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beefboyandbabygirl · 1 year

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Girl Code (18+)

pairing: student!jihoon x student!reader

genre: college au, angst, smut (MDNI), lotta crack, friends to...?

description: when you and your friends find out jihoon's been writing down everything you've off-handedly said about "girl code", you simply have to know why.

warnings: brief bondage/restraint, heavy insecurity on readers part, self-doubt, dirty talk, pet names, dom!uzi, sub!reader, desperation, oral (f. receiving), praise (f. receiving), muscly uzi, unprotected sex (dont do it guys....), pining, bad writing, red velvet are your friends, theyre super fun, mingyu is excluded badly, he just wants to b a part of it :(

quotes from my creative director (@joshibambi): "i am simply a hole for him", "pussy? wet. heart? pounding. me? yearning", "every1 talks ab sapphic yearning but what ab just. jihoon-yearning?",

wordcount: 12.0k

a/n: idk why but this is deffo not as good as my previous works. n e way also sorry to @onlyseokmins bc i promised her a seokmin fic WHICH IS STILL COMING i just felt like this was kinda genius and needed to happen first ok bye

It’s mid-spring, and the world is blossoming and flowering around you. Grass sprouts greener, plants drink in the heavy rainfall and flowers are blooming, slowly unfurling their pedaled heads to crane into the beautiful sky. At odds with nature, people walk the street to be drenched in the downpour, only to be dried off by the shyly peeking sun, and to have freckles surfacing on their skin and hair, getting frizzy from the humidity, when they’re biking along the streets. It’s serene, it’s natural. You’re reminded to love the place that birthed and fostered you.

But that’s out there.

You’re sitting, bottom planted firmly on the sticky surface of Joshua Hong’s couch, looking distantly into artificially colored lights, flickering across the floor, where people are dancing on one another in skimpy outfits and makeup, and everything is very far from the moon and the flowers.

“The second one is a lie!” Seulgi yells over the music, cup of god knows what in her hand, and slurring her words.

Sitting on the couch and stools surrounding the coffee table is you, Mingyu, Soonyoung, Seulgi, Irene, Yeri and Jihoon.

“No, I know she likes anal!” Screams Soonyoung giddily (forever oblivious to his surroundings), receiving a glare from your roommate, Yeri. You were currently playing two truths and one lie, and attempting to discern whether Yeri was lying about being on television, lying about having black belt in taekwondo or lying about having tried anal. “It’s about whether or not she’s tried it!” Irene rolls her eyes and huffs. “My point still stands,” Soonyoung grins and eyes Yeri, and you watch somewhat disgusted, reminding yourself to ask her about it later.

You’re sitting next to Mingyu, utterly small next to him, and the two of you are only watching the scene unfold, sharing snickering glances when something funny happens. “I’ve never done taekwondo!” Yeri screams at Soonyoung, and you and Mingyu fall back in your seats laughing and slapping each other, when Soonyoung’s face drops for a moment.

“They’re so dumb!” Mingyu cries, and you nod buried in a decorative pillow.

“Screw this noise, I’m finding Junhui,” Hoshi mumbles, a little deflated from his loss. Then he’s standing up, cargo-pants and all, and trudging away, pouting over his shoulder when he hears the laughing continue.

Jihoon - who’s been incredibly quiet and observant throughout the night, only sipping a single bottle of beer, slaps his thighs. You’re hoping in his ever searching eyes he hasn’t seen the way you’ve been staring at him all night. Are you drunk or is he so complex and sexy, and wearing a t-shirt that shows his huge arms and pants that show his thick thighs? You’re almost certain you can chalk this up to only ever seeing him in sweaters that totally swallow him - almost. “I’m going too,” he announces, standing up and not leaving much room for argument.

“Why? I’ll be the only guy,” Mingyu whines, pout pushing out his bottom lip. You scoff. You know he loves feeling like he’s one of the girls. “Paper,” Jihoon says, and adds more, when he realizes he’s being so curt it’s almost rude: “Tomorrow. I have a paper tomorrow.”

The group seems to accept this, knowing the stresses of college are weighing on each of them heavily. But your eyes narrow. You’re not buying it.

You watch him sling his jacket across his body, biting back more words. He’s quiet, sure, but never this quiet. With how he’d slumped back in his seat all night, almost bent into himself, there must be something bugging him. Jihoon’s eyes meet yours. It’s a half a second, but you feel like he knows you’re on to him, the way he hides his face under his long, black hair again and turns his back to you. All of a sudden he’s hurrying away, excusing himself half-heartedly. You narrow your eyes even further and purse your lips.

“Be right back,” you say. Seulgi pouts.

You’re trudging after him, fussing with your hair all of a sudden and adjusting your dress and - God, you care so much how he sees you. But you suppose you care more that he’s okay. That’s why you’re squeezing through the dancefloor, getting grinded on by several anonymous bodies, before pushing out to the entrance and finally breathing air that wasn't coming directly from someone else’s mouth.

“Jihoon, wait-”

You catch up to him by the doorway, where he’s stopped his journey, to slip Vernon a bill for a ziploc of mediocre weed.

“Jihoon!”

Finally, he hears you and he turns to you, where you’re regaining your last leg from the mass of bodies. Vernon is apparently still sober enough (you wouldn’t have thought so) to understand time and place, so he gently pushes past the two of you into the crowd.

You’re not ready for the look he gives you. Eyes so sharp and face darkened from his shaggy hair, curling into his face, and frowning and furrowing his brows as if he couldn’t understand why you’re here.

It sends your out-reaching body slamming backwards. You’re shrinking away from him, eyes flitting downwards self-consciously. You consider your history with him for a moment, weighing it in a glass of vodka-cranberry. This is pathetic, you realize, and it feels terrible. You’re pathetic and desperate and clingy and why would you feel the need to ask him this.

And then one moment to the next you’re scolding yourself for thinking that way. For thinking it was wrong to reach out a helping hand.

Jihoon apparently has enough of you debating with the angel and the devil on your shoulder, because he speaks finally: “What is it?”

There’s a pause.

“Are you okay?”

Another pause. You watch Jihoon’s face soften in shock, mouth falling open for a split second, before he’s closing it again and looking away. The ziploc crunches in his fingers, when they tighten and he shoves it into his inner pocket.

“I’m good,” he says.

“Okay.”

And this time and even longer pause! You can barely take it, the way he looks at you, and it almost feels like he suspicious of you, like he’s trying to discern what you’re doing here in front of him.

“Have a good night,” you say. He nods slowly and begins to walk off, and you watch him and the way the moonlight fills the entrance, so you’re coated in for a moment. Then it disappears with a slam of the door. You let out a shaky sigh.

Why did you do that? Why would you even think to do something like that?

You decide against standing there for any longer, not allowing yourself to overanalyze it, and you turn around to go back to your friends. Yet again comes the song and dance of trying to navigate the most terrifying human cesspool, face scrunching up in disgust as you make your way back to the sofa, almost unscathed, except you think you accidentally got caught in an armpit.

“Y/n! Come quick, so you can be a part of this momentous- momentous.. Moment!” You hear Mingyu calling and when he’s finally in view, you realize something very, very terrible is about to happen.

Mingyu’s holding a leather notebook between his fingers - Jihoon’s notebook. It’s the one he’s always writing in; the one he shuts closed whenever anyone gets too close, the one he keeps tucked under his arm at all times; the one he’s inexplicably writing in, even if he’s blasted on Vernon’s weed. And it’s private and he’s somehow forgotten it.

“We’re not opening it,” you say immediately, power-walking back to your spot in the couch. Mingyu snaps his head towards you, and he almost looks offended at that. “What do you mean we’re not opening it, of course we’re opening it!”

“It could be private, Gyu!” You retort and Seulgi chimes from her spot on the couch: “I’m with Y/n.”

“No, what? Fuck you guys! We’re seeing what’s in that notebook!-” Irene spits. “Thank you!” Mingyu says.

“Yeri, it’s up to you,” you say, eyeing your roommate sharply, as you sit down again. The entire group turns to her, fury behind their retinas, and she gulps, shrinking a little.

“Me, I just…” she shrugs abashedly and trails off. There’s a moment where you think she’ll side with you and leave the poor boy alone. You have some semblance of faith in your friendship, and maybe, maybe she’ll back you-

“He’s a music major, it’s probably just angsty lyrics, now open!”

“Yes!” Irene and Mingyu gloat, and despite wanting to respect his privacy, you scoot closer to Mingyu (he scoffs at you, but does not mention it further, as he is itching with curiosity). With a solemn, heaved sigh, as if about to unfurl the world’s grandest mysteries, Mingyu’s large hand flips the book open.

There’s no justified way to put word to the shock that follows this. The first page reads:

“Girl Code Rule #1

Guys should bring flowers on the first date. Either lilies, roses or tulips. Depends on vibe.”

There’s a confused silence - as much as silence as you can get from a bass-boosted room of drunk college students.

“What?” Irene quacks in disappointment, leaning closer to read it again. “Why-.. Go to the next page.” And Mingyu does, turning over the page and the next couple of pages follow suit.

“Girl Code Rule #2

Whoever offered the date pays for dinner. First date should always be dinner, ‘none of the bowling crap’.

Girl Code Rule #3

Guys are more attractive the more hygienic they are.

Girl Code Rule #4

It’s an ick to wear skinny jeans. *Google what an ick is.”

They come one after another, each more confusing than the last, and it’s not until number 5, that the heavy, suffocating spread of realization begins blooming among you. Clarity - your minds open like leaves of a flower in spring.

“Girl Code Rule #5

The cinema on Attacca street is a nightmare and we hate them. Never go there.”

“That’s-” you begin.

“Us!” Yeri finishes, pointing her finger at the page but directing her eyes, wide and pupils small from shock, towards you. The group exchange gaping glances. It’s undeniable - the cinema thing is relating to an incident that had happened months prior. You refuse to go into detail, but it had gotten grim.

“These are all things we’ve said!” Seulgi snatches the book out of Mingyu’s hold, beginning to mindlessly scroll through the book with furrowed brows, etch growing deeper and deeper in outrage.

“That’s- This is crazy. That’s so not cool!” You shriek and Yeri nods in agreement: “Girl code is for girls only!”

There’s a general agreement on the outrageousness of this. That is, except for one big boy on the couch.

“I meaaaan,” Mingyu is looking a little sheepish sitting in the middle of you and Yeri and Seulgi and Irene. All eyes flit towards him, small and sharp. He’s talking slowly, lowly and carefully: “You guys have to have said it out loud while he was there, so you weren’t exactly being discreet…”

“Men don’t usually listen to women, we thought we were in the clear!” Irene hisses.

“No man has ever listened to me in my entire life,” Seulgi deadpans, looking at Mingyu from beyond the book. Mingyu throws his hands out, incidentally hitting Yeri in the face, and ignoring her pained groans when she falls back on the couch. “I listened. Just now. Check that off your list-”

“Why is he writing this down..?” You mumble, seemingly the only one grasping the gravity of the situation (although maybe there is none? You can never tell when it’s with him) and it truly is such a mystery. Was he attempting to pry open the minds of women? You don’t exactly think he has trouble finding dates, so you’re left a little at a loss.

“Let’s ask him-” Mingu says.

“He just left, dumbass,” Irene spits and you can tell she’s almost disgusted with herself for ever siding with him.

“Let’s ask him tomorrow, then, after class,” you say decidedly.

“Ugh, don’t talk about tomorrow..” Yeri groans, and you can see the regret settling in because why do all the hot guys throw weeknight parties? “Y/n, can we go home?” she asks and you’re nodding immediately.

“Seul?”

“Yep.”

And in the span of just a couple of seconds, your entire friend group is packing up, Seulgi stuffing the book into her tote bag. Mingyu’s still sitting, much smaller when you’re standing over him, and when he has that almost starstruck look on his face. “I’m so glad I’m a part of this, guys.”

“You’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” Mingyu counters, clearly thinking otherwise. He’s grinning stupidly. “Hey, wait, where are we confronting him tomorrow?” he calls out suddenly, but you’re already on your way out.

“GUYS! WHERE ARE WE MEETING?” _____________________________

You, Yeri, Seulgi, and Irene sit side by side on the middle-back row in class, eyeing Jihoon from the peaks. It’s a quiet, morning class, and the teacher rambles on while the four of you glare down at him. Or at least they glare. You hope it’s not noticeable how there’s something softer in your eyes - something almost tender. He’s fidgeting a little. Maybe he feels the pairs of eyes on the back of his black-buried head or maybe he’s noticed the book is gone and he feels the consequences coming.

It was certainly a strange situation to tackle. Mingyu did have a point, if it was a private conversation, you certainly had not discussed it as such. And even then, was there a crime in what he was doing? You just couldn’t understand how Jihoon possibly felt the need to garner all this information on women. He’d never had trouble picking up girls. You would know.

You shake the terrible, terrible thought away, when Irene speaks up: “The coward is all nervous.”

“Okay, let’s calm down. We can’t know he’s an evildoer, before we find out his true intentions.” Seulgi reasons, a hand soothing over Irene’s arm. Yeri nods softly. “God, I wish class was over.”

And suddenly it was. Well, twenty more minutes of suffering through a class that was totally lost, picked up by the pollen-saturated wind. Then the professor is excusing himself and wiping the board.

Never in your life had your group been so fast at packing up their things, pencils and computers shoved down bags, before you’re strutting (model-walking) over to Jihoon. “We need to talk to you,” Yeri says, once she’s in front of his desk, hand on the wood. Jihoon looks up from where he’s packing his bag, eyes peeking through the thick strands of hair. He nods. He knows.

As you wait for students to exit the class (Minghao giving Jihoon a confused grimace, before he squeezes out), you study Jihoon. He’s still sitting, and you’re all towering over him. His pale skin is glowing in the light and he purses his lip and bounces his leg - God, his thick leg - in nervous await.

Students are slipping out the door in droves and when the last, tired body escapes, Seulgi reaches into her bag and pulls out the leather-bound book. “We read it.”

“I figured,” he mutters. He’s avoiding your eyes, flinching a little when Irene slams her hand onto the book. “So, why have you been writing down the girl code?”

Jihoon sighs. His lips make a tight line, and you can see how he wonders what to say. The pause would’ve been more tense had you not had the girls with you.

“The girl code is for girls only,” Yeri supplies.

“Well, you weren’t exactly being discreet about it-”

“Just answer the question, Jihoon!” Seulgi snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is, like, top-level strange.”

“Alright!” Jihoon throws his hands up in the air. His eyes flit to you, totally quiet and scratching your nails on the wooden table. You look away. He sighs a little. “I… It’s..”

You almost want to hug him when he buries his face in his hands, tugging at the ends of his hair.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

The four of you exchange glances.

“We won’t.”

He pauses.

“It’s.. IhaveacrushonthisgirlandIdon’twanttomessitup.”

There’s a beat, where the information glides cooly into your skulls and you begin to process. Jihoon - cold, cynical, loner Jihoon - has a crush on a girl and is trying to improve himself for her?

Holy hell.

“Jihoon!” cries Seulgi and Irene chimes in, equally as adoring and diffused: “That’s so cute, you should’ve just said something!”

There’s an uproar of coos and cries and oohs and ahhs and compliments being thrown at Jihoon and he just sits there, cheeks blazing bright red, although with a little, shy smile on his lips.

And then there’s you. It’s so dumb. Why can’t you help the slight disappointment that lowers on you, like the fog does in the blooming season? Why can’t you smile wider, happier for Jihoon? Why do you feel this way? Does it really take all this commotion for you to realize how much you want him? You half-smile and look at your shoes. Just as how your feelings blossomed like a flower in spring, you hope they, too, are destined to wither away once more.

“Congratulations,” you say to him, giving him a dignified nod. Jihoon looks at you for a moment, before he smiles tightly and thanks you.

“Jihoon!” Yeri says, and you know you’re about to hate her for what comes next: “We can totally help you with the crush!”

Jihoon’s eyes widen. “Really? I mean- you guys don’t have to-”

“No, no! You can come to our girls’ nights and we can tell you everything!” Irene cuts in, nodding in reassurance. Jihoon smiles to himself a little sheepishly.

“Who is it?” Seulgi asks, and you can tell her heart is triple its usual size.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Come on!” Seulgi begs, but Jihoon is steadfast. He gives her cheeky smile and shakes his head again. “No way. It’s my secret.”

“We can keep a secret!” Yeri begs, bending her knees in plea. You, unusually quiet, speak up again: “We can.”

There’s a pause while Jihoon looks at you again. He narrows his eyes and it’s almost like he’s trying to decode you. Maybe he’s noticed you’re just as quiet as he was, at that party. You hate yourself when your heart picks up at the thought of him caring about you.

Suddenly he’s snapping out of it and smiling and shaking his ruffled head of hair again. “No. If girl code was supposed to be a secret, then I don’t even wanna think about telling you.”

This time there’s no talkback, only somewhat embarrassed nods.

“We deserve that.” _____________________________

You come back to your dorm room that afternoon, and lie down in bed. Thoughts of Jihoon plague your mind and you feel disease-ridden, attempting to push away the thought with the same useless reminder: You should do your paper, gotta do your paper now, it’s due very soon…

But no matter how many times you tell yourself, you can’t overcome the crushing feeling in your chest, like your entire rib cage is being compressed.

You know when these emotions started. It was at the Halloween party, six months ago, and Jihoon had been wearing a cop-outfit and you, with a more humorous approach, a lobster costume (Mingyu was a chef). Somehow, he’d still found you sexy though, because he was laughing in the bathroom of Seungcheol’s frat house, ripping the costume off of you.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna fuck a lobster,” he’d said in between kisses, laughing again as he caught sight of the costume, discarded on the floor. You giggled. “Me neither. There are plenty of fish in the sea, you know?”

And he’d thrown his head back, still with that black hair, still in that sexy fucking uniform, and his nose all scrunched and adam’s apple bopping in time with his joyful laughter. “Stop making me laugh while I’m trying to get you wet!”

“I’m already wet,” you’d shrugged, “you’re hot.”

And before you knew it you were handcuffed and he was rutting into you against the sink. His cock was disappearing and reappearing from your pussy, hooked onto him like a vice. Groaning and listening to your withheld moans, he’d left the most sinful hickies along your shining neck, while mumbling desperate praises to you: “You’re so pretty, N/n, letting me have you like this, so fucking hot.”

You supposed you’d buried those feelings, because you felt so pathetic for catching feelings from a one night stand.

And it is pathetic. And you are pathetic, and desperate, and alone, and God, is it even Jihoon, or is it the way it suddenly feels like no one wants you?

“Stop that,” Yeri says suddenly, lying on her bed on the opposite side of your room. You tilt your tired eyes towards her. “What?”

“I can hear you thinking. What’s up?” She said nonchalantly, dropping her phone, that she’d been mindlessly scrolling through. Cheeks bunched up on your pillow and mascara smudging under your eyes, you look at her and sigh.

“Just tired,” you hum. _____________________________

Jihoon has been adopted. For a whole week following that incident, suddenly, your friends are taking him with them everywhere, and your safe space is invaded by his hair, his laugh, and his subtle cologne. It’s him with you during movie nights, it’s him during girls’ nights, and it’s him while you’re getting ready for a bar-night, all sitting in Irene and Seulgi’s pink-tastic room, doing makeup on the floor and on the desks and on the bed.

“I love your eye makeup,” Seulgi says to Yeri (it’s a pink number with glittery inner corners), under eyes totally covered in white powder, as she’s baking her makeup. Jihoon is sitting on the floor, hair tied up in two pigtails that Irene had given him. “Thank you, Seul.”

You’re doing your own makeup, working blush into your cheeks and trying not to look at him, the way he’s half-lying on the carpeted floor, looking absentmindedly into his phone. His thighs are huge, and he’s wearing gray sweatpants, and you think you’re going insane.

Irene (who’s done with her makeup before anyone else, always) looks up from her own phone. She narrows her eyes deviously. “Jihoon, what do you think of Yeri’s makeup?”

Jihoon snaps his head up, pigtails bouncing. “Uh,” he looks a little lost, when he turns his head over to Yeri, who smiles sheepishly, not totally understanding what was happening. “It’s nice.”

“Just nice?” Irene smirks, and Jihoon finally seems to catch on to the fact that this is some sort of test. Indeed it was, and you knew it from the moment Irene began to talk. Your eyes flit between them, sitting behind you in the mirror. “Can you elaborate on that?” Irene smirks.

“It’s…” Jihoon considers what to respond, almost nervous. “She looks better without makeup.”

“Son, no!”

“Never!”

“Absolutely not!”

It’s a cacophony from the girls, even a pillow is thrown at his head, which he dodges in shock. “Never say that to a girl, Jihoon! It’s rude!” Irene lectures, a finger pointedly thrown in his direction. When he doesn’t seem to get it, Yeri explains: “Imagine spending time on something, only for someone to say they’d wish you hadn’t done it all.”

Jihoon, who’s been bristling like a disturbed cat up until now, softens in understanding. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, our child, you’re learning,” Irene says, face turning back to her phone, as she apparently has lost interest in the conversation.

You watch quietly with a bemused smile, having paused your ministrations on your face, brush held in the air before you. Jihoon’s eyes flicker over to you, an unreadable expression on his face. You meet his eyes in the mirror, pitch black and blank. You look away quickly.

You can feel him, still looking at you, and you feel self-conscious at the way you crooken your back to better focus on your face. What’s he thinking? That you look ugly? That your back is ugly? Your makeup?

“Are you okay, Y/n?”

You freeze. His voice is soft as ever, and you understand now, better than ever, why he’s a music major, because it’s so melodious and sweet in your ears. All eyes in the room snap to you and you eye them all in the mirror. “Yep.”

Yeri sighs, exasperated. “She’s been depresso for, like, a week.”

“I’ve been fine,” you correct, smudging out the pencil on your lid. “I’ve been fineeee,” Yeri mocks, making her voice nasally and high. You glare at her through the mirror, but all she does is stick her tongue out at you.

“I’m just stressed out, okay? I've got a lot on my plate,” you mumble bitterly, and it’s true, because every time you’re trying to do assignments, papers, write notes and focus in class, you think of him, and how he doesn’t want you. And one wrong thing leads to another, and then you’re thinking about how no one wants you, and you haven’t had a boyfriend since you entered college. And then it’s something about how you look, or it’s something about how you are, as a person, and you just sit at your desk with this terrible feeling in you gut, trying not to cry, or hoping that your sniffles don’t overpower Replay by Shinee blasting in Yeri’s headphones, as she’s eating crackers in bed, just a few feet away from you.

“Just talk to us if you need anything, okay?” Seulgi frowns and you smile at her, hoping it looks convincing. She nods at you, turning back to her handheld mirror. But alas one person stays staring at you. You avoid his eyes, trying not to look like you’re about to cry.

“I can arrange a spa day? We can get our toes done,” Irene asks, and she wiggles her toes in the air for emphasis. “Ooo, yes!” Yeri exclaims.

Finally, Jihoon’s attention is ripped from you, wincing at the thought of another person handling his feet. “Can I skip out on that, maybe?”

Irene scratches her chin, pretending to think about it. Then she says, bluntly and directly: “Nah.”

_____________________________

“Let me come with you to the spa!”

“No! Jihoon, walk faster,” like a mother, Seulgi is grabbing Jihoon’s wrist and dragging him further from the tall, huge man behind you. Mingyu is following you all like a dog, whining and crying, and pouting. “Please, guys! I don’t wanna go with Seungcheol and Jeonghan, they’re mean!”

“Spa day is for girls only!” Yeri yells over her shoulder, as the five of you stumble away from Mingyu, crying out to you. “What about him?” Mingyu yells and points.

“Don’t listen to him, sweetie,” Seulgi tells Jihoon and he nods very seriously. “He’s our adopted son! Now shoo!”

Finally Mingyu gives up the chase, and you disappear behind the outerwall, beginning down a busy street towards Irene’s favorite spa. “I don’t get how you’re friends with that guy,” Irene says, elbowing you, and you both snicker. “He’s a pup,” you shrug.

The streets are filled with people, the sun is shining, and it’s spring, and everything should be great, because you’re with your friends. But he’s here too. Swallowed up by his hoodie, pitch black in a sea of colors, he’s still here and his very presence has you tense, and yearning for the touch of a masseuse. The streets that had grown so familiar, that you thought you had learnt and mastered, had become so foreign, and you’re trying to escape into yourself, trying to find a backdoor out of the constant blabbering, teaching Jihoon the importance of gossip and female communication and companionship. These are your friends. The sadness eventually musters into frustration.

Soon enough, you’re sighing so hard you think your soul escapes with it through your mouth. A spa-worker begins massaging your feet, and working her thumbs into your sore soles. Irene laughs at your reaction, two seats over. “Told you all you needed was a spa day!” she beams. Yeah, a spa day and maybe a new friend group that wouldn’t adopt the guy who you should certainly not be around!

And speaking of him, he’s sitting in the chair right next to yours, grimacing and flinching back from the disdained worker.

“What are you gonna tell her?” Yeri quips, smiling at the end of the row. Jihoon takes a second to snap out of his constant flinching, looking over at her nervously. “Oh, uh…”

The girls are all looking at him expectantly, but you’re squeezing your eyes shut and wishing your ears could shut too.

“Probably, like.. ‘Hey, I like you, would you maybe wanna go out on a date sometime?”

“Pssh!”

“Absolutely not!”

“As if!”

Jihoon is a little flabbergasted.

“Here’s what you’re actually gonna say,” Seulgi leans over in her chair towards him, directing him with a finger in her armrest. You hear Jihoon scramble in his chair, and you know he’s taking out that stupid notebook again.

Seulgi lowers her voice to mimic his, when she talks again: “‘Hi, crush, how are you?’ Wait for her response… Then: ‘I’ve always thought you were very beautiful. Your very presence takes my breath away. I would like to take you on a date, would that be okay with you?’ And be suave about it.”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH.”

Yeri and Irene burst into laughter, hitting the armrests of their chairs and covering their bright smiles with their hands. Even you snort in amusement. “What?!” Seulgi exclaims, outraged. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing, I just-...” Irene wafts herself, trying to ease away that tears of glee that spring in her eyes. “I can’t imagine any man, let alone our son, saying that to a woman.. Wow.”

“It’s good! I would be flattered,” Seulgi defends herself viciously. Yeri snorts from her seat: “It’s not a drama, Seul!”

“Well!” Seulgi scoffs, twisting her upper body to face Yeri now. “Maybe I would like my life to be a drama, thank you very much!”

Their argument continues viciously, insults and laughter being thrown at each other left and right and you can almost begin to tune them own, letting the feeling of pads on your feet and a gentle, cool brush on the nail lure you to sleep.

Then there’s a hand on your forearm. You peek an eye open and see him - God, it just has to be him - leaning over his chair to gently grasp you. He looks at you through lashes, and he’s so sincere that it kills you when he says: “I can tell you’re not okay.”

You’re a little taken aback, one second prior you were being lulled to sleep and now he’s talking to you, so low, so seriously, while the girls try to attack each other behind him. You wish your heart isn’t suddenly galloping, and you wish his warmth on your arm and radiating onto you isn’t so nauseating. “I-”

“Don't say you are, when you're not. You’re very obvious, you know?” he hums, smiling softly when he sees you flush from his intense gaze. You avert your eyes nervously. “Uhm. I just.. I don’t really want to talk about it, Hoon.”

You flick your eyes back up to his to survey his reaction. His expression softens at the nickname, and he holds your gaze for a moment longer, before he nods in understanding, all the warmth of his closeness disappearing, when he sits back down in his seat.

“That’s okay,” he smiles at you in reassurance, and your heart leaps, and you can’t help but think that he doesn’t need anymore training to make his crush - whoever the lucky girl is - completely and totally happy for several lifetimes.

He’s a beautiful, sun-beamed flower, where he sits, light flitting through the store-front windows. You’d be happy for several lifetimes. If only he wanted you. _____________________________

“What is going on?!”

It’s Mingyu, and he’s somehow found you, as you’re trudging out of your latest class, suddenly hot on your trail and outraged about something or other. “What?” you mumble, heading to the cafe near the end of the hall.

“With Jihoon?! Why does he get to be your son when I don’t?!” Mingyu wafts his arms and pouts and you cringe, leaning away from his loud voice. “Ugh…”

“I need to know why he was writing that girl code stuff, Y/n. Why is he suddenly allowed at girls’ nights, when I’ve been trying to get in for months?!”

You take a turn into the cafe and sigh at how crowded it is, immediately placing yourself in line, Mingyu right behind you. “Calm down,” you say, just wanting a sandwich and maybe some peace and qui-

“I will not!” he snaps back, brows furrowed and a determined look on his face. You look up at him, pursing your lips in thought. Did Mingyu deserve to know? Maybe. He had been trying to get into girls’ nights forever, always going on about being ‘an honorary member’.

“I’m not sure I can tell you- Hey, can I get a tuna sandwich, please?” You say, quickly turned to the clerk behind the counter. “I won’t tell anyone, pleaseee- Can you get me one of those too? Thanks.”

You’re handed your sandwiches, and you hold both of them, drifting over to a table by the window, both of Mingyu’s hands on your shoulders and his voice in your ear: “Please, please, please, pretty please with the sugar on top?”

You plop down in your seat, simply exasperated, and hand him his sandwich. He’s settling himself down when you answer: “Okay.”

“Yes!” Mingyu fists the air in victory, mumbling self-assured under his breath: “Begging always works.” You snort and take a big bite of your sandwich.

“Stop eating and tell me!” he whines. “I’m hungry– Hey!”

Mingyu snatches the sandwich right out of your hands and grins at you deviously, dancing with it. You hate him. You hate him, but it is a little endearing.

“Jihoon has a crush on some girl and he’s been writing down the girl code in an attempt to understand women,” you deadpan, and when Mingyu’s mouth and guard drops, you snatch your sandwich back and begin gulping down hungrily.

“Are you shitting me?!” You shake your head.

“So, that's why he's allowed at girls’ night?” You nod your head.

“So, that’s why you’ve been so down?” You almost choke on your food.

“What?”

“Because you like him,” Mingyu says seriously and, with a totally stunned look on your face, you shark down the bits of sandwich in your mouth painfully. “How do you know that?!” you cry, head suddenly snapping in seventy different directions, relief washing over you, when none of your or Jihoon’s friends are around.

“Because you’ve been acting all weird around him since you fucked at Seungcheol’s Halloween party,” Mingyu shrugs. You wave your arms wildly.

“How do you know that?!” Whining, you throw yourself back in your seat, and bury your head in your hands. This couldn’t be happening. Your delicate secret, the one that could have - should have - simply faded away into summer, was now out and open, and you look out the window, and it’s spring.

“I know everything,” Mingu says ominously, giggling evilly.

“Mingyu, I will fucking kill you.”

“Fine! I needed to pee and you guys were super loud,” Mingyu pouts and takes a bite of his own sandwich. “No need to be so rude.”

“I can’t believe you know,” you groan, head collapsing on the table. Mingyu, forever and always silly, finally softens and frowns. You’re scattered.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” you say. Then, a moment later (in true Girl Code fashion) you’re lifting your head from the table and burying it in your hands: “I just. I don’t know, Mingyu. I feel so pathetic for liking him after a one night stand! And now he’s doing all this for another woman and he’s with us all the time…I haven’t had a boyfriend in college, Mingyu. I just feel so…” There’s a pause, when you’re trying to find the right word, and Mingyu stops breathing, looking at you and fearing the worst. Then comes the word, ripping itself from your lips:

“Unlovable.”

Mingyu’s frown deepens. Big, puppy Mingyu who’s always silly and happy, just slumps in on himself. “You’re not unlovable,” he mumbles, sounding genuinely disbelieving. You scoff.

“Thanks, Mingyu, it’s just.. That’s how it feels,” you admit, running a hand through your hair and looking at your half-eaten sandwich on the table. Mingyu’s quiet for a moment. When he speaks up again, he’s determined, and you can discern almost immediately that there’s no escaping this plan. Or he’ll for God’s sake start begging again.

“I’m going to wingman you,” he’s nodding to himself, and you can see the plan falling into place in his head, “I’m gonna wingman you and set you up with my friend at the party on Saturday!”

“Please, don’t,” you groan half-heartedly, but a piece of you brightens with hope, with summer, like maybe this was the thing you needed to get over your schoolgirl-crush on Jihoon.

“No,” Mingyu responds simply. “This is happening.” _____________________________

Indeed, it is happening.

The frat house is practically bumping with each beat of whatever pop song is playing over the speakers, and you lean into the rhythm that reverberates in the kitchen table beneath your fingers.

You somewhat wish that you hadn’t been as excited for this as you were, that you hadn’t spent hours picking out the perfect pink dress and doing your makeup, and that you aren’t hopelessly dependant on Mingyu (of all people) to find you a fuck. But you are. Putting on that dress and hoop earrings and doing your hair and declining Yeri’s invitation to the girls’ (and Jihoon’s) pre-party, you feel like you’re scrambling, like constantly falling through the air, flailing for something to ground yourself on.

Now, scanning over the tinted lights and the dancing people and feeling the slight, warm buzz of vodka in your blood, you know you need this. And still, you combat that slight anxiety, the insecurity that you hadn’t felt in years - what if Mingyu couldn’t find a single guy that wanted you?

Mingyu doesn’t seem worried though.

“Okay! We just gotta figure out who to set you up with. Take your pick,” he places a hand on your shoulder, squeezing and gauging your reaction. Your brows furrow as you shrug. Somehow, even when half the guys are objectively hot, you can’t say you find yourself drawn to any of them. You don’t linger on the feeling, fearful that maybe you’ll realize all the things they’re missing, the things they’re falling short of, are just Jihoon’s traits. “I don’t know, man. I just-..”

Mingyu senses your struggle and elects to give you his excellent guidance. “Alright, well you could do Joshua?” He’s pointing somewhere in the crowd, and sure enough, you notice Joshua, majoring in communications or something like that. “He’s a star: total hottie, super smart, sweet and considerate, and-”

“And he fucked Yeri,” you deadpan, head lolling over to look at Mingyu disapprovingly. Mingyu’s mouth falls open: “What?!”

“Yeah, like, two months ago!” you argue, wafting your hands. Mingyu’s mouth stays open, and he’s seemingly totally appalled by this.

“What?! Okay- nevermind. How about him?” He points his long limbs again, and this time you notice-

You narrow your eyes confusedly. Hopefully Mingyu was not trying to set you up with the biggest player in your year? “Jeonghan?!”

“What? No, the guy beside him, dickwad,” he playfully smacks the side of your head as you refocus your eyes. Indeed, a blonde guy is standing next to Jeonghan, seemingly whining at him. “Who’s he?”

“Lee Chan. Super sweet, great bod, a little dumb, but very doting-”

“Is he a freshman?!” you cry, almost as if it were a crime. Mingyu huffs. “You’re not making this easy, you know?!”

“I’m not dating or fucking a freshman,” you cross your arms and Mingyu senses the air of finality in your words. He sighs, slumping behind you for a moment, before he spots something across the room.

“Wonwoo! What about him?” he doesn’t even bother pointing at this point, simply tilts your head towards the man, who was currently talking to Seungcheol a little ways from the kitchen. You spot him. You suppose you’d always been a little curious about Wonwoo. From what you’d seen of him in passing, he was sweet and polite, absolutely gorgeous and extremely smart. You nod solemnly.

“I could- I could see that,” you say and Mingyu’s eyes light up. He bounces victoriously, punching the air. “He’s great, you’re- you’re gonna love him,” Mingyu delights and before you can even get another word in, Mingyu’s yelling across the room: “Hey, Wonwoo! Wonwoo, scootch over here!”

Your eyes widen in shock. “Wha- we’re doing this now? Just, on the fly? No warning?”

“It’s fine,” Mingyu waves you off, eyes trained on where Wonwoo is now walking towards you.

“Do I look okay?” your voice is wavering nervously. You still can’t help how you feel, even in your dress and your makeup. Where had all your confidence gone? The confidence with which you’d literally fucked Jihoon in a lobster-costume? Even the thought of him stings. Mingyu’s confident facade falters for only a split second at the vulnerability in your tone. His gaze softens and he looks at you: “You look great, N/n. Calm down, Wonwoo’s super nice.”

“Hey, Gyu,” Wonwoo’s voice is cool, as he approaches Mingyu. Standing in front of you and Mingyu, he briefly scans you, then acknowledges you with a nod and a sweet smile. “Wonwoo, hey, you know, I was just wondering if you’ve already done the history paper?”

Wonwoo is unamused. “I’m not doing your paper again, Mingyu.”

“Oh well, shucks, that’s simply too bad,” Mingyu (poorly) feigns annoyance and defeat, before he’s grabbing your shoulder. “Anyway, Wonwoo, have you met my very good friend, Y/n?”

You fake a smile, hoping the absolute pain of the current interaction was not showing on your face. If you’d known Mingyu was this bad at wing-manning, you would’ve gladly put up with his begging instead. You want to crawl into a hole and die, because based on Wonwoo’s smug smile, he has a pretty good understanding of what’s happening.

“Whoops, look at the time!” Mingyu looks at his wrist. He is not wearing a watch. “Damn, I guess I gotta go and- and leave my two good friends alone with each other, such a shame, uh, anyway!” As he speaks he backs further and further from you, trying to ignore the glare in your eyes, before he’s bolting at his last word.

There’s an awkward silence as soon as Mingyu’s gone. You feel like an unshelled turtle. You purse your lips and stare at your heel-clad feet.

“So, Mingyu was trying to wingman you?” Wonwoo’s voice is deep and bemused. You look at him in horror, trying to think of a way to salvage the situation.

“Yeah,” your breathe, and he immediately begins laughing. “Sorry about that, he was- he was just trying to be helpful, although it’s hard to defend him right now.”

“He’s wingmanned me before, too,” Wonwoo muses and, thank God, this was actually a good thing. You find a balance on the common ground. “Really?” you grin, looking up at him.

“Yep,” Wonwoo admits, “safe to say I did not get my dick wet.”

You laugh hard, and it feels like a switch has flipped inside you, restarting your joy-generator, because you’re laughing and hitting Wonwoo’s arm, and he’s smiling because he’s just made a pretty girl laugh.

“He’s so bad!” you say when you’re done laughing. “Everytime!” Wonwoo drawls, “Everytime he pulls that shit and he’s never wearing a watch!”

You and Wonwoo laugh together, throwing (good-hearted) snarky comments about Mingyu around, and your cheeks are rosy and shining in the kitchen-light. Finally, party still bumpin’ and pumpin’ in the near distance, your laughter dies down and you’re both half-leaning against the counter. Wonwoo looks down at you with a smug smile.

“What?” you ask, growing insecure again under his gaze. He hums.

“So you asked for me?”

“Hm?”

“When Mingyu was wingmanning you,” Wonwoo reminded you, tilting his head. “You asked for me?”

“I-” you stutter, and your heart clenches nervously, because if things had been right, if things were different at least, you would have asked for Jihoon. It’s this gut-punching guilt. It feels wrong to use him, Wonwoo, to overcome Jihoon. “He was laying down my options.”

“Options?” Wonwoo quips, brow raised questioningly, but he doesn’t interrogate further. Instead, he leans his head down, so he’s much, much closer to you, breathing hitting your face when he whispers: “But you wanted to fuck me. Isn’t that right?”

You gulp. His presence is almost suffocating. Avoiding his eyes, you flicker them onto the dancefloor, where-

Where Jihoon is storming out of the house.

You squeeze your eyes shut - something Wonwoo thinks is out of embarrassment, from the question he’s just asked you - and try to refocus on Wonwoo. Try to ignore how the thoughts about Jihoon come bubbling in your head. It was probably something with his crush. You want to do nothing more than comfort him, hold him, steal away every bad thought he may ever have.

You open your eyes, hoping that somehow seeing Wonwoo’s face would fill you with a need for him - him, and not Jihoon - but seeing him in the low lighting only serves as a reminder that Wonwoo is not him.

“I’m- I’m so sorry, Wonwoo. I gotta go. I’m really, really sorry-” you say suddenly, and immediately you’re scurrying towards the door. Wonwoo frowns, eyes following you in your path. “Did I- Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“No, you were hot!” you say absent-mindedly, before you’re disappearing into the entrance, and then further along, out the door.

Wonwoo stands alone at the counter, still somewhat leaned towards your ghost in front of him, and shakes his head in confusion. “What the fuck?” _____________________________

“Jihoon?”

You exit just in time to see him, stomping on the other side of the road, armless denim jacket wafting in the wind. It’s spring, just warm enough that you’re not freezing, but still cold enough that you curl your arms around yourself. Your hair blows gently. It smells distantly like flowers.

He turns around at your voice. When he does, you know your suspicions were right. He looks so defeated. His gorgeous long hair, that usually only makes you clench your thighs together, is limp and drags him downwards. His arms hang similarly at his sides, fists clenched at the bottom, causing veins to ripple along the forearms. He stands just below a street light, spot-lighted, as if on a stage.

“Leave me alone!” he yells out to you across the road, voice breaking halfway. This does nothing to dampen his demeanor - this tough front, this anger he suddenly carries. You still in the grass beside the road, looking at him pleadingly. He can’t hold your gaze.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, Jihoon,” you begin, choosing your words carefully. “But I can just.. Support you. You don’t have to be alone right now.”

This almost seems to piss him off more, clenching his jaw, sharply defined by the harsh shadows, and steering his head away from you, like a sunflower following the sun in the sky. It hurts your heart. The way he almost seems angry with you. And yet again you’re made to feel pathetic for following him out here. Like you’re on your knees and he’s standing there in front of you, spitting on you. Why does it hurt so much? You almost wish you’d stayed with Wonwoo - that you’d followed him to his room and let him fuck you and pretended you weren’t thinking about him the entire time.

“Shouldn’t you go back inside?” he’s prickling with hostility. “You seemed like you were having a good time.”

“Jihoon,” you say breathlessly. “None of us is having a good time if you’re not.”

Whatever cog you unturned, whatever screw you unscrewed, Jihoon’s tightly wound posture unwinds, and he softens and withers before you, one hand clamping over his eyes. You take this as a sign to move towards him, heels clicking on the asphalt warning him of your advance. It’s deadly quiet, save for the heartbeat of the frat house behind you.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally lowering his hand and looking at you. You smile sympathetically, relief flooding you, when he lets you gently place a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

The two of you begin to walk in silence, and you recognize it as the path that leads back to the dormitory. It’s calm, steps becoming rhythmic and breeze easing your muscles with its cool touch. You study his face as it’s lit and unlit by the systemic presence of street lights. You’re able to put your own feelings aside for him, to be a martyr, and to sacrifice yourself to comfort him. It feels like cutting your own throat to talk to him about another woman, a woman he loves, truly, but you know it must be done.

“So,” you muster finally. “What happened in there?”

He scoffs bitterly, looking at the pavement underneath his shoes. You frown. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” you repeat, a little confused.

“I didn’t tell her.”

“Oh.”

You’re honestly not the best comforter, you realize, cringing and hoping you’re not making it worse by talking to him about it. You see the faint outline of the dormitory at the end of the street.

“Why not?” you quip quietly. His mouth makes a tight line. He breathes out shakily, and you fear you’re riling him up again by asking further.

“She was talking to some other guy,” Jihoon says, eyes flitting to yours before immediately ducking back to the pavement. You furrow your brows. Could it be you? That thought nurtures the spring garden in your stomach, the one you’d been trying to kill. But the insecurity that had come with it, and with him, only manages to squander that light.

“I’m sorry that happened,” you say softly, hand finding his arm, but he pulls it away from you immediately. Ouch.

“Yeah,” he chuckles without humor.

Finally, you decide to just shut up, to stop pushing him when he’s so vulnerable, but this time it’s Jihoon who doesn’t stop speaking. “You know,” he begins and again he’s laughing, but you can tell it’s only a cheap plaster for the pain in his voice, “I’d memorized that- that confession thing Seulgi made. And I followed all the- the style advice and the-” his voice breaks and he hisses at how pathetic it sounds. “Everything. I did everything,” he summarizes finally and when you look you see orbs of tears forming at his waterline, like the dew drops that sparkle on leaves in spring.

You don’t know what to say. It’s almost too hard to see him like this. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, but Jihoon shakes his head.

“Stop saying that,” his voice is harsher, groggier, thick and stained by the sobs in his throat. You pause your steps. You’re standing in the yard outside the dormitory now. Hundreds of windows become an audience to where you now stand before each other.

“Why?” you ask.

“Because-” he wipes the tears away aggressively, composing himself before he finally, finally looks at you. “Because you’re gonna make me think that you actually care.” His voice is suddenly laced with venom again. The hostility that you’d tamed returns and it’s so much stronger, more bitter. You’re taken aback.

“I-I do care? Why do you think I don’t care-”

“Oh, please, Y/n. You didn’t want me at your girls’ nights or at spa day or fucking whatever. You didn’t- You don’t care about my book or my crush or my-”

“I do care!” you interrupt, voice stern and much louder. “What, you think I follow you out of parties for fun? Because I don’t care about you? And yeah, maybe I didn’t want you at the girls’ nights, but what does that matter-”

“It matters because!–” he stops himself in his tracks, hand coming out to halt you. “Fuck it, wait here,” he orders, and suddenly he is trudging into the darkness of the courtyard. You stand still, flabbergasted, and thoroughly confused. It’s so dark you can’t even see what he’s doing, only hear him in the dirt, silhouette blending into the shadows. Then, he’s walking back to you and you finally see him.

There are flowers in his hands.

It’s a makeshift bouquet, held tightly in between his veiny, pale hands, consisting of flowers that grow in the courtyard, red, yellow and lilac. It’s a slow-burning realization as he stands himself before you, looking into your eyes with a sincerity that is laced with pain. You know this part of the girl code.

“Hi, Y/n, how are you?” he breathes, and his voice is shaking and he’s looking at you and practically begging you to play along - to indulge him, even if you would turn your back on him. You can hardly register anything but him and those flowers, because your surroundings, the moon, the stars, the shadows and the streets are overpowered by the blooming in your chest. A single flower unfurls the pedals of your heart until you are open before him. You meet his eyes.

“I’m good.”

He nods.

“I’ve always thought you were very beautiful,” it almost seems like it physically pains him to admit these breathless feelings. “Your very presence takes my breath away. I would like to take you on a date,” another pained, gulping pause. “Would that be okay with you?”

It’s as if time has stopped in this moment; how his chest rises and falls under his shirt, how his hair gently nuzzles his face, how his eyes blear out at you from underneath his bangs, how he glows in the moonlight, and how his hands shake around the stems of the flowers.

“Was I..” his voice is hoarse, “Was I suave about it?”

“Yes,” is all you can manage, because all those flowers that you had stomped into a half-death were coming alive again and this time it was more than welcome.

“Yes?”

“Yes, you can take me on a date,” you break into a wide smile and, upon realizing you probably look like an idiot, you lower your gaze and your warm, shining cheeks to the pavement. He gasps, and it’s probably the cutest thing you’ve ever heard.

“But- you and Wonwoo-?”

“Do you wanna know why I was even talking to Wonwoo?” you ask, and when you meet his eyes again, he’s also smiling. You can’t help but reach out a hand to wrap around one of his, still frozen in holding the flowers. He quickly maneuvers the bouquet to the other hand and intertwines your fingers. Your heart soars. “Mingyu found out that I was sad because you had a crush on someone - I didn’t think it was me, you know? So he promised to wingman me at this party.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jihoon whispers, and you laugh, feeling so floaty and lovely. “Don’t call him that,” you say, but Jihoon only smiles cheekily, eyes matching the crescent moon in the sky above you.

“No, I meant me,” he says. He looks down at the flowers and frowns. “Is that why you were so quiet? On girls night?”

You nod and he sighs. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. You’re so sweet,” you say genuinely, and Jihoon nearly melts at how much you mean it. There’s something so wonderful about the way all the words, that he would never use to describe himself, float around your head and sparkle in your eyes in this moment, looking up at him.

Jihoon needs to kiss you. He’s not sure he’s ever needed anything as badly. He rips his free hand from yours only to place it tenderly against your cheek, pulling your face and your warmth into him, bouquet held out at his side to allow you snugly in his chest.

His lips are so soft and his nose nuzzles your own, plush hair tickling your forehead, and his huffed out breaths dance along your cheeks. Your lips mod perfectly, unlocking the shackles with which that earth-shattering yearning had held onto you. The world is anguish but will momentarily and suddenly be interrupted, cleaved apart with a sudden gash, by a planet-killer: love.

You truly don’t mean to make it heated, hell, you’d be content just kissing him forever, feeling how his tongue prods at your lips and meets your own, but his sculpted chest under your fingers draws out a pathetic moan. His eyebrows spring up and he pulls back to look at you. You blush under his gaze, fiddling with your dress.

“Holy fuck, that was so fucking hot,” he gasps, lips swollen from your insistent sucking on them, panting into the night air. You brighten at his compliment. “Inside. Now. To my room.”

“You know, girl code says to not have sex before on the third date,” you say smugly, unprepared when his free hand pushes you back into his chest, and his lips drag over half of your face, finding home at your ear. His voice is a growl: “Fuck. Girl code.”

He begins a somewhat dramatic march to the front door and you can’t help but run after him, taking his hand, and seeing how he smiles at that feeling. He looks so happy. Your heart skips a beat, because it’s you - you’re the one making him so happy.

And he’s so hot, it’s all you can think about as he drags you along the corridors, how nice his arms look in the sleeves denim, how pretty his hair is, his fucking face, and the chest you just barely felt under your fingertips. You’re watching doors pass in a monotonous routine, jittery and unable to wait for the one that might be his, for him to take you through it, and for you to bloom, totally and perfectly under him.

“Fucking finally,” he breathes, voice gruff and much lower than you’re used to when he stops at his door, fishing for his keys in his pocket. It enters the lock and with a click, everything you fantasized about is opening to you.

As soon as you’re inside, he’s kicking the door shut and pushing you against the wall, nails gripping into your dress, when he finally drops the makeshift bouquet on his nightstand. He cries out into your mouth at the way your chest bounces from the impact, immediately capturing your lips in his again.

You can’t help the way you’re tugging at his hair, trying to ground yourself in the feeling of him, when he shoves a thigh between your legs. You moan into his mouth, rutting into him, while his wandering hands pull your skirt up you to pool around your waist. He pulls back to look at you, how your hips cant into his strong, big thigh, and how your pink, lacey panties cling to your wet pussy.

“Off,” he mumbles, apparently having decided that the simple tugging of the fabric of your dress won’t be enough. You turn around in a daze, not even uttering a word, simply shoving the zipper at the back of it.

Jihoon groans, he has to, seeing the way you stick out your ass to him, while your hand lay flat on the wall. You shake your hips teasingly at him, and his hands float to your ass, petting it and squeezing it in his fingers, and biting his lips because it looks so fucking good and plump, and there’s a wet spot in your panties. He grabs your hips and rubs his dick into you. You gasp at the feeling, nails scratching against the wall.

“You make me so hard, baby,” he says breathlessly, unable to help himself humping against you, pre-cum spilling from his tip. “Shit,” he grunts, and you’re squeezing your eyes closed at the outline of his dick pressing into your pussy.

Finally Jihoon collects himself and his cold hands drag the zipper down. The top of your dress loosens and slides down your shoulders, where Jihoon aids you in slipping it off. His hands spin you around, finally taking a breath to marvel your bare chest in front of him.

You blush, suddenly so bashful, when just before you were wiggling your ass at him. You curl your arms over your chest, but Jihoon’s own come to stop them. “No, no, no, no,” he tuts, almost sad, “why are you doing that?”

You don’t answer immediately, but apparently it’s not a rhetorical question. His hands intertwine with yours to prevent you from covering yourself up. “Uh, I don’t know,” you stammer sheepishly, “I don’t wanna, like, kill the mood or any-”

“You’re not killing the mood, pretty,” Jihoon whispers so, so achingly sincere and your heart hurts.

“Sorry, it was just-”

“Don’t say sorry,” he lectures, interrupting again. He tilts his head and he looks at you with a flaming intensity. “Try again.”

You pause, flustered out of your mind.

“I-I’ve just been feeling a little insecure lately, I guess,” you say and you’re positive your face is beet-red, but if it is Jihoon says nothing, only pouts and releases one hand only to direct your eyes back to his with a hand on your chin.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/n,” he says and even when you seek it out, you can’t find even the slightest hint of lying in his voice. “I want to show you, but I can’t do that if you cover up. Understand?”

You nod, lips breaking into a little smile, that his heart becomes hot like the spring-sunshine. “Okay,” you say and he smiles brightly, releasing your chin from between his fingers.

He guides you onto the bed, but it’s no longer heated and rushed, it’s so soft and gentle, and he pulls off your underwear only after you whisper in agreement, and then he lowers himself into it, again, only allowing himself the pleasure when you whisper a strained yes and nod vigorously.

He fully makes out with your pussy - his lips are wrapped around your clit, licking and sucking it, and fucking moaning into it, sending vibration straight to the coil in your stomach. You’re moaning so loud, broken cries bouncing off the walls, while your finger wrap into his hair and your legs thrash. His tongue flattens against your folds, then dips down to trail around your slit.

“Jihoon!” you cry, hips bucking into his mouth. He groans again, releasing your pussy with a soft pop. “Fuck, baby, keep saying my name like that.” And then his face disappears in your pussy again.

And you do, everytime his nips and gums on your sensitive folds, tongue trailing back up to your nub to fully envelop it. He sucks, hard. And you think you might cum the second you look at him, because the image of his full head of hair buried in between your legs and lapping like a starved man is so pornographic, your head spins.

He might go insane from just the taste of you, he realizes, because even when you cry that you’re cumming, and your legs shake around his head and your pussy is soaked with your cum, he can’t bring himself to pull away, strong arms wrapping around stomach to still you as you begin to wiggle from the feeling of his tongue just continuing to lap at you.

“Jihoon! Fuck, t-too much,” you whimper and the sound shoots straight to his cock. He finally pulls away, eyes still trained on your pretty cunt, and the way it clenches around nothing. “Clenching so hard, sweetheart, only for there to be nothing, shouldn’t we fix that?” he hums, leaning down to trail his finger through your folds, gathering your wetness on its tip.

You whimper uncertainly, when he crawls back over your body, hair tickling your face when hovers just above you and he shushes your pathetic squeaks. He pushes the wet finger into your mouth and you suck obediently. “Shh, baby, just taste yourself on my finger, how can you be insecure with a pussy like that, hm?”

You cry around his single digit, tongue sliding over it eagerly. He wants to fuck your face, the way your pretty, plump lips wrap around his finger, but he’ll save that for another time. “Shh, baby, I know. You’ll be stuffed full of cock soon, don’t worry,” he rasps soothingly, and slips his drenched finger from your mouth.

Finally, he rips the denim jacket off, white tee following soon after, and you’re left, mouth gaping, at the how toned his stomach is, how big his pecs are and how fucking thick his arms are at his side.

“You’re so fucking hoot, Hoonie,” you drawl, making grabby hands to urge him back to you. He smiles at those words, even gains a small dusting of pink on his cheeks, but he shakes his head. “Gotta get my pants off, baby.”

“Hurry up,” you grin playfully, and he scoffs at you from where he stands, pants and boxers coming off in one fell swoop. “So needy,” he mumbles to himself, but you can tell by the overjoyed expression on his face, that he’s enjoying this just as much as you are.

His cock is finally freed, and your eyes float to it, drinking in the sight of him. He’s so pretty and so red, and a single vein creeps up its curved surface towards the oozing head. You gulp, eyes sparkling.

“Wan’ it in my mouth,” you mumble, where you’re now half sitting up and glowing from your first orgasm. Jihoon looks at you and laughs, as he climbs on top of you again.

His face hovers over yours, finger carding through your hair tenderly. He looks in your eyes. “Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He coos at you, eyes flickering to your lips for a moment, and you feel his cock twitch where it rests heavily on your stomach. “Not right now, pretty, I wanna fuck you.”

“You don’t have to cum-” you reason, mouth practically watering at the thought of having him in your mouth. He stops you though, hand still brushing through your hair, so delicately, as if you were a lily, or a rose, or a tulip.

“I’m not gonna be able to hold back if you look at me like that with my fucking cock in your mouth,” he whispers, and it’s so intimate, despite being so vulgar. How warm you both are, naked and holding onto each other and his dick is oozing onto your stomach and your pussy is leaking onto his sheets. “Like that,” Jihoon emphasizes, when you look up at him adoringly. You smile.

“Okay,” you say, a determined look on your face, “later then.”

He laughs. “Eager baby. Relax, you’re gonna get a pussy full of cock now, your mouth can wait.”

You wanna retort, say something snarky, anything, but you’re abruptly interrupted by the feeling of his cock pushing into you. You moan and your nails claw at his back, because it’s so big and so raw in your pussy, you feel that fucking vein dragging against your walls. “Shit, Hoonie. Fuck, fuck.”

He’s groaning too, hands on your waist and face in your neck. “So fucking tight, so pretty.”

You’re both panting when his cock is fully nestled inside you, sitting snug against your walls. You look up at him and he’s pretty, all flushed and lips swollen, and the sight makes you clench. He hisses, jerking abruptly, making the both of you moan.

“Fuck, baby, can’t just clench on me like tha-”

“Please, please, just fuck me now, can’t wait anymore!” you cry, clawing at him, nails raking over his flexed biceps, where he holds onto you. And he can’t help but fulfill your wish.

You honestly don’t know where he gets his stamina, because the second you’re done asking, he’s ramming into you so hard and so fast, your eyes roll back and your mouth falls open in a long whine. The whole bed is shaking from the impact, as his hips sheath and unsheath from your warm, welcoming pussy.

“God, you’re so fucking perfect,” he drawls, hands trailing up from your waist to your bouncing chest, thumbing over your nipples. “Bet Wonwoo wishes he got to see you like this, hm?”

The way your pussy has his cock in a chokehold, the way you’re lying beneath, it has him fully dazed, and now he babbles all that comes to mind. “Yeah, but you’re mine, princess. No one else gets to see you like this, no one else can have you crying like this for their cock, right?”

“N-No one else,” you whimper, sopping cunt clenching and unclenching around his dick. “That’s right,” he pants, humid breath on your cheek, “Say you’re mine, pretty girl, say you’re fucking mine.”

“A-ah, ‘m yours, Hoonie,” you cry and he thinks he might cum just like that, at your blissed face, glowing beneath him, and your pussy sucking him in, and you obeying him thoughtlessly.

“Good girl, good fucking girl,” he rewards you by dragging his hand down your stomach to rub your clit. Your whole body convulses into his, hands dragging over his big arms for support. “Come on, sweetheart, cum on my cock now.”

And you do, the tension in your stomach tightening beyond what you can take, before it finally unfurls, and it blooms, and it’s spring, and your squirting all over Jihoon’s abs, because God, he’s so fucking hot and he fucks you silly with his dumb, big muscles and his dumb, cute face.

The sight of your squirting, thrashing and shaking underneath him is all he needs. Jihoon shoots you full of his cum, making you feel so full and wet, before he finally halts his rutting hips, stilling on top of you.

You’re both panting. You’re sweating so much, your hair sticks to your forehead, and you’re gasping for air. Jihoon is still on top of you, holding himself up somehow, and licking at your neck appreciatively.

There’s a pause, where you’re basking in each other's warmth, and there’s so much love between you it’s almost suffocating. Then you're narrowing your eyes at the head of hair in your neck, growing suspicious.

“... Are you still hard?”

He laughs into your neck, peering up at you with a sheepish smile.

“Are you still open to that dick-sucking thing?” _____________________________

“So,” Yeri trails off.

You’re sitting in front of her, Seulgi and Irene at the campus cafe after a thorough round of congratulating you and Jihoon’s new relationship. They’d been both surprised and somehow not-at-all-surprised.

“He can’t come to girls night anymore,” Irene states the obvious, and immediately you, Seulgi and Yeri are nodding along.

“Thank God, I wasn’t the only one thinking that.”

“It just wouldn’t work,” you supply, agreeing.

There’s a pause. Seulgi pouts. “I can’t believe we don’t have a son anymore. They grow up so fast,” she says and she sounds genuinely sad about it.

You sigh a little, debating whether or not to play this card. Then you say: “I know someone who would like to be our son.”

“Oh, no..”

“Don’t say..”

“Yep,” you shrug, and then you hear him. Lumbering clumsily down the hall, like a galloping horse.

“I HEAR THERE’S A NEW POSITION OPEN DURING GIRLS NIGHTS!!!!! I MADE MUFFINS!!”

Mingu is running through the cafe, dodging stools and chairs like he’s on Ninja Warrior.

Irene frowns. “I guess he’ll do as our new son.”

“We can always kick him out if he gets too annoying,” Yeri shrugs, just in time for Mingyu to stand before your table with a fresh tray of muffins.

“Yes!” he cries with glee, voice incredibly high because he just can’t believe it.

“Begging always works!”

#svt smut #svt x reader #woozi smut #woozi angst #woozi fluff #woozi x reader #svt woozi x reader #lee jihoon x reader #jihoon x reader #jihoon smut #svt angst

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haecien · 5 months

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hi! can I request seventeen's reaction to having a girlfriend who's often misjudged because of her cold appearance and attitude to strangers, but to seventeen she's very sweet and caring??? thank you!

ANON THIS IS AMAAZINGGG!!! Literally what i just needed to get my writing fuel up

A/n — Happy new years btw!! (From gtm+8), hoping you guys will have a wonderful year mwaaahh. I wrote this in a rush so I hope u don't mind how I did it hehe <33 ALSO THANK YOU TO SKY AND SKYE (double sky(e) ) FOR HELPING OMFG.

Tags — Fluff, a bit of humor?

Since it's new years and I'm being nice ill give you guys TWO versions! First one is this fic right here:) and the 2nd one will be posted soon ! <;33

Ver 2

🗣 : " Your girlfriend seems so scary, I wonder how you keep up with her! She also seems like she doesn't care AT ALL !! "

Would get mad and instantly defend you

— Hoshi, Seungkwan, & Mingyu

Flabbergasted you decided to call his GIRLFRIEND mean and DOESNT care??? Oh how absolutely WRONG that is!! They would start defending you like a lawyer in a serious case, they would pull up receipts and read them to you then eventually start blabbering how your the sweetest most loving girlfriend ever.

Just try his best not to laugh at the very wrong assumption

— Jun, Woozi, & Jeonghan

"You're wrong + L + ratio " I swear they tried there BEST to not laugh not wanting to embarrass the poor person, and considering you act like such a sweetheart infront of them is funny too..... they do eventually end up laughing then explaining how its the complete opposite.

" Oh no- she's actually the sweetest person "

— Vernon, Joshua , & Dokyeom

Will just immediately say that there assumptions were wrong, no arguing just straight to the point! He will go on and ramble a bit on how happy you actually make him and how you are the most caring person ever. He will go back to his normal convo tho afterwards:D (the most sane response tbh...)

Glares and looks like he about to fight

— Wonwoo, Minghao, Dino, & Seungcheol

Bro you just told that to the wrong person... basically the first one but WAY worst, they will stand up and start threatening you. Like how dare you say those types of things about HIS GIRLFRIEND and think you'd get away with it?? Let's just say you didn't exactly have a nice chat with him after you said those words.......

Svt taglist — @slytherinshua , @woozvc , @weird-bookworm , @mayashu , @bangantokchy

#seventeen #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #svt imagines #seventeen imagine #svt scoups #svt jeonghan #seventeen joshua #jun svt

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fairyhaos · 10 months

Text

how seventeen let their s/o win a game

requested by anon: omg i loved the scenario of letting svt win at a game!!! it made my day - and your blog overall gives off warm and cozy vibes :)! if you don’t mind, what would be the ways you think svt would let their s/o win at a game/succeed at something they (y/n) are normally not good at?

notes: counterpart to this post

masterlist

seungcheol

he's not letting you win under any circumstances. you've been losing to him less terribly these days, anyway, and during the last air hockey match you played he only won by five points. he's 100% certain that you will eventually be able to win against him, and he wants that to happen on its own, because of your own merit, rather than because he went easy on you and let you have a victory.

jeonghan

so, so weak for you. literally he could be a master at that game but when you tell him you've never won before, he's immediately toning down his play and letting you win. honestly he never really gets competitive against you because he gets the most joy out of seeing you happy after a victory

joshua

do aegyo for him and then he promises that he will let you win. no no no, you can't say no, you have to do the aegyo and then he'll consider what to do. makes you do three cute poses, one song, one dance, before eventually laughing and kissing your head and saying yeah okay he'll let you win rock paper scissors for doing the dishes

junhui

you wanna win??? ofc!! you gotta still work for it tho, he's not gonna let you win immediately. ends up playing with you for ages, partly because he really does enjoy playing games and partly because he likes seeing you whine when you struggle. still lets you win in the end tho, asks if you're up for a rematch and pouts when you say no

hoshi

teases you endlessly about how terrible you are at playing this one card game against him. he's teasing you so much that you don't even realise you're winning until the game is over and he's grinning cheekily and wiggling his eyebrows before he laughs as you throw yourself into his arm in thanks because this is the first time ever that you've managed to win against him

wonwoo

goes "oh no, i lost" in a completely flat voice as he smiles at you. made an effort to not make it ridiculously easy while you're playing, but at the last moment he backed down a little to let you take the victory, and honestly even though he might have been able to make a new record if he didn't back down, seeing you whoop and kiss his cheek happily makes him the happiest

woozi

no, you're not winning against him. he's good at ball games like this, okay, and if you wanna be good too then you gotta play properly, baby. coaches you through it while you play, and even though you don't manage to win you still manage to play better than before, and he grins and asks if you wanna play again

minghao

thinks that you're honestly rather adorable when you pout and sulk over having lost to him in a game but, one day, he decides to take pity on you and lets you win instead, and the radiant smile that lights up your face has him wondering why he didn't let you have an easy win way, way sooner

mingyu

i dunno, i think that if you're bad at this game then he's probably bad at it too, so there's always a 50/50 chance that either of you win. even if he intentionally goes easy on you, it's not gonna help that much bc you're both so terrible at playing that the game still ends up going on for another hour before someone emerges the winner

dokyeom

is terrible at feigning innocence, makes it incredibly obvious that he's letting you win. still stubbornly keeps up the act, even when you tell him that you know what he's doing. acts the most surprised when you win, making you laugh because he's just so insistent that you won entirely by yourself

seungkwan

you're gonna have to beg this man to let you win because he's not doing it himself. what can he say, he has a competitive streak, but if you ask him enough times then his resolve will eventually crumble. didn't make the rest of the game easy for you tho, because an easy victory is the same as a loss in his books

vernon

this man is always letting you win against him, no matter what game you're playing. he'll put in the effort, definitely, but especially when it comes to games that you're not particularly good at, then he's coaching you during the game play or making moves that put him at a disadvantage because he really adores seeing you happy when you win

chan

tells you he's gonna go so hard on you and make it impossible for you to win, and then he ends up doing the exact opposite. his grin gradually gets wider as you gain the upper hand, and by the end of the game he looks even happier than you by the fact that you've managed to beat him

request guidelines

reactions tags: @jeonginssa @magicaltonaru @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @turningcarat @zarara @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @iheartyujin @summery-bat @newgirlygirl @moonlitskiiies @ejspencer14 @mirxzii @wonranghaeee @saythename-chess @yonabutnotyuna @youthoughtiwasfeelingyou @crackedpumpkin @wqnwoos @sunshinekyeom-sang @ocyeanicc @zozojella @thesmellofcoffeeandrain @kthstrawberryshortcake-main @kawennote09 @a-wandering-stay @icyminghao @nananacomeonnnn @valenhui @sweet-like-caramel @hansolaria @gam3bo1z @marisblogg @evasaysstuff @odxrilove @kyeomyun @chansburgah @pepperonijem @jeonride @kellesvt

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multi-kpop-fanfics · 6 months

Text

Masquerade of the Sinners

pairing: ???!Joshua x fallen angel fem!reader

genre: smut. minors dni.

warnings: praise, dirty talk, mentions of incubus powers, unprotected sex (stay safe), creampie, sub!reader, dom!shua, religious imagery and defilement (again), making out, manhandling, spanking, squirting, overstimulation, hair pulling, mentions of blood and murder

word count: ~1.4k

summary: keeping up the appearances to deceive humans is joshua's expertise. but you have become the perfect apprentice, the mask of innocence bearing no cracks for the humans to gaze upon.

Author's note: hello beloveds <3 had a sudden burst of inspo thanks to the shua pics from the latest fansign and decided to expand a little on Fall From Grace :)

taglist: @junkissed @shuadotcom @bitchlessdino @duhnova

©multi-kpop-fanfics, 2023. No reposting allowed. No translations without permission allowed.

Another Sunday, another successful preaching from the altar.

A few months ago, Joshua was gagging at the idea of faking the role of a young and kind priest, devoted to God and His words.

But now? After exposing himself to you and defiling you in a way only his kin know best, his daily life has become way more interesting.

It’s as if the bells of Apocalypse have rung in the Heavens and the archangels decided to send horde after horde of angels to execute him. Yet every single attempt has proven futile, with the heavenly creatures ending up lifeless in a pile of blood and pearly white feathers or breathless and full of his seed.

What’s even more amusing to him is that none of the puny humans around him have caught wind of his true nature.

“Hm. How foolish.” He chuckles to himself as he closes the small Bible in his hands. He goes to the small room where he keeps his robes and the rest of the books he uses for various ceremonies and other church activities.

Speaking of activities, he still despises the choir sessions. The gospels echoing from the mouths of the choir members and bouncing off the walls of the church always give him a headache, to the point of nosebleeds.

However, seeing some of the girls attend the choir just to ogle at him and purposefully wait during after hours to talk to him in private or for…other matters makes the whole choir experience a little more tolerable.

“Aren’t you tired of fooling around with these human weaklings, Joshua?”

You stand against the closed gates, leaning your back on the heavy wood.

Joshua’s lips curl into a wicked smirk. “Good evening, my dear. What brings you here tonight?”

“You know fully well why I’m here, you demonic creature.” You walk towards the altar and reach in front of him.

“Ah, of course. You want revenge for losing your status, don’t you?”

“Not just that.” You grit your teeth.

“What else then?” He asks, feigning innocence.

You gulp audibly, shame washing over your body when you remember the first time you let him ravage you like prey caught in a trap.

You lift your shirt and lower your pants just enough to show him the two incubus tattoos engraved on your lower pelvis - a small heart surrounded by thorns and a star underneath their junction, connecting to another, larger heart with horns protruding.

Joshua licks his lower lip hungrily. “So that is what you’re talking about.”

“You need to remove this, now.” You demand with a steady voice.

“I’m afraid I cannot do this, sweetheart.” He glues his eyes on you, irises glowing red. “The marks of an incubus are permanent once placed upon another body.”

“Liar, you were the one who put those marks in the first place! You must know how to take them away!” You raise your voice at him.

“The only way to not have these marks is to withstand and push away the charms of an incubus, Y/N. And as far as I remember, you did nothing of the aforementioned.”

You feel your body lighting up on fire all of a sudden, heat starting to pool in your panties. No, he can’t be right.

“That’s the Gaze. Once someone looks at you lustfully, your entire body is immediately aroused.” Joshua explains.

“M-Make it stop.” Your voice comes out weaker than it was supposed to.

“I can make it stop for a while. But are you sure you want me to, pretty angel?”

You barely manage to suppress a whimper before pulling Joshua’s body flush to yours, smashing your lips to his with a carnal fervor.

The last time you experienced this type of fervor was when he exposed his true nature to you.

Joshua moans in your mouth and wraps his tongue around yours, his arms grabbing your waist to manhandle you towards the altar.

He breaks the kiss and pins you on the sacred place, tracing his fingers over the larger mark.

“The one below is Trigger. There are two phrases I can say to you, each one with different effects.”

“W-What phrases are they?” You ask meekly.

“I already used the first one, angel. It was just to make you a tad bit hornier. The other one will just seal the deal.” He takes off his robes and reveals his chiseled body, along with his demonic horns.

“Joshua, s-stop making me beg already!” You kick your legs at him, but he grabs them by your thighs and reaches for the hem of your pants, pulling them down until they are completely off your body.

“That will happen too, sweetheart. But I wanna have fun with you first.”

He turns you around and pushes your head down on the altar, running his hands over the curve of your ass.

“For a fallen angel, you have an ass that would make even a succubus jealous.” He spanks your ass twice and then runs his hands over your back, raising your shirt to expose the scars on your back, where your wings once existed.

“You have been so good at blending in with the humans here and attending church every Sunday like a good little lamb, listening to my preachings as if I was your God.”

You let out a loud moan as you clench around emptiness, wetness starting to drip down your thighs. Joshua rips them in half with his hands and takes out his cock, rubbing the tip between your folds.

“Shua, please, fuck me, please!” You grip the edge of the altar, begging for something inside you.

Joshua lets out a deep chuckle. “Can’t deny you when you beg so prettily.”

He slams his cock inside you with one fluid thrust, your thighs shaking from feeling full in a split second.

“You’re taking me even better than last time, little angel. I’m impressed.” He leans his torso on your back, caging you between the cold surface and his body. “You are just so good at everything, aren’t you?”

“T-Thank you, thank you so m-much, Shua.” You answer between short sobs, body jerking forward with each thrust he delivers.

“It’s so rewarding to see you don the pretty mask of the kind newcomer who is so pure and innocent, as if you were the new guardian angel of this town.” He grips your hair and pulls it violently. “Only for me to crush it into millions of pieces every night on this damn altar, like I’ve done with your former brothers and sisters.”

Under different circumstances, you would have driven a blade of Empyrean steel through his skull, but the nearly mind-numbing pleasure has made you a pliant mess in Joshua’s hands.

And you consciously love it.

It could be the marks on your body, but ever since you fell from Heaven, you’ve been craving his touch, his gaze, his voice, his everything.

“There is something about you that makes me want to keep you for myself, away from any living being, be it human, angel or even demon.” He admits between pants, a clear signal of his impending orgasm.

“S-Shua, I- n-”

“I know, angel, I know.” He pants and lets go of your hair to wrap his arms around your torso and lift it off the altar, flush to his chest.

“I’m cumming!” You scream on top of your lungs, voice echoing in the empty church as you reach your climax and squirt all over the altar. Joshua doesn’t stop pistoning his hips against your ass, overstimulating you on purpose.

“You look so hot when you make a mess in God’s house, little lamb.” He moans in your ear and cums inside you, painting your insides white with his load. His hand caresses the glowing womb tattoos, the red sheen matching the one emitting from his hellish eyes.

You turn your head around and kiss him, teeth and tongue messily clashing with each other.

“I c-cannot see God anymore.” You confess breathlessly.

Joshua gives you a sardonic smile as he slips out of you and rolls you on your back so you can face him in all of his glory, his cum staining your legs.

“Your God stands in front of you, little lamb.”

#svthub #joshua smut #svt joshua #joshua hong #svt smut #seventeen smut #seventeen #tw blood #tw death

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whatdoeseverybodywant · 6 months

Text

LOVE - CHAPTER 8

fter getting back together, Janelle finds out thats she’s pregnant. Follow along with Josh and Janelle as they deal with the highs and lows of her pregnancy.

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site, even if you give me credit. DO NOT REPOST MY FICS

Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated ❤

Janelle is played by Justine Skye

Sequel to All I Need Is You: Read Here

Catch up on all other parts here

TAGLIST: @christinabae@southerngirl41@reci24@jeyusos-girl@jeyusosgirl@melaninsugababy@baconeggndcheez@bemybabiibish@jstarr86@nbanenefrmdao@purplehairgawdess@arination99@alyyaanna@m3llowww@gomussy@jeysbae@hennyyybarb@babysyhsy @bebesobrielo @theninthwonder @romansnumberonegirl

Janelle woke up with a groan as she felt her baby pressing directly on her bladder. Sitting up in the bed she let out a shocked gasp when Josh let out a snore from his spot on the bed. She hadn’t even heard him come in. Groaning again, she waddled into the bathroom, letting out a sigh of relief as she relieved herself. After washing her hands, she checked her phone for the time. 6:30 am. Sighing, she made her way to the kitchen to make Xavi’s lunch for school.

“You wake up way too early” She said in greeting to her dad, who was sitting at the island with a cup of coffee, reading the news from his IPAD.

“I already packed Xavi’s lunch.” He said when she went to open the fridge. When she turned to him and arched her eyebrow he added. “He said he likes my sandwiches better.” She laughed and grabbed something to drink instead. “My grandbaby got you up?” She nodded as she finished off her juice.

“Yes,” She groaned as the baby moved again and was now pressing even harder on her bladder. “He loves to kick my bladder.”

“Did y’all come up with a name yet? Got less than a week til he gets here.”

“I know.” She said grunting as the baby landed another hard kick. “I’m having a hard time choosing and Josh.” She stopped and shook her head with a chuckle. “He wants to name the baby Jeyson.” Her dad arched an eyebrow.

“What's wrong with that?”

“J-E-Y-S-O-N, Like Jey’s son. His wrestling name.” Her dad threw his head back and laughed.

“I like Jason though, the normal spelling.” She nodded her head in agreement.

“Yeah, but I don’t want Xavi to feel left out, you know? With me, Josh and the baby all having J names.”

“Ask Xavi for a name suggestion then.”

“Already did, and I'm not naming my son Bluey.” Her dad laughed again.

“Yeah, if those the only options, I'm leaning more towards Jeyson.” Her dad said and she rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Me too.” She laughed before standing up and stretching. “I gotta go wake Xavi up for school.” Before she could leave the kitchen, she felt a warm sensation down her legs. She turned to look at her dad, embarrassed because she thought she had peed on herself.

“Did your water just break?” He asked, staring at her wide-eyed. She gasped and stared back at him.

“Oh shit.” Her dad jumped up immediately and started yelling for Josh. Her dad helped her to the car before running as fast as he could up the steps to wake Josh up.

Everything happened so fast, one minute she was standing in her kitchen then the next she was laying in a hospital holding her newly born son.

“He looks just like you.” Josh whispered as watched in awe as his son gripped his fingers.

“What should we name him?” Janelle asked, wiping the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her baby. He was literally a perfect mixture of both her and Joshua.

“I’m still rockin’ with Jeyson.” He said, laughing softly when she gave him a side eye. “Or we could name him Bluey. Those are the only choices we have.” Janelle laughed softly, so she wouldn’t wake the baby up.

“I never knew naming a child would be this hard.”

“Knock-knock” They both looked towards the door when it opened and Josh’s mom poked her head through. “I got someone who’s very excited to meet his baby brother.” She said and laughed when Xavier squeezed through the spaced between her and the door to get into the room.

“Is that him?” He asked. “He’s so tiny.” Xavier frowned his face up, making everyone laugh.

“Yeah, he’s just a baby bud.” Janelle told him. “You wanna hold him?” When Xavier nodded, Josh took him over to the sink to wash his hands before helping him sit next to Janelle on the hospital bed. “Ok, just make sure you hold his head ok?” She asked and placed the baby in Xavier’s arms.

“Hi baby. I’m your big brother.” Janelle ‘awed’ as she watched Xavier place a kiss on his little brother's head.

“Jeyson Edward Fatu.”

Janelle shook her head and Josh sighed. “Nope, I don't like it. It flows but no.” Xavier and his mom had just left and she and Josh were still trying to find a name that fit their baby boy. “I’ve always liked the name Malachi.”

“Malachi.” Josh said the name to see how it sounded and he liked it. “Ok I like Malachi. What about a middle name?” When she shrugged he added. “What about your dad’s name?”

“Malachi Nathaniel?” Josh nodded

“Yeah I like it. Xavi has my name as a middle and Malachi can have your dad’s.”

“Okay.” Janelle said, looking down at her baby boy who was bundled up in her arms. “Hello Mr. Malachi Nathaniel Fatu.”

“He’s gonna cry. You know that right?”

Janelle nodded. “Yeah, male sure you have your camera ready.”

About 2 hours later, Janelle’s dad walked into the room carrying a balloon that said ‘it’s a boy.’ a stuffed elephant and a bouquet of sunflowers.

“Look its grandpa’” Nathaniel immediately set the stuff in his hands down and went to wash his hand.

“Oh!” He cooed as he picked Malachi up from the bassinet. “He looks just like you Nelly.

Did y’all pick a name yet?” He asked, then frowned when Josh started recording him.

“Yeah, we did.” Janelle said, bringing his attention back over to her. “Meet Malachi Nathaniel Fatu.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He said, his eyes already welling up with tears. Janelle laughed. “You gave him my name.” He set Malachi back down before giving Janelle a tight hug, his body shaking as he cried into her shoulder. “Thank you.”

Janelle Porter

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JanellePorter: Malachi N. Fatu

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thebiggerbear · 5 months

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Alec McDowell x Reader - Prompt Response - "I hate you." "You have a weird way of showing that."

Summary: You're looking for a way to set yourself up and blend in after breaking out of Manticore. Having heard the rumors, you seek out Max for help. In doing so, you come across someone you had never thought you'd see again.

Pairing: Alec McDowell x Female!Reader; Alec McDowell x Female!Transgenic Reader

A/N: Prompt from @creativepromptsforwriting (#941). I have been in love with the world of Dark Angel and Alec ever since the show aired. To me, it's completely fascinating, and I really wish it had continued. (I was a big Malec fan back then btw; Lomax just wasn't my thing) There's so much to explore, especially with Max herself and how the transgenic community was going to move forward now that the public was aware of them. And of course, Joshua, OC, and Alec. Great stuff. Originally, I wasn't sure what scenario would best suit Alec based on this prompt line but I knew it would definitely be something that would apply to him. As far as It's A Wonderful Life, I was listening to the Christmas radio show they aired back in the 40's as I was outlining this one and the idea sort of came to life on its own. Hope this one's alright.

This is meant to take place mid-s2 and I did use events from the Berrisford Agenda episode (2x11) as inspiration for the beginning. 😉

Thanks to my beta Em for her services. You rock, girl!

Warnings: implied violence; implied murder; mention of fatal injury; implied sex

Word Count: 8419

Please do not do any of the above. Thank you for your understanding.

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Alec Taglist: @heartlessdelusions; @nancymcl

Jensen Taglist: @samanddeaninatrenchcoat

"I hate you." "You have a weird way of showing that."

You made your way into the bike messenger shop, glancing around despite the busy, distracting din. Rumor had it that a transgenic named Max had a sweet hookup here, something a fellow transgenic like yourself could use, being on the run and all. You could get a job, make money, and more importantly: blend in; not to mention it would teach you the layout of the city, the ins and outs, and provide you with legal documentation to let you past checkpoints in case Manticore ever came looking.

So far, you hadn’t spotted the dark brunette you had been told about, and you didn’t sense any of your kind here. While a few people either walked past you, giving you a once-over as they did or stood there staring, all of them appeared to be human. Everyone else was milling to and fro, and you wondered if perhaps you’d been given wrong information. It had happened before so you were used to it, but this one you had really been hoping would turn out to be true. You could use a lucky break.

A man was barking out orders to a group of messengers before they dispersed, and his eye landed on you once they did. “You need something, Missy-Miss?”

You assumed the crankpot was the boss so you carefully approached him. “Uh, yeah, I was looking for—”

You were interrupted by yells coming from your far left. Your head snapped in the direction of the sounds and your eyes widened at what you saw.

There was the transgenic X5-494 backed up against the lockers, holding his hands out in a ‘whoa’ manner and giving the women in front of him his most charming grin; by the looks of their faces, it wasn’t working. “Ladies, ladies. No need to fight.”

“You didn’t tell me you were already seeing Lena when you asked me out!” One woman seethed.

“He asked you out?” Another woman, who you assumed was Lena, demanded. “I bet it happened right after we slept together, didn’t it?”

“He slept with you?” A third woman blanched.

“Tell me you haven't been making the rounds through the entire company,” another woman scoffed in disgust.

You shook your head, watching the show. Typical 494. Even out here he was still getting himself into trouble. By the sounds of it, he more than deserved the wrath of the women he was currently faced with, but you were still taken aback by his sudden appearance. Just when you thought you’d never see him again…

Before you knew it, the older man you had been talking to made his way over. “Alright, break it up! Break it up!” He forced his way next to 494 and glared at the ladies. “Shouldn’t you be working? You want your paychecks? Packages need to be delivered on time. Get going.”

The women grumbled and began to disperse, glaring in both men’s direction. “You just wait until later, Alec! This isn’t over!” 494 gave them all a sheepish smile while the other man scowled.

“Okay, okay! You’ve got deliveries to make. Packages don’t deliver themselves so let’s go, keep it moving!”

By the time they had all left, 494’s smile dropped and he seemed to deflate, gratefully clapping the man’s shoulder. “Thanks. I think they were about to eat me alive,” he laughed.

“Not on my watch,” the other man promised. “How’re you feeling, champ? You okay?”

“Yeah, no, I’m good. Just, you know…” He gestured to where the women had disappeared and bugged his eyes before letting out a nervous chuckle.

“You should’ve let them take a swing at him,” a brunette woman suddenly threw at them as she approached her locker, which was near the two men. “It’s not like he didn’t deserve it.”

494 let out a huff. “Thanks, Max,” he mumbled.

That name caught your attention—so this was Max. It had surprised you to see 494 here of all places, but it made sense considering what X5-452 had set up here.

“Don’t be like that, Missy-Miss,” the older man warned the woman. “There’s no reason to have that kind of attitude.”

Max shook her head and discreetly rolled her eyes, zipping up her backpack. “So what have you got for me today, Normal?”

Normal held out two packages for her to take. “They need these by noon, not one second later.”

Max snatched the packages and nodded. 494 stepped closer to her. “I’ll come with you,” he insisted, still seeing some of the dirty looks he was receiving from girls coming to and fro.

She made a face at him which clearly said that wasn’t going to happen, and before she could voice that, Normal cleared his throat. “Not a bad idea. You could show him the ropes on that side of town and keep him from the estrogen mob looking to burn him at the stake. He’s got that raw animal charisma working and it’s causing trouble.” This time you made your own face of disgust. And this guy’s name was Normal? Far from it.

“Whatever,” Max snapped and shoved a package into 494’s chest, hard. She turned and was about to leave when you stepped forward.

“Max?” You called.

Her eyes snapped towards you as did 494’s and Normal’s. “Yeah?” She asked, seeming unsure.

You knew she was sensing who you really were just like you could sense her and 494 across the way, even if you hadn’t just been watching them. You ignored 494’s eyes widening at the sight of you and the sudden tension in his body, making your way closer. “I was wondering if we could have a word.”

Max’s brows furrowed and Normal glanced between you, holding up a finger. “No visitors at work, Miss. You know the rule: packages need to be there by noon. Make it quick.” He turned and walked away, completely uninterested in whatever conversation you two were about to have.

Max stepped over to you, studying you intently. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. What do you want?”

494 was standing right next to her, his eyes never leaving you. The surprise was still evident in his expression along with something else you couldn’t quite put a name to.

You glanced around, making sure no one was paying attention to you, before turning and lifting your ponytail from your neck, letting her see the barcode tattoo you had. After a moment, you spun on your heel to find her appearing a little more receptive to what you had to say. “So, you got somewhere we can talk?”

She nodded and glanced over at 494 before inclining her head in a direction she expected you to follow her in. You obliged, your eyes briefly flickering to 494’s, before he followed both of you.

Once you were outside in a semi-private spot, Max turned to you, her arms crossed. “So, who are you really?”

“X5-498,” you answered.

Max glanced over at 494 before addressing you once again. “How long have you been on the run?”

“Since you destroyed the base and helped 494 escape.” You nodded in his direction. Yeah, maybe you were still a little bitter about that. 494 looked like a deer caught in headlights.

“I didn’t help him do anything,” Max insisted, her nose scrunching up in what appeared to be repulsion at the very idea.

494 ignored her and trained his gaze on you. “I thought you were dead.”

You smirked over at him and crossed your arms. “Sorry to disappoint.” You noticed his jaw tighten and his eyes narrow at the jab.

“You two know each other?” Max was looking between you but neither of you looked away from the other.

“She was my breeding partner,” 494 informed her.

Max’s eyes widened and turned on you. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “He wouldn’t have been my first choice, either.”

He snorted and the amused smirk you were more than familiar with began to appear on his face, yet he didn’t say a word.

“Oh-kay. That’s not super weird or anything.” She turned to 494. “You had more than one breeding partner? Were you Manticore’s stud horse or something?” She looked grossed out at the thought.

494’s eyes briefly flickered over to her. “498 and I were paired off long before you got there.”

“But then, if you were already paired off, why were you paired off with me, too?” Your gaze snapped to Max who looked genuinely confused for a moment before realization hit her. “Oh, right. It was all part of your big plan to get me to trust you so I could accidentally kill Logan. Got it.”

494 shrugged unapologetically. “Pretty much.” He turned back to you. “Renfro gave me the mission and told me if I didn’t succeed, then that’d be it for me. I was already on thin ice with them. So, she assigned me to you, Max, and I did what I had to do.”

“And he left me to die,” you supplied, gracing her with your smirk.

His jaw dropped before he closed his mouth and pressed his lips into a thin line. “I didn’t leave you there to die,” he protested.

“Leaving me there to burn to death constitutes as leaving me to die,” you countered. He glared at you but you ignored it. You noticed Max’s eyes constantly moving between the two of you and you decided you’d get to the point of why you were here. “452, I’m here because word on the street is that you have a way of helping fellow transgenics like yourself.” You motioned towards 494. “I was hoping you might be able to help me as well.”

She looked taken aback. “I don’t have anything set up like that. As a matter of fact, Alec here only got the job because of Normal’s weird worship of him.” 494 gave her a smug smile which made her roll her eyes. “But as far as other transgenics go, I don’t really have anything in place to help like you’re thinking. Sorry.”

You nodded, figuring as much. You thought it had been unlikely but you had hoped anyway. All you could do now was remain on the run until you could find a place where you could seamlessly blend in. “Thank you for your time.”

“Just hold up a sec,” 494 entreated you, but you ignored him.

You turned to leave when Max’s voice stopped you. “Wait.” You glanced back and found her watching you, compassion twinkling in her eyes. “Maybe there’s something we can do.” She quickly glanced at 494 who was giving her a look. Max rolled her eyes at him but lifted her chin when addressing you. “I wouldn’t put you with this one because it sounds like you’ve been punished enough already.”

494 shot her a glare to which she only smirked. You couldn’t help but smile yourself; perhaps you would like this 452 after all.

“But I think I have an idea of where you can stay. It’s temporary and you’d have a roommate, but we can see about getting you a job and getting you set up properly. Logan can help, too, with papers. If you’re serious and you plan to stay, that is.”

494 watched you intently. You thought it over for a moment. This proposal was better than anything you had going for you right now. Hell, you would have even stuck yourself with 494 again if it meant you’d have a place to sleep and something to eat, safe from Manticore for a while. You gave Max a nod. “Thank you.” To your surprise, 494 seemed to relax a bit at your response.

She smiled and turned, indicating you should follow. “You’ll be with Joshua for the time being. He’s pretty easy to get along with,” she assured you, her tone softening a bit. You could tell she was fond of the guy she was mentioning.

“Joshua?” You questioned, looking from her to 494.

494 stayed in step with you as you all made your way out onto the street. He shot you a smile as Max retrieved her bike. “You like dogs?”

Joshua did indeed turn out to be a decent roommate. He was kind and thoughtful and actually a little funny. Truthfully, you hadn’t been prepared to find a dogman as your new temporary roommate, but once you found out about his history, you found yourself feeling compassion for his situation. You were glad he had managed to escape the destruction of the base that night.

Max kept her word and set you up with a job as a bike messenger at Jam Pony (apparently a couple of the girls 494 had been involved with decided to up and quit for some strange reason), which gave you access to all of the legal documentation you’d need to get past certain checkpoints in the city. She’d introduced you to her friends Original Cyndi and Sketchy, who would also turn out to be your coworkers. Normal viewed you as another hooligan he was forced to pay for standing around and not doing your job just like the rest, though despite his warped assertions, you actually did get your work done. You ended up going on runs with 494 and Max to get to know the ins and outs of the job. Outside of work, you kept your distance unless your help was needed. Max and OC had invited you to Crash a couple of times, but you bowed out, especially when Sketch seemed a little too invested in your joining them. You also met Logan and Asha, neither of whom you cared for very much; still, they were important to your fellow transgenics and Logan was helping you, so you kept your thoughts to yourself. All in all, you were settling into life in Seattle and beginning to blend in. And you avoided 494 like the Plague despite his couple of attempts to approach you and strike up a conversation, so everything was going pretty swell.

You had even found a new place you liked to escape to every now and then. You knew the Space Needle was also Max’s favorite spot—she had told you as much—but after a long day, you liked to get to the highest point and look out over the city you now were beginning to call home.

It was one such peaceful night when 494 found you.

“Thought I’d find you here.” He carefully lowered himself down next to you.

You didn’t respond and instead focused on the feel of the cool breeze gently blowing through your hair.

“I’m glad you made it out,” he admitted.

You shot him a look before returning your attention to the city.

“I am.” He rested his forearms on his knees and looked out towards the city skyline. “I know what we had wasn’t of our making, but it wasn’t all horrible, was it?”

You let his question hang in the air. No, it hadn’t been all horrible, but it was still a messed up situation you both had been thrust into. Based on what you’d learned about his sessions with Max, copulation hadn’t needed to happen due to the background plan. You and 494 weren’t so lucky after a while, just like every other pair of breeding partners in the facility. By the time Max was recaptured and brought to the base, Renfro and company were already starting to side-eye the two of you and wanted to know how you hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. Almost every other pairing had been successful or reassigned if they weren’t; you were arousing too much suspicion by your constant failure to report an impregnation despite your successful copulations. The truth was that you and 494 did what you could to prevent it from happening. You had no desire to add to the ranks of Manticore transgenics and neither did he, something you both had been on the same page about since the first night you’d been thrown into a cell together.

You hadn’t fooled yourselves. This wasn’t about love or any attraction you had for one another, nor was it even a fun roll in the sheets; you both would not have chosen each other if you’d had a say in any of it. This was all about science and genetics, and it was purely clinical. That didn’t mean that there weren’t a few moments here and there that you snatched for yourselves: a laugh here, a tender moment there, a camaraderie forged between you in flipping off the organization that had created you and controlled you since your first breaths. So no, it wasn’t all horrible.

Which is why you didn’t protest or move away when you felt him subtly shift a little closer to you. You nearly smiled at the action; 494 had always sought a connection between you, something that superseded the physical. You couldn’t count the amount of times after your sessions that you had both held onto each other: you still remembered how he would wrap his arms around you and pull you close, letting out a content sigh as you ran your fingers through his sweaty hair, scratching at his scalp in the way you knew he liked. And he would make sure every inch of him was still touching you on the uncomfortable cot suspended from the wall, before the guards were due to come back and retrieve him. How he would chatter away about different subjects, doing his best to engage you.

“I went back for you,” he murmured.

Surprise ran through you as you turned wide eyes on him.

“Once they revealed the base’s location and I was able to get free, I went back for you.” He stared at you, swallowing compulsively. “But by the time I got there, it was too late. I thought you were gone.”

You could see the truth of what he was saying in his green eyes, but you refused to give in that easily. You huffed out a snort and turned back to the view. “More like you were hoping.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him shaking his head. “I never wanted you gone.”

You ignored him and continued your ritual of observing the city, allowing silence to fall between you. Only when he slowly took your hand into his did you turn a glare on him and finally speak: “I hate you, you realize that, right?”

“You have a weird way of showing that.” He nodded his head towards your intertwined fingers.

You rolled your eyes but you didn’t pull away. “Don’t you have a harem to get back to? Or what’s her name…Asha? Now that you’re free to choose who you want to copulate with. You didn’t seem to have any issue finding willing partners before I showed up.”

This time, he was the one who snorted. “Just passing time.”

You finally did pull away, grimacing. “Ew.”

He let out a nervous-sounding laugh. “I just meant it’s all been casual. Nothing serious.”

You side-eyed him. “Good luck with that.” You got to your feet and were about to leave when he grabbed your hand to stop you, forcing you to look down at him.

“Y/N,” he murmured, using the name Max had picked out for you. It wasn’t your favorite, but you needed something to go on the paperwork for Jam Pony and the papers Logan was acquiring for you, so you figured it would do. Perhaps you’d even grow into it and it could be a decent identity for you.

“494?”

He shot you a glare. “Alec.”

Right. Max had named him, too. That was something he’d mentioned on one of the runs you, he, and Max had gone on. You had smirked at Max’s explanation of that choice while 494 had rolled his eyes.

“Okay then. Alec?” It felt weird to call him that yet at the same time…it felt like a good fit.

His thumb tenderly stroked against your skin and he watched you. “Just wanted to see how it sounded. Using our names instead.”

You nodded. You could understand that. All of this was new and…fragile in a way. Any moment you could be found, you could either be killed or worse — brought back to another base. However, from what you’d heard, the former was more likely to happen these days. Max had encouraged you to start thinking about what you wanted out of life, and so far, freedom was certainly at the top of your list. You might be free right now, but you weren’t really free, not with your captors still out there who viewed you as their property, to apprehend or destroy at will. You had a feeling that Alec knew that just as well as you did, no matter the optimistic picture Max tried to paint for Joshua or any other transgenics she might come across.

He tugged on your hand to urge you to sit back down next to him. You resisted for a moment but then decided to oblige. What did a few minutes more matter in the scheme of things? He snuck an arm around your shoulders and pulled you closer. Had it been anyone else, that arm would have been ripped from its socket by now.

Alec gave you a small smile and leaned down to press a kiss to your hair, flooding you with memories of every time he’d done just that. Other memories made appearances, too: his sharing with you about his side hustle of trading things with guards for certain comforts, something he actually used on your behalf a few times; his laugh and kiss to your head when both of you had gotten a little too much into one copulating session, almost making the two of you forget to take your usual precautions; his promise of getting you both out of there together if you could hold out just a little longer; his expression when he told you that he thought Renfro had a mission for him that would keep him out of your barracks for the next few nights but that he’d do his best to see it through quickly and return; the last time you’d seen him when he’d exchanged a look with you across the yard before you and your unit were led away for more drills and testing, you thinking back to the worry you’d seen in his expression and since you didn’t know the cause, it created your own set of worries — 494 never let it show if he was ever worried or scared.

You weren’t sure how to feel about any of this. Yes, you and Alec had history but it had been forced upon you. Although you had forged some sort of connection during it all, it didn't mean that either of you were looking to continue that or see where it went on the outside—especially now that you were able to choose for yourselves. Still, that connection hadn’t simply ceased to exist just because you wished it would… Especially not when he was trying his damndest to restore some piece of it, right here and right now.

He lowered his head to meet your eyes and you could feel something familiar inside your chest squeezing a little bit. You told yourself that it had to be heartburn from the chicken stew you’d eaten for dinner earlier, and not anything to do with him at all. “I’ve missed this,” he quietly admitted. “Just talking and being together. Didn’t you?”

You gave him a look of disbelief mixed with amusement. “I don’t really think we did all that much talking as I remember it.”

That cocky smirk of his was back. “True.”

You rolled your eyes and he laughed. You enjoyed the familiar sound that caused more memories to wash over you. You would never admit it but the bond you’d shared had actually been the only good thing to sustain you when you were running after the explosion. You’d hoped that wherever he was, he had gotten away and was safe. You knew he hadn’t been in his barracks; you’d checked amidst the chaos.

Thinking back to that night, you rested your head back against his shoulder and stared out into the night. His lips tipped up in a small smile and he laid his head up against yours, following your gaze. You both stayed like that for the next hour until he murmured to you, “Come back with me?”

You turned to frown up at him. Was he for real? “Really?”

“No, not that, I just meant…” He ran his free hand over his hair. “I didn’t think I’d see you again and now you’re here. I didn’t really know how to ask you before without it sounding like that. But I want to show you my place.” He gave you a bit of a proud smile.

You considered it. It would be interesting to see what kind of setup he had going for himself. That had been something you had talked about back in your bunk at the base as he held you to him, his hands roaming your bare back. “You sure Alec’s groupies won’t mind?”

Alec smirked and shook his head. “I don’t have any roommates or regular visitors if that’s what you’re asking.”

You smirked right back and leaned in, making his eyes drop to your lips. “I wasn’t,” you whispered before dropping his hand and getting to your feet.

He got up as well, grinning over at you, that familiar fire lighting those sharp green eyes. “Just think: no guards to bribe, no need to keep it down, no time limit, no metal cot we both have to try to fit on…”

You snorted. “So you really are asking me to go back with you for that reason.”

“No, I really do want to show you the sweet setup I have.” His smile then turned wicked. “But if that were to happen, I wouldn’t exactly be against it.”

“Uh-huh.” You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, looking away from him. You did your best to hide your own smile when he wrapped his arms around you from behind, resting his lips near your ear.

“So what do you say? Let me show you my apartment. I got a couch, a bed, a tub…”

“Ooh, a tub?” You pretended to be impressed though you weren’t pretending too much. If a tub was considered a luxury before the world went to hell, then it was an even rarer commodity now.

“Yep,” he huskily whispered as he brushed a kiss to your ear lobe. “All the hot water and soap you could want.” He trailed his lips down your neck, making your eyes shut halfway. “And I’ve got glasses, plates, a coffee table… I even have a stereo.”

You dug your teeth into your bottom lip when he found that spot on your neck that he knew you loved. “A stereo?”

“For music,” he explained, pressing a kiss to your jawline. “And I even managed to score some whiskey from years back, pre-pulse. You’ll love it,” he promised before nuzzling your cheek. “Come home with me.”

You stared out over the horizon, unsure if you should give in to what he was tempting you with. Before, at Manticore, the sex had been clinical and while there was a connection between you, given the circumstances, it made sense to stick together like glue. But now… “I don’t know if I should. We’re out now and everything’s changed.”

He spun you in his arms, his brows furrowed as he cupped your face with his hands. “Not for me. I meant what I said to you in there, we were gonna get out together, find some place to blend in, and make it work.”

“But we didn’t get out together,” you whispered, gently removing his hands from you before stepping around him towards the door.

He grabbed your hand. “Y/N.” You glanced back at his earnest expression. “I did come back for you. When everything exploded and I didn’t hear or see any trace of you, I thought—”

“I know. I went to look for you, too, once I managed to get out of my barracks.” His eyes widened slightly in surprise. “That guard, Hayes, he let me out. He said something about a deal you had in place with him if things went wrong while you were away on your mission.” You dropped your gaze. “It must’ve really cost you, so… Thanks for that.” You squeezed his hand before letting it go and making your way inside the abandoned building.

You didn’t look back; there was no point. When you thought back to that night, you remembered Hayes sneering at you as he opened your cell door, spitting something about telling 494 that he owed him something better than cigars and the usual contraband this time. You didn’t bother thanking the man who treated you and every other transgenic on the base as nothing more than freak science experiments that were less than human, and you booked it towards the male barracks, fighting your way through when you needed to. You would never forget the relief you felt finding the specific bunk you were looking for empty, that was then followed by the feeling of betrayal, which quickly shifted into acceptance. You hoped he was alive out there somewhere, whether he had made it out before you got there or he had already been out in the world on his mission. You had chalked up your time together as a weird yet not so bad interaction and kept running. You’d even seen Hayes’ dead body on your way out, his throat torn apart, almost as if that too was closing the book on this messed up chapter of your life.

And that’s what you’d done: closed that chapter of your life and attempted to move on, to do what you could to figure out your own life. You never expected to see 494 again, let alone find him living his life, a harem of women around him. It had stuck a finger into that particular wound for a moment before the blanket acceptance was back in place. Your relationship was exactly as you’d thought it had been for both of you: something that had been forced upon you by your creators and you both had tried to make something good out of it (just not the child Manticore had wanted). And now, it was over. You both were on the outside and it was time for you both to go your separate ways, figuratively if not literally. He’d done right by you in that last moment and you’d escaped, gotten free, and lived. What more could you ask for?

You were just about to scale down to the next level when his hand landed on your shoulder, making you look back at him.

“Y/N, come back with me to my place. I want to show you something.”

You gave him a look. “494—”

“Alec,” he corrected. “I’m not talking about sex, though if you wanted that at some point, like I said, I’m more than willing.” He lifted his hand to cup your cheek and he stared into your eyes, willing you to agree. “I really want to show you something.”

His thumb tenderly ran along your bottom lip in a familiar gesture that had always preceded a kiss before he left you for the night. A part of you hoped he would repeat the action but when he didn’t, you were more relieved than anything. Your body yearned for his—the familiarity, the comfort—but you still didn’t think you should fall back into old habits—it could only end badly, whether he ended up getting bored or one of you (or both) were found by your enemies. You felt incredibly torn. Truthfully, you weren’t quite sure what you wanted when it came to him.

“Please,” he added. “Come over.”

He looked so determined, so earnest, that you found yourself slowly nodding in agreement.

His handsome face lit up with a bright smile. “I promise, you’re really gonna like it.” He urged you to follow him, scaling to the next level down with you right behind him. You hoped he was right, and you also hoped you would finally get some sort of answer for yourself on whether to explore this new great unknown with him with the former Emerald City as the backdrop in contrast to your cramped cell or to close the book on him for good.

You had to admit, Alec had a nice apartment. It was bigger than you’d imagined and he had told you the truth: he had glasses, plates, a coffee table, a couch, a bed, a tub, the so-called stereo (which he turned on for a minute to show you how it worked), and the whiskey he’d promised. As you drank from your glass, marveling at the taste, you glanced around, nodding.

“Nice,” you complimented.

“Thanks.” He took your hand and led you to a corner of the living room where a box sat tall on some sort of stand. He released you to go over and stand next to it, turning to beam over at you. “What do you think?”

Your eyes roved over the box with a glass front, confused. “It’s…great?”

He gave you a look as if you should know what it was before smiling wide again. “It’s a TV,” he crowed.

Your brows furrowed in confusion. “TV?”

“Yeah, you know, to watch movies and TV shows, that kind of thing.”

You peered at it, wondering just how it worked. You’d heard of movies of course, but you’d never seen one. Did the images just appear on the glass when you turned it on? Was there something that needed to be selected or perhaps inserted somewhere?

He proudly laid a hand on top of it. “I managed to get ahold of it after one of my customers I’ve been selling synthetics to heard about some old lady dying nearby who had one. I headed right over to her place and got this beauty.” He smiled down at it.

“You’ve been selling synthetics?” Of course he was still hustling, even out here. In Manticore, it had been a necessity; out here, if it helped him get nice digs like this and set him up, you had to give him credit for keeping it going and getting creative.

“Among other things. Oh, and look.” He gestured down to another smaller box sitting in front of it. “I was also able to get a VCR. It took me a few months to get a lead on one of these, but I got it.” He chuckled and turned a wide smile on you.

You returned the smile, still unsure of what a VCR was.

“And the best part,” He took your glass from you and placed it on top of the TV before he grabbed something from behind it and shoved it into your hands. You looked down at the rectangular object and spied a familiar image you had only seen once before, when you were on the run from Manticore the first time. Your eyes widened; something you had told Alec about one night after copulating a few times and he was falling asleep, him tiredly rubbing your shoulder as you laid your head on his chest, one of the nights he’d bought more time for you both… The sight made the corners of your eyes sting, yet you forced yourself to keep the tears at bay. He had heard you that night even while nodding off and he’d— he’d managed to get his hands on it. “It’s that movie you told me about,” he began. “It’s—”

“--A Wonderful Life,” you finished in an awed whisper. You reverently traced the picture you’d seen a hundred times before Manticore caught you. You ignored the rips and stains surrounding the rim of the image and focused on the man who’d caught your interest in the first place. He looked happy, staring down at his wife, the two of them surrounded by their children, one hoisted up behind him and holding onto him for dear life. They all looked happy, which was something you’d never had or known. You’d never had a father, never knew your mother, and you’d never had a family, not like the one portrayed in the picture. Sure, you had dozens of brothers and sisters, but you weren’t a family. Manticore would punish you if any of you had even uttered the word. You were soldiers in training and that was it.

Still, this image piqued your interest and many nights, you found that you couldn’t stop staring at it. It was in an old theater, a place you’d managed to find while running the first time—the same place you took shelter in and eventually turned it into your own setup. There were other people throughout the theater who’d had the same idea, but they pretty much left you alone once you’d fought off the biggest guy in the group who had stupidly tried to take your food from you. Once you’d seen that poster, it created a yearning in you for something you had never known, something you never imagined wanting. You didn’t need parents and you didn’t need siblings, but you did crave family… Something that became more and more apparent the more you studied the image, imagining what that life would be like.

Which is why it was so cruel when Manticore recaptured you and immediately thrust you into its breeding program. Not only had they taken your life from you since conception, viewed you as their property that they were determined to see some sort of return of their investment on—now they wanted to take whatever life you could create from you and control it, too. You weren’t going to let that happen. As a matter of fact, you’d fought 494 off the first night they sent him into your cell. It had taken him by surprise because he’d thought you both were on the same page: you had orders. But he’d quickly learned that you’d rather die than follow those particular ones. He’d maintained his distance until a guard came to retrieve him, and as he’d glanced back at you one last time as he stepped across the threshold, you knew then that you were marked for death. A soldier refusing to obey and follow orders was no good to the organization and more importantly, of no use. Thus, it took you by surprise the next day when 494 confirmed the success of your copulation the previous night to your superiors which led to him being brought back to your cell later that night to continue.

From there, even though it took a little bit, you’d both talked and began getting to know one another. You’d learned that he didn’t want to spawn any kids for Manticore anymore than you did. Eventually, a bond began to form between you and of course, so did an attraction. The night you got hit with your first heat since being recaptured—thanks to a splash of feline DNA in your system, something you’d always been able to manage on the outside before—things had changed between you, and 494 no longer had to lie when reporting that copulation had been successful. Nonetheless, the entire time you’d been back in Manticore’s hands, you’d never forgotten about that picture and what you truly wanted: your freedom, a life, and eventually, family—happiness. You wanted to be happy just like the people in the poster.

And now here you were: on the outside, free for the moment, attempting to build a life, and this picture had somehow made its way back to you, right into your very hands, real enough to literally touch. “How did you get it?”

“One of Max’s fences gave me a line on where I could find one.”

You glanced up to find him watching you intently. You gave him a small grateful smile and you could see relief flood through his expression before he covered it with a smile of his own.

He cleared his throat. “I got it before you showed up, but…I never watched it. I couldn’t bring myself to. It felt wrong to watch it without you, especially after how you talked about it, so it’s been sitting in that case for months. I hope it still works.” He let out in a quiet chuckle.

You placed the box down on top of the TV and approached him. He watched as you cupped his face with your hands and pulled him down to you, your lips meeting for the first time since seeing him again. That all-too familiar feeling flooded you and this time, you didn’t fight the smile that made its way to your face. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” This time, he was the one initiating a kiss, and he snaked his arms around your waist, pulling you into him.

Only when you both needed air and he pulled away to trail kisses down to your neck did you tease into his ear, “So exactly how many girls have you shown this movie to?”

“None,” he breathed, nibbling on your earlobe. “I told you, I didn’t want to watch it without you.”

“You expect me to believe that you haven’t shown the TV or the VCR to any other girls?” You chuckled.

He pulled back to meet your eyes. “Okay, yeah, fair enough, I’ve shown them both of those, but not that movie, I swear. That was always yours.”

You knew you should be disgusted—not only that he had been such a callous player in your absence but also because he had used similar moves on you—but right then, you decided to throw all caution to the wind, even if just for one night. Seeing the movie picture again had reminded you that you needed to take happiness wherever you could find it, because thanks to your life, who knew how much longer you had?

“So,” you whispered huskily as you ran your fingers through his hair. “What were you saying about a bed and no time limit…?”

His eyes lit up with that familiar fire and he smirked. “Oh, hell yes.” He kissed you harder than before and picked you up, making you laugh into his mouth, as he used his transgenic speed to get you to the bedroom.

You watched the images on the screen in awe. You and Alec were sharing a blanket to keep your nude bodies warm as you sat in his embrace, the only light in the place coming from the TV. He had his chin resting on your bare shoulder, watching the movie intently with you. The man from the movie poster, George, was telling the woman, Mary, how he was going to travel the world and he was listing off his dreams right before she threw a rock at the abandoned house they were facing. When they started singing, Alec began to frown, but you? You were completely enraptured. You’d never seen or heard anything like this before.

In the beginning, the tape had seemed like it didn’t want to work, black and white tears in the image as it played, but thankfully Alec knew what he was doing with the equipment and how to get it working. Ever since then, your eyes hadn’t strayed from the screen once, even when Alec had tried to get a second round going, promising you he could pause the film and you could finish watching it later. When he’d failed to garner your attention, he’d pressed a kiss to the back of your head and settled behind you, letting out a quiet sigh of contentment as he’d burrowed into your neck before rejoining you in watching the movie.

When George told Mary that he’d give her the moon, Alec rolled his eyes and dropped a kiss onto your skin. “That’s lame,” he muttered.

You turned to look at him. “Why? Because he wants to give her anything she wants?”

“No. Because he’s going to lasso the moon. Lasso the moon? Really?”

You laughed and he smiled, leaning in to kiss your cheek. “Alright, sure, it’s cheesy, but the message isn’t.”

“It’s not?” Alec moved to kiss your ear.

“No. He likes her that much, he’d do anything for her. Kind of nice actually,” you ended in a whisper as you turned back to the screen. You let out a soft chuckle when the old man interrupted the couple and told George that he talked too much and he should kiss Mary already.

Alec, who had glanced back at the screen to watch that part of the scene, turned an affectionate smile on you before leaning in to nuzzle your cheek. “Stay here tonight,” he urged.

Your eyelids dropped halfway when he moved his lips to your neck and you dug your teeth into your bottom lip. “I can’t. Joshua will be worried.”

“The big guy will be just fine, trust me,” he promised, his lips gliding back to your shoulder. “I want you to stay.”

You thought it over. You both had reacquainted yourselves earlier quite nicely so that wasn’t an issue. Just like Alec had said, it had been amazing to be in a bed for once, not under the pressure of a timeclock or having to worry about prying eyes and listening ears milling around. You didn’t have to separate soon after you were finished if the guards Alec usually bribed weren’t on shift that night. Here, you were free to just be and let things take their own course and that had been a phenomenal feeling. As for what came next… you weren’t too sure about that. You hadn’t done a lot of talking since Alec carried you into his bedroom and playfully dropped you on the bed, knowing it wouldn’t hurt you. You had let out an incredulous laugh and he mirrored your grin before he’d been all over you.

You watched as he pressed tender kisses to your bare skin before glancing up at you hopefully. You took his face into your hand and he leaned into your touch. Seeing that, you decided to state your one condition if he truly wanted you to stay. “No more girls.” You refused to look away as you threw down that gauntlet. While he never said he wanted anything more than tonight with you, you needed him to know that if this did somehow go past that, you wouldn’t be wondering just who he had in his bed or on his couch a few hours before you would arrive at his front door. Or who he might bring back to this apartment to show his TV and VCR to.

He stared at you for a moment until the corner of his lips tipped up into a bit of a smug smile. “No more girls,” he agreed.

You tilted your head at him, studying his expression.

“What?” He laughed.

“Just like that?”

Alec’s smile grew and he leaned in to place a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Just like that.” You weren’t the least bit surprised when he suddenly turned you around in his arms to face him, one hand keeping the blanket over you, cocooning you both. He wiggled his eyebrows playfully at you before covering both of your heads with the blanket and leaning in for the kill.

“What about the movie?” You laughed as he began to kiss your neck.

“That’s the great thing about tapes. We can watch it again anytime we want,” he murmured, his hands starting to roam your body insistently.

“So we can watch the lasso the moon part again?” You teased.

He groaned into your neck, making you laugh. “Yeah, we can, if that’s what you want,” he grumbled, sounding like he was going to majorly suffer when you watched it again.

You pulled back, smiling, and cupped his face. “I want you,” you told him earnestly. And you did. You wanted more nights with him like this, you wanted what you two had managed to create back in your cell. Studying him now, you could see the man who had become almost everything to you back then, who’d kept you going during the rough moments, who ended up looking out for you even though he usually lived by the unwritten rule of only ever looking out for himself.

His eyes stared into yours and a small smile began to form on his face. “Then stay,” he urged.

You pretended to think over it for a minute and when you grinned over at him, his smile was already mirroring yours. “Okay,” you answered playfully, as if he had only posed a simple question like asking you if you wanted a drink or not. You moved up to kiss him and bury your fingers in his disheveled hair. “No lassoing the moon required,” you murmured to his lips.

He rolled his eyes and quickly maneuvered you onto your back with him right on top of you. He smirked down at you, leaning in to kiss you. “I’ll give you something better than the damn moon,” he mumbled into your mouth, making you laugh.

You didn’t want the moon or the stars (except the ones Alec made you see exploding behind your eyelids from time to time) or anything else that grand. What you wanted was simple: everything right here in front of you at this moment. A life that was your own, a job that helped keep money coming in, a roof over your head that offered protection from the cold, the wet, and intruders, while offering you a safe space to rest your head at night; food in your stomach, clothes that fit, and the feelings that coursed through you every time Alec kissed you.

Post-pulse Seattle might not be Bedford Falls and you might not be George Bailey or even Mary for that matter, but you were free, you were building a life, and you were happy. And someday, if you lived long enough, you might even get that family you’d been yearning for. From the look of things, between Joshua, Max, and now Alec, you were hopefully already starting to form something akin to the idea. And really, what more could you ask for?

A/N: Please let me know what you think. 😊

#alec mcdowell x reader #alec mcdowell x female reader #alec mcdowell x female!transgenic reader #alec mcdowell x you #alec mcdowell x y/n #alec mcdowell #dark angel fanfiction #dark angel #prompt response #dark angel fandom #female!transgenic!reader #jensen ackles #jensen ackles character #alec mcdowell fanfiction #thebiggerbear

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trash1129 · 3 months

Text

FLY HIGH | Chapter 6: D:

If there was one thing about (Y/n) it's that she is stubborn and persistent, and poor Lee Jihoon was about to learn the hard way. The Gryffindor's stubbornness predates her time at Hogwarts. When younger, her classmates told her she had the attention span of a fish and she couldn't finish a book even if she tried. So what did she do? Finished not only one but three books. One time in her second year, she ignored Mingyu for a week straight because he canceled on her to play video games with Jun. (It was the worst week of his life). Her persistence was just as bad but we won't even get into that.

The next day after she was rejected, she instantly jumped into action. She wasn't kidding when she said she WILL make him her tutor. Persistence is key after all.

“(Y/n) please reconsider taking me in as a tutor.” Mingyu practically begged while following the gryffindor keeper to the grand hall. Though, there was really no point in trying to sway her. She couldn't blame Mingyu for trying, but she couldn't tell if it was out of fear of her feelings being hurt or out of fear for Jihoon's safety.

"Gyu, it's going to be fine." (Y/n) huffed as the two of them walked down the hall towards the doors of the grand hall.

Before the tall male next to her could even get another word out, (Y/n) swung open the doors and strutted in. Her (e/c) eyes scanned the whole hall and paused at her usual table. All her friends were there and seemed to notice her entrance as they were all currently staring at her with troubled expressions. All seeming worried about her next moves.

The gryffindor's eyes quickly moved on from her friends and back to searching the area for her target.

She almost missed him from how fast she was looking around the room, but she saw just who she was looking for.

Lee Jihoon.

The Ravenclaw seemed to be peacefully watch his friends as they conversed amongst themselves. (Y/n) actually spotted a few that she knew and to her surprise her house's headboy was one of them. Hm, she never knew they were friends but that's not the point.

(Y/n)'s feet hopped into action and started making their way towards the table of friends.

"I thought Coups was going to kill the kid. I've never seen him get that mad." Joshua explained as Jeonghan raised an eyebrow.

"All of this over some weird furry dude going around making people give him money for some charity he made up?" The slytherin reiterated then let out a small hum, "Not going to lie, it's a smart way to get money."

Before anything else could be said, the table fell silent and all eyes were pointed at Woozi.

The ravenette took note of the sudden silence and looked up from his plate towards his, now silent, friends. His eyebrows furrowing when he noticed all their eyes pointed at him.

“What?”

"Hi!" An eerily familiar voice chirped behind the ravenclaw boy. Jihoon felt himself instantly grow a headache as he turned to see the person that had caught all his friends' attention. There behind him stood (Y/n) (L/n) wearing the same idiotic grin as last time.

The table of mixed house boys looked at Jihoon then back at (Y/n) and then once again back at Jihoon. While Jihoon stared up at the gryffindor keeper.

"Mind if I have a seat?" (Y/n) asked with a small tilt of her head, stupid grin still on her face.

"Yes." "No."

Woozi's head snapped in Joshua's direction. The hufflepuff's eyes glinting with an evil spark.

"Oh, Josh! I didn't know you knew Jihoon!" (Y/n) excitedly exclaimed while forcing herself between Wonwoo and Woozi, making herself comfortable. Jihoon cringed as she pushed him slightly to the side. Their shoulder's were practically touching before he scooted himself away. Wonwoo followed in suit but in a much more polite way.

"And I didn't know you knew Woozi either." Joshua replied with a sly smirk growing on his face as he rested his chin in his palm.

"Woozi?"

"It's nothing-" "Oh, it's just a nickname for him!"

This time Seokmin chimed in innocently.

'I'm going to either kill myself or the others' Jihoon felt his eye physically twitch as the thought flashed through his mind. (Y/n) excitedly greeted DK as well; seemingly happy to see another familiar face.

"So, (Y/n), Why are you here if you don't mind me asking?" It was only a matter of time till Minghao finally squeezed himself into the situation.

"Oh my gosh, Thank you for reminding me. You see I'm in a bit of a pickle and Woozi over here may be my savior if he ever so kindly tutored me. So I was coming over in the hope of getting an okay from him." (Y/n) explains as Jihoon cringes at the use of his nickname on her lips.

"First off, don't call me that. We aren't friends. Secondly, no."

"Now, now Jihoon. No need to be so rude. (Y/n) came all this way over to kindly ask you for a small miniscule favor." Jeonghan's voice held nothing but devilry.

You know what? No. Jihoon was NOT going to deal with this today.

Without another word, Jihoon got up from his seat and turned on his heels then made his way out of the grandhall. (Y/n) watching, a slight grimace on her lips. "I pissed him off, didn't I?" She asked while sucking a sharp breath through her teeth. Her (e/c) eye searching the table of boys for a response.

Wonwoo's calm voice cut through the silence, "Don't take it too personally. He tends to get irritated easily."

"Don't worry, I wasn't even thinking that. His actions actually are my motivation...So, If you don't mind-" The girl then stood from her seat, "I will take my leave." A confident smile graced her face as she turned to leave.

"Wait, (Y/n)." The gryffindor's dorm leader stopped the girl in her tracks. Her head peeked over her shoulder in curiosity. "Can you please, for the love of god, get Soonyoung to return the money he has taken from the kids around the school?"

"I mean, I can try but there is no guarantee. Anyways, toodles!"

A silence falls across the table before Wonwoo sighs,

"Jihoon's life is going to be hell from now on, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, but this is going to be the best entertainment for us." Minghao snickered out as he watched (Y/n) practically skip out of the hall.

And Wonwoo was right.

For the next few weeks, every waking moment, Jihoon would be somehow tracked down by a certain keeper and never had a moment of peace. Whether it was in the library, to a class, or even hiding in the supply closet: (Y/n) was there to bother her favorite tutor-to-be. No matter where he would be greeted by the same: “oh hey!”, “Woah funny finding you here”, “Heyyyy”, “whatcha doing?”, “what are you up to?”, etc. He really couldn’t understand how she found so many variants to pop up and greet him.

Today wasn’t the exception (much to his dismay). Woozi finally thought he found the best place to avoid her; the edge of the Forbidden forest. Surely she knew the dangers and wasn’t dumb enough to find him there. Hell, he knew the dangers but he was lucky enough to have the basic knowledge to know to stay just on the edge and also the spells to use in case of an emergency. The confidence he once had flowing through him came to a halt as he heard a voice that he dared to say rivaled nails on a chalkboard.

"Woozi! Hi! I didn't know you liked chilling here too!" The ever cheerful Gryffindor keeper greeted as she happily plopped down by the defeated Ravenclaw.

(Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes sparkled as she rested her chin in the palms of her hands, "What are you up to today? Studying? Reading? Writing?? Oooh, you have that one notebook I always see you with! Are you working on something in there-"

"Jesus Christ! Do you ever quit?!" Jihoon snapped a bit louder than he would've liked, but it got the girl to fall silent. His frustration growing with every second she sat with him. A man could only take so much, and (Y/n) was pushing the boundary on how much Woozi could take.

A silence enveloped the two as the (h/c) stared at the boy in front of her, her eyes wide at his outburst.

"Um.."

"What?!" Jihoon snapped out again with a more controlled volume. "I literally have tried everything to get you to leave me alone. EVERYTHING. I was even tempted to hex you but Shua talked me out of it! What the hell do I have to do to get you to let me be for one fucking second?!"

....

"Be my tutor...?"

The look on the Ravenclaw's face read of 'you have to be absolutely shitting me right now'. She was still on about this?? This was the reason he couldn't have some peace and quiet???

(Y/n) watched the boy with hopeful and somewhat fearful eyes. She knew it was messed up to wear him down so much to this point but listen, she was desperate and stubborn. She set her heart out on getting the best student to help her and, by god, she was going to have him help her no matter what.

Jihoon felt himself let out a sigh and deflate as he finally looked at her with his tired eyes, "That's it? If I tutor you...you will finally give me some peace?".

Success.

"Yes! I promise! As soon as my grades are up and I get the okay to play quidditch for the year, I promise I will never bother you again! I swear!" The girl nearly squealed out in excitement of finally getting the answer she wanted.

"Once you get your grades up, you won't bother me for the rest of our years at Hogwarts?" Jihoon questioned.

(Y/n) nodded at what seemed like lighting speed when asked. A smile seemingly stuck on her face while she watched the Ravenclaw deeply think about what he was about to get himself into.

With a final sigh, Jihoon finally gave in.

"Fine."

"YES!!!!" (Y/n) jumped up from her spot and cheered, even doing an animated twirl of excitement in the process. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I swear I will be the best tutee, you've ever had-"

"Tutee?-"

"I pinky swear!" The Gryffindor girl exclaimed as she ducked back down to where they were sitting, her pinky extended. She stood there eagerly waiting for the boy to lock pinkies with her.

Woozi stared at the girl in front of him blankly then turned his attention to her extended finger, and then back to her face before simply huffing and shoving her hand away from his face, "Whatever...", and with that Jihoon got up and walked away from (Y/n), who was still standing there with a dumb smile on her face.

Summary: (Y/n) is the pride of Gryffindor’s quidditch team, though that may come to an end if her grades keep dropping the way they are now. As a last hope of not being kicked before the new season starts, the Gryffindor starts her search for a tutor. Thus comes in the quiet grumpy Ravenclaw genius, Lee Jihoon. But why would he be willing to help someone he doesn’t know? Simple; to get the ever annoying and energetic (Y/n) off his back.

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A/n: SURPRISE SHAWTYYYYYYYY. Surprise! An update!!!! I know it’s been a few months and I’m really sorry about that. I have really been struggling with depression so it been really hard to find the motivation to write, HOWEVER, I had been working on this on and off for weeks meaning that I’m slowly starting to make my way back. I can’t guarantee an update next week due to me still going THROUGH it but I can say that I will try my best to update more often. I genuinely missed writing and I think about this story often. I really hope you guys liked this and are still around to enjoy. I love you all 💜

TAGLIST: Open @sp1ng @wonwoos-wineparty @expensive-idiot @lirtha97 @lightprincess-world @the-swageyama-tobiyolo @the-poetic-side-of-me @scarlet931 @asyre

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wongyuuu · 9 months

Note

Hi!! can you do a sort of angst/fluff where the reader and joshua like eachother a lot but the reader always rejects joshua because they're scared to be dating someone who's an idol.

Thank you so much!! even if you don't write it, i still appreciate all you do and all the fix's you write 💕

this one was a little more complicated to write, but somehow i got carried away... so i hope you like it!

pairing: joshua x fem!reader genre: angst word count: 1.4k warnings: cursing

a/n: not proofread

requests are open

Staring at the TV ahead of you, watching Joshua give his first ment of the concert, you couldn’t help but feel a little proud of him. His smile was so bright, his voice so kind as he talked with his members and the fans. Looking at him, even if it was through a screen, made your heartache in the worst possible way.

He had invited you to the concert, promised you that no one would ever find out about you attending. Realistically, you knew that no one would recognize you, that you could pass by as just any other fan in the venue. Yet, you couldn't really bring yourself to be there.

If you attended their concert you knew that something was bound to change. It was a change you desperately wanted, desired, and longed for but one you'd never allow yourself to have.

Even if you didn't mean to, your mind went back to the last time you saw Joshua.

It was the weeks before, he called you as soon as he left practice, asking if he could drop by because he wanted to talk with you. Please, it's important. You were never able to say no to Joshua, from the moment you met him. Because it was him, but also because Joshua was the kind of person who only really asked for things when he really needed them. So if he called you, you'd always take his call no matter what you were doing or who you were with.

Less than half an hour later Joshua arrived, pressing the password on your door and letting himself in. Even if he knew your code, he always called first to make sure that you were home and if seeing was something him was you wanted. He was surprised when you took his call and when you said yes to his request.

You had been avoiding him, like the man was the plague. And he knew that he was to blame for it. He pushed too hard, too fast, too far. But at the same time, Joshua was also tired of this game the two of you played, one in which both of you were losers.

"I'm sorry, I know it's late. But I really wanted to see you"

Joshua kissed your cheek, his lips staying against your skin far longer than necessary but not nearly long enough. When he wasn't around the one thing you wanted the most was to be near him, to hear his voice, his laugh. You wanted Joshua in all ways possible. You had been in love with him the moment you met him. It was almost comical, how quickly you had fallen for him, especially considering how you said you didn't believe someone could fall in love after just one meeting.

"I really missed you" he said "I texted you but never got an answer, so I got worried"

While Joshua wasn't the kind of guy who liked texting, God knew how many unanswered texts were on his phone, he always made an effort for you. And because of that you always felt like your relationship with him was different.

"I've been busy, haven't checked my phone in days, actually"

It wasn't a complete lie. Your phone, your personal one, was one you barely used. You bought it mostly to keep your work life and private life separated. Work had been taking up most of your life, so your phone wasn't something you gave a lot of attention to. But you had seen Joshua's texts in the notification bar. hey, is everything okay?, the first one said, call me when you can, followed by, if you're not busy, can we have dinner tomorrow? The tomorrow he mentioned was two nights before. His texts were still to be read.

"I know, that's why I got worried"

He sat in front of you on the couch, holding your hands while this thumb lightly drew patterns on your palms. He had the same expression from the first time you saw him, calm and serene, calming in a way. But you knew better at this point. His beautiful eyes had a pinch of worry and tiredness in them — maybe from the long hours of practice before a concert, or because of the whole situation between you and him.

"I came to invite you to the concert. The guys miss you being around too. They would be very happy if you attended"

You were already shaking your head before he was done speaking. Joshua saw it as a win though, the fact you didn't pull your hands away from him, refusing his touch.

"You know I can't go"

"No one will know you're there, I promise. I know it's not ideal, and not as much fun, but you can watch it from backstage. If someone does see you, they'll just think of you as part of the staff"

He had such hopeful eyes. You know that he thought that it was a good idea, a plan that couldn't possibly fail because he, as well as everyone else, would do their best to hide you and protect you.

"I don't want to hide, Joshua" you felt his hand go cold, so you took them into yours for a change "I don't want to make your life difficult. I don't want you to choose between me and the life you built for the past eleven years. I won't make you choose between me and your brothers, your family. I can't let you do that"

It was his turn to shake his head.

"Who says I have to choose?"

"You can't have it all Joshua, the career and everything else. At least, not in this country"

For the first time, since the two of you started this sort of dance, Joshua pulled away from you.

"I don't understand why you keep doing this. Everyone dates, some of the guys are dating right now. And I know you feel the same as me. So why do you keep pushing me away?"

"Because I am scared!" you screamed "I have seen what it does to people, having their relationship exposed. I don't want to see people talking about you like you committed a crime, demanding your expulsion of seventeen, sending you death threats. I don't to expose my family to this, myself too"

He shook his head, passing your small living room. Two steps was all it took for him to cross it. You loved having him around, how your tiny boring apartment was suddenly full of life when he was around. Even in moments such as that, when the conservation was taking a turn for the worst he brought so much life to the plain walls. Both of you stayed in silence, thinking of what to say next. Joshua wondered what he should say to make you change your mind, while you wanted him to understand where you were coming from, that in your decision was also the love you felt for him.

"Shua" you whispered, finally standing up "I need you to listen to me, okay?"

You felt your body contract in pain at the sight of his eyes filled with tears, just like yours. You took his face into your hands, to make sure that he wouldn’t miss a single word of what you were saying. Not that you needed to. Joshua always paid attention to you, listened to every single thing you had to say.

"I love you so, so, so much. This is the kind of feeling I only ever read about, that I always deemed impossible. And then you came around, with your beautiful eyes and kind smile. You gave me so much. In you, I found love, friendship, a home. You shared your life with me, your brothers. Everything that's precious to you, you gave me a little bit. But I will never do anything to hurt that, anything that could take those things away from you"

You stood on your tiptoes and pulled his face close to yours, kissing his lips for the first and last time.

"Shit" you pushed your tears away, blinking rapidly. The loud cheers of the fans, indicating the start of the next song, were enough to bring you back.

You knew you shouldn't be watching the concert, but you couldn't bring yourself to stop. From that night on, all you'd have of Joshua would be memories and dreams of a life that you could never have.

taglist: @wonwooz1, @ryuwonieebae, @sobun1est, @mirtaspace

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#k-labels #seventeen imagine #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #svt x reader #svt imagine #svt x you #joshua x reader #hong joshua x reader #hong jisoo x reader #joshua x you #hong jisoo x you #joshua #seventeen fluff #joshua imagines #hong jisoo imagines #joshua hong #hong jisoo

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starsstuddedsky · 1 year

Text

Chapter 2 - What Happens in the Closet...

reader x jihoon

Chapter 1 | masterlist | Chapter 3

summary: when you're caught in a simple lie, the best solution? dig in and stick to your guns until everything inevitably goes wrong and everyone gets hurt

or, a serial dater and a pessimist fake a relationship in the vain hope that nothing will go wrong

genre: fluff, angst, non-idol au, lawyer au, coworkers to lovers??? friends to lovers???? fake dating!!!!!

warnings: cursing???? i think that's it???

wc: 5.2k

a/n: tysm for reading!!!! school is kicking my butt this week lol so there's a solid chance there's typos, i'm sorry :(

taglist: open! send an ask or comment!

Jihoon has always trusted his gut. It’s never led him wrong; the schools he chose, the law firms he declined, the clients he advised, they’ve all been good choices. He knows better than to ignore the little feeling deep down in his stomach that doesn’t sit right, warning him that something is wrong.

Unfortunately, this morning he convinces himself it’s just because he hasn’t had his coffee yet.

He multitasks, typing a furious reply to Mark from accounting (who has apparently lost the ability to read, since the information he is asking for is in the first e-mail that Jihoon sent) while also heading toward the pretty wall of expensive coffee makers that played a significant role in his decision to accept the job offer here. That’s why he doesn’t notice you until you practically bounce off his chest.

“My bad, I—” You freeze when you meet his eyes.

I’m sorry, Jihoon tries to say, except the words don’t come out, and now he’s stuck looking at you with the same wide-eyed stare you are giving him. It’s not often that Jihoon finds himself speechless, but there’s so much he needs to say, to explain. Too much. He hasn’t had the chance to even think about telling you the absolutely idiotic things he said on Saturday night, even after he spent all day Sunday staring at his ceiling and imagining how to explain. The only proof it wasn’t all a nightmare is the texts blowing up his phone this morning from Seungcheol and Joshua who managed to find your Instagram (apparently they approved, though it was tricky to explain why he wasn’t following you).

“We need to talk,” Jihoon finally says.

“I really am sorry,” you respond. You lean back against the counter and Jihoon catches a glance of a cup of coffee behind you, a mug decorated in bright letters that spell out your name (Fact #5: you like colors?).

“Not about that,” Jihoon says. “Well, I guess about that, but not really, it’s complicated, and—”

“Morning,” a familiar deep voice says. Jihoon turns around to find Wonwoo behind him. His eyebrows are raised well over his round glasses, forming shapely arches. He slings his arm over Jihoon’s shoulder, glancing between Jihoon and you.

A sudden thought crosses Jihoon’s mind. Even though Wonwoo was shipped off on a last minute “emergency” work trip over the weekend, there is no way that news as inconceivable as Jihoon finally losing his lifelong title of ‘bitchless’ wasn’t the first thing Wonwoo saw the second he turned his phone off airplane mode. Meaning that the side eye he is giving him now is because he’s about to call Jihoon out on the worst lie he’s ever told and turn him into the biggest laughing stock the world has ever seen.

He really should have listened to his gut.

“So,” Wonwoo says, “How long has this been going on?” His grip on Jihoon’s shoulder tightens.

You frown. “What are you talking about?”

“You and him,” Wonwoo says, gesturing between you and Jihoon.

Jihoon elbows Wonwoo, pushing the taller man off. “Not here,” he mutters.

Before he can say anything else, you gasp. “It’s not what you think!”

Jihoon grabs your hand before you can say anything else, pulling you past a bewildered Wonwoo. He ignores the stares of the paralegals and lawyers in the halls as he pulls you past the peering eyes, into the nearest open door, which, unfortunately, is the janitor’s closet. There goes any chance at subtlety.

“Jihoon?” You ask as he fumbles along the wall trying to find the light switch. He’s still holding your hand, which he only realizes when you lightly tug it out of his grasp.

He finally finds the switch, flipping it on to find that it connects to a solitary lightbulb hanging from the ceiling that flickers and is definitely a safety hazard. You’re standing directly under the light. Because the light is tinted yellow, Jihoon gets the faint impression that you’re glowing.

You glance between Jihoon and the door behind him, which he realizes he is accidentally blocking. He steps to the side, not wanting you to think that he’s trapping you in here, though he doesn’t have a contingency plan if you run away now. Not that he has any actual plan right now; none of his Sunday-morning-imaginary-conversations took place in a room that smells like bleach and has lighting that hasn’t been touched since the ‘80s.

“I swear, I have no idea how Wonwoo found out,” you say quickly. “No one knows other than my friends, and I told them we’d both get fired if anyone at work found out, so I really don’t know how he found out, but I swear, I’ll tell him it was just a rumor and it isn’t true at all. I’m really sorry, I know you said you wanted nothing to do with me, so, whatever I can do, I’ll do it, just please don’t report me to HR.”

Jihoon felt bad before, but now if guilt could build a time machine, he’d go all the way back to elementary school and beg his mother to take him with her when she left. Maybe then you wouldn’t be looking at him with actual tears threatening to fall.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s made someone cry, but somehow it’s not nearly as satisfying when he’s the one at fault.

“So the thing is,” Jihoon says. “I think it might have been me.” Thankfully your frown doesn’t send the tears tumbling down, but your confusion means that he must, unfortunately, continue to explain. “I sort of told a few of my friends that I was dating someone from work.” He can’t bring himself to say it all, not with his own words echoing in his ears berating you for doing something so foolish. “It’s a very long story, but they believe that I am dating you, and I let them believe it.”

“You let them believe…” you repeat softly, as though you still aren’t understanding. Jihoon can’t blame you; he hardly believes it himself.

“Well, believe isn’t really the right word, because they didn’t see any evidence.” Jihoon had also spent a lot of time on Sunday trying to explain why he didn’t have any photos of you, let alone with you. “So I may have told them that you are coming to my friend’s thing on Saturday. As my date.”

You stare at him. If you keep looking at him with a frown that deep you’re going to get wrinkles, but he figures now is not the time to mention that. There’s nothing he can do now but wait, (most of) the truth now out in the open. He holds his breath as you open your mouth, then close it, then open it again.

“Are you asking me to fake date you?” You finally ask.

“Yes?” Jihoon says.

Fact #6: You have a ridiculous laugh.

He discovers this as you burst into laughter, smile finally breaking the frown as you gasp for breath, clutching your sides. It sounds like something between a machine gun and a dying deer, not that he’s heard either of those sounds in real life before.

“Are you okay?” He asks, because it seriously doesn’t look like you can breathe, and he’s starting to worry that he’s actually broken you.

“You told them you’re fake dating me?” You manage between gasps.

Jihoon sighs. “Yes. Look, I know an apology is overdue—”

“Way overdue.”

“Way overdue,” Jihoon says because you’re mad enough at him already and he can survive appeasing you at least a little. “So I do apologize. I shouldn’t have yelled at you and threatened HR, and I should have talked to you before I did anything as dumb as telling my friends that we are dating.”

“Obviously,” you say.

“Are you okay?” Jihoon asks now that you’ve mostly stopped laughing, wiping a few tears from your eyes.

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” you say.

Jihoon nods. “I don’t blame you for being mad.”

“I’m not mad,” you say quickly. “Shocked and stunned and a lot of other words, but mad isn’t one of them. Mostly, it’s funny.”

“Funny.”

“Funny!”

Jihoon frowns as you burst into giggles again, though you stifle them quickly at his glare.

“Seriously, I mean, who goes off on their coworker and then not even a day later does the same exact thing,” you say. “I’ve always known you were a little… But that’s beside the point, because you are, in fact, asking me to fake date you?”

“Wait, a little what?” Jihoon asks.

You shake your head, leaning against a metal pole, then immediately straightening when you almost knock over a shelf of toilet paper. “I don’t think I’m obligated to answer that.” He opens his mouth but you raise your eyebrows. “If you ask again I’m going to answer something that you won’t like.”

“Is it the truth?”

You shrug. “Do you want me to come to the thing on Saturday and pretend to be ridiculously in love with you or not?”

“You don’t have to be ridiculous,” Jihoon mumbles. He takes a deep breath, trying to convince himself that this is still a good idea somehow (eventually he settles for the conclusion that it’s much too far to turn back now). “Yes, I would like you to please be my date on Saturday.”

“Can you say that again so I can record it?” You ask a little too innocently. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say please.”

“You’ve barely heard me say five words,” Jihoon says. “This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

“With the exception of literally three days ago when you yelled at me. And the presentation you gave in eighth grade on the importance of fish in the ecosystem of the creek by the school and you were so excited because you brought your fish except it died on the way to school and you were so upset you locked yourself in the bathroom and they had to call your dad to pick you up.” You look a little too smug.

“If you tell anyone about that, I’m telling them about the time you wrote an entire essay on symbolism in the Harry Potter series over the summer, and then it wasn’t even accepted because they said extra credit was unethical.”

“You remember that?” You frown at him. “Look, I was a different person back then. J.K. Rowling was a different person back then.”

“Pretty sure a TERF is always a TERF,” Jihoon says. It’s easy to fall into banter with you. He finds himself wondering why he’s never spoken to you like this before, until he remembers Fundamental Fact #3: you are an idiot in love.

More than anything, he wants to leave this closet. Run away and lock himself in his room and dive into his work (and tell Mark that he’s an idiot who can’t read) and forget all of this. But you still haven’t said yes.

“I will do whatever you want,” he says, quickly adding, “within reason,” because your eyes light up a little too brightly. “You can tell your friends that we’re fake dating. We can actually fake date. I can write a contract and everything, just, please, come with me?”

Jihoon has always thought that your kindness made you weaker, but he’s grateful for it now because you smile at him and say, “Yes.”

He hopes his sigh of relief isn’t too obvious. He thinks you might say something else (“You have to pretend to be my date to my friends in return,” or “I was just kidding, you’re insane and I won’t do it,” or “Don’t fall in love with me”) but before you can open your mouth, there’s a knock at the door.

“Hey,” Wonwoo says, voice muffled. “I hate to interrupt, but yn, we have a meeting in like two minutes.”

You glance at the time on your phone and curse, pushing past Jihoon and practically bursting out of the closet. He loses sight of you sprinting toward your office as the door swings shut. Jihoon seriously considers staying here for the rest of the day (possibly the rest of his life), but the door creaks open again to reveal Wonwoo, pinstripe suit and all. He folds his arms and leans against the door.

“We need to talk.”

Jihoon has never been scared of any of his friends, but fear is the only word he can use to describe how he feels now. The final beats to Jihoon’s life sounds a lot like Wonwoo’s footsteps as they echo while he follows the tall man to his own office. This is it. The jig is up before he even shows you to his friends. Well, it was an idiotic plan in the first place and at least he didn’t embarrass you alongside everyone else.

Wonwoo has the decency to wait for the door to shut behind him.

“I can’t believe you,” Wonwoo says, shaking his head. “I leave for one weekend, and you tell everyone that you’re dating yn?”

“I know, I—”

“I mean, seriously, we’ve been friends for how long now?” Wonwoo pauses to count on his fingers. “Eight years? Nine? We work together! I know yn better than any of them, and I had to hear from Mingyu that you two are dating?”

Jihoon frowns. Did Wonwoo actually believe him?

“Honestly, I’m offended,” Wonwoo says. “Seriously, how am I not the first person you think of? I’ve been saying for years that you and yn would be perfect together.”

“I didn’t mean to tell them,” Jihoon says. “They were just being annoying about it, so it slipped out.”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Right under my nose and I didn’t see it.”

“Well, you are like a point away from being legally blind,” Jihoon says.

Wonwoo glares at him. “You owe me details.”

“Don’t you have a meeting?” Jihoon says.

Wonwoo’s phone rings. He answers in a hushed tone, shooting Jihoon a look that clearly says this isn’t over. Jihoon breathes a sigh of relief as Wonwoo exits, resting his head on his desk. What just happened?

A small part of him had hoped that Wonwoo was going to call him out and this entire mess would be over. But he believed him? Jihoon, who had only ever scoffed at you, despite Wonwoo constantly talking about how well you would work together. Well, he’s clearly having the last laugh now.

Jihoon takes a deep breath and sits up. He still has a job to do. Though his life is clearly falling apart, he should at least make sure Mark from accounting doesn’t mess up his paycheck (again). And he has a contract to write.

Objectively, Jihoon has to admit you look good. It has nothing to do with opinion; it’s a fact (fact #8: you look good in formalwear, though he makes a mental note for an addendum that says that’s the whole point of formalwear). Jihoon spends a normal amount of time looking at you (counting to five seconds before looking away), then ushers you into the backseat of the limo because for some reason you aren’t moving.

“Do I get to know why we’re in a limo or why I had to buy new clothes?” You ask, taking care to make sure none of the flowy garment got stuck in the door.

“I told you I’d cover that,” Jihoon says.

“No, it was kind of bad that I didn’t have anything this nice, and now I have something to wear to the end of the year gala,” you say. “Way to dodge the question though.”

Jihoon grimaces. It’s difficult to judge how people react to finding out about his friends (given that he has “little-to-no” experience introducing anyone to them), and he isn’t entirely certain that you won’t jump out of the car when he tells you the truth. But apparently you can’t sit in silence for long.

“Okay, well, if you won’t tell me, then I’m going to guess,” you say. “Are we going to a wedding?”

“No.”

“A funeral?”

“Why would I wear a tux to a funeral?”

“Hey, I don’t judge,” you say with a shrug. “It looks very good on you, by the way.” Jihoon glances at you but you’re twisting your face into a strange frown as you think, so you don’t notice the way his ears tinge pink at the comment. “Prom?”

“We’re grown adults.”

“Prom needs chaperones,” you say. “Besides, you never went to prom.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t catch my date making out with someone else either, so, it wasn’t that bad of a night for me.”

“Ouch,” you say. “That was low.”

Jihoon remembers that you are technically doing him a favor today (if saving his life counts as a favor), so he says, “Well, there’s no way you could know I was in my pajamas watching anime all day, so, it wasn’t fair. Sorry.” Maybe around you he’ll get used to apologizing. He can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

Luckily, you accept his peace offering, flashing a smile that is quickly becoming familiar. Your face twists into that strange frown again, and Jihoon determines Fact #9: you are unwaveringly stubborn.

“Oh!” You gasp. “Are you secretly rich?”

Jihoon snorts. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, you picked me up in a limo wearing a tux, after telling me to dress in fancy, expensive clothes,” you say. “Plus you are super secretive about your personal life, and, I don’t know, you give off rich guy vibes. Unless I’m totally wrong?”

“I’m not rich,” Jihoon says. “I mean, I guess I have a decent amount of money saved since I mostly just work and go to the gym and the only thing I really buy is groceries.” Jihoon realizes just how boring he sounds. “I mean, I do go out. Just not often, and I buy… things, anyways, I’m not rich.”

“Sure,” you say. You turn to look out the window, but Jihoon doesn’t miss the laugh poorly disguised as a cough.

Luckily (because Jihoon is absolutely positive you would have continued interrogating him), the limo stops and you don’t have to guess anymore.

“You’re joking,” you say, whipping around in your seat to stare at him.

Jihoon can’t say that he doesn’t enjoy seeing you speechless. You look back and forth between him and the chaos on the street.

“You said you weren’t secretly rich!” You say. “How did you get tickets for a literal red carpet event?” Your face is centimeters away from pressing against the glass, breath quickly making it too foggy to see. “This is the Eternals sequel!”

“You like Marvel?”

“No, actually I think the franchise has a lot of issues.”

Jihoon gasps, but you’re already climbing out of the limo, turning back to face him with a smile. It’s so bright Jihoon forgets why he was mad.

“Come on,” you say. You hold out your hand, and after a moment, Jihoon takes it. He doesn’t let go when he gets out of the car, tightening his fingers around yours, anchoring you to his side.

It’s chaotic, but not nearly as chaotic as he knows it will be soon. Half the press haven’t even arrived yet, and the theater is mostly surrounded by the scatter of crew members and invited guests that aren’t celebrities. Jihoon spots Mingyu first, his tall head standing out in the crowd.

“You ready?” Jihoon asks, turning to look at you. You’re still staring at everything, unable to hide your grin. Maybe he should have warned you, but it’s kind of fun to see you like this. Bright.

Mingyu literally shouts when he sees Jihoon. He watches as Mingyu’s eyes practically lock on to you, and he starts pushing his way towards you, Wonwoo and Seungcheol in tow.

“The tall, overly excited one is Mingyu,” Jihoon whispers. “You know Wonwoo, and—”

“Seungcheol, right?” You glance at Jihoon.

He frowns. “How did you know that?”

“We did go to the same college, you know.” Right. Because this wasn’t complicated enough. Jihoon starts to think that all of this is a mistake, but it’s hardly the first time today, and as Mingyu approaches, all he can do is tighten his hand around yours and commit.

“Jihoon!” Mingyu says as soon as he’s close. His voice carries, more than a few people casting a glance at him. He takes another step, but his foot gets caught on something (knowing Mingyu, it’s nothing), and he’s sent tumbling to the ground. Neither Seungcheol nor Wonwoo attempt to catch him, letting the tall man collapse on the ground.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” You ask over Seungcheol’s giggling. Wonwoo helps Mingyu up, but he’s laughing as well, and even Jihoon’s nerves aren’t enough to stop him from breaking a smile.

“I’m used to it,” Mingyu says, walking much slower. His hair took the worst of the fall, now a disheveled mess. Jihoon wonders how long it’ll take for him to notice.

“Mingyu, Seungcheol, this is yn,” Jihoon says. “My real, living, breathing, human date.”

“Nice to finally meet you,” Mingyu says, shaking your free hand. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

“Really?”

“No, this is Jihoon we're talking about, we were lucky to get your name.”

“That sounds more like the man I know,” you say, turning to flash a smile at him before facing Mingyu again. Mingyu glances at your other hand, fingers still intertwined with his, and Jihoon thinks he might actually believe it.

“We’ve met before,” Seungcheol says. “Though there was a lot of alcohol, and I don’t really remember it all that well.”

“Georgia’s Bar, right?” You say. It takes all of Jihoon’s self control not to react. Surely he would have remembered seeing you at the only bar his friends could drag him to during college?

“Probably,” Seungcheol says. “I was getting my MBA, and there were a lot of bars. Very few that we could get Jihoon to go to, though.” He raises his eyebrow. “That’s why we're all a little surprised that someone actually managed to get him out of his apartment and away from his work.”

Jihoon glances between you and Seungcheol as you think about the answer to what is obviously a test. “I don’t think I really got him away from his work.” You turn to Jihoon with what can only be described as a warm, loving smile. You’re really good at this. “But I’m pretty much married to my job too, so it works.”

Seungcheol nods but Jihoon can tell he doesn’t believe fully, at least not yet. “We should go inside before everyone else gets here and this turns into a mess.” He turns to head into the cinema, leaving everyone else to follow. Mingyu and Wonwoo start chatting about Mingyu’s (alleged) drama at work that has something to do with a secretary, the CEO of the company, and his famous but estranged brother. Jihoon doesn’t bother to listen, turning to look at you.

Your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “He doesn’t believe us.”

“Not yet,” Jihoon whispers. “Give him time, he’s just particular.” He pauses, then says, “The detail about Georgia’s was good.”

You nod. “It was true.”

“How many times have you met him?”

“Just once,” you say. “You were there too.”

Before Jihoon can ask anything else, Wonwoo calls, “Hey, lovers, are you coming or what?” They’re already inside the cinema, waving for you to catch up or get left behind. You flash Jihoon a determined smile and squeeze his hand, jogging to catch up to the rest of the guys.

Jihoon can’t help but wonder how long your lives have been like this, the roots of two trees that brush against each other but never tangle. Until now.

“Do we have an ETA on the kid?” Wonwoo asks as you settle into the theater seats. You’re doing a good job of acting natural, or at the very least, not gawking at every other detail of the (admittedly stunning) theater.

“You’re not calling him that now, too,” Jihoon says. “He’s a grown adult. Also, he should be here soon.”

“How’s the kid?” Seungcheol asks, folding his arms. Jihoon rolls his eyes with the emphasis on kid. “No nervous breakdowns?”

“He was fine when I called him earlier,” Mingyu says. “As soon as the cameras are on him, he’ll put a smile on.”

Seungcheol grunts but still looks worried. Jihoon would tell him that he cares too much, but he knows Seungcheol will just say that it’s to make up for Jihoon not caring at all, so he doesn’t quite see the point. Besides, it’s Seungkwan; Jihoon is pretty sure all his friends have a soft spot for the younger man, Seungcheol especially.

“He must be here,” Mingyu says when screams erupt from outside. He checks his watch. “A little early, isn’t he? Doesn’t he normally make a grand entrance?”

Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you frown at him, clearly aware that you’re missing something very important. He studies the lights and pretends not to notice your glare.

Most of the commotion is at the entrance, though the bulk of the press aren’t allowed into the theater. Jihoon hears more than he can see, but he knows it’s Seungkwan and the rest of the star-studded cast that are used to being the center of attention. He doesn’t miss you craning your neck to catch a glimpse of why everyone is staring.

Seungkwan’s blonde head appears from the crowd, but he makes the rounds first, checking in with every staff member, shaking hands and taking pictures. Ever the perfect celebrity.

Still, he doesn’t miss how Seungkwan locks in on you, grabbing a tall skinny man and whispering a few words before striding across the theater to where the entire group sat.

“That’s Boo Seungkwan,” you whisper. “And he’s walking over here.”

“I didn’t tell you we’re friends?” Jihoon says.

If looks could kill, Jihoon would be dead, but it’s worth it because even with murder on your mind you (objectively) look good. Maybe it comes from being a divorce lawyer—Jihoon wonders if this is the glare you use when the to-be-divorced couples bicker, then wonders if he’s thinking a little too much about your glare.

The rest of his friends greet Seungkwan as if this is normal, which, technically, it is. Except this is a blockbuster movie premiere and Jihoon is using it to soft launch his (fake) relationship to his world famous best friend. To your credit, you manage to shake his hand and greet him normally.

If Jihoon is being honest with himself, Seungkwan is the only one he really feels guilty lying to. It doesn’t sit right, even though Seungkwan is partially to blame for thinking Jihoon’s happiness is reflected directly onto his love life. It doesn’t help that Seungkwan knows exactly how to guilt him, smiling and greeting you as if this is normal. Jihoon knows him too well, seeing the suspicion behind his friend’s eyes. As if convincing Seungcheol isn’t hard enough.

“So are all of Jihoon’s rich and famous?” You ask after he introduces himself.

“Hey! We have the same student loans,” Wonwoo says.

“I’m not rich,” Seungcheol says.

“Yeah, but your family is, so basically the same thing,” Mingyu says.

“Not the same thing,” Seungcheol says, glaring at Mingyu, who, honestly, should have known better than to bring that up. But because it’s Mingyu, he laughs it off, and soon enough Seungcheol is smiling too.

“Joshua’s pretty broke too,” Minghao says. “He doesn’t make a million dollars for crying in front of a green screen.”

“I told you, my character has grown since then,” Seungkwan says.

“You cry on an actual different planet?” Seungcheol asks.

“I’m convinced none of you actually pay attention to the movies,” Seungkwan says with an overdramatic sigh. “We were on Earth for the entire movie.”

“Wasn’t there a bit where Gemma Chan yelled at someone in space?” Jihoon asks.

“Nerd,” he’s pretty sure he heard you whisper through a fake cough.

“I don’t know if that counts, she wasn’t actually there.” Seungkwan rounds on you. “I don’t suppose you remember?”

“Weren’t you technically in space right at the start?”

Seungkwan cocks his head, thinking back. “Huh, oh yeah. I forgot that.”

Jihoon has about a million questions that he wants to ask you, mostly related to Marvel movies and the fact that you’ve seen them all, even though you clearly don’t like the franchise. He curbs them because he knows you’ll call him a nerd, plus Seungkwan almost looks like he approves.

“Do I have a lot to look forward to today?” You ask. “Someone didn’t tell me where we're going, so I couldn’t look up any critic reviews.”

Seungkwan winces. “I don’t like looking at those.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “I saw at least three headlines talking about the prodigy dropping another masterful work of acting, or whatever they say about people like you.”

“Not a prodigy,” Seungkwan mutters.

“Either way, whatever Seungkwan is in, it’s good,” Seungcheol says, patting Seungkwan on the back. “And he gets paid.”

“That’s the most important part,” Wonwoo says.

Seungkwan looks like he wants to say more, but the director of the film waves him down and he’s forced to say a hasty goodbye, promising to meet with them later.

Jihoon feels your hand squeeze his tight enough to cut off his circulation. He turns to face you in the dim lighting, finding you with a disarmingly sweet smile.

“When were you going to tell me?” You ask, voice so sweet he almost believes you aren’t upset.

“I thought it would be fun if it was a surprise?” Jihoon says.

You lean in close to him, your breath mixing with his, smelling faintly like clementines and something else citrusy. For some godforsaken reason, Jihoon thinks you are about to kiss him. “You’re going to regret this.”

He opens his eyes and you are gone, laughing at some joke Mingyu made about PDA. Jihoon is vaguely aware it’s at his expense, something to do with how red his ears are, but he’s too busy trying to get his heart to at least pretend like it isn’t about to explode out of his chest. Why the hell did he think you were going to kiss him? Why is he disappointed that you didn’t? Jihoon wonders for the thousandth time if it’s not too late to call the whole thing off, but the lights in the theater are dimming and a spotlight is put on the director, who gives an unnecessarily long speech about what a labor of love this movie was to make, and then the movie is starting, and it’s too late to run away.

#seventeen x reader #woozi x reader #svt x reader #svt #seventeen #woozi #lee jihoon x reader #lee Jihoon #woozi angst #woozi fluff #lee jihoon angst #lee jihoon fluff #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #seventeen fic #as a matter of fact

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hanmi-xo · 8 months

Text

Seventeen Complimenting You

S C E N A R I O S | O N E S H O T S | S M U T | M A I N

-------------------------------------------

How I think the Seventeen members would compliment you.

-------------------------------------------

Seungcheol: "You're really beautiful. The most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life." He'd be in awe by your beauty but be shy about it at first until you make eye contact with him. That's when he never pulls back. He would gaze at you as if you're the only person in his world.

Jeonghan: "Of course you're beautiful. Isn't it obvious?" He knows how amazing you look, but he is never good at expressing himself through words. For you to ask if you look okay seems like a ridiculous question, because to him you will always look great.

Joshua: "You're beautiful." He would say it when you're looking away from him so he could admire you without you noticing. He's the type to randomly say a compliment just so he can see you get shy. He loves randomly teasing you just to get a reaction.

Junhui: "...You're really pretty." He would be shy but he would want you to know how eye-catching you are. He seems careful with his words but would want to say more when the time is right. Seeing you get flustered is enough for him.

Soonyoung: "You're really pretty! I swear! I'm not lying!" You wouldn't know if he is being serious or not since he likes joking around with you. He would be upset and do his best to make sure you know how amazing you look. He wants you to know how he honestly feels about you even if you try to push him away.

Wonwoo: "Beautiful." Surprisingly romantic, he would tell you you're beautiful when you don't think you are. He would ruffle your hair so your attention would be on him and not on your insecurities. He'll always make sure you're okay even if he's far quieter than the other members.

Jihoon: "Yes, you're beautiful, okay?" He seems like the type to not want to admit things if it makes him feel embarrassed. So for him to call you beautiful takes a lot out of him. He would be flustered afterwards and cover his face to avoid making eye contact with you.

Dokyeom: "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous..." He would not stop throwing compliments at you even if some might be references to memes. It didn't matter if you were down, upset, or frustrated, he would always tell you the aspects that makes you extravagant to him. He's a romantic and he'll make sure you feel loved.

Mingyu: "Don't be silly. Of course you're beautiful." He isn't shy when it comes to complimenting you. He seems confident when he's around you and he even feels more comfortable talking to you. To him, you're his home and he can say whatever is on his mind.

Minghao: "Are you dumb? Do you want me to call you ugly? How do you not know you're beautiful?" He's sassy but he's loving. His remarks can be a surprise at first but that's just how he is. He'll admit you're beautiful but it'll annoy him if you think you aren't. He'll straighten you out so you can see how gorgeous you are to him.

Seungkwan: "Wow, amazing. Perfect." He would clap his hands at you while he admired your existence. To him you were like an art piece that is worth his praise. Before he would be awkward with praising you, but once he got comfortable, it's like a natural thing to him.

Hansol: "You look good. Beautiful as always." He's nonchalant. He doesn't make a big deal nor does he make it awkward. He's cool with it. Your beauty is obviously acknowledged and he makes it known by physical touch and his way of looking at you.

Chan: "Beautiful? Yes! You're beautiful!" He seems like the type to fumble his words because he has too much energy. He'll express himself with honesty, but be a bit clumsy with himself. It's what makes him cute and humorous. He'll get shy afterward and try to calm his nerves so he can speak to you without feeling embarrassed.

• • •

S C E N A R I O S | O N E S H O T S | S M U T | M A I N

#seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #seventeen fanfic #svt fanfic #seventeen fluff #svt fluff

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jmvore · 5 months

Text

Baby, Yes Or No...

↳ SYNOPSIS › Jung Hoseok met you three months ago and in those three months, he realized, he liked you too much to not give a relationship a chance. If only he could confess... that would make things easier, wouldn't it? › masterlist + other gift ‹

» RATING › 18+ [M I N O R S D O N O T I N T E R A C T] » WARNING(S) › nothing but pure fluff, Hoseok struggling with his feelings toward the reader, kissing under the mistletoe, side vminkook (mentioned), kissing, and confessing. » PAIRING(S) › jung hoseok x f!reader » WORD(S) › 1.7k+ » POST DATE › 12/28/2023 » A/N › Thank you @/saradika for the divider(s)! Happy Holiday @hobipaint! This is part one of your gift, the other half is a header/icon combo I'll send to you through a message. Anyway, hopefully, you like it ❤️ALSO I'M SO SORRY IT WAS SO LATE. I also have something I am going to send you through message if that's okay.

thank you for reading! & remember: you nice, keep going.❤️ › masterlist ‹

Hoseok observes how your face lights up at the ginormous Christmas tree in the middle of the plaza. Pointing at the star that brightens once the clock turns midnight, the Christmas lights dance off your face as your smile grows wider. In that moment, he would say he felt like he was in one of those God-awful hallmark movies. The one where it took the girl falling for someone else for him to realize he wanted to be with her. Or, you know, it taking him forever to realize how much you mean to him.

The setup was perfect (or unlucky). Whoever this Joshua guy was, he was an idiot. He should've acted sooner but it was too late. He knew about his crush on you but Hoseok was determined to make you see him too. That faithful day he saw you at the Plaza almost a month ago, he didn't realize how much of a part you would play in his life.

How much he would need you in his.

And as Hoseok watches the way you're excited about everything around you, he realizes how much he loves hanging out with you, in every sense of the word. You want to get smoothies? He's down. Need someone to go somewhere with you? Not a problem, he's down. He knew he was down bad when you talked about going to some book club and volunteered to go with you.

Even Jimin had picked up on his crush.

Can you blame him though? You’re beautiful, kind, sort of stand-offish (which he loves) but once he could break down your walls, it was game over for him.

Yeji warned him about breaking your heart but he knows, he would never do it on purpose. Not if he can prevent it.

Only now, it's getting to the telling you part. He doesn't know how he is going to do it, but he knows he has to. He has to ask you out before Joshua does. He knows he’s been eying for your attention but he doesn't know if you've even given him the time of day.

Hell, will you even reciprocate his feelings?

“Finally…” Jimin chuckles at his friend when he recognizes the look that crosses his face. He nudges Hoseok your way as you turn to look at both of them, confused. Your friends surround all of you as you squeeze through to try and get to him.

"Hey! I was looking for you. Where have you been?" You ask, a small pout on your lips that he wants to kiss away. It's so hard not to! Why did you have to be so cute? "The lights are already up..."

"It's okay," He chuckles. "There's always New Year."

"I guess you're right." You turn to look back and Yeji gives you a thumbs up but when you turn back, you realize he's staring at you. You wipe the side of your face and frown, “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“What? No.” Hoseok laughs the more worried you look. “No. It's nothing.”

“Can’t be. I’m not buying it.” You shake your head, brows furrow as you scan Hoseok's face. “Hobi. Seriously, what's wrong?”

He glances back at Jimin for help but only receives a smirk in return.

“I, um…” He tries to say but the words simply aren't working in his favor. He wants to confess. He wants to tell you how much he likes you and how much your friendship over these last couple of months has meant to him more than anything but his brain isn't computing.

Why isn't it working?!

He hates that this is where you're probably going to see how much of a wuss he is. He can't even tell the girl of dreams how much he cares about her. Witchcraft. That's what this is. Because he's never been this tongue-tied before.

What the hell are you doing to him?

“Hey Hoseok?” You shake his shoulder to catch his attention again as your brows furrow. “Are you alright?”

“Uh…” Hoseok waves his hands frantically before scratching at the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Yes! It’s nothing. I'm going to go see if Jungkook wants to get some hot chocolate.”

“I’ll go-”

“No!” He dials back his enthusiasm as he closes his eyes and takes a breath. “It's fine. I think Jimin’s looking for you.”

You turn to see Jimin with his hand in Taehyung’s, pointing at the inflatable snowman hanging from the bars. As you are distracted, he takes his leave. his steps quick and hurried. He’s going to hate himself for doing that to you but he didn't know how else to get out of the situation.

It shouldn't be this hard to tell someone how they feel! What's wrong with him?

“Hoseok?”

“Shit!” He jumps, glancing at his cousin before looking back to see you sitting on the edge of the fountain with Taehyung and Jimin consoling you.

He’s probably fucked up his chance.

“Why are you running, hyung?” Jungkook asks, leaving Yeji and Ryujin’s side to be by his. He glances in the general direction he’s looking in before responding, “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Hoseok’s already upset with himself. He didn't need the others upset too. “Nothing, just… fuck, I just couldn't tell her.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know!”

Hoseok sits on the park bench with his head in his hands. He knows he needs to figure it out, but he can't. He's overwhelmed and doesn't know how to start. He feels a heaviness in his chest at the thought of Joshua beating him to confess and a sense of dread rises in his stomach. He feels like he's about to lose control.

He watches you walk away with Jimin and Taehyung, leaving him to stir in his thoughts.

Maybe he lost his chance.

"Hot Chocolate!" Jungkook sings and skips toward the building as Taehyung and Jimin follow behind their boyfriend. Everyone decided they wanted to go to Sweets 'n Treats for some hot chocolate. You wanted to head home, not really in a festive mood but you know Jungkook won't let you.

Neither is Jimin.

"You doing okay, honey?" Yeji sits down next to you with yours and her hot chocolate in hand. She hands you a cup with a pretty heart drawn on the top and a lid. You smile, thanking her for the thoughtful gesture and taking a sip. You both enjoy the warmth of the hot chocolate as it spreads through your body.

It makes you feel a bit better.

"I'm okay." You shrug. "Where's Ryujin?"

"With the boys. I told her I was going to talk to you."

"Oh." You chuckle, grabbing a couple of sugars to sprinkle into your chocolate. Yeji watches you frown. She knows you're trying not to bring the group down but you were also hoping Hoseok would have said something by now. You felt like all the signs were there. "Should I say something?"

"To Hobi?"

"Should I?" Yeji raises her hand to rest her chin on her knuckles in thought. She glances in the general direction he was in and notes how Hoseok's trying his best not to watch your every move. "I think you should follow your heart."

You feel a tug in your chest, and a warmth of approval radiating from Yeji.

"Go get your man girl!" She says, waving for Jungkook and Ryujin to come over.

You take a deep breath as you stand with your drink and head towards Hoseok. Your heart is pounding in your chest. You can feel the sweat in your palms (not from the hot chocolate). You tell yourself to act naturally, but you can't help the butterflies in your stomach.

You still force yourself to head his way. You know your friends are watching. They've been rooting for the two of you ever since they learned of your feelings for one another.

'You got this!' Yeji mouths before turning back to her conversation with Jimin as You take a sip of your drink, trying to calm your nerves.

"Hobi?" Voice as quiet as a whisper but you're sure he heard you because his smile is brighter the moment he sees you. "Hey."

"I'm sorry about earlier."

"What was that about anyway?" You try to play it off as a chuckle but you're curious why he ran away.

"Nerves I guess." That's an understatement, trying to keep your composure but you know exactly what he's feeling. "Can I tell you something?"

You nod but he doesn't look at you.

"I, um..." His grip tightens on the handle as he clears his throat. His voice is low and trembling.

"What's going on?"

He appears to be nervous and uncomfortable as if he's struggling to find the words to say. His eyes dart around the room as if looking for help before he speaks again.

"Hob-"

"I-I like you, ___!" He finally blurts out, leaving some of the patrons confused. He doesn't care. He's glad he's finally said it. "I like you a lot and I didn't know how to express that and then I was afraid of you rejecting me and-" He takes a deep breath and continues. "But I guess I knew I had to take a chance and tell you. I hope you feel the same way."

He stops rambling as his eyes widen and his heart pounds against his chest. He waits for a response, but you don't say anything, and his heart plummets. Dreading the worst.

Why weren't you saying anything?

Did you not feel anything?

"Y-You don't have to say anything! It's okay if you don't feel the same way. No pressure." He excuses himself but before he can get off the stool, you grab his arm to stop him.

"Wait." You look at him and grin. "I feel the same way. I felt the same way for a while now. I was hoping you said something first."

He's taken aback and smiles, before pulling you into a hug. You giggle, telling him not to be so rough but he can't help but squeal at the realization you feel the same way he does. He pulls back but hesitates when he glances down at your lips.

"Kiss me, Hobi." Your lips meet in a passionate kiss as he holds you in his arms and pulls you close. You feel your heart flutter the minute he pulls away and looks you in your eyes.

The moment is broken when you hear Jimin scream, "Finally!" as the rest of the group laughs.

"Yeah. Finally." Hoseok whispers as you look up to see what they're laughing at. You notice Jungkook behind you holding a mistletoe above your head.

"Really, Kook?"

"Yes!" Jungkook wiggles it above your head again and smiles. "It's tradition."

Hoseok leaned in to kiss your lips one last time as he couldn't believe he had the greatest gift this year.

Your love.

#bts moodboard #hoseok moodboard #jhope moodboard #jung hoseok #hoseok #jhope #bts jhope #bts hoseok #hoseok x you #jmvore #hoseok x reader #jhope x you #bts layout #hoseok aesthetic #jhope aesthetic #hoseok theme #jhope themes #hoseok scenarios #jhope scenarios

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blu-joons · 2 years

Text

When Another Member Walks In On The Two Of You ~ Seventeen Hip Hop Unit Reaction

S.Coups:

Your eyes met as soon as you walked back into the dorm to see that it was still quiet. “No one’s here,” Seungcheol smirked as he pulled you down onto the sofa with him, with his arm around your waist.

Your head shook as he soon began to kiss the top of your head. “They could be back soon,” you tried to tell him.

His head shook too in reply to you, “they won’t be back for a while, even if they are, we’re just laying on the sofa anyway.”

What started as laying on the sofa, soon became more, so much so that the two of you had no idea of Junhui returning to the dorm until he let go of a quiet yell, slamming the door to make the two of you jump.

“I did not need to see that,” he sighed as you looked to him.

You sighed straight away, staring at Seungcheol. “What are you doing?”

Junhui’s eyes went wide at Seungcheol’s question. “What am I doing? I think the real question is what are you guys doing?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Seungcheol smirked, earning himself a slap on the chest from a shy you beside him.

“You’re right, I absolutely don’t want to know about this.”

Wonwoo:

A gasp came from you as you found your figure suddenly be pulled to the left, a pair of hands holding onto your waist. “Don’t worry, it’s me,” Wonwoo chuckled, spinning you around so that you were facing him.

Your heart raced as you stared back at him. “What are you trying to do to me?” You frowned, feeling your heart pound.

Wonwoo shrugged back across at you, “this is the only way that we can get some time alone before the show starts Y/N.”

Your hands moved to rest against Wonwoo’s chest as he pulled you towards him. Just as a kiss was pressed to your lips, you heard footsteps walking followed by a sharp intake of breath as someone spotted you.

“Talk about sneaking around,” Seokmin smiled at you both.

Wonwoo’s eyes rolled in frustration, “can’t we get any time alone today?”

Seokmin didn’t quite know how to react as his smile grew. “I’m just going to carry on walking and pretend this didn’t happen.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wonwoo huffed as you stepped away from him. “All I wanted was a couple of minutes just with Y/N.”

“You should know you never get peace with us by now.”

Mingyu:

The smile on Mingyu’s face was wide as he caught your eyes looking in his direction as he walked out without a shirt on. “Y/N? You good?” He asked you, breaking you out of the daydream that you found yourself in.

Your eyes looked away as Mingyu began to walk closer towards you. “Don’t,” you warned him, but Mingyu didn’t listen.

He sat down beside you, making sure that there was no room between the two of you. “Don’t do what exactly?”

You tried to push Mingyu away, but just as his arms wrapped around you and pulled you towards him, Chan walked out too, not knowing quite where to look as he found the two of you in his direct eyeline.

“Get off of each other,” he immediately called out.

Mingyu chuckled at his yell, “all we’re doing is hugging Chan.”

His head shook back across at you both, “you’re hugging now, but that will soon be more, and I don’t want to see any of it.”

“He knows us pretty well to be fair,” Mingyu teased, looking to you as your eyes rolled, “I mean it’s pretty likely.”

“Why can’t the two of you just go and get a room?”

Vernon:

Your smile was wide as you looked across at Vernon, with the room empty at last. “I thought they were never going to go to bed,” he sighed, walking around the room to close the gap between the two of you.

Your head soon nodded in agreement with him, “I can’t stay long now though Vernon, it’s getting dark outside.”

Vernon’s eyes briefly glanced out of the window, “we might as well make the most of the time that we’ve got left then.”

Vernon moved you back to rest against the cupboard, beginning to kiss you. Just as he did, one of the bedroom doors opened, with the two of you jumping back just as Joshua walked out of his room with a sigh.

“You’ve got a room,” Joshua groaned, covering his eyes.

The two of you smiled innocently, “we weren’t even doing anything.”

Joshua’s head shook as he took his phone charger that he came out for. “I know how these moments work, of course, you were.”

“You don’t have to cover your eyes you know,” Vernon tried to tell him, “the two of us aren’t doing anything anymore.”

“I’m not risking looking at the two of you right now.”

---

Masterlist

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chronic-ghost · 9 months

Text

Chapter 9 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 11845

chapter summary: if you thought you knew the full story of natalie lorraine, you were myth-taken

chapter warnings/tags: non-consensual touching, implied sexual assault, emotionally abusive parents, drug/alcohol use, underaged drug/alcohol use, women existing in the male gaze, putting too much of myself into characters as per yooshg

a/n: Header comes from the “Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses” by John William Waterhouse. Song for this chapter is Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac – watch me make a fic playlist after the fact lmao. Bear with me while I wax embarrassingly poetic about my favorite oc blorbo. Remember this does end well!!!

▲ Series Masterlist | Previous | Next (last chapter!)

▲ AO3 Link

▲ Taglist Form

There are many different types of myth but, essentially, they can be grouped into three: etiological myths, historical myths, psychological myths. Etiological myths can offer explanations for why the world is the way it is. Historical myths retell an event from the past but elevate it with greater meaning than the actual event (if it even happened). [Lastly] psychological myths present one with a journey from the known to the unknown which, according to both Jung and Campbell, represents a psychological need to balance the external world with one's internal consciousness of it. – Mythology, Joshua Mark

“in front of my mother and my sisters,

i pretend love is cheap and vulgar.

i act like it’s a sin–

i pretend that love is for women on a dark path.

but at night i dream of a love so heavy

it makes my spine throb–

i dream up a lover who makes love like he is

separating salt from water.”

— Salma Deera, “salt”

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

And like in all the great myths, birth is a painful, violent emergence.

Slowly, labored across years and many heartbeats, what remains is the inevitable conclusion of being fucked over, of being lazy and careless, of innocence taken too soon. Careless children grow up to be careless mothers, careless fathers.

The titans of the world leave to make their mark on history and, in doing so, mark their children in a way more powerful, more regretful than any legend could possibly make them out to be.

Medea is brutalized in legends and in verse for the most heinous a mother can commit.

Odysseys forgets what being a father means.

Oedipus Rex curses his children with an unforgivable sin by way of their mother, their grandmother, and that staggering failure is felt through to Antigone, a generation removed. Antigone dies. Haemon and Eurydice die too. Pain and grief are family heirlooms passed through pale fingers at the stroke of midnight.

But despite all that. Before all that.

Myths begin when the heroes are forced to make a choice, choose a direction in the way their lives end up. It might not always be obvious, and the gods might have things in store for them. But there is a choice and the fallen hero always chooses.

But they were all children once. You have to remember that. You have to believe that.

(Aetiologic)

I hate these socks, you think to yourself, they’re itchy and they hurt my toes. Every time you swing your legs over the edge of that leather couch, your legs too short to touch the ground, the toe of your shoe pinches you. You really, really want to take off your shoes, but Mom said you had to keep them on all day, especially in the office. In his office. You think your dress looks like one of your baby dolls and you don’t like it.

So you stop kicking, even though the sound of your heel against the leather made a funny noise. You can move too, and make the leather squeak, and that is pretty fun too. Grinning, you bounce like you aren’t supposed to on your bed back home, the cushions chirping – it sounds like they’re farting – you giggle, rocking back on your hands from left to right, squealing along with the leather as you made it –

“Enough!”

You freeze, tears immediately welling in your eyes, fear almost painful in your chest.

But he’s not talking to you. Your father is still in his office, with the door barely shut, and he’s talking to someone on the phone. Yelling, actually. He’s been in there since the little hand was on the fifteen and now it’s on the thirty. He told you to wait there while he called your mom. You tried to sit still, but it was boring and all the toys were back in the other room.

He never yelled at you, your dad, but he did yell at your mom.

When you talked to the other kids in your preschool class, their mommies and daddies lived in the same house together, slept in the same bed, talked nicely to each other. Yours didn’t.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with her, LeAnne? I told you I have a meeting at four today and she could be here for three hours. I told you! I can’t have her here! You need to come pick up your daughter!”

Your foot kicks up and down. You didn’t like it when they talked about you like you weren’t there.

“Hey there.” A woman with blonde hair and big eyes sits down next to you. She was always around your dad, and always handled his papers and briefcase and sometimes his coffee. She is younger than your mom but way older than you are. You think she’s really, really pretty. None of her dresses look like baby doll dresses. “I’m sorry your dad is taking so long. Do you want something to eat, or drink?”

You shake your head. Your mom said not to talk to strangers, so you didn’t open your mouth.

“Are you bored? Do you wanna watch some TV?”

TVs were everywhere in your dad’s office building. Down near the elevators, and then more when you got out. It always seemed like people were watching a tv and the actors on the tv. Actors were people whose job it was to be on the tv or in the movies, your dad told you. He told you he knew a lot of famous actors, but when you told the kids in your class about it, they said they didn’t know any of those people.

“You’re just making things up!”

“You’re a liar!”

You really wanted your dad to introduce you to an actor, just to prove them wrong. You thought it was pretty cool how everyone was always watching them. Like they couldn’t look away.

You nod at the pretty lady. She smiles and picks up the skinny black tv remote on the table in front of the couch.

The tv in the corner of the room pops on. The size of it doesn’t take up the wall like some of the tvs in the office do, but it’s still bigger than the one you have at home.

The nice lady taps the button a few times, the channels changing, until she comes to the kids channel. It’s a little old for you – all of the shows at preschool are cartoons and this one has real people in it – but you want this woman to like you.

“Do you like this one? Friends in the Family? It’s so funny!”

She turns and leans back against the couch with you. You hear people laughing on the screen, even though you don’t see anyone. There’s a young girl, older than you but younger than this nice lady, and she has a boy with her on her parents’ couch. The boy leans in and kisses her cheek and the invisible people go ‘oooooh’.

“Ooooh!” You mimic and the nice woman laughs, grinning at you. Something warm and tight goes up your chest, and you pinch your lip with your teeth, toes curling in your stupid shoes. You liked making her laugh.

On the screen, a little girl – maybe the other girl’s sister – pushes through the kitchen door. You gasp in surprise. She looks like she could be in your preschool class. She’s all mad and she crosses her arms, pouting.

“Someone’s gonna get it!”

The invisible people laugh and the nice lady giggles so hard she leans forward and you’re giggling too, even though you don’t quite get it. That warm feeling reminds you of when you drink soda too fast, but it’s good.

You frown too, put your hands on your hips, parroting the little girl on tv, “someone’s gonna get it!”

Her pretty mouth opens in surprise, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh my God, that was so good! You sound just like her!” You giggle, your face hot. “Have you ever asked your dad about acting?”

You shake your head. You, an actor? On tv? No way!

“Well, you should! You could be really good!”

You don’t know what to say, you want to keep making the same faces that little girl is, when your dad’s door opens. The young woman next to you lurches forward and shuts off the tv. He comes out and you can’t tell if he’s angry or upset or if that’s just how he looks. You’re not around him enough to know. But he stands in front of you, thinking something.

“Judy, would you get us two juice boxes from the fridge downstairs?”

“Of course, Mr. Milken.”

The young woman leaves and you’re a little afraid. You don’t want him to yell at you for watching that show for older kids. You twist your little fingers.

“That was your mom on the phone. She’s going to be a little late.”

You nod. “Okay.”

“Did you have fun today at my office? Did you like meeting all my friends?”

You nod, this time quicker. “Yes! I would like to meet an actor one day!”

At that, he smiles and you relax. People who are angry don’t smile.

“While we wait for your mom, do you wanna play paper football?”

“What’s that?”

“C’mon. I’ll show you.”

So the myth begins. All it takes is a single idea. A single want. A single desire. An innately human desire. We build myths and we tell stories and we fill them with the things we want to hear.

You’re turning fourteen next month. It’s circled on your calendar in your bedroom. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal, but at least now you could start the emancipation process. If you wanted to. You laid awake at night, thinking about what you’d call yourself if you ever changed your name. Something vaguely French-sounding. European for sure. But they were just fantasies to get you through the day.

It’s early in the morning. You haven’t heard anything from Mom’s room in a while so you figure it’s just the two of you in the house again. You totter out of your room, blinking sleep from your eyes – it was a very late night on set last night and probably would be again, given how the production of this made-for-tv movie was going and especially with the extra homework you’ve been doing to make up for the time off you’ve taken – as you wander across the small, sun-streaked living room, and around the corner to the kitchen. You hear something from the fridge and just as you are about to ask your mom if she’s cooking (which is never a good idea), a man stands up. He’s older than you but younger than your mom and he has the last piece of your sourdough bread in his mouth. He smirks and you unconsciously tug down the hem of your sleep shorts.

This has been happening more and more lately. The way men, older men, look at you, it’s different now. Has been for a while, but now there’s more of them, their gazes sit on your bare skin longer, the light in their eyes changing, the lines around their mouths tightening. You don’t really know what it is they want, but it’s baffling to you that they think looking at you like that will convince you to give anything to them.

It's the way your mom’s new boyfriend is looking at you. Your cheeks heat up without your consent and you hate it.

He’s hungry and he’s scrounging around in the fridge and now he’s looking at you. Still hungry.

“Hey, you must be LeAnne’s daughter,” he says, taking the bread slice out of his mouth and propping his hairy arm on the top of the refrigerator door, his gaze sweeping you from head to toe as if deciding whether or not to make a sandwich out of you. Who likes this kind of shit? Oh, that’s right. Your mom.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Yeah. That’s me. Is she here?”

His eyes follow the backs of your thighs as you walk over to the coffee pot and take out week-old coffee grounds. They’ve turned blue, started to mold, but you dump them out into the trash with three good smacks.

“Uh, she’s still in bed. She said you could get to school on your own.”

Behind you, the fridge door slams shut and you curl your toes, begging yourself not to flinch. There’s something inside of you demanding you to not show weakness. Steadying your own hand, you dig into the jar holding the coffee grounds. It’s halfway empty, you make a note to pick up some later, the thought pressed up against the swell of panic that’s growing at the edge of your awareness.

“I’m Alan.” He leans up against the counter out of the corner of your eye. “I know we just met, but I could take you, to school . . . if you want.”

His thick middle has nothing to do with age, only poor health. Evident further by his off-yellow teeth and bad breath.

“I’m o-okay. Thank you.”

There’s three minutes left on the coffee timer. His gaze is like open palms on your skin. You hate it. He sidles up closer and your nails dig half-moon crescents into your skin. The lovely smell of coffee brewing is overwhelmed by his cheap cologne. He’s big. Bigger than you. Bigger than any of the boys in your class, or any of the men on set. You’ve never really noticed the men on set, they’ve never been this close before, but you’re sure he’s bigger than all of them.

You’ve never felt quite so small.

“You were in that movie, right? ‘Those ain’t your average space-invaders’, that was you right?” You nod, the back of your throat drying out. He chuckles. “You were good. Really good. You were so pretty.”

“I was ten.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Ten outta ten.”

Your stomach clenches and it’s like he can tell. Alan reaches the two inches across the linoleum and gently strokes your forearm. A light, smelly panic sweat breaks out over your forehead, under your armpits.

You want him away from you, want him gone, to run back to your room, but where would that get you?

Roll over, play dead, show your under belly. You don’t know what else to do to make him go away.

“Well, if you see my mom,” you ease around him, your forearm sliding from his grasp just as his fingers tighten, making sure you don’t seem offended, “tell her I’ve got a ride to–,”

“Hey, wait, where ya going?”

You all but run back to your room, the coffee pot beeping behind you. You throw open your bedroom door and leap inside, locking it behind you. You don’t realize you’re panting until you feel light-headed, dizzy – you feel sticky all of a sudden and rush into your bathroom. Steam pours from the scalding hot water, the red handle all the way to the right, as you stand over it, watching it rush down the drain. With your lips pinched between your teeth, you run your hands under it and muffle a scream. It hurts. It burns but it’s like his touch is evaporating off your skin and there’s relief in that. It’s the first time you realize that the pain you give yourself is different from the pain that they give you.

Not all of them are like that.

Some of them are actually kind of okay.

You’re fifteen and dressed as a pumpkin for the Halloween party hosted by the studio, the suit baggy and oversized, and for once, your mom’s friends don’t stare at you. No one really has all night and it’s nice. You feel like you can ease into the wall and no one would notice. There’s a long black couch on the other side of a plant with glowing lights in the shape of ghosts wrapped around its trunk. You stepside around a few directors, one of your other actors, and head straight for the couch.

You don’t realize Jim, your mom’s current boyfriend is already there until you sit down and groan. He laughs from the opposite end and you jump.

He’s more her age, thankfully, and doesn’t really seem to notice if you’re at home or not. In fact, you can’t really remember another conversation with him that lasted longer than a few minutes.

“You liking the party?” He asks.

You shrug – never show your actual feelings. “It’s kinda late. I’ve got classes on Monday, so I’m hoping to make it an early night.”

He nods, slowly, distracted. There’s something about his eyes that isn’t right. Not in the way that he looks at you, but at everything, like he’s trying to look through a dense fog.

Your mother is nowhere to be found, which isn’t entirely out of the ordinary for this sort of thing. She’d either show up and be the life of the party or show up so trashed she had to be escorted out of the building.

But it is odd for her to just leave one of her toys lying around.

“Do you know where my mom is?” You ask Jim and he shakes his head, as though it takes a considerable amount of effort just to hold himself upright. There’s definitely something wrong with him.

And then you see the smoke coming from his fingers and you finally realize that skunky smell is coming from him.

He sees your gaze fall. “You want a hit?” He asks, either not remembering your question or not wanting to answer.

You’d never tried it before, not really having time between shooting schedules and school and your mom wanting to take you out to meet new casting directors and writers. You sit there, staring and realize Jim is probably one of the only consistent people you see in your life, everyone else a revolving door of names and faces and elbows to rub. A tiredness breaks over you like the push of a wave and you sway, wanting nothing more than to be at home under the covers. You wish you’d brought your walkman, so you could have hid out on the soundstage until the party was over.

You’d grown skinny over the past year. Rewarded and praised for it by producers and studio execs, you saw that people listened to you more, looked you in the eye when you were beautiful, made more beautiful by the thinness of your cheeks, your narrow thighs. Your mother was convinced you were taking pills, but couldn’t find anything in the house. And yet, the real reason behind it all was sometimes you were just too tired to eat. Too tired to move. Happy to curl up wherever you found yourself and sleep until the next person needed something from you.

But this is what you wanted, after all. You asked for a life of movies and revolving doors and fake people and men staring at your ass. You are reminded of this all the time.

You nod at Jim, curiosity getting the better of you and wondering if other girls did this sort of thing in basements or with their friends or boyfriends. You portray a teenage girl on television, but sometimes you don’t feel like one at all.

He reaches out to you and you take it. You’d smoke a cigarette once, with a few of the kids from that one time you guest-starred on that sitcom, so you think this’ll be the same.

“What’s it going to feel like?” You ask, the white paper inches from your lips. Jim looked at you and his eyes sort of crinkled.

“It’s good. Real good. Like there’s a cloud between you and the rest of the world.”

That did sound nice.

You put your lips and inhale – it burns in a way you weren’t expecting – and you cough. Jim laughs in a way that makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong, that you’re silly.

“You’ll get it,” he says, “you’ll get it.”

You try again and remember that he held his breath before exhaling. You do the same, but the scratch makes your eyes water, your chest tighten, but you hold on, until you feel smoke cauterizing the back of your throat close and you cough again, less this time.

Jim laughs again and takes back the skunky cigarette. “Hey, look at that, your first joint and you handled it like a champ.”

He smokes more, losing interest in you, so he turns and watches the party. Your heart beats roughly in your chest, but that might be more of the nerves than anything else. You fidget on the couch, waiting for something to happen, but it never does.

“I think I need another h-hit. I don’t feel anything.”

Jim frowns at you, shaking his head. “Hell no. You took two giant puffs on your first go. I’m not babysitting you when you’re puking in the toilet with the spins.”

“The spins?”

“When you drink while you’re high. Can be a real bad mix.”

You blush, wondering if he saw you take sips from the flask in your purse or he just assumes you’re always drinking because you’re LeAnne’s daughter.

“Just sit back, relax, you’ll feel it. In a bit.”

So you try his approach, nonchalantly watching people dressed in devil costumes, in white vampire fangs and cloaks, little skimpy bunny outfits, as the party rages on. You watch, and slowly, the whole thing feels distant. Like you’re in the far back of a theater and everything in front of you is some sort of stage.

You find you like it in the back row, in the quiet and the darkness. It’s warm, sort of like you’re dizzy but you sway with the movement and you don’t get sick. You find that you are rolling your head back and forth and you giggle.

Jim smirks at you, that joint almost gone. “Yeah, there it is.”

You’d never been high like this before. Buzzed a little bit from the beer in your flask, but this was new. This was . . .

“It’s nice,” you smile widely to the ceiling. “Does it always feel this way?”

“Like I said, you can mix with alcohol and get really fucked up.” Jim shrugs. “And different strains do different things. This is gonna relax your brain, but there’s others that’ll give you a body high.”

Body, this thing you’re in that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.

“But a mental high from weed and a mental high from glue are like two totally different things.”

Your bones feel like they weigh a thousand pounds and you could just melt into the leather. But you turn your head, dropping it against the back of the couch.

“You can get high from glue?”

“You can get high from just about anything.”

“Oh.”

The needle-like feeling that pricks your heart every time you come to one of these parties is gone. The sloshy oozy feeling in your stomach when you go into public with your mother is gone. There is nothing left inside of you except weight and heat and air that comes in through your nose and out through your mouth.

You giggle again. What if this is how a pumpkin feels all the time?

“Will it always feel like this?”

He doesn’t understand your question, doesn’t care enough to think about it, so he answers the only way he can. “Nah, should only last for a few hours. Then you’re good. No hangover, which is a plus.”

“But I always want it to feel this way.”

He grins again and pulls out a small plastic baggy with some fuzzy brussel-sprout-looking vegetable inside.

“Got twenty bucks on you?”

You’re sixteen and you’ve just started in your first major motion picture. Offers are rolling in, you no longer have to seek them out. The brand new telephone for your brand new house is constantly ringing. You have to unplug it to sleep at night. But that usually makes your mother yell at you.

She wants to answer every call that comes through. As if this house was hers.

You sit cross-legged on your bed, grinding up the weed you bought off a sound-stage guy earlier today in your silver grinder, your headphones in to drown out the noises coming from the other side of the house as well as the ones in your head.

This boyfriend was not so nice and in a drunken stupor grabbed your ass in front of LeAnne. She raged and yelled and blamed you.

Get out, she told you. Leave. Get out. We don’t want you here. Leave.

This is my house, you old bitch.

Licking the paper gently, you finish rolling the joint and press pause on your walkman. Stevie Nicks pauses in her crooning, and is it over now, do you know how? pick up the pieces and go home, and you remind yourself to find a purply drape at the next flee market. Reaching to the end of the bed, you plug in your headphones to the hot pink tv and flip to the right station.

Henry had sent in a new tv for your birthday, and you had that promptly thrown out. You bought this with your first check from residuals.

It’s almost eleven. It’s about to start.

You light the joint, inhaling smoothly, as the credits for Twenty-Three and Fun start up.

The joint quivers at the end of your knee, your toes curling. It wasn’t produced by your father’s company, but it was all anyone talked about at school, in the gossip mags. You thought about buying Tiger Beat just for the pictures . . . of one specific cast member.

You bite your nail as the theme song plays and the credits roll through all the gorgeous, young actors smiling as they go about their perfectly average lives in the big city.

And then his name shows up and you inhale smoke quickly to stifle the thing expanding in your chest.

Dieter Bravo.

His smooth soft hair, dark sweet eyes. God, he is so cute.

Your hand clenches the sheets. You’ve never had a boyfriend, only been kissed once while at dance in between shooting schedules that you’d begged your mom to let you attend. It was bad, it tasted bad, his lips were rubbery and wet, and you didn’t feel anything.

Not like when you imagine what it would be like to be kissed by him.

Twenty-Three and Fun is out of your demographic, but maybe you could convince someone to let you try out for the part of someone’s little sister who comes in for the weekend. You’d just love the chance to meet him. He makes you feel like nothing you’ve ever felt before, nothing you know what to do with, but you tingle all over with it.

You’re at the tail end of sixteen when the spiral starts.

When you don’t know where to put this loneliness that’s been dragging you down.

Men stare at you but not in the way you want. Girls your own age won’t look at you, and women glare at you while their husbands stare. And boys, God, boys your own age –

You wipe the tears from your eyes, the wind snarling through your hair, the heat of the summer night sinking into your skin like wet clay. You know you’re driving too fast, but you don’t care.

Every day you go to work and put on someone else’s skin. Their clothes. Their face. For a while, it’s been freeing, to pretend to have normal problems, a normal family, a normal life. Because you knew even if you had never chosen to go into your father’s industry – which was now just as much yours – you knew your life wasn’t ever going to be normal. Not in the way it mattered anyway.

But there is something there when you step in front of a camera. A feeling that doesn’t come from a dark place, from feelings of abandonment and loneliness – it comes from a place inside of you that still feels like you own, still is yours to hold and keep safe, despite everyone taking things from you without asking. Instead of taking, it gives. It builds. It grows, despite the salted earth of your soul.

You like becoming someone else for a while, thinking as they do. Dancing, laughing, eating, playing as someone other than yourself. You like to create. You crave it. You create life for someone else that doesn’t exist and you love it. It feels right, imagining something if not for you, for someone else. Someone who looks like you but isn’t you. It feels good to dream.

But lately.

Lately, this job is no longer an act of creation. It’s fake smiles and ad campaigns and commercials and it feels rotten. Hollow. Like you’re under the eyes of a thousand leering men instead of just one. It feels cheap. You feel cheap, for wanting it to be something more. This desire for life itself dies in your hands, choked out, aborted before it had the chance to breathe.

Your body, yourself, is being twisted, molded into something you don’t want it to become and the only time, the only time you feel as though you have even some slight control is when you have none at all. When you detach from your corporeal form, so high or drunk you can’t feel your fingers.

It began with the beer your mom’s boyfriends left in the fridge, then the pills in her medicine cabinet. Then the mini bottles of Crown Royal and Jim Beam in the mini-fridges at your dad’s office. No one ever seemed to care when you swiped the whole row into your backpack. Maybe others had done the exact same thing.

You didn’t know how or why these things made you feel better but they did. You didn’t care about the tears on your face, the hot flood of anger beating in your chest, and you didn’t care about the speed limit, not even when you saw the flashing red and blue lights.

But you started to care when they put you in lock up and then you definitely did when your father’s lawyer bailed you out.

You went home and threw up for six hours. No one came to check on you, no one came to find you when you yanked the phone cord out of the wall. You clutched the porcelain basin of the toilet for what felt like days. Years. You aged decades that night.

When you woke up, you showered, ate, and called back your father’s lawyer.

You had decided on a name, a new name to put on the emancipation papers.

You told the lawyer very clearly and seriously over the phone: “I want my name to be Natalie Lorraine.”

It was the emancipation that finally did it. The final chop from the parental vine. The day she kicked you out, you came home from school, in between shoots for a new film with Gerard Butler and in talks for something with Helen Miram, and you find your mother curled up on the kitchen table. At first, you legitimately thought she was dead; the top half of her body was crumpled against the wood, her feet tangled with the rungs of the chair. She faced away from you, her right hand curled around an empty crystal tumbler and a three-fourths empty bottle of Belvedere inches from her fingertips.

You stare, dumb-founded, your heart so slow you could hear it pound like a drum in your ears. And then she twitches.

And then she wails.

“How could you? How could you do this to me? I’m your mother. You owe me. You owe me you owe me you owe me.”

She heaves boneless to the floor, the glass and bottle slipping out of her hand and shattering like droplets of rain. You can’t move, transfixed, as your mother, hands split open, knees carving bloody trails across the tile, drags herself towards your feet, like a freshly dug-up corpse.

She’s muttering, spitting, snarling – she’s a starved, beaten beast, ready to make its last stand.

You were a mistake

You ruined me

You ruined your father for me

Her sentences are blurred, notched together, overlapping, and intertwining. The only thing you remember is the vitriol and hatred more palpable than her own breath.

Someone older, someone more separated from their pink, flushed girlhood would have the callouses to ease the burn, dull the cut. But at sixteen, you didn’t. At sixteen, with a burgeoning substance abuse problem and at the mercy of the first of many instances where adulthood begins to rob you of the small pleasures of life, you watch your mother crumble and it scares you.

In that moment you want nothing more than to be taken care of, in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s asking too much but it clearly is. You want to be safe in a way that is primal, the animal fear of the dark and unknown. You’ve seen your mother drunk before but not this drunk, never heard the sounds she’s making — the wailing, the disappointment, the sorrow and rage. It scares you so badly you want to cry.

The gap between girlhood and womanhood is closed when you understand your mother is only human. Nothing less. And nothing more.

She’s still muttering hateful, horrible things as you take her to her feet and ease her onto the couch.

She’s silent when you throw a blanket over her.

She’s pale, shaking, green.

Go away. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you around me. Leave me alone.

Leave me.

Go away.

You leave her, not knowing if it's serious enough to call 911, if you can actually die from drinking too much, but that fear, that vice-grip around your chest, it’s squeezing your lungs so tightly, tears leak out of the corner of your eyes. But then it sinks. Sinks into your bones, your blood, your muscles. Watching your mother folded up like a broken doll, you experience fear like you’ve never felt before.

Blink and you’re in your room.

Blink and you’re under your bed, curled up, knees to your chin, and you’re crying. You can’t stop crying. It’s the only thing that seems to appease the fear, the sense that nothing is real and everything is going to turn out badly and it makes your stomach twist. You gag on your own spit and you shake and you tremble and you experience your first panic attack without anyone to tell you what’s going on. How to survive something like that. You grow up thinking this is how everyone lives and you’re just too pathetic to take it. You let that shame and embarrassment fester and grow because it has no way of stopping.

Your father is also served with the papers.

Two weeks later, the production for your upcoming movie was suddenly put on hold. The role with Helen Miriam went to someone else.

He never helped you get ahead in the industry, but he absolutely blocked you from it. He never called you again.

Someone, someone else, might have been hurt by the fact that your father cut you off without so much as a goodbye. But it’s not like you could miss what you never had.

You take the hint and enroll in UC Santa Barbara under your new name.

The myth of your maidenhood ended in much of the same way it began: at the behest of someone else and exiled as an afterthought.

You tried the whole sleep-around-to-fill-a-need thing for the freshmen year of college. It didn’t take. You liked sex but you liked the chase more. You liked the hunt, the thrill, the unconscious desire to touch, when the desire to do something first emerges in their heads. You like to watch the basic urge emerge in their darkened eyes before the other shoe drops. Drops and splatters coherent and rational thought like a bug on a windshield.

You liked sex, even if more often you had to get yourself off while your partner had fallen asleep, their needs met. But you liked being wanted more. The drugs helped bridge the gap and given that you had no idea how to make friends because you'd never had one your own age before, the puddles of bodies that dripped onto couches and floors at parties seemed to be as good a social circle as any. They all started to recognize you at parties, in lecture halls, at bars. They nodded, you nodded back, and you sat down.

No longer alone.

But not entirely wanted either.

It was enough though.

By your third year, you were known more for your party provisions (with your old contacts from the industry) than your ex-boyfriends.

You meet Heidi Morgan through one of your production management professors.

You’d gone in to speak with your professor, a man notorious for sleeping with his students, and believed you to be next in line (men were so much better at doing what you asked when they thought you’d sleep with them), so you were hoping that you could convince him that it was actually your lab partner who stole the paper from you, not the other way around, when you see him with someone else.

Blonde, small, feisty.

Heidi Morgan takes one look at the grotesque ogling in his eyes and promptly introduces herself.

In her own fire and take-no-shit attitude, you find kindred spirits.

She later asks you out for drinks, you think it’s been too long since you went down on a girl, and you completely misread the situation.

She clears things up and then asks you to read for a part. The whiplash makes your head spin, but given that she’s not calling you a giant slut, it’s probably good news.

She knows who you are. Suspected because you looked familiar and because she has friends in some truly weird places, she confirms her suspicions by the end of the day. So she gives you a call, you show up, flirt too much, and maybe end up with a job.

She gives you the script. It’s good.

Really good.

Why me? You ask her. You graduate in two weeks. You’re turning twenty-two in a few days. There’s nothing you’ve done in recent years to make her have this kind of faith in you. All digital memories of you reflect a knobby-kneed, round-cheeked little girl then that same little girl with tits and a smirk well beyond her years.

She didn’t think she might find her lead in a dingy auditorium, she says, but crazier things have happened. It’s not a guarantee, or a promise, just an offer. Try out, see what happens.

Crazier things have happened.

The rest is less myth and more old history.

(Historic)

The day you meet him is not unlike any other. Except in the little things. Your bra strap breaks when you go to put it on. Your belt loop gets caught in a door handle and nearly shucks your pants to the floor. You somehow get lost on the way to the studio even though you have your phone mapping the route. It takes you around and around and around until you get out and ask a very confused gas station attendant where the fuck the sound stage is.

It’s not momentous. Annoying, perhaps, so annoying that all these little things pester your brain like flies gorging on rotten fruit. You’re distracted, one eye always glancing over your shoulder. Trouble, trouble, trouble, your problems seem to whisper, you’re in trouble.

A PA comes to find you, saying Heidi specifically asked for your presence but she’s gone missing. He thinks he knows where to find her, if you’d come with him. You eye him up from the black leather couch you’re draped across, irritated at the day and at him for his shameless staring. You nod, and immediately he starts running his mouth about his own Hollywood dreams. He’s a writer, you know, maybe you’ve heard of some of his smaller indie work, it’s not very much, but folks who know say it's good so maybe he’ll be able to sell it if –

The door to the back of the lot opens and it’s like god snapped his fingers in your ear. It’s not momentous, or earth-shattering, but holy shit does it fuck you up.

He’s broad. Tall. Forearms, thick and veiny, stocky thumbs and tense fingers. His hair is just on the edge of being long, but combed back in some attempt to tame it, to fold it into submission. His right earlobe is puckered, pierced, but no earring. His beard and mustache are trimmed, clean shaven elsewhere. Despite how he’s built out adult male muscle from his days on Twenty-Three and Fun, he still has those boyish eyes, a dimple that would drive anyone up a wall, and eyelashes you’d pay a thousand dollars for. You knew this was coming but it still feels like a kick in the chest.

That kick burns when you realize something.

He’s fucking pissed. He’s beautiful, carved from your very dreams of what the most gorgeous man on earth would look like, but he’s fucking pissed.

Surprisingly, at you.

Well, that’s disappointing.

He comes at you with his claws drawn and you’ve never, ever been one to back down. You swipe back and hope you draw blood.

You discover other things about Dieter Bravo, the boy who you used to have a heart-stopping crush on when you didn’t know anything better. Fantasy will always be better than reality, and this isn’t exactly how you’d thought your first meeting would go.

And yet, you discover something else, something very, very curious. Something soft and impressionable, bruised purple and green. Something you want to lean on with your entire weight until he chokes. It’s ugly, but it’s amusing. Maybe this is how you hoped your first meeting would go, albeit with some tricky obstacles and a ticking clock.

You want to press and see what spills out.

Dieter Bravo cannot and does not look away from you.

The day you meet Dieter Bravo is also the day you meet The Sixers, the day you meet Marie. She’s small, mousy, but apparently a fucking rock star on the drums. You like the irony; quiet and unassuming until she bangs through your head with percussion. Where the rest of her bandmates are wide-eyed and eager and come with more drugs than a pharmacy, there’s something about Marie that you find so tenderly earnest you kind of wish you didn’t come dressed like you were going out to eat the fleshly hearts of men everywhere. You want to approach her on her level. You don’t want to scare her away. There’s something redemptive about a kind, sweet girl like Marie striking up a friendship with you.

If you could ever figure out how to start one.

“Excited for the filming to start?” You ask her after nearly everyone’s picked up their things and left after the reading. She glances at you, then over her shoulder, as if you were talking to someone else. You instantly feel insanely protective of her.

She blinks a few times before distractedly shaking her head. “No. I’m actually terrified.”

“About being in a movie?”

She cringes, as if it’s the most shameful thing in the world.

“Yeah. I love playing in front of crowds, but something about being on camera scares me.”

You make a note to find out the next time they’re playing live.

“It’s honestly not that bad. It feels a little weird, like some unblinking eye staring at you, but then it just kind of fades away.”

She bites her lip, tucking that short brown hair over her ear. “Have you done this before?”

You’re not exactly hiding your childhood movie star past, but you don’t really want it broadcasted.

“Here and there.”

The rest of her bandmates are chatting amongst themselves, perhaps not yet aware you’re trying to befriend one of them. You’re not quite sure how it’s going.

“If you ever want, we could talk and I could give you some pointers.”

Fuck, why did that sound like a line? It shouldn’t. You didn’t want it to. Where was the line between asking someone to be your friend and asking someone for a fuck?

If she notices your embarrassment, she doesn't show it. She grins brightly, unashamed. “Yes! Oh my god, yes, please. I’d love that!”

Normally, when giving someone your number, you’d grab their hand and write it in Sharpie, giving them a good wink. Now you tear off a corner of the call sheet and write down your number in shaking hands. It’s a small piece of paper, easily lost. That’s okay, if she does lose it. No need to freak out.

She’s grinning, smile expanding across that round face of hers as she takes your number when someone calls her name.

Roxie, the one with bright-red flaming hair and gorgeously thick eyebrows, takes a glance at the piece of paper in Marie’s fingers. One eyebrow arches, and she says nothing.

Roxie looks at you like she wants to devour you whole. You think you’ll let her.

You decide to ignore him.

Whatever his problem with you is, it doesn’t have to be dealt with immediately. Maybe he’ll come around and if not, no skin off your nose. It’s none of your business what happens off camera, what he thinks about you as a person. All that matters is giving a good performance and you know you can do that.

You just sort of wish you had known more about the role before Heidi offered it. You really sort of wish you had known Dieter was going to be your co-star. That night, after approaching him in the parking lot, you had two glasses of wine to settle your trembling nerves, and you flipped through the script.

He was so calm and collected at the table read today. Cool, relaxed, at ease with himself and the world. Everyone knew him, everyone talked about him, either directly to you or in snatches of conversation.

Dieter Bravo – you could not ask for a better scene partner!

Dieter Bravo – he’s so, so nice. He always stops for fans!

Dieter Bravo – this shoot is going to be so much fun with him!

You’d never been particularly star-struck, but for the first time in your life, the idea of working with your co-star was daunting. When you were up against Gerard Butler, you’d been in the game for a while, knew the industry, showed up in the trades. Now, you felt like any other Santa Barbara graduate stumbling out in front of the camera for the first time. Where was that all-knowing smirk you had perfected at fifteen? God, had you always been so transparent?

You felt like you had to prove yourself at that table read. You know you were going a bit overboard, but they watched you, transfixed, and it empowered you. Mark Bronson, Marie, the rest of The Sixers, they watched you like Taylor had possessed your body and you instantly became a rockstar.

Only, he didn’t. He watched you and didn’t look away, but he looked so uninterested in your performance, the tears that filled your eyes were partially real.

And then he touched you and in that moment, you knew he was mocking you. Laughing at you, you fucking child. He was the legendary star here, not you, and to think you ever had a chance was laughable. The heat of disgust in his eyes hurt, more than you wanted to admit.

It was day one and he hated you.

Things escalate.

He caught you high on set and it felt like you were being scolded by your older brother. He didn’t get it. He never did. All that shit about how he knows what it’s like – bullshit. All fucking bullshit. He was somehow always in the corner of your eye, watching you, begging you to fuck up so he could expose you like the fraud you are.

And a pathetic fraud you are at that. He touches you and it’s like algae, hot and dense, spreading across your skin. You fight the feeling that strokes your cunt and you grit your teeth. Stop touching me, go away, stay back – please.

You’re twenty-two and still harboring that fucking crush you had when you were sixteen. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic. It’s so, so, so wrong.

You try to ignore him. Try to exorcize him from your every waking thought. It doesn’t take. You get drunk at the pool party and you want his eyes, anyone’s eyes, on you.

Marie is shy, you try to sober up around her, but you’re too far gone and you don’t want her to see you like this.

So you find Roxie. And Samuel. They give you something that makes your pupils dilate to the size of quarters and you feel like you’re made of cosmic dust. When they touch you, beauty and awe and the atoms of the universe bloom across your skin. You like kissing them, you decide. The water dripping off you from the pool feels like bad lovers and broken kingdoms up for sale.

You end up at his door. You don’t mean to. You genuinely forgot what room you were in.

Consciously, you know he’s married. Consciously, you know he hates you. But that doesn’t stop you from asking anyway.

“You could join us, you know.”

You want so badly to be his theatrical equal that it hurts, it burns hotter for a moment than your desire for him, and he just stares at you. Consciousness somewhere in a nearby galaxy, you can’t read the look on his face. And then it blurs, he closes the door, and the entire hallway grows thick, heavy leaves.

Disappointment is a physical object and it burrows into your chest. You think you can feel your ribs moving to make room.

Sam and Roxie fuck on your bed while you’re curled up on the futon. You don’t even change out of your suit. You kick them out as soon as they are done, not wanting their hungry gazes to turn to you.

This is always the worst part. When the emotions and memories that you’ve managed to pry off you as you coat yourself in a protective layer of LSD, finally come back. They wrap around you like a vice and you can feel the beginnings of a panic attack start in the tremble of your fingers. You stay there in the armchair, damp and cold and shivering and trying not to choke on your own throat, until the early hours of the morning. You think you could die like this but you don’t. You never actually do.

He doesn’t bring it up and neither do you. You sort of wish he would, just for a chance to . . . no, that’s fucked up and, if not legally, morally wrong. You can’t wish for anything when it comes to him.

It’s easier to hate him. To pretend like he was some over-involved, self-obsessed diva who stepped on your lines on purpose and flat-out refused to run scenes with you. It was easier as a whole for a while.

Marie started talking to you on her own now and that made you forget Dieter for a bit. The rest of the group was hesitant in their welcome, despite what had almost happened between you, Sam, and Roxie. But they all came around when you gave them the cleanest Molly they’d had in years.

It was like college all over again, but the faces were consistent this time. Five of them. You smoked in their van, fuzzy orange carpet fibers tickling your ear as you looked up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the roof.

“Why are you called The Sixers if there are five of you?” You ask suddenly.

There’s a pause and then a collective chuckle. You watch it like lightning spark between them.

Nick finally speaks up: “Because it sounds like the sex-ers.”

“Sixty-nine n’ feeling fine.”

You laugh with them this time and you feel your breath mix with theirs.

While meeting him wasn’t a particularly momentous occasion, the drive up to his AirBnB was. Maybe it was the lack of air this high up, but around every turn, your chest got a little tighter. The Sixers had shown you The Labyrinth with David Bowie last weekend (“how have you never seen that movie? Did you grow up under a rock?”) and you can’t help but think of the Goblin King coming to whisk you away. At the very least, the amount of rings they wore were the same.

You try desperately to not look at his white-knuckles around the steering wheel and fail tremendously.

The thing is, you don’t really want to fight with him. You don’t want to have to interact with him through this hazy, distant, drugged out wall, but that seems like the only way he’ll talk to you. He’s always scowling at you, like you’d done something wrong, and you hadn’t. Sure, you thought about it and fucked yourself on the biggest dildo you had about it, but you hadn’t actually done anything. You hadn’t even made a move on him, not even bat an eyelash. But it seems like you just breathe in his direction and that sets him off.

You still don’t understand why his past drug problem is now your problem too. In your absence from Hollywood, you’d somehow missed his ups-and-downs as he transitioned out of a teenage heartthrob into a fully adult hot mess. You’d certainly missed his marriage announcement until you googled it in the bathroom after lunch one day to see if what you’d heard the two techs talk about was true.

She’s so fucking hot.

Yeah, she was a model, right? Dude fucking scored big.

Fuck, she was a model. Even if she wasn’t, she certainly looked it, from all the red-carpet photos of the two of them. He looked at her with complete and total adoration.

Hollywood party boy settles down with recent marriage to cubist painter’s daughter

The headline was wordy but got the point across. He was off-limits.

You didn’t know how to make someone like you if you couldn’t offer them sex or drugs. What the fuck were you supposed to do with the sober and married Dieter Bravo?

And yet, there were times. Moments. Fragments. Bursts of light in a mirror, where you thought he looked too long. How his eyes flickered black when you talked about your bra, or your tits, or your ass. But that’s all they were – fleeting instances of your own insanity bleeding into reality. He would never look at you like that. He hated you.

It scared you, the way he expected you to act when you couldn’t hide behind being high, when you couldn’t flirt your way out of a particularly tense situation. He wanted you raw, exposed, your face revealed to the light you had spent years hiding from.

And then he did the darndest thing.

He was nice about it. In the kitchen, and then on the patio, he asked you questions about your start in the industry, what you’d like to do with your life, how you saw your career going. He cooked for you and made you laugh. He invoked the holy saint Sister Heidi as a bargaining chip and it was all the excuse you needed to drop the boxing gloves. You didn’t want to fight with him. You wanted to be his friend. You wanted him to like you.

Scratch that.

You wanted him to fuck you within an inch of your life and, sure, it was stupid to finger-fuck yourself to him, on the same couch as him, but maybe you wanted to get a little caught. Okay, a lot caught because then he’d tell you to fuck off and he’d draw the line in the goddamn sand and, sure, it’d be embarrassing and, sure, it’d hurt like hell but you’d get over it. You’d nurse your heart but you’d get back on that fucking bike because you really, really wanted this movie to work – but –

He fucking doesn’t.

He doesn’t kiss you but he wants to. He looks at you like he wants to suck the marrow from your bones, drink the blood from your heart through your cunt.

Dieter Bravo wants to kiss you desperately, but because he is a good man, he doesn’t. And because you’re a shit person, you make it hard on him. You make it hurt because it hurts you and just for once, for a second, you want someone to understand how you feel. How you hurt. How you ache.

That house in New Mexico changed everything. For you. For him.

Friends didn’t make time with each other because they were trying to plug up the moans in their head. Friends didn’t keep busy to keep their hands off each other. You weren’t friends with him, but you did get along. You learned a lot about him. You’d never had a real friend before but you sure this isn’t how it’s supposed to feel.

Instead of a myth, your relationship is built in handprints. Red blotches on cave walls, their original meaning lost to time, a dead language no one speaks any more. Sometimes the prints overlap, sometimes they don’t. There are no words spoken, but the feeling is there all the same.

You think, if you could just take your aching heart out of your body, you could actually be Dieter Bravo’s friend. He fills in holes you didn’t realize were empty. Chasms for art, for acting, for food that didn’t come in a can or delivered on your front door. He knows about wine, and whiskey, and needs help dressing himself. He never made you feel like your asks were too much, your need to connect too great. He took your hand and told you what you wanted was normal. He’s funny, patient, and loves Shirley MaClaine movies. He did her entire monologue from The Apartment one night after hours of begging and it brought you to tears. You had a scene partner in Dieter Bravo, you had someone to challenge you, to rethink scenes and pull back deeper and deeper character layers. He’d taken a course online about psychology to have a new perspective on analyzing characters and you thought it was fucking genius.

Marie filled certain relationship needs – a girl to talk about drama with, a fellow fan of live music, someone to make you look up to – but Dieter fulfilled more, if not all of them. Despite working in an artistic industry for years, you’d never once talked trade with someone and certainly not someone who knew it so well. You were awestruck by him.

Call it infatuation, call it being horny, but there is a connection, a red through line that connects you both. And for a while, that’s enough.

Until it isn’t.

The mark of his blotchy handprints on your heart stop when you fuck some guy you barely know because Dieter hurt you.

When he won’t look at you while he’s pretending to fuck you, you feel self-conscious again, like he’s going to think you’re some inexperienced little nepo baby. But he does his duty and you do yours and you’ve never felt so empty.

Your handprint stays, while his blurs away.

(Psychologic)

After production ends, you exist in the margins. No more mythologizing. No more cave drawings.

And then Marie shows up.

She takes you to get your nails done like it's the most normal thing in the world. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know what you are?

You get smoothies and see some live music and she keeps you from spiraling. There is no possible way she knew about the lines of coke upstairs in your bedroom, but she takes you out into the light all the same.

You go out to shows with The Sixers. They love having a groupie who’s a Hollywood star. Marie seems embarrassed when they show-case you, but you find you don’t mind waving a bit on stage and introducing the band. You think you see a pair of deep brown eyes in the crowd occasionally but you know it’s not. You have to accept your fate. He might not like you and he doesn’t hate you, but he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with you.

Not friends, not lovers, but something else. Something almost.

You and the Sixers swim in the ocean off the Santa Barbara coast. You go to parties and you play the bongo drums in a treehouse in South Los Angeles. You bring the good drugs and everyone loves you.

You don’t want to go to the wrap party, but Marie insists. You think she likes being famous just for all the opportunities to get dressed up and do your make up. She told you once that you are the prettiest girl she’d ever seen without any motive behind it. She wasn’t trying to fuck you or fuck with your head. It was just the truth in her eyes and it made you nauseous.

You go to the wrap party because it’s something better to do than get high on shrooms for the fourth time this week and as a reward, Cooper shares his blunt with you in the car. You laugh easily and often and loudly and Cooper keeps you steady with a hand on your waist. You’re nervous, you want to drink more, but you already feel like you’re carrying too many cups and plates and the noise it’s going to make when you drop them all is going to be deafening.

He’s here. He’s here with his fucking gorgeous wife and you stand behind Cooper so you have something blocking your line of sight.

Just as you are about to order your first vodka soda of the night, Dieter rushes back into the house. The weed and coke in you switch the plugs in your brain and suddenly you are very, very angry.

But the Dieter you find is fragile, beaten down, vulnerable. He talks to you like he did in New Mexico and it dulls the edges around the hole in your chest. He looks at you like you’re his saving grace, his last hope.

Myths lie. They blur the truth to make a better story. They build up a man larger than life, they make goddesses out of women, and they sanctify, canonize love. They make you ache with the wanting of the fantasy of it, and that’s on purpose. Myths are the human experience on fire.

Kissing him, you feel on fucking fire.

Meeting him didn’t feel momentous. But fucking him certainly was.

The settlement of your mythology burns to the ground, flames licking the sky. He has crystalized in your veins and, in an instant, you’re hopelessly addicted.

With Dieter Bravo, you come to like sex. You come to love it actually. It’s an itch, a fluttering, warm feeling that makes you twitch and tense when his hands aren’t on you. There’s some part of you that knows the inherent danger of giving one man, much less this man, that much power over you, but fuck, you can’t help it.

You’re too young, too inexperienced in the world to know the difference between when a man wants you for sex and when a man loves you. In your mind, the two are the same and cannot be separated. You know what it feels like to be wanted to be fucked, but in your nativity you assume that’s how a man looks at you when he wants to love you — and this time you’d welcome it.

There isn’t much to say about New Orleans, except for three things:

One, you’ve successfully confused yourself into thinking this is what being in a relationship with him would be like.

Two, you’ve never felt safer and more wanted and more complete than you ever have when you take drugs with Dieter. (that primal animal fear is gone for the first time in what feels like years)

And three, you’re so fucking in love with him you’re sick with it.

In the sickness, you grow weak. You burn with fever. Your bones ache and your mind races. His touch is simultaneously a balm and a contagion.

You love him. You love him. You love him.

You love him unlike anything or anyone.

Marie is actually the only one who ventures a guess. Who catches you, wings pinned to the corkboard, and asks you point-blank, “are you fucking Dieter Bravo?”

Maybe she’s braver because it’s over text, permanent traces of your infidelity, but you stare at her message for hours. You think about it in the hotel shower after the plane lands in Los Angeles. You haven’t seen her in weeks and you’ve stopped returning her phone calls.

Your high falters at the idea that you might have (and probably did) lose a friend over him. But what did that matter, in the grand scheme of things, your sickness asks you, now that you have him?

Now that he’s the only thing that matters. Now that he is everything.

He goes back to his wife.

After everything. After what you did for him. After what you gave up. How you prostrated yourself for his love, for a moment of his time. He can’t see it, it’s eating you up. You think cancer has kinder teeth than his.

The foundations of the core of your being are rocked. It doesn’t feel real because he’s still in this hotel with you, the same hotel where you fucked in the bathroom, where you flirted with him for the cameras to sell the movie, where he begged you to stay with him, you’re gonna stay, right? you’re gonna be with me, after this? And maybe it isn’t real because he only lasts being apart from you for twelve, maybe fourteen hours. Maybe he’s sick too. Maybe he’s fucked just as much as you are.

In your dark, deep wretched heart, you hope he is. You hope he’d die without you. But you don’t know. You don’t know because he never says it.

This time, it’s real, he promises. This time, he’s never going back. This time he’s going to say he loves you, his kisses pledge to you.

This time he’s not going to leave you.

In the mornings after Chloe leaves and you kiss him E-tablets with your tongue and he fucks you in every way he knows how, he curls up next to you and you tell him. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t seem to hear you.

You tell him you love him, have always loved him. Dieter Bravo turned from an imaginary companion, to a friend you didn’t want, and now to a lover who makes you think you’re special. Something valuable, precious. Something that is worth keeping.

Until you’re not.

Myths serve to answer questions about our place in the natural order of things. To ease tension. To provide guidance.

Why does it rain?

Where do the seasons come from?

What is the sun, and why does it leave and return?

What is heartbreak?

What is grief? What is sorrow? How do we carry them with us?

How do we go on when the world is determined to break us?

When you’ve always had nothing, and now you still have nothing and no one – he doesn’t love you and he’s going back to his pregnant wife – you ask, what’s the fucking point?

Not even the myths can answer that one.

Later, when you wake up under the bright lights of a hospital room, your memory is cracked, broken into terracotta pieces on the ground. There are things missing from you.

You don’t remember calling Oliver, only that he was there and he was high out of his mind and he gave you whatever he had in his pockets. You don’t remember what you took, or if Oliver was kind to you when he watched you swallow pill after pill.

You don’t remember the shower, the ambulance ride, or being admitted.

You aren’t sure exactly what you’ve lost. But you feel the missing edges.

Dieter is missing from you.

If you close your eyes, still the movement of your body, block out the noises of the machines and the hospital around you, you think you remember hearing him say it.

You think he might have said it when he kissed your forehead, but it feels older than that. Like his words and his actions stem from two different memories but you’re so fucked up they blur together. You want to hold onto that new memory, as fabricated as it might be, for as long as you can.

But then sleep over takes you again and it flushes everything out. The next time you wake up, you don’t remember that he ever said, I love you.

When you wake up, you know he’s gone. You don’t know how you know, or why, but it feels like a piece of you has been torn away in a bloody chunk. Like someone had taken pliers to your fingernails and tore them off until blood splattered onto the floor.

Like someone put a knee to your shoulder and wrenched white teeth out of your mouth.

Until you are gummy and dripping.

You open your eyes not to Dieter, not Heidi, but Marie. Mousy, intelligent, thoughtful Marie curled up asleep in the chair next to you.

The sound of your crying wakes her up. Wordless, judgement-less, she crawls into bed with you, takes you into her arms, and lets you sob like the heart-broken mess you’ve become.

God, can you die from pain like this?

She strokes your forehead and tells you, no, you can’t. You might want to, but you can’t.

For the first time in your life, you’re not a myth.

You’re not a story of a little girl whose parents didn’t love her enough.

You are not the story of an actress whose star burned too bright and hot and the cosmos punished her for her hubris.

You’re not the story of a woman who fell in love too hard and too fast with drugs and a man much older than her and got shattered on the rocks.

The book has closed, the final chapter has come. There are no more stories to tell, nothing left to make fantastic.

You are a broken human body.

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

You were a child once. You have to remember that.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x reader #the bubble fanfic #the bubble fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble 2016 #dieter bravo/f!reader #dieter bravo/you #dieter bravo/reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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passmethatcokezero · 2 years

Text

Every body needs a therapy. (18+ // Jeonghan!vampire au)

Yup, even vampires do.

pairing: jeonghan!vampire x fem!reader, joshua cameo

words: 4186 words

tags: superhuman au, superficial, y/n is a healer-slash-sex worker, threesome (!!next chapter!!), unprotected sex (this is fiction for a reason! let’s always stay safe!!))

warning: tw // vague mentions of abuse, toxic household/parental relationships

disclaimer: these type of vampire you may have not seen from anywhere. I added some characteristics/abilities to it that does not reflect the stereotype

+ + +

The streets are still lit up by fluorescent lamps when the clock points to five. Your early morning arrival in school had long been regular. The front gate guard, although always surprised, is somewhat already used to seeing your face and greeting you back with a lively one. It was one of few things that give you motivation to get up tomorrow, and you never thought you won’t be hearing that today.

“Oops I’m sorry!” You were absurdly apologetic as if accused of a crime you didn't even do, you furiously bowed numerous times, checking if the coffee on hand stained the suited up man in white that just got out of a convenience store.

Oh, it’s him. The beautiful guy; Joshua's new tenant in his loft. You met him just yesterday, visiting your friend to seek refuge from the world when all of a sudden, a seemingly son of Aphrodite was revealed behind the grandiose wooden doors. He was unbelievably handsome and your encounter with him suddenly felt like a dream. Did he really stare at you, at your bruised lips? And his scent that trailed on the path he walked on, a smell so alluring, so nostalgic as to an extent you cannot fathom. Something like roses maybe? Or was it jasmine? A mix? And that pair of mesmerizing eyes that felt like a black hole any star would get lost to. You concluded he might have been one of the most gorgeous (and great-smelling) men you have laid eyes (and nose) upon.

“Yeah… just me.” Your eyes widened in shock. Did I say that out loud? “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

He was careful, checking if an amount of the scalding hot coffee in his hand spilled on you. None, your marigold shirt, perfectly masking your mood, was stain-free, so was your skin showing through the rip in your jeans. He felt relieved somehow, even more when he saw your once bruised lips patched on. You seemed fine to him, if not for his otherworldly senses.

“Early for school?”

It must have been obvious that you’re on your way to school, and perhaps, Joshua must have told him somehow. Or did your casual outfit and backpack give it away?

You hummed at him, a bit shy of your contrasting appearance. His seemingly newly waxed oxford shoes were intimidating, as if it would cost you your life once a particle of dust from your proximity lands on it. “Uhm… yeah… I’m gonna get going…”

“I heard about your mom,” you were too stunned to even look at him with bulging eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to be nosey, but I was worried about that bruise."

It stung just as it slipped from his lips. And all the painful images just flashed right in front of you from yesterday's unfortunate events that led you to knocking at Joshua's already open doors.

"Don't get mad at your friend, I insisted." He didn't. His inhumane intuition told him.

"You want some company?" He asks, letting out a small smile. Just before you refuse his kind offer, a gush of warm air envelops you - a warmth you craved from the once you called home. A tear almost fell, and that's when you realized it came from him, gently petting your head. “You can't walk alone in that state so...I insist,’

He lets out a small smile and invited you inside the store. Not that you’re being rude nor you don't prefer caffeine, but tugging the sleeve of his suit from behind was the only thing that came to your mind. The act made him pause, as well as the clerk that gave you a look of indifference. "I'm sorry but-"

"You're not going to school, aren’t you?”

The air froze, much like you did. How does he know every single thing? Do my eyes give me away? You thought.

“I don’t know…” you mumbled. “I don’t know.” you spoke a bit louder with all the uncertainties and fear manifested in your voice.

“Don’t worry, I can accompany you for a while. But first, let me get you this drink you'd love, as what you're friend told me.” and there goes his warm smile once again, never fading as your coffee comes ready.

"Why are you doing this?" It was straightforward, but being raised from a draining toxicity, you have learned better than beating around the bush and speak your mind.

"I am not sure either. I just know you might need someone to talk to...?"

"Well I don't." You faked a smile, as a motive forms in your mind. "But if you're just hitting on me, well, call yourself lucky."

The walk grew quiet as you kept him hanging; the other not knowing where your feet would take him. Although Jeonghan has pure intentions, he was not able to manipulate you even if he tried. Seeing you in such a state from yesterday, a tinge of wariness and worry painted him human.

True enough, he did live as a human before surrendering his entirety into his bloodlust reality. A human with otherworldly senses and “illnesses” - as how he was diagnosed. Even though he cannot go out like normal person would, he had experiences with humans that softened his cold heart. He learned about music and singing from the buskers at night, he learned about pleasure with the goers at clubs, he learned about the human psyche from an elderly friend who frequents his lover’s tombstone.

He hated the fact that he was already used to living as the second best, never the heir to the throne in highest and hidden behind the darkest of fences, but his soul just cannot let past how to feel being human again, because for him, it was what taught him happiness - a feeling he never knew existed.

“Oh,” he looks at the sign board in front of him as your feet halts and laughs slightly. “No, I am not that kind of man you think I am.”

“That’s what everyone says, and yet the first ones to barge on me like some hungry wolves,”

You have brought him back to the motel you stayed for the night. It was a place that you can call home at nights you got kicked out the house literally. There stood your dear friend in concierge sighing in response to your small smile as bells ring to announce a guest's arrival.

“Joshua told you anything about this too?”

“The therapy thing? Not so much.”

You regretted you asked, not knowing if you wanted to kick your friend in the shin for sharing such information or just melt in the ground due to a private matter boldly coming out of a stranger's mouth.

“Not gonna force you to anything. Just... if you're interested in some kind of therapy I am always free if it’s you. You passed Joshua's strict screening so you're a VIP to me. You just have to let me know in advance.” you winked at him.

It is probably your special gift: your sexuality healing others. And you figured that out when your ex came back once just to lash out how his then lover whom he loved greater, betrayed him and left him for another. It wasn’t to bring back the relationship, but he said he felt you’ve always healed him every time you two had sex before: may it be from stress, or fatigue, even physical and internal pains which he had once tested and proven when he recovered from his migraine after a quickie. It was the first time you heard about it, and later on confirmed when even his broken heart that manifested chest pains were healed. If you think about it, the intercourse was supposedly emotionally damaging, an ex coming back to fuck? But rather you felt grateful for the discovery of your gift, and the feelings that were completely gone for your past lover.

Jeonghan was astounded. Sex for therapy? Humans are really weird, he thought. He was about to let it pass, until he feels rather hot, like needles prickling his skin. Right, the sun is rising, few rays seeping through the glass windows by the rear overlooking part of the building.

He needs the shade.

“Sounds great, how ‘bout you run me through it?”

The room he booked was the most expensive, triple the price of regular rooms. It was a secret listing, and the only item that can guarantee therapy for anyone. You let him settle first, as you excuse yourself to change to your uniform. It was a two-piece black lingerie with your soul almost bulging out. It did nothing to hide anything, it was like a decoration to your body. Visuals are part of your therapy of course; stimulation of the senses being the first part of the overall session that can last almost a day if the client would request. Which Jeonghan did.

After dolling yourself up, you stood in front of the room feeling rather unusual today. Why are you getting nervous!? You breathed through your mouth to regain focus and repeated it’s just another session, it’s just another session.

Revealing your presence with three knocks, you entered the room without waiting for his acknowledgement. The room was nicely prepped, thanks to the quick housekeeping. It was lit dimly by the lamps, blackout curtains not letting any sunshine in. Faint zen music sets the mood, and you see Jeonghan looking at you from the chair across the mattress where he is supposed to be, legs crossed with a very unpredictable expression.

“So… how do we start?” he whispered, curiosity was evident but he’s good at presenting himself as confident.

“You start…” heels tapped the wooden floors as you slowly walked to him, sititng on his lap. “...by telling me your worries.”

“That I don’t have,” he smirks, collecting fringes away from your face. “I just wanted to know how you do therapy in the form of sex.”

“Well, then this wont work as therapy, but just sex.”

He thought for a while, as you made yourself comfortable in his lap, caressing his chest and shoulders. “Ah, I think I have one.”

“Tell me,” you cooed softly brushing your lips against his ears. “I’m listening.”

He began talking about his power-greedy brother, only he tells it as if they are average humans with sibling rivalry over a business ownership. He said he struggles from low self-esteem and envy, as his brother has always been the better one. And he thinks proving himself as the better successor of the so referred to as company will be the last chance, and yet the most powerful one that can prove his worth as his father’s child - a validation he crave’s for.

Rich people problems, you assume, all the while loosening his buttons as he spoke. Not once his voice hitched throughout your touching, and now it was your turn to have low self-esteem. Even more upon seeing his flawless skin.

His body glistens to bare and is smooth as heck. He looked paler than earlier and you might have assumed he isn't feeling well until he suddenly groped your body strongly so close to his.

"Your lips... they look... inviting. Can I..."

He mutters incompletely when he didn't look so turned on just now. You hummed a small consent, assuming what he wanted to say. On cue, his soft, almost lullaby kiss in contrast to how he has you on hold gave you the tingles.

"Really sweet…" He whispers as he runs his tongue between his lips and continued, "Totally my favorite."

You didn't mind his sudden tone change but not his eyes sparkling crimson red. It was too late to back off, nervous for not knowing who or what could you be dealing with, when his mouth caught yours so dramatically fast as if you were the last meal in an apocalypse.

His kiss was too deep, literally breath-taking for every second that you kept on moaning into his mouth to catch your breath. It was so bad that it felt so good, supposedly unpleasant as your wound probably have opened back up, but no stinging whatsoever. Only pleasure, his soft, innocent lips that looked like belonging to an angel is now rummaging yours. It was a kiss you have never shared with anyone, or even thought of getting from anyone. It was so wild, there was nothing in your mind but him sucking oxygen from your lungs, fucking, pounding you so hard in the mattress. It felt like your brain rode a rollercoaster, so dizzy and yet so full of adrenaline.

"Oh god…" you were panting against his lips. "What was that?"

He did not answer, but his eyes were still fixated on your now cherry lips. He was craving for it, but he doesn't know how to make his sudden addiction to your lips seem so normal.

Because for him, it's also insane how kissing you makes him feel like the greatest, most powerful being of his kind. His insecurity blurs as if there wasn't any in the first place.

"I…" He was thinking twice; would you find it weird if he suck those plump lips, or in human words kiss you once again, and longer, deeper this time? "Uhm… was it… good?"

"Honestly?" You tried to divert his sight from to meet your eyes but to no avail. "It was so good I don't want to stop."

Hearing that he wasted no time claiming your mouth once again, this time going deeper, and wetter than earlier. His hands were groping your body as if your warmth might leave him anytime soon, and yours around his neck with the same desire of having him only yours.

Your therapy has never been this full of desire. Although, most just wanted the lust, but this time around, the emotion was even beyond that. You even thought there was something evil going on, that it is impossible to have this level of greed and lust, mixed with pride at the same time over a person you just met. All the lewd things you wanted him to do to you and for you, all the dirty kisses you want him to mark you with, all his rich, creamy, filthy cum all over you - you desire it all.

Oh, how he wish he can read your mind, and you his.

Your moans to his ears was the most beautiful song, and your hot cavern was a refuge to his pent up frustration. He poured all them to kissing you with passion, or maybe even stronger than that. He then proceeds to unconsciously tearing your two piece lingerie apart at once, a moment you gasped so hard due to it being dumbfounding, and well, hot.

"Sorry," He softly giggled. "I can buy you a new one…"

"Sure you can, so I can have something to wear only for you." You winked at him, to which you never thought would gain a moan from him.

"I can't believe I am being seduced right now to buy lingerie. Do I look like a sugar daddy to you?"

"Hmm... good idea," you started kissing his neck as you grind your wet pussy against his pants, which reminded him to take what remained on him off so he can feel you at most. You felt your body being lifted as he stood from the chair, softly mounting your body on the bed. From a slight distance you watched him look at you intently without blinking, clothes being discarded in a second. His eyes once again sparks crimson, to which he scoffed and looked down as if not letting you see it, but too late.

His body glistens as he topples over you, his dick hanging, grazing against your core. The contact itself made him shiver, or so you thought, arching his back on gritted teeth.

What you didn't know, it was your lips that got bloodied from the makeout and he was trying so hard not to fall for the luscious smell. He just wanted to enjoy sex without his hidden identity going in the way.

He leans in closer so painfully slowly, thoughts of tasting more of your fresh blood may ruin the night. As his forehead touches yours, his thumb sweeps your lips, and forces it inside your mouth, which you instinctively suck, tasting your own blood.

"I think I kissed you too hard… should I do that to your other lips?"

The words were wild enough to produce more wetness down there. And before even expecting it, his hot mouth was already conquering your south lips and his tongue definitely knows how to play. You didn't realise you let out the sexiest moan tonight due to the contact. Your back arched to the pleasure, and your chest chased your breaths. It was lubricated enough, with his hot saliva mixing with your arousal. You haven't been eaten this good: his mouth not leaving any spot, his tongue lapping your folds, and the tip teasing your hole. You didn't think it was possible, but it's happening right on your very mattress.

"Fuck, ahh… you're so good." You can't stop moaning, and so does he as he sucks your sweet juice. Vibrations from his mouth added to the sensation as he eats you out with all his might. You were even worried you might break his head nestled between your thighs, feeling the curling of your core.

"Shit…" His tongue was now doing wonders fucking your hole. He entered without a warning, and the the friction of his naughty little tongue rubbing against your hole made you go nuts, forgetting you were almost on your release. You didn't know if it was just you being high on adrenaline and libido, but his tiny little muscle seem to fill you up so perfectly, even contracting and growing from its supposed size and reach making you pause for a second, mouth wide agape.

"J-Jeonghan…ah!"

Stars filled your tightly closed eyes as his tongue explored your insides, growing to your wall's extent. It was as if he took the size of you completely, which you didn't mind, focusing only on the pleasure.

It was so good, better then majority of, if not all, dicks that fucked you. Especially when he started thrusting in and out abusing your tight hole. Your eyes were rolling almost to the back end, and you almost questioned reality. It felt like a dream to be fucked and filled in so perfectly, and all your sweet spots entertained. The mattress soon felt like cloud on your misty body, mind dizzy and only moaning was something you consciously do as you surrender to nirvana.

"Baby you're so sweet," Jeonghan cooes by your ears, when he stopped fucking you with his tongue you didn't notice. You were then tasting yourself from his mouth, the heated session soon turned even fiery when his long, hard cock entered you right after he says a very sultry “Ready?”

Just like his tongue, his cock grew huge as it fills you inside. It was cold, literally so cold it caused a burning sensation in your hole as it stretched out. That's when you realized, his whole being was a complete opposite of yours even after quite some time in heat. He was like made of ice, and every touch you feel electrified.

It was your blood that faded his mask. The taste of its residue on your lips was enough for his insides to get awaken. He wanted more, of course. He wanted to suck your rich blood, drain you out and get his pride back. But what was it that stops him from tearing a slit on your neck? What was it that fights his thirst for power?

Your hands entangled as he starts thrusting in and out soon after your good pussy has taken his length. The first few seconds felt like making love to your lover, butterflies were present in your stomach as his cock dives deep into your pool. Oh how you wish he feels the same. He seemed like a nice guy to date, you thought. And hot one at that.

Soon the innocent lovemaking elevates to a rather rough one. A force you never thought a man could be capable of had your mind spiraling back to the once fantasies you only imagined. His strong force you thought might break your spine as he continues fuming oxygen from your lungs. He fucks you like it was his last, his dick that seemed to only grew bigger by time kept drillling and tearing your hole.

Moans and the slapping of your misty skin were the sole thing that makes you aware of reality. That you were not in dreamland or someplace your mind made up.

His strength was unbelievable - he was unbelievable, and the way he made you come thrice the entire night will truly be one for the history books.

The night dawned with just him serenading you with his lovely hums, as you lie comfortably on his chest all cleaned and cared for by the gentleman himself. Come to think of it, what was supposedly a therapy for him must have been one for you and your wounded soul that craved attention.

"Thank you," He suddenly breaks the silence.

"Hmm? For what?"

"The therapy…?" He giggled. “Indeed, I felt lighter. Rejuvenated. I felt like I flushed so much insecurities away in a form of semen.”

Wow, truly a rare find of a guy. Handsome, flirty, humorous. With what else does he serve the world?

"Ah, that was nothing. Just doing my job."

"What do you mean, that was the best sex I've ever had," He was blushing when you tried to meet his eyes. "Don't tell me that was nothing compared to any of your so called therapies?"

You wanted to lie and say yes to kind of provoke him to tease, but what can that do? Ruin a non-existent reputation? Although you wanted to humble him down a bit.

"Well, let's just say… you did better than most of my clients."

"Fair enough…" He coughed out to clear his throat. "Tell me, has anyone ever came back to… you know just have a casual sex?"

"Duh, they all do, though booking it as a therapy. They just wanted sex. Everybody does. But I always told them once it starts as casual, the healing effect for them will never come back-just like how one of my patrons has experienced."

"Quite a gift you have," He catches your hand for him to caress.

"We all have it." You smiled at him. "Kinda curious about yours."

He stalled for a moment thinking deep, faked with a soft laughter. "Oh… you don't wanna know."

"I think I already do…"

His breathing stopped at your confession. Do you, really? He was clearly nervous, heart pumping with only a millisecond interval. You sat up, looking him straight into his eyes. Both of you are still bare of clothing, and only light from the lamp illuminates a small part of your skin.

Your finger painted an invisible line from his lips down to his chest, leaning in closer to his ears. The next words shook him to his core, but also made him attached himself to your loose strings.

"You're not human, are you?"

The crimson light shines on both his eyes once again, thus time fully enclosing his irises to its hue. A sight of his fangs peaks itself from between his lips, and was then followed by a smirk when you showed no scare at all.

"I hope you don't mind me being blood lust when you were moaning like that earlier," He says closing the gap between your faces to lick that dried up wound in your lips. "I promise to only suck your pussy if you wish, even if it's a little too tempting - not my fault your blood tasted just the perfect sweet for me." He then kisses you slowly as he pins you down on the mattress, and the day that you thought have just ended isn't apparently so.

You had so many questions that night, so did he. But you seemed far from disbelief rather interested with anything about him. Until morning came, both lacking sleep (or maybe only you do) but not of knowledge (and taste) of each other’s personal businesses. Each curiosity had been satisfied, but there’s still this lingering that you want to know more about him and his gift he calls a curse.

He was too, the connection he felt from the intercourse was too apparent to disregard and he is definite it wasn’t just due to the brief taste of your blood. So many stories he still wanted to hear from you, so many questions deeper than who you are or what you do, yet too less of a time as you have other functions as an individual who gets by on wages yet costly living unlike him.

But one thing he was sure of, it feels great to be human at times.

+ + +

《 1, 2 》

ㅡ Thoughts and feedbacks are always welcome as i am also trying to get better at writing or getting ideas^^ just drop by my askbox ♡

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she-is-juniper · 2 years

Text

Favorite Worst Nightmare || chapter two

An Eddie Munson x Reader halloween enemies to lovers series

Previous chapters: || chapter one ||

Rating (by chapter): M (Mature) (smut to come later)

Summary: It’s October ‘86, and the town of Hawkins is hosting the most anticipated Halloween event of the year: the Hawkins House of Horrors, a charity haunted house attraction taking place at the formerly-abandoned Creel house. You’ve signed up to work the event, but unfortunately, so has your nemesis, your favorite worst nightmare. Eddie Munson thinks you’re a conceited priss; you think he’s a cynical asshole. But the root of your mutual disdain runs much deeper than meets the eye, and with such deep-rooted hate comes other undeniable passions. This is a slow burn enemies-to-lovers multipart series. Chapters with an E (explicit) rating contain smut and are not suitable for readers under 18.

Word count (by chapter): 6K

Content/warnings (by chapter): alcohol use, drug use (weed), cursing, description of vomiting

A/N: Thank you so much for everyone who read and commented on chapter 1! I’m hoping to publish the rest of this series before the 31st so buckle up! (Also please note that the character “Josh” is fictionalized!) -Juni

✧・ﾟ:*✧・ﾟ:*✧・ﾟ:*

“He’s really not so bad once you get to know him.”

“Chrissy. He’s a menace.”

Chrissy Cunningham had always been like a little sister to you in high school. She was two years younger and always looked up to you as the captain of the cheer squad. You had taken her under your wing for those two years you had overlapped in school. Ever since you moved back to Hawkins this summer and Chrissy finally graduated, you and her had rekindled your friendship.

Even if her taste in male friends could be astonishingly bad.

Chrissy’s apartment was absolutely perfect for her. It was close enough to Hawkins that she could stay in touch with all her friends from back home, yet far enough of a drive away that she could finally get some distance from her overbearing mother. Best of all, it was down the street from the liberal arts college where she was a freshman this fall.

It was the weekend before Halloween, and Chrissy was throwing a costume party at her new apartment. You had volunteered to help her decorate it during the day before the party started, and she’d graciously agreed.

“He’s not a menace,” she insisted while she hung the plastic bat decorations you’d brought on the popcorn ceiling of her living room. “He’s just…misunderstood.”

“He must have brainwashed you.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

“All I’m saying is, it’s only a matter of time before he personally victimizes you, too.”

She shrugged. “I dunno, he’s always been really nice to me.”

“That’s just because he hasn’t yet found a way to throw you under the bus for something he wants.” You were in the kitchen filling bowls with chips, and once all the chip bags were empty, you decided to get started on the punch. “How much liquor do you want in the punch?”

“How much did you bring?”

“Two bottles.”

“...Two bottles, then.”

You laugh and begin pouring the vodka and rum. “I really don’t understand why you’re friends with him,” you told her.

“I told you, he was my plug for a while. Don’t look at me like that, Y/N,” Chrissy giggled. “I was going through a lot of shit after you graduated. I needed something to take the edge off.”

“Hey, I’m not judging. I’m just surprised.” You gave her a level look, and your Big Sister voice came out. “You’re doing better now, though, right?”

Chrissy nodded, her ponytail bouncing. “Tons. Especially after I broke up with Jason.”

“I can’t believe you and I both dated a Carver.”

Chrissy’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, I totally forgot that you used to date Josh!”

Joshua Carver was Jason’s older brother, and your boyfriend your senior year. You laughed and shook your head. “He was such a jerk.”

“So was Jason. The worst.”

“The worst,” you agreed.

“Why do the Carver brothers both suck?”

“Good question.” You finished stirring the punch and started putting out stacks of red solo cups. “Repressed mommy issues and a distorted definition of masculinity?”

“Throw in ‘raging superiority complexes’ and that sounds about right.”

The two of you laugh together, but the melodious duet was tinged with the sense of mutual relief.

“At least you and I both know our worth now,” you added more solemnly.

Chrissy nodded confidently. “The boys I’ve met in college are really cute…” She waggled her brows, and you threw a chip from the plate at her playfully. She laughed and dodged it effortlessly. “Anyway, I promise Eddie Munson’s not as scary as he seems.”

“It’s not that I’m scared of him.”

“Then what?”

“We just… hate each other.”

“But…why?”

“Long story,” you dismissed her.

She pursed her lips. “He never said anything to me that made me think he might hate you.”

“Oh, trust me, he can’t stand me. He’s made that very clear.”

Part of you begins to think…would you even despise Eddie Munson half as much if he wasn’t so outspoken about his disdain toward you? How much of your feelings about him was purely reactionary?

“I never told you what happened?” You studied Chrissy.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“He almost got me suspended for cheating off my American History essay our senior year.”

“What? You let him cheat off your essay?”

“No! I—no, I just let him borrow it, so he could see how I formatted everything. I didn’t know he was going to plagiarize it.”

Truth be told, you used to find Eddie Munson tolerable, once upon a time, before the incident. More than tolerable…you even liked him. In your eyes, he had been harmless, albeit a bit nonconformist. He always ran with his own crowd, and you ran with yours. All throughout middle and high school, you and he hadn’t really paid each other much heed. That was, until your senior year, when you shared an American History class and he sat behind you.

Eddie had been different back then…scrawnier, less brazen, less intimidating. But also goofy, sweet, endearing. You couldn’t help but be drawn into his warm eyes and sweet smile. You hadn’t been sure at the time why, all of the sudden, he had taken an interest in befriending you. After all, you had been popular, a cheerleader, the embodiment of everything he was so readily against in society. But when he tapped your shoulder one day and asked for a pencil, you were hooked in. One thing had led to another, and he’d asked if you could tutor him, and you started hanging out after school, started trusting him. Started becoming perhaps more than friends.

And the next thing you knew, you were in the principal’s office being accused of academic misconduct for aiding and abetting plagiarism.

You had realized too late that he’d only pretended to befriend you so he could take advantage of you. He was failing History, and you, acing the class as usual, just so happened to be the one he chose to prey upon for his own gain, to save his own ass and pass the class to graduate. And, of course, it hadn’t worked, seeing as he’d only managed to get you kicked off the squad and get himself held back another year.

You shook your head at the memories and continued to Chrissy.

“Point is, I trusted him, and he screwed me over. He’s a piece of shit, and he was just desperate not to repeat senior year. But he’s the reason I got kicked off the squad at the end of my senior year.”

“You got kicked off the squad?” she gasped. “I thought you quit?”

“That’s what I told everyone at the time.”

Chrissy was chewing on her bottom lip. “I didn’t know all that. I only knew about the thing with Josh.”

There was more to the story.

Josh had heard from you what Eddie had done, and he’d taken it upon himself (and the basketball team) to “teach that freak a lesson”—in other words, they’d dragged him under the gym bleachers and beaten him up. All things considered, though, Josh and his buddies had always hated Eddie without cause, and the plagiarism incident just gave them an excuse to do what they couldn’t justify doing sooner.

You cringed at the memory. It had been bad. You had no idea Josh would go as far as to attack Eddie like that. Even if it was in your honor, you could never condone violence.

“Josh was way out of line for what he did to Eddie,” you admitted to Chrissy. “He shouldn’t have done that. And we broke up the week after that. But the point is, Eddie Munson’s a lying prick who will tear everyone else down to get what he wants.”

“But what if he’s changed?” Chrissy says. “I mean, that’s really shitty what he did, with the essay. But what if he’s different now?”

You considered her words. “I guess. You probably know him better than me, Chrissy. But he never apologized to me, not once.”

That was the real kicker. It wasn’t even the cheating thing in the end…it was the fact that he never apologized. That he had used you, that he had led you to believe that you could trust him, that you and he were friends, that maybe there was something more blossoming between you, when really, it was all a ploy.

And moreover, it was the fact that he still wouldn’t apologize to this day. That he just kept making excuses instead. That’s the real world, baby. Open your eyes.

“Wow. I’m really sorry, Y/N,” she said sincerely.

You smiled a little. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago. Honestly…I’d probably forgive him if he just apologized. But he won’t. I’m glad he’s been nice to you, Chris, but he’s such an asshole to me. You should have heard him yesterday at the haunted house, or the day before that at my dad’s store. Then you’d understand why I never want to see him again.”

You tried to focus on how infuriated you’d been at Eddie’s antics. You tried not to think about things like Eddie’s brown eyes as they trailed down and up your body before locking on yours. Or the rings on his fingers as he drummed on the counter. Or the intoxicating scent of his skin. Or the way his jeans fit so snugly on his limber hips. Or his—

Stop it.

Chrissy was biting her bottom lip with her eyebrows furrowed.

“What?” you asked her.

Her face snapped back to normal. “Nothing.”

“What?” you asked again.

“Nothing, I swear. It’s just… I’m, uh, I’m just worried about the party tonight. Do you think we should have made more punch?”

“Don’t worry, people will bring beer and stuff.”

“...Do you think anyone will come?”

“Of course they will. Weren’t you just telling me how many new friends you already made this semester?”

Chrissy finally beamed and began telling you about her semester, the friends she’d made in her new sorority, how great it was to be away from her parents. The two of you worked while you talked, continuing to set up the apartment for her Halloween party. She was grateful you were there early to help out; you were grateful for a chance to get out of the house and be around college kids your age again. You had to admit that hearing about Chrissy’s freshman year made you long to be back in school again, back with your friends from Purdue, in your third year of classes like you were supposed to be. But if all went well working for your parents back in Hawkins for the semester, your reprieve from college life would be brief.

By the time the first party guests started to arrive, the apartment looked picture perfect: pumpkins, skeletons, ghouls, spiders, and bats filled every nook and cranny. Orange construction paper around the lampshades gave everything a perfect jack-o-lantern glow, along with the string lights draped along the walls and ceiling. Before long, the apartment was lively with the sounds of chatter and laughter as people greeted each other and compared costumes.

After taking a few shots together to get in the party mood, Chrissy had tasked you with manning the turntable until another one of her friends arrived who had volunteered to take over DJing duties. She had spent hours sorting through her albums for the party and selecting the best choices, and you started the evening off with some standard hits. And as for your costume, you’d decided on simple, yet effective: a green jumpsuit you’d snagged from the mall last year, makeshift naval emblems and patches, and aviator sunglasses, à la the female version of Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

You didn’t know anyone here, but that was nothing a few solo cups full of punch wouldn’t fix. Once Chrissy’s DJ friend had arrived, you beelined for the kitchen to get a refill. It was only about 9pm at this point but the party was already a hit. You smiled as you looked around at the partygoers; Chrissy must be elated at how many people had come. Someone had brought weed, and soon, the apartment was filled with smoke that cast the lights in a soft orange glow.

Someone came up behind you, and the smell of marijuana strengthened. You turned around and came face-to-face with Michael Myers. Rather, a cheap rubbery Michael Myers mask.

“Maverick,” the masked partygoer said, gesturing to your costume.

“Mr. Myers,” you greeted him back. Michael doesn’t say anything more, just holds out a lit joint. You shrugged and accepted his offering, taking a long drag and coughing a bit. From the dining room, a group of people cheered as a round of beer pong finishes up. You gestured to it with your thumb. “Wanna play?”

Michael said nothing, just nodded and followed you to the table. Aside from his mask, the mystery college boy wore dark, nondescript clothing that didn’t stand out much to you. You wondered what his major was.

“Ladies first,” Michael says, formally gesturing to you. You smile and snatch the ball for your first throw.

“Wow, such a gentleman. You a friend of Chrissy’s?” you asked him as you took the first shot. The ball bounced off the rim of a cup and Michael Myers dutifully retrieved it for you.

“Yep, you could say that,” he responded in a low voice that you had to strain to hear over the boom of the music. “And you?”

“We go way back.”

Michael takes his throw and the ping pong ball plops in the centermost cup. You fish it out and put the cup aside.

“Don’t you have to chug that?” he notes.

You laugh. “It’s water.” Chrissy didn’t want beer all over her dining room floor.

“That’s no fun.” He observes your next throw and cocks his head when you miss again. Everything is starting to feel pretty trippy from your hit.

“Hmm… How about…loser shotguns a beer?” you offered.

“Deal.” Michael took his next shot and it didn't even hit the table. You snickered at him. “You go to school with Chrissy?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t go here. I go to Purdue.”

“Purdue,” Michael echoed in that mysterious, low voice of his. “Is that where all the pretty girls go to college?”

Hmm. Brazen. You kind of liked it. You smirked and continued to play. Michael was annoyingly good at beer pong, and you wondered how he could even see out of his mask. His dedication to wearing it was truly remarkable. But you were gaining on him, and before you knew it, the two of you were tied with one remaining cup each.

And with your last shot, with everything seeming to move in slow motion, your ball landed in your last cup, spinning around the rim. But before you could celebrate, in one swift motion, Michael Myers lifts his mask halfway and darts down to blow a puff of air into the cup. Your spinning ball gets blown out of the cup and onto the ground.

“Hey! Not cool!”

Several onlookers chuckled around the table. You catch sight of Michael’s mischievous grin before he lowers the mask again. You cross your arms defiantly.

“You like to play dirty, is that how it is?” you said with a raised brow.

“I bet you can handle dirty, Miss Maverick,” Michael said. Something about his words made you pause, but your spinning mind quickly washed away any thoughts.

It ended up being a close game, but the mystery man won in the end. You pretended to be mad and dipped your fingers in a cup to flick him with water. Michael feigned shock as he held a hand to his heart and looked around dramatically, and you laughed. As you went back to the kitchen with him, he didn’t touch you, but he was close enough that you could feel the warmth emanating from his body.

Michael withdrew a can of beer from the fridge and held it out to you. “A deal’s a deal,” he murmured.

You sighed and pierced the can with a key, popping the tab. He watched as you dutifully chugged its contents. After finishing and wiping your mouth, you squinted at his masked face.

“Who are you under there?” you drawled.

“Your worst nightmare,” he said back.

“Are you, now?”

Something about him drew you in. You didn’t know what that said about you, having a proclivity for masked men dressed like serial killers. Was that fucked up? Perhaps you shouldn’t look into it that deeply. The man was fit and radiated some sort of confidence you hadn’t observed before, maybe a confidence only harbored by anonymity.

The party’s designated DJ changed the song then; “Master of Puppets” by Metallica, a drastic change of pace from Madonna and a-ha. Michael Myers perked up at the sound of it and started miming a guitar and headbanging. You giggled and leaned against the counter, watching him. The room was spinning pretty hard now. You’d never been crossed before, and it wasn’t half bad.

A few other Metallica fans in attendance at the party cheered from the living room. Michael Myers joined them. It was quite the sight, watching them jump around like idiots and mime various instruments until enough people complained about the noise and the DJ switched the song to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears.

You weren’t sure how it happened exactly, but there were enough people in the crowded, dimly-lit living room that you were sucked into the middle of the mass dancing bodies. Not that you minded. You danced right with them, until you were suddenly aware that you didn’t know a single person here. Where was Chrissy?

You bumped into a familiar body. Michael Myers was still in the crowd. He steadied you with his arms, and you smiled up at him.

“I love this song,” you drawled.

“This song sucks,” he responded. You could barely make out the big eyes behind the mask as his eyelids fluttered.

“You must hate fun then, Mr. Meyers.”

Michael laughed, the sound low and rumbly and strangely intimate. Maybe it was just the weed-alcohol combination, but you felt inexplicably drawn to him in that moment. You guided Michael’s hands from your arms to your waist and indicated for him to start dancing with you. He was a bit stiff at first, but he loosened up, and soon enough, you and him were dancing so close that your bodies were all but pressed up to each other?

What was it that made him so irresistible to you? Was it simply the air of intrigue about his anonymity? Or was it something else? God, your intoxication was making you feel all sorts of things. You traced your hands down his chest and you felt his hands squeeze around your waist a little. You wished he would go lower with them; was he too much of a gentleman for that?

Teasingly, you pinched the bottom edge of his mask, easing it off, curious to know the face behind it.

You heard your name from behind you. A pair of hands wrenched you from Michael Myers’ arms, and you met the wide-eyed expression of Chrissy.

“Chrissy! I haven’t seen you in forever!”

She smiled dazedly and then blinked over your shoulder. “You’re dancing with…with—?”

“Michael Myers!”

“Y/N, that’s…”

There was a commotion by the front door as more people came in. You watched Chrissy’s eyes widen even more as she realized who it was.

“Oh my god. What the hell are they doing here?” she gaped.

You followed her gaze and your stomach dropped. It was the Carver brothers. Josh, your senior year boyfriend, and his carbon copy younger brother, Jason. It was the strangest experience seeing Josh again, two years after you’d dumped him. They sauntered into the already crowded apartment like they owned the place, flanked by an entourage of jocks.

You whirled around to Chrissy. “Oh my god.”

“You didn’t invite them, did you?” she asked.

“No! Did you?”

“Of course not!” She frowned at them again, clearly panicking. “But…I did invite Patrick McKinney…”

Sure enough, standing behind the Carver brothers was who you remembered to be Patrick, looking rather guilty at having brought along Chrissy’s ex to her college party.

Before the boys could notice you and Chrissy, you grabbed her arm and wheeled her to the hallway out of sight. “Those assholes,” you muttered.

“I can’t believe they showed up.”

“And they’re not even wearing costumes.”

“Can we tell them to go away?”

“You know the Carvers. They’ll just make a scene.” When Chrissy started chewing on her thumb, you said, “Listen. We just have to pretend like they’re not here.”

“Why did they even come?” she fretted.

“Probably because they both feel like they still have some kind of moronic claim over us. They’re assholes. But we can’t let them ruin the night.”

“What do we do?”

“Show them that we don’t care.”

“Make them jealous?”

“No, not jealous. Maybe we just…make them see that we don’t belong to them anymore.” You scanned the crowd in the living room. “Where’s that guy from your poly sci class you were telling me you invited?”

Chrissy gestured to a guy who looked like a buffer version of Jason. “Anthony?”

“Perfect. Go flirt with him and pretend Jason isn’t here.” Maybe it was a stupid idea, but it seemed reasonable at the time, given your current state of mind.

“What about you?”

“I’ve got someone in mind, don’t worry.”

You spotted Michael Myers again and made a beeline for him before Chrissy could say anything else.

As you approached him, you touched his arm. “Did you get lonely without me?”

“Serial killers don’t get lonely,” he joked in that low voice. You glanced behind his back; Josh hadn’t spotted you yet.

You moved closer to your mystery college boy, your mouth so close to his mask that you were brushing against it. “Everyone could use a bit of company, though, don’t you think?”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t move, but he leaned toward you almost imperceptibly. The room seemed dimmer and smokier than before, the music louder, the living room even more crowded. The atmosphere almost buzzed, and your senses all seemed to run together. You wanted another hit.

“Still got that joint?” you asked him. He dug around in his leather jacket, withdrawing the same joint from earlier that he’d preserved.

“Are you sure?” he murmured from behind the mask. You nodded, and he beckoned you over to the side of the room where it was less crowded. After lighting the joint, he offered it to you. In lieu of taking it between your fingers, you leaned into him and took a hit while he was still holding it. Your lips brushed against his fingers.

He rolled up his rubber mask, revealing his nose and mouth, and again, the sight of it elicited a little red flag in the back of your brain. You didn’t know why; you were beyond crossed at this point. But as you watched him take a long drag, entranced, the warning signal in your brain seemed to dissipate like the smoke he exhaled.

You reached up and touched his lips with your fingertips. The music and the crowd all melted away.

“I kind of wanna kiss you,” you murmured. God, how high were you?

He didn’t respond, but his beautiful lips parted. You leaned in closer, taking in the scent of him. Weed intermingled with cologne, cigarettes, musk.

Why was that such a familiar scent?

He wasn’t leaning in back. But he wasn’t leaning away. You hesitated, waiting for him to pull back—after all, you and he were strangers who’d just met. The music and people around you faded.

You were so close to him now that your mouth brushed against his. His warm lips parted as he let in a small gasp, a sound that tugged at the pit of your stomach. You felt him lean ever so slightly toward you, and his mouth fit against yours—

“Y/N?”

It was Josh, standing behind you.

You broke away from Michael Myers and whirled around to the sound of your ex. You appraised him apathetically. “Why are you here?” you deadpanned.

Being face-to-face with your ex again was quite the trip, especially while you were literally tripping. He was somehow even bigger now than he was back in high school—or maybe it was just the way he was puffing out his chest like a gorilla trying to establish dominance over the other males in the room. His jaw was working in overtime as he assessed you and Michael Myers.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I could ask you the same. I don’t remember Chrissy inviting you here. What, are you stalking us now?”

Josh glared, ignoring your words. “Who the fuck is this?” he said, gesturing over your shoulder.

You narrowed your eyes. “That’s none of your business.”

But it was too late; Josh was already squaring up with the other man.

“Are you some kind of perv?” Josh spat. He reached for the mask, but the other man swatted his hand away. “Take off the mask, bro.”

Michael Myers went tense.

“Take of the fucking mask,” Josh repeated.

Dejectedly, Michael Myers removed his mask, revealing a sweaty-faced Eddie Munson.

Oh my god.

“Eddie?” you gaped.

“Munson?” Josh intoned.

You couldn’t fucking believe how stupid you were not to realize it before. The dark clothing on his limber frame, his reaction to hearing Metallica, the stupid scent of his skin you couldn’t distingush at the time over the smell of marijuana. How had you not fucking realized it was him?

You realized in that moment just how drunk-slash-high you truly were. Like, really fucking drunk-slash-high.

“What’s this freak doing here?” Josh spat at Eddie.

For once in his life, Eddie seemed not to have much to say. His face was red.

Josh turned to you. “Wow. I guess college really turned you into a fucking whore, Y/N. The Munson prick? Really?”

“Oh, fuck you—”

“Don’t speak to her like that,” Eddie snarled at Josh.

You whirled on him. Since when did he care? You felt strangely offended that he had the audacity to stand up for you.

Josh neared Eddie so close that his puffed chest almost touched Eddie’s. “You don’t get to talk, perv.”

You wrenched Josh away from Eddie by the back of his shirt. “Go away, Josh. No one invited you or your dickhead little brother here.”

Josh glared at you. “You know, I came because I still care about you, Y/N. You need someone to—”

“You’re not my boyfriend anymore,” you spat. “Go away.”

The two of you stared at each other hard for a long while before Josh came to his senses and backed off. He collected his brother Jason, who was staring at Chrissy but thankfully not engaging with her, and dragged him out the front door angrily.

The world still spinning, you turned to Eddie again and shoved his chest.

“What the fuck, Munson?” you shouted at him.

He smacked your hands away. “I could say the same,” he retorted, anger flooding his features. “Using me to get back at your asshat ex boyfriend? Real classy, princess.”

“What? I—I didn’t know it was you,” you hissed back. Realization began to hit you. Oh my god. “But you knew it was me.”

You weren’t wearing any kind of mask, just your Top Gun-inspired costume. He knew it was you the whole time.

And he hadn’t pulled away when you tried to kiss him.

The dickhead. He had the audacity to smirk at that exact moment. The smugness on his features made you want to punch him all over again.

“I think you don’t hate me as much as you pretend to,” Eddie sneers.

“You tricked me,” you sputtered.

He just shrugged. “What was that again, the thing you said about kind of wanting to kiss me?”

Humiliation bloomed across your face. “That was before I realized it was you, asshole.”

“The grand facade’s crumbling now, sweetheart. You like me. Don’t deny it.”

“As fucking if!”

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, you know.”

You were so infuriated that you felt dizzy. You felt really dizzy. And unignorably so. You gripped the wall and fought a wave of nausea.

Eddie spoke your name. You vaguely registered the concern in his voice amid your nausea. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

You pushed him aside and ran for the bathroom. By the mercy of the heavens, it was unoccupied, and you promptly ejected everything you’d consumed that evening into the toilet. You were so out of it that you didn’t realize Eddie had followed you into the bathroom until you felt the cool press of his silver rings on the back of your neck, smoothing your sweaty hair away.

“Go away,” you groaned, spitting the bitterness from your mouth.

Eddie didn’t move. In contrast to the sweet tenderness of his fingers on your neck, his voice was acidic. “Not surprised a girl like you doesn’t know her limits.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You puked again, and he held your clammy forehead. You could have been imagining it, but you swore you heard him apologize then. As another wave of vomit came up, he waited for your convulsions to finish before he murmured that he’d be right back. A few moments later, he returned with an empty solo cup, which he filled with water from the sink and handed to you. More grateful than you were willing to admit, you rinsed your mouth and spat. You realized his hands were on you again, smoothing back your hair from your forehead, but you didn’t say anything about it.

“Why didn’t you say it was you?” you croaked, gripping the porcelain with white knuckles.

“You gonna be okay? You seem really crossed.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” You looked at him wryly. “Answer the question.”

Eddie cocked an eyebrow. “Well…Chrissy invited me, which is why I was looking for a Halloween mask. Found one, by the way.” He held up the flimsy Michael Myers mask. “I didn’t know you were going to be here either, for the record.”

You cursed silently in your mind. Damn Chrissy. That must have been why she had been acting so strange. She’d invited him before she’d known the situation between you two.

He still hadn’t really answered your question, so you asked another one. “Where’d you get the mask?”

“What?”

“The mask. We don’t carry that one at my parents’ store.”

“Borrowed it from a friend,” he replied. “I take it you like it?”

“Seriously? You’re such a creep.”

“And you’re such a priss,” he accused, his tone changing. “Did you plan that shit with Josh? That was a real dick move, Y/N.”

“First of all, don’t call me that. And second of all, I didn’t know he’d be here either, obviously. He’s the last person I wanted to see at this party.”

“Oh, so not me?”

You gritted your teeth. “In case it wasn’t obvious, I wasn’t thrilled to see you here, either.”

He hummed, an intoxicating sound, as he regarded you with a belittling expression. “Hmm. Your actions earlier begged to differ.”

“Screw you.”

“You know, before your meathead ex came, I couldn’t wait to take off the mask. Just to see the shock on that pretty, bratty little face of yours when you realized it was me.”

“So that’s why you didn’t say it was you? You just wanted to piss me off?”

“No. I wanted to confirm a suspicion.”

When he didn’t continue, you shot him a look of exasperation. He leaned in closer, his dark eyes glinting with subtle wickedness.

“I had a feeling you still like me like that. Like me more than you pretend to hate me. Like me enough to kiss me. And I was right.”

You gaped. “You are seriously disturbed. Like seriously fucked up in the head, Munson.”

“You get so testy when you know you’re wrong but just can’t admit it. It’s cute.”

Amid your nausea, your fury flashed. “Josh was right about you. You’re just a pretentious, self-centered perv.”

Eddie’s expression darkened. He set his jaw and just stood up and backed away toward the door. You immediately regretted your words. But you couldn’t take them back, not when you felt another flash of nausea.

“You’re so full of shit, Y/N,” he said.

“Blow me,” you responded.

He didn’t say anything more, but you heard him leave the bathroom as you puked again.

You weren’t left alone for long, though. Eddie must have found Chrissy and sent her, because she came in a few moments later.

“Shit,” she said, immediately wetting a washcloth with cool water and pressing it to your neck. “I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that Eddie would be here.”

You really couldn’t stay mad at her—not when you already felt this shitty, not when she was being so kind and helping take care of you. “It’s okay,” you whispered.

“I should have told you. It’s just—he’s my friend, and you’re my friend, and I was worried you wouldn’t have wanted to stay at the party if you knew he was coming, and I wanted to tell you that it was him with the Michael Myers mask, but I didn’t get a chance—”

“Chrissy.” You grasped her hand. “It’s okay.”

She squeezed your hand and smiled sheepishly. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah. I just smoked too much, I think. Did Jason see you?”

“I think so, but he didn’t approach me. I gave Anthony my telephone number, though. He was super nice, we—” She cut herself off. “Never mind, that’s not important right now. What the hell happened with you? I saw Josh storm out with Jason—and then Eddie, he looked…”

You sighed. “Was he upset?”

“Well, he didn’t look happy.”

You felt a strange combination of emotions toward the man. Anger that he hadn’t revealed himself to you, frustrated about his accusations that you were attracted to him.

Panic that you were, in fact, attracted to him.

All of that, mixed with the guilt of the names you’d called him, and for the compromising position you’d put him in with Josh. Who was, for all intents and purposes, Eddie’s former high school bully.

You propped yourself up so your back was resting on the bathtub and did the best you could to summarize everything to Chrissy through your waves of nausea. She couldn’t get past one small detail from your narrative, though.

“So…you’re into Eddie, too?” she asked when you finished.

“What? No, I’m — wait? Are you into Eddie?”

Chrissy laughed and shook her head. “No. He’s just a friend. That’s not what I’m saying. I—okay, I know I shouldn’t say this, because I know you guys hate each other or whatever. But Eddie’s liked you since middle school. Like, like liked you. And he still does—or, at least he still did a few months ago, last time he brought it up.”

You reeled. “What are you talking about?”

“He has a crush on you, Y/N.”

You shook your head. The motion made you see stars. “No. No he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does. It’s so obvious, too, even if he hadn’t told me.”

“But he’s an asshole.” You pressed the palms of your hands to your aching temples. “If he has a crush on me, then why is he such a dick to me?”

Chrissy mused for a moment. “One time, when I was in grade school, this boy—his name was Chucky Lars, I remember—used to yank on my ponytail everyday at recess,” she said. “And one day when I tried to tell my teacher about it, she said he probably was being mean to me because he just liked me. So…maybe it’s like that with Eddie?”

“Chrissy, that’s so fucked up.”

Chrissy shrugged. “Yeah, it is. I don’t know. I mean… Maybe it has to do with Josh?”

You chewed your cheek. Did Eddie blame you for what Josh and his cronies did to him behind the gym? You remembered seeing Eddie in passing the week after the incident. He had a black eye; Josh had got him good. It made you feel disgusted to think you were dating someone who was capable of that violence against another person, even if what Eddie had done to you was unfair with the plagiarism.

Which is why you’d broken up with Josh later that day.

But you had never spoken another word to Eddie about it, about anything.

All this time, had he been holding a grudge against you…because he thought you’d been behind Josh’s vindictions?

Did Eddie dislike you as much as you disliked him because of a misunderstanding that you’d put your ex boyfriend up to beating him up?

Too much to think about. Your thoughts span. Luckily, your head and stomach were starting to feel better.

Hesitantly, you heaved yourself up onto your feet. Chrissy held her hands out to steady you.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m good. Fuck, I’m never getting crossfaded again. This shit sucks.”

“I’d pity you, but it’s your own fault,” Chrissy laughed. “Do you wanna come out to the party, or do you wanna go lie down in my room for a bit?”

You pondered. “Can I sit on the couch?”

“Sure, but just warning you, my friend JJ from philosophy was sitting there when I left. He might try to chat your ear off about optimistic nihilism.”

“That doesn’t sound half bad.”

You carefully followed Chrissy back out to the party, which had mellowed out significantly since your departure to the bathroom. But as you settled onto the couch beside JJ, who was just launching into a critique of Nietzche, you couldn’t help but notice the way your eyes were scanning the room, absentmindedly looking for Eddie.

✧・ﾟ:*✧・ﾟ:*✧・ﾟ:*

A/N: What did y’all think about ch2? A lot happened in this one! What are your thoughts about what was revealed about “the incident” between Reader and Eddie? What are your predictions about what will happen??

Please note that I write fanfiction for free; my only request for repayment is a genuine expression of your thoughts, opinions, likes/dislikes, and predictions about the story. Whether it’s simply a “Wow, I loved it!”, a keyboard smash, a series of convoluted thoughts in the tags, or even a full-out review, please know that any and all feedback is welcome!

Much love ♡ from Juni (on vacation currently 🏖️)

No taglist sorry! But I love receiving asks anyway 🥺

#Eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #works by juniper #enemies to lovers #halloween #Halloween party #best enemies

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