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red-riding-wood · 8 months

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I Want You to Want Me

Pairing: Neil Lewis x F!Reader

Fandom: Watching the Detectives

Summary: Neil receives a frantic call and finds you outside of Gumshoe after a date night gone wrong. Secretly habouring feelings for you ever since the two of you met, he finds you oddly irresistable in your tears and torn fishnets.

Warnings: SMUT, mutual pining, dub-con touching, dryhumping, riding, foreplay, teasing, begging (m), masturbation (m), clothed sex (semi), Neil being a wet paper towel, so just Neil being Neil, pervy Neil, switch!Neil, slight dom but mostly sub!Neil because c'mon guys it's NEIL, slight dom!reader, body worship, public sex (technically?), premature ejaculation (sort of?), angst, some fluff? by my standards anyway lol so take that with a grain of salt -- this ended up being more wholesome than I thought it would be

Inspired by this cover of I Want You To Want Me (the reader's song) and Creep (Neil's song) by Radiohead.

Huge thanks to @your-nanas-house for getting me started with a prompt for this and cheering me on!

Totally nicked the "jock boyfriend" inspo from @cillianmesoftlyyy's fic here; go check that out if you want more spicy Neil content, because it was fantastic!

And thank you and also fuck you to @rysko for dramatically beta reading this in my ear WHILE I WAS TRYING TO MAKE THE HEADER

And now that I'm done thanking every fic writer on tumblr, my parents, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds, and Saturn and all of its rings, enjoy your filth!

WC: 4239

He found you outside the back door of Gumshoe, huddled against the concrete step, the cool air of the spring night nipping at the wet tears that streaked your cheeks, the slight breeze stirring a shiver from one fretful limb to the next. The whites of your eyes burned red beneath the faint glow of the lanterns atop the neighbour’s picket fence. It wasn’t exactly the most incognito place to cry your eyes out, but you didn’t have a key to Neil’s store, and it was nearly three in the morning.

“Hey, I got your call. What’s going on?” A familiar voice broke the pitiful sounds of your sobbing, and the tension of your shoulders eased if only slightly at the mere sound.

You tried to answer past your sobs, but found that your words came only in hiccups, in broken fragments of your splintered heart, and it didn’t take long for him to sweep an arm around your shoulders, lowering himself to sit beside you on the cold step. Instinctively, you found yourself leaning into his touch, trembling against the warmth of his body.

Neil was never really great at these sorts of things to begin with, but it certainly didn’t help that his attention was drawn to the low-cut top where a tear streaked down the groove of your breasts, to the fishnets that you’d torn on your way out the door of your boyfriend’s, to the short skirt that rode up just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the lace hem of your panties.

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and he tried to keep his eyes on the face you so desperately tried to hide with your trembling fingers, for you were ashamed of your unkempt appearance. You must’ve looked like a cheap whore – a mess of one, no less. You couldn’t tell what was more embarrassing: the way you were dressed, like you were begging for attention, or the way your emotions seized you so cruelly that you could scarcely breathe.

“Hey.” His warm, careful touch landed on your wrist, and as you pulled your fingers from your lashes, they came away black with smudged mascara. “I’m here,” your friend said. “Tell me what happened.”

You could still only speak in hiccups and broken vowels.

“Shhh,” Neil soothed you, fingers running up and down your spine, sending tiny shivers through each nerve as the fabric of your shirt bunched and his skin brushed yours. “Shhh. I’m here.”

Resting your head on his shoulder, your hair spilled in sticky threads over the jacket that, judging by the slight musty scent that lingered in the weave of the corduroy, had probably missed one too many washes. But you didn’t care. You’d come to appreciate the little imperfections about him, the details of his scent that made Neil Neil. Like the waxy tinge that seemed to always cling to his fingers after a long shift of rolling back tapes. Like the silk cream and smoke of the vanilla candle you’d gifted him last week. Like the artificial scent of cheap shaving cream and the slightest hint of blood where he’d nicked himself with the razor. The musk of his sweat and skin, buried beneath all these little things that you’d come to know almost as intimately as your own.

But there was something else, something you couldn’t quite pinpoint. And its unfamiliarity unnerved you.

His other hand came to rest on your knee, hot as fire in the cold of night. He thumbed at the tear in your fishnets and looked at you with bright, concerned eyes, but he used this as an excuse to touch you.

“Did he hurt you?” Neil asked. His hand stayed on your knee. In a way, it felt comforting; it grounded you enough so that, finally, after lulled by the rise and fall of his shoulder and the unique blend of his scent, you could speak.

“Is that cologne?” You wrinkled your nose and drew back to look him in the eye, your tangled hair peeling reluctantly from his corduroy jacket.

A rose blush came upon Neil’s cheeks, and he smiled nervously. He’d been sure to spritz himself with a good helping of it before he left, despite his hurried state. He needed to impress you; ever since you’d started dating that jock from across the street, he’d been trying to find more ways to steal your attention back.

“Yeah, it’s new,” he said, a little flustered, in a way that made your stomach flutter. “I wanted to ask for your opinion on what I should get, but you – well…” His voice cracked a bit as a hint of sadness crept into his tone. “… you’ve been pretty busy lately.”

“It’s awful,” you told him, laughing slightly, and your words seemed to cheer him up; his lips tugged into that playful grin of his again, and a deep chuckle rumbled from his throat.

And then you both fell into silence, and he looked back to your knee, still thumbing the skin where the fabric had torn.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Neil said.

You swallowed, another lump forming in your throat, and when you looked at him, bottom lip in your teeth, reddened eyes pouting, rimmed by your messed mascara, his heart sped in his chest in both fear and arousal. The thought of James even touching you boiled his blood, made his skin crawl and tightened a noose round his neck, but seeing you like this, baring your soul to him with those tear-brimmed eyes and mournfully upturned brows, it made him want you even more.

If he’d been the one to take you out tonight, he would’ve brought you home to his bed, worshipped each inch of your hallowed skin and made love to you like you were the only woman in the world, splayed his fingers across your thighs and parted them like a sea, dropped to his knees and prayed with the hungered strokes of his tongue and lapped at your holy waters.

He’d started reading poetry lately. It had felt right; it was the only thing that seemed to express just how he felt about you. Echoed the words in private like they were gospel; chanted your name from desperate lips as he palmed himself each night – and morning – to your photographs, to the vanilla of the candle that reminded him so much of you, to the fantasy of your sweat-slicked thighs wrapped around his waist, your walls clenched around him as he bucked his hips against your weight and finally let himself go, spilling himself inside you and hearing you moan so sweetly for him from those heavenly lips, feeling his own cum dampen his stomach as you collapsed over him. He always knew you’d be so tight, that you’d fit so perfect around him.

But sitting here, staring at your shivering, impotent form in your torn fishnets and your skimpy attire, he could barely contain the urge to tear open your knees and fuck you against the concrete. It had been so long since he’d even been this close to you; James took up all of your time nowadays, and gone were the late movie nights and stolen games of basketball on the breaks he took so liberally.

He missed you. So much.

And you knew it. You knew it, deep in your chest where the remnants of your heart twisted, still hearing the words, “You’ve been pretty busy lately.”

You shook your head, choking out another sob as shame crept along your skin, and you shivered at its grotesque touch. “No, he didn’t hurt me… not – not in that way.”

You couldn’t look at him; his pearlescent blue eyes and his sun-kissed freckles and his boyish brown locks all fading into memory as you buried your face in his chest, inhaling once more the faint scent of his laundry detergent and the musk of him beneath the shirt that was flipped inside-out but still outlined the blatant logo of Back to the Future. Whether he hadn’t realised he’d put it on backwards or he’d been shy about it, you couldn’t be sure, but it lightened your heart all the same, your sobs turning to giggles.

Neil pulled you closer, his chin resting along the nape of your neck and his hand running up your thigh; you barely noticed how near his hand was to your panties as you tugged at his shirt, nails sinking past the fabric as if to keep him and never let him go.

You regretted all that time you’d spent with James, when you should have been spending it with him instead. Everything felt so much easier with him; your smiles were broader, your laughter more carefree.

But you wanted more – selfish and lovesick, you wanted more than what he already gave you. You needed more than his attention and his friendship.

You needed him to want you.

“I thought that…” You sniffled. “… I thought that James wanted me. I dressed up all… nice… fucking whorish… and I thought tonight was finally the night and that he would’ve… that he would’ve…”

The words twisted in your throat, and you squeezed your eyes shut. Two hours ago, when you did up your makeup and clothes for your date with James, you’d felt sexy. Powerful, even.

Now, you just felt worthless.

Neil nestled his nose in the crook of your neck, brushed the silk strands of your hair aside, breathed your scent in so deeply that for a moment, the butterflies came back to the pit of your stomach.

“I just want to be wanted,” you admitted, losing it, sobbing uncontrollably into the now-damp shirt that clung to his thin frame. “I just want to be desired. That was the only reason I was with him, Neil. The way he looked at me that day when he came into the store, I…”

With a bitter pang in his chest, Neil remembered that day. The way James had looked at you like you were a piece of meat. The way he’d asked you if had any recommendations on which sports film he should rent and Neil had practically wedged himself between the two of you and started chattering to James about every little piece of trivia he knew about Chariots of Fire and Rocky. How, despite his efforts, James had still gone home with your number as well as the tapes. How you’d come in the next morning with a hickey on your neck and Neil had just known that where James had paused one of the tapes was when your movie night was likely cut short by… things he’d rather not think about ever again.

It should’ve been his couch you’d been curled up on, should’ve been him watching the movie with you. His mark on your neck.

And he would’ve picked something a little more fitting for the mood, too. Something more like Casablanca or Sin City. It was as if James didn’t even have to try to get you drooling over him. What was so special about him, anyway?

I wish I was special, Neil thought.

Neil’s grip on you tightened at the memory, nails digging in to the flesh of your thigh in a way that stirred a little gasp from your lungs, huffing against his collarbone as you tilted your head up to look at him.

“Y/N.” His breath caught in his throat, and he reluctantly pulled from your neck to look you in the eye, locks of messy hair falling across his forehead and his eyes half-lidded. His fingers ghosted up your thigh, and you blinked past the sharp mint of his mouthwash – it burned your eyes slightly, but you didn’t care. You were so close to him, your breaths became one, a few threads of his hair tickling your cheeks and his nose brushing yours.

“Neil,” you breathed, the slightest of smiles tugging at your lip as your heart thudded between your legs, dangerously close to his fingers. Warmth spread across each fevered limb, taking you somewhere past the cold concrete and bitter chill of the wind, somewhere away from the graffiti-painted alley and the reek of broken booze bottles. Somewhere safe, and warm, and thrilling all at once.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Neil’s voice cracked around the words, a nervous laugh huffing against your fluttering lashes as his freckled cheeks darkened another shade of red. The hand that wasn’t between your legs played with a lock of your hair, twirling it in his finger but still supporting you beneath a quivering arm.

You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe this was real.

He had to have been playing some sick joke, right?

But the whimper that fell from his lips was very real, as his nails dug into your flesh again and he tugged you closer, his hips arching upward against your outer thigh.

“You look more than nice. You’re so fucking hot in this skirt, in anything you wear. That asshole is fucking blind,” he breathed, fingers grazing your panties and landing over your hipbone, testing the waters more and more as he tried not to rock his growing arousal too obviously against you.

But you noticed. You noticed the way his cock hardened and twitched beneath your weight; you noticed how even despite his body trembling from his attempts to resist his primal urges, his hips still gave little bucks upward, seeking friction. Seeking the heat that flared between your thighs, that ached for him so desperately that it was all you could do not to return the favour.

He couldn’t take it anymore. Staring into those gorgeous, bright eyes. Looking up at him with anything but innocence. So he scooped both hands around your ass, squeezing the flesh and lace and tugging you properly onto his lap with an alluring squeal tearing from your full lips.

“I want you, Y/N.” His hot breath pooled at your collarbone as he trailed wet, sloppy kisses along your jaw, your neck, and your lips parted in another gasp, back arching and thighs clenching around his waist as you ground wet panties against the bulge in his trousers.

“I fucking need you,” he whined, nipping like a needy puppy at the delicate skin of your neck. “Always have.” Another kiss. “Ever since I first saw you. Long before James.” A possessive growl stirred from his throat at that, the flare of dominance sending a jolt through your core.

“Neil, I – oh my God.” A moan broke your words as his fingers moved up your spine and his teeth grazed your collarbone, hovering over your pulse point.

“Fuck, baby. Say that again. Just like that.” His fingers began rolling your shirt up over the lip of your breasts, the sight enough to make him whine again in need. He couldn’t help himself from groping you, squeezing your breasts and rolling one nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Bending his neck to trail more sloppy kisses down your torso, they were his next destination.

“Oh my – Neil. Neil, I – “ You had so much to tell him, so much you needed off your chest, but his hips bucked sharply against you at the sound of his name moaned so beautifully, a low groan in his throat and his cock digging slightly inside your heat, the fabric of your panties scraping almost painfully against your walls.

“Please, Y/N, please don’t make me stop. Please let me keep touching you like this. I wanna worship you.” His hot breath shattered against a pert nipple. “Wanna fucking prove to you how much I want you.”

For a few moments, you were rendered speechless, mind whirring like the wheels on a VHS. Everything was happening so fast, and the warmth of his touch was seeping into you like honey, inundating you in a sort of comforting flame.

He could almost smell the vanilla of the candle wick burning.

You left nail marks down his chest where you clawed at the collar of his shirt, but he didn’t care. He sucked a nipple past his teeth and moaned around the taste of you, the sound so filthy that your eyes nearly rolled back in your skull as your parted lips tipped to the heavens. His name outlined by their perfect shape.

Reality came crashing down around you as you jumped, another squeal leaving your tongue as his teeth bit at your nipple and pain shot along your nerve endings.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, chest heaving, looking up at you with reverent eyes. “I didn’t mean to, I – “

You cupped his chin in your palm and shook your head. “No, Neil. I’m sorry.” A tear streaked down your cheek, beaded on your jawline. “I’m so, so sorry.” You were beginning to sob again, and his brow furrowed in concern, thumb beginning to trace small circles along your spine. “I’m sorry I abandoned you for James, I didn’t… I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know you felt this way, I – I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he told you, his words sinking into your skin like a warm tide. With one hand, he brushed the tear from your jaw and wove his fingers into your hair, pulling you closer. “Just let me keep touching you. Please.”

When you didn’t respond for a moment, caught up in the way his blue eyes seemed to hollow with a certain hunger, the way his chest rose and fell beneath the bare flesh of your stomach, he uttered that word again:

“Please.”

You smiled, elated and giddy with joy, blood pounding with arousal, and kissed him, threading your own fingers into the fluffy locks of his hair.

Another tear streaked across your lips as they met his, and you tasted like salt and vanilla, slightly waxy from your chap-stick but the sweetest thing he’d tasted nonetheless. At first, he was embarrassed by the noises he made, the way he’d accidentally called you “baby” because he’d always wanted to do so, but he melted beneath you like butter. Nothing mattered anymore except the fact that you were finally his, that you were in his arms and grinding against his cock.

Neil broke the kiss to pull your shirt over your head, tossing it aside somewhere on the concrete – he would buy you a new one. His hands flattened against your back and pulled you flush to his chest, taking any excuse he could to hear that little squeal you made each time.

“Please, baby, please let me be inside you,” he whined, biting his lip as he stared up at you with those powder-blue eyes. Nails dug into your skin. Hips bucked against yours.

Your heart soared with his words, his worship, his want; you’d never been this ecstatic in your whole life. Part of you wanted to keep teasing him, make him beg, while another part of you ached to feel him buried to the hilt inside you.

“Patience, Neil,” you giggled, as you undid his trousers. You worked them down to his knees and your eyes widened as your hand brushed his cock, bare and springing flush against his stomach. You hadn’t expected him to not wear boxers.

Neil smiled sheepishly up at you, eyes still lidded, mouth still panting out a fevered breath. “I was in a rush getting dressed. I…” His cheeks reddened, and there was something so cute about how pathetic he looked in that moment. “You wanna know how much I want you, Y/N? I was touching myself thinking of you when you called.”

Creep, some voice in the back of his head hissed.

You bit your lip to suppress a moan, trying to ward off thoughts of Neil stroking himself to you, finishing to the thought of you. Oh, how you wished you could have witnessed the sight.

“Did you come?” you asked, a devious grin pulling at your lips as you took him in your hand, massaging a bead of pre-cum into his sensitive flesh.

His eyes fluttered, and he shook his head, his words coming out as a breathy whine,

“No, I promise. I didn’t come. Not yet.”

“Will you?” You dipped your head to let your words tickle his neck, your grip on him tightening.

“Yes,” he moaned. “Yes, yes, oh God, I will. Fuck, baby. Fuck, gonna come if you don’t stop that, need to come inside you, please, please…”

His mutterings trailed off into a low hiss of a whine, and your movements stilled, dragging him to his peak and letting him teeter at the edge as you both caught your breaths, chest heaving and a cold chill racing down your sweat-slicked back, thighs trembling around him.

“You sure you can handle this?” you purred against his ear before pulling back once more to witness the shivering mess you’d made him, priding yourself in your accomplishment. Lining his cock up with your entrance, the fabric of your panties scraped his tip teasingly as you slotted them to the side.

Neil looked up at you like you were some kind of goddess, his breathing coming laboured, his throat stripped of words. The dazed, blissful look he gave you was all the answer you needed. But you wanted to reap him of every last praise he had.

“Use your words, Neil,” you giggled, smirking.

“Ah…” His lips parted, near soundless. You watched intently as they formed the word “Please”.

You almost felt bad for him.

But it wasn’t pity that brought your hips down around him, slowly, teasingly, savouring the stretch of him against your walls and the fullness in your belly, but rather, your own need.

Neil’s head rolled back against the brick wall, blood welling at his lip where he bit it to keep himself from toppling over his peak; he nearly did it to himself when he bucked his hips upward, burying himself inside you, making you whimper at the pain that blended so sordidly with the pleasure. Your fingers tugged at his hair, and your nails grazed his scalp, and every little sensation sent him into overdrive. He used these little things to ground himself, as you had his tangled scents; he focused on how smooth your stomach felt against his own, his shirt hiking up so that you were skin to skin; he focused on the noises you made, huffing and whimpering, as you began to ride him; he focused on the softness of the breast that he cupped in his hand. Tried not to think about how you felt better than he’d imagined, how you clenched so tightly around his cock that he was almost pushed out each time you elevated your hips, but were so wet for him that he slid back inside so seamlessly each time.

“Neil,” you moaned as you fucked yourself on his cock, breast bouncing beneath his thumb, skirt fluttering around the bareness of his thighs. “Neil, fuck. Fuck.”

“Baby, I’m s—sorry. I’m gonna…”

You yelped again as pain shot deep inside your core, his hips bucking against yours with a violence you hadn’t known sweet Neil from the VHS store to possess, bottoming out inside you as his nails dug into the now-abused skin of your back and pulling you close, so close you were panting over his shoulder and his breath shattered against your ear. The hand that had been cupping your breast shot up to cradle your head, petting your hair.

He held you to him so tight, you didn’t think he’d ever let go. And you couldn’t have been happier.

Warmth spilled around his cock, sticky against your thighs, painting your insides white. You shuddered around him, balling his hair into a fist and digging your own, sharper nails, against his back.

“I didn’t mean it to be over so fast,” he mumbled into your neck. “I just… you’re so… fuck, I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”

“So have I,” you breathed. You practically hugged each other, shivering in the night air but content in each other’s warmth. “Don’t worry.” Pulling away slightly, you smiled down at him, cheeks flushing bright red. “If anything, it… it’s endearing.”

“Really?” he chuffed out a laugh.

“It…” you looked down, unable to meet that crystalline gaze. “It makes me feel wanted.” You pecked a quick kiss to his jaw, and could’ve sworn you saw love in his eyes when you pulled away.

“God, you’re perfect.” His voice broke again as his lips sought yours, and his breath hitched in his chest when the action caused you to rock your hips forward, a new sensation he’d never felt before buzzing along his skin. His mouth hung open and you laid kisses to his lips, his jaw, the Adam’s apple that bobbed along his throat. He felt his cock stiffen again inside you, already eager for Round Two.

“I should take you home,” he murmured, hands running up and down your sides. “You must be so cold.” As if just realising that he still had his jacket on, Neil shrugged it off in haste and wrapped the heavy material around your shoulders. A chill ran down your spine, as the material was damp with sweat – you smiled at how predictably forgettable he was when he had a woman on his lap, just as you’d imagined –, but his scent soothed you.

Though you were cold, it was a small sacrifice to make to stay here, with him buried so deep inside you that you felt dizzy in the head. Depleted of your energy and sinking into his warmth, you smirked, and rested your chin on his shoulder.

“I was thinking of just staying like this a while,” you admitted.

“Whatever makes you happy,” he breathed, hugging you even tighter. “Whatever you want.”

A.N. Sorry if this was a bit rough, guys. I smashed this one out the other day because I was tired of my writer's block.

I actually laid into some themes that I was planning on using for a Dark!Neil fic based on the song "Creep" which I don't know when I'll get around to writing, but let me know if you guys would like to hear more about the idea for the series or are interested.

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taexual · 7 months

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sleepwalking ● 21 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF!!, angst, SLOW BURN

words: 16.4k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 21 ► love me 'til my heart stops, hit me like a freight truck

You didn’t have the courage to knock on Jungkook’s door when you woke up the next morning. Your mind had sobered enough to recall stumbling into his room after accidentally trying to pick his lock, and you did not want to remember anything else. The rest of the night was blurry anyway, but you deduced easily enough that Jungkook was the reason you woke up smothered under the warm covers.

You wanted to stay in your room for as long as possible, but your headache was so severe that, if divided between people, it could have knocked out a small village for two days. You needed water. Most unfortunately, the hotel had no room service, so you had to find your way out of bed.

The world had finally stopped twirling around you, but that wasn’t a big improvement because other things bothered you now, like the carpet texture under your feet. Or the light that burned your eyes. Or your satin dress, which had felt comfortable last night but scratched you all over this morning.

Lacking the energy to change, you drew the curtains to block out the late morning sunlight and threw on a robe. Then you hesitated in the middle of the room, trying to place your belongings. You thought you remembered having a jacket on yesterday, but as you scanned your room, you couldn’t see it anywhere.

To make matters worse, when you left your room and the door shut behind you with a loud click, you were forced to pause and strain your muscles to stay upright. Every sound felt amplified like a megaphone had been taped directly to your brain.

You took a deep breath and turned the corner towards the stairwell. Your morning got a little brighter just then—you saw Luna cross the corridor, looking almost exactly how you felt. Taehyung was at her side, pushing a water bottle into her exhausted hand as he led her back to their room. He noticed you and immediately shook his head in disapproval, first at you and then at his girlfriend (not for the first time, judging from Luna’s defeated sigh).

Just as you were about to speak up in your defence, you smacked right into something solid and recoiled in surprise.

Jungkook nearly dropped his phone from the impact. He grabbed the railing of the stairs for support and turned around.

“Shit—hi,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out of bed so early.”

The feeling was, obviously, mutual as your reluctant mind needed a moment to understand what was happening.

“What are you—why are you just standing here?” you asked, rubbing your forehead with your fingers. You had hit the clasp of his necklace when you walked into him, and the sharp pain began to pirouette around your head again.

“I was on my way downstairs for breakfast,” he said, a hint of amusement threading his every word as he observed your attempts to make sense of your surroundings. “But I wanted to text you first, so I’d know what to bring you.”

“It—thank you,” you replied, softer. Your thoughts had knotted into a jumbled, incomprehensible mess as images of Taehyung and Luna flashed through your mind again. “But I can go down. I think.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. He remembered you saying that last night, right before he’d half-carried you to your room. “Walking isn’t your strong suit when you’re drunk.”

You took a sharp breath. The mention of alcohol seemed to cause an unpleasant swirl in your already upset stomach.

You wondered briefly how noticeable your sudden nausea was, because Jungkook put his phone away and reached for you. You realised right then that you hadn’t even glanced in the mirror before you left your room. You could only imagine the state of last night’s makeup on your face right now.

“It’s clearly not my strong suit now either,” you said. “Sorry I nearly pushed you down the stairs just now.”

“It’s okay,” he said, snickering. One of his hands hovered over your arm in case you were planning to topple over. “Are you sure you should have drunk that much last night, though?”

“Of course I shouldn’t have,” you said, shielding your eyes with a weary hand as curious rays of sunlight filtered through the small windows by the stairs. “But what’s done is done. I think I’ve already embarrassed myself enough by breaking into your room last night, so that’s my punishment. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jungkook said. He took a small step to the left to provide you with a shadow from the sunlight. “You didn’t do anything I haven’t seen before.”

You groaned. “That somehow makes it worse. But serves me right, I guess. I even lost my jacket.”

“You—” his laughter cut him off. You groaned again, only adding to his amusement. “Different shoes and no jacket. Sounds like quite the night.”

You wanted to shake your head but did not dare move it. Instead, you leaned against the wall, seeking additional steadiness that your stiff legs could not provide. Your ankles felt stretched out and twisted around, and the rigid hotel slippers did not help.

“Get something to eat,” Jungkook suggested, noticing your struggle to hold yourself up. “You’ll feel better.”

You closed your eyes. Your stomach was already churning precariously; you weren’t ready to eat yet.

“No, I just need water and I’ll be perfect,” you said. “I’m going—”

“I can bring it to you,” he offered promptly.

“I’ll walk,” you asserted. Then, realising that you were declining his kind intentions and he deserved an explanation, you cleared your throat and gestured around vaguely. “I brought this upon myself, you know? So…”

“So, you should punish yourself for having fun?” he questioned skeptically.

You shrugged. You did feel responsible for your splitting headache. But you also hoped that walking around would help ease your frozen muscles, which was, perhaps, a result of sleeping like a log all night. Although all that drinking and dancing probably added to the pain, too.

“Could you check on Maggie for me, though?” you asked, holding onto the railing nearby to keep your balance because the wall was not enough. The more you blinked, the more your body yearned to recline. “I’ve seen Luna, so I know she’s alive, but I haven’t heard from Mags.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he said, pivoting around you. He was evidently prepared to fulfil your request immediately.

You stopped him by placing an unsteady hand on his arm.

“I haven’t forgotten that we—we need to talk,” you said. “And our film.”

Jungkook turned around again. Despite the uncertainty that seemed to boil in his stomach at that thought, he liked hearing this – we need to talk. Our film. He thought he would have liked hearing about you peeling potatoes and parallel parking between two trucks together.

“Oh.” He looked at the small window in the stairwell; the stained glass was thick, but the sunlight behind it was too persistent. “Well—we don’t have to talk or watch anything today. You should—”

“No, no, we will,” you insisted. You said this with no additional pain on your face, and Jungkook took it as a positive sign. “Let me just grab some water, and—”

“I’d prefer it if you got some proper rest first, actually,” he said as you pushed yourself off the wall and paused to catch your breath after the exertion. “I can tell you’re not feeling well.”

You huffed again. Really, an average crow—one of those cawing in the trees outside the hotel—could have recognised that you weren’t feeling well. You wondered if you had enough energy to pretend otherwise.

“I’m—well, I’ll take something for my headache when I get back to my room,” you said. “And, if you wouldn’t mind, I could use a quick nap. And then we—”

“I’ll get us some snacks,” he decided, “so you can come straight to my room after you wake up.”

You managed a grateful smile. “Okay. That sounds perfect.”

He smiled back, and for a minute, the two of you lingered in the warm silence, watching each other as your silhouettes merged into one in the hazy sunlight. Once the realisation dawned that you were just standing here, staring at each other and grinning, the two of you erupted into bashful chuckles and looked away.

A new, unexpected feeling joined the heaviness in your stomach, replacing some of your nausea with a sensation oddly reminiscent of bliss.

“I’m off, then,” Jungkook said, waving his hand towards the corridor. “I’ll check if Maggie’s okay.”

“Thank you,” you said, “I’ll see you later.”

And it really was much later.

When you returned to your room with a water bottle, Jungkook texted you to confirm that Maggie was alive and well, albeit dying of thirst, which he helped her out with. Apparently, she also had your jacket.

Relieved that some of your concerns had already been put to rest, you finished your water, took some ibuprofen, and returned to bed.

And when you woke up, you were understandably startled to discover you had slept for over five hours.

You opened the curtains to get a better idea of the time, but the overcast sky made the hour seem even later than it really was. So you tried another approach and went to the bathroom to wash up, get rid of the pillow creases on your face, and fully wake yourself up.

By the time you knocked on Jungkook’s door, it was almost seven in the evening. You arrived armed with your laptop and dressed in appropriate film night attire: dark joggers and a hoodie. But so much time had passed since your encounter in the stairwell that you wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d found something better to do instead.

Actually, you realised while you waited for the door to open—or not to open—that two weeks ago, Jungkook would have probably gone out with Sid to avoid spending this time alone. But now he opened the door for you, smiling as if you had just made plans and he hadn’t been waiting for you for hours.

“Hey,” he greeted, stepping aside to let you in. “I was just about to check on you.”

“I think I went into a bit of a coma for a while there. Sorry,” you said, walking inside. “And, of course, I’ve got a headache again now because I’ve been asleep for so long. Should we go for something to eat, and maybe—”

You stopped abruptly when you noticed the snacks strewn across his bed—a mound of chocolate-coated dragées, an unnecessarily large fortress of chocolate-chip cookie boxes, and an entire trove of crisps and popcorn. It took you a minute to comprehend it all, and then another minute to come up with a possible explanation as to how he could have got all this; there were no grocery shops within five kilometres of the hotel.

Jungkook closed the door and followed your gaze to his bed.

“Oh,” he said, not responding to your unasked questions. “Maybe it’d be better if you had a proper meal—”

“Are you kidding?” You jumped on the bed with an energy you did not realise you had and reached for one of the brown bags of chocolates, nearly dropping your laptop in excitement. “We’re eating this, and absolutely nothing else.”

Jungkook knew you liked chocolate the most, but he did not want to brag about the three taxis he had to take to eight different shops to get it for you. To be fair, he had not expected your favourite brand to be so hard to find, but he was determined. He would have found the factory and made the chocolate himself if he had to.

“It’s probably not the best choice for breakfast, though,” he said, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. “Even if it’s, uh, seven in the evening.”

You waved away his concerns, your mouth already full of sweets. Smiling, Jungkook sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled out a box of gummy bears that you had overlooked while trying to take in the abundance of snacks.

“So, uh, how did last night go?” he asked as he meticulously picked out the red bears and accidentally scattered the yellow and green ones on the bed.

“You know how it went,” you said. “You probably know more than I do, actually. The last thing I remember is Maggie swiping someone’s feather boa off their neck.”

“Oh, so that—” He stopped picking the gummy bears from the sheets. “Y-you had a feather in your earring when you got back. I was—honestly, I was a little worried that the three of you had robbed a zoo and tried to bring back a peacock or something.”

You snorted. “We might have tried. Did you check my bag for any stray lizards?”

“You didn’t have a bag when you got back.”

You stopped chewing and turned to him. “I—I didn’t have my bag with me?”

Jungkook paused, too. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to analyse what items you had with you when you showed up on his doorstep last night.

“You had your key,” he said slowly. “And—well, that was it. Are you sure you had your bag with you when you left?”

You tried to piece your fragmented memories together, but your mind struggled to reconstruct the precise sequence of events. You remembered having an umbrella because it had been raining. You also remembered sitting in your bathroom for what felt like half a minute but must have been longer because Luna and Maggie looked a little distraught when they found you there.

You set the candy aside.

“I might have—yeah, I might have left it at the hotel,” you said, realising. “After I talked to my mum.”

Jungkook finished chewing his handful of gummy bears in silence. Each calculated bite seemed to propel him toward a precipice from which there was no return. He hadn’t expected the two of you to get to this point so quickly, even if he was glad you did.

“And how—how’d that go?” he asked.

“Well, it—I mean, we talked,” you said, settling against the headboard of his bed. “She, um—I-I don’t know what I expected her to say, to be honest. I asked her to tell me about her relationship with my dad, and she—well, she certainly did.”

Jungkook took a moment to study the expression on your face, searching for something that he could point out to keep you talking.

“But, uh, you wish she’d said something different?” he ventured when you offered no further explanation.

A measured breath preceded your response. You wanted to explain but finding words proved almost as difficult as confronting your mum about this yesterday.

“I guess I wish it would have made more sense to me,” you finally started. “I had some time to think, and—well, I disagree with almost every single reason my mum had for getting back together with him. But I’ve realised that there’s probably nothing that either of my parents could say that would change my mind. I’m disappointed and angry, and I think I’ve felt this way for a while. I’ve tried not to feel that because it just seemed childish and immature—but I am angry. And that’s fine.”

You lapsed into a silence that Jungkook did not want to disturb. He could tell this was a pause, not a complete stop, and he was too nervous to speak anyway. He was afraid of the parallel between your parents and the two of you—especially in light of everything that Sid was currently sending to his phone.

“I-I mean,” you resumed and Jungkook made an effort to focus on the sound of your voice and not his thoughts, “the way my mum looked at her relationship—honestly, I do think she has a lot of courage. But she, um—she also has—her attitude just seemed a bit reckless. I don’t know. I guess I might never understand why she thought that getting back together with him once wouldn’t already be enough, but that’s—that was her choice. She explained it to me in a way that made sense to her, and I’m grateful she did. But sh-she seems to have blocked out everything that happened after each of their break-ups. She said she was now at peace because she had always listened to her heart. And I’m happy for her, really. But, well, I’m not at peace. This back-and-forth... it brought our whole family nothing but misery, and that does not seem fair to me, or to my brother.”

Jungkook did not think he would ever hear you realise the things he had realised long ago. You had always been so determined to help your mum heal that you’d closed your eyes on your own pain. But it was there. Feelings did not go away just because you wished them to; he knew this well.

And he felt relieved, he realised. No matter what else happened tonight, at least you finally accepted that you had a right to feel wronged.

“Is that why you feel angry?” he asked.

“It... well, mostly, yes,” you said. “Because on top of everything else, this significantly affected how I view my own relationships. I wanted my parents to be happy together. But they just weren’t. And I ended up convincing myself that their unhappiness was universal and inevitable. That anyone who tried to get back together again was bound to fail again. I wanted them to defy these odds, and when they didn’t, I thought no one ever would.”

He toyed with the gummy bear package, and only looked at you for no longer than two seconds.

“But that’s not true,” he said, his voice quiet, tentative.

“It’s not,” you agreed. “I get it now. I may not understand my mum’s choices, but that’s because I didn’t live her life. And that’s exactly it. That’s what helped me come to terms with it all. I got it. My parents’ relationship is not a rule. If anything, it’s an exception.”

Something was glistening on the very edges of his pupils when your eyes met. It struck you that he had been waiting for you to come to this realisation.

“Just because it didn’t work out for them,” you said, looking down, “doesn’t mean it won’t work out for us. That’s, um—that is the main thing, I think.”

Jungkook swallowed. It seemed to him that there were many things to say in response, and he could not find one that he needed. He sort of felt as if he were navigating a field of landmines only visible to himself—but instead of avoiding them, he deliberately tried to step on one. He needed the explosion. He needed you to say something more. But he didn’t know how to get you to say it.

“It’s—that’s good,” he eventually said, because it was all he could manage.

You weighed your next words as your headache doubled and receded in anxious, intensifying waves.

“I’m—I just want you to know that this is still the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” you said. “Which makes me incredibly fortunate on the one hand, because, well, this is nothing. Right? But also it—well, I’m just scared. I don’t think that’s going to go away. I don’t think things will suddenly be better because we decide so. I think it’s going to be something we’ll have to work through.”

“That’s fine, though,” he said right away, and a tired weight heaved itself off your chest and rolled down, relieving an immense pressure inside you. Just like that. “I just want to try again with you. But better this time.”

Your teeth dug into the corner of your lip. You wanted that, too, but you didn’t think labelling it like this was right.

“Trying again,” you said, “implies that, um, we’ve stopped doing something, and now we’re doing it again.”

He gave you a puzzled look. “Right.”

“I—I’m not sure if we ever stopped.”

He took a shaky breath, uncertain if he ever released it or if it would remain trapped somewhere deep inside his throat.

“My mum… uh, she also told me about the songs,” you said and Jungkook looked up as though his conversations with your mum surprised him, too. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

This was precisely why, Jungkook thought, turning away. Because you could not look at him when you talked about the songs he wrote about you, and he couldn’t look at you, either.

Rubbing the side of his nose, he said, “your mum, uh—she warned me that you might get physically violent.”

There was a sheepish grin tugging at his lips; he was joking.

Still, you shook your head. “But I mean when we were—when we started talking again. Not just at the bar in Oslo. Or at the hotel in Manchester.”

He coughed, feeling the sparkles in his lungs as they caught fire. You remembered, then—not just the two songs, but where you were, and what you were doing when he told you about them.

“Did you want me to tell you about the rest of them?” he asked, finally looking up. “You looked about ready to leap out of the nearest window when I brought it up.”

“I—okay, you’re probably right,” you conceded. “But, uh, my mum mentioned a new song you’re working on.”

Jungkook expected that to happen, but his stomach still churned anxiously as he smoothed the bedding with his palm. “Hmm.”

“Can I hear it?” you asked.

He brought his hand to the back of his neck. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes.”

He looked at you again, searching for a stronger confirmation in your eyes—and finding it there. He slowly rose from the bed and pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“It’s—I think it’s the most personal song I’ve ever written,” he said, and you held your breath. “Your mum warned me about it, which she’s never done before. Usually, she just gives me permission to release the song and sometimes offers a compliment.”

“She didn’t like it this time?” you asked while he unlocked his phone.

“No, she said she liked it a lot,” he replied, placing his phone on the bed. The screen displayed various voice notes: some with gibberish titles, others numbered. The newest one was labelled, PUDDLE_FINAL11. “But she also said that this is a song I should run by you first.”

You crossed your legs on the bed and hesitated awkwardly for a second—unsure if you could really listen to the song and sit still. Then, you leaned back against the headboard and closed your eyes.

“Let me hear it.”

Jungkook watched you get comfortable and bit his lip. He knew this was what you did when you were nervous or excited—crossing your legs on the couch when the film you two were watching got to the most interesting part; crossing them on the chair in the library when you were studying for final exams, crossing them on the passenger seat in his car when you were on road trips, playing Guess The Song (he always won, which he took great pride in).

“This is, um, the song that I told you I was writing in Oslo,” he said. Your heart was racing just like it had back then. “It’s what the band and I are working on right now. Yoongi, uh—he’s the one who’s working through the tone and the instruments, and—well, that stuff. I’m just kind of there to sing and look pretty.”

You opened your eyes again to give him a look. “You wrote the lyrics.”

“I—yeah, okay. And I wrote the lyrics.” He took a deep breath. “This is—it’s still a demo, though, so—you know. Keep an open mind.”

You froze as soon as he pressed “play” on the voice note. This appeared to be the eleventh version of the song, as indicated by the number at the end of the title.

The recording began with soft, but quick guitar chords. The song was not slow-paced and seemed much more postcore than the band’s usual music. Even though his guitar was the only instrument accompanying his hesitant but clear voice, you could easily imagine an overlay of drums and bass.

How I run when my phone lights up with a text /

My friends all know, “is that your ex?” /

They said I bet you want her, bet you love her, bet you can’t forget /

I don’t remember why I lied, why I agreed, why I made the bet

You turned to look at Jungkook, your eyes filled with graphic surprise, but he was staring at his phone, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. He was tugging on it so forcefully that his lip ring strained against his skin.

The music shifted into a rhythmic bridge—Jungkook had stopped strumming and began to tap the body of the guitar instead, mimicking the beat of Hoseok’s drums.

This feels like a disease I suffer /

Might break just thinking of her /

Can’t breathe, cannot recover /

I love her, I fucking love her

“The chorus is next, and—” Jungkook cut in over the music, “—it’s very simple, but it’s not done yet. It should still sound better with Yoongi’s guitar, and all the rest.”

Immediately, he returned to his own guitar in the recording, the chords rapid and eager as he sang—his voice louder, more forced, emanating from deep within his diaphragm as the song reached the chorus:

I can’t look you in the eyes /

When all I say are these stupid lies /

The memories of when you were mine /

Are playing in my tired mind /

Scared to fail, so I’d rather get high /

Yeah, but I have to stand up and try

The song slowed for the exit of the chorus and Jungkook sang it to complete silence:

And this is nothing fucking new, /

I’ve always been in love with you

You sucked in a breath and closed your eyes again. If your heart hadn’t been pounding so intensely, you might have been able to envision what the musical break that followed after the chorus would sound like once it was accompanied by Taehyung’s bass.

Before you could try to calm yourself, however, Jungkook began the second verse on the recording:

How I miss you and this feeling is all that inspires /

How this pain shifts, grows, how it turns into fires /

It will burn when I write, when I think, when I sing /

Flames will turn to ashes, turn to words, turn to ink

Right as the chorus started again—his voice growing more passionate as he lost himself in the song—Jungkook cleared his throat and commented over the recording, “I wrote that part in Oslo. While—after I asked you to come meet me at the bar.”

You nodded—or thought you nodded; all movement felt surreal right now—and listened in silence.

“The refrain,” Jungkook spoke again as the second chorus ended and the music began to speed up, “is my favourite part. It’s kind of pop-punk, largely inspired by blink-182, but it’s also just… it’s a way to get it all out.”

As soon as he finished talking, you heard the refrain on the recording—his words were rushed, the music barely catching up.

Biffy Clyro at a wedding, but we dance on separate floors /

Hotel bathrooms and champagne, we’re hiding there with open doors /

Years ago before I saw you, I was lost without a cause /

You changed my life from the first time that our paths had crossed /

I knew about you way before, I didn’t think this through /

I walked up to you after class, because our meeting’s overdue /

Years later we’re in Paris, I looked around and knew – /

It was always you, it was always you, it was always you

You focused on the screen of his phone as the song played and you did not dare to move—not even when the final chorus finished, and he reached over to stop the recording.

He asked, “what did you think?” and you realised that your mind was as silent as this room once the song ended.

You felt lost in the echoing recesses of your mind. There were so many things in your head and at the same time, there weren’t any at all. Because everything—from the first time he introduced himself to you after class, to Chloé and Kihyun’s wedding in Paris, to the bet he’d made with Sid and Jude—had just been said.

“I… think you are insane,” you said, glancing at him. “And also incredibly talented to manage to put all of that into a—into one song.”

“Yeah?” A satisfied grin was playing on his lips and you couldn’t take your eyes off it. “Did you like it?”

You shook your head, because this was too feeble—like. Sitting on his bed in this room, you doubted if you had ever simply liked anything when it came to Jungkook. Every emotion you felt for him had always been so much more intense and infinitely deeper.

“It’s—fuck, it’s a great song,” you said, tapping your palm against the bed. Jungkook recognised the beat and felt his heart soar. The whole room seemed to brighten, not at all threatened by the darkness outside the window. “It sounded good. The rhythm—it’s really good. I can see it becoming a crowd favourite.”

“Thanks,” he said but did not relent. In all the crowds in the world, he was going to search for you. “But what did you think?”

Watching him watch you, you said awkwardly, “I liked your voice.”

He laughed, finding the real compliment in your flustered expression and your struggle to answer his question directly.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

“Was this the song you played for Yoongi and Namjoon that time?” you asked, so you could avoid giving feedback about the way he captured your whole life in his lyrics, and now your heartbeat matched the rhythm of the song. “W-when Yoongi came to talk to me, worried about you?”

Jungkook still nursed a bitterness about Yoongi’s initial reaction to the song and pursed his lips.

“Yeah, um—at the time, I only had the second verse,” he said. “That’s probably why he was concerned.”

“Well,” you dropped a pillow onto your lap, “it doesn’t sound like a heartbreak anthem.”

He snorted. “I hope not.”

You did not say anything else for a while.

You were not in control of anything that was happening inside of you right now, so this was the best you could offer. A big part of your brain was preoccupied with keeping you seated on your side of the bed instead of reaching—lunging—for him, and an even bigger part was still processing the song he had just played. This left you with very little strength to be eloquent.

You liked the song. You liked his voice. You were worried the fire inside your chest would do irreparable damage to your heart. You wondered what went on in your mum’s head when she heard it.

“I can’t believe you sent that to my mum, though,” you voiced your latest thought. “The whole thing?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug because getting feedback from your mum had become a regular practice. He had continued to reach out to her even after you started to manage Rated Riot.

“With the curses and everything?” you asked, your nose scrunched.

He laughed again. You looked so beautiful like this, analysing his lyrics in your head. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

“She knows I curse,” he said. “She’s read most of my lyrics. Also, I am twenty-six.”

“Still,” you muttered. “There’s so much—you, um—you mention the bet in the song.”

His expression grew serious.

“Yeah. One of the first times I texted your mum, I…” he paused here, tracing his fingers lightly over his eyelids. “Well, actually, I was drunk, so I mostly remember this from the screenshots I took. I asked her if I could write a song that would bring you back to me. I was really—well, drunk and, you know. Sentimental. And she said—and I actually remember this part, because, somehow, no one else thought to say this to me—she said that I could, but I had to be honest in my lyrics.”

He fell silent, but it didn’t feel like an invitation for you to respond.

Looking up at you after a minute, Jungkook continued, “every song I wrote about you was honest. I meant every single word in every single verse. And I was hoping one of them would bring you back.”

It began as a faint buzzing in your chest and escalated into a gentle whisper, then erupted into a loud scream, filled with all the longing that’s been there all this time—mostly dormant, but restless. This longing wasn’t buried under mundane, daily tasks, it just existed right there in your chest, pushing sharply into your heart every time you thought you forgot, thought you moved on.

Every time you looked at him, every time you remembered him, every time you fell asleep, the longing was there, and it was growing, always growing—even more rapidly now that you and Jungkook began to spend more time together. By now, it had grown far larger than your chest could hold. And it was screaming.

“I’m—I don’t—I’m not sure I was ever really gone,” you confessed. “I think I... I actually called my mum with a decision already made. And I just needed her to say it was going to be okay. Because, you know. She’s my mum.”

There it was—the explosion he’d been waiting for. He could see the clouds in the distance but he hadn’t felt the impact yet.

“W-what’s your decision?” he asked.

“I want to try,” you said. “If you—if you’d—”

“I swear to God,” he interjected, his voice gaining volume as his heart rate gained speed. “If you're going to ask me if I want to be with you, I’m not sure I’ll make it.”

A smile flickered across your features, but you clutched the bedsheets underneath you tighter to control your expression.

“Let’s give this a chance,” Jungkook said, echoing everything that your heart demanded from you. “I know you’re scared of what this could mean for your job, and—”

“No,” you cut him off. “That—what happens with my job, happens. That feels—it feels like something we can figure out. But I want to try, and that’s what’s scary. Because this isn’t something we can solve, we either work out or we don’t. And I’m scared I won’t always be able to overcome my fear that we might not work. I’m scared I’ll still try to run away from everything.”

“I’ll find you,” he said, and your heart threatened to stop. “I’ll always find you.”

“You shouldn’t have to, though,” you protested weakly. “That’s not fair.”

“My love,” he said, sliding closer to you on the bed. You felt very light-headed. “Anything’s fair to me when it comes to you. Stay and let me make you happy.”

It was remarkable how his hotel bed managed to fit both of you and all that you’d carried inside you for all these years.

You shook your head.

“I’m happy,” you said. “This is right where I’ve always wanted to be. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jungkook looked at you, and he felt like he was nineteen again, watching you from across the campus quad. Thoughts of how to approach you—how to talk to you; how to look at you—were running rampant in his overstimulated mind. He had just left Sociology class where he’d doodled and daydreamed about you the whole time and now that he had a chance to talk to you, his legs had turned to stone.

He knew you liked Hayao Miyazaki, and he thought, alright, he would lead with that. And then in a frantic attempt to explain his determined stride towards you with a murderous expression on his face, he had ended up introducing himself as Neighbour Totoro.

Your smile in response should have been plastered on billboards; and was, on billboards, actually—all over the canyons of his mind. All he could do after that was just stammer about seeing you around campus, noticing that you shared a few classes together, finding it really cute when you dozed off during your professor’s philosophical rants, and wishing very much that the earth would open up and swallow him whole because what the fuck was he saying to you right now—and you’d smiled again. And the stones in his legs had melted.

You gave him your phone number and invited him to a party that someone on your floor was throwing that Friday. And you’d said, “I think it’d be really cool if you came,” but all that he could hear had been the violent pounding in his chest.

His heart pounded just as intensely now.

“Yeah?” he asked you, breathless and half-drunk as the rest of his hotel room drowned in your eyes.

He thought he could feel the earth move. He thought he could will it to stop, to pause for just a split second until you replied and he could—

“Yeah.”

He had arrived at that party back then, and you had found him right away. You’d spent the whole night talking until he finally mustered up the courage to ask you to hang out alone sometime. Maybe watch a film and have dinner? And you’d said yes.

You’d said yes seven years ago, and now you were here – saying yes, again.

Jungkook reached for you so quickly that you barely noticed the smile on his face, let alone the one on yours. His hands were soft on your cheek as he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a clumsy kiss—but your mouths needed less than a second to find a familiar rhythm.

His tongue met yours, and he tasted like the memory of every time you’d kissed him before and a promise of every time you’d kiss him in the future. He tasted like everything you’ve ever wanted and everything you thought you’d lost.

“Did you know,” he whispered, his words punctuated by heavy breaths and your lips smacking against each other, “that I dreamt about you—on the night before you showed up at the company—as our manager—?”

You pulled back slightly to be able to look at him, your lips parted in a surprised smile. “No. What did you dream about?”

“This, actually,” he said, kissing you once more and frowning when you pulled back again, waiting for him to explain. “Except neither one of us pulled away.” He paused here, looking at you very meaningfully. You pressed another kiss to his lips and he grinned, continuing finally, “I hadn’t dreamt of you in months, and I woke up from a text message in the middle of kissing you in that dream. I was obviously pissed. I looked at the text, and it was from Yoongi. He was saying, ‘we’re meeting our manager today, don’t be late’ or something like that. And I remembered debating just going back to sleep. But I forced myself out of bed, thinking that this manager better be worth it.”

Your smile was absurd. “Was she?”

He nodded, tracing his fingers down your neck to your collarbones, and bringing goosebumps to the surface of your skin.

“She was,” he said.

“You didn’t say one word to me throughout that whole meeting, though,” you pointed out.

Jungkook shrugged.

“I hadn’t seen you in two years,” he said. “I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would tell you how long I’d been waiting for you.”

You did not feel yourself respond with a defeated, breathless, “oh,” but Jungkook smiled when he heard it.

“Yeah,” he said, leaning in. “Hardly professional.”

“Mmhm—” your hum drowned in his kiss. “Hardly.”

There was something artificially sweet on his tongue when you kissed him back—likely from the gummy bears—and it made your hands instinctively reach for his shirt, pulling him closer. He wondered if you noticed the way his heart rate quickened at that; he found your need for him exhilarating.

You kissed him harder and remembered all your stolen kisses throughout this tour. This did not feel anything like it.

This kiss was not hurried—not until the five minutes you’ve allotted yourselves were up. It wasn’t secret—not until you had to leave your hotel room in Amsterdam. It wasn’t pretend—not until you had to admit to yourselves that you weren’t and could not be friends. And it wasn’t a dream, either—not until one of you had to wake up and realise that this had just been your subconsciousness, refusing to let go. To move on.

The kiss was slow. It was not rushed, and not hidden. It was true, and it was real.

Your heart finally returned home.

Then, Jungkook slowly pulled away, his pupils dilated and filled with something distracting that lingered on his mind.

“You didn’t say anything to me, either,” he said slowly. “When we started to work together, I mean.”

“I know,” you replied, letting go of him. It did not feel fair to touch him when he said that, but Jungkook felt lost for a moment after you pulled back your hands. “I wasn’t sure if I should.”

“Hmm.” He needed to find the string attached to the words he’d kept inside, and he needed to pull them out, but he could only do that by looking away. “I, uh—I get that now, but back then, I felt very, um—well, left-out, I guess. For lack of a better word. You talked to everyone else but me.”

You were struck by the immediacy and the clarity of these memories: how you’d made a deliberate effort not to talk to him unless it was necessary, because that was the only way you could stay professional. In hindsight, that should have probably been a hint. If you had to go to such lengths to avoid someone in order to remain professional, it likely meant you weren’t truly professional, just pretending to be.

“I know,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—well, I could have said something, too,” Jungkook said. “But after a while, it seemed to me like we’d silently agreed to just ignore our relationship, so it didn’t feel right to bring it up again. I didn’t want to make things awkward.”

Your smile broke through the sombre atmosphere in the room. You couldn’t listen to this without pointing out his reactions to you in those first few days. Jungkook had been very loud about doubting your authority.

“You used to complain about me all the time in the beginning,” you reminded him. “You said you wouldn’t take orders from a kid.”

He grinned, remembering, too.

“Well, I had to say that,” he defended, a glint of mischief in his eye. Age had been his favourite argument against working with you. “How else could I hide that I still had feelings for you?

You looked away—he expected this, and his smile grew wider. You thought you had him there. But he knew that in all the years you’ve known each other, you could not find a moment where he didn’t love you. He couldn’t find one himself.

“Maggie told me you were the one who told her we had dated,” you said then.

Jungkook did not immediately remember. “I did?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “We were all drinking together, and you—”

“Oh, yeah,” he cut in, nodding. He recalled Maggie responding to him as though he’d told her he was an escaped convict. “In the parking lot. I don’t think she believed me at first, actually. I was very good at acting unbothered.”

You arched an eyebrow. “She said she came to check on you because Hoseok noticed that you seemed bothered.”

Jungkook clicked his tongue. “Well, Hoseok notices these things. It doesn’t count.”

You grinned, shaking your head.

Jungkook, meanwhile, remembered something else now that you’d mentioned Maggie. It was something he’d held close to his heart for years, and he was hesitant to bring it up now. He knew it was probably not real, but he held onto the ignorant hope that it might be.

“Did you… tell anyone on the staff?” he asked.

“Hm? About us?” you clarified.

He nodded.

“Just the band,” you said.

“Oh.” He held his breath as he considered how to explain this, and how to brace himself for your response. “Because, um—well, apparently, Maggie spoke to Jin after I talked to her. And then Jin talked to Jimin. And Jimin told me that he thought I just had a crush on you.”

“A year ago?” you clarified, a little uneasy about the timeline.

The girls had tried to reassure you last night that you and Jungkook were really not that obvious—but perhaps the truth was that you had wasted all these years just like you feared.

You put unnecessary strain on your heart because you’d convinced yourself that this was how things were meant to be. You’d convinced yourself that Jungkook really did not love you anymore. And when you realised that maybe he still did, you’d convinced yourself that second chances did not work, and it was better to suffer through the initial break-up for years rather than attempt to try again.

“Yeah.” Jungkook swallowed, getting to his point. “And, um—a while after that, Namjoon said he thought you might have a crush on me.”

You blinked, feeling your heart leap into a thrilled dance, each beat a self-assured I told you so.

“Namjoon said that?” you asked weakly.

“Yeah,” he said, keeping his eyes on you. “We were both drunk, trying to work on a song, and not doing so well. I was upset about something that day, so I thought he was just saying that to comfort me. Cheer me up. He said he noticed you staring at me during our meeting earlier that day. He said he thought it was meaningful. Said you didn’t seem to just be dozing off.”

I told you so—

I told you—

You remembered that meeting.

You remembered looking away from Jungkook and meeting Namjoon’s raised eyebrows. You hadn’t realised you’d been staring. But he had.

Right now, in the hotel room, you did not say anything, but Jungkook felt the bubble of hope swell in his chest, straining as it threatened to explode.

It was true, then.

You had been watching him during that meeting. So much so that it led Namjoon—a very smart, but arguably the most oblivious man in the country—to notice that something was going on.

You cleared your throat. “Did he—uh, did he know about—”

“He knew I was writing about you,” Jungkook replied. “The second he yelled at me and told me to stop writing about abstract feelings and start writing from my own chest, I pulled out three different songs for him. He always knew.”

“Hmm.”

A moment of silence followed, allowing the two of you to simmer in the sounds coming from your chests.

You thought you were trying very hard to ignore him and focus on your job, and you did, really. Especially when you first started to work together. But gradually, the less you talked about your relationship to each other, the more your suppressed feelings made themselves known: it was the way you always happened to stand next to each other at the label events. It was the way Jungkook was the only one who remembered where your office was in the labyrinth of corridors at the company building. It was the way you looked at him when you talked to him. It was the way he teased you at every chance he got.

“So, the roadies thought you were dating Namjoon,” Jungkook concluded, “while Jimin thought I liked you, and Namjoon thought you liked me.”

“Yeah. Apparently, we’re all twelve,” you said. “I love how that’s ongoing, too. We’re still a very hot topic.”

Jungkook chuckled, seemingly as entertained about this as Seokjin had been when he mentioned the bets the staff had going about the two of you.

“I know,” he said, trying to restrain his reaction for your sake. “But it—it’s just us. You know? We’re the only ones who really know about us. You and me. And about fifty people on this tour with us, but that’s—well, who cares?”

“Yeah,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. “Not a big deal.”

He heard the sarcasm in your tone, but he still grinned. “Yeah.”

You looked down and brought your hands over your sweatpants, and his smile faded. He seemed to react to your next words before you even said them.

“I’ll have to, um—I’ll have to talk to the label about us,” you said. “I’ll have to tell them.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Another silence stole away any remaining words. Jungkook wondered if the two of you were really as powerful as he’d imagined. He wondered if you had the authority to decide what you’d do.

“What do you think they’ll say?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. There was a calmness in your voice that he wasn’t expecting. “We’ll see.”

“Should I—should I talk to them with you?” he suggested—and realised right away that this would not work.

“Probably not,” you replied gently. “It’ll feel a little like we’re talking to our parents. And not, you know, our employers.”

“Right.”

You glanced at him and realised that he appeared more worried than you felt. You thought that perhaps this was how it was between you two: one of you panicked while the other stayed level-headed to provide reassurance.

“It’ll be fine,” you said. “We got so far, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “But, I mean, what if they say this can’t happen?”

“Well, then we break up, of course.”

He gave you a long, questioning look. “I’m serious.”

“I am, too,” you replied, not serious at all.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, now you want to joke about it. Okay.”

You laughed, and immediately made him smile, too. Leaning into him—almost reflexively—you placed a hand on his chest and gently pulled him down onto the bed until the two of you were lying face-to-face. Finally, he laughed, too.

The truth was, you felt nervous as well. But some innate balance required you to look on the bright side when he couldn’t. Surely, if you overcame yourselves, you could overcome external hurdles, too.

“I’m not joking,” you said. “It’ll be fine. We, um—we know our issues now. I think we can figure out what we should do no matter what happens. We’ve grown.”

Jungkook looked at you for a minute, then finally exhaled and reached out to touch your cheek.

“Alright,” he said, the tips of his fingers careful as they traced over the side of your jaw. “We have. We used to never talk to each other.”

“Yeah, that had always been the core problem with us,” you agreed, leaning into his touch and singlehandedly stopping his heart for a dangerous minute.

The two of you found it very easy to point out your flaws now—like teachers marking all the issues in a student’s essay: lack of communication, toxic friendships, parental trauma.

“None of that now?” Jungkook asked.

“None of that now,” you agreed, closing your eyes.

You felt him scoot closer to you on the bed as his palm replaced the tips of his fingers on your cheek.

“I’m not going to shut up about how much I love you, though,” he whispered.

You looked at him again, and your smile stretched from one corner of his hotel room to the other.

“I’ll take that over silence,” you said.

He responded with a shuddered breath and moved closer. His lips found yours blindly, but effortlessly. His kiss was soft, slow, and lingering because now you had all the time in the world and he was determined to savour every moment.

Pulling back slightly, he brought his nose to yours, and the air you exhaled as you chuckled softly made him close his eyes again. He kissed your cheek and the corner of your lips and the edge of your jaw, and somewhere along the way, he realised that he had wanted to say something else but now he forgot all about it. He kissed your lips once more instead. Then twice more—until you were smiling too much for the kiss to feel like anything other than a gentle peck.

He settled back on the bed next to you. He was so close that you could barely look at him without your eyes going out of focus. And he was beautiful like this—his hair falling in loose, messy curls around his face, his eyes alive with an energy so powerful that you could not look away from him once your gazes met. His lips were parted as he breathed steadily, running his tongue over his lower lip.

You watched each other just like you had earlier in the corridor, with the tips of your fingers locked onto each other’s skin as though transferring electricity from one heart to the other, and back again.

“I’m sorry I did not want to talk about our relationship,” you finally admitted, your voice a timid whisper. “I thought the safe choice would be to speak to you one-on-one as little as possible. And after a few months, it became easier to be in the same room with you without my hands shaking, and my heart—well, anyway. I didn’t want to ruin what little stability we had with each other. Even though for a long time—maybe even the whole time, I don’t know anymore—we were there, in the back of my mind.”

He exhaled. “We could have talked about us before.”

“We should have talked about us before,” you corrected.

“Right.” He rolled onto his back. “Instead, I drank three bars into bankruptcy in those first few months after you started working with us.”

He remembered Sid’s messages as soon as he said this, and for a brief, irrational moment, he waited for you to stand up and leave the room. Instead, he was startled when he saw you smile out of the corner of his eye.

“I know,” you said softly. “I was asked to pay off your debt at one of them.”

He turned to face you, his eyes wide. “No—w-were you really?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Sid called and gave me an ultimatum: either I came to pay for your bill or the bar owner was going to call the police on you.”

Jungkook had to really concentrate to remember anything, and he quickly felt embarrassed that he even tried. He could not remember his own name, that was how drunk he would get in those days. He couldn’t bring them back to his memory now, no matter how much he tried.

“Where was Sid, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. “Probably tripping on something in a random hotel. He never called me if he was still with you.”

Jungkook swallowed, his thoughts racing.

“Well, I mean—shit,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t,” you replied. “I came to the bar and told the owner your name was Isidore Mercer-Hastings, and that they should contact the police to settle the bill for whatever you drank that night.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. He thought he lacked Sid’s perpetual sneer to pass as someone from a conglomerate family.

“They believed it?” he asked.

“Well, they didn’t know who you were,” you said. “And it was resolved very quietly after that. I doubt the bar owner even managed to write a report after he mentioned the name at the station.”

“Someone in Sid’s family must have handled it,” Jungkook speculated. You thought so as well. “Sid never said anything.”

“I don’t think he expected me to fight back, actually,” you said. “In any case, I paid the price. After that, he started leaving you in all kinds of shitholes for me to find a lot more frequently.”

Jungkook realised that a ball had formed in his throat.

“I-I didn’t even notice it,” he admitted. “He—he had me by the throat, and I thought he just wanted to hang out with me.”

You didn’t want the topic to shift to Sid, but it felt inevitable. He was the additional burden on your relationship, he always had been.

“And he’s in London now,” you said, sighing.

Jungkook exhaled, too. “Yeah.”

“What are we going to do?”

He looked at you for only a moment, but his eyes were filled with an unexpected alarm.

“I’m—well, nothing?” he said. “I don’t know.”

“But—I mean, he has to be here for you, right?” you questioned.

Jungkook’s phone weighed heavily in his pocket.

“He probably is,” he said.

“So, he stalked you all the way to London,” you noted. “I think we should start considering the possibility of you getting a restraining order against him, or—”

Jungkook whipped his head to face you. “Isn’t that—uh, a bit dramatic?”

Frowning, you propped yourself up on your elbows and turned to him. “He is stalking you, Jungkook.”

He looked away and brought his finger over the bedsheets. If Sid had sent him only that one video, perhaps Jungkook could have handled it quietly. But Sid had kept them coming.

And Jungkook had already tried it before: this method of not telling you and hoping to find a way out of a predicament that he’d allowed Sid to put him in. It hadn’t been successful. He had no intention of trying it again.

“To be honest,” he said, sitting up, “that is not the only thing he is doing.”

Your stomach clenched with something it had come to know very well over the past few days – pure dread.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“He, um—he’s sending me things.”

“Oh, God.” You turned away from him, groaning. “Don’t tell me he’s sending you the body parts of people he’s stalked before.”

“N-no, that—no,” Jungkook said and then paused to snicker at the thought. “He’s just—he’s sending me videos.”

You did not feel relieved. The way he said it made it sound like it was not just videos. It sounded like it might as well have been severed limbs.

“What videos?” you asked reluctantly.

He hesitated before answering, hoping—almost irrationally—that he would find a way to summarise the videos for you in a way that would diminish their significance. But he was worried he’d make it worse instead. He didn’t want to casually mention them or act like it was not a big deal, only to hear your negative response. You’d think he was still incapable of realising what he was doing, you’d think he hadn’t changed—and he had. He was sure he had. But his hands were shaking as he tugged on the bedsheets and refused to look at you.

“Of—of me,” he finally admitted. “Of us hanging out together before this tour.”

“Oh.”

He did not like the thickness of the silence around you. He didn’t want this to turn into yet another problem. And it wasn’t—it was a continuous problem that he’d willingly brought on this tour.

Jungkook couldn’t stop blaming himself for everything he did with Sid, and now he was convinced that his guilt wouldn’t even make a difference. He’d tell you about this, and the videos would be too much, and he would not be enough.

You’d warned him you were afraid; he didn’t want to add more doubts to what already seemed like a hesitant decision. Of course, he believed in your relationship too much to think that you were willing to try again just for his benefit. He believed you wanted this, too. But he was also rational enough to understand that you couldn’t just wish for your relationship to work out this time, and it simply would. You had to work on that. And he was sure that these videos would hinder the progress you’ve already made.

He decided he didn’t want to talk to you about this as though he needed your help solving this issue. He wanted to tell you about it with a solution already in his mind.

“T-they’re not good,” he added. “But I—”

“Why is he sending them to you?” you interrupted.

He paused, rearranging his thoughts. He wondered if you were intentionally avoiding asking him to show you the videos, or if you did not want to see them. He was not sure which option he preferred.

“He’s, um, threatening to show them to you,” he said.

“Unless you do what?”

“Unless—” He paused again. “I—I don’t know, actually. I don’t think he wants me to do anything. He’s just taunting me. I tried to block the number, but I assume he has multiple disposable SIM cards or something because I keep—well, different unknown numbers keep sending me videos from the same… situations.”

You looked away, absentmindedly patting the pillows on the bed.

You were certain that Sid had a goal in mind, he just hadn’t told Jungkook about it yet.

“Well, what’s in those videos?” you asked.

Jungkook shut his eyes. He was sure of it now—he would have preferred it if you hadn’t asked about the contents of the videos, after all.

“We’re—we’re drunk in all of them,” he said, his tongue catching on the dryness of his mouth. “Just doing dumb shit. Shit that I thought I left in the past. I know I left it in the past, I’m just—but with Sid pulling it all out now, it feels like—it feels like I’m still there.”

You frowned, puzzled.

“But you’re not still there,” you pointed out.

“I’m not,” Jungkook said, but his voice sounded distant. “But it—you were always the one who made sure that Sid and I didn’t damage the band’s reputation, or—well, anything else. I’m sorry about that, by the way. I-I don’t want you to think that all that you’ve done was in vain, and I don’t want you to think I’m still the same—I know I’m not—but it feels like—”

“Jungkook,” you said, cutting him off by placing your hand on his shoulder.

His distress reminded you of the night he told you that Sid was in Manchester with you. He was breathing heavily, barely able to choose his words. He thought, clearly, that you were going to blame him for this. He thought he’d let you down.

“Show me,” you asked.

And he showed you—because he knew he had to. He took a deep breath, sat down next to you, and played the videos for you, starting from the very first one.

But like he had yesterday, he cut the video off just as his hands reached out for his dance partner and he wrapped one of his legs around their ankles.

“Wait,” you raised your eyes to Jungkook’s restless gaze, “what happens next?”

“I, um—” he paused, attempted to inhale, and forgot all his words.

He thought he showed you enough. He thought showing you the rest of the video was going to be bad. He hadn’t considered how bad it would be if he had to recap it himself.

“I flip this person on their back,” he said, forcing himself to continue. He was going to tell you everything, even if he had to rip his heart out to do it. “We, uh—we make out. Or try to. It’s, uh—it’s definitely too much. But we’re drunk. Then a security guard comes to tell us we can’t do that here. I then declare that we’re getting married, so he can, respectfully, get fucked. And all of us get escorted out of the club.”

“Ah,” you said. “You must have been really wasted.”

Your voice sounded disconnected somehow—like you hadn’t fully grasped that he was the person in the video.

Or, he thought in a brief moment of lightness, maybe you had grasped it, but it made no difference because it’s been so long.

But Jungkook couldn’t hold onto this hopeful thought for too long. He felt he deserved stronger adjectives.

“Is this it?” you asked after a moment. His phone screen had gone dark after he hadn’t pressed on anything else. “Is that all he—”

“No,” he said. “That’s, um—that’s only the first one he sent.”

Then he played you the three newest videos—the ones he’d just received earlier today after he turned his phone back on.

All the videos were from days that he could scarcely remember. Sid had filmed him dancing, arguing, screaming, engaging in other activities that would earn a community label if the video got publicised, and drinking. Alcohol was featured heavily in all the videos.

You maintained a neutral expression through the first few clips but finally frowned when you watched the third one. In it, Jungkook was having a heated argument with someone outside what appeared to be a nightclub—the only indication was a bright neon sign behind the two figures on the screen.

Jungkook was visibly agitated in the video, hurling all curses known to mankind—and some only known to animalkind—at a red-faced man whom you did not recognise. The man remained silent, swaying slightly on his feet, frowning more and more with each passing second.

You attempted to remember this moment, trying to place the street where the video was taken—you thought Sid had asked you to pick up Jungkook from somewhere around here. But as you watched it, you could not remember Jungkook harassing a seemingly random person. And then you realised that this likely wasn’t a random person, and Jungkook wasn’t the one harassing him.

Turning your head to look at him, you were surprised to see the resolute defeat on Jungkook’s face. He appeared to be waiting to be sentenced.

“He cut the video,” you said, looking back at his phone, “to make you look intentionally aggressive. This guy—he approached you at the bar, didn’t he?”

Jungkook only hummed. It took him another minute to relax his muscles so he could speak—by that time, the video had already ended, and he snickered bitterly.

“Yeah. He used a few pretty slurs, so I told him we should take it outside,” he said. “Right after the video ended, he actually threw a vodka bottle at my head. It didn’t hit me, but we got into a—a fight, and I cut myself on a shard. No stitches, but, um, it bled like a bitch.”

“Fuck, that’s—I-I remember you bleeding,” you said, looking away. You’d wrapped your scarf on his hand when you found him behind that club, on the street from the video, sometime later. He’d refused a hospital and you had not slept the whole night after you dropped him off at his house. “What was Sid doing while that was happening?”

“Well, he watched,” Jungkook said, locking his phone. “He watched and filmed, and now he’s trying to make it seem like I picked that fight.”

You quieted. The videos had made it very clear that Sid was crafting a narrative about Jungkook—to make him look like an ungrateful, aggressive, alcoholic womaniser. Clearly, he was creating Jungkook’s fictional image after himself, and you would have pointed out the irony if you weren’t so annoyed.

“I know it’s my fault,” Jungkook added. “I shouldn’t have allowed him to get under my skin like that, but—”

“How long ago was this?” you interjected.

“I—it—a while,” he said, worried that this was the wrong answer. “I can’t remember.”

“Were you in Rated Riot?” you asked, hoping to determine a more specific timeline, because understanding when the videos were taken might help you figure out what Sid wanted. But you also just wanted to keep asking Jungkook for technical details to keep him out of his own head.

“I think so,” Jungkook said. “Because—I’m trying to figure out why Sid chose to send me these specific videos since I’m sure he has a lot of other great ones, you know what I mean? So, why these?”

“Why?”

“I think it’s because he called you to come pick me up at the end of these nights,” he said with an unsettling hollowness behind his eyes. “And you—well, I don’t remember, but according to what Sid told me later, you never asked what we were doing. You just pulled me out of these situations… and brought me home. A-and now he wants to show you that—he wants you to know what we were doing. What I was doing.”

“Okay,” you said. “But it—it’s been ages.”

He seemed taken aback by the ease in your voice, and his surprise was crushing. You realised he was expecting you not to talk to him again now that you’ve seen the videos.

To Jungkook, that would have made sense.

For years, his self-worth depended on how he was perceived and whether he lived up to expectations. And he balanced between wanting to live up to very different expectations from very different people: Sid, on the one hand. You and his grandmother, on the other.

That was why he didn’t tell his grandmother that he was friends with Sid. It was why he didn’t tell you about all his failed attempts at making your relationship special. It was why he refused to admit to Sid that he still loved you.

And, ultimately, it was why he did not want to reminisce about the nights in Sid’s videos. Nights when he knew he was making mistakes, but he needed to escape from his thoughts too much to care.

Jungkook realised all that. He understood. But there was nothing he could do with the voices, screaming at him in his head. They were telling him that his friends had all turned to reasons why you broke up that first time. He turned them into those reasons. And now those reasons were right here, on his phone.

“I know. But I just—it feels like this is something I can’t run away from,” he said. “It feels like Sid is telling me that this is who I really am. That I’ll always fuck up in the end, and that I’ll die trying—and failing—to be someone better.”

You were shaking your head, and Jungkook shook his, too, to counter your refusal to agree with him.

“No, look, I think that Sid means to use this to, well, to humiliate us,” he insisted. “Or—or just you. Like, ‘see what he was doing? And you still took care of him.’ So you would—you would realise what I’m—what kind of person—and you would change your mind about me—and about—about this. And then...”

He could not find the end of his sentence, but you knew what this was. Jungkook excelled in most things, but he had a throbbing Achilles’ heel – it was his fear of disappointing the people who mattered most to him.

The first time you learned this about him was at his twenty-first birthday party. Minjun, already very drunk, had decided to make a toast and told everyone a story about when he and Jungkook were fourteen. Among all of Jungkook’s friends, Minjun was the only one who’d actually been to his house, and on that day, they were riding bicycles around Jungkook’s front yard with Jungkook and his cousins. Jungkook wanted to perform a trick and he wanted Minjun to record it to brag to Sid later. But as soon as he lifted the front wheel off the ground, he ended up in his grandmother’s azaleas.

The story at the birthday party ended there, with everyone politely laughing and clapping, but Jungkook gave you the rest of it later.

Apparently, his grandmother had warned him about the flowers in advance; she told him not to bike there. And he had. He’d done what she told him not to do. Really, it was because he wanted to outdo Sid, so this could have been another thing that Sid had ruined—but Jungkook couldn’t even get to that part. He was already defeated by the sheer force of his guilt for letting his grandmother down. He was devastated.

He said she hadn’t even yelled at him after she saw how grief-stricken he was. But he still replanted the whole garden and watered the shrubs every day.

And as you listened to Minjun’s story at that birthday party, you realised that even then, almost a decade later, Jungkook flinched every time his friend mentioned azaleas. And he would keep flinching, as you would see in years to come, whenever his grandmother would bring up her garden.

Jungkook never forgot his mistakes, and they all weighed heavily on him. He could only escape them when he was surrounded by people, their voices drowning out his own.

He thought no one knew—he took a paradoxical solace in the belief that only he and the voices in his head knew about what went on inside him—but you’ve seen it over the years.

“No—but these things don’t make you a terrible person,” you said. It didn’t feel like enough, but the thoughts in your head were fast and frail—you could not find one to settle on.

Still, Jungkook looked stunned.

“I—they don’t?” he asked—with a genuine confusion that broke your heart.

“Jungkook,” you said, the edges of your voice desperate.

“No, I—I know,” he said, averting his gaze. “I know. But—really, this is my fault. I did that. I went out with him. It’s—”

“Your fault was staying with Sid for so long,” you interrupted. “That’s your only fault. But realising what was wrong with these people that you surrounded yourself with—that—that’s not wrong. That’s good. You’ve come a long way from the days in those videos.”

He heard you. But a sudden memory still resurfaced in his head: Taehyung had talked to him in the hotel corridor in Amsterdam. He had accused him of fooling around with you and reminded him that your relationship affected the whole band. Jungkook had told him he was serious. He wasn’t fooling around.

He’d meant it—but the bet had been ongoing. However much he wished it not to be, it was fucking ongoing.

And now Jungkook was all the more aware of the thin line between your decision to try this again with him, and the absolute recklessness of this choice. Had he come a long way? Was he different? Or was he really just running away from who he really was?

It would affect the whole band, Taehyung had said.

If he wasn’t good enough for you, he would ruin everything.

“But look how long it took me,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t—I can’t erase all the shit I did just because I suddenly decided to be a different person.”

“You can’t erase it,” you said, the conviction in your voice rivalling his anxiety, “but you can learn and move on from it.”

He shook his head again. “How can I do that when Sid won’t let me move on?”

“You can do it by accepting these videos as lessons,” you said. “But leaving everything in them in the past. You can do it by not letting Sid get to you anymore. I mean, you’re already doing it. You showed me the videos, which was what Sid threatened you with. You took away everything he was holding against you. You’re doing okay, Jungkook.”

He looked down and swallowed.

He wanted to believe he was okay so much. But there were so many weights on his chest and he could not shake them off. He could not escape them. He could not even pretend they were not there.

This was the reason, he knew, why he dreaded being alone and inevitably recalling every single time in his life when he could have been better, but wasn’t. When he could have been more, but chose not to. When he could have chosen you, but didn’t.

He longed for you in a way that he hadn’t longed for anything in his life before—so much that it hurt to think and his whole body felt grey and tense—but he’d already let you down. He’d let himself down.

“I hurt you,” he said after a minute, covering his face with his hands. “And, fuck, I don’t—I’m not saying this to guilt-trip you into forgiving and forgetting everything. I’m just fucking—I’m so fucked up. I love you more than anything in my life, but I-I can’t spend a single minute by myself without thinking about how fucking fucked up I am. And I’ve done so much stupid fucking shit. I don’t want it to hurt you any more than it already fucking has. And I know you’re the last person who should be comforting me about this. I’m just—I can’t get over those—”

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pressed your chest against his, forcing him to still in your embrace and finally stop speaking.

After a breathless minute, he finally inhaled and you felt him lower his hands from his face and tentatively slide them around your waist, his grip tightening as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. It was still his fear talking, you could feel it pressing against your chest as you pulled him closer until you couldn’t breathe, either. “I don’t think I can ever be enough for—”

“You’re you, Jungkook,” you cut him off. “That’s enough for me.”

He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes; you felt his lashes flutter against the side of your neck.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head against his shoulder. “I love you.”

He held you and breathed you in for an amount of time that no clock could not keep up with, but it still felt insufficient. And when you pulled back slightly to look at him, he pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that expressed everything that words could not.

“Thank you,” he added. “For everything.”

You kissed him back—not to say you’re welcome, or no problem. You kissed him to tell him that you had finally made a choice. You were here. And you were staying.

He understood all of it as his lips pressed to yours, as your tongues touched and your breaths mixed together, as his hands settled around your waist as if they’d never been elsewhere. But you sensed his nervous heartbeat against your chest, even though he tried to fight against it.

“Promise me,” he whispered against your lips, “that you’ll tell me if I let you down again.”

Gently—but swiftly—you pulled away.

“I’ll tell you right now,” you said, the firmness in your tone contrasting with the tenderness of your touch as you held a hand to his chest and another one on the side of his face. “You let me down when you put yourself down. We make mistakes, we own up to them, we learn from them. We try too hard, we don’t always succeed, but we get through it together. That’s what we do. And we talk to each other about it all.”

The second you stopped speaking, he pulled you to himself with enough force to knock your breath out of your lungs. You rested your head against his, your heart pounding to the beat of his pulse.

“We’re very co-dependent,” he whispered and the tension in your chest finally eased at his light tone.

“Yes,” you stated. “It’s how we are.”

He snickered and lingered some more in your arms. You rested your hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles and steadily calming down his mind, his heart, and the entirety of his tired soul.

“Maggie, um—she took a picture of us in Amsterdam,” you said. “Did you know?”

He furrowed his eyebrows but allowed you to pull away as he thought about this.

“Wh—oh, in the bathtub?” he asked.

“Yeah. You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah, she sent it to me a while ago,” he said. And, overwhelmed by the honesty of the moment, he added, “it’s beautiful.”

That wasn’t a secret—he’d named his newest song after the moment you’d shared in that bathroom—but he still questioned if he should have said this right now. He could imagine your shock about the picture—that was why he chose not to show it to you when Maggie sent it to him.

But your expression remained gentle, almost pleased.

“Yeah, I liked it, too,” you said. “Well, after I got over the fact that we left the fucking door open.”

He chuckled softly, the sound straining against the cuts and bruises in his chest.

“But anyway, my point is, focus on things like that,” you continued. “That’s who you are. You’re not a video from fuck knows how long ago. Sid doesn’t own you, and he does not control you.”

Jungkook swallowed and lowered his gaze. He nodded his head a few times, but you still started to feel uneasy—was this enough? Or was Sid’s presence in his head still heavier than yours?

You looked around for a distraction, and quickly found one, partially hidden under a stack of cookies.

“We had a film to watch,” you said, pulling your laptop out and accidentally knocking down some of the candy towers he had built on the bed.

Jungkook glanced up and caught a bag of chocolates right before it hit him on the arm. “Oh—w-we had. But how’s your head?”

You had completely forgotten it existed at all, which certainly alleviated your headache. The pure adrenaline from being so close to him probably contributed, too.

“It’s good,” you said, opening your laptop and turning around to adjust the pillows on the bed for more comfort. “I’m great.”

“I still think you should get proper food,” he said, and it struck you that this pattern of worrying, comforting, and taking care of each other in turns was truly a regular occurrence between the two of you.

“I’m fine,” you said. “We’ve got chocolate and more cookies than we should be allowed to eat. I want to live out my nine-year-old fantasy and my dentist’s worst nightmare.”

He smiled at that, but still hesitated. “Okay, but—well, maybe you would rather sleep?”

“I—alright.” You pushed your laptop aside and crossed your arms over your chest. “Now it’s starting to sound like you don’t want to watch this with me.”

“I do,” he said, coming to sit across from you so he could push the laptop back towards you. “I’m just—”

“I’m fine,” you repeated. “I want to be here.”

Hearing that made him happy—the jump-off-buildings kind of happy, where he was glad to have you here or else he really would’ve had no way to keep it all inside himself—but he seemed to still wait for something. The air in the room was still thick with everything that you’d talked about tonight.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We don’t have to do this—after everything.”

“I want to do this,” you said. And then, responding to the doubts he chose not to voice, you added, “I want to do everything with you.”

He watched as you leaned over your laptop to set up the film across the bed from him. He hadn’t realised he could feel so suffocated from the butterflies in his chest—his stomach could no longer contain them—and he was worried about opening his mouth in case they would try to escape. They’d fill this whole room with their fluttering wings, and the two of you would simply not fit.

“I love you,” he breathed out.

You raised your head and smiled at him—easily, effortlessly. Like you’ve done countless times before.

“I love you, too,” you said.

There wasn’t a building tall enough, he decided. Your voice resonated in his pulse and as long as his heart kept beating, he would always land on the ground perfectly safe.

“Alright,” you said, interrupting his very productive Staring and Smiling. “Let’s watch the film.”

“Alright.”

He returned to his side of the bed and managed to settle on the very edge of it. He watched the paused screen of your laptop and twiddled his thumbs. It took him half a minute to notice you were watching him.

“What?” he asked then.

“You’re comfortable?” you questioned. “Your grandma is going to be disappointed if you tell her that you watched the film but couldn’t even see the screen.”

He looked away. “To be fair, my grandma would be disappointed if she found out I had you in my room and I was across the bed from you.”

You tried everything to suppress your smile, but it crept onto your face in blatant defiance and chose to stay there.

“Well, what’s stopping you from coming closer?” you asked.

“My heart, I think. It might really stop this time.”

You laughed, and he was forced to acknowledge that he did not need to be right next to you for his heart to stop. All it took was this.

He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to recover from the fact that he could finally do this again—sit on the bed with you, watch films together, listen to you laugh, kiss you, tell you he loved you and hear that you loved him, too. And no one could text him and wake him up from this dream.

“Come here,” you said, raising your arm over the pillows to make space for him by your side.

He was beaming. Neither Sid, nor any voice inside his head could ever taint this moment or take it away from him.

Jungkook scooted closer to you, seemingly determined to make you regret your invitation. He immediately draped a hand over your waist and a leg over yours, his body warm, his touch inescapable. You started the film on your laptop, but doubted, suddenly, if you’d be able to watch anything with him so close.

One of your hands had come to rest on the back of his head, gently teasing the strands of his hair as he lied on his side next to you, almost half of his body thrown over yours. His fingers toyed with the edges of your hoodie, and he kept humming an unrecognisable tune under his breath. You weren’t sure if he even realised it, because every time you glanced at him, especially during your favourite parts of the film, he was diligently watching the screen. The only times he looked up at you was if you stopped playing with his hair.

Then, once the film ended about an hour and a half later, Jungkook pulled back a little to be able to see you in his dark room.

If not for the tapping of his leg against yours, he would have looked like an ancient sculpture with the contours of his face illuminated by the glow of your laptop screen. It felt exceptional, somehow, to be able to witness him like this, and you came to the same realisation as you had in Stockholm while walking down empty streets at night with him, and in Amsterdam, when he lied on the hotel bed next to you. You realised how effortlessly poetic he looked. How otherworldly.

And you realised you loved him far more than words could describe.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

His expression darkened, but he did not move to check who’d texted. He was determined to stay in the dream he was having.

Within seconds, before either of you could say half of a word about the film you’d just watched, his phone buzzed three more times.

Finally, he exhaled. He did not need to look at his phone; you both knew it was Sid.

“I told Minjun about this earlier today,” Jungkook said, reaching over to grab the device from the other side of the bed. “He thinks I should ignore him, but I’m not sure if that’ll work. I, um—I had hoped Sid would forget about the bet and just leave me in peace, but he saw how bothered I was, and that brought him joy. He never forgets anything that brings him joy. And this is something else that—”

“Reply to him,” you said.

“I—hmm?” He blinked. “What?”

You shrugged your shoulders. He appeared even more perplexed by your apparent nonchalance.

“He’s clearly anticipating it,” you explained. “Text him that I’ve already seen those videos. Add a heart.”

Jungkook was not sure what to make of this. Last night, you had tried to stop him from doing the very thing you were now suggesting.

But then he looked down at his phone in his hands—several new notifications about video attachments from unknown numbers were on his screen—and he thought he understood what had changed. He could see how your responses to Sid had been building up to this point. The bet was just one of many instances, a small drop in an endless ocean of shit that Sid came up with and encouraged. All of it had brought you and Jungkook to this moment: with the videos on his phone looming over him.

Sid may not have been the sole cause, but he had reinforced Jungkook’s already prominent reliance on external validation and his subsequent isolation anxiety. He even played a significant role in exacerbating these issues. Jungkook was aware of it, even if he couldn’t help it. And you were aware of it, too.

While he wasn’t sure how deep inside of his mind you could see, Jungkook looked at the determination in your eyes, and he understood. You were on his side, and after everything you’d talked about tonight, you were angry.

He considered your suggestion again.

“Won’t that antagonise him further?” he asked cautiously.

“Sure it will,” you replied simply. “But what else can he do?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“Well, he wants you to react,” you said. “He’ll continue to spam you with everything he has in his gallery unless you show him that he’s got nothing to win. You said he’s taunting you, he’s threatening to show me the videos. Well, I’ve seen them. He can’t do anything about that now.”

The more Jungkook thought about this, the more his heart rate increased.

“But then,” he said because he’s known Sid for most of his life, “he’ll find a different way to get under my skin.”

You shook your head. You were convinced that the only reason why Sid got so far, why he had such a tight grip on Jungkook’s thoughts, was because Jungkook allowed it.

“He won’t have that much power,” you said, “if you won’t give it to him.”

Jungkook was still hesitant—his habit of blindly following Sid’s lead was very hard to kill—but he unlocked his phone.

“Alright,” he said. “But—okay, I guess he might not believe me if I tell him you already saw the videos. So, what if I—”

“I’ll text him.”

His stomach sank in horror.

“You—no,” he disagreed, panicking as he got up on his knees on the bed. “No, no—w-we don’t even know these numbers he’s using.”

“I don’t need them,” you said, taking out your phone. “We know it’s Sid. We’ll strip him of all his courage by exposing the anonymity he believes he has.”

Jungkook watched you in helpless awe—as though you were doing something truly impressive rather than simply sending a text message. He leaned in closer to be able to get a better view of your phone screen as you selected Sid’s contact (saved as “ASS #1” on your phone—with Jude following as “ASS #2,” of course), and typed: “I already know about the videos, thank you for thinking of me 🖤”

Then, you put your phone away and turned to Jungkook. He was still biting his lip, evidently doubting and regretting at least half of his life.

“There’s a second part, you know,” you said.

“Hm?” He glanced at the black screen of your laptop. “Of the film?”

“Mhmm. He’s escaping from LA this time. Do you want to watch it?”

Jungkook felt a little dizzy. This was over, then. You sent the text, and that was it.

He was forced to accept that even though he had cut his ties with Sid, he could still feel the phantom grips of Sid’s collar around his neck. He wasn’t sure if he would have believed in himself enough to send one text and be done with it. He needed a deeper provocation—like Sid’s descriptions of you before he punched him—or someone actively supporting him all through it—like Minjun and Taehyung, when he gave his Katana up.

And you, he thought. He was thinking of you during all those times.

“I—well, yeah,” he said finally. “Let’s watch it.”

You nodded and returned to your laptop to prepare the second film. You had your back turned to him, so he could not see the slight tremor in your hands. You did not enjoy texting Sid, but he was using you to get back at Jungkook, and you were tired of sitting down and taking it.

“Do you think,” Jungkook said, leaning back against the pillows, “I should get an anaconda tattooed on my stomach?”

Your relief was so strong that you didn’t even realise you had started to laugh. Kurt Russell’s character had a very prominent shirtless scene in the film, and you had been waiting for Jungkook to mention it.

“That was a cobra,” you said. “And no.”

“I think it—wait, why not?” He leaned forward to look at you, offence prominent on his face. “It looked cool on Snake.”

“You’re not cool enough to pull it off,” you replied. He raised his eyebrows, and you shook your head to hide your smile and to emphasise your point. “It just wouldn’t work.”

He nodded slowly, his lips twisted ironically. “Oh, I see, okay. So, what would work for me, then?”

“Maybe a cute little rabbit.”

“A rabb—oh, sure.” Crossing his arms over his chest and pouting, he looked very much like the tattoo you were imagining. “Go ahead and mock me.”

You squinted your eyes. “A rabbit with a lip ring?”

“Mhmm.” He tilted his chin up. “I will get a cobra tattoo out of spite now.”

Snickering, you hit the spacebar on your keyboard and started the film.

“Let’s watch the second part before you decide rabbit or cobra,” you said.

“I’ve already deci—”

Your phone vibrated on the bed, cutting him off. A familiar anxious shiver ran down your spine.

You glanced at him, and just as before, the two of you quickly came to the same conclusion, and the radiant smiles on your faces suddenly clouded again.

Breathing a little heavier, you paused the film after less than a minute and picked up your phone.

There was a new text message from Sid. He had sent you a link to what appeared to be an Instagram post. His message underneath it read, “Okay :) and do you know about this? x”

You had a feeling what was coming even before you clicked the link; your subconsciousness had made the connection before it should have realistically been possible.

The link directed you to Sid’s profile and the picture he’d posted four minutes ago: it was the black-and-white bathtub shot that Maggie had shown you at the bar last night. Sid had captioned it, “so happy for you!”

Jungkook cursed softly on the bed behind you.

You were not sure if you were breathing.

“Fuck,” Jungkook said again. “He—he must have got it from my phone. Maggie—she sent me the picture, and Sid—”

“This piece of fucking shit,” you swore. Your hold on your phone remained firm, despite the device shaking in your frustrated hands. “He’s definitely not just taunting you, he’s targeting us both.”

The Rated Riot fans knew who Sid was, they saw the picture. Jungkook glanced at your screen once more as you clicked on the likes. They were pouring in too quickly, and the total number—which Sid had not made private, of course—could not refresh in time.

Neither you, nor Jungkook said anything. Neither of you drew any obvious conclusions. Simply watching as the image spread online was already enough.

People said a picture was worth a thousand words, and you wondered about the value of this particular one.

You hadn’t even talked to the label; you’d barely talked to each other about your relationship. How would this look for you? What would you do?

“This is what he wants, then?” you asked, staring at your phone. The usernames on the screen blurred together. “For us to break up? He’s that miserable?”

Jungkook felt a knot straining in his stomach, and he could not respond.

“And why do it like this?” you questioned further. “What the fuck is wrong with him, aside from the obvious? What does he gain from any of this?”

Jungkook thought he knew what it was. He could feel it that night when he handed Sid the keys to the Katana. But he hoped—he really fucking hoped—that Sid would get over it. He got his way, after all.

“He won the bet,” Jungkook said, “but I did not lose anything. He can’t stand the thought that I’m—h-he needs me to know that I’m not better than him.”

You groaned. “Fuck—fuck him. Fuck his immature shit, and his fucking ego. Whatever it is that he wants, he’s not going to get it. He’s already done enough.”

You got up from the bed, and Jungkook watched you move around his room with a quiet purpose that he could not decipher.

“What…” he cleared his throat, “do you mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” you said, and your pacing increased. “But we’ll figure it out. He’s not getting his fucking way.”

Jungkook felt a little foolish as he asked, “you’re not mad?”

You stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the uncertain arch of his brows, the slight pull of his lips. You wondered if you would have had it in you not to strangle Sid if he was in the room with you right now. Really, Jungkook wouldn’t even have to do anything. Maybe dig a hole later.

“At you?” you asked, returning to the bed. “Why would I be mad at you? I—I’m angry in general. But I think Sid would have found some kind of a picture of us and posted it anyway. At least we managed to get on his nerves a little first.”

You sat down beside him, and he ran his fingers through his hair, half-nodding, half-shaking his head.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he decided. “We might have, uh, actually pushed him into doing this without thinking it through. He didn’t even tag us in the picture, right? And I mean, I know it’s us, but we’re completely in the dark, and—”

He stopped talking when you abruptly jumped up, scrambling to unlock your phone again.

“W-what is it?” he asked, alarmed once more.

You returned to Sid’s profile, clicked on the picture, and refreshed the post.

He hadn’t tagged you.

Jungkook was easily recognisable in the picture if you expected to see him there. However, it was likely that besides Maggie and Luna—who already knew it was you because Maggie had said so—no one else could identify the other person in the bathtub.

“Shit, you’re right,” you said, your heart speeding in your chest. “He didn’t tag us. If I hadn’t texted him, he might have posted the picture later, after thinking it through better, and—but he hadn’t. Fuck, this is—we can fix this. I—oh, we will fix this, and I’ll fucking make sure this is the last game he plays with us.”

Right away, just from the tone of your voice alone, Jungkook knew that Sid had lost. He’d lost and he didn’t even know it yet.

You hadn’t broken up. You were together—seemingly even more together now than you were hours ago, when you’d first entered his room.

Finally, Jungkook exhaled in staggering relief.

The two of you had already won.

chapter title credits: normandie, “blood in the water”

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carlyraejepsans · 3 months

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UTY!Flowey, "lore" and how to criticize a fan prequel without being an insufferable pedantic, a guide by Biscia.

(for my muskless fellows, here's a transcript of my thread on Undertale Yellow that I posted on Twitter. enjoy!)

There's this really frustrating attitude in fan spaces i like to call "lorepilling" where people are substantially more concerned with encyclopedic knowledge of details & minutiae (so called "lore") in place of full-text thematic/narrative analysis as if the two are mutually interchangeable.

It's especially common in large franchises and story heavy videogames, and it's like... Are You Treating This Piece Of Art Like A Trivia Battle Or Are You Treating It Like A Story

This is coming from a person who is also deeply autistic about UTDR trivia btw, I'm just saying that when it comes to transformative *stories*, depending on the impact it has on character, themes, and narrative structure... lore is expendable.

Ultimately this is why most of the UTY criticism i see (on twitter specifically) falls flat. What does it matter if "lore" means Flowey couldn't chronologically be there when the justice human fell, as long as the game narratively justified his presence in the story in a compelling way?

The real criticism, in the end, is that it didn't.

He's a plot central, main cast character from the canon returning in a cast of mostly OCs and what does he have to show for it? An admittedly sick boss battle in 1/3 endings, sure but... not much else. He has no significant "presence" in the story, no tie, interaction, or even just... an opinion on the rest of the cast. Which is a huge miss when Flowey's meta role is to be Thee completionist player mirror. He's the OG lorepilled UT fan! He's an opinionated little shit!

This isn't to say that UTY *didn't* engage w/ his metanarrative. When me and @a-town-called-hometown first started playing the game (we were both skeptical of Flowey's inclusion), he immediately said "It would be really cool if they made it so this has been going on for a while and Clover has no idea". Which is precisely what the game did in the neutral ending, and what I will openly say was the most well written & well executed part of this game's story...

...a part we almost didn't see, because the pacifist ending disappointed us so much we lost all will to replay.

To put it in the words of my friend Mel @clowwwnbytes, there's a deafening hollowness to UTY Flowey's motivations & core principles where his guilt towards Chara—and resulting black and white thinking—should be. You're telling me Mr Kill-or-be-killed, "sacrificing yourself to do the right thing is stupid", would stand there after 1000s of failed attempts to make Clover survive, look on as they make the same mistake Asriel he did, and fondly call them friend? Cue the guitar, roll the credits?

He would lose it. Oh my god he would lose his goddamn mind, he would throw the nastiest temper tantrum in the world. Are you serious? How dare you. How DARE you. All this effort, all my patience, and you just let yourself DIE for a few worthless idiots? I should've let you ROT!

*clears throat* sorry got a bit too into character. as i was saying.

I can understand a UT prequel wanting to distance itself from the canon Chara storyline in order to form its own identity, but then turning around and choosing Insane About Chara The Character™ for a sidekick is... far from optimal. In the end, Flowey comes across as underutilized and inconsistent, with a whole lot of wasted potential.

This is an issue I have with UTY's character writing (original AND returning) and story structure as a whole. Lots of inconsistent character arcs, tonal dissonance, overuse of situational sadness... it's an amateurish work, after all, and you can feel it. There's no shame in that.

(Though, there ARE some issues that i take more seriously with its writing, especially when it comes to its two main female characters—Ceroba's lack of narrative agency and depth borders on misogynistic writing imo. But that's a topic for another day)

Over all, UTY was an incredible piece of collaborative transformative work, with gorgeous art and a genuinely incredible OST, which... would have benefited from more experienced writers. But hey, you can only ever learn by trying!

For all it could've been a better story, it certainly did not fail to entertain: both when my friend was playing it, and after in our many discussions of its writing, its faults and how it could've been improved (royal scientist!ceroba character fix you will always be famous. to ME!)

I'm sure this project served as an incredible source of experience for the developers: as individual creators AND as a team. I look forward to their future projects!

but also if i have to see another person say UTY is better than Undertale i might turn into The Jonker.

end of the essay! really couldn't stand any of the pedantic ""criticism"" I'd seen of this fangame so far, so i had to say my piece as someone more versed in analysis. happy to elaborate on anything in the replies or in my inbox!

#undertale #undertale yellow #uty #flowey #mywriting #metanalysis

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crownmemes · 2 months

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Advice; Everyone Should Be Making the First Move

There's been a trend within the rpc here for years now where nobody is willing to make the first move. The problem with this is that if nobody ever makes the first move, then nobody is ever going to write anything. Considering that, everybody should be making an effort to be the first one to reach out to their writing partners more often.

Examples of making the first move:

Sending an IM to say hi, then suggesting a plot

Sending a meme to start a new thread

Responding to starter calls and open starters

All of this is just as valid for old partners as it is for new. If you haven't written with someone in a while, maybe it's time to reach out to start a new thread?

The most common reason I see for people not making the first move is social anxiety. I'm going to give you all a bit of tough love here: speaking as somebody who once had crippling social anxiety (and still does in irl settings), the best way to overcome it is to push yourself to try the things that make you anxious.

Communicating with people is a really important part of rp because it's not a solo hobby, therefore you are going to have to talk to people at some point. It's unavoidable. Here are a few reminders to help you feel a little less nervous:

If somebody follows back, they're doing it because they're interested in writing with you. They are not going to be upset if you send them an IM with plot ideas

Most people are friendly! In 12 years of rping on this site, I can count on one hand the number of people who I've talked to that were actively rude to me

It's okay if someone says no to you! People have different styles and not all of them will work together. If someone says no, say thank you for the consideration, then move on. There are more people to write with out there

If somebody is nasty to you, you can block them. Don't be afraid to do this; you don't have to explain yourself, and you wouldn't want to write with someone who's rude to you anyway

If you're not sure what to say, I usually go with a version of "Hello! Thank you for following/following back! I've looked through your rules and about pages. Would you be interested in plotting something for X and my character, Y? I have an idea already, if you would like to hear?"

Don't just say "Hi!". Cut to the chase and tell them why you're messaging so they immediately know what the conversation is about

Reasons why it's good to message first:

You look actively interested in writing. This is a huge boost in your favour when it comes to asking to write with someone

It makes it a lot easier to get new interactions

It makes you appear more active

If you're a new blog, you won't have a lot of examples of your writing on your blog yet. People will be more willing to give you a chance if you approach them first

If you don't message first, you are likely to be waiting a long time before somebody messages you

It's easier to make friends if you have an active conversation!

Some other thoughts on messaging first:

You have followed the person because you are interested in writing with them. Think about why you are interested, and suggest this as a plot idea

Make sure you read through the rules still. It's very obvious when you haven't. Also, look through the muses on offer so you can suggest which you'd like to write with

If the rules say they're not mutuals only, or that you're welcome to IM to introduce yourself if you want to plot, don't be afraid to message. They wouldn't have put that in their rules if they didn't mean it

If someone is reblogging memes, it's because they want to write responses to them. Send them in! If they didn't want them sent in, they wouldn't have reblogged the meme

IMing to plot is often a better idea than liking a starter call or sending memes if you have never interacted with the person before. It gives you a chance to work out what kind of thread would work well before you start something, so the resulting thread has a lower chance of fizzling out quickly

However, all that being said, it's not just up to the person messaging first to make all the effort. If the receiver doesn't put any effort in in return, then the person making the first move is going to think they aren't interested. Eventually, they may give up messaging people at all, because what's the point if it never goes anywhere? Some tips for not seeming uninterested:

If someone IMs you, try to reply to them in a timely fashion. Especially try to reply to them if they sent you a plot idea. You don't have to agree to do the idea - it's just very annoying to be ghosted the second you actually start plotting

Suggest your own plot ideas in return, or build on the idea that the other person has given you

If you agree to write a starter, or one is written for you, follow through with it. Write the starter, reply to the thread. If it's going to take a while, let your writing partner know that you've seen it but you're going to be slow for a while

Similarly, if you post memes, reply to the ones people send you. If you never reply, people will pick up on this and eventually stop sending you things

If you go on hiatus, message your writing partners directly when you get back to let them know you'd like to write again. This will demonstrate that you really are active and ready to write again

#rph #rpc #rp psa #rpc psa #rp help #rpc help #rp advice;

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bobacupcake · 1 year

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anyways heres my twitter exodus social media rankings as someone whos income is tied directly to my following so i am stuck in this hell loop until i get paid enough to hire a socialmedia manager for our game studio

tumblr - i mean come on guys. ive been here for 11 years. i met th love of my life and became her friend via tumblr ask memes here. whats more to say. theres obviously things i would change but out of all of them this one is the one i feel most comfortable using. you guys always have my back 7/10

twitter - awful. awful. awful. i hate you. you took everything from me. we used to have cotweets. i was going to collab with my friends and post them as a cotweet. you bastard. 0/10

cohost - favorite out of all the new sites. in terms of functionality i dont have too much reason to use it because its ux is super similar to tumblr but the community and vibes are great. its run by actually cool people. you can put css in posts. i have seen so many cool posts. 10/10

bluesky - honestly not too bad from the usability angle. big thing keeping it down is its another VC funded thing so it will eventually become awful but for now its decent. its basically twitter but before it got bought out by musk and also you can pick the algorithm your feed runs on kind of like tumblr (so like you can make your default a completely linear timeline of only the people you follow. or a completely linear timeline of only your mutuals). if any of them become the proper "twitter successor" i want to believe it will be this one . not that i Hope its this one but i feel like if it isnt this one its going to be threads and i dont want it to be threads. 5/10

hive - it was mobile only and i needed to update my phone to use it so i never did. i dont know if people still use this one i dont think they do ?/10

mastodon - idk why i cant get into mastodon i have tried so many times i am just not feeling it. 4/10 for me but 8/10 objectively

threads - bad. bad. meta product. privacy violations so bad its banned in the eu. algorithm driven feed with 50 million celebrities i dont know and dont care about. mobile only. pleae dont let this be the one. please i dont want to use threads. i dont want to have to use threads. please. please. please you guys

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bri-the-nautilus · 3 months

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Come To the Dark Side, We Have Hot Guys: A Star Wars Story

Spoilers below for S1 of Ahsoka and the first six episodes of The Acolyte.

I'm writing this with The Acolyte most of the way through airing its first season, with episode 6 having released earlier today. Say what you will about the show, but it's really brought out a lot of the uglier sides of the Star Wars fandom. Everyone and their mother has seen videos or Reddit threads dunking on the Critical Drinker or SWT and their mouth-breathing misogynist audiences at this point, so I don't feel particularly compelled to retread that ground. Instead, I want to talk about the... other side of the fandom, the hypocrisy therein, and how we're all being played for absolute fools by the creative team at Disney Lucasfilm.

Yes, this post is about Qimir.

Now I want to say that I have no problem with villain simping/shipping. Far from it. Most of my posts on this account are me simping for Shin Hati (we'll talk more about her later) or various Soulsborne bosses. Hell, my mutuals and I have a running joke about me having a weakness for evil blonde women. While I personally am too gay for my own good and couldn't care less about men as a concept, I absolutely see the appeal of characters like Qimir and Kylo Ren. I absolutely get why people thirst over them and love making fandom content for them. I think Qimir/Osha has the potential to be a really fun ship, actually. The point I'm making here is not "simping for these characters is wrong and bad," and I want to make that crystal clear before we continue.

That said, let's talk about Qimir, and how the landscape of the show and its surrounding discourse has changed since his reveal. Again, I'm ignoring the chud sphere here, partly because their little corner of the Internet has remained remarkably stagnant since then. The podcast bros still think it's woke, fucking Shadiversity is still whining about fight choreography (which as someone who actually has done HEMA/stage combat, Shad annoys me to no end, but that's an entirely separate can of worms), and it all seems to be business as usual over there. No, the most marked changes have been on the Acolyte-positive end of the fandom space. Here's what the top posts in "hashtag TheAcolyte" on Twitter look like tonight:

You get the idea.

Again, no hate to any of these people. This is tumblr ffs, we've all engaged in a little simping for a morally dubious hot person. I love seeing fans having fun engaging with something, and again I kinda dig the Osha/Qimir ship.

Anyways, if you were around for the Acolyte-positive discourse before the Qimir reveal, and especially the show's marketing and the reponse to that, you'll have noticed a marked difference.

Fans quickly began to see The Acolyte as " the gayest Star Wars ever." Showrunner Leslye Headland is an out lesbian, and her wife was cast as Master Vernestra Rwoh. Archetypical girlboss Carrie-Anne Moss was cast as Master Indara, immediately drawing comparisons to her role in the Matrix movies. Leads Osha and Mae Aniseya are played by the nonbinary Amandla Stenberg. The lesbian witches of Brendok were talked about in press releases before the show aired. Dafne Keen (Jecki Lon) stated in an interview that she portrayed the short-haired, serious Theelin as having a crush on Osha, something that fans were picking up on in their first interactions in the premiere before Keen even gave that interview. While Headland said in a post-premiere interview that she didn't set out specifically to make "a capital Q Queer show," it's an objective fact that no Star Wars movie/show has had as much potential in that area, and fans (especially the queer community) took notice. (For what it's worth, in the same interview Headland commented that she was proud of creating something that so many queer fans identified with.)

The show came out, and Master Indara was killed off in the first sequence, which I'm honestly fine with. It was a good scene and works on a lot of levels. Headland's aforementioned interview came and went. Episode three aired. The lesbian witches turned out to be even gayer than was previously thought possible, and people ate that shit up while the Critical Drinker's brain suffered a major cascade failure. Jecki became a runaway favorite in the premiere and episode four, as did lovable himbo Yord Fandar and the wise, paternalistic Master Sol. In Acolyte-positive circles, this was basically how it went. People thought Brendok was cool, the Yord Horde became the show's biggest social media sensation, Jecki and Sol cultivated devoted followings alongside Osha and Mae, there were a wealth of different ships involving various combinations of Jecki, Yord, and the twins... you get the idea.

Then episode 5 happened.

The writing was really on the wall when the Brendok coven was abruptly wiped out. Introducting such an interesting (and queer) Force-wielding culture only to exterminate them in the same episode was certainly a choice that somebody made. But episode 5 was a shock to the system for many fans, as the show's resident Sith revealed himself and killed Jecki and Yord in some of the most brutal recent onscreen deaths in Star Wars. To be clear, I think this was a great sequence. Two beloved main characters being suddenly and gruesomely killed off was a masterfully executed shock to the system, especially after viewers were lulled into a false sense of security by all the redshirt deaths in the previous scene.

This, understandably, completely changed the landscape of the Acolyte fandom. Virtually overnight, much of the simping and shipping involving Jecki and Yord dried up, and once the dust had settled as far as the "rip blorbo, gone too soon" posts went, what remained were the usual Sol/twins offerings and a wave of Qimir hype. Which is understandable. He's a badass emo Sith boy with a cool helmet who brutally murdered fan favorite characters in front of us and has palpable tension with the female lead. Who wouldn't love... wait a minute.

This feels familiar somehow.

But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?

And just like that, "the gayest Star Wars" is all about the (straight) sexual tension between an edgy, murderous Sith boy and a light-side girl plagued by dark thoughts whose friends said boy just killed. This is all eerily similar to how the Sequel Trilogy focused on Rey and Kylo while abruptly dropping Finn and Poe's character arcs. Even the fandom discourse is the same. I mean Reylo was so ubiquitous back in the day that it became a derogatory catch-all for good girl/evil boy shipping. Multiple authors now have either gotten their initial start/fame writing Reylo fics, or straight up published legally distinct Reylo fiction after the fashion of Netflix's After. You had the occasional person piping up to say "hey they kind of just left Finn and Poe hanging after TFA, it would've been cool if they got together but at the very least don't relegate them to being side characters/comic relief in separate story threads," and that was it. The same thing is going on with The Acolyte now, only the sequel trilogy wasn't marketed on the strength of being a queer story by a queer creative team. The Acolyte is, which makes it all the more baffling that by the midway point of the first season, all the gays have been buried and the show seems to be heading straight for Reylo 2: High Republic Boogaloo. And the fans are eating it up.

As an interesting aside, I think it's an interesting exercise to contrast the Kylo/Qimir pattern with the broader fandom's treatment of Shin Hati (told you we'd circle back to that), and the ship between her and Sabine Wren. On paper, Shin is very similar to Kylo and Qimir. Villain? Check. Edgy-looking armor? Totes. Emotionally damaged/stunted in some way? Sure looks like it. Tension with the heroine? You betcha. If anything, the only major difference is that Shin isn't as evil as the others. Compare her actions in Ahsoka (clearing out part of a light cruiser with Baylan and making repeated attempts on Sabine's life) to Kylo (oversees multiple war crimes, kills his fan-favorite dad) or Qimir (orchestrates the murders of several Jedi before brutally executing two fan-favorite characters). She's definitely bad, but I struggle to see her as on par with Qimir, let alone fucking Kylo, in terms of evilness.

Which makes it all the more interesting to me that the Shin/Sabine ship has received so much more mainstream skepticism/criticism than the Osha/Qimir or Rey/Kylo ships. "They have no chemistry!" "She's an evil murderer!" "She's a blank slate!" "Sabine is taken!" I may be a touch biased, but from where I sit a large part of the fandom, even the ostensibly progressive side, seems to look down upon Shin/Sabine shippers while swooning for heterosexual variants with far more evil villains.

This isn't a monolith, and I can't stress that enough. I'm not trying to start shit here. Villain shipping is awesome. We support women's wrongs in this house. You do see the occasional person decrying Reylo or Osha/Qimir as toxic, which I think is fairly unnecessary. Like yeah, maybe it's a toxic dynamic, but these are fictional characters. For these specific characters, part of the crowd appeal is the toxic badboy side of things. I don't think we should really spend much energy attacking any fictional ship (between adults, mind you) as toxic, which is why it puzzles me that an as-yet-unconfirmed lesbian ship in a niche show receives such a large proportion of this sort of criticism compared to the canon relationship between two main characters of a blockbuster trilogy.

At the end of the day, this whole affair has been rather sobering for me on both Disney Lucasfilm and the Star Wars fandom. For all the support the Shin/Sabine ship has received from Ahsoka cast members Ivanna Sakhno (Shin), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine), Eman Esfandi (Ezra Bridger, the other character people like to ship with Sabine), and Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka), I'm rather sour on the prospects of it becoming canon. The sequel trilogy dropped the ball on what many saw as a promising chance for an MLM romance between Finn and Poe in favor of trotting out the "why do good girls like bad boys" dynamic, and The Acolyte, "the gay show" overseen by a lesbian, has seemingly shifted to center a similar dynamic after killing off most of its prospects for a queer relationship among the main cast. Simply put, I think that Disney as an international company based in the frighteningly divided United States is reluctant to commit to anything beyond lipservice in terms of LGBT representation in their movies/shows, which again doesn't leave me feeling optimistic about WolfWren's canon potential. And the fandom takes the bait. People love the damaged evil badboy/good girl dynamic, and when the queer fandom suggests the possibility of a queer ship taking center stage in a show with no other extant relationships, even the more progressive side of the fandom tends to either ignore it or actively push back on its basis in reality until Disney Lucasfilm inevitably puts the kibosh on it. The amount of times I've heard people dismiss WolfWren for the same reasons they now like Osha/Qimir and liked Reylo (before that ship was fleshed out/canonicalized, anyway) is ridiculous, but at the end of the day you kinda feel stupid for expecting anything else. Again, I think Qimir is a cool character and I'm as much of a sucker for villain romances as the next girlie, but seeing how easily the fandom lets dangling heterosexual carrots lead it away from Disney Lucasfilm's broken promises of queer rep is a sobering ordeal.

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boxboxlewis · 10 months

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for the talented genius @powerful-owl... a wise woman once prompted "Bodyswap but it’s just dick swap! 😈😈😈 You have to figure out the owner of your temporary dick. Also, it responds to its usual owner's brain!" cw for size difference & small dick max

Max wakes up slowly at first, and then all at once: because although his body is heavy and warm under covers, as usual, something isn’t right. Something is different, is differentnewstrangegood—new but juuuuust right—he’s grinding his dick against the mattress, he’s feeling the unfamilar length of it pressed against his stomach, the strange tug of something in the tip that must be a piercing—

He bolts immediately awake, panting, and flips onto his back. And then he lies still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, before curling back on his side and willing himself back into sleep, on the grounds that maybe everything will be back to normal when he wakes up again.

Yeah, it isn’t.

He decides to ignore the situation, for the time being. He gets dressed and walks over to the fridge to get himself a premixed protein shake without thinking any thoughts at all, without even noticing—anything. There’s nothing to see here. And definitely nothing to feel.

He drinks the shake, which takes about two minutes, and then figures he should probably try to man up. Deal with the situation. He gets out his phone and scrolls to his text thread with Daniel, because Daniel is, he’s pretty sure, the only person he knows with a dick piercing.

Daniel, it turns out, has texted. Many times.

Hey max, how’s things, little out of the blue here but like

Anything weird going on with you, today? Pants-wise?

Hello

Maaaaaaaaaax

[missed call from Daniel Teammate]

Answer me motherfucker

Hey you know it’s really fucking annoying that you never have notifs turned on?

I THINK I HAVE YOUR FUCKING DICK MAX

[missed call from Daniel Teammate]

I know you’re overthinking this cmon just call me

Otherwise I’m going to take drastic measures

Max mentally rolls his eyes. Drastic measures like what, text some dick pics to the press with the caption “Hey anything look different?”? He texts Daniel back, Please calm down you’re embarrassing me. And then, This happens sometimes, right? He thinks about saying more—how it happens between people with a strong emotional connection, how some people say it’s a soulmate thing—but that feels way too mortifying to type out. Also, Daniel probably already knows. Instead he writes KMag and Charles, everyone says, before they got married. Although that maybe is a rumour. He’s about to keep listing grid dickswap incidents—there have been quite a few, more than you’d expect, really—when Daniel calls again.

Max picks up this time. “Hello, Daniel.”

Daniel is breathing heavily, as if he’s just come back from a run. “Fuck you. How are you so calm about this? You should be the one freaking out and I should be calm. This is bullshit. How has this fucking happened? I want my dick back, Max!”

Max feels a small bloom of hurt in his chest, which he tries to ignore. Of course Daniel wants his dick back. First of all, it’s his dick, the one he’s used to. Secondly, it’s—Max shakes his head to clear it. “Look, Daniel, I of course do not want your stupid dick. So. Come back to Monaco so we can jerk each other off.”

“I—what?”

“So we can jerk each other off,” Max repeats patiently. “That’s how you reverse this, everyone knows that.”

“I guess I’m just a little confused about how we’re supposed to go from teammates and friends to mutual masturbators, but if that’s the solution then sure, let’s go!” Daniel says. He sounds slightly hysterical. “I’ll just get me and my Max Verstappen junk on a plane and get myself over to your boudoir.” He says “boudoir” sarcastically, as if he’s assuming Max’s bedroom is some spare, utilitarian space with no personality. Which is very rude, because actually Max has some of his most important helmets on display there.

“We can wait, if you want,” Max says. “We can see if it just goes away naturally. Only Pierre and Esteban, they are trying this, and they have been waiting now for seven years.”

“Pierre and Esteban,” Daniel scoffs. “They’re fucking idiots.”

Max leaves a significant pause. Eventually, Daniel says “Fine, I’ll get on a plane.”

While Max is waiting for Daniel, he goes for a run. Running has never really cleared his mind or whatever it’s meant to do, but it’s nice, feeling tired afterwards, feeling his leg muscles aching virtuously.

It’s in the shower that it happens. Max is very assiduously not looking down—he is staring, in fact, at the fucking ceiling—and he’s not venturing anywhere near the region of his junk. Daniel’s junk. Whatever. But then he feels himself getting hard, and it’s not just—he can feel the pressure of a hand on his dick. The pressure keeps on going, gliding and squeezing, and it’s like getting a handjob from a ghost, except the ghost is Max’s teammate who has Max’s dick. Max shoves his fist as far into his mouth as he can and screams a little bit, and then reaches down and cautiously wraps a hand around himself. He still can’t look, but the feel of it shocks him, fills his mind and sets it buzzing. Daniel’s dick is big, as Max had suspected, but feeling it with his own hand is different than suspecting it. The piercing at the end, right through the tip, that feels different too. When Max tugs it gently his eyes roll back, partly from the feeling and partly from knowing that Daniel is feeling it too, that Daniel, wherever he is, is responding to Max's hand—

Max comes so hard his vision blacks out; when he can see again, he’s still staring at the ceiling.

Once he’s dried off and dressed he texts Daniel. Was that really necessary? Daniel responds with a middle finger emoji. Then Max realises that while he was in the shower Daniel sent a photo. Max stares at the photo with his head swimming, and quickly makes the executive decision that he needs to be sitting down in a non-bathroom environment in order to really appreciate it and make sure that he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. He makes it to the couch on numb legs and sinks into the cushions.

And when he looks at his phone again, there it is—there’s fucking proof positive of everything Max was trying not to think about. Max’s dick, pink and erect, gripped in Daniel’s hand, the tip barely peeking out. He can feel himself starting to get turned on again, thinking about Daniel touching himself, Daniel’s hand on Max’s dick: except the dick on his body doesn’t respond. Which means Daniel must be getting hard right now, with Max’s dick.

You’re sick, he texts. Daniel replies right away: Yeah yeah c’mon, give me a picture. So Max does, reluctantly, heading back to the bathroom where the biggest mirror is, feeling stupid the whole time. The mirror is still kind of steamy from his shower, which lends a softcore kind of vibe to the scene that Daniel will hopefully think is funny. Max rucks his shirt up, over his nipples, and gets his other hand on Daniel’s dick, at the base. He's hard again, can feel the ghost-strokes of Daniel touching himself, and he looks—he looks pretty good, he thinks. Then he realises that his pose leaves him without a hand to take the photo. He takes his shirt off and tries again, and sends the pic to Daniel before he can think too much about it. Daniel responds with a row of flame emojis, which should maybe be off-putting but just makes Max crack up.

They jerk off two more times before Daniel gets to the apartment, and Max is starting to feel familiar with the shape of Daniel’s dick, the heft of it, where it’s sensitive, what to do with the piercing. When the man himself arrives Max feels ready. “Daniel! Come in,” he says, and can hear how oddly formal he sounds, as if the undoing of a dickswap is some grand social occasion.

He leads Daniel into the living room, and then before he can chicken out, he asks the question that’s been nagging at him since the morning. “Daniel, why did you straightaway think it was my dick?”

Daniel gets the mildly electrocuted expression he gets sometimes when he thinks a situation is about to get awkward. “Did I?” he says. “Think that?”

Max flicks him in the ribs. “You texted me about eight hundred times,” he says. “I assume you did not also send those messages to anyone else on the grid, but I don’t know your life. Maybe you did.”

“Ah, no, you got me,” Daniel says. “I guess I just, uh. Suspected, maybe?” He clears his throat. “Because of, just, like. Uh. And like, people say it’s always like someone you’re close to, right, so like—”

Max cuts him off. It’s embarrassing for Daniel, hearing him dance around trying not to say I thought you had a small dick, so when I woke up with a small dick I assumed it was yours. “Okay, enough,” Max says. “Thank you Daniel, that is a great explanation that definitely is very plausible.” Daniel makes a protesting noise, but Max powers on. “Before we swap back I anyway have something I want to ask you. You do not have to say yes, it is not—I will not mind, if you say no. I will understand.”

He looks at Daniel, to make sure Daniel is listening. Daniel doesn’t look electrocuted anymore: he’s half-smiling, eyes warm, so. That’s good. “Yeah, Maxy, I got you. What’s your question?”

Max takes a deep breath, and says, “Before we swap back, can I fuck someone with your dick?”

huge thank you to @lights-out-go for a) organising this and b) helping me take this ficlet from "pile o' words" to "pile o' words i can post on tumblr" 💖

DON'T MISS: previously, on emfest! @officialmood's soulmates masterpiece and @onadarklingplain's scholarship in the key of alpha toto/omega george!

#emfest2023 #my fic #rbr era #maxiel #mv33 #dr3

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anti-catradora-collection · 5 months

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TRANSLATING AND GIVING MY HONEST OPINION ABOUT THIS TWITTER THREAD:

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ DO NOT GO AFTER AND DO NOT HARASS THE CREATOR OF THE THREAD I'LL BE COMMENTING HERE. thank you.

"it pisses me off when ppl say they love enemies to lovers and then say that catra//dora is toxic.

like, ENEMIES is not when one person steps on another's toes and gets angry towards them"

keep reading under the cut:

yeah, "enemies" certainly is not when one person steps on another's toes and gets angry towards them. even google knows that. enemies to lovers is completely different from rivals to lovers.

however, c//a aren't enemies either. they have never been.

they were simply abuser x victim. and that's mainly because adora never really felt any hate towards catra. she even tried to make catra join the rebellion multiple times.

additionally, adora knew how to defend herself, but wouldn't do more than she needs.

catra, on the other hand, would relish on BRUTALIZING adora. she even tried to end the whole universe out of spite to adora, willing to kill them both in the process.

and let's not forget: catra did all this with a smile in her face, proud of being able to manipulate and control adora.

they were never mutual enemies. adora mostly viewed catra as someone to fear. most of the time, she felt powerless when the matter was catra. to be honest, even when the matter wasn't her, it's shown that she felt that way. damn, she even had a panic attack because of catra.

and let's not forget how catra and adora's fights are always viewed as "flirtatious/sexy" and, surprisingly (or not), they are always with catra on top while adora is unable to fight back for any reason (be it for an emotional or physical reason, temporarily or not).

the only exception for what i said above is this scene, where i don't even believe adora is being flirtatious (for me, she's simply being smug) and where she's not even talking to catra in person.

of course, there's times where adora physically hurts (or tries to hurt) catra back, but it's solely to DEFEND HERSELF/OTHER PEOPLE. catra takes advantage of adora's kindness cuz she knows she won't be able to cause the same harm as catra does.

"enemies to lovers is ALWAYS toxic in the enemies part. a relationship where you are the other person's mortal enemy is not even possible.we ship catra//dora precisely because they get to the lovers part, and when they get to it, there is no more toxicity."

I'm so sorry to break it to you, but C//A has been toxic before, during and after they were in opposite sides of the war. here is an example of this. catra always made it seem like it's adora who's always abandoning her, but it was catra's CHOICE to stay in the horde.

C//A relationship occurred on an existing pattern: adora accidentally says something that makes catra mad -> catra hits/insults her -> catra runs away, expecting adora to chase after her and feeling like she's rejected if that doesn't happen. it even happened while they were KIDS.

and let's also not forget about catra gaslighting and slapping adora in that one episode while she was going through another panic attack. "catra didn't know something was going on!!!" she literally had "flashbacks" about things that did happen and adora was clearly not okay.

catra could've been a good friend like glimmer was for adora in the hot springs episode, listen to her, try to help and properly calm her down even if she didn't know what was happening, but catra didn't. she insisted on her own view that everything was perfect instead.

catra also makes it seem like adora is the abandoner multiple times in season 5. like girl you're the one who literally abandoned her even in S5 plsss-catra CHOSE to stay in the horde, adora tried to make catra come with her since forever. catra was the one running away.

she even framed adora as being the violent one in their relationship with this scene:

"how am i supposed to fight my own friends?"

"it never stopped you before."

it's almost like catra wasn't the one always trying to hurt and murder adora all the time... lol.

"apart from the abuse that catra (and adora) suffered throughout her childhood AND her fear of abandonment, the only reason catra treated adora the way she did was because she suppressed her feelings in such an absurd way that she was even violent."

uhhh.. no?

you're telling me catra tried to kill adora multiples times and destroy the universe because deep inside her heart catra LOVED adora?

this is honestly giving me "he hits you because he likes you!" vibes. i bet if catra was a man, you wouldn't be saying stuff like this.

plus, shall i say something that may sound a bit... harsh:

THIS. IS. NOT. ABOUT. CATRA.

of course catra is traumatized.

of course catra is also abused.

of course all these facts helped building up catra's character.

but nothing justifies the way she treated adora.

"but catra was abused, she was raised in a harsh way, she doesn't know any better!" what about we stop making adora's abuse about her abuser...? everyone kinda seems to forget how catra was also a w4r crim1nal lmao. of course catra deserved love. but not in the way she got.

catra also needed to be held accountable for her actions, which she didn't. "she was brainwashed by horde prime which made her suffer a lot!" okay, and? catra also brainwashed and put adora into a lot of pain and that fact was never once brought up again.

i mean, catra literally was a gen0c1dal w4r crim1nal. she killed lots of people (including glimmer's mother). again, she tried to end the universe. she destroyed villages. she attempted to kill adora multiple times. was she even questioned about it?

no. the princesses immediately take catra in with them as soon as adora says "she's with us now". there was not even a proper discussion about it.

"as soon as she gets sufficiently comfortable in being vulnerable and admitting what she feels to adora, there's no reason for her to be violent because there's nothing else to suppress. the acception of her "true self" breaks the cycle of abuse and that's WHY +"

not gonna comment on it cuz i already said how catra has been abusive during the entire series - even after she has been rescued. "she was going through a lot" and adora was too. It just wasn't fair for catra to treat adora that way simply becuz "adora doesn't want mee! :(".

like, girl, this isn't about you. you ASKED adora to save the world but then you get angry when she decides it's something she NEEDS to do and states that no one else can do that. like ???

"they turn into a couple.

double trouble themselves tell catra exactly what she has been doing during all seasons to hide and deny her own feelings for adora. because these feelings made her feel uncomfortable."

excuse me, double trouble was also wrong about that. starting by the way they said "left you" while turning into adora when we know it wasn't what happened, there's also the fact that their speech wasn't only about catra's "feelings" for adora.

it was also about catra feeling abandoned and rejected by EVERYONE she knew: shadow weaver, scorpia, hordak... or are we going to forget the fact all these people were also in the scene?

but even the show itself tries to make it seem like adora was the abandoner only for the "just this once, stay" quote to make sense. another reminder: spop's writing is very far away from being the best.

"I would NEVER ship catra//dora the way i do if they haven't got a redemption and if the "enemies" part hadn't come to an end. at most, I'd think they have chemistry and potential for making out, but their healthy relationship is only possible due to their happy ending."

i don't even know what to say- this person lost me at "I'd think they have chemistry and potential for making out". why the hell do you think catra abusing adora would be hot, SPECIALLY in a scenario where they keep being "enemies"???? 😭

also, yes, they got a "happy ending". but at what cost?

catra lied to adora and insulted her even during her confession;

catra never really changed, this series simply tried to make it seem like she did (and failed to do so)

adora is now in a supposedly "happy relationship" with her own abuser and sister, while both didn't at least got therapy BEFORE that.

catra didn't need a romance with her victim in order to be happy. she simply needed time to HEAL, just like adora. "but can't they heal as a couple?" no. it just doesn't work like that. you can't love someone else without fully loving yourself first.

"that being said, catra is open to therapy with perfuma, already sees bow and glimmer as besties, says sorry with ease, happily participates on princesses hugs, isn't afraid to show love and care for adora. and that's when a good relationship is born."

catra may be "trying" to be a better person in canon, but she's far from achieving that. you all say "someone needs time to heal before turning into a better person", but then look at catra, whose "redemption arc" was up for half of the last season and applauds it as "the best character development ever". it also doesn't work like that. it doesn't matter how many times catra saves the world if she keeps treating adora like dirt while doing that (guilt tripping, insulting and beating her up, for example).

basically, saying "I'm sorry for everything" once doesn't mean anything if catra, herself, doesn't truly change.

the last tweet of the thread finished with the following sentence:

"kisses and go to therapy"

all i can say is: thanks, op. you too.

#spop discourse #spop salt #spop critical #spop criticism #anti spop #anti catradora #anti c//a #anti c/a #spop #she ra #tw incest mention #tw abuse

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decolonize-the-everything · 2 years

Text

So we all know that Tik tok is bad and steals info, right?

Right okay.

And I became so normalized to like yeah I have no privacy online no big deal.

So when I saw one of my mutuals from here show up on my list of friends to follow on tik tok I didn't think much of it.

Today though I decided to figure out like how insidious it is. Cuz the people showing up as friends... I don't dm them, I'm not regularly reblogging from them or anything. We're just mutuals.

And tik tok picked that up. I follow thousands of people and thousands follow me. So... How insane is their data collection?

I stumbled onto this article which answered my question.

It's about this guy who reverse engineers apps explaining what he found when he reverse engineered tik tok. Obligatory disclaimer: this article is two years old However still fairly accurate as tik tok hasn't changed that much.

He explained all this in a reddit thread so I'll share the screenshots from the article

“TikTok might not meet the exact criteria to be called “Malware”, but it’s definitely nefarious and (in my humble opinion) outright evil,” Bangorlol said. “There’s a reason governments are banning it. Don’t use the app. Don’t let your children use it. Tell your friends to stop using it. It offers you nothing but a quick source of entertainment that you can get elsewhere without handing your data over to the Chinese government. You are directly putting yourself and those on your network (work and home) at risk.”

And like yeah that's really invasive right. But like no they aren't just looking at follower counts and app usage from other apps. They see Actual real data on them. How else would they know which of my followers interact with me most out of the thousands of followers I have?

And how much info are they getting from the data they sift through?

How many of you don't have tik tok but still have your name, age, and some traits, maybe a DNI in your bio? How many of my followers don't have tik tok, but now tik tok has access to you through my Tumblr? How's that make you feel? Is tik tok taking the interests of people I follow into consideration when it's figuring out what videos to show me?

Are they looking at Your interests to help zero in on mine?

°•°•°•°•°

If you like my posts consider leaving a tip

#tik tok #Tumblr #cybersecurity #data collection #data crawling #i deleted it

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askinkiskarma · 1 year

Text

Cruel Summer | Chapter II: Before It Sinks In

Pairings: Neteyam x (f)Human!Reader

Word Count: 5.5k words

Warnings/notes: angst, allusions to/mentions of smut, friends-with-benefits, mutual pining, 18+ minors DNI

Synopsis: After the Sully kids get attacked by the newly found Recombinant Soldiers, Jake makes the tough decision to leave the Omatikaya. Neteyam is forced to say goodbye to you, to your relationship and to the life he always dreamed about.

A/N: So I decided to split what was originally supposed to be one chapter into two, and this way I get to make good use of the amazing song that @karma-is-a-cat-purringinmylap was amazing enough to turn me on to, that just happened to work like a glove (the first non TS song in my works!!!)! I think I will try sticking to shorter chapters, as I feel 10k chapter might be a a bit overwhelming overall. Now, did this chapter make me cry several times? Yes. Will it make you cry? I'm hoping you will tell me soon ;)

enjoy besties ily xoxo

: ̗̀➛ listen to Before It Sinks In here : ̗̀➛ masterlist (x) : ̗̀➛ series masterlist (x)

Suspended in the air, I hear myself breathing

Hanging by a thread, my heart is barely beating

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

Neteyam watched as you ran towards the lake that he wanted so badly to show you, he was practically buzzing by the time he got to Hell’s Gate. He found this little spot accidentally a few days ago while on a hunt, and it’s been on his mind ever since, exuberant at the thought of you in it, at the thought of your face splitting in a wide smile and your eyes widening taking it all in. He thought of the little squeal you would make as you saw the waterfall and way you’d jump off his back immediately and make your way without thinking of your clothes, or the mask, or anything else. The scene unfolding in front of him was exactly the way he pictured it, a testament to how long you’ve been in each other’s lives, how well he knew every facet of your being, like you were just an extension of his own self, like you were a complicated poem he’s dedicated his whole life deciphering and could now recite by heart, could now dissect it and appreciate it endlessly, to its full potential.

You didn’t look back as you just hurriedly made your way to the edge of the water, taking off pieces of clothing as you did, until you were in a lace thong and bra, that Neteyam has seen multiple times before. He could see it every day, every minute of the day, it could be tattooed on his eyeballs and it would still not stop the way his mouth instantly filled with saliva and his head felt dizzy from all the blood travelling downwards. You were the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid his eyes on. Actually, beautiful did nothing to describe you. Beautiful had nothing on you. Neteyam wished he was more articulate at times like this, he wishes he would have read all the hundreds of books residing in the big library in Hell’s Gate where you loved to spend your time, in order to find the proper word to describe you. In order to validate his postulation that there was, in fact, not a single word in all of the English language, or Na’vi, for that matter, to encapsulate what you meant to him, how he viewed you.

A splashing noise is all he heard as you jumped quietly in the water, and he followed suit, a little concerned when you wouldn’t resurface, until it dawned on him you could breathe underwater with the mask on. When you did resurface, you were standing right underneath the waterfall, the biggest smile in the world plastered on your face, and Neteyam couldn’t help his own that blossomed like how the flowers in the morning bloom did, like how his love for you did.

Neteyam couldn’t remember his life before this. Before tangled bodies and insurmountable pleasures. He couldn’t remember who he had been, what used to occupy his mind and thoughts, what feelings, middling and insignificant, used to plague him before your being took over everything, over every second of every day, over every dream and nightmare, over the past, present and future. Neteyam knew he fucked up. Knew that he lied to you that day, when he told you he wouldn’t fall in love with you. Because he did, he fell like from a distance so far removed he could no longer see the ground. And yet, Neteyam knew the ground was there, and that gravity was pushing him towards it, and that whilst the fall was freeing and exhilarating now, while now it felt like flying, once it ended, it would crush all his bones, and his spirit, and his soul.

“This might be the best thing you’ve ever shown me!” You were screaming loudly, trying to be heard above the booming noise of the waterfall crashing down in deafening roars, and he laughed at how enthusiastic you seemed, how wild and free. You’ve always been like that, Neteyam mused. You kept to yourself in the labs, and in the village, around the scientists and other people, around his mother and the clan - but when you were around people you loved, people you were comfortable with, you were uninhibited and unconfined to expectations, and fears and limitations, at liberty to be yourself, to shine brighter than any star in the sky.

“What are you doing over there, Teyam? You know I don’t like to be kept waiting!”

He shook his head, but said nothing as he removed his cummerbund and knife belt and dove in the warm water, swimming until he reached you. As soon as he did, your arms and legs encircled him like they always tended to, automatically and without thought.

You looked in his eyes, and the glimmer in it made Neteyam’s mind freeze and go blank, made his heart thump in his chest and sweat pool on his skin, that was promptly washed away by the undulating water.

“I want to kiss you.” Neteyam couldn’t help the words coming out of his mouth, a confession and a plea all in one, a futile one in the face of untouchable facts, such as the fact being without your mask will kill you.

You smiled and placed a soft hand on his face, tracing his lips gently, and he shuddered under the touch. “I want to kiss you, too.”

“Thank you, Teyam. This is beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it, ma Vol. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to bring you here. It was the only thing on my mind, the thought of you and m-“ Neteyam realised his mouth was running faster than his mind could keep up, a rare occurrence in his life, but fairly common in your presence.

Your eyes were wide and full of surprise, and fear started creeping on your face, unannounced and unwelcome, although not completely unexpected. He shouldn’t have said that. Every time things got a little too… intimate between the two of you, any time either of you pushed the boundaries that you both established, boundaries that you needed to abide by above all, it took a while to fall back into step, to get things back to normal, to mutually forget and pretend it never happened. He didn’t want that to happen again. Things were going great for you two, and he didn’t want to lose any time with you, any time he could be loving you instead, any time he could be making you writhe underneath him, any time at all.

“I - I just meant… you know… I -“

Your slender fingers found his lips again and at the small pressure you put on them, he stopped talking. Your eyes softened and your surprised expression melted into one of muted happiness, of unspoken affection, of forbidden feelings.

“I know.”

You spent hours swimming and giggling, splashing water at each other, enjoying how, when both submerged, the difference between you didn’t seem that extreme, the discrepancy in your bodies and your heights nothing that couldn’t be promptly overcome. You talked until your lungs were running out of breath and your voices hoarse, just catching up and discussing everything that’s been going on since you hadn’t seen each other.

Right behind a waterfall stood a layered rock formation, which happened to allow for perfect positioning so that, when sat on it, your and Neteyam’s faces were at the same level. You smirked as you slipped your finger in the band of his loincloth and tugged at it until he took the hint and got closer to you. He didn’t have time to protest you taking off your mask recklessly and smashing your lips against his, a kiss so passionate and deep, it pushed any rational thought out of his mind and replaced it with desire and a tingling ache, one that he knew too well, one that seemed ever-present around you.

“Vol..” he tried to speak against your lips, but you just shook your head and deepened the kiss, pushing your tongue past his lips until it met his, entangling in a suave dance until you were panting and heaving against him. He tsked annoyed at your foolhardiness, and watched patiently while you fastened to mask on yourself again and took deep, settling breaths.

“You take my breath away… get it?” You laughed and then laughed some more at how unamused he was. “Come on, it’s funny.”

“You putting your life in danger foolishly is not funny to me.”

You smirked and shrugged indifferently. “Well, not everyone gets my sophisticated sense of humour.”

“God, I hate this mask.”

Neteyam knew how much you hated it. He hated it, too. He’d give anything to be able to kiss you freely, to caress your face, to feel your lips and your soft skin, to see your eyes reflecting the colours of the nature surrounding you instead of a piece of glass doing it instead. Fortunately, Neteyam always knew how to cheer you up.

“Vol…” he started, voice so low and soft it was almost purring. His long fingers traced your beautiful body, and each freckle adorning it, until he reached your panties, that he skilfully pulled down your thighs, until you were hanging on to them by an ankle. “Just because you can’t kiss my lips, doesn’t mean I can’t kiss yours.”

Neteyam watched as your upper body leaned backwards until your back hit the rock wall, pushing your head back and closing your eyes in anticipation. Your hand found its way to his hair, that you grasped tightly and pushed him down, and he laughed at your already needy and disheveled demeanour. “You know, Teyam? You’re definitely the bestest friend a girl could ever ask for.”

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

I haven't fallen yet, but I feel it comin'

Tell me would it be too much to ask, if you break it to me gently

“What?” Neteyam could hardly believe his ears, could hardly believe that the words coming out of his dad’s mouth were his current reality, and not a nightmare his mind concocted to make him ill, to keep him awake until his eyes started burning in his skull.

“We are leaving. Tomorrow.”

Neteyam watched in pain as Tuk cried silently and immediately felt the pang of fraternal instincts kick in, urging him to pick her up and hold her close in his arms, let her cry it out in the crook of his neck.

“But why, daddy? I don’t want to leave.”

His dad’s stiff posture melted at his daughter’s words, that he could never resist. His eyes softened and he sighed, taking his mother’s hand in his.

“Because we are in danger, baby girl. We now know the humans brought Avatars with them, that they brought the best soldiers back to life to hunt and kill me. And they will stop at nothing to do it, including hurting you.”

The only thought spiralling violently in Neteyam’s mind, as usual, was you. His heart was pounding aggressively in his chest, the increased heart rate making his ears hurt and his head dizzy. What did this mean? How would leave? Just the family? What about you and Spider? You were family to him, and to the rest of the Sullys. Maybe not to his mother, but even she would never want anything bad to happen to you. If you did come, would you make it in another clan? Would they ever accept two humans as one of their own? The Omatikaya barely did, and you have been part of their lives for 19 years. What if you didn’t come? He couldn’t leave you. He couldn’t lose you. What was he supposed to do?

No. No, he couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave you, he promised you, he promised himself. No matter what would ever happen in this life or the next, Neteyam knew you were the only constant he cared about, the only person he wanted to take with him and keep for the rest of time. He would tell his father no. For the first time in his life, Neteyam would tell his father no.

“Kids, I can’t risk putting you in danger. I can’t risk putting the Omatikaya in danger once more, leading them to war. I have too much to lose.” His eyes flickered to his mother, that was sobbing silently by his side, but tried to keep it together for her family and be brave, have a strong heart.

“We have too much to lose. If we go, we can keep them safe. The clan…” His father looked intently at his kids, eyes focused on Kiri and Neteyam. “…The humans.”

The humans…

Leaving would protect the humans. Leaving would protect you.

I'm waking the next day, without you beside me

And who I hold on to today, tomorrow will just be a memory

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

You and Neteyam’s friendship had a lot of boundaries, for good measure. It was necessary when you were doing things normally reserved for couples, or mates, when you were doing things to each other that no one else would approve of, or understand. One of the rules of the game was that you wouldn’t sleep together. You used to, when you were younger, but that was when your relationship was platonic, back when things were… normal. Now, you thought sleeping together and cuddling would be too intimate, too inappropriate, and it would lead to feelings, feelings you were trying to avoid, feelings which might get in the way of the harmless fun you were having, feelings which might make everything… complicated. It was all just fun. Just fun.

That being said, as it turns out, you were both really bad at following your own self-imposed rules, and so it didn’t take too long for you to break them all.

Deep, satisfied pants were all that could be heard in the big recreation centre that Neteyam knew by heart by now. It was dark, his freckles the only light that reflected in your eyes, the only light you needed.

“Well, we’re definitely getting better at that.” you said with a small chuckle. That might have been the understatement of the century, but you didn’t want to scare him by telling him that if it was up to you, you’d have him tied in this room with a chain only loose enough so that he could do this 24/7, but just tight enough so he’d never leave.

You were laying with your head on his chest, as you always seemed to after a long and exhausting session. You loved the feel of his smooth, muscular body, that, despite your size difference, was somehow the most comfortable pillow you’ve ever slept on.

“I’m exhausted. I feel like you and Lo’ak forget sometimes that me and Spider aren’t Na’vi, and yet you work us like we are.”

“Stop complaining, Vol. I need you to be strong and agile, ok? I need to know you’re safe and that you can take care of yourself despite this tiny frail body you possess.”

You raised an eyebrow and scoffed annoyedly, mumbling mostly to yourself.

“Didn’t see you complain about my ‘tiny, frail body’ 20 minutes ago when you were fu-“

“Stop, Vol. You know what I mean. The humans are going to be back at some point, we both know that. And you spend too much time in this place, with your experiments and your books and your shows. I know you don’t like being in the village, and I know that my mother and the villagers give you a hard time sometimes, but at least when we go tracking, or hunting, or practicing, I want you there. I need to know you’re safe, ok?”

He stopped talking, and he sighed deeply, tightening his grip on your body. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper, laced with intense emotion.

“I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

You nuzzled your face in his chest and mirrored his grip on you, smiling softly at his concern and his words, that ran shivers down your spine and fluttered butterfly wings in your stomach.

“The worst thing that could ever happen to me is losing you, Teyam. Everything else, I will handle like the big girl I am.”

He kissed the top of your head, and you stood like that for a while, enjoying the comfortable silence. The thought of this moment ending hurt you deeply, so much so, you couldn’t fathom it. So you decided not to.

“Don’t go. You’re comfortable and I’m cold, and my room seems uninviting by comparison.”

He chuckled imperceptibly. “You love your room, ma Vol. You’ve written songs about how much you love your bed.”

“I love you, more.”

He sighed once more, but pulled you closer and settled down for the night. “I love you most.”

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

I would look back at all of this and wonder why I stayed in here

Just to watch you disappear

When Neteyam reached your room in the lab complex, his heart was in his throat and his knees were wobbly, and he was almost reminiscent of his Uniltaron and how the worm made him feel, like he wasn’t there anymore, not fully. Like he could see his body from outside itself, like his was mind watching everything unfold from a safe distance. His movements felt robotic and untethered, no thought outside of how was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to leave you? How was he supposed to tell you that it’s over, that maybe you won’t lose him to another woman but you still will lose him nonetheless. Neteyam was trying to think which one was better. In a sea of two impossible choices, two unhappy endings, two roads reaching the same endpoint, which one was the lesser evil? And was there ever a third path? Was it ever possible, for you and him… a happy ending?

He used to think so, used to hope so. Used to love the daydreams and nights picturing it, so clear and vivid in his mind, it was like it was all unfolding in front of his eyes. You, tall and blue, laughing like you always did, taking your Iknimaya. The two of you, riding from dusk til dawn, discovering secret coves and falling asleep on green moss, where he would be able to kiss you freely, where he would be able to link to your thoughts and feelings and know that this was it, his most formidable desire come alive. His family, your family, carefree and happy, full of kids' laughter and formidable first steps, full of joy and love, full of him and you. That's all he's ever wanted. A family with the woman he loved. Not the woman he was promised to, not whichever new one they'd have to find for him in the Metkayina, the woman he loved. The only one.

But now, as he was standing in this room, that he may never see again, listening to the shower that he knew you were currently in, the dream feels further away than it ever has, further each minute, until it was slowly fading from view, so dim and dwindling, until it was gone from his life, gone from his mind, forever. Until only hurt existed, only the gaping hole left behind by your absence, by all the shattered dreams and the shards of broken hearts, his own and the one he knew he'd break tonight.

The anxiety that burned every part of his body also made his tail jerk violently in every direction, and he was pulled out of his nightmare by the sound of trinkets getting thrown on the ground.

“Shit.”

Neteyam thought he’d have more time. Hoped that he could gather himself and his thoughts, hoped he would formulate a plan in the few minutes you would still be in the shower. He knew you would have heard it, so he knew he didn’t have that luxury anymore. He still didn’t know how he could ever make the words come out. How he could ever go through with this.

As he kneeled on the floor to collect the broken vase that was now a fitting image of his soul, he heard the door to the bathroom open, but his eyes remained fixated on the task at hand, unable to look in your eyes, whose memory, whose incandescent beauty would haunt Neteyam for life. He tried to speak past the overbearing lump in his throat.

"Sorry. I wish I could control my tail better, but it's always an accident waiting to happen in these tight rooms."

The silence that befell the room was stifling and suffocating, and Neteyam felt the gaping hole enlarge, felt it taking over his entire chest, seeping into every ounce of his body, spreading like wildfire.

When you did speak, Neteyam almost wished you didn't. Because your voice did nothing to improve his condition, but worked as a perfect catalyst for further breakage, further pain. It was sad, and muted. It was disappointed. It was everything he never wanted your voice to be like when directed at him.

"Why are you here, Neteyam?"

"What do you mean why I am here? I can't be here?"

Neteyam spoke without thinking. He felt adrenaline taking over him, his body knowing he wouldn't be able to do this without the emboldenment given to him in this moment.

"You can, you just never are anymore."

“Vol… come on. You know it’s different now than it was in the village, in Hell’s gate. We’re going to get caught.”

“Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want to get caught. God forbid anybody knows you fuck me in your free time.”

“Vol…”

Neteyam didn't understand why he was fighting you about something so trivial. It didn't matter. None of this mattered. None of this mattered, and yet, Neteyam felt compelled to speak his truth. No matter what form it came in.

“I know you’re upset about today. I’m sorry.”

“Why would I be upset about today? You did what you had to do. I mean, she’s going to be your mate soon, right? It’s her hands that should be healing you anyway, not mine. Those are going to scar, by the way.”

Neteyam hated to admit it, because he fancied himself a good person, a person who is respectful and caring and conscientious, but he couldn't have cared less about her if he tried. In fact, his engagement being broken might be the only silver lining in the sea of black dread. He only cared about you. In fact, the distance, and the tension, and the silence and the pain, it was too much. He needed to feel you. If this was his last day with you, he'd be damned if he spent it not feeling your body, and your warmth, not looking in your eyes.

You were so easy to manoeuvre on the bed, it would have been laughable under any other circumstances. Not tonight. When he got on top of you, and felt your bare thighs touching his, and your hand wrapped around his arm, and your eyes boring into his, he felt so much love it was overwhelming him, so sure, for the first time in his life, of that you were the only one he'd ever love, that he was irrevocably in love with you for the rest of time. So regretful of the time he could have spent loving you, and telling you, of the time he spent hiding, only to never get the chance of confessing, never get the chance to follow through on his promises.

“Stop. I know you are upset. I wish it could have been you. You know me, Vol. You know I wish it could have been you.”

Your subtle head shaking made felt sharp bursts of pain shoot through him, like his queue was connected to an electrical socket.

“You should go, Neteyam. This isn’t right. You’re engaged to someone else. I watched her today, watched how worried she was about you, how desperate to help you, to take you away so it’s just the two of you. You’re going to mate with this girl any day now. There’s no room for me in your life anymore. Not like this, anyway.”

He sighed and got off from on top of you, no matter how loudly his mind was screaming otherwise. He wouldn't do anything you weren't comfortable with.

“The engagement is broken.”

He wanted to stop. He could just stop and not say anything else. He could just end it there, and watch as your eyes widened in shock, then settled on a happy, relieved disposition that he saw so vividly in his mind's eye, it was almost as if was happening. He could just not go. He could stay, and love you, and make love to you, and keep you. It would be so easy. Nothing's ever been as easy as falling in love with you.

Leaving would protect the humans. Leaving would protect you.

“Because I’m leaving. I’m leaving the Omatikaya, and so is my family.”

Far beyond my reach is the future you promised

Now what I never even had, I have every reason to miss

"What did you just say?"

You heard him wrong. You must have heard him wrong. You wiped his tears off your face and sat up, feet dangling off the bed.

"Vol..."

"What did you say, Neteyam?"

You felt anger pick at you like you liked picking at your nails when anxiety took the better of you, and it hurt, and it burned, but anger was better than sadness, so you let it burn until you were ashes on the ground.

"My dad said we have to leave for the Metkayina clan. They're looking for him, trying to kill him. If we go, the clan will be safe. You will be safe."

"Are you kidding me right now? Please tell me it's one of those jokes like the ones Spider and Lo'ak love making that I don't get, but they find hilarious, for some reason. Please, Neteyam. Please."

You were begging, you realised. Outside of the intimacy of your bedroom and the cover of darkness, you never begged. You have never begged anyone for anything in your life. And there you were. Pathetic and weak. Begging a guy, the guy, to spare whatever was left of your heart with just a few words. All it took was a few words.

Neteyam wiped tears off his face and stood arrested in your room, arms limp by his side, like he couldn't move. Like you couldn't move.

"I'm not kidding, Vol. Trust me, I want nothing more than to be kidding. I want nothing more than for this to be a stupid, childish joke. But it's not. We are leaving tomorrow."

You were too stunned to speak, so you opted for the only other reaction your body seemed to be able to produce: laughter. You laughed. Loudly and obsessively, louder than you should have, louder than you ever have. It was so ridiculous, so ludicrous, it felt like the only appropriate reaction.

"This can't be real. This can't be happening."

Neteyam knelt by your side on the bed, and took your shoulders in his hands, urging you to look in his forlorn eyes, red and puffy, just like yours were.

“Vol, don’t you understand?! This is going to protect you. This way you get to be safe. I need to know that you are fucking safe, and if that means I go, then I go.”

There it was again, the anger picking at your brain until it buried everything else, until it was the only thing.

“Oh, that is such bullshit! Stop acting like you would choose to stay regardless of your family’s choice, even if it kept me safe. You have never been able to choose for yourself, never done anything outside of what Jake ever said, what Neytiri said, what Mo’at said, no matter how bad a choice, no matter how much you didn’t want it. I’m supposed to believe that it would be different now why?"

“It would, Vol, because it’s you!” he shook you gently as he said that, eyes so intense, so serious - so truthful.

"So stay. Just fucking stay. Please."

“Even if I stay, I still have to mate with her, don’t you understand?”

You knew that he was right. There was no win for you. For either of you. This life was cruel, and it gave with one hand and took with both, always leaving you with less than what you started. You weren’t one to question the meaning of life or the fairness of the universe, but now, taking in the man you loved more than anything in the world, the man who you knew loved you, you wondered what was the point of it all? Why were you here? Was there really that much cruelty reserved just for you? Were you how humanity was paying for its horrible missteps on Pandora? Were you an experiment, a toy put on here just as a Voodoo doll for Eywa, and every time she pricked another needle in you, it would reflect back on Earth and on of the people banished back to it? It felt like that sometimes, and it definitively felt like that tonight.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you."

It suddenly felt much like you exchanged moods in between you, his despondent, wretched one passed on to you and replaced with your anger, strong and unwieldy.

“God fucking damn it, Vol! Do you think I want any of this, do you think this is my choice, that this would ever be my choice?! I'm trying to protect you! I'm trying to make sure you are safe, that the clan is safe! What the hell do you want from me?!”

He was angry and desperate, tears obvious in his eyes, as was the flush in his cheeks. Your eyes were leaking endless streams that you couldn’t push back, that you couldn’t remove from your cheeks in time before they were replenished, like they were begging to be seen and acknowledged, like the pain wouldn’t be denied - it wanted to be felt, and it didn’t care who it had to go through to do it.

You felt emptiness envelop you like a shroud at the situation that settled in and had time to stew in your mind with each passing moment. It was over. All over. The dreaded ending, the wreck it would leave behind, it was greeting you like a warm friend, announcing its arrival.

I'll just shut my eyes, forget that you were mine

How do you go from making one your home

And then just letting it all go

Your voice was numb and flat, quiet undulations with no emotion to give them any fluidity or any life. Your words were just a means to an end.

“Nothing, Neteyam. I don’t want anything from you anymore.”

You turned your back to him, unable to look at his skin on which traces of you still lingered, at his eyes in which you always saw the window to his soul, and your soul, the meaning of life and your future happiness encapsulated, his lips that traveled your body like a curious wanderer, finding Valhala in between your thighs, his hands which held your face and touched your hair, which pushed you closer to him or on him. A glance at any of these things and you would crumble, and you would shatter in a million pieces that no one knew well enough to put back together apart from him. You were a puzzle only he knew how to solve, and in his absence, you were all alone, and broken, left to mend your own cracks, knowing full well you’ll never be able to be put yourself back together quite the same way you were before.

“Vol… please.”

“Leave, Neteyam. Just go. Just fucking go.”

Stay. Please. I love you. I’m so in love with you. Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to lose you. Please. Please. Please.

The sound of the door sliding closed behind Neteyam was the last thing you heard before he was out of your life, leaving everything you had behind.

So I breathe and let you go

How do I breathe and let you go?

Taglist: @liluvtojineteyam @pinkpantheris @netemoon @fanboyluvr @bananafruityawne @liluvtojineteyam @zaddyneteyamlovergirl @netemoon

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eds6ngel · 1 year

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hi, b!

i love your account and i saw that you’re okay with writing smut.

i was thinking it’s eddie and reader’s first time and he’s really soft with her? maybe he’s worried about her losing feelings or of him messing everything up by his inexperience?

thank you! <3

hey darling!! i actually made them both virgins in this, just to amp up the sweetness <33 (and because i have no experience at all) also, i made this a part 2 to my 'new girl' fic, so if you wanna check out part 1, you can read it here!!

warnings: SMUT. fem!afab!reader. p in v. fingering. handjob. blowjob. cunnilingus. lots of kissing. sex talk outside of the smut. basically just your basic sex stuff. swearing. vulgar language. fluff. comfort. established relationship. r is 18, eddie is 20 [4.1k].

You and Eddie have been dating for three months by this point. You had done the most that normal horny teenagers had done: kissing, making out, grinding, hell, you even tried your part at having sex. However, it didn’t go successfully the first time.

The both of you had no idea what to do. Eddie condoms expired, so you agreed to do it without one, which was mistake number one. You weren’t wet enough whatsoever, the both of you skipping all foreplay. And to top it all off, Eddie pushed in all the way without thinking, causing you to scream out in pain and call it quits for the night.

Since then, you both avoided ridding of any clothes closely tied to a sexual nature, the pair of you scared to death that your mutual lack of knowledge was going to cause harm again.

You and Eddie both agreed that the failed first attempt was not going to be classed as your ‘first time,’ despite what society would try and argue against. You both wanted it to feel special, the relationship going strong so far, a failed ‘first time’ not ruining that for you.

You actually went out to the library both together and on separate occasions to research about sex. Eddie’s first recommendation was to sit down and watch porn together, you having to explain that in no shape or form would a woman in real life ever want to live out the fake fantasy of a porn film. Besides, it was also a very fucking weird thing to do.

Hawkins was a very religious town, you searching high and low for anything that didn’t bring up the topic of abstinence. And even when looking past that, the woman’s pleasure was always disregarded, the term ‘submit’ popping up more times than you and Eddie would like to recall. With you just turning 18 and Eddie 20, Hawkins Library gave you permission to access the restricted section, much to a very pleased Eddie. You had to keep him on track most of the time, Eddie getting distracted by the mature content.

“Baby, come on. We’re looking for books on sex, not Satanism.”

With even the restricted books being more sanitised than you would’ve liked, at least some of the authors knew what they were talking about, especially the female ones, to no surprise. You learnt about safety, to foreplay, to pleasure points, to techniques, your joint knowledge growing by the minute.

It had been around a month of research for the two of you, preparing for whenever the appropriate time would be to try again.

Which was tonight.

You and Eddie were sat on his couch watching a cheesy horror flick, Wayne working a night shift, leaving the two of you in the trailer alone, with no interruptions.

You were lying on Eddie’s lap, his ringed hand mindlessly threading through your hair as you focused on the killer slashing the victims on screen, fake blood pouring out of them as they perished to the ground.

“Babe?” you pipe up, Eddie humming in response, “How’s research been going?”

Eddie chuckles as you both look at each other, “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“We’re studying sources to learn new facts, sounds like research to me,” you smile.

Eddie kisses the crown of your head, “Just doesn’t sound very manly, does it? ‘What have you been up to recently Eddie?’” he says, putting on an overexaggerated posh accent, “’Oh nothing much, just researching how to have sex with my girlfriend.’ People would think I’m insane, sweetheart.”

You shift yourself so you are lying on your stomach, wrapping your arms around Eddie’s neck and shrugging, “You can make anything sound manly babe. You could word in a way such as ‘I’ve been reading up on ways to pleasure my girl better.’ That’s such a hotter way to put it.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows, “Yeah,” he drags out, “But, I’m not looking into how to make the sex better, I’m looking into how to even start having it.”

“Better than most people,” you reply, “Many of my friends have told me that they don’t even get to cum when they have sex with their boyfriends. At least you’re trying.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of sex?” Eddie asks, as if a stupid question, “To make your girl feel good?”

“Unfortunately baby, most men just have sex for themselves. They just want the feeling of a vagina wrapped around their dick.”

Even though the two of you had a horrific first attempt, you were both still very sex positive. Just because you didn’t have it didn’t mean you were in any way uncomfortable talking about it.

“Stupid,” Eddie mumbles with a shake of his head, “They could just jerk themselves off for the same effect, stop wasting a girl’s time.”

“Is that what you do?” you tease him, “Just in between the research, you have a ten minute jerking break?”

“I get hot and bothered sometimes, okay?” he laughs, “There’s some very graphic images in there. S’hard to concentrate.”

And from your position sitting in his lap, it might not just be the research that gets him that way. “You sure you’re not feeling the same way now, baby?” you purr, looking deep into his eyes.

He groans slightly as you grind your hips into his, “Jesus sweetheart, if I wasn’t already before, I definitely am now.”

Your lips connected together in a passionate kiss, the pair of you grinding into each other as your tongues explored each other’s mouths. This was something you’d done before. As your relationship developed, you realised how easy it was to dissect society’s words surrounding sex. If it were society defining your relationship by its standards, you two would’ve technically lost your virginities to each other in the first month of the relationship. Grinding was a simple task to get the two of you going, even making each other cum by it. It was just further than that where you guys had an issue, which is why both still class yourselves as virgins.

As you break apart, you lift Eddie’s shirt off, him doing the same to you, looking into your eyes, asking, “Are we really about to do this?”

“I’m game if you’re game,” you reply.

He smirks, “Baby, I’m always game.”

You giggle as you begin to litter kisses down his neck, him moaning out as you find his sweet spot, his hands gripping tighter at your waist. You make a trail down his chest to his stomach, him gripping your hair as you do so, his head falling back against the couch. There was just something about your lips that were so intoxicating to him.

You reach the waistband of his pants, Eddie switching into his grey sweatpants the minute he stepped into his trailer. He was a metalhead at heart, but keeping up the physical appearance wasn’t always the comfiest.

He lifts himself up, allowing you to pull down the sweatpants, his white and blue checkered boxers on show, a visible bump from where he had gotten hard from the mere mention of you talking about sex. He hates to admit it, but this happened every time, you had just failed to notice.

You look up at him with the softest look in eyes, making sure that he was comfortable with you going further. As every book said: consent was key.

“Yeah, sweetheart, take ‘em off,” he verbalises, you nodding as you pull down his boxers, his cock springing free in front of you. You look up at him with a glint of worry, Eddie immediately taking notice. “It’s all about practice, okay? It’s you, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it regardless.”

You wrap your hand around the base of his cock, Eddie already groaning above you by the mere feeling of your touch on his body. “I, um—” you stutter out, “Do I just go up and down?”

“Yeah, babe, just—” he wraps his hand around yours, the size difference sending shivers down his spine as he moves your hand in the same motion he would when he’s on his own. Yet, the slight change of you doing it in comparison to him made it all the more enjoyable. It was true what they said: it was the person, not the action.

He shudders as you begin to create a steady rhythm, you asking, “Is this good?”

He sighs, “Nothing could be better than this baby, thank you. God, fuck,” he moans out. However, what shocked him was how quick you became accustomed to him, the feeling of your tongue licking up the side of his shaft sending shivers down his spine. “Jesus fucking Christ, God.”

In your head, you were trying to recall the steps that the book you read taught you, trying your best not to mess up and cause your boyfriend to become uncomfortable. You lick the tip of his dick, seeing that Eddie loudly moans out at the feeling, hearing him say, “Just like that baby, take it down further.”

And so you do, hollowing out your cheeks as you take him into your mouth, Eddie grabbing your hair into a ball as he lightly guides you up and down, giving him maximum pleasure. You look up at him with innocent eyes, continuing to bob your head, Eddie swearing he just died and went to heaven.

He can feel his balls tightening up, Eddie yelling out, “Baby, wait, wait!” in a manner that came across a little too panicked, causing you to immediately jump off of him.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak out, beginning to ramble, “Did I get you with my teeth? Or was I too rough? God, I was probably too rough, wasn’t I—”

But, your nervous state gets cut off by Eddie grabbing your chin and pulling you into a soft kiss, you instantly cupping his cheek back. As you part, he leans your forehead against his, “It was nothing you did sweetheart, don’t worry. I just… don’t wanna cum yet,” he shyly smiles.

“Oh,” you giggle softly, “Okay.”

He kisses your cheek, making trail down your neck, “But, I do think it’s your turn to cum for me, sweetheart.”

You whimper at his words, the eagerness oozing from his throat. “Can we, um… go to your bedroom though? This is technically Wayne’s bed after all.”

Eddie chuckles, “Yeah, I don’t think he’d be too happy with that.” He shocks you by lifting you up underneath his arms, laughing to himself as he guides you to his bedroom.

As he kicks open the door with his foot, he carries you over to the bed, placing you down gently and hovering over you, placing a tender kiss to your lips. “You’ve given me all your love sweetheart, I’m here to give you mine.”

He litters kisses all over your chest and collarbones, sucking a little to visibly show that you belong to him. Nobody else was gonna get his girl.

Despite your eyes being closed, basking in the pleasure of his soft lips on your skin, you feel him reach around the back of you, trying his hardest to unclasp your bra.

Helping him out, you sit up, wrapping your arms around his neck, smiling at him, “You need help with that, my love?”

“No, no, I got it,” he grits out, trying to get the hooks to come apart. “Why the hell is this so difficult?”

You giggle into his neck, deciding to press little kisses there as a form of distraction.

“Baby, don’t tease me. I’m struggling enough here.”

You laugh as you reach around yourself, pushing his hands out of the way and instantly un-hooking your bra, tossing it onto the floor.

Eddie can’t be drawn away from your breasts, his eyes practically bulging at the sight, his mouth agape. “I… um…” he stutters out, “I was gonna ask how you did that, but your tits baby… Holy shit.”

And no word of a lie, your boyfriend does grabby hands, like a child in a candy store, “Please can I touch them? Please let me touch them… Oh my God.”

You cup his face with your hands, smiling, “You can do whatever you want with them, my love.”

He breathes out, shakes his hands as he mutters, “Okay.” He pushes your breasts together, massaging them in his hands as he genuinely gawks, “Jesus… They’re perfect. You’re perfect. Fuck…”

You press a kiss to the underside of his jaw as a ‘Thank you,’ Eddie rubbing his thumbs over your nipples, a loud whine escaping your mouth.

He stops his motions, “That feel good?”

“Mhmm,” you hum, “It’s sensitive. Keep doing that.”

And he does exactly that, flicking over them, surprised that such a simple action could cause so much pleasure for you. “You need to go braless more baby, holy shit.”

“If I knew you would’ve had this reaction, I would’ve shown you them sooner,” you giggle.

“Better than any porn magazine I’ve ever seen,” he mumbles, leaning in and taking your left breast into his mouth, him pulling on your nipple, letting go with a pop. “Who needs porn when I can have you?”

“I better see the ones under your bed gone by tomorrow then,” you smirk back at him.

“Easiest decision I’ll ever make.”

He traces his thumbs over the sides of your hips as he makes a trail down from your cleavage to the bottom of your stomach, tugging at your belt, a much easier task for him than your difficult bra.

He pulls down your jeans, adding them to the increasing pile on the floor. The next thing surprises you, Eddie beginning to laugh as he places his head down on top of your cloth-covered pussy, his hair tickling the bottom of your stomach. “Shit.”

You laugh too, despite not knowing what he was giggling about, he was just infectious like that. “What, my love?” you ask with a smile.

“Took off your bra before I got to see the matching set on you,” he frowns over-dramatically.

You thread your fingers through his curls, “I’ll give you a fashion show one day.”

“That day better fuckin’ hurry the hell up,” he grumbles, delicately taking your panties off of your body, him not wanting to wreck them for the future fashion show you had just planned.

“Okay, he mumbles, situating his head between your legs, “I’ve heard that eating you out gets you wetter, so can I do that?”

You sigh happily, “Tell you what baby, we’ll do the colour coding system, okay? I’m giving you permission to do whatever you like. If I find myself uncomfortable at any point, I’ll say either ‘orange’ or ‘red.’ Deal?”

He nods, “Yeah, deal…” sighing out, “I’m sorry if I mess this up.”

You smile lovingly, “It’s you baby. You could be totally shit at this and I would love it regardless. Just like you said to me,” you reassure him.

“Well, I learnt some techniques anyway, now I get to put them to practice.”

You laugh as you hear him sigh out, “Relax baby, you got this.”

He nods, “Yeah… I got this.”

He takes his tongue and moves it straight up your pussy, causing you to push your legs in and let out a loud whine. “That easy, huh?” Eddie smirks.

You give him the same wide smirk back, “Depends on whether you can make me cum or not.”

“Challenge accepted,” he replies, moving up towards your clit and flicking it up and down, causing you to moan out in pleasure, “Eddie, fuck. Just like that baby.”

That spur encouraged Eddie to speed up his movements, flipping between an up and down motion to a side to side one, you grabbing onto and tugging at his hair, him discovering a new kink as he moans out loudly.

Eddie takes his middle finger and moves it down your folds, collecting your slick and pushing it into your hole, you immediately clenching around him as he sucks on your clit.

“Jesus fucking Christ Eddie, keep doing that and you’ll make me cum,” you truthfully whine out.

“God, sweetheart, already?” he asks, speeding up the movement of his finger as he tries his best not to rut against the bed, relieving the uncomfortability of his dick straining in his boxers.

“I’m an easy girl to impress,” you sigh out, giggling at your own statement and how truthful it actually was.

Without a doubt in your mind, you begin to rut against his face, trying to get yourself to the edge as quickly as possible, which was evidently working.

“Fuck, baby, I’m gonna cum. Please let me cum,” you mewl out.

Eddie drills his finger in and out of your pussy, sucking on your clit and shaking his head back and forth, sending you into a spiral as you fall over the edge, whining out, “Eddie, I’m cumming, fuck!”

As you come down back to reality, Eddie looks up at you, gripping tightly onto your thighs, a smile on his face as your juices drip down from his mouth, falling off of his chin. “Fuck me baby, I can’t believe you just did that.”

“I’ve never cum that hard before,” you sigh out, still relieving in the height of your orgasm, “Guess it really is the person, not the action.” Exactly what he thought.

He licks up most of the juices on his face, crawling back up to you and connecting your lips in a soft kiss, you humming as you say, “I taste better on your lips.”

Eddie groans out at your words, “I’d love to be sweet with you and all angel, but I really need to be inside you right now.”

You nod, “Then do that,” you smile back, “I noticed you got a new packet of condoms the other week.”

He leans over to his beside table and rips open the packet, replying, “Yeah… Well, I felt like my research was coming to an end.”

He takes out the condom and rolls it onto his dick, pinching the end and looking down at you, “You want it just like this or—?”

“Extra lube? Just in case?” you ask nervously, Eddie nodding as he reaches over to grab the bottle and squirts some on top of the condom, rubbing it over the entirety of it, making sure it would be comfortable for the initial entrance.

This was the part you were most nervous about. This was where it all went wrong last time. But, you took the pre-cautions. You were already wet, Eddie had a condom on, and it was well lubricated. Eddie was a little over average in terms of length, which increased your worries. But, on the flip side, a little under on the girth, the part that would make the stretch worse if he was bigger.

Eddie lines himself up with your pussy, leaning his forehead against yours, whispering, “Please sweetheart, I beg of you, use that colour coding system. I’ve heard it hurts for most women, but it should soon fade away, okay?”

You breathe out, “Okay… I’m ready.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

And that was the conformation he needed, slowly pushing into you, letting you take in the feeling and get yourself comfortable. “You doing okay?” he asks.

And for you, it wasn’t even that bad. Maybe you were one of the lucky ones, you don’t know, but it was more of a mild discomfort from the stretch rather than a sharp pain that the research told you. But again, Eddie being under average in his girth may have helped, something you were thankful for compared to how most women would have judged that.

“It’s actually not that bad,” you smile, “Just keep going slow, okay? We haven’t even gotten halfway yet.”

“Okay,” he nods, pushing in another two inches, the discomfort becoming a little bit stronger as you predicted, but not unbearable. It actually caused you to moan a little, something Eddie had been doing the second his dick pushed half an inch into your vagina.

“Only a bit more, okay sweetheart?” he says softly, you nodding as he slowly pushes in the final three inches, the discomfort subsiding into pleasure as you whine out.

“Fuck…” Eddie moans, “You are so incredibly tight.”

You giggle, causing yourself to clench around him, a growl erupting from his throat. God, he was vocal, and you loved every second of it.

“You can start moving now, my love.”

This was now where Eddie basically took over, his inexperience making him nervous, especially with how much he hurt you the last time. He wanted this time to be special. This was gonna be the first time for both of you, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to ruin that. He needed this to be perfect with the girl he loved.

He tried his best to find a steady rhythm, but was struggling. It felt good, but he sighed out frustratedly, you noticing his change in demeanour, “Baby, look at me. Just go in and out, don’t worry about being fast or anything. Just set a pace,” you tell him, cupping his cheeks.

“Yeah. In and out,” he mumbles, slowly pushing in and out, the two of you moaning in sync as he repeats his motion, before he finds himself a rhythm that you both enjoy, noted by a series of whines an groans.

“That’s it, you got it baby,” you say, supported by a sigh.

“That feels so fuckin’ good,” he groans out, deciding that he could speed up now that he found a good rhythm.

“Oh fuck,” you whine, your head falling back against the pillows on Eddie’s bed.

You had always heard that wrapping your legs around your partner’s back would somehow push them even deeper, sending women spiralling down the route of an orgasm.

So, you tried it, reaching your legs around Eddie’s waist, pulling him in closer, hitting something at the back of your pussy that you could only describe as mind-blowing. “Harder, Eddie, please!”

And so he complied, pushing himself both deeper and harder into you, the boy falling apart on top of you. You could only imagine how good this felt for him.

But, once he changed angles, it was over for you. This is what the G-spot must’ve been. You could feel his dick sliding across the top of your vagina, hitting a spot that sent shivers down your spine.

The atmosphere was constant skin slapping against skin, a series of “Fucks” and “Shits” being moaned out by the two of you. You were praying to God none of the neighbours in the trailer park could hear any of this.

“Baby, I’m not gonna last much longer,” Eddie chokes out, his pace already faltering as you reply through broken moans, “Me neither baby, cum with me.”

He moves his hand down to rub your clit, making sure you reach your peak since his thrusts were no longer as hard as they were a mere few minutes ago.

That sensation combined with his dick brushing past your G-spot over and over again caused you to see stars, a loud whine erupting from your throat as you choke out, “Baby, I’m cumming!”

The feeling of your orgasm causing your walls to tighten around him pushes him over too, him stuttering before coming to a halt. You can feel his whole body shake against you, a loud groan mixed in with a whine being let out as his dick pulses in your pussy.

As you both come down from your highs, your pants are the only thing heard in the all but silent atmosphere. Eddie smiles, trying to not let himself fall on top of you as he lets out a “Whoa…”

“Yeah, whoa…” you giggle, Eddie slowly pulling out, taking the condom off and tying it up. “Shit, I don’t have a trash can in here…”

You laugh at him, “You don’t have one in here?”

He begins to walk out to the kitchen, yelling back so you can hear, “Why do you think I have all that shit lying around my room, sweetheart?”

As he appears back in the doorway, you’ve tucked yourself under the covers, replying with, “Good point.”

He shows his goofy smile, one where he shows off his teeth. Your favourite kind of smile on him. He tucks himself under the covers with you, the pile of clothes being left in the middle of his room. You could sort that out tomorrow.

Eddie presses a soft kiss to your forehead as you lay your head on his chest, “Get some sleep, sweetheart. You deserve it.”

You hum in response, closing your eyes, your mind fading away as the final words you mutter are: “I love you.”

And although you can’t see it, Eddie smiles widely, gripping you tighter as he leans his head on top of yours, whispering back, “I love you too, sweetheart.”

And that was the day he knew, you were definitely a keeper.

i hope you enjoyed this my love! and if anything is inaccurate, don't be afraid to let me know <33

#eds6ngel #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson comfort #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson x afab reader

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