#tornado bead

[berryshiara]

Twisted hearts earrings

I have fallen in love with the warmth of copper. And Czech glass.

Antiqued copper wire with czech glass beads. All the wire work is hand crafted by me.

Including the earhooks and the tornado beads!

[pasukiyo]

RIDE EM', COWGIRL

tyler owens x f!reader word count: 1,168 warnings: SMUT! tornado sex?, riding, masturbation (both m & f), very sloppy writing, i was just horny after watching twisters okay lol synopsis: it's like he always says, you don't face your fears, you ride em' cowgirl...

 “You take it so fuckin’ well, fuck!”

 Rain pounds against the windows of the truck along with quarter to ping pong sized hail but she rides Tyler faster, his cock pounding faster against her cervix than the little balls of ice that strike the steel of the truck. Her fingernails etch hooks into his shoulders, reminiscent of the hook echo in the supercell on the radar behind her. His palms knead at her hips, guiding her up and down his length, her walls clenching around him. 

 “It’s headin’ east!” Boone’s voice emits from the comms and her hips slow, but Tyler’s hands tighten around them, heaving her up and down his cock himself. Her eyes roll and her head lolls, a string of curses tumbling past her lips. 

 “Come on, baby, almost fuckin’ there,” he mutters beneath his breath like it’s sacred prayer, canting his hips towards hers, bringing her within inches of her end. 

 “Tyler, shit!” She gasps, sinking her nails further into his skin, deep enough to draw blood. “Slow down! I can’t… I can’t fucking take it…”

 He shakes his head, a low rumble thundering deep in his chest like a crack of lightning. “Yes you can, come on,” he groans. “You do so well, takin' my cock so damn good.”

 “Tyler, the hell you doing? We got a vortex on the ground at your six, so are we ridin’ this thing or not?” Boone’s voice sounds from the comms again and Tyler hisses, pressing the pads of his fingers down into the flesh of her waist, hips angrily thrusting up into her. 

 A sob wracks her body and she slumps against him when his hips finally still, his cock sitting dormant inside of her. Every muscle aches in her body and her core practically screams for more, feeling the blisteringly white hot bliss she felt mere moments ago begin to slip away. Perspiration drips in beads down the slides of her face onto his sweat-slicked skin and she lets her lids flutter closed, feeling Tyler’s chest heave up and down beneath her cheek. 

 Tyler huffs and reaches for the transceiver, bringing it up to his lips. “Yeah, we’re ridin’.”

 Her eyelids snap open as Tyler practically shoves her into the passenger seat and she hisses when the back of her head meets the window. “Tyler!” She exclaims as he buckles himself into his harness, gesturing for her to do the same. 

 “Harness on, baby,” he snickers. “This ain’t your first rodeo.”

 As her orgasm slips further away, she scrambles to sit upright in her seat, buckling herself into her harness as Tyler shifts the truck into drive. She hardly has time to get herself properly fastened before she’s being jostled about, slippery palm struggling to find its grip on the handle above her head. 

 The truck bobs up and down against the unsteady ground it drives on, her thighs instinctively closing together at the friction against her core. Tyler glances over when she does, feeling his dick twitch until it’s unbearable— he can’t not take it into his fist. 

 She turns her head almost as soon as he does, feeling her stomach do a somersault as he pumps himself in one hand, steering the truck with the other. 

 “Tyler, we’re driving straight into a fuckin’ tornado right now and you’re jerking yourself off?” She asks with a dent between her brow and he turns, grinning as he does it. 

 “‘If you feel it, chase it,’ amirite?” He says with a wink and she’d admit— it makes her clit throb. He side-eyes her sore, puffy clit before turning back to the mass of churning wind in front of them. “You should really take care of your situation down there. It’s good for the nerves.”

 Blood bites her cheeks as he steers them closer to the tornado and all she can do is stare as he pumps himself, her own hand itching to be between her legs. Tyler drives them into the twister and she can’t fight it anymore, one hand sliding over her clit, the other tightening around the handle above her head. 

 Tyler’s laugh thunders the small interior of the truck, even as rain and wind and hail pound against the top of the vehicle. He anchors the truck into the ground and fires off the rockets, tightening his fist around his cock, tugging angrily, damn near ferally. 

 Tyler’s a fucking animal, anyone could see that. But he’s a whole new breed when they’re alone, absolutely primal. 

 The pads of her fingers race back and forth over her nub, her legs shaking as she brings herself back towards that edge Tyler nearly pushed her over moments before. His name stumbles past her lips in a whimper and she feels his hand snake around her head, bringing her closer. 

 “Fuck, come here,” he growls against her lips before enveloping them with his, his tongue like a bull she struggles to stay atop. There’s a knot building at the pit of her belly that’s on the precipice of rupturing, closer and closer with every flick of her fingers against her clit. 

 “Gettin’ close?” He asks against her mouth and she mewls, nodding. He grins against her lips, “do it.”

 The wind pounds against the steel of the truck and the vehicle rocks as the vortex twirls around them. She used to think this was crazy, absolutely utterly insane and it is— but she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t equally exhilarating. She thinks risk is what she’s been missing all her life— and then she met Tyler. It seems risk has been her new normal ever since they started dating. 

 But this?

 This was unlike anything she’s ever done before. 

 When she finally felt herself tip over the edge and her orgasm wreaks havoc through her body, like a cyclone meeting the ground, carving a path into the earth in its wake. A loud string of curses tumble past Tyler’s lips as he, too, meets his end and they’re two identical supercells, spinning into one another until they become one. His mouth is a seal over hers, warm and wet when they meet. Her mind is numb with sex and all she can think to say is his name, chanting it over and over like it’s holy word. 

 The tornado dissipates around them and she can hear the crew cheer through the radios when Tyler finally pulls away, a thread of saliva a bridge between their lips. She falls limp against the back of her seat, the aftershocks of her release rattling her bones. 

 “You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that, Owens?” She finally says once she’s come to and Tyler laughs beside her, caressing the side of her face with his knuckles. 

 “I always say, ‘you don’t face your fears, you ride em’, cowgirl,” He adds with a wink. Her eyes roll and she reaches for her panties he’d thrown in the backseat, pulling them up her legs. 

 “Jesus, you can’t get any cornier, can you?”

a/n; outing myself as an oklahoman (yes, i do in fact live in the sooner state unfortunately but maybe fortunately in this context lmfao) because the inner storm enthusiast inside of me is SCREAMING after watching twisters. please don't mind my sloppy ass writing here, i was just incredibly horny after watching it LMFAOOOOOO (this is also not proofread!)

🌪️ if you enjoyed, please consider reblogging or even leaving a reply to let me know! it means the world to me 🫶

[100vern]

in the zone | ksy

what do you do when it feels like your entire life is falling apart? you spend the last of your inheritance on a beach house for the summer, of course. sure, the listing was suspiciously cheap, and there’s a massive waterpark right outside the bedroom window, but you just need to get away, so it’ll have to do. besides, it’s not like your entire world can get turned upside down in three months… right?

⟡ pairing: hoshi x f. reader ⟡ genre: strangers to lovers, (accidental) roommates; smut, fluff, lite angst ⟡ rating: explicit. minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⟡ warnings: bestie minghao. lots of talk about wasted potential, dead-end jobs, fear of change, job-based insecurity, self-doubt (no this is NOT a self-insert why do you ask!!). mentions of grief and mourning a loved one but nothing super heavy. alcohol and weed use. swearing. mentions of food/eating. pet names (baby, pretty girl). two down bad losers who are disgustingly into one another after a concerningly short amount of time, which is the beauty and entire point of fanfiction. please suspend any and all disbelief, thank u! ⟡ smut warnings: kissing. grinding/dry humping. public indecency but not public sex. hair pulling. dirty talk & praise. oral sex (f. receiving, mentions of m. receiving). protected vaginal sex. everyone orgasms. ⟡ wordcount: 20.2k ⟡ credits: bee (@imnotshua) and jess (@starlightkyeom) for reading this over for me, as always. i was in a time crunch and we're under a tornado watch so this is unedited and any mistakes are my own. if there's anything glaring i will fix it at a later date. :') ⟡ written for: the carat bay collab, hosted by @camandemstudios! thank you both for letting me participate. please make sure to check out the rest of the fics! ♡ ⟡ author's note: this is based entirely on the beach town i spent all my summers at as a kid, so there's a lot of nostalgia here. i wasn't sure i was gonna get this done on time, but with the power of god and anime vyvanse on my side, we managed to pull through... even if we had to pivot bc my original plan would've tripled the length. i hope you enjoy it!

Fate is not something you believe in, but if you did, you think it’d feel a lot like this.

“It’s not fate,” Minghao comments unhelpfully from his side of the lunch table, “it’s suspicious. It’s also highly concerning that they look the same to you.”

You frown. Spear a piece of near-wilted spinach on the end of your fork, sending a bead of salad dressing onto your phone that you don’t notice and consequently smear all over your screen when you scroll through the rental listing with your other hand. “Do the horrors ever cease?” Minghao stares blankly at you. You sigh at his lack of humor. “Are you saying you don’t think I should go?”

“No,” he’s quick to say, handing over a napkin. “On the contrary, I think you need to get the fuck out of here. All I’m saying is I think you should go to a place that isn’t such an obvious scam.”

A scoff escapes you as you stare down at the listing again. Super Host Soonyoung stares back at you for the hundredth time today. If it were possible to judge someone’s character from a blurry internet picture the size of an ant, you think he’d seem very kind with his beaming smile and doughy cheeks, not to mention the stylish sunglasses sitting atop his head that seem like they were purchased from an actual store and not a military-grade infomercial.

Besides, he’s opening up his home to strangers. Shitty people don’t do that, do they?

“They do if they’re landlords,” Minghao deadpans.

You concede the point. Not that you’d argue, anyway—renting out your beach house for the entirety of the summer is near-textbook landlording—but the lunch room is starting to fill up, and the last thing you need (or want) is your coworkers asking questions.

Aside from Minghao, these people are not your friends. They’re people you offer that weird closed-mouth smile to when you meet at the coffee machine and awkwardly have to wait your turn, sharing fake laughs when one of you complains that, no matter what option you pick, it always comes out tasting like an ashtray. They’re people you sign birthday cards for and have no idea how old they’re turning. They’re people who tell you all about their families and show you pictures of spouses and kids you swore belonged to someone else.

They’re people whose names you can’t match to faces when you get office-wide emails congratulating them on anniversaries and accomplishments; celebrating retirements; regretfully announcing departures for bigger and better things. They’re people you swear at under your breath for microwaving something foul or not pulling their weight; for wearing too much cologne and kissing ass for promotions that’ll never be theirs.

These people are not your friends, but you’ve been here so long that it feels like they should be.

“I need to decide before everyone else gets the same idea and it gets booked up.” A loud cackle sounds from the table beside you. Deborah, one of the new hires. You’d been expecting a picture of a middle-aged woman when her introductory email had been sent out. Imagine your surprise when a baby-faced new grad was staring back at you. “Wanna get together after work and tell me all the reasons why this is a terrible idea?”

Minghao, the bastard that he is, pretends to check his calendar. “Hmm. Looks like I’m all booked on the ‘dispensing extremely valuable advice no one listens to’ front. I do, however, have an opening tomorrow. Mimosa-drunk at brunch or wine-drunk at a more socially acceptable hour. Your choice.”

A glance at your phone tells you you’ve got five minutes and three-quarters of your salad left before your mandatory unpaid lunch break is over. You stab at the mixed greens again and frown—you left it too long and now everything is all soggy and gross. “First of all, this is the worst salad I’ve made this year. Don’t let me try any more Pinterest recipes. Second of all, you never ask me to hang out on weekends.” You narrow your eyes at him. “What’re you doing tonight? Do you have a date?”

Deborah immediately stops shrieking, attention piqued by her eavesdropping. Of course, she tries to play this off by pretending to check her makeup in her phone camera, except you can see her screen—and that she accidentally opened her credit card app.

So far, she owes $2,927.43 for the month of January.

A bastard but not an idiot, Minghao shakes his head, aware of the eyes on him. “No,” he answers, and his voice is so solid and sure you nearly believe him. “Well, not like that. I’m meeting my parents for dinner.”

God, you can practically see the cartoon hearts floating above Deborah’s head.

“Well, wine-drunk sounds better to me,” you answer, ignoring the fact that Minghao’s parents are in Turks and Caicos this week for their anniversary. Which he told you three days ago. “Orange juice gives me heartburn.”

With a put-upon sign, Minghao stands from the table. Gathers his trash and drapes his cardigan over his shoulders in a way that looks fashionable and cool. “I have got to make plans with people my own age.”

You snort. “Well, you can always ask—“

He cuts you off with a very pointed, “Back to the grind,” even though he says that’s “stuff white people say, along with ‘another day in paradise!’—and if you ever ask a white person how they’re doing and they respond with ‘I’m alive,’ you need to take a half-day.”

Everyone in this place is so fake.

And it isn’t like your day gets any better. An hour before closing time, your manager pops up on the ledge of your cubicle. “Heeey,” she chimes, pretending to wince at what’s about to come out of her mouth next. All things considered, she’s nowhere near the worst person to work for: she’s trustworthy, didn’t hesitate to give you the time off you needed, sends funny memes in the team group chat. So your whole thing with her isn’t her fault, it’s just—she’s years younger than you, so it touches on all those old insecurities. “Glenn needed to take the rest of the day, and in true Glenn fashion he didn’t get those reports done before he left. I hate to ask, but could you maybe, possibly, perhaps stay a little late…?”

In the split-second since she appeared at your desk like a bad omen, you’ve made up your mind: that beach house will be yours for the entire summer, scam or not.

Because you hate Glenn as much as the next guy (which, on your team, is mostly everyone), but you hate this place as an institution even more. What it represents. The insecurities and inadequacies it picks at. How comfortable you’ve grown here and the convenient excuses that comfort provides.

So you agree before you can come to your senses, because saying no will look bad, and the only thing you’ve got going for you and having been here so long with barely anything to show for it is the amount of PTO you’ve racked up, so you can’t and won’t give anyone a reason to refuse your request.

With a few minutes left in the day, everyone starts packing up and discussing weekend plans: sports and TV series they’ll be watching, new coffee shops they’re checking out, hobbies they’ll be catching up on. Before you can up the volume in your headphones, your cubicle mate asks if you’re doing anything fun. “Ah, just trying that new winery tomorrow, I think,” you answer, and you hope she won’t remember this come Monday because you don’t know anything about wine and can’t think of many things worse than discussing it.

Five-thirty hits. Everyone trickles out while you stay seated, glued to your desk and receiving everyone’s sympathetic glances. It takes a half hour just to get into Glenn’s reports because, for reasons unknown to you and your manager, he password-protected them—and once you’re in you see why. Half-baked columns, wrong formulas used even though knowing and understanding Excel was a job requirement, numbers you can’t trace back to any of the provided data. At seven you’re ready to put your head through a concrete wall. By eight you finally hit the halfway mark.

At quarter to ten, you finally send off the reports and sit back in your chair. Sitting in thischair for so long has to be doing irreversible damage, so you make a mental note to schedule a massage for tomorrow afternoon before you meet up with Minghao. With a sigh, you squeeze your eyes shut and try to conjure up some moisture. Nearly five hours after the rest of your coworkers, you pack up your belongings, twisting your body as you stand and trying not to wince as your knees and back make some concerning sounds.

Then, before you shut down your computer and go home to rot in bed until you’re forced to socialize, you put in your PTO request for June 2nd through August 29th.

(It gets approved first thing Monday morning.)

Vacations (In Theory) are very different from Vacations (In Practice).

Here you are on May 30th, mentally preparing for another long night hunched over your desk. Not only do you need to work ahead as much as you can for your nearly three month absence, you also have to include a paper trail to prove you at least tried to problem-solve before dumping it on whoever’s unlucky enough to cover you.

Minghao waits for you. Plops his stuff on your desk, pulls up a chair, and scrolls through social media while you work, making offhand comments every now and then about people you don’t know and all their drama while you try not to comment on how weird it is. In all the years you’ve worked together and have been friends, he’s never stuck around while you worked late, but the excuse had been convenient: I have plans tomorrow and you’re leaving early on Sunday so let’s grab dinner after work was much easier to say than I’m not going to see you for three months so let’s grab dinner because I’ll miss you.

You hadn’t commented on that, either.

Nonetheless, you put your head down and focus. Minghao had made a seven-thirty reservation at a place more upscale than the two of you usually frequent, and you’ll need to hustle if you have any hope of getting out of here within the hour.

Time seems to fly after that. Not only at work, but at dinner, too. Despite your first impression of him (deeply serious with a cutting resting bitch face), you’ve always enjoyed spending time with Minghao. He’s funny, now that you’re acquainted with his sense of humor, and he’s both carefree and solid in ways you could only dream of being. All of his troubles seem to come and go like the tide, never sticking around for too long and overstaying their welcome. The thought of him no longer being there when you return is too much to bear, so you make him promise not to change jobs until you’re back.

He quirks an eyebrow and pulls a face. “First of all, you’re going on vacation, you’re not dying. Second, I’m not promising you that. I apply to twenty jobs a week at minimum. I don’t want to be—” He pauses. Seems to be aware of what was about to come out of his mouth.

I don’t want to be like you, working a dead-end job.

I don’t want to be like you, undervalued by every metric of the word.

I don’t want to be like you, latching onto something no good for me just because it’s comfortable and I’m terrified of change.

I don’t want to be like you.

Minghao flushes. Stumbles over apologies. “No need to apologize,” you assure him, plastering on a smile you know isn’t fooling anyone. Take a sip of your drink to feign normalcy. Take a bite of food that tastes like sawdust. Good thing you were almost done, anyway.

Because Minghao was right, and everyone knows it.

Saying goodbye is awkward at best and painful at worst. Deep down, you know Minghao is just embarrassed—you would be, too, in his shoes—but just like Vacations (In Theory) and Vacations (In Practice), what you logically know to be true is very different from what you internalize. Because it’s not just embarrassment, it’s also the reason you don’t go for team drinks; the reason you don’t have anything personal on your desk. You just don’t see the point in integrating yourself into a place you shouldn’t be to begin with.

But that’s the whole point of this vacation, isn’t it?

Three months without having to think about work. Three months to decompress and pretend you’re going to do all that philosophical shit, like six a.m. trips to the beach to stare at the waves, stick your toes in the sand, and “find yourself.” Whatever that means.

There’s not much to do around the apartment except making sure you eat whatever’s left in the fridge. Coming home to a bunch of rotten food and having to go back to work the next day? Absolutely not. You’d need to bypass your office and go straight to an institution instead. You spend the rest of the day doing laundry and packing. You stand in front of your shelves and deliberate for far too long over which books to bring and then you do the same with your music library as you stare down at an empty playlist.

It’s early when your alarm goes off—barely eight o’clock, the sun already high in the sky as it beams through your curtains, birds chirping. Feels like waking up on a holiday morning or the first day of school: giddy excitement on the surface, nerves simmering just below. Makes it easy to get up and make your bed, to get dressed and put on sunscreen, your sunglasses, when there’s no dread weighing you down. Makes it easy not to mind the hours-long drive. Makes it easy to drive with the windows down, music loud, the wind in your hair.

Makes it easy to feel like you’re driving towards something, rather than away from it.

Halfway there, you stop at a small cafe for lunch, the feeling almost transcendental as you eat outside and let the sun warm your skin. You order an iced coffee to-go and it sweats in the cupholder, nothing but melted ice by the time you pull off the highway and navigate the smaller back roads, some of them covered in sand. You take a deep breath and smile. Everything smells like the sea—salty and slightly sweet, the sulphur of low tide.

The town looks like a postcard.

In your excitement, you’ve looked at a lot of pictures over the last few months, but none of them can compare to reality. Ice cream shops with striped awnings. Sidewalks covered in chalk doodles. More seafood restaurants than you can count. Antique and surf shops. Wooden playgrounds next to fenced-in basketball and tennis courts. Families walking back from the beach, pushing sleeping kids in strollers, lugging chairs and coolers and boogie boards behind them.

That excitement creeps back in the closer you get, and at every red light you look around and marvel at all the houses. How uniform they are. How they’re all elevated with ground-floor garages. The porthole windows and porches wrapped in white railing. Front yards with pinwheels stuck in thin strips of grass. Colorful cruiser bicycles stashed in tiny alleyways behind the houses, some laying on their sides with the wheels still spinning. If you close your eyes you can hear laughter and bells.

You pull into the driveway at ten after three, surprised to find that this house doesn’t look like all the others. Where they had vinyl siding in neutral, inoffensive colors, this one is mint green, bright and vibrant, with white scalloping along the facade. It reminds you of ice cream—the flowers in the wooden boxes beneath the windows look like sprinkles, and with how close you are to the boardwalk, the smell of fried dough hanging in the air, it’s easy to pretend.

Out of the car, an older couple in matching windbreakers waves as they pass you on the sidewalk. Everything sounds so much closer: the waves crashing, delighted shrieks from people on rides, the men combing the beach, trying to sell drinks and popsicles, squawking seagulls in search of someone’s food. You can see the ocean from where you stand, peeking out from beneath the boards. This is exactly what I needed, you think. Feels like your smile is permanent.

Until you try to get into the house.

You’d been given a door code when you confirmed your reservation. It doesn’t work. No matter how many times you try, 0-5-2-5 gets you nothing but a blinking red light and an encroaching panic. Phone already in hand, you send a message to the rental host—Hi! I’m at the house, but the door code doesn’t seem to be working. Is there another one I can try? Thank you!—before sitting on the porch steps to await your fate.

What you expect: a response rife with apologies, both for the mix-up and the inconvenience.

What you get: someone stampeding down the stairs and pulling the door open.

Super Host Soonyoung stands in the doorway wearing a sheepish smile and red-tinged cheeks. Except for the sunglasses, he looks just like his picture (especially the doughy cheeks), so at least you know you’ve got the right place. Still, you ask, “Hi, are you Soonyoung?” just to confirm, and that seems to knock him out of his stupor, offering to grab your bags and give you a tour.

Which seems strange. You don’t really need a tour, do you? Surely you’ll be able to find your way around over the next few months, but Soonyoung is extremely apologetic and seems a little embarrassed so you don’t say anything. You do let him grab your bag, though—mostly because meeting new people is always difficult for you, so letting him take one bag while you take the other gives you something to do with your hands. Gives you something to comment on and laugh about when he pretends to strain taking it out of the trunk.

When you get inside, Soonyoung gives you the choice of three bedrooms. Two are upstairs. Of those, one has two large windows facing the street, rewarding you with a view of the boardwalk and the ocean, while the other also has beach views that are semi-obstructed by the waterpark. The third and final bedroom is downstairs, just off the kitchen. Soonyoung offers this one and says it might be “less awkward,” which also strikes you as strange, considering—

Wait.

“Bathroom-wise, it doesn’t really matter what one you pick. There are full bathrooms on both levels—”

Reality hits you like a truck, head-on and all at once. Maybe it’s less reality and more the obvious, because listening to Soonyoung explain where the bathrooms are and giving you a tour and being here in general puts a lot of things into perspective very quickly.

“I think I fucked up,” are the only words you’re able to muster. Soonyoung’s mouth snaps closed. “Or you did. Either way, one of us really, really fucked up.” Soonyoung pauses. Tilts his head to the side like a puppy, the confusion obvious, and you think he’s about to ask what you mean so you beat him to it. “The listing was for the entire house.”

That does it.

“I—what? Are you sure?”

The second question is rhetorical. You know it, Soonyoung knows it, everyone knows it, so you don’t answer, just nod and offer a sympathetic, closed-lipped smile and hope the ground will split apart and swallow you.

Horrifyingly, all you can think at this moment is that Minghao was right about this being a scam. You’ll have to tuck your tail between your legs and tell him, because you can’t stay here. Sharing a space—not only is it foreign to you, you’re not sure you even can. There’s an art to being a good roommate, and after living alone both during college and all your years as an adult, it’s not a skill you have.

And it takes a while, longer than you expected, for the disappointment to hit. For all that excitement and all the plans you had—sticking your toes in the cold, early morning sand; sunset walks up and down the boardwalk; eating so much fried food you’re sick of it within a week; waking up to the sound of waves crashing—to come crashing down around you. This was supposed to be a reset. A reward for dragging yourself this far and surviving. A balm for all the regrets you have about your life and a compass to find a new direction.

All of it—gone.

The tears are just as embarrassing as you thought they’d be.

To his credit, Soonyoung doesn’t panic. He doesn’t seem to flinch at all, which surprises you; he gently grabs your arm and helps you to the small table in the kitchen. Pulls out a chair and gestures for you to sit, and when you do and he can be sure you aren’t going to bolt straight out the door, he pours you a glass of water, sits across from you, and calmly says, “We can figure this out.”

Any other time you’d probably scoff and say something that belied just how hopeless you found this entire situation, but now, after experiencing a concerning number of mental breaks in a very short amount of time, you’re happy to let someone else take the reins and do the heavy lifting. Of course, you don’t know what that looks like in this case. Do you ask for a refund and try to find a hotel? Surely not: any reputable hotel would cost ten times what you spent on this place, not to mention they’ve probably been booked solid since last year. Do you ask for a refund, find a hotel, book as long of a stay as you can, and spend the rest of your summer having a staycation at home? That sounds miserable.

There are probably thousands of podcasts talking about what a horrible idea it’d be to live with a strange man for three months, and it’s your fault for idealizing this entire trip so much to begin with that makes any alternative seem like a fate worse than death, but you can’t stay… right? Even if it somehow wasn’t the stupidest idea of all time, that doesn’t even touch on the fact that it’s Soonyoung’s house, and who's to say he even wants you here, anyway?

“Since this was my second embarrassing fuck up of the day, I’ll just… go somewhere else while you’re here, and you can have the house to yourself.”

You blink. “For three months?”

His eyes widen for a brief second. You’re starting to think he wasn’t prepared for any scenario, let alone this one. “I—yeah, yeah, of course. Three months! Psh, that’s nothing, you know? Barely any time at all.”

“I mean, it’s a quarter of a year. That doesn’t seem insignificant.”

Those same wide eyes have begun twitching. “Riiight.” He follows this with a very long sip of water. “It’s really no trouble, though. I can sleep at the studio. There’s a couch and a bathroom there and everything.”

It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s no trouble. Soonyoung looks like he’d rather remove all of his teeth with very dull tools, and even if this was his (admittedly catastrophic) error, it doesn’t feel right putting him out of his own home—especially to a place where having a couch and a bathroom are considered an upside. Does the bathroom even have a shower? How would he cook? Is any of his stuff there? God, you can’t do that to someone.

So it’s with a little caution, a lot of stupidity, and an ill-advised desire to be more spontaneous and free-spirited as if you’re a character in an Elizabeth Gilbert novel that you ask, “Is it weird for you if you just… stay?”

For all of Soonyoung’s mismanagement, it’s clear he doesn’t want to inconvenience you further or make you uncomfortable. He’s insistent that he’ll leave, insistent that it really is no trouble and it’s the least he can do for fucking up the listing, and insistent that if you just give him some time to pack some clothes, he’ll be out of your hair in no more than thirty minutes. With a sigh, you go through your questions again.

Does the bathroom have a shower? No, but—

How would you cook? Maybe I could come over once a week to meal prep, if you wouldn’t mind? There’s a microwave, at least.

Is any of your stuff there? Like, an old pair of sneakers. And maybe a musty sweatshirt.

By the time you ask your follow-up questions, both of you know he isn’t going anywhere, and perhaps if he’d confirmed that you’re one-hundred-percent okay with this nineteen times instead of twenty you wouldn’t have gone for it, but he does so you do.

“I really don’t have to—” You wave him off. Ask him if there are any house rules he’d like you to abide by aside from the obvious. When he sends you a questioning look, you admit you’ve never been anyone’s roommate before. “Oh,” he responds. Takes a second to think. “I don’t think so? Sometimes I keep weird hours. Like, I have my regular jobs, but sometimes I’ll go to the studio if I’m restless or want to work on something, so I guess me going in and out in the middle of the night is something to be aware of. I’ll make sure to be quiet, though.”

“Is it like a regular nine-to-five? I don’t want to disturb you, either.”

Soonyoung screws up his face. “God, no. I—wow, I just realized you have no idea what I’m talking about. I run a dance studio for the local kids. Most of them take summers off to go on vacations or whatever, so once school’s out we only open two or three days a week, depending on how many of them sign up. This year there weren't many, so we decided on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“And your other job?”

He scratches at the back of his neck. “Ah, that one’s kind of embarrassing? I… work at the waterpark next door. Carat Bay.”

“Oh, that doesn’t seem so bad.”

He sighs. Runs his thumb vertically along the length of his glass and collects the condensation. “When I first opened the studio, I didn’t realize it wouldn’t be busy all the time, you know? I spent my summers here, so I figured everyone else did, too, and I needed to pick up a second job to cover the studio rent on top of a million bills for both here and there.”

You want to tell him you understand. Want to tell him it isn’t embarrassing to do what you have to do to make ends meet; that, if anything, it’s brave. That you’ve been there (and still are). That you’re a little embarrassed by your job, too. But then he continues. “It probably isn’t embarrassing for the high school and college kids, but I’m almost twenty-nine and I’m operating the splash zone. It definitely feels embarrassing.”

You hum. Look around Soonyoung’s kitchen. From the listing photos, you knew it didn’t look like every other rental beach house, with all the ocean motifs and white wicker furniture and seashells nailed to the wall. It’s not sparkling marble and stainless steel, either, but it’s nicer than your outdated kitchen. “You seem to be doing okay, though. I mean—you’ve got this nice house and a dance studio. That seems pretty good for someone our age.”

Soonyoung laughs, a little shy and self-conscious. “I inherited the house from my grandma. I could never afford anything like this.”

“Mm, no offense, but I put that together pretty much immediately.”

When Soonyoung laughs this time, it’s bright and open, reaches his eyes and brings his entire being to life. The two of you make small talk for a few more minutes until you’re unable to stifle a yawn, and then Soonyoung is up and heading for a cabinet drawer immediately, pulling out a stack of takeout menus and saying to take your pick, dinner’s on him tonight. After you try (and fail) to protest, you ask him what’s good and accept his answer of a taco spot not far, and he puts through the order. Asks if you’ve decided on a bedroom so he can carry your bags, so you choose the streetside one upstairs with the view of the water, and while he’s gone to pick up food, you take a quick shower and unpack.

Minghao [6:22pm]: everything ok? how’s the house? You [6:49pm]: It’s a long story I’m too exhausted to type out rn You [6:49pm]: But I think this is gonna be really good for me 🤞

When you wake up the next morning, you expect it to have followed a night of fitful sleep.

Being in a stranger’s house. Said stranger sleeping only a few feet away, door cracked, his soft snores drifting down the hall. An unfamiliar place. A beach town that, while picturesque and dreamy, seems to also be nocturnal. Once most of the town turned off their lights and locked their doors for the night, it’d taken on a second life—groups of friends walking to and from the bars and clubs, shrieks of laughter and heated arguments, the to-be-expected disregard of the time and basic decency that comes with being immature and on a group trip in your early twenties.

You’re surprised, then, that you feel refreshed when you wake up. That the last thing you remember is your head hitting the pillow. It’s the most restful sleep you’ve had in months, and you roll over to check the time feeling ready to take on the world.

8:37am

Spoiled for and overwhelmed by choice, you take your time getting out of bed and going about your routine. When you slip out of your room to brush your teeth, you notice Soonyoung’s bedroom door is wide open. Even though you’re curious, you don’t (and wouldn’t) peek—instead, you’re distracted by the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee wafting upstairs.

“Good morning,” Soonyoung greets you. He’s sitting on the couch, one leg crossed and tucked beneath him. “I made coffee if you want some. I also left out the bread. If you wanna let me know what you like, I can go grocery shopping later—”

You smile. “Sure, thanks.” Wander into the kitchen. Fill a mug with coffee, cream, a little sugar. Pop two slices of bread into the toaster and, once they pop back out, spread on a thin layer of butter.

And then you hesitate. Should you eat here? Would it be weird to join Soonyoung in the living room? Would it be rude if you didn’t? With a sigh, you compromise and meet in the middle. Place your plate on the newel cap of the staircase and wrap both hands around the mug, soaking in the warmth. Soonyoung has the television on. You don’t recognize what’s playing, but it seems to be a mid-season rerun of some sitcom—background noise, mostly, which is exactly what it seems to be now.

Neither of you are watching. Soonyoung’s scrolling through his phone and you’re content to stare out the bay window facing the street, watching people pass by on their way to the beach. Large straw hats, colorful umbrellas, excited toddlers waiting for an opening to dart away. The waves still crash. The seagulls still screech. “Do you have to work today?” you ask Soonyoung because you feel like you should make conversation.

“Not today, thankfully,” he answers. He sets his phone down and twists his body so he’s facing you. “Back to the studio tomorrow, and I’m scheduled for the waterpark Friday through Sunday.”

You nod. You’re tempted to ask if he wants to do something together and decide against it, not wanting him to feel obligated. If you’re being honest, you’re not entirely sure you want to hang out, still wrapping your head around the fact that the vacation you spent months idealizing will not come to fruition. Not fully. But there’s nothing stopping you from grabbing a book and sitting on the beach for a few hours.

Long enough to decompress—or start to.

“I’ll probably head to the beach.”

“Cool. Let me give you a beach tag.” What he hands over reminds you of an oversized bread clip: octagonal and neon red, 2025 SEASON printed in the center. You have never seen one of these in your life. “Are these not a thing where you’re from?”

“You have to pay to go on the beach?”

Soonyoung’s nose twitches as he bites back a laugh and nods. Explains that the money’s used to maintain the beach and the restrooms and pay the lifeguards and a whole bunch of other things. “Supposedly,” he tacks on conspiratorially.

“Did the mayor get a brand new Porsche?”

“I don’t even know who the mayor is.”

An hour later, after you changed and decided on a book, and Soonyoung not only gave you a beach pass but also his favorite chair (one of the nice ones that recline and have a drink holder) and his phone number (under the guise of you sending him your grocery list, to which you inexplicably offered to just go with him instead), you have to admit the beaches are impeccably maintained.

Touché, beach pass.

With your toes dug into the warm sand, you get through half of your book. Spend the rest of the time dozing off in Soonyoung’s chair, lulled into a half-sleep by the rhythm of the waves crashing and retreating, the conversations of the people around you that becomes a singular thrum, the shrill sound of the lifeguard’s whistle that jolts you awake every time someone goes out too far.

Soonyoung texts you around three, asking if you still want to go to the store with him. No worries if not, he tacks on, you can just send me your list. So you start packing up what little you brought, thankful your walk back to the house is short. You’re drowsy from the sun, warmed through to your bones, still in awed disbelief that this is what the entirety of your summer is going to consist of. That you won’t have to suffer like the poor kid running the mini golf course, nearly dead from either boredom or a hangover behind the ticket window. That your whims will be able to come and go like the tide.

You rinse the sand from your feet at the spigot in the backyard. Return Soonyoung’s chair to where he’d grabbed it from. Leave your sandals by the back door and do a final shake of your bag to get rid of anything that might track into the house. Now that you have the right code (0-5-2-6; Soonyoung had mistyped it in his original message), you let yourself in, surprised to find him bent over the kitchen table with an extremely long grocery list in front of him.

“Lucy, I’m home,” you joke.

He looks up at you with a lopsided smile. “How was the beach?” he asks, eyes returning to his list.

“Beach-y keen.”

There’s a beat of silence—one that’s long enough to have your cheeks warming from embarrassment over a very bad dad joke—before Soonyoung lets out a snort of laughter. “Terrible.”

“Definitely not my best,” you concede, mirroring his smile. Even though he can’t see it, you nod at the list. “What are you up to?”

“Grocery list.” He holds it up, unfurling it like a scroll. “Do you think this is enough?”

You move closer, eyes scanning over what he’s written down. Four different types of burgers and soft drinks. Regular and gluten-free bread; milk and non-dairy alternatives. Brown, white, cage-free, organic eggs. Enough snacks to fuel a youth athletic team for at least a month. Pasta, lunch meat with ???? written next to it, cereal, rice. “Are you planning on buying out the store?”

“I—no, I just didn’t know what you like.”

“May I?” you ask, gesturing for him to hand you the list. When he does, you flip it over and create separate sections: one for each meal, one for pantry items (staples and snacks), and one for drinks. “Do you usually meal plan?”

Soonyoung’s stare is blank. “No. I just go to the store and buy things I like and try to eat it all before it goes bad.” Thankfully, you’re able to keep your horror to yourself. “You do? You’re that organized?”

“I wouldn’t say organized.” You flip the list back over and put checkmarks next to the things you like. “Do the same thing, and then we can come up with some ideas so we aren’t going rogue and overspending.”

After a lot of back and forth, a little friendly ribbing—“Do you really need four boxes of fruit snacks?” you tease Soonyoung, to which he replies, “Sorry, grandma. Add another box of Fig Newtons to the list instead,” which causes you to promptly cross them off—and even more organization and assigning of duties, the two of you emerge triumphant over the shopping list. If your calculations are correct (which they should be, considering how long you’ve lived alone and have done this exact thing every week), this shop should last roughly two weeks. You also give yourselves two days a week to either order takeout or go to a restaurant, considering Soonyoung’s sporadic work schedule.

As you pile into your car, Soonyoung slides into the passenger seat. Covers his eyes with a pair of sunglasses and rolls the window down. Leans his head back against the seat and sighs, appearing to be the epitome of contentment and inner peace. “Thank god it was you I fucked up the listing for.” He says this like it’s nothing. As if it’s a completely normal thing to say and it doesn’t have you nearly swerving into a telephone pole, stunned by the sincerity in his voice. “Can you imagine if it was someone as bad as me?”

It’s his words, and not the hours you spent in the sun, that keep you warm through the chilly grocery store aisles.

The first two weeks of your vacation feel well-earned and restorative, with a slight sunburn.

After that, however, everything starts to feel… different. Like you’re living someone else’s life. An alternate reality where you wake up whenever you want to, stroll casually up and down the boardwalk with an iced coffee and no destination in mind; where all those things you’d stressed over months ago are nowhere to be found, dragged out to sea by the current.

It’s a slow, gradual process. A little awkward and jilted at first as you both grow used to one another and figure out what and where the boundaries are. As you’re both determined not to make it weird or overstep.

Nonetheless, the two of you fall into an easy routine. Most of your afternoons are spent at the beach or around town, and on the two days a week Soonyoung is at the dance studio, he always texts you right before his last class to check in about dinner: if you want him to cook, if you want to cook, if you want to go out or order something for delivery. Meals are now eaten on the couch so the two of you can commentate whatever’s on the television.

(Fridays are your favorite. Soonyoung stops at the liquor store on his way home from the waterpark and the two of you get drunk on beer and soju and watch wrestling. You share two styrofoam takeout containers of tacos, and the drunker Soonyoung gets, the more ridiculous his commentary becomes. By the time the six-pack is gone, he’s sideways on the couch, his head nearly in your lap, bowled over from the weight of his laughter.)

A two-week trial period is usually far too short for you to make friends—hell, you didn’t even talk to Minghao until you’d run into him at the coffee machine every morning for three straight months—but Soonyoung is easy to get along with. To livewith. He’s easy to like. So you’re not shocked when you reach the three-week mark and all those inhibitions seem to disappear. When he appears in the doorway of your bedroom and asks if you wanna swing by the waterpark later that afternoon and keep him company.

“It’s so boring,” he whines. “I just sit there and make sure people don’t pee or drown, which is nearly impossible, anyway. It’s a giant bucket that dumps water on you—how could someone drown.”

You laugh to yourself, thankful your back is turned to him. You’ve been trying to decide between the neon green bikini and the one-piece with the cut-out just below your chest for a good fifteen minutes and aren’t any closer to a decision. “An adult human can drown in as little as two inches of water, you know.”

“Yeah, if they’re an idiot, maybe,” Soonyoung fires back. “Wear the green one. That color will look really good on you. And then come to the waterpark. I’ll give you a free pass.”

When you turn to face him, he quickly pulls out all the stops: truly pathetic puppy dog eyes, plush bottom lip pushed out, hands clasped together like he’s about to start begging. Before this exact moment, you would’ve said your resolve was made of steel, that you were not a person susceptible to a grown man’s pouting, but you cave in a concerningly short amount of time. Huff, try to act like you’re very displeased by this turn of events, and say, “Fine, but this is a family establishment so I’m wearing the one-piece. You only said the bikini because you’re a pervert.”

He’s torn between defending himself and letting out a triumphant hurrah before settling on both. “Hey, I’m not denying it,” he says casually. “You’ll really come, though?”

You shrug. “Sure, so long as you leave me alone sometimes so I can read my book.”

Cue the triumphant hurrah. “Yes! Okay, I can do that. I’ll see if there are any cabanas open and reserve one for you.”

“Wow, I even get my own cabana boy?”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes and starts down the hallway to his room. “And you called me a pervert,” he calls over his shoulder.

Well, if he didn’t bother denying it, you aren’t going to, either.

—

Not only is the heat relentless, the noise does not stop.

Luckily the first issue is largely solved by the cabana Soonyoung was able to nab you. It isn’t all that large, only enough space for two lounge chairs, and to your dismay there are no men in tiny swimsuits holding trays of colorful drinks with little umbrellas waiting for you to beckon them over, but at least it blocks out the sun. Shields you from the worst of it. There’s less to be done about the heat, but once the humidity becomes too stifling you wander over to Soonyoung—easily identifiable in his garish yellow shorts and matching visor—and wait for him to blow his whistle, alerting everyone to the giant bucket of water about to be dumped on them.

“Nice legs,” you tease, wolf-whistling as you approach.

Soonyoung pretends to be scandalized. Gasps. Twists sideways as if he’s trying to hide his skin from your lustful gaze. “In front of the children?” he accuses.

No kids are paying attention to your conversation when they’re about to get drenched, but you play along anyway, sliding your sunglasses down your nose. “Can’t help it. Those tiny little shorts and your pale thighs really get me going.” He scowls, pulling said shorts further down said thighs to hide the discrepancy in skin tone. “God, it’s loud here,” you change the subject, taking pity on him. “This is what you put up with the entire summer?”

“Just wait—it’ll get worse in a second.”

He’s right, unfortunately. From the second the bucket begins to tip and for at least three full minutes after it unleashes its gallons of water, all you hear is screaming. High-pitched, manic screaming loud enough to make your ears bleed, but the water is cold and you’re thankful for the reprieve from the heat, even if it doesn't last long before it evaporates.

“Ah, gotta love it,” he deadpans. “Only twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds until the next one.”

You snort. Ask him if he wants anything from the snack bar because you need a drink—a very cold, very refreshing drink. All he requests is a bottle of water. Not a bad idea, considering you’re probably dangerously dehydrated from how much you’ve sweat, but you change your mind as soon as you reach the counter. You hear a chorus of angels. It feels like the light of divinity itself shines a spotlight on the part of the menu advertising non-alcoholic piña colada slushies.

You promptly order two—and a water.

When the kid behind the counter hands over your order, you can’t help the beaming smile that forms on your face, but it’s short-lived. Yes, your drinks come with colorful umbrellas and are topped with cherries, and Soonyoung’s water comes straight from a cooler, dripping ice-cold condensation all over your hand and the warped wood top of the counter, but it’s hard to feel victorious when the kid who hands them to you looks like he’s going to keel over and die from heat stroke.

“I—thanks,” you mutter, taking in his flushed cheeks and the hair adhered to his forehead with sweat. You stuff a few bills in the tip jar. “Sorry you have to work here.”

You’re surprised to find Soonyoung in one of your cabana chairs when you return. His visor is pulled over his eyes, his energy completely boneless, and if you weren’t in this weird limbo of maybe-friends you’d probably tease him a little. Call him Sleeping Beauty or flick some of the cold water on your hands at him.

Instead, you place all three drinks on the small, rickety table in between the chairs. “Special delivery.”

Soonyoung lifts his visor. Laughs softly when he sees what you’ve ordered. Asks, “Is one of those for me?” and reaches for one regardless of what your answer is.

“It”—you begin to answer, watching as he dangles a cherry by the stem—“wasn’t,” you finish after he pops it into his mouth.

“But I’m on break.” He pouts. “And it’s so hot outside and this drink is so cold.” He sticks the straw in his mouth and has to speak around it. “And if Chan’s running the snack bar today I bet he put alcohol in this.” He takes a sip. “No booze. Coward.”

“Do you often drink on company time? Also, that kid at the snack bar looked about ten minutes from death. Someone should probably check on him.”

Soonyoung waves you away. “I’ll do it after I clock back in.”

“When is that? Rigor mortis might set in by then.”

“An hour. Rigor mortis is when they go all stiff, right?” You hum in agreement. “Easier to move, then.” He sucks down the rest of the slushie, finishing with a loud slurp that draws some attention your way, finishing with an exaggerated ahh. “Wow, that was really good. Can you wake me up in forty-five minutes?”

You scoff. Tuck your legs beneath you and reach for your book. “Don’t you have your phone? Set an alarm.”

“Mm, don’t want to. What are you reading?”

You tell him the title. Explain that you’d picked it up for cheap in a secondhand shop in town while you were wandering around one afternoon just because you’d liked the cover. “It’s okay,” you say. “It’s not really grabbing me, but it’s well-written and not very long so it could be worse.”

“Do you read a lot?”

“Try to.” Realizing this is not a very satisfactory response, you add, “I’ve tried to read at least three books a month since I graduated college.”

“I’m not good at math, but that seems like a lot of books.”

You laugh. “I don’t always manage it, to be fair. I’m happy with thirty books a year.”

“I haven’t read one book a year in maybe… ever. Do you have a book job?”

The question is asked around a yawn, words and inflection steeped in exhaustion, which is just fine by you. Because it’s easier to glance over at him—arms crossed over his chest, rising and falling rhythmically, and towel covering his face to further block the sun—and say, “Okay, old man, nap time for you,” and laugh at his responding middle finger than it is to exhume all that ancient history. Easier than adopting that indifferent affect as you say, “No, no book job, just a desk in an office,” and wondering if your discontent is made of tissue paper. If it’s palpable.

If it is, Soonyoung doesn’t say anything.

So you don’t, either. You stay mum about the lifelong absence of a dream. How there were things you liked but nothing you could envision doing forever. How it made you aimless, drawn to whatever felt easy at the time, content to let the wind pick you up and take you wherever it wanted. How you had to swallow down that small bite of embarrassment every time someone asks what you do for a living or how much you make. That lethal combination of hopelessness, bitterness, and jealousy you feel when it seems like all of your friends, classmates, and old coworkers are lapping you.

Those things don’t matter here, you remind yourself. You focus your attention back on your book and set an alarm so you can wake up Soonyoung.

Minghao wants to visit you.

This, of course, poses a problem. While you’d alluded to it on your first day here, you and Minghao haven’t talked much beyond a few texts every few days, so you never got around to telling him the full story. That the man you thought you were renting an entire house from is still occupying it. That he sleeps a few feet down the hall and cooks meals alongside you. That, even when he’s at work or both of you retire for the night, your phone will light up with messages or DMs from him as he sends memes or links to places around town he thinks you might like—and that you always hope he’ll ask if you want to go together.

There’s no real reason to deny his request. Much to your dismay, Soonyoung doesn’t mind. Seems to light up at the possibility of meeting one of your friends, someone he only knows about from stories and anecdotes and late-night scrolls through your Instagram feed, where you and Minghao have made it a game to tag one another in the ugliest photos either of you have ever taken. He goes into planning mode almost immediately, and if you were less mature you’d probably pout at the way the “you” in his messages becomes “you and Minghao.”

Inexplicably, you care about disappointing Soonyoung far more than you care about disappointing Minghao, so you tell him to call you once he’s done work so the two of you can come up with a plan.

Your phone rings just after seven, screen lighting up with the only normal photo the two of you have ever taken together. It should bring you comfort, the reminder that this is Minghao and he’s your friend and can even look ugly sometimes when he puts effort into it. But he’s also got the demeanor and general vibe of a parent picking you up from the police station. Something about him just exudes disappointment.

You’ll have it in spades soon.

Minghao spends a few minutes catching you up on things back home, tells you about the goings-on at the office: a new girl in his department he suspects might be a nepotism hire, the creepy IT guy you’ve all complained about for months finally getting fired, a day last week the plumbing broke and everyone got sent home early. “I’m ready for a vacation,” he sighs into the phone.

You grimace, thankful Soonyoung isn’t around to watch this trainwreck occur in real time. It’s another late night for him at the studio as he prepares for the mid-summer recital, still not fully satisfied with the choreography. He’d done the same two days ago and didn’t come home until nearly midnight.

“Hello? Are you there?”

You sigh. Tell yourself it’s better to just rip off the bandage and not prolong it anymore, but you can hear Minghao in your head saying I told you so and it gives you agita. Makes your palms sweaty. You cannot, in good conscience, allow yourself to be patronized by someone younger than you.

“Yeah, so, about that…”

Just as you expected, Minghao is not particularly gentle in his response. “A scam is a scam,” he says. “Do you have any idea how stupid it was to stay there? You don’t know that guy! He could be a serial killer for all you know, or worse—a furry.”

“I’ll be surprised if he’s a furry,” you retort, picking at a bit of pilled fabric on the couch. “But also, it wasn’t entirely a scam, he just messed up the listing. It’s not like I got here and the house didn’t exist and some dude claiming to be a prince was laughing all the way to the bank with my money.”

“You’re hopeless.” You can practically hear the way he’s pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I am not. It’s really nice here, Hao. The town is nice and Soonyoung is nice and he owns a dance studio and works part-time at a waterpark that he gets me into for free sometimes.”

“Is the waterpark nice?”

You hesitate. “I, um—it’s not horrible. Sometimes Chan puts alcohol in the piña colada slushies.”

“That… sounds kind of good, actually. With the little umbrellas?”

“And a cherry,” you confirm.

This, more than anything else, seems to be what seals the decision for him. After confirming for the millionth time that Soonyoung doesn’t mind his company (and that he’s not a serial killer, to which you send him the link to Soonyoung’s Instagram and ask does this look like a serial killer to you? because his most recent post is a photo of him on a giant flamingo floatie in the pool, mouth stained orange from a bag of cheese puffs, to which Minghao reluctantly agrees it does not), he agrees to call out of work and make the drive Friday morning.

Which, of course, is the day the sky decides to crack open.

This is unfortunate for Minghao, who has to make the same hours-long drive you did. This is unfortunate for you, who was looking forward to trying a new brunch cafe on the boardwalk. This is not unfortunate for Soonyoung, who was scheduled from open to close at Carat Bay and now has the day off, which he’s spending preparing for Minghao’s arrival: fridge and pantry restocked, floors vacuumed and mopped, sheets washed and dried, downstairs bathroom stocked with fresh towels. Like the grocery shopping and cooking, you and Soonyoung had worked out a system early on, so on any other day all of this is stuff you’d be helping out with.

Except Xu Minghao must’ve either been a member of a spy network or a teenage girl in a past life.

Normally it’s to your benefit that Minghao can find anything on the internet. Unlike you, he’s not prone to or all that interested in gossip (so he says), but he’s receptive when you assign him a task, and over the time you’ve known each other, the partnership has served you well. Usually it’s just mundane work gossip: who’s sleeping together, who’s on job-hunting sites begging for leads, who got embarrassingly, shit-faced drunk over the weekend and overshared in their Instagram stories. Usually it doesn’t affect you all that much, forgotten soon after in the way mundane work gossip always is.

This time, however.

Although sending him Soonyoung’s Instagram had alleviated his fears that you’re shacking up with a serial killer, it revealed something far worse: you’re shacking up with a Gemini.

Again—not usually a problem, considering astrology isn’t really your thing. You’d be hard-pressed to differentiate a Gemini from a Cancer or whatever else, so when Minghao tells you this it’s met with a hum of acknowledgment and nothing else. It was only once he asked, “Did you guys do anything for his birthday?” that it all started to sink in and panic gripped at you.

Minghao can find anything on the internet because he doesn’t stop at the surface-level stuff. You’d sent him Soonyoung’s Instagram and he didn’t just scroll through the first few posts, he scrolled years back, almost to the beginning, and that’s where he’d found the post: Soonyoung surrounded by friends, their arms slung over his shoulders while he held a cake, two lit number candles perched on top. 25!!!! the caption read.

It was posted on June 15th.

Which was last Sunday. Nearly a week ago. Soonyoung hadn’t said anything, had gone about his day as usual—coffee and a breakfast sandwich eaten at the two-seater table on the front porch before he showered and got ready for work, and even after he got home and the two of you shared a pizza and watched baseball, he never mentioned it.

Hence why you aren’t helping Soonyoung with the cleaning. You’re at the grocery store ordering a birthday cake because if there’s one thing you cannot do it’s bake, even when it’s box mix and prepackaged frosting (and Soonyoung deserves a cake that’s both edible and stays upright). You move to the aisle with the party supplies and curse the lack of options.

A children’s cartoon character or plain red, edges yellowed from age. Tough choice.

You grab a few other things and stand in line to check out, checking your phone religiously. You’d gotten out of the house under the guise of a pilates class you “couldn’t cancel,” so anything longer than an hour will start looking suspicious, but the required 24-hour notice from the bakery had posed a problem. Soonyoung is scheduled at the waterpark tomorrow, and you can’t turn it down because he was kind enough to get you and Minghao another cabana (and Minghao really wants one of those slushies), and then he’s back at the studio on Sunday to put the finishing touches on the recital.

So, here you are. Arms full of items you can let overheat in the trunk of your car and a receipt for a small marble sheet cake, a request for Happy Birthday, Soonyoung! to be written on top in blue frosting, surrounded by confetti sprinkles.

—

Soonyoung and Minghao get on like a house on fire.

You aren’t surprised by this, considering you don’t think Soonyoung has ever met a stranger. He’s good at it—the small talk, navigating those awkward moments, making people feel comfortable. Minghao has only been in the house twenty minutes before he’s giggling and entirely charmed, made to feel right at home even though he’s dripping rainwater all over the freshly-mopped floors. Seems to forget he was supposed to be angry that the rain had ruined one day of his vacation.

Soonyoung insists on carrying on the Friday tradition of takeout, alcohol, and wrestling, which is not something Minghao would watch without outside influence. But he fits in seamlessly. Falls into step with Soonyoung’s chaos, taking over his ridiculous commentary when Soonyoung’s either too drunk or laughing too hard to finish his sentences. Polishes off two orders of tacos on his own. Assumes bartender duties and mixes your drinks to questionable ratios, but perfection nonetheless.

Not to mention he out-drinks both of you. Soonyoung is worse off, retiring to bed just after eleven, groaning about his head and worrying about how he’s going to get up for work as he ascends the stairs. Minghao laughs, watching him fondly. You get the impression there’s a lot he wants to say—and maybe he would if you weren’t seeing three of him—but as it stands he cleans up the living room and asks if you want a glass of water.

“No, I’m okay,” you answer. “I think.”

Still, you aren’t surprised to find water and painkillers on your nightstand when you wake up. Luckily you don’t need them, spared from the torture of spending hours at a waterpark with shrieking children with a hangover, so you send a double-text to Soonyoung—

You [9:37am]: Are you alive? You [9:37am]: Hao left me some water and painkillers if you need them

—to which he simply replies:

Soonyoung [9:50am]: p lease

With a laugh, you throw the duvet off of your legs and pad down the hall. Knock quietly on Soonyoung’s bedroom door and laugh again at the pitiful come in you receive in response. And he does look pitiful. When you walk in, he pops out from under the covers with dandelion hair, face puffy from the alcohol, cheeks ruddy. What little sleep he got must not have been great—he looks exhausted, so you move Minghao’s gifts to Soonyoung’s nightstand, whisper a little fighting!, and head downstairs to brew a pot of coffee.

Not long after, Soonyoung makes his way downstairs and collapses into one of the kitchen chairs. Face-plants onto the table and groans into the wood. Without a word, you grab the bread from the pantry and pop a few slices into the toaster, sliding them onto a plate and serving them to him plain once they’re done.

“This will help with the nausea. Do you think you can stomach coffee?”

He scoffs. “Sure hope so. What’s the point in living if I can’t?”

Minghao emerges halfway through Soonyoung’s third cup, looking fresh and well-rested in a way only the person who drank the most and isn’t suffering a hangover can do. He greets you and Soonyoung with cheerful good mornings and questions about how you slept and how you’re feeling. “Not as bad as him,” you answer, jerking a thumb in Soonyoung’s direction, who gives you both the finger before returning to his face-first position on the table.

Your friend looks at the plate of crumbs and the mug of coffee. He sends you a look that’s easier not to look at or acknowledge.

—

Somehow, Minghao is able to talk you into sharing a two-person tube and joining him on all of Carat Bay’s waterslides.

This is horrifying for many reasons (the height of the slides, seeing Minghao’s bare feet), but it also proves useful. At the top of the highest slide, just as you fit yourself in the front of the tube and screech when Minghao wiggles his painted toes at you, the worker responsible for pushing you towards your certain death asks, “Oh shit, aren’t you the one staying with Soonyoung?”

“I—yes.” You glance at his nametag. Mingyu, it says, and you think you vaguely recognize him from Soonyoung’s Instagram. Horrifying again, because he’s somehow even more attractive in real life and you’re squished into a two-person innertube with Minghao and his painted toes, but he’s friendly and charming and talks at you like you’re old friends.

“That’s cool,” he says, ignoring the impatient discontent and creative insults from the line of children behind you. “Soonyoung said he had someone staying with him and that you’d been here a few times, but I’m always stuck up here.” A child throws a tiny flip-flop at him. It hits him in the chest and falls to the ground. “Wow,” he deadpans, “lucky me.”

In an attempt to stifle his laughter, Minghao asks what time he gets done, telling him about the belated birthday party the two of you have schemed to surprise him with. Fuck me, you think, watching as Mingyu somehow becomes even more attractive as his eyes light up. Not only is he done two hours before Soonyoung, he’s going to invite more of his friends, too. They’ll pick up more food and more snacks and more alcohol. All you and Minghao have to do is pick up the cake and decorate, which last night’s drinking provides a convenient excuse for.

During Soonyoung’s break—which he once again spends napping on a lounge chair under the cabana—Minghao says the two of you will probably head back to the house soon. “I think the heat’s making her hangover worse,” he says, injecting a convincing amount of sympathy into his tone.

Just as you expected, Soonyoung buys it. Finishes up his break with a groan and says he’ll text you when he’s done to check in about dinner, and then there’s nothing but the thwack-thwack-thwack of his slides as he returns to his post at the splash zone.

Two and a half hours to go.

Minghao stays behind to start on the decorations while you go pick up the cake. It turns out better (and bigger) than you expected, and you thank the bakery profusely as you rush back toward the exit. Back at the house, streamers and balloons line the staircase bannister and hang from the light fixtures; a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! banner stretches across the doorway leading into the kitchen; the plates and napkins are both set out, sharing the same cartoon tiger.

Luckily, it gives you both enough time to shower and look presentable before everyone else arrives.

True to his word, Mingyu knocks on the door with his hands full: a case of beer, a pile of pizza boxes, bags of chips in various flavors. Behind him stands a group of people, only one of whom you recognize. Chan, alcoholic slushie barista extraordinaire, greets you with a wave and a large smile. You are wholly unsurprised to see he brought soju.

The next hour is met with more names and faces than you’ll ever be able to remember. Friends of Soonyoung’s, coworkers from Carat Bay, coworkers from the dance studio—all of them kind, making you and Minghao feel welcome and included. They shout in excitement when Soonyoung texts you saying he’s done work. Compliment your quick thinking when he asks what you and Minghao want to do for dinner and you tell him Minghao insists on cooking, and to just shoot you a text when he’s on his way back so he can put it in the oven. When that text comes through, they all hide in the kitchen out of sight and hold their breath, anticipating and waiting, the occasional giggle sneaking through.

You drape yourself across the couch. Minghao stays in the kitchen and, once you call out that the birthday boy is coming up the drive, pretends to chop vegetables to truly sell it.

And when Soonyoung comes through the door, looking just as exhausted as he had this morning and slightly more sunburnt, you almost feel guilty. Almost think he won’t be in the mood to host. Almost think you’ve made a horrible mistake. He asks, “Do you know what he’s making?” to which you shake your head.

“No idea. He won’t tell me—says it’s a surprise,” you respond, thankful your voice and expression both stay steady and neutral.

Soonyoung drops his bag at the door. “Hm. I’ll see if I can get it out of him,” he says, winking when he catches your eye, like it’s you and him against Minghao; like he’s solving this manufactured mystery for your benefit.

Then he walks into the kitchen.

There’s the expected shouts of SURPRISE!

And then there’s a few seconds of silence.

“What the fuck,” comes Soonyoung’s eventual response. You sidle up alongside him, laughing when he turns to look at you with a stunned expression. “What the fuck?” he repeats, quieter this time, meant only for you.

“Happy birthday.” You reach up to playfully pat his cheek. “Belatedly, anyway. Why didn’t you tell me?”

His cheeks go red. As he opens his mouth to answer, sheepish words biting at the back of his teeth, one of his friends interrupts. Slaps him on the back and puts a drink in his hand. Laughs and gives him shit, asking how he didn’t notice all the decorations.

Soonyoung steals a final glance in your direction as he’s pulled away.

Everyone eats, drinks, and laughs. You cut the cake before Soonyoung’s face can wind up in it, only for someone to grab a slice and smash it in his face anyway. Uproarious laughter follows. Someone snaps a picture: first, a close-up of Soonyoung’s face, covered in cake crumbs and enough frosting to stain his skin; then, a second photo of him washing it off in the sink, entire head stuck under the faucet.

It really shouldn’t strike you someplace deep. The memory should be enough, but you find yourself asking, “Do you guys want me to take a picture of all of you?” so you have something to remember it by, too, even if you’re behind the camera.

Minghao must notice, because he offers to take it instead, taking your phone from you and gesturing for you to join the group. They’ve all got their arms around Soonyoung again but they make room for you. Mingyu, heads taller than everyone, moves from Soonyoung’s right and to the back.

“Are you—is it on a timer?” Minghao shakes his head, clearly confused. “Well, put it on a timer and get over here.”

“Me?”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Who else would I be talking to? Come on, it’s my birthday and you’re my friend, so get in the picture.” He coughs. “Please.”

Minghao laughs, but you can tell from the heat in his cheeks that he’s a little caught off-guard at Soonyoung wanting him in the picture, at declaring him his friend, so he fumbles with your phone. Can’t figure out how to set the timer. No one helps, of course—they give him shit and playfully boo him, flustering him more. Once he does figure it out, he sets the timer to the wrong length so the first few photos are candids, Minghao nothing but a streak across the frame. This earns him another round of boos that render him entirely useless, have him squatting beneath the weight of his laughter, but then he sets it correctly, thirty seconds, and there’s a smile on every single person’s face when you look at it later.

After that, it’s party time—within reason.

Someone connects to the small speaker in the living room and shuffles a playlist, upbeat with a low, thrumming bassline, perfect for a party. Minghao gets roped into a conversation with two people from Soonyoung’s studio, exchanging socials and numbers. Someone has left a pan of weed brownies on top of the stove, though no one takes credit for them.

That’s how Soonyoung approaches you some thirty minutes later, half of a brownie stuck between his teeth and chocolate clinging to the corners of his mouth. “Hellooo,” he greets you, each letter slurring together, eyes bloodshot. “Are you having fun?”

“I am,” you answer. “Are you?”

“Yes. D’you want the other half of this? I don’t think I should eat the whole thing.” Soonyoung offers the brownie to you, bottom lip slightly pouted. “I’m not a lightweight or anything,” he adds, as if it’s of the utmost importance to squash any thought you might’ve had about him being one. “And I didn’t stick the whole thing in my mouth. I broke it in half before I ate it, so there’s no spit on it.”

With a huff of laughter, you take the brownie from him and place it on a plate on the counter behind you. You also grab a napkin, turning to Soonyoung with what you intend to be stern, furrowed brows until he goes a little cross-eyed and it makes you laugh. “Why is your mouth always covered in something?”

You reach for him; he comes willingly and immediately.

“Ooh, are you gonna clean me up?” he quips, trying to wiggle his eyebrows. He winds up just squinting and un-squinting his eyes, heavy-lidded and getting redder by the second.

You ignore his teasing with a roll of your lips. Place your hand on his cheek to steady him, grounded by the warmth and softness of his skin. Soonyoung sucks in a breath when you touch him. Covers your hand with his own. Stares at you so intently you forget why you’re touching him at all, that there’s a party raging around you; forget that you’re surrounded by all of Soonyoung’s friends and their curious glances. You forget what the napkin in your hand is for, uselessly pinched between your fingers.

Everything narrows to the size of a pinhead. Soonyoung is all that exists in this moment, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying. Until now, you thought the banter had just been banter—innocent and fun but ultimately superficial. Until now, you could brush off his coy remarks and blame it on proximity and Soonyoung’s ability to flirt with a lamppost if he thought it’d flirt back. Until now, you thought the next two and a half months would be easy; that you’d be able to compartmentalize your attraction to him.

Because this isn’t about that.

You’d needed to get away—from your job, your apartment, your life. All of it. Needed a break from the constant what-ifs and self-doubt and the nasty, unrelenting feeling that you aren’t doing enough, aren’t living up to your potential. That what you are doing is walking down a dead-end street and foolishly trying to find an exit point. You needed to try to outrun everything you’ve pushed aside, knowing it’s long overdue for it to catch up.

You don’t want Soonyoung to be one of those things. Don’t want him added to your list of what-ifs, not realizing it’s already too late for that.

So, just for a moment, you let yourself indulge. You press the napkin to the corner of his mouth and wonder how it’d feel if it were your lips instead, how he’d react, what noises he’d make. If he’d gasp in surprise or suck in another breath through his teeth. If he’d push you away or move his hands to your hips to pull you closer. If he’d let you take your time and do what you wanted or if he’d take control. If everyone around you would be surprised or if they’d think oh, of course.

You don’t find out the answer to any of those questions.

Instead, you clean the stubborn chocolate from the corners of his mouth without a word. Your touch is far more tender and delicate than you think this moment calls for, but if Soonyoung agrees he doesn’t mention it. Keeps his gaze locked on you, eyes tracing every movement. His intensity surprises you, having been outshadowed by his larger-than-life personality, the way he makes you laugh without having to try. But the intensity of the moment surprises you, too, how it all feels amplified: how you can hear every hitch of his breath, even over the noise of the party; how you can not only feel the warmth of it on your skin, but also the tension. How it feels like a massive, tangible thing in the center of your chest.

“All done,” you manage to say, coughing to clear your throat, dry from nerves and the rest of the chaos swirling around in your head.

Soonyoung smiles. Sends a wink over his shoulder as he disappears into the crowd, and you feel his absence immediately and immensely.

Minghao calls you over and reintroduces you to the people he’s been talking to. They’re kind and funny and gracious with their time. Junhui tells you all about how he and Soonyoung met, about his time at his studio. Tells you all about the kids they teach and how much they love Soonyoung. All the gifts they make for him and how they watch him dance with wide, starry eyes, trying to replicate everything he does.

Which is exactly what you find yourself trying to do later on.

Soonyoung had found you in a half-hearted conversation with Chan and Mingyu and dragged you to the living room. “Dance with me,” he said, cackling brightly when you looked at him, bewildered, and said you didn’t know how. “I’ll show you. C’mon, it’s easy.”

Dancing with someone who does it for a living is not easy, but Soonyoung is a good teacher, full of praise and laughter and gentle corrections. It’s all in good fun, anyway, and that’s exactly how he makes it feel as he jokingly shakes his ass and twerks on his friends; as the room goes blurry when he takes your hand and twirls you around. And when the song switches to something slower, headier, more sensual, there’s an immediate spike of panic that Soonyoung snuffs out—he puts distance between the two of you but stays in your orbit, hovering, waiting for you to call the shots.

You know he’ll back off if you want him to. You know he’ll take it in stride and not allow things to get awkward. You also know this decision isn’t life or death, that this can just be harmless fun you blame on the alcohol and weed in the light of day when the sheepishness creeps in. And you have to admit that sounds enticing, because the two poles of your body are pulling you in opposite directions, warring with one another. Try as it might, your brain—with all its logic and reminders for you to use some common sense—is no match for the heat simmering beneath your skin.

It’s a split-second decision, you pulling him back in, letting him fit his hands to the curve of your waist, your eyes fluttering shut at the body heat that seeps into your skin. You watch as the corners of Soonyoung’s mouth lift infinitesimally before he straightens them again, like he doesn’t want to look cocky, doesn’t want this to look like a foregone conclusion, but you like it on him. He wears it well, and you’re taken by it in the same way you’d been taken by his intensity.

You know there are eyes on you—his friends’, Minghao’s—but you can’t find it in you to care. Every time Soonyoung touches you, it feels like you’re the only people left on earth, like you’re swimming through molasses, weighed down by the intoxication of it, the yearning, the need for more.

His hands move to your hips, his lips to just beneath your ear. “Is this okay?” he asks, words spoken so quietly against your skin you feel them more than you can hear them.

You nod. Still have no clue what you’re doing, feel awkward and too big in your own body, but you remind yourself it doesn’t matter. That it’s okay to just enjoy the way Soonyoung is touching you. The way he moves his body, perfectly in sync with the beat of the song, purposeful and precise. The proximity to and closeness of another person.

It’s the same later on, long after all of Soonyoung’s friends have left. Only you and Soonyoung are left at the house, your crossfades providing a convenient excuse to stay behind. No one says anything, but you catch the look Minghao sends you on his way out the door, having accepted an invitation from Jun and Mingyu to check out some new club, wanting to make the most of his last full day in town—it’s discreet and sly, but it also says I hope you know what you’re doing, because you’ve been doing it all night.

You don’t.

You know it just as well as Minghao does, so you start cleaning up the kitchen to give yourself something else to focus on. Plates, cups, and napkins in the trash. Leftovers in the fridge or pantry. Icing wiped off the floor and counters. A massive garbage bag tied up and placed next to the back door to take outside. Time alone, room to breathe. Being around Soonyoung is starting to feel like the two magnets of your head and heart are repelling.

“Leave that for tomorrow.”

You wipe the back of your hand across your forehead. “I’m almost done,” you gently argue. “Besides, it is tomorrow. It’s almost two o’clock.”

Soonyoung just laughs, nodding his head in the direction of the door. “Come on.”

“Soonyoung, there’s still food everywhere, you’ll get bugs—”

“Do I have to drag you out there myself?”

He doesn’t, though you don’t think you’d be upset if he did. “Fine. At least take the trash out with you,” you compromise.

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it certainly isn’t for Soonyoung to lay on his back in the middle of the yard. No blanket, no towel—even if it’s mostly dried out from the previous day’s storm, you’re not exactly chomping at the bit to take the risk, but Soonyoung has no such reservations. He stretches out like he’s making a snow angel before he tucks his hands behind his head and sighs in content, though you’re not sure why. There’s far too much light pollution this close to the boardwalk to see anything in the sky, not to mention the noise.

Still, you either have to join him or stay standing and look like an idiot.

So you sit down beside him, arms stretched out behind you, your knee knocking into Soonyoung’s elbow. He rolls his head to the side and smiles, and you feel it behind your ribcage, sharp and hot like fireworks. “How did you know?” he asks. “About my birthday.”

Any other time you’d crack a joke, say something cheesy like ah, I have my ways, or that you’d paid an Etsy witch to find out, but in the middle of the night, sitting side-by-side in Soonyoung’s small, dewy strip of grass, it doesn’t feel right. Feels like a moment that requires sincerity. “It was Minghao, actually,” you admit. “He was there when I first saw the rental listing and told me it was a scam because of how cheap it was, so ever since then he’d sort of been convinced you were a serial killer or something. I had to come clean about us rooming together when he asked to visit and that only convinced him more.”

Soonyoung groans. “Damn. I wanna laugh but it’s not funny. Is it funny? He still came here after all that?”

“Well, luckily I’d already been to the waterpark with you by then and watched you nearly pass out when that kid fell and scraped her knee, so I knew there was no way you could kill someone—”

“Hey!”

“—and I sent him your Instagram. We both decided that, aside from the can’t handle blood thing, a serial killer probably wouldn’t post a picture of themselves with cheese dust all over their mouth.”

His jaw drops slightly. Looks like he wants to—and thinks he should—be offended before he snaps it shut and thinks it over. “Mm, that’s probably fair.”

“Yeah, so. As one does, he basically stalked your account until he saw one of your birthday posts from years ago and asked if we’d done anything fun for it this year, and I had to say no because someone didn’t tell me.”

Sheepish, Soonyoung apologizes. Says he didn’t have plans anyway and didn’t want you to feel obligated or make things weird. “It’d only been two weeks.” And when you move to protest, he rolls onto his side, head propped up by his elbow, and says, “I know now it was silly, and I’m still a little blown away the two of you threw all of this together. I—it just means a lot, so thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply, voice barely above a whisper. “I hope you and your friends had a good time.”

“I haven’t had a bad one since you got here.” Such a simple statement, but the honesty in his words steals the breath from your lungs. “I’d been having… a bad time. Before you got here. So yeah, it means a lot that you’d go through the trouble.”

It wasn’t any trouble, you want to say. Want to refute the notion that doing something nice, especially for him, was a bother, something only done out of a sense of obligation. Want to tell him you’ve been having a hard time, too, and doing something like this, celebrating someone else, helped ease that perpetual grief even a little bit. That feeling someone’s hands on you in the way his had been—selfish, wanting, longing—was a welcomed change from the hands clutching at your own, rubbing at your back, accompanied by waterlogged, sympathetic words. Apologies that only made you feel worse.

You want to tell him it was nice to be desired instead of pitied.

Instead, you say, “I’ve been having a bit of a hard time, too,” because the rest feels too honest. More words not meant for this moment.

And it seems you chose correctly, because Soonyoung’s brows quirk upwards. “Really?” he asks.

You nod. “I don’t want to dump on you, but my grandmother passed away last year. I used all of my PTO and the last of my inheritance to book the rental. It just sort of… felt like everything was starting to catch up with me, you know? The grief, the insecurities I’m feeling about my job. I needed to get away.”

Soonyoung frowns, and you brace yourself for more of the usual—I’m so sorry for your loss and other such sentiments you wish you could feel thankful for and don’t—but, as usual, he finds a way to surprise you. “Damn,” he mutters, sounding entirely convincing as he whistles, “I feel like I should give you a refund now. I scammed you out of your inheritance.”

A bubble of shocked laughter erupts from you and spreads to Soonyoung. Soon, both of you have dissolved into breathless, belly-aching laughter, trying desperately to shush one another so you don’t disturb the neighbors. And maybe you hadn’t been able to say all those other things, but this you are:

“Don’t you dare. I’d pay it every single time, a million times over.”

July arrives before you know it.

After Soonyoung’s party, things largely go back to normal. Minghao stays in touch, not only with you and Soonyoung, but also Junhui. Like clockwork, he texts you often for “updates.” He’s not interested in what books you’ve read or how many hours of sun you’ve soaked up at the beach. No, all he cares about are any updates in your relationship with Soonyoung—of which there have been none, so these days, understandably, your conversations don’t last all that long.

Additionally, you see Chan and Mingyu more often. Sometimes, when their shifts end at the same time, they swing by the house after work and join you for dinner… and shenanigans. A random Tuesday sees the four of you having a water balloon fight in the backyard. Soonyoung calls dibs on Mingyu, thinking his height will afford them some sort of advantage, but he underestimates Chan’s dodge and weave and that Mingyu’s height is nothing more than a giant target. Another weeknight has all of you nearly coming to blows over a game of poker.

Occasionally, on days they don't work, they join you at the beach. They rope you into boogie boarding and volleyball matches; they nap or mess around in the water while you read. Sometimes Soonyoung will stay behind and pester you with questions: what you’re reading, what it’s about, whether or not you like it, isn’t that similar to that one you read last week, what you think is going to happen.

And then Soonyoung gets a rare weekend off.

Friday, too, which is spent like all the previous ones. Takeout, cheap beer, watching wrestling and adopting silly voices. Even with all the time in the world, it’s not something either of you are willing to give up.

Saturday, though—

Instead of preparing for another hot, sticky afternoon at Carat Bay, Soonyoung appears in the doorway of your bedroom not long after noon. He’s still in his pajamas—nothing but a pair of black briefs you’re sure were created with the sole intent of torturing you—and his hair sticks up at odd angles. But he looks good. Looks like temptation itself with his golden skin, honeyed from the sun; the six pack of abs peeking out from beneath the waistband; his voice, deep and husky from sleep.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” You try to swallow, not at all surprised to find your mouth has gone dry. “Sleep alright?”

Soonyoung hums. Crosses one arm across his body to scratch at his collar bone, which does nothing at all to alleviate your suffering. “You got anything on the agenda for today?” You shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak. “They’re doing fireworks on the beach tonight, if you wanna check it out? We can make a day of it and do the whole boardwalk thing.”

“Oh,” you manage to choke out. “Sure. That sounds fun.”

His responding smile is another arrow to your chest. “Cool. You’re good with rides, right? Or are you gonna puke on me if I drag you on a rollercoaster?”

I might puke on you if you don’t put a shirt on, you think. “No, I’m good,” you confirm instead. Then you actually give yourself a second to think of something that isn’t Soonyoung and his sculpted, insanity-inducing body and follow up with, “Except maybe that spaceship-looking thing that spins around really fast.”

Rookie mistake: you forget to put the teacups on your no-go list.

After getting your wristbands, it’s the first ride Soonyoung drags you on. “If you’re gonna puke, we might as well get it over with early,” he reasons. You’re too gobsmacked to argue or try to sneak out of line when he isn’t looking, so the next thing you know you’re being ushered into an empty cup by a minimum wage employee entirely indifferent to your plight, all hopes of a last-second escape dashed.

Soonyoung’s sinister grin fills you with dread.

Because you know exactly what he’s going to do.

“Soonyoung, don’t—”

It’s no use. As soon as the ride starts moving, Soonyoung’s grabbing onto the bar in the center and spinning your teacup as fast as he can. Aside from his wild cackles that slip through, you can barely hear anything over the sound of your own screaming, louder than even the small kids being spun around by their parents. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and hold onto the safety bar for dear life, filling your thoughts with anything that doesn’t require a barf bag.

(You obviously don’t know in the moment, but later on, Soonyoung digs his phone out of his pocket. Goes into his camera roll and thumbs until he finds what he’s looking for before holding it out to show you. And you’re a little stunned, is the thing, because there you are. Eyes shut, gripping onto the bar just like you remember, but it’s the way you’re smiling that takes you by surprise. You can’t remember the last time you looked so happy. Can’t remember the last time you felt it, either.

“Do you mind if I post it to my story?”

Feels nearly impossible to tear your eyes away from it, but you manage to nod. Say, “Sure, as long as you send it to me first,” and he does.

You [6:28pm]: [Attachment: 1 Image] You [6:28pm]: What do you think this means? Minghao [6:34pm]: that you’re fucked

A fresh wave of nausea hits you, because you don’t need Minghao to tell you that.

You already know.)

Somehow you survive, even though your first steps back on solid ground are a bit shaky. Soonyoung laughs and offers up a half-assed apology you know he doesn’t mean, but he lets you choose the next few rides to make up for it. Chivalrous, sure, but there are so many you don’t know where to begin. Anything upside-down is out of the question for now, given the state of your stomach, so you point at a dilapidated-looking ship and say, “What’s that?” even though it’s self-explanatory.

“Ghost Ship.”

The hesitation in his tone immediately piques your interest. Oh ho ho, you think, smiling to yourself—he should not have spun you dizzy on the teacups. “Oh. Is it scary?”

So subtle you nearly miss it, Soonyoung puffs out his chest and stands up straighter. Stares at the ride as if it offended him personally as he says, “I—no! Not really. No, it’s not.”

“Is it not scary or not really scary?”

“It’s not scary,” he clarifies, lying through his teeth. “Not to me, anyway.”

“Cool, let’s go on it, then.” You start walking towards the ride entrance, pretending not to know he isn’t following. “It’s eight tickets,” you say, keeping up the ruse. Soonyoung still hasn’t followed and your wristbands are loaded with unlimited ride tickets. “Do we have—Soonyoung? What’s wrong?” Checkmate. Soonyoung’s cheeks go pink as he shuffles a few feet closer. “Do you not want to go on it?”

“I do!” he insists. “It’s just—it’s just, uh. Doesn’t that rollercoaster look way more fun? Or… look! The log flume looks fun, too!”

“But then we’ll have to walk around in wet clothes.”

“That’s what the rollercoaster is for.” You stare blankly at him. “You know, for drying. ‘Cause it goes fast.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to go on that one,” you say, making sure to pout a little. There’s a very visible war waging inside of him. He either looks like a chicken on the ride or he looks like one by refusing to go on it at all. And that’s nothing a bit of bargaining can’t fix, so you say, “If you’re too scared, I can always hold your hand.”

You expect there to be at least a split-second of hesitation, but Soonyoung just says, “Deal!” and reaches for you. Laces your fingers together and doesn’t let go of you the entire time. Not while you wait in line, not while you’re on the ride (where he does scream his head off and grips your hand so tight you’re surprised it doesn’t cut the blood flow), and not after.

Soonyoung holds your hand as the two of you walk up and down the boards. As you duck into souvenir and t-shirt shops with crude sayings. As your stomach starts to rumble and he asks if you’ve ever had a deep-fried cannoli. As he somehow seems shocked when you say no and offers to buy you one, and when you jokingly ask if he’s trying to kill you, he squeezes your hand and says, “Never,” in a voice so soft it nearly makes you cry.

The only time he lets go is to pay for your food. He finds an empty table and sits on the same side as you, bodies pressed so close together your thighs touch. Takes another photo after he convinces you to try the cannoli. It’s far too sweet and far too rich, and you can’t stomach more than a couple bites, but Soonyoung wears a proud, beaming smile the entire time that helps it go down easier. He cleans the powdered sugar from the tip of your nose and, when he’s done, he stares at you so intently you think, this is it, he’s going to kiss me.

But he doesn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

There are things he wants to do first. More rides, more hand-holding, more obscene t-shirts he tries talking you into buying, more strange foods you can only find in a place like this. More people he wants to introduce you to, too, because he seems to know everyone. They all greet him warmly, like their day is better just by running into him, so by extension that warmth is also on offer for you. “Oh, hi! Who’s this?” they all ask, and Soonyoung introduces you by name each time.

He never says, Oh, she’s renting one of my spare rooms for the summer.

He never says, Oh, she’s just a friend.

He never says, Oh, no, it’s nothing serious, because it isn’t anything at all.

Not once does he shy away. Never seems embarrassed to be seen with you. Doesn’t seem fussed by his friends glancing down at your clasped hands and assuming you’re together, or watching the way he throws an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his side. He doesn’t put a name to whatever is simmering between the two of you, but he doesn’t snuff it out, either.

Soonyoung gives you an answer to a question you haven’t dared to ask: does he feel it, does he want this, too?

A single spark of hope can be a dangerous thing. You know this as well as anyone. But it doesn’t feel so scary when, later on, the two of you see Chan manning one of the game booths, scrolling mindlessly through his phone as a young kid throws darts at a wall of colorful balloons. “Wow, great job,” he deadpans every time one pops, not bothering to check how many were taken out before handing over a giant stuffed animal.

“I’m gonna win you something,” Soonyoung declares. “Which one’s your favorite?”

You hum. Tap your finger against your chin as you pretend to mull it over. “The tiger,” you answer. “The really big one.”

Soonyoung pretends to push up sleeves that don’t exist. “Coming right up.” He approaches Chan. “Hello, sir. I’m here to win the giant tiger for the lovely lady.”

Chan ignores him and holds out his hand for the money. “Pay up, weirdo.”

As they argue, you wander into another souvenir shop. It’s mostly more of the same—tacky figurines of sea life and shot glasses featuring anatomically incorrect genitalia, skimboards and mugs with seashells for handles—but you pause in front of a rack of keychains. You’re not going to find Soonyoung’s name on any of these tiny surfboards. There are others, though: #1 Grandpa, Rock Star, Boy Mom, They Didn’t Have My Name. You laugh at the last one. Almost pick it up for Soonyoung until another one catches your eye.

Best Teacher

When you return to Chan’s game stall, Soonyoung is holding the tiger around the neck, grinning triumphantly as he rocks back on his heels like he hunted it himself.

“Welcome back! As you can see, I fought valiantly to win you your requested prize.”

He returns his arm to your shoulders, pulling you back into his side as he continues walking down the pier. From behind, Chan yells, “No he didn’t! He didn’t win shit, he grabbed it when I wasn’t looking! He’s a fraud!”

Naturally, Soonyoung ignores this. Pretends he doesn’t know Chan at all and asks what you’re going to name your new friend. “Probably nothing, if you keep carrying them like that. I think they’re turning purple. Or blue.”

Soonyoung gasps and adjusts his grip. Carries your new friend around their middle instead of their neck. “Okay, no attempted murder charges for me. One of my friends is on ferris wheel duty tonight—let’s see if he’ll let me use his locker.”

“Trying to get rid of my child already?”

“They’re heavy,” he whines.

You poke his bicep. “Are these just for show, then? God gives His biggest biceps to His most useless soldiers.”

“Did you forget I won this—”

“Stole,” you correct.

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Did you forget I won this for you? How can that be useless?”

You’re poised for a response that’s cut off by someone shouting his name. A lanky, kind of tall man is leaning over the wrought-iron railing, waving his arms like one of those blow-up things outside car dealerships. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt and his nametag has two names on it. HANSOL is crossed out with VERNONwritten underneath in bigger, bolder letters, prompting you to ask Soonyoung what his name actually is.

“Both,” he answers. Then, to Hansol-Vernon, he asks, “Can I use your locker for this thing?”

“Just leave it here,” Hansol-Vernon says, pointing at the floor of his operating station. He cracks open a can of beer. “Y’all want some? The fireworks are gonna start soon so everyone bounced. No one’s wanted to ride this thing in fuckin’ hours.”

Surely this is in violation of at least fifteen different safety standards. No one else seems to care, though, so you’re not going to be the one to bring it up and be a wet blanket about it. “Sure.” You shrug, accepting two cans when he hands them over.

Soonyoung, on the other hand, seems to have other plans. “Can we watch the fireworks from this thing?”

“Probably. They’re doing them all the way down the beach, so I don’t think they’ll, like, hit you.”

Soonyoung looks at you. Asks a question with his eyes that you answer with a small nod. “Sick. Give us more of those”—he points to Hansol-Vernon’s beer stash—“and don’t bring us back down until I say so.”

“Dude, no. If you’re planning on fucking up there again don’t even—”

You choke on your beer, coughing violently as you try to prevent it from coming out of your nose. Hansol-Vernon slaps you on the back and asks politely if you can get it together because he can’t have a death on his hands, either. “Thanks, Hansol-Vernon,” you say, wheezing a little as you regain your voice.

“It’s just Hansol. Or Vernon.”

That doesn’t clear up much.

Still stuck on three sentences ago, Soonyoung scoffs, indignant, and crosses his arms over his chest. “First of all, that was Mingyu! Don’t blame me for his debauchery! Second of all…” He pauses. “No second of all, actually.” He turns to you. “Do you wanna watch the fireworks from up there? I promise I won’t try to fuck you.”

You choke again.

Regardless, you agree. Vernon (which you’ve settled on calling him due to his shirt, which doesn’t have much of a Hansol vibe) gets you two situated, shouting a very pointed, “Hands where I can see them at all times!” when you reach the top.

And the view is breathtaking.

Nearly the entire town is visible, flat and sprawling as it encroaches on the shoreline to your right and the bay to your left. Lit up bright, welcoming like a beacon, though you’re not sure what it’s luring you into. You watch the waves break against the shore. The ant-sized people moving in herds. All the other rides that are operating and flashing and playing stupid little songs. You watch two seagulls perch on the roof of the ticket booth and fight over a french fry.

Under no circumstances do you look at Soonyoung, even though you know he’s looking at you.

The weight of his gaze is overwhelming. Has fire needling beneath your skin, pricking at your most sensitive spots. Because not only are there implications in it, there are wants. Wants that you know would be mirrored in your own eyes. And that’s… is it smart to start something with a predetermined end date? Soonyoung isn’t an idiot, wouldn’t be going into this with eyes wide shut, but you’re not sure where you stand. If it’s a risk you’re willing to take and a hurt you’re willing to both endure and put someone else through.

Still.

A single spark of hope can be a dangerous thing, and Soonyoung’s looking at you like he wants to engulf you. Like he wants to take every broken part of you and piece them back together with gentle hands. He’s looking at you with no trepidation at all, and it’s no small thing to be looked at like that. Like there’s potential. Like whatever you have to offer is worthwhile.

It should be scary. You should be throwing out emergency flares, begging whoever comes to your rescue to make you think rationally. It’s only been a month. You’re leaving in two. Hours of distance separate the two of you. You barely know him. He barely knows you; might eventually uncover all the things you hate about yourself and find them ugly, too.

It should be scary.

But it’s not.

So here, at the top of a ferris wheel that might as well be the top of the world, is where you finally meet his eye and manage to say, “I want you to kiss me. When the fireworks start, I want you to kiss me.”

Soonyoung smiles so wide his cheeks dimple. Scooches forward to sit on the edge of the bench, so close his knees knock into yours, always touching now that he’s allowed to. So close you can smell the sea salt and the remnants of cologne that stick to his skin. So close you can see yourself reflected in his eyes, surrounded by stars.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asks, voice deep and molten, words nearly spoken into the crook of your neck. You almost have to look away again—almost have to call the whole thing off out of self-preservation—because that intensity is back. Has your breath hitching in your throat, sweat beading along your hairline.

Soonyoung cups your jaw. Runs his thumb over the seam of your lips. If you were any more coherent you’d nip at it with your teeth, soothe the sting with your tongue, show you can give as good as you get. You want Soonyoung just as affected as you, just as wanting. Just as gripped by the anticipation. Just as fucked up over the possibility of it all.

And it seems like he is, because he leans in impossibly closer. Uses his free hand to grip at the meat of your thigh, slide it higher until it’s nearly settling on your waist. He pinches the fabric of your shirt between his fingers like he’s trying to savor it, trying to memorize every detail of this moment. When he speaks this time, you actually do feel it against your skin. Feel the way his lips form around each word. Feel his warm breath every time he exhales. Feel your stomach somersault when he asks, “What if I don’t want to wait for the fireworks?” Feel your core throb when he continues, tone headier than you’ve ever heard it, “What if I just pulled you into my lap and kissed you right now?”

If you were any more coherent you’d tell him to do it. You’d smirk, press your tongue into the fat of your cheek, lean in just as close and watch the goosebumps rise on his arms when you tugged his earlobe between your teeth and said, “Why don’t you find out?” But you’re all out of sorts here on the top of the world, scared you’re going to come plummeting back to reality any second.

Because Soonyoung feels like a dream—not idealized or put on a pedestal, but realistic and attainable. Someone it’s easy to exist alongside of. Someone who shows you off without reservation and swindles his friends out of glorified carnival prizes just because you want one. Someone not afraid of or deterred by the liminal state of your relationship, before things became more solid and defined. Someone who knows when to push and when to be patient. Someone who looks at you and sees a future you could barely imagine—not because you didn’t want it, but because all those assumed barriers.

Grief so overpowering some days you could barely get out of bed. Salary, title, and job prospects not where or what you thought they’d be after graduating nearly a decade ago. Feeling trapped by both of these things. Knowing it’s pointless to tie your self-worth to numbers and degrees and prestige but being unable to help it. Being quietly dissatisfied with a simple, ordinary life.

But while those things are true, they aren’t what defines you.

You haven’t decided this thing with Soonyoung is worth pursuing because of his job—jobs. How much money he does or doesn’t make isn’t what you see when you look at him. What you see is his smile when he walks through the door on Friday evenings. The way his brows pinch and his tongue sticks out just so when he’s cooking dinner for the two of you. The look he wears when he shows up in the doorway of your room, half embarrassment and half mischief as he asks you to help him bleach his hair at some ungodly hour—that he trusts you to help even though you’ve never done it before. You see a man that, for the past month, has welcomed you into his home and his life.

All of those things are what makes it easy to plant your hands in the center of his chest and push him back against the bench. To crawl into his lap just like he’d teased, to nip at his skin just like you’d wanted, and whisper, “Maybe I don’t want to wait, either.”

Fate is not something you believe in, but if you did, you think it’d feel a lot like this: the first firework exploding as soon as Soonyoung grabs you by the back of the neck and draws you in for a searing, bruising kiss. The way he groans into your mouth and moves his hands to your waist, trying to erase space that doesn’t exist. You can tell he’s holding himself back, that he wants to thrust his hips, desperate for friction, but doesn’t want to risk making you uncomfortable, is letting you set the pace.

And the pace you want is just as frenzied.

“Fuck,” Soonyoung swears, hissing as you fully drop your weight onto him. When he tilts his head back, you move your lips to the column of his throat, delighting in the sounds spilling from him, the way he finally dares to roll his hips.

You moan, unable to help the sleazy smile that stretches across your face. “God,” you rasp, matching his thrusts, “you’re so hard.”

Soonyoung scoffs. Makes a sound like the air’s been punched out of him. “Do you know—shit—d’you know how long I’ve wa-wanted to kiss you? And have you seen yourself?”

“I have,” you snark, threading your fingers through his hair. “You could’ve, you know. Would’ve let you.”

“Pull it harder.” You do as you’re told, tightening your grip, staring down at the man beneath you. Lips parted, breathing labored, unsure what to do with his hands. You want to mess him up. Want to bring him close to the edge and make him suffer through having to wait. “Mm yeah, just like that, baby—make it hurt.”

Every word strikes you deep. Has you needy and clenching around nothing, unfazed by the world around you, that you’re in public. Fireworks continue to explode. So will you, soon, if Soonyoung doesn’t—

“Touch me,” you beg, unashamed of the need in your tone. He should hear it. He should know how affected you are by him, what he does to you. What you’ve been trying to ignore for weeks. “Soonyoung, please. Touch me, take me home, I don’t care, just—”

You’d be hard-pressed to say how you got here.

On your back in Soonyoung’s bed, his head between your legs. Panties pulled down only as far as they needed to be for him to get his mouth on you, and god is it good. Soonyoung’s made a trembling, gasping mess of you in record time. Has you clutching at his sheets every time he suctions his lips around your clit; every long, pointed stroke he makes with his tongue. Stars explode behind your eyelids every time he praises you, and you’d wanted him on the edge but you make it there first.

Soonyoung can tell. Sucks two fingers into his mouth and teases your entrance. “You’re gonna come, aren’t you, baby?” You nod, unable to muster actual words. Soonyoung grins, devilish and wicked, and presses his fingers inside. Crooks them immediately against your front wall as he returns his mouth to your cunt, sucking and licking, nipping at your skin.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—”

“Mhmm, let me feel it—that’s it, good girl. Taste so fuckin’ good; you drive me fucking crazy.”

You come with a shout, vision nearly whiting out, your hands back in Soonyoung’s hair to anchor you to this plane of existence. Wave after wave of euphoria hits you, and you almost beg him to keep going, to not go easy on you, make you come again, but you also just want him closer. Want to taste yourself on his lips. Want to hear his fractured intakes of breath as you grip his cock and touch him properly for the first time. Want the two of you to have to sleep in your bed because you make such a mess of his.

All he gives you is a few seconds to catch your breath. You know what you must look like, chest heaving and sweat-slick, and it makes you feel powerful. Sexy. Gives you the confidence to shrug off the last of your inhibitions and say, “C’mere, please,” and kiss the taste of your pussy off his lips, suck it off his tongue.

You skim your hands down his body—the expanse of soft, warm skin, chest to thigh. Grab at him over his briefs, rub your thumb across the wet patch you find there. Soonyoung curses when you suck that same thumb into your mouth and groan at the taste, the musk and hint of salt. One day you’ll return the favor and make him come with your mouth, have his muscles contracting as you swallow him down and let him fuck your throat, but right now you’re too impatient. Need him inside of you too badly.

There’s plenty of time for everything else.

Hand dipping beneath his briefs, you’re finally able to feel the weight of him. His velvety skin. Soonyoung hisses and tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. Watches you like a hawk, predator and prey, and it just spurns you on more. Has you circling and pumping his length, trying to figure out what he likes—which seems to be everything, judging by the way he hides his face in the crook of your neck and whines. “Baby,” he mewls. “God, you’re gonna feel so good around me, so tight and wet. Fuck, I’m never letting you out of this bed.”

“Yeah?” you tease, thumbing at his slit, collecting the pearls of pre-cum. “You wanna keep me forever?”

Another loud moan. “Please don’t say things like that,” he pleads, and you swear your heart stops, that your stomach drops through the mattress and onto the floor, before he follows it up with, “you’ll make me bust in my underwear like a virgin.”

You giggle, because that’s just how it is with Soonyoung: so easy to exist, to let go of your fear; so easy to laugh when everything starts feeling a bit too serious.

Easy to lob a truly terrible joke right back at him. “Come lose it, then.”

He barks a laugh. Leans over to fetch a condom from his nightstand. “Would you, the beautiful, incredible woman who I can’t believe is naked in my bed right now after I scammed her, like to do the honors?”

You would, actually, so you do.

Soonyoung kisses you as he slowly presses inside. As he fucks into you inch by inch. When he bottoms out, he gives you time to adjust; moves his hands to your waist and massages the skin just above your hip bones. “Okay?” he asks, and when you nod, tell him it’s okay to move, he presses another kiss to your forehead. “Good job, pretty girl; took me so well. I knew you’d feel like heaven.”

He fucks you slowly at first, measured and precise. Takes his time rolling his hips as his hands explore anything they can reach, like he can’t bear to not be touching you even though you’re connected in the most raw, sensual way two people can be. He waits he can feel you spasming around him, until your legs are locked behind his back, begging him to fuck you faster, harder, before he obliges. Before he puts all the power in his hips to good use. Before he rolls you onto your stomach and enters you from behind, both of you gasping at how much more intense it feels.

“Close,” you warn him, not at all surprised at how quickly your second release has snuck up on you.

With a final nip to the back of your neck, Soonyoung plants his knees against the mattress and grabs you by the hips, angling your body so he hits deeper, harder; so his balls slap against your clit every time he thrusts into you. You’re mindless with pleasure. Babbling nonsense as you beg him not to stop. Wouldn’t fuckin’ dream of it, he speaks through gritted teeth.

The coil of tension in your gut finally snaps. Again, you come with a shout, entire body pulling taut as Soonyoung continues to fuck you through it, his own undoing not far behind. Only a few more thrusts before he’s draping his body over yours and spilling into the condom, hands immediately reaching for yours to twine your fingers together.

It’s quiet in the immediate aftermath. Soonyoung rolls onto his side and presses his front against your back, arm secured around your middle. Kisses the top of your head and sighs. “I need to clean us up but I don’t think I can move.”

“Hm. At least take off the condom so your dick doesn’t get all pruney.”

Soonyoung startles, bolting upright. “Can that happen?”

“Dunno,” you respond, feeling sleep nipping at your heels, “but I’d rather you didn’t risk finding out. I happen to like your dick very much.”

He laughs. Rolls out of bed and playfully swats at your ass on his way to the bathroom. “Yeah, we’re not leaving this bed for a long time.”

In the morning, you wake up Soonyoung with your mouth and ride him until you’re both dizzy and breathless.

You fetch a book from your room and read while he dozes in and out of consciousness, content to just be next to him. You ignore the slew of texts from Minghao, who had heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that there had been a development in your and Soonyoung’s relationship the night before, but once your phone vibrates for the hundredth time that morning, you figure you might as well get it over with because you know Minghao—know he won’t relent until he gets what he’s looking for.

Minghao [11:03am]: ignore my actually important texts all you want, but at least look at this 🙄

What he’s sent you is a job listing.

You can hardly believe what you’re reading. Not only is it nearly your dream job, but it’s remote and triple your current salary—and, most importantly, you’re qualified.

You [11:12am]: Minghao what is this?? Minghao [11:12am]: a friend is a higher-up there. says we can use him as a reference but if your resume looks good it might as well be a done deal Minghao [11:13am]: i already sent yours to him btw You [11:14am]: Freak. Why do you have a copy of my resume?? Minghao [11:14am]: i don’t. i sent him your linkedin Minghao [11:14am]: your ugly ass headshot must not have scared him off bc he said he’ll be in touch soon

Now you’re breathless for an entirely different reason.

You’ll figure out a way to thank him later, ask if he’s making the switch with you because both of you deserve better. You won’t get your hopes up—not until it’s a done deal, and not until you talk to Soonyoung. Because whatever this is between you is heading down a path you want to follow; want to see through to the end, wherever that may be.

For now, though, you’re happy to exist alongside Soonyoung. Happy to listen to his quiet snores and let him cuddle into your side. Happy to be in this house in this little beach town that has already given you so much.

Perhaps fate is something you believe in, after all.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Sharing and reblogging my work is the best way to show you enjoyed it, but I also accept any and all feedback and screaming in my inbox. <3

[lizardboiii]

WHATTA MAN

꒰ ft. Vinsmoke Sanji x reader

꒰ synopsis: Slipping up while drunk and admitting you wanna have his baby♡

"You so crazy, I think I wanna have your baby." -Salt-N-Pepa

│cw: 18+, SFW, suggestive undertones, no use of y/n, fluff, f!reader

│wc: 1k

│notes: i feel like Sanji's character is always misinterpreted as only a freaky gooner in the anime i hope in future episodes they start showing his character justice. i had a lot of fun with making him silly yet charming. enjoy <3

│AO3 Link!

The room was surprisingly quiet. Only Brook’s faint singing drifted through the crack of the door. The muffled symphony was accompanied by pots and pans clinking softly against each other as Sanji scrubbed away the remnants of dinner.

Yet, your mind didn’t focus on the background noise. Instead, your eyes remained fully entranced with Sanji’s arms. More importantly - his hands.

Beads of soapy water slowly cascaded down his thick forearms before tapering off at his wrists. Said forearms flexed with his every movement. Their toned muscles were fully on show now that Sanji had rolled up his sleeves. 

Kicking your legs back and forth under your stool, you allowed your spinning gaze to lower. Sanji’s large hands continued to work at one of the many plates. His veins protruding against his pale skin. 

Drunk, and ready to make poor decisions, you called out to him without thinking, “Sanji.”

The tall blond male dropped his work immediately. His discarded porcelain splashed into the sink with an audible “plop”. Spinning around in some sort of tornado of love, Sanji dramatically placed his thick hands on top of the counter, “Yes, My Swan~”

You watched his speedy form in a daze. The unethical amounts of plum wine you consumed over dinner seemed to eradicate any sense of shamelessness. But that was for “morning you” to deal with.

Hiccuping, you allowed your inner thoughts to spill, “Has anyone ever told you..”

Sanji’s cigarette hung loosely from his plush lips. The darkening ash simmered down its paper wrapping, cascading gently through the air.

“You’ve got nice hands?”

Abruptly, Sanji’s teetering cigarette fell to the floor. His mouth agape, you could see the gears twisting and turning inside of his head.

Then, Sanji suddenly cupped your hand in his. Your eyes widened at the action, immediately focusing in on the feeling of his rough hand against yours. His larger hand practically engulfed your own. Firmly holding you in place.

“Mademoiselle,” Sanji’s thumb caressed over your knuckles, “...Are you complimenting my hands?”

You jolted at his tender touch. Forcing your gaze away from his hand, you meet his fixed gaze timidly. Their striking blue easily pulled an answer from you.

“I think they’re beautiful.”

Your statement gut-punched any prince charming mannerisms Sanji had left in him. Clasping his hands together, a loopy smile plastered itself on his face as he swayed in place.

“My Swan!” Sanji’s eyes turned to hearts as he seemingly fangirled, “I had no idea you felt that way! I promise to always take good care of them for you!”

A giggle fumbled out of your mouth as you watched him. His lean frame pranced around the kitchen, new vigor entering his body. That was until he managed to slam his head against one of the many pans hanging above the counter.

Your soft giggle easily turned into full blown laughter. Wiping the tears from your eyes, you jumped down from your wobbly stool. The wooden seat spun on its legs threatening to fall over itself.

In a drunken stupor, you fumbled your way to Sanji’s side. Kneeling down next to his embarrassed form, you offered a lopsided smile.

“Are you okay?” Your question came out more garbled than you liked. Laughter and wine mixing up your speech.

Sanji’s rich laughter matched your own. Pushing a strand of hair behind your ear, Sanji gave you a soft smile, “Of course I am, Mademoiselle.”

Strangely, your stomach flipped when Sanji’s fingers brushed against your ear. The feeling of your heart beating in your chest was starting to become hard to ignore. 

You took in a shaky breath, “...I’m glad.”

There was a small silence between you for a moment. Yet, it wasn't the awkwardly suffocating silence you felt when watching Zoro train alone. Nor was it the boredom inducing silence when reading with Robin.

It felt comfortable - natural even. However, as quickly as you started it, Sanji ended it.

“You're far too sweet to me, Mademoiselle.” Sanji threaded his thick fingers down the lock of your hair tucked behind your ear, twirling the end of it. Your face burned when he suddenly brought the piece of hair to his lips, placing a chaste kiss against the strand, “I’m nervous you’ll ruin me for anyone else.”

You weren't sure what 'Plum Wine God' possessed you.

“You so crazy.”

But you were certain the words that left your mouth could never be taken back.

“I think I wanna have your baby.”

You don’t think you have ever seen Sanji’s eyes get so wide. His jaw slack in shock. If he hadn't already lost his cigarette he most definitely would have now. Then, the nosebleed that bursted out of him really had you considering grabbing Chopper.

You could only watch in horror as the taller man practically malfunctioned in front of you. Face a deep shade of crimson, he almost frothed at the mouth. 

Cautiously touching his shoulder, you reeled back in surprise when he abruptly snapped up from his love-induced seizure. His usual uncovered eye was casted in a dark shadow. You swallowed thickly at the sight, sobering up slightly.

“Sanji?”

Your limited cognitive functions could barely process when Sanji rapidly stood to his feet, taking you with him. He spun you into his arms, carrying you in a predictable princess style.

“Mademoiselle, I can’t begin to express how honored I would be to be the father of your children.” Sanji’s grip tightened on you, “But you and I both know you're not in the right state of mind right now.”

Though his tone was slightly playful, his eyes held a sense of seriousness you had only seen in battle. You couldn't help but smile. Such serious eyes paired with a blood stained nose was wholeheartedly Sanji.

Nuzzling into his chest, you mumbled teasingly, “I wanna have your baby sober or drunk.”

Sanji let out a deep sigh, biting back another outburst, “It's time for bed, My Swan.”

Wavering in and out of consciousness, you could feel Sanji carry you across the ship. The quiet echo of crashing waves against the ship's side mixed with the salty breeze easily lulled you further into sleep. 

Eventually, you felt Sanji gently set you down onto your plush bed. He pulled your silky covers over your exhausted form before he placed a tender kiss on your forehead.

“Goodnight, Mademoiselle.”

You snuggled into your pillow, “G’Night.”

There was no doubt - you were really going to regret this tomorrow.

・❥・

[razzafrazzle]

okie miku!! or more specifically texoma miku bc I have no clue what happens up near the panhandle </3 she's chahta also. more like hatsune maka

[image description: a page of drawings of a oklahoma-themed design for hatsune miku, where she is darker-skinned, wears beaded earrings, and has visible tan lines. on the right is a full-body drawing of her wearing a university of oklahoma shirt and boots, where she is carrying a braum's bag and shake with a thought bubble reading "damn texas drivers". on the left are a drawing of her in an okc thunder shirt, where she is holding a beer in one hand and doing a downwards longhorns gesture with the other. below that is a scene of miku sleeping in a lawn chair in a field with a tornado occurring in the distance. end id]

[withahappyrefrain]

Oooh! 13 with Tyler on the way to an area to chase. Because you KNOW he gets keyed up before a chase!

HE ABSOLUTELY DOES!

All it takes is the notification sound going off on his phone and you know. The Cheshire-like grin on his face is just confirmation of the obvious.

A storm's a coming.

It was a quick scramble, gathering your toiletry bag and spare change of clothes. After dating Tyler for a while, your duffle bag was ready to go at a moment's notice.

You throw your bag in the back of his truck, along with his. The two of you had to go to Dexter's house to meet the rest of the crew.

While Tyler wouldn't verbally expressed it, you could tell by his body movement he was amped up; the restless left leg that was bouncing up and down, fingers incessantly tapping at the steering wheel, hips squirming in the driver's seat as if he can't get comfortable, his front teeth digging into his bottom lip.

There was always so much at stake; the possibility it could end up being a dud, someone getting hurt, technology failing. So much could go right too; a theory being proved right, new discoveries, new unforgettable memories.

All of that swirled around in his head, much like the tornadoes he chased.

A comforting hand squeeze wouldn't be enough to take the edge off. Neither would words.

"Take a left up here," You instruct him.

Tyler raises his eyebrows, green eyes quickly darting back and forth between the road and you.

"Any particular reason?" He asks, fingers continuing to tap away, much like the rain drops you'll no doubt see in the next few hours.

"It's the scenic route. Gives us more time together too," your smile is as sweet as honey, despite your intentions being as sinful as the Devil himself.

Tyler doesn't argue, the promise of having more time with you before he won't have any is enough to sway him. He follows your directions, giving you a sweet smile upon feeling your hand on his denim clad thigh.

Your hand moves upwards, towards the belt buckle that he won from a rodeo years ago. He knows you like to toy with it, so putting your fingers on it doesn't alert him to your plan.

No, it's when he hears the click of it being undone that his eyes wander to you, ever so inquisitive.

"What'cha doing pretty girl?" He asksd, eyes remaining on the road.

"Put Enid on cruise control." He smiles as he does so, the nickname of his beloved truck a reminder of the city you two first met.

But that doesn't stop him from reminding you of your obligations (and what they don't entail), "You don't have to...you know, it's fine."

Your hand goes from his belt buckle to the bulge that's begun to grow in his pants, squeezing it. Tyler's breath is now sharp, large hands gripping the steering wheel.

"I know," your eyes are focused on his growing erection, fingers making quick work of unbuttoning his jeans.

This isn't your first rodeo.

Your fingers go underneath his shirt, tracing his soft skin and body hair that drives you absolutely wild before going back south, past the waistband of his boxers.

The moan Tyler lets out upon your hand touching his cock is low, breathy. Music to your ears. You adjust yourself, leaning over until your face was mere inches away from his lap.

His green eyes alternate between you and the road, having half a mind to pull over.

As if you could read his mind, you speak out, "Keep driving."

After all, neither of you wants to be late.

Still, you continue, pulling his cock out, hand pumping his length as your tongue darts out, swiping the beads of precum before lowering your mouth onto the thick tip.

He tries to muffle his groan with his hand, as if he's afraid someone might hear him, tries to keep those sea glass green eyes on the road, to give off the impression of normalcy.

Tyler may be able to brave a tornado, but when it comes to your mouth, he's putty in your hands. His hips thrust upwards, desperate to get more of your skillful mouth. What you can't reach is covered by your hand, moving in tandem with your mouth.

The breaking point is when he feels your throat constrict around his length. His eyes search for a place to pull over, finding a spot amidst several trees.

That's when the dam breaks, his hips moving erratically as the broken grunts and moans pour out from his lips. One of his hands reaches upward to grip the handle of his truck, the other tangled into your hair. You can feel his eyes burning into you, but you continue your ministrations.

Your determination is one of the many qualities Tyler adores about you. Though the scene that lays before him isn't one he can use as an example when asked.

On camera, he's cool, confident, close to cocky even. But in his truck currently, he was desperate, unraveled.

All because of you. The high it gives you is similar to the high Tyler gets when he sees a tornado.

He's close, given the way his thighs are clenching. Thank God he's amped up. All it takes is moaning with his cock in your mouth once, twice, three times before his release is coming down your throat. You take every last drop, your thighs clenching as you taste him.

Tyler has to practically pull you off of him, his body surging with oversensitivity. The truck that was once filled with moans and grunts are now filled with heavy panting. With the way his chest is rapidly rising up and down, you'd think he had just run a marathon.

"Fuck, pretty girl, I...." He takes the snapback off his head, running a hand through his sun kissed hair, "Didn't know I needed that."

You giggle, as though he's told you a joke, "We should get going."

"Oh no, pretty girl. I ain't done with you," he moves his seat back, "Get over here."

The group of storm cells weren't going to be strong enough to form a storm for another few hours anyways.

[crappymixtape]

hang on tight, baby • part one

NAVIGATION -> PART I •  PART II •  PART III favored to win in barrel racing for the upcoming rodeo, you’re out in the corral practicing when your obnoxious neighbor, tyler owens, swings by to say hi, but when the wind picks up you both won’t have a choice but to trust each other • 18+  | ( 3.0k – TW: natural disasters, tornado, injuries • witty banter as foreplay, fluff in their own way, enemies to idiots in love, tyler owens x reader )

H A N G O N T I G H T, B A B Y • P A R T O N E 🎶 devil always made me think twice, chris stapleton

Clouds stretched overhead, lazy liked pulled taffy as the sun beat down on you in the midday heat. You’d been up since the first fingers of light had crept up over the horizon, dew still clinging to the long stalks of wheat in the early morning, but as the day spun on summer made sure to remind you what it was capable of.

That June in Oklahoma wasn’t anything to mess with.

Sweat beading across your forehead, you had half a mind to toss your hat over the corral fence but it was the only thing keeping you from getting sunburned. Pushing at your windswept hair with a gloved hand you tucked the flyaways out of your face and clicked your tongue at your horse, Tilly, to get back into position.

“C’mon, girl. One more run and then we’ll call it,” you coaxed, readjusting your grip on the saddle horn and giving her neck a pat. Tilly snorted, her hooves stamping in the dirt, anxious to take off again around the three wooden barrels dotting across your little makeshift arena. “That’s it, easy…” you murmured.

Barrel racing horses were built different, like they were brought into the world locked and loaded with a fire burning in them – they lived to ride like this. A black flash of muscle and tension set loose like a snapped rubber band and honestly? You lived for it too.

Tucking your chest tight against her mane, you knotted your fingers in the reigns, sucked in a breath and held it steady in your lungs. Three…two…one…

“Yah!” you kicked your heels to Tilly’s flanks and she took off like a gunshot. Hooves thundering across the ground, winding a tight circle around the first barrel in a blur as you ticked off the seconds in your head.

Seven, eight, nine – you rounded the second barrel – ten, eleven – you approached the third – twelve – and then you heard it. A blast of drums and twangy guitar riffs, a Chris Stapleton track followed by a loud engine backfire and it threw both you and Tilly off track.

Your booted foot smashed into the side of the last barrel and you yelped, Tilly kicking her back legs in a start with a high pitched whinny.

“Whoa, whoa–easy!” Pulling back on the reigns you soothed her, hands smoothing down her mane. Shh, s’alright girl, and she slowly calmed, cantering to a stop just at the edge of the corral where you could finally see who’d come tearing up the driveway.

Tyler Owens.

“Well hey, sweet stuff. Damn, you were lookin’ good for a minute – what happened there at the end?” he hollered out his open cab window and it made your hands ball into fists.

Brows pinched together and lips twisting into a deep scowl, you tugged at Tilly to head back to the gate, “I told you not to call me that, Owens.”

“What? Sweet stuff? What’s wrong with that?” you could hear the grin in his tone, saw him in your head without even having to look. Stupid smirk, stupid aviators, stupid toothpick and stupid belt buckle.

“I ain’t sweet,” you shot back and it pulled a chuckle out of him, a low, rough sound that put a flicker of heat between your ribs.

He cut the engine on his truck, boots shuffling in the grass as he hopped out, and the heavy slam of his door told you today just wasn’t gonna be your day.

Tyler tutted at you, teasing. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, Sawyer?” and that snagged your attention.

Dismounting faster than he could blink, you were out of the saddle and marching across the corral to kick at the fence board his boot was resting on. He stumbled back at the force of it and laughed again, flicking his toothpick off into the wheel ruts of the driveway.

“Alright, alright,” he held his hands up in defense and took his sunglasses off, tongue running along his bottom lip, “Didn’t come here to get my ass kicked.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” you snarked, pulling your hat off to fan at your face, “You know I’m trainin’ right now.”

“Mmhm,” he agreed, notching his foot back between the fence boards and leaning his elbows lazy on top, “But I also know it’s pushin' a hundred degrees and the humidity’s sittin’ at 50%. You been drinkin’ water?”

You swallowed, mouth dry — No — and rolled your eyes before turning to walk Tilly back to the gate, “I’m fine.”

He pushed off the fence and chased a line around the corral, hollering after you, “Betcha didn’t know I’m almost as good at chasing bullshit as I am tornados!”

You groaned, dumbass, and reached the gate with Tilly in tow, but Tyler’s hand was on the latch before you could get to it.

“So. I call bullshit,” he said again, a little out of breath and eyes stuck on the way your lips twitched against a smile. “What d'you say we go get an iced tea or something,” he opened the gate and somehow you managed to pass through without so much as a glance in his direction.

Stick to your guns.

“No, Tyler.”

“Ah, c’mon,” he insisted as you pushed past him to the stable, “You and I both know it’s too hot to be out here. So does Tilly.”

But you ignored him, walked Tilly into her stall and even though you couldn’t see him, you knew Tyler had propped himself up on the other side. Arms folded over the top of the gate and hat tipped back just a little, but you went to work anyway undoing Tilly’s bridle, moving easily down to work at the buckle on the saddle and heaved it off her back.

“Least make yourself useful,” you huffed, saddle in hand and shoving it over the gate into Tyler’s chest.

“Shit–” he grunted, fingers scrambling to grab hold of it. A frown tugged down at the corners of his mouth, but he walked the saddle to the tack room anyway and came back with a renewed sense of purpose. “C’mon, Sawyer. Just a nice cold iced tea between friends?”

Sawyer. The nickname he’d gifted you when you’d moved in next door, a nod to your home town – Sawyer, Oklahoma. The home you’d left. The one you tried to forget. The place that held too many memories, too much hurt, and made your chest ache every time you thought about it.

You stopped brushing Tilly and let her get after a much needed drink of water, heaving a sigh from your lungs. It was cooler in the stable and without the sun beating down on you, you didn’t need your button down anymore. Fingers moving to undo the damp, long-sleeved, shirt clinging to your skin, it sighed with relief as the fabric shifted to let the breeze sweep over you.

“Tyler. I need to focus on training,” you grumbled glancing up at him, but it was mistake.

Without his sunglasses, you could see him tracking the movement of your hands. The buttons as they slipped through the loops one at a time. The heady mix of your sweat and shampoo a sweet scent lingering in the air between you and it made you feel dizzy. Made you want something you knew you shouldn’t have. Tyler knew it too as he swallowed thick, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, jaw ticking as he bit down on the feeling flickering in his chest.

“Promise I won’t ask you again if you still hate me in an hour,” he said, tone a little strangled, and your lips betrayed you, the corner of your mouth tugging up in the world’s tiniest smile.

“Honest?” you challenged, quirking a skeptical brow and he winked.

“Cross my heart, hope to die,” he traced his fingers over his chest and you swore right then and there you’d be the one to kill him if he put even one toe out of line.

❝ THE MINUTE THAT I SAW YOU WALKIN’ OVER, I FIGURED I WAS DIGGIN’ MY GRAVE. AND YOU HAD THE SHOVEL, I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE, BUT YOU’RE JUST THE KIND OF TROUBLE I CRAVE. ❞

Your property was a few miles out of town, a small farmhouse with an old horse stable on seventy-eight acres you rented to the Calhoun brothers for their fescue. It was a lot of work. The house badly needed updating, but it was all you could afford with your winnings from nationals last year and in the end, it didn’t matter – if you hadn't gotten a fresh start you’d have suffocated.

So, a little over a year ago when you’d pulled up the dirt drive in your red Ford pickup, Tilly’s trailer in tow, you felt like you could breathe again. Felt like this little patch of earth there on the outskirts of Tulsa was just what you needed, but when you started hauling boxes out of the truck bed you heard the one thing you didn’t need coming up the road.

Your neighbor.

Tyler Owens.

Renowned twister chaser and resident hot air balloon with an ass that could make even the most beat up pair of Wranglers look good. You knew before he even opened his mouth that he was trouble, but he was easy on the eyes and – surprisingly – pretty helpful.

When your roof sprung a leak during a particularly bad downpour he came over. Climbed up the ladder with a hammer and nails hanging off the tool belt on his hips and had it patched in twenty minutes.

When your chickens got loose and took off into the Calhoun’s fescue he and his horse Banjo helped corral them back up and into the coop before they did too much damage to the crops.

And when he’d found you at the Tin Bucket last year, too many drinks deep after losing at the Fourth of July rodeo, he drove you home. Held your hair out of your face while you puked and cried and spilled your guts to him in a muddled mess and didn’t say anything after. Kept your secrets just that, secret.

“Still with me, Sawyer?”

Tyler’s voice cut into your thoughts and you blinked over at him from the other side of the truck bench.

“What?”

“You’re not here,” he chuckled, brows pinched with just the smallest bit of worry. “You’re somewhere else.”

“Oh,” you felt your cheeks grow hot and tossed your gaze out your window, “Just thinkin’ about Friday. Adeline Stout got a 13:20 last weekend, I gotta beat that to qualify for nationals.”

“Hm,” he hummed, thumbs tapping on the steering wheel, “Seems like you had it earlier.”

“Yeah, ’til you drove up.”

Tyler huffed a laugh under his breath and clicked his tongue, “Sorry. Should’a called first.”

Silence settled in the cab and the air between you buzzed, felt like static, charged and pulling taut with something loaded until the truck bumped over the curb of the parking lot and shattered it in an instant.

You couldn’t jump out of his rig fast enough and didn’t wait for him as you cut a path over the asphalt and into the dingy little diner, the bell overhead tinkling happily.

“Howdy, sugar!” Dot greeted you with her big, friendly smile, cowboy hats dangling from her earrings as she gave the man at the counter a refill on his coffee.

“Hey, Dot,” you couldn’t help smiling back, the bell on the door jingling again letting you know Tyler had finally caught up.

“Dottie, you are lookin’ fine as ever,” Tyler grinned, smooth like butter and the older woman chuckled, hand on her hip as she watched him pick out a booth.

“And you’re lucky I’m pushin’ seventy,” she teased back with a wink.

“Age is just a number!” Tyler played along and you rolled your eyes.

“We’ll take a couple iced teas, please,” you cut in, Dottie giving you a knowing smile and it made your cheeks flush again.

“And fries,” Tyler added, sliding into a booth by the window and you followed suit, sitting across from him on the glittering red plastic of the seat.

“You got it, hoss,” Dot nodded, hollering the order back over her shoulder to the kitchen and pouring two big glasses of her famous sweet iced tea.

Picking at the peeling vinyl table top, your knee bounced, a silent protest at having to be still for a minute.

You always made sure to keep yourself busy. To keep your mind from wandering off back home and everything that came with it, and sitting across from Tyler Owens at the quiet little diner while Dolly Parton sang overhead about working nine to five wasn’t doing you any favors.

“So,” Tyler started, dragging out the ‘o’ and lifting his brows at you, “How’re the girls?”

The girls. The chickens.

You deadpanned him and shook your head, propped your chin in your hand with your elbow on the table.

“They’re fine.”

“Good, good. And the Calhouns?”

“Also fine,” you shot him a look, a side-eye glance, but he only smiled.

“And did you get your boots worked in for Friday?”

“Tyler,” you firmed, turning finally to look at him straight on and his smile faded.

“What?”

“All this–this small talk and being chummy and whatever, it’s just–”

“Just what?” he asked, leaning forward on the table toward you and your heart stuttered in your chest.

“What’s your game?” you leveled, meeting his gaze despite the way he had your pulse fluttering against your neck and his lips curved up.

“No game. Just bein’ a good neighbor.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and leaned forward just a little more. “Thought you said you were good at chasin’ bullshit,” you pushed and he burned, a flush of red from the collar of his white t-shirt all the way up to his cheeks.

“Alright, two iced teas and some fries. You need anything else, peaches?” Dot cut right between the two of you with a couple of glasses and a red plastic basket piled high with shoestring french fries.

“Thank you, thank you,” Tyler recovered, thankful for the out and took the basket from Dot. “Think that’ll do it for now.”

“Mmhm,” Dot murmured, clicking her long pink nails on the table top. “You two be good.”

“Yes, ma’am,” fell out of Tyler’s mouth automatically as she left you it.

You picked up a bottle of ketchup and squeezed some into the corner of the basket, swirling a fry around in it and lifting it to your lips to take a bite. Maybe you should be nicer to Tyler, should give him a chance, the benefit of the doubt, but you weren’t about to be made a fool again. Weren’t ready to put your walls down yet even if he was mostly sweet and only a little sour – the fun kind – but maybe it wasn’t fair.

“Gonna be outta town on Tuesday,” Tyler started, looking over at you through the long sweep of his lashes, green eyes meeting yours across the table. “In case you punch a hole through your wall or something.”

“Ha, ha. Should do stand up.”

He grinned. “You wanna come with me?”

Your breath caught in your throat.

“With you?”

“Yeah, I gotta go pick up a case of rockets for our next video series.”

You scoffed, half-laugh half-nerves, but didn’t say no and his grin widened, eyes narrowed and almost closed with the way he was smiling so big.

“Pick you up at six,” he grabbed a bunch of fries and shoved them into his mouth, “Includes complimentary coffee.”

And something in you melted with the way he was looking at you. The way you could hear the tease in his tone softening and shifting more sincere and you cracked and finally gave him a real, honest-to-god smile.

“Fine,” you surrendered as he slapped a hand on the table and made you jump.

“Hell yeah,” he buzzed and you laughed, dropping your gaze to your lap so he couldn’t see you blushing.

“Keep your pants on,” you chided and the laugh that pushed from his lungs was hard enough to made his head tip back on the seat, but then you felt a buzz in your pocket.

You weren’t expecting a call.

Then Tyler’s buzzed on the table top.

And Dot’s from back behind the counter.

And the farmer’s at the booth behind you and when the siren sounded from down the street your stomach dropped.

“Shit,” Tyler breathed.

Jolting up from the table he pressed a hand to the window and looked out across the plains stretching out ahead of you. Cotton candy clouds turned dark and heavy, curling in on themselves and tinged in an eerie yellow and when he finally turned to look back at you, the feeling in your stomach twisted into something more ominous.

A storm was coming.

[ NOTE -> THIS IS PART 1 OF A 3 PART SERIES – STAY TUNED FOR THE LAST INSTALLMENT! ]

crappymixtape™ • tyler owens / twisters masterlist to come!  ♥️ reblogs and comments keep me going, friends! ily! ♥️

[kabr0ztrousers]

How about helping a penis-having demon friend of yours who is just entering heat/rut? The gentler early stages of it, but getting more intense as time goes on until their arranged heat partner arrives and helps you. Lots of cum, begging, and then some nice aftercare :) (demon top, femme male human bottom, please?)

I hope that's not too specific!

- @zeal-kitten 🩷

Now here's the million dollar question: did Zeal request this, or did someone else, knowing they'd get off to it?

Kabr0z Writes episode 50: Hot as Hell

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: Hell; demons; light femdom; anal sex; excessive cum; group sex;

A/N: Wow, 50 of these! I absolutely should've planned for this, but if I'm totally honest I wasn't expecting to get this far!

If you want to support me in writing an episode a day until the 31st of December, it's totally free! Just send a request to my asks or DMs! Near enough anything's fair game, check the pinned if you're unsure!

#######################################

It's early evening in your little corner of Hell.

You were sent here a decade or two ago after an unfortunate incident involving an angry horse and your chest cavity. Turns out, being gay still gets you sent here. On the plus side, Hell really is infinite so there's plenty of housing, you're already dead so there's no need for food, and everyone in Heaven is a prude anyway. You're told it's only worth it if you're really into bright lights, liturgical chanting and harps, and you can get that down here too if you want.

Since getting here you'd made a few friends, one of whom was on the sofa next to you, helping you decide on the movie for the night.

Shg'shthg, like all demons, had the ability to alter his shape to his liking. He was slightly taller than you, even without the ram's horns curling from his brow. His skin was bluish-white, decorated with row upon row of swimming black runes subtly moving across every inch of his body. The characteristic long claws fashionable amongst demons currently held your TV remote in one hand and a sending stone in the other as he scrolled through the list.

"Satan's breath, every single piece of media humanity's ever created, and absolutely nothing to watch... How about Love's Labour's Won?"

You sighed "Shakespeare again? Like, it was nice the first hundred times, at least put on Edward III"

Shg'shthg looked at you "I was there when he was king, and the play is so wrong it's actually insulting. You know how I feel about the historys"

"When's D'Nzro getting here anyway?"

The demon beside you rolled his eyes "She's stuck in traffic. I keep telling her to get some wings but noooo" he waved his hands "She has to drive a car"

You laughed. Hell is, of course, Hell. No matter how decent life was down here, everything was just a little bit shit.

The TV flicked to a film, some B-movie about a bunch of sharks in a tornado. You looked over at the demon next you you. He was trying to focus on the TV, but you could see him starting to squirm in his seat. Sweat beaded on his brow as he checked his sending stone again. He crossed and un-crossed his legs, over and over, the beads of perspiration starting to roll down his head.

"You OK?"

He looked at you, the faint bluish tinge of his skin deepening, the text scrolling faster across his face "I wasn't expecting it to come this week..." His eyes screwed shut as his head tipped back "I need to ask you a favour"

"What do you need? I'll do it" you agreed a little hastily, but despite conventional wisdom you did trust this demon

"It's my heat, I need to fuck someone. Normally it'd be D'Nzro but she's-"

"Not here" you leant over the demon next to you. You won't pretend you hadn't fantasized about getting with the buff incubus, but you'd rather hoped for a more romantic setting. You kissed, gently at first. Shg'shthg whined in his throat, his desperate eyes wide and dark, looking up at you. You kissed him again, this time letting him push his tongue up into your mouth. He tasted of cigarette smoke and iron. You sucked gently on his tongue, allowing one of your hands to slide up his leg to his crotch. You could already feel the heat of his cock through his pants, opening them and allowing it to spring free.

You looked at it, leaking a thin stream of steaming fluid from its tapered tip, those same glyphs running up and down the shaft, speeding up in time with the throbbing of his inhuman cock.

One hand cradling his balls, you slowly licked the shaft, tasting the sticky precum running in rivulets onto your tongue. You reached the tip, placing your lips on it, letting the fluid leak out into your mouth, sucking it straight from the tap.

"Please" the demon breathed. You could feel the hand on the back of your neck, straining against the desire to force this cock down your throat.

You bobbed your head, taking the first couple of inches of the cock in your mouth, gently sucking as you played with his balls. Your other hand wrapped around the shaft, teasing the base as you sucked on the tip. Shg'shthg was groaning, the pulsing precum tasting richer and thicker. Your hand clenched on where his scotum, where it met his body, stopping his balls receding all the way. You spoke around the cock, eking out words between sucks "You wanna cum in my mouth?"

Shg'shthg nodded, whining and panting, the text on his body whirling with your edging, precum squirting from him in sticky spurts, filling and drooling out of your mouth to coat your chin.

You dipped your head deeper, sucking faster and harder, squeezing the base of his cock and massaging the balls as they shrank into him. He groaned, the hand on your head pushing down as the cock in your mouth spasmed and filled with cum, pumping it into your mouth as you struggled to swallow it all. It flooded your mouth, spurting from your lips, flooding your sinuses as it poured from your nose.

You pulled your mouth away from the cock as the last spurts pulsed out, covering your face. The door opened behind you, D'Nzro stepped in, her heels clicking on the floor. You looked at her, she saw you kneeling over her boyfriend, cock in hand, face covered in his cum.

"Let me guess. He told you he wasn't expecting his heat cycle so soon, and convinced you to suck him off?" Her voice was imperious, somewhere between a stern teacher and a vicious taskmistress

You nodded, taking in her body. Skin like tanned leather, eyes like coals, and two rows of short horns running down her shaved head

She grabbed you by your slight waist, lifting you so you straddled the incubus below you "Well, in that case, you've both been naughty boys." One clawed finger cut a slit in the ass of your jeans and your boxers, leaving your tight asshole unprotected "Naughty boys get punished." She held you with one hand, the other scooping up a handful of the demon-seed pooling on your sofa before slathering it on your ass, pushing it into your hole, before setting you down on Shg'shthg's lap, his still-hard cock resting against your back.

Shg'shthg's hands were on your waist now.

"Lift him up"

He lifted, lining your puckered hole up with the pointed tip of the cock you'd just drained. D'Nzro pressed the cock into you, a slender claw teasing your ballsack as she did "Drop"

Shg'shthg dropped you. Your weight rammed half his cock into you before you caught yourself.

You groaned as D'Nzro grabbed your hips and started moving you around, pushing you down and rocking your hips against the cock inside you. You leant back, pressing the cock against your prostate, feeling as the hard organ invading you pressed against it, making you leak. Two fingers pushed into your mouth, you sucked on them as you bounced on the cock within you, getting another inch of it in you with every drop.

You didn't care whose fingers you were sucking, whose hand was wrapped around your cock, or whose hands were on your waist, guiding you ever further down. Your aching cock was throbbing as pressure built behind it. Your asshole twitched and your balls rose as you came hard. Groaning and sweating you splattered Shg'shthg with your cum, adding your seed to the pool of cum on his chest and belly. The smell of sex filled your head, still sticky and oozing demon cum from your nostrils.

You were pushed down. The last few inches of the Incubus's huge cock filling you as it twitched and pulsed, spraying heat into you, filling your belly and clouding your thoughts.

D'Nzro pushed you onto Shg'shthg's chest, your dripping cock landing in the pool of mixed cum as it deflated. A blanket fell on top of you, and moments later you heard the kettle boiling, the smell of hot chocolate filling the flat, ousting the omnipresent sulphur.

A few minutes later, you had a warm mug of chocolate milk and two demons cuddling you from either side, watching some terrible B-movie about a flock of evil birds.

Not a bad evening, all things considered

######################################

Hope you don't mind I took some creative license with the request!

Remember that you can submit requests through my ask box or DMs, though the lead time at the moment is the better part of a month, so be warned it probably won't be written soon, though it will be written!

[mejaemin]

lovestruck - lee donghyuck

wc: 0.4k

summary: a drabble about the first time caramel!hyuck saw you !!

warnings: nothing rlly !! lmk if there’s smth i should add

an: this is a little short but im trying not to be too upset by it !!! i think adding anything more or less would take away from it so i hope you enjoy !!! pls keep sending requests for me to add to caramel lore :>

(caramel masterlist here! ʕ ᵔⰙᵔ⠕ʔ)

───── ⋆⋅ ⊹ ⁺ 𐔌 ᩧ ຼ ͡ ৯ ♡໒⁀ ᩧຼ ꒱ིྀ ⁺ ⊹ ⋅⋆ ─────

donghyuck is sitting at a table in the food court with his friends, chatting about everything under the sun as they take a break from walking. they’re all eyeing the nearby video game store, planning to go to it after eating when someone walks out of it’s neighboring store, the one with all the pink and frilly stuff, walking next to a friend as they both make their way to one of the food stalls in the vicinity.

you’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, in the cutest yet still mature outfit. you stop, grabbing your friend’s attention before taking a photo together, your cheeks puffed as you make a kissy face with her. this may be the first time he’s seen you in his entire life, but he’s already wishing he could kiss your lips, glossy like the tanghulu in front of him with your choice of lip gloss. in your phone case he can see a polaroid, along with many other stickers and a charm that hangs from the side with hello kitty beads hanging from it. he’s never been one to be into girls with such femininity, but he sure is willing to make the change.

“hello? haechan? are you alive?” renjun’s waving his hand in front of the boy’s face, and he’s immediately shaking away the daze he felt at your beauty.

immediately to distract himself from his sudden lovestruck, pensive mood, he takes a bite of his food. “mm, yeah, what did you say?”

chenle laughs, and hyuck rolls his eyes knowing he’s been caught. “we’re watching you make goo-goo eyes at miss..” he’s sure that his friend said your name next, and that’s where chenle loses him. not only does he know the girl, but he knows your name? he’s clearly been sitting at the gaming computer too much and needs to get outside because there’s no way.

“you.. you know her?” he asks, completely ignoring anything else he said, returning his gaze to you. your back is now turned to him as you order your meal of choice.

chenle raises an eyebrow. “um, yeah? dude, she’s in like, half of my classes. there’s no way you’ve never seen her before..”

he hasn’t stopped staring throughout the entire conversation, and when you turn around with your food tray in your hand, making your way to your table, your friend points his staring out to you and you smile at him. he loses his appetite with the way butterflies cause a tornado in his stomach and he ultimately stops listening to what anyone’s saying, movie-like music playing in his head as he watches you do your thing, deciding right then and there that he’ll do anything to be with you.

───── ⋆⋅ ⊹ ⁺ 𐔌 ᩧ ຼ ͡ ৯ ♡໒⁀ ᩧຼ ꒱ིྀ ⁺ ⊹ ⋅⋆ ─────

[willyoubemycherryy]

Awkard…maybe not? (C. Sturniolo x reader)

𝑶𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓➬ 𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒂 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒐 ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎

“𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛! 𝐼𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛’𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑘 𝑢𝑝 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒!”

𝑰𝒏𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔: 𝒔𝒎𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒙, 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌, 𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒚, 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒇 𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒄, 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 ^^, 𝒂 “𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅” 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 “𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅”, 𝒑𝒆𝒕 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒐 𝑫𝑶𝑵’𝑻 𝒇𝒖̈𝒄𝒌 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, 𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒐����𝒐𝒐𝒐𝒐𝒐𝒐 𝒃𝒐𝒚

.𖤐☆彡.°

This just might be the most mortifying thing to ever happen to you in the history of your life ever.

The boys hadn’t stopped by in a while (they had a habit of sporadically popping up) and it was just you so, you figured you’d have some alone time with your favorite pink bullet.

After showering and making sure everything was nice and clean, you went to your room and got started. The mood came easy as your hands caressed all over your body, teasing your wet nub with one hand and lubing your bullet vibe with the other then inserting it up your…

The light stretch combined with the vibrations made you sigh in pleasure as you teased yourself more intensely. You felt good and everything was going great until you came and tried to take out the toy that you realized you couldn’t.

You couldn’t reach it.

Freezing in panic, your breath hitches and you swear your gonna have a stroke. You try another position and try to reach it but you still can’t. You try not to cry but tears bead in your eyes as frustration bubbles inside you. It so wasn’t fair. All you wanted to do was enjoy yourself but nooo your ass just couldn’t live.

At this point, all the sheer fear and indignation rises up your throat and you let out a horror movie worthy wail, screaming like a possessed woman.

But since your luck had been so great, the flurry of knocks and rings at your door stop you in your tracks.

Not now.

You could not handle a triplet tornado right now.

The noise at your door doesn’t stop so you throw on some pajama pants and a loose shirt to go open the door and realize on the way there that the buzzing from your vibe is audible.

Kill you now, actually.

Huffing and tossing your hair a bit, you open the door and instead of three, there’s only one.

Chris’s smile drops as he notices your face.

“Hey? I wanted to come hang n see if you wanted to mini golf with us later..but if now’s a bad tim-“ he’s speaking gently but you cut him off with a groan. No mini golf hate. “Chris, you couldn’t have just called me?” You whine and Chris throws his hands up in surrender. “Woahh, i did. You didn’t pick up.”

Well damnit.

You both get quiet and that’s when he hears it. The faint buzzing makes him furrow his brows as he looks down at you.

“What is that?”

The embarrassment makes your heart rate skyrocket as you flush before yanking him inside by his hoodie. Dragging him up to your room, you slam him against the door. Slapping your hand over his mouth you swear him to secrecy because you’d be damned if anyone, including his brothers, ever found out about this and if someone ever did, you’d know exactly who told them and you swear to Chris that you would never speak to him again.

Nodding furiously against your hand, he takes out his phone and shows you him turning it off and that’s when you let him go.

“W-what the fuck? No, what’s wrong?? And what’s with the buz-“

“I got my vibrator stuck up my ass!”

You wish you took a picture of his face as he registered your words.

“I BEG YOUR MOST GLORIOUS PARDON?!”

•

•

•

After explaining to Chris how it got stuck, he sat on your bed arguing with you about what the next steps should be.

If you weren’t humiliated before, explaining your masturbation session gone south with one of the hottest guys on the planet would certainly do it.

“It’s MY ass! It can stay where it wants!”

“But that makes no sense! If you won’t go to the hospital, then let me help!”

Pause. The visual alone buries you and you snap completely.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT! Where is your SHAME?! I’m not letting you look, let alone dig around in there!” Chris rolls his eyes before standing up to match you.

“It’s fine! Just bend over and pull your pants down! It can’t stay stuck up there!”

Fuck he has a point. Taking in a shaky breath, you look down. Tears pool in your eyes because it couldn’t stay in and you were fucking terrified.

There’s a loud sigh before you feel hands cupping your face as Chris makes you look at him. His eyes make your heart stop in a way that contradicts the “friends” part of your relationship but you ignore it.

“Look, it’s embarrassing and I get it but don’t worry about that. I just wanna help, m’not judging you. Okay, kid?” Flushing, he’s rarely ever this soothing, you nod. “Yeah, okay,” pausing, you ask, “w-what do I do? So you can…?” This time, there’s a faint blush on Chris’s cheeks as he clears his throat and moves so you can go lie down.

“Right, well…pants off, all fours, not facing me.”

Taking a deep breath you follow his instructions and Chris feels like the air just got punched out of his chest. The arousal from before is still wet on your pussy and fuck it looks so pretty. He’s praying to god he can keep it down because he really can see everything as he kneels on the carpeted floor behind you, checking in. “Alright, talk to me. S’it okay if I start now?” He’s talking lower but the feel of his breath on your skin makes you shiver, the exposure has your head spinning as you nod.

“Yeah, go ahead..but just..,”

“Hmm?“

“C-can you see? Like…everything?” You sound so cute all shy that Chris almost coos at you.

“Yeah mamas..I can see…but you’re perfectly fine.”

Letting out a breath, you nod and wait for him.

“Okay, I’m gonna start so try to relax..” Chris says, smoothing his hands up the sides of your thighs. His palms are warm and you sigh absentmindedly at the pleasant feeling. His fingers move up to your hole and the wetness makes him swear internally as he asks again, “okay?” You whisper back, “okay”, then he’s slowly sliding in, and you gasp. Tightening instinctively as you feel them wiggle around. Your blush is down to your back as you hear him swear.

“Jesus, fuck- kid”, taking in a deep breath with you but for a different reason entirely, your tight and slick but he tries to remind himself that this shouldn’t be sexy. You’re his friend who he’s definitely never been attracted to, that he’s helping.

“Ch-chris..? Do you f-feel it?” His fingers are longer than yours but they’re not that deep which your grateful for.

Luckily he does, pressing it down near your bellybutton so it doesn’t get lost again, sliding it out as it vibrates his fingers.

“Yeah, hold on-“ he cuts himself off as a moan bursts out of you. Looking down, you’re dripping wet and he’s so hard his dick hurts. You apologize profusely because this was already awkward but you couldn’t help it. Chris slowly gets it out as it falls into his palm. He turns off the pink offense as you turn to look at him.

He’s still on his knees but that’s the least of the concerns. His eyes are blown and the blue makes them even more intense, still, you awkwardly thank him.

Nodding with a half grin, he gets up and that’s when you notice he’s hard. Your eyes go wide as you stare at the outline through his sweats before Chris clears his throat, making your eyes snap up to meet his. Chris drops the toy in your hand, “There. I believe that’s yours, I’m gonna use the bathroom real quick so be back”, you barely nod before he’s gone as you process what the fuck just happened while you clean up and get new shorts on and throw your stupid toy out the window.

Meanwhile Chris is in your bathroom trying to will away his erection and not think about you as he washes his hands but it doesn’t work and he can still smell the strawberry flavored lube so he dries his hands and goes back to your room.

You’re in different shorts looking just as embarrassed as before, as he comes to sit next to you.

“Chris I-“

“Don’t worry about it Buzz, I won’t tell.” You scoff at the nickname while he chuckles, you shake your head.

“I was gonna say your dick is still hard but live your best life or whatever.” His mouth drops in an offended gasp and he fires back.

“I just found out your bad ass is an anal freak! Obviously I’m hard!”

Your eyebrow jumps in shock as you stare in disbelief before nodding with a shrug.

“That’s fair…”

It’s quiet for a minute as you two try to ignore what friendly things you don’t want to do with each other but you cave. “Well, since you helped me out…can I return the favor?” Chris drops his head back with a groan because you can’t say shit like that as he looks at you uncertainly.

“Only if you want t-“ you cut him off eagerly.

“Oh I one hundred percent want to just, y’know, you scratch my back I scratch yours...“

Nodding with a smile, Chris hurries and pulls you into his lap, kissing you on the lips.

“Well the funny thing about my back is….”

♡︎ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴍᴇ, ᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴅᴏʟʟᴀʀ😌

[littlebirdygirlywriting]

Sorry, I'm Late has a special place in my heart! It is adorable! Do you think Tyler would find out why he had to wait during the reception?

I think he most certainly can, anon. 😏

Raspberry Buttercream and Coffee Stains

Twisters Masterlist || Sequel to “Sorry, I’m Late.” (I recommend reading that one first for context, though I suppose this could be read on its own as well.)

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your wedding night starts to get steam-y… until something reminds you exactly why you were late coming down the aisle.

Author’s Note: I drifted from my usual route of Tyler’s POV and this one is entirely in your POV. I hope that’s alright. ♥️ P.s. I’m changing all my headers from GIFs to aesthetic collages, just fyi. 😊

Warnings: Fluff. Teasing. Implied Sexual Content (it’s mild, but it’s there). Wedding Night. Banter. Again, reader is described as having hair, although I’m not sure if that’s really a warning? I’ll put it anyway.

Word Count: 687

———————————————————————————

The hot steam of the shower wafted out of the bathroom as soon as you opened the door, dampening the lacy edges of your wedding dress sleeves. Condensation beaded on your forehead within seconds, and you swore you could feel it building up in your lungs as well.

“Geez, Tyler. Water warm enough?”

He smirked at you, hair wet and curling at the ends, towel wrapped dangerously low on his hips.

You directly focussed your eyes elsewhere.

“A bit brisk, actually.” He winked.

You rolled your eyes, a grin sneaking onto your face.

“Uhuh. Did you get all the cake out?”

He tilted his head towards you in response, and you mussed his hair, ruffling it. You still weren’t sure how you’d overshot the cake so far from his mouth that you managed to get it into his hair during the reception, but Tyler hadn’t objected.

Not when it meant he got to do it right back to you.

“I see you’re still sporting raspberry buttercream yourself,” he said, reaching across the distance to pick a fragment of icing out of the hair closest to your face.

The space in the room vanished… until a smug grin spread across his face.

“You tryin’ to seduce me, sweetheart?”

You scoffed playfully, pulling out of his reach.

“Har har. Why would I? When I–” you placed a hand squarely on the front of your chest, mischief rising up on your face, “Already have you wrapped around my little finger.”

You twirled your hand in the tornado wrangler’s signature motion.

Tyler barked out a laugh, eyes crinkling in the way you loved so much. When he returned his focus to you, he was shaking his head, smile bright against his evening stubble. “You really are something else, you know that?”

You hummed. “I’ve been told as much.”

“Well, good.” Tyler closed the distance between you before you could blink, arms wrapping around you in a firm, secure grip and tugging you close. Heat washed into your cheeks, down your neck. His eyes stared into your soul, softly, gently tugging on threads to see where each one weaved. His next words were low, sending your head spinning and a buzz coursing through your veins. “I wouldn’t want you to forget it.”

The breath in your lungs vaporized.

Your lips crashed together.

Desperate, hungry, you let him pull you even closer, flush against his damp skin, leaning you back against the bathroom door. His hands roamed up the sides of your dress, fire lighting in their path, until…

“Ow!” You broke the kiss.

Surprise. Confusion. Concern. All passed across Tyler’s face in a single heartbeat. His hands raised from your body, hovering, but no longer touching.

“Baby? Are–are you alright?”

Slow shock morphed into realisation.

Of course… A giggle rose to your lips. Then a laugh. Of course this would happen.

Tyler’s brows drew together, utter confusion etched onto every feature of his face except for a faint, bemused smile touching his lips.

“You, uh, you mind filling me in on what’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing, Tyler. It’s just–” Another laugh interrupted your explanation. “I just forgot about something, is all.”

Tyler’s brow raised dramatically as you leaned over, untucked a fold in your dress, and pulled out a pin. Then two… then five.

You set them on the edge of the bathroom sink and smiled sheepishly. “You, uh, you wanna know why I was late to the altar?”

Tyler’s eyes searched yours.

You released the fold of fabric, revealing the dark brown coffee stain smeared like poorly prepared tie-dye over the front of your skirt.

Tyler’s lips twitched, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Is that–”

“Yes,” you muttered begrudgingly, holding a hand up in front of his face. “And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

His eyes crinkled, mouth twisting and contorting awkwardly to prevent a smile.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You huffed, trying and failing to keep your own smile at bay.

Tyler broke into a grin, lowering his lips to yours. Your heart fluttered and melted in your chest. Sweet, like raspberry buttercream and coffee stains.

[suzukiblu]

Day thirty of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU. And yes I DID win NaNoWriMo, thank you for asking. ❤ This is the last day of NaNo, obviously, so I'm gonna take a little bit of a break from this fic due to being just sliiiiightly burned out from writing 1k+ a day in it for the past month and all, but I intend to start editing it and posting chapters of it on AO3 in the next week or two, so it'll be both easily bookmark/subscribe-able and updating on there soon!

They go through all the boxes, Tim suffers a bit for it, and Kon laughs and makes him suffer more, the bastard. It’s fun, though, even if now Tim would really prefer to never stick his hand in another box ever again in his life. 

The last box Kon directs him to is full of layers of distinctly cashmere-esque fabrics, and Kon smiles a little and ducks his head again. Tim is disgruntled, but charmed. 

They wander through the exhibits, and Tim feels pretty good about his activity-picking when he realizes Kon’s stopping to look at all of them and actually seems interested in all of them. They have to circle back a couple of times so Kon isn’t doing anything too super-powered in front of other guests, but they do hit all of them. Some of them are more interesting than others, in Tim’s opinion, but Kon still tries them all. Tim wouldn’t complain even if he were bored out of his mind, though, given how invested Kon gets in sorting and mixing the tables full of colored glass beads and making waves and whirlpools in the water fixtures and manipulating the kaleidoscopes and chimes and everything else. 

Kon spends the least amount of time with the auditory and olfactory stations, though he’s happy to try all the little hors d'oeuvres that Tim assumes are supposed to be covering “taste” for the exhibit. Visual he seems generally curious about, but definitely tactile wins. Like–far and away, does tactile win. They spend twice as much time at the tactile stations Kon is least interested in as they do any two of the others. Tim doesn’t mention it in case it’s not on purpose. He still doesn’t want to make Kon feel self-conscious or anything. 

Anyway, the tactile parts of the exhibit were the whole reason he picked this as a date activity, so what, is he going to be bothered by having made the correct deduction or assumption or whatever? Not freaking likely. Actually if anything he’s going to need to privately gloat to himself about this later. Bask in it a bit. 

Also take some notes for future dates and things to buy Kon and whatever else. 

More cashmere, to start. A lot more. 

Tim sneaks a few more pictures of Kon as they walk from station to station. Kon laughs at him every time he catches him and takes one of him too, which is incredibly flustering. Tim cons him into a few selfies in self-defense, which turns out to be a terrible idea because it still involves him ending up in pictures and, worse, involves him ending up in pictures with Kon, who takes the excuse to press in close and kiss his cheek and just be all kinds of appallingly adorable, the asshole. 

Kon uses the first picture he took as Tim’s contact picture and makes one of their shared selfies his phone background. Tim is mildly mortified but also desperately wants to earn lockscreen status, which is a terrible idea because what if Kon ever takes his phone out around the team or Red Tornado or, god forbid, Bruce? 

Tim should definitely make sure Kon doesn’t put him on his lockscreen. 

. . . but like, if he did . . . 

There’s a clay station. Kon stays at that one the longest, making weird little abstract shapes and surprisingly accurate miniature versions of the sculptures tucked away in the corners of the gallery with TTK. Tim hadn’t even noticed him looking at any of the sculptures, but in retrospect he never actually needed to “look” at them, did he? And on that note, Tim guesses the accuracy shouldn’t be any kind of surprising either–Kon must have a really good sense of spatial awareness, if nothing else, and of how things “should” be shaped. 

By the time they get through the last station of the exhibit, they’ve been at the museum almost twice as long as Tim’s most optimistic estimates had allowed for and he’s had to sneak off to the “bathroom” for five minutes to push their reservation back an hour. Tim has absolutely zero intention of rushing Kon, especially if he’s having a good time, so it just makes more sense to reschedule than to put him on a schedule. 

Though he did have to actually make sure to go into the bathroom to do it, since Kon might’ve noticed him not heading that direction. Tim doubts Kon’s paying attention to what anyone’s doing in the bathroom, for obvious reasons, but he still probably would’ve noticed the date he was briefly concerned might be a supervillain just ducking around a corner to make a phone call ten yards away, no matter how Bat-stealthy said date was about it. Like, that seems like a stupid thing to expect him not to notice. 

They stop by the gift shop on their way out–well, Tim detours Kon to it with subtle herding, anyway–and Tim manages to convince Kon to pick out a couple of things. He ends up with a couple of sort of fidget toy-type puzzles and a little three-pack of little tubs of a clay-like play sand in bright colors, which Tim thinks is probably meant to function as some kind of stim toy and was probably something specifically sourced to go with the event, and Tim “accidentally” throws in a couple of fancy candy bars from the front register. Again: Kon needs calories that weren’t directly sourced from cafeteria food from a definitely-not-OSHA-compliant cloning lab. 

Maybe Tim can send Kon a fruit basket or ten while he’s still stuck at Cadmus. Those probably come in tropical themes. 

Alternately, maybe he can just kidnap Kon outright and trap him in a nice new cul-de-sac until he gets used to it. He could get him actual groceries, then. Lots of them. Fruit and vegetables and entire spreads of “things that weren’t made in an OSHA-noncompliant cafeteria”. That’d be nice. 

Also he could send that Hawaiian food truck by on the daily, if they were up for it. 

They share the candy bars on the walk to the restaurant–meaning, Tim takes two perfunctory bites of each and tricks Kon into eating the rest with basically zero effort–and it’s . . . nice, honestly, just walking around together. Just being together. Not that this is new knowledge, after the mall, but it’s still novel enough that Tim can’t help indulging in and enjoying the experience. They don’t usually get much time alone together, much less time that isn’t spent either fighting supervillains or dealing with emergencies. So–it’s nice, yeah. 

Tim likes it, he means. 

They make their adjusted reservation, and Kon peers around the restaurant awkwardly as they’re led to their table. Tim resolves to do whatever it takes to get him to relax, up to and including embarrassing himself in some way or another. He’s probably going to do that anyway, given how most of these meet-ups have been going. 

“Does it qualify for ‘nice’ enough so far?” he asks once they’re seated, and Kon blushes, then flashes him a grin. 

“It’s okay, I guess,” he says, then bites his lip with a brief flicker of insecurity as he glances down at the menu–specifically the prices on the menu. “Um . . . are you sure you wanna spend this much on me, though . . . ?”

“I want to spend my entire trust fund on you,” Tim says matter-of-factly, and Kon lets out a weird little laugh and ducks his head again. It works a little better this time, since he has the menu to hide behind right now. 

“I already like you, man,” he says, which is still inexplicable but not something Tim is actually gonna argue with. “You don’t have to keep buying me stuff.” 

“I like buying you stuff,” Tim says. “I’m gonna keep doing it as long as you’ll let me.” And after that, he’ll figure out a way to sneak doing it. 

“Just because you like it?” Kon says, glancing at him over the top of the menu. 

“Because I like you,” Tim says. “I mean, no offense to the hostess, but I wouldn’t enjoy buying her dinner this much.” 

Kon bites his lip, then ducks his head again. His face is red. Tim feels the urge to kiss him again. He probably should’ve found time to do that on the walk over or something. Or as soon as he first saw him. Or just at any point so far tonight, because the urge is getting seriously distracting now. 

“So when you said you wanted to go somewhere after this too . . .” Kon trails off, flushing darker. 

“There’s a late show at the planetarium about the sun’s role in our solar system and the life cycle of stars,” Tim says. It might be too loose an association, but . . . “I thought you might be interested in checking it out.” 

Kon stares at him for a moment, then turns absolutely crimson and hides behind his menu entirely. 

“Okay,” he manages, his voice a little cracked. Tim’s pretty sure he could’ve said he’d rented them a hotel room and gotten a less embarrassed reaction. So . . . that’s a thing. 

Okay. 

“I really do want to spend the money on you,” he says. “Apartment and all.” 

“An apartment,�� Kon says, glancing over the top of his menu at him again. “And bills and groceries and an . . . allowance.” 

“Yes,” Tim says. No point in beating around the bush, he figures. It’s all things he’s already told Kon anyway. 

“And not just because I saved your life,” Kon says. 

“Not just because you saved my life,” Tim agrees. “I just want to give you those things. Or anything you want, really. Which–well, what would you want?” 

“Um,” Kon says, just barely lowering his menu as his eyes skate away. “Well . . . could we like . . . keep hanging out outside the theoretical apartment and stuff? If we did . . . that?" 

Tim feels something absolutely giddy and absolutely painful in his chest, hearing that question. Just–what does Kon think, that he just wants to toss a lease at him and never see him again? Or just only come over to . . . actually, wait, maybe Kon does think–ugh. Ugh. Fuck, that is not what he’s trying to make Kon worry about here. 

“Yes,” Tim says firmly. “As much as you want.” 

“Mm,” Kon says, biting his lip again. His face is still red. Tim wants to give him every single thing the world hasn’t given him, which he knows for a fact is a truly fucked-up and probably borderline-insurmountable amount of things. 

But he still wants to give it all to him anyway, and then think up a few more things besides.

[thevampiremarie]

…treehouse chapter 35 teaser? Ish????

Johanna shifts her gaze back to Morpheus, tilting her chin up in defiance. “If guilt has left you enough strength to take up mine honor’s pawn, then stoop.”

Dream strides over to the white glove without hesitation. As he holds a hand out, using magic to coax the glove off the floor and into his palm, you notice the embroidery on Morpheus’s black robes for the first time. Long jet-black beads overlap to form pointed scales that flow down his back and wrap around his arms. The scales pour down the sides of his billowing sleeves, giving the impression of wings.

“I take it up, and by my sword, I swear I’ll answer thee. I brought her to this place, yes. The rest of the crimes I am accused of issue from the rancour of a villain, a recreant and most degenerate traitor.” His voice is too soft, too serene. The silence as you watch a tornado in the distance and realize it’s heading right towards you.

“You have six human hours until we meet once more, Endless.” Johanna Constantine turns on her heel before leaving, her back an even starker symbol of disrespect.

Shout out to William Shakespeare for writing some of the most god tier duel challenges in the English language (I referenced dialogue straight from Richard II if you’re a Shakespeare fan!)

IT’S DUEL OVER READER TIME!!!

[arabaka]

For Reigen Week 2024, Hosted by @wings-of-scarlet-light DAY O1. COSTUME/FASHION

₊˚ʚ ☁️ ₊˚ ♡ ﾟ. content warnings ⤸ reigen arataka x gn! reader. sfw. reigen and reader are in a relationship with a baby. 233 words.

Reigen is just up the steps to Spirits and Such when he sees Serizawa standing at the top of the staircase. The man looks confused, which makes him confused. 

"Reigen-san? But you were just..." Serizawa's head whips from Reigen back to the door, a bead of sweat forming and dropping from his temple. 

"Huh?" Reigen's eyebrows twitch before knitting together, "Come on Serizawa, out with it!" 

Okay, so he's a little exasperated; the house call took much longer than anticipated. The consultation should have only taken an hour at most but with a tornado of three kids rampaging the house... Three hours later and Reigen's about done with today but that isn’t to say Reigen dislikes kids…

He's just not a big fan of any that aren't his own.

Coming into the office, Reigen didn't know what to expect, especially after the word salad that was Serizawa's panicked hello (now revealed to be a ruse to hurry Reigen in), but it certainly wasn't this:

You and your baby at his desk, both of you wearing matching gray suits. Yours is clearly stolen from his closet but your son’s? That’s new. Your baby already looks a lot like Reigen, with that blond mop of hair and already incredibly expressive eyes, but with him wearing a suit that looks just like his dad's… And his tiny hands outstretched towards him, pink lips pursed and blowing raspberries, it’s just what Reigen needs to feel alive again.

[hannahssimblr]

It is by coincidence, not intention, I join the meditators. The sign, soul healing meditation, only happened to invite me down a pathway, shaded, winding through the banyans. I followed it to escape sun that beat so intensely into my head I thought I’d faint at the beach, and has me missing the downpour of Bangkok. It is not out of curiosity I followed the sign, for I’m not, and never have been, curious about spirituality or any vaguely mystical practices. It was a need to cool down. And now I have, actually.

The meditation studio is cool and shaded, the trickle of water from a fountain outside on the lawn, birdsong in the trees. The others shuffle around, get seated on the floor. They’re Buddhists, aren’t they? People who meditate? Well, I’m a protestant, and not even an acceptable one; unable to recite even one complete verse of The Holly and the Ivy at the Church of Ireland Christmas service by heart. I stay at the back of the room by the door, close enough to my shoes, beaten up white runners among a pile of leather sandals, in case someone will be able to tell by looking at me I shouldn’t be doing this. An imposter amongst them.

God, they move glacially, these people. Dyed silk scarves thrown across their chests, serene looks on their faces like they’re floating in the clouds. Nine others, a combined age of one thousand. These are the kinds of people I get trapped behind on the street when I’m running for the train, ambling along in groups, aimlessly gazing at the architecture. Or in the supermarket, not getting out of the way of the fridge, too busy contemplating different salamis to let me grab what I’ve already decided I want. Is it places like this, meditation retreats, where they learn to be so slow?

Ah, there he is, speaking now. The bald man with the interesting face. The guru, or whatever. Nobody has explained to me what I should call him, and I say guru, because of this rumour I heard about a lad from school. Did too many magic mushrooms and got obsessed with some spiritual bigwig in Costa Rica. Made him the lock screen on his phone. His guru, he says. Wears wooden beads around his neck and let his hair get all long allegedly. My hair’s all long now, too, actually. Maybe it’s fitting I’m here, finding my guru, too. This could be the beginning of a life changing, enriching kind of relationship. 

“Just breathe,” he’s saying. “Feel the breath as it enters. Let it soften you. Focus only on it, and let other thoughts go.”

Breathing is extremely easy for me. I just do it, like, there it is in my nose and all. Going into my lungs. I can feel that like I’m supposed to.

“Imagine you are a tree with roots deep in the earth, grounding you where you sit.”

Right, yeah. I can imagine I am a tree too if I want to. This is like drama in primary school, when the teacher put us into groups and had us pretend to be the four elements. “Jude, into the wind group,” she said, and I pretended to be a tornado until I accidentally knocked the drying art projects off the rack, getting wet paint on the side of my uniform. Insisting I did it on purpose, she sent me to the principal for a telling off. Years later, I’d feel bad for ruining the fun. I was like that; always getting too carried away with myself, taking the fun too far. Probably still am. 

“Watch the thoughts come and go like clouds. Try not to follow them.”

So what am I supposed to do, then? Just sit? Sit and breathe? I do sit, but soon the floor is uncomfortable. I shift, and the boards creak under my weight. There I am, making noises again, shifting around too much, my clothing the only clothing making any noise in a room of people, and by the way, there’s an itch on my eyebrow. What do I do about an itch? Scratch it, or mindfully observe it until it goes away? 

 A mosquito. My senses are fine-tuned to the presence of them now, three weeks in Southeast Asia having primed me for hypervigilance. Surely another person is bothered by the presence of a mosquito. It buzzes. If it bites me, can I open my eyes or move, or do I need to mindfully observe the biting?

Guru is still on the tree thing, I think, though I lost track of what he was saying. “...like the roots. In stillness, you are both grounded and free.”

I am meant to be thinking of the present moment, and I am thinking about mosquitoes. This wasn’t supposed to be hard. I shift again, in frustration this time, the discomfort secondary. I peel one eye open and peer at the others. All of them serene, hands in their laps, backs perfectly straight, their breath slow and even. Are they having some sort of experience I am exempt from? I think, annoyed, actually, at their engrossment in the process. This is it? All that meditation is, is breathing and sitting and thinking about how I’m doing just that? I expected something more, as much as I expected this to be simpler. I can’t sit for three seconds without my mind wandering. There it goes again. Wandering, thinking about itself wandering. Fuck sake.

I take a deep breath, shuddering with emotion, closed eyes twitching. Of all the skills to be bad at, I am bad at doing nothing. My life is a joke. I was good at school without wanting to be. Maths, even, a subject everyone automatically assumed I'd be shit at. Tutoring Jen back then, Pythagoras theorem and so on, all of it falling into place in my head without effort while she struggled to the point of tears. Art, brilliant. The way the tutors at college fawned over my pieces, saying things about how wonderful I am, what vision, what creativity, what skill. Extraordinary talent. And people. I excel. I wish I was confident like you are, they say, up in my face at the pub Fridays after school. You just know what to say to people, you know how to make them laugh. Funny boy, clever boy, lucky boy, so bloody gorgeous. You know I fancied you for ages, Jude, was too shy to say something. I shouldn’t be saying it, so drunk, but you’re beautiful. I’d say people tell you that all the time, don’t they? Dangerous beauty. When you look at me like that, I forget my own name. A natural leader, you are, man. You just say what you want and everyone runs to give it to you. You’d do serious damage with that personality if you wanted to. Could lead people astray. Cult leader, Turner, that’s you! Ha!

“...Continue following the breath. Now, let it flow through your arms. From your shoulders to the tips of your fingers.”

No. Sorry, no. I can't. I untangle my legs from underneath me and get up. Loud, obnoxious creaks on the floorboards which no one reacts to. The guru’s eyes remain closed and his lined face tranquil, likely treating the disruption like a passing cloud, as my stockinged feet pound across the floor to retrieve my shoes. The pile of leather Jesus sandals topples, while I smash my feet into my old runners and yank the laces into submission. I am noisy, not just now, but intrinsically, shamefully. Even the way I open the door, which squeaks on metal hinges, swishes and bangs shut behind me, reverberating through the hallway.

I pass the sign, the arrow in the opposite direction. Face hot, teeth clenched. Meditation hour, it says. It has been seven minutes. 

“Did you ever go to the mindfulness session?” Jonas says later, lying in the bunk above me, triumphant since eating a banana and not vomiting it back up. 

“Yeah, actually,” I say. “It was shit, though. Not going again.”

“Thought so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hm.” Outside, the night is alive with crickets and insects that hit against the mosquito nets in pursuit of our light. “I guess you would struggle with meditation.”

“Well, no, because I struggle with nothing.”

A sleepy chuckle. “Okay.”

Too hot. I kick the covers to the end of the bed. “I can do anything I want.”

“Whatever your ego needs to believe, but nobody is good at everything.”

I grunt. 

“Does it bother you to hear this? Or do you not believe it?”

“Actually, I’m too tired to talk, Jonas. Go to sleep.”

And he does. The bed jitters as he rolls onto his side and drifts off, soon snoring contentedly while I stare at the slats above me. Think of the present moment, Jude, go on. Think of your breath. The way the bed feels. The lumps inside the mattress, and the existence of your little toe.

But fifteen seconds of trying, and I am a thousand miles away again, thinking of everything and everyone instead. Sleeping, eventually, only to escape the racket in my head. A horrible meditator. Useless. Good at everything, it seems, but the simplest thing in the world.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[rootedinrevisions]

Twisted Fate

SUMMARY: In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that ravages her hometown, Lexi finds herself trapped in the rubble of her destroyed home. Years ago, she and Tyler Owens were inseparable until he went down a path of storm chasing and YouTube fame. Now, as fate would have it, Tyler is chasing the very tornado that has torn through her town. Miraculously, amidst the chaos, Lexi manages to call out for help, and to her disbelief, Tyler hears her cries. Risking his own safety, he navigates the debris to reach her, pulling her to safety just in time. In the moments of relief and gratitude that follow, old feelings resurface, reminding her of what they once shared.

WORD COUNT: 3.3k

It was an early summer day in Oklahoma. The air was thick and humid, the kind of day where even the breeze felt sticky. I had just gotten home from the grocery store and had stepped out of my beat-up used car as beads of sweat started to form on my forehead. With a sigh, I opened the trunk and reached for the first bag. As I grabbed it, something caught my eye. I glanced towards the horizon and noticed a dark cloud beginning to take shape, its edges curling ominously. My heart skipped a beat. I knew what that meant. A storm was brewing. And I had never seen one form as quickly as this one.

Panic set in. I hurriedly reached back into the trunk, scooping all the grocery bags into my arms, despite knowing it should probably be a two-trip job. The weight of the bags strained my muscles, but I pressed on, making a beeline for the front door. My fingers fumbled with the keys, slick with sweat, but on the third attempt, I managed to unlock the door and burst inside. I rushed to the kitchen, barely managing to throw the grocery bags onto the counter. The bags tumbled over and their contents scattered, the lemons I had bought making light thuds as they rolled off the counter and onto the linoleum. But I didn't care. My thoughts were already outside, on the storm that was rapidly approaching.

I barely had time to catch my breath before I heard the tornado sirens outside. My eyes darted around the kitchen, taking in the mess of groceries on the counter. But there was something more important. Phoebe. I had to find her and get to the basement.

I rushed into the living room, scanning the room quickly. No sign of her. I moved from room to room, calling out her name. I checked the kitchen. Then the dining room. Then the bathroom where the litter was. The wind had picked up outside, catching my attention as it rattled the windows.

"Phoebe!" I yelled, my voice laced with panic now. I ran to the living room hoping I would find her quickly. I ducked down to check under the couch, but nothing except a few toys she had pushed under there at some point. Then I hurried into the bedroom. There she was, curled up on my bed, oblivious to the chaos outside.

"Come on, Phoebe," I urged, scooping her up into my arms. She meowed in protest of her nap being disturbed but didn't struggle. With Phoebe secured, I dashed towards the door that led to the basement stairs. Once I was in the basement I frantically looked around trying to think of where the safest place to take shelter would be. Think. Think. Think. Tyler. What would Tyler tell me right now? Interior rooms. He had always emphasized interior rooms.

With this in mind, I decided on the bathroom, specifically the shower stall with its solid walls. I clutched Phoebe tightly, as I stepped inside and then sat down on the cool tile floor. With my knees pulled to my chest, I positioned Phoebe between my legs and chest, her small body trembling against me.

I reached over and grabbed a towel to pull it over my head, and made a makeshift shield against any debris if the tornado hit. I could hear the roar outside, a deep, menacing sound that sent shivers down my spine. The tornado was making its way through the neighborhood, and I could feel the pressure in the air change.

I bowed my head and clenched my eyes shut. I hugged Phoebe tighter. The sounds above grew louder and more terrifying. A loud crash reverberated through the house, signaling the tornado's destructive path. I didn't dare look. The deafening whirring sound of the tornado moving over my home drowned out all other noises. It was so loud, I could barely think. Phoebe's claws dug deeper into my skin. But I held on tighter, whispering soothing words to her, trying to calm both of us as the storm raged on. Minutes felt like hours as I endured the storm. The noise, the pressure, the fear - it was overwhelming. Yet, I stayed there, clutching Phoebe, hoping and praying that the storm would pass and leave us both unscathed.

As the roar of the tornado began to fade, a haunting silence took its place. Tears started to stream down my face. I held onto Phoebe as tightly as I could without crushing her, knowing she was all I had left. The weight of everything I'd lost pressed down on me, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing her too. Memories of my parents flashed through my mind. I wondered if this was what they had gone through in their last moments. It had been four years since the tornado that took them away. I had gone storm chasing with Tyler that day, watching in stunned silence as the tornado tore through my hometown. By the time Tyler and I had fought our way back through the rubble to help, there was nothing left to save. They were already gone.

The memories of the hours, days, and weeks that followed were a blur of grief and disbelief. I knew the tornado had shattered me. It changed me and made me start shutting people out. It made me start shutting Tyler out. He had lived for storms, and I had fought him every step of the way after the tornado. Every time he tried to go out storm chasing, I tried to stop him. The arguments grew more frequent, the distance between us widening with each passing day. Eventually, it had all crumbled, and he had walked out of my life.

As the storm's final remnants passed, I clung to Phoebe, feeling the trembling of her small body against mine. The quiet after the storm was almost as deafening as its fury. I knew I had to find a way to move forward, but the path ahead felt impossibly long and filled with memories I couldn't escape. It was a living hell I'd have to go through a second time. I closed my eyes once more, holding Phoebe, trying to gather the strength to face whatever came next.

I lifted the towel just slightly, peeking out to make sure it was safe. Immediately, I scrunched my eyes shut as the bright sun streamed in from where the ceiling should have been. Carefully, I fully removed the towel from my head. Looking around, I realized it was over. I looked down assessing my state. Small pools of blood were forming on my thighs from where Phoebe's claws had dug into my skin. A burning sensation on my forehead caught my attention. I reached up, and as soon as my fingertips made contact, I winced in pain. I pulled them away from my head and held them in front of me. Crimson red.

It was then that I noticed the several splinters of wood and shards of glass embedded in my skin and the towel. The towel had stopped most of them, but a few had poked through and cut me. I then looked around at my surroundings and realized there was wood everywhere. What appeared to be a piece of the frame of what used to be my house was wedged less than a foot above where I sat. If it had hit a matter of inches lower I surely wouldn't have survived.

I tried to stand up, but the weight of the rubble on top of me was too heavy. There wasn't enough room for me to get my legs under me and stand up, and I was too weak to lift it on my own. Panic began to set in as I struggled to move, feeling trapped and helpless beneath the debris. I held Phoebe close, her small, warm body a reminder that I wasn't completely alone. But the reality of my situation was sinking in. I needed help, and fast.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, making the world blur. I began to feel light-headed, my body struggling to cope with the stress and injuries. I heard faint sirens in the distance, growing closer with each passing moment. I closed my eyes, deciding to wait it out for help. However, the effort of staying conscious became too much, and I slipped into unconsciousness.

I groggily opened my eyes, my eyelids feeling like twenty-pound weights. The heartbreaking meows of Phoebe drew me back to consciousness. She was perched on a piece of wood above me, having jumped up there while I was out. I tried to call her back, but she just looked at me, and then out into the distance.

Realization hit me - it was getting dark. I had been out for longer than I thought. Hours instead of minutes.

Phoebe suddenly jumped away. I tried to call out to her, but it was no use. Great. Just freaking great. I'll never find her now, I thought to myself.

"Hello! Does anyone need help?" A male voice called out. "Is anyone there?"

The voice was oddly familiar, but I couldn't place it. Then I heard his name.

"Tyler, come on. I think we have some people stuck over here." Another male voice said.

Tyler. He was here. If I could just get enough air into my lungs to call out his name, he might hear me.

I took a couple of deep breaths and mustered all my strength to call out to him. "T-Tyler!"

"Hello?" I heard him call back out. He had heard me. Relief washed over me.

"H-here," I muttered, slowly sticking my hand up.

"I need some help over here!" You heard Tyler yell out. His footsteps grew closer as he climbed through the rubble of what was left of your house. "Don't worry, we're coming for you!"

Holding my arm up felt like a fifty-pound weight, but I kept it up so he wouldn't lose sight of me.

"I'm almost there!" I heard him call out.

Finally, I looked up and saw him standing there. He was covered in dirt, his clothes soaked. As Tyler's eyes met mine, a flicker of shock and panic crossed his face. His steps momentarily halted. For a moment, he just stood there, frozen in place, the reality of the situation sinking in. Recognition seemed to dawn on him, and his expression went from shock to determination.

"Lex?" He breathed out, his voice a mixture of disbelief and relief. "Hold on, we're going to get you out."

The world around me seemed to blur as he quickly regained his composure, his eyes narrowing as he assessed the wood frame trapping me. Without any hesitation he lunged forward, pushing away the piece of wood enough for me to crawl out from underneath it.

Tyler extended his hand to me, his eyes locked on mine with a mixture of concern and determination. I grasped his hand, feeling the strength and warmth in his grip as he helped pull me to my feet. As I rose, my legs wobbled beneath me, and I stumbled briefly.

Before I could fall, Tyler's other hand shot out, grabbing my arms to steady me. His touch was firm, yet gentle, grounding me in the moment.

"Easy now," he murmured, his voice soothing amidst the chaos surrounding me.

I looked up at him, seeing the familiar features of his face etched with worry and relief. For a moment, everything else faded away - the destruction, the pain, the memories - and all that mattered was that he was here.

Tyler's eyes scanned you with concern. "Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice filled with urgency.

I glanced around frantically, searching for Phoebe. "Phoebe," I gasped. "Where's Phoebe?"

Tyler shook his head, his face a mix of regret and reassurance. "I don't know where she is, but we'll find her. First, I need to get you help."

A wave of dizziness hit me again, and I winced, clutching my head. "My head...it hurts."

Tyler looked up at my forehead and frowned. "You've got a pretty good cut," he said, examining the wound. "But we'll get you fixed up at the first aid station. Just hold on a bit longer."

As I glanced down, I noticed tape wrapped around his ankle, a makeshift bandage. I quietly mumbled, "You're hurt."

Tyler looked down, brushing it off with a dismissive gesture. "It's just a little sprain. Nothing to worry about," he said, though his tone was strained. I could tell it was hurting him, but he was pushing it to the side to help others.

It was such a Tyler thing to do. Not the Tyler everyone saw on YouTube. Not the Tornado Wrangler. But Tyler Owens. The Tyler I knew. Or at least used to know.

He then glanced around at the wreckage of what used to be my home. I could see the gears turning as he assessed the situation, trying to figure out the best way to get me out and towards downtown where help was waiting.

"Alright," Tyler said, his voice steady, "let's get you out of here. We'll find a way through the rubble and get you to safety. Just stay close and try to keep moving as best you can."

With that, he began clearing a path, carefully guiding me through the debris, his presence a steadying force amid the chaos. Tyler managed to guide me out of the basement and through the rubble to the street. But just making it that far had drained me, and I felt like I had nothing left. "I need to stop for a second," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

I turned and looked down at the mess that was once my home, the debris and destruction a stark reminder of the devastation my town had seen today.

Tyler followed my gaze, his eyes softening with empathy. "Hey...all of that can be replaced," he said gently. "But you're still here. That's what matters."

He glanced around, his attention refocusing back to the task at hand. "The first aid station is just four blocks down. Do you think you can make it with some help?"

I nodded, though the effort made me feel even more exhausted. Just then, another volunteer ran over, his face concerned.

"I'm here to help. What can I do?" The man asked.

"Javi, can you take her other side? We need to get her to the first aid station. She's got a head injury they're going to need to take care of." Tyler said. With an arm around each of them, I started to make my way slowly toward the first aid station. Each step was a struggle, but the presence of Tyler and Javi provided the support I needed.

I had made it about halfway to the first aid station when my legs suddenly felt like jelly. "I...I can't do it," I mumbled, feeling as though another foot forward would make me collapse.

"No, no, no. Stay with me, Lex," Tyler said, his voice firm yet gentle as he tightened his arm around my waist, offering support. His hand on my waist was both comforting and foreign.

Javi turned to Tyler with a look of concern. "Do you know her?"

Tyler nodded his face a mixture of focus and weariness. "Old acquaintance," he said casually.

Acquaintance. The words stung more than I would have expected. After all, it had been almost four years since Tyler and I broke up. I shouldn't care what label he attached to our previous relationship. But to reduce our past to something so detached, so impersonal, hurt deeply. But I knew I had bigger issues right now than the pain of old wounds. My energy was slipping away, and the thought of collapsing was a real and frightening possibility.

"Just a little further," Tyler urged, his voice full of determination. "You're almost there. We've got you."

Javi must have felt my weight getting heavier and me relying on him and Tyler more and more with each step. "Tyler, we may need to carry her the rest of the way."

Just then a scream split through the quiet night. "Help! My son! Somebody help!" came from a house on what was probably the street over.

Tyler looked in the direction of the cries. "You go help them. I'll get her to help and then come back with others to help." Tyler said.

A few moments later my feet started to give out entirely. Tyler quickly assessed the situation. Then without hesitation, he bent down, placed a hand behind my knees and lifted me into his arms.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I looked at him. "I-I can try to walk."

"I don't know if you'll make it much further. And we need to get you to help."

I could feel the slight limp in his steps, the result of his injured ankle, with each step he took. It was clear that the pain in his leg wasn't slowing him down. His focus was solely on the task at hand. For a moment I thought about trying to get him to set me down on account of his leg. But I knew it was no good. Tyler Owens was the most stubborn person I had ever met. And once he had his mind made up, there was no changing it.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"What? You?" Tyler asked as he glanced down at me before his eyes moved back to the road in front of him. "You'll be fine. That cut on your head is pretty bad, though. They have paramedics that will get you all taken care of."

"No, I mean the town."

He paused for a moment before saying anything, pondering his words carefully. "It's a near loss. There's not much left."

A blanket of sadness washed over me as I leaned my head against Tyler's chest. It felt oddly comforting being here with him. I had no idea what I was going to do, but having a sliver of familiarity at that moment was nice.

"Are they doing anything for lost animals?"

Tyler scoffed and shook his head at me. "Still worried about that furball, huh?" He must've been able to tell that I was very serious and I saw his expression shift to a more serious one. "Yeah. There's a tent with some volunteers collecting any animals we find. They're examining them, giving them food and water, and trying to get them reunited with their owners. "Did you have her with you when you took shelter?"

“Yeah. She was with me the whole time. Until just before you showed up. I-I think she saw you or heard you. And I know it sounds crazy but I think she was trying to get you to help.”

He chuckled and then shook his head. "Now I know you hit your head. That cat would never willingly come to me."

He had a point. Phoebe was never a big fan of Tyler when we were together. In her defense, he made fun of her namesake, my favorite character from Friends, every time he saw me. I wouldn't like someone who made fun of me every time I saw him either.

"We'll find her though. I'm going to get you dropped off with the medics, and then I'll go to the tent and add her name to the list. If they find her, they'll get her back to you." He reassured me.

My eyes started to grow heavy, and I felt my head start to lean back as it became increasingly difficult to stay awake.

"Hey, stay with me," Tyler said as he gently shook me. His voice was firm but soothing, a beacon of encouragement amid my growing fatigue.

"I'm tired," I mumbled as I struggled to keep my eyes open.

"I know you are, but you've got to stay awake until I can get you to help. Just a little bit longer." He glanced ahead his gaze focused. "I see the tent up ahead. We're almost there."

His words were a mixture of encouragement and urgency, and they gave me a small surge of strength. I managed a faint nod, fighting against the overwhelming exhaustion. I turned my head and saw the first aid station coming into view, offering a glimmer of hope. I clung to hope, pushing through the fatigue with every step Tyler took.

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