds before you sat up, somehow without any evident broken bones, and looked down at the damage. Your broomstick was snapped in half and you had landed on the jagged bits of wood. There was a bloody tear in your robes where you were clearly wounded but other than that you were fine. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” Marcus Flint asked Draco. Both teams had come back down to the ground to check if you were okay. The crowd looked on in concern but chatted amongst themselves.

“It was an accident Flint!” Draco argued back, looking away. Fred and George knelt down beside you. “You okay to stand, Y/N?” Fred asked, his eyebrows furrowed in concern as he looked you up and down. You nodded your head, allowing the twins to assist you in standing up.  You smiled at the two tall boys as you walked over to Marcus. 

“I can play if Madam Hooch lets me get a spare broom.” You said, eager to get back up there and continue the game. Marcus raised an eyebrow as he looked down at your bleeding torso. He nodded hesitantly, and you breathed a sigh of relief - besides Marcus, you were the best player on the team and he knew letting you sit out would be surrendering the win, which the team desperately needed to avoid losing the championship.

“Out of my way!” You heard Madam Hooch push through players as she finally got to you. “Were you blatched? I didn’t quite see what happened, dear.” You looked at Draco, biting your lip and shook your head. “No, Professor. It was an accident.” She nodded and looked hesitantly at Angelina, who held her arms up in innocence. “Very well, go and clean up and get a spare broom from the changing rooms. We’ll hold the game for ten minutes. If you don’t think you can continue, we’ll have no choice but to substitute in.” Nodding, you turned away and walked back towards the changing rooms. 

Once you were alone, you allowed yourself to wince in pain. You grabbed the first aid kit from the shelf and walked into the bathroom to sort yourself out with the aid of the mirror. Shrugging your cloak off, you lifted up your jersey and stared at the huge gash that was spilling blood. It hurt when you ran your finger over it and you had to bite down on your tongue to avoid crying out in pain - you’d need stitches but Madam Pomfrey would sort you out in no time after the game was over. Tears welled up in your eyes but you wouldn’t let them spill down your cheeks. Your ears were ringing from the pain and your head was clouded as you watched the wound pulsate as you breathed - you didn’t even hear the footsteps echo down the hall. 

“I’m fine.” You gutturally choked out as Draco’s face appeared from behind you in the mirror. His facial expression remained solid as he silently walked over and picked up the first aid kit from atop the sink. He looked through the pack, pulling out bandages, alcohol wipes, gauze and a compress. “These will help.” He said, putting them on the side. He looked at your reflection in the mirror, his eyes trailing down to the wound. You saw him wince for a split second before his face turned stone cold again, almost as if you’d imagined it.

“You can leave now.” You tried hard not to let your voice shake. You wouldn’t break down in front of him, especially considering he was the one who blatched you and pushed you off your broom on purpose. You wondered why he had tried and succeeded to hurt you, but another part of you didn’t care - it was probably just because you hurt his masculinity or something. “I don’t know why you’re attempting to help me anyway, you’re the one who put me here.” Your voice was still shaky and you internally branded yourself for it. He nodded his head slightly, quickly turning on his heel and leaving through the open door. 

You waited a few seconds before you let yourself cry. The pain was so intense it nearly made you pass out when you cleaned the wound with the wipes. You let out a gutteral cry as you held the compress in place and attempted to wrap the gauze and bandage around your abdomen. You choked out tears and small yelps until you were done. 

However, what you hadn’t realised was that Draco was still only just outside of the door. He slouched himself down the wall and onto the floor, holding his head in his hands. Every cry you let out hurt his heart as his eyes welled up. He hadn’t meant to hurt you - he thought that if he gave you a nudge it’d scare you and make you stop calling him out on mistakes he continued making. “I’m so fucking stupid.” He whispered to himself, his own tears slowly running down his cheek as he realised he’d hurt the only girl he loved. 

He stood up, wiping his tears and holding his breath as he looked up at the ceiling, something he’d learnt stopped the crying from all the years of being with his father. He left the corridor and made his way back to his friends before you could see him crying over you - after all, he was sure he’d screwed everything up with you by now.

#draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x slytherin reader #draco malfoy x slytherin #slytherin #slytherin quidditch #quidditch #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #hogwarts #weasley #harry potter #harry potter imagine #order of the phoenix

[sophfandoms53]

If you don't mind: what's your opinion on Leonardo from tmnt? :3

Absolutely love him.

Leo is actually my second favorite turtle (Mikey being the first, I think that’s been made clear lmao) regardless of the series, whether it’s 2003, 2012 or Rise, Leo has always been a well written and interesting character.

I’ve joked around in the past about how 2012 shoved Leo and his character arc in our faces, but in reality I thoroughly enjoyed Leo’s arc in 2012 and it’s the easiest one to decipher as it’s actually very well written.

I could get into a deeper discussion about how 2012 dealt with Mikey, Raph and Donnie’s arc when compared to Leo’s but that would make this response even longer and I might keep that for another time, however I will briefly summarize that Raph and Donnie’s arcs suffered severely in the main 4 seasons and were basically brushed aside in season 5, minus that one episode Donnie had in the Kavaxas arc, while Mikey’s feeling inadequate to his brothers arc swiftly concluded in different ways after Into Dimension X and The Croaking and the writers started doing different things with him that better suited his character, Meet Mondo Gecko and Bat in The Belfry being big examples. All of season 5 honestly can be summed up with “Mikey is a total boss” because he just owns every single episode in that season even if he isn’t the focus, When Worlds Collide is essentially meant to be a Raph focus episode but the biggest moments in that two parter are whenever Mikey is on screen.

This is where we circle back to Leo and his arc as Mikey even takes attention away from him in the final part of the Kavaxas arc, which is an arc centered around Leo officially coming to terms with his role as the new Sensei and father figure to his family. After the Kavaxas arc, Leo’s character is finished, there’s no where else for him to grow beside minor personality tweaks which was hinted at in the Usagi arc.

In the main four seasons Leo’s arc can be split into two parts, seasons 1-2 has him dealing with the sacrifices and burden that comes with being the leader while seasons 3-4 has him accept his role as the leader and his character becomes about having trust both with himself and with his team as in these two seasons Leo tends to go off alone on a mission instead of talking with his family and it’s something that is handled very well.

One of my favorite episodes in the series is Attack of The MegaShredder specifically because it puts Leo in a place of understanding that his brothers [Mikey in this case] will always be there for him when he needs them the most and this arc comes to nice closed in Broken Foot where he constantly tells Karai that they need his brothers if they want to continue doing what they’re doing.

This type of characterization for Leo happened in the 2003 series as well. Most notably after the battle in the season 3 finale with Shredder that leaves the entire team wounded and Leo with a massive scar on the back of his shell, Leo takes this loss extremely personally and violently to the point he loses his sense of self. He’s angry at himself for losing, for letting his brothers and his Sensei get hurt.

But what 2003 did was not have Leo realize he was angry with himself and made it appear to be he was angry with his brother’s for not getting the job done. Even yelling at them for treating their missions against the foot as a game. This even extends to how Leo trained in season 4, he did to the point he tired himself and his brother’s out because he felt what he and his brother’s knew wasn’t good enough.

In the episode Grudge Match it opens up with Leo aggressively training his brother’s on a rooftop and he only stops his training when Splinter calls him out about it saying they need to discuss his attitude and take on training soon until they notice Mikey has been slacking off training recently. So Leo offers to train Mikey for his upcoming Battle Nexus rematch as Mikey has become incredibly cocky over his win and Leo knowing his brother needs to be taken down a peg, gives us this amazing scene of dialogue between the two,

“I brought you up here to clear your mind, Mikey. Focus on what's important.”

“Like going home?”

“No, like pushing yourself beyond your limits to a place where there are no limits; to be so focused, so ready that nothing and no one will ever catch you off guard again.”

“Um, we still talkin' about me here?”

“In this life, we only have each other. If one of us goes down, we all go down, so focus.”

The subtext is obvious, after the fight with Shredder, this is clearly how Leo takes on other fights in season 4 and why he becomes so frustrated with his brother’s constant dismissal of it. Despite this piece of advice giving Mikey what he needed to win the match fairly, it still doesn’t change the fact this is a very dangerous way to think and Leo being the leader to think this way makes it more glaring on how far Leo has lost himself in this state of self hatred.

Another interesting thing to note is how whenever Donnie and Raph complain about Leo’s attitude, it’s Mikey who comes to his eldest brother’s defense and understands the burden Leo has his shoulders, and this wasn’t done by accident.

It is only after Leo harms Splinter during training does he come to realize how bad this violent attitude of his is affecting everyone around him. Leo is then sent off on a 2 month journey of self-reflection in Japan where Yoshi’s old masters helps him realize that Leo has become his own monster, or as the show does it, he has become his own Shredder.

Leo comes to the realization that he has stop blaming himself for what happened and move forward, he’s been holding onto the past for too long to the point he became a barrel of anger and self-destruction and he had to be the one to fix it. He had to destroy his own demons, himself. And this arc concludes very well.

Now in Rise it’s a little bit difficult to analyze the characters as there isn’t much development, not a bad thing at all, but Rise has gone out of its way to give each of the brother’s depth and it’s very interesting.

Because Rise doesn’t have Leo as the leader one can be mistaken that this Leo wouldn’t have the same struggles or insecurities as his other incarnations but this has proven to be false as Rise Leo still has the same insecurity of his brother’s not respecting him as part of the team or just seeing him as a screwup. Leo has shown he needs a reassurance he’s doing the right thing and that his brother’s look at him in a positive light.

A lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of Leo’s role as the leader and just look at it as that instead of realizing how much pressure and stress Leo puts on himself regardless because he wants to be the very best him that he can be.

Lmao this got incredibly long, apologies for ranting.

This was a very long convoluted way of me saying, I love Leo a lot and his character is very very 3-dimensional and needs more appreciation than just “he’s only the leader”.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #leonardo #tmnt leonardo #tmnt #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2012 #rise of the teenage ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt

[percontaion-points]

Foxhole Court chapter 4

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions.

Chapter 4

"I thought you had [your boyfriend] Erik," Neil said.

"I do, but Kevin's on the List," Nicky said. When Neil frowned, Nicky explained. "It's a list of celebrities we're allowed to have affairs with. Kevin is my number three."

Normally, I wouldn't even bat my eyes over such a casual mention of something like this. But in a story that's already pumped full of abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and probably a lot more nonsense to come...

The idea of an “allowed cheating list” just rubs me the wrong way.

“Then the ERC threatened to revoke our Class I status and fire Coach if we didn't start winning more

often. Coach bribed Andrew into saving our collective asses with some really nice booze."

"Bribed?" Neil echoed.

"Andrew's good," Nicky said again, "but it doesn't really matter to him if we win or lose. You want him to care, you gotta give him incentive."

"He can't play like that and not care."

"Now you sound like Kevin. You'll find out the hard way, same as Kevin did. Kevin gave Andrew a lot of grief this spring,"

I know that this is probably difficult for these people to understand. But normal people don't make playing a sport their sole personality trait. That obsessing this much over a singular thing with no hobbies or interests outside of it isn't healthy.

"Kevin wants to know what's taking you so long. Did you get lost?"

"Nicky's scheming to rape Neil," Aaron said.

HAHAHA BECAUSE RAPE JOKES ARE JUST SO FUCKING HILARIOUS. /ALL THE GODDAMNED SARCASM

Andrew had a short knife pressed to Nicky's jersey. Where he'd pulled it from, Neil didn't know, but he refused to think Andrew wore one onto the court under his uniform. There had to be rules and regulations against that. The last thing Neil wanted was for Andrew to stab someone in the middle of a game. The Foxes would be banned from the league in an instant.

So this guy 1) is a drug addict 2) is an alcoholic 3) has to literally be bribed to even play 4) is clearly mentally unstable and ready to literally stab somebody at any given time

Tell me again why he's somehow better for the team than the risk of him going loco and costing the entire university team EVERYTHING?

"Andrew is a little bit crazy. Your lines are not his lines, so you can get all huff and puff when he tramps across yours but you'll never make him understand what he did wrong. Moreover, you'll never make him care. So just stay out of his way."

JFC, now Nicky is saying to just let this sociopath do whatever the fuck he pleases?

This overgrown child needs to be institutionalized; not allowed to play team sports for a university. This man is a danger to society.

"You be something. Kevin says you'll be a champion. Four years and you'll go pro. Five years and you'll be Court. He promised Coach. He promised the school board. He argued until they signed off on you."

"He—what?"

I don't know why Neil is surprised by this. These people pressured him so much until he agreed to sign to attend the school to play. Why the fuck is them making deals about Neil behind Neil's back somehow any different?

He hadn't even realized she'd been injured so badly after running into his father in Seattle.

Wasn't daddy dearest in prison? Why the fuck was he running around in Seattle? I'm so fucking confused.

This was why Wymack's contract, Kevin's lofty ambitions, and Andrew's words meant nothing in the end. It didn't matter what they offered or promised him. Neil wasn't like them. He was nothing and no one, and he always would be. Court wasn't for people like him.

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU COME?!

What I'm going to tell you is an open secret. That is, we know it," he waved a finger in a circle, likely meaning the Foxes, "but no one outside our team does. It has to stay that way no matter what, do you understand? People could get hurt if this gets out. People could die."

I'm not going to deny that there are people in the world who would murder because of sportsball. But all I'm saying is that their mental state was probably not amazing to begin with, and they probably shouldn't have been in society in the first place.

"They built this complex around the same time we started construction on the Foxhole Court. Thought our team would be something and people would want to live in the area to be close to the stadium for games. Then we couldn't perform, so the apartments didn't fill. The lower floors are pretty full, and the middle floors get rented out during football season, but top two floors are pretty bare.”

Yeah, that's bullshit. People would still move into those apartments, sports team or no.

He hit full speed before he reached the street, going so fast he was nearly falling over, but he couldn't outrun his thoughts.

Chapter 4 summary: The next day, Neil tries to settle into his new life here. He goes for a jog before going to the stadium early to get changed before the others get in. They have summer practice with just those who are there (the wonder twins, Kevin, Nicky, and Neil).

After practice is over, Nicky randomly starts talking about how Andrew fucking hates the sport, which is baffling to Kevin. However, Andrew has a hard-on for Kevin. And Nicky warns Neil to stop openly staring at Kevin, or else Andrew might get jealous and attack Neil. Because that's fucking hilarious, you know.

Andrew shows up, and randomly threatens Nicky with a knife over how he was apparently flirting with Neil. Despite Neil stating that he only just wanted to play sports, not to hook up or have a relationship with anybody. Nicky relents, and after Andrew leaves, tells Neil that he isn't his type anyway. He also warns Neil to just let Andrew do whatever he wants. Because that's how you should deal with people like that... right?

They then go back to the field, where they set up a mock-game. And good grief. I thought that watching sports on TV was boring. Ain't got nothing on this tedious wall of bullshit. After a while, Kevin sends Nicky and Aaron inside, and it's just him, Andrew, and Neil. They continue to play for a bit longer, but then Andrew then starts to beat the shit out of Neil with his racquet. Which... okay.

Neil eventually goes home, where coach yells at him over having “blown out his arms”. And I get that this is college sports, and it's on another level than HS stuff. But at the same time... this is literally day two of summer practice. There is literally no reason to threaten to beat a literal child up.

We have a two-week time skip, and then Neil goes back to the stadium later at night to practice. Andrew is there, mostly sober because it's late and he apparently can't sleep with those drugs in his system? Sure, whatever. Anyway, he says that Kevin promised Neil over to some pro teams after his term at the university is over. Neil doesn't think that this is true. After Andrew leaves, and Neil tells Kevin that he came to practice, Kevin is rude about Neil's ability to play, and says that practice won't help. This goes into what Neil said: that Andrew is full of shit.

Neil then sits down in the locker room and thinks about his mother's death. I don't fucking care about any of this.

Neil sleeps in the stadium, and goes back to coach's apartment just in time to hear him getting into an argument with Kevin. The exy overseeing board (whatever they're fucking called; I don't give a shit), is like “We're forcing Kevin back to the Ravens.” and when Kevin refused, now they're going to make the foxes play against the ravens.

Coach then flat-out tells Neil that Riko smashed Kevin's hand because he was jealous of Kevin's playing. He says that he felt like the abuse had been going on for some time, but the hand breaking was the final straw, and Kevin decided to get out before something worse happened to him. He then tells Neil that the Moriyama family is part of the yakuza, or the Japanese mafia. This continues on for a long while, establishing just how shitty that this family actually is, and how the Moriyama family controls the entire sport of exy.

But despite how terrible that the foxes are, and Kevin's injury, he refuses to show any weakness to those assholes who screwed him over so badly. However, this just convinces Neil that he needs to leave, and he needs to leave ASAP.

#All For The Game #Foxhole Court #chapter 04 #Neil Josten #Nicky Hemmick #shitty people are shitty #Aaron and Andrew Minyard #WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK #What Is Happening #plot hole time! #David Wymack #HEADDESKING #do you even know how the world works? #Kevin Day #Riko Moriyama

[zenonaa]

Makoto/Kyoko/Mukuro + 26

Have a beach date + Naegirisaba

*** 

Kyouko drags her knuckles across her forehead and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathes deeply. She stares forward. On the other side of the battlefield stands her opponent, a single person with washed-out eyes on a face devoid of all emotion. The world around them has fallen dark with tension and suspense, and sweat peppers Kyouko’s forehead, even after she ran her hand across it just now.

“We just need... one successful attack,” Kyouko says in a hushed tone. She furrows her brow. Grits her teeth. In her chest, her heart thrashes in overdrive. “Then... victory will finally be ours.”

Her fists clench tighter.

A dramatic breeze passes by. It smells like salt and fire.

Beside her, Makoto whines softly.

“Kirigiri-san, remember... we’re just playing beach volleyball,” he says.

His reminder restores light to the beach. The sand transforms from a grey into a blonde white and the sky clears into a brilliant blue with the occasional smudge of white. They can hear the rustle of the sea, the occasional plop of water and the intermittent caw of a seagull.

Kyouko and Makoto stand on one side of a net, the former in a loose white t-shirt and black bikini bottoms and the latter wearing trunks of a forgettable colour. Across from them, Mukuro Ikusaba waits for the volleyball to be served to her, dressed in a plain black sports crop top and jean shorts.

But make no mistake about her casual attire - Mukuro is anything but.

Normally, in a game of beach volleyball, each team has the same number of players and they play at least two sets. A third if each team wins a set. However, only the three of them are playing, and the choice of who should be by themselves had been immediately obvious. With a choice between a detective, a regular guy and a soldier... all in attendance at the same academy, recognised for their specialised talents... clearly, the soldier should be solo, and of course, she was the one in the lead regardless.

“One point,” says Mukuro as she adopts a battle-ready position. “Just one point. You just have to get one point, and then you’ll win the whole game.”

Pitting Mukuro against two people hadn’t been enough. Oh, no. While Mukuro needs to acquire fifteen points to secure victory, Makoto and Kyouko need one. Just one. As Mukuro has made clear repeatedly since she bagged her fifth point.

Makoto shifts a foot back, holding the ball in his opposite hand, and as he leans his weight forward, he strikes it. The ball flies over the net. Mukuro homes in on it in a blur and thwacks the ball back. It sails over the net and rather than try to block it, Makoto jumps out of the way, and it crashes into the sand on the other side, forming a crater around it.

“Thirteen nil,” says Mukuro, keeping a straight face. “I would like my ice cream with chocolate sprinkles, by the way.”

Kyouko’s eyes narrow into hard slits. She picks up the ball but doesn’t toss it over yet, fixing her gaze on Mukuro. The two lock together in an intense stare, determined not to be the first to look away. Makoto restrains a sigh and slumps his shoulders.

All day. It has been like this all day. Who reached the sea first, who made the best sandcastle... all accumulating into a game of volleyball where the loser buys ice cream for everyone afterwards. Kyouko jumps and smacks the ball over the net, and when she lands, she sends out a puff of sand.

Mukuro flits over to the ball with ease and returns it with an expert bop.

The ball hurtles toward the other two now. Kyouko manages to receive it. She passes it to Makoto, who whacks it over the net again.

Despite how hard they hit the ball, Mukuro intercepts each attempt and retaliates twice as strong. It arcs back and forth, over and over, each time with a thud as it makes contact with some part of a person’s body. Whenever the ball plummets downward after Mukuro has dealt a blow to it, Makoto and Kyouko only barely get to it in time, as opposed to Mukuro, who acquires the ball with no difficulty.

Kyouko aims it at the far side of the field to where Mukuro is, and as it soars downward, Mukuro widens her eyes and flings herself over to it. Her body twists as she closes in, and for a split second, it looks like they’ve won, but at the last moment, she kicks the ball with her foot.

Using feet is legal in volleyball, though it doesn’t offer the same control as a forearm. Even so, Mukuro’s kick sends the ball over the net and it expertly bounces off Kyouko’s face before crashing into the sand.

Mukuro stands up and brushes some loose hairs from her face, panting a little.

“Fourteen nil,” says Mukuro with a smirk. “Not bad. I almost had to break into a sweat there.”

The ball sits at Kyouko’s feet. Kyouko bends down, picks it up and straightens, all without saying a single word, only huffing as she catches her breath. She turns to Makoto, her forehead pink and her face creased not like someone smashed a ball into it and it hurt like hell, which they did, but more like someone had stuck their tongue out at her and laughed, which they didn’t, but they may as well have.

“Strategy meeting, now,” says Kyouko, pursing her lips.

He wavers at first but walks over to her. Once together, they drape an arm over the other’s shoulders and turn their backs on Mukuro, who checks her nails as she waits for them to finish.

“Kirigiri-san?” murmurs Makoto. She pulls him closer.

“Whoever wins this wins the game,” mutters Kyouko, causing Makoto to cringe slightly.

“I think Ikusaba-san has this one in the bag,” he says. He scratches his cheek, unable to stop himself from smiling. “She’s amazing.”

Kyouko grimaces.

“In that case, we will have to resort to more... underhand measures,” she says, prompting Makoto to frown.

“You’re not allowed to catch the ball with the underside of your hands, Kirigiri-san.”

“I don’t mean it literally. This isn’t time for jokes,” says Kyouko sternly, about a game of volleyball where the loser buys everyone ice cream. “Now listen closely. This is the plan...”

They whisper for another minute, during which Mukuro picks her nose with a bored expression. When they turn back to her, she draws herself into position, brow puckered tight.

“Good luck, Ikusaba-san,” says Makoto, and he makes the first attack - he smiles directly at her.

Mukuro blinks but recomposes herself in seconds. Still, her cheeks remain rosy, but that is only one nail in the coffin.

Kyouko grips the ball. To show that she means business, she tosses the ball up and serves it overhand. The final match begins. Mukuro counters whatever they sling her way, and they can tell she’s toying with them. If she wanted to win, she would have already.

That will be her downfall.

Makoto stumbles but punches the ball upward. Kyouko jumps into the air to meet it. She seems to float as she connects with Mukuro’s intense gaze. The ball hangs suspended in midair as well, hovering in front of her.

Time for the final nail in the coffin.

“Counter this,” Kyouko breathes, and with her best pout, she bats her lashes and adds, “Mukuro-chan.”

Imaginary white lilies appear behind her head. Kyouko hits the ball, and Mukuro takes one step before processing what Kyouko said. The exact moment this occurs presents itself as a flicker across Mukuro’s face and she explodes with colour. Mukuro staggers, tripping over her own feet, and falls flat on her face, with the ball landing near her head soon after.

She does not get up.

“Are you okay, Ikusaba-san?” asks Makoto anxiously, craning his neck.

“I would like strawberry sprinkles on my ice cream,” pipes up Kyouko, and Mukuro lifts her head, glaring. Kyouko smiles wider and adds, “Mukuro-chan.”

Mukuro squeaks and buries her face into the sand again. The other two exchange quiet laughter before approaching her. They help her up, and with Makoto carrying their volleyball under his arm, they walk off together, arms linked with Mukuro in the middle.

“I went easy on you,” mumbles Mukuro as she tries to pick sand out of her mouth.

“We know,” replies Makoto at the same volume. He gives a small grin. “I’ll buy us WcPonalds on the way back to the school, okay?”

A pause. Mukuro peeks up.

“... can I get a WcFlurry too even if I have an ice cream now?” she asks.

“Of course.”

She averts her eyes. The ends of her lips perk up. “... A-Awesome.”

#naegirisaba #makoto naegi #kyouko kirigiri #mukuro ikusaba #danganronpa #fanfiction #one shot #naekusaba #naegiri #mukugiri #the last ship tags are for blacklist reasons mostly #notattumbr20

[fearsome-perfect-beauty-eren]

Ereri - Paintball (Christmas Edition) 🔞

AUTHORS NOTE: Merry Christmas to my great friend and mother-in-law hehe @tsukiy0~ I love you so sooooo much you have no idea!! Thank you for everything you have done for me and just being who you are. As a show of my appreciation I’ve written this fic for you because you know how much we love to make stories and scenarios of our precious Ereri. So I hope you enjoy your Christmas present just as much I did while writing it. Everyone who is also a huge ass fan of Ereri just like us two also please enjoy reading this headcanon and spread the love~

-

Levi had no idea how in the hell he got dragged into all of this but knowing Hange was the influential person behind it, in the end, it wasn't that out of the ordinary. However, that didn't mean that today was going to be an ordinary day, on the contrary. A few days prior, Hange had interrupted one of captain Levi's training with his new squad about what Levi had planned to do for his coming birthday. Such news sparked interest to his cadets about how they could help in celebrating him in one of the most beautiful and special days of the year, Christmas. At the end of the day, the elite squad spent the remaining of the day in the training grounds obsessing over the party plans with squadron leader Hange. Meanwhile, the captain had his back to the circle with a stoic expression about how unnecessary such bashfulness and plans were needed in regards to his birthday.

It was December 24th and Levi was at one of the barns; where supplies for the expeditions outside the walls were kept, in which was completely transformed into a space made for a paintball arena. Right off the bat, he noticed how all his cadets including Hange where waiting for his arrival all dressed up as Christmas inspired characters. As Levi blinked multiple times in surprise, Eren breaks from the group to hand over Levi's costume with a beaming eye smile. Already made into a blushing mess, that only Eren Yeager had such effect on him, he couldn't stand the fact about how freaking adorable Eren looked in his reindeer costume. How those little antlers complimented his dark and messy brown hair. How that jingle bell choker accentuated his defined muscular neck and prominent collar bones underneath his classic green long sleeve. How... "Heichou," Eren interrupts Levi's train of thoughts. "Everything alright? Are you ready to undress?~" Eren asks with a sly smile and deep dark eyes. "Uh? Yes, Yes. Of course, I'm fine." He looks past Eren and sees the group in the back waiting for them both with their costumes on. Armin as a snowman, Mikasa as a candy cane, Hange as a Christmas tree,  Connie as an elf,  Jean as a gingerbread man, and Sasha as a potato with Christmas lights. Levi once again blinks reassuringly and looks back at Eren wearing an innocent smile with a hand lingering onto Levi from when he gave him his costume. "The changing area is on the first door to your left," Eren states and walks back to the group in which leaves Levi to notice the cute little fluffy tail he seemed to wear as he headed back. This causes Levi to become even redder at this point and rushes over straight to the changing station to prevent the others from noticing his blushing mess.

After Levi had changed into his Santa outfit, the entire group gathers around and Jean begins to distribute an equal amount of colorful paintballs needed to play. Along with Connie passing out folded pieces of paper either numbered twenty-four or twenty-five to determine what members will be in which group. Meanwhile, Sasha helped Hange get everything sorted out and everyone else excitedly talked among themselves, Eren made his way next to Levi who sat on a haystack awaiting further instructions with his arms crossed over his chest. Levi hadn't buttoned his Santa coat all the way to the top and exposed a peak of his chiseled chest in which left Eren a bit hot and bothered. "Fuck, please ride me!" Eren commented under his breath as he nudged Levi's side and sat beside him who seemed clearly annoyed. "What did you say brat?" he asked as he looked up to him confused. "Oh nothing~" Eren added looking ahead as if concentrating on the rest of the group. "Hmm..." Levi adds in with a shy smirk with his head slightly held down to the opposite side of Eren, knowing exactly what he had said earlier.

Once everyone had their paintballs ready to be thrown at their opponents and knew their group members, Armin explained the rules to the survey corps first ever paintball game. Basically, each round would last twenty minutes in the dim light barn and the second floor could be used to attack others from above. The basic rules to the game were you get points for hitting your opponent with the homemade paintballs and one can get extra points for attacking the other team's headquarters and destroying it. Such headquarters could be identified by the green haystack castle for team twenty-four and the red haystack castle for team twenty-five. Along with final instructions on how everyone is to behave when in game mode. All the while, Levi's arms had found their way firmly around Eren's waist since he had pulled him to sit on his lap before he had to say goodbye to Eren and become rivals. Or as Levi so puts it: to protect Eren's ass from an accidentally lost needle that might potentially stab him and then have him unintentionally transform into a titan and creating a huge mess.

Armin's instructions had come to an end and everyone rose up from their seats to head to where the game would officially take place. Levi had tried to get up to join his team to talk strategy but his boyfriend had prevented him from doing so. Eren had leaned in to draw closer to Levi and rested his chin on his shoulder. "Let the best team win Levi heichou," Eren whispered in a low voice and kissed the root of his ear, making electric chills run down his spine. Levi felt him leaning in for another kiss until Mikasa called out for him. "Hey, Eren come on over here! We have to come up with a plan of attack!" Eren chuckles into his ear and then gets off of Levi's laps, extending a hand for him to join him. "Okay, okay, okay Mikasa!" Eren retorts back. The pair then walked side by side, away from the common area and head to the entrance of the proclaimed paintball arena where Mikasa is waiting for him. Mikasa then takes Eren by the arm and leads him towards their green headquarters where Hange and Jean await. "Levi heichou, we really need you, where are you?" chimes in Armin calling from where their team's base with Sasha and Connie are at.

The countdown had started and Levi's team had come up with a great plan to destroying the other team's base which rallied up more points than just hitting individual members and how to protect their own. However, the plan to attacking individual opponents was left up to each member of his team, since he trusted that by now everyone was clever to be fast enough to make strategic attacks due to the countless of confrontations everyone has had with titans. Once everyone knew their jobs and their positions they waited for Hange to finish off the countdown. Sasha then left to the upper level, Connie dashed into one direction, Levi headed for the other, and Armin stayed behind to protect their red headquarters. Within a matter of minutes, the barn was full of paint everywhere along with screams and laughter of all the scouts fighting to become the winning team and claim victory. "Yeeeeeeah! Attack!" Sasha yelled in enthusiasm which was followed by Connie's giggles. "Damn you guys! Don't you even think you can beat us!" Eren followed with his cry for freedom, not too far from the green teams' headquarters. Levi assumed he was in charge of protecting their headquarters by the sound of it and begins to make his way. He smirks and quickly shuffles through the obstacles to find cover so he wouldn't be seen by Jean on the second floor.

The twenty minutes given to play the first round had passed by surprisingly fast and paintballs were flying through the air in a zig-zag motion. Levi tried to run towards the rival team's green castle without drawing any kind of attention towards his intention of wrecking it completely during the last few minutes of the game. However, Levi suddenly had to stop in his tracks as someone had smacked their hand right above his head and against the wall, blocking him with their arm and pinned him against the wall from continuing further. He was out of breath from all the running and it took him a few seconds to recognize the familiar face in the dim light barn; Eren Yeager. He was looking as hot as ever. Sweat dripped down his neck and chest as his green sleeve shirt became a bit see through from all the sweat that had clung onto his upper body, exposing his muscular built figure. His boyfriend was panting hard but his gaze was firmly set on Levi's, giving him his ultimate undivided attention. Levi gulps from the sudden thirst and tries to hide his face from becoming flustered at Eren's heavenly sight. A half-smile rose upon his lips and states, "I haven't seen you at all throughout the game. You're so slick, babe!" he chuckles and leans down slightly closer to him. Levi could feel his hot breath hitting against his porcelain-like skin and it causes his body to shiver a bit. "Agh! I so wish we could've been partners in crime but I guess this works out just fine. Now, I just have to make sure you don't destroy our chances of winning," he joked and bit his lower lip seductively as he let his left hand slide down the wall and let it rest on Levi's hip while keeping a firm hand on Levi's right shoulder. Eren slipped his fingers under the hem on Levi's shirt and started drawing hearts on his v-line with the tips of his cold slim fingers, in which were surprisingly soft and not hard with calluses from all the years of training.

The younger male stepped closer to him so that he could press his entire body against him. Levi wrapped his arms loosely around his neck and Eren took that as permission to overpower Levi as he could him. Eren leaned in for a hungry wet kiss and Levi could taste the sweetness of the taste of wine he hadn't seen him drink before the game started as he licked the inside of Eren's mouth slowly. The intensity and passion of each and every kiss made Levi feel as if he was drunk from the lingering taste of the alcohol left on his mouth. His boyfriend played tag with Levi's tongue until Eren got tired and felt his tongue attacked, making himself surrender to Levi's dominance in which Eren loved oh so much. "Ahh heichou, mhmm~" Eren moaned out against Levi's lips in which overwhelmed Levi with an abundance of chills throughout his body and butterflies to infest his stomach. He loved the way Eren called him heichou because no other person could ever make him feel the heat, love, and thirst he had for him. Just at the say of the word 'heichou' by his other cadets didn't compare at all to the way Eren would say it. Every time he heard 'heichou' come out of the mouth's of others made him long for Eren to rather say it instead and have his presence next to him. It got Levi hoping to always have Eren by his side, Eren's kisses got Levi hoping to save him from the vulnerability of humanity in the face of titans, Eren's touch got him hoping to continue to comfort and care for him when no one else in this damned world could. Eren was his hope and the word 'heichou' coming out of his and only his mouth transformed the meaning of the word entirely. Levi loved it and it was little things like that in which didn't take much to turn him on.

After a moment Levi reluctantly pulled away for some air being that he was out of breath, though not from the previous constant running but rather from the heat of their passionate and intense make-out session. Eren let him do so even though he could've gone longer thanks to his excellent breathing skills he had developed from every single brutal training he's ever had to endure from his captain. Levi bit his lower lip harshly trying to control himself from melting into Eren's strong arms. "Ahh? Please don't hide your lips," Eren whispered lowly sounding almost like a growl and planted a gentle and sweet kiss on his boyfriend's lips which made Levi smile. Eren huffed a laugh and started planting sloppy wet kisses all over Levi's face and traveling down his neck. Eren then gets carried away and starts sucking Levi's soft spots, leaving them to hurt a bit and noticeably red in color. "Ahh, fuck babe~" Levi moans while gripping the back of Eren's shirt tightly. Eren apologizes by slowly licking each wound he made and kissing them softly afterward which makes Levi's toes to curl inside his boots like crazy. He then finds the collar of Levi's shirt and pulls it down slightly so he could finish his route of kisses on Levi's strong and prominent collar bones. Once he finishes he looks at Levi with a satisfied sly smile and Levi rolls his eyes and rings Eren's little jingle bell choker. Levi then gently cups Eren's handsome face, feeling his strong defined jawline and smiles warmly at Eren for making him feel all tingly. "What?" Eren smirked, arching his left eyebrow at him in a very teasing way. "I just... I can't take your hotness and cuteness at the same time right now. I mean how the hell can you be so damn cute and hot all in one?" Levi admits. "Are you serious? And you think I'm managing well right now?" Eren huffs in surprise. Levi didn't know how to answer to him and wasn't able to even if he wanted to because Eren gave no second thought to going in and nibbling on Levi's bottom lip and diving in for another deep kiss. The kisses being interchanged started to heat up by the second and Levi's fingers went under Eren's pants along with his underwear and began rubbing up and down his ass, accidentally making his reindeer tail fall off. Gripping them and digging his nicely cut and clean nails into Eren's skin every time a moan came out of their kissing mouths.

Each kiss and touch began to be begging for more and more as both Eren and Levi competed for dominance over the strong hunger they both felt for each other. Suddenly they become started by Hange's scream about the game to have had officially ended. Eren pulls out from the kiss and plants a comforting last kiss on the top of Levi's head. He then cups Levi's cheeks and leans in to lick his mouth across and blows hot air against them as he says "Well then see you back at the common area and then we can finish this afterwards with no interruptions." Eren then picks up his white tail off the floor and as he begins to walk away he turns around and flashes a wink to leave a flushed and puzzled Levi behind. Right afterward the rest of Levi's team found him in a state of not being able to move nor speak. "Agh, no wonder we lost to them. I guess their strategic defense plan worked rather well," Sasha said in a teasing tone. "Why am I not surprised? They indeed had Eren in their team," Connie adds in. "Eren! I can't believe you played us dirty like that!?" Armin said in disbelieve. All the while leaving Levi who can't help but feel embarrassed at the sight of Sasha, Connie, and Armin's faces of having lost the paintball game even after having humanity's strongest on their side.

#attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction #aot headcanons #aot imagines #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk headcanons #snk imagines #snk #eren jaeger #eren yeager #eren #ereri #ereri fanfic #ereri fic #ereri riren #riren fanfic #snk riren #riren #eren x levi #levi x eren #levi ackerman #levi #fanfiction #fanfic

[remainloved]

Rivalry - Ethan Dolan (Part 3)

Summary: In movies, books and stories, captains fell in. The captain of the soccer team and the head of the cheering team will always make the perfect couple. However, what if these two captains despise each other?

Warning: none?

Word Count: 1.6k+

Y/L/N = Your Last Name

Part 1 Part 2

Have you ever thought that there might be a possibility of you being a psychic?Because you had this feelings that something bad might happen. Like when you’re in a class and the teacher was about to ask someone to answer a question, you would have this unsettling feeling and got chosen. No? Maybe, it was just me.

I walked down the school hall with the unsettling feelings with me. It was even weirder when I stepped on to the hallway. Everyone turned looking at me. I walked in and everyone literally parted like the Red Sea. Some of them was smiling and holding up their phones.

Okay, strange morning. I was a foot away from my locker when a guy wearing a mask in all black attire handed me a note. He didn’t say a word and leave. I looked at the note it was written.

Games on.

Meet me there.

E. x

The thing that came in to my mind was Ethan. Was it pun intended? I looked around the hallways and everyone was still looking at me expectedly. Is Ethan going to humiliate me by not giving a good clue where to meet him?

Unfortunately, I’m Y/n and I’m smart enough to figure it out. It was the field, I mean that’s where the game happened, isn’t it not? Smiling to myself and giving a pat to my shoulder, mentally. I headed to the field reminding myself it’s on.

–

I reached the field and everyone was following behind me. There was another guy in a mask wearing literally the same outfit as the one before. He handed me another note.

Our spot.

Great. Just another nice clue. We have never had a spot together. What do you mean our spot?

We live our high school life literally on this field. We share the same position as captains. Meaning we are always the center of attention. Center.

I walked towards the center smiling and sat down the nearest bench. The other students followed and sat around the bench. I waited and soon my cheer team walked in wearing our school uniforms.

My best friend Michelle led the group. They were giving the whole school a routine. Everyone cheered and clapped. Okay, I felt a bit betrayed yet they did pretty good. Nevertheless, I was proud of them.

They finished the routine by putting their index finger on their lips, signaling the crowd to quiet down. Once the silence settled in, Michelle shouted. “EVERYONE MUST BE WONDERING WHY Y/N HAS BEEN GETTING NOTES THIS MORNING. WELL, PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR OUR VERY OWN WILDCATS.”

Everyone clapped and cheered for whatever Michelle just said. Ethan’s teammates came running, even his twin brother Grayson. Yet, Ethan was nowhere in sight.

The boys were getting into formation. They were wearing our school jackets and started opening it them one by one.

It started from my left to the right. The team shouted all the letters together while one opening their jacket. Everyone cheered as they opened the jacket showing a simple white t-shirt with a letter printed on.

B E M I N E

P L E A S E

As soon as it was done. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around. Ethan Dolan was standing there holding a freaking pompom, and said “Please?”

My lips curved inwardly trying so hard not to blush nor smile yet I decided I won’t be easy on him either. He literally made my head burned solving his clues. I raised my one of my eyebrows, “Please what Dolan?”

Ethan nodded his head and bit his inside cheek before he smirked down at me. He cleared his throat and shouted on top of his, “Y/N Y/L/N, WILL YOU MAKE ME THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE AND BE MINE?”

I was grinning ear to ear hearing him shouted those lines in front of the whole population of the school. He looked down and his face turned slightly red. He looked kinda anxious with how unresponsive I am. He added “Please.” Softly at the end.

“Of course, if you insist very much.” I stood up and I hugged Ethan. His muscles was tense as he seems surprised. After he relaxed and nuzzled his face in the crook my neck. Everyone was cheering and hollering behind.

He put his hand behind my back and pulled me closer. “Princess, never knew you’re so hard to get.” He chuckled against my neck and I felt his chest rumbling. I hugged him tighter and whispered back, “For your record, you’re quite smooth.” I chuckled back.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!” Coach’s voice barked through the megaphone. We pulled away and coach shouted, “Dolan? Y/L/N?” He was confused. As we were not bickering and Ethan’s arm was wrapped around my waist.

“Yes, Coach.” Ethan answered.

Coach looked around and shook his head, a smile graced upon his face “I see, finally got past all this weird rivalry?”

Ethan looked down lovingly and I smiled back sweetly, “Yeah, couldn’t let the princess without her prince.” Ethan said as he squeezed my waist and I giggled.

Gosh, this is so cringe worthy.

Coach nodded his head and soon shouted, “Clean this place and everyone out of the field!” With his words everyone scurried inside the building. It was only the two of us.

“See you in Chemistry class, princess.” He leaned in, his warm lips touched against my cheek. He smiled and left. I was left astounded.

–

As I went back to my locker to grab my Chemistry books, people congratulated me along the way. Some girls told me to take good care of him. Some hugged me and said “Finally.”

When I looked over and I saw Michelle, she was already running towards me. She didn’t say congratulations nor did she hug me. She, however slapped my head saying, “Why didn’t you tell me any sooner?”

I looked at her confused, she laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Ethan explained it to the cheer team and his team.”

“What did he say?” I asked, knowing I have to be careful touching this topic.

“Don’t worry, No one judged the both of you. We kinda guessed it by then.” She batted her eyelashes. I looked at her baffled. I don’t get it at all.

“You guys dated behind us and finally decided to go on public, silly.” She slapped my arm this time. “Let’s head to Chem class.” She wiggled her eyebrows and dragged me to the class.

–

To be honest, I enjoy Chemistry class. The only thing I despise was that Ethan’s a part of this class and he’s doing well as well.

We started the class by Mr. Miguel’s normal pop quiz routine. It was during this time that Ethan and I would compete against each other. Who would submit earlier with a higher mark?

“Princess, let’s help each other.” Ethan whispered behind me.

“What? You can’t answer these questions yourself, Dolan?” I turned and teased him.

“Y/L/N! DOLAN! Quit flirting with each other.” Mr. Miguel shouted. I turned around immediately and went back answering the quiz. Ethan stood up, I put my arm out and held him back. I gave my paper to him, asking him to hand it over to Mr. Miguel as well.

He took the paper and rolled his eyes, “Anything, for the princess.” He walked towards the front desk and submitted our work. We waited for everyone else to be done.

After the pop quiz ended, he continued giving lectures about Hydrocarbons and stuffs like that. Ethan and I would constantly being the ones answering his questions. We were both determined to be the one who answered the most.

After, Mr. Miguel ended the discussion the bell rang. Before everyone was out Ethan stood up on the chair shouted, “A PARTY AT MY HOUSE, 7 TODAY!” Upon hearing this news everyone cheered.

Ethan sat down and turned his head towards me and said “Princess, you should come to my party today as my date. I’ll pick you up at 7.” I looked over at Michelle and she was squealing. I knew that I had no choice but to go.

–

No, Michelle did not come over to help me pick a dress. So yeah, I’m freaking out. I mean I should at least try to impress him, right? I should win this game.

I went to my wardrobe and pulled out dozens of clothing. I put on a simple plain red t-shirt and matching it with a black skater skirt. It looked pretty good.

I decided to just put my hair on a sleek ponytail and going with a simple natural look but finishing it off with my red lipstick. The red lipstick was just my icon. I couldn’t go out without it.

My phone vibrated, showing Ethan’s text.

I’m here

E.

Okay, I grabbed my phone and went downstairs. I opened the door revealing Ethan with his orange hoodie. How can someone be so perfect in just a simple hoodie?

I did a little twirl and asked, “How do I look?” feeling a bit uneasy. He stared at me eyes and smiled, a genuine one. “You look beautiful, princess.” He said sincerely.

For the first time, I liked hearing him calling me princess. “You don’t look that bad too, Dolan.” I replied back. He chuckled and guiding me towards his car.

He opened the passenger seat, motioning me to sit down. “Well, I guess chivalry is not yet dead.” I muttered quietly, clearly it wasn’t. He looked up and smirked, “As long as there’s Ethan Dolan, it will never be dead.” I laughed and went inside.

Throughout the whole ride, I was feeling quite anxious. Even if I was the head of the cheer team, I never really liked going to parties. It wasn’t my cup of tea. Ethan was quite nice. I think he knew I was feeling uneasy. He tried making jokes as to ease me. I, on the other was feeling more relaxed with Ethan’s horrible jokes.

“What did the buffalo say to his son, when he left for college?” Ethan asked between his fit of laughter.

“What did it say?” I smiled looking over him.

“Bison.”

Bye-son

I laughed, “That was a good.” I laughed harder as Ethan was struggling to breathe. “I know right.” He pretended to flip his hair. I laughed and he just looked over and laughed even louder.

It wasn’t long till we reached his house. To say that his house was packed was an understatement. “Don’t be nervous. Anything happened tell me. If you need a ride home just ask, okay?” Ethan touched my hand and squeezed them.

ps: okay, i’m so sorry… i think this one is quite messy…i’ll edit it sooner…i apologize for all the errors…i think the next chapter would be better (hopefully)… 

+

you guys are very sweet, thank you :) 

#dolan twins #the dolan twins #dolan twins imagine #the dolan twins imagines #dolan twins imagines #the dolan twins imagine #dolan twins x reader #dolan twins blurb #dolan twins one shot #grayson dolan #ethan dolan #ethan dolan imagine #grayson dolan imagine #ethan dolan imagines #grayson dolan imagines #ethan dolan blurbs #ethan dolan blurb #ethan dolan one shot #ethan dolan x reader #grayson dolan blurbs #grayson dolan blurb #grayson dolan one shot #grayson dolan x reader #grethan #youtube #dolan twins fic #the dolan twins fic #my writings #eth’s story

[majsmom]

Happy TDBM Secret Santa Day

I was tasked with writing for the @janetdonners.  I have enjoyed getting to know you through asks and your blog. You’re a really cool individual.  This my first time writing for someone else and I tried to keep you and your preferences in mind.

Prompt: charlie/danny, loser + sports person high school AU

So I ended up using the cricket game as a frame for the guy’s friendship challenge.  

I really hope you like it.

XOXO ~ Eb

                                                  The Moment

The heat of the summer sun beat down on Danny’s head as he stood on the mound waiting for the pitch.  He gripped the cricket bat even tighter as rivulets of sweat ran down his face and neck.   The last batsman in today’s high school tournament, his team’s dream of making it to the regional championship rested firmly on his shoulders.  The score was so close and Danny just needed to five runs to win.

His eyes shot out into the stands.  He could see his Auntie Jean sitting with Rose Anderson over to the left pride shining on both their faces.  Rose was sitting so close to the edge of the bleachers it looked like she was about to jump down and run across the field.  Auntie Jean, on the other hand, was still her body as tight as a guitar string.  She knew how much winning this game meant to him and she wanted it as badly as he did.

Frantically scanning the crowd again, he searched for the only other face that meant anything to him.  His heart sank for a minute at the thought that he might not have cared enough to come. Just before he turned to look at the pitcher, he spied him standing in the distance under a shady tree.  

“Hey, Danny!” Rose Anderson jumped off of her still moving pushie and ran top speed through the gate. “Hey, Dan,” screamed once more before skidding to a halt in the middle of the yard.  

She could see Danny elbow deep in a patch of weeds in the back of the yard.  Although Rose couldn’t understand why, Danny found working in the garden therapeutic.  Gardening had been his solace since the sudden death of his parents.  When not playing cricket or studying, he could be found turning the soil.  Rose turned and looked at the pile of weeds laid neatly beside Danny.  It all just seemed like work to her.

“Danny,” Rose called in a less than loud conversational tone.  “Guess what I just saw?”

Putting down his spade and dusting off his pants, Danny turned to look at Rose.

“This better not be more gossip,” he quipped sarcastically before walking over.

Rose sneered. “I don't gossip. I deal in facts. But since you want to crack on me, I guess I won't tell you what I saw.” She turned quickly to leave the yard.

“Hey! I was only joking. Come on back. I want to know.” Danny hid a smile as he watched Rose adjust her shirt and take on her “professional” persona. She was really only a 15 year old girl but she out on airs as if she were a bona fide journalist.

“Did you know a family of boys moved in the Conlin placed,” she queried with authority.

Danny laughed. “Just boys you say. No parents?”

“You love to interrupt don't you,” complained Rose. “Of course there were parents. A woman and a mean looking man. The one boy is our age and there are two younger brothers. The older boy was nice. His name is Charlie and he's from Melbourne.”

“Wow. You work fast. Do you know their birthdays too,” he said as he giggled. He couldn't resist the opportunity to pick at her a bit.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep at it and you won't get an introduction.” Danny twisted his face into mock seriousness. “So are you finished up here? Feel up for a ride.”

Danny could not deny his excitement. There weren’t that many boys his age in the neighborhood and the ones there were had been friends since diapers. Ballarat was a strange town full of cliques and rules. His love for gardening and baking - women's activities - sort of made him an oddity. Even his place on the winning high school cricket team couldn't overcome it.

“Give me a bit to clean up,” he said turning to the garden spigot.

They found Charlie standing next to the largest pile of wood they had ever seen. His skin glistened with sweat as he split the wood and flung it into the pile. He didn't hear Danny and Rose as they approached from the front yard.

“Aye-o Charles! I was hoping to find you here. I wanted to introduce you to my best mate, Danny.”

Rose smiled looking between them. The two boys could not be more different - a study in light and dark. Charlie was much taller than Danny and more strongly built.  Methods of punishment had made him extremely muscular and the dark hair falling over his eyes made him seem morose. In comparison, Danny was spare but his small frame hid a lithe body quick to movement and deceptively strong. His quick smile hid a pensive nature.

Danny stretched his hand out in greeting. “How are you mate?”

“Doing good. Just finishing up some chores, “ Charlie responded, giving his hand a firm shake.

Danny and Rose looked at the wood in disbelief. Apparently, chores must be different in Melbourne.

“You’ll be chopping wood until you're 80,” commented Rose incredulously. “We planned on showing you the sights of Ballarat but…” Her voice trailed off.

Danny could clearly see the disappointment in Charlie's face. Charlie's task seemed insurmountable for one person but it would definitely be quicker with three.

“I have an idea if you're open to it. How about Rose and I help you finish your chopping? Then, you'll at least have a little time to take the official Ballarat tour.”

Charlie looked around uneasy. Wood chopping was technically a punishment. Bernie, his mother’s boyfriend, was a strict disciplinarian. If Bernie found out he had help, the resulting punishment would be brutal.  Bernie wouldn't be home for hours though and his mother had taken the boys to town. A little help would get his chores done faster and it had been so long since he had any fun. But was it worth the risk?

Before he could overthink his decision, Charlie blurted out his agreement.

“It's a deal and I'll return the favor someday.”

The sound of laughter and splitting wood filled the air.

CRACK!

Danny watched the ball slice through the air into the outfield.  He could feel the eyes of the spectators bore into him as he broke into a run.  Before coming up to bat, he had calculated the number of runs needed to win.  Everything had been strategized before his foot hit the mound...the direction the ball needed to go...how far the ball needed to go into the outfield...the amount of strength required to get it there.  He only hoped that his machinations were enough.

Danny could feel the breeze whispering against his face, as he focused on the target not daring to look to the right or the left.  He felt the other runner whizzing by him matching him for speed.   This had to be enough.

“Charlie! Wait up,” Danny screamed as he propelled himself through the growing twilight. Charlie was meters ahead.  He squinted to make him out amongst the growing shadows.

“Please slow down.”  This trek through the woods had been Charlie’s idea.  Freed from chores, he had sought out Danny at his Auntie Jean’s house.  Charlie was enamoured with life in Ballarat.  In Melbourne, there were so many people and so little space.  The open fields and rambling woods of the countryside intrigued Charlie and he took every opportunity to explore.  

Packing a light lunch, the boys left about midday with the expectation of returning before dinner.  They had no true direction in mind.  The idea was to walk as far as possible and see as much as possible.  Crawling through the woods, they spent most of their time admiring the landscape and talking about their lives.

Experiences with death helped to shape the adolescence of both boys.  Charlie’s father was killed in the line of duty while working as a policeman in Melbourne.  Although Danny’s parents’ death was accidental, they found that they shared similar coping methods.  Both found comfort sharing their fears about life with a kindred spirit.

It was Charlie who first noticed the lateness of the day.

“Danny, what time is it,” he asked frantically.

“Oh, it’s only about 5,” replied Danny.

“We better head back.  My mother is expecting me for dinner.” Charlie hopped up and began walking quickly towards home.  Although Danny knew that they were running late, he didn’t feel Charlie’s urgency.  With at least a couple hours walk ahead of them, they would make it home before dark.

Danny noticed that Charlie grew increasingly agitated during the walk home.  He snapped when asked questions and his answers were short.  It was a marked difference from the easy conversation of earlier in the day.  With every minute, Charlie talked less and moved faster his tension increasing.

It wasn’t until the second hour that Charlie commented about the time it was taking to get to the road.

“Where are we,” he queried irritably.

“We probably are a little turned around, mate,” Danny replied, “We’ll make it to the road soon.”

“A little turned around?  We’ve been walking for hours and the sun is starting to go down.  Bloody hell!  We can’t be lost.  I need to get home.”  Danny noted the frantic tone in Charlie’s tone.  What was the big deal?  They were just a little lost.

“Ok.  Calm down.  Let’s just take a second to get our bearings.  We can’t be that far off.”

Danny turned in a circle examining the direction of the sun and the surrounding landscape.  He’d hoped that his words would have help calm Charlie.

In acquiescence, Charlie sat heavily on a fallen log.  “I really need to get home,” he said quietly.

“We’ll figure this out.  It will probably be another hour or so,” Danny said confidently. “What’s the rush anyway?  I know you promised you’d be home for dinner but how can your mom fault you for getting lost?”

Danny’s question was greeted with silence.  It didn’t take long to get on the right course and they kept a steady pace for the rest of the journey.  The silence between them was oppressive and Charlie’s agitation radiated from him like radio waves.  After about an hour, the sound of a passing car indicated that they were nearing town.  At the sound, Charlie broke into a run.  

Tree limbs grabbed at his clothes as he tried to keep pace with Charlie.  Although Danny’s muscles began to burn from the effort, he could not match the urgency in Charlie’s run.  Before long, Charlie was a shadow in the distance and, although Danny cried out for him to wait, he pressed forward.  When Danny finally made it to the road, he was nowhere in sight.

The screams from the crowd were like salve on Danny’s aching muscles.  He was doing it.  He was going to make this championship happen.  Just a few more runs he thought to himself.

Although he always excelled at the game, he never played cricket for his own enjoyment.  Being part of the team was something that his father valued.  His father, an avid player himself, was his very first coach.  In the evenings, he would take him outside and throw the ball around, coaching him on the best ways to bat and pitch.  At the time, Danny cared less about the game than spending time with his father, whose schedule was usually packed with work activities.  Cricket was a connection to him and winning this championship was the fulfillment of a prophecy.

Danny could distinguish his Auntie Jean’s voice clearly in the in the crowd of voices.  A burst of energy erupted from within.  He was almost there.

Although he had lost Charlie coming out of the woods, he was determined to speak to  him before the end of the night.  A woman’s scream pierced the night air causing a chill to run up Danny’s spine.  The sounds of a fight grew louder as Danny neared Charlie’s house.  

The house lights were ablaze as he entered the yard.  Charlie’s mother was yelling holding her smaller children back as she watched two men tussling on the ground.  Her dress was ripped and blood was dripping from her nose.  

In the middle of the yard, Charlie and his stepfather Bernie Thompson were grappling in the dirt.  The gossips in the town hinted at the fact that Bernie was a drunk who was tough on his family especially his wife.  Charlie rarely talked about Bernie and he never hinted at any of his issues.  As he watched punches and slaps being thrown, it was clear that the gossip was only the tip of the iceberg.

Charlie was holding his own but even drunk Bernie was the stronger of the two.

“Bernie, no!  Stop, please,” Charlie’s mother screamed as Bernie got the better of the boy.

“Oh, you’re a big man, hunh,” slurred Bernie and he grabbed Charlie lifting him off the ground by the collar.  “Well, take this beating like a man.” Pullling his fist back, he let  off a fierce punch that landed on Charlie’s jaw.  Stumbling backwards, Charlie landed firmly on the ground dazed.

“All of that mouth.  I’m tired of you interfering. She is my wife.” Bernie drew his foot back to deliver a well place kick.  

Before his foot could connect, a dark figure catapulted from the darkness. Danny grabbed Bernie by the arms pulling him to the ground. His breath reeked of beer and gin.  

The force of the fall had knocked the wind out of Bernie and he found it hard to recover.  He began to wretch in the yard, stumbling into the shadows to vomit up the night’s drink.

Sitting on the ground, Danny watched as Mrs.Thompson traced the bruises on Charlie’s face.  He could hear her whispered words of apology and whimpers of pain.  Charlie sat with his head bowed still stuck in a daze from Bernie’s punch.  He accepted all of his mother’s kisses but did not say a word.  Danny stood and walked over kneeling down beside him.  

It was Danny’s proximity that brought Charlie out of his stupor.

“What are you doing here,” he stammered. “Why are you here?”

“Calm down, mate.  I only came to talk.  Are you okay?”

A dark cloud passed over Charlie’s face.

“Are you happy?”

Pulling himself up from the ground, he lurched towards Danny.  

“Is this what you wanted to know? That Bernie abuses my mom?  That he beats that shit out of us! Are you disgusted?  Do you pity us?”

Charlie’s words slapped Danny in the face taking his breath away propelling him backwards.

“Why are you backing away?  Answer me! Do you pity us?,” Charlie screamed into the night.  He shook off his mother’s grasp and ran towards Danny.

“Go.  Gooooo!  You’re not wanted here!”

Fear launched through Danny.  He didn’t recognize the person advancing toward him with venom dripping from his words.  This person was terrifying.  

“Gooooooo,” Charlie bellowed as Danny turned and ran into the darkness.

The crowd rushed on the field lifting Danny in its swell. Riding on the shoulders of his teammates, he scanned the crowd. Rose and his Aunt Jean stood in the thick of everything jumping and screaming with  excitement. Strangers chanted his name as he round the crowd like a wave.

The sun was still bright and the air was still hot, but a calmness cooled his spirit. A lightness invaded his heart relaxing his limbs. Pride, relief and tears welled up in his chest as he thought of his accomplishment. A prayer of thanks was on his lips as he thought of his father closing his eyes in emotion.

When he opened them, he saw Charlie with a half smile turn from the tree and walk towards the crowd.  This was not the boy from earlier in the week face contorted in pain.  He could still see the greenish ghost of bruises on his face.  There would be time for explanations later.  For now, he just wanted to enjoy the moment.

#janetdonners #tdbmsecretsanta2k17 #tdbm fic #tdbm #charlie x danny #tdbmsecretsant2k17

[megaphonemonday]

Please please please. Bawson prompt where Mike and Ginny have time off and decide to attend Comic Con. Lawson being a huge Star Wars nerd and perhaps Ginny dressing up as Princess Leia to surprise Mike. Eternally grateful.

i’ve never been to a con and only watched the original Star Wars trilogy after I saw ep 7, so i’m uniquely unqualified to write this? but when has that ever stopped me before?

a new hope | ao3

“You’re not gonna make me wear the bikini, are you?”

Mike adamantly did not choke on his tongue, but Jesus did he want to. Bad enough that they had to sit through this meeting at all, now Mike had to do it while pretending an image of Ginny in that iconic costume wasn’t occupying all his focus? 

What the hell had he done to make the universe hate him so goddamn much?

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Oscar assured her without batting an eye. He leaned his elbows on his desk and stared down the three Padres seated across from him. Blip, Ginny, and Mike stared back, largely unimpressed. 

Before their GM got a chance to press his case, though, Blip decided it was his turn to crack a joke. 

“Well, I’m not wearing it,” he drawled, wicked grin lighting up his face.

Mike allowed himself to react to that, leaping on the chance to fight back the wild tangent—Ginny and gold and miles and miles of smooth skin—his imagination so eagerly provided. This was not the time for that, no matter what his mind (and something a bit further south than his brain) might tell him. 

He snorted. Ginny did, too, though she tried to play it off as a cough. 

Oscar finally grimaced, looking vaguely pained. 

Well, if fucking with the front office was on the table, Mike could definitely get behind that. He shook his head (and with it the idea of Ginny in any kind of swimwear) before rubbing a contemplative hand against his chin and offering, “I’ll see about getting mine back from the dry cleaner.”

Ginny’s lips flickered in a quick smile, there and gone in a flash. Blip, though, didn’t bother reining in his amusement. He guffawed from her other side, reaching around the pitcher to offer Mike a fist bump. 

Oscar just heaved a sigh, entirely too put upon. 

“Are you done?” Their GM looked nowhere close to entertained. Not that it bothered the three ballplayers. 

Still, they all traded glances and, after a silent conference, nodded their agreement. 

Rather than risk them changing their minds, Oscar plowed forward. “The Publicity Office hasn’t settled on the final details, but I can assure you there will be no swim suits involved. Can we count you three in?”

Mike shot a glance first to Blip. The center fielder shrugged. It was no skin off his back to dance to the front office’s tune this time, as long as he also got his pot shots in. They were in agreement there, so both men turned to focus on the woman sitting between them.

Ginny gnawed on her lip uncertainly as she weighed her options. No one, aside from maybe Amelia, would blame her for sitting this one out. But even Amelia could probably agree that having her client’s face plastered across every Padres ad spot, every bit of promotional material, since she’d been called up last season was exposure enough. Nonetheless, it only took a moment for Ginny’s eyes to slide to Blip and then Mike, checking to see they were all in agreement. 

Mike did his best to show her, when she turned those luminous brown eyes on him, that he’d follow her call, no matter what. Thankfully, whatever she saw, it was enough to get Ginny to give him a shallow but decisive nod. 

That settled, her thoughtful frown faded and was replaced by her deep dimples, flanking the grin spreading across her face. Mike only got a quick glimpse of it before she turned back to the desk and the anxious GM sitting behind it.

“I’m in,” she declared, to Oscar’s clear relief. 

Mike personally thought that was a little premature given the mischievous spark kindling in Ginny’s eyes. Blip was clearly in agreement, settling back into his chair and folding his arms over his chest, delighted anticipation lighting up his face. 

And Ginny Baker did her best not to disappoint. 

Still grinning, and flanked by her two teammates, she laid her lone stipulation on a long-suffering Oscar: 

“But only if I get to hold the lightsaber.”

Mike wouldn’t say that his love of Star Wars is anything even approaching a secret. Sure, it wasn’t the coolest thing about him—hello, he was a major league ballplayer—but it wasn’t like he’s lied about liking it during his time in the majors.

Exhibit 1: Every season the graphics team made him re-answer the same Fun Fact! questionnaire for the Jumbotron and every season his favorite movie was Empire Strikes Back. It was probably on his Wikipedia page by now—it’d be one of the few true things on there. 

Exhibit 2: He’d actually bought the theme song and set it as his ringtone. Back when people actually had ringtones, at least. 

Exhibit 3: He’d named his dog Jedi for god’s sake, and proceeded to talk about that poor, dumb dog a lot, oftentimes to reporters who were far more interested in his OPS and the tweaks he was making to his batting stance. It was a matter of public record.

Nonetheless, Mike also wouldn’t say it was something that a lot of people actively knew about him. And that suited him just fine. After all, he had a reputation in his clubhouse to preserve. He couldn’t very well maintain order and lay down the law if his entire team thought he was no better than the geeks so many of them had spent their high school careers pantsing and shoving in lockers. 

But this might be the year when that hard-earned reputation as a hard ass went up in smoke. 

Because this year, Mike Lawson was going to Comic Con.

Okay, he was going to stand outside the San Diego Convention Center wearing a silly costume to film the ad spot for Petco Park’s annual Star Wars Night, but who cared? 

He was going to fucking Comic Con. 

He wasn’t sure who in the front office this bright idea belonged to, but he was seriously considering sending them a gift basket of some kind. At the very least, a thank you card.

In all the years Mike had played San Diego baseball, he’d never actually had a chance to attend. When he first started playing, it wasn’t nearly the three ring circus that it would one day become. Before his very eyes, he’d gotten to witness it evolve from a niche convention to the star-studded event of the summer. 

Well. Sort of. 

Mostly, he’d gotten to marvel over the proceedings and pandemonium from across the street for a few minutes each year before getting back to business. 

What sacrifices he made to live the dream, right? 

So now that Mike was finally getting a shot at coming within spitting distance of the convention hall, he wasn’t going to stop there. Despite having no passes to speak of, he was determined to get inside and see Hall H for himself. He did, after all, have a secret weapon on his side. 

Well, she would be once he’d convinced her.

“C’mon, Baker,” he urged, leaning against her door and flashing what he hoped was a winning grin. He was going to charm her into this, damn it. Not wheedle and whine. Still, his next words weren’t quite the pinnacle of persuasive power he’d hoped for. “It’ll be fun.” 

“I doubt that,” Ginny huffed, swiveling side to side in her rolling chair. She eyed him suspiciously. “This is the third time you’ve brought it up, though, so you really must think so.”

He shrugged, trying to play it off. 

The funny little smile on her face told him he wasn’t particularly successful. Rather than tease him, she drew a knee up to her chest and began unlacing her cleat. “Okay, say I were to concede that it could be fun,”—Mike perked up at this softening of her earlier blunt refusal, though of course that wasn’t the end of it—“I don’t see how I’m supposed to get us in. Don’t you need tickets or something?”

“Well, yeah, but you’re Ginny Baker.”

She started working on the other shoe, though how she managed when her eyes were rolling hard enough to fall out of her face was a mystery. She’d accused him last summer of doing it too much, but the way Mike saw it, Ginny was just the pot (Or was it the kettle? Something like that.) in this situation. 

“Yeah, ‘cause there’s a lot of overlap between the geeks at Comic Con and the clinically Ginn-sane.”

“You’ve got crossover appeal,” he tried, though it sounded weak to his ears for all the truth of it. God, he was off his game. “And who says geeks can’t have layers?”

“You talkin’ from experience there, Lawson?”

If Ginny’d just been teasing him the way she’d done all season—like relentless humor would erase any number of charged moments they couldn’t seem to keep from stumbling into—Mike could’ve replied the way he had all season, with a gruff reminder of who was captain here. 

(Which, honestly, was far more effective in reminding Mike why those moments should be avoided like the plague. He was her captain for Chrissake. Of course there couldn’t be any more than fleeting, godawful tempting, moments between them. No matter how appealing she looked, grinning up at him after landing a solid dig, or how much he wanted to know how long it would take for him to kiss that grin away.)

He would’ve done just that, except his mental facilities were otherwise occupied. 

Because Ginny had chosen that moment to stand up and start unbuttoning her jersey, casual as anything. Like it didn’t matter that he was standing right there as she shrugged it off and was left in just the clingy spandex of her undershirt. 

It probably didn’t matter. Mike had seen her dressed exactly like this at least a hundred times before. He’d almost gotten used to the fact that he could usually make out the outline of her sports bra—and sometimes, when the A/C was cranked all the way up, even more than that. 

Except, Mike had never been confronted with the direct prospect of Ginny Baker getting undressed before. 

(Not even at that goddamn photo shoot last season when he’d caught sight of her in that robe, fiddling with the tie before she looked up and saw him. 

And Mike’s had dreams about that day. Dreams where Ginny didn’t march over and twitch the curtains closed and where no one else was within even shouting distance of the studio. Which was a good thing because those dreams were not always quiet.)

Like she had no idea what was going through his mind—or, worse, did—Ginny’s hands fell to her belt buckle just as she looked up at him, an eyebrow arched in question. 

Mike’s brain shorted out. 

He muttered something, though God only knew what, and got the hell out of there. 

It was the only option. After all, there was no way he could focus on getting Ginny on his side of this Comic Con thing if half his brain—and some certain other body parts, if he was being honest—was more concerned with getting her somewhere else entirely.

In the end, Mike never broached the subject with Ginny again. It was probably better for all involved if he didn’t try and nudge her into doing something she was skeptical about. 

(Mike tried to tell himself he only meant Comic Con. 

He was at least partially successful.)

Instead, he tried to focus on the positives. He’d get to hang out near Comic Con for a few hours, and on Star Wars Day no less, which was better than he’d managed so far in his life. He’d get to see all the people in their costumes and chat with some fans and maybe even see about sweet talking his way inside for just a peek around.

It would be fun.

Thank God it actually was. 

He, Blip, and Ginny had a blast filming their bits for the promo. Mike couldn’t remember laughing so hard or so helplessly in a long time. Ginny got to hold the only lightsaber, as promised, and was like a kid in a candy store with it. The shoot director had her swing it like a baseball bat while Blip and Mike pitched plushy little Stormtrooper heads at her. More of them ended up hitting her than not, but she didn’t seem to mind much. Blip and Ginny got into a wookiee roar-off, though neither of them, in Mike’s unwanted opinion, were all that good at it. No one had to wear the gold bikini, though plenty of con attendees had made their own. Mike gamely put on the Leia wig and frowned forbiddingly at the camera for a few moments even though he just knew it’d end up in the final cut. 

It was worth it for the way Ginny’s cheeks pinked up as she howled with laughter, leaning heavily against Blip to keep her balance. 

All told, the whole process only took a few hours, most of which were spent goofing off and looking like incredible dorks. 

He’d certainly had worse days.

Still, Mike couldn’t help but look wistfully up at the massive edifice of the Convention Center when the ad director called a wrap. He shook it off quickly enough, shaking hands with the various crew and clapping Ginny and Blip on the back before heading towards the Park to pick up his car and go home. 

Maybe yelling at Attack of the Clones would cheer him up. 

“Lawson, where are you going?”

He turned around and came face to face with a puzzled Ginny Baker. Her brows were drawn together in confusion, a light sheen of sweat glimmering there, dark curls blown wild by the sea breeze. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. In a Padres blue shirt with the words “San Diego” stretched across her chest in the Star Wars font—a shirt which happened to match his—and one of her endless pairs of leggings, Ginny didn’t look all that different from usual.

Which, Mike supposed, was exactly the point.

“Home, Baker,” he said, well used to repressing any and all thoughts about Ginny. They were all dangerous at this point. “To have a beer and take advantage of the off day.”

“Oh, I thought—” Her lips pursed uncertainly before she swung her backpack to one shoulder so she could rifle through it. After a moment, she drew out two lanyards, each hung with a plastic card sporting a familiar logo. Mike stared at them for a beat before refocusing on Ginny’s face. She grinned a little, but it was fading fast. “I thought you wanted to go—”

“I did. I do,” he corrected fast, almost tripping over the words. “Definitely. I just didn’t think—”

Ginny relaxed almost immediately, her forehead smoothing out. “Well, who am I to deny the Padres’ number one Star Wars fan?”

Mike couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Where’d you hear that one?”

“Sonny,” she replied promptly, bright grin returning. “Then Butch, Blip, and Bessner. Tommy texted me about it. Even Al said he hoped you’d get a kick out of seeing all the Star Trek stuff.” 

He ignored his skipper’s flub; Al refused to watch anything that wasn’t on A&E or the History Channel. Instead, Mike picked up one of the lanyards still dangling from Ginny’s fingers, examining the pass for a moment before letting it fall back to join the other. 

Gruff, but just so he wouldn’t tip his hand, he said, “Just because our teammates have big mouths doesn’t mean you had to do this.”

She shrugged, clearly a little uncomfortable. Mike raised a brow and she busied herself with righting her backpack, ducking her head so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Jesus, did he want to reach out and tip her chin up, give him a better view of those wide, brown eyes. Thankfully, for everyone involved, he kept his hands to himself and just waited her out. 

When she was done and it was clear Mike wasn’t going anywhere without an explanation, Ginny blew out a huff of slightly disgruntled air. 

“I know I didn’t. Just—” Here she paused, tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth as she weighed her words. Not that it seemed to do her much good since she let them all out in a rush, “I felt bad for calling you a geek.”

Mike rocked back a little on his heels. Was that what she thought happened? Well, he should probably be grateful she hadn’t assumed he couldn’t keep his perving under control, but, Christ. How fragile did she think he was?

“Baker, you told me to get my fat ass back behind the plate just last week. Geek’s where you think you crossed the line?”

Ginny at least seemed to see ridiculousness of the situation, a grin curling over her full lips. She flapped her hand at him anyway, saying, “It’s different on the field. Plus, you stopped asking about it when you’d really seemed so excited. It wasn’t that hard to get these.” Her fingers waggled at him and the plastic passes clacked together lightly.

Yeah, sure. Mike knew for a fact that Comic Con Badges sold out in the blink of an eye. 

Still, he couldn’t help but glance back to the Convention Center.

Sensing that she had him on the ropes, (And why was he resisting at all? A full day with Ginny, schooling her on all the wrong opinions she’d spouted during the commercial shoot, sounded like the fucking dream. Or one of them, anyway. Which, then again, was exactly why Mike should go straight home and forget all about this encounter.) Ginny pressed her case. 

“C’mon, Mike,” she cajoled, waving the lanyard in his face. “It’ll be fun.”

Hearing his own words echoed back at him, Mike folded like a house of cards. In one swift move, he liberated a pass from Ginny’s grip and had it hanging from his neck. “All right,” he agreed. “But I’m not gonna play body guard for you when everyone on the floor realizes exactly who’s in their midst.”

She laughed, shaking her head, but Mike didn’t care that she didn’t agree with him. Ginny Baker was smiling at him, a fond spark brightening her already twinkling eyes. As far as he was concerned, Ginny could call him a moron and a geek and an old man and whatever else she wanted just as long as she kept smiling at him like that.

But then it was gone as she turned on her heel and marched off towards the entrance. “I really think you’re overestimating how popular I am,” she tossed over her shoulder with a little smirk, leaving Mike to catch up. 

Well. What else was new?

In a way, they were both right. 

Ginny certainly got recognized and was stopped every so often for a selfie or an autograph. To be fair, Mike was, too, but Ginny bore the brunt of the attention. Given the relaxed set of her shoulders and the genuine grins she gave everyone who approached, Mike could tell this was hardly the worst she’d ever dealt with. 

Mostly, though, people’s eyes seemed to pass right over them. 

Ginny insisted that meant she was right: there wasn’t a big enough overlap between sports fans and con dwellers. Mike figured it had more to do with what they were wearing. Well, what they weren’t wearing. After all, it was easy to overlook two more people in street clothes when there were so many amazing, and frankly baffling, costumes on display. 

Even when one of those people was arguably the most famous woman in America. Certainly in San Diego every other weekend of the year. 

Mike, personally, couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t conceive of any situation in which Ginny Baker simply faded into the crowd. No matter what, no matter the size of the room or the number of people, she’d always be the first and best thing he noticed.

Apparently, though, Mike’s feelings were not universal (and what a lucky son of a bitch he was for that small mercy). So, it was easy enough for them to slip through the crowd, largely unnoticed, and straight to the Star Wars booth. 

Booth was maybe—definitely—underselling what it really was. Even through the masses of people, it was impossible for Mike to miss, looming over the entire convention hall and making his poor, fanboy heart thunder in excitement. Once inside the huge pavilion, he couldn’t decide what needed to be inspected first. Well, he wasn’t about to waste time trying to figure it out, so he dove right in, only absently checking to make sure Ginny followed along. There was a model X-Wing taller than he was and just a little further on, that was a bank of costumes and props from the new movie. Dotted around the space was station upon station of merchandise, selling everything from replica lightsabers—far more realistic than the one Ginny’d swung around all afternoon—to licensed costumes to the tie in comic books and action figures. And plastered across every flat surface were giant Star Wars logos. Just in case anyone forgot exactly where they were. 

In short, it was a Star Wars fan’s Holy Grail. 

Mike could only marvel, and feel a little nostalgic, over what he’d been missing out on all these years. He would’ve killed to see something like this as a kid, though even if it’d been around, there was no way his mom could’ve taken him. 

Still, he got to see it now, and it really was amazing. Almost overwhelming, to be honest. But still ridiculously cool to finally experience. 

And it was all thanks to Ginny.

Now that the initial frenzy had faded enough that Mike could think clearly about something other than a galaxy far, far away, he sheepishly turned to make sure he hadn’t lost track of her. 

Well, he definitely had, but at least she’d kept an eye on him, making sure to stay in his orbit as he geeked out. He had vague recollections of letting his excitement spill over and gushing to her over every little detail that caught his interest. She’d always responded, suppressed amusement coating her words, not that Mike was really in the right frame of mind to appreciate how much she was indulging him.

He was now.

He chanced an embarrassed look at her, but she was already looking back, a fond smile on her face.

“Sorry,” he muttered, feeling the tips of his ears begin to burn, only about ten minutes too late. Jesus, this was not how to convince women he was worth their time and attention. Not that he was doing that with Ginny, but—

“For what?” she laughed, though it hardly stung. For all she was definitely laughing at him, it was too warm and sweet for him to mind. “I didn’t know there was room for anything other than batting stats and heat maps in that head of yours. It’s nice to know you’ve got range.”

He rolled his eyes, but still said, “For geeking out on you, I know you’re not—”

“I don’t know why you think I’m not into geeks, Lawson,” she interrupted, with some kind of significance in her tone. “If you haven’t noticed, they’re kind of my thing.” 

Thinking about it—which Mike really tried to avoid when it came to Ginny’s dating habits—he realized she wasn’t wrong. 

After her thing with video game guy fizzled in the off season, Ginny’d been out on more than a few well-publicized dates. Often with Bay Area tech guys. Mike had just figured she was getting as far away from ballplayer jock-types as she could. But maybe if a ballplayer jock-type also happened to—

“Your thing, huh?” was all he could bring himself to say.

Ginny rolled her eyes, and he couldn’t begin to figure out how she found it so annoying when he did it. On her, Mike couldn’t look away. “My type or whatever.”

“I see. So that means I should go give that guy your number?” He nodded to the beanpole of a kid who’d been staring not so subtly at Ginny’s ass for the last five minutes. If anyone fit the role of “geek,” it was that kid. 

(If Mike were interested in being fair, he’d acknowledge that the kid also happened to have excellent taste. Ginny’s ass in this—and every—pair of leggings was practically a work of art. 

Thank God Mike had no interest in being fair.)

Right on cue, she turned to look and the guy in question turned bright red and spun around to disappear into the crowd. 

Good.

“If you think your creaky knees can catch up with him, be my guest.”

That startled a laugh out of Mike. At this point, he wasn’t sure how she kept managing to surprise him, but Ginny Baker was never one to rest on her laurels. So, Mike laughed long and loud in the middle of the San Diego Convention Center, ignoring the confused looks being sent his way as he delighted in the woman standing before him. All that mattered was that Ginny was lit up with a proud, smug smirk, reveling in her latest accomplishment. And while that look would’ve rubbed Mike the wrong way on any other face, on her it was just another facet he was grateful to uncover. 

“God, I love you,” he sighed, his stomach aching from all the laughter. 

It was only when Ginny went still, eyes wide and lips parted in shock that Mike went back and catalogued his words. 

Shit. Oh, shit. 

His mouth worked without anything to show for it. He tried to form the words to reassure her that it wasn’t what she thought, that he didn’t mean it, that she should forget it— 

But he just couldn’t. 

Not when saying so would be a filthy fucking lie. 

Instead, Mike stared helplessly at Ginny, speechless for once in his life. His heart thudded against the his ribs, threatening to burst with each second of silence. It wasn’t helped by the sheer variety of emotions that flickered across Ginny’s face, surprise and worry and hope and far more, there and gone too quick for him to name.

Finally, though, after what felt like an eternity of silence, she took a tiny step towards him, her chest practically pressed against his. Her face tipped up towards his and her full lips stretched into a bright, blinding, brilliant grin.

They were surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, but it didn’t even matter. Mike couldn’t look away from the one thing he’d walked in knowing like the back of his hand. 

And why should he? He’d never seen someone so beautiful. 

“I know,” Ginny said, simple and easy and just as devastating as it’d been the first time Mike heard Han Solo say it.

She didn’t pull it off with quite the same self-assurance as a young Harrison Ford, but what did Mike care about that? Ginny Baker, in any circumstance, was way better than Harrison Ford.

He couldn’t help but grin back, so close to ducking down to see how well their smiles lined up.

Like she could read his mind, Ginny tucked her chin down and Mike broke out of the daze exhilaration and her eyes had put him under. Immediately, he cleared his throat, trying to nudge his heart back into its rightful place in his chest. As he did, he was suddenly and unpleasantly all too aware of the swirl of people eddying around them. He glanced around, worried that they’d caught the attention of someone with a smart phone. 

Only when he felt warm, dry fingers twine through his did Mike abandon his search and turn back to Ginny. Looking up shyly through her lashes, she offered, “We’ll pick this up later, okay?”

She squeezed his hand and a flood of relief rushed through him. It was the easiest thing in the world to reply, “Whenever you’re ready, Ginny.”

Her smile this time was less blinding, but just as precious. Mike reveled in the way her eyes roamed over his face. His thumb stroked over the delicate skin of her wrist and Ginny’s dimples deepened in reply.

Mike would’ve been more than happy to live in that moment for the foreseeable future.

Eventually, though, the bubble had to burst. They couldn’t just go on ignoring the thousands of people milling around them, after all. 

So, Ginny gave him a decisive nod and something shifted in her body language. Her smile remained, but it wasn’t the private thing that’d been there a moment ago. It turned playful. Mischievous. 

Mike knew that look too well to expect anything good from it. 

“C’mon, Lawson. I see a guy in a Chewbacca costume and I wanna see if there’s more hair in it or your beard.”

“Ha fucking ha, Baker,” he groaned, even as he followed her willingly through the crowd.

Maybe, though, that was more to do with the fact that her hand remained firmly in his.

That, Mike thought even as he curled his fingers more securely around hers, was a pretty good consolation. He would take that. 

Well. 

He’d take it for now, at least.

#Anonymous #bawson #bawson fic #pitch #pitch fic #i wrote something #listen i know the quote's not in #this movie #but let me have this

[drawingsanddrabbles]

Joke’s On You

Betaed by @ilovebeingintroverted

Chapter Eight: Red Hood and the Outlaws

so this is the second to last chappie of this story guys (not to worry--there will be a sequel and that thing that you think is a plot hole is setup for the sequel i swear im not just trying to get rid of him)

links

“Are you guys insane?” Tim asked as Cassie flew while carrying him. Bart ran below them, Conner flew by Cassie’s side.

“If it’ll shut you up, then yes. Where’s your place?” Cassie asked.

“I missed my rent so they probably dropped my stuff. Which… is bad, my weapons and laptop were there. But seriously guys? Cass-can you put me down for a second?”

“Nope. The Bats probably already know, don’t want to give them the advantage.” Conner said cheerfully.

Tim rolled his eyes. “You’ve met my family, right? This will do nothing. They’re going to go all out if you don’t put me back like, fifteen minutes ago.”

“Well then we’d better skedaddle.” Conner said.

Tim rolled his eyes. The last thing he expected was for Cassie to cry out before both of them began to plummet to the ground. Bart ran up a building and caught Tim in his arms, skidding across the roof. Conner swooped down to get Cassie before flying back up to the roof. Cassie mumbled something and pulled something out of her arm.

“Fu-fuck.” She garbled. “That do-es n-not look go-od.” She held up the dart looking at it with narrowed eyes, before she crumbled to the ground. Conner caught her and looked at Tim and Bart.

“Is that your family?” Kon asked.

Tim shook his head. He looked around, scanning the rooftops carefully. “No.”

He saw it. “Get down!” He ducked, watching as the bullets whizzed over his head and embedded themselves into the edge of the roof. Kon frowned and curled around an unconscious Cassie, shielding her with his TTK.

“What was that?” Bart cried.

“That was the League of Assassins. Get out of here.” Tim hissed.

“We’re not leaving you!”

Tim peeked out over the edge of the roof and did a quick scan. They were gone. Shit. Ra’s had finally caught up to him. “I said go. I’ll deal with this.”

“No-!”

“Tim Drake, time to come home.” Someone said. Tim whipped around. Two men and one woman, they all held guns and Tim could tell they had other weapons on their bodies. Huh. He recognized them.

“He is home.” Kon snapped. “Who the hell are you?”

Pru grinned, taking out a gun. “We’re the bloody recovery team, much to our displeasure.”

“Don’t-“ Tim began.

“You’re hard to find, Red Hood. Master ain’t happy.”

“Well,” Kon growled, “your master can suck my-“

Conner was interrupted by Tim, who had seen Pru grab for her gun. It was like someone was controlling him, he just… moved. Tim grabbed the gun away from the assassin, bashing his elbow into Pru’s nose. Pru cried out, releasing the weapon to clutch her bleeding nose and Z and Owens went for their own guns. Tim didn’t prefer guns, but since his time back he’d learned how to use them. Instinctively he raised his gun and shot at the assassins. The trio dove out of the way of the wave of bullets that Tim let loose.

Bart began to run and Owens shot after him, nearly hitting multiple times. Caught up in dodging the projectiles Bart was unable to help Tim when Z attacked. Kon tried but Pru took out a blade, one hand covering her gushing nose, and Kon let his aura rise. Pru cut through it with her knife narrowly missing Kon’s skin as he stumbled backwards from the surprise of the assassin bypassing his TTK. Crap, that meant that the knife was magic. Kon would actually have to fight and he would have to protect a still unconscious Cassie.

Tim was on his own against Z. Tim disarmed the gun in his hand mechanically, dodging Z’s spray of bullets. Tim kicked Z’s legs out from under him and wrestled the gun away from him, hands doing things that Tim couldn’t stop them from doing. They disassembled Z’s weapon and Tim hissed as Z stuck a knife into Tim’s arm. Tim stumbled away from the assassin and wrenched the blade from his arm. Somewhere in Tim’s mind the pain from his back and the pain from his cut mingled until he wasn’t sure which was which, just that he was in pain. Well, what else was new?

Tim ignored the pain. He ignored the blood that dripped down his arm in a steady stream. He ignored his friends fighting besides him. He just fought. This fight between him and Z, all the while Z was pleading with him, telling him that Z would win, that Tim knew that, that if Tim just surrendered then Z could take him back to the Master. The Master would be forgiving for Tim’s insolence when he ran away. Tim blocked out the words, blocked out sounds and just fought. He didn’t fight as well as Bruce, he didn’t fight as well as Damian, he didn’t fight as well as Ra’s. He couldn’t be one of them, not here, not now. No, he had to be all of them. He had to be better.

Tim noticed when he speared Z through the chest, somewhere in the darkest reaches of his mind he noticed and he tried to stop himself. Z fell to the ground, a shocked look on his face. Tim tried to stop, he tried to hurt or maim but that part of him, that part that Tim thought Ra’s must have awakened somehow, it drove him to his next victim. With a swift slash of his knife he cut through Owen’s neck, blood spurting over his face. Bart sat in defensive position on the roof, eyes wide, mouth open. Owens’s blood burst from him as his corpse fell to the ground with a thud. Tim then was going at Pru, he didn’t even know he was doing it.

The British killer shouted profanities, as she tried to avoid Tim’s attacks. Conner was much in the same position as Bart, all he could do was watch as his best friend murdered two people, working on his third. Pru cursed Tim and she cursed Ra’s for training him this way and all the while Tim couldn’t understand what he was doing, and why he couldn’t stop. Tim backed the woman up to the edge of the roof and with one last lunge Pru was shoved off of the building. Tim heard the splat, looking over to make sure she’d died was unnecessary.

Tim stood at the edge of that roof, chest heaving. His body locked into that position and all he saw was red. For what seemed like forever he thought he was trapped in his own body, unable to make himself feel grief or remorse (they were trying to kill you they would have killed you friends but this was… wrong this was all wrong!), he couldn’t even make himself put that goddamned knife down.

“Tim?” Bart asked, breaking whatever spell Tim felt like he had been under. A flood of sensation, a flood of feeling. Tim dropped the knife like it was diseased (it was he was sure it was) and wiped Owens’s blood from his eyes and mouth. “Tim, are you okay?”

Tim shook his head. He really wasn’t.

He looked at the bodies around him. Z, Owens, and… these people. They’d worked with him during his time with the League. They’d fought back to back. Tim had just killed them and he didn’t feel right. He just didn’t. They were trying to kill you. His right arm (the one that Z had stabbed) felt like lead. It fell limp at his side and he bit back the pain that coursed through his body.

He bent down next to Z, searching his body.

“Tim, Tim man what just happened?” Conner asked, handing Cassie to Bart who propped her up against his side.

He needed- He needed to find it. His hands ran down Z’s corpse checking for any hidden pockets. Here! Tim pulled out a small vial and tossed it to Bart. “Smelling salts.” He told the speedster, nodding to their Amazonian friend. Bart immediately waved the vial under Cassie’s nose and Cassie took a second to slowly get her bearings.

“What the hell happened here?” She asked.

Bart nodded to his other two friends, the ex-dead one of the two still bent down by the black-skinned corpse. “Tim happened.”

“What the fuck was that, Tim? Are you just going to ignore me after massacring three people?” Kon cried.

Tim should have told them. They never would have broken him out if they’d known. This was Tim’s fault, all his fault (it always was). “I’ll explain later.” Tim told Kon, coming up with the object of his body search of Z.

He held the small microphone to his mouth. “Gotham is off limits. I am off limits. Let me go.” He dropped the microphone and crushed it beneath his bare foot.

Tim turned to his three friends. Each of them clearly concerned though he could tell, no matter how hard they tried to hide it, they were horrified too. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“I have a lot to tell you.”  Batman told his co-workers. Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash stood in the Batcave, each as clueless about the intentions behind the sentence as the next. The original crew Teen Titans stood by Batman and his protégées. Oracle sat at the computer, and Nightwing leaned against the dashboard.

“You… might want to sit down.” Robin suggested.

That was… concerning.

“What’s going on Batsy?” The Flash asked. Batman turned to Oracle and nodded to her. She typed something into the computer and pulled up a blurry picture of a man in a jacket and a red helmet.

Superman cocked an eyebrow. “So?”

“He calls himself the Red Hood.” Batman explained. “He showed up a few days ago as a vigilante. At least that’s what he seemed to be.”

“Is it just me or does anyone else find it ironic that the city with the most vigilantes has a self-professed Anti-Social Head Vigilante?” The Flash asked. Batman narrowed his eyes and Flash shut his mouth.

“Recently the Riddler was causing mayhem in downtown Gotham, when we arrived to apprehend him the Red Hood was there. In the midst of battle a bomb went off, the Red Hood had curled himself around Robin, probably saving his life, however he caused harm to himself so after the Riddler was subdued we brought him here to be operated on in private.”

“Is… there a point to this story?” Wonder Woman asked.

Batman glared at her but continued. “When he first appeared we did not know his identity. Now we do.” He nodded to Oracle again. She pulled up the DNA test and waited for the three other heroes’ responses.

“Seriously?” Superman asked after a pause for the trio to process.

“How?” Flash cried.

“Great Hera…”

“Which brings us to the reason you three are here,” Batman continued, “we found out who had brought him back. Ra’s Al Ghul, and he sent some of his assassins after the Red Hood in the wake of… what we assume is his escape.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

Batman looked at Nightwing who tensed. “We felt it appropriate to tell Timothy’s friends. Your own sidekicks.” The ex-Robin said.

The Flash’s face fell. “You didn’t…” He whispered.

“Are you insane?” Superman cried. “You told them before us?”

“We see now that that was a mistake.” Batman agreed.

“Mistake? Bruce you have met our charges, right? Bruce, are you fucking insane? What did they do?” It was weird to hear Superman swear.

“Come see for yourself.” Nightwing invited. He led the three heroes to the cell window where a new gaping hole had appeared in the opposite wall.

“What-what is this?” Wonder Woman asked.

“This is Tim’s old recovery chamber.”

“You locked your not-dead kid in a cell?” Superman breathed, horrified.

“The current problem is the large hole which your protégées created.” Batman insisted.

“Yeah. Sure.” Superman glared at Batman with a look that said ‘we’ll talk about that later.’

Flash leaned heavily back against the wall behind him. Eyes wide behind a mask. “Oh my god. Bart’s all on his own.” He glanced at the others. “I mean, he’s not but you guys have met Bart. Him? And… Tim? He’ll do anything Tim’ll tell him to do, and by the look of it you’re not very excited about him coming back. And assassins?” Flash rubbed his hands over his mask.

“We are all worried for our charges, Flash, I am sure Cassandra will take care of Bartholomew.”

“Oh Rao.” Superman whispered. “Conner.”

Flamebird’s eyes widened and he was at his father’s side, hand on his back. “Dad, he’ll be okay. It won’t be like last time.”

“Last time…?” Batman asked.

Flamebird shot the Caped Crusader a glare. “Like you care.”

“Jon…” Nightwing tried.

Superman looked like he was going to cry, so Flamebird enlightened the Batman. “Superboy didn’t take Robin’s death well. None of his friends did, but for Kon it was… bad.”

“It was bad for all of them.” Batman said softly. “All of us.  But now, with them in Gotham, I need your help. We know Timothy’s new plan, we know what he wants to do. We need your help. And if Tim’s plan goes through you might want to be first on the ground, you’ll want to convince them to make a plea bargain.”

“Plea bargain? Bats, what is Tim planning?”

Batman grimaced.

Selina wondered when the warmth would come. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the Gotham cold, it was impossible not to, but a little warmth on these chilly nights would be nice. She ran her fingers over the small envelope in her hands. The Batlight shown in the sky. It was almost a fixed structure there despite the Batman not even being in the city at times. But he was here tonight.

And he wasn’t alone.

“Miss Kyle.” The Batman greeted. Selina smiled and turned around. Wonder Woman, The Flash, Superman, and all of his little birds.

“I do wish you wouldn’t use my real name near strangers, dear.”

She could tell the other Justice League heroes were uncomfortable with her, though the kids seemed used to the flirtation. “Catwoman, why have you called me?”

Selina looked down at the letter between her hands. She handed it over to the Batman. “This was sent to me. I won’t be going, not my style, but I still received an invitation. I thought you should know.”

Batman looked at the envelope before opening it to read the message inside. “So, why the reunion?” she asked.

“Family business.” Nightwing said.

“You know, I haven’t seen the Red Hood on the street recently…  Is that because of you?”

“Yes.”

“So you know.” She stated.

Batman looked up at that. “You know?”

“I’ve known for a while, Batman. He-he came to me. He said something like this might happen. He said you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“He was friends with Superboy, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl. Right?”

No one responded.

Batman’s face barely even twitched when he finished the letter. “Thank you for this, Selina.”

“Anytime, love. But next time? Don’t bring your friends and we’ll have some fun.” She winked at Batman and she heard a muffled laugh from the Flash.

Batman smirked. She loved that smirk, it only appeared every so often but when it did… “See you later, Selina.”

Selina blew him a kiss and then jumped off the roof, feeling the Gotham cold rake her skin. What she wouldn’t give for it to be warm again.

“Listen, we aren’t going to hurt you.” Tim said softly. Tamara Fox continued to stare wide-eyed at her new house-guests. Then she screamed. Bart was on her in a second, securing his hand over her mouth.

“Tamara, Tam! We aren’t going to hurt you!” Tim hissed when the muffled screaming stopped. “Kid Flash will let go of your mouth if you won’t scream, okay? We just need to crash here tonight.” Tamara said something which was obscured by Bart’s hand. Tim nodded and Bart dropped his hand.

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” She asked petulantly.

“Excuse me?”

“I’d recognize that face anywhere, you’re Tim Drake.”

She was the first person to have recognized him. “You… what?”

“I mean, you’re clearly older and your voice is deeper, but you’re clearly Tim Drake. You have the same eyes and way of moving… I should know, videos and pictures of you are almost all that’s used for stock photos around Wayne Enterprises. That motivational video you were in to promote work proficiency? On repeat in Dad’s labs.”

Tim felt his face heat. “That’s still used?”

“Yeah. Your voice cracks in it,” he heard Kon snort behind him, “sometimes Bruce Wayne just stands in front of it and watches it. So why are you alive again? With… um, superheroes and breaking into my house?”

“Uh…” Tim didn’t really know what to say.

Tamara raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer. “Well…?”

“It’s a long story, Tam. But it’ll all be over soon, okay?”

“Tim-“ Bart interrupted. Cassie hit him for using Tim’s real name and he looked at her sheepishly. “What? She already knows.”

“Am I the only one fazed by the fact that Tim Drake is both alive and for some reason friends with Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Superboy?” Tam asked insistently.

“We’ve been over it already. Like Tim said, long story. But right now we have something to do, we’ll be gone by tomorrow.” Cassie explained.

“Again, really sorry about this.” Tim apologized.

Tam frowned but wiggled herself out of Bart’s grasp. She walked over to her kitchen and took out a glass from the cabinet. She filled it with water from the tap and watched the four vigilantes carefully. “What do you need?” She finally asked.

Tim was never more grateful for Tam than then. For a moment everything seemed almost more than perfect. He was alive. He was with his friends. He had help and people who wanted to help him and best of all he was going to finish what he wanted to do. What he had to do. Everything would soon be right. Soon be perfect.

“Well I’m starving!” Moment over.

Not that he could blame Bart, the poor kid probably hadn’t eaten in an hour.

Tam smiled. “Sure, food’s in the-“ there was a whoosh and in a second all of Tam’s drawers and cabinets were open and Bart had made a sandwich definitely too big for his mouth, “-pantry.” Tam’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the remains of her kitchen and the speedster on the floor stuffing his mouth with sandwich.

“Does… um, does he do that often?” Tam asked.

The other three vigilantes nodded.

“Good thing you’re only staying one night. Otherwise I’ll be broke. What about the rest of you? Do you guys need anything?”

“No, thank you Tam.”  Tim declined. Conner and Cassie did too.

Cassie gave Tim a meaningful look. “Besides, we need to talk.” She added.

Tam shrugged. “Me casa es su casa, I guess. You can use the bedroom if you need privacy.”

Tim, Cassie, and Conner moved to Tam’s bedroom. Bart glanced up as the three left the room and dashed over, bringing his food with him. He sat on Tam’s bed and munched cheerfully.

“So what’s the game plan, Tim?” Conner asked.

Tim rubbed his hands together and began to pace. He hadn’t really thought about it before. By looking at his friends’ faces it was clear they hadn’t either. They’d broken him out of his cell with no plan, because they believed he had one. They always knew he had a plan. Now he had to figure one out, quickly. He didn’t have any equipment anymore, he had been stripped of it when Alfred operated on him. He needed weapons, he couldn’t get any good guns on this short notice but he could always use a staff. Staffs were his better weapon anyway. He needed some type of costume too. He couldn’t work on building anything, didn’t have the time. No, he needed something he could throw on and use. A sweatshirt maybe… he looked down at his clothes.

And pants. Real pants would be nice too.

“Tim?” Cassie asked.

“Huh?” Tim asked, breaking from his thoughts.

“What’s next?”

“Next we get me some clothes and some Advil. And after that, we kill the Joker.”

“You can turn back, at any time, at any moment.” Batman told his partners. “If it gets too dangerous, Robin, I want you to go back to the Cave.”

“Nah.” Robin said. “What good would a Robin be if he listened to Batman?” Batman glared at his partner and Batgirl nudged him fondly.

“He has a point.” She said.

Batman turned to Wonder Woman. “At least your protégé respects your decisions.”

“Batman, if she did we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Yeah B, chill a little.” Oracle said from the comms.

If Batman could glare at Oracle he would have. It was odd to Clark, the way that Batman seemed so angry when he clearly wasn’t. He loved banter with his kids, and he cherished working with them. Even if he never said it himself. Clark missed that. And Clark worried.

Tim had been Kon’s best friend. They’d always talked, they’d had sleepovers. Ma had made him pie. He’d slept on Clark’s extra mattress and the two of them had huddled together on his couch. They’d had popcorn fights and had left empty soda bottles on his floor. Clark had come home to his Metropolis apartment to see a cheesy horror flick burning on his TV screen and two teenagers curled up together on his couch. Kon had been drooling.

Kon used to listen for his heartbeat.

One night, at his grave Kon had talked to Clark about it. He told Clark how he would always listen to Tim’s heartbeat when they were in battle. The simple sound was very calming. It was pleasing.

Kon had missed Tim’s heartbeat disappearing. He hadn’t even known to worry. 

Kon blamed himself for Tim’s death.

Clark worried about him. He knew Kon would die for Tim, he wondered if Tim knew that too.

Speaking of heartbeats to listen to, Clark tuned into Bruce’s. It beat like a hummingbird, feather light and fast. He checked the others, Barry’s was similar to Bruce but it was heavier like footsteps trampling down a hall. Then there was Diana, strong and steady just like her. Jon, his beautiful son Jon who’s heart beat with worry, with adrenaline. He shifted over to Lois who was safe in her apartment in Metropolis, she should be asleep but she wasn’t. Her heart beat with the hint caffeine. Lana was sleeping like a normal person. Pete was… oh. Oh. Clark quickly changed subjects, that was something he didn’t want to hear. He listened to Jimmy, who was also sleeping.

Wait a second… Ma and Pa sounded like…

Clark.

Clark please come back,

Something’s happened. A spaceship.

Clark hurry!

“I have to go.” Clark said abruptly. Batman looked at his friend quizzically. Or as quizzically as Bruce ever looked with the cowl.

“Is everything… alright, Superman?”

“N-no I have to go.” Ma and Pa were begging for him.

“What, there’s something more important that saving Kon?” Flamebird cried.

“Right now, yes. I-I have to go. Jon, take care of Kon for me, please. I-please.” Clark whispered. Jon nodded slowly, angrily. He’d explain to Jon later.  Jon would understand. Clark took off. Hopefully everything would go well.

Clark closed his eyes, he didn’t need them to fly back to Smallville he could fly home on instinct, and he listened, as Kon used to so often, for Tim’s heartbeat.

“Red looks good on you.” Conner said as he helped Tim put a numbing ointment on his back. Tim was staring at the red sweatshirt that Tam had managed to acquire when they asked her to go out and get him pants and a shirt. It was soft and the sensation felt nice against his hands. It was plain red which was good because if they failed they would need to hide and be unidentifiable.

Tim grinned, then winced from the cold substance. Conner applied it more gently. “It’s our colors.” He said.

“Huh?” Kon asked confused.

“Red and black.” Tim said, rubbing a hand over the (black) pants that Tamara had bought for him. “Our colors.”

“You wore gold, black, and green last time we worked together.”

“Yeah, but I always liked the red.” Red Hood.  Kon didn’t respond. His large hands kneaded carefully into Tim’s back. “So can they be our colors?”

“Yeah.” He could hear the Kryptonian’s smile. “Of course.”

Callused hands on a marred back. Soft like snow and warm like smile. Tim closed his eyes, cold gel clung to his back. He felt comfortable. He felt safe. For the first time in a long while he felt safe.

And it would all end. All of it.  Again.

Well there went the mood.

“I missed you, you know.”

“I know.”

“A lot. I thought-“ There was a shudder of breath and Kon’s hands stopped moving. “-you don’t know what it was like, Tim. Going to your funeral. Missing your death because,” he choked on a sob, “because I didn’t check in on you.”

Tim turned around to see tears dripping down his friend’s face. Tim touched Kon’s tanned cheek, swiping the droplets away. “Hey. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.”

Kon wept silently, eyes open and full of tears. “It is.” He whispered.

“You. Couldn’t. Have. Known.” Tim told him. “You couldn’t have. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Kon. I really am.”

“Tim, do you know what it’s like? To have your best friend die? To leave you alone? Tim, do you know what I tried to do?”

“No.” But he could imagine. Tim didn’t know what he would have done if it had been Kon who had died.

Kon shook his head, pulling away from Tim. He rubbed at his slightly red eyes. “C’mon turn around, we have places to be.” He mumbled.

“Do-do you want to talk about this?”

“I’m fine, Tim.”

Clearly he wasn’t, but Tim didn’t want to push. So he turned back around and let Kon finish numbing the pain in his back. When he was done Tim pulled on the sweatshirt and pulled up the hood.

The two of them walked back into the main room and Tam handed Tim his weapon—a bo staff she’d found in a BatStash of weapons at a Wayne Enterprises facility. He swung it a few times, it was too light for his taste, but it would do.

“So what now?” Bart asked.

“Depends, did you get what I asked for?” Tim responded.

Bart nodded and handed the dark domino mask to him. “Theshortchickwhogaveittometoldmetothankyouagain. Saidthatifyouwantedtobuytwoyoumustreallybeafan. Guess she doesn’t knowhuh?”

Tim grinned and put it on his face. He turned to his friends with a flourish (thank god for Advil and numbing cream, his pain was blissfully subdued). “How do I look?”

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Like the Red Hood actually makes sense as a name now.”

“Yeah, dude.” Kon said with a soft smile, all tears forgotten. “A helmet is not a hood.”

“It was supposed to be ironic.” Tim said, rolling his eyes behind white lenses.

“Well it was stupid.”

Tim narrowed his eyes at his friends who froze. Including Bart. “What?” He asked startled.

“You,” Cassie looked at Bart who finished the sentence for her.

“You looked like you used to. With,” he waved at his own face, “the mask and everything.”

Oh.

“Well, let’s go kick some ass like we used to.” Tim said. His friends laughed and they were off.

#diana writes #diana writes batman #joke's on you #robin!reversal #red hood and the outlaws