#(i would also like it on record that this is the second laptop work has issued me that i have done this with.)

[wiseatom]

opened my laptop to find the rain fight scene paused btw.

[samandcolbyownme]

Summary: full one shot based off of this snippet - I added more details to this one.

Warnings: SMUT18+, strong language, swearing, onlyfans!reader, consensual recording/picture taking, unprotected sex, creampie, fingering, dirty talk, praising, oral (f rec), hair pulling, choking, filthy filth

Word Count: 3.2k | not edited

╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗

You were at home, racking your brain on new ways to spice up your website. A new outfit? No. A new lingerie set? No.

You chewed on your lip, letting out a frustrated sigh as nothing peaked your interest.

The feeling of your phone vibrating on your thighs, distracts you from your thoughts when you see Colby’s name on the screen, “Hey.”

“Hey. Do you have plans tonight?” Colby asks, not really sounding like he even wants to be talking to you right now.

“Um, no. I don’t think so, why?” You sit up and wait for him to speak, but he’s still quiet, “Colby?”

“I gotta go.”

You hear the three beeps and slowly pull your phone away from your ear, confused as hell, “What the fuck?” You shake your head, trying to figure out why Colby sounded different on the phone.

He didn’t tell you if anything was bothering him, he seemed fine before he left, which is what makes it weird because he couldn’t even be on the phone with you.

But it also made you kind of worried. You liked Colby.

A lot.

The one thing that’s been holding you back from telling him about said feelings, is mainly your onlyfans page.

You weren’t sure whether or not Colby would be okay with that. You wanted Colby and you honestly felt like he wanted you, too. But, at the same time, you weren’t sure if he would want to be with someone that has shown and continues to show their tits for money.

You toss your phone down with a sigh before walking over to retrieve your new lingerie sets from your bottom dresser drawer. You lay them out, deciding on which one to pick before changing into it.

You grab your camera, setting it on your tripod before moving to get on the bed, posing in various positions before repeating if with the next set.

You were honestly shocked that you haven’t been walked in on before. Sometimes you get so into taking pictures or recording stuff that you heard something at the last second that’s saved you from even Sam walking in.

You wrapped up getting dressed right at the perfect time. As soon as you pulled your shirt down over your body, you hear the front door open and close with a powerful shove.

You wait a few seconds, trying to listen to if you can tell where they’re going, but panic at the last second when you hear them growing closer.

You shove your tripod in your closet before moving to shove the lingerie back into the bottom dresser drawer.

Just as you turn around, there’s a knock on your door and you know it Colby, “Come in.”

The door opens and he walks in, “Hey.”

You give him a smile, “What’s up, Colbs?” Your smile slowly fades away when he doesn’t look at you for a few seconds, “Colby?”

He doesn’t look at you when he asks, but his words shockyou, “Do you do porn?”

You blink a few times, processing what he just asked you, “um. I-I, mean yes and no.”

“What do you mean yes and no?” He turns towards you, “Do you just, go through guys? Like what? how does that work?”

You hold up your hand, “Whoa, back it the hell up, Colby. I don’t just go through guys.” You scoff, “What is your deal?”

Colby sighs, “My deal, is that you do porn and you never told me?” He shrugs, “You sleep in the room next to mine.. I don’t, this is big, y/n.”

You laugh slightly, mainly trying to cover up your nervousness, “Colby. Listen to me. It’s not straight up porn. Okay? I do OnlyFans. I don’t do anything nude. Well..”

He looks at you, “What do you do?”

You sit down on your bed, reaching over to grab your laptop, “If you want to know, just..” You get in, clicking around until you pull up your page, “Here. Look. The only really bad thing is that I show my boobs, and every now and then I will post a video. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

He walks over, sitting down beside you as he takes your laptop. You can tell there’s a positive change to his demeanor and you bite your lip.

You watch as his eyebrows raise with each picture that’s more scandalous than the last. You hear his breath hitch when he stumbles across your first video - purple vibrator sliding in and out of your pussy.

“So..” you cause him to jump slightly but you don’t pay any attention to it, “..who told on me?”

Colby laughs, “well.. actually.” He looks over at you, “One of Sam’s buddies sent him a screen shot and asked if it was you.”

“Why would Sam know? I haven’t told anyone I do this.” You tilt your head and Colby shrugs, looking back to your computer as he scrolls down, “I don’t know, but yeah.” He turns his phone towards you and points to this picture on your computer, “Its this one.”

You purse your lips, “That was a pay to see picture.”

“Wait, what’s that mean?” Colby looks at you and you can’t help but giggle, “It means.. whoever screenshotted that and sent it to Sam, paid to unlock it so they could see it.”

“So, they’re subscribed to you?” Colby asks and you nod, “or someone else he knows is?” You shrug, “I’m not sure, Colby.”

You could see the jealousy plastered on his face as he just stares at you, “Uh huh.” He jocks his jaw and nods, “Okay.”

He sets your computer down on the bed and stands up, hands on his hips as he tries to process everything you just shared with him, photos and all.

“So what? Are you like mad at me? Not friends anymore?” You purse your lips, “Like does this make you look at me differently?”

Colby shakes his head, “Not really. Well..” he laughs slightly, motioning towards you computer, “..I mean, okay. I see you differently now, but like..” He trails off, trying to find his wording as he scratches his brow, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it and I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship.”

Colby chuckles, “Ruined?” He shake his head, “No. not at all. As I said. Different.. a hundred percent.”

“Different?” You ask as you tilt your head and he nods, “Oh yeah. You’re so much hotter than I originally thought.”

You can feel your cheeks growing warm and Colby’s next question didn’t help any matters, “So, how do you feel about potentially doing full blown.. porn?”

Fuck, you think, “Um. I mean..” you laugh slightly and look down before looking back up at him, “Maybe if it was someone I was comfortable with?”

You nod, Colby heavy on your mind, “Yeah. I think I could do it.”

A smirk grows on his lips as he slowly leans in, giving a nod to the right with his head, “Go get those pretty little outfits, because we’re about to be making you bank, baby.”

You tilt your head, “Why don’t we just get right to it.” You grip the collar of his shirt and pull him down as you lay back. He goes with you, his lips attacking your neck.

“Don’t we need the camera?” Colby leans back and you nod, “Yeah.” You breathe out, “It’s in my closet on the tripod.”

You look up at him with a smirk, “I took some pictures while you and Sam were out.”

“Mm, I’ll need to see those, too then.” He pushes himself up and goes to get the camera. He turns it on after taking it off, clicking a few times, “And we’re rolling.”?

He walks over to you, “Go ahead and take those clothes off for me, baby.” He bites down on his lip as he alternates watching you in the little screen and behind it, “Fuck, look at you.”

You toss your shirt to the side, leaving you topless as you move to sit on your calves, thumb hooking into the waistband of your shorts, “You like what you see?”

“Baby you have no idea.” Colby bites down on his lip, watching as you slowly push your shorts down your thighs. You fall back, lifting your legs to kick them off and Colby pulls them off of your ankles, tossing them behind him.

“Spread your legs for me, sweetheart.” Colby bends down, pointing the camera directly at your pussy, “You look fucking so good.”

You gasp as Colby’s thumb drags up and down your folds, “P-please.” You whimper as you buck your hips, “I need you.”

Colby pushes his thumb into your cunt, angling the camera up at your face as your eyes roll back and you moan, “Fuck, yes.”

He angles the camera back down just as he starts to slowly work his thumb in and out of you, making sure to film how fast your wetness costs his skin, “Fuck, you’re so wet already.”

“Been wanting you.” You roll your hips at the loss of his thumb inside of you, “P-please.”

He chuckles as he sets the camera down on the bed, “Play with yourself while I undress, sweetheart.” You watch as he steps back, waiting until your fingers start working circles on your clit to undress.

“There ya go, baby.” He whispers, lip pulled between his teeth as his fingers move to unbutton his shirt, “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

Your eyes track his shirt as it falls to the floor and you slide two fingers in, gasping at the feeling. Colby nods, “Keep going. Fuck, listen to that.”

Colby finishes undressing, picking up the camera and giving it a closer look at your needy cunt, your fingers weren’t cutting it.

“Here baby.” Colby hands you the camera and you smirk as you take it, flipping it around to capture him moving between your legs.

His hands snake under your thighs to lay across your hips and your legs hook over his shoulders. Your back arches with the first swipe of his tongue, moaning out as you dig your heels into his upper back.

Colby’s face is buried in your cunt, his tongue thrusting in and out as his fingers dig into your skin, “Fuck.” He groans against you, “You taste so fucking good.”

You moan loudly as his nose pushes against your clit, your orgasm being drug out with the curling of his tongue, “Fuck, fuck.” You gasp, “C-colby.”

He holds onto you, not letting go as your walls clench around his tongue, moans and incoherent mumbles leave your lips as he guides you through your high.

Your hand tangles tightly into his hair, earning a groan from him as he pulls away, “The best pussy I have ever tasted.” He crawls up, lips crashing onto yours and you moan when the taste of yourself creeps into your tongue.

He sits up, taking the camera from you so he can record his cock rubbing up and down your folds before pushing between them.

He groans, angling the camera up to your face to capture what you look like feeling his cock for the first time, “Fuck, fuck.” You arch your back, rolling your hips forward and you gasp when he thrusts his hips into you.

“Fuck, baby girl. You’re taking me so well.”

His hand grips your hips as the other grips the camera tighter, “Fuck, you have such a beautiful pussy.” He groans lowly as he slowly pulls out, “Fuckin’ hugs my cock perfectly.”

You moan loudly as his cock is thrusted into you. Colby looks at you from behind the camera, watching your face twist with pleasure as he slowly pulls out and thrust back in.

He breathes out, “You’re already making me want to cum.” His hand slides over to press his thumb to your clit. He smirks as he hears whimpers and moans of approval slip from your lips, growing louder the harder his thrusts grow.

Your back is arches off the bed as your hands grip the blankets hard, moaning out loudly as Colby’s cock is repeatedly slammed into your cunt, “S-so close, fuck.”

“Come on baby.” Colby sets the camera down, angled to capture your body and your legs around his waist, “Cum for me.”

He groans lowly as he bends down to kiss you. Your arms wrap around his neck and his hand slides down your body, giving your hip a squeeze, “You feel so good.”

You moan, nails dragging up and down his back as you cum, holding onto his for leverage, “Fuck, fuck, yesyesyes.”

You throw your head back, a nonstop string of moans leaving your lips as Colby not only, fuck you through your high, but marks up your neck in the process.

He rolls over, grabbing the camera to film your body on his, groaning as he watches his cock disappear inside of you, “Fuck, that’s it baby.” He reaches out, sliding his fingers along your open thigh, “Just like that.”

You tilt your head back, hands squeezing his thighs as you bounce up and down, whining out as you feel yourself growing close, yet again.

“One more time.” Colby whispers, his hips bucking upward, “M’so close, too baby.”

“Need you.” You whimper, grinding your hips down.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Colby asks as his hand grips your hips, the other still keeping the camera as steady as he can.

You lean down, kissing up his neck, “Want you to cum in me.” You kiss his lips, “Need all of you.”

He nods his head and you roll off of him, biting down on your lip when he grips your throat and pushes you backward.

His hand remains on your neck as his cock slips into you, “You’re gonna be so full.” His thrusts pick up rather quickly, your moans muffled by his hand squeezing harder as he rails into you.

His films you body jolting with each thrusts, groaning at the sight of you tits bouncing, face turning red from the lack of air.

“Fuck.” He lets go of your neck, cupping your cheek but you keep it up by taking his thumb between your lips.

“oh, baby.” He groans, burying his cock deeper into you, “Fuck, you’re such a slut aren’t you.” He grips your chin, earning a whimper from you as you give him a nod.

“Say it, baby.”

“Your slut.” You moan out, clenching your walls around his cock, “I’m your slut.” You moan loudly, back arching as you gasp out.

You come undone underneath him one again, moaning out as you feel his cock twitch inside of you. Your legs loses from around his waist and he sits up, filming your pussy as he pulls out.

You lift your legs, wrapping an arm around them to hold them up. Colby’s thumb pulls your pussy lip to the side, groaning as you push more of his cum out.

“Look at that.” Colby whispers as his thumb swipes upward. He reaches up, leaning forward to film you sucking the cum off his thumb, “Atta girl, baby.”

You smile up at him and he stops filming, moving to lay beside you, “How was that?”

“Exciting.” You breathee out as you roll over to face him, “But I have a question for you.” He nods and you sigh, “Do you want to be known? Like do you want me to cut out anything that has you in it?”

He laughs, “Baby. Like I said before, we’re going to make you bank, so you do..” he leans in, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “What you need to do, to do that.”

“Maybe we should tell Sam first.” You bite your lip and he gets smirks, getting up to go to the door, “Hey Sam.”

“I already know.”

Colby closes the door and walks back over to you laughing, “Now that that’s out of the way.” He grabs your laptop, “Go clean up, I’ll get this uploaded to your computer.”

You smile, nodding your head as you get dressed to go to the bathroom.

When you get back, your clothes are back off and you’re in bed with Colby, “After we edit this.. I think you should film me going down on you.”

He nods his head, “Oh absolutely.”

——

It’s been two months since you uploaded that first video, you made it a pay to see vide, which gave you and Colby, and even Sam, a little bit of time before news leaked into the fandom.

After that. Wildfire.

All of your social media comment sections have been flooded with questions, comments, and of course, concerns.

Is that really Colby on y/n’s onlyfans?

Colby and y/n???!?!!!!?

COLBY FUCKIN BROCK WTF

I mean, idk who I’m more jealous of really.

I’m actually kind of shocked ngl

WAIT HOLD ON.. Y/N AND COLBY!?

No because get it girl. For real, and get it Colby damn

You and Colby would spend nights just laughing at the comments and of course discussing the rude ones with each other, but it mainly ends up in having sex.

Colby finding out was probably the best thing that could have happened in the situation, if you knew he would have been down to help you, you would have asked him a while ago.

You made so much money in the first two months, you guys basically spoiled Sam by taking him away to different cities around the world as an apology for him having to sit through filming sometimes, he was like your little sugar baby.

Right now, you were in Italy. You and Colby went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner when Colby’s laugh catches your attention.

You lift your head, arms still rested on the banister of the balcony, “What’s up, babe?” Colby leans against the doorway and looks up at you, “Have you read the comments on the post you posted today?”

You shake your head, reaching out as he hands you his phone. Your lips turn into a smirk as your eyes scan over the screen.

You can’t tell me Sam ain’t hitting it too

Ngl, they’d make a hot thruple

I want to be y/n when I grow up

You hand Colby back his phone and you ride your brows, “What? You want to give them what they’re asking for?”

“It’s whatever you want, baby. You’re calling the shots.”

You purse your lips, bringing your glass of wine up to take a sip as you think, “You think he’d go for it?”

Colby scoffs, “Please. You should have seen the look on his face when you seen your tits through that lace top. You’re not living with us both for no reason.” He smirks, “I’ll tell him to come up here.”

You walk over, biting down on your lip as you grip his bicep, “Wait, until dinner. I want to ask him myself.”

——

Thank you so much for reading, I hope it was good! Let me know and as always, I love you so much! 🖤

Likes and reblogs are majorly appreciated!

[stayandot8]

Drawn To You

Genre: fluff?? i guess??

Relationship type: idol!(lowkeytsundere)Seungmin x I.N's bestie reader

Important Contents: requested, i hope you enjoy my second Seungmin piece

WC: 4k

masterlist

I’d known Jeongin since we were kids. I was about a year older, but he’d always been there for me since the young days, before he became this huge kpop idol star with his group. But after I went away, our friendship strained. 

The problem was that I didn’t tell him that I applied for school overseas in America. I needed to get out of our town, on to bigger things, and that upset him. We told each other everything. Everything…except that. He understood, like the amazing friend he was, but as he pursued his own dream, his time was harder to come by. The questions about America came fewer and slower, phone calls went from everyday to twice a week to once a month until the only time I heard from him was when he thought of me in between recording sessions. He always texted me after recording, something about needing to know I was behind him. I always knew he’d be a famous singer. His voice was always unique. Now the world was getting to see what I already knew as fact. And I was damn proud of him. I made sure to tell him every chance I got. Or at least I tried, because those opportunities came fewer and fewer as the years went on.

 What I didn’t realize until I was already there was that America was not what I wanted. But my family had already paid my way through for me to get there and start, so I owed it to them to finish what I started. No, begged them for. I had to do it. Not just for me, but for them too now. And when I finished, degree in hand (well, suitcase), I traipsed back to Korea like my life depended on it. Why? Well… because it did.

The almost 16 hour plane ride was full of going from one book to another to my music apps and podcasts, fighting the impending boredom that came with the “adventure” in a tin can in the sky. The in-house wifi was holding up as best it could and my laptop was on the brink of overheating for the last hour. My mother’s last text before I took off popped up on my side window of messages. 

Mother: Little Jeonginnie is blowing up big now! You would be so proud of him. He’s come so far since you’ve last seen him. 

Jeonginnie?? I remembered the nickname she gave him and couldn’t stop the gagging noise from escaping in the middle of standing in line to board. The woman in front of me gave me a weird look. I stared back at her, glaring until she turned back around and started walking. I grimaced at my phone before I turned it on Airplane mode and put it in my pocket. What could be so different about him now? Had he grown that much? He couldn’t be much taller. I had always been taller than him, ever since we were kids. My mother blamed my father, saying it was his side of the family that gave me such a…problem. But I didn’t mind. It made it easier to scare off the boys I didn’t like. It also made it harder to find ones I did  like that weren’t intimidated but… whatever. This was the way it had always been.

My mom has been looking forward to this day since I left, crying on the phone that she was ‘so excited to have her baby home again’ that I was sure she would chain me to the kitchen sink to prevent me from leaving again. She claimed the house hadn’t been the same since I left, and by the looks of it, it was obvious. It was missing its usual…lived-in charm that I had apparently brought to it. The pillows were too erect, too fluffed. The kitchen counter was too clean, not a stain nor trace of midnight ramen seasoning on the counter. It wasn’t quite…home. It was a space for my parents to entertain. Which is exactly how I ended up face to face with Jeongin in my living room, arms wide open and looking like… a man. 

He was tall now too. His hair was blonde now and styled, even on his day off. It looked good. And his arms had filled out, no longer the sticks they used to be. Someone had gotten him into working out. Must be his older members… At least his smile was the same. Bright as ever, he stumbled over towards me and threw his arms around me with all his might. 

“Noona! You’re back! I can’t believe you’re back, I never thought I’d be home to see it.” His dimples showed so deep that I didn’t realize how much I had missed the sight of them. They were the kind you could swim in, the kind you wanted to roll out like they were made of dough. Which explained why his fans and members called him Baby Bread. His whole face was squishy just like it had been when I left. Except now, the rest of him wasn’t nearly as squishy. It made me second guess myself a little too much. I shook my head, trying to shake the thought. 

“Yeah yeah yeah. I came back because I saw you all over the internet, even over in America! What could you possibly be doing over there?!”

“It’s my band! We’re going everywhere now, I can’t stand to believe it sometimes. I still have a hard time believing it. But you’re finally back from school! How was your last year?! Tell me everything!”

Thus began a very long and tiring story of my senior year of college, everything from the parent-safe topics like classes and academics and American friends I made until our mothers left for the kitchen to make dinner. Then we moved onto the not so safe for parents ears, such as the hookups, the drama, and all of the bullshit that went down without my mother’s knowledge. He laughed when he was supposed to, he nodded at appropriate times, it was like he was using his media training on me and I couldn't help but laugh. He was mid-question and he stopped to tilt his head.

“What? What’s so funny?” He smiled again when I couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t help it. You’ve gotten very good at listening. If I remember correctly, you weren’t able to sit still and listen to me say more than three sentences at a time.”

“That’s because you learned how to tell an interesting story. College was good for something!” That dazzling smile emerged again and I was thinking those weird thoughts again. It wasn’t that I had thoughts of possibly liking him, it was just that the thought of it didn’t repulse me like it once did. It puzzled me. 

“Yeah yeah yeah. So tell me about your group! What’s everyone like? Is it true what they say online about you guys?”

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve seen so I don’t know whether to say yes or no.” He laughed and sat back in his chair. “But things have been going really well! We’re starting up our tour right now, we have our first stop in two days in Seoul. You should come! I want you to meet everyone.” I’d read a little about them while on the plane, just to take a peak at what my friend had been up to in the years I’d been gone. There were eight of them now, and they all brought something special to the group, at least according to Stay, their fans. I knew who was who and that was about it. It was like I had met them already. “Come on, Noona. You can meet everyone tomorrow if you want to, before the concert. Auntie can come too.” I looked at him with wide eyes and hit his leg when he started to crack up.

“You are not funny, Yang Jeongin.”

His inhaling laughter told me he thought otherwise.

*

Strolling by our favorite cafe, the memories came back to me in waves. Between Jeongin cracking jokes about people who were walking by and me trying to keep him from wandering into the street. Our relationship had shifted constantly from friends to siblings of sorts. Being an only child hadn’t provided a lot of opportunities for the older sister types of activities I had itched for so I happened to find them with Jeongin. Everything I had dreamed about being an older sister, I had with him. It helped me feel…complete somehow.

Jeongin thought later that it would be better if I met some of the members little by little. But then I recieved a text countering that idea, stating that the when the others heard what was happening, they jump in the car bfore he could protest. He decided that he wanted to bring us all here, a place of comfort to me and somewhere he’d always wanted to bring them. He had told me the ones he lived with were the ones that would really test how I would get along with the rest of them since they were the ones who were ‘harder to read’ or something.  I didn’t know which ones were the ones he lived with, only knew their names and faces in the group. I wondered if I’d need to do anything special to impress them or being my simple self would do. Jeongin told me to just be myself,  but if these guys were anything like him, they didn’t really care who I was. They probably had people fawning over them constantly so maybe as long as I acted like I didn’t care, it might turn out in my favor. Not that I really cared if they liked me, but it’s always nice to make friends. 

Walking up to the place I saw them all sitting at a table just chatting, like they were just regular people. They all had hats on, some backwards, and a mix of tshirts and sweats and jeans. One that I recognized, Lee Know, had his hat on backwards and his blonde hair was peeking out. It was then that I realized what Stays were talking about with him; he was prettier in real life. Like, a scary kind of pretty. 

Felix on the other hand, was an ethereal kind of pretty with a soft exterior to balance Lee Know’s sharp features. It was a quick reveal to why they called him sunshine. Even with his dark hair, he radiated warmth and empathy. Like you could tell him anything and he would do everything in his power to help or just to listen. His hat was on sideways, like the boy next to him had moved it and he just hadn’t changed it back.

The boy next to him had his hat on straight. I gathered that one was Seungmin because of his baseball t-shirt. Stays knew he loved baseball, saying he would’ve become a baseball player if he hadn’t chosen this path in life. He was the only one watching me walk up to them, catching my eye and staring holes into my head. I didn’t drop his gaze, having the gut feeling that he was watching me for a reason. I just couldn’t point a finger as to why.

Right at the perfect moment, Jeongin turned around to see me approaching, his broad smile only growing wider. 

“Over here!” He was waving me over to the empty seat beside him and Chan, a plate in front of it with a croissant on its center. A glass full of cream-colored liquid was placed in front of that empty seat, waiting for me. He still knew some things about me, proving the years of friendship withstood the idol training I was sure he went through. It didn’t break the kindness in him. 

His smile didn’t fade the closer I got. In fact, I would argue that it got bigger and brighter, only matched by Felix’s with his blonde hair shining in the sun. They all stood when I finally approached the table, awaiting formal introductions from Jeongin.

“Everyone, this is my childhood best friend. She just moved back from the States and she’s coming to the show tonight so we have to do our best for her.” He was still beaming even after he finished, and all the boys took their turns introducing themselves in order around the table. Seungmin was the last, confirming my suspicion that he was the one that was seated beside me. He said his name, not quite smiling or even a polite grimace like Lee Know had. No, he was just staring at me with wide eyes.

“Do I have something on my face?” I whispered to him, trying to break free of his glare. He shook his head. 

“No.” And with that he sat back down, staring at his mug with a slight rosy blush creeping along his cheeks.

Well that was simple enough. I sat back down in the chair and reached for the glass in front of me. “Thanks for ordering for me, I can’t believe you remembered.”

“I was just hoping that your tastebuds hadn’t changed. You’ve been abroad now, you could have acquired an American tongue.”

“Nope, still the same old same old for me. I’m not so easily influenced by others, Innie, you know this.”

“This is true.” He turned to the others. “She once had the whole class trying to tell her that she had something in her hair and she refused to believe it until someone held up a mirror for her!” He started laughing, reliving the memory. The rest of the group chuckled along with him. Then Chan spoke up.

“So what was Jeongin like in school? We only know a little bit, but what was he like as a kid?”

“Oh he was something else. Some days he would be the best little angel ever and others, he would be bouncing off the walls. I never knew what kind of friend I was getting each day. He was a wild card.” I smiled back at Jeongin. “But he’s better now. Now he’s all grown up and singing and dancing with you guys. It's fun to watch.”

“I can’t wait to hear what you think about the show tonight.” The short, dark-haired one, Han, piped up excitedly. “We’ve been working on it for a while. I’m just excited to show Stay. They’re going to love it.”

“Stay is-”

“Your fan base. I know. I might have done some research on the plane ride back.” Jeongin nodded, impressed.

“What else did you find in your ‘research’?” Hyunjin asked. Stay was right, he was prettier in person. Pictures didn’t do him justice. Pictures didn’t do any of them justice. 

“Oh, this and that. I saw something about you being a painter and Chan doesn’t sleep.”

“That about sums me up.” Chan laughed, Hyunjin along with him nodding. “What else did you find?”

“Let’s see… Lee Know-” The boy perked up, now listening closely. “-seems cold but cares the most. Also a great dancer.” Lee Know nodded. “Changbin works out a lot and is quite loud. Can’t wait to find out if that’s actually true or not.”

“It is.” Jeongin rolled his eyes. I laughed. 

“Han is also loud but very funny. And Felix is the cuddle bug.” Felix nodded along with Han. 

“Stay knows us pretty well.”

“And Seungmin…” I paused, not knowing which Stay fact to bring up first. Seungmin was watching me think, like he could watch all of the thoughts going around and around in my head. It was almost like a challenge. “Seungmin is a mystery. He can rap but he doesn’t unless asked. Stay is waiting for a rap part for him, by the way. He’s a ‘quiet-carer’, like Lee Know. And he says some of the most out-of-pocket stuff anyone has ever heard, making him hilarious as well.” Seungmin’s lip twitched, cracking into a smirk. 

“You’ve got it.” He continued smirking, watching my lips move as I spoke. They flickered between my eyes and the other features of my face. It was like I was hypnotized. I couldn’t look away from his features, his eyes locking on mine and watching my every move. I felt my heart beating against my chest bone, hitting it in time with every second that passed by. And then, all of sudden, it stopped beating altogether. And then it was just us. We weren’t outside anymore, it was real-life tunnel vision. He watched me and I watched him just looking at each other. 

And then a sharp cough from somewhere in the distance. 

Seugnmin broke the contact first, looking everywhere to find where the sound that dare interrupt our moment had come from. 

Jeongin had let out one of his signature grandfather coughs again, his eyes wide open watching me and his band mate. 

“I don’t think Seungmin-hyung is that mysterious. And I live with him. Just stay out of his stuff and you’ll be fine.” The boys nodded in agreement, not paying attention to their younger members. “That’s a little tougher for some than others.” He let out another pointed cough. 

“It was ONE TIME.” Felix exclaimed, righteous with indignation and the others bursted out laughing, including Seungmin. I couldn’t help but notice his cheeks pushing up to his eyes when he laughed for real, as opposed to his chuckle earlier while talking to me directly.  

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. 

*

This place was packed, people of all ages everywhere in various colorful outfits and carrying lightsticks were bouncing all over the place on their way out of the stadium. Girls running to the merchandise lines after the show to grab whatever was left, older moms peering over the crowd to find whomever they were looking for, and venue staff were scattered all around the place, the energy from the concert still setting the place abuzz. 

The show was amazing. I didn’t realize how talented Jeongin was. I knew he would go far in whatever he decided to do in life, but I never knew how far he was really going. It was palpable; the boys loved him. All of them. The way they teased him was reminiscent of how I teased him growing up. He really found a family in all of them. I was happy for him, really.

I watched off to the side in clear view of all of them surrounded by some very passionate fans, bound to get rowdier as the boys kept making their way over. Jeongin made sure to shout me out in his speech in the beginning, saying that he was so excited to perform in front of his childhood friends so as not to make it too obvious who I was. Seungmin found me almost immediately because he was dancing near my side. It was just like earlier; my eyes were drawn to him. The way his body moved, I couldn’t help but watch him even if I was supposed to be watching all of them. My excuse to Jeongin would be that he was the only one right in front of me, but I knew the truth.

 He was doing it on purpose. There was no way he wasn’t. Because everytime he came over my way, he found me again and waved to everyone around me. There was a small voice in the back of my head that was telling me it was meant for me. Or it could have been the smirk that followed his big smile while he waved to everyone around me. While he may not have been looking directly at me when he got over to my side, he was definitely staring me down when he walked away and I watched him until his attention was elsewhere. The more he walked over to our side, the more the fans around me jumped and waved their arms, trying to get anyone’s attention from the stage. When they waved their arms, they narrowly missed my head, sometimes knocking me and causing me to stumble into someone else beside me. Some of these fans are nuts. These hits didn’t go unnoticed by Seungmin though. The way his face fell when they bumped into me caused his big smile to falter, sending the corners of his mouth downwards. The joy on his face disappeared as he stared in our direction, not taking his eyes off our section. He didn’t walk away until I stood back up and returned my attention to him. 

Weirdo.

I was waiting near the stage until a burly man wearing a Stray Kids t-shirt came in and waved me over to take me backstage. Down the dark hallway lit by the same fluorescent lights as the main stage was by now, I spotted a taller figure with dark hair leaning on the wall a ways away from us. He was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt from what I could tell while being so far away. As we drew closer, he spotted us as well and stood straight, coming to stand right in front of me. He smirked again, just as he had all night long but there was no malice coming from it. No, it was just a mild curiosity. He opened his mouth, possibly to say something snarky as his smirk suggested but just then, Jeongin appeared coming out of a door to our right. 

“Noona! What did you think? Were we any good?” Jeongin smiled brightly, eyes excitedly flicking from one to the other and back again, trying to find my answer. He reached for me, his hand grabbing mine quicker than I could realize what exactly he was reaching for. Seungmin’s gaze darted straight to where our hands connected and his stare could’ve started a fire. If looks could kill, I wouldn't have wanted to be Jeongin at that moment. His deep brown eyes had lost their warmth, void of any playful sparkle I had seen until now as Jeongin dragged me into their dressing room.

*

Next thing I knew, I found myself sitting on the Stray Kids Tour bus on the way back to the hotel for the night instead of in my car, heading back home. And somehow, Seungmin had found himself sitting beside me. Jeongin had escorted me onto the bus, but Seungmin had taken advantage of Jeongin going through his bag of belongings in another section of seats and slid in to occupy the one next to me. I just stared at him, Jeongin unaware of what had just occurred as he continued to shuffle through his bag.

“You’re in my seat.” was all Seungmin said to my stare. 

“So that means you have to sit as close to it as possible?”

“Yes.” And then he put his headphones on. I suspected he used this to avoid Jeongin’s questions because he had just put his bag away. I looked up just in time to see him look confusedly as Seungmin, who had his eyes glued to his phone now. Jeongin looked at me and I shrugged. He did the same and sat in the seat directly in front of me, lightly chuckling. I leaned forward, trying my best to ignore Seungmin’s thigh that was dangerously close to mine. 

“Why is he sitting next to me?”

“I don’t know. He’s a weird one.”

“He said I was sitting in his seat.” Jeongin’s brows furrowed. 

“He doesn’t sit there. He sits near the front most times.” 

I sat back in my seat, bewildered. I nudged Seungmin’s arm until he took his headphones off and when he did, he raised his eyebrow at me. 

“You don’t sit here. What gives?”

“I’m waiting for you to figure it out.” He said with another smirk, a permanent feature around me.

I sat back, stunned and taken aback. He just placed his headphones back on his ears, satisfied with his answer and returned to his phone. 

This was going to be a fun ride.

[raelle-writing]

DFF Theory: It was Fluke's laptop that was used to post the KengNon video

So this theory is that it was Fluke's laptop that was used to post the video of Keng and Non, though Fluke himself likely wasn't the one who posted it. The theory rests on the assumption that while Jin recorded the video, he wasn't the one who posted it in the end. I talk about that more in detail in this post, but the short of it is this:

There's a discrepancy between what is shown on Jin's laptop and what is shown on the screen of the person who posted the video, which is highlighted with these two screenshots:

Along with what Fluke says in episode 4 when he points the finger at Tee for releasing the video when Jin isn't even around. Top corroborates that (though he is, admittedly, crazy/possessed/drugged at the time).

So with that established, the question is: why would Fluke even know who released the video if he wasn't involved? If he wasn't a part of the video being released, then he would naturally assume it was Jin who released it, considering he was right there when Jin filmed the video.

When we're shown the posting, here's what we see. I grabbed two screenshots of them clicking into the video itself, because it feels like they only showed it because the details are important.

So we see Canon and Epson software, then Adobe Suite. And in the second one we see an x-ray. The Canon and Epson as well as Adobe suite COULD point to it being Jin, since we know he's into photography. But it could also point to the person who was helping with the editing and effects of the movie, and who says they're working on the effects? Fluke.

Jin also isn't shown to do much photography so far in the past, except for handling Por's camera. Granted, I won't discount that it could be Jin's laptop given those softwares and the Adobe suite and his later interest in photography. But I think it's equally likely to be Fluke's, given what we know of the two of them so far.

That brings us to the x-ray. This one puzzled me, because it's a hip x-ray. We know Jin has a history of shoulder dislocations so why would he have a hip x-ray? And who would have an x-ray saved on his laptop? Maybe a future medical student?

Fluke isn't shown to talk much about medical school in the past (at least that I found) but he stresses about his portfolio, which implies that he already has his field selected and knows it'll be difficult to get into.

Jin and Fluke are the closest of the friend group, since they're repeatedly shown hanging out one-on-one together. They're always side by side, in almost every shot we see of them. The friend group has some mini-cliques within it, and it's clear that Jin and Fluke are one of them.

Jin also helps with the movie editing, just like Fluke.

I find it pretty easy to believe that Jin and Fluke would share a file storage location, so Fluke would have access to the video just like Jin. Whether just because they're close friends or because of the movie, I'm not sure.

Fluke has always been a bystander. He repeatedly says he doesn't know anything and isn't involved in anything.

I find it hard to believe he'd do the video posting himself, considering he doesn't seem to want any part of the bullying. But yet, he knows about it in the present. He also shushes Jin when Jin tries to say something about the video to him, which to me reads guilt more than it reads "leave me out of it."

I think it's likely that Fluke told the others that Jin recorded that video and what they'd seen, and that his laptop was then used to post the video, because whoever posted it knew Fluke would have access to the video Jin recorded. It was likely Top or Tee, since we see them catch Non and Keng together earlier that episode. And Top texted Tee right after Non gave him the money to ask for a favor, which was clearly to follow Non and found out where he'd gotten the money.

If it was Fluke's laptop that was used, it explains Fluke's panic at what Jin was about to say in the past. Jin started with "I didn't" and would likely continue to say he didn't post the video, which Fluke knew would implicate him if Jin carried that thought through, so he cut the conversation short.

It's also why Fluke is so paranoid of being implicated in the present, but also why he knows that it wasn't Jin who posted the video, and instead points the finger at Tee. Because if Fluke wasn't involved in the video posting, I doubt Tee would tell him about it. That would be messy, considering how tightly-lipped Tee has been about everything else that happened in the past.

Oh and before I end, in episode 8 Por's laptop is shown to also be a Mac that uses dark mode, so I compared screenshots of his Mac to what is shown in the video of whoever posted, and it doesn't look the same. Not to mention, in the present, Por seems to carry the least amount of guilt and panic at the thought of people finding out what happened to Non, so I doubt he was involved in that particular part of Non's undoing.

So in conclusion: I think it's highly likely that it was Fluke's laptop that was used to post the video of Keng and Non, which is why he knows enough in the present to point the finger at Tee.

All of these details feel very intentional and important, and it will likely come out in future episodes. This feels very right to the plot to me, considering what Fluke seems to know in the future, but we'll all see as the remaining episodes unfold!

ETA: I was wrong, it IS established that Fluke is planning to study medicine (episode 5).

[willsolace-loml]

hello do you perchance have any xeno, evan or barty hc to yap about 🤠

ill do barty now and tag u in a xeno one later

-personally i LOVE ravenclaw barty and slytherin barty, so if we're talking raven barty then i think he would get kicked out of his dorm by his roommates for being batshit insane, and evan and reg had an extra bed so he dorms with them

-he knows the password to the kitchen, and surprisingly to literally everyone, hes an ANGEL to the elves, the first time he goes down there with reg, regulus hugs him afterwards because of how amazing he is to the elves

-hes in advanced classes (supergenius barty supremacy) and thats how he met dorcas, shes a year older and had class with barty who introduced her to the others

-speaking of advanced classes, my guy has to stufy ALL THE FUCKING TIME and he'll sit in his bed in the dorm, clear reading glasses on, monster in his left hand, writing in the other (or in a modern au, a laptop, cuz regardless of if he was a pureblood or halfblood, hed find a way to get one) and hes writing complex spells down n shit (evan is absolutely insane abt it and there have been multiple times where barty didnt finish studying)

-and i mean complex spells, like u think snivilus made spells, barty found ways to make nonverbal spells or made new spels without a wand

-he actually really likef being in class, not that he would admit, sp i honestly think he wpukd want to become a teacher, like he was an amazing teacher as moody, i think thats what he always wanted to do

-and think of how defying that would be. like bartys father wants him to be a ministry man, and he ends up working at a school, js saying

-he has naturally blondish hair, but dyes it black, with streaks of ither colors

-he absolutely LIVES for ghe book frankenstein, and he watches the movie every halloween (and all year round, he also wayches gremlins)

-the only thing he seems not to be good at is singing, he can play a couple instruments, but he cant sing for the life of him

-pandora was his second friend, they were both in ravenclaw (thats the hc we're goungb wigh rn) and sat beside each other at the feast, earlier on the train (where he had met reg) he had been drawing on his arm and a coping mechanism for his anxiety, pandora commented on it, he asked her if she wanted to draw something, handed her a sharpy, and she drew the coolest fucking plant barty had ever seen so he took a photo of it and got it tattooed when he was 15

-we moved past this topic BUT, when he made spells, he made a spell that can remove or add body parts, so like an underground ring of trans stufents come to him saying like "hey can u do my surgery" and it does no harm (he made it that way) and if they change their mind he can js reverse rhe spell

-reg was the first to test it out

-he collected as many punk records as he could

-he has bipolar disorder and struggled a lot with that until he started surrounding himself with people who actually tried to help him feel more comfortable abt it

this is SUPER long, but i absolutely love barty and think abt him every second, bro is my roman empire

[berrykis]

I think Ace and Sabo would be such good parents..in a way. Not like perfect parents but they would regardless be better parents than their own (except Ace let’s say he’s a better father/guardian than Garp and Dadan)

When Sabo had his baby, Ace was def crying, a lot.

Overwhelmed with gratefulness and love for Sabo and their newborn baby.. they’re his will to live.

And he’ll do anything to protect them.

So, yeah they’re parents! Young parents to be exact. They’re in their early 20s but they have no regrets of becoming parents either way. Their baby is their blessing.

Ace would go to WB meeting with baby Luffy on his chest in a wrapped baby blanket on his body, where baby Loof sleeps attached to Ace on his chest with the blanket for support.

Everyone coos at Ace for being a good dad, and the rest of the gang spoils Ace’s baby.

Although all their love is very much appreciated, Ace and Sabo are overprotective of their babe. They don’t allow anyone besides themselves to kiss baby Loof, not even a sweet peck on his small lips, it’s a risk of an infection! Plus, they don’t think it’s appropriate so in other words, they don’t allow anyone to touch Luffy until it’s granted. Or when Ace and Sabo are right there with him in their arms, maybe they will.

But overall, just don’t fuck around their baby.

Sabo holding baby luffy in his arms while he nurses and eats a bowl of cereal, as well as doing school work (university) on his laptop, is so MOTHER.

he’s unbothered and happy. With a tiny baby resting in his arms happily being breastfed while making cute whimpers of satisfaction 🫶

When ace and sabo decided on baby luffys first bath ever since his birth, they recorded it..for core memory and how sweet it was to them. Their sweet little baby being gently held by his neck to his head into the small bath tub with water touching his back, and just looking up at Sabo whose warm smile comforts the overwhelmed baby Luffy.

the whimpers and small cries calmed down in seconds when Ace came to slowly pour warm water on his hair that has some soap in it, gently rubbing his head while at it. Then pressing a peck on his forehead after he calmed down, with both his parents at his side while being washed up made baby Luffy all giggly at the end.

Flashing his cute gummy smile, one that every D. Has.. 🩷

Sometimes, Ace and Sabo would stay up at night together, when luffy couldn’t sleep and keep on whining all night for attention from his parents. Classic baby things..they’ll stay up just holding baby Luffy, rocketing him back and forth while gently rubbing his back. Or Sabo having him laying ontop of his legs as he’s (gently) playing with luffys small baby arms, making him dance. Ace who talks to baby Luffy in a soft voice making him fall asleep because how soft spoken aces voice gets to him, after all night fussing in his crib, Luffy decides it’s time to go to sleep after getting his parents to stay up with him, cuddling and talking to him all night.

He sleeps between them in bed, both of their hands ontop of luffys small torso. To let him know, they’re still here.

~

When sabo has to go back to work after maternal leave when he was pregnant AND taking care of newborn Luffy, his work crew decided on surprising sabo with a room for kids/babies to stay (like a small daycare, and obviously supervised) while the parents work, they got inspired and motivated into making it when their chief of staff got pregnant and took care of his newborn had been super busy taking care of his new babe while also doing uni work..

A mother who multitasks while not letting go of his baby any way!

so inspiring.

!~

The caretaker of the small daycare in the work center had complimented Sabo and Ace on being such good parents because (toddler Luffy or baby luffy) was all smiles and in a good mood, making friends and helping them.

The Angel out of the rest of the kiddos.

There was a time where Sabo got mistaken as luffys babysitter or perhaps brother because Sabo looked like a teenager with a black haired baby in his arms as he looked at a jar of baby food.. not to mention he’s a curly blonde, and the baby who slept in his arms had black hair and freckles on his cheeks. But comfortable for sure. Sleeping soundly while also hugging sabo tightly.

“Such a cute baby boy! Is he your brother? Or maybe you’re a babysitter are you? You’re too young to have kids anyway, but you look like you won the baby’s heart, how sweet.. awwhh”

Sabo just stares at the old lady and puts back the baby jar of food and says “this is my baby. I carried him for 9 months inside my womb and took care of him ever since he was born. I will not be told I’m anyone but his mother even if he’s a bit more like his father..so please, mind your own business..hag.”

As the old lady gasps and bites back with a snarl at him in response. what a noisy, insensitive old lady!

Walking away with a frown while baby Luffy wakes up after sabo started going off on that woman, and looks up at the old lady with very clearly, Sabos eyes inherited. and his cute button nose he took from Sabos face as well.. def his baby alright.

Thank u for reading! I was bored and had been thinking about a lot of ace and sabo with baby luffy as their biological baby.. cute

🫡.. I’ll write Aces experiences with baby Luffy later. I got many more ideas, but I’m tired now

[doomer-diva]

1998 Yahoo! Internet Lift July X-Files Gillian Anderson Interview

X-LIFE: Scully seems to be in tune with her computer, e-mail, and the Net.  But you've admitted that's the show, not real life.  Has the role nudge you into exploring cyberspace a bit more?

GILLIAN: Well, I do own a laptop, but part of me is a little afraid I would shirk my real-life responsibilities if I actually went online a lot.

X-LIFE: So how do you look so convincing when you're using computers on the show?

GILLIAN: It's called acting.  I have a general idea of what's on the Net.  I don't have a deep understanding of all those chat rooms, or have down all of the terminology.  But I can definitely pretend like I do.

X-LIFE: No one has a deep understanding of those chat rooms.  How do you feel about online adulation?  Last we searched, there were 24,000 Web links listed in AltaVista such sites as the Gillian Anderson Estrogen Brigade (www.teatime.com/gaeb), the Gillian Anderson House of Worship (crunchie.simplenet.com/gahow.html), and the Gillian Anderson Picture Vault (www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theatre/2527).  Do you sometimes stop and think, "Who are all these people?"

GILLIAN: Honestly, if it makes people happy I don't care what they do with their free time, with their lives.  If that's the way they want to spend it, then it's their choice.  I don't consider them losers in any way.   Hey, they're doing that instead of hitting the bars, and that's fine by me.

X-LIFE: Yet the minute there's talk or even rumors about you in the press, it's on the Net in a matter of seconds.  Does that make you a little paranoid?

GILLIAN: Hmmm ... I hadn't really thought about it in terms of paranoia.

X-LIFE: All that "truth" showing up out there?

GILLIAN: Come to think of it, now you're making me paranoid.  [Laughs]  People make up stuff.  That's what the whole tabloid press is about.  But all that matters is the truth, and we know what the truth is.   Everything else is superfluous.

X-LIFE: So when you do log on, what do you log on for?

GILLIAN: It's mostly when I do some work with my local radio station.  Sometimes, after a radio session, I'll log on.  But most of the time we have to abort the process because so many people start coming on to ask questions that the entire system shuts down.

X-LIFE: When Scully goes home at night and logs on, where does she go?

GILLIAN: Most of the time she's looking for research, or trying to find information about people she's investigating.  Pathogens, diseases, and stuff like that.

X-LIFE: Would she ever consider going into a chat room with a nice, single pathologist?

GILLIAN: A nice, single pathologist?  [Laughs]   She might.  That's kind of interesting.  She might.

X-LIFE: I ask because online, one of the most debated X-Files questions is, "Who should Scully become romantically involved with?  The list runs the gamut from Mulder to Krycek to Skinner.  For the record, what kind of man is Scully attracted to?

GILLIAN: Well, hey, that's not a very big pool you've got there.

X-LIFE: Fans will throw any character into the scenario.  Shoot, even Flukeman.

GILLIAN: What about, oh, what was his name?   Kresge.  I thought there might be some possibility there for Scully.   That was the one person I can see her being interested in.  The only valid prospect in the last couple of years.

X-LIFE: That's kind of depressing.

GILLIAN: Well, she doesn't have a lot of time for anything else.

X-LIFE: There's also some rough stuff out there on the Net.  As a mother, what are your impressions of the Net?

GILLIAN: I think that's it's valid to put some kind of block on some of the information that's out there, but otherwise, I think the way to deal with it is in education, and working with kids early on in their lives so they don't feel the need to have that kind of outlet.  If they're predisposed to finding that [pornographic] kind of information, there's something lacking in their lives.  It's not about getting the information, because they can get it anywhere they want.

X-LIFE: Well, what do you think about all of the manipulated photos of you that are on the net from facial distortions to superimposed nude bodies?   You and Alicia Silverstone are perhaps the favorite subjects of these enthusiasts.  Does this bother you at all?

GILLIAN: No.  It would bother me more if I thought they were real photos of me nude.  Knowing that they're not, it doesn't really bother me at all.

X-LIFE: Then you take a live-and-let live approach?

GILLIAN: Why should I be bothered?  As far as David [Duchovny, her costar] and I are concerned, our images are exploited left and right, and we have no control over it.  So it's just another aspect of that.

X-LIFE: Speaking of exploitation, there's been a lot of tension between Twentieth Century Fox and online fans over some X-Files fan sites and the posting of copyrighted materials.  At first, this was largely tolerated; now, Fox is going after them, and many fans feel it will backfire.  How do you feel?

GILLIAN: I'm not actually aware of that struggle.   Tell me more about it.

X-LIFE: Well, there are a lot of sites out there devoted to you and David.  Most are not posted for profit, although some fans do post copyrighted stills of the show.  So Fox lawyers have sent out cease-and-desist letters to some of the sites.  The online community gets unhappy when this happens, but Fox has a point as well.

GILLIAN: I'm not versed enough about the Internet to know what's being exploited and what's not.  But I believe in freedom of speech, and to a certain degree, freedom of the press.  My opinion right off the bat is that it's just people online having a good time.  As long as it's not for profit, Fox is making a tremendous profit on everything.  I don't think it would diminish the profit that they're making.  If it's not for profit, and it's just for fun, hey, it's par for the course.

X-LIFE: There's a lot of speculation on the Internet about the success of your upcoming movie. Entertainment Weekly rated the film one of the riskiest releases of the coming season.  Is that a concern of yours?

GILLIAN: No, it's not a concern at all.  I don't know why they would have rated it risky.  With all of the die-hard fans alone, the movie would end up being  a success, and that's not even taking into consideration new viewers or people who have never seen the show before.

X-LIFE: What does the success of the film mean for you?

GILLIAN: It would mean that in the future, we would revisit this situation every few years and do more features, which for me is an exciting prospect.

X-LIFE: Are you getting tired of the television series?

GILLIAN: It's not that I'm getting tired of it, it's just that it's incredibly grueling.  And if we're going to be doing features every few years, ya know, it seems that the more productive scenario to keep us alive and interested in doing the work would be to have the show flip over to features, and gradually let go of he TV series within the next one or two years.

X-LIFE: On the Net, fans rate Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" and Clyde Bruckman's "Final Repose" as the best episodes.   Which do you like most?

GILLIAN: I think that one of the more recent ones the vampire one, called "Bad Blood," is one of my favorites of all time now.

X-LIFE: Do you feel any of the episodes have gone too far?

GILLIAN: There are some I'm not too crazy about, but not because they went too far.  I wasn't that crazy in the end about the two-parter involving my daughter.  I liked aspects of them, but as a whole, they didn't turn out as well as I wanted them to.

X-LIFE: Does [X-Files creator] Chris Carter ever come on the set to show you things he find online, like what Net fans think about your performances?

GILLIAN: Chris will sometimes bring up things that perked his interest online.  But we don't actually see him that often.

X-LIFE: Final question: When it comes to believing in extraterrestrial life, are you more like Scully or Mulder?

GILLIAN: My take is that the universe is vast beyond our wildest dreams, that it's more likely than not that there is life out there.  In that respect, I'd have to say I'm more Mulder-oriented.

End interview

[sirianasims]

I listened to Myra’s slow breathing. Her mom had taken us out to dinner at a fancy vegan restaurant to celebrate Myra’s birthday and then we’d watched a movie. It was tradition. It had been a nice day until we were in bed and Myra started another tirade against the popular kids in school.

I didn’t know what to say. She still didn’t know about the party last weekend, and I didn’t want to argue with her but I couldn’t quite bring myself to agree with her anymore. She ended up giving me the silent treatment until she fell asleep.

I quietly got up and went to the bathroom. It was dark, but Myra and I had been best friends since kindergarten when her parents moved to Copperdale so her dad could work with my dad. I knew their house like it was my own.

I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. Was it really so bad to want more friends? To be a part of a group? Maybe I really was just a superficial person who wanted everyone to like me. I definitely wanted Oscar to like me. We hadn’t kissed since the party but we were messaging on Social Bunny every day, and yesterday we’d locked eyes across the hallway and I had to look away before Myra noticed.

The lights were still on downstairs. Myra’s mom never went to bed before her dad came home from the hospital. My own mom did the same.

I quietly walked down the stairs and Daria looked up from her laptop.

“Can’t sleep? Is Myra snoring again?”

“No, I’m just thinking a lot.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I told her about the Spooky Day party. Somehow it had always been much easier to talk to Myra’s parents than to my own.

I did leave out the part about Oscar though.

“So since then I’ve been posting a few pictures of other costumes I’ve made. And now some people are asking for tips and I thought it would be fun to maybe make a channel and stream the process or something. Or make tutorials and post them online.”

“That sounds like a great idea! I’ve always been impressed with the stuff you come up with.”

“But what if Myra sees it as me just trying to be popular?”

“And what exactly is wrong with being popular? She should be supporting you in whatever makes you happy. Myra has a lot of strong opinions, Griffin stubbornly insists she gets it from me. But don’t let her hold you back.”

“Myra says having people like you online is dumb because they’re not real friends anyway.”

“Sometimes I think my darling daughter forgets what I do.”

Daria gestured towards her computer.

“My podcast has a couple hundred thousand listeners. Are they all my friends? No. But some of them have actually become friends, because sharing what you love with a community that likes the same thing is a great way to meet people. You can even teach others and inspire them to share their own passions. I think you would do great, and I know you’re talented. But don’t take it from me, take if from those girls at school, because I’m probably too old and hopelessly uncool to listen to.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Daria was the coolest person I knew, second only to my grandpa Conrad. They didn’t care what people thought about them, but unlike Myra, they also didn’t spend hours talking about how little they supposedly cared.

Daria was telling me all about her podcasting gear when Myra’s father, Griffin, came home.

“Evening, my love. Oh, hey Julia, you’re up late.”

“Hey Griffin. You’re right, I should probably go to bed.”

“Alright, let us know if Myra’s snoring gets too bad, we still have spare earplugs.”

He winked at me.

“And remember, we love to see what you do, Julia. So you’re guaranteed at least two followers who are also real friends.”

She stood, but then leaned down and kissed my forehead, just like she used to do when Myra and I were little.

“Goodnight, kiddo. Don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life, OK? Not even my dear daughter. Always be yourself. And if you want more tips on getting a proper recording setup, just ask me.”

beginning / previous / next

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @still-life-mostly​

Muhammad Hardi Saputra, familiarly called Hardi, is a self-taught miniature still-life photographer and stop motion artist. His work is a mix of craft, comic, and fantasy elements. It aims to bring peace and tranquility to the viewers through their imaginations. His childhood dream was to create pictures that would make people happy just by looking at them. He has found a way to do exactly that by combining the beauty of miniatures with the art of photography. The stories he tells through his photographs are full of life and give the viewer a sense of nostalgia. He loves crafting and creating art that has a story behind it. To him, each piece has a life of its own, and he allows it to speak for itself. He says, “Art is a collaboration between the artist and the viewer. The work you do is only a part of the journey.”

Check out our interview with Hardi below!

How did you get your start in photography and stop motion?

My hobby started when I was still a kid. I was fascinated by claymation on TV. Around the year 2003, when my sister got her first smartphone (it was Nokia 3650), I borrowed my sister’s phone to make a stop motion with my tiny robot pencil toppers. I didn’t use photos and turned them into videos. Instead, I used the r cord and pause button immediately. So the stop motion is basically a compilation of 0.5 seconds videos. It was really fun. Then when the smartphone got faster, my pause and record button trick didn’t work anymore. My stop motion video-making ended, except for my photography.

Then after I got into college, I found a photographer sharing his works on Tumblr, and I knew that day that I wanted to be a photographer. Then, my parents bought me a laptop and camera around 2013. I started shooting some photos. When I saw a looping cinemagraph video on Tumblr, my old stop motion video ideas sparked again. So I researched on YouTube to figure out how to make a looping cinemagraph GIF just by GIMP. After some trial and error, I managed to get it working. So I used my laptop to make my first ever looping cinemagraph GIF video.

Later I ran out of stuff to make a cinemagraph, so I experimented with stop motion with any objects I could find in my bedroom. After a while, I realized I could make animations using paper. These small moments are captured on my Canon Eos M., and this is how my photography journey began. So, I thank Tumblr for giving me the inspiration and a platform to share my stop-motion GIFs.

What do you wish you knew when you first started out creating art that you know now?

I have learned that investing in a new laptop would have been a better choice if I had to choose between a laptop and a smartphone. I used to buy a new phone every two years, and as a result, I didn’t have enough money to upgrade my laptop. I realized that my photo and video editing must be faster, so I can have more time to make creative choices like what kind of color should I tune, which object I could animate and so on. This new smartphone only solved the social pressure to keep up with what everyone was doing.

Now, I saved my money to upgrade my laptop so I can create more content in less time. I also stopped watching smartphone reviews because they influenced me to buy a new smartphone. I decided to learn more skills like 3D designing or photo and video editing on YouTube instead.

What is the hardest part of your process?

I use resin 3D printers to create my subjects. The process of printing them is really simple, but it does take a lot of physical work to get the prints looking their best. Sometimes they got like blemishes that need to be sanded down or parts that need to be glued on. These steps aren’t exactly my favorite parts of the process, but the results are totally worth it!

How has your style developed over the years?

My first stop motion GIF is this blue butterfly. I put my camera on a table and made a butterfly out of paper. It was initially quite challenging because the camera moved when I pressed the shutter button. Luckily the touch screen can also trigger the camera, so I touched the screen lightly so the camera didn’t move. After that, I got a loop of about 1 second of motion.

Then, I made another butterfly. This time I use the photo levitation technique in my stop motion video. I use wire and remove the wires frame by frame. GIF with floating subjects takes much more time to finish a frame than the first one. However, the result is really rewarding because it’s more natural looking.

Right now, after I got my 3D printer, I chose astronauts as my main subject. At the moment, only the secondary subject moves, such as flying rockets, clouds that are moving across the sky, and ocean waves. In the future, I look forward to making a moveable astronaut, probably a robot, because they have joints. Or a wiggling alien or any kind of sci-fi space creature that could be explored in a galaxy far away.

Have any of your projects surprised you with its outcome?

The project that surprised me the most with its outcome is this Astronaut Diner GIF. The color looks like what I wanted. I didn’t know that adding checkerboard tiles could make me feel so nostalgic. I sanded, painted, and glued every piece of the tiles. It felt like building a miniature interior set.

My favorite part of the project is the coffee steam. I use a tiny piece of thread from a cotton ball to make it look like the steam coming from the cup. I animated the steam using Photoshop. I chose to animate the steam because I thought it would be an interesting way to add movement to the image. I didn’t think it would look very realistic if no movement existed.

Biggest pet peeve as a photographer?

Batteries. Sometimes when I was shooting some frames, my camera or flashlight battery died because I forgot to charge them before I started shooting my stop motion photos. I have to restart taking photos frame by frame because the camera angle will lightly change after I take out the battery.

What does your work set up look like?

My photography setup is just a table with one flashlight in a softbox and another flashlight in an umbrella. I use a Canon Eos M camera to take photos. I enjoy taking photos in my bedroom because it’s straightforward to set up. For example, I just set up everything on the table and snap away! It’s also very easy to clean up because I just have to put everything back in place when I am done. The setup in that photo is the setup that I used to create this article banner photo.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

John Carey of @yesterdaywasonly. Because I probably wouldn’t know Tumblr if he didn’t make a Tumblr profile for me to follow. I follow him because he shares wallpapers, and I am still using photos from his website as my laptop wallpaper.

Thank you so much for stopping by, Hardi! For more of his creations, check out his Tumblr, @still-life-mostly​!

[butchdiaz]

hiiiii your edits are so incredible!!! i've been thinking about trying my hand at video editing do you have any tips?? also how does one source clips lol

hope you're having a good day :)

hi!!!! thank u so much! for sourcing clips, i did it the hard way by downloading full episodes and screen recording the clips i wanted w quicktime which is a lengthy process that takes up a lot of space on ur laptop LOL but i really wanted HD footage and didnt know any other way when i started and now i just have my own little library of clips.

here is a lifesaving site to download eps if u dont wanna/cant torrent. i forget who made it but if someone knows lmk so i can credit!

after i had done all that i discovered that there were these magical things called scene packs that are more popular over on twitter. where u can easily download every buddie scene in s2-4 for example that took me hours to record myself 🤦🏽‍♂️ i dont really have any specific sources for u bc im not on twitter. sorry ik thats not very helpful LMAO but if u ask around/search for them i know they are out there!

and uhhh as far as tips go here are some things i personally think about while editing! everyone has different styles and methods though:) this got long accidentally so its going under the cut oops

- i like to try and tell a story w my edits so im almost always thinking about that first and foremost. like how can i tie the beginning to the end and have a satisfying climax etc. i try to work with the song and highlight the emotional/tonal shifts in the music with my editing

- on that note, i am very influenced by the music while im editing cause i want my edits to LOOK like how it FEELS when im listening to the song. i think my best example of this is im afraid i love you. the drop in the chorus feels like a punch to the gut everytime and i really wanted to visuals to reflect that so it would be the most powerful. hence: soft lovey dovey looks galore and then BAM! SHOOTING. these comments fills my heart with glee cause it makes me feel like i did a good job capturing the feeling the song gives me.

i also really love the way the beat comes in in the second verse of that song and i made sure to sync up the shots to the beat at that moment instead of the words in order to highlight the musical shift. (i always think about how @ilostyou loves that verse and calls it bouncy, it makes me feel like i achieved my goal!!!!)

- the little details and nitpicky stuff goes a long way! like painstakingly making sure clips hit right on time with the beat/the words if thats ur intention. it may seem like a chore at the time but it definitely pays off for me at least

- i also think a LOT about composition, and how to make edits flow smoothly so that the viewer can follow the story easily. if i have a bunch of faster clips in a row im going to try to make sure the focus stays in the same place so the viewers eyes dont have to jump around to find what they are looking for. its easier to explain w an example so in happy to be here, for these three shots on the word "en-gi-neer" i wanted the order to go frank -> dr salazar -> buck.

because then it goes back to frank for "listening" so i wanted space between when it shows him AND i wanted it to end on buck cause he's the most important. but the original shot of dr. salazar was flipped so at first it looked like this:

and i didn't like how ur eyes had to go back and forth so fast, so i flipped the middle clip. it was much easier to process all three clips in quick succession if the subject didn't move. hope that makes sense!

[beaker1636]

So no clue where this came from but it just happened like a month ago and I haven’t had the guts to post it yet but my friend Paige keeps telling me to soooo here’s a very smutty Chris fic.

Please be gentle, I don’t write smut at all, this is my first attempt. And I absolutely hate it despite paige and another friend saying it was really good. Also sorry if formatting gets fucked up, I type these on my laptop but can’t remember my tumblr password so I cut and paste it from a document on my phone into tumble so sometimes it gets wonky.

“Hey baby, I am sorry but things are not going how I wanted so I will be done late, we will have to move our date to another night. As soon as we finish this song I will come to your place and we can watch a movie or something,” you read the message from your boyfriend Chris for a second time, your mood instantly dropping.

This is the third time he has had to cancel date night in the last couple weeks that he has been home so that they can continue working on the new album at night. You understand that this is what he does for a living but you are getting really tired of this happening all the time. Honestly, it is making you start to feel like you arent important to him and that maybe he doesn’t want you around as much as he used to.

You sign, before responding to him. ‘Okay, don’t worry about coming over tonight if you are going to be late, you can go home and rest so that you are ready to work tomorrow.”

You get a response rather quickly, catching you off guard. “I want to come see you, I feel like we haven’t had any time together with both of our jobs.”

That message is what finally breaks you, that makes you snap and let out all your frustration in one strongly worded message that you send back.

“And that is somehow my fucking fault, YOU are the one who has cancelled on me yet again. Go fuck yourself, I don’t even want to see you tonight now,” you type out, fighting tears of frustration that are threatening to fall as you hit send.

You quickly shut your phone off and throw it on your living room table so that you don’t have to see what his response is. You had a rough day at work and really needed to be with him tonight but that doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters anymore.

Storming off to the bathroom you start to wash your face of your makeup, its just going to get ruined when you eventually stress cry, which you know is going to happen. You also say fuck it and change into pajamas, theres no reason to be dressed up just to spend the night alone in your apartment.

You follow this all up with getting a large glass of wine before going to your room with your new romance book to read and drink your feelings away, hoping that it would give you a much needed distraction so that you don’t spend your night sulking about your fight with Chris.

About an hour later it has worked, you are so drawn into the story that you don’t hear your front door open rather hashly, nor do you hear the footsteps leading to your bedroom until your bedroom door slams open.

You look up and gulp when your eyes lock with Chris’, his eyes showing you very quickly just how pissed off he currently is.

“This is seriously what you have been doing while ignoring my texts and calls? Reading a book?” He seethes, glaring at you to the point you are uncomfortable and glance away.

Fighting the tears that are now threatening to fall down your cheeks, you decide to be quiet for a minute to think about what you want to say.

“Maybe if you actually made time for me and didn’t always put me second I wouldn’t want to ignore you.” You finally say, quietly, feeling rather small in the moment. You hate confrontation so to know that Chris is upset with you really has you anxious.

“You know we are recording and have deadlines we have to meet, I can’t just leave in the middle of a song,” He spits out, growing more frustrated.

Feeling like Chris isn’t even listening to you and not wanting to get yelled at even more you decide to go back to reading your book, this conversation can be finished once he has calmed down some.

This is the last straw for Chris however, who is not going to let you continue to ignore him. He storms over to your bed and quickly rips the book out of your hands in annoyance, his eyes scanning the text on the page that you currently had the book opened to.

“Seriosuly, you are ignoring me so that you can read about other people fucking eachother?” His eyes darken as they scan your face, watching for your reaction.

Finally having enough of his tantrum yourself you finally crack. “Yeah, I am. It could have been us if you would actually show up for a fucking date.”

If he wants to fight then fine, you will fight back. He doesn’t get to be a dick when it is his fucking fault that you are upset and fighting right now. You match his glare, not wanting to be the one to back down at this point, too riled up to give in. But slowly his glare turns into a smirk, and he makes his way to the other side of your bed, climbing in next to you.

“You want to read your book so bad, fine. Read it, out loud,” he challenges, thrusting your book back into your hands.

“What? No I…. I can’t. That just, what? No Chris,” you struggle to come up with a coherent response, feeling awkward and honestly embarrassed at the thought of reading out such a dirty scene out loud in front of him.

“Why not? You seem like you have plenty to say tonight, so come on. Put your words to good use and read it to me,” he teases you. Chris knows that if he pushes you enough that you will do exactly what he asks you to, because you always do.

“Ugh fine,” you grumble.

You know Chris well enough to know that he is playing some kind of game with you but what exactly? You aren’t sure.

“‘You’re already so wet for me,” he whispers, his tongue running flat alone the darkening marks along your neck. He drags his fingers up the length of your heat’”.

You cut off suddenly with a gasp as Chris slips a hand inside your pajamas and your panties to do what you just read to you, removing the garments from your body.

“Keep reading, you wanted to ignore me for your book so bad so lets see if you actually can,” his voice grows deep as he continues to tease you.

You suck in a shakey deep breath before you continue.

“‘What do you want me to do to you,” he asks, your thighs shifting around his wrist. “Hmm?’

‘To touch me,’ you whisper, your voice barely audible in the quiet room.

‘You’re going to have to be more specific,’ he informs you. ‘And aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘Sir?’

‘Much better.’ He nod his head and you withhold a sigh, you’re never going to remember that. Before you can utter another word, two thick fingers are inside of you, you being wet enough to where he has very little resistance as he thrusts them knuckle deep.’”

You hesitate, swallowing as you try not to make a sound as Chris yet again does what you just read. You don’t want to give that cocky bastard the satisifation of knowing what he is currently doing to you.

He stops moving, glaring at you again. “You stop reading, I stop touching you.”

“‘ He pulls his hand back enough only to thrust them back inside you roughly, causing a deep whine to leave your throat at the sting of pain and pleasure, shivers immediately crawling up your spine.

He pulls away slightly, watching you under a heavy lidded gaze as his fingers continue to thrust into you, rough, forceful and unforgiving…”

You cut off, finally giving into Chris, whispering fuck this, throwing your book onto your bedside tabe before grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him in for a kiss.

He resists, not giving you the kiss that you are craving so desperately.

“I always get what I want,” he says with a chuckle. “And don’t think that after the way you spoke to me that I am going to let you cum that easily.”

You try to hide your disappointment when his fingers leave where you need them most.

“Now clean up the mess you made,” he demands, holding his hand infront of your face.

You learn forward, taking his two fingers between your lips, tasting yourself. You decide to take your time to make sure you actually get them cleaning, hoping that maybe if you do what he says that you will get what you want from him. He removes them, resting them on your lower lip.

“Good girl, now tell me, how bady do you want me y/n?” He asks, his eyes meeting yours.

“Badly, please Chris,” you whine, deperate for him to touch you again, to take care of the ache that he has created.

He slides your shirt off, smiling at the fact that you had already taken your bra off when you changed, leaving you bare as he stands up.

“Then how about you show me how much you actuary want me,” he commands, making you shiver at his tone of voice. “Get on your knees for me baby.”

You don’t hesitate to get up and do just as you were told. Reaching out to open the button and slowly slide the zipper down on his jean before tugging them and his boxers down in one movement, his hard cock finally free much to his relief.

He tugs your hair harshly, pulling you forward and silently urging you to do something, anything, just as desperate as you are for what is to come.

You wrap your hand around the base of his shaft before running your tongue along the underside, only to then teasingly lick around his head tasting the pre-cum there before dipping lower, not missing any of his length.

“Stop teasing,” he groans at your actions, growing frustrated as you continue to do so. You want your revenge for him doing just that to you earlier.

You can’t help but smirk up at him, glad that you could make him crave you just as much as he makes you crave him.

Finally you decide he has had enough and take him into your mouth, slowly lowering as your hands strokes what you can’t quite take. He tugs on your hair to make you look up at him as you hollow your cheeks and start to actually bob your head, ready to drive him crazy like he does to you. His eyes meet yours as you take him even deeper.

“Fuck, I love how great you are with your mouth,” he groans, knowing that the praise always motivates you, makes you work harder in hopes of receiving more of it.

He starts to pull on your hair, taking control away from you as he urges you to go faster. You gladly let him, loving that he is making you do what he wants, taking what he wants from you with no restraint.

He groans, pushing deeper, your eyes watering as you keep swallowing around him, trying not to choke as he gets rougher and rougher with you.

His eyes close as he leans back slightly, letting you deep throat him as he shudders, getting right to the edge. After a moment his grip on your hair tightens again as he pulls you away from his throbbing cock, you gasping for breath.

“Get on the bed, hands and knees for me baby,” he growls as he helps you up, pulling his shirt off as you crawl on the bed, looking over your shoulder at him.

You tense in anticipation when he climbs up behind you, pulling you back towards him by your hips and making you both groan at the friction that it creates. His hands pull you up by your hair o that your back is pressed against his chest, leaving kisses that trail form your neck to your ear.

“I’m about to fuck you, hard,” he whispers as he reaches around, cupping your breasts before pinching your nipples which makes you jerk back into him, causing the much craved friction between you both again.

You fail to fully process his word as all you can think about is your want, no your need to finally cum.

He gives you a kiss before letting you go, you falling back on your hands as he enjoys the view of your ass and the fact he is able to have his way with you without you putting up much a fight.

He can see just how wet you are as it glistens in the dim light from your lamp. It pleases him to know how much he can make you crave and need his touch, that only he can do this to you.

He cam tell that you are growing impatient as his fingers make their way to your hips yet again.

“I bet you still want me to go home, don’t you,” he murmurs, not wanting to give you what you want just yet.

You glare over your shoulder at him, barely holding on to what little resolve you still have left, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how badly you actually crave him.

“Use your words y/n, I want to hear you beg for me before I even consider touching you. You wanted to use them so badly to get me to leave earlier” he demands of you, harshly thowing back your words from earlier in your face.

You still refuse to answer, which just frustrates Chris, so he harshly smacks your ass, instantly making you whine at the sting.

“I still don’t hear you.”

“Oh come on, you can clearly tell how much I fucking want you. Just fuck me already,” you groan, annoyed that he is making you do this. Any other time you don’t mind begging but the angry part of you is still holding on weakly, making you want to put up a little more fight that usual.

“Good girl, thats more like it,” wraping his fingers around himself, practically pulsing from how close you had him with your mouth.

Without warning he roughly enters you, making you gasp in surprise. You press your face in your arm, jaw clenching at the sudden sting from the action.

He starts out rather slowly, deciding that he is still going to tease you before he finally starts to get rougher and rougher with each thrust, pulling your body back to meet his with each movement.

You lose your breath and close your eyes as you get closer and closer to the edge. Enjoying that he is being so forceful that it almost hurts, loving this new and rougher side of Chris that you have not seen before.

He’s slamming into you with no restraint, pulling you right to the edge but still not giving you enough to actually cum yet, the need tormenting you at how close you are.

His fingers slip around your waist to tour clit, making you cry out from the pleasure as he enjoys the sight of the bruises forming on your hips from the hold he just had on them.

You suddenly clench around him, making him groan.

“Please, Chris, I’m” you cut yourself off, not able to finish what you are saying as you beg him for your release, knowing that the only way he would give it to you is if you do.

“Fine, cum,” he demands as he presses his body down into yours on the mattress. “Cum.”

You finally do, your vision going a bit blurry as you cry out, loud enough that Chris secretly hopes that your neighbors have heard you.

His rhythm slowly becomes erratic as he can’t take it anymore and spills himself inside you with a low groan “fuck”.

His arms slip around you as you both go limp, him gently rolling you over onto your back as you lay there for a few moments, catching your breath, still pressed together as you lowly regain control of yourselves.

He slowly pulls away, gently helping you get more comfortable as you let out a sign in exhaustion. You barely notice that he left the room until he returns with a damp washcloth, helping you clean up the mess that you both let on your now very sore thighs.

“y/n, do you need anything? Are you alright?” he asks after he finishes, laying down next to you in the bed, pulling you into his arms and bruising your damp hair out of your face.

You nod, not quite ready to answer his question.

He gives you a very gentle kiss, almost as an apology before speaking.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had much time for you, I promise that I will take tomorrow off to spend with you, just us,” he says softly, toying with your hair in the way that he knows you love.

“Thank you,” is all that you mange to get out, not feeling like any other words need to be said as you oth lay there, slowly falling asleep next to eachother, glad that the fight has ended.

[mania-sama]

if you need me, dear, i'm the same as i was

Strawberry Wine - Noah Kahan

➼ 03 - if i could lose you, i would ❧ Information (Summary, Tags, Chapters) ❧ Previous Chapter ❧ Word Count: 8,372 ❧ Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own

Iwaizumi has only had one mental breakdown in his life before the heart spasm. He’d been close before then, on occasion; the rare panic and anxiety attacks weren’t foreign concepts to him. When someone has Oikawa Tooru for a best friend, they are bound to get pulled into the honestly fucked up shit that occurs in his life. Emotional whiplash is par for the course.

The mental breakdown didn’t happen with Oikawa, though, unlike most of the near-misses in his childhood. This occurred in the United States at UC-Irvine while studying for exams, and everything had come crashing down on him in one wave that rivaled the tsunami of 3/11.¹

He’d coped well with the original move. His overseas stay would only be for two years, and in the worst-case scenario, he could come back home and try his luck at a Japanese university and company. He didn’t have to do this internship with Utsui, and the chance to study at UC-Irvine was more of a package deal with the internship than a true desire to attend the university over all others in the first place.

But Iwaizumi had wanted this for himself. He wanted more than anything to succeed.

So, he’d made it work. He refused to let the new world and culture daunt him. His boss was Japanese, at least, and he’d stayed a week in the United States before this during his second year at Tohoku University. Instead of approaching his issues head-on like he’d done his whole life, he’d stuffed his anxiety and confusion into a corner. If he couldn’t see it and couldn’t feel it, then it simply wasn’t there.

(Upon reflection, Iwaizumi realizes why he did this when it’s not something he’d been prone to doing before. He was missing someone, someone who’d force him to acknowledge and deal with his emotions, because that was something that they’d always done for each other. After four years, he supposes he’d forgotten how to act with no one there to keep him in check. Not that his friends didn’t try. They did. It just wasn’t the same.)

He was studying for his second exam of three. He didn’t notice anything was wrong, really, until he’d set his pen down and didn’t pick it back up. He’d stared at his laptop screen, not comprehending any of the words because they were all in English. And he’d understood English perfectly fine.

Then he’d shifted his gaze and saw the barbecue-flavored Lays chip bag he’d been feasting on to keep some of his energy levels up. He heard the recorded voice of his professor speaking in English with a European accent so thick he could barely make out any of his words. He was sitting cross-legged at his desk, back slouched and hand cramping, in an American apartment. His T-shirt had some logo brand on it that he’d been gifted by his roommate, who was an American he had trouble communicating with on occasion, who had been very kind to him but also never understood the references Iwaizumi made or genuinely tried learning the Japanese language, who had taken him out to baseball, basketball, and football games instead of volleyball matches since those were more popular.

Iwaizumi was in the United States, but everything and everyone he knew was eight thousand miles away, so far out of his reach, and there was nothing he could do about it unless he wanted to give up.

It had taken him three days to recover from his complete breakdown. His roommate, the saint she was, had tried so hard to help him despite her own studies and work, but all he had wanted was home. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by the agitating factors constantly; the western couch he was cocooned on, the American brand Pizza Hut she ordered once for him (for the following meals, she had stuck to Japanese restaurants because they were, at the very least, a little closer to his culture), the sound of her car keys, her perfect English slang in her perfect American accent. He had barely heard any of the things she said to him in the days he spent floating between panic, dissociation, and what he could only assume was Hell.

By some miracle, he’d passed all three of his exams. The professor with the heavy European accent even complimented his work; he’d made the second highest grade in the class.

It wasn’t traumatic, per se, but it was certainly an experience Iwaizumi was in no hurry to recreate.

So, this really, really fucking sucked.

The circumstances and conditions for his mental breakdown at the Olympics are so wildly different than his previous one that Iwaizumi not only could not prepare for it, but had been socked so hard in the jaw by it that he swears he could feel the physical pain in his body. His team is there for him, just as his roommate had been all those years ago. They talked to him when he needed it, gave him adequate food and water, and spent an exorbitant amount of energy shielding him from the press.

But, like how his roommate couldn’t bring him home to Japan, his team couldn’t bring him what he wanted. They couldn’t bring him Oikawa Tooru.

—

“You know, he had no reservations talking about you,” Hinata says to him, in Iwaizumi’s first clear conversation after piecing together the shattered bits of his psyche. “He said that he’d make it to the Olympics, and that he’d meet you again, here.”

They are sitting in Iwaizumi’s Olympic dorm kitchen, eating lunch and avoiding the press. Even though Iwaizumi feels like his normal self, he still isn’t ready to be bombarded with cameras and microphones. He has unanswered emails and voicemails backlogged into oblivion asking for interviews and statements.

He doesn’t want to give them anything until he’s had time to talk with Oikawa, and his team has been unbelievably kind and understanding of his stance. Their support has taken him a long way in terms of recovery. Warmth encapsulates his chest, knowing that he can trust them as much they trust him.

Iwaizumi grunts, indicating for Hinata to continue.

“When we met up near the start of the Olympics, he even talked about you again. I think it’s weird. That he seemed so excited to see you again, but you didn’t?”

This is a conversation he really doesn’t want to be having. Iwaizumi could tell him off here and steer the conversation away, but he figures it’s going to come back up again and again like whack-a-mole. Hinata had done well to not talk in-depth about Brazil or his budding friendship with Oikawa for this long; Iwaizumi should reward him.

“Oikawa mentioned that he blocked me, right?” Iwaizumi says, measuring both his response and Hinata’s facial expressions. Tentatively, the player shakes his head.

“He said you guys lost contact. And he told me not to tell you that he talked about you.”

Iwaizumi huffs and hopes it hides the pain spiking in his chest. “Doesn’t surprise me. I thought he’d moved on with his life.” And from me, he doesn’t say, but he thinks Hinata hears it anyway. “He still has me blocked on all his socials.”

Because of course, he’d checked. During his more lucid moments, he’d had his phone open, switching between all of his socials to see if he’d somehow missed Oikawa breaking his eight-year silence. He’d told his entire team about Iwaizumi, after all, under the alias of his affectionate yet somewhat demeaning nickname. The one that really shouldn’t still be in use for two grown men at the age of twenty-seven.

Yet that asshole still has him blocked.

“Maybe…” Hinata hesitates, picking at his noodles. “Yeah, that’s even weirder.”

“Tell me about it.” Iwaizumi tries to loosen his white-knuckle grip over his chopsticks.

“But you still care?” The player questions, though it’s less out of uncertainty and more out of curiosity. It isn’t a matter of if he cares; that much is obvious. It’s a matter of why, when he and Oikawa ended on such a poor note and haven’t spoken in almost a decade.

“I never stopped,” Iwaizumi answers quietly before stuffing his mouth with chicken dumplings. Hinata follows suit, and the silence that stretches between them is not awkward nor unkind.

Finally, when they finish with their lunch, Hinata pipes up again. “I know it’s not the same, but, I get it. When I was in Brazil and Kageyama was still home, and then I came back and we were on rival teams… It was hard. I did block his number and… everything, one night, because I didn’t know what to do with what I was feeling. I unblocked him immediately after because I felt so bad. But, just hear him out, okay? I know it was a dick move, but we can all be a massive dick sometimes when emotions get in the way.”

Hinata grins, unabashed, and clearly, this has been something he’s been preparing to say for as long as Iwaizumi has known him.

In the back of his mind, he hears Oikawa’s teammates call him Iwa-chan. It’s all foreign and unnatural, but the way they say it — it’s like Iwaizumi is the sweetheart from Japan, sitting at his childhood doorstep with a bouquet of roses and a welcoming laugh. Like he is waiting for him at the end of Oikawa’s road no matter how hard he tries to push Iwaizumi away. Like he is Oikawa’s everything.

“I’ll decide whether or not he gets a second chance,” Iwaizumi eventually responds.

Because Oikawa doesn’t have the right to believe that Iwaizumi would wait for him for eight years, or for however long it would take for him to walk back to that doorstep. He doesn’t get to see Iwaizumi sitting there, his flowers long-wilted and throat raw from choking up blood.

Hinata nods in understanding, and they sit together until Hinata leaves to catch the bus to watch a track-and-field event.

—

At three in the afternoon, Iwaziumi is still moping around his apartment. He can’t go out because the reporters will bombard him for answers, and he doesn’t have those answers because he hasn’t talked to Oikawa, and he hasn’t talked to Oikawa because Oikawa isn’t awake, and Oikawa isn’t awake because he had a heart spasm and was put into a coma following his surgery for his own safety.

He plays ten rounds of sudoku on his phone while an Olympic running event plays on his television screen as background noise. He could be there, but that meant everyone else would be there, too.

Namely reporters.

At four-fifty-three, someone knocks on his door. They don’t wait for Iwaizumi to answer or let them in before they start shouting.

“He’s awake!” That’s Bokuto’s voice. Who let Bokuto deliver the news?

Iwaizumi rushes to greet Bokuto, who promptly pats him on the back and says: “Don’t worry, we’ve got a whole plan to get you there without anyone stopping ya for interviews, ‘kay? Leave it to me!”

If it’s not specifically pertaining to volleyball, the words leave it to me are truly horrifying to hear from Bokuto’s mouth. However, Iwaizumi doesn’t have much of a choice, so he nods and lets Bokuto direct him down the hall and out of Team Japan’s dormitory tower.

—

Oikawa is not awake when Iwaizumi gets there.

He’s lying on his side, arms pulled out of the way by the restraint on his wrists so he’s not crushing the tubes sticking into his flesh. Iwaizumi doesn’t have any doubt that he was awake; Oikawa had always been a side sleeper, and they certainly wouldn’t have positioned him like that after surgery.

And, oh, God.

Despite the wires and cords and tubes keeping him together, and the disgusting drool slipping past the edges of his lips, and the unflattering mess his hair has turned into, Oikawa looks just as beautiful as the day Iwaizumi lost him. At this close, it takes all of Iwaizumi’s dignity and respect not to reach out and run his fingers across his exposed skin.

“Oh, you just missed him!” The nurse tells him, giving a practiced smile as she gently repositions Oikawa onto his back. “He even asked for you by name!”

What did he call me? Iwaizumi, Iwa-chan, or Hajime? How does he speak my name so freely while every time I say his, I feel like I’m spitting blood?

“When will he wake up again?” Iwaizumi asks, his mouth dry and stinging eyes stuck on Oikawa’s sleeping form. The way his chest rises and falls, the steady beeping of the heart monitor — all of it had been out of his reach. They hadn’t let any visitors in to protect Oikawa’s fragile stability from “outside contamination”, or something of the relation.

"He had to be resuscitated on the operating table," Sakusa had told him sometime during that two-day timespan of Hell. " They can’t risk visitors until he’s stable for forty-eight hours."

The nurse purses her lips. “He wasn’t awake for very long, and it was his first semi-lucid state after coming from a coma, so I guess… six hours if you want to try and have an actual conversation with him. Anything between now and then is probably going to be a few short seconds of awakeness—” she puts that awakeness in air quotations “—where he’s not going to actually comprehend anything.”

Iwaizumi mumbles something, incoherent to even himself, before pronouncing more clearly: “Right, uh. I’ll be back, then.”

“Okay,” she says, her voice and face softening a notch. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

He might in the beginning, but Iwaizumi imagines their conversation won’t sustain that delusion for very long.

A few members from both the Argentinian and Japanese teams greet him outside the room. His expression must be revealing, because their faces fall into sympathy and pity. “You’ll get him next time!” Bokuto whoops while the others nod their assent.

“Sure.” And that’s that.

—

The reporters are waiting outside the hospital, with their cameras and microphones and equipment ready to catch the elusive athletic trainer who has some sort of personal connection to the Argentinian player he saved the life of. They are unrelenting in their pursuit, reaching Iwaizumi despite the players that stand several inches taller than them. 

It’s Ushijima who steps in front of the microphone and camera that’s pushed into Iwaizumi’s face.

“Iwaizumi-sensei will not be taking questions at this time.” His voice is as it always is: matter-of-factly, monotone, and commanding. “Go home.”

By the time he reaches his Olympic dorm room, Iwaizumi has answered zero questions.

—

“JAPAN ATHLETIC TRAINER SPOTTED LEAVING OLYMPIC HOSPITAL WHERE ARGENTINA PLAYER IS RECOVERING”

Iwaizumi finds it funny that the clearest shot they have of him is only of the very edges of his figure. The rest of him is blocked by the 192.7 centimeters tall, broad, intimidating Ushijima Wakatoshi.

The article speculates wildly on their relationship, as articles tend to do when the only accessible records of their friendship are from school volleyball lineups dating back to elementary school.

It’s more than funny. It’s hysterical.

He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he throws his phone harshly across the couch, because it’s the only thing he can do to express himself without severely damaging his expensive electronics, body, or government-owned property. 

He buries his face in his hands and tries very hard not to gouge out his eyes.

—

When Iwaizumi — sixteen, stupid, and smitten Iwaizumi — had come to visit his best friend at the hospital after his knee surgery, he’d found Oikawa staring numbly at the television screen in the corner of his hospital room. It had been playing an old rerun of Naruto, an episode Iwaizumi didn’t exactly recognize. It’d been a long time since either of them had watched anything animated.

“I asked for them to play a volleyball match. They said there weren’t any on,” Oikawa had said, sulkily and unprompted, his gaze still trained on the TV without glancing even once at his visitor.

Iwaizumi had laughed, then, a large portion of his anxiety draining from his body to see that Oikawa was both very much alive and still the same old bastard he’d been before resigning himself to surgery.

He’d returned with: “Clearly it’s all their fault that they couldn’t make a volleyball match magically appear to appease your needy ass.”

Oikawa had scowled and thrown a pillow at him, which Iwaizumi had been fairly certain was against the rules of orderly conduct on hospital grounds.

Iwaizumi — twenty-seven, tense, and tired Iwaizumi — walks into Oikawa’s new hospital room. New because he is four days out from surgery and stable, no longer needing the intense regulation of the ICU wing and thus moved to the PCU floor when visiting hours were over.

Oikawa is watching the television screen in the corner of his room intently, gaze not moving from the TV to see who entered. “They won’t play the reruns of the gold match,” he says, sulkily and unprompted. “They stuck me with Naruto instead. Like I’m twelve .”

Only people who have never experienced déjà vu talk about déjà vu, and Iwaizumi knows this because they don’t describe it like how it actually is. Déjà vu is a one-second panic attack that packs the same amount of power as getting punched in the face by Mike Tyson at the prime of his career. Déjà vu is being sixteen again, petrified, because what if it all went wrong? Déjà vu is being twenty-seven, reeling, because he doesn’t know where or who he is until he’s mindlessly speaking.

“I see you’ve still got your shitty personality.”

People who have never experienced déjà vu don’t describe the moment it ends, either. Déjà vu ends when someone does something completely different. Déjà vu spits on his bruised, bleeding face, knowing he isn’t a boxer but rather a kid with a broken heart.

Oikawa turns to him, and his face makes an unnatural expression. His brown eyes, velvety and smooth, gain a glassy sheen. His lips twitch. His eyebrows furrow. His entire body tenses, causing the bed springs to make a small, almost inaudible squeak. The pillow behind his head stays in place.

The heart monitor beats seconds faster than it had before, and in the dense silence that falls, Iwaizumi points at it. “It’s telling on you.”

“Is it? It got so annoying, I blocked it out,” Oikawa says, a little breathlessly.

Iwaizumi supposes they are having this conversation now because his mouth runs off before his mind can catch up. “Figured. You have a tendency to do that sort of shit.”

His pent-up anger and bitterness come out in the venom dripping from his voice, and a large, vocal part of him regrets his tone for the way it makes Oikawa’s face twist into something akin to agony. His hands twitch at his side, feeling the phantom snaps of Oikawa’s ribs shattering under his palms. It could be a hundred years of silence. It could be one agonizing minute. It doesn’t matter; Iwaizumi will always be the one hurting Oikawa like this. He will always be bringing Oikawa down so he can see the damage he’s causing.

His fingertips remember the silent pulse. His callouses remember the dead, unmoving chest.

Oikawa’s lips open and close for a few seconds, his shiny gaze flickering between Iwaizumi’s eyes as he struggles to find an appropriate response. Iwaizumi thinks it might be an apology. He doesn’t want one. He doesn’t need one.

He needs—

He doesn’t know what he needs. All he’s done so far is pick a fight neither of them can conceivably win because they are Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru: an immovable object and an unstoppable force.

“Thank you,” Oikawa says, “for saving my life.”

An irritating flurry of concern, as natural as rainfall in spring, runs through Iwaizumi when he spots the green fluctuations of Oikawa’s heart rate from the corner of his eyes. The monitor continues ratting Oikawa out, destroying the masked strength and surety in his voice.

“The surgeons did that,” Iwaizumi counters eventually, making his way to the uncomfortable chair beside Oikawa’s bed.

Oikawa shakes his head. “They said — they said I could’ve had brain damage if you hadn’t restarted my heart in time.”

“You need to have a brain first before it can be damaged,” he says easily, like he’s seventeen and nothing between them has changed. Except, everything has changed. His barb isn’t teasing anymore; it’s laced with malice and a decade’s worth of pain. Oikawa scrunches his nose and closes his eyes, and his lips form an uneasy, pathetic sort of smile.

“Cruel, Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi, despite himself, sucks in a sharp breath.

Hearing that nickname from Oikawa’s teammates is one thing. Hearing it from Oikawa himself, after hearing nothing from him for eight whole fucking years, is an entirely separate beast. Iwaizumi pilfers through one of his pockets, drawing out the keychain he’s intimately familiarized himself with in the past four days. He doesn’t have to feel it anymore to know where the small rips in the fabric are, and he doesn’t have to see it to know how faded the red dot and his signature have become over the years.

He sighs, heavy and long-suffering, dragging his thumb over the lines of his name’s abbreviated hiragana. Oikawa watches him in rapt attention. “I don’t know what’s worse: that I gave you this, or that you kept it.”

“You saved my life with that, too,” Oikawa says, and his voice warbles in time with his beeping heartbeat.

Iwaizumi had his first breakdown in the United States, nine weeks in and studying for his midterms. His family and friends were all one phone call or text away. At the end of the day, his career and life didn’t ride on his success in America. He wasn’t alone. He could have returned home anytime because that’s where his future was, anyway.

Oikawa had been completely, utterly alone. He’d blocked his best friends’ numbers and socials. His happiness could only be found in the volleyball courts of Argentina, where people only knew him for his skills and not the players he compared himself to. He couldn’t return home because Japan didn’t want him, no matter how much he wanted Japan.

Oikawa swallows, his gaze dropped to where his hands fiddle agitatedly with each other on top of his white sheets. “I didn’t find it until three weeks after I landed.”

What? “How?”

“I— I don’t know. It slipped to the bottom of my bag and I guess I just never emptied it out enough.”

The keychain suddenly feels heavy in Iwaizumi’s palm. Before it can crush every little bone in his hand, he ungainly tosses it to Oikawa. It lands around where his knees should be. Oikawa takes a moment to stare at the keychain before reaching for it and settling it in between his fingers.

“I don’t want it,” Iwaizumis spits, and his voice cracks like asphalt during an earthquake. “I gave it to you for a reason.”

Oikawa looks at him, then, with that pained gaze Iwaizumi has spent eight years trying to forget. The same gaze that analyzes every piece of his soul for something Iwaizumi doesn’t know what or how to give, that Oikawa has never known how to verbally ask for.

His eyes don’t quite focus on Iwaizumi, though. His pupils don’t narrow in all the way as they slightly cross over his nose, and Iwaizumi realizes with a start he barely represses that Oikawa isn’t wearing his contacts. His glasses are folded on a small table next to his bed, where a few unopened colorful envelopes have already been stacked up.

The prescription is visibly higher than when they were kids.

“Why does the universe hate you?” Iwaizumi mutters, tearing his gaze away from the glasses and back to Oikawa’s crossed eyes. Because it’s always something with Oikawa; his single, hard-working mother, his poor eyesight, his knee, his atrocious mental health, and now his heart.

In America, Iwaizuma had watched a woman waste away from diabetes. She had been a star track-and-field long-distance runner in high school. At twenty-two, the same age as Iwaizumi, her left foot was amputated. At twenty-three, nearing the end of his internship, she was well on her way to losing her entire lower leg.

Iwaizumi has put himself in the way of people who have tragic lives, and whose bodies do not want them to succeed. He sets out to help these people, to get their lives back on track.

Yet, he has never met someone who has had to fight the world every step of the way to achieve his dreams. Just when they thought that all of the cards had been played, when Oikawa escaped Japan, escaped Iwaizumi, escaped the claustrophobic coffin he’d called life — the universe changed the rules of the game.

A fucking heart spasm that could happen, feasibly, to anyone in the world at any given time. Exceedingly rare, especially for an athlete who spends every day maintaining a healthy diet and training regimen, and yet.

And yet.

Oikawa smiles, but it’s more a baring of teeth, like an animal showing its fangs to scare off any potential threats. “I’ve come to embrace the struggle. You know, it makes me stronger, or something like that.”

“Did they teach you that in therapy?” Really, Iwaizumi did mean to put his tone in a teasing lilt to try to bounce off of the energy Oikawa had created with his barest attempt at a joke, no matter the bitterness hardening its edges. Yet, Oikawa freezes at Iwaizumi’s words.

“You… How do you know I went to therapy?”

And, well, shit. Cat’s out of the bag, though he’s pretty sure Oikawa hadn’t known there was a cat in the bag in the first place.

Iwaizumi narrows his eyes, trying to find a good response based on the queues Oikawa is giving him – namely that which he can’t control, which is his beeping monitor that displays, against his will, his fluctuating heart rate and rising blood pressure. His face is carefully drawn into neutrality, calculating and unwanting of Iwaizumi’s constant scrutiny.

Some things really, really don’t change.

He doesn’t pry into people’s lives. He doesn’t. Anything that Oikawa hasn’t wanted people to know for the past eight years, Iwaizumi hasn’t gone out of his way to find out about. Not like he did when they were kids and Oikawa’s mental and physical health were on the line if Iwaizumi didn’t force open the truth. Also, they grew up attached at the hip. Secrets were kind of hard to keep from each other in general. Iwaizumi had only managed one in their entire fifteen years together, and even then, he was pretty sure Oikawa had known about it.

So, Oikawa going to therapy isn’t, by any means, a secret. He’s talked about his past struggles with mental health and seeking professional health in several interviews, and his social media is full of reposts supporting athletic psychology.

It’s just that. Well. Oikawa has him blocked on everything. In essence, Iwaizumi isn’t supposed to know about any of this. Oikawa must have assumed that Iwaizumi had given up on him, had been so angry and bitter that Iwaizumi wouldn’t go out of his way to create new, unaffiliated accounts to keep up with his social media, to seek out every new article put out about him, to read how Oikawa carefully skirts around mentioning Iwaizumi by name, but saying, always:

“I started playing with my childhood best friend. It was because of him that I even became a setter in the first place. I thought being a spiker was the only way to be valuable on the court, but he showed me how to shine in a different position.”

Or, in more recent interviews:

“My best friend at the time… He’s probably the only reason I didn’t, um, die, in one way or another. He was always there for me when I couldn’t be there for myself.”

However, it was never anything more than that. He never expressed a desire to reach back out to Iwaizumi, and he never talked further about his “former best friend” than he strictly had to.

It is an odd feeling, knowing that Iwaizumi had, apparently, meant so much to Oikawa, and yet his phone number was blocked. They don’t speak to each other, despite fifteen years of companionship. Oikawa must have known how his words tore into Iwaizumi's chest and ripped out his bleeding, broken heart.

All of his talk to his teammates and Hinata about the famous Iwa-chan —- it’s all been bravado. He must have truly thought that Iwaizumi wouldn’t be waiting for him, with his flowers and his blood and his permanent scowl. He must have thought Iwaizumi had gotten up from their doorstep and left them behind.

Iwaizumi wishes he had the strength to do that.

“Your mother told me,” Iwaizumi insists, and it sounds tight and unconvincing even to himself. He deflates at Oikawa’s unimpressed eyebrow raise. “Fine. It— you know what? No. Of course I know you got therapy. I can tell how much you’ve changed. Your confidence isn’t fake anymore. You move and talk and act like you actually know your worth for once. So don’t fuck with me here.”

Oikawa gives him another smile. This time, tight-lipped and desperately hiding emotions they both know Iwaizumi will get to the bottom of it, just like he always has. “Do you know when I started?”

“... No. Why would I know or care?”

“Three years ago,” he says, as though Iwaizumi should know the significance of that number. Oikawa continues after a brief, confused silence. “I read a really good paper on athletic mental health by some student at the University of California. It was in English, though. Mine wasn’t good enough to read the paper myself, so I had one of my teammates translate the entire thing for me. Cost me ninety-three thousand pesos because it wasn’t a short paper and he really didn’t want to do it. But,” he shrugs, gaze flickering aside briefly, “it was worth it. I got my act together and sought therapy. It’s been good for me.”

Iwaizumi stares at him, and for once, Oikawa is struggling to meet him.

“I wouldn’t have made the national team without it,” he keeps on because Iwaizumi is quiet, and it’s obviously making him uncomfortable. “I quit a little while ago, but it’s always open to me if I want to go back. Which I might do after when I get home. Um, please say something.”

“When was that paper written?”

Oikawa’s answer comes quickly. “The same year I read it.”

“I hate you.” Iwaizumi leans back in his chair and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was one of two students in his graduating class to publish a dissertation in 2018, and their topics had been completely different. Iwaizumi’s first paper had gotten him an internship in America; his second paper had made him famous as an athletic trainer.

Nobody had written about an athlete’s mental health in relation to their physical health like he did, after all. There is, quite literally, only one paper that Oikawa could possibly be talking about.

He would have to have been keeping up with Iwaizumi in order to read his paper so fast. It’s not something he would have stumbled upon by mere chance, either, especially if he hadn’t been considering therapy by that point. Even more unlikely would be someone showing it to him. Iwaizumi’s paper mattered to the people it was supposed to matter to: the people of his profession and those wanting to learn more about athletic medicine.

This wasn’t something Oikawa was supposed to know about, just like how Iwaizumi wasn’t supposed to know that he went to therapy.

Ninety-three thousand pesos for a personal and complete translation. What a fucking joke. “I hate you so much.”

“I know,” Oikawa says, somewhat miserably.

“Why did you do it? It’s clear neither of us want this. Why did you never unblock me? Why?” Iwaizumi squeezes the tips of his fingers into his hair, recalling his conversation with Hinata. “I’ve kept up with you and care for your family. And you’ve kept up with me, despite everything. God, you told your teammates about me. Why? Why do you keep doing this?”

“Of all the people who wanted me to pursue my dreams in Argentina, I didn’t want you to be one of them.”

Iwaizumi takes his hands off his face. “What?”

“Did you even want me here?” Oikawa asks, and Iwaizumi watches as he drops his mask in real-time. Iwaizumi’s eight years of conflicting turmoil, of resentment and regret, are reflected in Oikawa’s face. “You never said a word against it. It’s like… it’s like you wanted me gone. And I— it hurt. It hurt so fucking much.”

“That I wanted you to be happy?”

“That you never asked me to stay!” Oikawa is yelling, now, in response to Iwaizumi’s raised voice. “Not once! I figured that if you were just so ready to move on from me, I’d collapse the bridge you started burning! That way, you could live the life you so clearly wanted, away from me, and have none of that damn obligation to slowly fizzle us out!”

“If I had you asked you to stay—”

“Which you didn’t —”

“— you would have stayed.” Iwaizumi finishes, his entire body tensed as tightly as a coiled spring. “That’s why I never asked. I wanted to. God knows I wanted to, but I didn’t. Because if I had told you that I couldn’t bear the very idea of you being further than a train ride away from me, you would’ve stayed in Japan, and you would have been miserable. The only thing here for you was me, and I am not good enough to get in the way of your career.”

And Iwaizumi can’t stop now. “Here’s something that you don’t understand, Oikawa. When you love someone, you let them go.”

Since they have known each other since they were three years of age (and became inseparable for fifteen years thereafter), there are very few things that they never truly talked about. Even the most uncomfortable stuff that other young boys their age had trouble talking about in sincerity — emotions, mainly — had been discussed by them. Whether it be under the glow-in-the-dark stars on Oikawa’s ceiling, peppering a volleyball, or walking back from school, they forged a relationship where nothing was sacred and everything could be said unjudged and receive a thoughtful response if their tone required it.

That way, they could say what they felt without the incessant fear of severing their friendship.

However, that didn’t mean they talked about absolutely everything.

Both he and Oikawa applied to the same high schools. It made sense to them, at the time, since they had already made it eleven years as friends and worked better than any other duo on the volleyball court. If any school wanted one of them, they would have to take the other.

They both got accepted to Seijoh. Shiratorizawa, despite the unappealing factor of living in dorms, was their top choice of school, because they were a powerhouse in both academics and volleyball. However, neither of them was accepted, so they went to their second choice. Aoba Johsai’s volleyball team was amazing and they didn’t have dorms, so they weren’t really even all that disappointed.

Iwaizumi had been living his life perfectly normally and chatting with Mother Oikawa, who had the rare afternoon off and wanted to cook a family dinner. Iwaizumi, being her favorite son since Oikawa was a prick, was obviously invited to this dinner. They got on the topic of their new high schools, and Iwaizumi had off-handedly mentioned not being accepted to Shiratorizawa.

At that, Mother Oikawa had nodded and said:

“Oh, that’s a shame. You’re such a bright kid and amazing player! Tooru got a volleyball scholarship there, but he rejected them in favor of Seijoh. Between you and me, I’m glad he didn’t go. I’m not ready for him to leave me so soon.” She’d winked across the table at Iwaizumi, not having seen the way his entire perception of his best friend had shattered in an instant. Beside him, Oikawa hadn’t even flinched.

He’d laughed and said: “Purple really isn’t my color.”

His mother had hummed. “It was your top choice, though? Boys like you change your minds so fast! I remember when you said you wanted the new Mortal Kombat game for your birthday, then a week later, you wanted…”

Iwaizumi had tried to talk to him about it. He’d asked him why Oikawa had given up his dream school for his second choice, and Oikawa had resolutely refused to answer. For once in his life, Iwaizumi hadn’t pushed for more. When there was only one reasonable explanation for Oikawa choosing Seijoh, Iwaizumi simply didn’t need the verbal confirmation nor the fight it would take to get it.

Later in the year, Oikawa started seriously talking about moving to Argentina, and Iwaizumi would’ve been damned if he let Oikawa throw away his happiness again.

Because, well. Iwaizumi loved him.

“When I found that keychain, I thought you were mocking me,” Oikawa tells him, his whole body shaking something violent while his monitor beeps wildly. “But I kept it because it was the only thing I had that was distinctly you. I was terrified all of the time. I was alone and scared, and every day, I thought about giving up and going home. And then, I just had to look at this thing, and see your name with Japan, and it was like I had a piece of you wherever I went. It’s the closest thing I have to home.”

Oikawa clutches the keychain in his hand. Iwaizumi realizes, now, how well-maintained Oikawa has kept it if he’s always holding it like that.

It’s a cheap one- yen gift from a shitty gas station in Sendai.

“I miss you,” Oikawa says. “I miss you more than you could ever know.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t point out that he just told Oikawa he loved him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s said the word love and gotten away with it, and it wouldn’t be the first time that he’s had to stop himself from desperately searching for a sign that Oikawa reciprocates his non-platonic affections.

“I don’t know about that,” Iwaizumi mutters. “Only one of us based his entire career on your injury.”

Oikawa laughs at him. Laughs, like the asshole he is. It’s choked and awful and Iwaizumi’s heart crumbles.

“I told your mom I’d bring you home,” he tells Oikawa, and it gets him to stop making that horrid sound.

“Ah, well,” Oikawa shrugs. “Can’t go home until I get my gold medal.”

Cold metal burns against his chest, and he knows he can’t stall on this longer. He digs under his shirt and yanks on the cord around his neck. The golden pendant pops over his jacket, and Oikawa’s eyes latch onto it in shock. His gaze flicks back and forth from Iwaizumi’s face to the pendant, then back again.

“Your team gave it to me. They said that you would be honored if I stood in your place. I didn’t take it, but Gallo handed it to me after the podium ceremony anyway.” He thinks that’s what happened, in any case. His memories of the two days immediately following Oikawa’s heart spasm are shattered into pieces he’s spent hours putting back together. “They also wanted me to be the first one to see you.”

Oikawa is still staring at him, and—

Those are tears in his eyes.

“It’s always been you and me, Tooru. Promise me you won’t lock me out of your life again.” Iwaizumi grips the gold medal like a vice, fingers tightening painfully around the smooth, circular edge.

“I promise.” Oikawa lifts up his hand and curls his fingers into a fist, save for his pinkie. “Promise me you want me?”

Iwaizumi stands, needing only to take a few steps to lean over Oikawa’s bed, and slips off the gold medal. He presses it lightly into Oikawa’s chest while taking his pinkie finger in his own.

It feels like they are five again when he vows: “I promise.”

Except, when they were five years old and unaware of the pain life had in store for them, their gazes didn’t linger on each other’s clasped fingers. They didn’t slowly move up until their eyes met. And, most certainly, Oikawa didn’t yank Iwaizumi down by his neck to smash their lips together.

There is another thing that they never got around to properly talking about.

Sexuality wasn’t taboo between them. Oikawa had been the first to break the ice on the subject when they were thirteen, admitting to Iwaizumi while walking back from the movie theatre that he wasn’t sure if he was entirely straight. Iwaizumi had shrugged then, supremely unbothered by whatever identity crisis Oikawa was going through, and said that he didn’t care who Oikawa thought was attractive.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Iwaizumi realized that he liked guys. More specifically, he was attracted to all of the actors that kind of looked like an older version of Oikawa, and he had never spared more than a second thought at any girl other than the occasional she’s cute, I guess. Then, at fourteen, he came to the very sudden and horrific conclusion that he was deeply infatuated with Oikawa.

Oikawa had never talked about his own sexuality again, though they’d never shied away from sexuality-adjacent topics. They’d spoken about other queer people, tv shows, how they both agreed that homophobia was weird, and the like. Thus, Iwaizumi hadn’t been concerned that his best friend would put his head on a spike if he found out Iwaizumi liked the same gender. He was more terrified that admitting his queerness would get him to admit other things, too. Things that would tear their relationship apart.

If Oikawa liked someone, he made it known. He flirted with whichever girl was in his fancy, talked Iwaizumi’s ear off about her, went on a date with her (it was rare he was ever rejected), then moved on after the first date or two was unsuccessful. He’d managed only two long-term girlfriends during high school, both for a year, and both ending over the fact that Oikawa was, generally speaking, a terrible boyfriend. If he wasn’t playing volleyball, he was either at home studying or hanging out with Iwaizumi and, occasionally, the other two members of their friend group. He rarely changed his schedule to accommodate one-on-one time with his girlfriend.

This was all to say that if Oikawa had liked Iwaizumi back, Iwaizumi would have been the first to know. Oikawa was a flirt; he’d tease Iwaizumi on occasion, getting a little too touchy than beyond normal, and Iwaizumi would push him away. However, when Iwaizumi dipped his toes in the water and flirted unintentionally, — a genuine compliment slipped from his tongue, a hand placed at an odd angle, a lingering glance that Hanamaki texted him about later — Oikawa would physically retreat.

Iwaizumi was in love with Oikawa. He never told Oikawa, as it was one of the very few Things We Don’t Speak About Out Loud. He never tried to flirt, and when he did on accident, he gave Oikawa the space he needed.

But, Oikawa never left him. That was their unspoken rule: if Iwaizumi never said anything, then Oikawa could pretend it didn’t exist. No matter how hard Iwaizumi wanted to believe that when Oikawa flirted with him, when he would pull out, “I love you” while laying out in the grass of Iwaizumi’s backyard, or when Hanamaki and Matsukawa sat Iwaizumi down and said, “Dude, he’s in love with you”, it meant that his feelings were reciprocated. He and Oikawa weren’t like other friends, and therefore nobody outside could possibly understand just how differently they said I love you to each other.

He’d thought that letting Oikawa go would mean letting go of that love.

It didn’t. Impossibly, it had ruined Iwaizumi further. He couldn’t date anyone for longer than a month. He couldn’t hook up, couldn’t do much of anything except wonder why he wasn’t experiencing those firsts with Oikawa as he had with everything else in his life up until they were severed in the Sendai Airport. Eventually, that painful, never-ending longing became as much a part of his adulthood as it had his childhood.

He had thought he would die that way, with his heart, bloody and broken, clutched in the hands of a man who didn’t want to speak to him ever again.

“Please, tell me I didn’t fuck everything up,” Oikawa whispers after drawing his face away from Iwaizumi’s and stewing in his stunned silence. Their kiss had been quick and simple but desperate all the same.

Iwaizumi searches Oikawa’s terrified gaze. His lips are tingling. The heart monitor is wailing around them, but all Iwaizumi can think is that, at fourteen years old, — at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen — Oikawa had been just as scared of losing their friendship as Iwaizumi was.

They are both massive idiots.

“I promised you, didn’t I? I want you.” I have loved you since the day I met you, he doesn’t say, but he knows Oikawa hears it all the same.

“You have me. You’ve always had me.”

Iwaizumi has been waiting his entire life for this. He lets go of the medallion and winds his hand behind through the back of Oikawa’s hair. Diving back down, he almost reconnects their lips when the door abruptly bangs open, and three hospital staff members rush in. 

“Let go of him!” One of the nurses screams, and Iwaizumi practically launches himself off of Oikawa. They flit around the patient and the various machines in the room updating his vitals and keeping him alive. It’s then that Iwaizumi registers that the monitor has been alerting the entire hospital for the last minute or so of Oikawa’s critical heart failure.

After they conclude that Oikawa’s elevated blood pressure and heart rate aren’t actually a sign of another heart spasm, the doctor whirls on Iwaizumi. “What were you doing?” She demands.

Embarrassingly, Oikawa and Iwaizumi recount, in the most vague manner possible, their reunion and why that caused Oikawa’s heart monitor to display 187 beats per minute alongside a blood pressure of 164/83. The apology they are forced to mumble is only a marginally more mortifying ordeal.

They put a forty-eight-hour ban on Iwaizumi’s return to the hospital, which is entirely fair. The only thing that makes it worse is that both Sakusa and Miya are waiting outside to guide him back to the Olympic dormitories. Those two spare no mercy in mocking him, and he wonders, briefly, if it would be worth his entire career to smash both of their heads in with a heavy rock.

He manages to restrain himself; he owes his patience to Sakusa. Without him, Iwaizumi wouldn’t have trusted himself enough to catch Oikawa before he fell. If he hadn’t been there, hadn’t been the one to break his ribs and restart his heart, and hadn’t been the one to hold Oikawa’s dead weight, Iwaizuimi wouldn’t be here now, with Oikawa’s accounts following him on all his main socials, with a new text from an unknown number being a simple smiley face emoticon, with his hands tingling from Oikawa’s hair and pinkie finger.

Iwaizumi doesn’t thank Sakusa directly since he’s being a Grade-A asshole with Miya. However, when Miya is distracted, Iwaizumi mimes zipping his lips shut and flicking away the key. Sakusa stares at him, wide-eyed, before swiftly schooling his expression when Miya turns back around.

He’s funny, Iwaizumi thinks while watching Sakusa hold himself together by a thread. Then it’s suddenly not so funny when he realizes that Matsukawa and Hanamaki were in Iwaizumi’s position for all three and a half years of high school.

Iwaizumi and Oikawa owe them a sincere apology.

—

“Okay. That’s perfect. Bye, Iwa-chan. I love you.”

Iwaizumi quirks his lips, momentarily stunned by the way Oikawa professes it with such ease, as if they’ve been saying those words for their entire lives. “I love you, too. See you in a few days.”

The call ends, and Iwaizumi is left staring at the nearly bare text message log between him and Oikawa. It’d only been a few hours since he’d been kicked out of the hospital, but Iwaizumi had demanded they call as soon as possible so he could get one prevailing headache cleared.

Calling. It’d been eight years since he last received a text from Oikawa, much less a call. Oikawa hadn’t even fought him on the matter, seemingly jumping at the opportunity to reconnect regardless of how little time had actually passed.²

Maybe this time, when Oikawa has to inevitably return to Argentina, everything will be okay. Iwaizumi is willing to believe that. After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Oikawa is one stubborn motherfucker.

It is also now acknowledged that Oikawa is as in love with Iwaizumi as he is with Oikawa. Now, they don’t have to let go. They have their careers, their homes, and their mutually pitiful romantic relationships to show for how much they’ve stayed in love despite the time and distance.

He quits dawdling in his thoughts and courses through his voicemail. Landing on the contact he’s waited four days to get back to, he presses on it and puts the phone to his ear.

“Hello? Higuchi Rika speaking,” a professional-sounding woman answers on the second, the same voice as the one who had left the original voicemail.

Iwaizumi swallows, looking down for reassurance at the notes he’d hastily compiled in his hour-and-a-half-long phone call with Oikawa. “Hello. This is Iwaizumi Hajime. You wanted to interview me?”

¹ On March 11, 2011, a massive tsunami hit Japan’s Pacific coast. It had massive waves, reaching up to 132 feet in height. According to National Geographic, an estimated 15,500 died and left hundreds of thousands homeless. This tsunami has been dubbed “3/11” by Japanese citizens, and for good reason. It absolutely devastated the Tohoku region.

² It wasn’t just time and distance. Oikawa realized he never got to make a perfectly well-timed joke about not having to sleep in cardboard beds anymore, and he had to tell it to Iwaizumi before it was too late.

[the-s1lly-corner]

real world au headcannons for reader x kinger and caine? im not sure how caine would work but i trust you to get creative with it

Real world AU w/ Caine (with a twist!)

multiple things! ive already kind of done this with kinger before, which will be linked here! and within that post is linked a second post that can also fall in with this! i decided to borrow from my ben drowned hc for this one; caine is confined to electronics and you carry him around in your phone and stuff, but unlike ben he cant pull himself into the real world for obvious reasons! hope you enjoy!

theres so many ways that this can go down but imagine you were all once in the digital circus and everyone managed to escape, and you manage to take caine with you and implant him in your devices so you can still talk to him and interact. lets also say theres also no repercussion for this or anything messing with his coding or whatever

its like having a more intelligent and interactive siri, or something; makes sure to set alarms and reminders for you on your devices.. sometimes pulls up things for you if you mention needing a recipe or wanting to look something up

though, hes still as chatty as ever, so to outsiders it looks like youre constantly on call with someone... sure hope theres no nosy folks trying to pry into your life to see who youre talking to..!

imagine showing him around the real world and hes just asking for you to show him a bunch of random stuff; parks, stores, your home, ect ect... you probably get a few weird looks from walking around with your phone out; i mean can you blame them? you look like youre recording things and it makes you look sketchy

i think there would be some level of tension, though, or at least some conflict... i mean youre back in your real body now; it needs sleep and food... and you have a job, most likely... you cant really hang out with caine all day everyday now like in the circus.. and considering its a safe bet the circus is now out of commission, theres no one else in the digital world to keep him occupied... well he probably still has bubble, buuuuuut....

really there arent any real romantic ideas that i can give this scenario, since theres such a huge barrier between you two now... though i guess theres nothing stopping the reader from trying to build a body for caine... hmm... maybe ill save that for another day if thats something someone wants!

take this as a moment to show him a bunch of media too; movies and books and everything like that! let him develop his own taste in media and find what he likes and doesnt like... talk to him about it!

though theres a solid chance hes going to like what you like, i mean he likes you enough to have let you be the one to take him home with you out of the rest of the circus members...! he definitely favors you..!

sometimes you prop your phone or open your laptop so he can sit across from you while you eat dinner or get ready to go out, it makes him feel included in your routines

sometimes tries to help you if youre working on something on your device but sometimes it leads to him just hijacking your mouse or keyboard to put his own spin on what you're working on... oftentimes he has no idea what hes doing, especially if youre doing something for work....

[ifidiedinadream]

Im the one who sent the ask about giving Olli a hand job. Feel free to turn it into a request if you want.

of course i want to turn it into a request 😂😂 this was the ask btw:

This mornings fantasy involved my getting my nails done, sending the photo to Olli and getting a reply from him that said "Those would look great with your hand wrapped around my cock." I then go home to him and give him a hand job and when i'm done he licks his cum from my hand and fingers. 😳

and this is what i came up with, hope you like it!! 🩷

also on ao3

Beautiful.

The new nails make you feel like a dark, mystical goddess. They’re long, almond shaped and pitch black, giving your hands an elegant, ethereal vibe to them. You can’t stop admiring them, first curling your fingers towards the palm, then turning your wrist and stretching out your arm right in front of you so you can see the effect from afar.

As soon as you’re out of the nail salon, you snap a picture of them and send it to your boyfriend.

(He’s the first person who should know when you’re feeling especially pretty.)

new nails <3 like them?

You put the phone away, not expecting him to text you back instantly. He’s working from home today after all, recording bass lines he’ll send to Aleksi later, and you’re meeting up with a friend to continue your self care afternoon while Olli is busy with work.

You meet your friend at a coffee shop and have fun together, catching up with the happenings in each other’s lives. You forget about your phone for a few hours, until your friend starts checking the time every so often. It must be time for her to leave, so you grab your phone to see what time it is as well, but a WhatsApp notification catches your attention, making you forget to even look at the clock.

Those would look great with your hand wrapped around my cock.

Your stomach twists in pleasure and you lock your phone immediately, hoping your friend hasn’t noticed anything weird. Soon your hopes get crushed, however, when you see the arch of her brow.

“Are you okay?”

You avoid her gaze, brain already full of images of Olli’s cock, his naked chest, his bedroom eyes. You can already hear the low sounds he would make while you pleasure him in your mind.

“Yeah, everything’s alright, just… Olli texted me, he wants me to… he needs something, so I better go now.”

You pretend not to see the knowing smile on your friend’s face. Thankfully she has somewhere else to be as well, as you suspected, so you don’t have to wait too long to go home.   

***

“Babe, I’m home,” you announce upon opening the front door, half expecting Olli to be secluded in his home studio despite the late hour. However, there are no low frequencies coming from downstairs and his laptop is charging on the coffee table in the living room.

You leave your shoes and outerwear by the door and venture into the house. You find Olli in the bedroom, propped up on his elbows on the bed, looking at you like he’s been waiting.

“Had fun today, honey?”  

You walk over to sit beside him, giving him a greeting kiss on the lips before telling him that yes, you did have a good day indeed. You ask him how the recording session went but he has already taken your hand in his, distracted by your fingers; he’s playing with them, bringing your hand closer to his face to inspect your new nails.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” you ask playfully, because yes, Olli is always supportive when you buy new clothes or get your hair done, telling you how beautiful you are to him, but the sudden interest in your nails can only mean he’s still thinking about the text from earlier.

“What, can’t I just find my girl’s hands beautiful with no ulterior motives?”

With the hand he’s not holding, you go to slowly touch between his legs, not at all surprised to find him semi hard already.

“So it’s not this you want?”

You touch him teasingly and Olli watches his cock get harder by the second in silence, his lips parted. He still says nothing when you take him out, only to hold him and admire how pretty your hand is.

“Like what you see?” you ask in his ear, before diving in to kiss the side of his face and neck. His breathing isn’t as calm as before.

“Can I take a few pictures? For tour?”

You giggle, you couldn’t have asked for a better affirmative answer. You tilt his face and kiss his mouth, letting the lust unravel for good.

“Of course you can.”

Olli reaches his hand to grab his phone, and in the meantime you retreat your hand to spit into it. You wrap your hand around his cock again and keep it still, waiting for him to snap his pictures.

“Now a video.”

You start stroking him slowly, up and down, unable to stop staring at it: his dick is hard and dark with desire, whereas your hand around it looks so luxurious and sophisticated with your new nails, almost cold in contrast to his throbbing, needy cock. In the meantime, Olli is taking a video of it, and only when he’s satisfied and stops the recording do you pick up your pace, capturing his lips in your own in a searing kiss.

Olli hums in your mouth, his tongue everywhere and his hands on your head to keep it in place, all the while you’re still stroking, moving your hand like you know drives him insane, twisting your wrist just how he likes it. You don’t have to wet your palm again, because he starts leaking pretty soon, so you go gather those pretty drops on the top and smear them all over his cock to make the movements smoother.

If Olli breaks the kiss, it’s only to take a moment to breathe; he kisses you more, but then, when the pleasure becomes too much, he starts biting at your bottom lip, with increasing force. You switch hands, determined not to slow down now, and Olli bites into your lip especially hard when he finally comes, letting out a whine. You stroke him through it, feeling the hot cum coat your hand and fingers, loving how you can feel Olli tremble under your touch.

You let him go when his body relaxes. He puts his hands behind him for support, leaning back just a bit as his chest rises and falls, his curls all over his forehead. You’re throbbing, wanting nothing more than for him to fuck you, but in all honesty, watching him so blissed out (and it having been your doing) is a lovely activity just the same.

When he’s caught his breath, he grabs your hand, and at first you think it’s to kiss the inside of your wrist, as he often does after sex as some sort of thank you; but then he’s kissing the backside of your hand and licking and sucking at your fingers still covered in cum, and you can’t help but snort.

“Dirty, dirty boy.”

It’s the only thing you get to say before he pushes you down to lie on the bed and kisses you.

[yami-yomiel]

Redrew that one Joel image from .. a long time ago.

Including a whole extensive story i did while working on this mid wip. Warning- it’s long as BALLS and i don’t recommend reading it on a phone /hj

I mean he’s distracted - by theory you can just grab what you need and dip.

He HAS been missing some socks

Mostly pairs

But thats just a ‘rumor’ so to sayyy. I mean , SURE he’s dealing with demons everyday so im sure a few missing socks wouldnt be a huge deal- Not if he sees you at least. he’s probably getting off the phone , he can’t leave all that stuff laying around ya know 😏

Although him catching you is .. a little unlikey imagine if he did. Joel to me is the type to scream like a girl sorry - and that would probably give you enough time to run back under his dresser [twirls hair]

BUTTTTTT there’s also the chance of him just grabbing you. And he might be a little .. rough with it~ not trying to kill you but you get a little winded. Perhaps the fear and shock in your eyes is mutual - but you don’t know that because you’re trying to comprehend the fact you’ve been caught. Imagine his surprise when he finds out you’re a human - or a least a sentient creature thats not a mouse or a rat. You think he’d feel guilty for scaring you half to death. I don’t think Joel would be mad about the whole ‘I’ve been living in your walls for a while ‘ thing - he would be weirded out though YES. But maybe he warms up to it. Like think about it like a sort of symbiotic (is that the term?) relationship - you help me and i help you sorta deal. I’d beleive he sorta.. forgets to put you down and sorta fidgets with you. The fact you’re so small and YET alive and lived for this long is fascinating to him. Sure he has an interest in the dead -i mean he has an ouija board and all - but the living also interests him.

Semi related but i feel like he’d be a biology nerd - and knowing that small things are more fragile he’d probably take that into account when handling you - assuming Joel would anyways. Maybe he gently pressed a finger into your ribs feeling your heartbeat, and that sets a glimmer in his eyes. Your own heart is almost the same size as his finger nail - holy cow. But it frightens him. Shoot, one wrong move and you’d be a little splatter on the ground. And right now he doesn’t want anyone else around him suffering anymore;

To call back to another headcanon i made - I said he likes to imagine himself as a borrower - or at least a small tiny guy. So seeing you would be like a childhood dream come true. He chews his lip trying not to ask incredibly personal and difficult questions. ‘have you ever been caught before?’ ‘Have you fallen from a high place before’ ‘How did you learn about borrowing, did someone teach you or was it sort of like an instinct’ Those sorts of questions. I don’t think they’d be easy ones to answer given your skill level (if you can measure it anyways). If Joel thought about it for two seconds he’d probably ask about what you took from him. Not in a rude way but more so what you did with them , what did you use those socks for? You know while this is all going on he’s poking and prodding at you - probably not in an invasive way (you can always tell him to stop) but right now you’re in awe. You’ve heard so many stories about humans being big and scary and wanting to harm your species but .. for someone whose just been caught by one - you seem to be alright. Even if you’re going though a very extensive look over or whatever.

Joel is probably internally freaking out at this whole thing. I mean he’d always wanted to BE a small person, but seeing one right in front of you is a different story. His look of wonder turns into a silly grin as he scooped you up, . You know noted how oddly soft his hands were, given all the equipment you saw him use you’d think they’d be a little textured, but nope, they were quite plushy. Ahem anyways. He scoops you up and plops you right onto his desk. It seemed to be neat, a laptop and some recording supplies , quite minimal. Joel at down right infront of you, given his look it still seems like he’s in awe over the whole thing, you can tell he’s holding back from bouncing or pacing around but he’s gotta keep his composure. You’d try doing the same but, him leaning forward and getting a full few of his face made you squeak. “Sorry , I’m just.. I’ve never seen someone like you before - ya know?’ He said. His voice was deep, so deep in fact it vibrated in your bones and brain.

Hot Dog.

You nodded but really you’re trying to shake off the warmth that spread from your face and down your back, causing goosebumps.

[It’s now 11:09 i need to go to BED]

[clairestrogen]

🫵 you there, electronics nerd

tell me about electronics

Holy shitawawawawaw

Ok so

I have a ZX Spectrum 48k in my collection, which was considered a budget computer in the early 1980's (it was released in 1982).

Here is what it looks like.

I got it 4 years ago for cheap because it didn't work at all, and i managed then to make it back to work again. For like a month, because then the video signal started to degrade, and then it became completely scrabled.

So 4 years later (waiting time due to various circumstances) i managed to get back to it, and i bought a replacement for the ULA chip.

ULA standing for Uncommited Logic Array, is an IC responsible for: generating the 3.5MHz clock signal for the CPU (which is divided down from the 14MHz crystal oscillator on the board), generating video, generating audio, all the I/O (keyboard, tape), so it is REALLY important, even more important than the CPU because it has more priority in access to the RAM.

So i think the original Ferranti (Ferranti is the manufacturer who made these for Sinclair, the company manufacturing ZX Spectrum) ULA has started to degrade, as it could be told by how fucking hot it ran.

So i did some work beside replacing ULA, replaced capacitors, mounted in a ram chip which i for some reason attempted to desolder the last time i tried to repair this computer, replaced voltage regulator and applied new heatpaste for the thermal sink for the voltage regulator, and ordered a new ULA replacement "vLA83" all the way from New Zealand. And it arrived. And i somehow broke it.

So now i have a set of new ram chips i ordered, i replaced a crystal oscillator which i didn't have to replace after all (i replaced the wrong one, the 4.43 which generates the video color subcarrier frequency for PAL video which is not as important to the ULA as it doesn't generate clock signal for rest of the components), i have new DRAM waiting to be inserted, and the old Z80 CPU is replaced.

Oh and i have to order a new vLA82:/

Beside that this computer looks beautifull as i replaced the faceplate (the metal sheet that covers the keyboard) and applied new white paint to the "ZX Spectrum" marking on the front:3

Beside that i think it would have been REALLY cool to get this working, meaning that 1: i would have 2 working ZX Spectrum different computer models (48k and +2), and also i like how small it is and also this machine NEEDS to come back i NEED this girl to live.

Beside that i been putting together a one working Sanyo walkman (as per my last electronics ramblings post), transferring tapes, needing to sell some of my stuff (2 tape recorders, 2 old rotary phones, 1 Sony Vaio laptop, spring reverb unit and a radio and a multimeter) and honestly i will be going to a vintage video game market looking to find something interesting:3

I still have a few computers/consoles needing to be repaired tho:

Intellivision

Commodore PC20-III

Playstation 2 Slim

Dell Inspiron PP21L

So these are on the waiting list, and if i am done with some of them i may sell the Dell (need more space).

I really like for the Commodore to work out of these (i need to repair the psu for it to work and for that i need an isolation transformer), as it has an 8-bit XT interface WD hard drive which may or may not works. Plus it has interesting features like built in video card.

The Intellivision needs a second spares console for the repair to be successful tho TwT (the chips are not common and are no longer being made, btw the CPU inside it is based off a CPU from a 16 bit minicomputer PDP-11!!!!!!!)

Anywayyy thanks for asking anyone who asks me about electronics gets a soft kiss from me