#and just how many adaptations and spin offs there are…

[vampiriito]

Cherry bomb ᝰ.ᐟ

pairing: Drummer! Frat boy! Rafe x bitchy! reader who lowkey hates his band. . .

Part two |

–„IN WHICH your roommate starts dating the bassist of a rising college band, dragging you into a world of parties, late-night gigs, and too many eyes. One pair in particular: Rafe Cameron’s. He’s the drummer, the golden boy with a temper, and he acts like he can’t stand you—but you’ve caught him staring more times than you can count. When a rumor spins out of control, you're forced into a fake relationship to save face, and suddenly you’re spending too much time with someone who’s been quietly watching you for months. It’s supposed to be pretend—until the tension boils over, and the line between obsession and affection gets dangerously thin. He says you’re his muse. You’re starting to believe he means it. (likes, reblogs, comments and follows would help greatly, thanks for reading in advance! <3)

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──---

Rafe

Friendships? They were hard. They truly were. Rafe grew up surrounded by people whose worth was defined by how many credit cards they carried by fifteen and the car they'd eventually get by sixteen, where last names mattered more than birthdays and everything was handed to you with just enough resentment to make you hate yourself for accepting it. He always found himself floating—hovering between groups without ever sinking into any of them, switching up his voice depending on the crowd, wearing faces like they were hoodies he could throw on and off when the season changed. He told himself he was adaptable. He told himself he was clever. But the truth? He just didn’t know how to be close to anyone. Not really. Not without ripping himself apart in the process. Now, stuck at the age of the in-between, as he liked to call it, he wasn’t a kid but he wasn’t grown either. Nineteen. The useless cusp of a number that felt like you could touch adulthood but still had to ask permission to do anything meaningful. The age where people still thought mistakes didn’t count. Where people fucked around like life wouldn’t eventually collect the bill.

His friends now weren’t friends. Not in the real sense. They were people who went to college for the idea of college, for the chaos and the clubs and the hookups, not for the education or the future or the change. Rafe liked to believe he was above it, that he had some grander reason for being there, for sticking it out. He was more than certain he hid his daddy issues well. He wore them like an invisible wristwatch—ticking away in time with his pulse, always there but rarely acknowledged unless he was drunk and spilling things he shouldn't. In college, he got to be whoever he wanted. Nobody here knew Rafe from before. The Cameron name didn’t mean the same thing here. He could’ve said he was from Boston or Liverpool and people would’ve believed him. He could’ve dyed his hair neon blue or buzzed it off completely and no one would’ve stopped to question it. There was a kind of power in being anonymous. A kind of safety in the blank slate.

But sometimes his hatred for the man who made him bled through the cracks anyway—spilled into his words, stained his fingertips. Whether it was a drunken monologue after a gig, or a lazy sentence tossed into the dark while tangled in sheets with someone who wouldn’t remember him in the morning. He always circled back. Back to the place he swore he’d outgrown. Back to the ghost of the boy he used to be. No matter how many snapbacks he bought or how many drumsticks he broke in half pretending it was therapy, Rafe Cameron stayed just a little unhinged. Not in the funny, quirky way. In the way that made people laugh too loudly around him because they didn’t know if he was joking or about to snap.

Hence you.

It started small—if you could even call it an interaction. He did, for lack of a better word. It was a random night. One you probably didn’t remember, or remembered too vividly, but not for the reasons he did. He was dragged out to a shitty diner just off campus, the kind with flickering signs and cracked booths and the kind of lighting that made you look like you had the flu no matter how much sleep you got. The kind of place that served milkshakes in glass cups and ketchup packets that always had something sticky on them. He hated it there. But the band wanted fries and greasy comfort and a place to argue about setlists and who got the bridge on their newest song, so he went. Slouched in the booth with his legs kicked out, already regretting his existence as the lead singer and bassist tore into each other over whether the crowd preferred angst or irony.

He wasn’t listening. Not really. Just stabbing at cold fries and imagining what it’d be like to walk out and never come back. He was bored out of his skull. And then you walked in.

Not like a movie. Not in slow motion. Just there. Hoodie swallowing you whole, clearly thrown over something more formal—he saw the hem of a skirt peeking out and heels dangling from your fingers like an afterthought. Your makeup was smudged, your mascara clinging to the edge of your lashes like you’d been crying or rubbing your eyes for hours. You had earbuds in. You didn’t look at anyone. Didn’t register the table full of noisy half-drunk guys. Just ordered a cherry milkshake and curly fries, then slid into a booth like you belonged there, like it didn’t matter that no one sat across from you. You waited for someone who never came. Checked your phone once, twice. Sighed. And then you started eating anyway. Alone. Like you’d been alone before and knew exactly how to carry it.

That, Rafe swears, is what did it. That was the part that ruined him.

The way you didn’t flinch. The way your fingers curled around the milkshake glass like it was enough. The way you paused mid-bite to shove your hair up, frustrated and tired but still composed, adjusting your glasses with that same subtle annoyance like the world kept making you late. At one point your gaze drifted to the window behind him, not at him, never at him, but past him—and your eyes passed over his face like a breeze, impersonal, ambient, accidental. He looked at you like a match about to burn his fingers. You looked at him like he was furniture. And somehow that made it worse.

He didn’t sleep that night. Not because he was lovestruck or obsessed with your laugh or any of that fairytale garbage. But because you’d carved out a whole galaxy in the middle of a filthy diner, and no one else had noticed. No one at the table even registered you. But he couldn’t stop watching. Couldn’t stop remembering.

After that it became quiet checking. Not stalking, not at first. Just curiosity. The kind that pulled his eyes toward the campus Starbucks on the off chance you’d be there. The kind that made him peer into classrooms you weren’t in. Then it got louder. Then it wasn’t curiosity anymore. Then it was a need.

And when he really met you for the first time���the official first time, the one you thought was the first—he looked irritated. Detached. Like you were nothing special. Like he hadn’t been carrying the weight of your existence since that stupid milkshake. But only because you didn’t remember. Because you looked at him that day like he was new. Like you’d never walked past him in that awful booth. Like your eyes hadn’t burned a hole through his ribs even if you didn’t know it.

It was already too late for him.

Cherry stuck. Mostly because he didn’t know your name and partially because the first time he called you that, you whipped around like you were going to end him with your glare alone. That look—half confusion, half insulted disbelief—seared into his brain like heatstroke. The eyes stuck too. The whole package, really. If Rafe were the kind of impulsive he used to be, he would’ve gotten a tattoo of them somewhere under his ribs—glasses and all. Or maybe just the cherry. Small and quiet and hidden behind a drumstick or the hem of his waistband. That one he was still considering. Still sketching. Still circling in his notebook margins like a secret he wasn’t ready to spill.

Because that’s what you were. A secret. A slow unravel. A private apocalypse.

And you still had no idea.

Not the first time you showed up to band practice, trailing behind your obnoxious, glittery, blonde best friend like a reluctant afterthought, and definitely not the first time Rafe pretended he wasn’t watching your every step like it was his goddamn job. And now—now it wasn’t the first time he showed up to the campus Starbucks where you worked either, slouching into the chair across from you like he just happened to be in the area. Like he hadn’t memorized your work schedule, the soft buzz of your opening shifts, or the specific table you liked to sit at during your fifteen-minute breaks. Like he hadn’t spent a whole night spiraling through the digital menu, trying to figure out what drink would sound cool but still passable enough for someone who was only just getting into caffeine as a placeholder for harder vices. He’d quit coke. Mostly. Not for himself. And not really for his health. But because you worked mornings, and coke made mornings unbearable. You made them slightly less so.

He cracked some half-assed joke the second he walked in, something crude about how unfortunate you must be to be stuck behind a counter making lattes for freshmen who didn’t tip. He offered to employ you for "special benefits" under his own twisted idea of HR, just to see the way your nose wrinkled and your mouth twisted in that sharp, unimpressed frown he swore looked better on you than any smile. You didn’t laugh. You never did. That only made him want to try harder.

His eyes hadn’t left you since. They trailed, slow and greedy, over the movement of your hand pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose — a movement so practiced it made something twist in his gut. His fingers tapped against the plastic cup of the iced Americano you’d made him without asking, exactly how he liked it: no sugar, no foam, no bullshit. A drink bitter enough to slice his tongue and keep him grounded through long classes and even longer rehearsals. It made him feel awake in the way that still left room for the hum of self-loathing he wasn't quite ready to let go of. He didn’t even like coffee, not really, but this order had become part of his performance — masculine, minimalist, functional — like him. Or the version of himself he projected when you were near.

You sat across from him, hair tied up in a loose knot with strands framing your face, all chaotic and pretty in a way that made him feel like a fucking idiot for noticing. You were rummaging through your bag now, muttering something under your breath about pens, or maybe about him, who knew. He didn’t hear you because he was too busy pretending to look bored, like this wasn’t the highlight of his week. And if he looked tired, it was only because you had called him half an hour ago — half an hour ago, on a Sunday morning — and told him to get up, get to Starbucks, and sit his ass down so you two could finally draft the “fake dating” contract he conveniently forgot to bring up again the night before. Maybe because deep down he hoped you’d reconsider. Or maybe he just liked the idea of you calling him. Like he was important. Like you needed him.

But you didn’t rethink it. Of course you didn’t. You called, shoved the iced Americano into his hand the second he walked in, told him to suck it up and make it fast because your break was exactly fifteen minutes and counting. And now here you were, the one wasting time, digging through your bag with a scowl like your life depended on finding a notebook and a pen — even though a napkin and a lip liner would’ve done the job just fine. He didn’t say anything. Just watched you, quietly amused, quietly miserable, sipping the cold drink you made him like it was your fingerprint on his tongue.

And even now, as you finally pulled out a pen with a little triumphant huff and began smoothing a crumpled sheet of paper on the table between you, he sat back and let his mind wander. Not far — just to the idea of your handwriting spelling out some ridiculous clause about PDA and handholding, the tip of your tongue sticking out in concentration. And maybe, later, to how your lipstick would smear on his mouth if he ever got to kiss you like he wasn’t faking it. But for now, he just leaned back, coffee in hand, pretending like he wasn’t already three steps too deep into something he should’ve never started.

“Okay, so…” you started, voice abrupt enough to startle most people, though Rafe didn’t even blink. He’d already seen the words forming on your lips before you bothered to say them, already caught the flicker of irritation blooming behind your eyes like storm clouds rolling in. “Rule number one: no touching unless I initiate it.” You didn’t even look up at him as you said it, just tapped the pen against the crumpled contract on the table, tone flat and definitive, like it was law. Like it wasn’t the cruelest sentence he’d heard before eight in the morning.

He grimaced. Not enough to start a fight, but enough that you’d notice. Enough to make it clear he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of you laying down boundaries like you were a camp counselor and he was some horny delinquent. His mouth twitched with something that might’ve been amusement or might’ve been resentment. It was always hard to tell with him. “You’ve got control issues, you know that?” he muttered, dragging his palm down his face as if the sheer effort of pretending to be normal around you was already exhausting him.

He sighed again, deliberately slow this time, letting it slip past his lips like smoke as he leaned back and glanced down at the sad little piece of printer paper between you. The lines were crooked from where you’d torn it out of a notebook. The ink was starting to smudge already. It wasn’t romantic, or cinematic, or cute — just pathetic and weirdly personal, and it made his skin crawl in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Why do we even need a contract?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at the paper like it offended him on a spiritual level. “You’ve got the relationship standards of an eighty-year-old woman, Cherry.”

“It’s important to know where you stand on certain issues,” you said, and you said it like it made perfect sense, like that one sentence was the nail in the argument’s coffin. Like this was a job interview and not a fake relationship you dragged him into because your roommate wouldn’t stop running her mouth. If Rafe wasn’t already neck-deep in the kind of obsession he couldn’t admit out loud, he probably would’ve gotten up and walked out right then. Left the coffee, the contract, the whole damn Starbucks behind and gone back to sleep. But he didn’t. Because the pen was in your hand, and you were frowning like his opinion didn’t matter, and he wanted to kiss that frown off your face more than he wanted to breathe.

He leaned forward instead, elbows on the table, tapping his ringed fingers against the plastic cup in slow, methodical patterns that betrayed the irritation simmering under his skin. “Okay, like what?” he finally asked, voice all false calm as he took another sip of his drink. The bitterness hit his tongue like regret, but he didn’t flinch. Just raised an eyebrow, waiting for you to hit him with something insane.

And you did. Of course you did.

“For example… I don’t want you to kiss me anymore,” you said, without even blinking, glasses sliding slightly down the bridge of your nose as you scribbled something onto the paper. Your tone was almost offhand, like you hadn’t just shattered the fragile little thread holding his sanity together. Like it wasn’t personal. Like it wasn’t him. You twirled the pen between your fingers like you weren’t aware you’d just ruined his entire Sunday before it even started.

Rafe lowered his coffee. Stared at you like you had three heads. “Are you insane?” he asked, voice just sharp enough to make the girl studying at the next table glance over before quickly looking away. His eyebrows pulled together, lips parted in disbelief. “Who the hell’s gonna believe we’re in a relationship if I’m not allowed to kiss you?”

“I don’t care what they believe,” you muttered, finally looking up, and god, he hated how calm you looked. How unaffected. “You might be the James Dean of this whole fake dating scene, Rafe, but I don’t go around just kissing people, okay? I don’t play that game.” You tapped the end of the pen on the paper again, emphasizing your point like this was a courtroom and not a shitty café with sticky floors and too-loud music. “Touch is... intimate. It means something.”

He stared at you, dead silent for a beat too long. Not because he didn’t have something to say — Rafe always had something to say — but because that sentence? That sentence gutted him. You didn’t kiss people unless it meant something. And you’d kissed him. At that party. After the gig. In the stairwell when your roommate wasn’t looking. More than once.

You’d kissed him like you were angry. Like you wanted to shut him up. Like maybe, for one stupid second, you meant it.

His voice was quieter when it came out, lower, more dangerous. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with it before.”

You blinked. Eyes narrowing like a challenge. “That was before I realized you think fake dating means free access to my mouth.”

He laughed then — sharp, bitter, joyless. “Free access? That’s rich. You kissed me, Cherry. Don’t rewrite the script now just because you’re scared of whatever the fuck this is turning into.”

You bristled, sitting up straighter, lips pressing into a tight line. “Don’t get it twisted, Cameron. I kissed you to sell a lie, not because I wanted to.” But your voice caught just enough on the last word that he caught it. The stutter. The crack in your armor.

He leaned in, crowding your space just slightly, just enough that you could smell the stale americano and whatever expensive cologne he always managed to wear like a second skin. “You sure about that?” he asked, eyes flicking between your own like he was looking for something you refused to give. “Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re scared you did like it. That maybe you liked it too much.”

You didn’t answer. You just looked at him like he was the worst kind of mistake — the kind that felt good in the moment but left bruises that didn’t fade.

And for a moment, Rafe wished this really was just a contract. That it could be simple. Controlled. Clean.

But there was nothing clean about the way you haunted him. Nothing controlled about the way he wanted you.

And definitely nothing fake.

There was something deeply ironic about the whole thing. The fake dating. The contract. You. You, of all people. Looking back at his so-called dating history — the blurred names, the pretty faces, the girls who giggled at his jokes and posed with his drumsticks for Instagram stories — you weren’t even close to his type. Or anyone’s type, really. Not in the shallow, campus-scene, Greek-life type of way. You didn’t try to be liked. You didn’t smile at strangers in lecture halls or linger at parties just to be seen. You walked around like you hated the very sight of men, like every guy who so much as looked in your direction was part of some failed social experiment. And you glared at him like he was the ringleader. Like his bloodline was a personal offense to your peace. And maybe it was. Maybe the pastel polo shirts he used to wear and the legacy student status he tried to keep buried made your skin crawl. You always looked like you had something better to do — like being here was a punishment. Like you’d rather claw your way through barbed wire than play beer pong with a bunch of guys named Chad.

You weren’t built for college, not the way others were. Not for the tailgates or the fake activism or the Spotify-blasting lawn culture. You had that look — like you were supposed to be somewhere else entirely. Like you’d fall asleep with books pressed to your chest instead of boys. Like you’d sign up for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign just to kick everyone’s ass and then walk out halfway through. Rafe didn’t get it at first. He’d see you in passing and chalk it up to some hipster, edgy-girl phase. But that didn’t last long. Because then he started noticing everything — the way you cracked your knuckles when you were bored, or tapped your pen against your lip when you were focused, or pushed your glasses up the bridge of your nose like the weight of the world was balanced behind the lenses. He considered offering you a cigarette once, some late night after a gig, just to see how you'd react. But then he imagined you socking him in the jaw and breaking his nose clean, and decided against it. Not because he couldn’t take a hit — but because you were the one person on earth whose disappointment he couldn’t stomach.

So him being obsessed with you was kind of poetic in the most self-destructive, Shakespearean-tragedy way possible. You treated everything like it had to be defined, cataloged, put into neat little boxes with crisp, legible labels. And here he was, a goddamn hurricane in a snapback, trying to wedge himself into whatever metaphorical box you’d scribbled his name on — if you’d even bothered to give him one. That was the worst part: you probably hadn’t. He didn’t even register as a chapter in your planner, just some margin note, a background character in your controlled, over-organized life. And still, he showed up. Every time. Like a moth to a bonfire.

“Rule number three: no corny nicknames besides Cherry,” you mumbled suddenly, barely above a whisper, like you were saying it more to yourself than to him. You didn’t look up, didn’t break rhythm as you scribbled it onto the paper, your handwriting neat and overly aggressive. “Because number two is no kissing. Number four is we stick to facts and don’t lie about how we met or any intimate details of our so-called relationship in public. And number five…” Your voice tightened, sharpening like a knife as your gaze finally snapped up to meet his. “No real feelings.”

Rafe didn’t respond right away. Just stared at you, jaw ticking, as if your words had carved something out of him. Like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or walk straight into traffic. His eyes dropped to the paper, to your list of tidy, devastating rules — five little lines that made him want to rip the damn thing in half just to see how you’d react. Not because he cared about rules. But because the last one felt like a punch to the ribs. No real feelings. You said it like a warning. Like you already knew what he was hiding and wanted to shut it down before it could breathe.

“You know,” he finally said, voice low and almost amused, “for someone who wants to fake date me, you sound like you’re trying to avoid me at all costs.”

“I’m trying to keep it from getting messy,” you replied simply, like that explained everything. Like that was enough.

He scoffed, dragging a hand through his already-messy hair, eyes flicking from the contract to your face with something dangerous simmering under the surface. “Too late for that, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” he muttered, and you didn’t miss the sarcasm dripping from his tone.

He leaned back then, folding his arms across his chest, the plastic coffee cup between his fingers creaking slightly from the pressure of his grip. He looked down at your stupid little contract, now stained with a smudge of ink and a tiny coffee ring, and let the silence stretch. He’d already failed the first rule before you’d even written it. The other four weren’t much better — kissing you was second nature by now, and feelings? He was drowning in them. Had been since the diner. Since the milkshake. Since the way you looked through him like he didn’t exist. But if fake dating you with a set of boundaries scrawled on printer paper meant he got to sit across from you like this, watch you breathe, hear you tell him what he wasn’t allowed to have — then fine. He’d take it. He’d follow your damn rules. He’d stay in the box if it meant getting to haunt the edges of your carefully-controlled life.

“Fine,” he muttered, grabbing the pen from your fingers and signing the bottom of the paper with a dramatic flourish, then sliding it back to you. “But for the record, Cherry...”

You raised a brow. “What?”

“I’m gonna break all five.”

Rafe watched you like he always did — intently, greedily, like there was something about your anger that made him feel more alive than he had any right to. The way your jaw flexed, the subtle twitch of your eyebrow, the ghost of restraint in your clenched fist as if you were one wrong word away from cracking it across his jaw — it made him feel oddly healed, like you socking him would somehow align all the broken things inside him. And just like that, with your teeth clenched and your patience fraying, he felt strangely, stupidly better than he had in days. As if getting metaphorically shot in the chest five times in a row with your rules and rejections had finally kicked his heartbeat back into rhythm.

And then you signed it. Neat, crisp, deliberate. Your signature was sharp in a way he hadn’t expected, practiced and painfully legible, like you actually cared. Like this was a binding agreement, and not just a dumb excuse to keep him at arm’s length. You folded the paper with the kind of care that made him dizzy, the creases perfect and symmetrical, your fingers precise. Every motion screamed restraint, control, discipline — everything he lacked. Everything he wanted to ruin. You didn’t meet his eyes as you pushed it across the table with two fingers, like the contract was a punishment and he was the unruly kid being handed his sentence. “You can have it, then,” you said lowly, tone firm and annoyingly parental, and it would’ve pissed him off if it didn’t turn him on so goddamn much.

His gaze dropped to the folded paper, to the little triangle of rules that now belonged to him. And instead of looking defeated, instead of reacting the way a normal person might when handed a list of all the things they weren’t allowed to do, Rafe smirked. Smirked like you’d just given him a key, like you’d handed him something precious and dangerous and didn’t realize what you'd done. He plucked the paper off the table with an obnoxious sort of casualness, slipping it into the inner pocket of his jacket like it was concert tickets or a backstage pass. “So you can reread it every time you wanna think about breaking a rule,” you added, tone dry, not quite a threat and not quite a warning — something in between.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at you. Really looked. Hair tied up in that messy, too-tight way that made you look perpetually stressed; your glasses sliding down the bridge of your nose from how often you pushed them up; your lips chapped and bitten, the sleeves of your uniform rolled halfway to your elbows. Exhausted. Sharp. Real. And so goddamn pretty it made something in him ache. You weren’t dressed up, weren’t posing, weren’t even trying — and it was that version of you that had lodged itself so violently into his bloodstream. Just like that night at the diner, when you’d looked barely held together and more alive than anyone he’d ever met.

“I’m keeping it in my wallet,” he said finally, voice low, fingers absently tapping the spot where the paper now sat pressed against his chest. “Like a psycho ex with a restraining order.” He said it with a grin, but there was something softer underneath, something quieter. Like it meant more than he could admit out loud.

You rolled your eyes, biting back the smallest twitch of a smile. “You are a psycho ex. Without the ex part.”

“Yet,” he corrected, leaning back in his chair like he hadn’t just said something completely deranged. “Give it time.”

You shook your head, muttering something under your breath that he was pretty sure was either delusional or idiot, maybe both. But you didn’t pull the paper back. You didn’t rewrite the rules. You let him keep it.

And Rafe — who’d spent most of his life breaking things he didn’t understand — knew with terrifying clarity that he was never going to throw it away. That he’d reread your list of rules at 3 a.m. when he couldn’t sleep, tracing each letter with his eyes and wondering which one he’d break next. Not if — when. Because he wasn’t playing by your rules, not really. He never had been.

He watched as you stood up, brushing imaginary dust off your apron, fingers carding through your hair like you were trying to steady yourself before walking back behind the counter. You didn’t say goodbye. Just grabbed your empty cup, shoved it into the trash, and walked away like none of it mattered. Like he wasn’t still sitting there memorizing the way your shoulders moved under your uniform shirt.

But he stayed seated long after you disappeared, fingers pressed to the outline of the paper in his pocket, and let himself think — just for a second — about how hard he was going to fall. About how fake it might’ve started, but how real it already was. And how lucky he was that you didn’t see it coming.

He stayed there, grounded in that shitty Starbucks chair, long after your break ended and you disappeared behind the counter with that familiar pinched look on your face, the one that made it impossible for him to tell if you were annoyed at him or just life in general. Maybe both. You didn’t glance back. Didn’t shoot him a smug look or a warning glare or anything that would’ve made it easier for him to walk away like a normal person. Like this was a normal arrangement. Instead, you vanished behind the espresso machine, tied your apron tighter, and resumed pretending he didn’t exist.

And yet he sat there, hand slipping into his jacket pocket again and brushing against the thin rectangle of folded paper like it was a photograph of something sacred. Not a stupid fake dating contract, not a list of rules designed to keep him in check, but a physical piece of you. Your handwriting, your fingerprints, your ridiculous bureaucracy disguised as emotional safety. It should’ve made him laugh. Should’ve made him scoff and toss it into the trash like every other rule he’d ever been handed in his life. But instead he pressed his thumb to it like it might bleed warmth.

Because here was the truth — the one that stuck in the back of his throat like a secret he hadn’t earned the right to say out loud: this wasn’t fake to him. Hadn’t been from the moment you locked eyes with him through that greasy diner window freshman year. Before you even knew who he was. Before he knew who he was. And now, with this fragile, rule-bound illusion you were trying to build between the two of you, you’d done the worst possible thing. You’d let him in. Close enough to touch. Close enough to watch.

“Hey. Rafe.”

He looked up, blinking like he’d been pulled from underwater. It was your coworker — some guy with a green apron and a nose ring who looked vaguely terrified of him.

“You, uh… you done with that table? We’ve got people waiting.”

Rafe glanced around, only now realizing the line had thickened, the hum of the café grown louder around him. The world had kept spinning, even as he sat there, caught in the echo of your voice telling him no real feelings like it wasn’t already too late.

He stood slowly, grabbing his iced americano — now half melted and entirely forgotten — and nodded at the guy. “Yeah, I’m good.”

But he didn’t throw the coffee away. He carried it outside like it still meant something, like it was part of a ritual. He walked a block down from the café, sat on the edge of a fountain that hadn’t worked properly since last fall, and pulled the paper back out of his jacket. Unfolded it carefully. Read every rule again.

1. No touching unless I initiate it. He already wanted to break that one again. Not even for something dramatic. Just to reach across the table next time and brush your fingers with his. Just to see if you’d flinch.

2. No kissing. You didn’t say never again. You said no kissing. Present tense. Technicalities mattered, didn’t they?

3. No corny nicknames besides ‘Cherry.’ He smirked at that one. As if he didn’t already have five others in his head he hadn’t dared say out loud. He’d find a loophole eventually. Maybe just say Cherry in that tone that made you squint at him like you were deciding whether to hit him or not.

4. We stick to facts — no lies about how we met or the relationship. That was a cruel one. Because the fact was: you didn’t remember the diner. And the truth was, he’d been chasing your shadow since that night. And if you ever did remember, he didn’t know if it would ruin everything or save him.

5. No real feelings. Too late.

He folded the paper again and slid it back into his pocket, this time slower, more deliberate. He was gonna make you break all five, first. Mess with your mind and make you think you were the first one to step over the sharp, crisp lines you drew yourself and then maybe he'd admit how pathetically he was in love with you. How he didn't really care about Sofia anymore and the whole fake dating arrangement was an excuse to get up close and personal with you.

Rafe would never admit it — not now, not ever — just how involved he really was in his bandmate’s love life. On paper, it looked like Ethan and Taylor just found each other at one of their campus gigs, a classic college romance born out of too many tequila shots and late-night Spotify playlists. But Rafe knew better. He was the one who made it happen. The unofficial, unhinged matchmaker. He even considered dressing as Cupid this year for Halloween in honor of the role he played, bow and arrow and all, but even he knew his version of Cupid would be a little… warped. Less “love brings us together” and more “I orchestrated your relationship so I could get closer to your best friend without raising suspicions.” And if that wasn’t the most selfish, borderline psychotic motivation for playing wingman, he didn’t know what was.

But in his defense, he never meant for it to turn into this. All he did was point Taylor out to Ethan one night after a gig, muttering a casual, “Blonde, top left, sparkly eyeshadow. She’s a sure thing.” And Ethan, being a simple man with zero resistance to glitter and a good ass, was immediately hooked. That was all it took. Rafe never had to push. No divine interventions. Just one little nudge. And suddenly Ethan was in love, Taylor was dragging you to every practice and show, and Rafe had you in his orbit without lifting another finger.

Did he think it through? No. He never really did. He liked to call himself proactive — solution-oriented, even. But this? This was messy even by his standards. Before Taylor, Rafe used to be stuck fending for himself at afterparties while Ethan dipped early with whatever girl he was tangled up with that week. But once Taylor became a staple in their chaotic band dynamic, you started appearing too. Sitting in corners, arms crossed, making it very clear you hated every second of being there. Glaring at Rafe like he was personally responsible for every bad experience you’d ever had with men and music. He should’ve backed off then. Should’ve let it go.

But instead, he doubled down.

You didn’t flirt. You didn’t giggle or bat your lashes like girls usually did when they found out he was a drummer. No — you rolled your eyes when he spoke, made sideways comments about how "it doesn’t take a genius to hit things with sticks,” and Rafe, for the first time in his life, found himself trying. Not to get in your pants. Not even to win. But to just… see you change expression. To pull a laugh out of you. A smirk. Anything other than that look you gave him — the one that said you’re not impressive and you know it.

He even had a brief moment of panic early on, thinking maybe you liked Ethan. That maybe all his meddling had backfired. But you didn’t look at Ethan. Not once. You looked at him — unfortunately, with contempt — but still, that counted for something. And after a few gigs, a few parties, three stolen kisses (four if he counted the one where you shoved him against a wall just to shut him up), and an unhinged plan to fake date him out of spite, Rafe thought maybe… maybe you were finally softening.

And yet, here he was, laying flat on your cramped little living room couch like a corpse, arms folded over his chest, the back of his skull pressing into the lumpy throw pillow that smelled like your shampoo, while you raged about your conditioner in the next room.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep. He’d tried everything to stay awake — scrolled endlessly on his phone, mindlessly played a bootleg game that crashed every three minutes, even started the first random show on Netflix just to have some noise in the background. But nothing stuck. Nothing could compete with the bone-deep exhaustion of being woken up by your voice at 7 a.m. on a Sunday to discuss “terms” of your fake relationship. Rafe wasn’t a morning person. Not unless you were in his bed — which, clearly, you were not. So he crashed. On your couch. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He was still half-asleep when your voice floated from the bathroom, sharp and annoyed.

“How many times have I told you not to use my fucking conditioner, Taylor?” The words sliced through the fog in his head, but he didn’t move. Eyes still shut, limbs heavy with the kind of sleep that always hit harder in places he wasn’t supposed to fall asleep in. He listened as your footsteps padded into the kitchen.

“Your parents are literally loaded and instead of caving in and getting an actual bottle of conditioner, you use mine?” There was a clatter — probably a spoon or fork or whatever you were fidgeting with as you paced. “Not to mention using my razors. Which, by the way, are like five bucks for a ten pack—”

Your voice cut off mid-sentence.

Silence.

Then: a sharp intake of breath, followed by the unmistakable sound of ceramic hitting the countertop just a little too hard.

“What the fuck?!”

Rafe flinched, one eye cracking open just in time to see you standing in the doorway, a butter knife dangling from your hand like you were seriously considering whether it could double as a weapon. Your hair was still damp, your oversized t-shirt clinging slightly to your collarbone, and your expression — pure panic laced with fury — was the kind of thing that should’ve scared him. Instead, it made his lips twitch.

“Morning, Cherry,” he drawled, voice still hoarse from sleep as he shifted on the couch with zero urgency, stretching his arms behind his head like he belonged there. “You really gotta work on your hospitality. I could’ve been a burglar, you know.”

You stared at him like he had just grown a second head. “Why the hell are you in my apartment?!”

“Ethan said it was fine,” he shrugged. “And Taylor was taking forever and your couch looked lonely. Plus, you woke me up at seven, so technically this is your fault.”

You blinked. “You broke in.”

“I didn’t break anything,” he muttered, rubbing at his eye lazily, “unless you count my spirit when I realized your Wi-Fi sucks and you don’t have HBO.”

“I’m going to kill you,” you breathed, more to yourself than to him, like you were mentally going through all the steps it would take to cover up a murder and whether or not Taylor would help.

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” He grinned now, all teeth and smugness. “You already signed the contract. You’d have to fake grieve. Real messy.”

You didn’t answer. Just glared at him, fists clenched at your sides, breath caught halfway between a scream and a sigh. Rafe, still reclined like a smug demon on your floral couch, closed his eyes again.

“Let me know when you’ve cooled off,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching as if this was all going exactly to plan.

He barely contained another shit-eating grin threatening to split his face wide open as he caught the sight of you storming toward him, still sprawled shamelessly across your couch like it belonged to him. Butter knife in hand, expression murderous — or at least trying very hard to be. You were standing over him like some chaotic little storm cloud, shoulders squared, brows pulled into a scowl that might’ve worked if not for the rest of you. Because you weren’t exactly the image of intimidation. Not when you were wearing an oversized, faded Strawberry Shortcake t-shirt that hung to your thighs and a mismatched pair of fuzzy socks — one blue, one pink, both slouching around your ankles like they’d given up on life halfway through the morning. Your hair was still damp from the shower, sticking to your neck and curling slightly at the ends, and your glasses had fogged slightly from the kitchen heat. If anything, you looked like the kind of person he wanted to wrap himself around, not run from.

"I'm going to call the police if you don't get out of my apartment," you muttered darkly, voice tight with annoyance and just enough edge to make him open one eye lazily, squinting up at you from the cushions. And there you were — hovering, exasperated, butter knife clutched in your grip like a warning. A deeply unserious warning. It was endearing, honestly. Pathetic in the way only someone dangerously close to being fond of another person could find it.

He blinked once, then let out a low hum, the corners of his mouth twitching. “With that?” he drawled, nodding at the butter knife with mock concern. “You planning to spread me to death?”

Your eyes narrowed, and for a second, he really did think you might stab him. Not deep. Not enough to hospitalize. Just a light puncture — a warning jab to the ribs, maybe. “I’m not joking, Rafe. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Ethan said it was fine,” he repeated, stretching a little more, muscles tensing under the fabric of his shirt as he shoved his phone aside and propped one arm behind his head again. “You were taking forever. I was bored. Couch was here. You do the math.”

“I do the math, actually,” you snapped, planting your fuzzy-socked foot firmly beside his hip, the knife still pathetically hovering somewhere around his chest like it might suddenly transform into something scarier. “And it tells me you’re a sociopath who thinks breaking and entering is cute.”

Rafe clicked his tongue, gaze trailing down the line of your leg, then back up to your face — lingering in that way he always did, like he wasn’t afraid to get caught, like he wanted to be caught. “Didn’t break anything,” he murmured, voice syrupy slow. “Didn’t enter anything that wasn’t already open. Maybe keep your door locked if you’re gonna live in a fairytale-themed shirt and threaten people with breakfast utensils.”

You made a frustrated noise, somewhere between a groan and a growl, and shoved at his shoulder. Not hard. Not even really a shove — more of a firm poke that made his grin finally crack wide open across his face.

“Get. Out,” you hissed.

He didn’t budge. Didn’t even flinch. Just tilted his head, appraising you like you were a particularly complicated lyric he was trying to memorize. “You’re cute when you’re mad,” he said simply, like that was a perfectly appropriate thing to say while being threatened on your living room furniture.

You blinked once. Slowly. And Rafe watched the flicker of exhaustion bloom across your face like a storm cloud finally settling. The fury deflated a little, replaced with something more dangerous — that brittle kind of disbelief that came from being so done with someone, you stopped even trying to react. You stood there for a beat, breathing heavily, and then tossed the butter knife onto the coffee table with a dramatic clatter.

“I swear to God, if Taylor doesn’t break up with your bassist by the end of the semester, I’m going to start charging you rent,” you muttered, raking a hand through your damp hair and moving to collapse into the armchair across from him with a defeated thud.

Rafe turned his head slightly, watching you settle with that smug, victorious calm he wore like a second skin. “If you’re offering me keys, just say that.”

You didn’t answer. Just shot him a glare so withering it could’ve peeled paint off the wall. But he noticed the way your arms crossed over your chest a second too late. The way your foot tucked slightly under your leg, like you were staying. Like you weren’t kicking him out anymore. And he smiled to himself, slow and triumphant, letting the silence stretch while you simmered and fumed and very pointedly didn’t look at him.

He sank back into your couch, folded his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes again like the argument hadn’t just happened. Like this was routine. Normal. Like you wouldn’t wake up one day and realize he’d carved a space for himself in your life with nothing but smug persistence and stolen moments on your couch.

He could feel you watching him. Not subtly either — not with curiosity or even passive disdain — but in that loud, silent way you always did when you were trying very hard not to say something. And he could’ve cracked. Might’ve even apologized or at least thrown out a self-deprecating joke if this was someone else’s apartment. But it wasn’t. It was yours. Which meant you didn’t just tolerate him being here — you invited him into your space by sheer proximity to Taylor, by signing that stupid contract, by letting him into your routine in these tiny, unspoken ways that you pretended didn’t count.

So, no, Rafe didn’t apologize. Instead, he leaned in. Sank deeper into the couch like it was a goddamn hotel mattress and exaggerated a groan of satisfaction, stretching his legs out until one foot bumped the edge of your coffee table. His arms flopped behind his head again with all the performative flair of a man deeply unbothered, and he even turned his cheek against the pillow like he was about to drift off again — right there in the middle of your living room.

“You know,” you snapped finally, voice sharp enough to cut through the air, “you could at least pretend to look more… I dunno? Embarrassed about being completely unwanted in someone’s house.”

His eyes opened slowly, like you’d interrupted something important. Like he’d been deep in a dream where your voice didn’t make his chest ache in that annoying way it always did. He turned his head, met your glare head-on, and then — with all the carelessness in the world — slid one hand down to scratch lazily at his stomach beneath the hem of his wife-beater.

“Yeah,” he murmured, voice low and husky with leftover sleep. “But that would be lying. And didn’t we agree on no lies, Cherry?”

You looked like you were going to throw something. Your eyes dropped — slowly, deliberately — taking in the full picture: the chain around his neck, the wife-beater clinging to his chest and slightly rumpled from sleep, the rings glinting on his fingers like they had something to prove, the baggy jeans slung low on his hips like he’d rolled out of bed and onto your couch without even thinking. Which, to be fair, he pretty much had. Your nose scrunched ever so slightly — not in disgust, more in that this fucking guy way you had about you that only made him grin harder.

You folded your arms across your chest, sinking deeper into the armchair. “You look like you should be standing in the back of a gas station asking minors if they wanna buy weed.”

He barked a laugh, head tipping back against the couch cushion. “Says the girl threatening me with a butter knife while dressed like a children’s cartoon character.”

“I will call campus security.”

“I’ll tell them we’re fake dating,” he countered, turning his head to look at you again. “They’ll probably just give us a pamphlet and tell us to work on our communication.”

You gave him the flattest look he’d ever received. “If you fell down the stairs right now, I wouldn’t even flinch.”

He grinned, wide and stupid. “You’d miss me.”

You exhaled slowly, eyes dragging away from him like you were doing mental gymnastics just to avoid launching yourself across the coffee table. “I don’t miss things that give me migraines.”

“That’s such a specific way of saying you think about me when I’m not around.”

“You’re not special, Rafe. I think about how much I hate traffic too, but that doesn’t mean I want it in my house.”

“Oof.” He clutched his chest mockingly. “That one hurt, Cherry. Might need a bandage.”

You rolled your eyes, standing up with a heavy sigh, muttering something about needing caffeine and walking toward the kitchen like if you just got far enough away from him, your blood pressure might stabilize. Rafe watched you go, cheek still pressed to the couch cushion, his grin softening just slightly around the edges.

He didn’t need to be in your house. He wanted to be. That was the difference.

And based on the way you hadn’t actually called campus security, or kicked him out, or even gone back to your room and slammed the door — you wanted him here too.

You just didn’t know it yet.

Now, Rafe was always having those thoughts — the kind that crept in every time you were near, uninvited but all-consuming. Sometimes they were vivid, filthy things. You on your knees. Him on his. Hands in hair. Fingers on skin. Lips trailing low. They came without warning, hit him at the worst times — mid-practice, in the backseat after a party, once even in the middle of a lecture when he caught sight of you through a window across the quad. He’d thought about kissing you more times than he could count. And not always with the kind of urgency he usually felt for girls. Sometimes it was slow. Tender. Too gentle to be casual and too selfish to be pure. But tonight... tonight it wasn’t about lust. Not really. He looked at you and just wanted to kiss you, not to get anything, not even to win — but to give. Something soft. Something grounding. Something you’d never ask for but maybe needed more than you’d admit.

He rubbed a hand down his face, dragging his palm across the sharp edge of his jaw, trying to chase off the sleep still clinging to him. Then he stood, stretching just slightly, bones cracking as he moved toward the tiny kitchen. The apartment wasn’t big — everything was a little too close, the overhead light too harsh — and he usually thrived in cramped spaces where boundaries blurred and personal space didn’t really exist. But now? As he leaned against the doorframe and saw you, hunched slightly over the counter, back to him as you stirred something fragrant and vaguely fruity in a chipped mug, he hesitated.

You looked... tired. Not just in the physical sense. Worn down. The sleeves of your Strawberry Shortcake shirt were pushed up to your elbows and your hair was pulled into a lopsided bun like you hadn’t even looked in a mirror. Your shoulders were drawn tight, like the tension had settled there and refused to leave. He didn’t know why it made his chest ache — just that it did.

You sensed him before he said anything, glancing over your shoulder with a flinch that you tried to mask quickly. But he saw it. And for once, Rafe didn’t joke. Didn’t lean against the fridge like an asshole or flash that smug grin he wore like armor. He just raised both hands in genuine surrender, stepping no further. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he mumbled, voice quieter than usual, rough from disuse and something else — guilt maybe, or care he didn’t know how to show.

You didn’t glare. Didn’t roll your eyes. Just adjusted your glasses with one finger, wordlessly turning back to your tea.

And it made something in him snap a little — not in frustration, but in tenderness, a foreign kind of helplessness he hated almost as much as he craved.

He lingered, then stepped a little closer, cautious like you were some wild thing he didn’t want to spook. “Rough day?” he asked gently, the words hanging in the air like they weren’t supposed to come from him.

You exhaled through your nose, lips twitching but not smiling. “Do you have to ask?”

Rafe scratched the back of his neck, leaning against the counter a safe distance away. “I dunno. Figured if I asked nice enough you might tell me. Or throw your tea at me. Either way, I get something out of it.”

You didn’t respond at first. Just kept stirring your tea with that slow, absent motion like it was the only thing keeping your hands busy enough not to break something. Then, finally, you sighed. “It’s just been… one of those days.”

“Yeah?” he asked, soft. “The kind where everything’s loud and shitty and nothing’s quite going right?”

You glanced over, surprised he got it so right. “Yeah. Exactly.”

He nodded, tapping his knuckles gently against the counter. “You want me to shut up and leave or... stand here and keep trying to piss you off until you feel something else?”

That pulled a sound from you — half laugh, half scoff. You shook your head. “You’re impossible.”

Rafe smiled, slow and almost shy, like he hadn’t expected to get that far. “Yeah. But I’m already here.”

There was a beat. You turned your head slightly, eyes flicking over to him, less guarded now. “You’re not always what I expect, you know.”

He tilted his head, genuinely curious. “That a good thing or a bad thing?”

You took a sip of your tea, eyes dropping to the mug. “Ask me tomorrow.”

And Rafe, without even thinking, said, “I will.”

And he meant it.

The silence that followed wasn’t tense, for once. It hung there like steam off your tea, warm and light and flickering at the edges. Rafe leaned his hip against the counter, watching you without the sharpness he usually wore — no smirk tugging at his lips, no bite in his gaze. You weren’t looking at him, but he could tell you knew he was there. Your body didn’t flinch anymore, and your shoulders — while still stiff — had sunk just enough to betray that part of you was letting him exist here. In this small, ordinary corner of your day.

“Strawberry?” he asked finally, tipping his chin toward the mug in your hands, trying to read the scent in the air. “Smells like fruit punch’s weirder, calmer cousin.”

You blinked, then huffed softly. “It’s hibiscus.”

“Right. That’s what I meant.”

You looked at him sideways. “Do you even know what hibiscus is?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said with mock confidence, straightening slightly, “it’s a fancy word for pink leaf water.”

That made you smile — just barely, but it was there. Faint and reluctant, like you didn’t mean for it to slip out. Rafe saw it. Filed it away like every other stupid thing about you he couldn’t stop collecting. “God,” you muttered, almost fondly, “you’re such a dumbass.”

“And yet you keep inviting me in,” he said smoothly, stepping just a little closer like he couldn’t help it. “I must be growing on you.”

You gave him a look. “You broke into my apartment.”

He shrugged. “Semantics.”

There was another long pause, the kind that was starting to feel less awkward and more like an unsaid truce. You stirred your tea one last time, then set the spoon in the sink and leaned back against the counter, facing him now fully. And he didn’t move, didn’t joke, just looked at you — and for once, you didn’t try to look away.

“You know,” you said slowly, voice quieter now, the teasing almost gone, “this is the longest you’ve gone without saying something absolutely infuriating.”

Rafe’s brows rose. “I’m evolving. Like a Pokémon.”

You rolled your eyes again, but softer this time, like you didn’t really mind it. Then your voice dipped a little lower, your gaze landing on his necklace where it sat crooked on his collarbone. “You always wear that chain.”

He looked down, fingers brushing over it instinctively. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

He blinked, then met your eyes, surprised at how serious your tone was — not mocking, not challenging, just... curious. He could’ve made something up. Could’ve deflected. But for some reason, with the air this quiet and you looking at him like that — like maybe you wanted to know things no one else cared to ask — he told the truth.

“My mom got it for me,” he said. “Years ago. Before everything got... messy.”

You stared at him a second, then nodded. Like you understood that. Like you knew what messy felt like too.

“That’s... kinda sweet,” you admitted after a beat. “Don’t make a habit of it or anything.”

Rafe chuckled under his breath. “No promises.”

The air between you shifted again — something warmer this time. Still quiet, still uncertain, but undeniably softer. He watched as your fingers curled tighter around your mug, your thumb tracing the edge like you were grounding yourself.

“You still wanna kiss me?” you asked suddenly, voice so casual it almost knocked the breath out of him.

He blinked, caught off guard, heat blooming instantly at the base of his spine. “What?”

You looked up at him, finally — really looked — and repeated, just as calmly, “You still wanna kiss me?”

Rafe stared, throat dry, mind stalling just long enough for him to forget how to play it cool. “Yeah,” he said eventually, quiet but steady. “But not ‘cause I want something.”

You tilted your head. “Then why?”

He took a breath. “Because you look like the day’s been eating you alive and I just— I don’t know. Thought maybe it’d help.”

Something in your expression faltered. Not cracked — not enough to let him in — but tilted just slightly. Like you hadn’t expected that answer. Like you were caught between saying something honest and laughing it off like you always did. You looked down at your tea again.

He took that as a no and nodded once, pushing off the counter like he’d already overstayed. “Alright. Cool. I should probably—”

“Wait.”

You didn’t look up, but your voice stopped him cold.

“I didn’t say no,” you added, softer than before. Almost shy. “I just didn’t say yes yet.”

Rafe froze, standing still in your kitchen, heart rattling in his chest with a force he refused to show. He turned, eyes on you again, watching the way you sipped your tea like nothing happened — like you hadn’t just completely thrown off his center of gravity.

He smiled then. Small. Real.

“I can wait,” he said.

He watched the side of your face like it held the key to something locked up deep in his chest — some answer he didn’t know he needed until silence filled the kitchen like thick steam. Your profile was calm, too calm, eyes focused on the mug in your hands while your lips pressed to the rim and stayed there a beat too long. Like you were stalling. Like you were searching too. Rafe squinted slightly, trying to catch any twitch of the jaw, any flicker of movement in your brow, a tightening around your mouth — something to grab onto, anything he could use to steer the conversation somewhere easier. But you gave him nothing. Not a crack. Not a signal. And he was left there, completely exposed, staring at you like a love-struck idiot, fidgeting with the ring on his index finger like he was fifteen again and this was his first real date.

Which it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But still. His brain felt hot and slow and a little dizzy, like it was short-circuiting in the face of your silence — not because it was tense or sharp, but because it was thoughtful. And Rafe wasn’t good with thoughtful. He was good with noise. Chaos. Conflict. Fast comebacks and dirty jokes and slamming doors and morning-after texts he ignored. Not… whatever this was. Not the stillness. Not the soft edge in your voice when you said, “I didn’t say no.”

He was freaking out now. Properly. Not because you’d flirted or threatened him with a butter knife or even agreed to lie about being his girlfriend for the sake of a petty revenge plot — he could handle all of that, that was his arena. But this? The way your words landed heavy but gentle, like a feather dipped in gasoline — this was different. This mattered. And it stirred something in him he didn’t know what to do with.

It made his chest feel too tight. Made his stomach flutter like it was hosting a butterfly funeral. And that terrified him. Not in the run-of-the-mill, fight-or-flight way he usually lived in — but in a way that made him feel. And Rafe didn’t do feelings. Not like this.

There was that old itch, that familiar buzz under his skin — the instinct to retreat, to shut it down before it touched anything important. He’d felt it before, every time something got too real. Too raw. Every time someone reached in too deep or lingered too long. The part of him that whispered, “You don’t get to have this. You ruin things.” It crawled up the back of his spine and told him to laugh it off, to say something crude, to disappear for a week and come back like none of it mattered.

But he didn’t. He stayed.

Not because he couldn’t walk away. But because he didn’t want to. Because you were standing there in your ratty little shirt, with your chipped mug and your tension and your stupidly guarded eyes, and you looked like you were about to bolt too. Like this wasn’t what you planned either. Like you hadn’t expected to get shy in a kitchen with Rafe Cameron, of all people — the boy you were supposed to be fake-dating, not softening for.

“Hey,” he said finally, voice low, like it didn’t want to scare the moment off. He leaned forward slightly, still fiddling with his ring but grounding himself in the movement. “You don’t have to say anything else, alright? I’m not— I didn’t mean to make this weird.”

You glanced at him then, just a flicker of eye contact, but it landed like a shot in the dark.

“I didn’t say it was weird,” you replied, a little too quickly. A little too defensively.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t, either,” he countered, but there wasn’t any venom in it. Just observation. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I get it. We made a deal. A dumb one, probably. And I’m… me, so yeah, I’m gonna make it more complicated just by breathing.”

You let out a soft huff, not quite a laugh but close. “Glad we agree.”

“But I’m not gonna push,” he added, more serious now. “I just… I meant what I said. I wanted to kiss you because it felt like maybe you needed something easy tonight. That’s it. No strings. No pressure. Not even a tongue,” he added with a lopsided smirk, trying to take the edge off. “Unless you ask nicely.”

You rolled your eyes, but it didn’t land as hard as it used to. “Don’t push your luck.”

“I’m not,” he promised, and for once, it wasn’t a line. “I’m just saying… I can wait.”

There was a pause, longer this time, and your eyes didn’t leave his. You held his stare, mouth parted just barely like you were weighing your next move on a scale he couldn’t see.

Then, finally, you murmured, “This is stupid.”

Rafe nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

You sighed. “And complicated.”

He nodded again. “So complicated.”

“And messy.”

“That too.”

“But you really would’ve kissed me?”

“Still would,” he said, softer this time. “If you wanted me to.”

You stared at him, brows furrowing like you were still trying to decide if he was joking. But then your eyes dropped, and something in your chest rose, and you said — quieter than before — “Maybe next time.”

And for some reason, that made Rafe smile like he’d just won something far more valuable than your lips.

“Cool,” he said, biting back the grin. “I’ll start a countdown.”

You shook your head, walking past him with a faint shove to his shoulder as you muttered, “You’re so fucking annoying.”

Rafe thrived off the high you unknowingly handed him, floating through the rest of the evening like he’d been given a hit of something stronger than whatever used to keep him awake at night. It wasn’t just your words — though they echoed relentlessly in his chest — it was the look in your eyes when you said them. That brief moment when your walls dropped, even slightly, when your gaze lingered a little too long on his mouth, and you didn’t push him away. That had been enough. More than enough. He kept replaying the kitchen scene in his head, every twitch of your lips, every flicker of hesitation and warmth and maybe. It had him grinning like an idiot all the way back to the frat house, shoulder to shoulder with Ethan and Taylor, who were still wrapped up in their own bubble, drunk on each other’s company and completely oblivious to the shift that had occurred between him and you.

He didn’t ask you to come with. Not because he didn’t want you there — fuck, he always wanted you there — but because the idea of extending the moment too far, pushing it into something it wasn’t ready to be, made his chest twist. You’d had a long day, and the way your fingers had clutched that mug, like it was the only thing keeping you steady, was enough of a sign for him to ease off. It wasn’t often that he read a room right, but tonight he didn’t want to mess up the progress, didn’t want to spook you into retreating behind that razor-sharp edge of yours. So he let you stay behind. Told himself it was the right call. That giving you space was what a normal, non-obsessed fake boyfriend would do. Even if every inch of him had wanted you walking beside him, even if the absence of your voice already made the night feel quieter.

By the time the three of them got back to the frat house, Rafe realized immediately that "rehearsal" was a joke. The front porch was already swarming with people, some familiar, most not, and music thumped through the walls like a heartbeat. He exchanged nods and lazy greetings, dapped up a few guys from his English elective and some randoms who only ever spoke to him at parties. His mood didn’t dip, not completely, but the realization that tonight wasn’t going to be the kind of focused, intimate practice he’d lowkey been craving made something coil a little tighter in his chest. Still, he pushed through, weaving around the bodies and brushing off offers for drinks or games, heading straight toward the back corner of the living room where his drum kit waited — tucked half behind a couch, right beneath a flickering LED light strip that made everything look artificially red and blue.

The kit was the only part of this house that felt like his. Not his bedroom, not the couch stained with someone else’s college stories, but this. The weight of the sticks in his hands. The way the cymbals gleamed in the dull glow. He didn’t bother sitting down right away, just stood behind it, fidgeting with the sticks, flipping one between his fingers and tapping it softly against his thigh. He wasn’t about to rehearse anything serious without the rest of the band — especially not with a growing crowd stumbling in and out of the room, some already too drunk to notice if he was playing or setting the whole house on fire. So instead, he focused on the rhythm of whatever song was pumping from the speakers in the kitchen, some trashy club beat over a synth loop, barely musical but catchy enough to sync his hands to. He drummed along with it on instinct, not for show, not to impress the strangers stumbling past him — but to keep himself moving, buzzing, distracted.

His thoughts kept veering back to you anyway, no matter how hard he tried to throw himself into the motion. Back to your bare legs and oversized tee, the way your glasses slipped down your nose when you glanced at him, annoyed but not furious. Back to the tea you never finished. The heat that bloomed in your cheeks when you admitted, “I might say yes.”

He tapped out another rhythm against the snare, faster this time, matching the pounding beat inside his chest rather than the one bleeding from the house speakers. The edge of his mouth tugged up, unbidden and annoyingly soft. Fuck it — he was so far gone. And the worst part? He didn't even mind.

It started slow, like the way a storm creeps up on the edge of the horizon — subtle, inevitable. Rafe stayed standing behind the kit, not fully committing to sitting down but also not budging, hands moving in practiced muscle memory over the rims and pads just to feel something under his fingers. The party had thickened around him, bodies moving in waves, spilling beer on sticky floors and shouting over whatever was playing through the Bluetooth speaker no one had bothered to unplug. He barely noticed anymore. It was all background noise to the chaos already buzzing under his skin.

The first to join him was Ethan — of course it was Ethan — sliding into the room with that laid-back lopsided grin, already halfway through a conversation he hadn’t started with anyone. His backwards cap was tilted too far, the neck of his hoodie stretched from Taylor’s grip, probably. He had his bass slung over his shoulder, the strap frayed at the edge like everything else in their setup, and a half-full solo cup in his hand. “Yo,” he said as if they hadn’t just left the same house together an hour ago. “This a solo act or you just needed a warm-up?”

Rafe gave him a look, one brow raised but unbothered. “Figured someone should actually touch their instrument at band practice.” He punctuated the sentence with a sharp double tap against the hi-hat, dry and precise.

Ethan smirked, dropping the cup onto the amp beside him and plugging in. “You’re just grumpy ‘cause your girlfriend didn’t come. Admit it.”

“I’m grumpy ‘cause this isn’t a fucking rehearsal,” Rafe muttered, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s a glorified keg stand with a playlist.”

Ethan just chuckled, tuning his bass lazily. “She really got you whipped, huh?”

Rafe didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Not long after, Cal wandered in — their rhythm guitarist — reeking of weed and sleep deprivation, his hoodie half over his head and fingers already miming chords on air. “Did we agree to actually play tonight?” he asked, voice hoarse from god knows what, eyes scanning the room like he hadn’t even realized how many people were there.

“I didn’t,” Rafe said, spinning a stick between his fingers. “But I got bored watching future alcohol poisoning, so…”

Cal snorted, setting up beside Ethan without another word, running a lazy scale across his strings to check his tuning.

A few more bodies drifted toward them — not the kind that wanted to listen, just party stragglers looking for a place to stand or somewhere to drop a half-finished drink. Rafe blocked them out. Even when Taylor poked her head in with a flushed face and a high ponytail, dragging in two other girls with her before planting a kiss to Ethan’s cheek and flashing Rafe an exaggerated wink.

“Don’t worry, I’ll film a clip for her,” she said over the noise, like it was some secret between them. Rafe didn’t answer, just rolled his eyes and finally sank down onto the stool behind the drum kit with a heavy exhale.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s run something.”

“What?” Ethan asked, clearly not expecting real effort.

“Anything. Something loud. Something fast.”

Cal groaned. “We didn’t even soundcheck.”

“I don’t care,” Rafe said, more to himself than anyone else. He wanted to move. To sweat. To pound his palms against the world until the noise in his head shut the fuck up.

Ethan adjusted his bass, nodded once. “One-two-three-four?”

Rafe answered by lifting his sticks, rolling them once across his thigh, and diving into a snare beat that hit like a pulse through the room. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean. But it was loud — and it felt good. The kick drum thudded through the floor like a heartbeat, cymbals hissing behind the sludgy thrum of Ethan’s bass, Cal’s lazy guitar finding rhythm in the mess of it. They weren’t rehearsing. Not really. But they were playing. And for now, that was enough.

Rafe let himself disappear into it, hair sticking to his forehead, lips parted as he moved with something that wasn’t quite rage but wasn’t peace either. He could feel the phantom weight of your stare in the back of his mind, the curve of your voice wrapped around his ribs, the not yet still lingering on his tongue. And even as his arms burned and sweat gathered along the collar of his wife beater, he played harder.

Through the blur of the not-really-rehearsal, Ethan tossed out, “Let’s do Nirvana,” and the room latched onto it like drunk moths to a neon sign. Rafe paused mid-fill, set his sticks across the high tom, and tipped his snapback back with the heel of his hand so he could drag his fingers through his damp hair. Ethan was watching him too closely—too amused—and the look hit the part of Rafe reserved for special nights, the ones where the old version of him—the sharp, mean, pre-frat one—scratched at the skin of the persona he wore now. He was supposed to be easygoing city frat bro with a drum kit; instead he felt the snap of static under his ribs, the kind that made him want to pick fights or kiss people he shouldn’t. Ethan gave him a single nod like he knew exactly which way Rafe would swing, and yeah, fine—he swung.

They swapped. Ethan slid behind the kit, casual like he hadn’t just poked a bruise, and Rafe slung the Strat copy across his chest. The pick still never sat right between his fingers—he gripped it too much like a stick, too much attack, not enough finesse—but he could fake it. He adjusted the strap lower because pride, rolled his shoulders, and when he looked up he caught a girl standing too close to the amps staring at him with that glazed, delighted expression girls got when guys touched electrified wood. He didn’t blame her. People were simple creatures. Drummers were utility; guitarists were mythology. And yeah, he did look good with a guitar. You’d roast him for thinking it. You’d say, Congrats, you unlocked the campus starter pack: backwards cap, distortion pedal, and unresolved family trauma.

He was still a drummer at heart—always would be. Rhythm first. Anger translated to muscle memory. He liked hitting things until the noise in his head synched with the noise in the room. Guitar was a side language, one he learned because sometimes melody got in where blunt force couldn’t. Without ceremony—no count-off, no ego throat-clearing—they slid into the only Nirvana cover on the week’s gig list: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Cliché. Predictable. The kind of song you’d side-eye on principle and call “freshman orientation grunge.” He felt superior for that alone. He’d pushed Dirty Diana for the set—sleazy, dramatic, a better flex—and the guys had tabled it. He hadn’t told you he played guitar. He hadn’t told you he fought for setlists either. Some things he kept, like the folded contract in his wallet and the memory of you in fuzzy socks threatening him with a butter knife.

He chunked into the opening progression with more downstroke than necessary, palm-muting too hard because that’s what his body knew: choke, release, repeat. Ethan caught the groove on the kick without missing, Cal smeared texture over the top, and somewhere behind him Taylor whooped like she was at a throwback night in a dive bar that still carded on principle. A couple of guys in the doorway started shouting the chorus before they were even there—of course they did—and Rafe rode the fuzz, letting feedback bloom between phrases because the house PA was garbage and the room deserved to howl. He imagined your voice under all of it, dry and unimpressed: Wow, revolutionary. Next you gonna light the kit on fire, Cobain? He almost laughed mid-riff.

Midway through the second pass he let his left hand slide, slipped in three teased notes from Dirty Diana under the tail of the progression—so buried no one drunk would catch it, but clear enough that Ethan’s head snapped up and he grinned, teeth flashing like you asshole. Rafe answered with a shrug and kept going. If you’d been here, you would’ve heard it. You would’ve called it out. You would’ve accused him of peacocking. Maybe he would’ve admitted it. Instead he played the rest of the song for the ghost of you, for the hibiscus smell that still clung to his memory of your kitchen, for the “maybe next time” you left in the air like a live wire.

When the crash bled out and the room erupted in the kind of off-beat cheering that meant half the crowd thought they’d just heard Metallica, Rafe rolled the volume knob down with his knuckles and let the guitar hang against his hip. His fingers twitched for sticks; his brain reached for you. He didn’t text. Didn’t call. Just pressed his thumb briefly against the pocket where your rules lived, and told himself he could survive cliché covers and drunk compliments a little longer. Because when he showed you he played guitar, it wasn’t going to be at a half-party rehearsal with sticky floors. It was going to be when you said yes. Or when he got tired of waiting. Whichever detonated first.

He set the guitar down on the amp with slow, practiced care, the kind that made it look casual even though his arms ached slightly from holding it so low and he didn’t want to admit it. The noise behind him lingered, a few stragglers still cheering, one voice obnoxiously asking for “Wonderwall” like this was freshman year again. He let it all slide off his back. Behind him, the band was already dissolving into post-rehearsal chaos—Cal was likely off making something overly complicated on the stovetop again, maybe pasta at midnight like a pretentious stoner, and Ethan was definitely finding Taylor to swap spit like they hadn’t already spent the last four hours groping each other under the guise of "I think I’m on the wrong note, can you help me?" Rafe didn’t care. He didn’t want to be around people. Not even them. Not right now.

He made a beeline for the kitchen and opened the fridge with the kind of rough familiarity that made the old appliance rattle. He reached straight for the whisky—his whisky—the same bottle that had been there since last week, but only because he kept topping it off like it was a living thing that needed feeding. He didn’t go for a chaser. Didn’t pour it. Shot glasses were either all dirty or lost in the Bermuda Triangle that was their sink, and he didn’t see the point in pretending. He took a slow swig, letting the burn drag down his throat in that way that made his shoulders relax. It was the one bridge between versions of him he hadn’t bothered to tear down. If the old Rafe—the country club menace with too much money and not enough adult supervision—had to cohabit the same skin with the city boy drummer wrapped in thrift store denim and frat-party confidence, then whisky was the only neutral territory. That and the fact he still wore polos sometimes. Some outfits required them. Didn’t mean he liked it.

He hadn’t even capped the bottle again when a voice floated in behind him—slightly slurred, overly casual, like it had been waiting for a lull. “Smells Like Teen Spirit is literally my favorite Nirvana song,” she drawled, and Rafe turned slowly, lowering the bottle with the kind of weighty stillness that said more than words ever could. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Definitely not in the mood for groupies. The girl was short—barely up to his collarbones—and she had the kind of dirty blonde hair that curled softly at the ends, the kind of face that would’ve blended in at any crowded house show if she didn’t smile like she knew more than she should. She wasn’t dressed to scream attention, which made her seem even more intentional, and her expression was soft in a way that didn’t quite match the game she was playing. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear like it was a shy reflex, but Rafe had seen enough of these interactions to clock it as strategy.

“Yeah,” he muttered, voice flat, sarcasm curling the edge like smoke. “Looks like it.”

His eyes roamed over her once—just once—more out of habit than desire. She was decent looking. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that she was here, talking to him, when he very clearly hadn’t invited it. He took another swig just so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at her, his tongue curling against the sharp bite of the liquor like it was bracing him for the next eye-roll-inducing thing she’d say. She didn’t disappoint.

“I’m Gen,” she said, her voice all soft introduction, and he heard the step closer even if he didn’t see it.

Gen.

His fingers tensed slightly on the neck of the bottle. Gen. Oh. That Gen. The one who was in, like, every single Instagram story Sofia ever posted for six months straight. Pool parties. Halloween photos. Coachella outfits that were more about posing in the hotel bathroom mirror than actually hearing the sets. One of Sofia’s best friends. Or maybe former best friends, judging by the fact she was here, smiling at him like he didn’t remember any of that. Like she hadn’t sat front row at the last campus party Sofia cried her way out of because someone mentioned Rafe’s name too casually.

Didn’t girls have a whole moral code about this shit?

He blinked once, slowly, and leaned back against the fridge without giving her a reaction. He didn’t know what her angle was. Maybe she wanted a story. Maybe she wanted to be the girl that finally got Rafe’s attention after weeks of seeing him brooding behind a drum kit like he was too tortured to care. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and was hoping he’d be drunk enough to play along. Either way, he wasn’t biting.

“You know,” he said finally, voice low and bored, “for a friend of Sofia’s, you’re either really fucking bold or really fucking stupid.”

Gen blinked, her smile faltering just slightly, and Rafe finally looked at her—really looked—just to watch the flicker of uncertainty cross her features. He didn’t smile. Didn’t soften. Just tilted his head slightly and took another swig, licking the whisky off his bottom lip like punctuation. This wasn’t a night he was interested in being charming. This wasn’t a night where he felt like putting the mask back on.

This was the kind of night where he drank straight from the bottle and remembered why the old Rafe never liked being looked at like a trophy.

And the fact that you weren't here?

That made it worse.

“Maybe I’m a secret third thing,” she offered with a grin, recovering like she hadn’t just taken a direct hit. Her smile was tilted and self-satisfied, like her attempt at flirting had landed perfectly, even though Rafe looked more bored now—less patient, more unhinged around the edges. The kind of expression that cracked only when something annoyed him to the point of stimulation. Her answer was equal parts predictable and grating, and it hit him then, not just how uninterested he was, but how deeply the old Rafe would’ve hated this interaction. Hated the cutesy power plays. Hated the fake humility of it all. The kind of girl who tried to wear sarcasm like perfume. Maybe that’s why he'd suggested Dirty Diana for the setlist earlier this week without even realizing it—something in his subconscious recognizing the type. A song for girls who smiled too easily and thought flirtation was rebellion.

His grip around the bottle tightened as he tilted it toward his mouth again, the whisky hotter this time, less comforting. He clenched his jaw before speaking, tasting the sharpness not just on his tongue but in the words building in his throat. He had to work to keep his voice casual, to disguise the disgust curling like smoke in his chest.

“Yeah. I know you’re a lil’ groupie,” he said finally, eyes flicking over her like he was checking for a price tag. His tone was flat, sharp in the way that cut deeper the more casually it was delivered. “Didn’t think you were the type to chase scraps, though.”

That should’ve hit harder. It should’ve been enough to wipe the smirk off her face and send her back to whatever frat basement she slithered out of. But instead, she rolled her eyes, slow and playful, like she was indulging him. Like she thought she was still in the game. Like he hadn’t just called her a leftover.

“Flirting with the campus’ hot drummer is called chasing scraps now?” she asked, arching a brow as she shifted her weight against the counter, her hip just barely brushing the edge of it. She was trying to look casual, effortless, like this was just some cheeky little moment she’d retell to her friends in the morning. Her posture said “God, he was mean but it was so hot,” and Rafe could already hear the retelling, could already picture her voice weaving the interaction into something it wasn’t. Her leaning in. Him playing hard to get. The tension exaggerated and romanticized into something cinematic. It made his skin crawl.

He exhaled through his nose, low and annoyed, and placed the bottle down with a soft clink against the counter, but didn’t let go of it entirely. His other hand braced against the edge of the counter near her waist, not close enough to touch her but enough to make her feel the space shrink. Not enough to give her ideas—but just enough to make her realize she was out of her depth.

“You think this is flirting?” he asked, voice a notch lower now, not aggressive but steady—like he was genuinely baffled, like the whole thing was some kind of cosmic joke. “Jesus. Maybe I’m giving off the wrong energy.”

She blinked, and her mouth parted just slightly like she didn’t know whether to laugh or defend herself, and that’s when he finally let the silence stretch, let her sit in it. He watched her blink twice, slowly, trying to gauge whether he was teasing or if this was him actually shutting the door in her face. And Rafe did nothing to clarify. That was the thing about him lately. He didn't clarify. He just let people guess. Let them project whatever they needed to onto his silence until they made themselves uncomfortable enough to leave.

And still, she lingered.

Of course she did.

He almost smirked, but it didn’t reach his mouth. Just a twitch at the corner of his lip, a sliver of something tired and unimpressed. “You’re not the first girl to get bored of watching from the crowd,” he added, glancing at her up and down again, more clinical this time. “But you might be the most obvious.”

And maybe it was mean. Maybe it was cruel. But it was true.

Because the moment you weren’t in the crowd? It was like every girl suddenly thought there was a vacancy. And Rafe didn’t want to be touched by girls who couldn’t tell the difference between a setlist and a persona. He didn’t want to be wanted by people who didn't know that the reason he played like his life depended on it was because it actually kind of did.

And Gen?

Gen didn’t even remember the first time she met him.

You did. Even if you didn’t know it yet.

“That what you said to your little girlfriend?” Gen broke the silence again, this time her voice a little lower, a little less breathy—flirty with an edge now, laced with something sharp and cracking beneath the surface. The shift was small but obvious, like she was trying to land a hit out of spite rather than playfulness, faltering under the weight of her own misread confidence. “Or does she not show up to gigs and rehearsals enough to be called a groupie yet?” she added, the word groupie now sour on her tongue, her lips curling like the taste of it disgusted her. Glossy and glinting under the kitchen light, her mouth twisted around the bitterness of envy she clearly didn’t expect to feel. She’d misjudged the game. Misjudged the stakes. Misjudged him.

And the best part? Rafe didn’t even flinch.

He could’ve snapped. Could’ve sent the whisky bottle flying across the room or shattered it clean on the counter just to see her jump and backpedal. That would’ve been the default Rafe reaction—dramatic, explosive, neck vein bulging with heat and irritation, all rage and no patience. But this version? The post-counselor’s-office, PR-smoothed, "we’re keeping an eye on you, Mr. Cameron,” version? He’d evolved. Or rather, he’d learned to channel the combustion into something quieter. Something way more unnerving.

So instead of screaming, Rafe smirked. Slowly. Deliberately. Not the cocky kind you flash when someone calls you hot, not the soft, warm kind reserved for late-night bullshit with people who matter. No, this was the kind of smirk that looked like it belonged to someone planning a crime. Barely there but electric. The therapy kind of worked, he figured. Not that he believed in it—but that one forced session the school mandated after the "library stairwell incident" taught him one thing: internalize it. Wrap your hands around the rage and squeeze until it becomes leverage instead of liability. It was progress, technically. Until he realized that bottling it up made him sociopathic rather than psychotic. Cool little swap, right?

“What I call my girlfriend behind closed doors,” Rafe murmured, voice low and decadent, almost purring with control as he tilted his head slightly, “is really none of your business, Genevieve.” The name came out like velvet dipped in venom, and the way he lingered on it made it feel like he was personally unwrapping her shame. His tone carried just enough weight, just enough cadence, to sound intimate without being kind. There was no affection in it—just precision. Just dominance. Just the cold, glittering thrill of knowing he’d won without even trying.

And fuck if it didn’t light him up inside to refer to you as his girlfriend. Maybe it was fake in theory—unspoken in name but real in blood—but every time someone threw it at him, he caught it with both hands like it belonged to him. Because it did. In his head, in the space you unknowingly lived in rent-free, you weren’t a temporary narrative device or a placeholder for his pent-up feelings—you were the goddamn plot.

Genevieve didn’t reply at first. Her mouth parted slightly, as if waiting for a retort that didn’t come. Her confidence was slipping like lip gloss on a humid night, and Rafe knew it. He watched her face twitch with the effort of holding her composure, with the realization that she was being boxed out with such elegant cruelty she couldn’t even accuse him of being an asshole without sounding bitter.

“Didn't peg you for the committed type,” she finally muttered, almost like a last ditch effort to reestablish footing. But it was weak. It was lazy. And she knew it too.

Rafe just hummed, pushing off the counter and stepping around her like she was a misplaced chair, not worth the energy to move—just something to sidestep. “Yeah,” he said, reaching for the bottle one last time, giving her a glance over his shoulder, all sharp teeth and wicked control. “People say I’m full of surprises.”

When Rafe finally stepped out of the kitchen, shoulders loose with the kind of calm that only came after someone said exactly what they wanted to say—sharp, cold, cruel enough to count as a sedative—he felt the tension slink off him like steam. Cruelty really did soothe something in him. Like a dog getting scratched behind the ears. His fingers still buzzed faintly from gripping the bottle too tight, his throat raw with leftover heat, but it didn’t matter. The crowd had thinned. Most of the party bled out onto the porch or scattered upstairs in pairs and trios, and the ones still in the living room had dulled, faces blurred by music and weed smoke and the slow pull of whatever was left of the night. No one stood near the amps anymore. No one was clinging for his attention or asking for photos or talking about the band. He could clock out mentally, drag himself upstairs, maybe smoke and pass out with the lights on. Monday didn’t feel real yet anyway.

But then he saw it.

Saw you.

Not your face—not at first—but the stance. The posture. The unmistakable stiff tilt of your shoulders that immediately stopped Rafe mid-step, stunned like he’d just been tasered in the ribs. He knew that stance the same way he knew how to spot a cop car from miles away. You were facing away from him, but every muscle in your body was tense, planted, like your feet were gripping the floorboards in case you needed to launch yourself. Rafe’s gut twisted before he even had a chance to blink. And then he saw her. Sofia. Of course. Of fucking course. Standing across from you, angled just enough for him to catch the full view of her face—and god, was she smug. Lips curled in satisfaction, eyes glinting with poison, like she just dropped a grenade and stepped back to enjoy the fireworks. He couldn’t see your face, but hers said enough. Said too much.

Rafe didn’t remember starting to move, but suddenly he was walking, slow and careful like approaching a wild animal mid-bite, unsure if he was interrupting the predator or the victim. And honestly? He wasn’t even sure who was who. It could be you baring your teeth, or Sofia sinking the knife in. Either way, this wasn’t safe. He forced his jaw to unclench, forced his arms to hang loose instead of balling into fists. Tried to paint a lazy smirk onto his face like he hadn’t just survived one verbal bloodbath only to stumble onto the next one. But it probably looked crooked, plastic. Because he felt like he was hallucinating. “You didn’t even text me when you got here, babe…” he muttered once he was close enough, voice a bit too low, trying to test the waters, watch your expression shift.

You turned slightly, eyes narrowing at the word babe like it left a foul taste in your mouth, but you didn’t call him out. Not in front of Sofia. And that silence spoke volumes.

But then—then—you did something that nearly made his knees buckle like a preteen. You stood on your tiptoes, leaned in slowly, and pressed a kiss against his cheek. Soft. Gentle. Like it was muscle memory. Like it meant something. Rafe went stock-still, blood rushing to his head and then dropping all at once. Because it didn’t feel flirty. It didn’t feel casual. It felt intentional, calculated, almost cruel in its sweetness. Your smile was barely there, just enough to count, like you were playing a role he hadn’t auditioned for. And the arm you slid around his waist? He felt it like a chokehold. Like a fuse being lit. “Hi, baby…” you said, saccharine and smooth, and if Sofia looked smug before, now she looked like she’d been slapped. Her mouth parted, visibly stunned, blinking once, twice, like she couldn’t believe she was watching this version of events unfold.

“I just got caught up saying hi to everyone,” you added lightly, tone breezy and casual, a laugh slipping out that sounded faker than anything Rafe had ever heard from you. He knew your real laugh—he obsessed over it. This one was all teeth and strategy. “You know how it is. Being the girlfriend of the drummer…” you drawled, eyes flicking briefly to Sofia with a smile too tight to be genuine. It was a hit. A direct one. Rafe felt it echo through his chest even though he wasn’t the target. He couldn’t tell if he wanted to high-five you or fall to his knees.

His voice came before his thoughts caught up. “I didn’t know we did cheek kisses now…” he muttered, still half in shock. What he meant was that he didn’t know you’d willingly touch him in public, let alone with that much practiced affection. But he recovered fast. Reflexive. “Thought we were more of a mouth-on-mouth kind of couple,” he added, turning his head just enough to catch your profile, smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, forced playfulness humming beneath the awe and barely suppressed panic.

You didn’t even blink. Just smiled up at him sweetly, gaze flicking to his mouth and then to Sofia. “Oh, we are,” you said, tone syrupy and lethal. “But I didn’t wanna make her uncomfortable.” Your hand gave a soft pat to his lower back as you pulled away slightly, like you were doing him a favor. Like you were already in charge of the narrative.

Rafe had never felt more aroused and more terrified in his life.

Sofia looked like she might spontaneously combust. “Right…” she muttered, taking a step back, trying to catch her footing again. “Well… I’ll see you around.”

You just nodded. “Sure. I’ll be around all the time now, actually. Like a real girlfriend should be.” That was the final blow. Rafe didn’t even know what Sofia said to you before he got there, but whatever it was? You obliterated it. You turned it inside out and served it back to her with a bow.

And the moment she was gone, disappeared into the hallway with stiff shoulders and one last backward glance, Rafe leaned down, breath low and stunned, eyes locked on you like you were a completely different person than the one who threatened to set him on fire two days ago.

“…What the fuck was that?” he whispered.

You still didn’t look at him. And maybe that was the worst part for Rafe. The way you kept your gaze levelled slightly to the right of him, glasses glinting under the hanging lightbulbs, like looking at him directly would be a disservice to your pride. Your fingers wrapped tight around the strap of your bag like it was the only thing tethering you to your composure, your voice clean and sharp like a blade being drawn. “That, you pest…” you repeated, slower this time, your head tilting slightly with theatrical cruelty, “was me fake dating properly.”

Rafe blinked. The word pest hit harder than you probably meant it to. Or maybe you meant it with precision—maybe you wanted it to land like a slap. Either way, it stunned him momentarily, and the worst part was how much he liked the attention. Even when it burned. His mouth parted, only slightly, and his brows ticked in a way that screamed both guilt and confusion. He hadn’t done anything wrong—had he? Sure, he’d entertained the conversation. Sure, he could’ve shut Gen down faster. But he didn’t touch her. He didn’t flirt. Not really. Not the way he could. Not the way he would’ve before you.

"Instead of sitting in the kitchen and flirting with groupies..." you continued like you were reciting a report of crimes committed, your voice devoid of heat but not of consequence. The type of cool, delivered disappointment that twisted inside Rafe’s gut like a knife. His jaw clenched as he tried to remember if Gen had actually touched him—he didn’t think so. She just smiled a lot. Talked a lot. God, did she talk.

“Wait, cherry…” Rafe’s voice dropped an octave, deeper, more serious, with the kind of restrained urgency he only pulled out when you really had him cornered. “I wasn’t flirting with her.” His palms raised halfway, not quite in surrender but like they were reaching for something invisible between you both. Maybe trust. Maybe patience. Maybe you. “I didn’t even know who she was until she opened her mouth and started talking like we were best fucking friends or something. I told her to fuck off, basically. I—” he paused, exhaling like he couldn’t believe he was explaining himself over a girl he didn’t even look at twice. “That’s not what that was.”

But you weren’t even looking at him. You just scoffed, like his words were radio static. “Is that why you asked me to fake date you?” you shot back suddenly, your eyes finally rising to meet his, and the heat behind them almost made him flinch. “Just so you could humiliate me? So your little ex could get some kick out of seeing me strung along while you flirt with some mini skirt version of her in the fucking kitchen like a bad 2000s frat movie?”

Rafe’s head jerked back slightly. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he hissed, a little too loud, then reeled himself back in when a few heads turned. He leaned in closer, lowering his voice but not the intensity behind it. “You think that was for her? You think I give a shit if Sofia sees me with you or not?”

“She obviously thinks you give a shit,” you snapped back. “She was smiling like she had something to prove. Like you handed her the win on a fucking silver platter.” You exhaled, taking a shaky breath, not because you were fragile—but because you were mad enough to unravel and were barely containing the thread. “I don’t do this, Rafe. I don’t play fake relationships and mean girl pissing contests and pretend like it’s all fun and games. And if that’s what this is for you, then fine, congratulations. You’ve successfully humiliated me for the weekend.”

Rafe stared at you like he didn’t understand what planet you came from. His hands flexed at his sides, and his mouth opened like he had about four things he wanted to say at once. But none of them made it out immediately. He didn’t know how to explain that Gen meant nothing and that Sofia's smile wasn't a win—it was a warning. That being around you, being touched by you, even in the most performative ways, was starting to unravel him in ways he didn’t understand. That your kiss on his cheek had buckled his knees more than any night spent tangled up in bed with someone else.

Instead, what came out was, “I didn’t do this to humiliate you.”

You didn’t respond. Not immediately. Your lips pressed together in a line so severe he knew anything he said after that would land in a warzone.

“She asked if I was your charity case,” you said finally, voice flat but heavy. “Said I must’ve gotten in your head real deep if I had you playing boyfriend in public.”

That was what did it. That was the thing. That was the knife. Rafe’s eyes darkened, his jaw ticking again, and for a second he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill Sofia or punch a hole in the wall. “She said that to you?” he asked slowly, but his voice had dropped into something colder than ice. Something calm enough to be dangerous.

You didn’t nod. You didn’t need to. Rafe knew it was true by the way you said it, by the way your voice didn’t crack but still sounded hollow.

He stepped closer, head tilting as his eyes locked onto yours with a kind of severity that burned. “You’re not a charity case,” he said, voice low and rough and final. “Don’t ever let that bitch get in your head again. She’s not even on the same fucking planet as you.”

That shut you up. Not out of shock, but maybe because the sincerity in his tone felt like a direct hit. You looked away again, arms tightening slightly, like you didn’t know what to do with that kind of truth from someone like him.

Rafe took the smallest step back, the tension now roiling between you instead of through you. “You wanna be mad at me? Be mad,” he murmured. “But not for shit I didn’t do. Not for people I don’t care about.”

You didn’t answer. Again.

And the worst part? Rafe didn’t even blame you.

You didn’t say another word as Rafe opened the door to the side hallway, that shadowed corridor behind the main area of the house that led to his soundproofed practice room—like a secret hideout built specifically to house his noise, his rage, his rhythm. You followed him without asking where he was going, without giving away how badly you needed the distance from everything outside that door. The voices. The party. The fake looks. The real ones. Sofia.

The heavy door clicked shut behind you both, sealing the space in a padded, too-quiet hush. The room smelled like guitar polish and sweat and something darker, something like isolation. Rafe’s drum kit loomed in the far corner under dim track lights, cymbals gleaming like armor. There were posters on the wall, messy piles of cords, forgotten shirts on hooks, and a single cracked stool by the amp. It felt like stepping inside his chest—loud, violent, a little disorganized, but intensely private.

You hovered by the wall, arms folded loosely, like maybe you were shrinking from yourself more than from him now. The silence between you both was the kind that usually demanded explanation, but neither of you rushed to fill it. Rafe stood closer to the door, back leaned against it like he was guarding it—or you. Maybe both.

He glanced up. “You good?” he asked finally, voice low, not taunting or smug, just… level. Real.

You inhaled through your nose, eyes darting away from his. “Yeah,” you said too quickly. Then quieter, “I didn’t mean to… come at you like that.”

Rafe didn’t move. Just watched you, arms crossed now, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up, exposing the veins down his forearms and the slight tremble in his fingers. Like he was still shaking off the tail end of the argument, even if he’d managed to keep it wrapped tight under his skin.

“You were mad,” he said simply. “I get it.”

“No,” you shook your head, brow furrowed, almost disgusted with yourself. “It wasn’t fair. I don’t know what she said to me exactly that got under my skin that much, but… I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You didn’t deserve that.” You looked over at him again, and this time, your gaze didn’t cut like glass. It felt more like rain—soft, steady, uncomfortable in a vulnerable way. “I’m not usually that petty. I don’t let people get to me like that.”

Rafe let out a low breath through his nose, like he was trying not to smirk at how full of shit you sounded, even though he knew you meant it. “You sure? You let me get to you all the time.”

Your eyes narrowed, but there was a flicker of something dry in them now. “You’re a special case.”

He tilted his head, considering you. “Lucky me.”

A beat passed. You started pacing slowly, dragging your fingers along the edge of the amp like you needed something tactile to tether you. “I think it’s just—this whole thing, the fake dating thing—it’s… it’s getting a little murky. I didn’t think I’d care. But tonight it felt like I was—” You cut yourself off, jaw tightening. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

Rafe’s eyes didn’t leave you. “No, say it.”

“I said never mind.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, like he couldn’t help himself, “It’s not stupid.”

You met his gaze again, and it was different this time—quieter. Not guarded, but not exposing either. Somewhere in between. The kind of look people give each other when they’re both holding the same secret and refusing to say it out loud.

“I think I just forgot it wasn’t real for a second,” you admitted finally, almost in a whisper. “Like I kissed you in front of her and it was just supposed to be for show but part of me really wanted to make her feel something. And that makes me the exact kind of girl I swore I wasn’t.”

Rafe’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He didn’t move toward you. Didn’t make a joke. Just nodded a little, solemn. “You didn’t look like someone faking it,” he said quietly.

You let out a small, almost breathless laugh, head tipping back. “Yeah? You didn’t either.”

That pulled the corner of his mouth up in the faintest smirk—one of the real ones, the kinds that weren’t built out of arrogance but recognition. Like he could feel the same wires twisting under both your skins.

“But it is fake,” you added, quickly, voice tight.

“Right,” he said immediately, like he needed to remind himself. “Obviously.”

You looked at him again, this time with something slightly softer in your eyes. Not forgiveness—but understanding. Maybe a truce. Maybe just quiet. “I’m sorry for calling you a pest,” you mumbled, almost sheepishly.

Rafe snorted. “You’ve called me worse.”

“That’s not a defense.”

“No, but it makes it kind of hot.”

You rolled your eyes, but didn’t hide the reluctant smirk tugging at your mouth. There was a long pause. Not uncomfortable. Just… full. Like something was settling between you both that neither of you had the tools to name.

“Can we just… stay in here for a minute?” you asked, glancing toward the door. “I’m not ready to go back out there and pretend I’m not still annoyed.”

Rafe stepped forward, kicked the stool toward you gently with his foot, then sank down onto the floor beside the drum kit like he lived there. “Take your time,” he said, tossing you a look that was strangely careful. “You fake dating properly kind of scared the shit out of me anyway.”

You huffed out a small laugh, sitting on the stool like you belonged there. “Good. You deserve to suffer a little.”

Rafe sat on the grimy floor, elbows propped on his knees, the shadows under his eyes making him look more worn down than usual, like maybe he hadn’t been sleeping right—or maybe that was just the effect of whatever was going on between you two lately. The room was thick with that humid quiet that came after a fight, not quite resolved but slowly cooling, like embers under ash. He allowed himself a side glance, his gaze ticking over to where you stood balanced on his worn-out stool, arms crossed, legs tense like you were still half-ready to bolt. You shifted your weight from one leg to the other, head tilted, and if he’d still been annoyed by your outburst from earlier, he wasn’t anymore. Because there it was—that quiet, reluctant vulnerability in your expression that slipped through the cracks when you thought no one was looking. The kind of guilt you didn’t know what to do with. The kind of awkwardness he’d never once seen painted on your face until tonight. You adjusted your glasses again with a small huff, fingers brushing against your temple like they were trying to erase the flush from your cheekbones. And his mouth twitched before he could stop it—an almost imperceptible smile at the rare sight of you looking uncertain.

"Why don't you just sit on the couch..?" you asked suddenly, nodding toward the worn leather couch against the wall like it was the obvious choice, your voice quieter now but still laced with that edge of exasperation you hadn't quite let go of.

He glanced over his shoulder at the couch and shrugged lazily, adjusting the brim of his snapback before lifting it to rake a hand through his hair. “I could ask you the same thing,” he muttered, letting his palm smack lightly against the back of his neck before dropping it. “And besides, I end up sitting on the floor at least four out of five times when I get drunk.”

You raised a brow. “You’re not drunk now.”

“I’m emotionally wasted,” he deadpanned, tone dry.

You blinked. “That is the most dramatic thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

He tilted his head at you. “You just called me a pest and accused me of trying to publicly humiliate you in front of your arch-nemesis. I think I earned a little bit of floor time.”

You bit back a reluctant smile, one hand reaching out to the nearby mic stand like you needed something to hold onto. “She’s not my arch-nemesis.”

“Okay. What is she then?”

You hesitated. “I don’t know. Just—someone I didn’t want thinking I wasn’t good enough. I guess.”

Rafe’s eyes flicked back to you again, this time slower. Softer. “You are.”

The words hung there between you, too honest and too quiet to be passed off as just part of the game. You didn’t respond. You just looked at him for a second longer than you should’ve, your mouth opening slightly like maybe you were about to say something that would ruin everything if you let it slip.

But you didn’t.

You stepped down from the stool instead, your shoes making a soft sound on the floor as you moved closer, not quite toward him, but toward the wall beside the amp where there were still a few battered vinyls stacked sideways and a tangle of old cords. You crouched, eyes trained on nothing in particular.

“I know I came at you sideways back there,” you murmured finally. “I just… I guess I didn’t think you’d look so comfortable talking to her. I didn’t like it. Which is dumb, because none of this is—” you paused, “—none of this is supposed to be real. So, yeah. That’s on me.”

Rafe didn’t look away from you this time. His stare was steady, serious, like he was trying to decide whether pushing this conversation forward would unravel whatever thin peace had settled in the room.

“You weren’t wrong,” he said. “I mean, about the groupies part. Sometimes I do flirt just to get out of my own head. Or because it’s easy. But it didn’t mean anything. And it sure as hell wasn’t about her.”

You looked up slowly. “Then what was it about?”

He held your gaze. “You think if I knew, I’d be sitting on the floor like a fucking sad boy right now?”

A breath caught in your throat, and you hated the way it made your stomach twist. You hated the part of you that wanted him to keep talking like that, to say something that made all this mess feel like something you could reach for instead of just pretend.

You crossed your arms again, standing upright now, back leaning lightly against the wall. “You’re not a sad boy.”

Rafe lifted his eyes to the ceiling with a small snort. “Then why do I feel like I just got broken up with in a fake relationship?”

You didn’t answer that. You just gave him a look that made his mouth go quiet again.

The silence stretched, taut and humid, the kind of silence that didn’t beg to be broken, just hung there—alive and pulsing. You hadn’t moved. Rafe hadn’t either, though the atmosphere between you both had shifted, charged now with something far more volatile than irritation or ego. His fingers twitched a little against his thigh before they dropped to the guitar propped lazily against the amp.

He reached for it.

The motion was slow, almost deliberate, like he was deciding in real time whether or not to say what he wanted to say—or play it instead. You watched him lower back to the floor, legs stretching long in front of him while he dragged the guitar into his lap and adjusted the strap across his shoulder. He didn’t look at you at first. He just tuned for a moment, then pressed the pads of his fingers down and slid effortlessly into a familiar riff—low, groovy, with a bite to it. You recognized it instantly.

Dirty Diana.

Your brow lifted. “Seriously?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes flicked to you once, a glint under his lashes that made the corners of his mouth twitch again—but this time, there was nothing faint about it. He was baiting you.

The first few licks melted into the room with a heat that was almost tangible. Gritty and controlled, but smooth. Seductive. He didn't need lyrics—you could hear them in the way his hands moved. Each note was coaxed out of the strings with a lazy kind of mastery, and he wasn’t showing off. Not in the usual Rafe Cameron way. This was something else entirely.

This was intentional.

You leaned your back harder against the wall, arms crossed but your fingers curled just slightly inward now, as if your body had started betraying you before your expression could catch up. Your gaze narrowed, but your pulse had picked up, and he fucking knew it.

“You know that song’s about a girl ruining his life, right?” you asked finally, tone sharp to cover the way your knees had started to feel unsteady.

Rafe didn’t stop playing. His voice was low, gravel-soft and cocky when he spoke. “Yeah. That’s what makes it hot.”

You stared at him.

He gave a small shrug of one shoulder, the guitar still purring under his fingers. “Some girls just get under your skin. Into your head. They make you do shit you wouldn’t usually do. Makes everything else feel... kind of dull after.”

You didn’t know if he was still talking about the song.

He looked up at you again, this time holding your stare longer. The lighting was low, the corner lamp casting him in warm amber shadows, his jaw sharp, his wrists flexing as he moved to a deeper, more sultry part of the solo—letting the note hang a beat too long like he wanted to watch the way it made your throat tighten.

You licked your bottom lip before you could stop yourself.

“That’s why you picked this song?” you asked, quieter now.

He hummed a little in the back of his throat, fingers dancing up the neck of the guitar again. “Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see what you'd look like if I played something that sounded like the way you made me feel in the kitchen earlier.”

You exhaled. It wasn’t a sigh. It was something tighter, more unstable. “Rafe…”

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, eyes cutting down to the strings again. “Still fake dating. Still just a game, right?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Not with the way he looked sitting there, broad shoulders slouched, legs spread, that guitar curled up against him like a second skin and his voice thick with something that wasn’t teasing anymore. It was darker. Softer. Realer.

His fingers slowed, the last notes of the riff trailing off like smoke. He set the guitar aside, leaned back on his hands, and tilted his head at you like he was waiting for you to say something.

You didn’t.

But you moved.

Not toward the door. Not to storm out again. Just a few quiet steps forward until you were in front of him, your arms still crossed, the air between you pulsing with whatever the hell this had turned into.

You stared down at him. “You know you’re impossible, right?”

His smile returned, this time lazy and sure. “Yeah, but you like it.”

You shook your head slowly, the corner of your mouth twitching against your will. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hit you over the head with that guitar sometimes.”

“I’d let you,” he murmured, not missing a beat, voice low and velvety.

Your lips parted, caught between a retort and a breath you weren’t sure how to exhale. But before you could decide, he was already shifting forward, just slightly—not enough to touch you, not enough to break whatever line you’d both drawn between what was fake and what wasn’t. Just enough to make it feel like you wanted him to.

But he stopped himself. Sat back again. Smirked.

“Don’t worry, cherry. Still keeping it professional.”

And that might’ve been the worst lie of the night.

"Keeping it professional by playing a seductive song about a groupie stalking a famous star for me?" you asked, voice dipped in disbelief, brows knitting tightly as your eyes narrowed in that way that always knocked something loose in Rafe’s brain. That practiced glare—the one you wielded like a blade—somehow felt sharper under the amber haze of the lamp, made worse by how unbothered he looked sitting on the floor beneath you, like your judgment only spurred him on. His eyes dragged up the length of your figure, taking in the way you loomed over him like you weren’t sure if you wanted to kick him in the ribs or drop down and straddle him. Both options aroused him in equal parts, and he had to bite down on a laugh, the corner of his mouth twitching at the flick of your wrist as you adjusted your glasses with a scoff, like he was just another headache you were tolerating.

He leaned back on his palms again, legs still lazily sprawled, and tilted his head at you like he was genuinely considering your accusation. "I mean… when you put it like that, it sounds like I’m asking for a restraining order."

"You’re always asking for a restraining order," you deadpanned, arms crossing again, but your weight shifted—one foot angled like you were inching closer despite yourself.

"And yet, here you are. No mace. No pepper spray. Just standing there, looking like you’re about to throw me across this room… or maybe sit on my face. Jury’s out."

Your lips parted in immediate offense, but the sharp inhale that came out was something more tangled than fury. You were trying not to laugh. Or scream. Or worse—flirt back.

"You’re disgusting," you muttered, but your voice cracked at the end and your posture betrayed you, one shoulder relaxing just enough for him to see the splintering under the attitude.

"And you’re bad at lying." His voice was smooth now, thick like honey poured straight from the jar. He cocked a brow, his gaze flicking down to your lips, then back up with no shame. “You liked it. The song.”

"I didn’t."

“You did.”

"It’s objectively a good song."

“Mmm,” he hummed, grin unfurling slow like cigarette smoke. “But you didn’t just like the song. You liked the way I played it. You liked that I played it for you.”

“I didn’t ask for a fucking concert, Rafe.”

“Didn’t have to.”

That shut you up.

The heat prickling at the back of your neck spread down the column of your spine and pulsed beneath your skin like something hot and angry trying to disguise itself as indignation. You looked away for half a second, like the eye contact would combust into something neither of you were quite ready to name yet. But he saw it—that shift, that tell—and god, it made him wild.

“You ever think maybe you’re the Dirty Diana in this situation?” he added after a beat, voice almost lazy now. “Following me into soundproofed rooms, getting all worked up over songs, hating me so hard you have to be near me just to keep it alive.”

You stared at him like you wanted to kill him.

“You’re out of your mind,” you muttered.

“And you’re standing over me like you’re trying to burn a hole in my face with your eyes. So who’s the obsessed one now?”

Silence.

A long, stretched-out silence where neither of you moved. You were still breathing heavily, arms still crossed, but your fingers had curled tighter into your sleeves, and your weight had shifted again—closer. Barely, but enough. Just enough.

Rafe watched you like he watched storm clouds—fixated, spellbound, waiting for the first crack of thunder to split the sky and the rain to come pouring down in sheets so he could stand in the middle of it and feel it soak through to his bones. You were the lightning. The heat. The pressure that built behind his ribs every time you opened your mouth and spat something smart or mean or a little too honest. And sometimes, late at night when his ears were still ringing from rehearsal and your voice echoed sharper than the feedback in his monitor, he wondered if he’d still be this obsessed with you if you didn’t hate him so much. If you acted like Dirty Diana—if you chased him after sets, lingered at the edge of backstage in some tight little dress, batting your lashes just to get his attention, just to get in his pants for bragging rights. Would he still want you? Still ache for you the way he did now?

He didn’t know. Didn’t really care to know. Because the truth was, he was already too far gone. Too deep in the spiral you created just by existing around him like you were trying not to tempt him when everything about you did. At this point, you could’ve burned his guitar and he’d still write a love song about it.

"Diana was into Michael," you said suddenly, like the debate had been swirling in your head long before you opened your mouth, your voice sharp but calm, factual with that bitter edge you used when trying to pretend you weren’t riled up. "She wanted him for the fame and the fast life. She even homewrecked his relationship."

Rafe leaned back on his palms again, eyes not leaving your face as he nodded slowly, like he was agreeing with you just to see where this rant was going.

“She basically threw herself at him,” you continued, folding your arms across your chest like a challenge, like you already anticipated him twisting your words. “Said, ‘I’m all yours tonight.’ When have I ever done that?”

Your voice cracked a little at the end, not from emotion, but from the audacity it took to even entertain the idea that you—with all your glares and sarcastic comebacks and stubborn pride—could be reduced to that kind of girl. Rafe didn’t answer right away, just let the silence hang there like a taut string, eyes scanning your face for the little things—your nostrils flaring, your jaw clenched so tight it ticked, the way you pushed your glasses up your nose with an irritated flick like the mere idea had physically offended you.

Then, just when you were starting to shift again like you might walk away, he grinned wider. That smug, boyish, trouble-seeking grin that usually came right before he said something that made you want to slap him. And then he started to hum. Not any old tune—no, he had the gall to hum Dirty Diana, eyes still on you, the melody lazy and suggestive like he was trying to push every last one of your buttons on purpose.

You glared. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m accurate.”

“I don’t throw myself at you,” you snapped, indignant now, your voice rising with the kind of flustered heat he lived for.

“I never said you did,” he shrugged innocently, humming again between words like a mosquito buzzing in your ear. “I said you were like her. All sharp tongue and mixed signals and secret glances when you think I’m not looking.”

“Secret glances?” you repeated, scoffing so hard it bordered on a laugh. “Please. If I’m looking at you, it’s probably because I’m calculating how to hit you over the head with that amp.”

He lifted an eyebrow, slow and amused. “Sexy.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“You’re in denial.”

You stared at him hard enough to kill if glares worked like bullets, and he stared right back, unbothered, that damned grin still carved into his face like he was enjoying every second of watching you unravel. You weren’t sure if you hated him more for the fact that he was wrong or the fact that—just maybe—he wasn’t. Because if you were being honest with yourself, something about him playing that song for you had made your stomach twist. Something about the smug way he looked at you while doing it, like the lyrics meant something only the two of you understood, had made your skin prickle.

But you couldn’t let him know that. Not yet. Not when everything between you was still wrapped in the safety net of fake dating and pretend irritation and all the things left unsaid.

So instead, you scoffed again, louder this time. “You’re lucky you’re not actually famous.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if you were, I would be Dirty Diana. But not to sleep with you—just to ruin your fucking career.”

And that? That made him throw his head back and laugh. Loud and real and just a little too happy for someone being threatened. “God,” he breathed out between chuckles. “Marry me.”

You crouched down in front of him, elbows resting on your knees and hands hanging limp like you were trying to keep them occupied—like the urge to actually deck him across the face was still real enough to warrant physical restraint. Your brows were drawn together in tight concentration, not because you didn’t know what to say, but because too many things threatened to spill out at once. Things you didn’t mean. Things you maybe did. Rafe stilled at the sight of you lowering yourself to his level, chest rising slow, the smirk tugging at his mouth fading into something quieter, more focused. His lashes dipped, his grin lingered, and there was something else in his expression now—like he was watching a storm move in across the ocean. Like he already knew he was about to get caught in it.

“I would only marry you just to poison your coffee,” you said lowly, each word deliberate, lips barely moving around the venom you packed into them, like you were doing him a favor by not spitting it straight into his face.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as blink. “I’d drink it,” he replied without hesitation, voice low and steady, shoulders shrugging as he licked his bottom lip in that slow, deliberate way that made your stomach drop like an elevator. “Hell, I’d drink the whole pot if you made it.” He said it like a dare. Like your hatred was foreplay and your threats tasted like affection if he tilted his head and sucked the meaning out of them. You hated that about him—hated how easily he made everything you said sound like flirting, how he twisted every line you drew into a fucking knot he was already halfway through tying around your throat.

“You’re unwell,” you muttered, voice tinged with both genuine annoyance and something you couldn’t quite place, your eyes not leaving his even as you spoke. You stayed crouched there in front of him, still not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel. It was a precarious little distance—intimate and maddening and entirely too dangerous for the silence that stretched between you.

Rafe didn’t speak immediately. Just tilted his head slightly, watching you like you were some rare animal that had wandered too close, like you might bolt if he breathed the wrong way. “You say that like it’s news,” he finally murmured, voice softer now, not teasing but not entirely sincere either. Just honest in that offhand way he always got when things got quiet and you didn’t know if you wanted to run from the weight of his gaze or fall deeper into it.

You didn’t answer. Not right away. Your fingers flexed against your knees, jaw clenching with the effort it took to hold your position—both physically and emotionally. And the worst part was that you weren’t even mad anymore. Not really. The anger had burned off like fog under sunlight, leaving only that slow, seeping guilt and the awkwardness that had curled around your chest ever since this morning. You shouldn’t have lashed out. Shouldn’t have called him names or treated the situation like it didn’t mean something to you. Because it did. And even though you hadn’t said it outright, you knew Rafe could feel it too—lurking underneath your digs and sarcasm and every time you stayed in a room longer than you needed to, like you were both daring the other to make it real.

Maybe that’s why you didn’t stand up. Maybe that’s why your knees ached and you didn’t care, why you stayed crouched in front of him like you were examining him for signs of damage, like he was some cracked sculpture you’d thrown across the room and now felt sort of bad about.

“I wasn’t really mad at you,” you said finally, voice quiet, like it cost you something to admit. You didn’t look at him when you said it, choosing instead to fixate on the stitching on his jeans, on the curve of his knuckles splayed against the floor.

Rafe blinked slowly, processing. “No?”

You shook your head once. “I was mad at everything else. You just happened to be the easiest target.”

A beat. “I am a pretty convenient target,” he said, voice light but not mocking, more like he was trying to keep you from crawling back behind your walls. “Tall. Loud. Punchable.”

“So punchable,” you murmured, almost smiling, and he caught it—saw the little quirk of your lips like a flicker of sun through clouds.

“But,” he added, tilting his head again, “You didn’t punch me.”

“Yet.”

He laughed under his breath, eyes still on you. “You wanna get off the floor now? Your knees are gonna lock up.”

You finally looked at him again, and there was something different in your expression now—less armor, less fire. Just you. Unfiltered. Unapologetically exhausted and guarded but trying, somehow, not to push him away this time. “Only if you promise not to play another Michael Jackson song.”

“No promises,” he smirked, “but I’ll play something slower next time.”

“Next time?”

He met your gaze, steady and warm. “Yeah. You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Diana.”

Rafe didn’t know when the air started to feel like it belonged in a movie. Like the lights above had dimmed on purpose, like the soundproofing around the room was sealing them in with something heavier than silence. You still hadn’t moved, crouched in front of him like a fuse halfway to sparking out, your features all soft with reluctant vulnerability now, but your eyes still sharp—still you. He wasn’t sure if it was the low lighting or the fact that you weren’t yelling at him for once, but something about the curve of your lips, the tired slump of your shoulders, made his fingers twitch against the floor.

You were letting him in. Not with some grand gesture or dramatic confession—but in the quiet, careful way you said yet after threatening to punch him. In the fact that you admitted you weren’t mad, and even worse—for him, anyway—that you sounded like you maybe regretted being cruel. That was all he needed. He didn’t do much with softness when it came to you. He teased, taunted, tugged like a kid yanking pigtails, and most of the time you gave it right back. But when you let yourself be still with him like this, when you looked at him like he was human and not just another reason to roll your eyes, something in Rafe bent. Not broke. Just bent, like it had been waiting for the right kind of pressure.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” you asked, shifting your weight to one knee, voice dipped in suspicion but softer now, without the venom.

He tilted his head slightly, eyes dragging across your face like he was searching for something he’d missed all this time. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about to say something that’s gonna make this weird.”

He smiled, slow and lazy, not denying it. “What if I just do something instead?”

Your brows twitched, and your mouth parted a little, like you were gonna argue. But you didn’t. And he didn’t give you the time to, because he was already moving—leaning in, just enough, slow enough to give you time to pull back. But you didn’t. You just blinked once and stayed still, like your body was trying to trick your brain into not running away. Like part of you wanted to know what it would feel like to let him kiss you even if the rest of you would pretend it didn’t mean anything after.

So he did it.

Rafe leaned in, brushing his lips against yours like he was tasting a fucking hallucination. Like he didn’t believe it was happening until your mouth responded, until you tilted your chin a little and matched the pressure with a softness that knocked the wind out of him. It wasn’t a firework. It wasn’t fast or heated or cinematic in the way people assumed first kisses should be. It was slower. Stranger. A delicate balance of stubborn mouths pretending not to care even as they leaned closer, breathed deeper, stayed just long enough to know they’d think about it later when they were alone.

When he pulled back, it wasn’t abrupt—it was natural, like the end of a sentence you didn’t want to finish but had to. His eyes didn’t leave yours, and yours didn’t leave his, and for a second, neither of you spoke. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t tense. Just loaded.

“Okay,” you said finally, like you were filing the kiss away into some locked drawer in your brain. “That was… not awful.”

Rafe scoffed lightly, tongue peeking out to wet his lips like he was tasting the last of you there. “You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not not disappointed,” you said, standing slowly and dusting off your knees, trying to play it casual, trying not to give yourself away. “I just thought if we ever kissed it’d be like… during a fake public fight or something. Not in your soundproof sad-boy dungeon.”

“Don’t knock the acoustics,” he murmured, still seated on the floor, watching you like he hadn’t just kissed you, like he wasn’t still thinking about the way your breath had hitched just before it happened.

You crossed your arms, glasses sliding down your nose slightly as you looked at him from above again. “So what, you’re gonna pretend this didn’t happen?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Rafe replied, standing finally and brushing the back of his hand across his jeans. “You’re the one who made a spreadsheet for the fake relationship rules, Diana.”

Your eyes narrowed at the nickname, but you didn’t correct him this time. You just let the quiet settle again, not tense, but charged—like everything was different now, and neither of you wanted to be the first to say it. He moved past you to his guitar, picking it back up with a little shake of his head.

“I’m still gonna finish the song,” he said casually, fingers sliding across the strings like nothing had happened. “But don’t worry—I’ll pick something less seductive this time.”

You rolled your eyes and grabbed a pillow from the couch, chucking it at his back.

He caught it one-handed without even flinching.

You didn’t speak again as he started to play. Neither did he. But when your eyes met again across the room, both of you tried not to smile too obviously—like that kiss was already folding itself into the fine print of your arrangement, slipping quietly between the lines neither of you had agreed on but both of you kept following anyway.

author's note: hey peaches! it's been almost two months since the last update and i feel like ya'll don't like this story anymore. but we're just getting started. i'm sorry i took so long, but enjoy guitarist rafe singing dirty diana and him keeping the contract in his wallet next to his ID. i've been having some trouble writing chapters and almost ripping my hair our from writers block and applying to university so please, forgive me! Join the taglist for all my works, and talk to me!😊❤️

↳ ❝ [masterlist] ¡! ❞

Tag-list*:･ﾟ✧ @cali-888, @bee-43, @jjscoquette, @melsbels-zip @stanseventeen @wh0reforbucknasty,@wtfisastiles,@annaconscience,@pqndxra,@carrerascameron,@nini2mem,@iynsane,@gublerstylesobrien1238,@wrldfilms ,@shayofandom @wren5650 @alimarie1105 @chuuuchuuutrain @ordinary-barbie, @p45510n4f4shi0n @literallylexie, @polli05927 @holyfootie @artbymin @boredpretty, @backyardzombie @vicki1031 @kelsteysworld @cherrywriterrr @jesuiscielle @pinklovr @itrainswhenurhere @thxtmarvelchick

[larkiethings]

the regency period is another one of these! I know this is more directly because of Jane Austen and her impact on English literature, but it’s another example of a 40 year period that we obsess over way more than the times before or after

My theory as to why times like this loom larger in popular consciousness is BECAUSE they were so short, and made a big cultural impact but never really got to be normalized for more than a generation. Like…if I grew up on my parents talking about how they were terrified of pirates (or honestly even aware of pirates) when they were traveling, I’d spend a lot of time thinking about oh wow what must that have been like? Not common enough to become quotidian, but with a big enough impact on people (scary) that they’ll still talk about it years later.

There are certain very specific, unsustainable periods of history.

The Golden Age of Piracy lasted from the 1650s to the 1730s, and was really three different waves of piracy that all had their own specific causes and characters. My personal favorite has always been the post-Spanish Succession period, when a bunch of sailors and privateers were left unemployed and turned en masse to piracy since those were the skills they'd picked up during the war. This supply of pirates was obviously non-renewable.

The Wild West lasted between 1865 and 1895, depending on who you ask, not even a full human lifetime. It's a very narrow band of time, and of course it wasn't sustainable, there was only so much land to colonize.

There are lots of these times of change, conquest, colonization, and war, particularly in the last three hundred years. I always think they're interesting, mostly in how quickly the course of history moves on to some other relatively more steady state.

There's a thing that speculative fiction does where it stretches specific periods out to extremes, most notably with Medieval Stasis, but I think it's far funnier when applied to these tiny slices of history that have ballooned in the public consciousness. Either it takes heroic feats of worldbuilding to make it make sense, or everyone is just sort of okay with the idea of a Golden Age of Piracy that's implied to have lasted for a millennia.

[frostedturquoise]

Okay its official after selecting random ass shit based on what i REMEMBER i literally just coincidentally have a soft spot for too many idiots who don red coats. (affectionate)

Its funny how this took the form in something i barely remember, tossing between the OG thing and a spin off that is more manageable for a brief period of time while i am home to chew through. And for my brothers best friend to go al 'this is cool but when you think about it it is actually REALLY fucked up and sad actually' within the first few ep's no less and it took us two nights to finish something that was wrapped up in two cd's because my brothers best friend couldn't stop yapping on about DMC parallels that came t his mind that got my brother yapping but on the flip side i cannot avoid any responsibility because in the moment i took the bait when he kept bringing up FFVII nonesense.

...still not as funny as me going 'well SINCE it doesn't seem to be happening here this is why he had such an high bounty in the original' then voila the tail end of the last episode....ah. Awkward. Its really nothing to write home about but it wasn't too bad, a few fandom jokes that i have been seeing on the icebergs that float by occasionally because im utter dogshit at seeking out fandom stuff makes more sense now.

But even if we had to keep pausing SO MUCH it took us two fucking nights to get through the whole thing it was worth it though just to hang out with peeps at home and be distracted from doing what i was ORIGINALLY home for outside just getting away from a dinky ass unit. But it definitely jogged my memory why i had a softness for the OG series as a kid even now even though i remembered jack shit until shit jogged my memory even if it was different. Kid!Me was all 'yeesssss' probably primarily because at that point i had spent all my life being told things are this way or that way and a more nuanced character in that particular direction probably would of cemented an forever soft spot even if i was too caught up in other things at the time to cement it a proper presence in my head forever. Like i probably wont ever like it more than i would the original if i ever rewatched (or read) it but??? It did stand on its own feet well and seemed pretty cohesive for what it was and did a decent job. Was likeable at least.

[ellipsus-writes]

Stories of resistance; communities of power

(Read over on the blog!) The first time I met a queer character was a literal flash in the dark: stumbling onto Maurice on the IFC channel, sometime around midnight—the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel where the two leads actually get a happy ending.

Before that, the only queer characters I’d ever seen were Scar and Ursula, camping, preening, and scheming their way to classic villainhood—swishy, fabulous, undeniably doomed. And then I found Oscar Wilde at the library: an actual gay writer (thrilling: I bought a poster on the nascent internet of the author lounging on a settee and taped it too my bedroom door—abandon straightness, all ye who enter here). And then I learned how it ended: destroyed by the state, dragged through a prejudicial court system—the ultimate doomed narrative, for the crime of being human.

There have been big strides in the, uh… how many intervening years? (Y2K was 10 years ago, right?) We no longer have to sit quietly, waiting for a flicker of queer joy on late-night TV, clawing our way through a wasteland of tragedy to feel seen.

Now, we make our own stories.

I wrote my own stories in high school; digging through the cracks to find historic queer spaces I could enter, rediscovering buried worlds and realizing we’d always been here. (Ask me about mid-18th-century gay life in Paris, or ‘20s Berlin... or don’t.) And fanfic, which went mainstream a little later, changed everything. It’s the way so many people carve out space for themselves—claiming stories that were never meant for us and making them our own.

Of course, it’s 2025. There are tragedies happening right now. Big ones, small ones, ones so personal they’ll never make the news; losses so massive they leave entire communities grieving. They can feel insurmountable.

But we have something stronger—community.

You’re already doing the work. You’re making yourselves visible—writing without permission, without waiting for gatekeepers to tell you what’s marketable or appropriate. You write anyway. You’re valid because you write. Your stories spread across the void, forming bonds when they most want to divide us. Instead of more tragedy, you’re making whole universes gay (literally).

Telling stories—messy, joyful, painful, honest, true—will always be a defiant act. Every time you write a queer character, spin a fanfic with queer headcanons, share a few lines that spring straight from your gut, you’re pushing back. The act of creation sets off a chain reaction—visibility, empathy, and the simple, profound reminder that you’re not alone.

That’s the gift of stories: to expand someone’s world, to help them see others—and themselves—more clearly, no matter what the world tells you. The power of storytelling has always been revolutionary, and the beauty of community is that it makes us unbreakable.

Our community proves this every day. You show up for each other—offering feedback, encouragement, shouting 2AM prompts and plotbunnies into the void (and the void answers back). You share your worlds, your ideas, your selves. You make space for each other, and you make Ellipsus stronger, more resilient, and more fiercely alive.

That’s why Pride matters. And why writing matters—more than ever.

For us, this work is personal. As a queer-founded company (myself—Rex—and my partner, John—hey how are you), we built Ellipsus as a home for creators who, like us, find deep belonging in community and creative expression.

With queer voices under attack—rights stripped away, books banned, Pride erased from calendars (FCK GGL)—we don’t need to tell you we’re worried. You’re worried, too. But together, we’re determined. We’re courageous and connected.

For Pride Month, we’re excited to give back to the community that gives so much to us—and to launch a few things along the way…

A new Pride theme for Ellipsus

Because queer joy should shine in every word you write. (Yes, it’s forever—not just for June!)

And coming soon…

You’ll be able to support your favorite little writing tool in more ways… yep, we’re jumping on the merch gambit. But it’s not all about us—50% of all proceeds from our shop will go directly to LGBTQ+ organizations fighting back against censorship, discrimination, and erasure:

The Trevor Project—Supporting LGBTQ+ youth.

Trans Lifeline—Providing life-saving resources for trans people.

The ACLU—Fighting for freedom of expression, trans rights, and against book bans and censorship.

... Pride is about all of us—so we want to hear from you.

What does Pride mean to you as a writer? How does your creativity reflect your community, and your hopes for the future? How does writing get you through it, help you make connections, and bring you joy?

Share your stories in our Discord, or shout into the void of Tumblr, Bluesky (and tag us!). We’ll be sharing some of your responses throughout the month. Our aim is simple: to give you a space to write freely, protect freedom of expression, and uplift queer voices—not just for a month, but for as long as it takes.

[mixingandmelting]

Give Life Another Chance

Summary: He had always had your back when he was Robin. He'll always have your back even as an Outlaw

Word: 3.9k

A/N: Finally did Jason's version of childhood friend to lover trope! *Also part of Winter Series: Day 5

Soft, black curls and a smile that could win the hearts of millions- there were so many good points you probably should’ve noticed first. But having been kicked out of the orphanage again and preoccupied to find a safe place to sleep on the streets for the night, your mind was slow to process that you were just saved from being jumped by Robin. So, your brain chose to point something else out as it registered.  Like how haughty he was being with both hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised as he had asked why a kid like you was out in the street this late. 

“You’re short.” 

“…Seriously? Instead of a thanks you tell me I’m short?” 

You were going to ask him if he had any plans on denying what you had just said when one of the thugs on the ground let out a groan. 

“Let’s go!” 

Quickly, boy wonder wrapped an arm around your waist before using the Batarang to pull the two of you up one of the near-by buildings. Surprisingly, you never once let go of him nor scream as he swung from one building to the next. Was it from trust? Survival instincts? You don’t know.  The next few minutes blurred as two teens continued to swing from building to building until he finally landed in front of a 24/7 burger place.

“Wha-where-“

Where did he get the cap he plopped on your head from? When did he change into the hoodie and sweatpants? Your head was spinning from so many unanswered questions that he was practically dragging you into the restaurant with a firm yet gentle grip around your hand. Shuffling you into a booth, he sat across from you and ordered two sets of the same burger meal. 

You both sat there quietly until the food came out. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Robin asked, noticing you hadn’t touched your food yet. 

You blankly blinked at him then at the food in front of you. Slowly, you reached for the burger and took a bite. Then another. You take the napkin he offered across the table to wipe your mouth and cheeks from both the food stains and tears while eating. 

By the time you finished, you both were slurping on your soft drinks, stuffed and satisfied.

“Well?” He asked, his eyes behind the domino mask trained on you. 

“… Why?” He must’ve expected you to ask him from the shrug he gave. 

“You looked like you needed it.” 

You looked like you needed it? 

“You were planning to sleep out tonight weren’t you? How were you going to do that on an empty stomach?” 

“I…” You paused for a moment, fiddling with your thumbs. “I’m used to it.”

He didn’t cue you or pressed for answers. It was all on you, spilling everything you’ve gone through from how your parents had abandoned you at age four from being chased by loan sharks to how you were continually being kicked out of each orphanage you enter for accidentally catching the employees embezzling funds meant to maintain the place. 

The one question he did ask was about school. He didn’t pursue further when you told him everyone knew your clothes were from hand-me-downs and the Salvation Army. 

You appreciated how he didn’t offer words of faux sympathy, simply muttering with an “I see”. You were curious what expression he was making though as he had his head turned toward the window and the hoodie pulled over his head blocked your view. 

Once the glasses were emptied, you both headed out. 

“Do you have any friends at your school?” 

You weren’t taken off guard anymore, finding yourself adapted to your current situation. 

“No.”

“Then head to this place. It’s nicer compared to all the others you were placed in.” 

Unexpectedly, an address for somewhere in the nicer neighborhood of Gotham was neatly written on the napkin.

“Yeah, and how am I supposed to get there? Have them let me in? It’s not like I have a social worker or anyone who’ll fill the paperwork for me.” 

“It’ll be fine. Just take the bus and walk there. Once you get there, just give them your name and then, they’ll let you in.” 

It was suspicious to say the least. At the same time, you didn’t have anything to lose.

“Then you have to promise to come visit me tomorrow.” Childishly, you stuck your pinky out at him. “ ‘Cause if you don’t, it’ll be your fault I’m dead.” 

“You aren’t going to die,” he snorted, yet wrapped his pinky around yours. “If anything, it’ll be a step forward to make life a bit better.” 

He was right. Life did get better when you arrived at the written address. With no hesitation despite the time of your arrival being past 1:00 AM, a kind woman welcomed you in and helped get you situated. For a week, you were busy getting used to the new environment where everything and everyone was… well, normal. None of the other kids looked as if they were struggling or waging war for survival. The adults were attentive and fostered healthy maturity. 

It helped that Robin had decided to visit you every night rather than just the next day. Along with checking in that you were okay, he listened to everything you had in your mind. The struggles, the challenges, the confusion from how none of your past experiences could’ve prepared for this big of a change. In a good way of course. 

Too bad the visits became less frequent once you started going to your new school. He mentioned about getting in trouble for not focusing on his patrols the last time. Your disappointment must’ve been evident when he proposed to do the  “pen-pal thing”. Using how you mentioned you’d do anything to thank him on the promised night as an excuse, he apparently had been wanting to do it but didn’t have anyone until you. 

That’s how you ended up leaving your window open ajar every night, having slipped a letter between the slim gap between the sill and the window itself and getting one back the same way, same place.

School on the other hand was eventful. Your only friend was Jason Todd, who, you had to admit, put in a lot of work to get close to you. To be fair, you didn’t expect someone to approach you all friendly on your first day. There were some hiccups along the way, however you guys managed to get through them and became buddies. 

There wasn’t a day you guys weren’t hanging together. Homework was being done at the library, talking about the books you both recently read during lunch. The time you both didn’t talk to each other was during class. Unlike you who sometimes found the drawl on Homo sapiens boring, Jason was soaking in all the knowledge with enthusiasm. You once called him school-freak from how much he loved to learn, being in school and exploring the topics the teachers were going over. He retorted that you were mad you couldn’t beat him in getting a higher grade during the last exam. You simply snatched his book and ran away with it, not appreciating how he was right.

With Robin during the night and Jason during the day, you were brighter and friendlier. Slowly, yet surely, you were found smiling more and approachable. Your schoolmates and teachers warmed up to you, treating you like one of them. You also had a place you could call home temporarily, where you could relax and enjoy the presence of having somewhat of a family.

The serenity and joy you had ended up lasting for two years. Jason suddenly stopped coming to school. Robin hadn’t visited you for a while nor sent you a letter. With Robin, you assumed it was because he was busy fighting criminals alongside Batman. Jason? You got worried about him. You tried to get in touch with him in every possible way you can. You asked the teachers, who were also worried as they didn’t know why he hadn’t been attending. You used the school’s directory book they hand out every year and sent letters to his residence. 

It was when you got the courage and called his home phone you were given the news. It went from shock. Denial. And then devastation. You felt completely ruined. Your eyes were glass and devoid of emotions when you had gone to his grave, dressed in black, holding a bouquet of red roses (he once said in passing that they were his favorite). 

Your one friend you made for the first time in life- you refused to believe he was dead. The news reported it was from an incident related to the Joker, making things much harder from the sheer weight of reality. Especially knowing the survival rate of the victims when the notorious villain was involved. 

You managed to maintain sanity superficially, convincing everyone that you were over it. That you were fine. Never realizing the reason for you to hold on was from the belief that Robin would soon visit you again when he had time or at least take the letters that were growing longer where you switched size of the envelopes multiple times.

Things became complicated when Batman, who hadn’t been seen with Robin for so long, made an appearance with him again. Problem was, the Robin next to the older man wasn’t your Robin. Instead of soft curls, his hair was silky and straight. The costume was different. The way the new Robin smiled wasn’t the same as the other Robin. Your Robin.

During the time Robin wasn’t present, you had thought he was severely injured.  Hence your expression of concern was always written in your letters, even in the midst of your grief. But what if. Just what if- 

You wanted it to be not true so much as you matched dates to events. The day of Jason’s death to around when Robin stopped sending you letters. The day Jason was seen with a cast to the day Robin wasn’t present on a mission. It was a cruel, awful joke played by the fates. Your Robin was Jason Todd. And the people- no, person- you loved with every fiber in your heart was dead. 

Jason, on the other hand, was never really into people back when he was a kid. Helping those in need and bringing justice so those suffering would finally have peace? Of course. He would always do it. Interest in a specific person though? He didn’t until he found you walking out and about in the middle of Park Row. Initially, out of empathy from knowing what it was like living in that awful area of Gotham, he was planning to follow you in the case you decided to get your hand dirty and mess with the wrong nest. He was proven wrong and soon changed his assessment of you to respect when he watched you give candy from your bag into the hands of the little kids hiding in the alley. You weren't being dumb about it either, posing it as if you were threatening contrary to what had actually happened. The longer he followed you, the more he saw how knowledgeable you were, knowing when to pick fights and when to keep your head low to stay out of trouble as you walked through the different alleys.

It made him more curious about you, from how you managed to save an adult man from a beating by tripping the assailant with the cover of his sidekick being the one to kick a nearby can. When he read the information he was able to find about you, he felt bitter. It was one thing to live with a dead-beat dad and a drugged out mom, but it was a whole different situation when having to live out in the street without a roof to cover your head most of the time, trying to get by on your own with no adults. 

He tried to think of something, anything to help you that night, after closing out the files that had been on the monitor in the Batcave. He started out with following you around during patrols and beating up anyone who seemed suspicious or approaching you with ill-intent behind your back. In his spare time, he was figuring out ways to get in a better child-care system considering you were still a minor, just like him. After hearing about his old man sponsoring to open an orphanage in central Gotham, he mustered the courage to put in a favor.

His plan was all set and ready to go once Bruce got involved, all that was left was to get you on board. Lady Luck must’ve been smiling at him when the perfect opportunity arose when he caught sight of some thugs hiding in the alley you were about to pass. That definitely got your attention when the thug that was close to grabbing you by the scruff went down with a thud. 

He never understood that awful and tragic feeling of seeing someone empty until he saw your eyes. Blank and filled with nothing, not even a spark of resentment or rage. He swallowed the lump in his throat, heart burning from the evidence of how the corruption of Gotham claimed another young victim. 

“So, what’s a kid like you roaming the streets at this time?” 

He didn’t mean to sound cocky. He was trying to sound normal, mustering the tiny drop of remaining strength in him to not waver when you looked so broken. Doesn’t mean he was impressed with your jab though. He had been told by Alfred that he was taller than Dick when he was the same age as him for your information. 

As he proceeded to help you get another chance with life, it wasn't part of his plan to become besties, even more so develop feelings for you. Sure, when he approached you as Jason Todd, things didn’t go well at first considering he knew you but you didn’t know him. His civilian self, to be exact. But as he got to know you as both Jason and Robin, he came to know the other side of you. The one with a heart that could encompass the whole world, a mind that had the potential to excel in anything you put your mind into. He constantly worried over the chances of you getting hurt, despite the rough exterior, from being so fragile.

Your letters reflected this as there were times your vulnerability appeared in writing on your thoughts of others. Yes there was hatred and annoyance but always in the last paragraph, you express your desire to understand rather than to exact revenge. You wanted to give them a chance and connect, not resent. 

The day he was captured was the day he wanted to confess to you. Reveal who he was and see if he could have a chance to be in your heart. So when he had come back to the living, he didn’t seek you out. He was scared to find out you had moved on without him. That he was simply left as a fragment of a memory like everyone else. 

You would’ve laughed at the expression he made if you had seen him when he saw you at his grave. He was camping, hoping that Bruce would appear and prove him wrong. To show that he was still loved and in his heart as his son. All he could do was hide his presence behind the giant oak tree, slightly tilting his head out to watch what you were doing. 

He watched your form from behind as you sat down in front of his grave before shuffling and pulling out folded pieces of paper. With his hiding spot not being that far off, he could hear you talking. And he wished he didn’t. A giant block of ice settled to the bottom of his stomach, listening to you read your letters you apparently continued to write to him. Your voice didn’t waver, casual and light as if you were truly talking to him like in the past. 

When you got to what seemed like the end, your voice cracked. Then a sniffle. For a moment, he forgot the anger and hatred he harbored, his knuckles going white from suppressing himself to reaching out and comforting you. It ripped him into pieces from the sorrow and wretch you were emitting, sobbing and whimpering why he couldn’t have told you sooner. Why he left without letting you say your final farewells. How you wanted him back.

You get interrupted and quickly forced to wipe your tears when your phone rung. 

“This is Officer-“ 

He stopped breathing. Out of all things, you became a police officer. The hope to meet and rekindle with you was completely crushed, his status not at all glamorous or society acceptable at the moment. When he heard ruffling, he came back to reality. He could feel his eyes well-up as he watched you place a familiar bouquet of flowers on his grave before getting up and leaving. 

Once you were gone, he walked over and picked the bouquet up delicately. For the first time since his revival, he was grieving for someone other than him, someone he still loves. Ironically, he wished that you were the one to have forgotten about him. Not being haunted and distraught as if you were watching him die over and over. 

Maybe it was then he developed the motivation to change, to leave and let go of emotions he had been holding up to then. Eventually, he had gone from working to dominate the underground businesses to getting rid of them. And whenever he had spare time, he’d have your back and make sure no one was going after you. It wasn’t just criminals he would take down who were planning to attack you and your group when on the field, he had also aimed at any corrupted officers that were going to use you as their scape-goat. 

Sure he had gone on adventures as he progressively turned over a new leaf, yet you were and still always his priority. Back when he was Robin and now, as Red Hood the outlaw. As time passed, he could see you healing. Your smiles more genuine. A glow in your skin. Your visits to him every week being more peaceful. 

He didn’t think nor entertain the idea of ever meeting you again. How could he when it’ll break you to find out he’s been alive, again, for so long?

So imagine his surprise when he arrives at the manor for the traditional Wayne Christmas party, finding you standing under the ridiculously large tree in the equally ridiculously large living room. 

The disgruntled expression gets replaced with shock for Jason as yours morphs into disbelief. 

“Ja..son…?”

Six feet, a body packed with muscles and scars, not to mention the infamous brown, leather jacket. Dick really wasn’t kidding during the time you helped hide him and the other vigilantes during the anti-hero hunt led by Amanda Waller when he had revealed that Jason Todd was actually alive after hearing from you how you knew the other, both as the former Robin and civilian. It makes you sick in the stomach of how much the person you loved once known as Mr. Sunshine went through for all the pure, unadulterated positivity and radiant optimism to be stripped away from him, leaving only hardship, fatigue, and harshness when hearing what he had gone through before and after his death. He didn’t deserve such cruelty, not when he was trying to pull the weight of the effort society refused to put in to make life better when he was a tiny teen. 

What you do next is risky. It may cause you to lose everything the two of you once had even. But how could you have him stand in front of the double-oak doors alone with eyes exposing his vulnerable and fragile heart. 

The questions he wants to ask, the actions he wants to take, they all are swallowed down when he’s pulled into a hug. It’s then he notices how much smaller you are compared to him. Your arms that once used to completely wrap around his shoulders can barely wrap around his torso. Your frame, frail as you tremble and leave tears on his thin, cotton shirt. 

He doesn’t need Dick’s motions or Tim’s mouthing to know what to do. Careful to crush you, he leans into you. 

“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you I was back.”

It’s the greatest Christmas gift life has ever given the two of you when you awkwardly nod in response to his words, no intentions of letting him go from fear he’d disappear on you again. And the sentiment is shared when he squeezes you closer to himself, a smile that was lost for a while reappearing and making those around feel the joy of the holiday miracle.

[scribblestatic]

Since this is now the third post of Spider Shen Yuan, I'll make a masterpost for it. It'll be linked at the end.

Also, fun fact I just found out, but the word for spider in Chinese is 蜘蛛 (Zhī zhū), and, as you know, Shen Yuan's title (given to him) is Lulin Zhizhu (绿林之主 - lǜlín zhī zhǔ - Lord of the Green Forest).

And, like, I know they're two different words because zhū and zhǔ aren't the same. But also, I chose to use Zhīzhǔ because it's close to Shizun (师尊 - Shī zūn), both of which mean master, though Shizun is teacher-master and Zhizhu is lord-master, the latter of which, when using a different word, is also Zhizhu (spider).

FUCK I'm good. Coincidences are on my side on this one.

...Also, if they were to mispronounce his title, he could also be Pearl/Bead of the Green Forest (綠林之珠 - Lùlín Zhīzhū), which I think is cute.

---

The demoness does not take kindly to one of her guards being killed.

In retaliation, she demands that the demon guards use their full power to capture and imprison him.

However, Shen Yuan has not been living and growing for...who knows how many years...without preparing for eventually finding himself in a battle with more intelligent beings than the typical monster.

Using his legs as toothpicks, he stabs each little morsel she sends his way, setting some aside as his little minion spiders wrapped them up to eat later and eating others immediately.

His carapace is quite strong, and his eyes, though lidless, aren't mere weak points some game character could mash until he was destroyed. He has near 360 degree vision with almost blind spots unless he just really isn't paying attention. And since he's paying attention, he makes sure that, even if they haven't hit him yet, he sprays webs to disable the more spiritually-inclined demons staying further back.

When a stronger one approaches, he scuttles out of range, large but extremely mobile. After all, he's covered his entire neck of the woods in his webs, whether visible or nearly imperceivable to the naked human (or demon) eye.

He started as an orb weaver, but over the years, he's adapted to different styles of webs. It's a requirement of the strong to adapt to their surroundings, after all.

Eventually, most of the guards are reduced to little web-covered bags, wriggling futilely to escape, and the demoness, with a few remaining soldiers, cowers as her continued orders start to sputter out.

With a few calculated maneuvers, he causes the presence of the humans to slip from their minds, eventually concealing them in a corner with protective webs. So, even if it occurred to any of them to attempt to use human hostages, they were now out of sight. And taking their eyes off the very real threat in front of them was incredibly unwise, anyway.

Webs thicken. Bodies hang in strong, thick, grey sacks. Little spiders with even smaller legs team together, following under a single spider's orders.

Shen Yuan strategically spins something between a funnel and a sheet web, trapping the remaining demons within. Fire-retardant as his webs are, even trying to burn them proves futile.

The demoness, her guard captain, and the last three demon guards watch in visible terror, squirming deliciously. He's used quite a bit of silk, so he's feeling hungry. Watching them twitch tickles a little part in his brain that says he should bundle them up, nice and tight...

Would he eat them now? Or, perhaps, he should save them for later. Little morsels, qi and blood thrumming through their veins, physical and spiritual.

He lowers himself into the funnel he made, his limbs stretching out, reaching for them.

Surely, they will be—

"...T...There once was a demon..."

Shen Yuan stops suddenly, his legs twitching.

The guard general clears his throat.

"There once was a demon, long ago, who fell in love with a human. A cultivator."

Oh. A story.

Yes.

Yes, Shen Yuan likes stories.

Clearing the hungering fog from his mind, he pulls back, limbs curling in as he watches intently. Listening.

The demon general tells the story of the ill-fated demon and their love for a cultivator. By all intents and purposes, it seemed it was destined to be one-sided.

However, when the cultivator discovers the demon, it turns out she recognizes him. The demon in the story had once saved the human cultivator, and, desiring power, she pursued cultivation so she could stand side-by-side with the demon one day.

They spent many centuries together. But then, the cultivator was made into a god. Drawn up to the celestial realm, the cultivator left the demon behind, and the demon cried out in anguish.

Hatred stewed in the demon's heart over the cultivator's broken promise, and he shot up toward the heavens, ripping into the celestial realm, even as the spiritual qi poisoned him. He ripped and tore through heavenly beings and gods alike, finally coming face-to-face with the goddess that abandoned him.

However, the demon, who still loved the goddess despite it all, could not bring himself to kill her. So, he jumped down from the celestial realm, returning to the demon realm.

Having spent so much time killing gods and spiritual creatures, he was forever altered by the experience. Spiritual qi polluted his body, but he adapted to it, having spent so much time with the cultivator and learning her ways. Determined to not die from qi poisoning, he circulated the spiritual qi and demonic qi, meshing them until it became his own.

Thus, he became the first Heavenly Demon. A demon not even the gods could deny.

That phrase...ah.

Ah, yes. He's heard that term before. From the story he couldn't forget.

Something about this story, about the origin of heavenly demons, didn't sound quite right. A little nigging at the back of his mind. But now wasn't the time to ponder on that too much.

"Hmm... A very interesting story. Of promises broken and power gained. From where did you hear such a tale?"

"My...mother. Used to tell this one of the story," the general stiltedly replies.

"Is it accurate?"

"As far as he knows."

"Very good. This spider very much liked it."

He crawls up higher and begins tearing into the makeshift funnel. Other smaller spiders also begin to tear it apart, unraveling it enough in one spot that something of a door split open in the thick weaving.

"He shall let this group of demons go as thanks for the quality and depth of the story."

But, as the guard captain begins to bow, the little demon princess speaks up, her voice shaking.

"Wait! You! You said you'd make a dress for Li-er!"

Shen Yuan tilts his body, much like one would tilt their head.

"The miss seems to misunderstand. This spider has decided to show her and the remainder of her entourage grace for the quality of the story told to him. However, the story was not only told by the guard captain, but it served as repayment. The story was an expense owed, not one given in return for something else."

He lowers himself closer to the ground, hanging lazily by a single gleaming thread, what little wounds he had already closed and scarred over. The other spiders move around, once again revealing the sky, which has grown naturally dark. The moonlight shines off his round, focused eyes.

"The miss told a story when she arrived. A hateful little tale. About how I, the one recognized as lord of the forest he helped grow, had committed a slight against a nameless little demoness for bestowing gifts upon those who asked for them appropriately. This little miss threatened me, in my domain, with slavery and servitude, to be treated as little more than a slavering beast good only for the produce of its body."

His fangs flex, and she steps back.

"And so, this spider was slighted. Severely. And in return, this spider began to take. And take. And take some more. To take what was owed to me, with due interest."

The withered body of Shen Yuan's first victim lies crumpled on the ground.

"This spider was merely rectifying your sin."

The guard captain extends an arm in front of the lady, but he keeps his gaze low, not daring to look him directly in the eyes.

"...But this guard was wise. He paid this spider with a marvelous story that appeased this one very much. And so, not only has this one decided to let him live, but he's decided to let the little miss and the rest of her guards live as well. A steal, one could say. Five, for the price of one."

He chuckles, light, airy, and rumbling all the same.

"Tell this lord, guard captain. Has this one not been quite magnanimous?"

The captain swallowed thickly, then he lowered himself to one knee. The remaining guards, the ones not bleeding out or cocooned, swiftly followed suit, smelling deliciously of tears, sweat, fear, and salt.

"The Great Spider has been most gracious to us. We thank him for his mercy."

"See," Shen Yuan says, fangs flexing in a poor mockery of a smile. "He understands well."

The little demon princess looks around her, seeming to finally get out of her head and understand what she was dealing with. Her fingers then clutch into her dress, nearly ripping it with her nails... But she slowly lets go, then tucks her hands into her sleeves as she gives a slight bow.

"...Li-er...understands. Thanking this...the Great Spider...for his guidance."

"Hmmh."

Shen Yuan starts losing interest quite quickly. Ruoxing and Miyun are still hiding behind the web he made for them, and with it being dark, they need to head home soon. It's past time to wrap this up.

"This one is a bit surprised this has all turned out the way it has. No demon has been so disrespectful toward me in quite some time. Though, this one supposes, if he knows not your name or title, he shan't expect you to know his. But worry not, worry not. Tis now water under the bridge.

"Though, it is quite late now... Since you no longer owe this spider your lives, perhaps we can barter on much better terms now."

"What would you ask of us, Great Spider?" the guard captain asks.

"The humans you brought with you. Return them to their village. They've garnered this spider's favor, so he shan't tolerate any harm coming to them. This forest can be quite thick and treacherous at night."

"And...in return?"

"The miss shall have her dress."

See? Isn't he so kind?

Miyun won't have to go back home, being led by spiders she's clearly terrified of judging by how she's kept her eyes quite firmly shut for the last few minutes. Ruoxing can show his superiority by helping her get home, even after being attacked by demons. And the little demon princess can have the dress she wanted! Everyone ends up happy.

"...How long should we wait for the dress, if this lowly one may ask?"

"Oh, it should be done by the time you return tonight. This spider wouldn't imagine you all being welcome to rest amongst the humans after such a debacle."

The guard captain doesn't reply, instead looking toward the demon princess. She purses her lips, but eventually, she responds.

"Then, Li-er shall guide the humans home and return. Does the Great Spider need this one's measurements?"

"No. This one has had quite enough time looking at you to acquire them."

Her lip twitch as some indignation returns to her expression. "Should Li-er take this as an expression of lechery?"

"Not at all. Doesn't the young miss also marvel at her food before consuming it?"

As though remembering she was, indeed, almost eaten, she finally shuts right up.

--

The demons do, indeed, return Miyun and Ruoxing home without incident. Perhaps it was because he had his little helpers trail them the entire time, waiting for even a single slip-up or twitch toward taking their anger out on them. Thankfully, they've lost enough lives that day and don't intend to lose any more.

When they return, as promised, Shen Yuan presents the demon princess with a qixiong ruqun, using yellow and other pastels to complement her pink skin (he's been getting into dyes more recently, and he has the fruit to do it). She is immediately enamored by it, but her gaze trails to the webs and the splatters of blood on the ground, and any overt excitement is immediately quenched.

Shen Yuan doesn't feel bad for her, not really. He does feel some sympathy, but lacks any empathy for her situation. If she'd simply come and told a story for her dress, no blood would've had to been spilled, and no lives would've had to be lost.

The dress, which could've simply been paid for with a story, was paid for in blood that wasn't her own. And she would have to face any ire from demons whose family members failed to return due to her own foolishness.

After showing them to the other route, the one that doesn't pass by the village (the one where he's greeted the occasional passing demon), he sends them on their way.

He doesn't expect to see them again, but the little demon princess comes back to commission more clothing, approaching the demon route entrance to his general domain. And this time, she comes with stories.

He comes to learn her name, Xu Meili (许 美丽 - Xǔ Měilì). She's the fourth daughter of some demon general serving a higher lord, but she's basically the equivalent of some human noble, not that Shen Yuan would say that.

Apparently, upon seeing him, they were under the impression he really was just some beast, unaware he was Lulin Zhizhu.

Demons were generally seen as more respectable if they had a more bipedal, humanoid appearance. After all, many weaker demons would cultivate for centuries just to acquire a human form, from huli jing to demonic plants. The fact Shen Yuan still wore a quite monstrous appearance would fool most supposedly decent demons into thinking him a mindless creature.

It also didn't help that, although Lulin Zhizhu was known in little whispers around certain demon communities, for him to be worshiped as a god by humans, they thought he would surely have a human form.

Though, as Xu Meili explained with trepidation, she wasn't using that as an excuse, but merely explaining what she'd thought. That, Shen Yuan could appreciate. As long as she learned her lesson and didn't waste anyone else's lives with her misunderstandings.

Speaking with her, the demon guard general, and other visiting demons helped him immensely. Their stories, while often more bloody and teeming with resentment, were just as pleasing, if not sometimes more so. When he was in a particularly vindictive mood, a demon's story often settled better than something lighter, more forgiving, and human.

He also gained better insight into demon culture... And the fact demons weren't exactly sure how to categorize him. His qi wasn't exactly spiritual, but it wasn't exactly demonic either. In fact, it was that strange mixture of qi that led the demon guard captain to tell the story about heavenly demons.

He was under the impression the spider perhaps was one.

Unsure whether to confirm or deny, Shen Yuan didn't do either. After all, he was pretty sure he wasn't a heavenly demon, but honestly? He didn't know.

So, he'd let the rumor mill roll on that one. Not that he left his forest anyway. Never really saw a reason to get out much when the spiritual and demonic beasts trailing through the forest were plenty enough to fill his stomach. He also had visiting villagers and demons to sate his desire for knowledge. Being a homebody suited him just fine.

--

Han Miyun (韩 蜜韫 - Hán Mìyùn) couldn't quite shake her fear of spiders, so she didn't come back to see him. That being said, it wasn't as though she wasn't grateful. Ruoxing came to visit several times after, seeming even more chummy with Shen Yuan than before, carrying baskets full of mantou and a scroll with a story she wanted to tell him.

When he asked what she wanted of him, Ruoxing said she wanted nothing, and it was simply a gift.

Feeling uncomfortable receiving something without giving in return, he sent Ruoxing back with fruit and qi-infused grass.

This apparently set off a give-a-thon, as Ruoxing swiftly became a willing pack mule between Miyun and Shen Yuan.

"You know, Zhizhu, perhaps you could come out of the forest and visit," Ruoxing hums one day.

Although Shen Yuan's cephalothorax doesn't lend well to expressions, apparently, he had a *look* in his eyes that made the young man fall over laughing.

"You don't have to reject it so strongly! I understand, I understand!"

"This one didn't say anything."

"Forgive me for being impudent, but, Zhizhu, you looked like a cat facing the sea just now."

Listen, it wasn't that Shen Yuan hated the idea of leaving the forest, okay? He simply liked where he was, surrounded by little spider servants that benefited from the fruits of his prior labor and served him in return. He had food, shelter, and visitors. What more could he want?

Traveling to new places...did kinda sound nice But then who would be there to exchange food for storieeessss the spiders could do that. They could. The little ones could possibly take written works and exchange them for other items, like silk, clothes, leather, or whatever else was available.

But still, he could've very well trudge around in his big spider body. That was just begging for every cultivator under the Sun to try to exorcise him or something. He'd have to cultivate a humanoid form. And he...

Did not...really want to?

Mmh.

For some reason, whenever he thinks of a humanoid body... More accurately, of himself within a humanoid body, he thinks of a compressed chest. Of weak limbs. Of heavy breathing, white walls, and monotonous beeping.

He thinks of breaking out in rashes from poor air conditions. Of laying on the floor in a porcelain room, trying to absorb the coolness to combat the heat ravaging his body. Of using some sort of device to support a weakened left leg because his heart wouldn't work right...

Yes. A humanoid body would surely be uncomfortable.

If that meant he had to stay right where he was, so be it.

--

Time passes like that, with demons becoming more frequent visitors on their side and the humans doing what they've always done.

The spiders, although still smaller and with lesser power than he has, seem to be developing more thoughts of their own. Although utterly loyal to him, they also begin acting on their on imperative if he hasn't given them any orders.

One of his older servants, a jumping spider, seemed to take on something of a managerial role. After molting several times, growing larger, and gaining more intelligence, she began collecting stories and making exchanges based on previous examples of his habits.

As it turned out, she had developed a demon core already? Well, it wasn't quite a demon core. She had mostly spiritual qi instead of demonic qi, so she was more suitable for communing with humans.

It seemed that, due to the very instinctual drives they had, coupled with typically being reviled by humans, developing to such an extent was a rarity (of course, that meant Shen Yuan was an outright cryptid).

Through some quiet understanding between them, Shen Yuan ended up naming her. She seemed to accept the name Zhuzi (珠子 - Zhūzǐ - Little Pearl) well enough.

She's rather helpful, especially when someone arrives with a story but he's already occupied with someone else. It doesn't happen often, but with both humans and demons now associating with him more frequently, as infrequently as that can be, having someone else help does wonders.

Fan Zhenzhen visits from time to time, sometimes to tell stories, other times to simply be around him. Sometimes, she'll ask questions about a plant, animal, or some other thing she's seen or heard of.

Of course, Shen Yuan doesn't mind simply sharing knowledge. With all the fantastical creatures in the world, he's quite charmed by them, so talking about them is time well spent. Especially for someone like him, who is simply a spider and doesn't have a job.

As she grows older, she comes to visit a bit less. A little disheartening, yes, but he understands. It makes the times he does see her all the more meaningful.

Fan Ruoxing grows older, and eventually, he marries Han Miyun. He arrives the day before his wedding and gives him a cup of sweetened black tea. It's so small, it's barely anything to him. It tastes fantastic regardless. Shen Yuan sends him off with a wedding gift basket of fresh vegetables, spices, and a poncho shawl to match Miyun's.

On the day-of, Shen Yuan sits in his cave, feeling a bit unsettled.

It's not like he really wants to be down in the village. He likes his quiet, relative solitude. Moreover, what human would want a huge spider at their wedding with their arachnophobic wife? He'd be nothing but a disturbance.

Zhuzi, who ventured out with her smaller, less conspicuous body, watched the wedding from the nearby tree line. He silently gave her more Thrice-Bloomed Yuzu after she relayed the festivities to him.

She did the same thing when Fan Ruoxing's first daughter came into the world.

100 days later, he, Miyun, and Meixiu (美宿 - Měixiù) came to visit, although Miyun was never once able to look up. Even still, after telling him a story, Shen Yuan blesses their child, hoping that her life is as bright and plentiful as the 'beautiful constellations' in the night sky.

He also gives them some of the same yuzu he would give Zhuzi, though he directs them to dilute it. After all, it's very qi-rich and could be a bit much for her developing spiritual veins. Fan Meixiu had the spiritual strength and potential to become a cultivator, after all.

A year and a few months later, and they visit with their second and third children, twins. Qinglian (轻莲 - Qīnglián) and Jiahao (家豪 - Jiāháo) didn't quite have the same spiritual potential, but Shen Yuan wished they would lead meaningful, fruitful lives nevertheless.

With more mouths to feed and more care to give, visits to him become less frequent. Again, quite disappointing, but to be expected.

The same goes for the little demon princess, Xu Meili. Some demon politics and intrigue take up more of her time, and despite being one of nine children, the fourth daughter, eighth out of the nine, she was the one who apparently found the most auspicious husband. This was, according to her, partially due to her many spider silk clothes.

Since she was going quite far away to be with her husband, future correspondence would dwindle. But she does, in that rough tone of hers that she could never quite get rid of, tell him that he would be welcome if he ever decided to step out of his "resplendent hovel".

And so, for the first time in years, Shen Yuan finds himself without his typical visitors.

And he feels alone.

...hmmh.

Maybe cultivating a humanoid body wouldn't be the worst thing to do.

----

For future parts, see the Masterpost (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Masterpost

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3: here

[enidette]

FIRST TIME HEADCANONS

warnings :: both are 18+, mentions of virginity loss, pretty fluffy, mentions of riding, this literally turned into a blurb oops…

carl grimes x fem!reader

going by his character, for you and carl’s first time, he wouldn’t be a sub or a dom. he’d be mostly focused on what to do, and he’d definitely be inexperienced. as in, probably little to no knowledge on sex at all. just knowing it’s purpose and vague ways of how to go about it.

if on one hand you’re experienced, he’s a bit more at ease. albeit insecure, but carl would be as much in this situation regardless. you’d take it slow with him, kissing all over his body and showing him where to touch you.

you two would probably try riding first in this case. you can take control and watch him unravel beneath you. though, he wouldn’t know where to put his hands, and you’d have to guide him through everything.

while if you’re both in the same boat, he’s a little more nervous, but excited to learn with you. adapting to each others bodies and having each other be your only experiences made his head spin.

either way he’s quite shy, with everything else he’s so sure. survival, defense, scavenging, you name it. but not knowing what to do in such an intimate situation leaves him a little flustered.

speaking of intimate situations, he’d be a little wary about his eye as well.

you pull away from his lips, the both of you have already rid each other of your clothes. but one more thing remains that you’re itching to take off. your hand entangled in his hair goes to undo the bandage when his hand hurriedly comes over yours. “i don’t…” he trails off, his gaze avoiding yours. your hands rest on the back of his head.

“what’s wrong?” your voice softens from the lust-filled tone it was previously coated with. it makes his heart flutter and he takes a deep breath. habitually his hand comes up to his hair to cover the bandage once more.

his head slowly picks up a bit, just enough for him to look at you, “i don’t want to scare you.”

“you won’t scare me,” you whisper, fingers going to undo the bandage. you feel him tense up, but he moves his hand away. you slowly unravel it, and the more you do the more exposed he feels. the whole situation is nerve wracking, he doesn’t go around advertising his wound.

you’ve only seen it at the beginning, when aiding him with treatment. but he feels like with more time the worse it gets. the end of the world isn’t exactly the ideal situation for taking care of gunshot wounds. especially one that catches other’s attentions immediately. every time he looks in the mirror he feels weird at how it’s healed.

but to you, he’s as pretty as ever. you’ve adored this boy far too long, everything about him endears and entraps you entirely. when the bandage is gone you cup his face, smiling softly at the sight of your boy laid beneath you in his entirety.

your thumb gently, barely grazes over his right cheek as you speak. “you’re such a pretty boy.”

his pale cheeks flush a tint of pink at your words, hands awkwardly coming up to rest on your hips. he’s bad at this, it’s always been awkward to him. and learning to be the perfect boyfriend hasn’t been his main priority. he doesn’t know what to say in return. following your lead is typically what he chooses to do in this relationship. even if you’re new to this just like him.

“you’re.. such a pretty girl.”

he’d be a bit vocal. he’d be embarrassed by it, flustered at the noises forcing themselves out of him from your motions. but it just feels so good, you feel so good. and after all, these are relatively new feelings for him. as it’s doubtful he’d be taking matters into his own hands often, he’s always been too busy fighting for his life.

and no matter how many times he tries to keep them down, you beg him to let you hear. it’s almost just your voice that gets him. you know just how to talk to him like he wants, telling him what he wants to hear.

he’d really like being able to kiss and touch you everywhere. he enjoys the feeling of being the closest to you he can get. being inside you feels like he’s connected to you, and you feel so good around him it drives him crazy.

he didn’t expect to enjoy it this much, thinking it was some overhyped thing. but with you? you’re so perfect for him, and you look so pretty when you tell him how good he’s making you feel.

he loves when you praise him, and when you tell him what’s just right. if he even notices you get louder when he hits a certain spot, he tries to do it again. just to hear your pretty noises and to feel you squeeze around him again.

all in all it would be pretty sweet and gentle, he wants to learn for you and fuck you right <3

taglist :: @carlmipololo (redoing my taglist since i’ve been gone so long, lemme know if you wanna be tagged !)

[nightfurmoon]

HIGHLIGHTS FROM ALAN ITURIEL'S TWITCH STREAM ON DEC 5 2024

The show is a co-production between AI animation and now Warner, the rights to the show are owned by Alan, they have been in talks with Warner to be able to continue the show. It's a matter of patience to see the continuation of the show

3 Villainous spin-offs are being worked on/planned, exclusive on AI Animation's YouTube channel! All 3 will deal with stories that Alan really likes, 1 of the spin-offs is already being worked on and is in the animation stage but he can't show anything yet

Miss Heed's book is also being worked on.

On November 9th Alan will be at a book signing, there the trailer for the audio book of Black Hat's completely harmless book will be shown and an AXO video game is being developed, the first AI animation video game.

Q&A Section:

Will Flug and Heed meet again? Alan: It's possible… What is your favorite chapter? Alan: It's very difficult to choose one, I like them all. I like the wrestling one because it represents Mexico and the Heed one because it begins to cover part of Flug's history. How is Penumbra and Curie? Alan: Good! One is bald and the other is not What will happen to the characters' Instagram accounts? Alan: There are plans with the accounts but we haven't been able to do much yet, but you should keep an eye on Miss Heed's account because her book is coming and with some other updates Will Black Hot be back? Alan: YES, he will be back Will we see Flug's airplane suit from episode 6 again? Alan: Yes! But to see it you'll have to be very attentive, I just can't reveal in which chapter you'll see it again Are you going to adapt more myths and legends like that of the black charro? Alan: Yes, I would like to adapt more myths or legends Will we see more of King Cassino, Cricket or any other character from the comics? Alan: Yes! There are plans for King Cassino, not so much for Cricket because he is an agent but we can do something. Would you like to see the characters in the Warner Bros. Multiversus video game? Alan: Yes, I would love to, I would like Demencia to be in the game Will we see more of Creepy Charlie? Alan: Yes! Apparently many liked her so we plan to bring her back

When will we see Flug's face? Alan: I haven't even seen it yet, because Black Hat would punish me. Will we see more about the mafia groups of Risky Heist? Alan: Yes, now that you know them we can tell more about them Miss Valdoom and King Cassino know each other and are they related? Alan: They are not related, but they know each other because of the rivalry between mafias. How far along is Miss Heed's book? Alan: I can't say! What other series would you like to do a Crossover with Villains? Alan: There are many series that I would like to do a Crossover with, but part 2 of the Crossover with Victor and Valentino is still pending

Alan could you put background OC's for the series? Alan: We've discussed that idea, but we haven't decided yet. How many seasons do you have in mind for villains? Alan: There is no season estimate for the show yet because we are looking for ways to complete each character's arc (Alan estimates that Miss Heed's arc could last 2 seasons) Would you like to do a Villains movie? Alan: Yes I would! Who are your favorite supporting characters at the time of writing? Alan: On the hero side it's G-LO, his story is my favorite and on the villain side it's Illuminarrow, she's so much fun to write. Which characters are canonically attractive? Alan: It could be Sunblast and Miss Heed, but who is not canonically attractive is Gold Heart. What was your inspiration for King Cassino? Alan: Classic mobsters, like "The Godfather" Have you ever dreamed about your characters? Alan: Yes, but it's weird because I've only dreamed about Black Hat the puppet. Which characters from the series that haven't been cosplayed yet would you like to see? Alan: G-Lo I've only come across one girl with that cosplay, King Cassino, although I think it would be difficult, and Illuminarrow, although the point is that those who do it want to do it.

Do you want to make a Villainous game? Alan: Yes we want to make a Villainous game but we have to finish Axo Runner first, we will play it before it comes out live.

Credit to Navy on twitter for making the thread in Spanish, I just translated it. Source below!

[sweetbans29]

Mic'd - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: You forget that your are mic'd up during practice (based on THIS request)

Warnings: ADHD reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Please don't scold me if I didn't get everything right. I tried my best, I promise.

Your mind never stops going a mile a minute. You were diagnosed with ADHD when you were a kid, it was something that your parents had to adapt to when it came to raising you. It was when you were in 4th grade when they decided to put you into sports. You started as a swimmer but your parents soon realized you were much better on land. That is when they put you in basketball and it just clicked for you. When you picked up a ball and began shooting, everything else began to make sense. It did a really good job of keeping your mind and hands busy on a singular objective.

You were put on a club and travel team when you went into middle school and continued playing through high school. It opened many doors for you including playing basketball in college. You toured a handful of schools and finally settled on Iowa.

Your freshman year was a huge adjustment as it was the first time living away from home. It took some major adjustments but you ultimately got there. The change to college classes was one of the hardest changes you faced. You were always struggling to keep your mind focused on one assignment when you had like 20 others to do at all times. It often resulted in you starting one, picking up another, and then trying to start a third before either of the first two were completed.

One of the girls on your team became your saving grace and one of your best friends. Kate had become someone who helped keep you grounded when the world was spinning and you could not be more grateful. Your friendship with her has helped you navigate the transition into college classes and playing college ball. She was always one to help keep you on task. The two of you have come up with a system to keep your mind focused when it feels like you aren't moving fast enough or don't feel like you have the control your mind needs.

Kate is also the one who was secretly working on getting you and Caitlin together. She noticed how both you and Caitlin would act around each other and took it upon herself to see two of her best friends and teammates come together in what she believed to be a perfect match. One thing led to another and you and Caitlin had begun dating towards the end of freshman year.

When the two of you got together - you decided it to keep it between the team. It wasn't that either of you was necessarily hiding your relationship, you were just both content with the world not knowing. You told the people that mattered in your lives and that was enough for the two of you. Also, nobody questioned it considering how much time the team spent together and how much time the two of you spent with Kate. To anyone looking in, the three of you were like three peas in a pod.

That leads us to today. The media team was doing a series where they were joining different sports practices and putting mics on some of the players. You had watched the series and thought seeing some of the school's all-star players behind the scenes was so fun. You were honored when they came up to you and asked if you would be the mic'd up player of the week.

They get you all set up and you are ready to go.

"Testing, testing," you say holding the mic that was pinned in your shirt up to your mouth. You then look at the camera. "We are here live from Carver-Hawkeye arena with yours truly."

You point to your number on your practice jersey and head into a huddle with the team to kick off practice.

While you are in the huddle you nudge Kate.

"Yo Kate, guess who is mic'd up for today's practice," you ask her and give the camera a knowing look. She laughs.

"Bro, I helped you put the mic on." She says and you let out an 'oh ya'.

"Do you have anything to say to the Hawkeye fans who are watching this?" You ask, pulling your shirt to catch what she is saying.

"You are too much," she begins and you hit her arm. "I would say sorry you have to listen to this one for the whole practice." She says and runs away to begin a drill.

You feign hurt and hold your hand over your heart as if what Kate just said broke you. Not two seconds later you are bouncing over to Caitlin and putting your arm around her waist.

"You ready to crush this practice babe?" You ask as she is finishing up stretching. Before she can answer you continue, "Your legs are looking extra nice today. I likey." She just laughs.

"If I just lift this a little," you say lifting the bottom part of her shorts to reveal her thigh a little more. "The team would see those little love bites you like so much." Caitlin slaps your hand and yells your name. You laugh and let her go, going to start a drill.

During the drill, you keep making comments about how fast you are and how no one can catch you.

"Speed." You say with laser focus as you are the next one to jump in the rotation. "I am speed."

Every time Caitlin does a good job you are caught yelling something along the lines of 'that a way babe' or 'that's my girl'.

During practice, Kate kept giving you weird looks but you think nothing of it.

During one of the water breaks, you walk up to Caitlin who is sipping her water. You lean against the wall.

"So, you come here often?" You ask in a flirtatious tone.

She pushes your chest and rolls her eyes. You come up behind her, wrapping your arms around her, and spin her around.

"You love me," you say as you put her down.

"You know I do," she says, kissing your forehead.

The rest of the practice is filled with little comments to your girl on how good she looks and how great of a job she is doing.

"Have you seen those edits that people are making of pigeons?” You ask one of your other teammates.

"What are you talking about?" they say back with a laugh.

"You know the ones where they draw like stick figure arms on them while they are walking around," you say. "Imagine being a bird and not having arms or hands."

You then stick your hands in your practice jersey and walk around. Someone throws a ball at you and you just let it hit you. It bounces away from you.

"Caitlin! Caity! CC!" You say running up to her with your arms still in your jersey. "Would you still love me if I was a pigeon?" You ask her.

"Of course, babe. You would be my pigeon," she says laughing her ass off.

"Good," you say. "Because you would be mine regardless of the animal you were.”

Not ten minutes later you are back in a drill.

"Oh ya, I got this," you say to yourself as you are going up for a layup. You flip it with your left hand and it banks in. "Money!" You yell and run to the back of the line.

As practice comes to a close, the team is scrimmaging. You go up to Kate and she reminds you of a very key detail you forgot about during practice.

"So, how was being mic'd up?" She asks and your eyes go wide, finding the camera that has been following you around the entirety of practice.

"Shit-fuck!" You whisper as you remember all the things you said during practice. "SHOOT - FUDGE" you yell remembering this was going to be on the media team's Youtube page.

You facepalm yourself pretty hard causing a nice slap sound to echo in the gym.

Caitlin runs up to you removing your hand from your face and kissing the place you just slapped.

"Don't slap yourself that hard babe," she says examining the slightly pink mark developing on your right eye and forehead.

"I fuc-messed up," you say and you point at the cameras.

Caitlin turns and Kate just stands there laughing.

Caitlin joins in on the laughing and brings you into her side, squeezing you and kissing your temple.

"Ehh, it was bound to happen sooner or later," she says.

After practice, you thank the media team for choosing you and you head back to your apartment with Kate and Caitlin.

"I can't believe I forgot about being mic'd up. I am so dumb,” you say as you crash on the couch. Your girlfriend comes and sits next to you, pulling your legs onto her lap.

"Don't worry about it babe - no one is going to care." She says rubbing your legs.

"Well, I don't know about that..." Kate says as she passes her phone to you.

You and Caitlin look at it and both of your jaws drop. The media team posted it and it already had 7,000 views. You scroll down to the comments and see people have attached links to their edits. You click on one and it takes you down a rabbit hole of edits that were already created shipping you and Caitlin.

"This is crazy," you say and hide your face.

Caitlin just laughs and continues to rub your legs.

"I think it's cute," she says with a smile.

"I royally messed up." You say.

"Hey," your girlfriend pulls you out of your thoughts, which she knows are going faster than you can comprehend. "If I would love you as a pigeon, I will love you through this, okay?" She says and lifts your face to meet hers.

"Okay," you say and lean in to give her a kiss.

AN: I would lowkey be the best mic'd up person out there. The thoughts that go through my brain sometimes are epic. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And as always, thank you for your live and support 🤍

[dixons-sunshine]

“And then the wolf said, “And I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow yer house down.” And just like tha', the first lil' piggy's house, the house made'a straw, was blown down in a matter'a seconds. It was quite the sight, ya see. Straw was blown everywhere. All'a the lil' piggy's “hard” work was ruined. Personally, I dun' see wha' he did as hard work. Buildin' somethin' from straw dun' seem tha' hard to me, but I ain't ever tried to build somethin' from straw 'fore, so I guess I can't say tha', huh, Peanut?”

You chuckled fondly as Daryl told the story to your baby—well, technically your baby bump—with his own spin on the tale as old as time. His head was resting on your bump as he told the tale, and your fingers were softly and tenderly working through his hair. He was also gently caressing your bump, adding to your own comfort. It was a serene moment, one that you treasured dearly.

“The wolf then went over to the second lil' piggy's house. “Lil' pig, lil' pig, lemme—” Daryl's words were cut off by the feeling of a kick, and he let out a small gasp. He looked up at you, a look of wonder in his eyes. “Was tha'—”

“Yeah,” you cut him off, your fingers still gently treading through his hair. “It was a kick. I think Peanut loves the story, and your voice.”

Daryl gave you a small smile. “Yeah?” he asked rhetorically, his hand gently rubbing your baby bump. He brought his lips down to your exposed stomach, placing a tender kiss to the bump. “Do ya love the story, Peanut? S'it a good story?” As if responding to his voice, the baby kicked again, eliciting a chuckle and a soft “ow” from you. He looked up at you in concern. “Wha's wrong?”

“Nothing. That kick just stung a little, is all,” you told him reassuringly, gently taking his hand and leading it to where the last kick was, encouraging him to rub there, both to ease the slight pain and to have him feel if another kick happened—which it did.

Daryl smiled and pressed another kiss to your bump, right on top of where the kick was. “Ya gotta ease up on yer mama, lil' one,” he whispered affectionately. “I love feelin' yer kicks, but it can hurt yer mama if ya kick too hard. Ya gotta be careful, alrigh'?” In answer, your baby kicked again, this time gently enough to feel like a mere flutter more than anything, but hard enough for Daryl to feel. Daryl chuckled and pressed yet another kiss to your stomach. “Tha's more like it. Good job, Peanut.”

You smiled fondly at the sight. You had no doubts in your mind that Daryl would be a good dad, but this little moment just added more confirmation to your previous thoughts. However, you knew that if you brought it up, and no matter how affectionately you put it, Daryl's mood would dampen. No matter how many times you told him he'd be a good dad, his fears would overshadow that statement. So you settled for something else instead.

“I love you, Dar.”

Daryl looked up at you with a fond smile. “I love ya too, Sunshine. So fuckin' much.” Daryl placed another kiss to your bump. “And I love ya too, Peanut.” He rested his head back on your stomach, letting out a small, contented sigh. “Now, where were we? Oh, yeah, the second lil' piggy. Now, the wolf went up to the second lil' piggy's home, the one made'a sticks, and...”

As Daryl carried on with the story, you laid your head back on the pillow, closing your eyes in contentment. Yeah, you had no doubts that Daryl would be an amazing father, and you couldn't wait to meet your little one and officially start your little family.

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

[li-an-nie]

The origin of Isagi’s talent and a message for us (ft. Naruhaya & Kaiser)

Hi! This is something I've been thinking about for quite a while... and today I finally want to share with you my theory, or rather explanation, for Isagi Yoichi – his character, where his talent for adaptability comes from, as well as our own takeaways we can draw from Kaneshiro's characters.

This is a lot, but I think it shows how powerful the story of Blue Lock really can be!

Transformation

People often like to joke about Slursagi - how this ordinary guy with the seemingly most ordinariest of parents has so far spit out some of the wildest insults on the field haha. Well, sadly I don’t have an explanation for all of that, but I do have one for his incredibly fast and exponential progress in Blue Lock. I mean, we all know by now, as Naruhaya has said before and as was kinda picked up in the most recent chapters – it's his innate aptitude for adaptability, learning and change. Destroying yourself and then rebuilding your best version. Abandoning everything else and thinking of yourself as just a means to an end. While everyone else in Blue Lock had good enough soccer skills to manage just fine on their own so far, this is the method Isagi had to use in order to keep up with all the other players.

(see Ch. 53)

The question is just, where did this amazing talent come from? Is this a learned skill or a mutation, as Ego talked about? Is it nurture or nature?

If we look at it, the other guys in Blue Lock have all these sad backstories, traumas and toxic family relationships and whatnot. Yet Isagi has come so far, despite his ordinary background. Or rather... because of it. Or rather... only someone with a background like him could actually pull this off..! Why? Because Isagi has something that many of us don’t – unconditional love and support.

Again, this is just my own interpretation, but think about the term ‘destroying yourself’ first – what the hell does that even mean (if we ignore the edginess in that statement)?

(This is going to get super abstract, and even I don’t 100% know what I’m talking about, but hear me out first.)

It can mean so much – destroying your personality, your preconceptions of the world or a field, your prejudices, your obsessions, your pride, your fears, your regrets, basically anything that is capable of holding you back. Most people can’t simply do that. Naruhaya couldn’t. We all have inhibitions about certain things, no matter how hard we try, it often feels impossible to let go of certain thoughts and emotions. We're tethered to the past, afraid of losing our ‘self’ we’ve built in the process. There’s always a fear – if we fail, if we slip up, we might genuinely end up with nothing but our own ruin and failures, and that’s why we can never really go 100% of the way.

But Isagi can.

(see Ch. 55)

Origin

Isagi grew up in an ordinary household. But I'd say his family, his parents are actually far from ordinary.

We see it in the spin-off novel first, where Isagi’s incredible spatial awareness was apparent from a young age, making him very timid and much like a scaredy-cat in the beginning. But instead of scolding or condemning him, his parents always tried to understand and support him. And the same applied when Isagi first expressed his desire for a soccer ball.

(see BL Spin-Off - Isagi Yoichi Ch.2)

It doesn't matter if he's a crybaby, as long as he grows up healthy. For the first time, their timid, only son showed them what he wanted to do with his own will. That alone was enough to satisfy them completely.

With that out the way, this scene you probably remember from the manga is more than enough to illustrate everything (Ch. 152).

"You’re still our son, whether you’re special or average. What makes me happy is that you’re doing what you want, and giving your best at it."

"Whether you win or lose, no matter what… we’ll always be there for you, Yocchan."

"So live your life as you want."

Jesus Christ. If that’s not the most loving and supportive parents in the world, then what is?

Isagi’s parents have simply no expectations of him. They love and support him so unconditionally. They encourage and adore him, and they will always think of him their precious son, no matter if he wins or loses, if he chooses to live an average person’s life or risk everything to become the best striker in the world. Isagi knows this, and he grew up like this, he grew up with a certainty that no matter what you will still be loved. That’s why he can sacrifice everything of himself – because ultimately, under that everything is something that will never leave, and this certainty is what enables him to push so far in the first place. He developed a mindset that could push itself to its limits, and it directly impacted not only his life decisions but his evolution on the soccer field as well.

(see Ch. 55)

Naruhaya, on the other hand, had the same talent for adaptability, but he wasn't able to go as far as Isagi. Because unlike Isagi, there were things he had to protect, the stakes were too high – his sisters, and their precarious financial situation. Even though a dire situation like this should enable him to push himself even further, that stake is also exactly what held him back in the end. In his case, it matters so much whether he wins or loses. When it starts to matter, you ultimately become afraid of what will happen if you do lose, and for him that meant so much more than just the end of his dreams. Isn’t it natural to feel more under stress when the stakes are higher?

Opposites

So because of this foundation that Isagi has, he is different than the rest. This would kind of speak against the assumption I had at the beginning of Blue Lock, that his ordinariness is meant to represent all of us. With basically the message that anyone can evolve and transform themselves for the better, just like Isagi. But to be honest that was already thrown out of the window through the spin-off, where you see that Isagi was already gifted as a child. And I’m not even sure if this was supposed to be Kaneshiro’s intended takeaway to begin with, but there’s another way this message can fit together. The missing piece lies in Kaiser.

Because yeah, we all saw what Isagi realized in Ch. 282 was basically following the same thing Kaiser did 20 chapters before (discard everything but your original ego).

If we take into account what we know Isagi, it becomes all the more heartbreaking and ironic when we actually see Kaiser do the same type of evolution in Ch. 262 for the first time – I quote, “past achievements, pride, everything he ever won”, literally the joy he felt about becoming human, he was willing to destroy and throw it all away, he became zero, despite knowing that if he fails that’s all there would be left – zero.

(see Ch. 262)

He’s always had zero, and the soccer ball is the first thing he ever truly ‘gains’. After his career takes off, he slowly acquired more and more, fame, money, achievements, you name it. This would be the first time he possesses so much, but he doesn’t know the pain of losing something yet, because he never had anything before to begin with. Kaiser built himself a high mountain out of things he never had, but then was willing to risk the pain of losing everything and roll back down into that pit of nothing again, all for the sake of his goal. If that's not strength, then what is?

And it’s also a direct contrast to Isagi.

Isagi and Kaiser are opposites, they are extremes that came from completely different worlds and family backgrounds. And yet they are also exactly the same, because they had the same strengths and resolves and were able to undergo the same kind of evolution. One has all the love and one lived their entire life deprived of it, one never questioned being human and one never believed themself to be one, yet they both were able to discard everything of themselves and then rebuild a better version – all for the sake of their goals.

Takeaway

So coming back to the message, how does that apply to us, the average person? Isagi and Kaiser represent a spectrum, and if you ever feel stuck somewhere in life, then remember – you are somewhere in between those two worlds. Doesn't that mean that you're capable of the same change too? I also don’t think it matters whether you’re a genius or talented learner, in real life there’s no clear line between those things anyway. Every one of us excels at something and every one of us has to learn and adapt in other areas. But what Blue Lock ultimately shows is that no matter what background, age or ambition, in the end, the things that can push us forward the most are our own dreams and ego. We are all capable of change.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk!

[sthilarions]

I feel like there aren’t nearly enough crossover concepts out there with Lucifer Fox/Netflix and Dead Boy Detectives Netflix, ie the two supernatural Sandman spin-off adaptations with largely queer casts, so *rolls up sleeves* be the change you want to see in the world

Edwin didn’t start trying to escape until the mid 1920s. He didn’t get anywhere with it until the late 60s. And it was around 1980 when Lucifer got the third report in less than two months of a soul nearly escaping Hell, being caught just at the gates, and was finally curious enough to have the wayward soul brought in front of him.

He was, frankly, rather fascinated. An innocent soul, a rebel, clearly barely holding back his sass against the King of Hell, the Prince of Darkness, someone clearly queer and cast down to Hell for being different.

Lucifer decides about ten minutes into their conversation to make Edwin his personal attendant. Mazikeen’s more of a general slash right hand demon slash bodyguard slash errand being, at this point, and having someone around who’s more like a valet, or a manservant, can’t hurt.

Lucifer rapidly finds that Edwin is a delightful conversationalist, when he’s not being tortured or thinking he’s about to be, sharp and clever and witty. Edwin is very surprised to realize the same thing about Lucifer. They start just… talking, more and more, and Lucifer gets more and more fond of his pet human.

It’s 1989 when Lucifer decides he’s getting restless and hatches a plan to leave Hell. But in this universe, the plan isn’t just for himself (and Maze). It’s for Edwin, too. He sends Edwin up to Earth as a sort of advance scout, with instructions to send regular reports back to Lucifer. (Lucifer, at this point, doesn’t really fully expect to ever be able to leave, himself; but Edwin is innocent, and kind, and clever, and fun, and doesn’t deserve Hell, and Lucifer refuses to be his jailer any longer.)

Edwin appears on Earth by his remains, in an attic, in 1989. He tells the boy he meets there that he is a ghost who escaped Hell - which is true, as far as it goes. And the boy decides to stay with him.

Edwin sends his reports back to Lucifer, every three months. He does not tell Charles. How do you tell someone - a good person, the best person you’ve ever met, someone whom you rapidly realize your existence depends on - that you’re the personal servant of Satan?

In 2016, Lucifer finally has had enough. He has Mazikeen cut off his wings and he goes to LA… and he summons his favored, loyal valet to his side.

And Edwin has a very, very difficult conversation with Charles.

And, long emotional screaming match short, Charles ends up coming with Edwin to LA.

It takes Lucifer about a week to get himself involved in detective nonsense, because he’s been getting thrilling reports of how delightful it is four times a year for decades.

There’s something very different about Lucifer “flipping so many men they call me the Skillet” Morningstar on Earth, as opposed to Hell, and Edwin starts, er. Noticing.

Meanwhile, Lucifer’s just sort of assumed Charles and Edwin were fucking this entire time, based on Edwin’s obviously besotted reports, and is quite surprised to realize his valet seems to be having his gay awakening induced by him, instead.

So, anyway, hijinks ensue, as Lucifer, Maze, Charles, and Edwin all play detective together, all while Lucifer “#1 Payneland Shipper” “Lord of Temptation” Morningstar tries every trick in the book to get Charles and Edwin to realize they’re crazy about each other.

[kiame-sama]

Humans Are Extinct (Yandere!TWST x Fem!Reader) Monster AU pt 14

(For those that don't know, this ^ is Papa Hades. For the sake of the story, Papa Hades is platonic and not romantic. If y'all really want to hear about a romance with Papa Hades, it's gonna have to be a non-canon spin off ask about it.)

Warnings; Shinigami ancestor has entered the arena, yandere, multiple yanderes, platonic yanderes, romantic yanderes, varying degrees of yandere levels, monster men, various monsters mentioned, TWST AU, mention of injury, mention of blood, Rook is obsessed with the human's feet, sparing use of French, feisty reader, Shinigami, Crow, Hellcat, Vampire Bat, Dragon, Cervitaur, Drider, Harpy, Selkie, Gnoll

~~~~~~~~

"Hello, Little One."

Standing before you was a very tired and almost sad looking man. Despite how softly he spoke, his voice was a deep baritone that almost shook the walls around you. He reminded you a lot of Idia and Ortho, meaning this was likely the one they had all been taking about, Hades.

The Shinigami was taller than Idia and had to look down at you in order to fully take your appearance in. Streaking down his pale and almost gray cheeks seemed to be what looked like shining blue tears that stained the soft skin a dark color, yet sparkled like the night sky. His flaming blue hair was short compared to Idia and seemed more the length of Ortho's hair. Wrapped around his shoulders and body was a black mourning shawl that seemed to have light trapped within the fabric itself.

He was handsome.

"Um... Hi?"

He examined you, kneeling down in front of you to get a better look at you. His golden eyes held a kind of spark in them that spoke to his interest in you and you wondered just what that interest was. Crowley said he was kind to Humans and loved them, but did that mean he loved Humans as pets or as equals? Could any of these men say they saw Humans as equals when they were clearly much stronger and more adapted to survival in this world?

"I am Hades Shroud, the ancestor of the two you know as Idia and Ortho. It is a pleasure to meet you, Little One. Many an age has passed since I have last held conversation with a Human. Would you do me the honor of telling me your name?"

"It's (Y/n) (L/n)... Are you going to take me away from here?"

"I would rather not, but it doesn't seem particularly safe for you here either. It would be safer for you to live somewhere more secure."

You frowned at this, feeling your nails bite into the couch beneath you as you felt more than a little unnerved by the large man. Crowley said Hades took away the last Human that lived in Night Raven, but you didn't want to go anywhere especially if there was a chance you might be able to go back to your true home. There was also the fear that he wouldn't let Grim come with if he did wind up taking you away.

"I'll fight you to stay here."

"... What?"

"This is my home now. I don't care how dangerous it is, I want to stay here. I would rather go to my original home, but that doesn't seem to be an option for me right now. I don't want to go anywhere with anyone I don't know, and I really don't know you. Grim is here. Tsuno, Silver, Sebek, and Lilia are here. Rook is here. Divus and Trein are here. Ace and Deuce are here. Even Headmage Crowley. Everyone I know- and can trust- in this world lives right here, not wherever it is you want to take me. I'll fight you if you try to take me from here. It won't be a long or glorious fight, but a fight it will be."

Hades seemed almost taken off guard by your declaration before a soft noise escaped him, much like a soft chuckle before it evolved into a full laugh. The sound was unusual as if he had not laughed in a very long time and had almost forgotten how. Everyone seemed surprised by his mirth, none moreso than Idia and Ortho as they looked absolutely floored, but clearly the confusion of the others did not bother the old Shinigami.

"Stop laughing at me!"

"I'm not laughing at you, Little One. I'm laughing because only a handful of those I have interacted with in the past thousand years have deigned to try and pick a fight with me, let alone a verbal joust. Most scrape and bow- even my own descendants- but not you, clearly. I won't take you from here, if that is what you truly wish, but goodness knows I have no interest in fighting you. Something tells me you would win that battle."

He smiled gently at you and you almost relaxed in response. Grim frowned from where he was laying in your arms, not really trusting anyone who you didn't trust. As the cat-beast looked up at you, you pet his forehead to soothe him and he began to purr gently. The movement of your hand drew the Shinigami's attention to the blue eyed beast that watched him warily.

"Is this the young forest beast you have adopted? Crowley tells me you found him in the woods when you first fell into our world. I expected a weasel by his description, not a young Hellcat. I would never expect to see one of those outside of Tartarus."

"Wait," Idia interrupted, "did you say a Hellcat? Like a genuine 'out of the flames, a Shinigami's best friend' Hellcat?"

"So it seems. Hellcats aren't native to the land of the living like this. No wonder his wings are so torn up, most forest beasts would easily slaughter a kit like this."

Grim perked up almost instantly at the Shinigami's words, his little wings spread out wide in surprise. He stood up from your arms, his tail waving excitedly and eyes shining with emotion.

"Wait... You know what I am? Where- where I'm from?"

"Yes. You're a Hellcat kit, probably only a decade old judging from your lack of horns, hardly even old enough to be away from your mother. It is unusual for any creature native to Tartarus- even Shinigami- to be beyond the realm of the dead, especially when I myself did not let them through, but the fact that you're alone tells me quite a bit."

"A Hellcat..?"

You pet Grim's forehead, smiling at the now confirmed to be kitten. It was easy to tell he was young but you were glad to now know how young and maybe even get confirmation about what he was. He seemed excited to finally have answers for what may have caused him to be left in the forest however long ago.

"May I?"

Hades asked, holding his hands out to Grim who looked first to you for approval. You hesitated for just a moment, pulling him close before you nodded. Feeling conflicted, you lifted the kitten into the large hands of the Shinigami who smiled gently at him. He quickly looked over the many scars of the soft creature and at the ruined wings with a slight grimace. A certain softness had taken over his expression before he hummed out his assessment.

"Poor little kit. He's even younger than I thought. Truly, he shouldn't be away from his mother at this age. Hellcat kits often stay within their mother's territory well into their adult years, but this one isn't even near the age to leave his mother's protection. He will get much bigger than this when he enters his juvenile days."

"You do realize you're not allowed to take him either, right? Grim is my boy and I am not giving him up."

"I know. I have been told he is your companion and friend, a chosen child you've taken on. I won't be taking him either. It is unusual his mother is nowhere to be found, as they are fiercely protective of their young, but there's no need to remove him from the mother he has. We can talk later about what could be done to try and repair his wings."

You held your arms open and Grim happily jumped back into them, affectionately bumping his forehead into yours with a loud purr. It was great news to find out that Grim could possibly get his wings back. The topic of his wings have been a sensitive spot for the little Hellcat ever since you met him.

Idia's words rang in your ears as you remembered what he had called the old Shinigami. Despite your willingness to fight him for your right to choose your fate, he had been polite and kind to you. It sounded like he was only interested in what you wanted, which was a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the beast men you'd met so far. Why not show a bit of trust?

"That is amazing news! Did you hear that, Grim? Papa Hades said It might be possible to fix your wings!"

The world turned near silent for the Shinigami as two familiar words he had not heard for centuries from a Human voice rang in his ears. A certain warmth filled the ancient being's chest and more tears fell anew down the streaked and stained skin. How long he had wished to hear those words again from a Human, and now he finally got them once more.

"Now then, Little One, young Idia has informed me of the attempt made on you by a representative and his reasoning for why he believes it happened. Let us discuss this matter as it directly concerns your wellbeing."

You didn't seem to notice the profound impact of your words as you cuddled your Hellcat, but Idia and Ortho did. All of the monster men standing around you saw the gentlest smile and warmest look on the Shinigami's face as even his hair seemed to breathe a new life in how brightly it burned. The impact of just a few words was clear as it deeply soothed the ragged pain in the Shinigami's heart.

Thousands of faces looking up at him adoringly as they chirped out their greetings. A thousand faces that returned screaming. For just a moment, the old Shinigami could forget the wailing souls that came to him and simply remembered the joy they once held for the ancient death God.

"Right, those scrubs won't realize how rekt they are now that Papa Hades is zeroed in on them. Oh, right, (Y/n), I also have your new collars primed and ready for you and Grim... I only have the condition that I want to hold Grim to put on his collar."

Idia held out his hands expectantly with a wide grin and Grim sighed, his ears laying somewhat flat as if annoyed but he didn't argue against the suggestion. His response told you Idia likely held onto him when he was showing the Hellcat the new additions to your dorm. Not thinking, you stood up with your weight on your leg and let out a hiss of pain, feeling the stitches strain and the wound start to weep.

The sudden sound of your pain unsettled the men around you as Malleus and Lilia both rushed to your side. Lilia made you sit again and picked up Grim, handing the Hellcat to Idia. Grim didn't complain and instead looked worried as Malleus' hand began to glow with green magic. As his hand drew close, the pain numbed back down to a dull throb.

"There. You know better than to be standing on that injury, child of man."

Malleus gently scolded you as you sighed, looking away from the chastising Dragon to glare at nothing in particular. He was right, but that didn't mean you weren't annoyed by his nannying. Still, Malleus was the main contributor to your comfort as it was his magic that soothed your pain.

"I know. I just forgot in all this excitement."

"Well, I shall remain right here to ensure you do not forget again. Now what is this I hear about a representative?"

~•§•~

You sat in the Pomefiore ballroom with three of the many monster men buzzing around you. Divus was helping Vil sew in the hemming on your new top, the tall stool you were perched on helping the two meticulously work around you. Rook lay at your feet, having been measuring your ankles, leg length, and feet for what seemed like just a bit too long. After your rather quick introduction with the ancient Shinigami, you received a text on your phone requesting you come to Pomefiore for the 'design team'- as they have named themselves- to properly fit your new outfits.

Despite your desire to stay and talk more with the elder Shinigami, Crowley insisted you go with Grim and Silver to Pomefiore. Malleus wanted to come along as well, but decided to forego in favor of learning more about Idia's findings on the poachers. Instead, Ortho came with the three of you so that at least one of your official guards for the week was with you and could relay updates back to the group in Ramshackle.

A slow and almost appraising stroke up your leg had you frowning and looking down to the Drider at your feet. Rook has long since put down his tape measure and now just held your leg, his leather gloved hands cupping the heel of your foot and his other hand was somewhat stroking the arch. His eyes seemed darker than usual as if his pupils were slightly too big for his iris to contain them.

"Désolé, mon chérie. Your paws are so unusual they've somewhat captivated me."

"Rook," your voice almost startled the Drider whose fair cheeks blushed a fierce red at being caught, "are you still measuring for the socks and shoes, or were you doing something else?"

"Feet, Rook. Those are called feet. Paws are more like that of a cat or a dog. Do other species not have feet like mine?"

"Non, not even shadow folk or Genies have these feet. Most of Twisted Wonderland's species have paws, talons, hooves, or even flippers. Shadow folk and Genies are somewhat similar in shape, but even they have pads on their paws. These," he gestured to your foot, which was still resting in his hand, "are wholly unique. They would take an equally unique design to properly warm and protect them. Simply being thorough in my inspection."

"Right, so thorough you are petting them?"

"W-well," he looked much more flustered than you expected at your accusation, "I just wanted to know if your feet responded the same way talons would or if they were like the paws of driders."

"By... caressing them?"

It was then Vil interrupted, sparing the Drider your questions and taking your attention away from his boon companion.

"There. The hemming is finished. Sit up straight for me so I can make sure it's even. After that, we can move on to the next one."

You did as the Harpy asked, turning back to Rook whose legs had started moving. At first you thought he was just shuffling his spider legs back and forth, but you realized he was actually actively weaving what looked like a sock around your foot. The spindly spider limbs moved quickly, seeming to knit around your foot and up your leg.

"Wait, you can knit with your silk?"

"Oui. The clothing you wear now was all made from my silk. Drider silk is commonly used for clothing, as the silk strands are durable and don't often form holes. We had to craft these ensembles for you from scratch, most tailors make clothing better suited for the likes of Vil and I- with extra room for limbs and varying morphs. Due to your Human figure, it is better to make our own designs for you."

You hummed in response to his words, feeling a slight magic tingle cover your skin as your top changed from the fitted one to a new design that had yet to be fitted. It seemed Vil was content with the hem on the top prior and now moved on to another. Rook worked quickly as you found one sock already done, the Drider moving on to your other leg and being much more gentle to not move it too much as it was your injured leg.

"Careful, Pup, if you break her stitches I will not hesitate to give you detention."

"You wound me, Roi du Selkie! I take great pride in how gentle I can be, I would never harm her."

"Yes, well, take care to remember that before you drool over my pup's flippers again."

You almost laughed at how swiftly Vil and Divus scolded the handsome Drider for his clear interest in your feet. It was interesting to know that Human feet were unusual in Twisted Wonderland and you vaguely wondered if seeing your feet awoke something in Rook. Regardless, you allowed the three men to continue their endeavors.

"So... Let's say for arguments sake I wanted to take pictures of myself and post them, would that be a bad thing?"

"Don't be silly," Vil scolded, putting pins very carefully into your sleeve to hold the shape, "we would have even more poachers seeking your head."

"But if Cater already blew the whistle, how much worse would it be to post pictures myself? Everyone already knows I'm here."

"It-"

Vil cut himself off, pausing with several pins sticking out of his mouth as he considered your words. It was true, Cater already decided to post pictures of you and news outlets ran with that image. Activists have already posted that image anywhere they can as to why you should be taken away from Night Raven College because of how unsettled you seemed in the impromptu picture. You had a point.

"Something to think about, I guess."

You went back to focusing on Rook who was almost done with the long socks. Despite how you thought the webbing would be sticky or even stiff, the fabric behaved and sat like cotton yet looked and felt like silk. Part of you was thoroughly surprised to realize this fact as you examined the socks on your legs and the intricate designs on them. How the Drider managed to make them on your legs, you'll never know.

"I'll bring it up to Crowley later, after the representatives have left."

Divus spoke gently, giving you a reassuring smile that you returned. The Selkie man was kind to you and had been the one to patch up both of your major injuries. Clearly, if anyone could be trusted among the staff with your wellbeing, it was Divus.

"Now, we need to work on your pants, skirts, and dresses. I'm going to permit you to stand up so long as you hold onto Rook and keep weight off of that leg."

Rook stood from where he had been resting on the carpet at your feet, holding out both hands to you patiently. The darkness of his eyes only seemed more intense as you took his outstretched hands, leaning on him and letting him help you into a standing position. The Drider moved his hands under your elbows allowing you to lean into his hold and put more weight on him than your leg.

"Don't worry, Mademoiselle Trickster, I've got you."

~•§•~

You sat back in Ramshackle next to Idia, a controller in hand as you finally had the chance to play the promised videogames. It was later in the day now and you were finally allowed to leave Pomefiore after what felt like countless new outfits and fittings. When you returned to the building you hadn't been expecting Hades to assure you he could handle cooking, wanting you to just play games with Idia and Ortho. Lilia even joined in a few rounds despite how odd it felt to see the older Bat Fae absolutely dominate the game.

After a while, you started to forget the worries of the recent events and just focus on what was in front of you. A game that you could play and take your mind off of things. The room seemed to change to the general atmosphere as a kind of magenta light seemed to accent the regular lights. You were tempted to look around for the source when a familiar and almost stressed cackle split through the air.

"Ruggie! Shit, he doesn't know about-!"

A harsh yelping sound made you quickly stand and rush into the kitchen, the pain in your leg be damned as concern filled your mind. Even as Lilia attempted to stop you, you ignored the Bat Fae and hurried to where the yelping originated. What if Hades responded to Ruggie's usual food seeking behavior the way that Lilia did that first morning? You absolutely did not want anything happening to the Gnoll and knew you would feel responsible if he got injured somehow.

"Don't hurt him-!"

You started, almost sliding around the corner where you saw the elder Shinigami was regarding the yelping and flailing Hyena silently. Ruggie had fallen back and was scrambling back on the tiles until he was up against one of the lower cabinets, still yelping like he had been burned. Once he caught sight of you he scrambled over and behind you, another stressed and panicked cackle escaping his muzzle.

"(Y/n)! I thought you were cooking and boy, let me tell you, I was not expecting one of the freaking Seven to be here!"

"Are you okay, Ruggie?"

"No! I had the fright of a lifetime just now."

"But are you hurt?"

"The only thing I've wounded is my pride."

You breathed out a sigh of relief as the Gnoll confirmed he was alright, but as your heart rate fell back into normal range your leg resented your panicked actions. A faint red began to bleed through the wrap around your leg and the clothes you had over it. Judging from the almost tight strain of your skin and the sharp pain from your sprint, you likely pulled a stitch.

"Hey, you aren't bleeding... Are you? Because it smells like you're bleeding."

"... I am."

"Don't tell me you messed up your leg coming to check on me!"

"... I did."

"Leona's gonna be so mad at me for that. Why'd you go and do something like that anyway?"

"Because you were yelping like you were being killed!"

Ruggie seemed embarrassed now as he realized he had been making an awful lot of noise given not an awful lot happened to him to warrant the noise. Still, it was nice to know you cared so much about him.

"A friend of yours, Little One?"

"Yeah. Sorry, Papa Hades, I thought that- well, it doesn't matter now. Ruggie is a usual face here. He always shows up when I'm cooking and I've been feeding him since. Shoot, you're probably starving, aren't you Ruggie? I've been out of Ramshackle and in the infirmary, so you probably haven't eaten in a few days."

Ruggie whined, as if trying to make himself seem truly pathetic and pitiful. He even went as far as to sigh dramatically and rest a hand on his sunken stomach.

"I mean, I've eaten the dandelion and tree-bark diet a lot before, but it certainly isn't those nice meals you make."

"... Papa Hades, could you..?"

The elder Shinigami nodded, already seeming to know what you were going to ask of him and added what seemed to be an extra helping to what he was making. He had been told of the Gnoll by Crowley long before this meeting and he was interested to see you behave so protective of the Hyena man. Gnolls were known for their hunger of Human flesh before the extinction, so seeing a Gnoll not pounce even with the smell of blood in the air was impressive. He certainly didn't expect the Gnoll to scream the way he had- especially since the Shinigami didn't do anything other than look at him- but it was understandable the Gnoll would be surprised.

It wasn't everyday someone with the reputation and history of a literal God was standing making dinner.

"So... Papa Hades, huh?"

"So, Leona, huh?"

"... Point made."

"Hey, Ruggie... Could you... Bring me back to the lounge area? I have to go be scolded by Malleus, and Lilia, and everyone else for ripping a stitch."

"I guess I can, seeing as you ran to help me and feed me most days."

The Gnoll was quick to pick you up, almost awkwardly cradling you in his humanoid arms as he padded back to where an annoyed Malleus was waiting. Hades watched the two of you go, smiling ever so slightly to himself as he returned to his task. You already exceeded his expectations and proved that others cared quite deeply about you. Maybe he was wrong to assume Night Raven College was unsafe. Certainly not as secure as it could be, but given enough time and a helping hand, maybe you could be truly happy and safe here.

Really, that was all he could honestly ask.

[enkays-den]

obsessed with the absolute power duo of lyricist martyn and drummer skizz… so many good moments during the jingle task. some of my favorites:

-martyn showing skizz the beat he wanted and skizz instantly producing it with only a plastic sword and pickaxe on the rim of the llama cart

-martyn telling skizz he could jazz it up as long as he kept the tempo the same and skizz saying that he was testing him for exactly that during their initial run through, checking if it would throw him off to have some extra flair thrown in while singing

-skizz adapting to the different weights of the sword and pickaxe so he could use them properly for drumming and absentmindedly doing half spins with the sword similar to how he spins his actual drumsticks

-skizz popping his collar and undoing the first button of his shirt (one-handed. SO normal about this) because he wanted to go for a "rocker look"

-the jingle itself, which was INSANELY good for something they basically had On Lock in about 5 minutes

-ren afterwards jokingly trash talking about outdoing skizz and showing him how to drum and the way skizz just smiled all amused and said "give it a go," no bravado, just sheer well-earned confidence in his own skill

tl;dr: I'm going feral. everyone say thank you martyn for recruiting skizz to his band.

ugh skizz being such a good drummer is soooo hot tbh. I'm a newbie drummer myself and it's just great watching him do what he does

yeah,,,,,,, skizz unbuttoning his shirt. he knows what we want <3

[opashoo]

Hey, can I say first off that your slugcat conlang (Yongasabi) is amazing?!? Seriously, I'm learning it now. I wanted to ask, are you okay with having AUs made off of your Undergrowth AU/taking place in the same universe?

I am so flattered that people are really going out of their way to learn my silly little scuglang... In any case, I would honestly floored, astounded, and honored if people wanted to work within the world I've made with Undergrowth. I would encourage it even! I hope to get some more definitive stuff out on it soon, though the actual askblog isn't going to start until I get my MAP parts done.

I suppose some helpful things to know and context that might not be mentioned in or clear from the language doc:

You could probably figure but I already have plans for all the main slugcats. I couldn't stop someone from using the main slugcats in their own story if they wanted to make their own spin on it.

A lot of settlements exist in underground geothermal pockets. While slugcats have been nomadic, managing and tending groves and orchards as they migrate, Scavengers have been managing more sedentary agriculture, which was much more easily adapted to the underground compared to slugcat techniques. Many slugcat colonies that settled moved in and integrated with Scavenger settlements, adopting their techniques for a better chance of survival.

Not all have settled into living underground! Some settlements are built above ground. There are still nomadic colonies, and smaller caravans or individual wanders who know how to navigate the Endless Winter.

Saint comes from Sliver of Straw's retaining wall, where the slugcats actually maintain a separate culture from the Yongasabi. They were dealing with snow long before the Endless Winter came.

Monk, Survivor, and Gourmand's colony have only just moved into Moon's retaining wall recently, within each of their lifetime

By the time of Undergrowth, Pebbles and Metropolis has collapsed. Though the city has been in the process of relocating to a nearby geothermal pocket, they still maintain their seat as the center of power for Scavenger politics. In Metropolis, they speak Reconstructed Ancient, a mix of Scavenger and Ancient, made to interface with the city's technology before Pebbles collapsed.

Scavenger clans are a thing! Structures can vary so don't worry about getting it wrong. There are even multiple around Moon and Pebbles' retaining wall. UG Arti was actually taken in by a Scavenger clan rival to Metropolis, who tried to direct her anger towards neighboring clans in order to coalesce power.

On that note, in UG, Arti's explosive powers are actually the result of something called the Fire Powder Ritual, a grueling process that involves the regular consumption of process firebush powder. Normally prepared fire powder is consumed to treat parasites because it makes the body inhospitable, but it's miserable. Enough regular consumption actually changes the makeup and behaviors of the body on a fundamental level, allowing consumers to generate sparks and breath fiery or combustive smoke, but the process of the ritual is so miserable most people would rather die than finish it. More on this another time.

Rivulet's not genetically modified in any way. Her semi-aquatic nature is a quirk of her people, but her ridiculous agility and speed is just a her thing.

Wild dandelion peaches are extinct (oh no) but they are carefully cultivated underground.

I don't want this answer to get too bloated but these are some things that I feel help to give greater context for what Undergrowth is like in ways I haven't been able to demonstrate yet. Whatever you do, be sure to let me know, I'll be dying to check it out!

[ducktracy]

hi sorry to drop this long ass ramble in your inbox but god you and that anon are both so right and the tlts post made me realize something

so i personally don’t mind that much when the looney tunes’ characterizations are off, just bc of how often they seem to change. even in the original shorts it seemed like every director had their own spin on the characters’ personalities, to a point where there’s never really felt like there was one “correct” way for them to be, at least to me. but they’ve always been funny is the thing. even when i don’t care much for an interpretation of them, if the show has strong enough writing it’ll still make me laugh! gonna be honest, i really don’t like TLTS Bugs a lot of the time, but he’s still funny! I think about the bit where he gets addicted to energy drinks and punches a hole in the wall for no reason at least once a week! 

but then we get into the thing you mentioned about fandom-ification, and THAT is what ends up bugging me. when we get into the same tired incorrect quotes and snowclone memes and “bugs is gone so i’m gonna cut off all the sleeves on my shirts bc he’s 80% of my impulse control blah blah blah STOP ITTT!! it’s not funny anymore and that’s like the most important thing the looney tunes have to be!! i love TLTS but oh my god it’s so clear a lot of people have never engaged with any other LT media and they just want archetypes to project the same years old fandom tropes onto. if you make the looney tunes unfunny you have failed, go watch a roadrunner cartoon and write me a paper on what you’ve learned about visual gags /j. This is also kind of the same reason i don’t like space jam 2 or a lot of the 90s stuff that does the “heh.. in case you didn’t know, we’re the looney tunes, and yeah. we’re pretty wacky” thing. if you have to tell me how looney you are i don’t believe you.

sorry again for length i had a lot to say abt this dhsjdjd

MY FRIEND you are sending this to the long ass ramble BLOG!! IT’S MORE THAN WELCOME! especially because i um. kind of exploded in this oops. you are not the long rambler here

and before i get into this too deeply, i just wanna say THANK YOU—both for you sending this and the receptiveness of these Hot Takes. it’s hard for me to put my usual positive spin on this subject because my opinions are so strong, and i’ve ended up annoying a lot of people over this in the past and so i just end up kinda grinning and bearing it.. plus it’s not conductive to my time, spiraling over what i don’t like does no good.. but i do feel so strongly about this because it’s tied to what i do love and. just. YEAH. we all know this. but i still feel the need to apologize because i hate coming off as gatekeepy or like a know it all, it’s not my intent or belief at all. so i’m grateful for you guys giving me the chance to rant and knowing that i’m not alone, because very often i feel that’s not the case :’)

I AGREE WITH THIS.. and thank you for reminding me, i probably should clarify that, again, LT has no canon. these guys are always changing characterization and context. we have shorts where Daffy is miserable and calling Bugs despicable and getting his beak shot off, and in the same release year we’ll have a short where the cartoon ends out on him going HOOHOO HOOHOO and he’s the one with the relatively calm disposition. these characters are always changing! there is no canon! and so i guess when i say i don’t think TLTS is “in character”, i moreso am saying “TLTS doesn’t preserve the integrity of the characters in my eyes”. i’ll get into this in a bit

therein lies the rub. there are persistent character traits regardless of director, but there are so many different shades of character. and modern adaptations don’t have this benefit! because the directors who made these guys are dead, but because modern adaptations don’t have the same sort of flexibility in structure. and i very much think it’s possible to make an “amalgam” of a personality for these guys—i do it all the time! you can borrow elements from multiple different directors and shades of these characters. but the TLTS characterizations are the TLTS characterizations, and i think this makes people think that this is how THE characters act, period. because it’s all they know, and because i think the admittedly convoluted existence of these characters can be hard to understand… at first. i’m losing my words on this, but hopefully that makes sense? i think that’s a very big part of this “condensation” of these characters found in TLTS. and, again, that’s compensated for in the writing by replacing many unique traits these guys have with stock sitcom tropes. and most people don’t know these characters well enough to identify any differently. it’s this caricature-within-a-caricature homogenization, and when you say that these characters weren’t intended to be like that, you’re seen as a blow hard or a pretentious know it all. but yes, please tell us about how “um, actually, Daffy’s neck ring is made of diamonds” when speaking about Daffy as a whole/all LT media as a whole. or how um, actually, these characters are actors (i’m more sympathetic to this one, it’s a common angle for these characters and more modern stuff like Back in Action doesn’t do much in clearing this “misinformation”. but i don’t think people realize that they’re actors only in the shorts where they’re established as actors—it’s just a funny way for the directors to “explain” the meta elements of the shorts, running with the joke of “wouldn’t it be funny if these guys were ACTUALLY actors”? it should only be assumed that they’re actors in the shorts where they say they are. it’s a set dressing. Daffy Duck is Daffy Duck. not Daffy Duck, actor. Porky pulling out a script in Porky’s Duck Hunt does not mean that every single short that has him in it means he’s an actor. it’s just a silly gag. sorry this is irrelevant and more innocent of a misunderstanding, but thats always been something i find myself explaining too and people getting weirdly defensive about)

ANYWAY, getting back to relevancy. i agree with you!! there is a lot about the show's writing that IS funny! again, i should reiterate that i LOVED this show! i've seen every episode a minimum of 3 times, there are still things that make me smirk, i once skipped class to watch episodes in the college library lol. i'm very well acquainted with the show because i was once a fan, and it has made me laugh. but anything i have laughed at is purely divorced of the characters. i would laugh probably more if this were a show that had entirely original characters instead, and i wish it did because it would be one of my favorite shows in that case.

but that's The Thing. it's tied to these legacy characters and does them so. dirty. i always rant about Porky because i think they did him worst, and he's already had such a volatile legacy as is, but i'm ranting about his portrayal again because i think it's just the best encapsulation of my issues with this show. here is my every issue with TLTS summed up in one image:

THIS SHOULD NOT BE A VIDEO THAT EXISTS!!!!! IT LITERALLY GOES AGAINST HIS CORE CHARACTER! I!!!! AHHHH!! i know i sound insane ranting about this because it's Looney Tunes. it's fucking Looney Tunes. but the original directors distinctly abstained from having Porky be too hurt because he's a sensitive character, and they knew that it was unpleasant to watch him get beat up! or made fun of! when Daffy makes fun of his stutter in Tom Turk and Daffy, there's a long pause where Porky just blinks and stares at him and doesn't react, before continuing on with his day. because that puts the blame back on Daffy. the joke isn't "lol Porky stutters", the joke is "lol Daffy is a complete asshole here". and there's no "lol Daffy is a complete asshole here, but we love him, right?" like there is so much of with TLTS. i don't know, they have Daffy act horrifically towards him in TLTS, and i know it's not saying "let's all be like Daffy" BUT PORKY GETS NO.. COMEUPPANCE.. OR ANYTHING. there's no "checking in" or "revising" on Porky's part to show that it didn't affect him. or, a lot of times, the originals will have PORKY be the instigator, and that justifies Daffy's retaliation against him! and, again, in the case where this isn't true, where Daffy is just beating up on him for no good reason (The Ducksters), THE SHORT HAS PORKY GET HIS COMEUPPANCE AND DELIVER THE EXACT SAME TREATMENT TO DAFFY. there is a very carefully curated balance here. because nobody wants to see Porky get beat up. the directors were very conscious of this. Porky in Wackyland has him getting hit on the head with a bunch of bricks, and he starts crying--the remake, Dough for the Do-Do, cuts this out because THEY KNEW THAT WAS UNPLEASANT! EVEN FOR A GAG! i don't really like DftDD, but that's one thing i think they did right.

and THAT'S why i get so mad about the Porky abuse in this show. not only because of how it completely misunderstands the Porky and Daffy dynamic and leading people to make bizarre assumptions about them ("Daffy and Porky are toxic together" 1. it's Looney Tunes 2. no your only understanding of their dynamic is from TLTS which is violently misrepresented 3. IT'S LOONEY TUNES 4. IT'S. LOONEY. TUNES.), but because it just feels like it goes directly against these intentions that the directors had with the character. Porky differs per director, but there are still some resounding rules in place

and it just comes off as accidental resentment for the character. i don't think it's on purpose. i know the whole thing is "but Porky's actually nice, he doesn't deserve this" BUT IT DOESN'T COMMUNICATE THAT EFFECTIVELY. your fat jokes about Porky being fat--WHEN HE'S THE SKINNIEST HE'S EVER BEEN--AND HIM TAKING OFFENSE TO IT, WHICH, AGAIN, SHOULD NOT EVER HAPPEN, EVER, ARE!!!!! I. I JUST LOST MY WORDING I'M SO MAD!!! BUT YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN!!!! making an entire song about how Porky is a lonely loser incel shut-in and will never get a date isn't on his side or pitying him. and it's literally just mean for the sake of meanness.

i always feel silly complaining that TLTS is meanspirited, because so are the shorts. this is why we love the shorts. LT is filled with assholes and cynics and characters of every shade of derangement. the shorts are mean. i love Bob McKimson's shorts and they're some of the meanest around. i love them because they're mean. one of my favorite Porky shorts ends with him killing himself and it being played with extreme cynicism. i'm not at all opposed to cynicism or meanness, but that cynicism or meanness in the originals is never at the expense of the actual integrity of the characters. there's a baseline of respect, i guess. the mean-ness in TLTS just comes off to me as putting down the intent of the original characters, and it comes off to me as accidentally disrespecting the vision these directors had for these characters. i again don't think it was on purpose. but you can see how that becomes a chain reaction in fandom circles of fans misrepresenting even what they're watching on TLTS (i've since been told that there are some people out there who say they've gotten into LT, and by that i mean watching those godawful YouTube tumblr-brained compilations that clip things out of context and nothing else. sorry i'm being incredibly mean right now but i just. agh. sorry). and there's just this convoluted chain reaction that ends up feeding into this feeling of disdain for the originals, even if it's unintentional

"Porky would be a more popular character if he wasn't the brunt of so many fat jokes and, in spite of shows like TLTS trying to play it off as irony, it's sort of absorbed by osmosis and subconsciously absorbed into a lot of peoples' opinions about him. the same applies to the stutter jokes through the years" is unfortunately a real opinion i have and got mocked for lol. which, to be fair, there is a lot to mock, it's FUCKING LOONEY TUNES, but it's coming from similarly pedantic people who try to play off their knowledge as gospel and will call you a gatekeeper for saying that that's not representative of the character

ugh sorry im getting on a whole 'nother rant but. like. WHERE'S THE JOKE. WHAT'S THE JOKE HERE. "the joke is that Daffy was wrong the whole time, it's a misunderstanding" OKAY BUT HAVING PORKY TAKE GREAT OFFENSE TO THIS AND NOT EVEN IN AN INDIGNANT WAY, BUT JUST A SAD WAY, MAKES THIS SO UNPLEASANT HOW IS THIS FUNNY. WHERE IS THE FUNNY. "it's funny because he was wrong" BUT THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE UP FOR THE FACT THAT WE'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO LAUGH AT THIS? "well it's supposed to be meanspirited and Daffy is the asshole" OK BUT THIS IS JUST UNNECESSARILY CRUEL? and THIS IS MY FAVORITE EPISODE OF THE SERIESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! AAAAHHhhh. AND HE'S NOT EVEN FAT HE IS STARVING GIVE MY MAN A SANDWICH

and again i keep saying it but there's this weird phenomenon of "well, the originals made fun of Porky's weight!" Daffy saying "oh well, i'll be [the bigger person]...........goodnight, fatboy!", demonstrating how he's NOT BEING THE BIGGER PERSON AT ALL and is being an immature little shit is SO much more different than this or talking about how Porky needs to lose weight because he has so much face or whatever. not that it makes the fat jokes in the originals better, they're very much there, but at least it feels like there's some sort of weird, twisted endearment behind them. Daffy calling Porky an "overstuffed cherub" is much different than characters telling him straight to his face that he needs to lose weight. and this is not an issue just with TLTS, it's incredibly common all through the past 30 years of LT content, even LTC has a "lol Porky's lying about what he actually ate because he's fat" joke that gets me :/ because the originals never! did! that! and i just. iunno. complete misunderstanding of the originals

and i want to say again that, in spite of all this, i don't think the originals are the end all be all. i don't think you have to see all 1000 LT shorts to be a fan. if you're just in it for TLTS? THAT'S AWESOME! enjoy it! but my issue comes from people acting like these things are FACT and SAYING these are FACT, and will go out of their way to say "don't correct me because i didn't watch some old ass short" or will accuse you of being uppity and "sophisticated" just because you're saying "that's not how this was intended". my issue is that people will "fansplain" (i hate that term im so sorry i know i sound like such a pompous elitist but it gets the point across quickly) these things to me and insist that these misrepresentations are cold hard fact (like, again, Daffy's neck ring), and then they get mad at you for trying to correct them. and it's not like i think people are stupid for not knowing these things!! but there's been such a violent pushback against educating yourself ABOUT FUCKING LOONEY TUNES GUYS IT'S LOONEY TUNES!!!!!! that has really just... ?????? i swear i've never been in a fandom that takes such pleasure in bragging about its refusal to educate itself than i have in the LT fandom. and yall. i have a very unfortunate track record of having been young on the internet and being in fandoms i should not have been. eyeballing the 10 or so of you who followed this blog from 2016-2018. hi.

god i'm getting off on so many different tangents i am so sorry anon i'm just 😭. in response to the fandomification thing/extension of that, i'm not even AGAINST the fandomification of things... IF THEY'RE DONE RIGHT. i've been a part of it and know it firsthand (hi guys you know how you are👋)! write that fic draw that fanfic have fun do what you want, etc. but it's so clear that the CONSUMPTION of these characters is purely FOR a fandom lens, when, preferably, it's the other way around. characters first, then add what you wanna do on top! but it's always the other way around, these characters are fit into the most stock and milquetoast tropes and it becomes a breeding ground of misrepresentation and turns into a domino effect of people yelling at you for disagreeing with their points that they play off as fact. life is short do what you want HAVE FUN FOR YOURSELF FIRST AND FOREMOST. i've been teaching myself this again. you don't have to have The Official LT Guidebook to draw or write what you want. but there is very much a fundamental issue of people viewing these characters with a Fandomification Lens first and foremost and using that to base their entire perception of the character and acting like that is how these characters were intended to behave, and that you're a pompous gatekeeping asshole for saying otherwise

i'm not saying you can't make your ooc posts, i'm not saying you can't ship things, i'm not saying you can't write or watch or surround yourself in what appeals to you. but i am saying that i take issue with the frequent ego problems i've run into this fandom. THE LT FANDOM. IT'S LOONEY TUNES!!!! i take issue with the ego problems i run into that are based purely on misinformation, and the borderline pride people get out of refusing to budge from it. there's so much proud ignorance and i just. iunno. me getting offended on behalf of a bunch of dead 110 year old men who have offended me on multiple occasions with some of their cartoons doesn't do anything very productive either, but. "Anti-Intellectualism and The Looney Tunes Fandom: An Essay". <- that's it that's the tweet because it made me laugh because of how insane it sounds, but i can't say it's not the point i'm trying to make

i also agree wholeheartedly with the 90s thing too. ugh. these characters and these directors and this franchise has been done so dirty over and over again

thank you so much for giving me a chance to rant i am so sorry for how whiny and obnoxious i've surely been i've just hit my limit 🙃 so many problems could be solved by watching a Daffy Duck cartoon instead (a real one that does his character justice) (just kidding) (kind of) (a little bit) (hypothetically)

how it feels