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#she literally wants to go to palm springs & i have never hung out with her besides at drag shows that she’s literally in

capslocked · 1 year

Text

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY

male reader x jeon heejin

part 1 of journalistic integrity

16k words

It’s not even twelve hours apart - the first time you exchange pleasantries, all careless and untroubled, to the moment you’ve got Heejin in the back of a taxi and your hand so far up her skirt that it has you emptying your wallet at the end of the ride and slapping the biggest tip you’ve ever left into the cabbie’s open palm, silence full of disapproval.

It isn’t planned or anything.

Heejin doesn’t simply wake up one morning with a craving for your cock. It just sorta happens.

And then It happens again a week later. The third time just a few days after that.

The fourth time, the two of you barely spend a night apart before Heejin’s back in your apartment, thighs shaking violently as you fuck her into the springs of your mattress.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” you puzzle, holding a coffee mug to your cheek while taking note of how Heejin slips her arms back beneath the black straps of her bra at the foot of your bed. “Why a rabbit?”

She laughs first. Looking back over her shoulder when she responds, “why not? It’s cute.”

“Yeah. Sure. And incredibly provocative.”

“You’re really hung up on it, aren’t you?”

“Um. I just think it’s interesting.”

“Does that mean it’s going to end up in one of your articles?” She asks, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. “Something about it on the front page?”

“Why would you think I’m going to write about rabbits?”

Heejin smiles, bright and cheery and increasingly full of mischief. “About this breeding kink of ours.”

“Ah.”

Her hands reach to her hips like she’s ruminating through all these possibilities, the things she could do to you, the things she has done to you. And as she crawls back onto the bed, your eyes follow hers - all brilliant and huge, self-aware of just how pretty they are.

She lets out this pinchy little laugh, and leans in to kiss your jawline. Bites it for good measure. “Ah, he says, pensively.”

“We went over this,” you start, leaning back into the headboard. “It’s just not a kink. Wanting to cum inside a pretty girl is, literally, basic biology. Like, it’s so foundational, it’s in my DNA.”

“And I get sooo turned on thinking about your DNA,” Heejin snaps back, and she’s got that edge in her voice again: playful, mildly threatening. “Besides, there’s more to it than that.”

“Isn’t there always.”

“It’s the ownership,” she breathes into your neck, “the intimacy, the risk–”

“Risk?” you say, laughing as you jump into the middle of Heejin’s explanation. “What risk? There’s literally no risk when you’re on the pill.”

“Ugh. You’re the worst, you know that? Who’d thought I’d have to explain what fantasy means to a writer.”

Before you can do anything about it, she kisses you three times. Twice on the cheek, once on the lips. And it’s as close as you’ll get to anything like retaliation - you flip her underneath you, drag her panties down her thighs, and fuck her again.

That’s how it goes. Like it's some sort of cosmic law. It’s been this whole thing.

So again, you write - when it all starts, you’re writing.

There’s this story.

Your editor’s the one demanding it from you. Find it, embellish it, fucking outright fabricate it - whatever it takes so long as the article arrives on her desk before she finishes her coffee on Monday morning.

Between you, there’s always this dynamic: work comes in, you’ll point your finger to the ceiling, saying, "trust in the creative process," and then she threatens to kill you. Hence it’s her drumbeat; you’re marching to it.

"You know, I think I might know a guy," you shout over the top of your glass and down the bar, when the topic of LOONA comes up over drinks. You end up phoning a friend of a friend, pulling a string, making a promise you never intend to make good on, and it has you sitting in an unremarkable conference room on the fourth floor of your office a little after lunch the following day.

So, as it starts, there’s this girl sitting across the table from you - Heejin, she says, and it rolls so nicely off her tongue as she does, like the name was simply hers. You notice it immediately, and if you were any younger, the kind of age where you could fall in love with a girl just off the end of a smile, your heart would be rocketing out of your chest.

Now, honest to god–

(Not that you’re god-fearing or honest or virtuous, it’s just a turn of phrase, and that’s how you earn your keep.)

–it kicks off innocently enough between you, as most things do.

Just to put it in perspective, there’s never before been a celebrity profile you’ve written that hasn’t fallen neatly into one of three categories: (1) astonishingly talented, (2) breathtakingly gorgeous, or (3) certifiably insane. So, as you puzzle about that track record now, there should be absolutely no reason at all for you, a professional, to let this girl, another twenty-something-year-old idol who’s too pretty for her own good - with a voice that runs just a little deeper, raspier, perhaps more sultry than you’re used to hearing - ever get the better of you.

"I don’t know, I guess I was expecting someone… different," Heejin says, somewhere in the middle of things, folding her fingers neatly beneath her chin.

Your eyes flick up from the notepad in your hands and find this look in the deep browns of her eyes, like she’s studying you from across the conference room table, gazing into the contents of a test tube. You lift an eyebrow, and she does the same; there’s a bit more suggestion to it than there probably should be, but you’ve been stoking it, fanning it, from the moment you’d both sat down.

"Expecting?" you ask, if only to point out what had thrown you off-kilter, and you can feel your weight shift in your seat.

After all, it had been just that morning when you met Heejin for the first time. She was standing perhaps a little out of place beside the door to her dressing room, kicking snow off the bottoms of her boots. You told her you liked the color of her dress, a welcome departure from the grays and browns that usually filled your office. Her hair was curtaining her face and after pulling it back, tucking it neatly behind her ears, she smiled brightly back at you - thanks, it’s vermillion.

You weren't aware of it then, and it won’t become clear to you until much later, but you do fall for her there, if at least just a little.

"Well, see, it’s my publicist," Heejin starts to explain. From that alone you’re certain you’ve got the rest puzzled out. She steeples her fingertips together, continuing, "the way she talked you up, she made you out to be, like, totally despicable. Said you were no better than those creeps that sit in the bushes outside my apartment."

Okay, so unfortunately, part of that’s not entirely unwarranted. To a girl like her - to the scrupulous companies that stand to gain, to lose - all that concerning secrets to hide and hell to pay, you could be absolutely despicable. Afterall, if there’s a labor that goes into making someone like Heejin come across as the kind of perfect that everyone believes her to be, you’d be the first person looking to undo it.

It’s nothing personal, you reason, and you’re smiling back across the table. "Hey. Low blow. I haven’t sat in a bush in years."

A quiet smile shadows in the corner of her lip and she fires back at you, "so you’re saying you’re just a little despicable."

"Oh, ya know," you reassure her, gesturing your hands to the side, one palm up and the pages on your notepad splaying out in the other. "More or less comes with the mileage."

"All joking aside, I’ve seen guys…"

Heejin dips her eyes a moment to laugh out loud. And you’re becoming familiar with the sound, sweet and throaty and genuine. Harmonic.

"You know, I’ve seen guys climb trees. Really, I’m serious. This was just last summer, around the time Haseul broke up with her boyfriend and moved into our apartment. Don’t write that down. I’m standing at the sink, washing dishes, and I see this guy. He’s just balancing there with his feet hooked around some of the branches, a camera against his face with this massive lens. I bet you he could probably see the bacteria on the window."

“You wash dishes?” A handbag that costs more than a month’s salary, these dainty fingers that look like they’ve never seen so much as a scratch, and you’re picturing her, or struggling anyway - washing dishes.

“Ugh, it’s been this whole thing,” Heejin says, floating her fingertips to her collarbone. “There was a rumor that the housekeeper had been talking to the press. So our management fired them - and then the dishwasher broke. Company was supposed to buy us a new one, but they haven’t yet - because they’re cheap as shit. Don’t write that down either.”

“Never rains but then it pours, huh?”

“Right. You get it,” she says before letting this simple tight-lipped smile fill out on her face. "To be honest though, I’m curious about something."

Heejin’s raking her fingers through her hair, and you watch the silver band of her watch fall just a few inches from the sharp edge of her wrist as she holds a messy handful of blonde locks just above her face - the way they bounce against her cheek and spill back onto her shoulder when she lets go.

"How did you - and I’m not saying you’re the same as one of those people - but how does someone even get into entertainment journalism in the first place?"

"Slowly at first," you answer, eyes returning to your lap to pen out the rest of some scribbled note, "and then all at once."

When you look back up, Heejin is frowning, brows furrowed, as though she were trying to remember something.

"Slowly at first," she repeats, "and then all at once." She blinks a few times as your attempt to avoid the question registers. Thoroughly unimpressed when it does. "No, I’m serious, there had to be something that drew you to all this."

You finish out the end of a note, lined into the pad, while you land on a chuckle, dry and humorless. "What is all this now?"

"It’s a question."

Nevermind that it’s in the wrong direction, is your first thought. Careful now, your second. Because maybe you knew that beneath the surface were those stray thoughts that kept you up at night, lurking:

What kind of journalism career is this?

You graduated from a good program. With classmates who were now reporting on national legislature, getting shot at to cover a war in Ukraine for The Associated Press - and then here you are, sifting through the transient thoughts of yet another pop star, grasping at straws, struggling to spin them into gold.

"Is this one of those things?" you ask, heeding first to the click of your pen, once in, once out. "What was the word for it… postmodern? Where you turn the tables and you’re the one interviewing me?"

"I don’t think I’d go that far," she says, lips slanted slightly, "you’re still the one holding the notepad after all."

“What, the appeal of meeting fascinating people isn’t enough of a sell for you?” Oh, you’ve had your fair share of boring, mundane, or even offensive too, but you’ve not gotten to where you are without learning a little flattery goes a long way.

Heejin scoffs. “Oh, don’t lie. I’ve read your magazine. The profiles? I’ve met those guys and gals—fascinating is being rather generous, wouldn't you think?”

“Careful,” you say, punctuated by the end of your pen again. Click.

See, it’s the way her eyebrows twist over that coquettish smile. That's how she gets you - one out of twelve, you’re realizing why the cameras are stuck on her. And everything that comes out of her mouth just brushes effortlessly on the innocent side of frustration, of challenge. It’s hard not to indulge, even if just a little–

“I mean if I’m wrong, go ahead, feel free to correct me.”

“I was real sick of freelance work,” you answer, feeling the conversation start to de-rail. “Was tired of worrying about making rent. And it was just less of a total pain in the ass.”

There was a method. It was delicate, and usually you were quite good at it: you were supposed to be just funny enough to make her laugh, captivating enough to coax out something more than a monosyllable answer where you needed it, get her to like you, and then have her forget about you the moment she walked out the door. Hell might freeze before you could get her publicist to schedule a follow up, all because Heejin had chewed up the clock - had gotten herself interested.

It’s probably wishful thinking to hope the sigh rolling through your chest doesn’t give too much of all that up. “And just why might you ask?”

Heejin reaches across the table and turns off your tape recorder. It’s here probably: where you should’ve been clued into the pieces, the board, the game in front of you. “Because you don’t seem like most of the others.”

“The others?” you answer, making careful sure not to sneer. “Are you suggesting that I’m–”

“Charming?” Heejin rises from her seat, and her hair swings behind her shoulders as she meanders about the room. “Oh, I’m declaring it. It’s not a subject for debate.”

When she finds a spot to lean against the table beside you, her skirt hikes itself just a few noticeable inches. You’re not trying to stare, but she is right there.

Okay, so you’re fucking staring. When it’s clear that you are, you drop your eyes immediately, starting over at the floor - you’re unsure what to make of it. Her boots jump out immediately, these black knee-high things with just enough of a heel to let her stand a little taller than your shoulders. Beyond them is the dress that’s tinier than she is: vermillion - not red - and hung tight around her frame, gaping perfectly to present her thighs and chest like they ever needed introduction. Follow her collarbones, the delicate skin on her neck, the bold red lipstick she decided would compliment the bow in hair like she’s some present waiting to be unwrapped, and yeah, okay, she’s cute.

You’d have perhaps made a mental note of how unconventional it was for her now to be looking down at you, arms crossed and smile slanting, but, she also just manages to plainly ask if you’re seeing anyone, so there’s little time to dwell on that transgression - and all with the casualness someone might ask how much snow that approaching storm was supposed to bring tonight. In nearly the same breath, she asks if you were holding onto any of those numbers girls handed you when you went out drinking. It’s confounding and it’s your head space and it’s rapidly becoming preoccupied and littered and busy.

"That surprises me," Heejin tells you upon hearing that it’s complicated. "I figured it’d be rather straightforward. What all with a smile like yours. And an ass like that—"

"You’re flirting with me."

Doesn’t matter that it’s so obvious you could’ve seen it from space - everything comes to a screeching halt after the words fall out of your mouth.

You tilt your head, quizzical.

Heejin’s chin cocks, ready to fire. "And what? Is that some sort of crime?"

It’s honestly hard to believe. She tosses you the question, recklessly unaware that doing that thing she does where she simply exists is almost criminal. Thoroughly disinterested in the fact you were having plenty enough trouble keeping your focus from sinking into the neckline of her dress. You watch her blink slowly while you struggle to get out ahead of this, and it has her discovering that smile again. “Oh. And I wouldn’t write any of this down either. You know, if I were you.”

Your hand must know how deceitful it sounds because it’s covering your mouth, trying to mask the words curling off your tongue:

“Look, I - Here’s the thing… you know it’s completely unprofessional.”

Heejin smirks, pointedly, like she’s recognizing something on your face that confirms each and every one of her suspicions.

Okay, you were trying to act nonchalant, but all the mistakes keep adding up - have added up - gazing at her gentle, focused features long enough that you might inscribe them in your mind as something to hold onto when you walk out of this meeting.

“Hand me your notepad.” Heejin pushes her hand in front of you, expectantly. “The pen.”

You watch her lashes nearly fall onto her cheeks as her eyes dip into the lined paper, and then it’s just the sound of the pen. Scribbling.

If you're going to consider that the bare minimum requirements of your job probably forbids undressing in a random meeting room in the middle of a workday, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the rest of the interview unfolds without incident.

(Albeit woefully precarious.)

Here’s what you learn:

Heejin’s life isn’t terribly interesting, at least the parts you can write about without fear of starting fires in the streets. The backstory has all these parallels you’ve come to expect. She’s the youngest of three girls, and you figure that’s where all the confidence comes from, if it isn’t the fact that she’s the kind of beautiful that inspires all this admiration and reverence and adoration to the point where it has people tripping over her.

Her flatmates are apparently storied in their own sort of fucked up ways, and as she described them, you quickly realized that none of it would be able to fit into a publication like yours. Not that you’d stop the train of thought: Yeojin - a hopeless romantic - and Haseul - a total fucking golddigger - who were well on their way to fuck half the city at their current pace (you’re paraphrasing here).

So with that, you’re writing. The doc is completely blank, and you’ve deleted the first sentence god knows how many times, but you’re writing.

Heejin had mentioned she was taking piano lessons and music theory classes, but had piqued more of your interest when she opened up about a novel she was working on: “It’s fiction, and it’s about two lovers slowly growing apart.” She shrugged her shoulders when you asked if it had a happy ending and refused to go any further into it when you brought it up again (twice), but that’s more or less how these things usually go.

You double back to your notes where Heejin’s phone number is written neatly at the top with little hearts trailing off the last digit. Only it does little if any to help inspire the kind of creativity you need to do your job - inspire any thoughts beyond the way her dress tapered in at her tiny waist, how you’re pretty sure you could reach both hands around it and how light she’d be in your arms.

You should call her, springs immediately to the front of your thoughts.

And that’s how you know it’s bad. Something worth some sort of concern.

Oh sure, you’ve had a crush before - when you were the age where hormones were reeling through your body and had you, like a good portion of the world, needing someone to hump like a dog in heat. Fast forward to when you lost your V-card to the girl you’d been pining over for years and it failed to give you superpowers, you figured it was best to put your time and effort into anything else. You can relax, take it slow, get your work done, stop thinking about it.

Monday, you decide.

She probably has plans this weekend anyway, and that is the rule isn’t it? Three days ought to give you enough suspense and pretense to illustrate that you’re not hopelessly fixed on the idea of pulling Heejin’s dress up around that fucking waist and hoisting her onto your kitchen counter where you could really just give it to her.

You tap your pen against your desk.

Monday.

5:00 p.m. rolls around.

You call.

The phone rings one too many times, and you’re within inches from just simply hanging up before you hear her speak. You actually jump a little in your seat and your knees smack into the bottom of your desk when you do.

“I thought it was completely unprofessional. You said that.”

“Yeah, well the clock hits 5:00 and maybe I’m having second thoughts.”

There's some idle chit-chat, nothing special while you both circle around the obvious.

“Know any good Thai places? I’ve been pretty in the mood lately,” Heejin’s voice comes through as the pieces begin falling way too easily into place.

“I mean there’s plenty to choose from downtown,” you say as you pinch the neck of the lamp on your desk, still bobbing in place after you’d knocked it out of balance, “or one of those pretentious places that keep popping up in the old public market.”

“No, I mean, the editorial shoot ran a little late so I’m still here.”

“At the office?”

“Yeah. Hey - you know the photographer that goes around calling everyone boss? He’s, like, a total flirt by the way.”

“Trust me.” You laugh out loud. “That’s not the first I've heard of that. Pretty sure he’s even tried to hit on me a couple times.”

“Ugh,” she says, feigning all this disappointment, and it has you picturing how you’d seen her earlier pull in her shoulders so tightly as if to shrug with maximum effort, “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

Your phone is cradled between your neck and shoulder as you scour the internet for something in walking distance - someplace that you don’t expect to see half your coworkers drinking away their Friday evenings - when you ask, “You give him your number too?”

There’s a brief silence on Heejin’s end of the line, only slightly unceasing. “I thought about it.”

“Sounds like you’re done thinking about it.”

“Guess I figured you might benefit from the head start.”

“Generous.” It earns something like a chuckle out of both of you, and you're shaking your head, answering, “I’ll be sure to pay it forward.”

Oh, it’s a terrible date.

Neither of you are anywhere so brash to explicitly say that, but look, it just so happens to be your job - splitting out truth from reality. You’ll call it how you see it.

Honestly, it’s a comedy of errors, but the real kicker is that the kitchen forgot to put in your order.

So, you’re trying, failing, to flag down your waiter, and you begin to notice the wine doubling its punches on an empty stomach when Heejin leans in across the table - one finger beside her temple and her other hand drawing circles around the rim of her empty glass.

“You know we could just… get out of here.”

It’s suggestive, but it’s hardly anything like a suggestion, because you’re right there with her.

Outside on the sidewalk you find the kind of snow that lands wet and heavy and threatens to soak through your clothes. And aside from a recent tire track or two, there’s a fresh blanket of it now on the asphalt. Every now and then, Heejin will flash her eyes over her shoulder as if to check and see if you’re still there, a footstep behind her. Like the sound of snow squeaking under your boots isn’t proof enough.

“Okay,” says Heejin, in her unfailingly charming way, and trounces around in the snow in front of you, “so that was, like, the worst thing ever, right?”

“Nonsense. I’ve seen plenty worse. Trust me.”

She spins on her heel and you come close to knocking her over. “Sounds like you’ve got war stories.” “A few,” you start, laughing to yourself, “Here's one. This girl goes on and on telling me about the guy she just got out of a relationship with - and i’m sitting there thinking wow, this guy sounds a lot like a good buddy of mine.”

“And it was?”

You gesture slowly with your arms, something defeated and existential.

“Oof. That’s gold.” Heejin’s eyes flick to your lips, lingering however long it takes you to notice. She smiles, beaming. “But you know, with a little luck, I think someday you might just get it right.”

Heejin finds you somewhere in the harsh light of a streetlamp, fisting a hand into your collar.

You’re watching snowflakes melt, like they were tears streaming down her cheeks, colliding against the warmth in her pale face - the vibrantly rosy hue now glowing across it.

Her lips aren’t dry or cracked or wind-bitten like you might expect in the middle of December. Your eyes trace them closely, these soft, featherlight things, and you don’t even realize how long you’ve been staring until she passes her tongue through them with an experimental lick.

“Oh,” she says, shockingly casual, “you’re into me.”

You’re laughing as your eyes return to hers. “You sound pretty confident about that.”

“Yeah. Guess I am.”

Heejin’s breath lands warm against your face. You’re simply suspended there for however many moments, the wool of your coats pressed together, watching lights glimmer and fade in her eyes. From this close you can count the odd freckle on her nose, her cheek. It’s probably the most intimate thing you’ve done in months, just standing there, breathing the same air.

Maybe ever.

Heejin doesn’t even say anything else, just looks, her eyes searching for something they might only find in yours.

“Hey,” finally says Heejin, in this choked, rasping voice, “you should kiss me.”

And you do.

Where are you two headed? The driver’s voice strains as if he’s been smoking religiously for twenty years. And from the way the cab smells - the stains in the upholstery on the ceiling - it’s as good a guess as any.

Once the door closes behind you and it shuts out all that wintery air, you lean in to where Heejiin is delicately removing the scarf around her shoulders. It’s yours and she’d wrapped it around herself twice, three times, and it made her look tiny. “Where do you want to go? Back to Hapjeong?” Her flat is in Hapjeong.

Heejin shakes her head. “How about we go find somewhere to grab a drink?” you ask.

She looks down, tracing her finger along her lower lip, and then lets her cheek collapse into her shoulder, eyes drifting back to you where you can see that myriad palette of golds and browns in her irises. “We can just keep drinking at your place, no?”

While you square away the details with the driver, Heejin folds her arms and closes her eyes, sinking into the back corner of the seat. Her silver earrings catch the light as the cabbie hits the meter and the taxi pulls away from the curb. Then it’s her dress, all that barely-there vermillion fabric, as if it had been tailor made to match the warmth in the back of the cab. Watching her, you come to a realization: there’s the story you’re writing, then there’s this story you’re living - all in want of a little inspiration.

And you think maybe you’ve found it.

The taxi sways. Heejin talks. She talks about her life growing up. She talks about one of her sisters who is now in medical school and vomits at the sight of blood, how she was jealous that her siblings had turned out to be such brainy academic types - the kind of thing she imagined her parents were really secretly far prouder of - how she’d grown up fighting her dad tooth and nail to get where she is now - all these intimate details you doubt she’d shared often with anyone. Let alone someone she just met.

You listen - an occasional question every now and again woven into the soothe of Heejin’s lowered voice. And for the first time, you’re not scribbling out notes, building sentences as you do. Simply listen.

“You know,” Heejin starts, lidding her eyes and smirking in your direction. She could send a tremor through your heart, but she’s far less forceful than that. “I think it would be really rude.”

“What would?” you ask, confused. “If you spent the whole ride,” she pauses, and the elegant lines of her face scrunch ever so slightly while she fiddles with one of the featureless rings that rests on her middle finger. “–sitting over there.”

There’s a list of excuses, something to make it logical, but it’s never been quite this simple either.

You drift across the backseat, until you feel yourself press up against Heejin’s lithe frame, and the rest of the world might as well melt away to nothing beyond than the blur of passing street lights, the hum of ‘Winter Wonderland’ coming out of the radio in crackling bits and pieces, the pink blush still staining Heejin’s cheeks.

Holding her, you kiss her again.

Near effortless as before. Your lips stuck on hers when you pull yourself away.

"So, remind me to set the record straight with my publicist," Heejin murmurs in the same hushed voice she'd been speaking for the entire ride, thumb rubbing the back of your knuckles in a manner that could lead you to believe she wasn’t aware she was doing it. Her lips curl at the corners of your mouth where these short, hot breaths fill your proximity. "Just a little despicable."

With a hand finding purchase in her hair - bundling between your fingers as smooth and satiny as it looked - you pull Heejin into you, seize her lips. Hard. If there had been any restraint, to this point, about the shy touches on your arm when you made her laugh, to the light hand you’d place on the small of her back guiding her through a door - since the moment she sat down across you in that interview - this kiss now threatens to become near tidal in intensity.

Together, those soft lips sliding against yours, it’s irreverent, it’s reckless, it’s cashing in on that chasteness a thousand times over.

Still, you notice this departure from everything about Heejin. Because there’s nothing elegant about the way you have her, your bodies rucking desperately in the backseat - unable to give two fucks about smashed knees or hunched backs. It builds up. It falls apart. A mass of wool struggles to fall to the side, hung and stuck around your shoulders, and effortlessly sliding down hers. As your tongues slip and rub, this tantalizing push-pull that makes even the heat-dry air of the cab feel heavy like you’re wading through the humidity of summer, you doubt the efficacy of it all. But it’s the hand that arrives at the nape of your neck, kneading as though to say good enough so that you might start pressing more of your weight into her; simply sink into her embrace.

Heejin’s voice sneaks out between long, shivery, bone-deep kisses - the sound of your name lilting off her tongue, she whispers, “Hey. I want you to–”

“Yeah,” you pant, knowing exactly what she means. Your fingers twitch at your sides, all this anticipation currenting through your body that makes you feel like an exposed live wire, the electricity forcing your heart beat into something erratic. “Yes. Fuck. Of course.”

It has Heejin guiding you by the wrist. Down her side. The absolute concave flatness of her stomach. To the hem of her dress. And when she finally relinquishes your hand - your fingers - she kisses you harder, claiming the swell of your lip firmly in her possession.

It takes hardly any effort to find her - up that skirt and between her legs, growing hot and wet and needy. When your fingers collide with fabric, fingerprints teasing across her entrance, she lets everything start to slip - a hiccup into your mouth, and shifting her weight gently in your hands.

This intense shudder travels through her entire body when your fingers dip down beneath the elastic hugging her waist. The kiss breaks. From those needy, watery eyes, there is little to lament - the way Heejin strains for air, holding her lip between her teeth as she lets a wet breath billow from her chest. Her lashes flutter, close tight, open again, and she looks at you, concealing the mirth in her smile. “Do you have any idea what I want to do with you?”

“I haven't the slightest clue,” you answer, flat and unamused, and you’re swirling your fingers against the wet heat between her legs as you continue to play a fool. “Tell me.”

“First I–” Heejin takes a deep breath and steadies herself when you fit the first knuckle of a finger inside her. “I want - fuck - I want you to sweep me off my feet. Literally, pick me up and carry me.”

“Okay, sure,” you say, like you haven’t been entertaining the thought all afternoon - like grabbing her and bending her over the first piece of furniture closest to your front door isn’t now the foremost thought racing through your head, “I’m sure we can make that happen.”

“Then you can take me and put me so tenderly into this big, cozy bed, all comfy and a little tipsy and there’s none of this - fuck. That, that feels really good–”

“Mhmm.” You’re half listening to the curses out of her mouth, how her voice hitches and sputters the moment you tent her underwear with your knuckles - the air she sucks in when you tease the sensitive nub between her lips. Between kisses that drag your lips all along her delicate jaw, the bruisable skin on her neck, you whisper, “I’m listening.”

The look of need and want in Heejin’s irises is a mirror of your own. And, just once, it’s a gentle touch that makes her keen. It’s debauched, it’s something glorious, the sound sneaking past her lips. You hear it. The driver definitely hears it; he’s turning up the radio.

“Fucking–” She laughs into the dark, voice strained and breaking at the pressure against her clit. Her mouth slants at the rhythm now in your fingers - motions that make her optimistic, and her lips part again, continuing:

“I’m not knee deep in snow and it’s warm and you’re there, just cuddled next me–”

Heejin squirms again, interrupted; you’ve got her pussy creaming and tensing all over your finger.

Windows fogged, bodies digging deeper into the dark corner of the taxi, you study Heejin closely. Think about getting her off right there, about getting your fingers deep inside her and thumbing her clit until she’s shaking against you, about her cumming like that, back arching off the seat and ankles hooking around you.

It’s nearly tangible, the thought; her eyes flare and her chest heaves the more you fuck her slicked cunt with your fingers.

Heejin swallows. “And then - you start to undress me.”

It's been something akin to a virtue, and oft to your benefit, you’ve always been a good listener, so your fingers make course to slow, consider remorse, and continue on with only those gentle motions that keep Heejin’s eyes half-lidded and breath short. Nothing more.

“I do?”

“Yeah.” Heejin nods - even your vanishing touches driving her crazy, putting all this stress into the simple and composed features on her face. “Little by little. So delicate, like you - fuck.” You drag your finger back, grown wet and sticky. Let her finish the thought. “Like you’re unwrapping a present.”

Chin shooting up, you quip, “What if I’m the kind of person that tears wrapping paper to shreds?”

“Yeah,” Heejin chokes out, “that’ll work too. But either way, then I’m laying there, kinda spacing out, practically naked and feeling really hot and soft and then I realize what you’re doing, dragging my panties down my thighs. I yell out ‘Wait don’t! I just met you and I’m very sincere about these things, so please stop!’”

“Oh.”

“But here’s the thing: you don’t stop.”

“I would stop though.”

“I mean sure. Never mind that. It’s just how I’m imagining it.”

“I see.”

“So then you don’t even hesitate. Just slide your pants down, pull out your cock” - the cabbie clears his throat from the front seat like he’s trying to start a lawnmower, but Heejin powers right through the thought - “and it’s just hanging there, bouncing. And it’s huge. So then I start telling you ‘No, you can’t, I’ve never done anything like this before.’”

“But you have.”

“Look, I just… this is just my fantasy. So then you end up–”

Okay, so it’s not virtue that got you here; your fingers are toying in her cunt. You can’t help it.

“Mnph, yeah - Jesus, okay, that feels good,” she whines, sneaking her hips toward you when you start to slide your slicked thumb all over her clit.

There’s a moment where her lips part, where she doesn’t speak anything at all, before she can steel herself and labor on with her point.

“Y-you end up wearing this really put out face, and I start to feel sorry for you and I’m - stroking your hair - while your head… while your head is in my lap, saying, ‘it’s okay, it’s okay.’”

“And that’s what you want to do with me.”

Heejin shudders as your fingers seek refuge deeper in her cunt. “Right.”

“This is what you want to do right now?”

“Yeah. Well, sorta.” She twists her lip before letting this wide, giggling grin fill out her pretty face. “Right now, what I really want” - you watch her gulp down another heavy swallow - “I really just want to cum on your fingers.”

It’s simple. You’re not far from your apartment, though the car gets stopped at every light, and even when it isn’t, it’s slow going on the fresh layer of sleet now troubling the roads - but it’s not like it at all has you taking your time. Heejin mewls slightly, and then she simply comes undone, gasping. Your whole hand is buried in her underwear, your fingers fucking fast and slick into her cunt, thumb mercilessly brushing around her clit.

“Oh my god,” Heejin whines into the palm of your hand, shutting her eyes tight as she sinks against you, sinks into the corner of the seat.

You’re hitting her basest desires with fingers that are all but destined to make her fall apart; straightforward, effortless, a perfect balance of touches light and heavy and destructive, you bottle lightning.

“Mmmph,” Heejin whimpers.

Her back arches when she cums. With all these ragged whimpers leaking out from the spaces between your fingers. They’re inaudible, sort of. The radio is blasting. The same damn song even. Stars align, and while Heejin gazes into them - into the blackness that can only be found behind clenched eyelids - it’s simple: you kiss her hard again.

The two of you don’t fall into bed immediately. Not in the literal sense.

Heejin first gets her hands on you when you’re both standing in the elevator, quietly and mostly still, boots leaving gray puddling footprints on the floor. She looks like she’d been through a windstorm, and to some extent she had, but it’s mostly a direct result of your hands in her hair, your tongue in her mouth, the fact that you had her panting and sweating in the back of that taxi.

You’d had the quiet pleasure of watching Heejin’s legs wobble from the moment you spilled out onto the curb. Where she rested her face on your shoulder, pulled tight at the lapels of her coat like it might ever keep these gusts of snow-laden wind from freezing the skin around her eyes, and without saying anything at all, managed to demand your arm around her waist.

So, once the elevator doors close, and you’re feeling that temporary frost in your bones begin to thaw the further Heejin melts her weight into your side, it’s only natural: pull her into you, bury her nose into your collar.

You kiss her forehead.

In something close to reciprocity, she reaches a hand over your pants and grabs your cock.

“You’re, like, super hard,” her voice hushes into your chest, really leaning on that low, smoky tone. “You know that?”

“And what? I suppose that’s such a crime?”

“Maybe.” Heejin turns up to meet you, eyes glinting atop this expression - innocence feigned doesn’t even begin to do it justice - and balling up the collar of your shirt in her fingers. Bright eyed, knowing, she nudges into your side. “Just tell me what it is you’re thinking about.”

“Take a guess,” you say, running your hand through your hair. Like the nonchalance might make it less obvious you have this mental image, photographically vivid, of fucking Heejin’s tight body right into the wall of your foyer.

“Oooh.” Her eyebrows arched high, she looks you up and down, nodding while mischief skitters across her angelic features. “How many guesses do I get?”

“Three,” you answer. Then start grinning. “No. Two.”

“Two?” Heejin slides closer, her eyes hot. “That’s hardly anything charitable.”

“I have faith in you,” you say, and you’re reaching into her coat, finding the divot that runs down her back, where you can trace a finger up this zipper that you’re not entirely sure you can refrain from unfastening the moment you feel it’s metal shape between your fingertips.

Against your face, Heejin gives this small puff of amused laughter. “Okay, you’re thinking about…”

While her voice lilts and trails, she taps a finger to her chin like she’s trying to solve some intricate physics problem or ponder the secrets of the universe. Though by this time, the elevator’s doors have stuttered open in the haphazard way they always manage and you’re both surging towards the deserted hallway, laughing quietly and brushing elbows.

“I don’t mean to pressure you or anything, but you’re going to run out of time to guess,” you say, a hand dug into the inside of your coat pocket and searching for your keys. Heejin’s leaning her shoulder into the doorframe when you catch her looking, staring - you only manage to slip out from under that gaze when you come up with your key at last. “Found it.”

Heejin tilts her head, hair falling halfway over her face, and then pulls it back again. “You’re thinking about kissing me.”

“Surprisingly tame,” you say, scoffing as you turn the key in the lock and shoulder into your front door. “But no. Not quite. Oh, and leave your boots in the hall.”

It’s that second guess, neither incorrect nor entirely the truth. When it does arrive off her tongue, you have Heejin pressed against the inside of your door, now shut and finally private, and her tiny body in your hands where it feels soft and slender and unfathomably hot - oh, do you have ideas. Her breath mixes with yours, concocting something that tastes entirely sinful before she leans forward and traces kisses up your throat.

“Still. You are thinking about my lips,” she whispers into your ear, and it’s dripping with confidence, with suggestion, with another humid breath that hits you square on your cheek, “how good they’re going to feel wrapped around your cock.”

She studies the knot that forms in your throat as you swallow, eyes flicking back up to yours, and burning hot when you tell her she’s right. Lying, all on account of you not having the heart to let her know that you’d been harboring this errant thought, that for a greater part of the day, you’d been thinking of how she might fold over the kitchen sink, the living room couch - wherever - and fucking her six ways to sunday. She runs her tongue across her lips, like it might keep back these small bits of breathless laughter. And it has her unzipping your pants, coaxing them clear off your waist.

Right, proper intentions, and she’s smiling like she knows it: you’re both paving a road straight to hell.

“Jesus. You’re so hard,” she says finally, and it’s so blatantly sexual that a foundational shiver in your bones takes hold of you. What are you to do? Her fingers are deep in your underwear, fighting elastic, pulling at the skin of your cock when she gives you a final kiss that sticks to your lips, smacking. And then without any words to accompany her, she pulls the fabric around your thighs and sinks to her knees.

If this were a different kind of story, maybe you would sweep her into your arms, and ride off into the sunset and find a cottage in the hills that overlooks the ocean and live happily ever after and raise a half dozen kids. Because surely, a girl like her - perfect and flawless and near regal in the way she carries herself, like something out of the pages of a fairytale - belongs anywhere but planted into the floor of your foyer, dragging your underwear down to your ankles.

If Heejin was anywhere but her knees, perhaps you two would fall into bed, where you’d leave her with all these sweet kisses that make her skin swelter and her voice choke at the way you’d press your lips to the hollow of her neck, her shoulders, her collarbones, and you wouldn’t even think of leaving marks or bruises. No, instead she’d whimper softly for you and the two of you could roll over to meet that simple conclusion.

Sure, you can always pretend like you don’t know what’s happening.

But that would make it a different kind of story, one painfully absent of Heejin’s tongue, placing a slow, measured lick right up the slit of your cock. Or fingers claiming your shaft, your balls, and pumping delicately toward your waist. Rising action unlike this pair of soft lips that purse and leave kisses down your length. A climax beyond releasing a load right into the back of that throat - which is only speculative in your thoughts for a second, because Heejin’s tightening her fingers around the base of your cock and dragging a smirk across her pretty face, “you should, like, totally cum in my mouth.”

“Right,” you answer, mouth drying; it’s a labor to even swallow.

Heejin runs a semicircle over her lower lip with her tongue, flattens it, presses it up against the belly of your cock, and looks up at you - eyes round like the angel she is, pupils dark as three am and every bit as impious. Oh, you’ll struggle enough with this story as it is.

“Fuck,” she says, one time, nearly breathless, and it almost sounds reverent, “I want it.”

Before you can get even a half decent reply forming on your lips, you watch Heejin’s jaw go slack, and sucking in a chestful of air, she seizes you deep in the warmth of her mouth.

There’s then a moment - excruciatingly drawn out - where Heejin sits near motionless, sinking further into the floorboards. Her lips are pressed tight into this seal around you as she takes it slow, a silent effort to become familiar with your taste, your shape.

A flutter of muscle between her cheeks, and the moment passes. Her lips relax, tighten, relax again before you feel her tongue. Sliding. Curling.

“I–” You sink forward against the door, abandoning whatever thought and allowing it to curdle into laughter, into this seedy moan that Heejin rips right out of your chest. Somewhere along the way, you’d figured that since you were more senior, more seasoned, more veteran in an industry full of girls whose looks might leave you for dead - girls who, with a little praise, and just the right amount of attention, would look up at you like you’d hung the stars, the moon and the sky - you figured Heejin would be in your hands, melting.

And then there it is, eager to point out your mistake: Heejin’s tongue, again. It slides delicately over your head, and when she sinks her lips further down your shaft, you can feel it narrow and tease at the base of your cock. Her eyes are closed, but you can see how they crescent, smiling undoubtedly in something like victory as she hums against you, delighted.

“Heejin,” you start, wanton, and you’ve got a fist in her hair, gentle in how you bundle it all between your fingers, experimental the way you push her mouth further into your hips. There are two delicate hands coiled around your slobber-covered cock in response - and then she starts to twist. You nearly fold and collapse and crumple under your own weight, gasping, “you’re killing me.”

Heejin raises her head from where she’s been hollowing her cheeks and covering you in her spit, vicious stick of precum staining her lips. Grins, because she knows.

“I am?”

You’re tipping your head back, sucking in your next breath. Bucking your hips into her fingers - all ten of them lathering spit and gingerly pumping your cock. Impossible to ignore, they brush and tease all the spots that send you reeling as though they were returning to something familiar, had done it a thousand times. You swallow, and Heejin’s eyes trace that quiver through your throat.

When it becomes clear that you’re not really in a state conducive to banter or ribbing any longer - the clever words out of your mouth now amounting to nothing more than a few four letter ones - Heejin just smiles, sloppy sounds of her fingers twisting around your cock, and she falls back into that deep tone, “you look so hot like that, by the way.”

You sigh, defeated, bunch more of her hair into your fist. And after Heejin pushes a fingertip to your slit, pulling the skin of your cock tight around it, your breath hitches, shuddering at the sight of Heejin playing with your precum between her fingers.

“Can you imagine?” she asks, pressing you to her cheek, “how good this is going to feel inside me?”

“Heejin,” you groan, worrying a lip between your teeth at how her light hands pump up and down your length, the precum weeping from your tip providing her fingers with that much more hazard in their touch. Your voice is stuck to your throat for a moment, grasping, “I want your mouth - on me.”

“Mmm.” She again has her tongue on the underside of your cock, velvety and slippery around your head. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You can feel it. Just the hot breath tumbled from her lips onto you alone reduces you to a bundle of nerves and coiled muscle. “I want more.”

“More what?” she asks, mulish, and a smile sneaks into the shadowy corner of her mouth.

“More - you.” It’s hardly even half a whisper.

Heejin has this quirk in her lips that stretches slowly against the tip of your cock, and her hands trace up your thighs, grabbing tight to the back of your ass. She nuzzles against you, and looks up, “then go ahead. Take me.”

Oh, you’ve had a crush before. The kind of thing that had your heart and mind racing; the kind of thing that would swallow up your time for weeks if you let it. So when you’re looking, gazing, watching this masterclass in showmanship: Heejin’s lips parting around you, her eyes smoldering into yours - that’s when the realization hits.

This is so much worse. You’re truly fucked.

Fingers thread tight into her hair, and you’re guiding Heejin’s mouth - hot and wet and perfect - onto your cock. Slow, measured, her lips slurp and seal. Near five-foot-nothing of pure sinful delight, and tossed locks of hair resting across her face where they shimmer in the darkness of your foyer, you slip your cock inside her. Press between those soft lips. It’s a voyage, enroute to heaven; then with your hips selfish and stealing more of that tight heat, it’ll be straight to hell. Inches, sliding and sinking, Heejin shuts her eyes and relaxes her muscles, jaw gone slack - grabs onto your thighs like you had any intention of being anywhere but the bottom of her throat.

“Fuck,” you hiss, and the next sound that comes out of you is practically a living thing, wild and animal and nothing close to voluntary.

Heejin’s mouth hangs wide and laxed for you to use, lips paradoxically tight, as you fuck your length over her tongue and deep into her mouth.The very prospect of asking for more is gluttonous, wicked and immoral, but here you are: thrusting your hips into her pretty face, pulling firm on her hair to keep the heat of her throat wrapped up around you.

“Mngh,” Heejin’s throat chokes the further you feed your cock into her - drag it back and bury into her again - strangled and straining, you can see the flush that floods her cheeks, the teardrops on the end of her long dark lashes, the unbelievable smile still in her lips.

All bets are off.

The pretense, the coy teasing, all that skirting about this clear predisposition toward fucking eachother senseless is further pummeled and ground to dust every time the tip of your cockhead punches the back of Heejin’s throat. And even beyond all that, Heejin holds firm to this composure, almost this plussed look of gratitude as you bruise soft muscle and steal the air from her lungs.

“Oh my god, Heejin,” you say, back arching into the space over the top of Heejin’s face, holding her head tight and fucking yourself on her lips. “Your fucking mouth.”

Triumphant, gloating, smugly humming into the spit-drenched skin of your cock, Heejin must realize she has you exactly where she wants you, trapped, fated: that under no circumstance are you going to unsheathe yourself from her throat until you’ve exploded and glazed it proper. She traces her fingertips down your thighs and hovers them about the hem of her dress, this bunched and furled mess of fabric at her thighs, pulls her panties to the side, and you can hear it - her fingers finding purchase in the mess between her legs.

You slide deep into her throat; she pushes two digits deep into her cunt; you’re both reduced to the basics, chests heaving out these small noises of frustration. It’s a behemoth struggle to even think, let alone coordinate said thoughts into anything resembling coherence - but the first thing that falls out of your mouth is born of sincerity.

“Fuck, Heejin, I… I’m going to cum.”

She nods, as best as she can, the length of your cock slotted deep into her throat. Any kind of concerns you may have harbored - all from fucking her face, and drawing small tears at the corners of her eyes - they evaporate the instant Heejin’s tongue reaches forward past her lips.

Just one lick, between your balls while she has your cock entirely inhaled, and it sends you careening off course, destination hardly unknown.

“I–” your voice fades. Because the tip of her nose is against your waist, her tongue is doing fucking everything - she’s killing you. It’s all coming down, you’re falling apart, breathing in fits and starts, fucking Heejin’s mouth hard enough that if you weren’t holding tight to her hair, you’d have thrown her off you.

“Heejin,” you growl, voice sliced to ribbons.

When you finish between her lips, every burst of cum that spills from your cock sends a tremor, twitching and quivering through Heejin’s lithe body, and then you can feel it in her throat, tightening around you.

“Mmph.”

“Fuck,” you gasp, uncontrollable.

“Mmmmph.”

Heejin makes this impressive, maybe futile effort to swallow it all down. Laudable, admirable, you’ve got it correct about her: anything less than perfection is tantamount to abject failure. With that, she struggles, her eyelashes flutter, and a strangled sound escapes her throat - choking and sputtering as you keep cumming, more than she can ever hope to take. It floods her mouth and spills from her lips to unveil this shiny streak that rolls down onto her chin.

Even though you’re still gasping and shaking and reeling from your orgasm, you recognize those taps against your hips immediately, how they beg for breath.

“Heejin, oh my god, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry,” you say, horrified as it all starts to return to you, and when it does, you jump backward, unsheathing your cock from Heejin’s mouth. Gaze drawn to that profane mixture of spit and cum that follows lazily in its wake.

She waves her hand at you wildly, realizes the gesture is probably not the most reassuring thing she could’ve done, and instead holds up a finger as if to say give me a second as she catches her breath.

Coughing a handful times and wiping her mouth with the edge of her wrist, she slumps backward. Hits the door, face flush and eyes sharpened like daggers, pointed, ready to kill. And the moment she’s certain you’re lucid, present in the image in front of you - that you belong to her again - it becomes performative: the way she presents you her tongue, the space beneath it filled and drowned with your cum - how she swallows it, that dry knot traveling dramatically down her throat.

“Jesus, fuck,” she stammers out, the loss of composure only transient and fleeting, “not bad for two guesses.”

The first time you fuck your cum into Heejin’s cunt, you don’t anticipate it. If you’d been perhaps a kernel less distracted, a trifle less overwhelmed by the scorching slick between Heeijin’s legs, you might have had the pleasure of calling the shots.

But this is where you’re at, melting beneath it: all her porcelain skin spilling onto you and her hands firmly on your chest, nails like claws, claiming you as her own.

She’d dragged you toward the sofa in your living room, made a one-off comment about how bad she needed you inside her and then kissed you hard. Of course, when you tumbled down into the cushions - still muddled in a half daze and caught off guard by the sheer pluckiness of it - Heejin had controlled the fall, making sure she was the one who landed on top.

“Look at you,” her voice is low, rasping, pitching when she crashes herself down onto you. Feels her pussy all full and creamed as she fucks herself with your cock. “Just relax, let me fuck you. You don’t have to do a thing.”

She has her ankles locked over your thighs, knees sinking into the cushions, and ardently rolls her hips, fucking your shaft - exceptionally sheened from her slick and every bit as hard - deep into her pussy. Hot, wet, unbelievably tight, it’s near immaculate. And it only grows unrighteous at the end of every frantic bounce from Heejin’s thighs. Because she’s tiny, legs muscled, abs chiseled to perfection - vivacious to the point of peril - and she’s riding you hard and fast and bringing you so near the proverbial edge that your fingerprints threaten to sear into her waist if not for the fabric of her dress twisted and stressing, surrogate in its place.

“Oh my fucking–slow down,” you breathe, fully enveloped by her heat. It has your nerves on fire, something wicked ablaze, begging for release, and with your teeth gnawing your lip, you throw your head back.

“Are you sure?” she says, and runs her hands through her hair. Hoists it off her shoulders, bundling it over head - the visual not particularly favorable to your condition. Her eyes dip across her cheeks and into yours when she decides to salt the wound. “This is slow.”

“Heejin, I’m serious. You're going to make me..." you start, a final warning, and at the sight of you disappearing between her legs, you’re struggling, pleading, “I swear… fucking cum inside you.”

Ruinous, pushing a callous boundary, she lifts herself up and seals your fate.

“Fuck.”

This is how she gets you. Seats herself on you again, pussy slicked all over your cock and the tip of her tongue flirting in the shell of your ear, “I know.”

To what extent god will believe your account of these events - how much you believe, in relating the story, hot with lust and adrenaline and the hapless self-doubting confusion of a psychotic who knows what they saw and is still able to dismiss it - is not clear.

Because look, it’s not as though you were unaware that the power had gone out.

There was a noticeably loud crack of electrical disaster, and in an instant, the lights of your apartment, the delicate details of Heejin’s naked body in front of you, and even the incessant buzzing of the refrigerator motor - the very thing on which you could always rely to ruin the sanctity of silence - it all vanished.

It’d be pretty difficult to miss.

Only, as it happened - mid stroke, thrusting deep into Heejin’s cunt and her tight body fucked flat into the cushions of the couch - finding the effort to care was simply a bridge too far.

It’s selfish, metastasizing into something wayward, playing the cards you’re dealt. Hands pushing Heejin’s tiny waist deeper into your furniture, and railing her reckless and abandoning all that teasing, the dirty talk - having finally managed to steal back control. It would take more than a force of nature to wrestle it away from you.

“Harder, please, harder,” Heejin rasps, seconds before you fuck her through her first orgasm. Her face sinks, voice flooded by the reality of your cock owning her tight cunt and vibrating through the cushion. “Yours, tell me - I’m yours.”

Without even thinking you do. Twice, punctuated each time by a sharp thrust of your hips into the perfect round of her ass.

Mine, you say. And it has her absolutely keening.

Pressing yourself into her, your voice in her ear makes her quiver and whimper, like it was the one thing she needed most to help her cum. Heejin just nods, mouth stuck agape, when you call her a total cumslut - near imperceptible when she does, bathed only in the pale moonlight reflecting off all the snow and into your apartment. It’s not necessarily the limits of what you’ve done, what you’ve seen, what you’ve said, but you can see it from here.

“Is this what you want?” you ask, and you can taste all this pleasure coating each word off your tongue as you rail Heejin harder into the sofa, your cock sweltering in the fucked wet mess between her legs. Each time you bore into her, push her higher and higher, it fills her with ecstasy fit to burst. She moans, this foreign sound of depravity, and raises her hips slightly, shifts the angle - has you stabbing deeper, teasing, “do you want me to fuck you like the little cumslut you are?”

She nods again.

“Do you want me to fucking fill you up over and over again? Do you want to feel my cum in your tummy? You’re crying, practically sobbing, darling. All because you’re finally getting fucked and it’s all for me. Can you cum like this? Is my cock pounding your cunt enough for you? Or do you need me to use my fingers too?”

Heejin whines. Knocked down a peg, the realization hits, and it’s clear as day, leaking out of her mouth all filthy and depraved:

“Daddy, please.”

It’s almost unbelievable that this is how it will come together; you deep in her cunt and the soft, milky skin of her ass stained red from the sheer delight Heejin finds only at the end of an open palm.

Biting ruthlessly into your cheek, you grip tighter to her waist, your other hand thread through her hair keeping her partially upright and ripping your name, curses, incoherence all from her mouth.

“Then just be good for me, princess.” Your words are pointed, serrated, seeking to maim, to kill - near as dangerous as the fingers you reach around her hips on onto her soaked cunt. “I’m going to fuck this cunt, you can cum whenever you like - I don’t care - I’m going to keep using it until I’m finished. Until you beg me to fill it again.”

(Okay, so maybe you’re not abandoning the dirty talk. But here’s how you see it: tables always have a way of turning. You’re not seeking revenge or anything like that, it’s just that when it comes to karma, she always arrives right on time and ever more the unexpected.)

It takes a substantial amount of shuffling around in the dark to clean yourselves up. Heejin’s dress is irreparably stained, totally fucked; sweat, saliva, your cum, hers - the kind of shit you’d be afraid to ever see under a blacklight - and you’re standing there, exerting just as considerable restraint to refrain from simply pinning Heejin against your closet door and having another go at her as she’s changing out of it.

So together, you’re settling into the darkness, finding a reprieve from fucking each other within an inch of your lives.

From a pitcher in the refrigerator, you filled two glasses with water, handed one to Heejin.

She gulps it down almost immediately, and when you trade yours for hers, she sips it slowly, watching the boisterous storm outside the window. The silence that follows is warm, comfortable, welcome, sits over you like a heavy blanket.

Every ten minutes or so, an emergency vehicle making slow progress through accumulated layers of ice and snow will illuminate the inside of your apartment with its bright hazard lights. And it’s only in that brief spill of yellow and orange through the window pane where you can see Heejin clearly.

Around her shoulders is a flannel shirt pulled off one of your hangers, buttons uneven and misaligned. When she had gotten her fingers to the final button and realized she was two short, she just shrugged and let the clothing drape skewed and diagonal over her tiny frame, sleeves hanging far off the end of her wrists. She managed to tie back this loose ponytail with a binder clip she found in your kitchen and it lets you study all the details of her face - without having to run your hand through her hair and hold it back: features elegant and simple, regal and composed, eyes brilliant and gorgeous. The kind of beauty that righteously demands a team of photographers poised for a perfect shot; she tilts her chin, puts a hint of suggestion in her lips, and they scramble to find the next one, all with the desperate intensity of a starving man gnawing at a bone.

“God. You’re really pretty,” you say, and only when it hits your ears do you realize it came out of your mouth.

Heejin just smiles, all genuine and natural. Points at the flashlight in your hand. “I think you’d get more light from a cigarette lighter.”

“Fuck, I know, I don’t have any more batteries.” You slap your flashlight against your palm, optimistic.

Not much more than a dull, pathetic glow escapes its lens.

“Maybe you can steal them from something else?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” you answer, “but everything just plugs into the wall these days, what all even still uses batteries?”

“If we were at my apartment, I’d just go take them out of Yeojin’s–”

She pauses, raises an eyebrow and twists her mouth cautiously, sinking into the sofa next to you. Finds your arm around her and folds her legs beneath her into something considerably more compact.

“Flashlight?” you ask, trying not to grin and sneer, “one of those flashlights with three speed settings?”

A single strand of hair falls in front of Heejin’s face. She blows it away and it stubbornly falls back into the exact same spot on her cheek.

“Promise me you won't write about this. It’s just… I have to tell someone.”

“My lips are sealed,” you tell her, with the unwavering confidence of someone she could trust - which pragmatically you aren’t, but you’re both looking past all that.

“So this box arrives in the mail one day, right,” Heejin starts, pulling a blanket over herself, “And Yeojin sprints from her room, to the door, back to her room again, so fast that Haseul’s barely finished flipping the page of her book when it all happens. She’s already so small that you blink and you miss her, and in a lot of ways that’s what happened.”

“So she’s back in her room, with the vibrator.”

“Hold on,” Heejin says, tucking her feet into the blanket. “So we’re sitting there in the living room; I’m texting someone, Haseul’s reading something - I can’t remember what, but probably some cheap parlor romance - and that’s when we start to hear it.”

“The vibrator.”

“No,” Heejin says, flicking her eyes back to yours again, “the moaning.”

“Of course.”

“Now, I’m not saying… Look, there’s nothing wrong with masturbation. What’s greater than having sex with the person you love most, right? That’s what I always say.”

“You always say that?”

“It’s a figure of speech, you smartass. Anyway, we’re both sitting there, trying our best to ignore it, but it’s hard because this city’s built on a fault line, and they build these places so cheap so that they can tear them down and start over again without thinking about it, so the walls are, like, paper thin, and then after a while, Yeojin just starts wailing. I’m not kidding, it sounded like someone was trying to kill her.”

“I mean, in a way.”

“Right.” Heejin nods, brows furrowed and letting the memory come back to her, “I look up at Haseul, and she just goes about her business reading on about the adventures of some lovable-probably-clumsy-pretty-but-not-too-pretty-girl meeting the billionaire of her dreams and having all this weird, freaky, earth-shattering sex or something - she doesn’t even say a word.”

“And what exactly is she supposed to say?” you ask, “hey, what’s that noise?”

“That would’ve been better than just sitting in there in silence! Ugh, honestly, the woman’s always got a chip on her shoulder about this kind of stuff. Like, she’ll show up on a Sunday morning, and her knees are bowed and still fucking wobbling (so you know she’s been getting it good. All that irreverent, mind-blowing sex), and she’ll still have the audacity to look at us all judgmental for not going to church or maybe because we’re coming home still wearing last night’s dresses and heels.”

By this point, you notice Heejin has committed fully - with neither shame nor remorse - to stealing your blanket.

“So, I swear to god, I’m going crazy. Haseul’s just sitting there, and I can’t stop listening to Yeojin sobbing and gasping like she’s getting the best fuck of her life, and it’s this thought that grows and grows and grows in my head. I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it. And then, every bit as sudden as it started, it just stops.”

“Good for Yeojin, I suppose.”

“Right,” Heejin says, gesturing with her hand, defeated. “When she finally comes out of her room, her face is so so so red. Like, it looks like the end of a girl’s night out - after we’ve cut her off for the night, and after she’s cried and cried about some cute boy at the bar missing all her patented mixed signals.” Heejin takes a brief look at you, then back out the window, and puffs a small breath out of her chest. “The only thing I can even think at that point is, Jesus, I need to get my hands on that thing.”

“Do you?”

Heejin holds her finger up like she’s scolding your impatience. “So fast forward a few days, I’m digging through Yeojin’s closet when nobody’s home - and let me tell you, it’s like deep space in there, things go in and disappear forever; the other day I heard Sandra Bullock hollering from inside - but eventually, by the grace of god, I find it.”

“The vibrator.”

“The vibrator,” Heejin finally repeats, “This toy is silver, and looks about what you’d expect: like Steve Jobs was tasked with designing a banana. Beyond that, it was so complicated I almost didn’t even use it. Oh, and it wasn’t anything discreet either; there was this light that flashed when you turned it on and it practically lit up the whole room, these O-shaped strobing signals you could use to direct incoming flights at an airport.”

“Maybe we wouldn’t need to steal the batteries,” you suggest, and it makes a smile grow into the corners of Heejin’s mouth. “How’d it go?”

“With the vibrator?” Heejin puts her finger to lip, tracing it in thought. “I mean incredible, game-changing.”

“Better than just now?”

“Different.”

“It’s okay, it’s the twenty-first century, I’m not going to try and compete with a machine here–”

“Different,” Heejin repeats sternly, and you’re willing to drop it. “Come on by sometime when no one’s home and I’ll show you.”

“It’s really coming down,” you say once as you gaze into the storm, somewhere in the hours of the night that belong to no one.

Heejin slips further into your shoulder, eyes off the darkness out the window, the snow whipping across its face, looking up at you like you were the most interesting thing in the world. “Wonder how long it’ll take for them to remove all this mess from the rails.”

“I’m no expert,” you answer, “could be days though.”

“Bummer,” Heejin says, lips forming a kiss onto your collarbone.

“Are you sure you’ve used this thing before?” Heejin asks, resting on her elbows at the kitchen counter and blinking pensively at the French press in your hands. She looked on skeptically while you’d dug it out from a cupboard beneath the sink.

“Yeah, of course I have,” you tell her, exuding your finest false confidence as you run it back; the thing has been sitting in that cabinet collecting dust since you took it home as a white elephant gift almost a year ago. Shameful too, when you start to consider how much money you’ve spent at the coffee shops near your office and your apartment.

Heejin stares into her mug, her face lit by broken sunlight and still wearing that same perfected look. Only now it’s slightly different: hair tousled - rogue locks falling across her face and into the corner of her mouth where she could chew on it if she wanted - skin pale, the beauty mark on her cheekbone dotting her expressions like punctuation, a lack of sleep just beginning to shyly reveal itself beneath her eyes.

“I can see the coffee grounds in this.”

“You asked if I’ve used it, not that I knew what I was doing.”

Her lips curl back, smile huge, holding down either a laugh or a smirk - there’s no way to know - and finally rest atop the rim of the mug. “It’ll have to do.”

Only it doesn’t. Neither of you manage to make it through an entire cup, burnt, acrid, running on undrinkable.

That taste of bitterness lingers long after you’ve swallowed, and fills your mouth again when you press your lips to Heejin’s. She should be taking a cab to the station, should be boarding a train, should be trying to hide how fucked the bottom of her dress had become, should be looking at her roommates smug and gloating when she walks through the door.

And you should be writing an article - about the girl you’ve seen wail and moan and sob on the end of your cock - who could just as easily turn it around, fuck you senseless like she has a knife at your throat. But this is borrowed time, an oddity, something like a glitch you figure, and you’re reaching under her thighs, pulling her into you like you’d simply hit an off switch on the responsibilities shadowed in your mind.

(You’re abandoning logic here because it’s the most natural thing in the world.)

There’s this reflexive quality to it, the way Heejin wraps her arms over your shoulders and legs around your waist as you lift her onto the counter. Sneaking into the space between long, soft kisses, she asks, grinning because she knows the answer, “If I'm stuck here, what are we going to do to pass the time?”

“I’m going to kiss you, probably.” Your answer comes before you find the shape of her impossibly narrow waist beneath an ocean of baggy fabric.

“Perfect,” Heejin says, voice carefree and charming and perfectly lilting, “and then what?”

“Then I’m going to get you all hot and wet and needy and you’re going to be begging for my cock.”

“You sound pretty confident about that.”

“Yeah. Guess I am,” you breathe into her neck, and it lands squarely on all this soft skin desperately in need of your lips.

She’s got a hand in your hair firm and grasping at you like she owns you - far less shy than the other at your waist, teasing the elastic of your shorts. “And then what?”

The wrong answer is anything that fails to mention ramming your cock in Heejin’s cunt or your face buried between her thighs and making her cum over and over. You laugh first, and then fail knowingly at the cross examination, “then I gotta get to work on that article, you know.”

Heejin lets out a sigh that could only ever be construed as disapproval. Palms the shape of your cock over your underwear. “Or.”

“Or,” you repeat. It’s her challenge. She can fill the space, continue the thought; you can’t get enough of hearing filth fall from her pretty lips while she looks at you all wide-eyed and perfect and like the princess you want to believe she is.

“You can take this cock of yours; the one I'm begging for right?” she says, fingers running down your underwear, rousing your length and finally cupping your balls. “You’re going to fuck me with it and fill me up with cum.”

“Cumslut.” It’s perplexingly endearing, and you brush your nose against hers, trace your thumb along her jaw, catch the swell of her lower lip on the tip of your finger.

Heejin smiles.

“Daddy,” she says almost cautiously, but immediately starts slipping these quiet little bits of laughter in the silence it creates. She’s yours, your hers, it’s all doomed and fated at this point, especially at this point - scribbled into cosmic law and her eyes holding you like they were made for the very purpose - you’re sure of it. “I’m not letting go of you until you fuck me.”

The heater has been off for hours, so the air in your apartment is frigid; simply getting out of bed was the kind of thing tibetan monks might do - walking across coals, self immolation, venturing out from beneath the warm covers in the morning, that kind of thing. And It has you perfectly content to take that bait in front of you, burying yourself deep in the scorching heat between her legs; turning her around, and doing it again. Making her cum like that and then letting your own orgasm drip out between her thighs.

“I’m not playing around,” Heejin says, having watched you laugh quietly to yourself about the absolute vice she has you in - and beyond the legs pulling you closer.

“One time,” you concede.

“Yeah.” Her hands pump your cock gingerly against your underwear, and Heejin agrees, “One time.”

It doesn't take long. You turn Heejin into this whimpering mess - her legs and hips suspended above the counter and ankles thrown over your shoulder. She falls apart, moaning still like it isn't slicing her voice to bits, all rasped and ruined, and you fuck her through her first orgasm. Her thighs shake and quiver while you fuck her through the second, railing into her cunt like it had insulted you.

“Fuck, that’s amazing,” Heejin pants, head rolling onto her shoulder, and her cheeks are so red you have to believe her. “Oh my god.”

She’d gotten only through half the buttons on her shirt before she became too cock-addled to figure out the rest, and it hangs ever so slightly off each of her dainty shoulders - agape enough for you to watch her small breasts jump every time you thrust into her.

Each long thrust into her heat has both your voices flooding, desperate. The way your thighs slap together all wet and raw only adds to the scene - this fucking filthy score of moans, curses, sex. It’s probably always been your instinct to pound like this: reckless, careless, selfish - and here Heejin is, begging for it.

“Go ahead,” she says, eyes lidded, still catching her breath, and it’s the most seductive thing you’ve ever heard, “I need you - fucking use me, fucking take me - need you to breed me.”

(It’s hot, you think. Maybe you’ll ask about it later. Maybe you won’t.)

So yeah, you cum.

It’s one of those eye-clenching, blood-boiling, ear-ringing, teeth-gnashing orgasms that has you making a groan so inhuman, so broken and unbecoming, that it has Heejin laughing in response. She’s patting your sides, lips planted on your neck, cooing while your cock continues to ache and pump cum into her wet, fucked hole.

“What was that?” you ask, breath hitching and your body sinking into those light arms wrapped around you.

“What was what?” She’s got it so casual, so carefree, still so utterly charming - it makes you feel as though you were the one who’d said something out of place.

“Um. Don’t worry about it.”

Oh, it’s probably written in the stars, this mess between you, orbiting, circling, bound and tied: not even a half hour later, she leans over the sofa where you’ve set up with your laptop, kisses you once, and you’re reduced to nearly nothing but the kind of desire that will curdle into lust and threaten to eat you from the inside out should you refuse to yield to it.

“Really. I can’t. Not now.” It’s bravery or something. You’re lionhearted and incredible and you deserve a pat on the back.

Eyebrows knitted, she pouts at you when you explain once again that you have work to do, those pretty pink lips downturned into obvious disappointment, and you almost, very nearly give in.

Heejin pulls a book from your bookshelf four times, flips through it and rejects it, before finally settling on an architectural survey of Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest hits (you’d also received that in a white elephant exchange).

There’s a photograph of Fallingwater on the front, and Heejin licks her fingers each time she turns the page.

She lands on the sofa next to you, lying long ways with her head resting on the padding of its arm, the same one you’d buried her face into less than twelve hours ago, and the two of you do technically manage to fit, only her feet cram into you and stab sharply into your thigh.

“You, uh, a big architecture person?” you ask, sparing a glance from your laptop to the girl nesting into the cushions beside you.

“Not in the slightest,” she answers, “I’m just bored to tears because someone would rather play with their computer than play with me.”

You give her a more pointed look, probably more akin to the attention those beautiful eyes of hers deserve. “I’m telling you: my editor will hang me from the rooftop if I don’t get this thing in her hands by Monday.” “That seems extreme.”

“Hey, that’s why she gets her salary and I get mine. I’m not paid willing to commit a murder money.”

She holds back a laugh, and leans forward, pulling her knees to her chest. “So what you’re saying is you’re a procrastinator, and I’m the one who gets to suffer for it.”

“Yeah, and you’re blameless after all.” You rake your fingers through your hair, running the past twenty-four hours through your head. “It doesn’t help that we’ve been at it like rabbits.”

“Like what?”

“Like rabbits.”

“Like what?” she asks again, this huge toothy grin stretching across her soft lips.

“Keep it up, go ahead,” you answer, shaking your head, “and who knows, you might just get what you’re asking for.”

When the power flicks back to life in your apartment, Heejin stands in the doorway to your living room and flips the wall switch off and on a few times. She has her hand on her chin, as though she’s musing and considering what all the value of electricity might bring - near a hundred of years of civilization now at her fingertips - and you have no idea that she’s about to rip you away from your work with four simple words:

“Wanna take a shower?”

You tilt your chin over the screen of your laptop, and logically, you reek of sex and sweat. Every now and again, you’ll scratch your nose or hold your hand over your mouth and you can still smell Heejin’s slick on you, stuck to you, its indomitable linger.

Heejin simply stares at you like she knows you're hers.

And if you’re thinking logically, you’re making progress faster than you expected on this article, words hitting the page and flowing freely. Logically, it would be near criminal for Heejin to be in your shower, her petite body all soapy, slippery and glistening, and you not there to see it, touch it, fuck it until she’s cumming and moaning your name and the sound of it echoing off all that tile–

“Yeah,” you say, clam-shelling your laptop and tossing it aside, “sure.”

There’s a certain quality about the renewed coyness, this sense of competitive playfulness, perhaps something diffident brewing between you, Heejin, and the four walls of your shower.

Leisurely, you both wash as though you’re not dying to jump one another's bones, like you’re both not reliving each and every orgasm on some sort of highlight reel played back through your thoughts.

Water falls to the ground in heavy spurts, loudly splashing after it pools and rolls off your bodies. And inside that cloud of steam, wrapped around you both like a blanket, Heejin catches you staring at her perfect figure just one too many times.

“I’m just cleaning,” Heejin says, voice grasping at its highest register, and she wraps her fingers around your cock. “So, you know, don’t get too excited.”

You’ll spin it around, turn on it’s head, get your fingers gliding along her slippery pussy all the same, and you’re right there with her, saying, “Right, just cleaning.”

“Imagine that.” Heejin’s pumping your shaft, perfecting it with this twist at the end that has you roused and ready and aching for more. “You spend all day, playing hard to get, and I just had to touch you?”

“Who says I’m going to fuck you?” you ask, a little too breathless, a little too obvious of a lie. Heejin presses forward and presses her lips to your chest, little kisses trailing across it.

“Fuck it, me, I’ll say it.” She wraps tight around the head of your cock, squeezing tight and making the water between her fingers squelch. “You’re going to fuck me. You’re going to press me up against this glass, and you’re going to fuck me.”

Heejin’s eyes light up when you smile, laugh because it’s true, and pull her up into your lips.

It’s not particularly a great kiss. It’s maybe a little too wet, far too much tongue, a little mean, but it sets the stage: when you’re cock is finally lined up between Heejin’s lips, teasing - relentless you might add - and her tiny body is pressed so hard into the glass that your only lament is that you can’t see how it looks from the other side.

You slowly enter her cunt, so slow it makes Heejin whine and groan, and you flirt your lips against her ear, “ask for it.”

“Fuck. Give it to me,” she spits, and you can feel her open wider for you when she does. “I need you to fuck me, please, please, fuck me. Or I swear–”

You never hear what’s on the end of that threat, because she doesn’t get the chance to tell you that you fucking better, that she’ll kill you if you don’t fill her up and make her cum, that it’s the literal end of the world if your hard cock isn’t buried so deep in her cunt that she sees stars.

She doesn't get the chance because you’re pushing into her, fast and hard and all at once.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” her voice shakes, curses starting to flow like you’d ruptured a vein. She turns her head, cheek flush with the shower door so that you can see how her eyelashes flutter every time a stroke hits hard against her ass.

It’s intense. It’s calculated. Passionate and uncontrollable. You’ve become so full of contradictions that it has you ready to burst, explosion imminent. You don’t even need to hold onto her hips, because she’s fucking you, jerking her hips back and forth and fucking herself full of your cock - liberating your hands to reach up her sides, gather soap and water and sweat beneath your fingerprints, hold tight to her firm breasts while you bury your face in the soft skin of her neck.

When she collapses to her knees, legs wobbling and pussy quivering off your cock, she doesn’t even say anything. Simply turns and takes you into her mouth, stroking and sucking you until you can’t take it, that fucking tongue reaching all over and spelling out your end–

“Yeah,” you croak, the word some sort of lifeline, a warning, “Heejin, I–”

She pulls you out, lips smacking, and with three words does more damage than you thought she was ever capable:

“On my face.”

It only takes a few pumps from her hand, her tongue still harassing the belly of your cock, and when she flattens it, opens her mouth wide and ready for a mouthful of cum, she has you simply acting on instinct.

It’s certainly novel, what you’ve just done. It’s in her eyes, it’s on her cheeks, you fucking cum so hard there’s strands of it stuck in her hair and stained to the glass behind her.

“Jesus,” you say, rolling back into the stream of hot water, cleansing your soul of sweat, of cum, of sin, “I just came on your face.”

Heejin smiles, eyes shut like her life depends on it, and puts a hand out expectantly, “yeah, so give me a fucking washcloth.”

“I don’t know, I guess I don’t really have any,” you tell Heejin in the breath after she’d asked you what your kinks are.

She leans forward, wipes at the steam covered mirror until you can see her reflection raising an eyebrow at you. “Really,” skeptical.

“I mean, seriously, is that really so hard to believe? I get off to pretty girls. You got me. What a villain I am.”

“Anal,” she says, turning to you and leaning against the vanity counter. Her face is still flushed and you can see the faint outlines of your palms and fingers on her chest, but she seems sincere about it - whatever it is.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think about it?”

“About anal?” You set down your razor, towel off your face. “Sure, why not, but I’m not going to sit here and say it’s my kink.”

Heejin threads her fingers under your chin, along your jaw - admires the fleetingly smooth skin that she might only ever find at the end of a shave, and cocks her head. “Threesomes?”

You laugh at the question, the sheer absurdity of it. “Are you asking or inviting?”

She toys with her fingernail between her teeth before she answers, “asking.”

“Well it depends. Who’s in it?”

“Me,” Heejins says, and she’s got her brows quirked; settles this huge predatory grin into her expression.

She holds her lips next to yours - never quite kisses them - wraps her arms around your neck, shuffles a little and moves so that she’s straddled between the counter and your waist. She shimmies her hips and you almost groan, because now you recognize it: that’s Heejin’s shimmy. The silly little thing she does whenever she’s asking for sex without having to ever actually say the words.

“It’s a promising start. Who else?”

“You,” she says, flatly a matter of fact.

“Mhmm, okay, maybe I'm in.”

“Honestly, more than anything...” Heejin’s voice trails, and her lips pucker. “I just want to see you buried in Haseul’s ass.”

“Okay then, maybe I’m back out.”

“Sleep on it maybe. Do you wanna know mine?

You recognize the caution filling your throat, and then promptly being neglected when you ask, “Is it breeding?”

Heejin just smiles, laughs like it isn’t incriminating. Her lips come close to your earlobe, you think she’s going to lick it or bite it or god knows what, but somehow it’s worse:

“I just fucking love your cum.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be–”

You’re not annoyed with her; it’s just that yesterday night was when the trains started moving again, and now it’s almost five o’clock on a Sunday and you’re wondering when this particular journey comes to an end, if it comes to an end. There should be a credit scroll, a fade to black, some sort of keystone to socket in place, you figure, and you’re asking what should be an obvious question.

“–or at least some place you can get yourself a proper pair of pants.”

Leaning over the back of the sofa, eyes scanning your laptop, Heejin ignores the question entirely.

Year of the Rabbit: Heejin, the girl next door, only farther away than next door.

Sometimes she’s blonde but dark at the roots, sometimes she’s tall but only with the help of certain shoes. She’s everything, anything she ever wants to be.

When she first sat down, she wandered into the interview like a second semester-senior, not only at ease with the system, but a little beyond it.

“Hold up, what the hell is this title?” she asks, pointing to the top of your document. “You’re so far up your own ass there’s even a colon right in the middle of it.”

“It’s a work in progress,” you say as you slouch into the sofa, “and besides, the beauty comes out in the edits.”

“I certainly hope so,” she says, worrying the corner of her lip between her teeth, and fixing her eyes back on you. “I was planning on staying for dinner.”

“Of course you were.”

You decide, possibly against your better judgment, to walk Heejin back to the train station.

Although the city had resurrected itself, like Lazarus after a party where the guests had run out of wine (you’re not totally sure about this one), and started to put all its miserable pieces back together, the sidewalks are still a total fucking mess. You’re both there trodding along, navigating through the absolute, dreadful shitslop of snow and dirt when Heejin asks, “You’ll call, yeah?”

“Sure,” you answer, like it was in your power to resist the very idea of it.

“Hey. After all, if you don’t, I know where you live.”

You point in the direction of the turnstiles. “Mildly threatening.”

“I could always wait in the bushes.”

You agree, tugging gently on a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. “You absolutely could.”

#heejin smut #loona smut #male reader #loona heejin smut #kpop fanfic #kpop smut

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

Text

Every Glance A Step Closer

Prompt: Glances | AO3 link here. Connect with me on Twitter. Happy SS Month everyone! 🌸🍅🥗 @ssskmonth

“This one barely goes out of her laboratory. I swear to god she smells like formaline.”

“He smells like the dust and cobwebs in the library. I cannot even pronounce what he’s doing – archi…something. I just know he handles lots of old papers and books. B-o-r-i-n-g.”

“So anyway, Haruno Sakura meet Uchiha Sasuke.”

This was her one free day in her experiment period week, but she needed to steam off for a night and so she allowed her friend to tug her along for a chill night drink. What Sakura didn’t expect was to socialize with a small group of people in their year and to suffer the cold indifference of the guy in front of her.

To her another surprise, he held out a hand to her. “Hello there.” She took it, slightly conscious whether she used her formaline-cancelling hand lotion. A brief and firm shake and he quicky turned away.

“Sasuke finally speaks.”

“That hello sounded a little spicier.”

“Oh my, that hand holding definitely had some electricity.”

The cajoling and teasing finally stopped when the first round of beers came in. Local university gossip was the go-to conversation opener, from the open secret student-teacher relationships to recent couple break-ups. It eventually led to Sasuke and his list of confessions.

“I heard you turned down Mio from fashion design department.”

“No way. I heard she was approached by Celine for a gig.”

“Really Sasuke? That makes her the fifth girl you dumped for this week alone.”

“You never actually had a girlfriend, did you?”

Sakura stared at him doe-eyed, genuinely curious of his answer. He returned her gaze and raised one brow. “I have high standards.”

Oh wow, what a douche, Sakura thought. Hoots erupted in their table but only for a few seconds. While the drinking and the exchanges went on, Sakura found herself wanting to go home early. She was bored and her neck was tired from not looking at him. Under the guise of stretching her already strained neck, she stole a glance, hoping to have a brief moment to take in all of his features and remember his face.

But he was already looking at her. His eyes went to the door of the restaurant then back to her. Bored? He mouthed.

Sakura looked at the door, knowing perfectly what he meant. She chugged her supposedly last bottle of beer and made a small gap with her thumb and index finger. He caught her signal and started to stand up. Their group was tipsy enough not to notice their sudden movements as they shuffled out of the door.

She halted after a few steps, Sasuke’s figure already paces in front of her, wondering whether she should say goodbye or just walk towards the opposite direction back to her apartment. She didn’t think too much of it and quickly chose the latter.

She had to get ice cream first though, a sugar rush to help jolt her senses awake. She was choosing between chocolate and strawberry when a large figure stood beside her.

“A vanilla one, please,” Sasuke said, looking smug with his hands both in his pockets. “Your treat.”

Sakura felt weirded out by the fact that he actively kept on engaging her. His reputation preceded him, but she decided to humor him for tonight. “So library science and you’re an archivist.”

“Intern archivist actually. So you actually know me.” There was arrogance in his voice that made Sakura almost choke on her ice cream.

“Process of elimination. There is no male major in our year in the History department.” She glanced at him and saw that smug look slowly transition into a slight flush of embarrassment. Cute.

“And what if it was a hobby?” Sasuke fiddled with his still unopened vanilla ice cream.

“There was a job posting in the bulletin specifically calling for Library Science students.” Their feet led them to the park still bustling with university night life and settled on a bench under the canopy of a fully bloomed dogwood tree. “See, I’m not your admirer.”

“Well, that’s a downer,” he smirked.

They talked like that for a while, fleetingly exploring related topics to their degree programs, the usual prominent teachers, the busy schedules, until Sakura finished her chocolate and strawberry popsicles. It was on her way home, finally this time, that she realized he never ate his ice cream.

--------------------------

She next saw him on their building’s rooftop with a group of friends, a piece of unsmoked cigarette in between his fingers. He quickly met her eyes, did a brief nod, and looked away. She inadvertently expected more than that but she wasn’t here for a smoke break, and it wasn’t her intention to take it further. She was here for a quick getaway from her microscope and to appreciate the city view dotted with the flowers of spring.

He kept glancing her way, however. He would be in the middle of a conversation and his eyes would stray to her, and she would catch it in her periphery, trying not to notice it. She got tired after a few repetitions of this, and the next time he glanced, she caught his gaze.

Stop it, she mouthed.

I’m bored, he mouthed back. Walk with me. His fingers mimicked the gesture, his fingers walking in the air.

She put her hands together and slightly bowed in apology. Next time, she winked at him before running back to her laboratory, a small smile painted on her lips.

--------------------------

It became like this for the next few weeks; they conversed through glances and awkward gestures whenever they were in public with their friends. When it was time to come home, they would walk in separate ways and meet again in the park under the same dogwood tree and they would converse for hours. It was mostly Sakura word-vomiting about her experiments while Sasuke would look at her with abandoned fascination.

“Stop doing that,” Sakura called him out one time.

“Stop doing what?” Sasuke asked, his ember eyes never leaving her face.

“You stare too much I feel like I’m melting.”

Sasuke made a small grunt and wore his hoodie over his head to mess with her more. He waved his hands on both sides of his face, and she immediately understood the reference of a horse having its blinders on. “Good because usually I’m the one being stared at.”

Sakura reached out to his hoodie and tightened the strings around his neck. “You’re hopeless.”

He leaned forward, almost touching her lips, his face still between her palms. “Hmm, maybe I am.”

Sakura moved away just as quickly as he moved into her personal space, a hot flush creeping to her cheeks. She hated this particular situation since blushing always made her look like a cherry tomato.

“Cute.” Sasuke apparently said his thoughts aloud because he was taken aback the moment she glanced back at him. “Cool, I said cool.”

She laughed this off just as he completely covered his face inside his hoodie.

--------------------------

She visited the basement section of the library for reference materials. Her writeup was due tomorrow and she was missing a section on historical evolution of vaccines and dosages for the viral DNA she uncovered. The small library slip in her hand, she made her way to the dimly lit rows on Biology. The shelves were twice taller than her, but there were spaces in between stacked books.

Would make it very easy to spot a ghost, Sakura chided to herself. A shadow moved along the row adjacent to the Biology section, but she dismissed this as the library staff. Her fingers traced the spines of ragged books and examined the list of recommended titles in her hand. When she raised her head, ember eyes stared back at her between the spaces of the opposite row.

Hi, Sasuke mouthed. He glanced around and seeing no one, he whispered, “Can I come over to your side?”

She found it hard to stop her grin from rising. “More eyes, the better.”

It took only a few minutes for Sasuke to find all the titles in her list, but they littered around, walking in between shelves, taking one random book and flipping its pages, stopping when they find something interesting. When heavy footfalls were heard on the stairs, Sakura inclined her head, gesturing she needed to go.

Sasuke seemed to misunderstand as he pulled her through the sleeve of her cardigan to the area further behind the room, and as the shadows grew darker, and the noise became more muted, she heard the racing beat of her heart.

Finally reaching the wall, Sasuke slumped to the floor and patted the space beside him. Sakura followed suit, consciously leaving a space between them as she was slowly becoming hyper-aware of their proximity.

“How are you faring so far? Done with the requirements?” Sasuke asked, his voice low but audible enough for her.

Sakura nodded, and after beat, rolled her eyes at him. “Shouldn’t you be out there assisting others?”

“I believe you need more immediate help.” Sasuke pulled his knees in to rest his chin on and trained his eyes on her. “Sakura.”

“Sasuke.”

The longest minute of silence hung between them, tension strung by the stare, until Sakura broke it off with her eyes shifting to the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Flirting,” he said like it’s a matter-of-fact. “This is what they usually do to me.”

“And what should I do?” She let the words roll out of her mouth, unsure why she asked, uncertain also of what he felt. She met his gaze again.

And in that moment, he just sincerely looked at her. “Flirt back.”

--------------------------

Sakura was done for the school year. She will be officially graduating in a month, and to celebrate, she went out with their group for a sem-ender discotheque clubbing. She was gonna shoot her shot for a one-night stand with literally anyone who had chemistry with her – haha she was just kidding. As this seemed to be the final cap-off to her university life, she went all out with her clothes Sakura-style – basically a boxy cropped tea, high waisted jeans, and old heels her best friend gave to her in pity.

This was actually her first club experience, but she was glad to be with veteran friends. The first few minutes inside a closed space with bass boosted, unfamiliar crowds, and lots of skinship made her very uncomfortable. Her only reprieve was the free-flowing drinks – ironically she can handle alcohol well. The disco lights would have made it difficult to spot faces, but she found him in the dark, on the corner directly across her group, his eyes already glued on her.

She wondered if he ever forgave her for scrambling out of his presence in the reference section last time, explicitly avoiding his request to flirt back. It seemed like she worried for nothing since Sasuke raised his glass to her and mouthed congratulations. She raised her glass back, resolving to mind her own business tonight. But he kept looking, a smirk etched on his beautiful face, urging her to meet him halfway.

She didn’t need to look for an excuse as her friends suddenly pulled her into the harmless mosh pit of friendly grinding. Sakura allowed herself to move to the beat, enjoying the bubble offered by the club to lose herself for a few seconds. But she kept glancing towards his direction, his eyes looking for her in the mass of bodies. At first, the glances were mischievous, like playing hide-and-seek, then they held gravity, heavy lidded and palpable.

Sasuke was impatient, and soon enough, at her next spin on her heels, he was right behind her, his hands hovering over her arms, seeking consent to touch. Sakura turned to face him, one part shy, other parts unnerved, and she slowly encircled her arms around his neck, her eyes a definite yes. His hands went to her waist, and he brought her closer to his embrace.

“You don’t have your hoodie though,” Sakura said, a little louder over the crooning of Carly Rae Jepsen to Gimmie Love. “Someone will definitely see you.”

Sasuke closed whatever distance was between them and brought his lips to her ears. “That’s a relief then. I want to be seen with you.”

“Simp,” Sakura teased. “You’re probably expecting a confession out of me, aren’t you?” This was a long time coming and she wanted to get it over with tonight especially when she had alcohol buzzing on her side.

“I am actually,” Sasuke said. “I was hoping to beat you to it in the library last time, but you ran away. Coward.”

“What?”

“What? Didn’t you hear me?”

“You like me.” Sakura said in realization. She edged her face away from his hold to take a good look at his embarrassed face. “Oh, you really do.”

“You could be dense sometimes, Sakura.” Sasuke poked her forehead playfully, and he was rewarded with a bubbly laughter from her.

Their friends finally noticed them and the intense skinship happening. The yells and woots started to drown out the speakers.

“That took you two long enough, huh?”

“They really waited for the end of the school year to do their big reveal.”

“As if the whole school doesn’t know already.”

“What?” Sasuke and Sakura asked in unison.

“It was the constant eyesmex.”

“Really, they do it every time with no shame. It gives me secondhand embarrassment.”

“Right? Sometimes I think I need to yell get a room.”

“Maybe they’ll get a room tonight.”

“Oh my god, shut up."

🌸 It's my first time participating actively for SS Month so please go easy on me haha. Work is loosely inspired by Nevertheless webtoon (which now has a Netflix adaptation). Hope you enjoyed reading!

#ssm21 #sasusaku month #sasusaku #ssm21d1 #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #sasuke #sakura #fanfic #anime fanfiction

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julies-butterflies · 3 years

Note

“I can tell you’re upset. Do you need anything right now?” for (platonic) Alex and Reggie?

cuddle dialogue prompts ( accepting!! ) ( read on ao3! )

Alex’s friends don’t come over to his house anymore.

It’s a weird change, because they used to. Bobby’s garage has always been home base, but the boys used to go over to Luke’s or Alex’s just as often; and when things at Luke’s started to get weird, tense, like a powder keg on the verge of erupting, Alex’s doors were always open. His parents were friendly, if a bit overbearing. They didn’t even seem to mind the mess his friends brought with them, or the noise, or the inevitable chaos; they just liked seeing Alex hang out with other “boys his age”. Their cabinets were always well-stocked with Girl Scout cookies, and Alex’s little sister (the aforementioned Girl Scout) was a pest, in a way he didn’t really mind.

The guys seemed to... like it at his house, for some reason — and yeah, that filled his chest with bubbles and made him feel like coming off the high of a drum solo. Alex liked to be liked. He liked that his place could be somewhere his friends felt safe... even if they all conscientiously toned down the casual physical affection when Alex’s parents were around.

Ever since he came out, though... things have changed.

Everything’s changed, and his friends not coming over anymore is the least of it.

The biggest change is, he’s no longer welcome at church. Pastor Hamilton made that very clear with his final sermon — a fire and brimstone rant against the ‘sins of sodomy and perversion’. Alex sat there for an hour, boiling in his own skin, as the eyes of the rest of his congregation bore into him. He couldn’t get out of the building fast enough... and after that, swore never to go back. He wouldn’t be welcome, anyways.

There was no chance of his parents missing the yearly church retreat, though — and Christina has been looking forward to a camping trip for ages, so Alex doesn’t resent how eagerly she clambered in the family station wagon. She barely waved goodbye, too busy cramming her bags in the trunk; his parents, predictably, didn’t say anything at all. They trust Alex not to burn the house down in their absence, at least, so he’ll consider that a compliment.

Alex almost wishes he was bothered. If he were — if such blatant rejection from his family actually stung, if he could stew in his own hurt feelings and resent how quickly they pulled out of the driveway — then maybe it would actually matter. (Maybe it’d mean he’s a good son after all.)

Alex is a lot of things, though, but he’s never been good at lying to himself.

An entire weekend home alone, with no one but the dogs to keep him company? Honestly, it sounds like heaven.

By nine o’clock at night, he’s well and truly deep in this teenage rebellion thing. He’s got Sixteen Candles queued up on the DVR, has his legs up on the sofa, a bowl of popcorn in his lap, and an entire bottle of Fanta threatening to stain his mother’s precious white carpet. There’s something to be said for living on the edge; he relishes every second of doing something forbidden, fueled by the thought of his parents’ faces if they could see him. Just imagining their horror is sweet; almost as sweet as Molly Ringwald’s bubblegum-pop fashion statements.

The night stretches before him like a promise, calm and comfortable. He’s free to be himself in his own home. It shouldn’t feel as amazing as it does, because it shouldn’t be a novelty... but considering nowadays, Alex feels more like an intruder, he’ll take what he can get.

His first sign of anything amiss is the sound of barking from the front hall. Alex sits up, dislodging the bowl of popcorn from his lap. He scrambles to catch it before it can go everywhere. After a few more seconds of fumbling, he pauses the movie, and springs to his feet.

“You guys! I swear —“

As he trudges into the foyer, he’s thoroughly unsurprised at what he finds. Zoey, giant maniac that she is, is literally bouncing off the front door. She hits, rebounds, and is immediately back at it, scratching at the wood and barking her head off. A few steps behind her, Cooper hovers, his tail hung low. When he spots Alex, he lets out a relieved whine, and paces a circle around the foyer. Alex — who gets it, really, weird noises at the door are even more nerve-wracking than surprise phone calls — gives him a soothing scratch on the head. Cooper glues himself to his side, and Alex keeps one hand on his collar as he steps towards the door.

“Someone out there, girl?”

Zoey hurls herself bodily against the front door. She hits like a wrecking ball. From the other side, Alex hears a noise — somewhere between a gasp and a “Whoa!”

He knows for a fact he didn’t order pizza; the neighbors are the “keep to yourselves” types; and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are like reverse vampires, never seen outside of daylight hours. There shouldn’t be anyone at the door. A shiver of anxiety runs down Alex’s neck… but it’s drowned out by irritation at just how loud Zoey’s being. “Hey, hey,” Alex exclaims, hauling her back as she makes another jump towards the door. “Cut it out! Get outta here!”

He’s too busy wrestling with the dogs to be nervous when he throws the door open. (Worst case scenario, he can just let go of their collars, and sic them; let the dogs drown any potential burglars to death in kisses.) The face that greets him on the other side is… unexpected.

“Heya!” Reggie pulls his hand back from the doorknob, and offers a tiny wave. “What’s up, man?”

Zoey answers the question with a running leap.

Reggie’s ready for her. He hits the deck, arms open wide — and when she barrels him over, his whoop of delight rings through the quiet neighborhood. Alex grits his teeth, glancing anxiously around the street. His neighbors mind their own business, but that doesn’t mean they want to be disturbed in the middle of the night; this isn’t Reggie’s neighborhood, where sirens and bonfires are raging at all hours. Of course, though, Reggie has no concept of quiet… and he loses all self-control whenever dogs are involved. He’s too busy rolling around on the porch, ambushed by two giant golden retrievers, to notice anything else.

Alex leans against the doorframe, taps his feet, and sighs. He’s just starting to examine the calluses on his palms when Reggie finally emerges from the literal dogpile. “I know it’s late — I woulda called first, but — aaah, Zoey, that tickles!”

His screeches ring out like sirens, and Alex’s neighbors are definitely going to call the cops if this keeps up. Alex has to cut in. Wrestling one dog back inside, and then the other, he hauls Reggie to his feet just as swiftly. “Come in then, quick,” he mutters. “Did you come here exclusively to steal my dogs?”

“Alex, I swear, you’re the one I wanted to see the most. Stealing your dogs is just... a fun side quest.” Reggie strides in like he owns the place. As the door closes behind him, he glances around the foyer. “Home alone, huh?”

“Yeah,” Alex replies. “It’s been fun.”

“I bet.” Reggie dodges another jump from Zoey, nearly tripping over Cooper. The dogs both recognize him, even though it’s been ages since he was last here; animals and Reggie get along like pizza and pepperoni. If he really wanted to steal the Mercers’ dogs, it wouldn’t be a challenge. Thankfully, Reggie’s parents have a hard and fast “no pets” rule, and stick to it. (Reggie was able to hide an injured squirrel in his closet for a whole three weeks before anyone caught on — after it got loose, chewed through the wires of the family TV, and wreaked havoc in the kitchen. His parents still don’t know how it got in the house, but Reggie spent weeks mourning the loss of his “Beloved Frank”.)

As Reggie hits the ground on his knees, enthusiastically petting both dogs at once, Alex tucks his hands into his pockets. He’s not used to feeling nervous around his best friends… but suddenly, he’s on unstable ground, unsure of what to do. It’s just Reggie… but it’s Reggie in his house, where Alex’s friends, Alex’s life, are no longer welcome. It’s just Reggie showing up in the middle of the night, without any warning… and he’s acting fine, sure, but this also isn’t like him. Alex’s instincts are thrumming with a sense of wrong, wrong. He can’t help frowning as he steps back, watching his friend play.

Reggie feels his gaze. He ignores it.

“Who’s a good girl? Oh, yeah, you’re the best girl, yeah —“

Alex clears his throat. Reggie ignores that, too.

“Come on, Cooper, gimme a kiss — there you go! Did ya miss your old pal Reggie? I missed you!”

Enough is enough. Alex turns to the switch on the wall. The foyer is suddenly flooded with bright light, sparkling through the crystal fixtures overhead. Reggie falls back and blinks rapidly, entire face scrunching up against the glare. When his eyes adjust, he finds Alex crouched at his side.

“Not to be all ‘what are you doing in my house, Reg’, but…” Alex reaches over and pats Cooper’s head. “What are you doing here?”

Reggie’s blank stare lingers on him for a beat too long— a quarter of a second, but still, it’s the only giveaway Alex needs.

“Just visiting! I knew you were home alone… figured you might want some company.” His friend grins, like everything’s normal, just another wild antic in the life of Reggie… but Alex knows better.

“Okay, that’s real generous, but…”

He drags the word out for a few seconds too long. Somehow, his brain gets stalled on Reggie’s face; the strain at the edges of his smile, the dark circles under his eyes. His eyes are a little puffy — he’s been crying. He holds onto Zoey, not just like he’s happy to see her, but like he needs her — needs something soft and comforting to ground him.

Reggie rode his bike all the way to Alex’s house in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t have done that without a good reason.

Alex sighs, and scratches behind Cooper’s ears. When he looks back up at Reggie, his smile is small, but Reggie’s clearly reassured by it nonetheless. “Yeah, you’re right. Things were getting pretty lonely around here.” Alex nudges his shoulder. “You feel like some popcorn?”

Reggie bounds to his feet. “Always!”

“We can finish watching the best John Hughes movie, and then I’ll generously give you next pick…”

Reggie’s no fan of the classic 80s teen romances, but he’ll suffer through them for Alex’s sake. Alex, in return, has seen Star Wars fourteen times. He honestly couldn’t care less about defending the galaxy, or whatever Mark Hamill’s trying to do with the long stick and the gross robes… but it makes Reggie happy, and for that, it’s worth it.

So he’s surprised when, instead of insisting on A New Hope, Reggie buries his face in Alex’s most comfortable blanket, and murmurs something Alex barely catches.

“What?” Reggie doesn’t answer. “Dude, you’ve got to speak up, I can’t — did I not tell you to keep the popcorn in your mouth?” He snatches a few kernels out of Reggie’s lap before they can fall into the cushions and get lost forever. When he looks up again, Reggie’s cheeks are bright red. Alex nudges him in the shoulder again, prompting him to speak up.

“It’s just — uhh—“ Reggie shrugs. “Don’t really feel like Star Wars tonight.”

Alex’s brows shoot up. “Oh… kay. What do you want to watch, then?”

Reggie clears his throat, and studiously doesn’t look Alex in the eye. “Could we watch the Wizard of Oz maybe?”

Alex stares at him; after a few seconds, he snorts. Reggie’s head snaps toward him, indignant in a second.

“It’s a classic, okay? Iconic cinema! You can’t get any better than Judy Garland, and tell me the Wicked Witch didn’t scare your pants off as a kid! And, and, and the flying monkeys are crazy cool, and—“

“You’re such a dork,” Alex scoffs.

Reggie’s cheeks flood with heat; he looks down again, picking the blankets with his chewed-up fingernails. “Am not,” he mutters — and that’s Alex’s third clue something’s really up.

Second clue: Reggie will never pass up a chance to watch Star Wars. It’s always his top pick… so, for him to choose a kid’s movie instead, he must need something familiar. Something comforting. Something where the ending is a foregone conclusion.

And a Reggie who doesn’t bounce back from Alex’s sharp edged comments like a rubber-band ball is clearly in one heck of a bad way.

Alex’s smile slowly fades. He leans forward on the couch, elbows on his knees, and studies Reggie sideways. When his friend refuses to look up, he nudges their knees together. When he still avoids him — as stubborn as Cooper at the groomers, god — Alex inches closer to him, pressing their shoulders together.

“Okay,” he says, “what’s up?”

Reggie finally looks up at him, but it’s no victory. His eyes are wide and guilty. “Wh— what?”

“What’s going on, Reg?”

Reggie shrinks back from him… but there’s nowhere to go. Caught between Alex’s body and the couch, he settles for burrowing further into the blanket. He looks like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar… who’s expecting to get spanked for it.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “Nothing, man.” The way he hunches in on himself gives the game away, even if his miserable face didn’t. Alex’s stomach twists. “I just wanted to hang out, I just thought — didn’t want you to be lonely, I mean, it gets quiet here, in a big house all alone, and I know you get nervous, so I just thought maybe, but if you want me to go I’ll g—"

“Reggie.”

His voice breaks through the tidal wave of thought, somehow. Reggie goes still and silent, frowning down at his lap. When Alex lays a hand on his shoulder, he reluctantly looks at him.

“I can tell you’re upset, that’s all,” Alex says… and, as a flicker of something absolutely exhausted passes through Reggie’s eyes, the decision is made for him. “I’m not gonna press. I don’t need you to tell me anything, Reg, but I don’t want you to go.” He pauses, considers, and rubs his hand over Reggie’s shoulder. “Do you need anything?”

“I—“ Reggie exhales a shuddering breath, and shakes his head. “No. I’m, uhh, I’m… good.”

It’s hardly convincing… but Alex suspects it's the best he’s going to get.

Which is okay, because Reggie’s right here. They have the entire house to themselves for the night… and Alex has the Wizard of Oz on cassette tape.

Alex’s house can be a safe place, just for tonight, and that seems like what Reggie needs most of all.

Alex digs the movie out of their cabinet, and pops it in the VCR. As he sits down on the couch once again, curling up at Reggie’s side, he considers his mother’s suede couches — the pride and joy of their living room, which she dotes over and vacuums religiously every Tuesday. The Mercers have a lot of house rules, but Rule Number Two (after No Gays Allowed!) is Don’t Mess Up The Couch.

Alex glances at Reggie, raises his brows, and taps the leather couch three times in quick succession.

“Zoey! Cooper! Up!”

They don’t even have time to brace themselves. All at once, Alex and Reggie are buried under twin lumps of golden fur… and Reggie’s laughter might be the sweetest sound Alex has ever heard.

As the movie starts, and the dogs settle down — Cooper with his head in Alex’s lap, Zoey flopped practically on top of Reggie — a quiet contentment settles between them. The anxiety humming underneath Reggie’s skin quiets so much that Alex can’t hear it anymore… and, in turn, Alex’s own nerves find some peace.

“I’m glad you’re here, Reg,” he says softly, tucking an arm around Reggie’s shoulders.

“I’m glad you are, too,” Reggie murmurs,.

It might not be exactly what he needs — him, and dogs, and cozy blankets and comfort movies — but as Reggie curls into him with a sigh, Alex hopes it’s enough.

#my fics #alex mercer #reggie peters #jatp #netflixwewantjatp2 #julie and the phantoms #julie and the himbos #god the alex-reggie frienship gives me so much life

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purrincess-chat · 4 years

Text

Song of a Caged Bird (Kagami Zine)

Hi everyone! I participated in the @kagamizine this summer, and the whole zine is out now! Please go check out the whole thing and show all of the creators some love because everyone worked super hard and all of the pieces came out amazing!

For my piece I decided to go with some girl squad bonding cause I want more of it in canon. Let Kagami have a group of loving gal pals!

Read on AO3

“Wait, you’ve never had a sleepover?”

Marinette’s jaw hung slack as Kagami took a slow sip of her juice and averted her gaze. The warm spring sunlight filtered through the trees, tiny birds flitting through the branches. Kagami envied them a little getting to spread their wings and fly away from home. A chance to be free. She turned back to Marinette and pursed her lips.

“I’ve never really been allowed to have friends. Even in Japan, I was always home training and studying,” she said, swirling her drink around with a frown. “My mother views such things as unnecessary and distracting.”

“But she let you be friends with Adrien and now me,” Marinette offered. She had a way of making anything seem positive. It was admirable, but unfortunately in this case, it didn’t work.

“Adrien is an elite fencing partner and potential suitor in her eyes. Nothing more,” she said. “And you’re…an exception. To keep me from rebelling, but even with us, the only time we’re allowed to hang out is to get juice once a week. This is my mother’s idea of friendship.”

“Well, maybe that can change. After all, you went from not being allowed to have any friends to being allowed to have at least one. Maybe she’ll have a change of heart,” Marinette said as a red car rolled up to the curb.

“I doubt it, but thank you, Marinette,” Kagami said, standing up and bowing. “If this is all I can have, then I will happily accept it. I’m glad to call you my friend.”

“Me too, Kagami,” Marinette said, hopping up to hug her goodbye. Kagami wasn’t usually one for hugs, but for Marinette, she made an exception. It felt nice.

“I’ll see you next week,” Kagami said, climbing in the car.

“Yeah. See you.” Marinette smiled though the sentiment didn’t reach her eyes.

She knew it must have been eating away at her. Marinette liked to help her friends after all, but there was nothing she could do. This would always be Kagami’s life. There was no way around it.

***

“Okay, girls, we have to do something,” Marinette said later that evening, pacing back and forth across her bedroom floor. “Kagami is all alone, and she’s never had friends before. She likes to act tough, but I can tell how sad it makes her.”

“Okay, but her mom is literally a huge brick wall. No way she just lets Kagami have a sleepover with us,” Alix said pointedly.

“Yeah, M. She’s ten times as strict and overprotective as Gabriel,” Alya added. “I get that you want to help Kagami, we all do, but in this case, I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“We’ve got to try! I’m sure we can get through to her mom if we ask really, really nicely,” she said, but when her friends didn’t seem convinced, she pressed her palms together. “Come on, please?”

“Okay, fine. We will help you talk to Kagami’s mom, but seeing as this plan is bound to fail-”

“It’s definitely going to fail,” Alix said.

“-we need to be ready with a backup,” Alya finished.

“What kind of backup?” Mylene asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Well, if her mom says no, which she likely-”

“Definitely,” Alix added.

“-will, we need to think of another way to help Kagami get to the sleepover,” Alya said, and Marinette quirked a brow.

“Are you suggesting-”

“Yep.” Alya’s lips curled into a crooked grin. “We’re going to sneak Kagami out.”

***

“Stand up straighter.”

Kagami tensed under her mother’s demand, but adjusted her posture nonetheless. She was used to her cold tone, and during practice, Kagami saw her more as a drill-sergeant than a mother. It was better to do as she was told without question. Even without sight, Kagami’s mother knew every wrong move she made. On most days, she’d push harder to get everything right, but today her mind wandered, replaying her last conversation with Marinette.

All her life, she’d done as she was told and never questioned. She’d let herself become numb to the patronizing voices and walled herself off from feeling. Never before had she paid much thought to making friends or playing outside – those things were luxuries Kagami couldn’t afford. Her days were spent training to be the best, so sacrifices had to be made, but all of that changed when she moved here.

When she met Adrien and Marinette.

Her friends.

When she was allowed to have fun for the first time - to be disobedient, even for a little while. Kagami had never considered such things before, didn’t dare. But like a child tasting sugar for the first time, once she had a taste, she wanted more. What made her so different from everyone else?

“Your form is sloppy today,” her mother said. “Perhaps you’re sluggish from drinking so much orange juice.”

“No, mother, I’m just a little tired, that’s all,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut to push the thoughts from her brain. Her vision blurred with hot tears as she ran through the maneuver again, but midway through, she faltered at the sight of her friends approaching her mother on the park bench.

“Um, hello, Mme. Tsurugi,” Marinette said when Alya pushed her forward.

“What is the meaning of this? Kagami, did you invite your friends to interrupt your training?” Her mother’s head snapped in her direction, and despite her mother’s lack of sight, Kagami shrank a little under her stare.

“No, mother. I didn’t invite them,” Kagami said, hoping to portray what a horrible idea this was to Marinette with a look. Still, she was touched that her friends would even try.

“She’s telling the truth, ma’am,” Alya interjected, and her mother tapped her finger on her walking stick with a frown.

“Why have you disrupted my private training with my daughter?” She snapped, and Marinette bit back a wince.

“Well, you see, ma’am, my friends and I are planning to have a sleepover tonight, and we were wondering if Kagami could-”

“No.” Her reply was clipped, final, leaving no room for argument, at least Kagami thought so, but Marinette squared her shoulders and took a breath.

“I know you’re very protective of your daughter, but she’s just a kid. She should be allowed to have fun every now and then,” Marinette said, and instant regret flashed on her face as her mother stood up.

“How dare you tell me what is best for my daughter! I am her mother, and she will do as I say!” Tomoe said, brandishing her stick like a sword, and her friends shrank back.

“Mother!” Kagami stepped in, batting the stick away with her boken. “Please, they are just trying to do something nice for me. They mean no harm.”

Her mother lowered her stick, but the tension remained in her shoulders. “Tell them goodbye, Kagami. We have work to do.”

“Yes, mother,” Kagami said, lowering her head as she turned back to Marinette. “I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of training right now. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I understand,” Marinette said, pulling her in for a hug.

Kagami clung tightly, soaking up all of Marinette’s warmth in hopes of defrosting the cold ache surrounding her heart. Marinette’s hand slipped into her pocket, and she blinked in confusion when Marinette pulled away and winked. As the girls made their retreat, Kagami traced her fingers over the outline of a note, her heart skipping. The small slip of paper weighed heavy in her pocket throughout the rest of her practice until she returned home to her room and read its contents.

Pack a bag. We’ll pick you up at 9:30

Kagami sat back against her pillows, heart pounding. Her friends were either the coolest people in the world or the craziest, but she was already counting the seconds.

***

“I think we need a new plan,” Alix said as the girls stared up at the tall wall surrounding the Tsurugi estate that could rival Adrien’s or the local prison.

“I don’t suppose any of you brought a ladder or a set of wings,” Mylene said, and Marinette pursed her lips, desperately searching for a way over and coming up empty.

“Not only is that wall insanely tall, but Kagami’s family manufactures crazy technology. I bet their whole house is booby-trapped to keep intruders out and more importantly, keep Kagami in,” Alix said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It was a good idea in theory, but I think we should abort mission.”

“But we promised Kagami we’d come get her,” Marinette said, whipping around to face them when the walls refused to give up their secrets.

“Actually, you promised Kagami,” Alix shot back, and the other girls winces spoke to their agreement.

“Your heart is in the right place. It’s just not possible, M,” Alya said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah, you’d need superpowers to be able to get inside,” Mylene said, and Marinette’s spine stiffened.

She spun around again to examine the wall then flicked her gaze down to her purse. It was risky, but…

“I’ve got an idea,” Marinette said, taking off up the street.

“Where are you going?” Alya called, and Marinette plastered on a suspicious grin.

“Uh, I might know a way to get Kagami out, but I’ve gotta run and get it, you girls stay here, I’ll be right back!” She said, dashing up the street.

“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s out of the question,” Tikki said, popping out of her collar as they rounded the corner.

“No one will suspect anything,” Marinette promised, but Tikki simply frowned.

“That’s not the point, Marinette! Your powers aren’t meant to be used for-”

“Selfish reasons, I know, but is this really selfish? I mean, my job isn’t just to protect the city from akumas. Part of being a hero means giving people hope, and don’t you think Kagami needs a hero right about now?” Marinette said, ducking behind a car. “My powers are meant to help people, and what good are they if I don’t use them to do just that?”

Tikki weighed it for a moment before sighing. “Okay, but just be careful.”

“I will,” Marinette said, brushing her cheek with a finger. “Tikki, spots on!”

***

Kagami glanced at the clock for the hundredth time, nerves bubbling in her stomach with each tick.

9:46

Her friends were running late. Maybe they weren’t coming at all. No, she shook her head. Marinette promised, and she was always true to her word. They would come. Kagami just had to wait, but as the minutes past, those worries turned to doubts. What if her mother had scared them away? What if they didn’t like her anymore? What if…

Tap tap tap

Kagami jumped at the knock on her window, surprised by the person dangling on the other side.

“Ladybug?” She blinked as she pulled the window open.

“Someone requested a taxi service,” the heroine said with a smile, and at Kagami’s bewildered expression explained, “I was out patrolling when I ran into your friends outside the gate, and when they told me what they were up to, I offered to help. So, are you coming?”

Kagami flicked her gaze down to her outstretched hand. She smiled, shifting her bag over her shoulder, and placing her hand in Ladybug’s without a second thought, and the world around them flew by as Ladybug leapt over the other side of the wall to her friends. To freedom.

The girls were waiting on the sidewalk, and Kagami teared up when their faces brightened at the sight of her. They’d all come after all. All of them, except for one.

“Where’s Marinette?” Kagami asked, glancing around, and Ladybug stepped away.

“Uh, I’ll go find her for you guys and tell her to meet you at her house,” she said, waving them on. “Have fun with your sleepover!”

“Thanks for your help, Ladybug!” Alya said.

“Yeah, you rock,” Alix added, and Ladybug smiled before shooting off into the rooftops.

Kagami found herself surrounded by bodies as the girls pulled her in for a tight hug. She could barely breathe, but in a weird way, it felt nice.

“We are going to have so much fun! We’ve got movies and games and face masks, oh! And Mr. Dupain baked us special personalized macarons, and-” Rose rattled on while they walked, and Kagami took in the buildings with new eyes.

She’d snuck out. She’d snuck out. The streets were dark, but they’d never been more vibrant in her eyes. Her limbs were lighter, coursing with adrenaline as the tall walls grew distant, and with each step, her smile grew wider. She wasn’t sure she’d ever smiled this much, and it was starting to hurt her cheeks. But she didn’t care. This was…fun.

When they made it to Marinette’s front door, the absent girl came rushing from the other direction, stopping in front of them to catch her breath.

“Girl, where were you?” Alya asked, placing her hands on her hips.

“Sorry…I was…fireman…ladder…it was… You’re out!” She extended her arms to Kagami who was finding that she really liked hugs.

“You’ll never guess who helped us bail her out of jail,” Mylene said with a wicked grin.

“Uh, yeah, she explained everything to me. We got really lucky that Ladybug passed by. My plan to borrow a fire truck ladder was a long shot,” Marinette said, rubbing the back of her neck. “But the most important thing is that you’re free, Kagami, and tonight is your very first sleepover.”

“Girls, I just took a hot pizza out of the oven,” Marinette’s father announced, opening the door, and Marinette and Alya took Kagami’s hands, pulling her inside.

Marinette’s home was warm as if the heat of the ovens below had seeped into the bricks. The air felt different, lighter, sweeter, and Kagami realized that the warmth inside wasn’t from an oven, but from the people who lived there. Kagami had many houses. There was one here in Paris and two in Japan, but she’d never realized before now that none of them felt like this. That she’d never truly been home.

“So, Kagami, if you and Marinette ever had to fight for Adrien, who do you think would win?” Alix asked a while later after they’d stuffed themselves on pizza and watched some cheesy movie about a teen girl falling in love with her neighbor, and Alya whacked her in the arm. “What?”

“Alix! That’s not-”

“Well, considering my years of training and expertise in several styles of sword fighting and archery, I could best her easily in any combat scenario, though I do suppose she might have an advantage in strength seeing as she has lifted heavy sacks of flour in the bakery for many years, but strength can only take an inexperienced fighter so far before skill becomes a necessity,” Kagami answered, and the girls all stared at her in shock.

Just when she was starting to worry that she’d said something wrong, she was blinded by the soft fabric of a pillow. She blinked up at Marinette who wore a mischievous grin and saw the other girls arming themselves. It was an odd ritual for friends to beat each other with pillows, but that’s what made it so fun (and in the end, Kagami did prove herself victorious with very minor damage to anyone which was a stark contrast to how most of her fencing bouts ended, and Adrien had the bruises to prove it).

They talked. They ate so many sweets that Kagami wasn’t sure she remembered how to move. She laughed so hard, her sides hurt. If all sleepovers were like this, she understood why Marinette felt it so important for her to attend. Every girl should get to have fun like this, even just once.

“Are you having a good time?” Marinette asked as she painted Kagami’s nails a sparkly ruby red.

“Yes,” Kagami said with a nod, studying her every move. “I’ve never had my nails painted before. They’re beautiful.”

“I can paint them for you whenever you want. Your mom never has to know,” Marinette said with a wink, and Kagami smiled down at her fingers, watching the light catch the color.

“Thank you for all of this, Marinette. I am honored to have friends like you,” she said, and the warmth in Marinette’s eyes bore the same sentiment.

“Maybe one day we can convince your mom to let you out for real, but until then, we’re always here for you, okay?” Marinette said, and Kagami couldn’t help it. She hugged her.

She couldn’t really describe how she felt, but nestled between her friends on the floor of Marinette’s living room that night, she knew it was a feeling she’d never forget. When her alarm went off at 5:30, she hadn’t slept a wink, but her mind was alive with excitement, replaying the night over and over and over. It was time to return to her home before her mother woke and found her missing, and despite the stiffness of the floor or Rose’s elbow jabbing her side, Kagami wanted to lay there for just a minute longer, surrounded by her friends.

“Hey, we have to get you home,” Marinette yawned, shaking her shoulder.

They left the other girls asleep and made their way out into the quiet streets where businessmen and women were heading to their favorite bakeries. Neither one said much, and Kagami wasn’t quite sure if Marinette was truly awake, but when they arrived at her house, Marinette turned to her with a smile.

“Sorry you have to leave before breakfast. My dad always goes all out,” Marinette said. “But I’m glad you got to come.”

“Me too. Thank you for everything.” Kagami bowed, but she hesitated in the gate, biting her lip. “I’m glad we’re friends, Marinette.”

Marinette’s sunny expression said she felt the same way, and Kagami replayed the evening as she made her way inside. She was already dressed and ready when her mother woke up and met her in the tatami room for morning meditation.

“You seem happy this morning, Kagami,” her mother remarked as she took her place beside her.

Kagami smiled down at her ruby red nails and thought of her friends.

“Yeah, I am.”

#miraculous ladybug #kagami tsurugi #marinette dupain-cheng #kagami zine #kagaminette #my writing #hiatus cat #thank you so much to the mods for hosting this #it was a lot of fun!

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formeandmyfics · 3 years

Text

Jugenea Fan Fiction ‘LOCKED IN’

Because Judy & Gene are having ‘marriage on the rocks’, Sinatra & Bacall decide to do something about it. But, will their plan work out?

Spring 1956

Gene stood at the end of the Bogart's driveway, next door to his home, as he took one last drag of his cigarette. He could hear the sounds of steel drum and ukulele music echoing from the back yard, along with sounds of his rowdy friends, and many familiar cars lined the Beverly Hills street in front of their houses. Exhaling the smoke into the night sky, he then dropped the cigarette the the ground, and stepped on it before heading up the driveway.

When he walked through the gate, he saw that the Luau was in full swing. With strings of yard bulbs lit up over the party, he could see everyone was dressed in Caribbean attire, with women wearing flowered lei's, as they hung around the tiki bar or the large buffet table.

Gene's eyes scanned the crowd for one particular person, but didn't see her. There were many people, and being so short, sometimes it was hard to find her. It was, however, never hard to hear her, but right now that voice of hers was non-existent over the music and chatter.

"Hey, bud, you made it," Van said walking up next to him in a bright yellow shirt with palm trees all over it.

"Hey, hey," Gene said smiling wide as they gave a hug and pat on the back.

"Here," Van said reaching for one of the sea-shell lei's on the welcome table, "Lazar said entry into his birthday party is that everyone has to wear one."

"That's fine," Gene said as he bent so Van could place it around his neck, "I haven't been laid in a while."

"That's 'cause you were on the other side of the pond for 5 weeks."

Yeah, add three weeks on top of that five, Gene thought a little irritated, as they joined the crowd.

"His birthday was last month. Why are we having it 3 weeks late? Not that I'm complaining. I'm happy to be here."

"He was over in Australia, I think. Bogie wanted to throw him a party with all of us."

"Where is Swifty?"

Van motioned, pointing back and forth behind Gene. Gene turned around and saw the familiar 5'2 bald man in glasses in a serious conversation with Moss Hart, another client of Paul's, or 'Swifty' as they called him. 90% of everyone here was, or had been, a client of Swifty's at one time or another, including himself.

"Look at him," Van said, "He's at his Luau and he's still over there discussing work."

"And with Moss, too. They're probably closing some business deal."

"And it's probably regarding your wife," Van teased as Swifty was Judy's current agent and Moss was her last film director.

Gene took the cold beer that Van offered and scanned the crowd again when Lauren walked up in a halter top and grass skirt.

"How ya doin' suga," she said in her best Mae West accent.

"Hi, doll," he chuckled giving her a friendly peck on the lips, "How are you?"

"I'm good. We've missed you."

"Oh, I've missed you all, too. It's good to be home."

"How good," she asked cautiously raising her eyebrow.

"Haven't made it that far yet," he said taking a swig of his beer.

"I'm glad your back. My husband's been taking me on the boat in your absence. He's says I'm not as good of a skipper as you are."

"Oh, being on the boat again sounds amazing. The weather over in England is shit."

"Cloudy?"

"Rainy and cloudy. Imagine spending over a month in that."

"Well, it definitely hasn't been like that here. It's actually been quite warm for this time of the year."

"Good. Maybe I can take a dip in your pool tomorrow if it's warm enough."

"Oh, yeah, anytime."

"Where is your other half, by the way," Gene asked.

"Over there at the Tiki Bar," she said, and in perfect timing the group of men there burst out in a roar of laughter, "They've just started doing the Jack Daniels."

"Oh, it's about to get fun then," Gene laughed.

"You know it. Oh, and your other half is in the house with Junie if you're wondering. I'll be right back."

Gene looked at the back patio door, as if he expected Judy to come walking out at that moment. When she didn't he started walking to go in, but he suddenly heard his best friend's unmistakable, but slightly intoxicated, voice.

"Gene!"

The other men joined in seeing him, as it'd been over a month, and he couldn't help but get pulled into their welcome circle.

Judy sat at the island in the large kitchen as June made them both another Mai Tai and discussed 'You Can't Run Away From It', a movie she was almost done filming at Columbia.

"As much as I love my husband, I gotta tell ya, it's been a little annoying working with him like this, as the producer and director, and then coming home together. I don't know how you did it with Vincente."

"During The Pirate, it was hard. It was really hard. I wasn't in the best shape, mentally, but I think working together like that put a lot of strain on our marriage. That's why I wanted him replaced on Easter Parade. I didn't want it to make our marriage worse, but it didn't matter in the end, anyways. I didn't understand it because I loved working with him on St. Louis and The Clock."

"That's because you two weren't married then. You didn't have to come home together afterwards."

Judy giggled, "That's true."

"Do you think if Gene directed you in something right now, you'd be as annoyed with him as I am with Richie?"

Judy put on a smile. She heard her friend's frustrated tone, and knew it was a hypothetical question, but it hit pretty good.

"Well, I don't have to work with him to get 'annoyed' at him, but actually, it's the opposite with us. We work so well together, you know? He knows the way I work. He directed me in all the dance choreography for the last two films we shot together, and we weren't married then, but it always brings us closer together when we work. It's been hard going in two different directions, professionally. Working together is all we've known, it's how we met. And even after I left Metro, he was there helping me when I started my concert career and he was there to help me when I went over to Warner Bros for A Star is Born."

"And now you're away doing concert tours and he's making films."

"Yep."

"Or, he's away making films and you're here doing albums."

Judy sighed, resting her cheek in her hand, "Yes, June."

"But you always come back to each other. You're back from that small tour up north and he's finally back from London. Didn't he get back yesterday?"

"Yeah. Yesterday morning. He spent the afternoon with the kids when I was at the recording studio."

"I spoke to Pete on the phone this morning. He said he is subletting his Wilshire Terrace condo to Gene for a little while."

"That's what I've been told," Judy said licking her lips before taking a sip of her fresh cocktail.

"It's convenient, as it's literally right down the road, but...what the hell, Judy?"

Judy nudged her shoulders, "It's his decision."

"I know you, my friend, and I know Gene, which means I also know that you have a lot to do with that decision of his," June said in a motherly voice as she waved a skewer of sliced oranges and grapes at Judy.

Judy huffed and grabbed the skewer before June poked her in the eye, "Give it."

"Have you seen him yet since he got back?"

"Not yet. Frank said he was going to stop over here tonight, though.”

Just then there was a roar from a bunch of men followed by laughing. Junie turned to look out the window behind her.

“What’s going on out there,” Judy asked.

“I don’t know. Looks like the guys are up to something.”

“My gosh, they’re making a lot of noise,” Judy said getting up to follow behind her friend out the door.

They walked to where the group of men stood but first saw Lauren cracking up pointing.

“What is going on,” Judy giggled to Lauren.

Just then the crowd parted and there stood a few of the men in straw hats, bare chested, with coconut bras on. When Judy saw this, she laughed hysterically, grabbing onto Lauren’s hand for support, as the two women almost doubled over.

When Gene saw Judy happily laughing, it made him smile. He hadn’t seen her like that for a while. When their eyes finally met, they were both chuckling, and he took that opportunity to walk up to her. But he did so in a sexy stride and tilted his straw hat on his head, the way she does with her fedora in her Get Happy number.

“What do you think,” he asked smiling proud.

Judy giggled and placed her fingers on her lips as she looked down at the bra covering part of his naked torso, “I think you look ridiculous.”

“Good, just was I was going for.”

“This the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you’re all wearing those.”

“Touch em,” he said playfully grabbing her wrist but she quickly pulled her hand away laughing.

“Get out of here.”

“Wanna try em’ on,” he said untying the back.

When they were off, she took it from him and examined the petite, wooden cup, “Darling, I’m afraid they’re a bit wee small for my liking.”

“Let me see,” he laughed and took the bra back. He was about too place it up to her chest when she pushed him away, crossing her arms.

Gene laughed and took his big, straw hat off and placed it on top of her head.

“This is not what I was expecting once you got back home, but it’s pretty damn funny,” she said adjusting the hat.

“What were you expecting,” he asked, his tone a little more serious.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she said taking the hat off, “Can you please put your shirt back on, we’re at a party.”

“Yes, dear,” he said in the all-too-familiar husband voice.

After Gene grabbed his shirt that was sitting by the tiki bar and put it back on, he found Judy sitting at a vacant picnic table. He immediately sat next to her, beer in hand.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t home yesterday when you got back.”

“It’s okay. I know you were working.”

“The kids were so happy to be with you again. They couldn’t stop talking about it,” she smiled.

“I gotta tell ya the truth, I got teary eyed. I missed the all so much. I’m glad Liza was there, too.” “You handled all four of them alone, huh,” she asked with a raised eyebrow as she needed help doing it herself.

“Oh, sure, but they were on their best behaviour, just because it was my homecoming I’m sure.”

“Kerry spent the night for a few days.”

“She told me. She said you took her to Capitol Records with you. She thought it was the coolest thing ever, her words.”

“Well, I promised to take her shopping and out to eat, but I had to record a song up at the tower first. She insisted she wanted to go with. I thought she’d be bored.”

“Oh, no. I think it’s thrilling to her. You know how excited she gets whenever she gets to come to the studio or one of your shows.”

“For a few hours, it was just the two of us. I’ve only been able to do that a few times with her since we got married, but now that she’s a teenager, it’s a different kind of bonding. I really enjoyed it.”

“I really appreciate you doing that for her, and treating her like your own ever since we moved in together. I cannot believe it’s been six years already.”

“I know, and I can say the same thing about you and Liza.”

“How’s the album coming along?”

“It’s going really great. I love the playlist.”

“Is there a title yet?”

“Oh, yes, one that I think beats my last title.”

“What can be better than ‘Miss Show Business’,” he asked dramatically.

“Judy.”

“Judy,” he repeated and she nodded with a gleam in her eye, “Well, damn, that does beat it. That’s not original at all.”

She laughed, genuinely, and reached down to scratch the bandage over her ankle. He remembered her telling him about her ankle sprain. They hadn’t spoken much over the phone while he was away. When they had, it was distant and cold and only about the children. The one time they actually spoke like a married couple was when their daughter had told him that Mama broke her ankle. When Gene had gotten Judy on the phone, worried, she told him about the sprain while she was in Frisco. He was happy that she was okay and at least didn’t break it. Judy reminded him that their daughter had an affiliation for over-exaggeration but thanked him for caring.

“How long do you have to keep the bandage on?”

“Two more weeks, just so I don’t sprain it again. It’s just a wrap. I don’t have to walk like a toy soldier or anything.”

“Does it hurt,” he asked taking her ankle gently and lifting it on his lap.

“It’s sore if I’m on it for long periods of time, but doesn’t hurt. It developed a nasty bruise though.”

He undid the bandage and there he saw her a large bruise over half of her foot now fading.

“Shit, Judy.”

“I don’t even know how I did it,” she giggled.

“Probably falling down while you’re sleepwalking,” he said putting the bandage back on.

“I don’t sleepwalk.”

“Whose that walking around the house at 3 a.m., a ghost,” he teased.

“Yeah, the ghost of Dorothy’s past.”

He looked at her as she smiled, looking down as she stretched her bare legs straight. His eyes traveled up them to the tight, and short, high-waisted white shorts she wore. A yellow, mid-drift shirt was tied around her waist, with a matching bandage holding up her hair, and a pink lay of flowers was around her neck. She looked very cute, and more radiant, than she had the last time he saw her. Of course he had watched her GE performance on television like everyone else, and noticed she had lost about 10 pounds, but now in front of him, she looked younger as well.

When her eyes didn’t meet his, he knew that she knew, that he was staring. So, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You look so beautiful.”

Across the way, Lauren nudged Frank with her elbow, to get his attention. When she had it, she motioned for him to look at their two best friends. When he did, it was just in time to see Judy look up at Gene, smiling, flattered by his comment.

“They’re getting along,” Frank said.

“Let’s hope it stays that way. I’m not looking for a repeated performance of what happened last time they were at my place.”

“What happened,” he asked.

“It was a few days before he left for Europe…” she said trailing off.

“Judy! Open the door! Judy! I swear, I’ll break it down!” Gene’s yelling caused the dog next door to start barking as Lauren walked around the bushes that separated their yards. “You’ll huff, and you’ll puff, and you’ll blow the house down,” she said, her arms crossed in front of her. “Oh, Jesus,” he slurred. “May I ask what you’re doing?” “She locked me out. She took my god damn keys and now all the doors are locked.” “Why did she take your keys,” she responded calmly. “Because she didn’t want me going out even though I had these plans for the past few weeks,” he smiled with his finger up like he was smarter, “So, I had Frank come pick me up. Ah ha, she couldn’t stop me then.” “She took your keys because you were probably drinking before you left,” Lauren responded matter-of-factly. Gene swatted his hand and shook his head, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned back to their front door trying the knob as if it was going to miraculously open again, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” Lauren slightly jumped and placed her finger on her temple,“Dear, she isn’t home.” “Yes, she is. Her car’s right there.” “She . isn’t . home,” she slowly stated in aggravation. “Then where the hell is she?” Lauren pointed to her own house and Gene rolled his eyes before heading that way. Judy was singing at the piano, as Kay played, when Gene entered the living room, Lauren on his heels. It was a small group, as Bogie, June & Richie watched. Gene was ready to have words, but seeing Judy singing, he sighed and composed himself. No one interrupted when Judy Garland was singing, not even her own husband.

When Judy saw Gene, singing loudly through a long note, she nonchalantly lifted her left hand giving him the bird. The room turned to look whom she was flipping off and Gene looked at Lauren who smiled, putting her finger up to her lips to shush him. “Whatever you did, maybe you should apologize,” a man in his late 20’s said with a chuckle, as he walked up to Gene out of nowhere. “Why are you immediately taking her side…‘cause she’s got the tits,” Gene asked as if talking to a friend, but then when he looked, he didn’t recognize the guy. “Yeah,” the man chuckled. “Who are you?” “And if you don’t make up, maybe I’ll end up having the tits, too. Hi, I’m Robert,” the man’s voice was full of sarcasm, clearly joking, and he extended his hand happily to introduce himself but Gene turned red. In his current state, with the current circumstances, Gene took the comment the wrong way and saw red. He suddenly grabbed the guy by the collar with his fists and baked him up to the wall startling everybody. “Don’t fucking talk about my wife,” he shouted. “Oh, Jesus,” Judy said and quickly ran over. Robert put his hands up, “Whoa, I was joking! BACK OFF MAN!” “Gene!” Lauren shouted. Bogie grabbed Gene from behind, calmly, to back him off but Gene just stared at the man, still in a hold. Suddenly Judy was next to them. “Gene, that’s Lauren’s cousin, now BACK OFF,” she hissed. Hearing her voice, suddenly brought him back to reality, and he let go. He looked at the man with complete remorse, helping him smooth his jacket. “I’m sorry.” They watched as Gene walked out of the room, running his hand through his hair. When he passed Richie & Junie, the two looked at one another shocked. “I am so sorry, Robert. Please do forgive my husband. He’s not himself right now,” Judy pleaded. “He’s not usually like that,” Lauren added. “I thought we were joking around. I guess it got misunderstood.” “He’s a walking bottle of whiskey right now, hey, Judes,” Bogie asked a bit amused but she didn’t find it funny. Judy shook her head, looking at Lauren, before she walked the opposite direction that Gene went.

* Lauren handed Frank his fresh beer, “Judy really locked him out of the house that night. He spent the night in our guest room. I had never seen Gene’s temper like that.”

“Yeah,” Frank chimed in, “Even when drinking, he isn’t like that.”

“Judy really wasn’t lying about his temper becoming a problem.” “But from what he told me, Judy’s mood swings are a huge problem as well. With his temper like a short fuse, and her bi-polar moods, that ain't good. Do you know what they've been fighting about?"

"No clue. But Judy did tell me they had a blow out the day before he left. She said it was the worst fight they ever had. I guess they both said things that were pretty hurtful, attacking below the belt, and all. She doesn't know where their marriage stands right now."

“Well, maybe they’ve made up, or will later,” he said wickedly.

Judy turned her head away when Gene had leaned in to kiss her and it really pissed him off. He didn’t say anything, but his face said it all as he slowly leaned back from her.

“Gene, don’t,” she said. She wasn’t playing hard-to-get, she was serious.

Gene exhaled, not wanting to get into an argument, especially here at the party, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I have no definite plans.”

“Good. We need to talk.”

Judy didn’t like his tone one bit, “I’m not sure I’ll be in the mood to talk tomorrow.”

Hearing her actress voice, he whispered, “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but that thing you sent in the mail, is full of shit. Just know that.”

Without another word, Gene got up and walked away. Judy’s eyes followed him until he sat down in a chair by the pool.

Back across the way, Frank and Lauren looked at each other.

“Well, that didn’t last long,” Lauren said.

“I wish we could do something to help ‘em, you know?”

“What we ought to do is lock them in a room together until they figure things out.”

Frank nodded and took a swig of his beer but suddenly his eyes widened.

“Betty.”

“Hm?”

“I got an idea.”

Debbie Reynolds sat next to Judy, and playfully nudged her shoulder as she did so. Judy acknowledged her friend’s presence with a gentle smile, but that not-so-like-Judy welcome alerted Debbie.

“Alright, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about, darling.”

“Man problems?”

“If you want to call it that, sure,” she giggled.

“Is it that time of the month for Gene,” Debbie joked.

“Yes, but for both of us, and has been that way for more than just a week, let me tell ya.”

“Oh, it’ll be okay. Every marriage has ups and downs.”

“I know,” Judy said a bit frustrated, “I’ve had my share of downs with my past two marriages, but not with Gene, at least not like this.”

The seriousness in her friend’s voice altered Debbie’s smile and she took Judy’s hand, “You’ll be okay, I promise.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because it’s you two.”

They were quiet a moment before Debbie spoke up again, “Now, I have some exciting news to tell you that might turn that from upside down.”

“You’re pregnant,” Judy said joking.

“How’d you know,” Debbie answered gleefully.

“Wild guess,” Judy giggled back, still joking, but when she saw the look on Debbie’s face, her eyes grew wide, “Are you really?”

“October.”

Judy gasped, with a huge smile, before putting her in for a big hug, “Oh, darling, that’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you. We haven’t announced it to everyone yet, but I’m so thrilled.”

“Oh my goodness, I bet Eddie is excited.”

“Oh, he is. It’s not for another six months, but I think he’s already gone and bought cigars for when the baby’s born.”

Both girls laughed.

“Hey, Judes,” Frank said walking up.

“Yah, honey,” she asked turning to look at him over her shoulder.

“Can you stand up a moment?”

“Why?”

“Can you stand up a moment,” he repeated.

“No. Why?”

“Come on, come on.”

Judy and Debbie gave each other strange looks before Judy stood up, a little self conscious. Frank walked up arms length, and put his hand up so she would place her hand in his, which she did. He kept a hold of it and looked at her, as if observing her outfit.

“What the hell are you - what are you doing,” she asked now trying to get her hand away but he kept a hold of it.

“Mm hm, mm hm,” he said then all of a sudden yanked her to him and picked her up over his shoulder.

Judy gasped and grabbed onto the shirt of his back so she wouldn’t fall, “Frank,” she yelled, “Put me down!”

“No can do, babe,” he said as he started walking down the small hill.

“God dammit, Frank, put me down,” she continued and kicked her legs. Instead of a verbal response, he gave a small slap to her behind. Judy leaned up, angry, and hit his back in response to this. Everyone pointed and laughed as they watched Sinatra carry Judy over his shoulder down towards the pool.

Gene just lit his fresh cigarette, sitting on a poolside lounge, when he heard commotion coming his way. He turned to see Frank walking towards him as his wife angrily wiggled over his shoulder yelling vulgarities.

“What the fu--,” he mumbled as they got close but he was interrupted by Judy.

“Don’t you dare,” she said hitting Frank’s back again as she saw the pool in front of her. When Judy saw them about to pass her husband, he reached her hand out, “Gene!”

Gene immediately put his cigarette in his mouth, so he wouldn’t burn her as she almost violently reached to grab his hands. Laughing, Gene was able to grab her arms hanging off the back of Frank, and pulled. Frank kept a hold and took a few more steps. This alarmed Judy, and she gasped, wrapping her arms around Gene’s neck, his chest now pressed up against Frank’s back.

Gene lifted his chin up to the sky, holding Judy, the cigarette dangling back and forth between his lips as he spoke, “Come on, man, let her go, she’s gonna choke me.”

“And I’ll choke you to death if you let go, Gene,” she warned kicking her legs.

“Ow,” Frank said as she nearly kicked in him the face, “Ok, ok,” he said and loosened his grip.

With that, Judy slid off, and clung onto Gene. Near the edge, Frank then tackled Gene’s side, giving a huge push.

“Oh my God,” Lauren said, but not surprised, when she heard Judy scream before seeing the big splash as the couple landed in the pool. She placed her hand over her eyes, stifling a giggle. Frank hadn’t been kidding.

Judy and Gene walked into the master bedroom soaking wet.

“I can’t fucking believe he did that,” Judy stated furiously.

Gene chuckled, “The little shit.”

“Why are you laughing,” she asked untying the wet bandanna from her hair.

“It’s just water, baby, lighten up,” he said starting to unbutton his shirt.

“Lighten up,” she asked with a shriek and was about to go on when the door opened.

“Hi,” Lauren said smiling, “If you don’t mind, I just have to…” She trailed off as her eyes landed on the bedside table and she walked across the room.

Judy and Gene both just stood there, confused, as they watched her pick up the phone. She fiddled with it before the cord was no longer plugged in.

“Ah ha, there we go,” she said and head back towards the door.

“What the hell are you doing,” Gene asked.

“Why are you taking our phone,” Judy added completely flabbergasted.

When she went out the door, Frank appeared with a tray of veggies in one hand and fruit in the other, obviously from the party.

“Here ya go, something to hold you over til’ morning. You’re good with just water til then, ya?”

“What are you talk--what the hell is going on,” Gene said taking a step towards him, his arms out confused.

Frank smiled, gave him a thumbs up, before shutting the door behind him.

Gene looked at Judy, who was making a strange face, before he walked back to the doors. But, they wouldn’t open. He tried again.

“What the fuck,” he said and tried again.

On the other side, Frank had tied one of the kid’s jump robes around the double door’s handles like a tourniquet. Lauren stood by smiling when she heard Gene and Judy mumbling inside.

“Frank! What the hell are you doing,” Gene yelled.

“Locking you both in.”

“What do you mean,” they both answered at the same time.

“Now, darlings, don’t get mad…” Lauren started.

Judy interrupted as she stomped to the door, “Darling’s going to get mad if you don’t open the god damn door!”

Frank looked at her eyes wide hearing that rare, but intense, yell, “I think she means business.”

Lauren went on, “Now, listen, you two are going to stay in there together, and work on whatever shit you’re going through, no ‘if’ ‘and’s’ or ‘but’s’ about it.”

“We are not going to stay in here, now OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR,” Gene yelled and hit hit fist against the door which made Frank back away startled.

“Stop it,” Judy said pushing Gene away and put on a calm and sweet voice, “You cannot just leave us in here.”

“Sure we can. You have a bathroom, you have snacks, you have water, you have a bed, you have each other, you’ll be fine until morning,” Frank added.

“We’re not joking,” Lauren said walking closer to the door, “We’re not letting you out until you can work out your problems.”

“Great,” Gene said, “We’ll die in here.”

Judy gave him an evil glare before trying the door herself, but of course it didn’t open, “Betty, I love you, I really do, and I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you don’t know anything about what we’re going through, and quite frankly, it’s none of your business.”

There was silence a moment before a piece of paper was slid under the door. The couple didn’t even have to pick it up to know what it was: Deposition for Divorce. Gene sighed, running his hand through his hair, as he started to pace.

“Found this on the table in the foyer on my way up. Frank and I planned this little charade before I even saw this. I may not know why this exists, but, as your friend who knows you both very well, I do know that it shouldn’t exist.”

“I agree,” Frank said matter-of-factly.

“You’re really going to keep us in here,” Judy asked, trying to avoid Gene’s gaze.

“Just until morning.”

“What about my children?”

“Oh,” Lauren said cheerfully, “I’m taking them over to my house for a sleepover. Won’t that be fun?”

“You’re going to wake them up, to take them over to your place, just to go back to sleep,” Gene added ridiculously

“They’ll be fine.”

“Have fun with that one,” Gene added.

“I have kids of my own, remember. I’m well aware how they work.”

“You guys need anything before we leave,” Frank asked exuberantly.

“How about for you to let us out of here,” Judy called out frustrated.

“Cannot process that request. Anything else?”

“Well, I do know one thing, I’m going shopping for a new best friend after this,” Gene stated.

“Ok, well, if you don’t need anything, have a good night.”

“Tata,” Lauren added.

Gene pressed his ear up to the door and heard the footsteps fade away. He then looked at Judy shocked, “They’re really leaving us in here.”

Judy just gave him a look and walked into the bathroom slamming the door loud behind her, the picture rattling on the wall.

Gene exhaled through his nose, “This will be fun.”

When Judy emerged from the bathroom, she was wearing a black, silk robe that came to her knees, and her face was freshly washed, damp curls framing it.

Gene, who had changed into a pair of dry pants and a t-shirt, was standing on their bedroom’s small veranda looking down at their enormous backyard. As Judy walked over, she could hear the echo of the party still going on next door.

“Might be a bad idea, Gene,” Gene mumbled to himself, “you might break something if you jump.”

“Are you insane,” Judy said ridiculously, “You’ll break your damn neck.” She looked over the side at the vines that covered the back of the house, “What if you, you know, shimmy down the vines?”

Gene was the one to look at her ridiculously now, “This isn’t The Pirate, Manuela,” he emphasized and Judy looked at him insulted as she placed her hands on her hips. He went on, “Besides, even then I was harnessed to a safety wire.”

Judy followed him inside, shutting the veranda doors behind her. He walked over to the large, white mahogany, double doors and placed his hands on his hips.

Judy looked at him warningly as she saw the determined expression on his face,“No.”

“No, what,” he asked, but was preoccupied with turning the door handles gently to see if whatever was locking them in would come loose.

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing, it’s a big fat no, buster.”

“What am I thinking?”

She placed her hand on the door in front of his face, leaning on it, “You’re not going to try to break my door down, Gene.”

“Your?”

“Our,” she corrected rolling her eyes, “These are brand new doors that I had specifically made to match the carvings on last ones. That hole you kicked in them was there for a month before I could get it fixed.”

Gene sighed. She knew exactly what he had been planning…kicking the door through enough to unlock it.

“Is it really that horrible to have to be stuck in a room with me for a night that you’re willing to break down the doors?”

“Of course not. I just don’t like to be a prisoner in my own fucking house and I know you don’t like this either, so don’t even try arguing with me.”

“Look, you can’t jump off the damn balcony and I’m not letting you break the door down, we don’t have a phone, so we’re just going to have to make the best of it. Besides, the doors are heavier than the last. You might hurt yourself in the process.”

“Oh, so you still care,” he exaggerated but Judy took offense.

“Don’t be silly.”

Gene walked over to the veggie tray and picked around as she turned on the radio and grabbed a magazine.

“Well, at least they left us food, though I wish Frank woulda left me some bourbon.”

“I bet you do,” she sassed back with her eyebrow raised as she head for the lazy boy chair in the corner.

“What,” he said with a warning tone that told her that he knew exactly what she said but was challenging her to say it again.

“Nothing,” she half sung as she curled her legs up underneath her and opened her magazine.

“Can we at least try to get along,” he said out of frustration, “I mean, you know Judy, I’m back home after being gone over a month and…”

She cut him off sharply, “You wouldn’t even be here right now if they hadn’t locked us in. You’d be down the street at Petey’s apartment.” Gene was silent a moment as he bit into a baby carrot, “Do you have a problem with that?”

She ignored his question, “Why did you decide to stay there?”

“I told you over the phone, Peter was looking for someone…”

“...to sublet the apartment to,” she finished for him, “Yes, I know. But he has lots of friends who could do it. Why did *you* decide to do it?”

“Because I wanted to help him out. Besides, it’s only a couple minutes down the road.”

Judy blinked as she slowly turned a page of her magazine, avoiding his eyes, “Is that the only reason?”

“Well, this has something to do with it, too, but I’m guessing you already knew that,” he said dropping the divorce paper in her lap and walked away.

Judy placed the paper on the table beside her and went back to her magazine. Gene walked back out onto the balcony as he lit a cigarette. He exhaled only once before he spotted Richie and Junie start down the Bogart’s drive way.

“HEY! Powell! Up here!”

“Oh, hey,” Richie waved.

“Junie, come up and help us!”

“Help you what,” Rich called back.

“We’re locked in!” “What do you mean?!”

“Lauren & Frank locked us in!”

For a moment Richie started to walk towards the house but June quickly grabbed his hand. She spoke to him briefly before she smiled and waved pulling her husband with her. Richie put his hand out as if to say sorry and followed his wife down the driveway.

“OH GO TO HELL, POWELL!”

Judy was sitting up straight, obviously alerted to the fact they almost got out of ‘jail’, when Gene walked back inside slamming the door behind him.

“I assume they were told not to help us,” Judy said amused.

“Yeah, nice friends, huh?”

With a new Bing Crosby show starting, Gene laid on the bed to listen and finish his cigarette. For the entirety of the show, the two didn’t talk. Any show of Bing’s was a favorite of theirs and they both chuckled in almost all the same spots. For how uncomfortable their situation was, the atmosphere never felt uncomfortable when they were together, even in silence.

When guest singer Jo Stafford sang one of her most requested songs, ‘You Belong to Me’, Gene lifted his head up to look at Judy.

“Did you sing this song before, I can’t remember.”

“Mm hm, a few years ago, on his show, coincidentally.”

Gene dropped his head back down, “You sing it better.” Judy giggled, “How do you know if you don’t remember me singing it?”

“Because,” he said stretching before sitting up, “you sing everything better.”

“Oo, even ‘Singing in the Rain’, hm?”

“Ok, maybe not everything,” he teased and got up walking into the bathroom.

About fifteen minutes later, he re-merged wiping his now freshly shaved face with a towel. He noticed Judy staring out the patio door, resting her head on her hand, deep in thought.

He switched off the radio, which he knew would tick her off, but he wanted to talk without corny laughter or cheery music in the background. When Judy didn’t even glance his way, he found it a little irritating.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Things,” she mumbled.

“What things?”

Judy sighed and looked up at him impatiently, “Things that are none of your business.”

“None of my business?”

“Gene, my thoughts are my business. Always have been, always will be.”

“Oh, well, considering you’re my wife, that’s my business. And this is half of my bedroom that we’re both stuck in, that’s my business, particularly in a house that I mostly paid for. Anything, and anyone, in my house,” he pointed to himself, “is my business.”

“You sound like a prick right now, stop it,” she said disgusted, and then stood up, “You know what, while you ran off to Europe, I have been here for over a month alone running *your house* and taking care of *your children* while I was also working. Since this is *your house*, maybe I will go stay at Peter’s and you can take a crack at it for a while.”

She stormed past him, but when she got to the doors, and they didn’t open, she yelled in frustration, hitting her palm against the door. In the heat of the moment, she forgot.

“How’s that working out for you, hun,” he said sitting down in the chair she was just in.

“Shut up,” she chuckled placing her hands on her hips, and looking up at the ceiling trying to calm down.

Hearing her laugh made him smile a bit and he continued, “I mean, I would call Peter myself to see if he would be okay with the switch but…” he motioned to the empty spot on the bedside table where their phone used to be, “Bacall.”

Judy knew he was trying to make light of it, but if he wanted to talk, then fine he would get it.

“You knew I wasn’t comfortable with you being away for 5 weeks, but you took the job anyways.”

“Because I loved the script and I am under contract still. I’m not fighting about this again. It’s was a job. I didn’t tell them to film in another country. And you weren’t alone. You have help and I took care of everything before I left. So, don’t play the ‘abandoning’ game with me, Judy.”

“I begged you not to go,” she continued, “A wife shouldn’t have to beg her husband to do anything.”

“Well, the last time I saw you, when you told me to get the hell out of your life, I thought, maybe, you changed your mind,” he said in a very sarcastic undertone.

“It seemed fitting to say after you yelled that maybe we shouldn’t be together anymore,” she said tilting her head at him, reminding him of his words.

Gene stood up in rage and walked over to her, “I only said it because you told me that this, us, wasn’t working out the same anymore.”

“It wasn’t! It isn’t. I meant that we have to change something. I didn’t once say we should not be together anymore. Those were your words,” she yelled, tearing up.

Gene took two strides to the dresser grabbing the piece of paper and held it up to her face, “THEN WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!”

Judy pushed it out of her way and walked past him.

“I know exactly what you’re doing, and I want you to admit it,” he said standing in the same place she left him.

“Admit what,” she said, her back to him, her hands resting on her elbows.

“Why you sent me this stupid thing.” Judy didn’t respond, but when he saw her try to flick a tear away, without being too obvious, he clenched his jaw, looking down feeling bad.

His body relaxed and he sat on the end of the bed speaking calmly, “If you won’t be honest about the divorce papers, then at least have the decency to apologize for what you said to me and I’ll do the same. You know what I’m talking about.”

She nodded but still didn’t turn to look at him.

“Judy, it’s out of my fucking hands! I’m under contract, or do you not remember what that’s like? The schedule and on-location can be hell, but I love the business, and being in movies, and I’m not changing my mind.”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be in movies.”

Her comment hit him so hard, and was so shocking to him, Gene couldn’t help but what came out of his own mouth, “And if it weren’t for me helping you to get into a stage career, and A Star is Born, you’d still be an MGM has-been!”

Gene spoke a little emotional, remembering it like it was yesterday, “I’ll start. I’m sorry for what I said to you, sweetheart. It was beneath me.”

Judy let out a sob before she sat back down on the lazy boy chair. Her expression killed him, but so did her comment.

“You really hurt me, Gene. You know you’re the one person I trust with all my insecurities and then you just sweep the rug from under my feet.”

“Honey, I only said it in retort from what you said to me. It was like a god damn punch to the gut. You know how grateful I am to you for…”

“I know,” she cut him off not needing to hear it and lowered her voice calmly repeating, “I know. I’m sorry, truly.”

Gene nodded, hearing the guilt and sincerity in her voice. Gene scooted back on the bed and rest his back against the headboard. Even though they both apologized for the blows, it didn’t change the situation

For, what seemed like an eternity, the two sat in complete silence lost in their own mind. The stress was heavy hanging over them like a dark cloud. After a while, Gene couldn’t stand the stillness any longer.

He got up and walked past Judy, who was hugging her knees to her chest, her face hidden. He thought she looked smaller than usual as he glanced at her before looking out the window. The Bogart’s party had ended and now it was pitch black in the backyard.

“The first movie we saw together was Casablanca.”

Judy lifted her head up and looked at the back of him, curiously, as he had his back to her, with one hand up resting on the wall, the other on his hip.

“It was only like a week after we first got together. Do you remember that,” he asked looking at her over his shoulder and she nodded, a little taken back by his random memory. “We snuck into a night showing at some theater on Hollywood Boulevard and sat in the back row so no one would see us. I held your hand the entire time. I was so enamored by what was happening between us, it didn’t matter that I was thirty-years-old, when I was with you, I felt like a love stuck teenager. And so much so, I even made love to you in my car afterwards. Even though we had already slept together, a few times before that night if I remember correctly,” he joked which made Judy giggle and he went on, “You said to me that you were usually not that easy on a first date.”

Judy’s smile had disappeared by then as she stared at him, as he stared out the window, a slight curve on his lips. She remembered that night fondly and, because of it, the movie had always been one of her favorites. It almost shattered her heart to think about it. Not to mention that the star of the movie lived next door.

“Why are you thinking about that now,” she asked in almost a whisper.

“I don’t know. I suppose it’s normal to think about the beginning of something towards the end of it.”

Judy felt her heart flutter, in a bad way, when she realized that she just heard Gene’s confession about where he thought their marriage stood. She hadn’t signed the divorce papers, because she wanted to know how he felt on the situation. If he sent the papers back to her signed, then she knew. But he hadn’t signed them, and that gave her some hope, though she was not going to admit it until he did. But now here he is, thinking of the end of them. This was not a game. It was real.

“I’m getting sleepy,” she said sounding as casual as she could as she got up.

Gene watched as she walked over to the bed, tossing the throw pillows on the ground, before getting under the comforter. He checked his watch before heading into the walk-in closet to change into pajama pants.

When he returned, he walked over to the bed respectfully, “I don’t want to sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t care if you sleep in the bed, Gene,” she said coldly, “Besides it’s your house, your room, *your* bed, right?”

Without another word she turned off the light. As he got into bed, he noticed she rolled on her left side, away from him, something she never had done in the past, ever. As Gene turned out the light and rolled onto his back, he stared up at the shadows of the palm trees dancing on the ceiling. It was a new, but odd feeling, he suddenly felt. Judy was there with him, but the room felt very empty.

Stop

That was the word that went through her sleepy head, but she didn’t dare say it out loud. It felt too good. Her body was betraying her mind as an aching arousal was building between her legs. It had been so long since they had sex. She wasn’t thinking about anything that had transpired before they went to sleep, and she didn’t even know what time it was, all she was focused on was how her body was feeling.

Still on her side facing away from him, Gene’s left arm was slid under her neck, resting on her breast though her silk robe, his thumb moving against her nipple back and forth slowly through the fabric. His other hand was also moving slowly, up and down her thigh, knowing how much that always turned her on. She couldn’t help the pleasurable whimper escape her mouth as his sucked gently against her neck. And the sound of his lips against her skin, the only sound in the room, just heightened the sensation.

In their dark room, the bed made a slight sound as Gene pressed his body closer to the back of her. She could feel his hard on, which always excited her, but the warmth of his body cascading hers always made Judy feel safe. Feeling safe wasn’t what was going through Gene’s mind. It had been about 6 weeks since they had sex, and even though they were fighting, it didn’t matter. They never failed to get turned on, and God o’mighty, he was horny. And he missed her, he missed the feel of her. And judging by the sound she made, he knew she felt the same. He also knew he wasn’t going to last long. It had been a long time…a long, stressful time.

Gene’s hot breath tickled her ear as he breathed heavily, rolling his hips gently against her as he pulled her closer. The sensation suddenly engulfed her body with pleasurable shivers and she slightly gasped at the feeling of it, her nipples also tingling in the process. She leaned her head back against him and Gene took that opportunity to leave hard, wet kisses along here neck as his hand slid between her thighs, which were pressed tightly together. He had trouble reaching the spot he wanted, and tried to nudge her legs open but she quickly grabbed his wrist stopping. Instead she rolled onto her back and lifted her bum, quickly shimmying out of her undies.

Seeing this, he let out a breathy groan in anticipation and tugged his pajama pants down. Crawling between her open knees, he jerked himself a few times before grabbing her hips. He scooted her towards him and lifted her a bit, the perfect angle, before pressing into her. He gave off a moan as he did so, she was so wet and there was absolutely no resistance. Wish he could say the same for her attitude sometimes, he actually thought, as he reached all the way in. But then her muscles immediately snugged around him, and he forgot about any attitude. As he slid in and out all the way a few times, he really knew he wasn’t going to last long. So he willfully adjusted himself, and her, knowing all-too-well where her spot was and started a rhythm. And she didn’t disappoint. Her sighs quickly turned into mewling cries which each thrust. The arousal he created for her earlier, was now growing, forming into one spot feeling better and stronger each time the head of him pushed up on it.

Her tiny screams, his desperate moans and the sound of his pelvis hitting her skin, getting louder and faster, was so erotic to both their ears.

Gene was so lost in the sensation of being inside of his wife again, he barely heard her whimper that she was coming, until he felt her body tighten, and her moans stop. He slowed down, but hit her with rough strokes when all of a sudden she let out a loud gasp. Gene stopped moving when her orgasm milked him hard, wanting to feel the sensation around him. He almost came then. When her body relaxed, she gave off a little ‘mmm’ and he started moving again. It only took him a few more strokes until he started panting and then gave off a loud groan, his body jerking into hers. It seemed endless as he kept coming into her hot warmth.

When Gene stirred out of sleep, he heard the quiet sound of some commercial playing over the radio and the sounds of birds chirping. Opening his eyes, he noticed the patio door open, the drapes blowing in from the spring breeze, and the sky was blue.

Sighing relaxed, he turned over and noticed the bed was empty, her robe laying where she had slept. He was about to call out for her when he heard the sound of the shower running. Gene threw on a white t-shirt before he grabbed his smokes and walked out onto the veranda. It was a gorgeous morning he thought as he lit the cigarette. Leaning on the banister, he took a drag, when he heard familiar sounds of children. He couldn’t see all the way into the Bogart’s backyard, but he could see a few kiddos running around, and he knew one of the was his baby girl, as a dog also barked obviously playing with them. He smiled a moment, at the peace, and had a sudden urge to kiss Judy and tell her everything would be okay.

After finishing the cigarette, he smashed it out before walking back into their bedroom. As he passed the dresser, he did a double take before stopping. Slowly, he picked up the piece of paper.

Judy wrung her hair out, and was about to turn the shower off, when the door suddenly banged open and the shower curtain was ripped aside.

She jumped, startled, “Jesus, Gene!”

“Get out of there,” he said and motioned for her to come out.

She gave him a funny look before speaking irritated and turned off the water, “I was about to. What the hell’s wrong with you barging in here like that?”

He tossed her a towel, “Come on.”

She secured it around her body and stepped out, “Do you mind?”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her out, though she tried resisting, “It’s cold. What are you doing?”

“I want you to see something.”

He stopped at the dresser and took the paper. Staring her dead in the eyes, he slowly tore the deed, the divorce papers, that now had her fresh signature on them.

Judy looked a little surprised, “Why did you do that?”

“Why did you sign it,” he asked her back.

“Because you made it clear last night that our marriage is over.”

Gene looked at her ridiculously, but also trying to understand her, as he placed his hand on his hip, “By making love to you?”

Judy laughed, “We did not make love,” her voice got almost venomous, “We both just got off, and you know it.”

“What the hell does that matter? I didn’t want to fuck Betsy, even just to get laid, at the end our marriage. Where did I make it clear last night that I want our marriage to be over?”

He placed his hand on her cheek, being very serious, but she quickly moved out of his way afraid of the sudden affection, “You were thinking about when we first got together. You told me it’s because it was the end of us.”

“Judy, it was just my mind getting sentimental because we were sitting there locked in a fucking room together with divorce papers under our nose. Look at me,” he demanded, but with a soft voice.

She looked at him and he stared at her a moment, biting down on his jaw a few times, “I know you’ll have no trouble getting another set of papers drawn up, but I’m telling you right now, I’m not signing. I’m not giving you up that easily. It took me nearly a decade to make you my wife, I’m not giving that up from one fight. And if you think I am, you’re a damn fool.”

“I don’t want this either, Gene, but we obviously aren’t working out the way we used to. Look at us, we’ve been locked in a room together and all we’ve done is argue. If this was before, we would’ve spent the time playing games or dancing or…”

“It’s just a stressful time and stressful situation, Judy, we will get through it.”

“Are you really sure about that? We’re changing as people, and our careers have changed. We’re not the same people we use to be.”

“No one is. But we’ll work through the changes,” he reiterated, “I’ll do anything…even marriage counseling if that’s what it takes. You know how the thought of that makes me ill but I’ll do it. But you need to help, too. It takes two to tango, baby.”

He took her hands desperately, “Tell me, what do *you* need?” When she didn’t answer, only looking down with sorrow, he sat them down on the bed, “We need to communicate or we won’t get anywhere. Tell me.”

“For you to be home more. For you to not drink as much, no matter how stressed you get, because your temper scares me. And I need you to understand why I don’t want you to be away from me so long. I know I’m selfish about that, but it is for my mental health. Please no more 5 weeks away.”

“If, and I say if, either of us are going to have to be away for long for work, we will travel together. I’ll make sure it’s in our contracts. But you have to understand, that some things are out of my hands and I never do anything to purposefully upset you or hurt you. And I promise to work on not drinking like that anymore, but you need to be calmer with me as well. Your erratic behaviors scare me, sometimes.”

Judy’s voice cracked, “You know sometimes I can’t help that.”

“But you can control the intake, especially when *you’re* stressed,” he said referencing to her medication. It was something she often relapsed with, but when she did, he was in control of it. But it had been harder with him away working so much, and she wasn’t good at that kind of control, especially since it was her own body. To Judy, it was like money, it was something she needed but always relied on other people to control or take care of.

Judy squeezed his hands, “Do you really think we can go back to how things used to be?”

“No, because like you said, we’re not the same people we used to be. We can certainly grow together and change together but still be us. We just have to find a new way to make things work. And instead of arguing right away, we should talk through it and consider our options.”

“Except when picking a television show,” she said wickedly.

“King of the house, I own the remote.”

“We’ll see about that, buster,” she said playfully elbowing him.

Gene chuckled before getting serious again, “Judy, I love you. I love you more than life itself, but you’re fucking mad sometimes.”

Judy laughed gleefully, “Good. I feel the same way about you. You drive me insane.”

“Come here, sweetheart,” he said cuddling her damp body to him.

She rest her cheek on his chest and sighed, feeling like a weight was lifted from her shoulders. When she felt his finger lift her chin, she looked up at him.

“I’d like to kiss you hello,” he said remembering how she ignored it when he tried kissing her at the party.

His lips almost touched hers when she leaned back, placing her hand on his chest, “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“That you make love to me.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he breathed as his lips met hers in a passionate kiss.

She purred, practically melting into him, as his tongue pushed its way into her willing mouth. Judy didn’t even realize her back was on the bed until Gene suddenly lifted himself off of her as the bedroom doors opened.

Lauren was walking in when Judy and Gene both yelled, “Get out!”

Her eyes opened wide as she quickly retreated, shutting the doors, a huge grin on her face as she walked down the hallway.

#Judy Garland #jugenea #gene kelly #fan fiction #jg fans #gk fans

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dibidibifiction · 3 years

Text

Summer To Fall

Paring: Kim Jonghyun x Lee Taemin (Jongtae)

Category: soft romance; fluff

Word count: 1.7k

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction made for personal entertainment of readers. The writer does not ever intend to offend her readers nor does she aim to spread false information about anyone as to pay any disrespect to the real-life persons whom the characters are based on. She also does not claim ownership to any of the images that are being used.

masterlist

. . .

I don’t know why I’m still nervous now even when Jonghyun Hyung visited me earlier today during my performance broadcast to surprise me for celebrating my comeback. I am now at home, waiting for him to arrive from his parents house to announce his official discharge from the military. Even though we’ve known each other for more than a decade, I can’t help but worry that things might turn awkward for us.

I didn’t know how to react when Jonghyun Hyung surprise-visited me today, still in his uniform. I knew that I was extremely happy to see him but with all those people surrounding us and since I’m still new to this, I’m afraid they might suspect us. I hugged him properly and tightly only when we were finally left alone in my waiting room. Knowing him, he’d cry, which I always find endearing. I asked him why.

“I just missed you so much and you were amazing out there. I’m so proud of you,” he explained, his voice slightly faint and nasal from crying too much.

I looked into his puffy eyes and smiled goofily for seeing his face again after one long year.

“Okay, I have to save some tears for my family,” he joked, sniffling.

Jonghyun Hyung and I had been texting back and forth during his year of service. Almost every night, he would call me on video chat before he had to turn in his phone.

Around four months ago, it was a normal day for the both of us. However, he was acting strangely. He seemed extra jumpy and he talked so fast that I could barely understand what he was saying.

“What is wrong with you today?” I asked. He always told me whenever something was bothering him, but apparently, not this time.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re acting weird.”

He paused for a while there. He aimed the camera away from his face for me to see only his shoulder.

“Hyung?” I called for him but he didn’t respond right away. We stayed like this for a whole five minutes, just me getting dizzy from watching my screen going round and round.

“Taemin, there’s something that I’ve been putting off telling you,” he started once the camera stopped spinning and I can see his face again. “You know how we’ve been spending time like this lately, and I must tell you, I’ve been very happy. Like, really very happy. I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” his voice sounded breathy.

I just continued to listen to him, quite confused, waiting for further information.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot and...” he repeated, seeming fidgety. “I like you, Taemin.”

There was long silence. I had no idea what to say.

Next thing I know is that he said “Okay, good night!” and hung up. But he followed it by a text message saying, It’s okay, you don’t have to give an answer right now. Just tell me whenever you’re ready. Sleep well.~

We didn’t talk for a while after that, but we still texted. I began preparing for my comeback, weeks of practicing vocals and choreographies, plus video shootings. I became so busy that I almost didn’t think about what he told me.

After over two months of nonstop working, I finally caught days of break. I got to relax, thought about everything. My feelings for Jonghyun Hyung were always there but I guess I never really thought of it deeply since I didn’t think it was a big deal. When I heard it directly from him, although shocked and a little confused, I felt so happy as if my heart wanted to jump out of my body and run to him.

Talking to him by the end of every day is the moment I always looked forward to. I got unreasonably worried when I hadn’t heard from him all day. I was disappointed some nights that he’s too exhausted to talk and he had to go to bed early.

I had to tell him, too, how I felt so I decided to finally call him.

I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that he left to serve the military simply as Jonghyun Hyung and came back as my Jonghyun Hyung. It’s insane to think about. I don’t think I felt this blissful in my life. Talk about timing. I feel like running and jumping and screaming!

As I’m just sitting on my couch, still waiting for him to arrive, I feel restless, fidgeting my knees. My heart drops when I hear a knock on the door.

A gorgeous man appears before me holding a bouquet of flowers. “Congratulations, Taemin!” Jonghyun Hyung greets me with a sing-song voice.

I giggle at his cuteness of a smile. I gesture him to step inside as I took the bouquet from his hands. “Thank you, Hyung!” I say, trying not to sound too happy while I hug him.

After I offer him something to drink, we settle down on my couch. I inform him of my promotion process since he asked how I was doing first. Then I just watch him tell me all about his experience in the military. Eventually, his laugh is the only sound I’m hearing, and his smile is the only thing I’m seeing. It’s the most beautiful thing.

We talk for hours. Time passes by so quickly tonight that we lost track.

“By the way, where is your uniform?” I ask him.

“At home, why? Did you like how it looked on me?” he says, reading my mind.

I laugh. I’m too shy to admit that he did look hot in that military uniform. “Yeah, I think you looked taller in that,” I tease him instead.

“Hey!” he shouts, then punches me on my arm playfully.

I change the topic after we finish laughing. “It’s getting late, do you want me to drive you home?”

“Well...” He pauses for a moment, probably thinking how he should put what he’s about to say. “I was hoping I could stay here?”

“Huh?” Just like that I feel uneasy again. “Here?” My eyes eventually widen at him even when I don’t mean to. I don’t remember the last time I blinked.

“Forget it.” He’s laughing but I can hear the frustration in his voice. “I’ll just go.” He stands up from the couch and is about to head to the front door.

“Hyung!” I didn’t mean to yell. “I want you to stay,” I say gutlessly. He turns around to face me again.

“Why?” He reveals his frown this time.

“Day after tomorrow,” I try, but stuttering. “I will be busy again for the rest of the week so I might not be able to see you again for a while. So…”

“Taemin, obviously, you’re still not comfortable with this. It’s okay. I understand that this will take time. I’m still adjusting myself.” It’s true what he just said but I do want him to stay. I want…

Him.

My mind is out of control as my built-up desires take over. I run to him and clash my lips against his, drawing him even closer to me by his hips. I pull away after a moment. “But if you really want to go—”

He hushes me by clashing our lips together again even before I can catch my breath, this time it’s more tender but lustful.

His hands are now grasping my face and mine are starting to slide down at the top of his butt cheeks. Our bodies are colliding naturally, making me feel his hard-on against mine as our tongues taste each other.

He pulls away after a few minutes, already breathless. He looks in my eyes fiercely, biting his own lip. “I’m going to wash up,” he says, without changing his expression. He then goes running to my bathroom and slamming the door shut.

I’m finally able to breathe and just realizing that my heart is beating harder and faster. I can’t help but giggle at myself and fall back to the couch while I feel my face burning with my palms where he just touched me. “Hyung, what are you doing to me?”

. . .

I slowly open my eyes awake, feeling Hyung’s warm embrace wrapped around me from behind. I can also feel his breath against my ear. My heart is already full even when my day literally has just started. This has been the best sleep I’ve had in as long as I can remember.

“Taemin,” I hear him moan. He must’ve felt me waking up.

I carefully roll my whole body around to face him, then watch his precious skin shine along the morning light.

“How did you sleep?” he asks, his voice raspy.

“Perfect,” I say, smiling widely already.

I get out of bed to go to the toilet and let him linger on my bare ass.

I hear him sigh and chuckle, making me smile even wider.

I went back to the bedroom with a question in mind. “Hyung,” I call for him, rejoining him in bed. I hesitate.

“What is it?” He stares at me waiting to hear something else.

I look down for a second to think. “When did you start liking me?”

“Well,” he starts immediately, not breaking eye contact which makes my cheeks feel hot. “I asked myself that question a lot, too, way before I confessed to you. Of course it was confusing at first but it was no use fighting it. I have no idea when I started to like you, just like how no one knows when exactly the weather turns from spring to summer or from summer to fall. Eventually, I just started feeling differently towards you. A feeling that is hard to explain through words.”

I just nod lightly, looking down at his bare muscled chest. Once again, not knowing how to respond. He pretty much spelled out my answer to that question too.

He scoots closer to me and touches my nose with his, his forehead on mine. “I’m just lucky enough that you like me too,” he says, tears shape up in his eyes.

“Oh, Hyung,” I empathize, putting my arm around him. “I can’t wait to tell the guys.”

“Really? You want to tell them right away?”

“Yes, they’re our best friends. I’m sure they’ll be happy for us.”

“Okay, let’s tell them together then.”

After we have our little conversation, we just stay nose to nose and embrace each other’s blissful presence for a while. Then once again, our mouths touch, as well as our naked bodies, and experience the taste of pleasure we have for each other.

#jongtae #SHINee FanFic #shinee taemin #shinee jonghyun #jongtae fluff #jongtae fanfic #shinee fanfics #kim jonghyun #lee taemin #taemin fanfic #jonghyun fanfic

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lilytriestoexist · 4 years

Text

Erawan With Bangs: A Sequel

I was stressing myself out over a physics assignment involving eyeballs so I decided the ideal stress relief was...writing fanfiction about EWB. Again. Really, it’s all physics’s fault. Also, I haven’t read all of K0A, so this is nowhere near what actually happened in canon, but it's probably way cooler. Featuring: @crescentcitysux @croissantcitysucks and @antisjmmemes. Obligatory tag: @erawanwithbangs . And it’s 12am here, so goodnight lol. (i think i 'peaked' with the first one. also, tw/ erawan kills people and there's talk about blood)

His new look, Erawan decided, was the most powerful weapon in his disposal. It had struck his Valg Princes and common underlings speechless with its sheer magnificence. Not one person had spoken out against his mighty bangs, for they were faultless and flawless, and most definitely not because he had snapped the neck of the sole demon commoner who had given his hair a displeased side-eye. No, the people had spoken, and his bangs were glorious.

But while he and his bangs carried his side of the war to victory after victory, Maeve was not doing as well. The nasty brat who styled herself a queen - what was her name, Alien? Ayla? No, it was Eileen. Yes, Fire Queen Eileen had escaped from Maeve’s clutches and was reunited with her mate, Ronan, her cousin Adrian, her friend Lydia, and a few other Fae males whose names he couldn’t remember. They all started to blend together after a while, anyway. The last he’d heard from Maeve through their Valg bloodlink, Eileen’s court was a thorn in her side, and one she was determined to rip out and incinerate. Erawan had opened his mouth, intending to ask about her strange obsession with Eileen and Ronan’s romance, but he’d caught a glance of his bangs in the tableware and decided he had other priorities. A strand of hair was longer than the others in his otherwise immaculate bangs; Maeve, Eileen, and Ronan could wait.

Anyway, the point was that Maeve was not doing great, but he was doing pretty great, and so the clear resolution to this was to go help her out. Which was why he was here, using his powers a few metres off the ground, skin bleeding wisps of shadow. His bangs flapped in the gentle breeze as he lead his army forward to meet Terrasen’s own, smirking as it registered on their puny faces that he himself was leading his forces. Shock, fear, horror, and resignation flitted across their tiny faces in quick succession, but still they raised their weapons and charged, foolish bravery etched into their bones. A slow grin spread across his face, revealing sharp, gleaming teeth, as black swallowed his eyes whole and he leapt forward.

After a while, severing heads from bodies and tearing organs from beneath fragile skin got boring, and the spurt of blood from open wounds no longer gave him a similar rush of satisfaction. How easy it was to steal life from humans, to toss them aside like puppets with cut strings. He had lived thousands of their short lifetimes, and he would live thousands more.

“ERAWAN!”

A cry rang out through the battlefield, and he looked up, brows raised, as he shoved aside the latest victim of his dark, blazing whips. And speaking of blazing, Eileen was making her way across the grass, stepping over the dead and dying bodies of her soldiers, twin flames surging from her upward-facing palms and casting warm light across her pale face. Sunlight gleamed off her gold armour, and a matching broadsword hung from her belt.

“Eileen.” He gave her a nod of acknowledgement, but she just stared, jaw dropping.

“Did you just call me Eileen?”

Erawan blinked, unimpressed. “That’s your name, so of course I did.”

She spluttered, flailing her hands around and sending tiny embers of glowing orange fluttering through the air. “I - my name is AeIin!” she snarled, baring her canines.

He gave her a long, hard stare. “I’m going to call you Eileen,” he announced. “Because you look like an Eileen.”

“AeIin!” A hawk came swooping down from the clouds and transformed into a man with short white hair and word-like tattoos sprawled across half his face, Eileen’s apparent name spilling from his lips.

“Ah!” Erawan looked him up and down. “You must be Ronan.”

Ronan pressed two fingers into the inner corners of his eyes, just below his brow-bones, and ignored him. “AeIin - “

“I told you not to come, Rowan,” Eileen snapped. “This is between me and him.”

“Ronan can stay if he wants,” Erawan said. “The more the merrier. I’ve always enjoyed slaughtering Fae. Do you happen to have any friends you could bring along?”

“Rowan, I can do this,” Eileen said, staring deep into his eyes before surging up to meet him. Erawan averted his gaze as Ronan returned her action with equal fervour, coughing into his hand and whistling a tune, tapping his foot in time with the clashing of metal on metal and the haunting song of warfare that flooded from the still-raging battle.

When he turned back around, they were still going at it. With a growl of annoyance, he sent a snaking tendril of darkness and made it slap them away from each other.

“Are you done?” he demanded. “Less making out, more taking out.”

Ronan looked torn, but finally turned back into a hawk and took off into the air, flapping his great wings and circling the battlefield before something caught his eye and he flew until he was only a small speck against a sea of blue.

The glow of an approaching fireball made him look at Eileen’s face, twisted into a grimace of determination. He batted away the fireball, sending it careening into one of her own soldiers and grinning as the poor man was turned to ash, but she kept them coming - fireballs that shifted between red, orange, and yellow every time he blinked, massive walls of flame that engulfed the nearby area, since thankfully people had the sense to stay away, whips that mirrored his own favourite attack that tried to wind around his arms and lash out at his legs.

When she jumped deftly over a rippling wave of night and curled her fingers, conjuring another fireball and flicking it at him, his hand rose to hit it away, like he had for all the others. But this one had been aimed higher than his chest, and his fingers skimmed through air. Instinct kicked in, sending him skidding to the side as the fireball just barely missed his head and continued through the air. Erawan breathed a sign of relief, hand reaching up to caress his bangs and summon good luck.

He knew something was wrong when he felt plain skin instead of the comfort of his bangs, lovely and golden and smooth as the finest silk. His gaze turned to the floor, where strands of hair floated to rest on the grass, burnt off by the fireball. He barely registered Eileen taking advantage of his momentous loss, but his powers kicked in, a shield springing up between them.

Erawan sank to his knees, touching his fingers to what was left of his poor, poor bangs. The colour had been swallowed by ashy black, and a thin line of smoke wafted from the debris, twisting and twirling in the air, mocking him. Eileen was still hammering away at his shield. His hand went back to his forehead, measuring the wideness, touching where the hair had been burnt off. He could feel the tight coils of agony scrape against his throat, against the writhing walls of his stomach, and all he could do was let it out.

Darkness erupted from him as he screamed, pouring out all his pain and grief and agony into the one sound, loud and high-pitched and thick with mourning. It did not go to attack Eileen, though she took cover beneath a cocoon of flames, nor any of her followers. Instead, it danced around the blood-stained field before coalescing into a ring of black, rotating in mid-air, a thin glowing sheen of white barely visible within. His magic, acting on its master’s inner thoughts, summoning the only people who might understand.

Aelia, Lyn, and Salty appeared, stepping out of the portal and descending to the ground, confusion apparent on their faces as they took in Eileen, blanketed in protective flames, to the battle that was in the process of resuming, to him, hunched on the ground and shaking.

“Erawan with bangs?” Lyn asked, prodding at his shoulder. Another tortured cry ripped itself from the crevices of his throat at the cruel reminder, and she jumped, exchanging concerned glances with her companions. “Uh, Erawan?”

“It’s gone,” he murmured, covering his massive forehead with his left palm.

“What’s gone?” Salty asked with a frown, before realisation filled their eyes. “Oh no. It’s gone, isn’t it?”

“The bangs,” Aelia breathed, and winced as he howled yet again. “Okay, you can stop doing that now. How did it happen?”

“Her,” he whispered, limbs stiffening. “Her.” He pushed himself off the ground and extended a single trembling finger at Eileen, who extinguished her flames and blinked at the new arrivals and his fragile state.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, embers flying from her fingertips in warning. “He’s trying to take over the world as we know it, I’m trying to stop him. I don’t know what lies he’s fed you, but it’s not true.”

Lyn waved a dismissive hand in her direction. “He hasn’t told us anything.” she said, “and he doesn’t need to. We already know what those in this world are doing with their lives, and I’m not a fan of either camp.”

“What?” Eileen’s brows shot up. “But I’m right! He’s literally an evil monster!”

Salty shrugged. “And you’re an annoying bitch who’s expressed take-over-the-world desires. I think both of you aren’t great. And I don’t really care.” Their expression hardened. “What I do, or did care about were those bangs. Those glorious, glorious bangs.”

“Always in our hearts,” Aelia said, resting her palm over her chest solemnly. “You will never be forgotten, bangs. We will remember you forever.”

Eileen sent a massive wall of flame at them, apparently losing her temper, but Lyn snapped her fingers and it disappeared. Eileen’s second attempt met the same fate, and then her third and fourth as well.

“You know, Erawan without bangs,” Aelia said.

“Yeah?” he replied, choking back a sob.

“I think we should give - wait, what’s this girl’s name? I thought it was AeIin.”

“No, it’s definitely Eileen.”

“Well, maybe we should give Eileen a little payback. You know, as a treat.”

A second later, he had strode over to where Eileen was desperately sending fireball after fireball at a cackling Lyn, his own night black flame cradled in his hand. She had no time to react before he’d coaxed it to leap through the air and onto the ends of her hair, crawling up the strands of gleaming blonde until her whole head was lit up, apart from the strands of hair that hung in front of her forehead. She screamed and writhed, but he had tendrils of shadow wrapped around her wrists and ankles, and more strips over her neck and chin, keeping her head immobilised. Within a minute, all her long hair had been eaten up, apart from the area he’d left untouched. She was almost completely bald, her hairless head shining like an egg.

“Here,” Salty said, handing him the pair of scissors he kept in his bedroom. “Don’t ask any questions.” He didn’t.

“Get away from me,” Eileen sobbed. “What are you doing, get away, get away!”

“You must face the consequences of your own actions,” Lyn declared, poking at Eileen’s pointed ears and looking very unimpressed.

He balled up all his rage and grief at the loss of his bangs, steadied his hands, and began cutting. Eileen dissolved into a string of whimpers as he ruthlessly cut her the worst fringe he could imagine having, all ragged and crooked lines, with no layering to break up the monotonous fall of hair, almost covering her eyes. When the final chunk of blonde fell to the floor, he waved his hand, ensuring that no strand of hair outside of his ugly fringe would ever grow on Eileen’s head. Aelia, Lyn, and Salty then each placed a finger on the fringe and said what he assumed to be an ancient, esoteric spell from their own world, sealing it with flashes from their rectangles. I wonder what magical properties the word ‘fuck’ has, he thought.

Once they had completed their spell, Erawan stepped back and waved away Eileen’s restraints. Aelia tossed her a mirror that he was almost sure came from his possessions as well, and they watched as Eileen ran quivering hands over her egg-like bald head, felt the fringe they’d left behind, and finally, looking like she’d rather be six feet beneath the earth, brought her face to the mirror.

Her ensuing scream of anguish was the most delightful thing he’d ever heard. He hummed the tune, the rising and falling in pitch and cracking of tone, as he grew himself a new pair of bangs the next morning.

#erawan with bangs #why am i doing this to myself

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cuthian · 3 years

Text

Becoming a Memory, Becoming a Treasure Chapter Two

So, uh...

That took much less long than I expected it to. Still don't know where this is going exactly, but these characters are SO fun to write!

Thanks for all the love, everyone!

Love Annaelle

PS Thanks to my darling beta @juuls, who has not watched the show and has no clue what's going on but still reads over samples for me :p I'd be helpless without you, darling.

TWO

“Life is like a Beautiful Melody, Only the Lyrics Are Messed Up.”

—Hans Christian Andersen

REGGIE

Seeing Maggie again had… it’d soothed the sharp edges of something broken deep inside Reggie’s chest. Something that had been hurting so badly for so long he didn’t even realize it hurt until it stopped. She was an adult, and she was married—to a woman! How would his father have taken both of his kids turning out to be gay?—and had a baby that she’d named after him, and it didn’t look like their parents had been as shitty to her as they had been to him.

He walked home with Julie, keeping his arm slung around her shoulders because they could do that now, even if none of them knew why, mostly keeping their conversation light and easy.

He’d have to warn Alex, when they got back to the studio, that Julie knew that they’d fooled around and dated, and that the chances that Luke was going to find out were suddenly much higher.

It wasn’t that they’d intentionally kept it a secret… at first, anyway.

At first, it’d been awkward, because Luke and Alex hadn’t been broken up that long, and though it had been amicable, it felt a little like they were crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed ever again. Reggie hadn’t actually meant for anything to happen between him and Alex; he’d sought out his friend to ask how he’d known he liked boys, how he’d felt when Luke kissed him, if he’d ever looked at girls the same way he looked at boys, because Reggie did.

Reggie loved girls.

But… but… Reggie was also 99.9% sure he’d been in love with Luke Patterson since the day they’d met.

By the time Reggie had figured that out though, Luke had already dated Alex, broken up with Alex, and started dating a girl named Tawnie or Tiffany or something. So he’d turned to Alex instead.

Alex, who had smiled at him when Reggie said he didn’t know if he’d want to kiss a guy the way he’d kissed girls, shrugged and said, “So kiss me, see how that feels.”

Reggie had never really been able to resist a dare, so he had.

It’d kind of spiraled from there, and they’d just… kind of kept doing it.

They’d never quite gotten around to telling Luke or Bobby about it because neither of them thought it was a big deal. They fooled around when they felt like it, but they weren’t in love—they were best friends, and Reggie loved the hell out of Alex and he knew Alex felt the same, but they weren’t…

It wasn’t romantic love.

It’d taken Reggie some time to admit that though, even to himself. Alex had figured it out first—Alex always did know these things before Reggie did.

“So,” Julie said as they turned the corner to walk into her street. “Are you gonna talk to Luke?”

“About Maggie?” Reggie deflected deliberately. “Obviously. He and Alex might wanna pop in at some point too.”

Julie drew him to a stop and gave him a look.

Reggie heaved a sigh and hung his head.

“There’s really nothing to talk about,” he shrugged. “I mean, I think I… I think I’m cool with Luke not being into me like that, you know?”

Julie slapped him up the head.

“Ow,” he whined. “What was that for?”

“Oh, dio mio,” Julie groaned, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “I give up.” She stalked forward, leaving Reggie standing dumbfounded on the sidewalk for a second before he chased after her.

Luke and Alex were throwing a basketball between them restlessly on the driveway, clearly waiting for Julie and Reggie to show up. “There you are,” Luke exclaimed as soon as they came into view, rushing forward to grab at Reggie’s shoulders. “How’d it go? What does she look like? Did she buy Julie’s story? Are you okay?”

Reggie stumbled back a little, taken aback by the onslaught of questions, but Alex popped up behind him and steadied him with a hand pressed to his back.

“Ugh,” Julie snorted. “You guys are hopeless.”

She left them standing on the driveway, walking into the house after rolling her eyes at them. Reggie was pretty sure she was just going inside to text Flynn so they could gossip about them.

“It was fine,” he told Luke and Alex. “She’s—she’s great. I mean, she, uh…” His eyes watered and he swallowed thickly. “She named her kid after me.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he said it, and Alex made a soft noise before he folded his arms around Reggie and held him in a tight hug. “Oh, Reg,” he said quietly, leaning his forehead against Reggie’s temple, and Reggie sagged against him gratefully. Seeing his sister had taken more out of him than he had thought it had, and now that Alex was holding him and Luke was coming to terms with someone crying in front of him, it hit him hard.

Alex’s hugs really were the best.

Luke, it seemed, had finally processed and accepted that Reggie was crying and tumbled headfirst into panic, rushing closer too, pressing his palms to Reggie’s cheeks, rubbing at his tears with his thumbs. “Of course she did,” Luke said softly. “You were the best big brother. She adored you.”

Reggie sobbed dryly, pitching forward to tuck his face in the crook of Luke’s neck, wrapping his arms around his best friend. Alex moved with him, staying pressed close so that Reggie was effectively cradled between them, letting him sob out the tension, the grief, the nerves—

Letting him work through everything meeting his sister again had brought up.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, how long Alex and Luke held him and let him cry, but he knew that his eyes felt dry and scratchy by the time he looked up, and Luke’s eyes were distinctly red too, and he could hear Alex sniffing a little too.

“I’m okay,” he whispered. “Thanks, guys.”

“Duh,” Alex said affectionately, leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of Reggie’s lips without thinking about it, just like he had a hundred times before when Reggie had been upset, before freezing abruptly when he realized this was the first time he’d done that in front of Luke.

Reggie froze too, swallowing thickly before he dared to look up at Luke, who was looking between them with a bewildered—and slightly hurt—expression.

“Uh,” Reggie said eloquently.

“I—uh,” Alex stuttered, cheeks flaming, pulling his hands away from Reggie and holding them up defensively. “I’m sorry?”

“What is going on?” Luke said harshly, eyes flicking from Reggie to Alex and back.

Reggie opened his mouth to say something, but when no words came out, he shut it again. “Luke,” Alex started, but Luke shook his head and stepped back, looking at them with an expression that made Reggie’s insides clench painfully.

He ran a hand through his messy hair and shook his head. “Fine,” he spat angrily. “Fine.”

Before Reggie or Alex could say anything, he disappeared with a soft plop.

“Shit,” Reggie cursed, running his hands through his hair. “Shit. Of all the ways he could’ve found out.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said anxiously. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” He wrung his hands together nervously, chewing on his lower lip.

“No, it’s—” Reggie sighed. “Julie found out today too. I was gonna talk to you about telling him, but…”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed. “Yeah, we probably should’ve handled that better.”

Reggie bit his lower lip before he told Alex, “I’ll go find him. Talk to him.” He rubbed his hands over his upper arms and smiled weakly at the other boy. “He’s probably mostly pissed that we didn’t tell him anything. And as much as you suck at change, Luke is just as bad.”

“Yeah,” Alex chuckled weakly. “Yeah, he is.”

Reggie could see Alex hesitate, could see him thinking something through before he stepped forward and very deliberately took Reggie’s face in his hands before pressing the softest, most chaste kiss they had ever shared—the first kiss since Alex had told him they needed to stop their romantic relationship—to his lips.

It tasted remarkably like goodbye.

“I’ll go find Willie,” Alex said quietly when he leaned back. “Tell him too. He should know before Luke runs into him and tells him something that isn’t—”

“Yeah,” Reggie nodded. “Okay. Good luck.”

“You too,” Alex told him, smiling genuinely before he stepped back and disappeared with a plop.

“Right,” Reggie said. He thought about where Luke would go, about where he’d try to hide from him and Alex, before sighing. There really was only one spot Luke would go to.

“Here goes nothing,” he told himself, and popped away.

------------

MAGGIE

Maggie walked into the office with a bit of a spring in her step, the bracelet that her brother had once made her now sized to fit her wrist and sitting just below her watch. “Hey Maggie,” Andi said as soon as Maggie had walked into her own office, leaning against the door casually. “Long time no see.”

Maggie snorted a laugh as she sat down at her desk and pulled her laptop out of her purse. “Well I did have a baby, Andi. It’s called maternity leave.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Andi rolled her eyes and walked in, settling in the chair across the desk. “Rub it in. You do not get to look like that,” she gestured towards Maggie vaguely, “twelve weeks after given birth to a literal human being. You’re giving us all a bad name.”

Maggie laughed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Any interesting artists pop up while I was gone?”

“Eh,” Andi shrugged. “Trevor Wilson’s kid isn’t bad, but she’s not good enough to stand out, I don’t think. There was one band with a lot of potential, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with them just yet.” She shrugged. “I tried to pitch the lead singer after a show, but an angry parent interrupted.”

“Oof,” Maggie winced.

Angry parents were the worst thing about trying to recruit successful young artists.

“What’s the band?” She asked, typing in her password and opening her search engine immediately. “Want me to do some digging?”

“Sure,” Andi said casually. “It’s Julie and the Fat Ones. Phantoms? I can’t recall.” She got to her feet elegantly and said, “If you can find and book ‘em, they’re all yours.” She walked out of the office, turning at the door to smile genuinely and say, “Welcome back.”

Maggie grinned. “Thanks, Andi.”

She turned back to her laptop and typed in Julie and the— Before she’d even completed the second word, suggestions and results were springing up, including a few videos. She looked through the options for a moment before deciding on the video with the most views—an absurd and impressive number, considering it had only been up for a week—titled ‘Great’.

She clicked the link, and the video played.

-------

Start from the beginning:

Becoming a Memory, Becoming a Treasure:

(1)

Or read it HERE on AO3 :D Find the next chapter HERE on Tumblr :)

#jatp #julie and the himbos #jatp ruke #ruke #Luke patterson #Julie molina #alex #reggie #luke/reggie #BaMBaT

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vannahfanfics · 4 years

Text

Talking to the Wind

Category: Mild Romantic Fluff

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Characters: Kairi

Hi, all! I wanted to squeeze in a story or two for SoKai Week, since I haven’t been able to write for them yet. :3 Here’s a story for the Day 3 prompt, “Thinking of You.” Enjoy!

Kairi’s eyes were closed as she listened to the rhythmic flutter of the wind through thousands upon thousands of emerald-green leaves. The tune carried through the wood to flit up to the small bluff on which Kairi was seated. The grass was cool against her legs, which were tucked up to her body. She cracked an eye open when she felt a peculiar crawling sensation and found a ladybug creeping over the soft skin of her thigh. She extended her finger in front of the small creature; it poked at her fingertip with its thin black feelers before clambering up to perch contentedly on her fingernail. Kairi raised her hand into the air to frame the red-and-black beetle in the bright sunlight. It flapped its wings before fluttering off with a muted buzz.

Kairi exhaled deeply and reclined back on her hands, pushing out her legs so that her ankles dangled down over the chasm extending beyond the bluff. A sea of green stretched on before her, and the breeze ruffled waves into the expanse of leaves. Kairi could almost imagine she was back on Destiny Islands, lounging in the hot sand with the surf kissing her toes. She closed her eyes once more. She pretended that the forest breeze carried a hint of salt, and the sound of the ruffling leaves was the crashing of waves against the shore, bringing with them salt spray and seashells and promises of worlds far, far away.

Kairi hummed contentedly and smiled at the image. She could literally smell the sweet coconut milk and taste the succulent flesh as she mentally cracked one open. She could feel the waxy, smooth surface of the palm tree leaves as she imagined her fingers coasting over them. She could hear Sora and Riku laughing blissfully as they clacked their wooden swords together in their daily fight. Sora turned to her with that goofy, toothy smile that never failed to make her heart sing in her chest like a reverent choir. The peaceful image suddenly took a bittersweet turn, and Kairi found tears brimming in the corners of her eyes and her bottom lip wobbling. With a shaky breath, she opened her eyes to stare out into the sea of green.

“I miss that,” she whispered. The breeze picked it up and carried it away. She fancied that it delivered it all those worlds away, wherever Sora was- her simple message and unspoken wish to see him again. “I miss you, Sora.”

Sighing deeply, Kairi looked down at her hands to mindlessly play with her cuticles. It seemed like a life age since she had last seen him; for the last several years, they existed lightyears from one another. Though Kairi no longer had to play the spouse waiting for their soldier to come home and carried a Keyblade, the distance was still agonizing. Suddenly, she flopped back into the grass. Pollen clouded into the air and was whisked away with the breeze. Unfortunately, the wind couldn’t carry away her melancholy. Kairi could see Sora’s face before her waking eyes, all toothy smile and sparkling bright eyes.

“Where are you now?” she wondered aloud. The dandelions beside her head fluttered and dislodged their seeds as if to say, we are everywhere yet nowhere. That’s what it felt like to Kairi, the enigmatic Sora. He tromped from world to world, leaving a clear trail of friendship and light in his wake, but to Kairi, he was nowhere. No matter how fast she ran, how desperately she reached out, he eluded her. She could only grasp the glimmers of light he left behind. She lolled her head to the side to observe the dandelions; a few of their floatable seeds clung to the stems, hesitant to go on into the world.

I remember being like that, Kairi smiled wistfully. Even though I had only a hazy memory of you, I still waited on that beach for the day you came home. That endless blue expanse had frightened her immensely. What dangers lie in its black deeps? What waves waited to toss her about and lead her astray? She had waited, and waited, and waited- and eventually, destiny had been forced to come to her. Kairi pursed her lips and blew strongly on the dandelion seeds, forcing them to detach and coast away as the breeze picked them up. “Sometimes destiny comes to you,” she chuckled wanly.

She sighed again and looked back up at the sky. It was brilliantly blue that day, with puffy white clouds sailing through its expanse. “Are you looking at the same sky? I suppose you can’t, since we’re not in the same world,” she mused ironically. “Still, is the sky you see as beautiful as this?” The grasses rippled in response to the ever-present wind. “I wish I was there with you,” she lamented quietly. Sora’s role in this tremendous inter-world battle was monumental; Kairi knew that. She just wished she could fight properly at his side for once. Sure, he had Donald and Goofy and the rest of their friends, but sometimes, Kairi wondered how many burdens he shouldered alone.

“I hope you’re eating and drinking well,” she chuckled. “Can’t save worlds on an empty stomach!” The breeze rushed past her again, apparently intent on being her mail carrier. She liked the idea that the winds crossed time and space to bring her wishful thinking to Sora; it made his long absences slightly more bearable. “You always did love to eat. When was the last time you had salted fish and fries? Your mom used to make the best!” Talking to the wind had been awkward at first, but as she conversed with her silent partner, the words came more naturally.

“I hope you’ve outgrown your clumsiness, too,” she chuckled, holding her knuckles to her lips as she shoulders shook lightly. “I remember how many times I had to put bandages on your cheek or your knees because you fell and scraped yourself up… I have a feeling that Donald wouldn’t dote on you like I would.” Her laughter rang through the quiet wood air. The birds twittered in response, and a few even joined her to hop amongst the logs and wildflowers, pecking at grasshoppers and aphids camouflaged in the spring green. Kairi chuckled again and sat up, fingers skipping over her knees and elbows. Small, healing scrapes and scratches decorated the skin there, evidence of her long training in the hidden, timeless world.

“Now I look the clumsy one! I find bruises and scrapes I don’t even remember getting! I swear that Axel tries to beat me up in my sleep so that he doesn’t lose face,” she laughed.

“What? No way!” she could hear Sora chime. He’d raise an eyebrow and playfully nudge her with an elbow. “Axel has a right to be scared, though. No one’s tougher than you, Kairi!” She hung her head down as she chuckled breathily. Yeah, that was definitely something Sora would say. He was always so encouraging and kind; he was just an all-around good, sunny guy. It was no wonder she was kind of in love with him.

She wasn’t sure quite when it happened. Yet, happen it did; her feelings were unmistakable. Whenever she pictured or thought of Sora, her heart would flutter, and her veins would flood with a bubbling happiness. Light danced around his image in her mind. He was her sun, casting light on her world. She only wanted to be an equal light for him, to chase away the darkness that threatened to encroach on him at every turn.

Kairi exhaled through her nose and stood up to walk up to the edge of the bluff. She clasped her hands behind her back and smiled as the breeze wrapped around her, embracing her with invisible arms. Had Sora spoken back, and hugged her to tell her they would see each other soon? She liked to think so. With a serene smile, she expressed her final words to the wind for that day.

“Be safe. We’ll see each other soon, Sora. This time, I’ll fight alongside you.” The winds rushed forward to deliver her words to the boy so far, far away from her. It ruffled her skirt in its enthusiasm, and the gentle sound joined the melody of the tree limbs shaking in the gale. As she turned around to head back towards the training grounds, she could almost imagine what he’d say.

“Can’t wait! I’ll bet you’re even stronger than I am.” The breeze echoed with his joyful laughs. “See you soon… Kairi.”

“Until then, I’ll be thinking of you.”

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

Tag List: @deliathedork @sokaiweek

#sokai #sora x kairi #kairi x sora #kingdom hearts #kh sora #kh kairi #kh fanfic #kh fanfiction

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writinginthedarkwood · 5 years

Text

Faerie King Izuku Midoryia x Reader

Your therapist sent you on a soul journey to the wilderness, the stress of your everyday life pushed you towards the edge, until you find yourself, literally on the edge. Is that a voice you hear…?

Thank you for this request, I hope this is anything like what you had in mind.

No warnings this is wholesome af (does have mentions of mental health tho)

“You need to find yourself, your work load. It’s way too much.” Becca was a different kind of mental health professional. She had half her head shaved, the other half was long and dyed purple. She never covered her tattoo’s, and always spoke her mind. You’ve been seeing her for a few months, and you like your visits with her a lot. “I have a few idea’s, I really want you to consider them.” She pulled a pile of brochures out of her desk and waved them at you, the little breeze brushing some of your hair out of your face. You cocked your eyebrow at her confused. “You want me to go on vacation?” You took the packets and gave them a once over. Scotland, France, Canada. “These are all brochures for camping trips…” The thought of spending time outdoors made you stressed, why would you take time off of school and work for a camping trip? “That sounds like a waste of time.” You thought about your full calendar, your pile of papers stacking up on your desk. The hundreds of emails you still need to file through. Your palms started sweating, your left eye twitching again. “See that’s your issue Y/N! You think anything fun is a waste of time.” She spoke excitedly, waving her hands. “You need to experience life! Not just move through this grey… blah!” Her hand knocked some things off her desk, pens and pencils spilled onto the floor. “Go outside and breathe the fresh air. You might find your destiny out in the woods!”

“Or my death?” You picked at your nail and it started to bleed. Becca playfully slapped your knuckles, you dropped your hand to your lap and stopped picking at the sore finger. “Oh stop these are heavily trafficked area’s. Nothing will happen to you.” She smiled gently. “You need to face your fears, no more hiding Y/N.”

The sun was setting, you looked down at your compass and swallowed hard. You payed close attention to the orientation class, the survival course. Everything you packed was carefully calculated. How did you end up so turned around? You followed the trail exactly, but didn’t you already pass that tree an hour ago? “Shit…” You folded the map back up and put it in your pocket. It was no help, it would only help if you had any idea where you were. You stepped off of the trail to get a better look around. The trails are heavily wooded, but a few steps over here looks like a clearing.

It was more than a clearing. The grass faded and the dirt hardened, a rocky cliff side protruded out of the tree line. You gasped, what a beautiful sunset. You stepped a bit closer to the edge, testing the sturdiness with a few taps of your foot. The rock stuck out about 30 feet, you just wanted to take a peak at what was below without doing anything too dangerous. “Live a little!” Becca’s words rang clear in your head as you took a deep breath. The wind blew gently, you didn’t feel any vertigo as you saw the vast beauty. It looked like a bowl, tree’s sloped downwards, so thick you couldn’t see what they were hiding.

“Further… further all the way….” You could have sworn you heard something just now. What was that? Did someone just sing to you? You looked around, maybe they could help you find your way back to camp. You always heard the people of Canada are nice.

You didn’t see anyone around. You could have sworn someone was here. A familiar uneasy itch creeped up your spine.

You took a few steps away from the cliffs edge and knelt down to tie your boot string.

“Fall fall… it’s okay…” You heard another voice. You looked behind you to the tree line. Oh is that a hiker? You waved and shouted hello at a moving shadow. You started to jog back over to the forest trail, but something stopped you. Eyes were staring back at you, large yellow eyes. The wind picked up, your hair blowing from behind you and sticking to your face. You narrowed your eyes and took a step back.

A low, deep growl rattled the tree’s like ancient, cold bones. Your heart pounded in your chest, it’s some type of animal. It’s huge, just watching.

“Fall! Fall! Fall!…” Something was shouting at you from behind, but it seemed so far away.

The animal took a large silent step out of the woods. It was unreal, unlike anything you had seen. It’s fur was sleek and deep purple. It looked like it could be a mountain lion, but so much larger. The wrong color, the wrong size, the wrong sound.

It was just wrong.

You stumbled back, falling on your backside. Your wrists dug into the stone and scraped the thin skin off of your palms. The creature slunk around, eyeing the edge of the cliff behind you, pacing back and forth trying to decide if it wanted to pounce. It walked low to the ground, staring at you with only moments of quick glances above your head. You scrambled away from it, crawling backwards closer to the edge.

“Further further… down the way! Come to where the faeries play.” A voice whispered to you right into your ear, clear as day. You looked over your shoulder, you hadn’t realized you were only a few inches away from the lip of the cliff. You shakily stood up.

The cat like creature charged, deciding it was no longer afraid of the drop. The voices were chanting at you to jump, practically shouting but with a high pitched sing song voice.

You turned your back on the animal and closed your eyes.

And took a leap of faith.

Your feet hit the dirt right away, you tumbled to your knees on the surprise impact. You looked around confused, the cliff wasn’t tall at all. It was barely taller than you. Just higher than your head, you stood on your tip toes to see where you just fell from, but you couldn’t see. You stood up and brushed the dirt off of your cut hands and dusty knees. The tree’s are you are tall, taller than any building in new york. They towered over you, blanketing the sky. Lightning bugs twinkled around you, floating lazily at your eye level. Ivy hung from the branches of the enormous tree’s, moss grew over every surface that wasn’t grass.

The sun wasn’t shining, but you were warm like it was a gentle spring day.

You heard a guitar. Someone was strumming away not to far from here. You took a few steps forward, something pulling you towards the beautiful melody. A pathway in the foliage opened up, thick brush parted ways, revealing a small path for you to follow. You stepped on the smooth stone, it was a straight pathway. The music is dreamy, your eyelids felt heavy. You shook your head, fighting off the sleepiness that suddenly washed over you.

You pushed this silly urge to dance to the plucking strings deep down and kept your eyes ahead of you.

Ivy hung in strands down at the end of the path, the music much louder now. You pushed the greenery to the side and stepped into a clearing.

People were dancing, waltzing together with wide smiles over their faces. Some held each other closely, some danced alone. Some sat happily at tables with each other taking huge swigs of drinks out of a wooden mugs. Your foot barely made contact with the grass before a charming young man grabbed your hand, pulling you close to him. He had bright yellow hair with a black streak through his bangs. “Welcome beautiful, would you like a drink?” He twirled you around and you wrangled your hand out of his grip. “Hey!” You put your hands on your hips and scowled at him. “What is going on here?” The young man smirked and straightened his black suit jacket. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re celebrating!” He gestured to the happy people around him. “Let me give you a drink.” You hadn’t noticed he was holding anything in his hand before, but he had a small wooden cup filled with a deep brown liquid. You stepped away from him. “I don’t want anything to drink. I’m trying to find my way back to camp.” Something was off about the atmosphere around you, the closer you looked at the people attending this party the more you realized that they weren’t just dressed funny, they looked.

Off.

It wasn’t paint on that girls skin, she really was pink. Something was sticking out of that mans legs, and the man offering you a drink had bright yellow eyes.

You felt a strong sense of dread rush over you. “Please, I’m just trying to leave.” You tried to seem polite, masking how terrified you suddenly felt.

“Leave? But the party is just getting started!”

Your interaction started to catch the attention of the other party goers. A beautiful woman caught your gaze. She had stark black hair the pointed in every direction out of her ponytail. She tipped her chin with an upturned smile, her eyes boring into every pore on your body. You wanted to squirm.

Someone touched the small of your back. You felt a surge of warmth come over you. “Now, now everyone.” A sweet voice rang through your head like bells. “We should be polite to our new friend. She seems to have been through a lot.” You looked up at the man. He had eyes and hair as green as the forest, little freckles spread across his face like small splatters of mud. He gave you a gentle smile. “Your right, your highness.” The yellow haired man gave a slight bow and excused himself. The King lowered his voice and pressed gently on your back, having you walk with him. “Not many ladies can resist an invitation to dance with Sir Kaminari.” He walked you away from the crowd. “Or the alluring gaze of Lady Yaoyorozu.” You followed him through an arch covered in white flowers. Suddenly you were in a building, a stone hallway. Your footsteps echoed as he lead you away from the music. “Uhm… sir?” You stopped walking and the man turned to you with another gentle smile. “Yes?” He asked.

“Where are you taking me?”

He cocked his head at you, his smiled wiped off of his face as he peered into your eyes curiously. “Oh what’s that now? Right, right I suppose you might be slightly confused.” He placed a finger on his on his chin and thought briefly for a moment before speaking again. “You’re a smart girl, where do you think you are?”

“I feel like I’m in a dream.”

He stuck his hand out to you and you took it. He laced his fingers into yours and rubbed your thumb with his. “You’re not dreaming, but I can see why would feel that way.” The walls changed as you two walked by them, flowers grew out of the stone cracks and wilted again the farther the man got away from them. The floral scent was almost intoxicating. “Seeing impossible things can make you forget how it feels to be awake. But tell me, can’t you feel your heart beating? Your lungs moving, your thoughts racing?” He spoke with such kindness, with a hint of energy. You touched your chest. Your heart was beating fast, but not the way it usually does. It was beating with excitement, not anxiety. “Then where am I?” You’d almost forgotten about trying to find your way back to camp, to your little tent and the small amount of possessions you brought with you. That thought was still there, but far away in the back of your head. “You’re in my court. I rule here with my closest friends, I’ve been hoping for awhile that you’d find your way here.” He lead you to a beautiful room, a warm fire burned in a hearth, a small wooden love seat with hand sewn cushions sat in front of the fire, the only piece of furniture in the room. The rest of the space was filled with stacks of books, hundreds of them. The walls were lined with giant wooden shelves. The books were disorganized, some were left open on the floor with ink marking scribbled on the margin. “You know who I am?” He sat on the floor in front of the fire, his crown shifted on his head a bit, making it lopsided. He certainly didn’t dress like a king, wearing simple cotton clothes. “Of course I do Y/N. Don’t you remember me too?”

You thought for a moment, didn’t you know him? You tried to remember where you might have seen him before. You looked around the room for a hint.

“Would it help you remember if I told you it was a long time ago?”

A flash of a memory, one you hadn’t thought about in a long time.

You used to love to play outside, it would take so much work to get you to come back inside. The park was close to your house, your friends would all play hide and seek in the tree’s. You knew better than to get into the water, the creek was deeper than it looked and moved fast in some places. You hid in the roots of a tree, curled up in a ball and giggling.

Your laughter was interrupted. You heard a woman, she was crying nearby. You popped your head out of your hiding spot. You saw her, she was standing in the middle of the water with her back turned to you. She seemed like she might have needed help, so you crawled out of the tree roots and stuck a foot into the water.

“H-hey!” A voice squeaked out from behind you.

A little boy, with wild green hair was hiding behind another tree. You didn’t remember him being invited to play hide and seek, he must be someone else’s friend. You were to young to pay attention to the fact that his clothes were strange.

“Don’t listen to her! She isn’t very nice.” He blushed wildly from his hiding spot. You turned away from the woman and walked through the mud to his tree. “She’s not?” You asked him. You turned to see the lady in the water, but she was gone. “She tricks people. It isn’t nice. What are you doing out here all by yourself? Don’t you know it’s not safe?”

You giggled, he seemed so worried. “What’s your name silly boy?”

He blushed terribly, covering his face with his hands. “You want to know my name?” He kicked his foot around in the dirt a bit. “I’m Prince Midoryia. But you can called me Izuku if you want.”

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N! Can we be friends?”

The two of you sat for hours by the water, it started to turn dark before you realized you needed to go home. He wanted to hear all about your school, he asked a lot of questions. Before you left Izuku stopped you. “Can we promise to be friends forever Y/N?” You shook your head yes, and gave your new friend a tight hug, sealing the promise.

You looked for the boy a lot after that day but you never found him, after that day you liked the forest less and less. Feeling uneasy like things were watching you, your skin would crawl the minute you stepped onto even the simplest of hiking trails.

“That was you all those years ago?” You sat down with him in front of the fire.

“I’m so sorry it took me this long to find you again. I’m just glad I got you before the Marozie did.” He took your hands, you both sat with your legs crossed, your knee’s almost touching each other. “You’re closer to the veil than other humans, you can see us.”

You stared deep into his eyes, you’ve felt hollow for so long. Constantly in a hurry, always feeling like you were running out of time.

You felt like you could sit here for the rest of time and be happy.

“I feel like I’ve been looking for something my whole life.” He squeezed your hand as you spoke. “I think I found it.”

Izuku had tears gather in his eyes, but he was smiling. “So you’ll stay with me?”

You thought about your job, your school. The millions of things you had to make up once you got home. “Stay here?”

“Please Y/N… you can be my queen. We’ll rule the spring together, side by side.” He leaned closer, his voice lowering. Your breath caught in your throat, you moved closer to him, your lips lightly parting. He planted the softest kiss on your lips, he tasted like honey. You find yourself kissing him back. He cupped your face and pressed down harder, his tongue gently breaching your mouth.

He slipped something on your finger and you pulled away. A beautiful polished wooden ring was reflecting the fire glow on your ring finger. “Isn’t this how humans get engaged?” He asked with a light blush pooling under his freckles.

You smiled and wrapped your arms around his neck, he pulled you into his lap and you took a deep breath. His arms wrapped around you tightly and he kissed your forehead.

“Yes Izuku, it is.”

This came out so wholesome ;-; I didn’t have a clear direction when I started writing I just sat down and typed this out. Thank you so much for this request, I have a serious love for fae lore and this was fun to do.

If you make a request and would like to buy me a coffee so that the addicting bean juice pumps out my creativity faster you can do so here—> https://ko-fi.com/writinginthedarkwood

My messages are always open! Have a chat with me

#izuku midoriya #bnha imagines #fae king izuku #bnha au #bnha fan fiction #izuku midoryia au #izuku x reader #midoryia x reader #deku x reader #bnha fluff

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starstruck-thirst · 4 years

Text

Hisoka Morow: On the Brink

Warnings: Sleep deprivation, paranoia

______________________

You jumped as your head tried to roll forward into the unconscious void. Everything felt heavy and sluggish. You hadn’t slept more than three hours in as many days, and eating had been in small bursts, so your energy was in no way regulated or normal.

But you had to keep moving. Walking forward because if you stopped you’d lose.

Currently you weren’t going anywhere though. The call of a park in the middle of the day had been too strong. You couldn’t remember sitting on the bench, but it felt nice to give your leg muscles a break. There was no way you had been resting longer than a minute before you had almost fallen asleep where you sat, and knowing how long you had dozed was equally as impossible. All sense of time and space was warped and your staring into a nearby tree’s leaves weren’t helping.

The green discs fluttered in the slight breeze, moving the highlight and shade in a mesmerizing way.

“Want some gum?” a girl asked her friend as they walked past. Like an abused dog you jumped at the mere mention of gum and watched the friends with caution as they walked by. They didn’t look at you or seem to notice you in any way. You had been paranoid for no reason.

“Fuck, I’m exhausted,” you muttered as you hung your head into your hands. “I just need some sleep.”

‘But you can’t stop,’ you thought to yourself. ‘You could have been sitting as long as thirty minutes already. That’s too long.’

“I know.”

‘If you don’t get up soon you might actually fall asleep.’

“I know.”

‘And if that happens, you’ll be found. And hide and seek will be over.’

“I know!” you yelled. A woman gasped lightly nearby, startled by your strange outburst. Sitting up you could see her look over her shoulder at you with caution before collecting her book and water bottle and leaving the nice grassy spot she had been sitting in. “I’m sorry! I’m not crazy I’m just-!” you paused and sighed, lowering your voice again, “I’m just really tired and running out of ideas.”

With great effort, the kind of effort you imagined it would require to pull the moon from the sky, you stood up on both feet again and began to trudge out of the park and back towards the bustle of the city. Each limb felt weighed down by rocks, and your mind swam with thoughts. The thoughts weren’t always clear and concise. Sometimes they were words, sometimes pictures, other times they were just colors and strange forms that couldn’t really be called anything.

You needed a plan, but all you could think of was how a bed would feel under you. Soft and embracing. Like a hug from someone you loved. Never before had you felt this level of total drain. It felt as if you could sleep for a week without waking up.

‘Stop thinking about sleep!’ you snapped at yourself.

With one last sigh of sweet park air you emerged into the city proper again, immediately stopping once more at the nearest crosswalk. Ahead of you was a scene of normality. People going in and out of businesses as cars in a rush.

Three days ago you had moved with that kind of purpose. Even chancing the energy loss to run at times. But now the idea of moving faster than a calm walk seemed impossible. “I just have to find the Ace,” you said to yourself as the light changed and you began to cross.

“It has to be in this city. And without it I can’t win.” A few people nearby tried not to be obvious as they eyed you, probably wondering if you were literally insane. “There has to be a hint I’m missing.”

A sweet smell hit your nose and you froze. “Is he here? Already?” you asked audibly, but very quietly to yourself. Time seemed to slow around you as your eyes darted from face to face. A flash of pink hair to your right and your heart squeezed. You backed up as your eyes searched wildly for the sign of the hair again, finally focusing enough to see a bored looking man with round features as the owner of said hair.

From behind, a low maniacal chuckle flowed. You could feel it slip through your body like a slithering snake and without a second thought you started to run. Where the energy came from you couldn’t be sure, but you shoved people left and right to get to a nearby alley way so you could gain some distance without as many obstacles.

The alley was dark. Too dark for midday in spring, and you couldn’t figure out why as you turned into it. Black, questionable puddles splashed under your feet as you ran as hard as you could. The part of your brain that was in charge of keeping you aware of your surroundings questioned how you had the energy to run at all. You weren’t even sure you were being followed and you were expending the last of the resources you had, but all of your tired and strained neurons said /run/.

Concrete back walls blended with red brick in your vision as you ran. A sour smell mixed with the gray of the street under your feet and for a moment that strange combination made you stumble. A quick touch to the ground with your fingertips had you moving again, not even a full stop. You would have been proud if you could focus on anything for longer than two seconds.

‘I’m too tired.’

“No!”

Nails against the nape of your neck, running up to your hair.

‘I can’t keep running much longer.’

“You have to!”

The thought of a sharp card running down your back.

‘I can’t.’

A guttural scream erupted from you as you tripped and fell clumsily onto the open street again.

“What the fuck?” a male sounding voice asked as you collapsed to the sidewalk.

“H-help,” you pleaded in a raspy voice between deep breaths. There was nothing left in your body. Not even to put your palms to the ground and push your face off the dirty concrete.

The man hesitated, feet shuffling in indecision. “I’ll help her,” a different voice responded, sounding absolutely amused by this event.

The steps that presumably belonged to the first speaker shuffled away with awkward haste, and calm footfalls came closer to where you laid on the ground. “Well now, I thought I had lost you and here you are finding me. That isn’t how hide and seek works, you know,” the voice said with delight.

Your sluggish blood turned to ice as you realized what you had done. “Well, did you find my Ace of Spades?”

Truth be told, you didn’t want to respond. Admitting to your failure as you laid face down on the dirty city sidewalk was too much. But you couldn’t have if you /had/ wanted to. Your brain was too tired to regulate emotions well, and your face pulled into itself in tight lines as tears welled up in your eyes.

“Too bad.” A foot slid under your shoulder and flipped you over carelessly. Above you, and upside down to your vision, the smiling face of Hisoka appeared. “Luckily for you this was just a practice round,” he continued as he knelt and rested his face against his open palm, tilting his head innocently against it.

Warm tears slid down your cheeks as you mustered up the ability to speak at last. “Pr-practice round?”

He chuckled, a single finger wiping away a tear from your dirty face. “Of course! Now that you know what the game is like it’ll be much more fun. I won’t have to go so easy on you.”

Easy?

Easy was three days of almost no sleep, very little food, and shot nerves. That was what Hisoka’s ‘easy mode’ was.

“Now I won’t hold back. Don’t forget, you promised me whatever my little heart wanted if I caught you first,” playfully he booped your nose, sincere and joyous smile still on his face. “And I intend to collect.”

#drabble #hisoka morow//#hunter x hunter//#look i did something short for once!#star fic

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moonflower-31 · 4 years

Text

Journey To A Dream - Sabriel Rapunzel AU

Part 6

Part 5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Sam immediately let out a laugh as he started running around in the grass, launching old fallen leaves into the air and splashing water from a nearby pond.

"Does grass always smell this good?!" He exclaimed, bringing a bunch of pulled blades from the ground to his nose before moving onto something else. "Water is way more cold than I thought it would be!" He exclaimed, chucklimg to himself as he dug his fingers into the dirt and sighed happily at how it felt.

Gabriel watched this turn of events with a confused expression and a raised eyebrow. This guy really had never left that tower for 21 years. All of his life. That was something that Gabriel could barely fathom.

Gabriel couldn't even be in Heaven nowadays for that long without pulling his feathers from his wings out.

Gabriel shook his head and just watched Sam freak out. It was quite entertaining, if he were to say so himself.

Sam continues to freak out for five minutes, just being happy to be out of that freaking tower. After a few moments he finally runs back to Gabriel, laughing happily to himself.

"Thank you!! I cannot believe I'm doing this!" He grinned, pushing his dark brown strand behind his ear as he turns to leave the clearing.

Gabriel again raises an eyebrow at the strand, but shrugs it off, walking after him. Immediately, ideas began to run through his head though. This guy hasn't seen the real world, right? So Gabriel could technically scare him, right?

Sam almost danced away from the tower, running through trees and just enjoying the spring wind on his face. Sure, he knew that he would have to go back, but he was going to enjoy it while he could. Azazel obviously wasn't going to let him. And besides, what was so wrong with the world that Azazel wouldn't let him go out?

Gabriel walked behind Sam slowly, his hands in his pockets as Crowley hung onto Sam's shoulder.

"So... you live in that towet alone?" Gabriel asks, running a hand through his golden brown hair.

Sam finally stops running and shook his head, humming a tune under his breath as he walked ahead of Gabriel.

Gabriel raised another curious eyebrow. "So, who else lives with you?" He asks, lowering his head as Crowley gave Gabriel a glare.

Sam turned his head and frowned. "U-uh... my father. He's away right now. Actually thats the only reason I've been able to even get out of the tower in the first place." He says, smacking Crowley a bit for being rude.

Gabriel smirked a bit. "So, you still live with your father? Aren't you afraid he might... I dunno... come home early and find you gone? Wouldn't he search the ends of the earth for you?" He asks, plucking a flower from the ground, sniffing it innocently as Sam stopped in realization.

Sam furrowed his eyebrows, and began to worry. "He... he would, wouldn't he..." he mumbles, beginning to fret.

Gabriel fought back the urge to smile more. "And wouldn't you crush his heart, knowing you left after he asked you specifically not to?" He asks, still walking forwards, but not very fast.

Sam widens his eyes even more, beginning to pant. "Y-yeah... yeah he would..." he syas nervously, shuffling his feet.

Gabriel shrugged. "Well, if you want my opinion, I think we should just cut you out of this deal. Take you and your rat home, I get my satchel, and then you and your father will have a great relationship untainted by betrayal-" he starts, turning around to see a miffed Sam who stomped over to him.

"No! I am seeing those lanterns!" He insists, brandishing the pan in his hand. "You will take me to see those lanterns conscious or not." He threatens, moving the pan threateningly close.

Gabriel finally stops walking, and pushed Sam's pan away as he starts to try and talk himself out of the deal when the bushes begin to rustle, and a far off sound of voices make Sam jump and hide behind Gabriel.

"Is is Angels? Hunters? Have they finally tracked my hair down?!" He squeaked, making Gabriel give him a dumbfounded look.

Then, out of the bushes outsteps a moose. Gabriel snickers. "Look, its just another version of you, Samsquatch. Don't worry, it can't smell fear." He teased. Sam huffed and smacked Gabriel's shoulder.

"Shut up! Hunters and angels have wanted my hair for as long as I can remember." He says, pushing his hair back as he begins walking.

"What makes you say that? Why would, hypothetically, an angel want your hair?" He asks Sam, confused and laughing at Sam's excuse for being scared.

Sam huffed again. "My father told me-" he starts before he reevaluates his decision. "You know what? No. Its none of your buisness." He says in a scowl before he stomps forward, making Gabriel roll his eyes.

Gabriel wanted to say that it was his buisness, but that would reveal more than he wanted to. Then an idea hit him.

Gabriel quickly caught up with Sam. "You know what? I'm hungry. Are you? Cause I know a great place for lunch." He insists, smiling.

Sam raised an eyebrow, softening his face. "Really? What's it called?" He asks.

Gabriel chuckled. "Its a surprise, come on. Let's go." He says before he grabs Sam's hand and leads him down the hill towards the place he had in mind.

Sam kept looking around as Gabriel led him through the forest. He was still in awe of the world and wondering still how his father saw the world as so cruel.

Eventually, after a short while Gabriel led Sam to a building lit up in a sign that said 'Harvelle's Roadhouse'.

Sam smiled at the place. "Its nice..." He says, smiling as he admired the building.

Gabriel forced a smile onto his face. "Right? Come on, lets go in and eat." He says, grabbing Sam's wrist and dragging him up to the door and bursting the door open. "Ellen! Your best table, please." He says in a fake accent, which Sam follows up with a gasp.

Sam's eyes wander the restaurant, seeing hunters everywhere. A few at the bar, a few playing darts, some looking through lore books, before they all looked up at Sam and Gabriel.

Gabriel forced Sam through, almost dragging him through the crowd of literally blood covered hunters. "Joe, nice to see you, Ah, Polly, nice to see you got that stab wound fixed up." He says, making up names for each of the hunters as they walked. "See, these giys are nice. But if they unsettle you that much, why don't we just ride on back to your little tower-" he starts before he bumps into a larger hunter, one who looked like a real drunkard.

Sam gulped as he looked into the hunter's blue eyes, backing away from the man. Then, another hunter, one who had her name etched onto her cap 'Jo' picked up Gabriel by the collar. She pulled out a wanted paper and showed it to him.

"This you?" She asks, smirking at him.

Gabriel looked at Jo for a moment and shook his head. "No. Trust me you definitely have the wrong guy-" he starts. Then, another female hunter comes up, gripping a fistful of Sam's hair.

"Really? Why would someone come in here, looking exactly like the fugitive Loki, with a sissy of a partner with this much fucking hair?" The blonde hunter hissed, glaring at Gabriel with her own blue eyes.

Sam yelps and pulls his hair out of the hunter's grip and accidentally bumped into the other hunter again. The hunter grumbled and looked at him again.

"Would you stop that? Can't any of you idjits leave me alone?" He grunts. Sam sighed and muttered a 'Sorry' before he sunk away.

Gabriel raised his hands and almost admitted defeat. "N-no, look, that isn't me. See? The faces don't match! Especially the nose!" He insists, trying to be put down.

Then, finally, another hunter grabs the wanted poster and chews out the nose portion. "Now does it look like you?" The hunter asks, murder in his eyes.

Gabriel gulps somewhat and the hunter smirks. "Ooh I'm gonna love sending you off to get your head cut off like the vamps that I kill." He smirked, hoisting Gabriel up by his collar and hanging him on the wall as all of the hunters in the room began to discuss what they were going to do with the prize money.

The hunter Sam had accidentally bumped into multiple times sent a hunter by the name of 'Garth' out the door to go get 'Dean'. Sam could only guess that 'Dean' was the guards.

"Go on, ya idjit! Go send for Dean! You know how much he wants this mother's head." The hunter huffs before he goes to try and break up the fighting. But Sam beat him to it.

Sam stood up on top of a table and launched his hair, pulling back one of the loose rafters before calling out. "Hey!" And letting go, hitting the dark skinned hunter who had put Gabriel up on the hook on the head.

Immediately everyone's attention turned to Sam, and they started to move towards him.

Sam then began to panic. "L-look, I get it. You all probably aren't able to afford much. And him falling into your laps is probably a godsend. But please, he's my only ticket to see the lanterns the kingdom is sending off tomorrow before I have to go back home. It's been my dream forever. Please, find it in yourselves to let him go. Haven't any of you had a dream once in your lives?" He asks in a huff and with limited air.

The gruff hunter that Sam accidentally kept bothering got extremely close and took a long swig of his beer before he tossed it into the garbage, where it promptly shattered.

"What's your name kid?" He asks in a rough voice.

Sam gulps before he answered. "Sam, my name is Sam." He answered.

Gabriel face palmed against the door, knowing that was a stupid mistake with hunters.

Bobby ponders this a second before he extends his hand. "The name's Bobby Singer. You a hunter?" He asks. "You don't look like one. All that hair would get you killed." He says.

Sam chuckled nervously. "N-no, no I'm not...B-bobby." He says.

Bobby nods before he starts speaking again. "Well Sam, yeah, I did have a dream. A long time ago. My dream was to marry the girl of my dreams. Keep up my ranch of horses. But that all caved in on me when a demon possessed my wife and I had to kill her." He answered, opening a new beer.

Sam raised his eyebrows, frowning at Bobby's story. "I... I'm so sorry." He says, suddenly feeling bad for the hunter.

One of the female hunters stepped up. "Me? My dad was possessed by an angel. The angel got him killed. My mom died cause of one too. Don't let them fool you. They aren't cherubs." The blonde hunter hissed. "You know what my dream was? To have my family back." She says.

Sam sighed, grippimg his hair. Then, another hunter stood up, this was the darker skinned one. "My dream? To avenge my sister. She was turned into a vampire amd I had to kill her. But revenge never satisfies anything." He says, sharpening his knife against the table.

Sam looked around, seeing multiple hunters step up and tell their stories and their crushed dreams. It made Sam's heart ache. He flashed his puppy dog eyes at everyone, feeling terrible.

The very last moment, one of the other hunters took hold of Gabriel's collar and put him down. "What about you, Trickster? Ever had a dream?" The hunter asked.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Sorry guys but uh, I don't share well with others." He says, before a few hunters took out their knives and Gabriel rolled his eyes again.

"Fine. My dream, was to get away from my family. Start a new life full of sex, riches and lots and lots of sugar!" Gabriel started out meaningful, like he was going to actually take it serious, before he finishes, giving a seductive pose that no one was fazed by.

Bobby scoffed. "That's a terrible dream." He says. Gabriel shrugged.

"You asked." He says, trying to walk away triumphantly. The other hunters lifted him up again, aiming their blades near his body. He looked almost unfazed, but he had to keep up the facade. So he made a look of terror and gulped.

Bobby turned back to Sam. "Now you, Sam. Tell us your dream." He says, sitting back and sipping his beer.

Sam smiled and stood up a bit taller. "Well... mine isn't as precious as yours. But, for me? Every year on May second, I open my window from my tower and I see almost a thousand lanterns launched into the sky. I always wondered what they looked like in person. My father never let me out of the tower." He says, leaning towards Bobby for a second. Bobby gives him a skeptical look, before continuing to listen.

"So, since Loki has been to the kingdom I'm asking him to take me to see them. The agreement was that he'd take me and then take me home but... if I'm honest? The more and more time I spend outside of my tower? The more I want to stay out." He admits, smiling to himself.

Bobby smiled and opened his mouth to speak as Garth charged into the bar again, fixing his hat.

"I found him! And the guards!" He exclaims. Bobby widened his eyes and grabbed Sam's wrist, pulling Gabriel along with him. He pulled them behind the bar, and pulled a lever, showing that there was a tunnel let out under the floorboard.

Bobby sighed, and smiled at Sam. "Go on, live your dream. Find peace or whatever." He says.

Gabriel stares into the dark cavern and smirked. "Oh I will, don't worry..." he says in a whisper. A loud thud is heard above the bar as the horse from earlier stamped his hooves against the bar counter.

Sam covers his mouth so his yelp isn't heard. Bobby rolls his eyes and smacks Gabriel in the back of the head.

"Your dream, stinks. I was talking to him." He says in a scowl. Sam smiled nervously and hugged Bobby for a moment.

"Thank you," he whispers before he escapes into the tunnel behind Gabriel. Bobby then closes the hatch, hoping to give them some time.

As Bobby stands back up, Dean walks over and greets him in a hug.

"Bobby, long time no see, huh?" He asks. Bobby nods, smiling a bit as he hugs back.

"Well if you weren't so busy all the time," he starts in a huff. Dean chuckled.

"Bobby, we've talked about this. You know why I search so much. I need to find him. I promised him I'd protect him the day he was born. I failed him on that. So now I gotta find him. Bring him home." Dean says, looking over at the horse.

The horse tries to mess with the floorboards where Sam and Gabriel had been able to escape through.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Cas? You find something?" Dean asks, walking over. He sees the boards are unusually cut, and starts to inspect it a bit.

Castiel rolled his eyes and pressed his hoove against a hidden lever, opening the tunnel.

Dean smiled victoriously. "Great job Cas. Now, lets get this filthy Trickster." He grins before one by one the guards start to pile into the tunnel, making Bobby sigh and hope for the best for Sam and unfortunately, for Gabriel.

#spn #spn fanfiction #supernatural #spn fandom #spn fanfic #sabriel #sabriel/tangled #supernatural/tangled #sabrielspn

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sassysatsuma · 4 years

Text

Don’t Forget About Me - Ghost/Bones

"Hey, hey Without you there's holes in my soul Hey, hey Let the water in

Where ever you've gone? How, how, how? I just need to know That you won't forget about me Where ever you've gone? How, how, how?

I just need to know That you won't forget about me Lost through time and that's all I need So much love, then one day buried Hope you're safe, 'cause I lay you leaves Is there more than we can see? Answers for me"

Don't Forget About Me - CLOVES

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Cue a Satsuma desperately trying to stay relevant. I dunno man, something about the new Ghost reveal trailer thingy ma jig just got me dusting off the old word processor. As always, I fell into a trap of thinking about Ghost and Lara McCoy, because quite literally a decade on, I’m still writing about these lovesick fools.

I’m not sure what this is, but it was just one of those things where the picture in my head, the song and the words just knitted together and I bashed out 2000 hasty words like a woman possessed. It’s a weird mash up of Modern Warfare 2019 (we’re on the eve of new Ghost dropping), Caught in the System AU where Lara and Riley never stop being a thing and old school Modern Warfare 2. I’m just as confused as you are.

Dedicated as always to my muse and my love @smashinterrupted because she inspires me to write even when she doesn’t know about it. Also because she puts so much into the friendships and communities she cares about, which is just you know, all kinds of beautiful.

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On a painfully average Tuesday, Lara feels her heart beat again.

It's been a dismal February, grey and filled with thick welling clouds that by now seem perpetually hung in a snow white sky. The start of a new decade, although with January all but a memory the world's eagerness for a fresh start has faded. The new decade is more of an afterthought now, just another chance for likes and validation. The magazines might have dropped their “New Year, New You” bullshit for another year, but social media is still filled with ten year challenges and glow ups set amongst its usual materialistic fakery. For most, it's an annoyance, seeing selfie after selfie clog their feed. For the people who are struggling to move forwards, each fresh, light hearted post cuts as deep as the last.

Lara is a creature of habit although in truth she no longer remembers if she has been all along or if the army made her this way. Regardless, almost every afternoon she finds herself here, queuing in her local coffee shop for the biggest, most caffeinated beverage money can buy. It's her daily ritual, a blessed half hour of peace and quiet before she has to return to Sandhurst Military Academy and somehow teach the officers of tomorrow to be better than she ever was.

It's oddly mild for February, but the constant fine drizzle outside chases away any hopes for Spring. Inside the packed coffee shop it's sweltering, a humid, artificial warmth that has her shrugging off her khaki jacket and tying it around her waist. Anywhere else and she'd look quite the sight, dressed fully in her army fatigues, trousers tucked dutifully into her standard issue black boots. But here, she blends in. She prefers it in almost every way, her desire to stand up and be counted long since passed.

The barista doesn't even bother to ask for her order, greeting her with a soft smile that he reserves for polite regulars. Barely minutes later, her to go cup is clasped between her sweaty palms and she turns on her heel, bracing herself for another afternoon teaching at an institution she no longer truly believes in.

It's in that moment when her heart threatens to burst from her chest.

If she'd been alone, she would have been so sure that she was hallucinating, the face that greets her one she's spent the past 4 years so terrified that she'd forget. But they're flesh and blood as they stand in front of her, customers bustling around them in a way that tells her that this can't be anything but real.

Simon Riley, dressed in civvie clothes that still somehow manage to look so alien, even after all this time. His face is weathered, more scarred and a little older than the man she remembers. And yet the look in his eyes takes her back in an instant, brown irises that look at her as though she's all that matters.

He's a ghost in every sense. There hasn't been a moment in 4 years where she hasn't grieved for him.

Right now, it's all she can do to put her coffee down onto something solid before she drops it.

"Bones..." His voice his hoarse and he visibly swallows before her, nervous hands hanging idly by his sides. His dark hair is slicked down with rain, whilst bigger droplets pepper the exposed skin of his neck and arms. Despite the weather, he's only wearing a t shirt and jeans, the fabric betraying a body that is thicker with muscle than she remembers. There are what look to be deliberate scars littering his forearms and what little she can see of his biceps but she's not even sure she wants to know why they are there.

Lara quickly realises that she's been staring dumbfounded and silent. She swallows, her throat drier than it has any reason to be. There's a part of her that just wants to run forward and hold him, but it exposes a vulnerability she doesn't dare show. Instead her brow furrows, her voice stronger than she feels when she finally does speak.

"...How?"

Riley looks at her as though it's the hardest question in the world.

Maybe it is.

"Outside." The word comes out like an order, an echo of the man she met when she first joined the 141. It's unfair how she feels it like a kick to the stomach, memories she's fought to repress suddenly flooding her mind. She's sure that she doesn't let it show and yet somehow, Riley softens, barely. He cocks a head towards the door. "Please?"

Her feet decide for her, her coffee long since abandoned along with some confused teenagers.

Outside, she barely feels the rain, despite her jacket still hanging around her waist. She folds her arms, grasps her biceps in a way that somehow feels like the right thing to do, although not for a moment do her eyes leave Riley. She falls in step beside him as he leads her to the shelter of a nearby bus stop, her fingernails biting into her skin to fight the intense desire to reach out and touch him.

"I thought you were dead." It appears stating the obvious is the place where her mouth chooses to take over and begin.

"It was safer that way." Riley shrugs, although it's by no means as confident a gesture as he intends. "Price wasn't the only one to get his name dragged through the mud that day." There's another name missing from his admission, but Lara knows him well enough to know that he'd never want to give voice to MacTavish and the black mark they put against his name. Not even now, when the world knows the truth of it, a truth their Captain fought and ultimately died for. "I needed to disappear. No better way of doing that than dying."

'You could have told me,' Lara says to herself, though she knows better than to give the words voice. Her heart hates his decision, but her head understands. Would have likely done the same even when she would have had a family to mourn her. For Ghost, she was his only family. Instead, she leans back against the bus shelter, the sole of a boot propped against the shoddy plastic wall. "You still haven't told me how."

"I don't..." She can almost feel the crack in Riley's voice, but he swallows it back expertly. Instead he runs a hand through the wet tangle of dark brown hair atop his head, grimacing as he struggles to find the words. "I was... lucky." The word rolls off his tongue with an air of disgust. "Shepherd slotted Roach... right there in front of me. Shot me too but it didn't put me away the way he expected. I played dead in the dirt like a fucking possum, wondering if any of it was worth it. I don't know what made me finally crawl away. I came back for him, but by then... they'd taken care of him with all the others, Makarov's men, the lot. I threw my mask in the fire and figured it was better if everyone thought I was gone."

It's too much, the grim resignation in his voice, an almost monotone quality that fights to mask the emotion behind the words that leave his mouth. Lara can feel anger stirring in her gut, her heart panging with the same pain that had hit her that morning she'd woken up from surgery, away from the 141 and out of the fight. It's all too easy to picture, her eyes welling up with tears for the little brother she'd found in Roach. It crushed her the moment she found out they were all gone, but it's no easier now hearing it from Riley all over again.

He notices before she can try and look away, practised eyes reading her the exact same way they always have. It's another reminder of everything she's been missing, another stab at her gut that somehow isn't soothed by his presence beside her. Tears slip from her eyes and she swipes at them with frustrated hands, turning from him in a mix of shame and confusion.

His touch is a question. A hand reaches for her shoulder, a gentle squeeze of pressure that is more timid than anything they've ever shared. It feels like an unknown, like they're right back where they started except this time they are both fragments of the people they once were.

There's so much to say; her thoughts a chasing whirlwind that clouds her mind. She hasn't the words to even begin to express them. She wants to feel anger, wants to thrash and scream and punish him for every empty feeling she's had since he's been gone.

But she can't. Maybe one day she will, when the tempest in her mind has finally calmed and she can think clearly again. Now, the only tangible emotions she feels are the pain of losing everything and the complete and utter relief that he's found her again.

Her heart is his. Despite everything, that's the one thing that's never changed.

She spins around before her head can tell her no, arms wrapping around a neck they'd never dreamed to hold again. They're both off balance, stumbling backwards clumsily until Riley's back presses against the plastic wall. His hands fall to her hips, a familiar weight that threatens to choke her as she closes the distance between them.

The kiss is messy, a jumble between two people fighting to take as much of each other in as possible. Teeth and noses clash and they move clumsily against each other, hands gripping fearfully as though they could drift at any second. It's everything she's forgotten and nothing she remembers all at once.

She breaks away breathless, eyes closed as she rests her forehead against his. She can feel his heart hammering against her own, doesn't dare speak in case she ruins everything with the wrong words. Outside the shelter, the rain is falling heavier now, beating off the tarmac in a steady rhythm. She wishes that the white noise would swallow them both.

"I'm sorry." It's barely a whisper, but Riley's apology is there, brushing against her lips. It's enough to shake her from her thoughts, and she takes a cautious step from him, her eyes finally able to meet his. She reaches out, straightens his shirt were it lies crumpled against his skin.

"There's so much more we should say." Her hands move to his arms, tracing the foreign scars her fingertips find there as if to prove a point. He looks at her as though he doesn't even know where to start and she shakes her head, cutting him off before he even begins to try. "Are you staying?"

"... Do you want me to?"

"I never wanted you to leave." Her words are blunt, echoing the only thing she knows for sure right now. Her right hand traces his arm down to his wrist, before her fingers slip clumsily between his. The soft grip of her hand tries to convey everything she doesn't feel able to say. "Stay."

And she means it, wants it more than anything she's ever wanted before. There's so many questions, so many complications that she knows deep down it will never be easy, that they have countless hurdles laid out in front of them. She knows that talking will hurt, that memories and emotions she's buried deep will come back to haunt her as soon as he begins to answer her questions. She's under no illusions that this will be anything like a fairytale.

And yet despite that, she knows he's worth it. Knows that she's never for a second stopped loving him. Living without him was the cruellest of lessons; the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Now that he's back she can't imagine ever wanting to feel that again. She won’t. She barely made it out alive the first time.

He's the type of ghost she never wants to stop haunting her.

#sass pretends to be a writer #caught in the system #cits #lara mccoy #simon riley #skeleton #ghost/bones #smashinterrupted #smash satsuma #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 #call of duty modern warfare 2019

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