#i wanted to write four or five sentences about this topic but i always fucking yap to much

[haydenthewitch]

Buck is the one who finds him- of course. They are staying in the same home, after all. It's not like eddie could afford an airbnb, or anything.

Eddie didn't know exactly what happened, honestly. One second he was texting chris, about everything and nothing at the same time. The conversation started the same way all of the conversations had started since eddie left chris in texas to come home for Bobby's feuneral. Chris was checking in on him. god, that kid had so much empathy in his body, and eddie is half convinved that he enherted all of the care in his heart from his mother.

Anyways, he was texting chris as he was packing up some things from his grandparents home, (they argreed that home was in LA, and although it was too short notice for him to come home before the fenural, he was activly packing and planning on coming home.) when eddie just felt this pit in his stomach. he was going to have to leave LA again, and go back to his parent's house again, and he just felt weak and dizzy at the thought. and then he felt an awfuk sense of dread and guilt, knowing that chris was being brave and dealing with it everyday on his own. It felt like he was leaving pepole on both sides, and maybe if he had been in that stupid fucking lab, everything would be diffrent-

He rembers feeling dizzy, lightheaded, and having intesnse heart palptations. he rembers colapsing onto the kitchen floor, curling up into a little ball, and feeling the tips of his fingers go numb. This is it, he thinks. I'm dying. I'm going to die. He rembers thinking that it wasn't fair to Buck. He was already having such a hard time losing their captain, his father, and now he was going to find eddie? on the kitchen floor of their house, dead? from a heart attack? eddie imagines buck, dressed in mourning blacks that have seen too much use, chris at his side, looking down at his grave, and a desprate sob escapes out of him. despite the release of air, he can't seem to get any back in, panic rising in his chest.

The front door opens. "Eddie?" Buck calls out. Eddie sobs, a desprate thought of no, he shouldn't have to see me like this, before buck is rounding the corner into the kitchen, and dropping down to the kitchen floor to reach him. "Eddie!? Whats wrong??"

"I think... I'm dying," eddie sobs out. "I can't fucking b-breathe." his phone dings, surley a text from chris, and another painful sob rings out, about how fucking unfair it all is. a flash in his imagination of chris finding out about eddie over the phone, just like eddie found out about bobby.

Buck gets closer, grabing his wrist tightly and looking into both of his eyes. eddie relizes that he's assessing eddie, like a paient. Eddie just tries to hold still, letting buck check him out. "You aren't dying, eds." Buck says in a realy soft voice. Eddie sobs again, unable to comprehend that. He feels so awful, like he genuinly can't imagine how it's possible that he's not dying.

"Can you take a deep breath for me?" Buck asks, still in that too-calm, too-gentile voice. Eddie tries, he genuinly tries, but about halfway through taking a big gulping breath, he coughs and it feels like all the air in his lungs evades him.

"I c-can't." Eddie sobs, trying to get another big gulp of air in before sobbing it all out.

"It's okay, it's okay," Buck tries to reassure him. He shifts how he's sitting, so that buck is basicaly layong all of his weight on eddie, both of them sitting on the tiled floor. "Eddie, your having a panic attack." Eddie sucks a big breath in, before blowing it all out again, too quickly, and almost painfuly.

"Buck, i don't know what to do." He cries, and he can actualy see buck get emotional. "Everything hurts and i'm scared."

Buck grabs eddie's hand, pulling it in to his own. "Just focas on me okay?" Buck says. He squeezes eddie's hand, too tight, almost painful. "Can you hear my voice?" Eddie nods. "Okay, discribe it."

Eddie shakes his head, thinks about it, before he just says, "Sounds deep, and calm." Another sob, one that makes his chest ache, and buck squeezed his hand again.

"Can you feel my body pressed up against yours?" Buck asks. eddie nods. "What does that feel like?"

"warm, and heavy." Eddie doesn't relize it right away, but right about now is when the tears break, the worst of it over.

"And my hand?" Buck asks.

"Slick with sweat?" Eddie says, and buck breaks his calm demenor, a small suprised laugh coming up out of him. Eddie also feels himself laugh, a little, but he feels so tired it feels bone deep. he brings his sleeve up to wipe away some of the snot and tears on his face, and buck wordlessly helps him. Eddie breathes out again, and it kind of sounds like another laugh, but its realy an emotion closer to relief.

Eddie takes stock of his body. His chest hurts a little, but it's from the voilent sobbing, and not becuse his heart or lungs are giving out, like he thought. his vocal cords hurt from screaming and sobbing, but other than that he just feels normal. He does howeved, feel extremely exasted. The feeling is more closely tied to fatige, (like working a 24 and then driving home for an hour due to rush-hour traffic in LA) that it is to the word tired.

So, He wasn't dying. Relief flooded him.

"I'm sorry," He rasps out. "I don't-"

Buck cradles eddie's face in his hands. "It's okay." Eddie leans into his hands, feeling too tired to worry about whats 'normal' to do with his best frenid. He feels like his energy has been leached, and he can't help but lean on buck- emotionaly and physicaly. one of eddie's hands reach buck's neck, pulling him phiscaly foward untill their forheads were touching. "I'm here." Buck rasps out, and that makes eddie almost tear up again. Buck was hear for him, always.

"I need a nap," Eddie tells him. "That took it out of me."

"Panic attacks can be realy exasting," Buck says.

"I genuinly thought i was dying," Eddie tells him in disbelief. "I thought i was going to die."

"A lot of pepole feel that way when they have an attack like that." Buck says again.

"Did you use to get them, or something?" Eddie asks, pulling back slightly, so he could look Buck in the face. Buck shakes his head, then screws up his face, before nodding.

"I mean, yes, but not as extreme as yours." He explains. "I don't know all of this from experince, and that's probably what you were asking. No, I read a lot about it after the blackout, when uh... When you had that panic attack and you went to the cardiolgist." Buck screws up his face. "And you didn't tell me untill i pushed."

Eddie laughs a little. "Are you still salty about that?"

Buck cracks a smile. "A little, Yeah."

"...so that's how you knew how to help?" Eddie asks, but he already knew the anwser.

"Yep." Buck blows out a breath. "They're tecnicaly called grounding techniques, but it doesn't realy matter." Buck pauses, breaking the eye contact and looking down, like he's about to say something he doesn't want to see edddie's reaction to. "I wanted to know how to help in case you ever had one again. I know you can take care of yourself, of course.... i just needed to make sure, i guess?"

I love you, eddie thinks. I'm in love with you.

He's too tired to tell buck, but he's too tired to freak out, too. Maybe most of his filters are gone, maybe he's always felt this way. He'll figure it out in the morning. All he knows is those thoughts sink heavy like stones in a lake, and root themselfs into the very nature of his being: Eddie diaz, In love with Evan Buckley.

[beanarie]

Hey! I hope you don't mind but I'm putting in 4 picks from the writing ask meme! Obviously do with it as you will! 3 - how you feel about your current WIP 4 - a story idea you haven’t written yet 12 - a trope you’re really into right now 18 - if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

putting all of these together. thank you everyone for letting me yap 😘

(3) how you feel about your current WIP

panickinggg lmao. i have 2 weeks-ish to make it make sense and i decided all the angst week prompts are the same story (because 1 accidentally dovetailed right into 2) which, given that i've purposely not looked at the last four prompts, is, um, idk. i always panic. 🔥it'll be fine🔥

(4) a story idea you haven’t written yet

like a plot bunny? i don't really have any at the moment. lately all my creative energy gets shot in one direction, i finish the fic, take a day or two off, then i come up with another idea.

(12) a trope you’re really into right now

is mpreg a trope? because the love it of it was kinda drained out of me a decade plus ago by everyone around me's lack of interest. but bt nation watered the fuck out of my crops

(18) if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

from (not) everyone has a light switch:

"I don't know if I'd want that. At least not taking part myself. And if you told me about it, I'd probably want to shoot myself. But-"

from @geddyqueer

(28) your least favorite part of the writing process

when all the parts i like are on the page and i have to figure out the connective tissue and give the whole deal a good edit, even though my lizard brain is SCREAMING at me to post it and move on and i no longer know how to read

(17) talk about your writing and editing process

usually starts with one big scene. overthink all the words. get that down. step back. lean forward. squint until some bigger picture develops. write some other bit, preferably right after or soon after the bit that's already written. keep going until it's story-shaped, then circle back to add in any missing tendons.

(16) favorite place to write

the subway. i have a long-ish commute and nothing makes it go quicker than throwing words together

(5) first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

Buck finds his breath and he hurries over to the patch of street where Chim and Hen are crouched over Tommy.

from @nzchance

(19) the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

oh hey. did you know that when surgeons drill a hole in your skull, it doesn't heal and they often don't fill it in?

(4) a story idea you haven’t written yet

i'd kinda like to do soulmates, but i've never found a concept to sink into

from @bidisasterevankinard

(11) a WIP you’d like to finish someday

season five missing scene where chimney and buck resolve their whole you punched me-i hid your infant daughter's ER visit from you differences

(14) where do you get your inspiration?

fandom, more often than not. pretty much all my fics from the last couple of years came from prompts, text posts, or were remixes of other people's fics. off the top of my head, the only exception seems to be the parent trap fic, but even then it's in conversation with how fandom portrays the extended firefam. i'm very into the collaboration aspect.

writer asks

[stansethandpaul]

Jealousy Jealousy (rewrite)

Angst -> Fluff: Embry Call x GN!reader

Summary: Embry gives y/n a slap in the face about reality after they constantly sulk about Bella.

A/N: I'm much more content with this one and I actually might end up deleting the other one, sorry about that. I actually took a lot more time editing this and didn't write this when I was burnt out compared to the other one! I'm just overall way happier with the other one because I knew that the other one wasn't my true capability.

warnings: angst (that's all I could really think of tell me if you see anything else!)

Masterlist

Ding!

Ding!

Ding!

Constant notifications vibrated Jacob's phone as we sat on his couch together watching the movie on the screen. I shot him a look of annoyance, signaling him to check his phone which he did swiftly. His eyes shot open in surprise before he shot up from the couch and throwing on a shirt and shoes, hopping out the door as he attempted to put the last shoe on.

"Sorry y/n! Bella just told me she was free, you know what it's been like for her!" He hastily shouted out before sprinting down the gravel driveway.

"Bye!" I shouted back, trying to hide my disappointment.

I grimaced at the situation. On one hand, I knew how the sudden disappearance of the Cullens devastated her, especially Edward's sudden abandonment but this happened way too many times. But on the other, Jacob was like her puppy dog now, it was like I wasn't even his friend anymore, it was like our friendship meant nothing.

Knowing that Jacob wouldn't be back anytime soon, I got my stuff and locked the door behind me before driving over to Emily's place to surround myself in the livelier company.

"Sup y/n! Missed me didn't ya!" Jared boomed as I opened the door to which I replied with a "you wish". I chuckled at his dramatic pain as he pretended to hold his heart, eyes shut and face contorting.

"Know where Embry is?" Questioning the dramatic boy as I peered around the room to see if I could find any trace of the lanky boy, no luck.

"Finding your loverboy huh? With the deepest of regrets, I must inform you that he was put on patrol today." He said, mocking my curiosity over Embry's whereabouts. I stuck my tongue out at him to tease him before flipping him off and leaving to the porch to await Embry.

"Knock it off Paul, it's not what you think"

"yeah sure, and if it wasn't what I HEARD THROUGH THE MINDLINK then I don't know what else it could have been"

Their voices permeated through the thick fog as their silhouettes came into view, Paul's muscly tall physique was seen locking an arm around Embry's tall lanky but lean body.

"Aw buzz off Paul," Embry said as he struggled to get Paul's arm off of his neck. He laughed at his struggle before letting go as he noticed me, shooting Embry a smirk to which a slight blush came onto his face, only noticeable as they got closer. Odd.

"Sup Paul," I smirked at him before turning my attention over to Embry.

"And hello to you too wolf boy," teasing him to which he shot a glare at me before attempting to stifle his laughs.

Paul said a prompt bye before jogging into the house to fill up his appetite whilst Embry sat down next to me, his body warmth radiating. The cold air nipped at my skin, pushing me to get closer to the much warmer boy as I swung my legs into his lap and resting my head on his shoulder.

"Jacob left again?"

A sigh left my mouth at his obvious question.

Closing my eyes promptly, I answered with a short nod. A response that showed my true feelings after all these times of being blown off by Jacob.

We sat in silence, my eyes closed as I felt his shoulders move up and down in a rhythmic motion, lulling me to sleep almost. The deafening quiet seemed to almost suffocate us before I decided to talk.

"I don't know what to do anymore Embry, I'm always there for him when he needs me but, he runs to her at the drop of a hat or more like a single text message," I grumbled, reminiscing about the times Jacob's left me in the dust for Bella, excuses sprouting up.

"Why does everyone in this town seem to be so infatuated with her," expecting no response I kept going.

"Is it because she's Charlie's daughter? Hell if I was his child Jacob would be all over me too right? I'd be the hot topic of town too, people staring at me wherever I go, being suddenly accepted by the Cullen family and Jacob. I'd really have the best of both worlds wouldn't I?" Scowling at my own questions, I turned to Embry for answers.

"Am I not right?"

Silence.

"Helloooooooo, Earth to Embry?" I said, poking his cheeks with my finger. His brows seemed to be furrowed together, eyes lost in thought, his attention elsewhere.

There seemed to be no response from him to which I huffed and turned back to stare at the fog rolling in.

Closing my eyes to embrace the serenity once more, his lulling voice startled me.

“I don’t think it’s true.”

I turned my head towards him, curiosity piqued by his response.

“Let’s be real Embry, I’d have the best time of my life if I was Bella fucking Swan. Every guy would love me, all the attention would be on me and I wouldn’t be a second option again. Hell, I’d even be able to actually confess to my crush without fearing rejection.” Bitterness laced the last sentence as I satirically spoke my mind. Looking at Embry’s hands and wishing they were embracing mine, the sudden gesture of his fist clenching as his knuckles turned white shocked me, he was mad.

“God y/n, why the hell do you always need to compare yourself to Bella? She hasn’t even done anything to you. It’s always Bella this Bella that if I was her blah blah blah. Get over yourself, you’re not her and you won’t ever be. Learn how to appreciate yourself and live YOUR life and stop moping around. So what Jacob runs to Bella each time, you have Jared, Emily, Paul, and everyone else.”

A long silence suspended in the air.

“You have me and you come running, you never see the other people around you cause you’re too busy complaining. You can’t even see how much I love you cause you’re so stuck up about being Bella and being Jacob’s priority aren’t you?” Finishing his sentence, he proceeded to get up before walking away. Stopping before reaching the woods, his back faced to me, he spoke simply.

“Find me when you can learn to be y/n and not Bella.”

His form morphed before running into the woods on all fours, leaving me stunned. After a brief moment, tears flooded my eyes. I never got to tell him that I do like him, I never got to tell him that I just want his attention, I just wanted him.

Thoughts spiraled in my head, I was jealous of Bella for sure but I was jealous because of the attention she was given. I just wanted Embry to treat me like she was treated, I wanted to be special to him.

I ran home, I ran because I was scared. I was scared I wouldn't be able to look at him properly.

Weeks passed as we ceased to talk, and I ceased to exist in the small town of Forks. Or so I thought.

I groaned as heavy knocks assaulted my front door, I picked up the phone looking at the time. Who the hell shows up at someone's house at 4am?

Throwing on a sweater and sweats, I dragged myself to the front door, the cold hardwood floor seemingly repelling me from ever making any progress. I swung the door open, grumbling as my eyes were half open wondering who it was.

Jacob Black.

Mentally sighing, I invited him inside from the pouring rain, he seemed devastated.

He sat down after he changed as I made him some hot chocolate to comfort him.

"She chose him y/n, he came back and she chose him over me. She drove to Italy for that stupid bloodsucker." His cracking voice was more than enough for me to grasp his frustration and devastation.

"I dropped everything for her, I did everything for her y/n. And she still chose the guy that skipped town huh?" Laughing bitterly at the situation, I stared at his cup before handing it to him.

"Maybe if I was better than Edward I would've won this stupid fucking battle," his words escaping his clenched teeth. He was like me, we were jealous of someone, someone that seemed to win everything, someone that we were not. The words spoken to me by Embry were words I carried with me even as I was moping over the whole situation.

"Stop comparing yourself to him, Jacob. You're not Edward and you won't ever be him. You're so insistent on being better than Edward or being Edward that you can't even see what's in front of you. I was always here for you Jake, I was always here but you treated me like I was a second option. You left me in a heartbeat for her but you never had time to spend with me, not even five minutes, when you were with her," I too chuckled bitterly at the ironic situation, me and Jacob were similar in many ways.

"Learn to live your life, don't live it for her or because of her, learn how to live it like you want." Those words seemed to resonate deep within both of us. After finally speaking those words, I realized that I was ready to live my life as y/n, a citizen of the small city of Forks, and not vying to be Bella, the new girl to forks.

I stood up, putting on shoes hastily before grabbing the handle. I could sense Jacob's attempt to stop me and apologize for his treatment but I knew better.

"It's ok, I know you're gonna apologize. I'm not going to accept, I want the Jake that will care and treat everyone with the same importance that you had for Bella. Come to me when you're ready, but until then I hope you grow and learn how to live your life."

I paused again, one foot out of the door.

"I have someone important to apologize to, someone that didn't leave me in the blink of an eye."

I hurriedly shut the door behind me before running to the woods, my lungs burning and legs aching as I forced myself to my limit. I ran and ran, visions of the houses slowly turned to trees, the crunching leaves under my feet reminded me of the days we would all run through the woods.

My breathing became labored as I was reaching my breaking point but it was close, our place was close. Then, in my distant vision, I could see it. That one pine tree, seemingly normal to many, but to me, it held our memories. The initials only reassured my assumption as I knew that he would be here waiting. As I got closer to the tree, my legs gave out under me, sending me tumbling to the ground whilst tree branches scratched my arms and ripped a hole in my pants.

"EMBRY! EMBRY I'M HERE PLEASE!" I shouted into the dark forest, eyes tearing up once more as I pleaded.

"I LOVE YOU EMBRY CALL AND I'M SORRY I WAS TOO BLIND TO REALIZE IT!" I shouted once more before crumpling closer to the ground, my tears now fully flowing and hitting the dead leaves below.

Maybe I took too long, maybe he moved on, maybe I was too jealous of someone to even realize his love.

As sobs continued throughout my body, the hope of him ever coming was diminishing.

I was too late.

Suddenly, I felt a pair of strong but warm arms wrap around my waist and pulling me up.

"Shhh, it's ok I'm here now."

That voice, I looked up to see Embry's face which held a dorky grin. I threw my arms around him as sobs still left my body, the emotional rollercoaster was far too much for me to handle.

"I-i'm s-s-so sorry Embry, I was too focused on trying to be Bella that I-"

"I know, I know, I heard it all," shushing me as he rubbed circles on my back consoling me. After what felt like hours in his embrace, I finally calmed down and only tear stains remained.

I finally lifted my head to meet his eyes properly this time, he stared back with tender eyes.

"You finally learned how to live for you huh?" He asked, not expecting an answer to which I was oblivious.

Before I could respond, he pressed his lips to mine. I didn't try and fight it and melted into it instead.

I was blind to be jealous of Bella when I already had something that she fought to keep.

Smiling mentally, I wrapped my arms around his neck to deepen the kiss.

Taglist: @krispypotato @therandomficwriter @crackheadenergy101 @cole22ann @uraveragegorewhore @xxx-wounded-angel-xxx @theonlyabby02 @lendeluxe @sassybadqueen @myflicker @junitorials13 @leahishotclearwater @pillowjj @mangobubblet3a @fuzzy-panda @beautiful-1nsanity @asprinkleoffaithandtrust @remembered-license @gutflorizt @sassybadqueen @britty443 @tsukkiswifeey @uraveragegorewhore @blackqueens01 @asprinkleoffaithandtrust @remembered-license @alwayshave-faith @nichia88-blog

[typewrittenluck]

as the seasons change

C!Technoblade x gn!reader highschool!au

Word Count: 9.1k

Pronouns: they/them

A/N: this is literally so self indulgent, i spent a whole day writing this because im going through my techno feels rn. it basically follows the story of oblivious Y/N and Techno throughout the four seasons :)

Warnings: Underaged drinking, Swearing, Smoking, Drugs (very brief)

Suggested Songs: The State of Grace, Taylor Swift/ MEET ME AT OUR SPOT, THE ANXIETY, WILLOW, Tyler Cole/ that way, Tate McRae/ Falling, Chase Atlantic/ Compass, The Neighborhood

SUMMER------------

The August air was thick with the heat of the almost-setting sun. Her rays beat down on the backs of the group of teens, and mosquitos filled the silences between them with their incessant buzzing.

A small crack of static preceded the soft sound of music, accompanied by the sharp smack of Niki and Jack’s celebratory high-five.

“Didn’t you start setting up the speaker like an hour ago?” questioned Wilbur, who was sunk into a half-broken lawn chair that he had found in the garage. 

“Yeah, it would have been much faster if you had asked Techno” chimed Y/N from their place leaning against the above mentioned man’s leg.

His grunt of response was cut short by his little brother, Tommy, bursting into laughter.

“Because he’s TECHno! Get it?!”

Everyone groaned and Wilbur smacked Tommy upside the head, grumbling about “shouldn’t have let you come hang out with us”

Y/N giggled at that, but took sympathy on the boy. “Aww don’t be like that Wil, Tommy, I thought that was hilarious.”

“Don’t encourage him, Y/N” Techno leaned down to murmured to them in his low, monotonous voice.

There it was. The way he said their name! The way his calf felt under Y/N’s back! The way he whispered sentences directly to them, as if it was some closely guarded secret. It was enough to bring butterflies to their stomach as they praised whatever higher being was out there for the heat of the day covering their blush.

“It’s so fucking hot,” Fundy moaned, kicking Wilburs shin from his place lying facedown on the grass. “Can we go to the pool or something?”

His request was met with a spectrum of responses, varying from Tommy’s “YES, PLEASE WILL? PLEASE!” to Technoblades indifferent shrug.

Jack took note of Technoblades open response with a shout of laughter. “TECHNOBLADE IN THE POOL! I WOULD PAY GOOD MON-”

“I’m not getting in, dumbass.”

“Why? Scared you’ll ruin your hair?”

“No, he doesn’t want us to know he’s secretly jacked under the sixteen sweaters he wears.”

Technoblade picked up the hem of his sweatshirt, making eye contact with Niki. She has a point.

“How do you wear that in the Summer?”

“It’s n- TOMMY!!” 

Shrieks of laughter follow Tommy’s water gun assault on his brother. “When did he slip away to go get those?” Y/N wondered aloud.

“WHEN ARE WE LEAVING??” Tommy asked enthusiastically. 

---

A crowded minivan, a stop to pick up Tommy’s friend, and a raid of Phil’s linen closet for pool towels later, the group arrived at the neighborhood pool. The sun hung low in the horizon as people spilled out of Phil’s van and began dragging the pool toys and water guns towards the gate.

The air around the black metal bars barring their entrance to the pool seemed to quiver. 

“I think Wil has the pool key.” piped Niki in response to Fundy throwing his weight against the fence. 

Fundy, in turn, sprinted back to the car, where Wilbur was taking inventory of snacks (and probably hiding the best for himself). 

Technoblade looked down at the two younger boys and Y/N conversing in hushed whispers. All of a sudden, they screamed out in perfect synchronization, in equally high pitched voices,

“Let me innnn! Let me in pleaseeee!”

And promptly burst into giggles. Y/N almost toppled into Techno, both from laughing and the slight weariness from the heat. 

The pool noodles he was balancing beneath his arms (laden with tote bags of pool toys and towels) toppled to the ground, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was Y/N’s hand steadying themself on his chest, and the way his face began to heat up almost unbearably considering the weather. 

“Oops, sorry!” they squeaked, leaning down to pick up the fallen noodles.

Technoblade was burst out of his daze by the return of his brother and Fundy, who triumphantly swiped the access card against the pad before kicking the gate wide open.

The clang of metal against the concrete pool clubhouse sent reverberating waves into the air, and everyone winced as the metal continued to drag. 

Pool entrances varied, Niki, on the one hand, took her time tip-toeing into the water by the stairs, while Tubbo and Tommy almost knocked each other out crashing over the edge to the deep end.

Y/N chuckled at their antics, but seeing as they had settled on not getting wet today, they picked out a chaise in the shade and pulled a book and pen out of the small bag they had brought with them.

Technoblade watched them with almost unwavering interest, unless someone happened to look his way, in which case he would quickly turn back to his phone, scrolling aimlessly through his home screen until they turned away.

From his spot under the little roof of the clubhouse, he had an almost unobstructed view of Y/N, and how they chewed at the end of the pen they used to annotate their book. Oh how he wished he could read the little notes they scribbled in the margins, or the drawings they would surround words with when they got distracted from reading. And the way that pen dangled from their lips, their tantalizing, soft lips. Taunting him, almost. And their jewel-like, bright eyes. Always so inviting and playful; like the way they were meeting his right now-

Shit

He hadn’t realized he’d been staring that intently. A small quirk of their eyebrow and a smirk on their lips was enough to make his heart give out. But not now. Not when they were waving their hand so intently to get him to sit next to them. Pretending to ponder the decision and gather his belongings, (when in reality he was just collecting his bearings), he walked over to them.

“See! You don’t always want to be alone, Mr. I’m so antisocial and I hate everyone!” they smiled, patting the adjacent seat.

You’re the only exception, he thought, his brain screaming and pushing to let the words leave his mouth. He couldn’t though, not when they could never think of him the way that he thought of them.

So he answered with a small smile and a chuckle. 

“What are you reading?”

“The Picture of Dorian Gray! Remember you said you thought I’d enjoy it?” they answered with enthusiasm, that sparkle still evident in their eyes.

It warmed his heart to know that they had taken the suggestion and committed to the book, which was admittedly a pretty tough read, because of him.

“How could I forget?”

Their smile widened and they buried their head back in the book, that cursed pen once again being squished between their plush lips.

Technoblade peered over their shoulder to see that they were nearing the middle of the book, where Dorian returns from his  theater date with Basil and Henry. Feeling satisfied enough that they were invested in the story, given their gasp and furious scribbling in the margins, he felt it safe enough to stare at them under the orange-tinged glow of the sunset. 

Of course, he forgot about the crowd of his friends who were nudging each other and whispering about his infatuation with you. The whispers reached Wilbur who narrowed his eyes in his twin's direction and made a mental note to ask him about it later.

Once dark hit and the water began to run a little too cold for anyone's taste, they began to wrap themselves up in towels and raid Wilburs snack stashes. The snack distribution was cut off by Wilburs phone, screen lit up with a zoomed in photo of none other than Philza. 

DADZA!!! Read the contact name as Wilbur swiped the screen and held the phone between his shoulder and ear, continuing to hand out snacks.

“OI, where in fucks sake are you lot? It’s an hour past the devils ass why i…”

The rest of Phil’s screaming faded as Wilbur walked away to calm his father down. 

“AN HOUR PAST THE DEVILS ASS” Y/N screamed with laughter, sending the entire group into raucous peals of giggles.

“Yep, mhhm, we’ll be there” Wilbur walked back towards the group, motioning for everyone to get in the car.

“Yes dad I know, yes, okay we will drop him off. Okay, bye” Hanging up the phone, he ushered people back into the car, holding Tubbo back by his upper arm so that he could sit with easiest access to the door.

After dropping Tubbo off, and then doubling back and driving around town to drop people off at various houses, Technoblade, Tommy and Wilbur were alone in the car with Y/N. 

“Here. Here. WIL! Pull over!” 

The van screeched to a halt as Y/N clambered over Tommy’s long legs, almost falling out onto the pavement. They leaned against the door of the passenger seat, thanking Wilbur and bidding farewell to the brothers. Just before they stepped away, Technoblade leaned down and kissed the crown of their head where it was leaning against his open window. Their stunned expression was lost in the dark and the window slid shut as Wilbur slammed the gas pedal to make it back in time before his dad’s curfew.

“What the fuck was that” 

Technoblade gave him a glare, which lost its effectiveness when paired with the burning red blush flooding his face and neck, highlighted under the harsh white lights of the car. He turned his face away and resigned to staring out the window, the night air filtering through the small crack giving his face a little bit of relief.

“Okay at least tell me, are you together?”

“No.”

“But he likes them!” piped up Tommy from the back seat, looking up from his phone where he was playing a game.

“No I- I don’t” Damnit The crack in his voice gave it away.

Wilbur, sensing that it seemed to be more of a sensitive topic than he thought, decided to drop the subject for the time being, and Tommy was already absorbed back in his game.

The rest of the drive was spent in silence as they raced against time and the rules of Philza Minecraft.

AUTUMN----------------------

School started a few weeks after the pool night, which was followed by many late nights and summer fun by the friends, the knowledge that half of them would be away to college next year heavy in the atmosphere. To say the least, Junior year was not treating Y/N well. They were almost always working on homework, if not doing SAT prep, and they rarely went out with their friends. The only time Technoblade got to see them was during his AP Lit class, and because of it, he considered himself the luckiest man in the world. Ms. Ren’s Literature classroom was the only place Technoblade seemed to see the old Y/N, the one from over the summer who got enthusiastic over books and gave him playful punches when he was a little too mean to their friends. Now, the only Y/N he saw was a stressed, tired person who was always carrying an energy drink in one hand and a stack of homework in the other. Except for in Lit. Y/n’s eyes would brighten as they discussed the reading from the previous night and their legs would jostle Technoblades from under their shared table to show him an annotation they had made. Technoblade assumed they were just rejuvenated from the literature, never once letting the thought cross his mind that maybe, just maybe, he was part of the equation too.

On the rare occasion that they would hang out with their friends, they would be easily prone to tears and every conversation would be redirected to how tired and stressed they were. Of course, Technoblade wanted them to be happy, and felt enormous empathy for his friend in the harshest year of high school, but he had suddenly become hyper-aware that the clock was ticking on his time left with them. He was a senior this year, and while Y/N still had a year left to go, Technoblade would be on his way to college, perhaps out of the country, in less than a year. It wasn’t wrong to want to make the most of his time with them.

It didn’t help that this internal time bomb was also counting down the opportunities he had left to tell them how he felt.

-----

He decided to get to them when they were in a good mood, and more likely to say yes. After Ms. Ren had finished assigning the reading due by Monday, he turned to the beautiful person who sat next to him and muttered in a low voice, 

“How’s your weekend looking?”

They looked up with a bright smile and whispered back

“I have tons of homework but I should be able to knock it out with a good day of work. Why? What do you have in mind?”

He knew this was the right time to ask you. 

“Just be ready by 4pm on Saturday.”

----

Technoblade sat on the edge of his usually neat bed, now strewn with almost every sweater he owned. He was picking a stray piece of lint from the sweater nearest to him when he saw his brother walk past, then backtrack out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s got you all indecisive?” Wilbur asked, gesturing vaguely to the sweaters and random articles of clothing adorning his room.

“Wait! Is today your date with Y/N?”

“It’s not a date.” grumbled Technoblade.

“Then why are you so stressed about what to wear?” he replied with raised eyebrows.

Technoblade groaned and threw himself on top of the pile of wool on his bed. “I just need this to be perfect. Y/N needs a break, and they deserve everything to be just right.”

“And you want to impress them” sang Wilbur, now nudging Techno aside to sift through his sweaters.

Technoblades noise of indignation was muffled as Wilbur threw a cream colored sweatshirt at his face. 

“What about this?”

“I couldn’t find what to wear it with.”

Wilburs sigh rang through Technoblades room as he opened the closet, now in his proper mindset as the family fashion consultant. Garment after garment was thrown in Techno’s general direction, and he leaned and reached to grab them all. 

“Try that”

Technoblade walked out of the bathroom to find Wilbur rummaging through his jewelry. 

“When did I say it was fine for you to go through my stuff?” asked Technoblade, shoving Wilbur away. Wilbur shrugged in response, motioning for Techno to open his hand so that he could drop his selection of rings and necklaces into his open palm.

As Wilbur walked out the door, he thought he heard a faint “thank you”, and smiled to himself.

-----

“This is elaborate”

“I’m a dynamic man Y/N.”

Y/N laughed at his response to the back seat of Technoblades car, which was filled with “supplies” for the evening.

“That outfit sure is dynamic.”

“Why?” Technoblade asked nervously, drumming slightly on the steering wheel. “Do you like it?”

“I love it! I didn’t think you could get any hotter but you somehow pulled it off!”

Realizing what they said, Y/N’s cheeks flushed a deep red and they began to pick at their flannel. As soon as Technoblades surprise wore off, and the butterflies faded back to the dull sensation that always seemed to linger when he was around them, he let out a snort of laughter. That sent both of them into a fit which continued until Technoblade hit a pothole from laughing so hard. 

Y/N’s momentary fear only made them laugh harder, but Technoblade attempted to quell himself before he no longer had four functioning tires.

“Do I get to know where you’re taking me?” Y/N asked. They had driven a little ways out from the city, to the vaguely familiar areas that one only drives by when they’re leaving town.

“Yes.” He replied, slowing the car into a small parking lot. “Because we’re here.”

The pair entered the small bookshop and a bell rang overhead. The store smelled of dust and books and Technoblade saw Y/N breathing the scent in like a breath of new life. Of course, this ended up in a small coughing fit which he pulled them out of with a few pats to their upper back. 

“Okay we are on somewhat of a schedule, so I need you to go get a book. Any book, and meet me back at the register in 10 minutes.” He said, grabbing them by the shoulders and making direct eye contact. “Okay, Go!” 

And they both got lost in the mazes of words.

At 4:30 sharp, Y/N found Technoblade waiting for them at the register with a stiff red hardcover. He reached out for their book as they reached for their wallet. 

“Tech, no, you don’t have to buy me books I can get it myself”

If for nothing else, the way they shortened the already shortened version of his name made his heart stutter, and he was overcome with the sudden urge to buy them every book in this store. But he wordlessly nodded his head ‘no’ and paid for their two books. 

As they walked back to the car, Y/N admired the way his jewelry glistened in the sun. The gold necklaces contrasting against the black turtleneck he wore under his sweatshirt made them think of the summer, when his rings would shine under the sun and in the light of their almost nightly group bonfire. Technoblade opened the door for them when they got to the car, pink hair flying in his face because of the wind. Before getting in, Y/N threw their arms around his neck in a hug.

“Thanks”

They mumbled into his neck.

He blamed his pink cheeks on the cold.

-----

“Let me carry something!” Y/N argued as Technoblade led them down the path of a park a little ways away from the bookstore.

“No.” he answered, a basket and three bags dangling from his arms. 

The argument continued as they made their way down the paved path, leaves crunching underneath their feet. A little ways into the walk, when the conversation had faded to discussing the latest reading assigned by Ms. Ren, Technoblade stopped Y/N by throwing a tote bag-laden arm against their chest.

“Here.”

He parted the branches that covered a small, unpaved path that led deeper into the trees.

“How do I know you’re not trying to lure me here to kill me?” mused Y/N, already a few steps ahead of the pink-haired man on the pine-straw path.

“Yeah hold on, let me just get my axe out from this basket real quick” deadpanned Technoblade, earning a giggle from Y/N.

A few moments later, the path opened up to a clearing with a few fallen logs and a small brook trickling near the edge.

“This is beautiful Tech! How did you find this?” they asked with an awestruck expression.

He hid the way that his ears flushed with his hair and busied himself laying out the picnic supplies he had dragged all the way out here, mumbling something unintelligible.

Once he was done, he looked up to find an empty clearing, Y/N nowhere to be found.

“Y/N?” he called

He received a response in the form of a small yelp and a rather loud splash. “Over here!”

“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked, sprinting over to the edge of the stream. Their giggles calmed him a little bit, but didn’t absolve him of all his worry as he subtly looked them over for any injuries. 

“I thought the rock would be steady enough to hold me” they pouted, gesturing vaguely at the rock in question, now shiny with water.

Technoblade sighed, rolling his eyes at their antics, but hoisted them up nonetheless. Once they were back on solid ground, he curled his finger around the back of his sweatshirt's neckline and pulled it over his head, almost knocking off his glasses in the process. He missed the way Y/N’s eyes narrowed and focused on the way his black knit turtleneck hugged his figure, tucked into the dark brown trousers Wilbur had dug out of his closet just hours previously.

“Are you warm?” asked Y/N with an incredulous look, teeth slightly chattering.

“It’s for you, dumbass. You’re almost sure to get sick in those wet clothes.”

Y/N’s heart stuttered at the gesture, and at the way Technoblade shushed them when they tried to argue.

He turned away as Y/N shed their dripping flannel and replaced it with the sweatshirt, warmed by his own body heat. 

When he turned back, he almost lost his breath again. Seeing them in his sweatshirt, the sleeves dangling past their fingertips and their hair a little tousled from pulling the garment over their head, messed with him just a little bit. He ignored the way that his cold-nipped nose was turning redder and redder and instead gently picked up their hand to guide them over to where he had set up the picnic, next to a towering tree with a thick trunk.

Both of them were hyper-aware of the way that his fingers held theirs, and the warmth that seemed to radiate from their touch. Neither one of them wanted to let go, but as they plopped down onto the picnic blanket sitting on the ground, their grip fell apart.

The loss of contact made the October day seem colder.

The muffled crunching of the leaves under their butts filled the air as they settled into a comfortable position and began digging through the picnic basket Technoblade had brought with food. The tension in the air slowly faded as they began to eat and the atmosphere filled with the joyous conversation of the two painfully oblivious teenagers. 

When they had both finished eating, Technoblade pulled out the bag that he had brought from the bookstore and handed Y/N their book. The smile that graced their lips as they mumbled out another ‘thank you’ brought another wave of butterflies down Technoblades stomach. He pulled out his own book and made himself comfortable against the thick tree trunk behind him. Y/N reached into their back pocket and pulled out a ballpoint pen, the cap of the pen riddled with chew marks. 

The damn pen.

They stuck it between their teeth and let it hang off of the right side of their mouth. Technoblade felt his chest heat up as they nudged him over to share his spot leaning against the tree. He opened his phone and hit play on a mix of Arctic Monkeys and Gang of Youths, before leaning back to where his shoulder was pressed with theirs and opened his book.

Time seemed to forget its rules in this quiet little forest, with just Y/N and Technoblade lost in their separate worlds of words. The peace was only ever disturbed by Y/N occasionally scribbling something down in the margin of their book, to which Technoblade would demand to see, and they would fall into a small discussion about the topic.

These occasions slowly began to wane off until Technoblade felt Y/N lean their head against him with a thud. He looked down to see them fast asleep, half leaning on his shoulder with the pen still clutched between their fingers. He took note of the way the pen was balanced like a cigarette and the small puffs of air following their cold breath resembled smoke. Ignored the way his heart was almost convulsing on itself, he chose to wrap his arm around them and savour the moment.

Because he was aware that before he knew it, it would be over.

WINTER---------------------------

The student media center had a hushed atmosphere to it, as people took advantage of their last afternoon to study for semester finals. Winter break would let out the next day, but for the overwhelmed Juniors and Seniors now crowding the library, the excitement would not set in until they quelled their nervousness over the last final of the semester.

One of the study rooms situated in the back was now crowded with the notorious friend group as they crammed for their last final. Fundy, Jack and Niki were trading around their history notes, Wilbur and Minx were arguing over the proper situation of a unit circle, and Technoblade was flash quizzing Y/N on the Polyatomic ions. Their frantic studying was interrupted by their friend, George, who had gotten bored of watching his two best friends during their last football practice of the semester. He quietly walked in and took a seat in the corner, pulling out a notebook and studying something or the other. 

“Why aren't Dream and Sapnap here cramming with us?” Minx asked George.

“They have their ‘weightlifting’ final tomorrow” seethed George, most likely jealous of his friends’ somewhat pointless final.

Everyone laughed, and some groans of similar jealousy rang through the air right before the cracking loudspeaker of the school crunched to life, announcing that the doors would close at 6:00. Y/N looked down at their watch face, which read 5:45.

“Fuck, I’m never going to learn these charges! Don’t even get me started on the fact that I don’t have the solubility rules memorized!” squeaked Y/N in frustration. Everyone gave them a sympathetic look, knowing the rigorous emotional and mental demands of taking AP Chemistry.

“Don’t worry, you still have the whole night to study!” consoled Fundy.

Technoblade felt his heart break at the way their eyes filled with tears of frustration. 

“My siblings scream way too much, I can never concentrate at home”

“Come study at our house!” exclaimed Wilbur. “We can kick Tommy out so he won’t bother you!”

Wilbur sensed their hesitation and cut in before they could say ‘no’

“Come on, Dad won’t mind, he loves you! And it gives us an excuse to send Tommy out!”

Y/N turned their head in questioning to Technoblade, who grunted and nodded his head.

“I mean, if you’re sure”

Eager nodding.

“Thanks so much Wil!”

---

It was 11:50 and Phil’s living room resembled something closer to an FBI clue board, with flashcards and chemistry notes strewn on every possible surface. Wilbur had retired to bed after reviewing his Calculus notes one last time, and Tommy was spending the night at Tubbo’s. Phil leaned against the doorway and watched his son coach his best friend through the last few chapters of the textbook with a smile on his face.

“Make sure not to go to sleep too late! You need enough sleep for your final!” he called, retreating up the stairs.

Y/N checked their watch and sighed at the time. “I should get going soon.” they mumbled, beginning to collect their notes.

“Stay the night” suggested Technoblade, pulling a blanket over their shoulders to protect them from the December chill that seemed ever-present, even with the crackling fireplace illuminating the room. 

“I can’t-” A yawn cut their sentence “I can’t stay, I don't have anything and I’ve wasted enough of your time already”

Technoblade took them by the shoulders and looked them in the eyes, albeit having to lean down. “You can never waste my time”

Shivers ran through Y/N’s tired body and they offered him a weak smile.

He plucked the pen that was hanging from their mouth out and feigned disgust as he wiped it on their shirt, before throwing it in the pile of stationary by his feet.

“How about you stay for a hot chocolate?”

The invitation was too hard to resist so they gave in, as long as it was “only ten more minutes”.

Technoblade filled two mugs from the pot of the beverage that Phil had left on the stove, and topped it with marshmallows and whipped cream.

Y/N took the mug from him with a ‘thank you!’, and led the way back to the living room to nestle under the warmth of the fireplace. The pair were both exhausted from the day of studying, and chose to sip their beverages in silence. Before either of them knew it, they were both asleep under Y/N’s blanket, cuddled up against the cold of the night.

---

They woke up to the banging of Wilbur running down the stairs. 

“Shit, you two are still asleep?”

Y/N jumped up, knocking over their empty mug in the process. “Fuck, what time is it?” they asked, urgently rummaging around for their bag.

“8:00”

“What time is your final?” grumbled Technoblade, still half-asleep with no intention to get up until his final later that day.

“8:20” they whined, almost breaking down. 

“Hey, it’s fine, go get clothes from my room, take anything you want. I’ll drive you.” said Technoblade in a calming voice.

Y/N looked at him with desperate eyes and thanked him before retracing the familiar path to his bedroom.

Technoblade cracked his back and followed Wilbur into the kitchen, intending to make Y/N a nutritious breakfast and pack them a lunch, but was met with Wilburs smirking face.

“What’s the deal?” said Technoblade in his monotonous low, pulling things from out of the fridge.

“Are we going to ignore that you and Y/N slept together?”

“Gross you perv, we just fell asleep studying”

Wilburs smart-ass response was cut off by the arrival of the person in question, clad in one of Technoblades sweaters and sweatpants and ripping their fingers through their hair to attempt to tame it.

Technoblade ignored the all-too-familiar flutter of his heart at seeing them in his clothes and handed them a yogurt bowl he put together. “Let’s go, you can eat it in the car.”

They definitely broke laws driving at breakneck speed, but they pulled into the school parking lot at 8:15 and jumped out of the car, Technoblade following them to make sure they made it to the Chemistry classroom on time. With a minute and a half to spare, they arrived at the door to the classroom, earning a sigh of relief from both of them. 

Dr. Yachtrong ushered Y/N into the classroom, but not before Technoblade placed a kiss on their forehead and wished them good luck. They entered the classroom in a daze, which they quickly shook off when the tests were passed out.

---

The final bell rang for the day and the cheers rang around the school, drowning out the crunchy loudspeaker announcements to “have a good Christmas” and to “make good decisions”. Y/N had headed off to their last few classes following the Chemistry final, which had gone as good as one could expect a Chemistry exam to go. They were fairly sure they had passed which at this point, was a major win. As they left the History hallway, they saw their friend Karl leaving the art classroom. 

“Karl!” they waved him down.

“HEY! Y/N!!!” he giggled excitedly “Schools out!”

“I know!”

Excited chatter filled the hallways and they bumped into Sapnap, Punz, and Dream leaving the weights room. 

“How was your weightlifting final?” snickered Y/N

Punz answered with a slight push to their head. The group was shot out at the front courtyard, where almost all of their other friends were waiting.

The celebratory mood was punctuated by Karl inviting everyone over for an “Epic School Sucks Party” at his house later that night.

Y/N looked around, searching for the pink-haired man that had been flooding their thoughts more than usual lately.

He had been acting differently, nervous even, since the day they fell asleep on him at the park. Y/N was only scared last night's incident would make it worse.

“He’s probably finishing up his Latin stuff” murmured Wilbur, leaning down to their ear.

Y/N’s ears burnt a bright red upon knowing that Wilbur knew who they were looking for. They looked up to answer, but he had already gotten immersed in a conversation with Quackity and George. 

The man in question came out of the front doors of the building and made a beeline for their cluster of people upon seeing them. Y/N couldn’t help but admire the cuffs he wore on his slightly pointed ears, and the way his long pink hair fell behind his-

“Oi Y/N is that Technoblades sweater?”

Screw you Minx

“Y/N spent a surprise night over last night” snickered Wilbur, wiggling his eyebrows.

“It's. Not. Like. That.” screeched Y/N, punctuating each word with a smack to Wilbur, somewhat drowned in the laughs and gasps of everyone in their group.

“Why are we hitting Wilbur and can I join?” asked Technoblade once he integrated himself into the tangle of people. The laughs hushed as everyone turned to look between Y/N and Technoblade.

“What?”

-----

The heat of Niki’s curling iron sent warm shivers down Y/N’s neck, a grateful contrast to the harsh December chill plaguing the outdoors. She blew gently on the warm hair before letting it all fall back, tousling it to break up the curls.

“Thanks Niki!” said Y/N gratefully, examining themselves in the mirror. “You’re going to have to teach me how to do this someday.”

Niki laughed, already standing in front of the bathroom mirror to apply her eyeliner. With one eye closed, she spoke to the person now standing behind her, checking their outfit from different angles. 

“So really, what’s going on between you and Technoblade?”

She knew of their intense crush on the pink-haired boy, which had started somewhere between 8th grade and freshman year, but she also knew that Y/N tended to be more closed off about their deep personal life.

Y/N sighed, almost in disappointment. “Nothing. And that’s the problem.”

Due to Niki’s sympathetic look thrown their way, they fell down a rabbit hole of ranting which led them to where they were now; on the floor beside Niki’s bed with Y/N’s head in her lap.

“He always acts so weird around me. One minute he’s  holding my hand or kissing my forehead, and the next he won't even look at me, or only answers in short sentences. And it stresses me out because I think he hates me, but then he does shit like buying me books just to go read in a forest with him, or staying up all night with me to study for my Chemistry final, and I just-” They took a deep breath, containing their rambling.

“I just get more confused.”

----------

 Karls party was in full swing by the time Niki and Y/N got there. They were met at the door by Sapnap and Quackity, who for some reason were handcuffed to each other, and were both giggling and flushed. Y/N and Niki hung their coats on the rack by the door and walked into the festive atmosphere of the house, seeing familiar faces in every corner.

Despite the rowdy environment and the deafening noise, the party was relatively small, consisting of only 20 or so of Karls friends.

They followed Quackity and Sapnap into the living room where a semi-circle of people was lounging on various couches, passing around a blunt and playing what seemed to be truth or dare.

Ah. That’s where the handcuffs came from.

Niki and Y/N decided to play, Niki offering to go fetch them both drinks in the kitchen as Y/N found their place in the circle. To their surprise, Technoblade was there, seemingly uninterested in the game and more invested in something he was doing on his phone. Upon seeing Y/N, he gave them a smile, cheeks flushed with alcohol, and gestured to the small spot between him and the couch armrest. All eyes followed Y/N as they perched on the armrest, mumbling a small ‘hi!’ to Technoblade.

Niki returned with two drinks in hand and shared a knowing glance with Y/N, as well as a miniscule smile, before handing them their drink and taking a seat on a cushion next to Jack and Minx.

“Okay okay, In honor of our new guests arriving, Y/N, truth or dare?” 

Y/N knew by the looks everyone was giving them that choosing truth would not be the best option.

“Dare.”

A small sigh of disappointment left Karls lips before a mischievous light came into his eyes and he perked up again. “I dare you to sit in Technoblade’s lap”

Snickers echoed across the group as Technoblade looked up at the sound of his name. He looked up to where Y/N was balancing themself on the edge of the couch, and with some burst of courage, that was probably induced by the alcohol, he wrapped his arm around their waist to tug them into his lap with a squeak of surprise.

After recovering from their initial embarrassment, Y/N turned to the man whose lap they were in. “Techno, truth or dare?”

He huffed but quietly breathed out “Truth”, suddenly very aware of how close their face was to his. After a few brief seconds of eye contact which seemed to last an eternity, they stuttered out

“Umm, do you,- actually, how did, how did they get you to play? This game... I mean?”

“BOO! WHAT A BORING FOOKIN QUESTION!” called Minx from the cushion she was on.

His response of how he didn’t mean to get dragged in to this “stupid middle schoolers game” was slightly slurred as he took a big chug of whatever liquid was floating around his red solo cup.

This worried Y/N. They never saw Technoblade drink more than enough to get him slightly tipsy, but they brushed it off on end-of-the-semester excitement. In any case, they would confront him when they got the opportunity to talk to him alone.

---

Said opportunity arose after the Pizza arrived, and most people began to file into Karls movie room to watch whatever garbage show he decided on running. Y/N stayed back, intending to have full access to the pizza and Technoblade, noticing this, stayed with them. Y/N hopped up onto a counter and pulled the pizza boxes to them.

“Hey Tech?”

“Heh?”

“Are you okay? I haven't seen you drink this much before?” they asked, running a concerned hand through his hair before pressing it to his forehead to check how hot he was.

His eyes closed and he nuzzled into their touch.

“I guess I’m just nervous.”

“Nervous? What do you have to be nervous about? It’s winter break” they answered, a small smile on their beautiful face.

This was his chance.

“I have to start applying for colleges.”

Fuck, he missed it.

-----

The food brought a new bought of energy to everyone at the party, and by 3 in the morning, the celebration was still heavy in the air. Everyone thanked whatever brought Karl’s parents to buy a house far removed from any close neighborhoods, so the noise wouldn’t earn them a police visit.

Loud music blared from the speakers in the living room, which had been cleared of furniture to make space for the energetic teenagers.

Y/N took turns dancing with Niki, Minx, and Jack before being stolen away by Sapnap who spun them around until they almost threw up. Eventually, Y/N ended up on the outskirts of the dancefloor, where they saw their favorite apathetic pig-boy leaning against a corner, snickering at everyone who was embarrassing themselves in their drunken haze. 

“WANNA DANCE?” asked Y/N leaning towards him to enunciate over the music.

How could he say no? When they were looking up at him with those big, bright eyes and a slight sheen of sweat over their face.

-----

The party began to dissipate nearing the hours of dawn. Around 5, people began trickling out. Except for the select few who had decided to just crash with Karl.

Technoblade and Wilbur parked a little ways away from their house, walking the rest of the way and ushering each other up the tree by Wilburs bedroom to sneak back in. 

It was locked.

“You dimwit, didn’t you unlock the window?”

“Of course I did you arse, where do you think I snuck out from?”

Their bickering was interrupted by a small tap on the glass by none other than a smirking Tommy. 

“Leave it to him to only wake up when he wants to annoy us”

“Tommy, let us in.”

Tommy made a rubbing motion with his index finger and thumb. Looking at Wilbur and sighing, Technoblade pulled his wallet out and held up a 10. 

Tommy made a ‘more’ motion

20. Then 40. Then 50.

“So generous of you lads, come on in!” he giggled, snatching the money from his brother and leaving the window open for the two to clamber in awkwardly.

Technoblade snuck back into his room, stripping off his sweaty clothes and falling onto the mattress. Before he blacked out, he saw two notifications come in.

BitchBur: I took these pictures tn, thought u might want them ;) (8 images attached)

And

Y/N <3: I hope you figure out the college situation! <3 let me know if you can hang out sometime :D

He opened Wilburs text to find a collection of candid pictures Wilbur had snapped over the course of the night. One of Y/N in his lap, a few of them laughing together over pizza, a few of them on the dance floor, and what had to be his favorite: a picture of them kissing his cheek as a ‘good luck’ for his arm wrestle with Dream.

A smile creeped onto his face and he felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for his brother. He set the last picture as his wallpaper before turning off his phone and falling into a realm of blackness.

SPRING------------------

“That was my very last AP Exam!” exclaimed Y/N, walking through the door of the coffee house where all their friends were lounging. 

The small shop erupted with cheers as they celebrated everyone finishing their school year. The cheers eventually died out, though, as the realization sunk in. Tomorrow was graduation.

The seniors in the group, Wilbur, Technoblade, Minx and Fundy were all going off to college. 

Wilbur to England, Fundy to the Netherlands, and Minx to Ireland. The one person who hadn’t decided on a college yet was Technoblade.

“Why do you all have to leave the country?” whined Y/N.

A chorus of similar sentiments left the other juniors who were scattered around a few tables that had been pushed together. 

As the conversation descended into dorms and expenses, Y/N received a text from Technoblade. The shock of the ‘ding’ made the pen that had been balancing between their lips clatter onto the floor.

Apathetic pig-boy: come outside

Y/N looked around, not having noticed that Technoblade had disappeared from the table. Taking advantage of the conversation everyone else was immersed in, they quietly snuck out, but not without avoiding Wilburs keen eyes, which narrowed upon realizing his brother was not at the table.

They wandered outside, finding Technoblade sitting at one of the outdoor tables covered by the awning. 

“My Yale email came in.” he said as soon as he saw them walk outside.

They jumped with barely contained joy. “What did it say?”

“I wanted you to be here when I opened it.”

Everyone knew that Technoblades dream college was Yale. He had talked about it ever since he was a little kid, screaming about Greek mythology on the school playground. Y/N knew that it was Technoblades biggest ambition to study literature at one of the most renowned colleges in the world, but they still felt a twinge of sadness. On top of losing half their friends, they couldn’t lose the one person that meant the most to them too.

“Open it!”

Y/N leaned against the back of Technoblades chair, almost falling over his shoulder as they watched the loading icon on the college’s website.

Technoblade clicked on the notification and they both read it together

Congratulations! We are glad to inform you…

“THAT YALE UNIVERSITY HAS DECIDED TO ACCEPT YOUR APPLICATION! TECH I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!” Screamed Y/N, wrapping their arms around his shocked figure. They placed a million kisses all over his face, gushing about how proud they were of him, ignoring the gut wrenching feeling inside of them.  

“What’s the screaming about? Did you two finally get together?” Asked Wilbur as the group flooded out of the coffee shop to see what the commotion was about. 

“Yale accepted me.” mumbled Technoblade, just loud enough for them to hear.

The cheers that followed his announcement almost made their small hometown collapse. Congratulations were exchanged and backs were pat, and in the mess, Y/N managed to sneak off to the side. The only person who noticed was Niki, who followed them to the corner of the parking lot where they were kicking at the asphalt with their converse. She sat down, and the two rested in silence, the April wind blowing their hair all over the place.

“He’s leaving.” He’s leaving me. They wanted to say, but they didn't.

Niki gave her friend a small side hug, somehow interpreting the sentence accurately. “He’s pursuing his dreams Y/N, you know he doesn’t want to leave you.”

“How do I make him stay? It’s selfish and I’d feel like a bitch but Niki I don’t think I can live without him.”

“Y/N.”

“Hmm?”

“You need to tell him how you feel.”

----

The next day brought sunny skies and the enthusiastic atmosphere of graduation. They had all managed to snag themselves some graduation tickets to see their friends finish high school.

Jack, Niki, and Y/N were sitting in a Wendy’s parking lot, waiting for the clock to hit 11:45 so they could start making their way to school. It seemed empty without the Seniors of the group, as they were all at school getting ready for the ceremony. Y/N voiced this concern aloud, to which Jack responded, “We’ll have to get used to it. This is how it’s going to be next year.”

And the three fell into silence, sullenly dipping their fries into their frostys.

----

Jack, Niki, and Y/N let themselves be jostled into school with the crowds of emotional parents and kids who were already bored of the event. They found decent seats, near the front aisle and set their belongings down. 

Not a moment later, they were greeted by Philza, who filed in with the rest of the boys extended family to sit beside them. 

The dimming of the lights led to hushed whispers erupting from the previously rowdy crowd. 

Procedure came and went, the salutatorian and valedictorian giving their respective addresses to the crowd, the speech of the somewhat bored principal, and finally, 

“Without further ado, presenting the Graduating Class of 2021!” 

Cheers erupted from the crowd as names began to be called. 

Within the first five minutes, the boredom began to set in and Jack began a game pigeon game, which Phil demanded to be added to. The four played the digital card game until they were pulled out of their concentration by a familiar name being called. They erupted into cheers as Fundy walked across the stage to pick up his diploma and shake the Principal’s hand. The process was repeated until Minx, her eyes shining as she shook the principal's hand earnestly, then flipped him off quickly behind his back, which sent the auditorium into a fit of laughter.

Person after person was called up, until...

“Technoblade Minecraft”

Philza almost cried. He stood on his chair, screaming in excitement for his son which made the boy in question flush as he collected his diploma and took a rather rushed leave off the stage, but not before seeing the heart that Y/N made with their fingers in his direction.

The same general act happened  during Wilburs announcement, except that he laughed and gave his dad a cheering motion with his hands.

---

The group spilled out onto the lawn of the school, congratulating people they knew when they saw them. Technoblade and Wilbur joined their family, receiving hugs from a very emotional Tommy. Y/N, Niki, and Jack waited behind for their friends to finish up with their families before tackling them in hugs. Screams and whoops came from the puddle of people on the floor, everyone yelling things to each other. The atmosphere was charged with happiness, and relief, and one couldn’t help but feel elation despite the bittersweet nature of graduation.

“Alright mates, party at my house!” boomed Philza over the noise.

The infamous graduation party. They had planned the two-part party in middle school, when they had had their first sleepover at the group's “hub”, aka Philza’s house. Since then, the party had become a reality and the first part would be executed tonight. The next being, of course, when the remaining half of the group graduated.

A marquis was set up in Phil’s garden, now uncluttered and full of spring blossoms. It was such a different atmosphere than it had been last summer, when their bonfires would stretch out into the early hours of the morning.

Food laden tables were scattered around the marquis, and to everyone's delight, a chocolate fountain rested on one of them.

After collecting food and gifts from various guests, the group found themselves sitting under the shade of a large tree with a rickety old treehouse balancing on it, which Tommy and Tubbo were attempting to devise a plan to get into with the help of their friend Ranboo, who didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the idea as the others.

“My flight leaves next week.” sighed Minx, leaning against Niki’s shoulder.

“I’ll be out of here by July the latest” 

“Phil’s taking us to London next week and I’ll just be staying”

Everyone turned to Technoblade to reveal when he would be leaving for college. 

“I’m going to Connecticut a week before the beginning of the term”

“So how long will you be home this summer?” Y/N asked, setting down their cookie.

“Between travelling and dorm set-up, I’ll probably only be here for about two weeks total.”

Y/N’s eyes filled with tears as they pushed their head into Technoblades chest. 

“I just-” sniffle “I just can’t believe you’re all leaving!” they cried, muffled by Technoblades button down.

This sent everyone into a fit of tears as they all began hugging each other for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

The moment was interrupted by Phil, who came out of the house with a camera and various props. Encouraging everyone to gather around and take pictures. Everyone scuffled around to fix their disheveled appearances and began making their way to Phils makeshift photo booth.

“Tech- wait!” called Y/N, pulling him back by the forearm. “Your hair”

They put pressure on his shoulders to get him to lean down so that they could fix his stray hairs. 

Right then, looking at the way Y/N’s shoes sank into the ground and feeling their light touch in his hair, he decided. I have to tell them. This is my last chance.

“Hey Y/N?”

“Hmm?”

“I-” deep breaths, “I need you to-”

“Come on, lovebirds get in the picture!” called Phil, walking over to drag them to where everyone else was. 

Y/N gave him an apologetic look, woven with the silent promise of later.

Damnit Dad.

----

The pictures had lasted what felt like eons, but between the corny props and the harsh afternoon sunlight, they held valuable memories.

But Technoblade had no interest in them at the moment, as he dragged Y/N behind the trunk of the tree they had sat at before.

The sunlight filtering through the leaves made Y/N’s face all that much more beautiful, and Technoblade struggled to tear his attention away to focus on telling them. He gathered up his courage and opened his mouth to speak.

But the only thing that came out was “OW!”

As a pinecone bonked off his head and rolled away on the ground, leaving chips of it in his hair. 

“Look out below!” Called Tubbo from somewhere above them. So they managed to get in. Damnit.

Y/N took his hand and led him to the other side of the tree, away from the boys’ field of destruction. They sat down gently, pulling Technoblade down with them to pluck the pieces of pinecone out of his hair.

“Here. Distraction free! Now tell me what you’ve been trying to say because there’s something I need to tell you too.”

That gave Technoblade the perfect opportunity to gather his nerves. “You go first”

“No, it’s fine you!”

“No you go!”

It seemed as if the stars had collided and sent out particles so many eons ago with the knowledge that everything would lead up to these two kids coming to the same conclusion at the same time. 

“I love you”

“I love you”

Their eyes met as they stared, wide-eyed and gaping-mouthed at each other. Overcoming the initial shock, they began to ramble.

“I didn’t think you felt the same way because you always got quiet around me and then you woul-”

“Can I kiss you?” Technoblade interrupted them, not really hearing their rambling through the buzz going through his brain.

They nodded shyly in response as he wrapped his hand around the back of their neck to pull them dizzyingly, tauntingly closer. He looked into their eyes one more time to make sure they were serious, but Y/N was already closing the gap between their lips. They hoisted themselves into his lap and gripped his hair to bring him impossibly closer.

But alas, in this group of people, nothing goes unnoticed or undisturbed.

“EW! TECHNO’S KISSING Y/N!” screamed Tommy from the balcony of the treehouse which resulted in whoops and cheers from everyone at the party.

“FINALLY!” yelled someone amongst the crowd. 

Y/N felt their ears burn a bright red as they buried their face into Techno’s neck.

“Yeah Y/N! Get some!”

“Oh fuck off!”

A/N: i hope u guys liked it :D, also this is my first time writing with they/them pronouns so if i made a mistake pls don’t hesitate to correct me!

[woniepop]

girly girls

Pairing: Kang Taehyun x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.3K

Warnings: bullying, cursing

Genre: slice of life; fluff; angst

Summary: Three times a popular girl and a nerd were enemies, and one time where they weren’t

a/n: this fic was inspired by my all time favorite movie, Legally Blonde. I enjoyed writing this fic and I really hope you enjoy reading it :)

Y/N L/N has never been someone who liked to be cast in the shadows. Always being the center of attention, y/n has become one of the, if not the most, popular girls in her town. Homegirl is always dressed like an icon even when doing mundane tasks. Girls like her have never really been into anything “nerdy.” She associates herself with more of the bimbo kind, if you will. It was never really a secret, but she studies incredibly hard to get the chance to go to her dream school and become a great computer scientist. Being in such a large friend group of female fashion icons, there was never really anyone who wanted to talk about topics with math or computer science. 

Kang Taehyun, however, is this awkward and incredibly smart boy. Never really associated with popularity, he’s only had about four friends in his life and absolutely no dating experience. He’d always been one to shy away from attention. At most times, he found himself quietly observing others. All this, and he’s still what you would consider the teacher’s pet. He gets all his assignments done, A’s on every test, and raises his hand for every question. As a computer science enthusiast, he has worked his butt off his entire life, filling his schedule with robotics clubs, different languages of code, and coding camps. Senior year was his year. He had finally got into his dream school, TXT Tech, and had already created a very very detailed plan for the future.

Currently, Y/n’s mother was constantly trying to persuade her about fashion school. Having an incredibly fashionable mom wasn’t always the best for situations like these. TXT Tech results were coming out, and even though Y/n was confident she was getting in, there’s still the chance she might have not. Nervously waiting in front of her laptop, she sits impatiently refreshing the page for her results. Within one sentence she hops up from her chair in awe. Obviously attending the school was going to be a big turning point for her, and she was so excited to have been admitted to TXT Tech. 

As Y/n got settled on campus, she finds no one else that looks like her. Obviously, because she stands out, all attention is drawn to her. She’s confident, stylish, and hot. In a sea of gray and tan business outfits, Y/n wears a nice pink pantsuit. She’s relishing in all the attention, not seeming to mind that it’s not good, because she knew she looked good. 

Her first encounter with Taehyun couldn’t have gone worse. Walking to her class, pink drink in hand, she struts confidently to the lecture hall for her computer engineering class. Not paying attention to where she was going, she bumps into a tall figure. This clearly wasn’t the best way you could go about your first day, but all Y/n could do was apologize. 

“I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t see where I was going and-” she rambled. Pausing in the middle of looking up, a very handsome and slightly awkward boy stands there, obviously pissed off and very annoyed. He scoffs and continues on his way to his next class.

Her second encounter with Taehyun was not great either. Clicking her high heels against the floor, she walks to her first class of the day. She had to get there early, she always had to sit in the front of the class. Taehyun on the other hand, nose buried deep in his book, walks directly to the middle. Despite loving programming, he could only handle so much attention. The class had started off well for Y/n, reviewing the class syllabus of “Principles of Programming Languages.” Taehyun, however, was pissed. He had not been called on once and was so frustrated. 

“Y/n, can you tell me the five most commonly used languages of code?” the professor asks smugly. Y/n knew what he was doing. She was being set up. She knew he thought she didn’t know and that lit a fire in her. 

“Python, Java, Javascript, C#, and C” she answers confidently. Hearing this, the professor nods his head. He wasn’t expecting that. 

Taehyun saw this as a perfect opportunity. His hand shoots up and he comments, “Sir, that’s actually incorrect. C++ is actually more popular because although C  has served as the foundation for writing languages like Python and Ruby, C++ is a newer language of code and therefore is compatible with more technology.” Taehyun confidently looks down to wear Y/n sits and smirks. Of course she wouldn’t know that. She’s only the popular rich girl that got in with Daddy’s money. She didn’t actually know anything, right?

It had been a few months since school had started, and finals were just about to come around. For this class’ final, they had to submit a partner project and code a simple game. At this point, it had been very blatantly established that Y/n and Taehyun were enemies. They despised each other. Always competing with each other in class, snickering when the other person got annoyed. It was a silent war between the two of them and everyone could feel the tension in the air. Obviously, it was no surprise they always came up at the top of the class, interchanging the first spot every test. What was surprising, however, was seeing their names together on the partner project roster. 

Taehyun was furious. College was supposed to be his bitch, but now he’s acting like Y/n’s bitch. He was so pissed off. Computer science was supposed to be where he had the upper hand. The one place he could feel himself. Where he was finally better than the stupid popular kids. And yet, he’s here, competing with one of them. It wasn’t fair. She was a girly girl, she wore bright colors everyday, she even had a sparkly notebook. How was she so smart? There was no way, it’s just the laws of the universe. You had to choose between looks and intelligence. That’s just what the gods above said. There’s no take backsies. 

It’s no secret that Y/n is a fashionable girl and having a female centric hobby isn’t really something applauded at this university. Knowing of Y/n’s insecurities, let’s talk about Taehyun’s. Having always worn non adventurous, boring, clothing, he’s known from the very beginning that Y/n’s beauty has helped her in life. Life is never fair, and it shows. Taehyun never ever got those advantages, and now here he is competing with someone just as smart as him. 

 As his jealousy grows in the back of his mind, he decides to use this time to take revenge. The next few days are spent typing away in the library, collaborating and researching for hours upon hours. Knowing that this project was worth 40% of their grade, they spent all their time trying to make this game perfect. 

The day of the presentation of their near perfect game rolls around and Y/n was confident. She had spent countless nights coding this with Taehyun and on her own. Starting the presentation off, Taehyun pulls up a game completely different to the one Y/n coded with him. “In this day and age, gaming has become a hobby more popular than it’s ever been. With platforms like twitch and youtube, all different types of games can catch the eyes of a wide audience. With this in mind, I’d like to present to you Jackbox Party Pack 8. Roleplay games have become the genre of choice for many gamers to play, and viewers to watch.” 

This was not the first person shooter Y/n had coded with him. What was he doing? Y/n stood there, not really knowing what to say. Opening and closing her mouth, she couldn’t form any words. She should have known this was a set up. “Ms. L/n, please continue.” The professor says. She couldn’t. She felt like she was frozen. She was so embarrassed and she should’ve seen it coming. With cheeks welling up in her eyes, she runs out of the classroom. 

With a smirk, Taehyun continued on, explaining how the game worked and how he had coded it. He had spent the past few nights coding it by himself and he was incredibly proud. Paying no mind to Y/n, he stood tall and smiled throughout his entire presentation. Obviously, like any normal person, guilt started growing quickly in the back of his mind. He finally realized he had fucked up. 

Running after Y/n, Taehyun felt incredibly guilty. He had taken the competition too far, and now he’d made someone innocent fail a required class. After running for what felt like hours, he found Y/n crying under a tree. He knelt down and offered her some tissues. Aggravated, she smacks the tissues away and tells him to leave.

Y/n, on the other hand, felt so angry. How could he do this to her? She hadn’t done anything wrong, and if he didn’t like the way she dressed or the way she conducted herself that was fine. All she needed was her to believe in herself and that got her into TXT Tech. While thinking about all the ways she could end Taehyun, she feels arms wrap around her. They’re 🤮Taehyun’s. Before she can rip his arms off, he speaks up. 

“Look Y/n, I’m really sorry about that whole thing I pulled back there. I’ll talk to the professor and give him the real project. I really took it too far and I’ll do anything to make it up to you.” He begs. 

“Um,, no? I don’t care? That was literally so embarrassing. If you really wanted to make it up to me you’d leave me alone.” Y/n pushes him off her harshly and storms off. How dare he? It probably took his two seconds to come up with that half assed apology. This was unbelievable. 

Y/n started trudging through the grass back to her dorm. All she wanted to do was take a warm shower and cry in her bed. She hated everyone. She wanted him to suffer just as much as she did, but she couldn’t do that. 

After two whole days of sobbing in her bed, she decided she was craving her signature pink drink. She really didn’t feel like going out, but delivering one drink would cost like $15. Y/n throws on a casual pink outfit. It’s very different from what she wore at the beginning of the school year, but the one thing that never changed was the color pink. Even in her depressive mood, she still wanted to dress up. She felt most comfortable wearing stylish clothing, that was her home. 

Stepping into the store, she sees Taehyun sitting at a table alone. You know when you see old people sitting along and you feel so bad for them you start tearing up? Like what if they lost their spouse or something :(((((. So anyway, Taehyun gives her lonely old people energy and regardless of what he did to her, she decides to keep him company. 

“Hey, um, can i sit here?” Y/n asks. Taehyun was so surprised. She wanted to sit with him? But he was so mean to her? He nodded his head and sat quietly. The past two days she could tell Taehyun had done a lot of thinking. She could tell he did it because he felt threatened. That wasn’t enough to forgive him, but at least she was being nice about it. 

Taehyun gets up and leaves. He comes back with a pink drink in hand, maybe as an apology. “I really want to apologize to you again, Y/n. Yesterday I don’t know if you saw, but the professor graded the actual project instead, and I had told him everything and that I’d deserve it if he failed me instead.” Y/n wanted to be happy but she wasn’t. She didn’t want him to fail after helping her code the game with her. Maybe she was so nice to him because she had matured, or maybe because she felt something different in Taehyun. Even so, a little embarrassment, she thought, wasn’t enough to cause a person to fail their whole class. Holding his hand on the table, she nods, a silent way she decided to forgive him. 

“Well, at least we’re not the worst team. I think group 7 coded a Niki Minaj roblox world.” Taehyun jokes. 

She laughs. “That’s so funny, what the heck? I guess we just have some hardcore barbs in this class.” People like Taehyun and people like Y/n were never meant to be friends in the first place, but maybe now they were starting to. Y/n, who was always challenging the term “girly girl.” Who always stressed that you have to believe in yourself when the rest of the world is against you. Y/n who became successful, without changing who she was. Y/n, who was feminine and wanted to show that was never a weakness. And Taehyun, who was always unadventurous. Who was never into fashion but still managed to pull off his nerdy outfits with his cute face. The passionate Taehyun whose only hobby seemed like studying. Gossiping for hours at the cafe, they realized this. They were starting to become friends. No one ever expected them to even be able to hold a friendly conversation, but here Y/n was, challenging everyone again. 

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x01- Previously on...

Welcome back!! I’m so excited to be writing one of these again. I think this hiatus has been the longest I’ve gone without new Diane Lockhart content in ten years, and it sure feels like it. A lot of important stuff has happened in the time since TGF season four ended (not concluded—ended). Most notably, CBS All Access became Paramount+ and suddenly started offering a lot of content I care about! I kid. 2020 was quite an eventful year, so I was curious how television’s most topical show was going to take it on. TGF is always forward-looking, but too much happened in 2020 to be ignored. And while I didn’t think TGF would have much to say about the pandemic, it seemed impossible to imagine a season five that pretended it never happened. Going into this premiere, I was expecting that they’d either skip COVID entirely or include very few references, but after seeing this episode, I feel like the writers took the only approach that made sense. And that is why they are the writers, and I'm just some girl on the internet who writes recaps.  

Anyway, before I dive into the episode, I should also note that my pandemic boredom spurred me to actually pay $30 to watch this episode early as part of the virtual ATX Festival. Yes, I paid $30 on top of the money I spend every month on Paramount+ for this show. But I write tens of thousands of words about each TGF episode—are my priorities really that surprising? I note this not to brag or even to poke fun at myself, but because watching the episode before I knew a single thing about it (not even the title!) completely changed my viewing experience. I’ve never had an experience like this with TGW or TGF. I’m one to search for critics tweeting cryptically about screeners and refresh sites looking for background extras (haven’t done this in the TGF era, though) and read every single piece of press I can find. For any big episode, I usually know the outline of what to expect going in (I even knew about Will before the episode aired in the US!). Not this one! So, I got to be surprised, and I had to—gasp—formulate my own opinions before I knew what anyone else thought! It was really pleasant, actually. I think the structure of the episode worked extremely well for me because it caught me by surprise... and also because I’m the kind of person who somehow managed to write a college paper about Previously On sequences.

I see Tumblr has made it so that “keep reading” expands the post in your dash instead of opening a new tab. I absolutely hate this. Here is a link to the post you can click instead of the keep reading button! 

The ATX stream started mid-sentence, meaning I missed the “Previously On... 2020...” title card and skipped right to Adrian saying “I’m retiring.” It was pretty easy to pick up on the device (the directness of the scenes at the start, their cadence, and their placement in the episode made it clear this was meant to mimic a Previously) but the second title card hit way harder because... well, I had no idea if this was meant to be 2020 or some moment outside of real time until a bit later in the episode.  

Man, before I get any farther into this, two things that I don’t know where else to put. First, this episode had to cover so much ground. They had to write out both Adrian and Lucca—more on that later--, figure out how to deal with all of 2020, figure out how to either wrap up or continue all the truncated season 4 plotlines, and set the stage for a new season... in 50 minutes.  

Second, just wanna shout out the Kings’ other Paramout+ show, Evil, which you should absolutely be watching even if you hate horror. Evil is a Kings show, so it is unsurprisingly topical (sometimes evil takes the form of racism or misogyny or Scott Rudin) and at times very, very funny. I would be recapping it if Paramount+ weren’t attacking me personally by airing it at the same time as TGF. Ever hear of too much of a good thing, people?! (On that note, I am VERY upset with myself for not having made a Good vs Evil joke about the Good shows and Evil. I didn’t even think about it until Robert King made the joke on Twitter, and it was right fucking there. How did I fail so miserably?!)  

So STR Laurie, who wants a 20% downsizing, is still a thing. Noted.

This scene with Landau is the only one in this previously that is actually old footage, right?  

Unexpected Margo Martindale! Yay! (Ruth Eastman is a character who is so much more effective on Fight than she was on Wife and I’m quite glad they’ve had her appear on Fight several times. It kind of redeems season seven. Kind of.)

I don’t think the writers intentionally chose for Adrian’s book deal to be with Simon & Schuster because it is the most politically fraught publisher (the number of stories about controversial memoirs they’ve picked up in 2021 alone...) but I kind of like that Adrian’s Road Not Taken involves S&S. My guess is they chose S&S because it is owned by ViacomCBS.  

“Years ago, I wanted to create a law firm run entirely by women, but it never worked out. So, why not now?” Diane says to Liz. One of the advantages of having twelve (!!!) seasons of Diane Lockhart is that we’ve seen what she’s talking about. And we’ve seen her put this idea forward multiple times, too. I have my reservations about Diane’s brand of feminism, and I’ll say more about how fraught a Diane/Liz firm would be as the show explores the potential issues there, but on the surface I’m kind of excited about the prospect of a Diane/Liz led firm. Diane has wanted this for ages, Liz is a good partner, and this actually makes sense (unlike the nonsensical Diane/Alicia alliance of late season seven, where the only rationale was “well, Alicia needs to betray Diane in the finale, but they’re not on good terms. So maybe we make them business partners so then the betrayal stings more?”). Plus I fully love that Diane would end up running a firm with Alicia’s law school rival.

(Has TGF mentioned that Liz and Alicia were law school rivals? No. Am I still clinging on to that as a large part of Liz’s character? ABSOLUTELY.)

Julius is on trial for Memo 618 reasons; Diane is defending him. So this is still happening. (There’s more old footage here.)  

Do they put these references to one/two party consent in these episodes as a wink at the fans? It has to be intentional. (Please do not ask me what the actual law is on this, this show has thoroughly confused me.)  

I knew Cush was filming stuff for TGF, but I didn’t know it was for the premiere. She was just posting about it a few weeks ago, so either they shot a lot of it right before air or she posted a while after filming. Anyway, yay Lucca!  

Bianca’s still around. And, TGF gets to shoot New York for New York, since Bianca is there. I do wish TGF could do more location shoots; there’s something about seeing an actual skyline that feels more real.  

Bianca wants Lucca, who has never been outside of the country (except to St. Lucia, as Bianca reminds her) to go to London and buy her a resort. It’s supposed to be a three week stay and Bianca’s already arranged childcare. Speaking of children, because of COVID and filming constraints, that’s Cush’s real kid in this scene! You can’t really see him, but I recognized his curly hair from Cush’s Instagram, and the Kings confirmed in an interview.  

Adrian wants to write a book about police brutality cases he’s worked on. Ruth very much does not want him to write that book. She wants him to write a book without substance about how white people and black people can work together. He, understandably, has no interest in writing this book. (Also, you can see in the background that Ruth doesn’t think Biden’s odds of winning the Democratic primary are good—there is a big down arrow next to his picture, which definitely dates this scene.)

Oh, David Lee is in this episode. He acts like an asshole towards Marissa when she’s trying to help him.  

Marissa, not happy with the lack of respect, calls Lucca for advice “for a friend.” Lucca mentions she’s in London and Marissa does not believe her and keeps going on and on about her frustrations and her new desire to become a lawyer—quickly.  

Marissa wanting to become a lawyer because she “hates being talked down to” is not a plot I would’ve expected but it’s also one that makes a lot of sense. I think Marissa’s used to being respected and praised even when she’s doing things that aren’t glamorous, so I see how she’d get very restless when she’s no longer outperforming expectations and is instead taken for granted.  

Bells toll in the background on Lucca’s side and Marissa asks where she is. Lucca again notes she’s in London and Marissa still doesn’t believe her.

I’m going to miss Lucca so much, especially since we’ll also be losing a lot of the Millennial Friendship scenes with her. Cush is fantastic (even if she never really got enough to do here) and she plays so well off of the rest of the cast. I even sometimes liked the writing for Maia (who?) when she had scenes with Lucca, Lucca is that good.  

Jay wakes up sweating and unable to breathe, so he deliriously calls his father-figure Adrian. This whole scene is shot like something out of Evil and (I’m getting ahead of myself here) this plot is the only thing about this episode I felt was a misstep.  

“I think you’re my father,” Jay says to Adrian. Heh, I didn’t catch this line the first time around (maybe subliminally I did, since I just called Adrian his father figure lol) but I love that it is included here. Adrian and Jay’s relationship definitely deserves a goodbye.

Adrian calls an ambulance and also gets to Jay before the ambulance somehow. Adrian notes that Jay might have “this thing from China” and... we’re doing the pandemic, y’all. (Minor nitpick: on March 13th, 2020, when this scene is dated, COVID was not “this thing from China”-- we were all aware of it. March 11th was the day Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they’d tested positive and the NBA shut down and travel was restricted and every single brand that had my email sent me a message about their plans and measures. March 12th was the last time I was in my office, and we’d been getting emails telling us to wash our hands and prepare to work remotely for weeks. I went to San Francisco in mid-late February and distinctly remember deciding to leave a burrito unattended on a table while I washed my hands because I was paranoid about COVID... and then I remember making a specific trip to Walgreens to buy hand sanitizer so that didn’t happen again. My point is, Adrian lives in the same world I do. On March 13th 2020, he would not be treating COVID like it was some new thing he’d vaguely heard of.)  

(I am going to nitpick this timeline, but please know that I’m only doing it because I can, not because I think it’s necessarily a bad choice. Lines like this do feel a little forced, but I see the reason for introducing COVID as something new rather than going for the line that’s exactly historically accurate. I also am pretty sure there are references to dates in March/April in s4 of TGF that are now going to be contradicted by this episode, but I truly do not care. The writers get a pass on this one.)  

We skip slightly back in time to the beginning of March after the MARCH 13TH title card, or maybe this is supposed to be after March 13th and my own memories are preventing me from believing these face-to-face interactions were happening. Who knows.

Michael Bloomberg is... here, again, I guess? He asks Diane to assist with a Supreme Court case about gun control. I guess it does add some weight to the plot and make the stakes feel higher.  

Oh hey, this case is the 7x17 case!!!! Love that continuity.  

Diane and Adrian are both at the office late, working, and there is an unnecessary split screen that feels even more unnecessary when you consider that the editing alone was enough to create the parallel.  

Diane and Adrian have a nice convo (which I’ll really miss, their dynamic is great and this really feels like a successful partnership) as they wait for the elevator. When the elevator dings, they nearly tumble down into nothingness because... the elevator never came. Apparently this is a reference to an law old show I’ve never seen that killed off a character this way, and it’s meant to be a wink at how they are not going to kill off Adrian.

I do not know why I remember this, but I do: after they killed off Will, a critic (Noel Murray; I just googled to confirm my memory) who didn’t want to spoil things tweeted, “Exactly 23 years and 2 days ago, Rosalind Shays fell down an elevator shaft.” Please tell me why I remember this reference that I didn’t even understand well enough to have tracked down the original tweet in under a minute. (https://twitter.com/NoelMu/status/447942456827326464)  

Back on this show, Diane and Adrian share a drink and talk about their wishes. Diane wants to argue in front of the Supreme Court, and Adrian encourages her to speak up. His own near-death experience motivates him to trash the book Ruth has him writing, and Diane trashes the (bad) legal strategy someone else prepared for the Supreme Court.

DIANE IS WEARING JEANS!!!!!! Tbh, I think my favorite part of this episode is how many slice-of-life scenes and settings we get. These are always my favorite moments. I love the satirical and political stuff too, but the character moments are what get me invested enough to write these. (Yes, Diane in jeans constitutes a character moment.)  

Diane tells Bloomberg she wants to be involved and advocates for herself. Kurt gets a call on their landline (hahaha) from Adrian.

God, I love Diane and Kurt. Not only is their banter fun, you can just see a different, more relaxed side of Diane in these scenes. Diane tells Kurt she has good news for herself, but bad news for him since she’s arguing for gun control. She asks him to help her prep for court, too.  

So this is before Jay is rushed to the hospital, because now we are back at the hospital with Julius, Diane, and Marissa. I do not believe any of these people would be setting foot in a hospital like it’s any other day on March 13th, 2020. But I'm trying not to nitpick.

I get why they chose to give Jay a rather severe case of COVID. I just don’t get literally anything else that follows from the initial shock of Jay having COVID.  

I see why the writers chose March 20th (the actual Illinois stay at home order) as the next date for this timeline. I still do not believe that people were in this particular office on that date.  

You know what else I don’t believe? That RBL just shut down for two weeks and was like, no work is being done. Did law firms really do this? I can believe it if it’s an excuse to cost-cut, and I know there were massive layoffs, but this seems... really weird???  

Why are they setting up a teleconferencing infrastructure (didn’t they have one at LG? In season five?) if they are not planning to do work?  

Lol Diane explains what Zoom is, very slowly. She asks everyone to “download a program called Zoom.com” which is one of the first Zoom jokes I’ve chuckled at in a while.  

Marissa is not happy to hear that there’s no work for her in a work-remote world (this I believe 100%), so she calls Lucca again with more questions about law school.

Love these NYC and London location shots. Wish they could do that for Chicago.

Lucca asks Bianca to help get Marissa into a law school, fast, and Bianca tells Lucca to use her name... then offers her a job.

Marissa is at the office, alone, boxing up her things, when one of the office phones rings with some dude offering her a spot in a law school class. I guess we are really all-in on this! (Why would Lucca have given a firm phone number not specific to Marissa, though?)

Adrian and his corrupt girlfriend decide to shelter in place together. I still do not understand why he is okay with her being corrupt. I also don’t really understand why they’re going from talking about sheltering-in-place to George Floyd. How did we just skip from late March to late May? Are Adrian and corrupt gf having a conversation about sheltering-in-place two months into sheltering in place?  

Okay, I am not doing so good at this no-nitpicking thing. Again, I understand why they need to merge several scenes into one to keep things moving. And I guess they could just be getting around to this conversation.

I’m going to nitpick again, I can’t help myself. How did we just go from a scene of Adrian specifically talking about sheltering in place to a scene of Adrian bursting into a bustling and maskless DNC headquarters room? How!? The only masks in this scene are on TV!! There are like ten people in this scene!  

Anyway, more importantly, Adrian tells Ruth off and screams at her that she needs to listen to him instead of acting like she knows the way forward. He is completely right.  

Why is travel from London closing down in May 2020? Is it because this scene is supposed to be at a different place in the episode? Liz is asking Lucca to come back home from her three week stay in London (which has now lasted three months but travel is just now closing down), and Lucca’s hesitant to come home.

This is all happening via Zoom, btw. Lucca’s in her hotel, Diane and Adrian are at their respective homes, and Liz is in the office. All of this feels right. There is a chat off to the side of the screen where you can see Adrian and the others discussing how to unmute on Zoom. Very real. Though probably not very real in late May 2020. Feels more like April. I am convinced this scene got spliced in later to help the episode flow because everything in this scene (except the TV footage that definitely was added later) feels like it should be happening in the March section.  

Lucca mentions that Bianca offered her a job, and at this point we as viewers know how things are going to go—Lucca's going to end up taking it. Liz types in the Zoom chat that they don’t want to lose Lucca. When Lucca tells them how much Bianca’s offering ($500k/year, go Lucca!), Diane types “Shit.” into the chat. “Shit’s right,” Liz replies. “Yes... What should our counter be?” Diane replies. Lucca is kind enough to point out the messages are not private (again, this feels like March not May) but I think knowing that their reaction to topping $500k is “shit” tells her all she needs to know.  

Diane’s background still says that RBL is a division of STR Laurie. Weird how little we are hearing about the overlords except the 20% staff cut.  

Liz and Adrian chat and decide the only way to keep Lucca is to make her a partner. Which, yeah, if you’d just made her a partner years ago when you told her she was in the running for partner and then offered it to fucking MAIA, maybe she wouldn’t be considering Bianca’s offer. Lucca is definitely one of RBL’s stars, and I don’t think she’s wrong to feel like they don’t value her enough. They treat her well enough to be upset about losing her, but not well enough to have already made her partner and not well enough to actually give her authority (even though she runs a whole department). I’d be pretty unhappy too. It kind of feels sometimes like they take her for granted, and I don’t know that Lucca is one to feel like she owes a company anything. She’s more of an “I’m out for myself” type.  

Madeline and the other partner we’ve seen a few times who isn’t Liz/Diane/Adrian, walk into the office (wearing masks! Which they take off as soon as they enter a room with Liz! Without asking her if she is okay with this! TV logic!) and ask who is replacing Adrian. They think this is a good time to reevaluate having a white name partner of an African American firm, and they are spot on. Liz tries to deflect, noting that Diane is already a name partner and was before Liz even joined, but Madeline and other partner (whose name I really wish they would say so I can stop calling him “other partner”) won’t let up. Their position is that Diane shouldn’t have been made a name partner then—all she did was bring in ChumHum, an account that quickly left the firm. Good point.  

“What is this firm if it’s not African American? It’s just another midsized all-service Midwestern law firm, one of 50,” Madeline argues. The other partner says Liz needs to remove Diane and promote two African Americans to name partner. Liz laughs and asks if they mean themselves. Madeline does not—she's concerned about the number of black associates they’re letting go. Liz heads out, but this conversation is very much ongoing.

And I think it’s a very interesting dilemma! There’s a lot of mileage the writers can get out of this, because I don’t think there’s a right answer or a wrong one. It’s all about what Liz decides she wants the future of the firm to be. If Liz chooses Diane, she might be choosing something that works for her personally or that she thinks is a safer financial bet—but she’ll be choosing to work at a firm that can no longer be thought of as a black firm, and she’ll be choosing to move away from her father’s vision for the firm. And since the plot hinges on what Liz will decide rather than what’s objectively the right path forward, there’s a lot of interesting tension there I can’t wait to see.  

(My favorite thing about Adrian leaving is that Liz will likely get more to do, especially when it comes to managing the firm. Adrian tends to speak up first, but Liz is more than capable of managing without him and I’m so excited to see what she does when her ex-husband isn’t constantly talking over her.)  

Marissa and Lucca video chat with Jay. He’s still in the hospital. One thing that bugs me about how this episode handles COVID is that I never really get the sense that any of the characters are particularly afraid of the virus. Maybe none of them were. But you’d think you’d see a little of that fear, the weird dance of trying to assess others’ comfort levels with masking, etc., in an ep specifically about living through this time. ESPECIALLY since someone they all know and are close to has been hospitalized for MONTHS with this thing! It’s just so weird to go from a scene where people wear masks until they come in contact with other people (when masks matter the most) to a scene of someone in the hospital with COVID.  

And now Jay’s weird hallucinations start as his battery dies on the video chat. I really, truly, hated these hallucinations. I was ready to be done with these from the second they started. They’re weirdly shot, they go on for too long, and they feel like the clunkiest parts of Mind’s Eye when Alicia starts having a debate in her mind about atheism mixed with the (far superior) hospital episode of Evil.  

I don’t have much to say about these hallucinations except that I hated them a lot. When there’s the reveal that Jay is hallucinating a commerical, I almost came around on the hallucinations because that’s kind of funny and inspired. And then several more hallucinations popped up and they had a round table and Jesus got added to the mix and I was like, nope, this is bad in a very uninteresting way. I reject this.  

I feel like the Kings didn’t have much to say about COVID, the actual virus. This episode is definitely more about what the characters’ lives were like during COVID and not the pandemic itself. I think they likely got a lot of their COVID commentary out of their system with their zombie COVID show The Bite (I have not seen The Bite due to it airing on Spectrum On Demand, which I have no way of accessing. Like, I would have to move and then decide to pay for cable in order to watch it.) I also suspect a lot of their commentary on COVID isn’t going to be specific to the virus and is instead going to be about things like mask-wearing and vaccinations becoming political. And, really, that’s just a new variation on talking about polarization... and they’ve been talking about polarization for years.

In fact, they even wrote a whole series about an outbreak of a (space-bug-spread) virus that caused political polarization before Trump was even elected. BrainDead is basically commentary on the pandemic before the pandemic even happened. Soooooo I get why they are more interested in recapping 2020 than in doing a Very Special Episode about themes they’ve been talking about for years. (I still think they would’ve benefitted from at least one character being afraid of getting sick or getting their family sick.)  

There is likely some interesting content in these Jay hallucinations. I hate them so much I cannot find it. You know when you’re just on a completely different wavelength than the writers? This is an example of that.  

Also I’m not a fan of the shadowy directing. I think this is meant to look cooler than it does.  

Have I mentioned yet that I absolutely love the “Previously On” device for this episode? It’s such a fun, propulsive way to get through the slog of 2020. Scenes can be short and to the point, and each scene has to do a lot of lifting to fill in the gaps. I think that leads to scenes that are better constructed and telling on lots of levels—where are people when they’re quarantined? Who’s wearing casual clothes and when? What about this scene defines this character’s life at that moment in time?  

Bizarrely, even though this episode is pretty much all plot (this happens! Then that!), I actually found this to be one of the most character-driven episodes TGF has ever done. There’s a lot of story, but most of that story is about how the characters reacted to 2020 rather than overarching plots that will weigh on the rest of the season. This episode covers a lot of ground, but it does it with character moments that resonate.  

Now it’s July and Diane’s prepping to argue in front of the Supreme Court. Kurt’s helping her witness prep and it gets a little personal... and that ends up turning Diane on. Good to see McHart hasn’t lost its spark. (Remember how Kurt cheated on Diane in season 7 of Wife? No, me neither, because that never happened.)  

Corrupt judge is back. Adrian playfully tries to distract her from work. Then he takes a video call from Liz, who updates him on the conversation she had with John (so that’s his name) and Madeline. I guess that part of May was close to July? Anyway, Adrian isn’t surprised to hear that people are upset at the prospect of Diane being one of two name partners.  

Liz is at the office in workout clothes and I love it!

They’re losing 15 black associates (and Adrian and Lucca) and 4 white ones, Liz says. This sounds like a very big problem. (I’d be curious to know what that is as a percentage of the firm and how the racial composition shifts.)

Liz knows it’s not exactly up to her if Diane stays on as name partner (the other partners get a vote, but I think Liz knows she has a lot of sway here). She’s also wondering if Biden could win, and if so, would it be to the firm’s advantage to be black-owned? Interesting.  

“Well. If you’re thinking it, then Diane’s thinking it, too,” Adrian says. He’s right. “White guilt. It runs verrrrry deep on that one, huh?” Ha. He is right about that, too. I actually can’t decide which of these interpretations is correct, because it could be either even though they seem contradictory. (1) Is Adrian saying it with a hint of mockery because he knows Diane will fight for her partnership even as she would say she’s a huge supporter of black businesses? (2) Is he saying it because he knows Diane would have enough white guilt to realize what her presence as a partner means and think through the implications? I think it is, somehow, a combination. I’m interested in this line because this whole dilemma (from Diane’s POV) is something that’s very familiar. Diane’s always been an idealist who will betray her ideals for personal gain. That sounds like an attack, but I mean that as neutrally as I possibly can. There are so many examples of this that this is kind of just a character trait of hers at this point. Usually those ideals are about feminism, but this situation seems closely related.  

Adrian overhears Corrupt GF talking about Julius, Diane, and Memo 618. You would think she would wait to have this conversation until there is no chance of Adrian overhearing, because if Adrian overhears, he might...

... do exactly what he proceeds to do and hop into a car with Diane to give her a heads up. (I think I’m just going to have to accept that the mask usage rule on this episode is “we use masks to show that the characters would wear them, but we don’t want to have scenes where characters are fully masked because that’s annoying.” If that’s not the rule, then why else would Adrian be masked outside... and then take off his mask as soon as he gets into a confined indoor space with Diane?  

Baranski looks ESPECIALLY like Taylor Swift in this scene.  

Adrian tells Diane what he knows. He dug deeper after overhearing Charlotte, so he has even more info. “If you tell me, I will use it,” Diane warns. Adrian knows that, so he takes a moment to decide. And he decides that he cares more about Diane and Julius than about his relationship with a corrupt judge.  

Diane and Julius are masked in court. Visitor and the judge are not. They use masking in a clever way in this scene: Diane uses being masked to her advantage because it means no one can possibly read her lips, so she can use the info Adrian fed her against Charlotte without any fear of spies. Charlotte, who is unmasked, guards her lips with a folder, as the Visitor watches interestedly.  

Diane convinces Charlotte to recuse herself. Charlotte says she’s making a mistake; Diane does not care.  

The new judge is, unfortunately, the idiot who doesn’t know anything about the law. Uh oh.

Charlotte decides she’s done sheltering in place with Adrian. He tries to talk through the conflict, but Charlotte says “You made your choice, Adrian. Julius Cain over me.”

“The choice was about right and wrong, Charlotte,” Adrian tries to explain. I mean, yeah, but if you’re dating a judge who has admitted she’s totally corrupt, didn’t right and wrong go out the window a while ago?

Adrian seems to think the other people involved in the events are bad and Charlotte is good. I am not convinced. I don’t think she’s the big bad, but I don’t think she’s good.  

Charlotte points out that he invaded her privacy. She is right about that. “You said the choice was between right and wrong. Turning over my emails was the choice,” she said. I get her POV. But also, she is corrupt.  

I do not like the way the part of the scene where Adrian physically restrains Charlotte to keep her from leaving is shot. I don’t think this is an abusive scene but I think it should’ve been shot from a little farther back so we could see it’s more like Adrian reaching out in desperation than trying to choke Charlotte. Because it very much looks like he is trying to choke Charlotte.  

He tells Charlotte he loves her. She says it’s too late and leaves. “Maybe you won’t be with me. But you keep down this path... you’ll be done, I’m telling you, you’ll be done.”

I think something that I’ve been missing in these interactions is that I didn’t quite realize until this scene that the Adrian/Charlotte dynamic is more interesting than Adrian liking a corrupt judge. I think he truly believes Charlotte is a good person who got caught up in some bad stuff, and that she can bounce back from it. I’ve always seen Charlotte as someone who is corrupt for herself and then ended up going along with the corruption of others, too, so I’ve dismissed her and the relationship. This is the first scene that has felt real to me, and the first scene where she’s felt like more than a caricature. Kind of sad it’s the last she’ll get with Adrian—now I’m actually starting to find her interesting. Notice how in these last few sentences I’ve used her name instead of “Corrupt GF”!  

Charlotte says she loved Adrian too, but that’s not enough. Awww.

He can’t really be surprised though, can he?  

Now it is August and we get to see Diane and Liz react to the announcement of Kamala Harris as Biden’s VP pick, and I would like to thank the writers for giving me the opportunity to see Diane and Liz react to this. It’s kind of fan-service, but it’s also a nice tie-in to the girl-power theme of the Diane/Liz alliance.

Diane and Liz realize that Adrian’s probably not a good candidate for 2024 if the DNC only wants one black candidate and Harris is the clear front-runner. Liz suggests keeping him on as partner instead, in a way that very much implies this would be her ideal solution. Diane, being Diane, says she was liking the idea of an all-female firm. Liz hesitantly says she was too, and Diane senses the hesitation.

“Let’s look again at which associates to fire. I’m worried we’re losing too many African Americans,” Diane switches the subject. How have they still not made this decision? If any employees know downsizing is coming, and they’ve had months to act on it, assuming there are jobs elsewhere, people would’ve been jumping ship by now.  

But that’s not the point of this scene. The point of this scene is that Liz corrects Diane: “Black. You can just say Black people.” Very nice moment underlining the tension. Diane means well, but she’s still acting like a white lady who doesn’t know how to act around black people... and she wants to (and, I guess, already does) run a black firm. Major yikes.  

Marissa and Lucca are talking again. Marissa does not want to be in law school—she just wants to be a lawyer. Lucca won’t accept Marissa’s refusal to memorize meaningless rules: “Marissa. I know that you know how to play the game, but you have to pass the bar to get into a position to play the game.” Why does this line make me love Lucca? This line isn’t even anything amazing. It’s just a line that cuts through the bullshit and makes a good point.  

Marissa keeps going, insulting all of her peers and teachers, and Lucca figures out how to cut through that, too: she tells Marissa that she’d hire her as a lawyer if she killed someone, but only if Marissa passes the bar. Marissa is instantly intrigued.  

“Why are you leaving here? I’ll miss you,” Marissa says.  

“Because they won’t pay me what I deserve,” Lucca says in a matter-of-fact tone. “Anyway, I thought they fired you.”  

“But they didn’t mean it. It’s like the smoothie place—they kept trying to fire me and I just kept showing up,” Marissa replies. That checks out. (Love the callback!)  

Lucca tries to get Marissa to come over to England. Marissa shuts that down as Lucca gets a news alert—and it’s not good news.  

Our next date is September 18th, 2020 and I will get my nitpicks out of the way up front! I don’t really know why it is daytime for Lucca when she reads the news, considering it was already the evening in the States when the RBG news broke. And, also, it was Rosh Hashanah, so Marissa probably would not have been sitting in her bedroom studying... she most likely would’ve been with family or friends. OK I’M DONE. FOR NOW.  

Diane is getting ready for her arguments in front of the Supreme Court. It’s almost time! She’s in casual clothes but has on a wonderful mask. She’s standing in front of Kurt’s guns to make a point (love that she’s using her video call background to her advantage) and there are several people in her bedroom getting the tech all set up. I have noted before that they only built one set for Diane’s apartment, and it’s just a massive bedroom. Diane choosing to be in front of the guns does a nice job of cutting off my question about why she’d be arguing in front of the Supreme Court from her bedroom rather than the home office she absolutely would have.  

Kurt walks in and tries to shake hands... he’s clearly not very COVID paranoid, and Diane seems to be, and... that’s something I might have wanted to see? How was Diane okay with Kurt taking risks that also affected her?

Diane confirms she intentionally chose to stand in front of the guns. That’s when Kurt gets the push notification. He pulls Diane into the bathroom to show her the news. He hands her his phone and Diane’s face falls. She starts tearing up. “2020 just won’t let go,” she says, speaking for us all.

Normally I hate things that are like, we’re going to contrive this so the news hits at the worst possible moment! This works for me, because the Supreme Court plot for Diane feels more like something that exists to be a through line for the episode. It would also be a little hard to work in RBG’s death as a main plot point—and it is definitely important enough to be a main plotpoint—if it didn’t also affect something in the world of the show.  

Also, another reason I like this contrivance is that it makes it all the more powerful when Diane says, “It’s over. He gets to nominate someone. Another Kavanaugh! We’ll have a conservative court for the next 20 years. My whole fucking life!” She’s not thinking about how this affects her case (and that case is basically a life-long dream for her). She is thinking about way bigger things, and knowing that her mind goes to the bigger things before the personal with news like this really underlines how big of a deal RBG’s death was.  

Diane tells Kurt, “I don’t deserve you. You don’t agree with me.” “I can still feel bad for you,” he responds. He holds her while she cries.

Jay’s hallucination thing is back. Now Karl Marx is here. So is Jesus. I’m so done with this. It’s nice to get a break from writing.

Malcolm X is also on the roundtable and now they’re talking over each other in that way that everyone on this show always does. (RK gave an interview about Evil where he said he likes having the children on that show talk over each other because he grew up in a household like that. I did not need to read that interview to understand that RK likes scenes where people talk over each other.)  

If anything happened in those hallucinations, I missed it, because I didn’t pause the episode. Because I do not care about the hallucinations. Because I hate them.

Now it’s November 2020... Diane’s watching election results and rocking back and forth. She tells Kurt he can go watch Fox News in the other room (so they do have more than one room!). He says he’s fine—he thinks Diane needs it more.  

“Yes, but Kurt, if you stay, I know this isn’t sensible, but... Trump seems to get more votes whenever you’re sitting on this couch,” Diane tells him. Ha, I relate to this kind of superstition so hard. “Are you serious?” Kurt says. “I am so deathly serious,” Diane responds. “Whenever you’re sitting here, Arizona goes for Trump. Humor me, please. Just go in the other room.”  

When Kurt tries to kiss her, she pulls away: “No, no, no. No kiss. If you kiss me, we’ll lose Georgia.” This scene feels so, so real and perfectly captures what it was like (at least for me, though I don’t have a Republican husband or anything) watching election results come in.  

“Uh, if you lose, we’ll be fine, right?” Kurt asks. “Kurt, let me just say this. I’m only saying that we won’t be fine so that the universe will grant me a win,” Diane responds. This scene is so fun and so good! It simultaneously captures a relatable mood, adds some levity, gives us a window into Diane’s life, and shows some of the tensions in her marriage?! I want this all the time!  

Kurt leaves the room. Diane pours more wine.

Later, with Diane still rocking back and forth with anxiety (just you wait for the several more days this will drag on!), Kurt brings in the champagne. “That was for when Hillary won. I can only drink it if Biden wins,” Diane protests. Did I also refuse to drink any celebratory alcohol until things were absolutely certain? No comment.  

“It’s odd you progressives resisted religion. You seem to have a hundred religions to take its place,” Kurt says, speaking on behalf of the writers’ room. (This joke doesn’t get written if the writers don’t believe this and probably even see it in themselves.)  

“Go away, Trump. I mean Kurt,” she shoos him away. Have I mentioned yet I love this scene?  

“Love me even if you lose?” he jokes (though I do wonder if this isn’t that joking? I think it is, but he keeps saying it!) as Diane gestures at him to get out.  

I could do without the joke about Diane’s heart on the TV for a couple reasons. One, it goes on too long. Two, I was very worried something would actually happen to Diane. You’d think that would make the scene feel more tense, but it does not, because it takes me out of the moment.

“Ok, God. You know I don’t believe in you. But I will believe in you if Joe Biden wins. I’m sorry. I know that that’s not what Jesus taught. There’s nothing in the New Testament that says, ‘Believe in me, and I’ll make sure your candidate wins,’ but I need Joe Biden to win. I’m sorry, God, but I just do. I need some faith.” This is a little much but... yeah. Also, is this the first time Diane’s flat out said she’s an atheist? I think it is, though I’ve assumed as much for quite a while.  

The next day in court, masks are no longer required if you’re a series regular and votes are still being counted. I remember those days. Marissa thought Diane was checking in on Jay... Diane was not. She was checking on vote counts.  

Apparently Jay’s finally being released from the hospital!

Bad news for Julius—the idiot judge finds him guilty of some nonsense charge and sentences him to seven years in prison.  

Diane says not to worry, and Julius asks “Why not?” Good point.

Then we have election results! We skip, specifically, to December 14th and the electoral college vote. I’m a little sad we skipped over the huge party that was November 7th, but I get why they’d rather keep things moving along. I think showing November 7th in an uncomplicated way would’ve just been too close to fanservice. But, man, what a day.  

Diane, in a red hoodie with leopard print that she somehow manages to still look classy in, is ready to pop champagne. Then she hears that on January 6th, a joint session of Congress will count the electoral votes and there might be a debate. “Nope. If I open it now, something bad will happen,” she reasons. “I’ve waited four years. I can wait another few weeks.”

It’s been almost a year and they’re still somehow negotiating with Lucca, but I understand why they’d space this out across the episode. Otherwise we’d have to say goodbye to Lucca in the first like, 15 mins of the episode and all those scenes would be in a row. I can forgive (and still nitpick) choices like this when the reasoning behind them seems sound.  

Adrian says they don’t want to lose Lucca. He, Liz, and Diane are all in the conference room, and they ask Lucca for a yes or no on their latest offer by the end of the call. Diane offers Lucca partner—she'll be the youngest partner in the firm’s history—and she’ll get a $500,000/year salary. Adrian tries to sell her on being part of American history by being part of the firm.

“We are a black firm, Lucca, and we need you,” Liz says with a lot of passion for someone who knows she might very well partner with Diane. Diane looks at Liz with a bit of suspicion at this, wondering if Liz is showing her cards.  

Lucca manages to make the wifi malfunction (or she gets very lucky) and uses the disconnection to call Bianca for a counteroffer, even though they said they needed a yes or no on the spot.  

“They used George Floyd because they want you for less. They have never appreciated you as much as I do. All those scars, all that time being taken for granted and undervalued has made you a fighter. It’s made you someone I now want,” Bianca tells Lucca. She gives Lucca a counter offer of $1.3 million and the title of CFO. Lucca takes it. Is there really another choice? (If she were concerned about loyalty to the firm and the partnership was what she wanted, she probably would've just taken it.)  

(Also, the partners can’t really act like Lucca is making history by being the youngest partner ever when they passed her over for partner two years earlier and offered it to Maia! To MAIA! Who had like three years of work experience! And yes I was fine with Alicia and Cary getting partnership offers with four years but, one, that was a scam, and two, Alicia and Cary actually worked. Oh, I see I still hate Maia with a passion. Back to THIS season...)

Lucca apologetically informs Marissa she’s leaving and the offer was just too good to turn down. I believe it. I also believe Lucca wants that job more. What has loyalty to RBL gotten her? She's someone so talented and good at her job that she just gets job offers from acquaintances all the time (starting with Alicia!). RBL appreciates her, but just enough to appease her while still undervaluing her. I don’t know that I would’ve believed a plot where Lucca actively job hunts, but I definitely believe this.

“Marissa, we don’t have to work together to be friends,” Lucca tells Marissa. I’m going to miss this so much. Why is this the best material Lucca’s gotten in ages?! I think one of the things that makes Lucca such a great character is that you can see why everyone instantly wants her on their team. She’s a fantastic friend (without giving too much of herself), she’s not a pushover, and she is incredibly sharp and able to get to the heart of any situation. I love her and I’m sad we won’t get to see more of her.  

(On that bit about friendship—I can’t write about Lucca’s departure without writing about the moment I realized just how great of a character Lucca was. It was in 7x13, when Alicia has her breakdown that’s seven seasons in the making... and Lucca supports her. But the writing, and Cush’s performance, never make it feel like Lucca exists to be a part of Alicia’s story. Lucca seems like her own fully formed person who happens to be supporting Alicia at this moment. I don’t think I can overstate how tough of a task it is to get me to care about the other person in a pivotal Alicia scene, especially when that other person was added to the cast in the final season and many suspected she’d just be a replacement for a different beloved character! Anyway, Lucca’s been great for years, and I’ll miss her.)  

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate the hallucinations more, we get a hint that they are going to continue: Jay sees one right after he learns that Marissa’s used her quarantine to start law school and he’s done nothing.  

Jay says he carries a gun now and it’s “performative.” I have no idea what that means and Marissa and Lucca don’t seem to, either.  

Another thing I like about Lucca’s final scene is that it isn’t rushed. We have time for all that, and also for Lucca to tell Marissa about the time she stole her breakfast sandwich, and for Marissa to react to it, and for Marissa to find Lucca’s Birkin bag, and for Lucca to tell Marissa to keep it, and for Marissa to react to that, and for Lucca to sappily say “think of me when you use it,” and for Marissa to nonsensically reply, “you think of me when I use it,” and there’s still a little bit more of the scene after that!  

Marissa’s silly line makes Lucca tear up. “God, I’m gonna miss you guys,” she says. “I’m gonna miss this. You make me smile. I didn’t smile much before you guys.” Awwwwwww. This is also so true to character! Her friendship with Alicia aside, Lucca’s definitely said before she’s not one to have friends (which is hilarious because she is, as I've said like 100 times, a fantastic friend and also just like, the coolest person??? Who wouldn’t want to be HER friend?!).  

She says she has to go because she’s getting too emotional and says goodbye. She’s also super sappy and when Marissa says, “you were the best,” she responds that they were the best TOGETHER! Awwwwwww.  

What a nice, fitting goodbye for Lucca. There’s no bad blood or fireworks—she just makes a change like a lot of people do. I’d like to think she’ll still be friends with Marissa and Jay after this. I don’t want too many Lucca references in future episodes, but I would really like it if we see Marissa and Jay update each other on the latest from Lucca, or if a scene begins with Marissa closing out an Instagram post from Lucca of her kid, or something. I wouldn’t want clues about what Lucca’s up to, but I’d love to see that she’s still a part of Marissa and Jay’s lives.

Now it is January 6th. Liz, Adrian, and Diane sit on the floor of the mostly empty office, watching TV coverage and drinking. It’s so relaxed it’s almost surreal, and it, like many other moments in this episode, feels like a slice of life. Everyone’s dressed casually and no one is worried about appearances or looking like the boss.  

“God, have you ever seen anything like it. It’s so fucked,” Diane says. Adrian’s more optimistic—the courts rejected most of the challenges to election results! “System worked,” he says. “Yay.” Liz says in response. She’s not as optimistic as he is.  

“Liz. Liz. Sometimes when things work out, there is no parade. There’s no congratulations, but I’ll tell you this: We live to fight another day,” he explains to her even though she makes a good point that a system just barely hanging on doesn’t bode well for the future. (She doesn’t say all this, but that’s a very loaded, “Yay.”)  

“Yeah? Then why are you leaving the law?” Liz asks. Diane seconds to the question.

Adrian announces he’s still retiring—and he’s moving to Atlanta. He wants to go to the south to help “create and consolidate political power.” He’s excited to start over and inspired by Georgia going blue. This is a very nice exit for Adrian. I fully believe that he’s interested in political organizing, that he’d be good at it, and that he’s ready for a change. I don’t think he’s always the most progressive person (of the three in this scene, Liz is absolutely the most progressive one, though Diane probably thinks she is!), but I absolutely think he thinks of himself as an activist and I believe that if he’s going to step away from the law, he’d do so to make a move like this.  

Adrian—and Lucca, but especially Adrian—probably both got better exits thanks to the events of 2020. If Adrian had just left to be groomed by the DNC, that would’ve been a predictable and boring ending for him. His candidacy would, obviously, go nowhere, and the whole thing felt weird from the minute it was introduced. But this? Adrian being energized—like so many others were—by the ways the world changed in 2020 and using his already announced departure from the firm and recent breakup as a chance to start over and make change? This is great!  

Adrian asks Liz and Diane what’s next for them. Liz says that she thinks the Biden admin will be better for black businesses. Adrian asks if they’re replacing him, and Diane says, “I think the big question is, are you replacing me?” She’s smart. I like how this scene goes from friendly to tense very fast, with everyone kind of testing the waters. Adrian tries to force the conversation, Liz opens with something vague yet pointed, and Diane speaks what’s previously been unspoken.

Liz says it’s not her intention to push Diane out. “I can’t change the color of my skin,” Diane replies. “I know,” Liz laughs. Audra’s delivery is fantastic on that line.  

“Hey, I’m gonna fight for my partnership,” Diane says. “I know,” Liz says. The tone of this scene is so different from previous partnership drama on these shows and I’m excited about it. This is just a bunch of adults talking about business decisions with each other and treating each other as equals?? It's not backstabbing?? Or drama?? No one is hiding things?? It’s refreshing and I hope this plot stays like this. We’ve done so much partnership drama that I think drama that stems from a real, pressing question that has no easy answers and isn’t anyone’s fault is going to be much more fruitful for the show.  

Adrian heads out—ah, I see now this scene is set in his empty office and this is why they are on the floor—and gets a nice last moment with Diane. And then they give him a last moment with Liz, which I knew they would but was still glad to see.  

Liz asks if he knows what he’s doing—he says he’s not sure.

Adrian asks if Liz knows where she stands regarding Diane. “It’s going to be interesting,” Liz says. I don’t think she’s decided what she’s going to do yet.

It wouldn’t be an Adrian and Liz scene if Adrian didn’t have some unsolicited advice. “Diane’s a terrific lawyer, but this firm belongs to you.  Your dad built it. He did, Liz. Despite all his faults. You got to run this place the way you want. This is a black firm. And after today, the world needs black firms. You got me?” He tells Liz. He makes it seem like Liz gets the choice and then tells her what to do. She says, “I got it,” signaling she understood him but not that she necessarily agrees.  

I cannot wait to see what Liz does next!!!!!!! About this but just in general!!!!! Without Adrian there giving her constant advice I feel like she can grow so much and the show will have to give her more to do!!! I think Adrian, for all his many wonderful qualities and all he brought to the show, can suck all the air out of a room with his charisma, and Liz usually ends up suffering as a result. She’s such a capable lawyer in her own right, but Adrian has a way of making it always seem like he’s right—even in arguments she wins. I’m excited to see Liz lead (or stumble at leadership; she is fairly new to management) without Adrian’s direct influence.  

Liz walks Adrian out and it’s cute. They run into Marissa and Jay. “Everybody fun is leaving,” Marissa notes. Liz is minorly offended, but playfully. Heh.

Adrian asks Jay how he’s doing; Jay says he’s a long-hauler but he’s doing okay. I like that they included that moment in Adrian’s goodbye sequence. It’s a very little thing, but it underlines that Adrian cares about Jay.  

Then Liz interrupts to note that Trump pardoned a lot of convicted and corrupt Republican officials....... including Julius.  

Everyone celebrates, but especially Diane and Marissa. Diane lets out her wonderful laugh and then we, finally, get to the credits. Because now that the previouslies are over, it’s time for the real show.

The credits are absolutely delightful, btw. I was a little worried some of the kittens would blow up, though! Once I relaxed and realized what they were up to—literal puppies and kittens because Biden won—I couldn’t get enough of these credits. They work so well because they accurately capture the way I (and all of these characters, except maybe Julius and Kurt) feel about the election results, but it’s so exaggerated that you know the kittens and puppies aren’t a realistic representation of our new reality. They’re just too good to be true, but you may as well enjoy them for a minute. I’m sure we’ll be back to exploding vases next week.

What a great episode! My timeline nitpicks and whatever they’re trying to do with Jay aside, I was blown away by how well the writers managed to move on from season 4, tie up loose ends, and write out two main characters. And they did it all while making me revisit the events of 2020, a year I don’t think many of us want to spend much time thinking about! This episode was enjoyable, fun, emotional, and clever. I don’t know what to expect from the rest of the season, but I’m definitely excited about the show in a way I haven’t really been in quite some time.  

This season’s naming convention seems to be titles that end with ... and only have the first word capitalized. I want to see more. 

Season FIVE? There have already been as many TGF seasons as there were TGW seasons prior to Hitting the Fan?! Time flies. 

Please writers: No topical episodes this year-- no pee tape, no Melania divorce, no Epstein. None of that business. 

Sorry if I repeated myself here. I never proofread these things, and I wrote half of this on Saturday and half of it today (Wednesday) and the days in between were an absolute blur so I cannot remember if I said the same things about this episode twice. 

[legendofzelda4life]

Under A Red Moon

Wassup guys it’s day 36 and I’m gifting some Wild and Hyrule platonic fluff to make up for the angst that I still cry about to this day. /j

If you’re new here: I write Zelda/LU-themed one shots everyday until the LU AU is updated. I do take requests and more info about that will be left at the base of this post.

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“Oh shit.” Twilight’s eyes widened as the group stepped out of the portal. “What?” Warriors asked, looking around with a hand on his sword. “My Hyrule.” Wild groaned with a roll of his eyes. “That bad huh?”

“Well it’s not that bad. Where we are is.” Wild gestured around before continuing. “And also the moon fucks around every three days.” That one sentence made Time pale a little. Hyrule noticed and decided to change the topic.

“What’s so bad about where we are?” He asked, walking towards a small cliff. It gave him a sense of nostalgia as he instinctively kneeled, hand on sword as he gazed towards death mountain.

“This is the Great Plateau. And this,” he sat next to Hyrule, legs dangled off the edge, “is the first thing I saw when I came out of that shrine.”

The pair gazed into the distance for a bit before Sky broke them out of the trance.

“How do we get down?” Sky asked, causing Wild to smirk. “We don’t.”

A few people in the group gasped.

“Dear Hylia, I’m joking!” Wild laughed. “Some of us, specifically those with something like my paraglider. Could get down just fine. But without it…” Wild trailed off, walking down the hill slowly and taking a beatle off the tree.

He turned to the group and crushed the beatle in his hand.

“You’ll die.”

He looked away from his hand to see everybody staring at him with wide eyes.

“Okay well maybe, I wasn’t at full strength when I tested this last time.” Wild chuckled as the group made their way downhill, towards Rohta Chigah Shrine.

The group looked over the cliff.

“Alright so we could climb down, fly down in groups, or jump and hope we don’t die.” Wild explained. The team shared a few looks before Time opened his mouth. “Maybe we shoul-”

“Fuck you all!” Legend yelled jokingly. “Especially you!” He flipped off Warriors before jumping off the edge.

“THAT DID FUCKING NOTHING!!!” Legend yelled (It only takes away four hearts). Everybody looked at Wild expectantly. “What? I only tested this at the beginning of my journey!” Wild exclaimed defensively.

Eventually, everyone was at the base of the cliff.

“We should head over to the duelling peaks stable, we can get to Kakariko from there.” “Why don’t we go to the castle?” Warriors asked.

Wild sent a longing gaze towards Hyrule Castle. “We don’t use that anymore.” He mumbled, setting off towards the outpost ruins, leaving a shocked war hero behind him.

Eventually they got to the duelling peaks stable, at which point it was nearly night time.

“We’ll stay here tonight. I’ll pay.” Wild pulled out a few gemstones and walked up to a merchant.

“Wild, why’s the moon red?” Wind asked, pointing outside.

The mentioned hero’s eyes widened as he looked at a certain man.

“Get inside.”

That was all he said to Wind before walking to everyone else in a hurried manner.

“Hey, you got the beds?” Four asked. Wild nodded as he checked the time. It was only just 9:00pm. “Yeah, but get inside quick. I don’t want you guys out here tonight.” Wild’s eyes trailed to the moon.

“What’s going on with the moon?” Hyrule asked, unnerved by the blood red colour. “It’s the third day. Listen to Wild and get inside.” Twilight pushed everybody forward so they would at least make some attempt at getting into the stable.

Once everybody was inside, Wild sighed in relief and directed them to the room he rented. “Sleep anywhere.” He said, gesturing to the beds. There were four bunk beds and a normal bed.

Four and Wind argued over who would get top bunk.

Legend threw Warriors off the top bunk to have it.

Twilight insisted Time take the bottom bunk so he was further from the moon.

Sky basically flew onto the top bunk, leaving Hyrule and Wild to decide who gets the singular bed and who shares with Sky.

“Can we just sit at the fire for a bit?” Hyrule suggested. Wild nodded in response, taking the brunette’s wrist in hand and taking him over to the fire.

The pair gazed into the fire for a little while before Hyrule finally asked what had been nagging him in the back of his mind.

“Why’s the moon red?” He inquired, looking towards Wild - who was a little shocked at the sudden question. “Oh- um…” The boy trailed off slightly to remember what he was going to say.

“It’s like a ritual I guess. Every three days the moon turns blood red, resurrecting all monsters.”

Hyrule paled.

Resurrect all monsters? Did that mean Ganon? Was this somehow tied to his blood curse?

He couldn’t answer any of those questions himself.

“Could it resurrect Ganon?” Hyrule asked nervously. “Dear goddesses, no. Flora sealed him away.” Wild chuckled. This lifted some stress off Hyrule’s shoulders.

“So why did we need to come inside?” “Oh that’s because there’s a guy out there that goes completely fucking psycho every time there’s a blood moon. He tried to kill Twi once.” Wild thought back to the strange man trying to kill a wolf - when, in actual fact, it was Twi.

The pair spoke for a few more hours but at about 11:30, red stuff started to rise from the floor. “Don’t touch it.” Wild said as Hyrule tried to grab some.

The latter chuckled nervously and watched it float around them.

He glanced out the window.

The entire sky was red.

He looked at his teammates to see a few of them covering their ears. The ones that weren’t were already asleep. “Why’s it so loud?” Wind whined, trying to hide in the blankets. Hyrule tilted his head to the side as Four climbed up to the top bunk to comfort Wind.

What noise?

He looked towards Time and Twilight. The former was breathing heavily, tears nearing his eyes. Stress was evident. Twilight was covering his ears as if someone was screaming at him. He always had more sensitive ears than the rest.

The captain and Sky were passed the fuck out whereas Legend was staring out the window, rising from bed and jumping off the top bunk to approach it. He mumbled something under his breath that Hyrule couldn’t hear.

“Wild… why’s everyone blocking their ears?” Hyrule panickedly questioned the boy.

“You can’t fucking hear it?!?!?!” Wind and Time yelled. Hyrule sent a worried gaze toward the pair before shaking his head.

Then he heard it.

It was a peaceful melody with some words as well.

“It’s singing? I don’t see the problem.” He said. “It’s a horrid piano tune! That’s what it is!” Twilight yelled, growing restless.

Hero of old, Blood of courage, Gift it please, To resurrect scourge.

The song was very captivating. But Hyrule refused to gift his blood.

Being the only sane one, he took Wild over to where Four and Wind sat, pulling Wild into him.

The blonde sighed as he listened to Hyrule’s heartbeat, visibly calming. “You’re going to be okay. The moon will pass.” Hyrule rubbed Four’s back with one hand as he spoke, holding Wild with the other.

It was 11:35pm.

So much had occurred in the span of five minutes.

Hyrule just prayed midnight would come quickly as the music slowly sped up, causing Wind to become stressed. The brunette covered him with a blanket as the island child hugged Four like a lifeline.

Everyone just wanted it to stop.

END

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Alright, this was for yesterday because I’m a dumbass that can’t keep up with my own brain lmao.

Look ik I said Wild and Hyrule fluff but I used to be too centered around the pairing and now I’m not centered enough and just- *screams* bear with me a hot sec

LEAVE REQUESTS BELOW!

REQUESTS MUST INCLUDE:

PAIRING

TYPE/GENRE/CATEGORY (fluff, angst, etc)

PLATONIC OR NOT

I WILL WRITE ONLY ABOUT THE LINKS (including the ravio, shadow, the zeldas, and requested characters. Will not write about whole other fandoms though)

I CAN DO READER INSERTS IF REQUESTED (no oc’s tho)

CAN DO AN AU IF REQUESTED

[richietoaster]

As I Am, You Understand

reddie

words: 2,217

playlist

AO3 LINK

me writing tooth rotting fluff impulsively and posting at 3:30am? more likely than you think

READ BELOW IF YOU DONT MIND IT BEING UNFORMATTED 

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Richie has a date. It’s not his first date, but it’s the first time he’s felt alive in a long time. He makes sure to shower double the time he usually does, scrubbing his body with his dad’s Sandalwood and Eucalyptus bodywash, and, fuck it, he even conditions his hair too.

He feels like he’s in a movie and that’s how he knows he’s got it bad. Richie dances in the shower using the bottle as a microphone to sing loudly. He feels ignited- on fire. Honestly, it’s a surprise to him that he’s going on a date. To the fucking carnival. What kind of teen movie is this? Richie will be going to college with the love of his life type of shit? Actually, he thinks, that’s not a bad idea. 

Richie doesn’t want to think about college, to be fair. He got accepted into UCLA, the best university ever, but all his mind consists of golden brown hair and eyes, consists of his best friend, the love of his life, and-- quite frankly, he’s not sure how Eddie said yes to a date with him. Him. Out of all people.

Richie looks over to his friends at the lunch table and throws a fry at Stanley’s face. “Any you fuckers goin’ to the carnival?” He says as Stan steals another off of Richie’s plate for payback. They’re all waiting for Eddie to get his lunch and come sit with them.

“Yeah, this weekend.” Bev responds, “Ben and I are going on a date.”

“Well, good for you for finally figuring out your feelings. It only took, what? Since the eighth grade?” Richie smirks at them. He supposes he’s not one to talk, since everyone under the sun except Eddie himself, knows about Richie’s crush on him. 

“You are not one to talk,” Mike says with a pointed look. 

“Y-Yeah,” Bill agrees, “Why don’t you ask Eddie to go with you?”

“Yeah, ask him on a date.” Ben shrugs. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“The worst?” Richie asks incredulously. He counts on his fingers, “Well, one, he could say no. Two, it could make him uncomfortable. Three, he might never talk to me again. Four, he could say no. And, five, he might never fucking talk to me again.”

Stan rolls his eyes, “You’re being dramatic. Just ask him, Rich. I’m positive you’ll get the answer you want.”

Richie shakes his head, “No, nope. Mhm-hmph. I am not asking Eddie.”

Everyone’s eyes go wide, staring right past Richie. Richie feels goosebumps on his arms immediately, because oh. Oh no.. That can’t be good. 

Richie turns around and focuses his gaze on Eddie, who’s looking at him with a confused expression.

“Ask me what, Rich?”

Richie turns around to look at his friends for help, but they all exchange glances and get up to move to another table. 

“Thanks, you guys. Yeah, love you too!” Richie calls after them. 

“What was up with that?” Eddie asks, sitting down next to him, setting his tray on the table.

“I-.. Shit..” Richie breathes out a shaky breath. “I.. I.. we were talking about the town carnival this weekend.”

“Oh.. yeah, I heard it’s gonna be really fun this year.. But what does that have to do with-?” Eddie cuts himself off, and Richie can see the second it clicks for Eddie. “Richie, were you going to-?” 

This time Richie cuts him off.“N-Not like that! I mean- or- or- unless you wanted to of course? I don’t know, I figured it could be fun- like the two of us! We always have fun together. And.. And like recently it seemed like things might be feeling different between us- like- like- I don’t know, like-” Eddie covers Richie’s mouth with his hand.

“Richie. Ask me.” Richie’s eyes widen. Eddie removes his hand from Richie’s mouth.

“Eds, will you be my date to the carnival this weekend?” Richie gulps, almost afraid of this just being a cruel, and very unfunny joke. Except, Eddie’s smiling wide, and straightening up.

“Of course I will, you big dummy.” He stands and picks his tray up. “I wasn’t planning on staying long, I actually wasn’t going to even stop by the table.. but I wanted to see you guys. I have to go to the library to work on a project, but..” Eddie bites his lip and Richie really feels like he’s in a cliche movie. “I’ll call you later?”

Richie can barely process what just happened, so he settles by answering with a weak nod. 

“Great!” Eddie has a faint blush rising to his cheeks. “I’ll.. call you later, then.”

Richie watches Eddie walk away, and once he’s out of sight, he’s fist pumping the air. 

And now it’s an hour before they’re supposed to meet and Richie’s heart is booming in his chest. Honestly, Richie feels like the world’s luckiest guy. Like, for real, how the fuck did he score a date with his best friend in the entire universe? The cutest boy in mankind? It’s completely unreal, if anyone were to ask him. 

Richie arrives ten minutes early and sits on the wooden fence to wait for Eddie. He told Eddie earlier that he could come pick him up, but Eddie insisted on meeting up- claims it would be aesthetic, like an eighties movie. The cheeseball. 

But as he checks his phone each passing minute, before he knows it, it’s almost an hour. And he’s about to leave, accept that it was in fact, a cruel and unfunny joke, but he hears his name being called out.

“Rich! Richie!” He can hear Eddie sounding out of breath as he gets closer.

“Did.. did you fucking run here?”

Eddie puts his hands on his knees to breathe easier and nods, “I.. I couldn’t find my phone.. Was gonna text you and.. tell you that I’d.. I’d be late…” He inhales deeply a few times after struggling to complete a sentence. Eddie finishes, “but I couldn’t find my phone.. And then my mom was yanno.. Sonia-ing it up..”

Richie stifles out a loud laugh, “Sonia-ing it up?”

“Yeah!” Eddie chuckles. “Her being like ‘don’t go out Eddie, air is bad.’ shit like that.”

“Air is bad..” Richie repeats and continues to laugh. Eddie grins at him and takes Richie’s hand, threading his fingers between his own.

“I’m glad I got you laughing.” Eddie admits.

“Why wouldn’t I laugh at that?” 

The two walk in together, immediately going to the ticket booth and buying just enough to ride every ride if they wanted to. But their first stop is to the cheese fries. 

“Because,” Eddie shrugs, finally responding. “I was afraid you’d be upset that I was late. I didn’t want you to think that I was-”

“-standing me up?”

“Yes, exactly. But, you know that wasn’t the case, now.” 

“I’m not mad, Spaghetti. Can’t be mad at someone as cute as you.” Richie winks and Eddie’s face flushes.

“Yeah- actually, that reminds me- when did you start liking me? Because I’ve been literally pining over you for.. for.. At least freshman or sophomore year.” Eddie leads them both to a table nearby and they sit together.

“Hah,” Richie says, “I got you beat by at least a year or two. I’ve been in-” He coughs, “I’ve liked you since 8th grade when I accidentally made you trip in the hallway going to science class. You picked yourself up like it was nothing, and just smiled at me and said, ‘you’re lucky I like you’ with that little huff you do when you’re either annoyed or embarrassed.”

Eddie does the exact huff that Richie’s talking about and says, “I do not do that.”

Richie smirks at him.

“Oh, fuck off.” Eddie pauses and looks up at Richie through his eyelashes, and Richie thinks for a split second that Eddie might be debating on kissing him, but instead he continues, “I never expected in like, my wildest and probably wet dreams that you would ever like me back. But you were just babbling on and on at lunch and it just.. It just clicked for me. I figured if I didn’t help you out, you’d have a fucking stroke, so, there’s that. You’re welcome.”

“Okay first of all- wet dreams, huh? You have wet dreams about me, do you?” Eddie pushes at his shoulder and chuckles. “Okay, okay!” A quick pause. “And second of all, I wasn’t gonna have a stroke, thank you.”

“Oh, no. You definitely were. And then you had the audacity to be like ‘but it can be a date if you want it to be’ like? Have you not been with me in the same situations the past two weeks? I swear.. We both almost confessed feelings multiple times.” 

“When we were in your bed a few nights ago, your head was on my chest and I was actually terrified you were gonna wake up to the sound of it beating so loud.” Richie tells him, “You have no idea how badly I wanted to kiss you then.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea, actually.” Eddie admits. And then they’re both quiet, staring at one another, not sure if they’re supposed to make the first move or not. The moment passes, and Eddie stands up, the empty box of fries in his hand. “I’m gonna throw this away real quick.”

“Yeah, no, go ahead.”

And then Eddie’s returning seconds later to grab at his hand, “Come on, let’s get in line for the Ferris Wheel.”

Richie groans, “But the Ferris Wheel always has the longest line!”

“Stop complaining.”

“Fineeee,” Richie says.

“You’re so dramatic,” Eddie laughs. “Speaking of which, are you excited about UCLA? I know it must’ve been hard picking your major. But I’m glad you went with Theater. You’re an amazing performer.”

Richie is silent for a minute. He was really hoping they would stay away from the topic. He’s terrified of the future. “I.. thanks, honestly. It’s.. It’s so weird, you know? That graduation is literally in like, a month. We have the summer.. Together.. And with our friends.. But then everyone is off to college. It’s kinda scary, Eds. Don’t you think?”

“Well, not really, since we all got accepted into schools in California. I think it’s pretty great. We’ll be closer than you realize. And.. I’ve kept it from you for so long, but.. I got accepted into the University of Southern California.” Eddie smiles softly at him.

“Eds.. holy shit, that is literally like a twenty minute drive from UCLA.. did you fuckin’ plan that?”

“No,” Eddie laughs, “But it is super convenient, right?”

“Don’t think for a minute I won’t be spending every second I can with you. You won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“Next!” The ride operator interrupts their conversation and holds on his hand for the tickets, which Eddie hands him.

They get in the cart and the guy slams the cart’s gate shut, locking the side. “Keep your arms, legs, hands, and feet, inside the car at all times. Have fun.”

They stay quiet for a few minutes, two times around the Ferris Wheel, and then Richie speaks.

“I was actually afraid you guys would like. I don’t know. Want better friends than me in college.”

Eddie looks at him, “Rich, you know that’s absolutely crazy, yeah? We could never want to replace you.”

“That’s not what I said,” Richie grumbles.

“It’s what you meant.” Eddie retorts. “But that would never happen. We’re all gonna have the time of our fucking lives in California together. Crashing each other’s dorms parties-”

“-you’re gonna be a pariter? Yeah, okay, right.”

“New school year, new state, new me!”

“It’s not New Year’s, Eds.” Richie chuckles.

“Might as well be. Anyway, the point is we’re all gonna be together.. and.. And most importantly,” Eddie links their fingers together, “We get to be together.”

“Aren’t we together right now? I mean-” The Ferris Wheel stops and they’re at the very top. “Do you want to be together? More than friends?”

“Finally you’re getting the hint.” 

Richie chokes on his own spit. “Well, I- me too. I want that to.”

“Good,” Eddie rests his head on Richie’s shoulder. “Then that’s what we are. Together. Boyfriends.”

“Boyfriends.” Richie breathes.

“And it’ll be better when we’re out of buttfuck Derry, and in literally one of the most beautiful places in the world.” Eddie says. 

“Good.” 

“Good,” Eddie agrees, “because like I said, you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon, Rich.”

“Well, then I don’t plan on going anywhere, so I guess you’ll just have to get used to the fact that I’m gonna be in your future.”

Eddie pauses for a moment, lifting his head off of Richie’s shoulder, “Well.. then, here’s to the future.”

Without missing a beat, Richie looks down and tilts Eddie’s chin up. “No.. Here's to right now,” and leans down to press a soft kiss to his lips, Eddie’s hand reaching up to cup Richie’s cheek. Their mouths move slow and in sync together.

And, yeah, their future may be important, as graduation is slowly approaching and college is nearing closer, but so is this moment.

This moment is the start to a beautiful beginning; their beginning. 

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

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[yzkhr]

Since today's my birthday, what better way to celebrate than torture myself and create this fic?

-

He was dying.

Being constantly followed by death, it wasn't rare for Japan's famous detective Kudo Shinichi to witness a pool of blood. However, it was a different matter if it was his.

The sticky red liquid was pouring out of his stomach continuously, with no sign of stopping. It dripped and dripped, making a trail of blood as he goes along the dark empty street in the middle of the night in Tokyo, settling in an alleyway.

Having no strength left to stand, he leaned on an old wall, not caring if it's dirty, knowing that it will be covered with his blood anyways.

Shinichi sighed, remembering what exactly happened that got him in such a painful situation.

When he chased after the serial killer, he didn't expect the man to still have one last trick under their sleeve—being a knife literally under the killer's sleeve— as Shinichi tried to tackle him. Unfortunately, the man managed to escape, leading to more chasing that the detective can't handle any longer with his condition.

He tried to call the police for back up but none of them are picking up. Detective Takagi and Sato are both in their honeymoon, while the rest are currently busy with a bombing case. He mentally smacked himself for being too confident, telling the Inspector that he can take on the serial killer on his own.

Seeing as how it turned out, he clearly couldn't.

He tightened the black blazer around his bleeding stomach even more, trying to at least slow down the rapid loss of blood but to no avail. Even if by some miracle someone were to find his battered body, it would already be too late.

He felt numb but at the same time in pain. He was losing so much blood that he knew he's about to pass out any second now. But he didn't want to yet. He still had to somehow give the police clues about the suspect. That was the least he could do.

He dug deep into his pocket, finding his phone that cracked when he tripped once from the pursuit. Luckily, it was still working. He opened his notes and typed every information about the murderer. Despite his trembling fingers and more blood loss happening, his perseverance was more than enough to do the job.

After he finished writing one last sentence, he pressed the home button and immediately regretted doing so afterwards. Because of it, the photo of him and Ran on their graduation day holding hands as his wallpaper appeared before him. His heart clenched almost in an instant, seeing the pure and blissful face of his girlfriend coupled with his embarrassed one.

And as if the world wasn't fucking with him enough, he heard a melodious ringtone from his phone that's only meant for her. She's calling him.

"Ran..." he muttered under his breath, seeing her name registered below the cracked screen. Shinichi didn't know what to do. For some reason, she always seemed to sense when he's in some kind of danger. His thoughts came back at the time when he first shrunk as Conan, her name flashing on his phone, signalling her call.

That time, he chose not to answer, knowing that he'll be humiliated proving to her that she was right about him getting himself into trouble with all his probing. Should he do what he did back then?

All of a sudden, the ache in his abdomen got worse as more blood poured out. The man's slice was a lot deeper than expected. With that, he came to a realization.

No. He has to answer her. Back when he turned into Conan, there was a tinge of hope that he can somehow return to his old body, that he can get through and treat his shrinking as nothing but a nightmare. But this is different. He was bleeding out blood for about an hour without any treatment whatsoever except for a piece of cloth—which is already too soaked— that he tied around the wound.

Although miniscule, there was coming back from turning into a seven year old. But dying? There was no redemption from something like being dead. He of all people knew that.

If he estimated, he still have at least six minutes. That's all the time he has. Six minutes until the pain is over, six minutes until he finally die. The least he can do was hear her voice one last time and to say goodbye.

Inhaling to somehow stabilize his ragged breathing, he pressed the answer button, slowly bringing the phone on his right ear.

"Shinichi?"

Hearing his girlfriend's voice made Shinichi forget for a second about his impending predicament. It was calm and soft, like music to his ears. A smile instinctively made it's way to his dry lips.

"Yo, Ran," he mumbled casually, as if the lack of blood wasn't about to make him pass out.

"Shinichi? Are you okay?" she immediately asked, worry lace in her tone. He planned on answering honestly, informing he didn't have much time left. For some reason however, things became different.

"Barou, of course I'm okay." the words naturally came out of his mouth despite his mind protesting, telling that what he was saying was wrong.

But after hearing a relieved sigh on her end, Shinichi started to rethink his previous decision. Is it really okay to worry her now when he knew she wouldn't be able to do anything anyway? Is it really fine to hear her voice change from it's usual sweetness into something bitter? Is it really right to break her heart for the remaining 6 minutes of his life?

'No,' Shinichi thought.

He didn't want his last minutes to be filled with sadness and regret. He didn't want the last thing he'll ever hear would be her cries over the phone, with him not being able to do anything to comfort her.

He can be selfish for just one last time, right?

"Mou, where are you exactly? You've been gone the whole day." she complained, her voice now having none of her initial panic, yet he can still hear the lingering concern. It made him realize once more how even after two years since the Conan incident, Ran still had nightmares and doubts about him going away. And now, he's about to leave her alone again.

Permanently.

"I miss you." he blurted out with sincerity, not wanting the regrets to eat him slowly. He leaned back further against the now bloodied wall, he despises how cold it is and wishing she was there to warm him up.

The line stayed quiet, but Shinichi imagined how flustered and red her face must have been. After returning to his teenage body, the detective didn't waste any time and made sure that Ran knows how much he loves her, to the point of overwhelming her sometimes. He took her out to countless dates, constantly saying sweet things, even being a bit more physical. Two years had passed yet she's still slowly getting used to it and he was fine with that.

He only wished he could stay longer until she finally did.

"I miss you too..." she quietly answered on the other line, a bit mortified. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle, delighting at her adorable reply. He got his karma however, when he ached on his wound because of the action.

Before he can tease, Ran quickly steered the topic away.

"Seriously, If you miss me so much, finish up the case faster. I'm making your favorite right now," she said, voice teasing and sweet, trying to mask her early embarrassment. True enough, Shinichi heard the slight whisking over the line making him also superficially smell the sweet scent of the lemon pie.

He imagined them five years later, Ran on her apron, standing behind the counter and whisking his favorite dessert while he hugs her from behind, wearing a satisfied expression. A flustered yet dreamy smile appeared on his face but he soon tasted a bitter feeling from the back of his throat wanting to be let out.

It wasn't vomit or blood but the disgusting taste of regret, him being aware he'll never be able to make his imagination a reality.

Wanting to forget the unsettling and resentful feeling on the pit of his gashed stomach, he redirected their topic by asking her about her day, feeling weaker and weaker as each second passed.

They managed to talk about a lot of things. They jumped from topic to topic, making jokes and flirting at the same time. It only lasted for four minutes, but it meant Shinichi's whole entire life. Within those said four minutes, he was also able to hide any sign of his painful situation, regardless of it getting worse and worse. Ran's gentle and kind voice also helped to calm him down, reminding him how he would break her if he showed any hints of distress.

Because of his experiences as Conan, Shinichi had built on a high pain tolerance when it comes to any physical injuries. He had his bones and muscles shrinking and growing time and time again after all. However, the blood loss was a different matter altogether.

He did well ignoring the dizziness and nausea, but his vision blurred even more than before, his world spinning despite him just leaning helplessly on the now bloodied ground, no longer capable of moving. Fatigue started to get to Shinichi as well, with him forcing his eyes to stay open despite it begging to be closed.

It didn't take long for Ran to notice, with his hearing getting weak and his voice slightly shaking from the shortness of breath. He tried to be firm, but he couldn't even breath properly anymore.

"Shinichi? Are you really okay?" she inquired, worry obvious and rising once again. He nodded his head languidly, as if she can see his answer.

"I'm....fine," he sighed heavily. "Just tired...."

"What do you mean tired? Where are you? Are you okay? Do you want me to end the call for you to---"

"No!" he cut her off, fear and desperation evident. Ran was clearly shocked, with only the echo of his voice being heard.

He didn't want to admit it, but he was scared. Not at the idea of dying, but the prospect of dying alone. He knew it was selfish, but he wanted—needed her there with him. He needed her warmth and kindess to envelope him, needed her voice to embraced him and take the pain away. But she wasn't there. The only thing he had left was her voice, and the thought of it gone as well absolutely terrified him.

"Shinichi...." Ran broke the silence, with Shinichi realizing what he had just done. He closed his eyes tightly shut, reprimanding his own stupidity.

"Shinichi... where are you?"she asked quietly, but Shinichi just moved his head slightly back and forth, indicating a no.

"It's okay Ran...it's too late anyways." he finally confessed, predicting his time limit being less than a minutes.

"I..got... stabbed. Been bleeding out for the last five minutes..." he managed to chew out, with hís breathing getting ragged as each word got out.

"What!? Why didn't you say so earlier!?" she was going hysteric and he was sure of the things going through her head.

"Shinichi please... tell me where you are. I'm coming there right now... please..." she pleaded. Shinichi heard her aggressively shoveling through her stuff and running fast, the sound of her heels clicking rapidly being it's proof.

"Ran, looks like it's my turn to wait for you this time, huh." even speaking was a challenge to him, panting hard as he finished.

"No! Shinichi, come on! Just tell me and I'm coming for you! Please...."

"I can't... you'll cry. I don't want the last thing I'll see... is you crying." he tried to laugh, but only managed a small chuckled.

The lines stayed quiet for a bit until he heard her sobbing. She was trying to cover it, but it was loud and clear to him. He frowned.

"Barou, didn't I tell you not to cry?" he tried to sound annoyed, but the fondness was so evident that even he heard it himself.

"Idiot! How can I not!? Don't do this to me.... What happened? Please, Shinichi...." she was now just crying uncontrollably, with no sign of stopping.

"Ran, listen to me..." he coaxed, trying to alleviate her cries with his voice.

"No! You're leaving! You're leaving me again....." she let out in between sobs and Shinichi can't help but feel a sting, picturing her as she spoke such words and what she must look like at the moment.

She was right. He was leaving her again. This time, with the certainty of never coming back.

"Come on, Ran, you know I hate it when you cry. So please..." he wanted to do something—anything to make her feel better. But all he could manage was a gentle and cajoling voice that seemed to have no effect on his girlfriend's wails.

"Why, why didn't you tell me!? I could have helped you! I could have..." she uttered incoherently, hiccuping. He shushed her gently, wanting to reason out.

"It was already too late. I already loss too much blood at that time. I didn't wanna worry you."

Ran still tried to protest by mumbling and rambling, but her tears were practically choking her. She couldn't speak.

"Ran, I love you so much...." he said, wanting to tell her for the last time, just how much his childhood friend meant to him.

Ran wasn't just his first love, she was also his greatest and last one. Even if he wasn't about to die, he knew that he would still choose her.

Her breath hitched from his confession. It seemed to calm her down as she controlled chokes and sobs, and he once more imagined her sitting on the floor, face a crying mess, but she was blushing and a loving smile plastered on her, still making her more beautiful than ever.

"I love you more," she answered, voice filled with pain and sorrow, yet laced with all the love and sweetness in the world. With that, Shinichi felt like the luckiest man alive.

"I love you most...." he jabbed back, not wanting to be outdone(and knowing that it was the absolute truth).

"You stay awake there do you hear me!? Don't close your eyes yet! I'm coming there right now so please, I'll definitely find you and be the one to beat you up so wait for me, Shinichi!" she commanded with so much conviction that he wanted to obey, but his body just wouldn't cooperate.

"Hmm..."

"Shinichi? Shinichi come on!" he was aware of her screams but they fell deaf to his buzzing ears.

'Ran, I'm sorry.'

Shinichi, contented hearing Ran for the final time and telling her how much she meant to him, wore the most genuine smile as he slowly closed his tired eyes, having no intention of opening them again.

"Shinichi? Shinichi!?" were the last lines he heard on the phone, as it slipped on his hand and dropped on the ground, lifeless, just like it's owner.

[baeklination]

bartender love    pt.1

Pics: random from web, Kyungsoo don’t know

Date:200711

Warnings:au (non famous Kyungsoo), crude language (cursing), alcohol, light pre-smut 

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader (Y/N)

WC: 3k

NOTE: 1. I couldn’t let go of bad boy Soo just like that, I had to write something. 2. I am acutely aware of how cringey, horrible, simply NO the title is, but please believe that I couldn’t not do it..! 

pt.2   pt.3                                       ¤¤

“This one? Doesn’t look too shabby or too chic”, Iseul said shrugging her shoulders.

“The Shamrock…” you read out loud and demonstratively tapped your finger on your chin. “Could this be an Irish pub?”

You both cracked up, thinking about the numerous conversations you’d had about Irish and British pubs and their oftentimes generic names. 

“Okay, it’s a bit...But would you rather spend your time trying to find another place to have a beer, or actually having one?”

You and Iseul had a habit of going out for a few beers on the weekends, but when you had showed at your usual haunt you were met by a sign informing you it was closed for renovation. Hence the hunt.

“Point taken. We’ll give it at least one beer’s time to impress”, you agreed.

  The interior looked much like any other Irish bar: dark wooden flooring as well as walls, matched with the same dark furniture; a couple of booths with red cushioning along the walls, tables and chairs in the middle and a long counter at the back. It was only around 7pm so there weren’t a lot of patrons in yet, a few dinner guests and a couple sitting at the bar.

“It doesn’t smell like pee or vomit, that’s a plus right there”, Iseul joked. You burst out a short loud laugh, making the bartender turn around with raised brows. You pretended to scratch your nose but it was just a trick to cover your mouth when you mumbled:

“Oh my god...”

You and Iseul had been friends for so long she understood every mumble and code in your speech - and she agreed. Hauling up her phone she said:

“Excuse me while I call my boyfriend of four years to break up with him.”

You tried to choke your laugh but failed miserably and the two of you must have looked like a pair of giggling teenagers when you reached the bar counter. Thankfully the bartender didn’t show any sign of overhearing your conversation, he just smiled jovially.

“Hi. A draft beer and my friend here will probably want something you don’t stock”, Iseul told him.

“Yeah? What you want?” he said as he picked up a glass and started pouring Iseul’s beer.

“You in the bathroom stall in two seconds”, you thought to yourself when you heard his voice. It was so deep you swore it could erode the friggin’ glaciers on Greenland..! 

“Eh...I’ll have a…” you lingered as you scanned the shelves to see what they offered. 

“Told you so”, Iseul mumbled as she received her glass. 

“Kilkenny. I’ll have a Kilkenny, please and thank you.” You emphasized the sentence to make a point of disagreeing with Iseul’s characterization of you as picky.

“A girl with taste...Let me just see your ID’s real quick.”

The way he looked at yours and then said “Y/N...pretty” gave you a tingle in your stomach and almost like a rush of electricity through your head as you smiled and thanked him. 

“Ooh, someone’s got an admirer…”, Iseul cooed as you sat down.

“Yeah, he does”, you said pointing at her.

“Haha..! If I was single I’d tap that quicker than-”

“Je-sus..!”

“Yeah, quicker than Jesus. Except I wouldn’t, since he clearly has his eye on you, girl. Plan of action?”

“None. I just sat down.”

“Y/N, come on..!”, Iseul whined. She made a gesture of grabbing something. “Carpe diem. Carpe bartender..! He’s even looking at you now..!”

You were seated with your back against the bar, so you couldn’t see him but you could guess Iseul was just making a point.

“No he’s not.”

She widened her eyes.

“If you look over there now…”

There wasn’t any way to do it without being obvious so you just turned your head. He was looking at you. It caught you by surprise; you quickly turned back, not even offering him a smile. Immediately you realized how it must’ve looked. You put your hand in your face.

“Fuck…”

“Smooth…”, she said slurping her beer demonstratively.  

You had to laugh at yourself, couldn’t help it really.

“Aeh, I’m not trying to act cool anyway, Is. Topic: tell me about your trip. You’re leaving wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, wednesday…”

And so you naturally changed the subject and talked about this and that until Iseul started tapping her empty glass.

“Okay”, you sighed, “it’s time. Carpe bartender. Still no plan.”

“Organic? I like it. But smile when you look at him this time.”

 And boy was he something to look at. From the piercing in his eyebrow and the one in his nose to the ring he had in his lip - those luscious lips..! The tattoo on his neck, partly covered up by his buttoned up black suede shirt, and his thick black hair; shaved at the sides but cascading down in front of his eyes when he moved. The way he ran his ring clad fingers through his hair to keep it out of his face was the near deadly icing on the cake. “Let the carping begin”, you laughed to yourself as you approached the bar.

“My tasty girl...”, he said with a crooked smile.

“My creepy bartender…” you countered, making him laugh, deep and rumbling. “One more draft, and since you have so many options I think I’ll try something new. What’s good?”

He thought about it while he drafted Iseul’s beer:

“Ah..! I think you’ll like this one.” He turned to the counter behind him for a moment and when he came back he had the cheekiest smile on and he put a note in front of you. “Here’s something new.”

Perplexed you looked down; it was a phone number - presumably his. You rolled your eyes and sucked in your cheeks, pretending to be bemused, even though you were clearly amused.

“Really..?”

“What, you don’t like it..?” He knew it was cheesy as hell so he couldn’t keep a straight face either.

“Of course I fucking like it..!” You said and slammed your hand on the note. “Oh, wait. Is there a name attached to this number?”

“Kyungsoo.”

“Kyung..?”

“...Soo.”

“Kyungsoo. Well, nice to meet you, Kyungsoo”, you said holding out your hand.

“Nice to meet you too, Y/N”, he responded and took your hand.

“I was actually trying to get that beer you said you had for me, but okay…”

When you got nervous you had a tendency of making jokes (if one could call them that), but Kyungsoo didn’t seem to mind. He knitted his brows and nodded:

“Okay, it’s gonna be like that…Maybe I should take my number back then..?”

“There are no takesies backsies, mister”, you scoffed.

“Takes…” he smiled in disbelief. “Did you just say takesies backsies?”

“No…”

“Let me grab you that beer so you can drown the embarrassment of these last five seconds.”

“Thanks. Well, I better get back to my table with her beer.”

“What are you guys doing later?”

It was at this point puppies started doing cartwheels in your head.

“I dunno. We’re gonna get some burgers and then try to find another bar. Our usual place is closed for renovation. We’re kinda drifting around...”

“...like two plastic bags in the wind”, he filled in with a dramatic gesture. “There’s a place up the road, Henki. I usually go there when my shift ends. You should come.” Kyungsoo looked you square in the eyes with seriousness that made you tremble (in the good way). “You should definitely come.”

                                         ¤¤

  So here you were, sitting in a booth in a half dingy rock bar because a pretty boy said you should. 

“But seriously, how can someone look like that! Even I’m nervous..!” Iseul exclaimed. “And he seemed cool too, no?”

“ Yeah, really cool. Like chill. Like…”

“...like someone’s in lo-ooove..!”

“Oh, get outta here with that love shit!” you swatted your hand in the air. “It’s gonna be at least two more hours.” You took a sip of your beer and continued “Thanks for being the best and chillest wing-man. But you’ve gotta tell me if I shade you too much, alright.”

“Who am I to stand in the way of young love..? Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday..!”

“Because it was yesterday - you live with the guy!”

“That’s what I said, like yesterday” she laughed.

Iseul gasped:

“He’s here! No, don’t look! Be cool!”

“Shh, stop it - you be cool, Iseul..!” 

  Kyungsoo scanned the room almost immediately when he came in. You didn’t care if he saw how excited you were; he was obviously feeling the same way. When his eyes landed on you he broke into a smile which made you smile all the wider, and making his way to your table he chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. He squatted, resting his arms on the table:

“You came.”

You started saying something but Iseul beat you to it:

“She couldn’t get here fast enough.” 

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows. “Me neither. Oh, sorry”, he said turning to Iseul “I’m Kyungsoo.”

“Iseul. Aren’t you gonna sit down?”

“My friends are here so I have to say hi to them first, have one drink at least. You know bros before…”

“Before what now?” you said, crossing your arms.

“Eh...non-bros. Don’t worry, Y/N, I’ll be back.”

“I’m not”, you smiled “I know you will.”

  On one hand you thought that drink took an awfully long time to finish, but on the other you didn’t mind since you were having fun. Even though you and Iseul practically saw each other more than her and her boyfriend did there was always something to talk about; whether it be your annoying manager, her annoying manager, politics or long rants about food. You didn’t have to wait long for new fuel to be added to the conversation as Tony soon joined you.

“I knew you’d feel like you were dissing me, so I asked him to come.”

“Yep, I’m the wingman’s entertainment.”

“You’re self-sacrifice has been noted, and bounty will be stored upon you when we get home, good sir.”

“See...”, he said, putting his arm around Iseul and giving her a kiss “...my chick is the best.”  

“Ain’t dat the truth”, you agreed.

“Hi…” 

You looked up to see Kyungsoo by your side.

“Great timing, bro”, Tony said, shaking Kyungsoo’s hand. “I was just about to steal my girl away for some alone time.”

“Subtle, Tony. Real subtle…” you rolled your eyes.

“The way you say that makes it sound sarcastic. But it can’t be.” Kyungsoo had a puzzled look on his face. “It couldn’t be that they’re making up an excuse because I came over and they think we might want some alone time... Nah, it’s too devious”, he shook his head.

“They’re bad seeds, Kyungsoo. Better stay away.” You grabbed his wrist, and got that electric feeling again, but no one noticed through the laughter.

“Just don’t leave without me.”

“Of course not”, Iseul assured you before they changed seats.

“Now...”, he sighed “can I finally buy you a drink?”

  He was so unlike most guys you’d dated, or even had a short chat with for that matter. His energy was like a huge magnet sucking you in, enveloping you with brightness and warmth that felt so natural. It could’ve been Iseul you were talking to right then. Both of you were open and all smiles; that “once in a blue moon”-connection you instantly feel but can’t pinpoint the reason for. What the heck did you even talk about to make the time go so fast? Music, friends, tattoos, life… You wouldn’t be able to retell half of it, but it was constant and comfortable. After some time you joined his friends at their table and the conversation flowed as easily there. One of his friends, Loey, had the most amazing red hair which you couldn’t help but gush over.

“I really like your hair, Loey. It’s so...red!”

“Thanks. Then you should’ve met this one a couple of months earlier”, he said pointing to Kyungsoo.

“It was nothing, just a phase”, he swatted his hand in the air.

“Nothing? The girls went fucking crazy over it..!”, Loey exclaimed.

“Is that so? Tell me everything, Loey.”

You weren’t the jealous type at all, you just found it funny to see guys stumble and mumble trying to convince you you were the first, best and prettiest woman they’d ever seen - as if. 

“Aeh, don’t listen to him”, he said and put his arm around your shoulders (“finally!”). “Women don’t throw themselves at me. Except for you, of course”, he ended with that cheeky smile.

“Excuse me..! I have half a mind to un-throw myself right about now.”

He laughed and leaned in next to your ear.

“Don’t.”

One word. One word with that deep, vibrating voice in your ear was all it took for your brain wires to fly out of their sockets and whip around like it was Woodstock. You made an excuse about having to go to the ladies room and waved at Iseul to join you.

“Holy mother of GOD, if I don’t chill out - if he doesn’t chill out...”

Iseul folded over laughing. 

“Stop laughing, Iseul, this is serious stuff!” you implored. But you weren’t leading by example, the way you yourself had to lean on your knees for support. “I need...spiritual guidance over here..!”

Iseul wiped her tears and stuttered:

“Just...do whatever you want to do. You’re a grown ass woman, Y/N.”

“I said spi-ri-tual, not se-xu-al…”

“I can only help you so much. And I can only leave my boy alone for so long. Leggo!”

  When you saw him walking towards you you knew exactly what was about to happen, so you stopped, leaning on the wall with a hint of a smile.

“Come here, already.” He pulled you to the side so not everyone would see you.

 You’d been looking at those lips all fucking night but never found an excuse good enough to be alone with him. Excited was an understatement.

“I’m gonna be a gentleman and ask if I can kiss you, but I’m not gonna wait for your answer. Can I?”

He put his hand on the nape of you neck and leaned in. The way his lips were slightly parted at first; the way he pushed his tongue in to your mouth, slowly but with dominance; his hot breath... 

“Fuck…”

“You wanna..?” he breathed into your mouth and pressed his lips harder against yours. You felt the smile on him which made it - him - even worse. The way he kept his tongue in your mouth, slowly feeling and tasting every bit of yours… This boy knew how to kiss. You instinctively arched your back and he slid his hand under your top, gently pressing on the small of your back.

“You wanna get outta here?”

He placed wet kisses along the side of your neck down to your collarbone and began moving the strap of your top off your shoulder. You felt a rush of fire - blazing - and that’s when you got a hold of yourself.

“Whow..!” you jerked back and held your hands in front of you.  

Kyungsoo looked perplexed.

“I’m trying to not…”, you said, raising your eyebrows in a meaning way “...you know…”

He laughed.

“Aah. You’re trying to not throw yourself at me.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, how about I throw myself at you then?” He put his arms up on either side of your head and continued kissing your neck.

“Yes, plea-no! No. No one throws anything, alright?”

He put his head against the wall and you could feel his scent. You hadn’t thought about until now but he wasn’t wearing any perfume; it was natural. And natural Kyungsoo did your head in. You were just about to grab his waist when he straightened up.

“Okay, you’re right. And I kinda like you more for it. But I also kinda…”

“Hate me for it..?”, you smiled.

“Mm-hmm..”, he cupped your face and started kissing you again. “...also kinda hate you for it.”

After a few moments he pulled away, took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled harshly.

“Okay, that was the last one. I’m a guy, Y/N, I can’t keep on kissing you like this or I’ll go nuts.”

It made you giggle. It gave you butterflies in your stomach. It made you feel special.

“Fuck it, just one more”, he said and leaned in.

“Whoa, mwoya!”  

Startled, you turned to see Loey standing at the end of the hall. His eyes were wide and round one second, and the next he was hitting the wall laughing.

“Ya..!”

Kyungsoo tried to sound serious, but seeing Loey laughing made you laugh which in turn made Kyungsoo laugh. He shook his head.

“Let’s just go back.”

  It was already last call when you got back so you ordered a final round and continued chatting like before. Iseul and Tony joined you and before long your tables were the rowdiest one in the place; laughing, singing, having conversations with people seated the farthest away… It was an awesome hot mess. And in the midst of it all there was him. They way his eyes twinkled when you were telling a story; the way he brushed your hair behind your ear; the way he didn’t mind that all of his friends saw it.

But of course it was inevitable that the lights turned on, and everybody started putting on their jackets, standing in small clusters outside waiting for their people to come out. You and Kyungsoo stood a little off to the side.

“So…” he started.

“Why is it so weird to say goodbye? Like, it was normal five minutes ago..!”

“I know!” Kyungsoo exclaimed. “And it’s not like we’re not gonna see each other again.”

“Yeah, I already have your number.”

“About that...Can I have yours..?”

“What, you think you’re not gonna hear from me? Come on, Soo…”

“No, no. I just think I’m not gonna hear from you as soon as I want to.”

“When’s that, in an hour?”

He laughed and hugged you.

“Yes. Now, are you gonna kiss me goodbye?”

“I’ll never kiss you again if there’s a chance Loey might see...”

“Hey, Loey! Close your eyes.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Just do it, Lo. Two seconds.”

tbc

[pixelatedrose]

Soulbound Part Seven

First | Previous | Part 7 | Next

Ao3 link

Masterpost

Word Count: 2,788

Pairings: Prinxiety, Logicality, background Remile

Warnings: Uncensored swearing, nightmares, mention of implied self harm (skip from “It had been another nightmare” to the end of the paragraph.), slight self deprecation, if I missed anything at all please please tell me, and if there’s anything you’d like me to tag, don’t hesitate to ask!

Summary:

Roman Prince and Logan Rose are soulmates. They’re platonic soulmates though. They both have the same Soul mark to prove it. But they both have one other soul mark, binding them to one other person. And when they find Patton Miles, it just so happens that they’re both his soulmate. Logan being his Soulbound Soulmate, and Roman being a platonic soulmate. But something feels missing. And it feels filled, shockingly so, when they meet a certain someone a year and a half after they found each other.

Chapter 7

  Logan Rose woke up with a bit of a start. He glanced around his room wildly, everything appearing fuzzy without his glasses. He calmed himself down before pulling the cord on his bedside lamp and examining his arm.

  It was bare and pale as always, save for his tattoo that depicted Patton's name.

  Despite everything, Logan let out a shaky breath. He knew it was illogical. And that only bothered him more.

  It's just a dream, Logan. Nothing is wrong. Logan picked up a book on the ground in spite of himself and began reading. However he found- as he always did- that he was unable to read much further than a few pages.

  "It's just a dream...It was nothing but amalgamated memories and images…It wasn't...It can't have been…" Logan took another deep breath to steady himself.

  And once again resorted to the only method that ever seemed to work.

  He flipped open a small journal and began writing down his dream with as much detail as possible.

  It had been another nightmare. He had been sobbing on the floor of a foreign room before dragging himself over to an all too familiar box under the bed where he fished out a pencil sharpener blade and had-

  Logan paused for a moment in his writing. He always hated writing about his nightmares. It was necessary for him to fall back asleep, but it was so hard sometimes.

  Every once in a while Logan Rose had acutely vivid dreams about ordinarily mundane things that didn't seem to make sense. 

  Seeing people he'd never seen before at a birthday party he'd never attended. 

  A dark room that slowly got edgier as time wore on filled with a multitude of different events. Most of them less than savory and quite traumatic. 

  A kid, taller than Logan, pushing him to the ground and pulling him back up by his hair only to have someone else spit in his face.

  These dreams made no sense to Logan. Dreams were supposed to be concoctions of memories, images, ideas, and emotions. Logan's brain should not be able to create such a vivid image of a house he'd never seen before. And yet Logan would have remembered if he'd ever seen the odd house with the strange yellow door that his mind so often brought up.

  Logan finished writing down his nightmare in his dream journal and set it down once again, rubbing his tired eyes. He glanced over at one of his many bookcases, sighing at the vast amount of dream journals he had filled up over the years.

  He had started cataloging his dreams back in fourth grade when his mother had suggested that writing about his dreams would help him remember them and even sleep better. So now Logan had nearly 6 years worth of journals filled to the brim with dream after dream after dream. Even if he could never remember what he had dreamed that night, he always wrote down that he was unable to recall any details.

  Logan lay himself back down to sleep as he quietly pondered his vivid dreams and what they could possibly mean, if anything at all.

  That's absolutely ludicrous. Dreams don't mean anything. They're just dreams. As he drifted off once again, Logan found himself with a ghost of doubt cast across his mind.

  Just dreams…

  Logan Rose fell asleep, his mind conjuring up recipes that called for memories, images, sounds, ideas, and emotions.

~~•~~

  Roman woke up to his alarm which he lazily slapped, sending it snoozing. Five minutes later it started yelling again, and this time Roman reluctantly rolled himself out of bed. Quite literally in fact. He had found it always helped him wake up.

  He hit the floor dramatically and lay down on the floor for a few minutes staring at his ceiling.

  Roman suddenly was struck by a brilliant idea and he sat up straight and got ready for the day as quick as possible.

  "Heya Ro-Bro! Sleep like a corpse?" Remus asked as Roman came down the stairs.

  "Why would you phrase it like that? Like actually why??"

  "Because it's interesting and you're boring so i have to be interesting for the both of us!!"

  Roman watched his twin brother sprinkle poptart crumbs into the omelet he was cooking and grimaced. "Well you sure do a good job of that one…"

  "Hey, Ro, have you seen the dandelions?"

  Roman paused for a brief moment. "Why the fuck are you eating dandelions?"

  "You absolute shitheaded moron it's for Brigit."

  Roman flushed. "Oh." He had been thinking of Virgil again and his head was still mushy from sleep. "In the fridge…"

  Remus turned and pulled out a small bag of dandelions before hopping over to a glass tank which contained a small tortoise. "Roman's an idiot, isn't he Brigit? Isn't he?" Remus cooed at his tortoise, dropping three of the four flowers in along with a small pile of lettuce before looking at the fourth flower and asking out loud. "Hey, dandelions are edible, right??"

  And before Roman had time to violently judge his brother, Remus shoved the entire fucking flower in his mouth like the absolute heathen he was.

  "Hey, not too bad." Roman's trash-man of a brother said, walking over to his slowly burning food.

  "I swear to god I don't know how we're related…" Roman muttered, returning his mind to a much more savory person.

~~•~~

  Roman got to school and met up with his friends. He debated skipping a few steps in his plan and looking for him right then, but decided against it. He didn't want to come off seeming like a creep.

  So he waited until his third period rolled around and felt his eyes light up as they fell to the emo boy scrunched up in the back corner of the classroom. Something was definitely brighter about Virgil today. Maybe it was the new hoodie he was wearing or the fresh makeup on his face, or perhaps it was the way he looked rested or the fact that he was nodding along to his music and silently mouthing the words, but Roman was unreasonably happy to see Virgil in a good mood.

  “Good morning, Hot Topic! You’re looking splendid today!” Roman bubbled, winking at the mass of emo that sat at the table.

  Virgil snorted and looked up at him. “Aw, you think I’m hot!”

  “On the contrary! I was talking to my reflection!”

  “Ah, that makes more sense. I put too much faith in you to think you’d ever stop being self-absorbed!”

  “Hey! You’ve only known me for what, two days?”

  Virgil shifted in his seat, having taken out his earbuds already. “I tend to be a pretty good judge of character.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep.”

  Roman took his chance to strike. “Well I bet you wouldn’t be able to judge my friend’s characters off of one glance!” Roman smiled at Virgil, missing the way the other’s shoulders relaxed when he spoke. “Want to join me with my friends at lunch?”

  Roman patiently awaited the inevitable decline. It was part of his plan. He would laugh it off and be charming as ever and continue to pester him until he-

  “Sure.” Virgil said casually, a hint of a smile on his face. 

  What.

  “You seem like a cool guy, I guess. Should I meet you by the cafeteria?”

  Roman’s head was a jumbled mess and where he had been planning on being charming, he had fallen end over end down the stairs of grace and was drowning in his own pool of poor planning.

  “Uh, uhm, n-no I’ll just meet you outside your class!” Roman had just barely been able to save the end of that sentence. He had not expected the emo boy to accept his offer so quickly. He thought the boy was shy and reserved, didn’t like talking to people. Curiosity to know what made the emo boy trust him overtook Roman. “Would it be terribly rude of me to ask why you’d want to come and eat with a bunch of people you hardly know?”

  Virgil shrugged. “I dunno. I just kinda…” He turned and pulled up his hood. “Feel like I can trust you. I also don’t really have anyone else, so I mean I don’t have many options.” he lowered his voice to the point where Roman wouldn’t have been able to hear the emo. “And if I at least look like I have friends maybe people will leave me alone this time around…”

  It worked and Roman hadn’t heard his breathless whisper. “Oh! Well I’m touched! In fact I think-”

  Ding!! Ding!! Ding!!

  Damn that bell.

  Class began and Roman didn’t get the chance to mention that he and Patton shared a class. A minor detail, but he was irrationally disappointed that he couldn’t keep talking to his newfound...Friend.

  Roman thought. Friend? Am I not jumping the gun by considering us friends this early on? What would Virgil think? Would he be okay with it? Would he be disgusted? Roman’s mind filled with the image of Roman calling the boy his friend and Virgil smiling widely, happy to be his friend. Roman let himself smile too.

  The period ended and Roman said his farewells to Virgil. Roman pulled out his phone between classes and brought up the group chat.

  Hey I’m bringing a friend of mine to come and sit with us at lunch kk

  It was just a few moments before his phone buzzed quietly in his hands.

  Pat-man: OOOooooOOOooOOoo~~!!

  Pat-man: A *friend* you say? *nudge nudge wink wink*

  Each of his texts were signed with a series of emojis, ranging from hearts to faces.

  Roman typed out a text, leaning against the wall outside his classroom.

  Yes Padre, a FRIEND

  Nothing more than that! I swear you rwad into things way to much

  His Phone buzzed again and Roman looked at the new text.

  Pocket-protector: First off, you misspelled 'Read' and second, you used the wrong 'Too'. Third, if you're speaking of the boy you have gone on about for the past two days, then-

  The bell rang and Roman silently thanked it for saving him the time to read Logan's perfectly composed letter of a text filled with perfect grammar.

  The hours ebbed by anguishingly slow, it seemed the more he wanted to see the pale boy the more the weights the universe attached to time's ankles.

  Finally- finally- the hour struck three minutes till the bell and Roman silently excused himself knowing that the abandoned hall pass in his pocket that would free him of suspicion.

  He got to Virgil’s classroom just in time for the bell to ring and for Roman to quickly lean himself up against the lockers casually.

  Virgil walked out and seemed almost surprised to see Roman standing there before a ghost of a smile adorned his pale face.

  “Honestly, you don’t have to skip out of class early just to wait for me.” Virgil said as he walked up to the taller boy.

  “I know, but it wouldn’t be very chivalrous of me to leave my new friend wandering through the halls with no guide!” Roman smiled and the pair started walking towards the cafeteria.

  “And so that would make you my knight in shining armor?” Virgil teased.

  “No, I like to think of myself as more of a prince.”

  Virgil snorted back his laughter. “But I thought they gave princes education! They’re doing a miserable job rearing you.”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny, Jerky Mcjerk-face.”

  “Ouch! Is that the best comeback you have for me, Princey?” Before, Virgil had called Roman by the theatrical nickname in a friendly manner, now his tone was mocking him, a soundless giggle twinkling in his blue eyes.

  Roman hrumphed and crossed his arms. “Sometimes I’m not entirely on point with my words! I’m human! Even someone as flawless as me can make mistakes!”

  Virgil barked out a short laugh. “Ha!! Flawless! I should bring you up on charges for false advertising!”

  “Then maybe I should do the same with you, Surly-Temple! You’re not as shy as you seem, are you?”

  “Who ever said I was shy? I just don’t like people.”

  “Oh…” Roman internally cursed at his lack of words. He had jumped to conclusions. It was a simple mistake, but it reminded Roman of another thing he should try and fix. He shook it off easily. “Well in that case I’m sure you’ll have no problem introducing yourself to my friends!” He led Virgil through the thick of the now bustling and ever so loud cafeteria to a table in the back near one of the backdoors leading outside. It was a small circular table, like all the others in the room, perfect for a friend group to claim and have no one else intrude.

  Patton and Logan were already sitting down and chatting about what sounded like the emotional and psychological repercussions of being torn from your dimension and being thrown into another. A very fascinating topic to say the least.

  “Hey, Padre! Pocket protector!” Roman announced as they neared the table. Roman noticed out of the corner of his eye Virgil throwing up his hood. “I must introduce to you all, a one Virgil Sanders!” Roman theatrically bowed and gestured toward the purple haired boy next to him.

  Patton stood up immediately and flounced over to the boy. “Hi!! My name’s Patton, but you can just call me Dad!!” He said with a wink as he held out his hand for Virgil to shake. Virgil seemed to relax as he took the sorter boy’s hand in his.

  “Virgil. It’s nice to meet you, Patton.” He smiled lightly.

  Logan had stood as well, letting Virgil come to him. “Logan Rose. A pleasure.” He said politely, extending his own hand. Vigil accepted it and the group started to settle in.

  “You know, Virgil, I think I have the same second period as you!” Patton slipped in as they started taking their seats.

  Virgil seemed to think for a brief second. “Oh, I guess so. I guess nice to re-meet you, then.” He slowly took off his hood and faced Patton who was seated across from him. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you, I tend to not pay attention to stuff like that.”

  “It’s fine! I think it’s great we have a class together! It means less boring moments in the day!”

  Logan was staring at Virgil and he started speaking. “You know, You look familiar to me as well...Do we not share a fifth class together? Ap English in Mr. Evan’s class, if I am correct?”

  Virgil blinked. “Uh...Yeah...So I guess I have a class with each of you then...What are the odds?” Virgil gave a small laugh.

  “Infinitesimal.” Logan replied before biting into his sandwich.

  “Oh speaking of which, do you remember what was taught yesterday? I was trying to do my homework and sort of forgot what he’d said…”

  “I remember absolutely nothing but I do remember he was wearing a pink shirt with a green belt and was disgusted, I mean I may not be one for fashion, but even I know that was a horrific choice.”

  The table erupted into several different kinds of laughter. A loud booming one from Patton, a softer but clear one provided by Roman, and a light chuckle emitted by Virgil.

  Lunch wore on and It seemed like Virgil really connected with everyone.

  He was in a brighter mood for the rest of the day as he walked off with Logan, discussing fan theories about doctor who and Sherlock, and then happier still when he met up with Roman in the theater and got to have his older brother teach him for what seemed like the first actual time.

  And as Virgil bid his farewells, Roman called out to him.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Virge!!” He yelled across the courtyard, waving happily at his new friend.

  “Cya!!” Virgil called back, feeling happy and warm inside.

  Virgil had never even had friends before, and for some reason, having only just met them a few hours ago, felt like these friends were ones that were going to last. He felt so right when he was with them. It felt so right when he would hear Logan talking about one subject or another, or when Patton made a dad joke or pun, or when Roman did something charmingly stupid or funny. It felt right being with them.

  And for someone who’s never felt right in their life, Virgil felt as though it was all too much to actually be real.

  But for once, He didn't worry about that.

Author’s note:

Oh wow! Would you look at that! I’m way early!! I legit thought I wasn’t going to get this done in time because I stopped writing for like two days cause one: I wanted to write a special valentines day mini fic (Link here!) and then two: I was away from my computer and had very tiny motivation. Anyway I hope you guys appreciate my earliness, and note that this probably won’t happen too often. Stay fresh and minty my lovelies!!

Tag list

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[komkommertijd]

have you ever tried having an original idea rather than just ripping off what other writers have done? because all I ever see is you copying what other writers do or say that you’re going to do something that a writer has an original idea for? simplyverstappen already mentioned doing an assassins creed au and you mentioned doing it five hours later like it was completely your idea. try being original then you’ll be better rather than whining all the time

Good evening, dear anon :) 

Congratulations, first of all, on being my first ever anonymous hater - it’s a memorable day for me 😌 I didn’t really plan on replying to you but I usually try to reply to everything people throw my way, and like everyone else, you shall receive a message longer than what you’ve asked for, we’re in for a ride 🤠

To start this whole thing off I can say that yes, I have tried but considering the huge amount of fic and books out there it is rather difficult to prove and find out whether the stuff my brain produces in the middle of the night has been done before. In all honesty, I’d be damned if I tried. I’m surely not the first person to write a Coffeeshop AU and I certainly won’t be the last, yet no one has had the idea to complain about those fics yet. I’m sure that someone has had an idea similar to my Tumblr fic before but the thing is, I just don’t know and it’s not my job to know it - I’m just here vibing with the things that come to my mind and it’s fanfiction, in the end, it’s all not that deep really. (It is one thing to have a similar idea and another to plagiarize though, please keep that in mind.)

Additionally, I might suggest checking AO3 and you may or may not notice that hey, there’s Assassin’s Creed AUs there already. That doesn’t mean that @verstappened or I or anyone else can’t write that anymore because it’s not our original idea. Hell, you’ll find tons of rather similar works in all big tags, may it be the Omegaverse, Coffeeshop AUs, Royal AUs, or literally any other tag and that’s fine! Have you never read a fic before and thought “I wish there was more of this”? Because it’s great to see someone else write something similar to what you enjoy and it’s great as an author to read about things that you want to read about instead of having to provide that content for yourself all the time. 

Concerning the Assassin’s Creed issue I just want to point out that I really haven’t seen Mone’s post(s) about her fic ideas before and I sincerely apologize if I pissed you off that way, it was not my intention. Furthermore, I’d like to bring attention to the fact that I clearly said something about “rewriting and translating old fics” (you can find that here), which indicates that I have, in fact, previously written those fics, back when I still wrote my fics in German and before I started writing for the F1 fandom, which I started doing a year ago (holy shit, by the way). The work I was talking about is originally from 199 weeks ago, according to Instagram, which was in December 2016. If we use our brains for a quarter second we may figure out that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey didn’t come out until October 2018, which is the game Mone mentioned (proof can be found here). I have never played Odyssey yet, sadly, and all the fiction I’ve ever written about Assassin’s Creed was inspired by Syndicate. As a result, I was very much not trying to copy Mone’s idea four years ago.

I know, digging a bit deep. It’s unnecessary (just like the hate you’re throwing my way) but I’m trying to get you to understand that I meant absolutely no harm by that. I’ll gladly read Mone’s AU in the future but I won’t let you make me feel guilty for translating my own (!) work that I’ve come up with, written, and published years ago.

Now for the last sentence because while it is just another unjustified statement I kinda want to address it. I do apologize should I ever come across as whiny or ungrateful, I have never appreciated anything more than the support and the possibilities this fandom has provided me with since day one. Still, I’m just human, and sometimes things can be a bit much, right? I have the right not to be optimistic all the time, and I am allowed to express my feelings even when I’m frustrated or unhappy about my work. I’m not forcing you to look at it and this blog, as well as my work, is first and foremost for me. I don’t write to please anyone and certainly not people who love to leave rude messages. So if you don’t want to hear me whine, leave. No one’s forcing you to listen (I sure as hell don’t want you to, anyway, if this is how you will address it). 

Getting better is not about how much I complain or about “how original” my work is. I know people who write impeccable Coffeeshop AUs, even if the plot is somehow always vaguely the same in one way or another. If more people want to write about Italian King/Prince Daniel, fucking go for it, I’ll be there in the first row to yell about how much I love the image it creates in my head (I’m not trying to imply that I was the first one to come up with that either but this is about principle more than anything). 

The point is, I love reading about things that are similar to mine (if they’re not, you know, too suspiciously similar) and it’s so nice and exciting to see how other people approach a topic, to see their way of thinking and their opinions expressed in how they write about it, and I’m always happy to read the fifth million Pack verse fic about cuddling or mating or whatever. If you don’t, that’s fine, don’t read it but please, for the sake of all of us, keep that to yourself.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to send me some highly subjective criticism, I’ll still write whatever I want to write as long as I’m not harming anyone 💛

[eternaljouska]

Days of Cats and Bears - Yoon Jeonghan

Pairing: Jeonghan x Reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt-Comfort

Warning: Self-Harm (The harmful thought and action, please proceed with caution), several expletives

Word Count: 5,450 (It was supposed to be 3k-ish hehe)

Note: Short Term 12 came to mind while writing this. Happy very late birthday uri cheonsa, Jeonghannie~ Happy late world mental health day, and happy birthday, Jiminnie, you’re also an angel. I love the title header, I love this story, and I hope you love it too. Enjoy!

“I don’t need this,” you spit out, your bloodshot eyes piercing through your caregiver’s bored ones. Your teeth are chattering and your body is shaking from your burning rage. “I know you think I’m a lost cause, but you’re wrong. I’m not a cause. I don’t need this. I don’t need you.”

Hyorin doesn’t say anything back. She turns around and leaves you with the echo of the creaking doors.

The next day, it’s Jeonghan who greets you good morning. Jeonghan is new in the facility; yesterday was his mini welcome party. But now they assigned him to you. You scoff, “You’re not Hyorin,” stating the obvious.

“You don’t like Hyorin,” he asserts as he grabs a seat on the edge of your bed.

Although that’s the truth, you brush his words away. There’s something more crucial than you disliking Hyorin, a question melding with the simmering anger inside your chest which makes your voice break at the end of your sentence. “Why, she gave up on me or something?” She’s not supposed to give up. It’s her fucking job. She’s not supposed to try and prove your point.

Jeonghan’s gaze captures yours for the long second it takes for you to look away. “No. I must tell you, she’s quite relieved that she’ll have a break, but no. I volunteered.”

He volunteered, and you don’t know whether to be glad or to be mad. Your thumbnail digs into the skin of your forefinger. And it only doubles the fury you’re curbing that the familiar act doesn’t give you any sensation at all. They’re blunt, your nails. Hyorin checks them every three days; she clips them too short for your liking. I’m not a cause. Does he think I’m some kind of a level-up challenge in a game that he needs to win?

“I know what you’re thinking. I—“

“You don’t,” you cut him.

Jeonghan closes his mouth, the gleam in his eyes undisturbed by your hostility. “Alright, I don’t. That’s true. Anyway, choose an animal.”

“What?” you mumble, his swift topic-changing catching you off-guard.

“Choose an animal. That’s how we learn about our mood from now on. For example, I’ll be a cat: belly full, lounging on the sofa, generally calm, and admittedly”—he leans forward, voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper—“just a tiny bit sleepy.”

You scoff, more than a little bit amused by the new caregiver. The others are friendly—professional friendly, just a bunch of people slightly older than you who get a little cocky from the experience of being entitled to or responsible for something. But this guy, he seems to be actually enjoying his time, and that somehow calms the aggression flickering both in your chest and in your thumb. “That’s stupid,” you say briskly, and Jeonghan springs back up to his previous position as if your comment had physically slapped him on the face. “You made that? That’s even more complicated than the previous system.”

“I- I,“ he stutters, “I’m sad. I thought you would appreciate that.”

He’s dramatic, but that seems like fun.

“Appreciate the fact that you’re sad? Very much do,” you say as you bite back your smile.

“I want a cactus,” you confess. “I don’t need an ice cream cake.”

An ice cream cake was nice; it was good. And seeing that you’ve never had one in all these months you’ve stayed in the facility, you knew better to inhale it in one go before vocalizing your protest. You’ve always requested for a cactus before, but they deem it too dangerous. You know they don’t do their research this way. Even though your knowledge of the plant is rudimentary at best, you know that not all cacti are dangerous, as they put it.

It’s been only less than two weeks since Jeonghan became your assigned caregiver, and he’s managed to gift you an ice cream cake. He would give you all the credits, though. ‘Seven consecutive days of cats!’ he exclaimed as he made his grand appearance through your door less than an hour ago. A cat: belly full, lounging on the sofa, generally calm, and admittedly more than a tiny bit bored. So it makes all the sense in the world that you hang your hope of a cactus upon him. With the progress that you’ve made since his arrival here, they’ll certainly trust him, right?

And they do.

After a long—and unnecessary—discussion involving Jeonghan pleading and defending your case, he barges into your room five days later with a small box covered with white wrapping paper with chickens all over it. You’ve anxiously and expectantly waited for him and the news he’s bearing, and although it’s long since he threw away his modesty of knocking at your half-closed door, you find yourself jump from your seat in surprise when he does.

“What is that?”

“Hens-and-Chicks!” His face brightens, seemingly proud of what he has to offer you on his outstretched hand.

But you, on the other hand, are still having some difficulties to fully comprehend his blaring signals. “What?”

“You don’t know? You should know!”

“Again, what?”

“Hens. And. Chicks! A cactus,” he groans as he stomps his way to your bed. “For someone who’s adamant about wanting a cactus, you should’ve known what Hens-and-Chicks are. Argh, I’m so mad. I think I’m close to the bear level, oh my god, this is so disappointing. Ugh, you’re bringing my aggression level to the max.”

You snort, “You’re so dramatic.” You crawl closer to him and accept your present and carefully remove the tape from the wrapping paper. You despise it when people tear the wrapping paper almost as if they’ve buried a deep-running grudge towards it.

“That was supposed to be a good joke.” He nods at the wrapping paper that you set aside.

“What? This? This wrapping paper? Why, because you’re giving me Hens. And. Chicks! in a box wrapped in Hens. And. Chicks! wrapping paper?” You raise your brow at him, and when he feigns a scowl, you pat his head playfully. “A good one, Jeonghan. A good one.”

He watches you that afternoon. As you place the little pot close to the window and water it for the first time, you can feel his gaze that’s sticking to your back like your clothes on a summer day. You ignore it, too busy spooning waters for your new adoptee. You want to thank him, but what comes out of your mouth is a bark of ‘Why hadn’t this baby come sooner?’

Well, that’s the best he can get from you. But he’s fine with that.

Another week has passed, and you almost received the ice cream cake reward yesterday if only your cats hadn’t been interrupted by one dog. ‘It was one day, Jeonghan. One. Day. And that’s because Soonyoung was antagonizing my Henchi,’ you reasoned. Henchi, by the way, is how you call your plant—Hens-and-Chicks abbreviated, so creative.

Jeonghan had only chortled before he brought his hands forth from their hiding place behind his back, and you gasp, gleeful giggles bursting past your previously pouty lips. “I thought someone said ‘I don’t need an ice cream cake.’ Boy, oh boy, now that they have Henchi, I guess now we need the ice cream cake, after all. Anyway, what’s Henchi’s status?”

“Oh, so now it’s Henchi’s status all we care about? And for your information, I didn’t sound like that. Also, Henchi’s still a cactus, the last time I checked. And I’m still a cat.” You take the small plate from Jeonghan’s hand only to find out that something is slightly off from your ice cream cake. “No, scratch that. I’m a dog! Yoon Jeonghan, did you eat my ice cream cake? Ohoho, I think I’m gonna be a bear.”

The young man smiles triumphantly even though he realizes he might be murdered right on the spot because of what he did. “Yes, I—“

“What?! How dare you?!”

“Six-seventh of an ice cream cake for six of your cats. That’s what you—“ His words are interrupted by a shriek that quickly transforms into the laughter you’ve become familiar with—and extremely fond of if you have to add. “Hey! Stop hitting me! That will cost you your ice cream cake! Y/n!”

“No, I’m not gonna stop. You deserve this! You could’ve just cut it from the cake and ate it like that instead of eating straight from my cake.” You keep on hitting his back in spite of his numerous ‘ow!’ since you know that they are as fake as your attack.

“Y/n, stop it right now. I swear—“

“What is happening here?”

You both snap your head towards the door in the instant that you hear his voice, Mr. Choi, the facility’s supervisor. He and Hyorin are standing in the doorway, both giving you suspicious looks. “I’m sorry, we’re just playing games,” Jeonghan answers, immediate enough that you dare to hope they would believe him.

“You know we can’t have games that involve violence.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I will not use that game again.”

From the way he speaks, you know Jeonghan is nervous. And seeing that Mr. Choi only glanced at him once before continuously eyeing the melting ice cream cake atop your nightstands, you understand why.

Shit.

“You’re not supposed to give me the cake, were you?” you shout-whisper after the sound of Mr. Choi and Hyorin’s steps fade into the background as they walk farther.

Jeonghan averts your worried eyes and gives you the tiniest of a smile. “Just eat it, okay?”

Jeonghan is distant in the next few days. You change your animal daily, but he says nothing. So you spend all day sitting in front of Henchi, feeding it two spoons of water right after Jeonghan’s visit to clip your nails ends. Unlike Hyorin, he does it every four days.

You count Henchi’s bulbous leaves over and over again, every day, as you contemplate the changing in Jeonghan’s behavior. There’s no more cat day for you. It’s hard to feel full, calm, and bored when you’re a boiling pot of concern and temper. And now, dread also throws itself inside your pot, for you notice that when you’re about to water Henchi, the bottommost leaves are turning brown. The chair screeches at the haste of your standing up. “Jeonghan! Jeonghan! Jeong—“

“What happens?” he gasps out, breath heavy from the short run he obviously did to reach your room as soon as his legs allow.

“Henchi,” you sob. “It’s—it’s rotting. It’s dying.”

Jeonghan’s body sways out of balance when he takes his first step towards you. “Let me see,” he breathes out as he kneels to take a closer look at Henchi. He sticks his thumb and forefinger under the plant and pulls every brown leaf and tears them off the rest of your Hens-and-Chicks. You look at him warily but do not stop him, your thumb curling to dig its nail into your forefinger. And that action strikes you as familiar and at the same time, peculiar. You can’t remember the last time it happened. It’s been too long.

“Just, don’t water it for the next two weeks, and it’ll be fine.”

He disappears before you say thank you.

Six days after that, you are reduced into a quaking ball of sobs and whimpers. And that’s how Jeonghan finds you in the corner of your room behind the door.

“Y/n!” he calls out, terror dripping generously from his lips despite only saying a single word.

“Henchi… Jeonghan, Henchi…”

Today, you decided that you would water Henchi regardless of Jeonghan’s advice. Four days ago, you found the new bottommost layer of your plant to be rotting, so you plucked them off Henchi’s healthy body, leaving only four rosettes behind. Day after day, you worry your lips into the bite of your teeth and your skin into your nails. You haven’t watered your cactus in days, and the soil is visibly dry on the surface, so there shouldn’t be any reason for it to continue rotting.

Two days ago, Henchi has merely three rosettes left. That’s why when you woke up this morning you wondered whether underwatering could somehow be the reason why. But alas, when you picked up your glass of water and a spoon, you realized that there’s no plant to water anymore.

“Y/n,” Jeonghan coos after he saw that rot had successfully ousted the green flesh off Henchi’s rosettes. “Y/n, shh, stop crying now, it’s okay.”

You grit your teeth, preventing the scream imprisoned in your throat. “It’s not,” you seethe, trying to keep your volume low, lest other caregivers start to crowd in your room. “Henchi died because of me. It’s not okay.”

Jeonghan falls to both of his knees in front of you, his hands reaching out for yours, but you don’t let them. “Henchi,” he starts, “Henchi… you love Henchi too much it died.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, hear me, you- you watered it too much it died. See, water is your love, and the small plant could only take so much. Now, being loved is a burden, Y/n, even more than the act of loving itself.”

You know that those are white lies he’s using to assuage you. But somehow, you let yourself hung your hope upon him once again as you let his cold fingers grasp yours. You don’t need another death attached to your name. And right after that thought crosses your mind, your breath hitches.

“Have you been on Cocaine?”

“It’s none of your business, Y/n. Let me go.” Your younger brother has grown to be taller than you are, stronger than you are, but the hand that you hold is only shaking yours weakly, not enough to release it free. Little do you know, that is nothing but a camouflage for the tremble on his red knuckles. What you know is that the protective clutch his other hand has over his satchel must have hidden your answer.

“Give me your bag.”

“No, Y/n, let’s talk about this—“

“I said give me your bag!”

“Noona,” he pleads. He never calls you that, being only a year apart and so close to each other and whatnot. He only does it when he desperately wants something from you. “Please. I need to go. Let me go.”

“Jisung, how could you do that to yourself? To me?”

He cries. “Noona, please, we need to go. I’ll tell you later, I promise. I’ll stop. I’ll do whatever you want, but please, let’s—“

“Ya! Jisung, you bastard! Give me my money!”

Your attention moves from your brother’s wide eyes to the burly man calling out for his name. The man runs towards where both of you stand with overflowing vehemence, and that alone sends shivers down your back.

“Noona, run! Run, I said run!” Your brother’s urgency is clear through the way he speaks. You want to tell him that whoever that man is, he’s close, but then he shoves you with all of his might. “I’m sorry! I love you.”

The burly man surges towards your brother and punches him in the face. Again. And again. And you just stayed there, stunned. Until both men direct their attention to you and your brother cracks out, “Run!”

And you did.

You run to the nearest police station. But when the officer found your brother, it’s too late.

“Y/n? Hey, it’s okay, it’ll be—“

“Jeonghan?” You call him, the weight of your brother’s death growing bigger and bigger in your chest and the only thing stopping you from exploding is Jeonghan’s white lies you choose to believe. “Do you think that’s why he died? Jisung? Because I love him too much?”

Jeonghan reads into the line of your lips and the wide of your orbs, and he nods, smiling at the sliver of hope that he discovered there. But then your eyes are blinking, searching for truth on his gaze, and your lips are quivering, tears flowing freely until they disappear at the cusp of Jeonghan’s palms on your cheeks. “Is that why then?” Your voice is the weak flutter of a butterfly’s wings when you speak, and your face holds the agony of that same butterfly emerging from its chrysalis in the past, and Jeonghan wants nothing else for you to expand your wings and take your flight courageously already. “Is that why I’m not dead? Because- because—“

“Y/n—“

“No, listen, listen, that… I- nobody loves me. That- that’s… That’s why I’m here in the first place, right? Right?”

“No, no, no, Y/n, no. That’s not right. That’s not—“

“But that’s what you said earlier! Henchi”—you grab on the flesh of your arms and paw at it as you speak—“Henchi died—“

“Y/n, stop that, give me your hand. Y/n, hey, look at me. Look at me, I’m here. I’m here, aren’t I? I don’t die yet. We’re on the same page, Y/n. We’re still alive. But you know what, everybody’s gonna die. And I believe that’s because someday, everyone’s going to finally have it in their life. That person who loves you so much, you can’t help but share the burden of loving, together. And your brother, Y/n, he loved you so much and you loved him just as much, if not more. And let me tell you, Y/n, that much love is dangerous. You are loved, Y/n. You are loved.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” There’s something in his eyes that makes you want to sob even more—if only to prolong his stay and the comfort he offers. You’re certain; tomorrow he’ll be a stranger to the Jeonghan you first knew. “Come, give me your hand. Let’s clip your nails, alright? Trying to hurt yourself to quicken the arrival of death doesn’t make that person comes earlier to your life.”

Right before Jeonghan walks out of your room, you call him, “Jeonghan?”

“Yes?”

“Will you… will you wait with me? Will you stay with me until that person comes?”

Jeonghan only smiles.

It’s been eight days since they threw Henchi away; they didn’t let you keep Henchi’s plastic pot in your room. And you went berserk. Because Jeonghan didn’t even spare you a glance when that happened.

It enrages you, the way he only shows his reaction when you hurt yourself. You only want to know what happened—what changed so that he became so indifferent towards you. Was it the ice cream cake accident? Did Mr. Choi do something? You tried to confront him after they threw Henchi. And the next day. And the next day. But in the end, you got tired of trying. So you stop minding him. Or at the very least, stop minding him consciously.

It was two days ago that you got a breakdown. You bit your bottom lip through Jeonghan’s daily check-up, and he left after ten minutes of strangling silence. And when you set your lip free from your teeth, you dazed for a second from the metallic taste in your mouth. You laughed then. How stupid of you. They’ve clipped your nails blunt, but you’ve forgotten all about the sharp ivories stored behind the boundary of your lips. You latched them onto your arm, stronger and stronger until tears were blurring your sight and a purplish mark was left on their wake.

Jeonghan noticed the tremble on your harmed arm the next day he checked up on you, and although he was a ravenous, aggressive, and triggered bear, you were glad because he’s once again the man that you’re falling for.

And you’re sad. Because it seemed that the only way you’ll get to see the glimpse of that person was after you planted noxious violet on your skin.

You’re walking in the dim corridor to the kitchen to heat up a glass of milk in the microwave, trying to be as quiet as you can even though you know the microwave will surely kill the quiet you attempt for in such an obnoxious way you want to cease from existence. And yet, before the microwave has the chance to make true of your prediction, the creak of a door interrupts the silence first.

“Hyorin, did you hear yourself? Kissing in the facility would be strike one for you.”

Your heart beats violently at the sound of his voice. You hear it every day, but those words he utters on the daily, they’re like the voicemail greeting of a lost person. But more than anything, you want your heart to stop at the knowledge of who he’s talking to and what the conversation might be about. But in spite of your protesting heart, you tiptoe your way to the source of noise anyway.

“It’d be two for you, after that stupid ice cream cake,” Hyorin scoffs, “I don’t care.”

And you freeze, for Hyorin suddenly buries Jeonghan’s face in the shadow of her head, proving your latest prediction to be true. They kiss. And you thank all of the powers on the earth that you can still turn your body around not to witness your hope shrivels and dies in front of your eyes. You walk blindly back to the kitchen and slump down, leaning on the bottom shelf of the island as you cry. You bite the back of your left hand to suppress your sob. Burying your head on your knees, you clasp your other hand on your ear, refusing to hear the sound of the door opening and closing in a snap.

You don’t know how, but you made your way to your room. You blink. It’s funny. You feel more lifeless than any living person should be, but you can’t laugh, perhaps that’s the very first sign of death.

Jeonghan sees the bite mark, but he doesn’t bark. He whispers his questions, but you keep your silence. And that goes on for days. Until he explodes, and you shatter.

“What’s your status? Is it the bear?” It is clear that he’s trying to control himself, but his tone has long since mismatched the pastel color of his voice.

“What fucking bear Jeonghan? Polar bear? Sloth bear? Grizzly bear? This is fucking ridiculous, you know that?” Your eyes glint with fury, although perhaps it is your perpetual tears that catch the morning lights for the sake of giving out the illusion of life.

“What happened to you? Where’s this coming from?”

“I don’t know, Jeonghan. What happened to you?” He drops his gaze and falls quiet. “Oh, now you’re quiet.”

Your right hand is hiding under your blanket, blunt nail impressing crescents onto your skin. Jeonghan is hiding in front of you, and you want to find him, but one of your hands is too preoccupied and the other is too weak from the scar you inflicted.

“I don’t need this,” you mutter, your thought flying back to the time where Jeonghan had never set a step in your life. “Why don’t you just let me out? Fuck, you don’t even tell me what it takes to get out of this fucking facility.”

“We don’t want anyone to fake or manipulate their condition just to have us let them go.”

“But why? Why Jeonghan, why?” The first sob successfully tears itself out of your mouth, and you see a glimpse of the man whose hand you long to hold. Hatred is forming in your gut. Why? Why only now are you here? “Why am I here? Why? I want to go. I want to go!”

“Your parents want us to care for you.”

At his remote and mechanical answer, your nail digs deeper into your flesh, and in place of the scream bubbling in your throat, you laugh hysterically instead. “Oh, they won’t care.” You watch him watching you crumble. “How… How could I fucking live like this?”

“Y/n, give me your hand.”

“No. Tell me, how could I fucking live like this?” By now, you’re raising your voice since Jeonghan rushes to your side to uncover the hiding place of your furious fingers. “I said no! You think you’re helping, right? Right? Let me tell you this, you’re not! You made things worse! You made things fucking worse!”

Jeonghan catches your hand, and you scream, “Let me go! Fucking let me go! Let me out this fucking place! Why can’t you just let me out and—“

“Because you’re gonna fucking kill yourself, Y/n! That’s why!”

Silence falls with the weight of Jeonghan’s outburst. That’s true. You know that’s true. In fact, that’s the continuation of the sentence he interrupted.

The thin walls listen and words spread. Today is Jeonghan’s last strike.

The face that greets your day is not Jeonghan’s. It’s Hyorin’s. And you want to cry the tears your exhausted ducts can no longer excrete—after last night, you would think your body doesn’t have extra water to waste anymore. Jeonghan is gone.

You were about to close your eyes again, physically and mentally tired to deal with Hyorin, moreover since she only reminds you of that night in the corridor. But it’s the familiar image of chickens on a slick paper that rouses you up so quickly you could’ve collapsed back onto the bed from the pounding in your head. She tried to hide it behind her back, but it’s too late, you’ve seen it, a box very much like the one Jeonghan used to present Henchi.

“Morning. Let’s see your status,” Hyorin lets out, leaning her body on the wall just next to the door. Hyorin, she’s always so straightforward. You’ve always wondered why she works in the facility when she doesn’t seem to like what she’s doing—she doesn’t even bother to hide it. But in any case, you guess it’s good of her not to pretend.

Knowing that your status and the box she’s hiding must have a causative relationship, you decide to lie to her. “A cat. Just an exhausted cat,” you croak out.

But in turn, Hyorin frowns. “What do you mean a cat?” Her words are not hostile; they’re genuine confusion.

“What did Jeonghan say when he reports my status?”

“The usual one-to-ten scale. What do you mean? Did he not follow that method?”

You blink. “Don’t worry about that. He used the scale, but he had his additional method, just to make sure.”

Hyorin looks at you long before she hands the gift box to you, “From Jeonghan. Mr. Choi didn’t allow it at first, seeing how bad it was when your plant died. Doesn’t want to repeat that. But Jeonghan can be very persuasive,” she pauses, throwing her gaze away from you to the floor, “And I helped, too. I’m sorry. This is all my fault that Jeonghan’s gone. I’ve never really warmed up to anyone in this place, but it’s different with him. I think you’d agree to that.”

You nod. Jeonghan was different. But it doesn’t matter. He’s gone.

“And you’re right. This work is not for me. You’ve shouted at me, screaming all those words, and it’s only now that I realized the truth behind them. I’m sorry, Y/n. I guess I have a problem of my own. But anyway, this is my last day of work, and the least I can do for you is help Jeonghan convinced Mr. Choi about that present.” Hyorin tugs the edge of his lips into a small smile, and at that moment, your heart warms even a little. It’s like you’re seeing a different person standing in front of you. And suddenly, that warmth shoots up to your eyes, filling them with more tears you don’t know you still have. “Goodbye, Y/n. I hope you’ll find your peace within you.”

“Thank you,” you whispers, heart heavy with another farewell.

It’s another Hens-and-Chicks. You knew that from the second you laid your eyes on the wrapping paper. You sniffle, the memory only adds to your pain. There are two letters, one stamped with a cat sticker on the envelope and the other with a bear; you open the bear first.

Dear Y/n,

I have no idea what bear the bear on the bear sticker is. But it is a bear since it’s a bear sticker. And I wrote this because I’m half a bear, and I believe you are too. I’m sorry. I hurt you, and you hurt yourself because of me. I hope that doesn’t come out as cocky. But Y/n, I’m truly sorry. For the harsh words that I said and for the stranger that I’ve become. I’m sorry. Mr. Choi suspects that I treated you differently than the others, and I suspect that it’s true. I didn’t want to be relocated to a new facility because I want to be there for you. I want to wait with you. You asked me about it that day, but I couldn’t promise you anything because you see, here I am unpacking my stuff in a new facility (not now since I’m writing this, but probably at the time that you read this.) Despite wasting my time to be indifferent towards you, I’m still stupid enough to get relocated. You might be confused as to why everything happened. You know that we, the caregivers, have rules in the facility too, break three and you’re out. And you guessed it, I did. First is the ice cream cake, the third is the outburst, and the second involves Hyorin. She did something purposefully to add my strike; you never knew what a broken-hearted person’s capable of doing until they do it. But don’t be mad with her or yourself. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. Hyorin helped to get this confidential letter to go past Mr. Choi after all. She helps convince him about Hanchi, too, you see (for JeongHAN’s Hens-and-CHIcks—HA! I’m more creative than you!) I trust Hanchi in your care. I know you’ll do well (I printed out tips I found on the back of this letter. Also, Hanchi lives in Henchi’s pot. I saved it from the trashcan.) But don’t get too heartbroken if things don’t go the way you want them to be. Be gentle with your heart, Y/n. Be kind to yourself. Don’t bite, you don’t want them to start pulling out your teeth (I’m sorry, I’m laughing at the image of a toothless Y/n.)

The other envelope is your key. I can’t elaborate on that, but I know you’ll understand. This has been a long letter. I hope what I wrote here calms the bear in you, Y/n. See you on the other side. I’ll be there when you finally spread your wings and fly.

Sincerely,

Jeonghan

You bring the letter close to your chest before your free-falling tears manage to land themselves upon Jeonghan’s handwriting and ruin it. You want to revel in his words, read it over and over again and save it in the locket of your heart. You don’t want to open the other envelope, not yet. You don’t want the moment to end, but you know it’ll never end—not if it’s Jeonghan. He stays; he will stay with you no matter what. Through the letter he promised you he’ll wait with you, and you trust that he will. So you let your bear go into the wild and his letter back into its home.

The cat envelope saves one big folded poster, and you understand why the cat sticker is there. The envelope—or the poster—is a sanctuary for seven columns and fourteen rows of various cats in various poses. Several cats are missing from the first and last row. Frustration slowly crawls alongside the flow of your blood at your failure of comprehending Jeonghan’s words at the end of his letter. The other envelope is your key. You begin counting the number of cats modeling on your poster by then; there are ninety of them all. Ninety cats are your key.

The other envelope is your key. See you on the other side.

Ninety cats are your key.

And then it occurs to you just what Jeonghan means. You snort, eyes glimmering with both tears and newborn hope. That man and his wit.

That night you dream of your brother, a white cat sleeping on his lap. He strokes her clean furs lovingly, and you raise your head when he suddenly stops. He sees you and smiles. And you aren’t awakened with a jolt or a scream or a sob. That morning, you wake up with a smile. And you share the rare crescent of your lips with the new face who greets you.

Wait for me, Jeonghan, wait for me.

Note again: Is this the longest fic i’ve written so far?? This is how things turn out when you take your time on them, people. Also, Leo, if you read this, I freaked out when I saw that succulent ask you rb, but I didn’t tell you because I was writing this at that time and I give out no spo hehe.

Thank you for reading!

[mickmarstookmyheart]

Life's a Sick Joke pt 2

Pairing: Mick Mars x Reader

Would like to start from the beginning? Here is Part 1 !

Sidenote: As this story is under construction, I would like to warn you that those chapters which don’t have a proper title are written in the main caharcter’s POV!! Be aware!!! Be awaaare! I hope you will enjoy this storyas I did writing it, have a nice day and feel free to leave marks!

2. After-Meeting Party

"Hey Liz, you forgot your helmet! Don't dare to ride without it." Dylan threw it in your way and you caught it smoothly. You said goodbye to him and ran down the stairs, hoping not to meet any of your neighbors.

You packed your stuff into the bag of your motorbike. It was a beautiful, shining jet black chopper. You've worked your ass off to afford it, but it was way cheaper than a car. Perks, you can easily avoid traffic jams. It was just still February and all, but since you hate public transport, particularly people, you got your helmet on and pulled the leather jacket down your waist.

On your way to the meeting, plenty of things crossed your mind. Firstly, in a couple of months, you will be on the road and travel a LOT with Ozzy Osbourne as the opener group during 'Bark at the Moon' tour. Secondly, how should you behave with the boys and the other members of the staff? Should you joke with them or stay calm and silent and ignore all the witty sentences they will tell? And finally, Mick. You hoped he forgot that little chat between the two of you.

When you got there and finally found a parking lot. You took off your helmet and headed towards the building. Inside you took a look at the big clock and saw that you were half an hour earlier, but you didn't mind. Never have you ever been late from anywhere. I gave a look to that clerk from last time and confidently stepped in the elevator. When you got in front of the office door you hesitated a bit. When you stepped in you said a shy hello to the others who were already there. You sat down at the end of the table and started to read the papers on the desk.

"Hey, don't touch them! It's confidential." At the same moment, you dropped the papers and looked over the man in complete shock. You felt my face burn in embarrassment.

"Oh...I'm so sorry. I didn't know..." You tried to say a proper sentence.

"Just kidding, kid. Don't worry. Anyway, I'm Doc." He approached you and shook hands.

"(Y/N). Nice to finally meet you." You were smiling since you truly meant it. He already managed some bands you liked so much.

"Are you the new makeup artist?" He asked rubbing the back of his head guessing.

"Nope. I'm a photographer. I don't, more like I can't really do anything with makeup." You chuckled remembering your many attempts with make-up. You either ended like a clown or you never saw any difference.

"Ohh so you are the nerd one." Yaaay now they will call you The Nerd™. Cool. "Anyway, I read your CV. Nice qualifications. To be honest I expected an old, skinny man with a big mustache to be the photographer. But it's a pleasant disappointment."

"Thank you. I guess." You said after he left you there.

After he left the room, you let your hair loose and fix it a bit due to the helmet completely ruined it. The only body part you adored was your hair. Well, your hair, generally in the family. All the three of you and your bitch mother had silver, almost platinum white hair.

10 am. Finally. Everybody was present except for the four musicians. Nothing really happened, just discussed things which relate to the staff.

10:30 am. The door opened and the dark knight himself entered the meeting. You tried to avoid eye contact with him so you entertained yourself by the color of the wall and the long, shining glass table in front of you.

"I am sorry." Mick apologized and shut the door after himself. So he is the only one who attended the meeting. Nice.

"So, your interview went well I see." He whispered in your ear as he sat down next to you. Next to you. There were plenty of other seats available, but he had to sit down right there. Yay. Becoming invisible mission failed.

"Yeah...I was surprised, too." You said blushing.

You tried my best, really. You tried to concentrate on the meeting and jot down important information, but every time Doc joked and Mick chuckled or laughed you completely lost control. You always felt his eyes on you. It was frustrating. You cleared your throat more than once as a sign for him to look away but he didn't get it or just didn't want to. Doc started to write on the board the important concert dates and so did you.

"Shouldn't we wait until the boys come?" You chuckled. A girl asked who was sitting in front of you. She was a rookie, too if you had to guess.

"It's very unlikely to happen, dear. They are rockstars and they do whatever they feel like." Doc sighed continuing on the board.

"You know I'm sitting here, right?" Mick asked in a serious tone. Everybody cracked up, including me.

"If you really want to see them, check them at the after-meeting party." Doc told the girl.

"After-meeting party?"

You whispered to Mick.

"Yep. You coming?" He asked leaning closer. His breath was doing things to you.

"I don't know. Maybe. Although, I can't really drink, and party without alcohol isn't a party."

"And what if I won't drink either? That would be fair, right?" He offered in a very dangerous tone, it gave you goosebumps.

"Ohh I can't expect it from you. It's a party overall!"

"I want to be sober when I'm talking to you. I want to remember everything you say and tell me." Your heart skipped a beat.

At the party

"Hey, Mick!!! We didn't expect you to be hereeeee!!" Nikki yelled as he, Tommy, and Vince entered the party. They were all drunk as hell but trying to act sober. You and Mick were sitting at the bar drinking juice and water. Shame.

"Fuck. I didn't know what I was missing. These morons." He placed his face in his hands. Somehow you felt a sudden urge to touch his shoulder to comfort him, but you didn't have the guts to do so.

"And who is this?" The boys approached you and stopped in front of you. Vince eyed from head-to-toe and was grinning. "Nice to meet you, dear. I'm Vince Neil, the singer, and leader of this band."

"Vince, you are the lead singer, not the leader. It's not the same, man." Nikki corrected Vince.

"(Y/N)." He held your hand and placed a kiss on the top of it.

"My lady." Mick just rolled his eyes. You were afraid he might eye-roll himself into another dimension.

"And (Y/N)....what?" Tommy asked curiously.

"I'm sure she is (Y/N) Sixx cause I will fucking marry her, man!" He and his terror twin high-fived while you and Mick just shared a look.

"Wow. That was so original. You don't have better pickup lines?" You asked pulling one of your eyebrows at him.

"Hey, that was good. As me." He winked and with that, he just walked away pretending to be offended.

"I'm Tommy. Tommy Lee. And I really would like to know your surname!! Is it embarrassing or what?" He snickered.

"Well if you look me with those puppet eyes of yours I'm gonna tell ya. My name is (Y/N) Cooper." You sighed and waited for the reaction. Tommy was wide-eyed and already turned towards his bandmates.

"Hey Sixx, Vinnie! This is Alice Cooper's daughter!" You facepalmed since you already knew this will happen. A bunch of idiots.

"No, man. This is the reason I didn't want to tell it. Because you, fucking teenagers will immediately think that I'm a relative of Alice Cooper!!" You snapped and now completely understand Mick's thoughts about them.

"Chills, dude. I'm leaving." Lee held his hands up in defense and left you there with Mick.

"Fucking teenagers" is my line." Mick spoke up after they all left.

"You need to copyright it sometime."

∆Still at the party∆

"So I already know that you like taking pictures. Tell me your story!" You were now on the balcony which was much quieter and peaceful them downstairs. You finally convinced Mick to drink something even if you couldn't. He had a bottle of beer in his hands and was gesturing with it.

"I don't really know what to tell. What do you want to know?" You asked while taking a sip from your water. Water at a party. You couldn't believe it either.

"Well, do you live near here? Children?" He paused for a second. He looked at you from the coach. "Husband?" You smiled at the last question.

"Woah, Woah, Woah. Hold on! One question at once! I can't even remember them. Well, if you really want to know we live 30 minutes from here. We moved here at least four years ago."

"With whom?" He asked while he slowly stood up and leaned on the railing of the balcony beside you.

"With my brother and sister. Woah, now just with my brother, cause Isabelle went to uni. And for that husband topic...I haven't really had any proper relationship, there were mostly jerks, dumps, and idiots, in that order." You looked down and laughed at how miserable you were with relationships. "Also looking after my sister and sometimes my brother is just like having a baby." He chuckled. "And what about you?"

"I have a sister, called Susie and three..."

"Brothers?" You asked back not letting him finish his sentence. Mick already regretted intending to mention his children so it was a good come out.

"Yeah, sure." He said before taking a sip of his booze. He stood closer to you so his shoulder was touching yours. Mick met many girls during his life who were pretty and kind, but when he saw you in the office acting nervous, he knew you will completely turn upside down his whole life.

You hummed from the slight touch and leaned your head on his shoulder. You were admiring the view of the city night and the peaceful quiet. Then something crossed your mind like thunder during a storm.

"Holy shit." You cursed thinking he will kill you.

"What is it?" Mick asked worryingly.

"I forgot to call him, my brother. He will kill me. Sorry, but I gotta go."

"Okay, I will wait here." Mick sighed and thought he fucked it up this time. Maybe this touch and personal questions just scared you away. You headed towards the phonebooth downstairs. You felt terrible leaving Mick there all alone, but your brother must be worried sick, not knowing a thing about you.

You found a phone in the kitchen which was not that quiet. Cool. It ranged at least a million times until he picked it up.

"What kind of meeting lasts for more than 3 hours? I worried sick. Where are you?" He ranted on the phone. He was pretty angry.

"I'm so sorry, Dylan. Time just flew. Currently, I'm in a house party near to the office. It's a so-called after meeting party. Sounds ridiculous, I know." You smiled on the phone.

"Sure, it does. But you aren't drinking, are you? I hope you remember...that thing."

"Yeah I remember and you don't have to remind me all the time. And I'm sober. Anyway, Mick is asking of you."

"So...becoming invisible mission failed?"

"It fucking did."

"Who are you talking to, my dear?" A strangely familiar voice echoed from your back so you turned around. Vince. Dear Satan give you enough strength to handle him.

"Hey, Dylan I have to go, but I will set off soon, I promise. See ya later." And without waiting for his respond you hung up. After putting back the phone you glared at him, not in a mood for his attempts.

"What do you want, Vince?" You asked while heading back to poor Mick.

"Just a kiss from a rose." He stepped in front of you and put his fingers under your chin.

"No way, man! You are wasted and I'm not enough wasted to kiss you. So, please let me go." You wanted to walk beside him back to Mick, but he grabbed your wrist and pulled closer to him. Mick went back to the room and was about to leave this party since he supposed you weren't coming back. It was too long now for just a telephone conversation.

"It's just a kiss. From me. From the fucking lead singer of Mötley fucking Crüe." He whispered in your ear.

"But asshole, I don't give a damn of who you are. And get your hands off me!" You were about to walk away but he crushed his lips on yours. You immediately moved away and punched him in the face. He fell to the floor and held his hand on his face.

"You BITCH! You hit me!!" You stood there in complete shock, not believing what you just did. Everyone was staring at you. Your hand hurt like hell and you just wanted to be somewhere else.

"I'm so sorry. I should...go." You ran out of the bar and got on your bike.

"Hey, (Y/N)! Please wait!" Mick yelled from the door and was approaching you. "Where are you going?"

"Didn't you see what I did? I punched Vince. Actually, he is my boss. I fucked it up." You sighed and was gripping the hand clutch so strong your hand was already white.

"In that case, I'm your boss, too. And what did he do? I just saw that he is on the floor and you are running out."

"He...he tried to kiss me. I told him to stop and go away but he didn't. And after all, he did it and I got furious and hit him." You took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. Mick didn't know what to think at first, he was just amazed at how badass you were and angry as hell about Vince.

"Don't worry. He is so drunk he won't even remember it in the morning." Mick tried to chill you down.

"Are you sure? But what Doc will think? He is angry I guess..." You murmured.

"I think he didn't even notice it. And he won't care if Vince will go to him and cry like a girl who just broke her nails."

You chuckled. He stepped closer and you hugged him. You didn't know why you just needed someone to comfort you. He didn't move for a second. Later he hugged you back and rubbed your back. Mick wanted that moment to last forever, though it felt like a minute. Your strong grip, your smell and your hair in his face were just perfect. You were just perfect.

"Thank you for always being there when I need the most." You wiped your tears away and felt awkward." Sorry, this might sound strange." You sniffed.

"Hey, it's okay and I understand." A long pause and awkward silence. "So is this your bike? It looks badass." He took a look at your bike.

"Yap, it's mine. And thanks. I worked a lot to get it. But it worthed." You looked in the distance for a while. You thought about Vince and that you may have to look for a new job and had to leave Mick.

You screwed it up. 

Next chapter

Tags: @cmft-jr-winchester  @leatherandheels​

[ladybugsfanfics]

Blind Date | Tom Hiddleston x reader

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x reader | Special cameo over phone by Benedict Cumberbatch and his wife Sophie Hunter

Style: One Shot (might turn into smth more but probably not)

WC: 2885 (finally smth long, amirite?)

Warnings: Some swearing, uhh, don’t think there’s anything else, but if there is please let me know

Summary: Your long time friend has set you up on a Blind Date and says it’s worth a shot because ‘you’re perfect for each other’. You’re having doubts, but with Sophie’s reassuring words, you decide to dive in. 

A/N: Tumblr has no line breaks anymore?? Think I’m late to the realization but like... wtf?! I have done my best, thank god i am creative. Hope you like this :P

If you would like to be tagged in future fics, please let me know. 

“Ben,” you say and put your hand to your forehead, “are you really sure this blind date thing is a good idea?”

A chuckle comes from the other end of the line. “Yes, Y/N, I believe it is. He’s a good friend of mine. Sophie agrees that you two would be perfect for each other.” 

You roll your eyes. “Calming, but I’m still not sure about this.” You sigh, and purse your lips. “Can I talk to Sophie? If she’s there?”

“Of course. One moment.” 

There’s a shift in sound, and a moment later, a soft voice speaks into the phone. “I hear you have some cold feet?” 

You let out a strained laugh. “Cold feet? More like I would really like to know who I’m going on a date with nervousness. I don’t know, Soph, it’s just…” 

“Hey, think about it this way. You get the chance to meet someone new, and whatever happens, you tried? You’ve been single since we met you. It might be time to dip your toes in the water? Just check?”

“You’re probably right,” you say, “I’ll just finish getting ready and walk to that stupid way too fancy resturaunt Ben told me to. Honestly, I hope this guy’s rich.”

Sophie laughs. “You might get a lovely surprise.”

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“Have a nice date. Tell me about it later, ‘kay?” 

“Yeah, of course. Bye. Tell Ben to fuck off too for me, yeah?” You shake your head, hear her little ‘will do, bye’ and hang up. God, what did I agree to, you think and try to push the anxiety down. 

You throw your phone onto the bed and sigh as you raid through your closet for something fancy enough to wear. Honestly, you should’ve gone shopping. 

Standing outside the restaurant, cold air nips your skin. You drag your jacket tighter around you, hating that the agreement was to meet outside the building and not just get to the table right away. The problem: you don’t know whose name the table is reserved under.

After another blast of cold wind, you fish your phone out of your pocket. The time reads 08.03 PM. Three minutes late. And you’ve already been waiting for over ten. “Well, I’m not waiting out here anymore,” you mutter under your breath as you turn to walk through the doors to the restaurant. 

The warm air instantly hits you and you shake of the cold feeling from being outside. You’re greeted by a male, who politely asks for your coat. Taking out belongings of value (phone, keys and wallet), you hand it to him. 

“May I show you to your table, miss?” he asks. 

You bite the inside of your lip. “Uhh, honestly, I’m not certain what name it’s under.” You try for a nervous smile. 

He smiles back. “I’m guessing you’re part of the blind date couple we were ‘discretely’ informed off,” he says. “You’re date hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure he’ll be here soon. You want me to show you the table, or would you like to wait?”

“You can show it to me now. That’s fine.”

You type a quick text to Ben telling him to say to your date not to wait outside but just go in right away. As the waiter stops by a table, you get a reply; ‘you got it, dude’ and shake your head with a small smile. 

“Here you go,” the waiter says. “Hope your date shows up soon. You deserve better.” And before he goes back to his post, he winks. 

You shake your head and swallow the lump in your throat. God, I hope he’s here soon. Unfortunately, the waiter didn’t give you a menu, so no read through of that before your date comes. Nor do you really want to make the impression that you’re constantly on your phone by using it when he comes. 

Bored, you look around at the other people there. Most of the tables are for four people. Around most of them sits men and some women in suits, giving you the vibe that they’re all white-collars. It makes you slightly uncomfortable to think that the restaurant is more a business-meeting place than a date place. But maybe that’s just a feeling more than a fact. 

You turn your head in the direction of the entrance and release your breath in relief seeing the waiter coming in your direction, followed by a tall male in a blue suit. From your viewpoint, it’s hard to see exactly how he looks, but within a minute he’ll be by the table and you’ll know. Anway, that isn’t what matters―you try to tell yourself. 

“Here you go,” the waiter says to your date and smiles. He hands you a menu each. You accept yours with a small ‘thank you’. As he leaves, you get up to greet your date. 

“Hi,” you say and hold out your hand, “I’m Y/N.” 

He takes your hand in his, blue eyes smile warmly as he says, “Nice to meet you. I’m Tom. Shall we sit?” His voice a low hum with an accent. 

You nod and sit back down. 

You date wears a navy blue and striped suit that fits like it’s tailored. He wears a light blue shirt underneath and a navy tie. When he takes off his suit jacket, you can see that his shirt also fits like it’s tailored― and to be quite honest, it’s a pretty good view. It feels a little unfair. In addition to a nice body, you note a strong jawline covered in a five o’ clock shadow, and are those real cheekbones? The small strawberry blonde curls atop his head makes you swallow a lump in your throat, only for it to come back up and make you slightly more nervous than you already were. 

Looking at him makes you feel inadequate. You had decided to go fancy-casual; a long black skirt with leg slits on both sides and a black tight-fitting long sleeved crop top that accentuates your boobs. Despite feeling good in the clothes, you can’t help but feel underdressed. Tom is definitely out of your league, and he looks somewhat familiar. 

You both scan the menu. No one says anything until the waiter comes to take your order. Taking away the menus opens up the need for conversation. Only, how do you start one? 

“How do you know Benedict?” asks Tom.

You answer, relieved that you didn’t have to come up with a topic yourself. “I wrote a short story, made it into a script that I sent to a theatre here in London, and they liked it. Ben was cast as the lead role, and Sophie was actually the director. I worked with them for a pretty long time and we kept in touch.” You smile at the fond memory. “What about you?”

“Oh, we met in 2010 whilst shooting a movie. And we have been friends ever since.” Tom smiles. “We actually live very close to each other, here in London.”

“Really? It amazes me that if you are such good friends that he hasn’t mentioned you,” you say with a little joking-tone. “And apparently I haven’t seen that movie.”

Tom smiles. “He hasn’t mentioned you either, not by name at least. But you’re a writer?” 

You nod. “Yeah, mostly short stories, but I’m trying to get a novel finished. I write some scripts too, for fun, mostly, but I prefer the rather classical storytelling with a narrator and all the other stuff.” You add a joking laugh to the end of the sentence. 

Tom smiles. “Hehe. To be honest, I do that, too.” Tom lets out a laugh. “Though, I do read a lot of scripts and I find them to be highly entertaining usually.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I do too. I am one of those that sits in front of netflix a little too much,” you admit. “But I always find time to read. It’s the one thing that’s always been there, you know?” 

You continue to talk about books, and reading, and writing, and acting. Never before have you been on a date where the conversation flows as easily. Even with the food there, the conversation keeps going. You talk mostly about the outer layer stuff―work, small childhood memories, friends, hobbies. Both of you drink a couple of glasses of wine each. 

“Would you like dessert?” asks Tom as the waiter takes away the empty dishes. 

You give it a thought. “Actually, no. It sounds good, but I’m not tempted.” Tom quirks an eyebrow. “What do you say we pay and go somewhere else?” you ask, hoping your eyes convey the message you want. 

By the way Tom smiles back, you’re pretty sure it did. Not long after, the check is paid (you offered but Tom wouldn’t have it), and the two of you are outside, walking along the streets. 

“This was really nice,” you say after a few too many moments of silence. “I have to admit, when Ben suggested this I was kind of… on edge.”

Tom nods along. “Yes, I did have my doubts. But Benedict told me we were perfect for each other. I only agreed when Sophie vouched.”

You laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I did, too.” You look down at the ground, kicking a little rock and hating that you decided to wear high heels (they’re great, but it kind of hurts in the length). “Do you maybe wanna go somewhere? Park? Lake? Ice cream shop?” 

His hand brushes yours, and you bite your lip. “This is going to sound… blunt. But my place isn’t that far from here if you would like another glass of wine, maybe?” If not for his accent you’d probably hit him (a joke; there was way more in the favor of not hitting him). 

You intertwine your fingers with his, and nod. “I’d like that, yeah.” 

Tom wasn’t lying when he said his place wasn’t far. You walked about three blocks and were in the right neighborhood. Two unfortunate realizations on your part; 1. This is about the same neighborhood as Benedict lives in; 2. This is a rich neighborhood, meaning Tom has money, meaning Tom is not only an actor but a successful one and it starts to bug you a little bit that you can’t place where you’ve seen him before. 

You take a right turn and in a matter of minutes you’re inside his house. Did I shave? Did I…? Am I at…? Your mind races with thoughts on what might happen, what might not happen, and your preparations for the date. To be honest, despite your thoughts going there very much in that moment, sex on the first date was a big no-no in your head. 

Tom takes your coat and hangs it up. Without even giving it a second thought, you take off your shoes, which has Tom let out a light chuckle as he does the same. “You’re one of the few people who does that without me telling them to,” he says. 

“Oh, well. I don’t really see the point in cleaning a house if you’re gonna drag the dirt in with you. What’s the point in vacuuming if it’s dirty thirty seconds later?” You smile up at him. God, he’s really tall. 

“Exactly,” says Tom and smiles. “Would you like that glass of wine?”

You nod. “Could I maybe borrow your bathroom?” He nods and tells you which room it is. With a smile you go in the direction his points in. 

It’s a cozy bathroom. Actually, not bad at all. The shower is quite big and you curse your brain for going straight to what it would be like to have sex in it. Also for ‘it’s big enough’ being your first thought. God, curse that handsome man. God, curse Ben for not telling you about him sooner. Actually, as you check yourself in the mirror (makeup still pretty on point) you take out your phone and send a ‘what the hell is wrong with you?!’ text to Ben, with the follow up; ‘you’ve known him since 2010 and you only now thought to make me go on a date with him?!”

You don’t wait for an answer. Rather you give yourself a smile in the mirror and some encouraging words, and leave with hopes high enough (like maybe a kiss). 

Tom sits in the living room, phone in hand. Two wine glasses are placed on the coffee table. You cough as you sit down, gaining his attention. He smiles up at you and puts away his phone. He hands you a glass as you tuck one leg under your butt. 

Neither of you speak. You take a sip of wine and nod when you do. “This is a really good wine,” you say. 

“Yes, uhh, it’s Italian,” replies Tom. 

What the hell happened to the smooth talk from before? Am I really this nervous? Is he this nervous? Your mind goes away with overthinking. Does he like you? Well, he did invite you into his house. But does that mean he likes you? Maybe you’re just a good conversation partner? But he did offer wine, which does have alcohol, which might be because he wants you a little tipsy, or at least with enough percentage so you would put out? 

You shake of the feeling, not believing someone like Tom could ever take advantage of you. Instead, you take another sip of wine, lean back and smile at him. “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?” you ask. That was blunt. 

Tom smiles and laugh this ‘hehe’ laughter that makes your heart skip a beat. He takes a sip of wine and puts down the glass. “You don’t seem to know exactly who I am, but, uhh, I’ve done quite a lot of interviews. Some have me doing things I would rather not remember. I did this silly thing on MTV After Hours With Josh Horowitz. I made up some really silly pranks that made no sense and said loki’d afterwards with this weird laugh and I did this.” Tom puts his hand up to the side of his face and holds it there as if he has a monocle. 

And it hits you. Right in the moment he said ‘loki’d’ and weird laugh. You would like to facepalm. “Oh my God,” you say. “You’re Tom Hiddleston. Oh, my God.” You take a sip of wine to calm down a little. “You’re probably one of the actors I always thought I’d recognize. Loki is my favorite MCU character and I love you in Kong: Skull Island. I am correct that I haven’t seen the film with you and Benedict, but honestly, I have never felt this stupid.” 

He laughs. This godly sound that makes the mistake seem such tiny, but… 

You put down the wine glass and lay your head in your hands. Through them you mumble, “this is my most embarrassing moment. For sure.”

Gentle hands pry yours away from your face, and a slender finger tilts your cheek up so your eyes meet Tom’s. He smiles at you; lips pressed together and wrinkles around his eyes. “That’s okay, Love, really. I enjoyed talking to someone who didn’t know what I had played in. It made some of the stories more fun, kind of.” 

“I should go back to pretending I don’t know, huh?” you ask. 

Tom chuckles. “No, I’m glad you know. It would be weird if you didn’t.” He smiles and cups your face. Your eyes meet. Tom’s are a beautiful shade of blue. Complemented by his blue shirt, they look almost electric. He licks his lips. “You have beautiful eyes,” he whispers.

You press your lips together and smile, feeling the blush creep into your cheeks. At the thought, you notice how close you sit. His face is only an inch from yours. It would be so easy to kiss him, or for him to kiss you. God, it would be so… 

However, is it really a good idea? It is the first date. You only know the basics of each other. Work, a little family and friends, and hobbies. There is more to him, and there is more to you. 

You’re dragged out of your thoughts by his lips on yours. His right hand is still cupping your face, and he places his left on your knee. Taken by surprise, it takes you a moment to react, but as you do you press your lips to his. Something explodes in your gut, and whatever it is makes you shift your position closer to him. Your hands go up and you twine them behind his neck. Tom smiles in the kiss and moves both his hands to the small of your back, pressing you closer to him. 

You break the kiss and smile at him. “That… That was, uhh…”

“Yeah,” Tom says, his voice a little breathless. 

You both let out a little laugh and press your foreheads together. “This has been, uhh, pretty great.” 

Tom smiles and pecks your lips. “Yes, it has. Not what I thought would come from a blind date.” 

You shake your head with a smile. “Yeah. Who would’ve thought?”

[flintsjohn]

if you're still taking prompts, how about one where michael realizes how fondly alex looks at him?

uhh so i didn’t proofread this and also almost forgot to post it so i’m sorry if it’s messy? also very canon-divergent with a hell of a lot of oblivious!michael and all of their friends being awesome :)

I.

“But do you think he likes likes me?”

Max heaves out a sigh and lifts his eyes from the worn copy of War and Peace he’s reading while chewing on an apple. Michael returns the look nervously, biting down on his thumbnail. His eyes fleet to Alex, sitting on a table not too far from them, laughing with Maria and Liz.

“Yes, Michael,” Max finally says after he swallows. “I don’t know why you keep asking me that, bud. You know how he looks at you.”

Michael takes one last moment to look at Alex, all smiles and shining black-lined eyes, and then turns back to Max with a pout. “He never looks at me.” Not once, in three years of high school together and one that Michael has been crushing on him, and not in that way anyway. “I had to steal his guitar for him to even look my way.” That had been a good day for Michael, crush-wise, even though he had been accused of being a thief which in that case, to be fair, he had been.

Max doesn’t seem convinced, by the state of his raised eyebrows, but Michael shrugs and goes back to his sad little salad, trying not to think of Alex Manes or his stupid eyes, rings, outfits, whatever.

II.

Michael has a physics essay to turn in for which the deadline is in three hours and if he doesn’t finish this now he’s going to be fucked, but Isobel doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even sure why she’s here, because visiting for the weekend doesn’t count when she’s at fashion school fifteen minutes away from his dorm on the UNM campus.

He’s only half listening to her latest rant on her relationship problems with Rosa as he writes his conclusion, but when he’s finally sent in the damned thing, cracked his back and focused back on her, she’s apparently moved on, because she’s now asking, “Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“Uh?” he says stupidly, eyes burning from being focused for so long on the computer screen. He rubs at them and yawns, reaching for a cup of coffee that is now lukewarm.

“Alex, dumbdumb. You know, your life-long crush.”

Michael snorts because yeah, right. Like he’s just going to gather up the courage like that after three years spent pining dramatically. Besides, Alex is always being swarmed by admirers nowadays, college having given him the freedom he’s never had in high school under his father’s thumb. He’s going on dates left and right with guys far more deserving of him than Michael is. He’s tried saying as much to Isobel, but she apparently hasn’t heard a word of it.

“You know, and I can’t believe I’m saying this because God knows I’m the only functional human being in our family, but Max is right.” She sighs, flicks him on the forehead, and finishes her sentence as she moves to the door like she’d come into his dorm just to tell him that. “You should take the blinders off and see how he looks at you.”

III.

It’s not like Michael and Alex aren’t friends. They are, ever since senior year of high schol, when they bonded over shitty childhoods and music. They still hang out in college – living in the same building, it would be weird if they didn’t – and their friend group has remained pretty much the same since high school in Roswell, so they can’t really avoid each other. So Michael knows, on a logical level, that Alex likes spending time with him. It’s just that he doesn’t think Alex will ever see him that way, and by now everyone but Alex knows about Michael’s crush and they’re not subtle about it.

“So, you two fucked yet?” Rosa asks as she drops on the free chair next to him in the middle of the busy café as Michael waits for Alex’s shift to finish so they can have their study-session. He rushes to shush her, even though Alex is so busy behind the counter that he couldn’t possibly have heard her. He blushes as Rosa rolls her eyes, and goes back to his text book, drumming the page with his pencil.

“Sooner or later you’re gonna have to talk to him,” she reminds him, not unkindly (she’s never as insolent as Isobel is, though her crass language would suggest otherwise). She takes a sip of her latte and stares at the busy crowd, probably waiting for her girlfriend’s blonde head to pop up.

“We talk.”

“Not about things that matter, Mikey-boy.” She grins at the glare he directs her way at the nickname and continues easily, “Like the fact that you love when he smiles and lovingly bats his eyelashes at you while you go on and on about science facts nobody else cares about.”

“Shut up,” he mutters, dropping his head on his book and slamming it down a couple of times. Sometimes he wonders why he’s friends with people like Rosa, who won’t know when to drop some topics, but then he always remembers that Isobel would have his balls if he didn’t make an effort with her girlfriend, so all he ever does in the end is shrug and try to change the subject or deny. “And he doesn’t do… That.”

“Dude. I’m in a band with him. He talks about you all the time.” He picks his head up just in time to catch yet another of Rosa’s patented eye-rolls, and then she’s squealing and jumping up to throw herself into Isobel’s arms. He makes a gagging sound as they kiss as he does every time he has to see that, without fail, but the thought of Alex talking about him when he’s not there keeps nagging him for the rest of the afternoon, even when the man himself joins him with complimentary coffee.

IV.

“Maria, please,” he begs, tugging at her arm for her to stay.

“Jeez, Michael, it’s just Alex. You’ll be fine.” She shakes her head and drops a kiss to his cheek before waving at him and going back to the bar to join the rest of the girls. Hell of a night for Max to be busy and leave him at the mercy of the meanest group of ladies he’s ever met. And, well, Alex.

It’s just Alex, Maria says. Michael snorts and shakes his head, thumb rubbing at the condensation on his beer bottle. Just Alex is always Michael’s problem. He gets tongue-tied and stuttery around Alex, the last four years of shared life experiences forgotten when Alex as much as looks his way.

Which is what happens next, more or less. Alex gets back with his drink and an added sway to his hips which Michael knows, because he’s had to witness it countless times before, means he’s already been hit on by the first guy of the night, and Michael settles in for a long, long night of sulking in his beer.

Thankfully, around the third guy that strikes up a conversation with Alex and offers him a drink, Liz comes to save him. Michael really, really loves Liz, and he hopes Max will pull his head out of his ass and ask her to marry him sooner rather than later so he can have her as his sister-in-law, because Liz is awesome. He tells her as much, because he’s tipsy and loose-tongued enough now that he’s not alone with Alex anymore. She laughs and wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him to the dance floor.

Five minutes later, however, Michael feels like taking back everything he’s just stated about Liz, because she’s swaying with him so she can yell in his ear. “Why did you let him leave?” She draws back to catch Michael’s reaction, which is just a frown, before she continues, “We left you two alone and with alcohol! It was the perfect opportunity, Mikey!”

Scratch awesome, all the girls he knows are downright evil.

V.

Pool night with the boys becomes a thing in college, and they bring it back to Roswell when they all end up moving back. No matter how busy Alex gets with teaching, or how swamped with deadlines for his current writing project Max is, or how tired Kyle is from shifts, or how forgetful Michael gets with new projects in his lab, they try to keep their one night a week going.

Michael is getting drinks at the bar, making small talk with Mimi, when Kyle joins him, clapping him on the back before he takes two of the glasses from him. He’s coming off a double shift and almost missed boys night, though he refused to force them to reschedule, so Michael guesses from his crazy hair and shining eyes that he’s still running high on caffeine. Unfortunately, a caffeinated Kyle is a chatty Kyle.

“So, tell me, what did I miss? It’s been a while since our last night out.” Michael throws a look his way and shrugs at the expectant look on Kyle’s face, which earns him a pout. “C’mon, man, as your best friend outside of your siblings-“

“Liz is my best friend.”

“As your best friend,” Kyle repeats more forcefully, glaring at him until Michael accepts the statement with another shrug, “You should talk to me about this stuff.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Kyle.”

Kyle’s expression drops at that, and he stops to put the drinks down on a random table so he can turn on Michael, even though they haven’t reached the pool table they’ve commandeered for the night yet. “What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean,” Michael sighs, running a hand through his curls. He throws a glance Alex’s way, but he’s deep in conversation with Max and doesn’t seem to notice Kyle is holding him hostage, “Nothing happened.”

“But you went on a date.” Michael nods, taking a sip of his beer since it looks like Kyle isn’t going to release him any time soon. “And you kissed. He told me you two kissed!” Another nod, and Kyle frowns again. “So?”

“So what? He doesn’t want a relationship, Kyle.”

“Did he tell you that?” Kyle crosses his arms over his chest, studying Michael as he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Alex hasn’t actually said that, not in as many words, but Michael can read the signs, and he knows that date was a mistake. Kyle doesn’t seem to agree, because he mutters, “Por Dios, que idiota eres.”

“I speak Spanish.”

“I know! I want you to understand what a dumbass you are!” Kyle pushes a finger into his chest, and Michael barely has time to mutter an ow before Kyle’s hands are on his cheeks and he’s forced to look into the other man’s eyes, which is weird because he hasn’t been this close to Kyle’s face since they drunkenly made out at his graduation party.

“Now, you listen to me, Guerin,” Kyle says determinedly, “You go there, free Alex from Max, and ask him out again. I will not lose the bet because of your obliviousness.”

VI.

“Oh,” Michael breathes as the pictures pop up on the big screen set up appositely for the slideshow. He tried to avoid it, of course, worried about what photos Isobel would be able to unearth, but it was non-negotiable in Isobel’s wedding plan, and unfortunately Alex had been on her side. Alex, who now sighs happily and cuddles closer to him with an inquisitive noise. “That’s- That’s what they always meant.”

“With what, babe?” Alex presses a kiss to his cheek and entwines their fingers, both of them smiling sheepishly when their rings clink together. Three hours haven’t been enough to get used to that (Michael isn’t sure a lifetime will be enough to get used to the fact that he’s just married the love of his life).

“The way you look at me,” Michael whispers, just for them to hear. He nods at the screen, which is now showing a picture of them in college, a guitar in each of their laps, heads bowed together as they play. Michael’s eyes are focused on his fingers in the photo, but Alex is looking at him, an incredibly fond look in his eyes. He has the exact same look in most of their pictures together, and Michael gasps as he looks down to find it replicated on his husband, eyes crinkling with his smile.

“Yeah,” Michael breathes, pressing his forehead to Alex’s, “That look.”

Alex hums, pressing closer to Michael like he would want to fuse them together if he could. He smiles as he drops a kiss to the corner of Michael’s lips, causing him to shiver when his next words brush against his skin like a caress. “I never look away.”