#Gotta love just asking little trivia questions like that

[pyxscythe]

Girl dinner (being asked to ask random little questions about c!lincu to enable going on about little details about him)

[mydearesthrry]

sweet nothing - h.s.

a/n: TOTALLY LOST THE PLOT WHILE WRITING THIS. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BASED OFF OF THE PICTURE BELOW BUT I GOT DISTRACTED. pls listen to sweet nothing by taylor swift for the full experience!!!

🎀 warnings/cw: none, most tooth rotting fluff ever.

🐇 pairing: fem!reader x harry styles

💐 wc: 1.6k

summary: taking care of a very sleepy harry in an ice bath, and in the car.

“H, the bath is ready, bub.” Harry heard his girlfriend call quietly to him. He was slumped on the couch, this show particularly draining. He was quieter than usual, and instead of being glued to Y/N’s side like he usually was, he let one kiss to her full lips suffice before he decided to rest. 

“Mm, thank you, lovie. I’ll… I’ll be there in a second, jus’ don’t have the energy to go there right now.” His limbs were sore, almost every part of his body completely lost of energy, and he found it hard to even entertain the thought of getting up. 

“Okay… y’know what, just let me help you, H. The faster we get you into this bath, the faster we can go back to the hotel so you can sleep.” He knew she was right, and because he knew she was right, he allowed her to help (though not really at all since he already had felt bad that she ran the ice bath for him) him get to the bathroom. They walked slowly to the connected bathroom, Harry walking zombie-like in her arms. 

“Ready, sweet boy?” She tried to be as quiet as possible, the fact that Harry probably had a headache in the front of her mind. He nodded softly, stripping down to his boxers before letting her help him balance as he stepped into the bath. 

A wince immediately left him, Y/N whispering out ‘I’m sorry’s, knowing how shocking the bath was at first. She lowered herself with him, and sat on the floor next to the bucket when he sat down, submersing himself fully. 

“Okay bubs, y’know we’ve gotta do this so you don’t fall asleep on me. You ready?” Y/N says, pulling out her phone to pull up the trivia questions she’d pre written for the late night ice bath trivia that had become a tradition for them. Harry hums, and she flips to her notes to start. 

“Pick the category, my love. We’ve got pop culture, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” She asked, looking up at him, heart breaking a little at the exhausted expression that was obvious on his face. 

“Marvel.” He mumbles, sinking himself lower until his neck up was the only part of his body above water. 

“Okay… Timer officially starts now. Who played the character Pietro Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver?” Her tone was soft, almost at a whisper. 

“Umm… Aaron Taylor Johnson?” Harry questioned, racking his brain to try his hardest to stay awake. His body had now gotten used to the stark cold that he’d slowly started to get used to over the times he’s done this on tour. 

“Good job, baby. What was the name of Peter Parker’s love interest in Spider-Man: Homecoming? This one should be easy, it’s one of my favorite movies.” She giggled, a serene sense of peace overcoming her at the domesticity of it all. 

“It is easy, she’s called Liz, right? Liz Allan, or something.” His eyes were now closed, feeling the tension in his body slowly disintegrate from the cold of the water. 

“Perfect! Though the both of us know that Peter and MJ were the better couple, they were entirely more in love and cuter.” She smiled. 

“Oh, really? Like us then, hm?” Harry hummed. 

“Yes, H, exactly like us.” A few more questions had passed, and Lloyd had now come to join them in the bathroom, his camera hung around his neck. They’d anticipated him coming anyway, knowing that he would come to snap some behind the scenes pictures. Before they’d even left to go to his dressing room, they’d told Lloyd when to come in so that he could come talk to them. 

“Hey guys, sorry for intruding, but I need one of you to pick a few pictures for tonight so I can get them edited by tomorrow.” Lloyd tried to keep his voice quiet too, knowing the kind of atmosphere he was entering before he even came to meet the two in the bathroom. 

“Oh yeah, of course, did you want some pictures too?” Harry smiled, a tired but polite look on his face. Harry had built a great relationship with Lloyd over the months that they’ve been on tour, and they’d gotten more comfortable with each other than they’d anticipated. 

“Only if you’re comfortable, H.” Lloyd smiled. Y/N and Lloyd talked for a second, scrolling through pictures and picking out a few for him to edit. The time they took allowed Harry to rest in the cold for a little, before pushing himself up and folding over, dipping his head into the ice cold water. He could faintly hear Lloyd’s footsteps move to the front of the tub, along with the flicking of the camera shutter going off as he lifted his head out of the tub, ringing out his hair from the nape of his neck to the front of his scalp. 

A couple more flutters from the camera shutters were heard when Harry was rubbing his eyes with the pruny tips of his fingers, and he failed to see the smile on Lloyd’s face. 

Lloyd pulled the camera from his eyes, looking at the digital screen that held a preview of the picture. In the corner, slightly blurred because of the harsh focus that was set on Harry in the center, say Y/N with a soft smile playing on her lips, a moony gaze in her eyes. He made a mental note to send it to them later, and to also crop her out in the final edit in an attempt to salvage their private relationship. 

“Perfect. I’ll let you two rest now, think I’m gonna head to the hotel now myself. Sleep well, you guys, I’ll send you the pictures in the morning.” Lloyd smiles at them, sharing goodnights before closing the door behind him as he walked out. 

Harry’s now damp hair was combed back by his fingers and rested on the top of his head, save for the rogue curl that shriveled in a tiny curl on his forehead. Y/N rested her arms on the side of the tub, a gleam in her eyes as she watched Harry’s relaxed expression. Her timer, however, had different plans for the relaxed couple, and went off with shrill screams, notifying them that it was now time for Harry to leave the bath. 

“Alright sweet boy, time to go.” She tapped on her screen to stop the ringing, standing up to grab his black and white striped towel. She met him in the middle, her boyfriend already standing on the towel that laid outside of the tub, water droplets falling from his body in a soft cascade, small shivers shaking his shoulders slightly. Wrapping the towel around his shoulders, she pushes herself up onto her tiptoes to meet the level of his face, pecking soft kisses onto his cold lips. They stayed in that position for a bit, waiting for Harry’s skin to absorb the rest of the small water droplets. 

She led him with a soft tug to the main space in the dressing room, taking the outfit she’d gotten ready for him while he was on stage from the makeup chair and placed it onto the couch. Leaning down a bit, she took the towel to let him remove his now soaked briefs, before passing him a pair of boxers, tossing his towel onto the back of the couch. She passed him his clothes as he dressed himself slowly, humming at the words of love and admiration he sleepily spewed out. Once he got his last article of clothing on, she took his hoodie strings into her hands and tugged it down softly, making him lean down a bit to meet her lips. 

Their lips connected in a soft caress, his bottom lip wedges in between her two lips, a sweet hum emitting from his throat from the taste of her coconut flavored chapstick, one that was his favorite. Something that could only be described as love seemed to fill the room whenever they had these kinds of moments. Moments that was completely and purely their own. 

They broke away from the kiss, and when Harry went to say something, a yawn cut him off, mouth opening wide making him resemble something of a lion, making a giggle fall from her slightly swollen lips. “Let’s get you into a bed, sleepy boy.” 

“M’kay.” Harry didn’t put up a fight, wanting to get into bed with her to snuggle more than anything. 

They walked through the halls of the venue, pushing through the back door where their driver was already waiting for them, engine started and purring softly. Y/N opens the back car door, stepping in and moving to the side since she knew Harry would follow her. The driver muttered that it would take them about 5 to 10 minutes to get to the hotel before taking off without another word. 

Y/N snapped her seatbelt on, a confused twinge on her face when she didn’t see Harry do the same. Instead, he scooted over to the middle seat, laying into her sleepily. “H, you gotta put on your seatbelt.” 

“Noooo, s’not even that far, and I jus’ wan’ y’to hold me right now.” He mumbled, slightly muffled from the way he burrowed his face into her neck. She sighed in slight exasperation, saying nothing and just letting him completely collapse and rest into her. He was almost laying completely in her lap, her hand in his hair, a soft smile playing on her lips as she looked out the window and into the city. 

She let out a tiny giggle when she felt the slight tickle of stubble on her neck, followed by sweet kisses on the expanse of it. “I love you, love y’so much, it hurts.” 

“I love you, H.” She intertwined their fingers together, bringing up his hand to her mouth and pressing featherlight kisses onto his knuckles. 

“I love you,” Harry whined, making the smallest of smiles cover her face since knew how clingy and lovey Harry got when he was tired. She tried to relish in these moments as much as possible. 

“I love you, sweet boy, the Peter Parker to my Michelle Jones.” A sweet giggle sounded from Harry as he remembered the conversation from earlier. 

“Entirely in love and cute. I agree.” 

[joeybsversion]

Jealous

Joe Burrow x Reader

Joe finds out about your past relationship with a famous NFL tight end

“Usually we talk about football, sometimes about life, and I’m always making fun of Jason.” Travis laughed. “But this week, we’re talking about a little something different on New Heights.” He raised his eyebrows. “Jason, you wanna let them know what’s going on?” He asked his brother.

“With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, there’s definitely lots of love in the air.” He winked at the camera. “Every week of February we are going to bring on an NFL player and his significant other and talk all thing L-O-V-E.” He spelled it out, causing a laugh from Travis. “Not our usual topic but I think we’ll still have some fun.”

“Damn right!” Travis joined in. “This week we have none other than the Ken and Barbie of the NFL world!” He began patting his hands on his knees, motioning for Jason to join in. “Drum roll please.” The pace got faster. “Please welcome Mr and Mrs. Burrow!” He cheered, causing applause from himself and Jason.

“Hey guys! Thanks for having us.” Joe laughed and took over the microphone.

“Bro, thanks for coming on! We’ve been looking forward to sitting down with you both!” Jason said. “You guys ready to just get straight into it?” He asked.

“For sure.” Joe smiled.

“Let’s do it!” You chimed in.

“First things first, give us a little rundown on your relationship.” Travis said.

“I’ll let you take this one away.” You motioned to Joe.

“Oh putting him on the spot!” Jason and Travis laughed.

“I wish I was being funny.” Joe laughed as he started “but we met at a Marvel movie brew fest.” You hid your face in embarrassment. “Super nerdy. Basically it was just a couple of hours of Marvel movie trivia and tasting different beers. But we ended up being on the same trivia team and thankfully I had some liquid courage and asked for her number.” Joe laughed.

“It’s true!” You chimed in. “It’s so embarrassing to tell the story.” You laughed. Travis gave Joe a hard time about it, causing a laugh from the whole group.

“We’ve basically been together ever since though.” Joe smiled at you.

“And let’s clear the air, Travis called you Mr and Mrs but you guys aren’t married yet, right?”

“That’s right. 6 years and still no ring.” You teased.

“You gotta get on that, Man!” Travis teased Joe. “I know a lot of people want to know how you manage a relationship with such busy schedules.” Travis changed the topic.

“It’s not easy.” You gave Joe a sheepish smile. “We FaceTime a lot when he’s on the road and try to spend as much time together as possible when he’s home.”

“Same with Kylie and I.” Jason chimed in. “Lots of phone calls and finding time, even if it’s 5 minutes to sit down and have a cup of coffee together.”

“Phone calls that get a little spicy?” Travis winked.

“I can’t help myself.” Joe answered and let out a shy laugh.

Your hand flew over your mouth, your face turning bright red.

“Hey you gotta find time when you can! Even if that means over the phone!” Jason defended, fist bumping Joe.

“NEXT QUESTION!” You interrupted, hoping to change the subject.

“How did you know she was the one?” Travis asked.

“I like being with her.”

“No shit.” Travis laughed. “Be more specific.”

Joe laughed, “It’s easy being with her. She understands me in a way no one else does. when I’m not with her, I wish she was there. When I am with her I want that time to last forever.”

“Awww, Joey.” You leaned over and rested your head on his shoulder.

“Get a room!” Travis joked.

“Hey bro, no need to be jealous! You’ll feel that way about someone one day.” Jason teased his little brother. “And just to think, it could’ve been her at one point.” Jason pointed towards you.

“That’s true.” Travis nodded. “We were a hot item back in the day.”

You started to laugh but we’re quickly interrupted by Joe, “What?” He asked and furrowed his eye brows at you.

“Yeah, Trav and I know each other.” You laughed.

“Before she was a Bengal fan she was a Chiefs fan!” Travis gave Joe a hard time.

Joes mood instantly changed. The rest of the interview was awkward, his answers were short, he was done joking around, and he barely looked at you or Travis.

Things wrapped up and you said your goodbyes and followed an angry Joe out to the car.

“What’s wrong?” You questioned as he backed out of the driveway and sped down the street.

“Why didn’t you tell me about you and Travis?” He asked, his knuckles turning white from his tight grip on the steering wheel.

“It was a three month fling that I barely remember.” You laughed.

“Bull shit.” He countered.

“No, not bull shit.” You answered and then rode in silence for a few minutes. “Why are you so mad?” You questioned.

“I’m not mad.” He paused. “I’m jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Anytime anyone looks at you or speaks to you, I’m jealous. I want all of your minutes and all of your words. I want all of you, all of the time.” He answered.

You laughed, unable to catch your breath for a moment. “Joey, you have me. I promise. There is no reason to be jealous.” You assured him. “In case my reaction to your idiocy, I love you. And only you.”

[theyluvmiu]

ugh women in STEM am i right??? i am also taking medicine so can i request headcanons with chigiri, nagi, bachira as lab partners?? ty!!

omG I literally gasped when I saw this request, thank you so much I love it!! plus I enjoyed writing this too :>

Women in STEM 🤓💅

Chigiri Hyoma

Oh Chigiri knows what he’s doing alright, he’s a smarty too you know

And you have been longing, praying, for a reliable lab partner instead of taking the lead all the time

You were sick of always explaining to lab partners who kept asking questions as well as excuses, so Chigiri is definitely heaven sent by the Science Gods

“I got it, just write the things I say.” 😳 ok, sir

So you’re left with nothing but a pen and paper in your hands, staring at Chigiri in awe while he busied himself with the experiment

Little did you know, he’s out here to impress you girlie 🤓

Chigiri admires you a lot, and he hates seeing you suffer because of incompetent lab partners

Yes, he does watch you in secret, but not in a weird and creepy way, rather in a ‘omg so smart, what a queen’ way u know

Nagi Seishiro

Oh God, you would always catch Nagi on his phone

The second you look away from him, he whips out his phone that you just had to confiscate it from him

“Be helpful or I’ll throw this phone away.”

Nagi wouldn’t even fight for his phone anymore, he would just do as you say because in all honesty, he does find you hot when you’re being a smarty pants

Nagi can’t contribute any ideas that much, BUT he would always brush away or hold back the strands of hair that would fall to the sides of your face whenever you look into the microscope 🥹

The first time Nagi did that, you repeatedly stumbled over your words for a few minutes whenever you would talk to him

Actually very obedient, tell him to stay still while holding petri dishes as you prep the microscope and he would, completely still just as you said.

He once tried to study a thing or two (to impress you) only to end up getting confused himself and mixing up descriptions. Well, at least he made you laugh ☺️

Bachira Meguru

As much as Bachira hates studying, I do believe that he’s pretty alright in the field of Science

But only with the random trivias 😭 so random that you yourself wouldn’t know about it

Bachira is a sweetheart, he would do his best to help, contribute ideas despite most of them being silly, so you gotta be patient with his antics

He’s like a kid when it’s his turn to look into the microscope omg, you would find yourself smiling sometimes whenever you hear him mumble words like “cool” or “so weird”

Omg please, please do NOT 🙅‍♀️❌ leave him on his own even for a second!

One time, you left Bachira for a bit just to wash your hands and not even a few steps away from him, he was already committing arson

Being scolded doesn’t really affect him that much, but there were times your professor was harsher than usual that it left Bachira pouting the whole class

You had to pat his head occasionally that time and also gave lots of reassurance that he’s the best lab partner (despite him being too chaotic)

[domini-porter]

Hi, I genuinely just want to pop in to say that I’m very excited to begin reading your series The Age of Wickedness!

I loved what you did with CMYK, and I was waiting because I’m currently working my way through FAR too many stories.

So I didn’t honestly come to ask a question as much as I came to say thanks for your work & I, too, am a certified Drake hater. I wanted to scream to someone else who shares the love for Rizzles and hate for Drake. It is a very specific overlap in the Venn diagram of active fandoms here. 😂

But while I’m here, I do love getting a glimpse into writers’ processes, and I’m curious to know if you had a passion for this particular era, or if you had a particular idea for Rizzles and you felt this would be the greatest way to realize it?

Thanks for keeping the fandom alive & stay hating 🥂

Oh hi hi thank you!

First: wop wop wop wop wop Dot fuck ‘em up (very thrilled to start the Intersectional Haters Society with you)

As for the AoW time period—it’s kind of a confluence of things! It all started with a mental image of Maura wearing a bustle while doing taxidermy, and kind of developed from there. But I’m a biiiiiiiig Edith Wharton fan (there are lots of little references to her works throughout, including the series name), a less-big Henry James fan, and so on.

Then you gotta add the influence of my best friend/sounding board/biggest fan, who LOVES this time period more than any other, as well as fringe religions, social movements, etc, and has declared himself my research assistant (thx jda).

Then you gotta add my unstoppable love for trivia and my immovable need to be both correct and authoritative, now with the entirety of human knowledge available on the same device I type my stories into, which means not only am I able to reference the correct building and location for the specific year (1885, in this case), but the architect, the financiers, the floor plan. The internet will probably turn out to have been a mistake, but it also tells me the dates of home games played by the Boston Beaneaters during the 1886 season, so.

And then? When I got into it, and started researching in earnest? Turns out every-fucking-thing of note that happened in this time period happened in Boston. Okay, not everything. But a lot of things! Incidental things! Things I discovered during research! Like how general anesthesia was developed at Massachusetts General Hospital, a facility designed by one Mr. Bulfinch, father of legendary myth-collector Charles Bulfinch (who compiled the first, and still most famous, book of myths and legends). Neat, right? Now add in that I only discovered this when researching that hospital’s Ether Dome, after spending a couple hundred pages heavily incorporating Greek myth as a motif (and namdropping Bulfinch’s Mythology specifically). I dunno, it thrilled me, at least? And there’s tons of that kind of serendipitous detail woven in, which hopefully isn’t a chore, because it soothes and delights me to share cool facts.

Then you’ve got the other stuff that makes it a compelling setting—it’s during the Industrial Revolution but before a lot of medical and scientific discoveries (horrifying fact! surgical gloves weren’t developed until 1892!). Huge developments were underway socially and culturally, with massive immigration and the emergence of organized social services, especially in ultra-progressive Boston. Things move slowly without internal combustion and optical cables, and everything requires significantly more effort (travel, communication, etc). This is so fun because it both forces creative problem-solving and really forces the universe of the story to slow down to allow for more character development and world-building and honestly, a sense of wonder and mystery (not that you can’t have a slow world in the modern era, but due to the ubiquity of technology it feels more difficult—there often must be a reason this modern setting is de-emphasizing technology, etc, instead of just not including cell phones; plus the massive advantage of hindsight for historical fiction).

Okay, WHEW. I could clearly talk about this stuff for another 600 pages, but I gotta go get stoned and hang out with my cats, as is tradition. Thank you again for asking! And even more for caring about The Beef, which is still at the front of my mind (Drake’s gonna drop something else, is my theory, to bait Dot, and oh jeez am I ever hype for how Kendrick scorches the earth)(also the whole West Coast scene hates Drake now, which is THRILLING)

[prince-rowan-of-the-forest]

To Make a Heaven of Hell (7/?)

----

Virgil tries his hand at Trivia and just so happens to meet someone new in the process.

----

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Chapter warnings: None as far as I'm aware.

Notes:

WHEEE - it's been a short while, I just started Uni so chapters may be a little slower than before haha - hopefully I'll be able to keep up, though, I really love writing this fic.

I don't think anything warning worthy happens in this chapter, as always, lmk if I'm wrong!

----

“Who was the first mortal woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean?” The host of the trivia evening called the next question, Virgil practically snatched the paper from Remy to write down the answer. 

“Babes you are on fire ,” Remy said, adjusting their dark tinted sunglasses, “What is this!”

“I- there was a film,” Virgil mumbled, “Silly comedy film, that had her in it.”

“Oh! Dope,” Remy nods, leaning into Emile - who’s casually brushing his fingers through Remy’s white-feathered wings. 

“Eugh,” Remus groaned, Virgil was pretty sure voi was on zur fifth cocktail of the night already, “When are we gonna get something more interesting than mortal history ?” 

“There are three questions left of this category,” Logan informed just as the next question was announced, sipping his glass of wine “Two now.”

—

As the night went on the teams just got louder and louder, aquatic life came up as a topic and Sharkie had practically jumped up onto the table. The answer sheet was passed to her and Logan for that round. By the time the last category came around (Something to do with true crime) Virgil was… a little bit overwhelmed by it all.

“Hey kid,” Said a drunk Remus, patting him on the arm, “If you gotta- you can go outside for a bit, kay? We got this!”

“But what if I know an answer?” Virgil asked over the cacophony of the pub, trying to quell his churning stomach by taking a sip of the fruity mocktail he’d gotten three categories ago. 

“If you stick close enough by, you can hear ‘em call out the questions,” Emile said, smiling and waving him off, “But don’t worry about us! If you’re not feeling good don’t force yourself to be here!”

“Babe we’re here to lose anyway,” Remy rolled their eyes, “Don’t sweat it.”

Virgil nodded slowly, leaving their drink and standing up, shoving their hands in their hoodie pockets as they made their way outside. 

The cool evening air of the universe washed over Virgil as they stepped out of the hot, loud atmosphere of the pub. Air filled his lungs as he took a deep breath, trying to relax his shoulders as he moved to the side and leant against the wall of the building, just trying to let the gentle breeze wash over him.

He could still hear the questions - just like Emile had said - but he didn’t know any of the answers. Instead of focusing on that he tried not to worry - he could go back in a minute, it wasn’t an issue. 

“Too much for you too, hm?” Someone said from too close to be comfortable. Virgil startled, lashing out and jumping away, eyes wide as he looked at the tall stranger in front of him. They were… startling, Virgil thought, he was pretty sure he might have caught a glimpse of them from across the pub, but he definitely hadn’t met them before. 

“Are you… a deity?” Virgil asked slowly, this person certainly had a presence, but they dressed in a way that looked almost reminiscent of Victorian England - with stone grey eyes and blond hair tied into twin braids. They wore a large hat, trimmed with a yellow ribbon, and had tan skin - though it seemed to be marred by scars on one side. Virgil didn’t think that mortal souls could have scars - he certainly didn’t have his. The most striking thing about this person, though, was the pair of snakes - one wrapped around their neck and shoulders like a scarf and the other (smaller) one wrapped around their wrist and lower arm. They chuckled.

“No, I’m not,” They said, before considering, “I’m a soul, like you, well- technically, I might be considered deified, but I’m not a deity in the way you are thinking.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at the person at that confusing answer, hoping for elaboration, they just smiled.

“My name is Janus,” They extended a yellow gloved hand for a handshake, “You’re Virgil, aren’t you?”

“Yes…?” Virgil said, frowning, “How do you know that?”

“Remus has mentioned you,” Janus tilted their head, “Is that a problem?”

Virgil took a slow, deep breath which he let out through his nose, “No, no it’s not a problem - sorry - I just - It’s weird to think that people who I don’t know know me.”

Chuckling, Janus nodded, “Yes, I’ve certainly been around for long enough to understand the feeling, I apologise for startling you.”

“It’s okay,” Virgil reassured, “Are you uh- um- phrasing?”

“What are you trying to ask, dear?” Janus asked, smiling warmly, “Trust me, whatever it is I’ve heard before, don’t worry about offending me.”

“Uh… how old? Are you?” Virgil asked, cringing, “Like- sorry that’s a weird question, but you said you’re a mortal soul? But you have a kinda- presence? I don’t- you don’t have to answer that.”

“That’s a perfectly fine question to ask,” Janus said gently, “I’ve been told I have an ‘old soul’ presence - you’d be right, I’ve been here a long time.”

“How… long?” Virgil asked, unable to help his curiosity as he leaned forward.

“Much longer than you’d think.” Virgil raises an eyebrow at Janus’ vague response and they smile, “How about you guess?”

“I- well- your clothes look Victorian….” Virgil mused, narrowing his eyes at Janus, “But I feel like maybe that’s misleading?”

Janus just smirks. 

“So uh- I’m gonna guess… 1500s, maybe?” Virgil put forward, Janus laughed and he immediately knew he’d guessed wrong, he huffed, “What is it, then?”

“In my first life I was a neanderthal,” Janus said, between laughter, Virgil’s eyes widened, “So…  I’ve been around roughly… I don’t know, three hundred thousand years?”

For a moment, Virgil didn’t say anything, just stared at the person in front of him who had probably been here hundreds of thousands of years? “How are you- I don’t know, sane?”

A shocked laugh escaped Janus, he smiled at Virgil, eyes crinkling at the corners, “A lot of time in the void, and good wine.”

Virgil can’t help but snort, “I suppose that’ll do it? I thought they said the void was permanent…”

“It can be,” Janus said, “But you can also just go there to not exist for a little while - I’ve probably spent… at least a hundred thousand years there in total?”

“Yeah I… can imagine,” Virgil says softly, “It… sounds like a lot - the life I had was my first.”

“I lost count of my lifetimes,” Janus shrugs, “I can’t even remember most of them, but really it doesn’t matter - I gave up my ability to reincarnate to stay here in the afterlife.”

“That’s something you can do?” Virgil asked, looking at Janus as though something had just clicked inside his brain, “I don’t - have to go back?”

For a moment, Janus just looks at him, eyes full of sympathy, before he sighs and puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder - a good, reassuring weight, “Of course you don’t, not if you don’t want to - the only people who have to reincarnate are those who didn’t achieve paradise.”

Virgil sighed, he wasn’t really sure why exactly he was opening up so much to a complete stranger: Janus’ presence was just… reassuring, almost warm.

“I don’t- I feel like I should ,” He said, “I mean, most people here have lived at least a few lives, right? Should I not- want more experience? Before I… stop?”

“Some people want to live a lot of lives - I certainly did, I wanted to experience everything I possibly could,” Janus explains, “Until my last lifetime, where I arrived here feeling as though I couldn’t stand another - so I gave it up. Others have only a few lifetimes - one, three, five maybe, before realising that living in the mortal world isn’t for them - they find their place here, and that’s also okay. If you don’t want to reincarnate, you don’t have to.”

Virgil took a deep breath, “I don’t… think I want to… but- I also think it’s too soon to make that decision.”

“Yes, perhaps,” Janus nods, “There's many perks that come with being a soul able to reincarnate, anyway, you have eternity to decide, it doesn’t have to be now.”

“You’re so full of wisdom,” Virgil comments, “It’s kinda annoying.”

Janus barks out a laugh, “It comes with living since the dawn of humanity - come on, I think they’re announcing the winners inside.”

—

“We came third!” Remus yelled, cackling, to anyone who would listen, “We came third!”

“You did awesome,” Sharkie said, elbowing Virgil in the side, “We wouldn’t have gotten a bunch of those answers if it wasn’t for you!”

Virgil blushed - flustered by the compliment. He still wasn’t quite used to praise. 

“We did better than I expected,” Logan mused, “Especially with Janus competing against us.”

“Well duh, that’s why their team came first,” Remy said, stretching his wings, “There was no doubt about that - he knows like, literally everything.”

“They weren’t there for the last round,” Virgil spoke up, “They were talking to me outside-?”

Remus scoffed, “Yeah, I saw.”

Laughing, Emile patted him on the shoulder, “It doesn’t really matter that they were gone from the last round, the Roman’s team had already won by that point.”

“Wait- why was he on the Roman’s team?” Virgil asked as he followed the others outside, “I thought their team was all Roman deities?”

“There’s a Roman god named Janus,” Dante spoke up, walking alongside Virgil, “Apparently a long time ago they accidentally invited snake-charmer Janus, not God of Doorways Janus, and now he joins their team as an honorary member sometimes.”

“Yeah! It was really funny,” Remus giggled, pushing lir way between them and Dante and slinging zy arms around both of their shoulders, leaning down to talk to them. Zey smelled like alcohol, and some kind of fruit, but Virgil found he didn’t really mind.

—-

"So what's with the snakes?" Virgil asked the next time he saw Janus. Which was only a few days later, she had come down to the Hellp Desk for... some reason, Virgil wasn't actually quite sure yet.

"I always carry a few with me," Janus shrugged, extending her arm towards Virgil - a small snake was happily coiled around her wrist, it seemed to be sleeping. 

"Where did you… get them?" Virgil asked, frowning, "Were they your pets?" 

"Some of them," She shrugged, leaning back in the chair she was sitting in - Penny's, "My paradise is somewhat of a refuge for all pet snakes whose owners are still alive, in a punishment realm, don't want them anymore, you know…?"

"Oh, neat, you like snakes then?" 

"' Like' is a n understatement! She's got the things crawling all over her!" A red in the face mortal soul yelled, storming up to the desk, "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

"Ma'am, disrespectfully, this is none of your business?" Virgil pointed out, "Please just go to level three-"

"No, actually, I won't! Those creatures aren't pets!! They should be out in the wild!" She cried, "I'm trying to help these poor things!"

Virgil frowned, "Like you 'helped' other animals by… releasing people's domesticated exotic pets into the 'wild' - aka a habitat where they didn't belong and couldn't survive?" 

"Those creatures shouldn't have been in captivity!" The soul yelled, "I was rescuing them!" 

"Darling,' Janus said, still reclining in the chair as though she had no care in the world, "While normally I would be on your side - many people keep exotic pets in horrific conditions-"

The soul looked like she might say something else, but Janus continued over her, "-releasing domesticated animals into a habitat where they do not belong instead of, I don't know, calling the authorities, is… really just sentencing those animals to death - my snakes live in paradise." 

"And you," Virgil said to the soul, "Live in Hell, so if you would kindly go to your level?"

The soul gave them the middle finger and an angry huff before marching off, Virgil sighed.

“Sorry."

"Don't be," Janus waved a hand, "I know what I signed up for by sitting here." 

"What are you waiting for, anyway?" 

"Angel," Janus shrugged, "And I believe Remus, possibly Beleth and Sharkie, I'm not sure who else is coming." 

Virgil raised an eyebrow, "Is something going on?" 

"Angel wants to involve me in a plan," Janus sighed, waving a hand, "Something to do with her brother, it's really nothing for you to worry about - yet." 

"Ah, Well- have fun, I suppose." Virgil shrugged, turning to deal with the next soul as there was a squeal and Angel ran over to the desk. A few minutes later she and Janus went to head deeper into Hell and Virgil was left with Dante and Lily at the desk. He was fairly certain he was going to worry a lot about whatever this plan was. 

Lily smiled knowingly at Virgil when she noticed their expression, reaching to pass them a mug of fresh hot chocolate, "Really, don't worry about whatever they're doing - they go on odd ‘quests’ all the time." 

Virgil sighed, gratefully taking the drink, "I'll do my best."

----

General tags: @full-of-roman-angst-trash @your-local-random-dino @cutebisexualmess @glacierruler @roseianxiety @bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti (if anyone wants to be added, let me know!)

Hell's Belles AU tags: @awitchbravestheverge @twoalpacas @goldnskyart @anxious-mess19 @doteddestroyer :)

----

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[slashingdisneypasta]

(Gotta put this in ask since it got long)

I like your answers! And I definitely agree woth you on those ^^

As for my own though

🎤: I got a couple in mind. 'Pretty Little Psycho' I can imagine for Tiffany. Both because I love her and I just think some of the lyrics fit her.

Also 'I Can't Decide' by Scissor Sisters for Billy and Stu. Just the way the whole song sounds, the silliness/fun way the music is played while the lyrics are about debating whether or not to kill me sounds like it'd match those two.

🩰: I would love to slow dance with Harper. Something tells me he can charm a gal on the dance floor just as well as he can out on the streets. Also I'd love to dance with Baby Firefly. I doubt it'd be a slow dance, but I know it'd be too fun XD

as for who the best slow dancer is, I 100% agree that Candyman would be the best. Is that even a question? But... Idk, I feel like Toffany would be a good slow dancer too. With her romantic side, maybe she would enjoy a slow dance ^^

🥼: Hmm... I'm gonna go with Pamela Voorhees. I'd trust her to not kill me AND be knowledgeable enough to heal me.

☎️: Billy Loomis! Gimme that horror movie trivia before I die. Let me have some fun final moments.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I completely thought I had responded to this!!!

I love your song choices!! Pretty Little Psycho and I Cant Decide are absolutely perfect!!

And yes!! Dancing with Harper and Baby would both be so much fun!!

Smart choice I think! XDD

Hahaha XD Yessssssssssssssssssssss i get that.

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

DHMIS Review: Short 4, Computers

I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, but I'm finally back to do the next episode of the shorts; one that I'm not entirely sure if the episode itself is considered a fan favorite, but it definitely introduced a character who pretty quickly seemed to become beloved by most of the fandom.

To start, I love all the little details in the first shot of the episode. I've seen this short plenty of times and on this most recent rewatch, I actually noticed two things that I missed every other time: the duck decorations on the wall between the horse picture and the world map, and the fact that these guys have a fox head mounted on their wall. Actually, I did notice they had an animal head mounted on the wall, but I never paid much attention and I think I always just remembered/saw it as the typical deer head. Shame on me for assuming anything from DHMIS would be "typical", right?

I'd love to know how you actually play "Question Fun". Because it doesn't seem to make any sense, at all. There's no indication of spaces on the board - it's just one long path that goes all over the place. And when Red picks up the card, it's not like most trivia games where you have someone asking questions and someone else gets points or something if they answer correctly; because not only does it seem like the question is a free for all, but unlike most trivia games, the answer isn't on the card itself.

"Question Fun" might just be named that because if you're not super smart, you might be questioning if you're having fun by the end if you don't just give up or just decide you don't care about actually being right. After all, there's nothing on the card or anything else that proves you gave the wrong answer, according to the game's rules, is there?

You gotta appreciate the fact that these guys have gone from being stunned when the Teachers show up, to just being self-aware enough to understand that if something happens that could result in them learning a lesson, something in the room is going to come to life and start teaching them about it. Heck, it's almost like they're just trying to get it over with, putting in no attempt to be subtle as they cue Gilbert to start what was obviously supposed to be his song.

Colin really is the first Teacher to just...pop into existence, isn't he? Sketchbook and Tony were clearly in the scene before they came to life and started singing, and with Shrignold, you could argue that he flew into the shot from somewhere off screen. Colin literally just showed up out of nowhere. It honestly makes me wonder if even in-universe, Gilbert was supposed to be the main Teacher, but Colin had such an ego that he couldn't stand for that and took over. And apparently nobody cares because despite them clearly prompting Gilbert to help them, once Colin starts singing Red just decides to ask him instead.

Okay, apparently computers in this world just show up whenever they want, because the laptop also wasn't there until Red mentioned it. Meanwhile Gilbert apparently just decided to go back to sleep while all this crazy stuff was happening around him.

Anyone else kind of love how the Students try to answer the questions as a collective? Like Duck answers about where he lives; Yellow says what he likes to eat; and while he gets cut off, Red goes to answer the name question. And more importantly, Colin just seems to accept them doing this, moving onto the next set of questions despite the fact that technically they each only answered a third of the questions they were already asked.

I don't know who I relate to more in the scene where Red is trying to get Colin to shut up and then Colin just freaks when Red smacks his keyboard. Because I also hate when I'm trying to say something and other people just keep talking over me....but also want to scream whenever someone touches me without warning or making sure I'm okay with the physical contact. So I kind of channel both of them from that scene.

I love how, after everything they've already dealt with, this is apparently where Red just loses all his patience? And he doesn't just get like, mildly irritated or annoyed; he actually seems to get noticeably angry. Kind of makes me wonder why there's not more fanworks with him having particular issues with Colin, considering he really does seem to be the only Teacher who actually got under Red's skin. Maybe because a lot of the fandom was too busy shipping Colin with Tony to notice the potential for a rivalry of sorts between him and Red....

How did the "Hey look a (blank)" not seem to become a meme format? Personally that sticks in my head more than the "digitial style" or "do a digital dancing".

I know the usual interpretation of Red's "Wait, what?" right before his mind is apparently literally blown upon seeing the cheap recreation of the first episode (though considering the line about Roy being a computer is in the scene, I guess it's supposed to be a recreation of all the episode so far) is that he's confused as to what's happening. But considering the last line before he says that is "You are not invited to the party", I have to wonder if his confusion was less over what he was seeing, and more wondering what party this weird robotic voice was talking about.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

I’ll Take X-pecting for 200, Alex

Summary: Dr. Spencer Reid plays a trivia game at the request of his wife, Y/N, but he’s in for more than some heaving hitting questions. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Wife Reader 

Word Count: 1.5k 

Author’s Note: I really don’t think that this summary does this justice

I’ll Take X-pecting for 200, Alex 

Shuffling the cards with a shake in her hand, Y/N tells herself to just breathe. This is something that Spencer and her have been looking forward to, dreamed about, and constantly discussed. Regardless of how much she knows Spencer loves her, there’s a lingering seed of doubt that only grows with the sound of Spencer walking into their house. 

“Y/N!, I’m home, darlin’,” Spencer calls from the hallway, dropping the “g” because he knows that Y/N finds it endearing. 

“Baby,” Y/N yells from the table. “I’m in the dining room. I made us a trivia game! Come play with me, I need your brains,” she finishes, smiling at her husband, who has been away for nearly two weeks.

“You know do I love trivia, Y/N,” Spencer says. He takes a seat next to his wife, but before he can kiss her, she pushes him out of his chair and motions for him to take the seat opposite of her.

“Before we start, how was the case? Everyone make it home in one piece?” Y/N asks concerned over the wellbeing of some of her closest friends. 

“Everyone’s fine, Y/N. The unsub ended up being a team. Two women hellbent on getting revenge for their children’s murders. One of them got away,” Spencer explains, solemnly. 

“Oof,” Y/N says, letting out a sigh. “It’s at times like these that I’m glad I don’t have your job. I’m kinda glad she got away, between you and me.” 

“It’s hard, sometimes we don’t really know who we’re bringing justice too. But, I’d do anything to protect my future children, and you. Anything I needed to do to keep you safe,” Spencer tells her, leaning across the table and kissing Y/N’s hand. She gives him a sheepish smile, but inside her mind is eager to get this trivia game started. 

“You’re a charmer, Dr. Reid,” Y/N flirts. 

“Just for you, Y/N. Now you mentioned something about trivia,” Spencer says, clapping his hands together excitedly. 

“I just thought you’d like to rest your brain after a case but shifting though all those facts you got stored up there. And I always said you should try out for Jeopardy,” Y/N says as she collects the cards with the clues. 

She spreads out the categories, Child Psychology, Children’s Books, Labor & Delivery, Nursery Rhymes, X-Epecting, on the table. They were all handwritten on different colorful pieces of cardstock and decorated with baby animals and block letters. Y/N read the categories aloud to her husband, allowing herself to steal a glance at his face while he concentrated on the categories, as if he already could answer the questions. 

“All right, Spencer, you pick first,” Y/N says, in her best Alex Trebek impression. 

“I’ll take Child Psychology for $200,” Spencer chooses, looking up to smile at Y/N. 

“This is the substitute mother that baby monkeys formed an attachment to in Harlow’s psychological experiment,” Y/N asks.

“Terry-Cloth,” Spencer interjects. 

“Not uh, Spence, you need to answer correctly,” Y/N teases. She looks up at him expectantly to choose the next clue. He rolls his eyes at her, but secretly he enjoys the playful banter they still share even after all these years. 

“Um, Children’s Books $200,” 

“This is the story of the clever spider that can weave words in her web,” 

“What is Charlotte’s Web?” 

“Correct, pick again please,” Y/N says, as she tries to maintain a stoic composure. 

“This is the average of days that newborns keep up their sleepless parents,” Y/N asks, sure that this question would stump her genius husband. But to no avail, Spencer answers the question correctly. 

“Okay! Next time try-outs are around, I’m forcing you to take the test,” Y/N says running over to kiss Spencer on the cheek. 

“You know judges are supposed to remain impartial, Y/N” Spencer tells her, putting his arm around her waist as if he’s signally her to sit in his lap. 

“I can’t help it, how about you win kisses every time you get a question right, Spence,” Y/N proposes. 

“I guess it’s worth more than fake money,” Spencer teases.

“You offend me, baby!” Y/N pretends to be hurt by Spencer’s words, but urges him to continue the game. 

“You only got a couple more left, Spence,” 

“Okay, how about X-Expecting for $200,” Spencer chooses. 

“This chromosome is linked to the baby’s mother,” Y/N quizzes, finding it difficult to keep her smiles and secrets at bay when Spencer’s arm tugs around her waist tightly and his fingers draw patterns under her shirt. 

“What is X-Chromosome,” Spencer answers before Y/N can even finish the clue. 

“You know that you’re supposed to wait until the clue is read, Spence. I should redact kisses,” Y/N fake threats. 

“No! Y/N I’ll die without your kisses, please!” Spencer cries out in pretend disain. Much to his amusement his goofy behavior leads Y/N to plant small pecks on his forehead. 

“There, that should hold you over,” 

“I doubt it, Y/N. I miss you already,” Spencer mutters into her shoulder, as if he’s trying to get closer to his wife more than he could already be with her sitting on his lap. 

“Two more clues till Final Jeopardy,” Y/N announces, ignoring the fact that she’s bypassing the rest of the clues and totally disregarding Double Jeopardy. 

“Hmm, let’s go to Nursery Rhymes for kissing for the rest of my life,” Spencer picks, peppering Y/N’s shoulder with kisses. 

“Huh! Look at that, Spencer, you got the Daily Double, so whatcha going to wager?” Y/N asks, knowing she’s pulling this Daily Double straight out of the air, but Spencer’s affection for only one lifetime is not nearly enough for her. 

“I’ll make a true Daily Double, darling. That means double the amount of kisses,” Spencer tells her, ticking the sides of Y/N waist. 

“Here’s your clue, Jack is urged to be nimble & quick, helping him do this,” Y/N reads from the card. 

“What is to jump over the candlestick?” Spencer guesses, closing his eyes to be assaulted by Y/N’s eager lips. 

“Yay! Double kisses!” Y/N yells happily as she pecks Spencer’s eyelids and nose, causing him to laugh at her light affection. 

“Next question, it’s the last one so you don’t get a choice, but I have so much confidence in you, my genius husband. These are the names of the 3 stages of labor?” Y/N questions, looking over her shoulder to get a glimpse of Spencer’s mind at work. 

“What are dilation, expulsion, and afterbirth,” Spencer answers, once again perfectly. 

“Okay, Dr. Reid you’ve accumulated a total of double kisses for the rest of our lives. Your Final Jeopardy category is, Ready For It…” Y/N announces. 

“Last one,” Spencer says, and Y/N wonders if Spencer’s figured it out by now. She hands Spencer the small cardboard box. He looks at it curiously and Y/N can feel her heart in her stomach. He must know by now, she thinks. He’s brilliant, but sometimes he can be a little clueless when it comes to things like that. Y/N thinks back to how they danced around each other for years before Derek practically had to force them out on a date. He must know. 

“You’re clue is inside the box, Spence,” Y/N tells him, her voice shaky and unsure. 

Spencer carefully opens the cardboard box and reaches in to pull out the small pregnancy test that lay hidden inside. He looks it over, reading the test twice, three times, maybe even four times. He honestly can’t remember taking longer to read something. Spencer looks up at a terrified Y/N. 

“You’re pregnant? We’re going to have a baby?” Spencer asks, desperately wanting to believe what he holds in his hand. 

“You’re gonna be a daddy, Spence,” Y/N tells him, her smile struggling to conceal itself in between the bouts of happiness and joy that courses through her veins. 

“A baby! Oh Y/N. A baby!” Spencer shouts rushing over to where his wife stands in between the entrance from their kitchen to their dining room. 

“You’re happy, right Spence. You want this with me-” Y/N starts, a sudden rush of fear lodging itself in her heart. 

“Of course I’m happy, Y/N. I’m so happy to be a dad. You’re going to be a mom! You’ll be the best mom, Y/N. I love you, Y/N,” Spencer says, crouching down to rub his hands on Y/N’s belly. 

“Hi sweet baby,” Y/N says softly, looking down at her belly and covering her hand over Spencer’s. “I want you to meet your daddy. He’s going to take care of you so well, he might talk a lot but you get used to it” 

“Hey, baby. It’s your dad,” Spencer murmurs quietly into Y/N’s belly. “I’m so glad that mommy told me about you. You gotta do some growing in there before you can meet us, but we love you so much, baby,”

“I really love you so much Y/N,” Spencer says as he sits up to kiss his wife. 

All his life Spencer’s loved science. He loves discovering the undiscovered. Memorizing all those theories and facts and methods could never prepare him for the awe that sat before him. He realizes that he’s looked at science all wrong. There's a beauty in science- a natural, unadulterated beauty that’s so rare to find. But he’s found it and he’s never letting go.

Thank You for Reading!

Taglist: @calm-and-doctor​ 

If anyone wants to be tagged in new posts, feel free to comment and I’ll be thrilled to tag you <3

[vivithefolle]

Not sure if you already talked about this. (I’m pretty sure you have) but someone seemed to notice that when the trio get into fights, Hermione’s always in the right. Even when she’s supposed to be wrong she always seems to be half right. That kind of bothers me. Especially since it’s evident in the whole Scabbers situation.

I have indeed, on Quora, so let’s move yet another answer of mine to Tumblr!

Hermione is seldom wrong in the Harry Potter books. Sometimes she makes mistakes but those mistakes are either completely swept under the rug or downright ignored.

It’s partly due to lazy writing and partly due to Rowling’s own growing bias in favour of her Author Avatar that was fuelled by Steve Kloves, the primary advocate of the Hermione Granger Is The Perfect Girl Ever line of thinking (an utterly ridiculous line of thinking mind you).

Lizo: Steve, Hermione is a character that you have said is one of your favorites. Has that made her easier to write?

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I like writing all three, but I've always loved writing Hermione. Because, I just, one, she's a tremendous character for a lot of reasons for a writer, which also is she can carry exposition in a wonderful way because you just assume she read it in a book. If I need to tell the audience something...

JKR: Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

Now this, right here, is the exact core of the problem.

Rowling herself admits it: if she wants the readers to have information, she puts Hermione in the scene. Hermione is our primary means of exposition because, like *grits teeth* Sssssteve puts it, it’s easy to assume that she’s read about it somewhere and it makes sense.

That’s all well and good but at first, if you notice, Ron also gave us exposition about the wizarding world, mostly about its culture. He was able to recall the exact year of the Wizarding Confederation that outlawed dragon breeding in Philosopher’s Stone! He explained what were respectively a “Mudblood”, a “Squib”, and Parseltongue, Hermione doing a little exposition about the history of that last one! He was also able to identify Sirius, after being dragged into the Whomping Willow, as an Animagi!

But then Goblet of Fire happens and you can notice the first change that will exponentially grow through the books: instead of Ron, pureblood Ron, born-before-the-end-of-the-war Ron, lived-through-the-aftermath-of-the-war Ron, identifying the Dark Mark, it’s instead Hermione, muggleborn Hermione, lived-as-a-Muggle-for-most-of-her-life Hermione, has-no-idea-about-the-emotional-impact-of-the-Mark Hermione who looks terrified as the Dark Mark shoots into the sky!

And it only will get worse, by the end of the series, Hermione pretty much knows about everything the plot needs her to know, instead of having to work with things she knows but can’t always apply to the situation:

Suddenly has a deep knowledge of Magical Law (in the will of Dumbledore’s chapter, while we had Rufus Scrimgeour who could have provided it to us, or to a lesser extent, Ron could have explained how a wizarding will basically worked)

Is suddenly an expert at finding edible plants and mushrooms. Apparently books are always the goddamn answer in JKR’s world, you can literally learn anything from them

She can decipher all the Tales of Beedle the Bard (may I remind you that they were written in Runes, okay Hermione may have a few years of Ancient Runes education BUT I once tried to translate a 3k+ story I had written for fun, from French to English, which means I knew what the subtleties and intentions were, I knew which turns of phrase I had to preserve so it would make sense in the end, and it still took me two gruelling weeks to get a satisfying result!)

Has suddenly grown a sense of quick-thinking (escaping Xenophilius’ house, using the jinx to make Harry’s face weird-looking) despite it being the only remaining flaw she had at the time (remember when she turned her back on her enemy while he was still conscious just to compliment Harry, and almost died as a result, even though she had been training in the DA to learn how to fight Death Eaters?) Quick-thinking under pressure can be learned, but it takes time and a lot of work to force your brain to override its instinct - and it’s fine because we’re all human and different. But no suddenly Hermione is the Greatest Strategist Evah™ and those silly boys (who actually were the original quick-thinking ones, and one of them was established as the strategist early on) better be grateful for this literal goddess because she protects them from all harm with her superhuman brain.

Somehow knows about Quidditch stuff - she knows about a Snitch’s “memory-touch”. Why should she give all the answers? Why can’t Ron give us this particular tidbit of information?

And then when we come to something Ron actually knows, the damn narration itself goes “woah a book that Ron has read but Hermione hasn’t??? shocking!! incredible!! Ron is not dumb, somebody call the news channel”. But… is that really so surprising? We’ve never seen Hermione read wizarding fiction or even Muggle fiction. We’ve never seen Hermione with anything other than schoolbooks in her hands. Of course Ron has read books she hasn’t read since she doesn’t seem to read fiction at all!

Sorry, bit of a tangent over here.

There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue.

So, that’s one part of the problem: the fact that Rowling, after making Ron our insight into magical culture and Hermione our provider of knowledge, ended up saying “eh whatever I guess Hermione can tell us everything we gotta know because it’s more convenient for me”. Which is a decision that was not based on Hermione’s character, but simply lazy writing. Long story short, it probably went: “Could Ron explain this bit of trivia? Meh, better make Hermione say it cause she’ll have read it in a book. It’s convenient and I won’t need to bother myself with exploring Ron’s characterisation.”

(And thus completely forgetting that Ron could maybe ask his big brothers via owl and provide us with a good heap of extra advanced knowledge - Bill is supposed to have aced his NEWTs after all.)

The other part of the problem is quite simply that Hermione is more often than not, either painted as a victim by the narrative (which makes more people take her side, classic manipulation tactic), or made to be right anytime it’s about a plot point.

Hermione’s mistakes are never explicitly stated, corrected, or even pointed out as being unethical.

Hermione only gets one mistake expressedly pointed out as being a mistake: her misadventure in Polyjuice Potion. The rest of them? Even her crush on Lockhart can’t be counted as a mistake - people get crushes all the time, based solely on physical appearance, it’s not something awful or terrible (Except when it’s Ron who crushes on someone. Ron crushing on someone is absolutely forbidden, and he must be punished with much ridicule and humiliation if he thinks he can get away with not worshipping Hermione like the goddess she is. The nerve of him, really.).

Throughout the books Hermione eventually morphs into Rowling’s Powerful Angel of Vengeance, that punishes the people who dared to do something she disliked - Rita is silenced but at a very ethically dubious price; Marietta gets scarred for life because she was more loyal to her mother than to a bunch of people her friend insisted she hang out with; Umbridge is led to a very, very alarming fate that is never made clear but some people have ideas and they’re not all very kid-friendly; Ron first is “helped” without knowing it because Hermione can’t be bothered to have faith in his capabilities, then when he fails to dutifully reward her for “helping” him, she causes him bodily harm before actively bullying him for not mind-reading her interest in him; causes even more bodily harm to Ron because that’s how feminism works; etc.

Hermione’s mistakes are always justified through the plot itself (which is lazy writing).

Turning into a cat? Only affects her.

The Firebolt? Scabbers? Well, in the end, it was really sent by Sirius Black and Crookshanks really wasn’t the culprit. Therefore all the feelings that were hurt and all the trust lost are irrelevant because Hermione was right all along.

Trying to free the house-elves? Well, it’s the intent that counts, right? And we’re never told enough about house-elf lore to know whether they’re poor brainwashed victims or powerful Penate-like symbiotes who need to serve a wizard to survive?

Kidnapping Rita Skeeter, trapping her and blackmailing her? Rita may be one foul little beetle, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Harry approves? Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then…? A main character can’t have a dubious morality, right?

Manipulating Harry into forming Dumbledore’s Army and forcing him to relive a traumatic event with the same woman she’s kidnapped and blackmail and that she knows he hates? In the end, it all works out for the best and Harry’s hurt feelings don’t matter since it’s all about the greater good.

Using the centaurs to get rid of Umbridge (which poses the highly distressing question of what did the centaurs do to her?), realizing that the centaurs aren’t nice little horsies that are going to gently obey her every orders like good Disney princess’ companions, my goodness could this be an opportunity for character growth - nevermind, here comes Grawp the Giant Ex Machina, saving her arse and protecting Hermione from all that scary possibility of introspection. Thanks, Grawp Ex Machina.

Trying to dissuade a highly stressed-out and irrational Harry from rescuing Sirius by telling him exactly what he needed not to hear, a.k.a. “you have a saving people-thing” which causes Harry to completely go bonkers and go save his godfather without thinking twice? Well she was right after all, it was a trap! Nevermind how mind-boggingly insenstive and inadept at dealing with someone else’s feelings she was being, she was right! That means it wasn’t Hermione’s mistake!… probably. (Geez, I’m sensing a pattern here…)

Endangering Cormac’s life (Confunding him WHILE HE’S ON HIS BROOM) to promote Ron’s success? Oh but that’s so romantic! (Yeaaaah, how romantic to display exactly how much faith you lack in your crush. Top it off with a broken neck and that’s a picture perfect first date!)

Assaulting Ron with magic and causing him even more scars than he already had? But he was being cold with her first, right? And he totally should have known she was asking him out! It’s not like her invitation was even worse than his attempt to ask her out two years earlier! Plus she’s just a teenage girl expressing her emotions, anyone who tries to find fault in this is a disgusting abusive misogynist pig! Ha!

Getting all jealous that Harry is better than her at Potions, then pretending she’s not jealous by claiming that TEH BOOK IS EVIL, HARRY, and giving him the cold shoulder too? But no, she’s right, look, Harry used Sectumsempra and he almost killed Draco, nevermind that he’s very horrified about it! Hermione was right, like she always is!

Hermione Obliviating her parents, which pulls her from the “ethically dubious” zone into the “wow okay I’m pretty sure that this counts as a violation of basic human rights” zone, makes her one of those quirky wizardfolk who have the privilege to control those simple-minded Muggles because it’s for the greater good? But nooo she’s crying about it so it’s obviously very sad and angsty and it shows her devotion to the cause!

Splinching Ron while fleeing from the Ministry? Eeeh, but he’s fine, they’ve got Dittany, he’s good as new!… blood loss? Anaemia? What’s that?

Hermione was wrong about the Deathly Hallows not existing? Um, um, that doesn’t matter, LOOK DOBBY IS DEAD AND HARRY IS BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE HORCRUXES!! Therefore Hermione was right, the Hallows weren’t important for their quest, therefore the Hallows might as well not exist, HERMIONE WAS RIGHT NO REALLY I’VE GOT RECEIPTS -

The books never forget to remind Harry and Ron of their own shortcomings and moments of weakness.

Harry’s wrath and recklessness cost Sirius his life. This is the lesson he has to learn from his entitled behaviour in OotP: actions have consequences, and the greater your responsibility, the greater the cost will be.

Ron’s envy and insecurity lead him astray; they’re used to humiliate, ridicule and torture him throughout the books. They’re supposed to teach him that he’s worth something - but how is he supposed to believe that, when nobody ever tells him he’s worth anything? When nobody ever apologizes to him? When his feelings are taken for granted over and over? When his two friends seem to discard him whenever he does one thing wrong?

Hermione is never punished. Hermione is never said to be wrong, never shown to be wrong, never called out on her behaviour. From Prisoner of Azkaban to mid-Deathly Hallows, she stays exactly the same character. She doesn’t grow up. She doesn’t learn. She doesn’t change. She has virtually no character arc.

The only time, THE ONLY TIME IN SEVEN BOOKS, the only time we have something remotely resembling a call-out of Hermione’s horrible behaviour is with this sole quote in HBP:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

Note how it’s about “girls” and not Hermione in particular, which implies that any girl would do what Hermione does to Ron. Thanks for the generalization, JKR, but I like to believe I’m actually a decent sort of person that doesn’t resort to petty cruelty and exploits my friends’ insecurities whenever I’m angry with them.

Hermione NEVER has to apologize. Hermione NEVER has to learn from her mistakes because she’s always presented as a victim when she really isn’t. Hermione NEVER develops into something more - she’s emotionally stuck at fourteen years old. Even less than that when you consider that her reaction to Ron’s return in Deathly Hallows is to trash him with her fists - and she was going to get her wand!! The utter psychopathic b- wanted TO THROW BIRDS AT HIM AGAIN!!! - and this reaction is an appropriate one for a four-years old girl, but certainly not for a supposedly “mature” seventeen-years old.

(Yes, because what separates a child from an adult is the ability to reign in your emotions and not succumb to your impulses. Exactly what Ron did when he left the tent (notice that he had drawn his wand, then he left before he could start hexing Harry), he left to calm himself down. Exactly what Hermione fails to do when Ron returns (she has the impulse to strike him and immediately succumbs to it, which proves to us that The Brightest Witch Of Her Age has all the maturity of a very small child).)

All of that, on top of the awful portrayal in the movies which removes all of Ron’s characteristics to stuff them into Hermione and turns her into some impossible epitome of perfection, eventually contributed to the portrayal of Hermione as the one who is always right and knows everything.

Add to it JKR’s own ridiculous bias (“Ron was quite emotionally immature compared to the other two”, yeah right I don’t see him trying to force freedom onto unwilling creatures or making Harry fly into an irrational rage with mere words but you do you, Jo) and the sexist misconception that “girls are innately more mature than boys”, and you get yourself this apparent behemoth of righteousness that was literally the sole reason why those two silly boys survived everything, and don’t you dare criticize this angel of perfection OR ELSE.

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #4

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Celestite of Emptiness

“Could you take this with you?” the beautiful jeweler asked me, a stone in his hand.

What he was holding was a rock that looked exactly like a potato. It was dry and rough, with almost nothing to show off about it. It was about the size of a child’s fist.

“Our trade partner added this as an extra. It was mostly forced on me, though.”

“Even if you say that... what am I supposed to do with it?”

As I asked this, Richard said, “You can, for example, make it into a gift.”

He was probably thinking of Tanimoto-san. Indeed, since she loved minerals, I did think that she would like even this kind of plain rock, but...

“No... the aquamarine I bought a while ago is still on-hold, so...”

I had a stone that I wanted personally wanted to prepare myself to give her. As I declined in a roundabout way, saying that randomly firing a present at her might be questionable when taking this into account, yada-yada, Richard looked at me as if taken aback. He seemed to be spacing out. When I made an “aah, this again?” kind of face, he showed shame with an “excuse me”.

“I was a little absorbed in my thoughts.”

“That’s okay, then.”

This sort of thing wasn’t uncommon lately. It didn’t happen when we had customers over, but when I was the only one around, the shopkeeper’s reactions were slow. The speed with which the snacks on the kitchenette’s cupboards were decreasing in numbers was also clearly dropping. It was as if he were just choosing the ones that were close to their expiration date and consuming them robotically, which wasn’t like the usual Richard. Only the digestive, balanced Nakata Seigi Pudding was decreasing in the same proportion as I was making it.

I didn’t know the reason behind this. Honestly, I was pretty worried.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

As I asked inadvertently, Richard let out a sound that I couldn’t tell whether it was a sigh or a laugh. “Let’s see; there have been forty thieves appearing often around the palace I live in lately, and they are impossibly loud. If you are a magus, I would like you to banish them away with a swing of your wand.”

“Is that the story of Arabian Nights? No, seriously now, are you a victim of stalking?”

“It was a joke. There is nothing troubling me in particular. Aah, speaking of which, I have yet to... Seigi. Come here,” Richard called, sitting on the sofa and pointing me to the opposite seat. The stone was still in his hand. Just what was that rock?

“A spell. There was one in Arabian Nights, right? The magic words that open the cave. Do you know them?”

“Magic words... ‘Open sesame’?”

As I said this, Richard smiled and “split” the stone into two. His touch was soft, even more than if he were splitting a fluffy and crumbly butter potato. There was a crevice on it from the very start.

The inside of the stone on his palm was a treasure cave.

It was tightly packed with brightly shining, light blue crystals. Even though the stone was the color of dry sand on the outside. A spontaneous box of surprises that was. Upon a closer look, the stone’s center was hollow, and the crystals twinkled as if to enclose that empty spot. Was it a quartz? No, it was a different gem. I had never seen a quartz of that color before. Although there were light blue parts, there were mostly white ones. What was this thing?

“Richard, what’s this blue stone...?”

“Celestite. It seems it is also named ‘celestial blue stone’ in Japan. It splits easily, so be careful. Have you ever heard of the name ‘geode’? It is apparently called ‘druse’ here in Japan, and due to the work of hot water, the heart of the stone, unlike its outside, is a sparkling ‘mineral cave’. This phenomenon is not limited to just the celestite and also exists in geodes such as crystals and agates. How thoughtless I was back there. You would not know the true essence of this specimen unless I split it and showed it to you, right?”

I recalled the story of “Alibaba and the Forty Thieves” in my head. When Alibaba opened the cave with the words “open sesame”, the inside was a mountain of treasures. The person who had thought that story out might have been someone who was deeply moved when opening a geode.

Richard gave me one side of the split sample.

“There sure are some interesting stones in this world.”

“Your girlfriend knows better about these kinds of things, doesn’t she?”

“The ‘person I want to have as girlfriend’, you mean!”

“I am terribly sorry. I have been hearing this same correction for quite a long time, so I imagined it was about time for a change.”

“Young people are cautious these days.”

I became sullen and Richard laughed a little. Framed by golden eyelashes, his blue irises took on a gentle hue.

Huh? Speaking of which...

As I looked at Richard in the face with a questioning expression and went stiff, the unseen eyebrows of the beautiful jeweler furrowed slightly. I didn’t avoid his gaze at all, which resulted in him waving his hand a little, as if to ask me if I could see his eyes. I could, geez.

“Hey, what’s the name of this stone again? Cele...”

“‘Celestite’. The ‘celebs’ part has the meaning of ‘heaven’. The intention of the one who named it is obvious, isn’t it? You can feel the brilliance of clear blue skies from this stone formed under the ground.”

“Clear blue skies”. Indeed, that was the color of it. But...

“I know one thing other than the sky that looks just like it.”

“It is not coming to me. Is this something I know?”

“I think you definitely know.”

“What might it be?”

“Your eyes.”

As I said so, Richard’s blue eyes widened a little.

Thanks to myself getting used to foreign costumers in this store, I came to know that “blue eyes” were not all the same. The eye color of a customer who declared themself to have violet eyes was a mix of deep gray and blue, and there was also someone with irises so vivid that it looked like they had been painted all over with aqua-colored ink. Human eyes, just like garnets and tourmalines, were gemstones that bore all sorts of hues. Richard’s eyes were a light, grayish blue. That was a cold combination at first glance, but there was a subtle depth to it and it was gorgeous. The shade close to the center and the one of the surroundings was a bit different. Just like this celestite.

“I wonder if the person who gave it as an extra also thought about something like that.”

Richard fell silent. Ah. Ah~. Hm.

I knew nothing about the person who had added the extra stone, but if they had picked it and sent it to Richard with a serious intention, of course this jeweler who was by no means looking for a lover would get an iffy feeling out of it. All right.

“I got it. I’ll take it. It splits easily, right? I’ll be careful when putting it up for decoration. Thank you.”

As I held one side of the stone within a hand and reached out to get the other, Richard made a weird face for an instant. Eh? What? He seemed like he wanted so bad to push it onto me earlier. I froze in a half-sitting position. What should I do?

Richard opened his eyes with a serious look and spoke while staring at me, “Will you give this stone to someone?” He pronounced each word slowly.

What did he mean? For me to give it away? Didn’t sound like it. The tone of his voice was low. If he had something he wanted to say, he should do it in a way that was easier to understand. Which was it? Should I say I was gonna give it away? Should I say I wasn’t? Actually, what did I want to do by taking this stone with me?

Would I give to someone else, like Tanimoto-san, a stone that had Richard’s eye color?

“I don’t think so.”

I wouldn’t. I couldn’t explain the reason very well myself, though.

Richard seemed to smile faintly. “Is that so? Then...” Saying “keep them” in English, Richard put the other half on my hand.

That means “take them”. I get it. I’m accepting them with gratitude. But I want you to tell me what the heck that pause just now was. Was it nothing much? Or were you just spacing out again? Or maybe you have something that you’re tremendously worried about but can’t tell me?

Sorting out my thoughts, I tried to call out to Richard as he stood up, but he started talking to me instead, spoiling my start, “Right, right; here is one more trivia. Even if you just heard about celestite for the first time, are you familiar with strontium sulfate? It’s an ore that burns with very brightly colored flames and comes in handy as raw material for fireworks and stuff like that.”

“A stone can burn?! Then I gotta be careful about how to store it... No, it might happen even then.”

“Even if you are not so careful, it will not catch fire on its own. However...” Richard turned towards me as if tilting his head a little. Was he smiling? “If there comes a time someday when you cannot suppress your anger, breaking it or burning it might be, well, a good form of practical use.”

“Couldn’t suppress anger”? Before I could ask what he meant by that, Richard got up unexpectedly and disappeared into the kitchenette.

“Breaking a stone” - I couldn’t believe that those words had come from Richard.

After about five minutes, he came out and shut himself in the back room, then began talking in English on the phone.

When I looked at the kitchenette’s sink, I found one of my pudding bowls was empty. He could have eaten it while seated.

Once I was done washing the dishes and came back to the reception room, the half-split celestite geode lay on top of the glass table. Richard had told me to recite a spell when opening this stone into two. It was a silly association, but it would be great if the doors of his evasiveness could be opened with just one spell. I didn’t want to know all his secrets. Just him throwing his worries at me sometimes was enough. But even if I happened to open the cave of his heart, what was there in his intentions? Was it something okay for me to see?

“Well, that’s what I was wondering back then.”

“My deepest apologies...”

“See, I was wondering if there was something I could do for you, but I was a bit hesitant, asking myself whether or not you’d come at me for it, and I couldn’t bring myself to say that.”

“...for causing you such a terrible amount of trouble...”

“I was so uncertain.”

“...at that time.”

Like a bobblehead doll, the shop keeper repeatedly offered me words of apology. Just like them, my spiteful words had none of the sentiment in them at all. It was like a two-person comedy act with no audience. Telling funny stories for our own sake kind of gave me a bizarre feeling, but taking a step backward and thinking it over, it was quite enjoyable.

It would soon be Christmas season, and what triggered the reminiscent talk was that a client who made enormous purchases commented a single sentence about Richard’s eyes before she left: “their color is just like a celestite’s, huh”. But as we had no more time for weird chitchatting, I cut it short and went into the kitchenette. I had to leave the tea ready in advance. This shop was busy lately. It was great that business was doing well.

The celestite of back then was sitting inside the safe that we had bought just recently. Since that stone split and caught fire easily, it was probably more secure within a safe. Even if heaven and earth overturned, I didn’t think I would break or set fire to that stone, nor would I use any other method to take out on it. That much was certain.

Etranger was now in peace.

[drawing-way-outside-the-lines]

2, 5, 11, 15, 16, 18 aaand 31 for the story teller asks.

Gotta stop here before i send all of them xD

Oh man! :D Thank you so much! I'm very excited to answer these! :D 2. Describe your story in three words or less Chaotic.... but loving. Not that the story is written chaotically, cause I don't think it is, but I think from an outsiders perspective, specially considering I sorta started sharing the story publicly almost 300 chapters in, I'm sure it at times can seem rather chaotic? Or maybe I'm the chaotic one? 5. How do you choose your characters’ names? Hm... it's many different ways really. For the most part I recall a name I really like for whatever reason, or see a name somewhere in the passing, like a tv show or an online article? Sometimes I use Google, let's say I want a very "bohemian" type of name... I'd Google that, cause I know shit nothing about that. And for the McKinney's I Google a fair bit. They all have Irish/Scottish names (well 99% of them do) and since I'm not Irish/Scottish, and I don't want everyone to end up with the most mainstream names, well, Google is my friend. Also specifically for the McKinney's, their names are chosen because of their meaning. Raven's birth name is Brandubh, which essentially can be translated to little black raven. Ronan, his brother, means seal, and he is actually a key that can seal the doors of hell. Eonan is knight... he was a knight of hell. Aedan (Andy and Raven's son) is born of fire, Andy has a power to control/create fire, that not many knows about. The McKinney brother's fathers name is Alroy, which means red haired (cause he simply has red hair, *snort*) And I could keep going. But I'm sure I would bore everyone to death. Anyway, point is, all McKinney's have a name that has something to do with either their powers or their appearance. 11. Why have you decided to tell this story? are there any messages or meanings within it? First it never meant to be a story for anyone but myself. It started as an RP. But when the RP ended, I had all these characters with elaborate personalities, living and breathing inside me. It felt empty to just drop them there. So I continued writing the story for myself. It was never meant at first to continue for years, I actually continued with the thought that I'd maybe write 5-10 chapters or so, and simply writing an ending of the story. Yeah, that was at least 275+ chapters ago. The story fast became a way for me to live a life I had to at the same time face I could never live out in real life. So I suppose my decision to keep writing, was a way for me to pull through a lot of things, I'm not sure I otherwise would have been able to pull through. There are a lot of "hidden" messages and meanings in the story, but I wont sit here and spoil them all, it's up to the readers (now that the story is actually being posted... here <- to interpret it for themselves.) However, I'm always up for answering questions about it. What I can give you is the message of loving people for who they are, not what you want them to be. To love yourself, even if you aren't the version of you you wanted to be, you can still be a pretty rad person. A message that we can overcome much more than we believe, as long as we keep fighting. And last but not least, a message of never giving up, and following your dreams. And to never give up on love. But above all, the message is simply love. I chose to write a story that heavily weighs on love, simply for the fact that I more than ever, believe what we need most on this planet, is love. And lots more of it. A lot of our issues could be solved by simply loving each other more, and loving the planet we live on, before there's nothing left to love. It sounds cliche maybe, but it's my opinion, and you don't have to agree. 15. What have been the highlights of creating your story? Definitely getting to know everyone, watching their characters unfold and grow. It has kept me to my writing. Back in school, my Danish teacher told me to never give up on writing, cause in her words, I'm good at it. She told me to 'always write, whether I would be bubbly happy or breakingly sad, write

write write'. For many years after I finished school, I barely wrote at all, so I was insanely rusty when I picked writing back up. My story helped me with that, and I found my way back to writing. Another highlight is definitely all the hard times my story has gotten me through. Doesn't mean I am smooth sailing my way through life, but it keeps me from drowning completely, and that's something. I still need to make some major life changes, but till that's possible, I'm holding onto my story, and it keeps me above water. 16. What about the process do you enjoy? *Snort* I think if people has followed this blog more than a month, it's already clear I enjoy creating characters, and as a result post some of the most lengthy bio's on Tumblr. But I enjoy just as much to see the scenes unfold in front of me as I write, feeling the emotions of the characters, often so intensely that it affects my own mood. There's just something in it, that makes me feel like I'm a part of the story, like I'm literally in there. And that's enjoyable to escape into for a time. 18. Choose a song that reminds you of your story A? A song? Like in one? ONE song for a circa 300 chapters story??? How??? How do I cram such an elaborate and still growing story into ONE song??????? Ghost-boi.... pls.... I'll have to get back to you on that *goes into full on panic mode searching through albums in my head* 31. Drop some random trivia about your story Pffft.... First chapter that actually made it into the story (cause there were a couple loose ones before that, that never made it) was actually written under different names, as I was considering sharing it online, but didn't want to annoy my previous RP partner, so I changed everyone's names. Andy was Alexander. Congo was Connor. Evan was Ethan. And there you also have the original poly relationship, that ended up in so much more. Well.... at the very beginning of the story, Evan and Congo still wasn't dating, but it didn't take many chapters. Adrian was originally made as an attempt to create something different, look-wise. To get out of my comfort zone and play with new features. While making him, I sat there looking at his face thinking 'this is me'. I simply connected not only with his looks, but also the character I started seeing growing in front of me, so writing his bio was probably one of the easiest ever to write, and he was very easy to adapt as a main character in my story. He just swept his way in there like a cool breeze on a way too hot summers day and the main cast was like... keh... cool... So he actually sorta became the main focal point of the part of my story I am sharing on my story blog, where Andy is the main focal point of the main story. Akin, the Alpha wolf, was originally supposed to never be a fully developed character. He was "just" a doctor that popped by here and there, but the two readers of my story back then, liked him a lot, and started expressing seeing potential in him. So I started developing him. As I expressed how he looked (he was originally extremely tall and a bit like a rugby player) they strongly disagreed and told me he was definitely slender and with semi-long dreads XD And that made Akin look more or less like he does today <- About that song though... if I have to choose just one song for such a BIG story, I'd have to simply choose a love song. But not a sugary sweet one. A haunting, emotional, longing, breathtaking, yet deep, passionate and warm song. I'd go with <- Witch is also a song from the movie Romeo + Juliet, by amazing Baz Luhrman. So basically a story about teenage suicide. In that aspect it doesn't fit at all. But it was the first song that came to my mind.... Sooooo.... I'll quietly leave this as well, on the way out <- (which is probably a much better fit anyway, both regarding lyrics and music video) 

[hotpinkhoshi]

the pact (5)

pairing: jinyoung x reader

genre: romance, smut, a lil angst

warnings: explicit sex, cursing, unprotected sex, dirty talk, some secondhand embarrassment

word count: 6.8k

summary: you desperately need to get over your decade-long crush on lim jaebeom, and your close friend jinyoung needs to get over his ex—so the two of you make an arrangement: just sex, no feelings. what could go wrong?

a/n: hi loves! thank you as always for your kind and supportive messages regarding the last part! if you didn’t see my post, you can now track the tag #thepactfic in order to keep up with updates and future parts. that being said, i’ve officially decided the story will be a total of 6 parts. one more full part after this! please let me know how you’re liking it and if you have any thoughts, feelings, questions etc don’t be afraid to shoot me a message  ❤️

↳ index here

“I gotta be honest,” Jaebeom said, fingers tapping against the cafe table. “I was surprised to hear from you.” 

“Yeah,” you began, folding your hands on your lap and offering him a kind smile. “I- well, I wanted to apologize for leaving you hanging that night at the club…”

Even though he’d done it to you plenty of times. Texted you, asking what you were up to, until inevitably, he stopped responding a few messages in. Danced with you when you came to one of his DJing gigs only to leave with someone else. Even today, he’d shown up ten minutes late. It was about time somebody did the same to him. Still, you couldn’t help your conscience. 

Jaebeom shrugged. “That’s alright. Although I’m starting to think you’ve been avoiding me.” There was a playfulness to his tone, but you had a feeling it had been a shot to his pride. He wasn’t used to girls standing him up. 

“Maybe… a little. That’s actually why I wanted to meet you today.” 

It had been Sana’s idea, which surprised you both. She’d come home from trivia half an hour later than you the other night, knocking softly on the door to check if you were still awake. 

After a long talk, you finally admitted your feelings for Jinyoung to someone other than yourself. She didn’t reassure you that he felt the same way, because you both knew he probably didn’t. If Jinyoung said he was going to do something, he did it. 

You had no reason to think you were anything more than a friend to him now, with some added bonuses. 

She did say, however, that you needed to talk to Jaebeom. As much as she hated the way he treated you, you needed closure in order to completely close that chapter. You agreed, and here you were. 

You’d picked a very public place during your lunch break from work, just so that you didn’t feel tempted to fall into his trap again. The weird thing was, as he sat in front of you, something had changed. Your feelings for him lingered like an aftertaste, nowhere near as powerful as they had been even a month ago. 

It didn’t compare to the real thing, you realized. 

“I’m sure you know this,” you began, staring down at your fingernails, “but I’ve liked you for a long time. Like, a really long time. Since we were fourteen.”

“I know.” Jaebeom’s words made you finally look up, locking eyes with him. “I mean, you’re a lot of things, Y/N, but subtle is not one of them.” He smiled at you in the way that would’ve normally had your stomach fluttering. “That’s why I was so confused when you started blowing me off.”

“Yeah. I guess I just, I was tired of waiting for you to like me back. Because you never did, right? At least not the way I liked you. So I decided that it was time for me to move on, finally, and now…” you took a deep breath, feeling like you were talking more to yourself than to Jaebeom, “now I think I found someone that I really like. It feels different.” 

You paused to take in Jaebeom’s expression. He wasn’t hurt, but he seemed confused. He had every right to be. He probably thought you were a little bit crazy for sharing all of this, but you needed to get it off of your chest.

“I did like you, Y/N.” 

“You what?” you asked, blinking at him. “When?”

First Jinyoung, now this? You didn’t know how many more confessions you could take. 

Jaebeom shrugged, sipping from his espresso. “In high school. I mean, surely you could tell? I was always asking to borrow a pencil in math class… I figured you didn’t think I was that forgetful.” 

You remembered being tortured in that Calculus class. His seat was diagonally in front of you, allowing you the perfect view to his flawless profile for forty minutes every single day. Whenever he asked you for a pencil, you had to count to ten to stop thinking about his fingers brushing against yours. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t know.” 

“Well,” he said, his lips quirking up. “It’s true. But I liked a lot of girls—it was high school. I was going to ask you out after graduation, before you and Jinyoung went off to university. But Jinyoung flipped on me, telling me not to mess around with you, and not to ask you out unless I wanted it to last forever. Scared the shit out of me. So I backed off.” 

Suddenly your throat was bone dry, and the coffee wasn’t helping. It was a lot to digest, finding that Jaebeom had returned your feelings after all, if only for a few years. You and probably a dozen other girls. Still, you’d never thought you had a chance, especially not back then.

“Did Jinyoung ever talk about me?” you found yourself asking. It wouldn’t do you any good to find out just how deep his feelings for you ran, considering they were probably long gone, but the masochist in you wanted to know. For some reason, you cared more about that than Jaebeom’s former crush. 

Jaebeom barked out a laugh. “Did he? Fuck, he barely ever stopped. He had a thing for you, you know? I mean, he never told me outright, but I could tell. It pissed him off whenever he’d catch me staring down your shirt at lunch and he’d give me the cold shoulder for the next day and a half.”

How oblivious had you been in high school? You’d always been so busy reading and studying, maybe if you’d lifted your nose out of those books you would have noticed. You spent more time with Jinyoung than Jaebeom, but both boys were a part of your daily life. It had all been right under your nose. 

“Is it him?” Jaebeom asked after a moment of your silence. “The guy you like? I saw you leave with him that night, kinda figured maybe he’d finally grown some balls and gone for it with you.” 

“Y-yeah, actually.” You rubbed the back of your neck. That hollowness of your missed opportunity was still heavy in your chest. You missed him so much it hurt. 

Jaebeom nodded, tongue running over his teeth. “Well, good for him. It’s about time.” He didn’t seem jealous or bothered by the idea of you with Jinyoung, which just cemented what you already knew—his feelings were never as intense as yours. 

And whatever he had going on with that girl, the one from his bathroom mirror selfies, you just felt bad for her now. You weren’t jealous, you felt pity. Pity because she was probably a lot like you, expecting more from Jaebeom than he was ready to give. 

There was an unspoken tension between the two of you now, but you felt different… like you’d finally cut off that loose end that had been hanging around you for years. You looked at Jaebeom in front of you, the person you’d convinced yourself you were in love with, and all you could think about was Jinyoung. 

Jinyoung wouldn’t have been late. He would’ve been early, sat in a corner booth with coffee and your favorite blueberry muffin waiting. Maybe he would have teased you for making him wait, but he’d still let you have your muffin with a little convincing. 

You missed him so much. 

But you knew if you were going to get over Jinyoung, you at least needed to be finished with Jaebeom first. It was almost comical the way your timing always seemed to be wrong. Why couldn’t your heart just be on time for once?

“I should go,” you said finally, standing up. “Thanks for the coffee.” 

“No problem.” Jaebeom stood as well, digging in his pocket for cash to leave a tip on the table. “And Y/N?”

You raised your brows. “Yeah?”

“Tell Jinyoungie I said hi, and if he wants to catch up…” Jaebeom ran his fingers through his hair, one of his nervous habits. 

You smiled. “I will. I’ll see you around, okay? Take care of yourself, Jaebeom.” 

Jaebeom, despite everything, was not a bad man. Deep down, he was good, which was what had always made it so hard for you to leave him behind. You’d always think of the time he walked you home from school when your mom got stuck late at work, the summer he worked at the animal rescue shelter, the way he used to snort when he laughed at Jinyoung’s jokes, and a million more fragments of his soul he’d let you see over the years. 

But at the end of the day, he wasn’t the one for you. You’d spent so many years making excuses, covering your eyes when he showed you the parts that didn’t fit with your idea of him, but you were ready to see him as he was now. You hoped someday he would find happiness, love, and satisfaction. It just wouldn’t be with you. 

As you walked out of the cafe and the door clicked behind you, you felt that door in your heart finally slide closed. And it felt good. 

~~~

Three long days later, and Jinyoung was finally home. 

It killed you that you couldn’t see him right away. Right after he got home on Wednesday night, he’d passed out from jet lag and you’d had to work late the next night. His body was still adjusting and he’d gone to bed right about the same time you got home.

Your schedules lined up, at last, by Friday evening. Jinyoung had the rest of the week off after working through the weekend, but his sleep schedule was so backwards that he ended up sleeping through most of your waking hours. He was mostly adjusted by Friday, though, and you rushed over straight after work without even stopping for dinner. 

You’d decided that you needed to end it with Jinyoung. There had been rules, after all, to this pact you’d made. You’d broken one already, and in doing so, you’d broken another—honesty. But you knew you needed to see him one last time. Just for closure. Then you could move on. 

Jinyoung didn’t suspect anything, as far as you knew. You’d held up your promise to send him a picture every day, with varying degrees of naughtiness, and even FaceTimed a few times. The time difference made it difficult but… you’d managed. 

It was nothing compared to how he looked in the flesh, though. When he opened the door, you felt those damn butterflies wake up, low in your stomach. 

He didn’t look as tired as you thought he would. In fact, he looked pretty damn awake to you. 

You barely got inside before he was pushing you against the closed door, crowding you into the barrier with his own body. With his lips pressing into yours, he effectively had you trapped. 

But you didn’t mind. You’d missed this so much it only took you a split second before you wrapped your arms around him, relishing in the heat that came from his body. 

As soon as he parted from your lips, he trailed kisses down your neck to the collar of your work button-up. “Hi,” you breathed, digging your hands into his shoulder blades where you held him. 

“Hi,” he said into your skin, fingers already working at the buttons of your shirt. 

“How was your-“ your words were cut off by a groan as Jinyoung sucked at a particularly sensitive spot on your neck.

Jinyoung's response was a frustrated grunt as he fumbled with the plastic holding your shirt together, and all you could do was gasp when he tore the shirt open, buttons clinking to the floor. 

You stared at him with wide eyes, mouth gaping open. 

“I’ll buy you another one.” 

Without another word, he dove back in to your neck, lips nibbling and sucking at your flesh. You completely forgot about your ruined shirt when he began grinding his hips into yours, his hardness already pressing into your thigh. 

“Missed you… so much…” you whispered, threading your fingers through his hair and inhaling the scent of crisp summer fruit. “You smell so good. Is this shampoo new?”

“Stole some from the hotel,” he replied, punctuated by a bite to your neck that made you shiver. 

“All that…” You slid your hand down his body, fingertips brushing over his belt buckle until you were able to cup your hand over the obvious bulge in his pants, “hard work packing… and you still stole hotel toiletries.”

Jinyoung made a noise deep in his throat, almost a growl as you began massaging your palm against him, his face still buried in your neck. “Don’t tease. I’ve been hard since you said you were coming over.” 

You smirked, running your tongue over your lips. “I’ve been thinking about this since the moment you left, Jinyoung. Trust me, I’m not teasing.” 

Finally, Jinyoung pulled back enough to crush your lips together in a heated, messy kiss. You had missed his taste, the warmth of his mouth colliding with yours, the way he ran his tongue over your lip before he nipped it. 

Your hands quickly undid his belt and zipper, freeing him from his jeans just enough for you to wrap your hand around his member over the fabric of his briefs. He was hard as ever, pulsing slightly in your grip. 

As Jinyoung licked into your mouth, you began a slow pace massaging his cock, fingers following the outline pressed into your hand. You’d barely traced the length of him five times before he was moaning and rutting his hips into your hand. 

“Fuck,” he said, pulling back from your lips but keeping his forehead pressed into yours. 

You squeezed his length once, then twice, and felt Jinyoung’s cock pulse, even through the barrier of cotton. A feeling you usually only felt when he was inside of you. 

“Shit, no, no-“

Jinyoung inhaled sharply, fist coming up to slam into the wall next to your shoulder, trying to pull his hips from the contact of your hand. You barely realized what was happening until you looked at him to find his eyes squeezed shut, jaw slack as an orgasm wracked through him. 

You gulped, your hand slowly falling away once you were sure he’d come down from his high. Though when he opened his eyes, they were filled with regret and shame. 

“God, I’m sorry, I-“ he started, looking down at his crotch, then up at you. “I can’t believe I just…”

“You just came in your pants.”

It took just about everything in you to keep your face straight. He’d never come that fast, at least not with you. Jinyoung dropped his head onto your shoulder with a breathy laugh. 

“I’m so sorry.”

You bit back a giggle, sliding your arms around his waist, fingers sliding up the back of his black tee. “Jinyoung, it’s fine. We have all night, you know.” 

“Let me make it up to you,” he said, deep and low near your ear before he pulled away. His face was flushed from his orgasm, all the way to the tips of his ears. Just from the look in his eyes, you knew he had a plan. 

“Okay… what did you have in mind?” 

Instead of granting you an answer, he slid his hands up the curves of your waist, fingers dragging over the lace of your bra. He kept his eyes on you as he pushed your shirt off of your shoulders, just a useless scrap of fabric now that he’d ripped the buttons off. 

Then he dropped to his knees, fingertips trailing down your skin until they played with the waistband of your pants. You hoped he wouldn’t rip these—they’d been rather expensive. 

He took care with the button and zipper, seemingly reading your mind, then tugged the pants down your thighs to pool at your ankles. He removed one shoe, then the other, so that he could allow you to step out of your bottoms. This left you in just your panties and bra, which of course he’d seen you in before, dozens of times, but he was looking at you like you were brand new to him. 

“Open,” he told you, scooting close until his face was level with your hips. You obeyed easily, earning you a cocky smirk. “Good girl.” 

Your head fell back against the door as you stared down at Jinyoung. He’d gone from bashful and embarrassed to this, heating you from the inside out, all with just his gaze. 

As always, he didn’t give you what you wanted straight away. He brushed his lips over the sensitive skin of your stomach, kissing every curve and line, even those spots you hated to see in the mirror. He’d made you forget all about that, only focused on feeling. 

You shivered as his breath fanned over your skin and goosebumps rose on your arms. His lips traveled down to your thighs, skipping over your center because of course, he needed to keep you on your toes. 

“Jinyoung…” you whined, your hands resting on his shoulders. “Please.”

He looked up, mouth still pressing into your inner thigh, and he smiled. He loved to have you like this, and you couldn’t deny your favorite place to be was wrapped around his finger. 

“Hm.. please what?” he challenged, now teasing the waistband of your panties with his fingers. “What do you want me to do?”

You huffed out a breath. “Jinyoung,“ you complained, “eat me out before I go insane.” 

Jinyoung made you wait only a few more torturous moments before he slid the lacy garment down your thighs to your knees, eyes glued to your center as soon as it was revealed to him. He had the nerve to lick his lips. 

“Pretty,” he muttered, placing his thumbs on either side of your folds to open you up for him. He leaned in, hot breath against your clit just before he latched on.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t touched yourself since he’d been gone—hell, he’d been the one to bring you to orgasm twice thanks to FaceTime—but it wasn’t even in the same league as Jinyoung’s mouth on you. 

One second, you felt like you had all the power, the next, he had you practically melting into the door, grabbing his hair and begging for more. The harder he worked into your clit, the more you arched your hips towards him, desperate and whimpering. 

Jinyoung knew all of your spots and it turned out, he wasn’t the only one that had trouble keeping his orgasm at bay. You felt the familiar waves of heat surging through your body as his tongue flicked back and forth over your clit, a quick and powerful pace that sent you barreling towards your climax. 

You cried out as you came. Core clenching around nothing, you jerked your hips into his face, completely overwhelmed with bliss. Jinyoung was good to you, licking and sucking until you calmed under his touch. 

Unable to hold yourself up with shaky knees, you slid down the door until you were sitting, level with Jinyoung. You let him take you into his arms, kissing the side of your face and stroking your back. 

“What are we, teenagers?” you asked once your body stopped twitching from the aftershocks of your orgasm. 

Jinyoung chuckled softly, pulling back to look at you and smoothing his thumb over your cheek. “Feels like it.”

Now that you weren’t quite so consumed by lust, you were able to appreciate him up close, for the first time since his trip. He must have gotten some sun, judging by the slightly darkened tone of his skin. There were no bags under his eyes, not like you would’ve had if you flew across the world. He looked even better than the last time you’d seen him, which was almost infuriating. 

Just as you were going to scold him for being so handsome, your stomach growled, loud enough for both of you to hear. Jinyoung glanced down, then back up at you, an amused smile on his lips. 

“Hungry?” 

Your cheeks flushed pink and you nodded. “Maybe a little.” 

Jinyoung nodded back at his kitchen and shrugged. “How about takeout? I don’t really have anything in the fridge, still need to hit the store.” 

“Sounds perfect,” you answered. “But we both need new clothes first.” 

----

An hour later, you were dressed in a pair of Jinyoung’s sweatpants and one of his shirts, and he was dressed in a similarly comfortable outfit. He sat next to you on the couch, slurping on ramen. 

You’d ordered enough food for ten people, you realized, after you covered his coffee table with plates and containers that you each picked from. 

“So what you’re saying is everyone loved you,” you said, wiping at your mouth with your napkin. 

Jinyoung chuckled, shaking his head. “Not necessarily. But you know, the girls especially were very interested in our company. One of the convention center employees kept fawning over me. Julie, I think her name was…”

You narrowed your eyes. “Oh, really? Julie?” You pressed your lips together, grumbling to yourself as you reached for the pork belly. “Stupid name.” 

Jinyoung watched you with an amused smile, setting his ramen down on the coffee table to wrap an arm around your waist. “Are you jealous?” 

You ignored him, shoveling a piece of pork into your mouth, looking anywhere but his face. He took the plate out of your hands, setting it down on the table. You whined in protest, mouth full of food. 

“You don’t have any reason to be jealous.” 

He was right--you didn’t. He wasn’t yours, you didn’t have any sort of claim on him. He could’ve taken Julie back to his hotel room if he’d wanted to, and you wouldn’t have had any good reason to be upset. 

“You’re the only one I thought about,” he said, lips brushing the side of your jaw. 

Why did he have to make it so hard, saying things like that? He thought about you, but not like that. He thought about your body, about the sex, but that was all this was. 

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him you wanted to talk about your arrangement, when he beat you to it. 

“That reminds me, actually, I have something for you.” With a quick kiss to your cheek, he stood from the couch and jogged out of the living room towards his room. 

You sighed, head falling back against the couch cushion. You needed to let this go, and you needed to do it now. You could feel yourself falling for him the more that he looked at you, touched you, kissed you. Soon you’d be in a hole you wouldn’t be able to dig yourself out of. 

When Jinyoung came back and sat next to you, he placed a book in your lap. It took you all of three seconds to recognize it, and you were glad you no longer had food in your mouth or you would have choked. 

“You didn’t!” you gasped, grabbing for the book and flipping it back and forth. “This doesn’t come out for another six months!” 

Jinyoung shrugged. “Well, they had some advanced copies lying around and I thought you’d kill me if I didn’t steal one for you.” 

“Yeah, I would have.” 

You’d talked about this book no less than twenty times in Jinyoung’s presence. It wasn’t his cup of tea, but you’d practically been counting down the days for this particular novel, a follow-up to a thriller you’d flown through as soon as it came out last year. 

“Thank you,” you told him, finally looking away from the book in your hands to Jinyoung’s face. He was watching you, corner of his lips quirked. 

“You’re welcome.” 

You stared back down at the book, running your fingers over the cover. Although he hadn’t paid a cent for this, it was one of the best surprises you’d ever received. Your fingers were itching to open it and dive in. 

“You want to start reading it now, don’t you?” 

Giving him a sheepish smile, you nodded. “Yeah.” 

Jinyoung shrugged. “You can. I’ve got plenty that I need to read, I’ll join you.” 

Half an hour later, the two of you were still on the couch, but you were laying with your head at one end and your feet on Jinyoung’s lap at the other end. He had a book resting on top of your ankles and you were already three chapters into your new book. 

You normally hated reading around people, too easily distracted just by the presence of another person, but this felt so natural. You wondered if you’d be able to go back to normal again, after you ended it. 

You’d find a way to live without the affection he’d given you. After all, it hadn’t been real. Your arrangement had served its purpose—you could finally say you were over Jaebeom, and as far as you knew, Jinyoung was over Yeri. He never talked about her, but he didn’t seem particularly torn up over her anymore. 

You wiggled your toes when Jinyoung began running his fingertips over the top of your foot to your ankle, then back again, just a mindless graze over your skin. You looked up over the top of your book, watching the way his eyes followed the words on the page he was reading, brows together in concentration. 

Someday, some other girl would be the one to see him like this, reading on the couch in the evening light while surrounded by greasy takeout. You hoped this girl would love him the way he deserved and wouldn’t take it for granted like Yeri obviously had. 

You stared back down at your book once Jinyoung caught you staring and pretended as if you’d just been spacing out, taking your bottom lip in between your teeth. 

“What are you thinking?” Jinyoung asked. 

“Huh?” You looked up, shaking your head. “Nothing. Why?” 

“You look sad.” He set his book down on his lap, resting both of his hands on your shins. “What are you thinking about?” 

“Nothing,” you said once more. If this was your last night with Jinyoung, you weren’t going to waste it wallowing and thinking about the end. You could pretend, just for the night, that this was real. “Just a sad part in the book.” 

“Already?” 

You nodded. “Could use a kiss.” 

Jinyoung pressed his lips together, considering it. “Huh... that’s an interesting suggestion. You think it’d make you less sad?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Ah,” he nodded, stroking the exposed skin of your ankle with his thumb, “It’s worth a try, then.” 

In an easy movement, he was shifting your legs off of his lap and crawling over you until he hovered over your body. You’d missed having his weight on you like this—you always felt so safe underneath of him. 

“I missed you,” you admitted, once his lips were only a centimeter from yours. “Not just the sex. I missed you.”

Jinyoung shifted back enough to look at your face, his eyes searching your features for something, you weren’t sure what. “Yeah? I missed you too.” 

You slid your hands up the fabric of his shirt, grazing over the warm skin of his back. You wanted to say something, anything, but all you could think about was how somehow, your heart had become entirely his.

You needed to show him, just once, how you felt. 

So you tipped your head up to kiss him, as softly as you ever had. Kissed him with all the love you could muster, as scary as it was to let it pour out. 

Jinyoung was gentle with you in return, his soft, polite lips melting into yours. It was almost tragic how well your lips fit together, knowing you’d never feel it again after tonight. 

Your hands trailed up his back, pushing his tee up to his shoulders in the process. Jinyoung sat up, parting from your lips just long enough to remove his shirt. 

Then he was kissing you again, hand resting on your jaw as his tongue pushed past your lips. You moaned, savoring the taste of him, even if the kiss tasted a little bit like cheap takeout. 

“Wait, wait,” Jinyoung said against your lips as soon as you made a move to push down his sweatpants. “Let’s go to the bedroom. Wanna spread you out.”

You shivered at his words and nodded, letting him pull you up off the couch by the hand and lead you back to the bedroom. 

It was much neater than it was the last time you’d seen it. In fact, it was spotless as ever. No suitcases lying on the ground or shampoo bottles littering the bed. 

Jinyoung removed your shirt the proper way this time, then unclasped your bra a moment later to allow it to fall to the floor. Goosebumps covered your chest but the pure heat in Jinyoung’s gaze got your blood pumping faster, hotter. 

He lifted you without much warning, guiding your legs around his waist as he carried you the rest of the way into his room, falling onto the bed with you trapped underneath of him. You squeezed your legs around his waist, desperate for some contact between your thighs. 

“So… god damn beautiful,” Jinyoung whispered, placing a chaste kiss to your lips before he brushed soft kisses across your face. Your forehead, each cheek, then your nose. It crinkled in response, and you were blessed with a fond smile from Jinyoung. 

The rest of your clothes seemed to fall away, an act that had become as natural as breathing for the two of you. Jinyoung whispered words of praise as he moved down your body, hooking a leg over his shoulder. 

His tongue found your clit naturally, delving deep into your folds to taste the arousal that had gathered there. With each gasp and moan, he worked harder, wanting you needy and wet for him. 

You felt around for his hands, needing something to anchor you to earth while he sucked at your clit for the second time that night, the pressure just enough to drive you mad. 

“Oh, fuck—Jinyoung, right there. Feels so good.” Your hips rolled, matching the rhythm of the heavenly way he was licking into you. 

He moaned into your core, the vibration like a shock of electricity against your clit. Your hips jerked up towards his face and he squeezed your hands, as if telling you to let go. 

Jinyoung brought you over the edge for the second time that night, your thighs clenching around his shoulders as you repeated his name, over and over. 

Your whole body went limp afterwards, only vaguely registering Jinyoung kissing your skin, nuzzling his face into your thighs. 

“Perfect. You don’t even know how stunning you are, like you were made for me,” he spoke against your skin, thumbs stroking the backs of your hands. 

When you recovered enough to open your eyes, you tugged Jinyoung’s hands until he got the hint, crawling back up your body. His lips were on you again in an instant, tongue tasting and exploring like it was the first time. 

Just tonight, you told yourself. Just tonight. 

Jinyoung parted from you after a moment, dipping his head down to leave hot kisses across your chest. Your hands pushed into his hair, moaning out when he sucked one of your nipples into his mouth.

You arched your back as his tongue drew tight circles around the hardened peak, shameless moans and whimpers falling from your lips. 

“Jinyoung, please,” you begged, tugging at the locks of hair between your fingers. “Need you inside.”

Then he looked at you again in a way that made your heart clench. It was only because he was lost in the moment, nothing more. But it felt like he was looking deeper, right into the center of your heart to see the truth there. 

“Y/N…” he started, bringing a hand to the side of your face. His fingertips ran down your cheek to your chin, where he pressed the pad of his thumb into your lower lip. Something about it made you want to cry. 

So you cut off whatever he wanted to say with a kiss, a bruising pressure that you hoped let him know that this was the only place you wanted to be. Here, underneath of his body, you couldn’t imagine anything better. 

It was easy, automatic, the way he angled your knee so that he could sheathe himself inside of you. Slowly, inch by inch, you accepted him. Your walls were slick and ready for him, but it was still a stretch that you’d missed.

“Shit,” Jinyoung whispered against your lips, finally pulling back and taking a deep inhale. “You feel so perfect.” 

You groaned as he bottomed out, burying your face into his neck. You whispered his name if only because it was the only thing you could think as he started rocking his hips into yours, a deep but unbearably slow pace. But this was what you wanted; you needed it to last. Forever, if it could. 

You felt so vulnerable now, knowing that this was it. Jinyoung didn’t know that, and maybe that wasn’t fair, but you couldn’t keep it up. You couldn’t fall more and more in love with him every day, and only get this part of him. There would come a day where you couldn’t take it anymore, and by that point the damage might be too painful to reverse. 

It was better to end it now. But for tonight, you’d take as much as you could. 

Jinyoung began a consistent but torturous pace, the tip of his cock reaching as deep inside of you as you’d ever felt him each time he pushed inside, past the tight resistance of your walls. His free hand trailed down your body, fingertips ghosting southbound over the center of your chest. 

This was all you wanted, all you needed. 

“Please,” you found yourself pleading. Your nails traced angry marks down his back, marks you wanted to remain there forever if only so that he would think about you when this was all over. “Jinyoung…” 

“I’m right here, angel.” His lips found your ear and he kissed the sensitive spot underneath, letting you hear the breathy pants falling from his lips as he picked up the pace of his hips. His hand drifted over, only a few inches, until it was covering your heart.

“Yours,” you whispered, practically inaudible, half hoping he didn’t hear. It was his, it had been for longer than you knew. 

Something about this egged Jinyoung on, his pace growing stronger inside of you and his hips pinning you into the bed roughly. Without any warning, Jinyoung rolled the two of you over so that he was underneath of you and sat up. 

You maneuvered your legs to allow you to kneel over his lap, your thighs straddling his hips and hardly missing a beat as you began to ride him. When you stole a glance at Jinyoung’s face, you wished you could have taken a photo. 

He was completely blissed out, head tipped back and eyes squeezed shut. You reached for his hair, guiding his head forward so that you could look at him. You needed to see him. 

Jinyoung held your hips as you placed your hands on his chest, allowing yourself some leverage, especially when he started to buck up against you each time you slid back over him. You dug your nails into his chest and moaned out, louder and louder as he fucked into you. 

“Look at me,” you said, commanding his attention back to your face. You were met with so much lust that it made your walls clench around him. 

The way he looked at you sent heat through your limbs, even as your thighs started to shake from the way you rode him. Jinyoung touched you all over, hands roaming your back and down to your ass, squeezing it within his palms. 

“Oh God, don’t… don’t stop,” you pleaded, head falling forward to rest against his forehead. You looked into his eyes, clouded with desire. Jinyoung reached for your hand on his chest, sliding it over the few inches until it rested over the left side of his chest, right over his heart. 

“Yours,” he whispered, then brought your hand up to his lips to kiss your fingertips. 

You closed your eyes and felt a tear slide down your cheek, so you turned your head to the side so he wouldn’t see. He didn’t know what he was saying, he didn’t know what it meant. Caught up in the ecstacy of the way your bodies moved together, the pleasure it brought the two of you. 

His hips jerked up, hard, forcing his cock deep against your inner walls. He did it again and again until you were squeezing his hand, tight enough to hurt, but you needed your release. You were desperate now. 

The complicated tornado of emotions inside of you was getting to be too much, you wanted it to be over. You needed it to be over, so you could figure out what the hell you were going to do. 

“Need more. Fuck me, Jinyoung. Please,” you whispered, deliberately squeezing your walls around his cock. He groaned low, wrapping his arms around your waist to tip the two of you forward until you were on your back again, knees locked around his waist. 

His hands found yours, lacing your fingers together as he held your arms above your head, pressed deep into the mattress as he drilled into you. “Mine,” he told you, eyes locked onto yours. He didn’t know just how true that was. 

You knew you were close by the way your thighs started trembling, tightening where they rested on either side of his hips. Jinyoung sensed it as well, picking up his pace. His jaw tightened with the effort, a bead of sweat dripping down his neck. 

“Oh fuck, you gonna come for me?” he asked, running his tongue over his lips. “Come on, baby, come for me again. Need to feel you.” 

His words went straight to your center, where his body met yours, sending you tipping over the edge. You arched your back, not caring how loud you cried out. Your hands tightened around his as your entire body pulsed around him, locking your legs around his waist. 

Jinyoung must have been encouraged on by your orgasm, as you felt his thrusts become more and more off rhythm. He let go of your hands and buried his face into your neck as he filled you up, letting out a guttural groan into your collarbone. 

You crossed your ankles behind his back, not ready to let him pull out of you just yet. With your arms and legs wrapped around him, you tucked your face into the crook of his neck and willed yourself not to cry. 

It’d be okay, you knew it would be, but right now you just needed him to hold you. You’d find a way to forget this someday, the perfect way he fit inside of you, the way he made your heart pound without even trying. 

Your efforts were unsuccessful. Once Jinyoung pulled away, he reached up to wipe wetness from your cheeks. “Did you miss me that much, angel?” 

“Shut up,” you said, averting your eyes. “My period must be coming… hormones or whatever…”

“It’s okay,” he told you, lips brushing across your cheek to collect your tears. “You don’t have to explain.”

Jinyoung left you with a hollow feeling as he pulled out of you, falling to lay on his side next to you, feet at the pillows. Propping up on one of his elbows, he brushed your hair away from your face. 

“You’re okay though, right?” 

You nodded, not having the confidence to answer out loud. But he backed off, though you could tell from his expression he didn’t completely believe you. With a kiss to your forehead, he climbed off of the bed to grab a cloth to clean you up. 

“Wait-” you reached out for him. “Stay.” 

“Gotta get you cleaned up,” Jinyoung replied, the corner of his lips lifting in a smile.

“Just-” you sighed, reaching for his arm to tug him back to you. “Just a few minutes. Please?” 

Jinyoung stared down at you, you knew he was trying to read your expression but you prayed that he wouldn’t find the truth there in your features. “Okay.” 

He laid back down, pulling you close as you curled up into him, soaking up all of the warmth he could offer to you. You tucked your head into his chest, eyes closed to keep your emotions trapped behind a wall, however shaky it may have been. 

Just tonight, you told yourself. Just tonight, you could pretend. 

[lovelyirony]

@ad1thi​ asked for nat singing ‘girls’ by girl in red every time sharon walked past her. and...well...who’s gonna stop me? i tweaked the prompt a bit, hope you don’t mind...

Because Natasha teaches advanced Russian classes, she usually doesn’t get to see most professors outside of the classroom, if that. She sees the teachers from her department: Tony for Spanish (and Italian, because he’s a try-hard), and Clint for ASL.

Usually, the conversation is about what students email too much, where to go for after-work drinks, and which person forgot to lock their office door, because Clint can and will steal your best pens.

But this time, Tony is hopping on his heels.

“We have a new Kinesiology professor,” he says, grinning.

“And I care...why?” Nat questions, eyebrow raised. “It doesn’t really have anything to do with us.”

“Well not for me, but for you it does,” Tony says, his eyebrows wiggling. “She’s cute. Here’s her profile, look!”

Natasha is surprised.

She’s...exactly her type. The sweet type, funny, and it looks like she’s excited to start at this new job.

She’ll need friends, obviously.

And Natasha can sort of...figure her out. Read her, see if there’s anything in the cards for a girlfriend.

-

Sharon is absolutely excited for this new offer. The last job had been good and fun, but...just not the right environment. Her friend Sam had promised to help her get settled and show her the sights and tell her the references that students say when it comes to restaurants or coffee shops.

What she wasn’t expecting was to see a woman who was probably the most beautiful person she’d ever seen in her life standing at the top of the classroom.

“Can I help you?” Sharon asks, gathering her bag and her jacket.

“Just with your name,” she says with a grin. “I’m Natasha, I teach Russian. I heard we had a new kinesiology professor in town.”

“And how’d you hear that?” Sharon asks. Natasha just continues down the stairs, still smiling.

“A little birdie named Tony. You’ll get to know him soon. I figured you’d want at least one more person to know around here.”

“That’s always helpful,” Sharon says. “I’m Sharon, nice to meet you, Natasha.”

“Likewise,” Natasha says, looking around the classroom. “How are you liking it so far?”

“It’s really nice,” Sharon says. “The campus is beautiful, and Sam Wilson-do you know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“He’s been helping me around, been a real sweetheart.”

“He always is,” Natasha says, grinning. “But here, give me your phone. If you ever need someone else to show you around or you’re just bored, feel free to text or call.”

Sharon takes the proffered phone, smiling a bit as she types in her number and sends a quick text to herself.

“I’ll see you around, I’m sure,” she says, and Natasha nods.

“Hopefully, yes.”

-

Natasha has a problem.

She doesn’t really know how to flirt that much.

Or, at least, get close to Sharon.

They’re in different departments, and all the way across campus from each other. Sure, there will be the staff get-togethers, but those are public. She also doesn’t know if Sharon even likes women.

They text occasionally, and she’s found out that Sharon now positively adores the little cafe down the road, but other than that she has no leads to go on.

-

“Why don’t you just ask your students?” Bruce says as he’s laying on her couch.

“What.”

Bruce gets up from his reclined position, leaning on one elbow.

“Ask your students. I had to ask them when Thor wouldn’t stop barging into my classes to ‘learn for free.’ They know a lot more than you think they know.”

“One of my students misspelled his own name,” Natasha deadpans. “I doubt that’d be of any help. Besides, I don’t think I’m the type to...ask them for advice.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” Bruce says with a shrug. “I had one student email me because she was concerned that I didn’t know that Thor liked me, and she was right! Just reinforce the fact that they can email you.”

“They don’t,” Natasha says. “They ask questions in class, or they attend office hours. I don’t like to answer emails.”

“You amaze me,” Bruce says, getting up. “I gotta get going, it’s late.”

“It’s eight-twenty p.m.”

“Like I said, it’s late. Good luck with your lady-love-problem!”

-

She asks Tony for help next.

Tony cackles in her face.

“No,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Because you are hilariously out of your depth for once, and so I get to make fun of you because you made fun of me for acting desperate around Rhodey.”

“I was right, and I don’t regret it,” Natasha says. “I’ll ask Sam.”

-

Sam just shrugs.

“Why not just ask her?”

“I can’t just do things like that,” Natasha hisses. “We don’t even know each other that well!”

“Then get to that level,” Sam says. “Ask her to walk in the park or something! Be her friend first, idiot.”

“Don’t you dare call me an idiot when you and Barnes’ version of flirting is threatening to not buy the other’s cereal at the grocery store.”

“I’m going to pretend like I didn’t hear that,” Sam says, waving his hand. “Go be friends, loser.”

-

Friends is easy. She can do friends. She will just ignore the fact that Sharon is gorgeous and cool and funny and easily a crush.

She can do that.

-

It goes...well. She asks Sharon if she wants to come with a group of her friends to trivia night.

“Are you sure?” Sharon asks over the phone. “I don’t want to intrude on your friends night...”

“You are a friend,” Natasha says.

“Aw, you sap,” Sharon teases. “What kind of trivia are we doing?”

“They’re trying to get us professors in on the lingo of modern students,” Nat says. “I’m going to try my best.”

-

Sharon looks like a dream in casual jean shorts, a worn t-shirt, and low heels.

“Is this too much?”

“You look fantastic,” Natasha promises. “Trust me. How’s your day been?”

“Better now that I have plans,” Sharon says, getting into the car. “Where’s trivia?”

“A teacher-exclusive bar,” she responds. “My friend Pepper is a marketing professor, and so she’s been working for years to keep students away from here. She’s done wonders.”

Sharon laughs, and it’s the best sound.

-

Modern Student Knowledge: Nat knows none of it.

But.

There’s an interesting question.

She’s read about violets and "Friend of Dorothy” and all of the questions and hints that people have used.

“girl in red” is a new one.

“It’s a music thing, I think,” Maria says. “One of my students asked another student that. I was trying to figure it out.”

After the answer is revealed, Sharon’s tapping away on her phone.

“Oh, gay music!” she says brightening. “This looks good.”

Natasha’s heart rises.

-

She drops off Sharon and does not watch her go up the stairs, and then she drives to her own apartment and opens up her laptop.

Ignoring the three emails from campus that came over the last two hours, she googles the band.

It’s stuff she would definitely have wanted to listen to when she was that age.

It might be subtle enough, maybe, if she could reference it around Sharon. She had looked at the lyrics after all. It would be obvious if she had known about the lyrics, but not if she had just skimmed to see more about the answer.

-

Natasha starts off humming. She’ll do it in the sort of out-of-sorts way that one does when they are doing the mundane things, like dishes or laundry or grading papers.

On occasion, Sharon will invite Nat over for a “grading session” which essentially means idly grading papers while having glasses of wine.

(Sharon looks pretty with red cheeks. Natasha never gets drunk enough to tell her.)

But she hums it as she’s writing out another critique on a student’s spelling of the word “chicken.”

“What are you humming?” Sharon asks, and Natasha clicks her pen.

“I, um. I looked up that one ‘girl in red’ music thing from trivia night. I like their stuff.”

“I’ll have to give it a listen,” Sharon says softly. Natasha looks up, and she doesn’t know what Sharon is thinking.

“You’d like it, I think.”

“Oh yeah? And why is that?”

“Good vibes,” Natasha answers, because it’s not like you can say “because you’re hot and so are women in general.” It just simply isn’t done.

-

The lyrics start a little bit after Christmas break begins. Natasha doesn’t really celebrate the holiday, although her birthday is close by. She doesn’t necessarily like saying this, although Sharon wants to know.

“Why?” Natasha asks.

“Well obviously you get people you care about a gift,” Sharon says, as if she’s stated the most casual thing in the world. (Her heart races.) “So, what gifts are you looking at?”

“I, um. I don’t really think about gifts.”

What she wants to say: I would like a Birthday Date. Or a kiss. Whatever I can get.

She doesn’t know what to answer.

“Well then, it means you’ll be surprised,” Sharon says with a wink.

They hang out and go Christmas shopping together for other people. They both agree that they need to really hunt for Bucky and Sam, who surprisingly are the hardest to shop for.

They’re in a store when the song actually comes on. Natasha grins as she sings it off and on, and doesn’t exactly see Sharon staring at her.

-

Even when Sharon isn’t there, Natasha will off-handedly sing the tunes when she’s cooking or cleaning or doing things around the apartment.

She doesn’t hear Sharon come in as she’s washing her dishes.

“They’re so pretty, it hurts, I’m not talking about boys, I’m talking about girls,” Natasha sings, and when she turns Sharon’s looking at her with a fond look.

She jumps about two feet in the air.

“Holy shit, I didn’t know you were here!” she says, holding her chest. “Oh my god, you were quiet.”

“I like the song choice,” Sharon says. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“Oh?” Natasha asks. “Any particular reason?”

“Well, I do happen to like girls, you know,” Sharon says, words seeming almost careful.

“Me too,” Natasha says carefully, looking into Sharon’s eyes.

“I brought you your gift,” Sharon says, holding out a box that’s been tried to be wrapped beautifully, but has not been at the very end. (Too much tape.)

Natasha still unwraps it carefully.

Inside is a Halloween mug, a tube of the darkest red lipstick Nat’s ever seen, and a gift-card to their favorite coffee shop.

“This is too kind,” Natasha murmurs, lifting them out of their paper. “How’d you know that I liked this kind of lipstick?”  

“I had some help from Maria and Pep,” Sharon says. “But...I like that color too.”

Natasha looks at her for a moment.

“Sharon, you know what else would be nice for a birthday?”

“And what is that?” Sharon asks, grinning. “A nice dinner?”

“With the most attractive girl in town, if I can swing it,” Natasha says, grinning. “I’ll wear my lipstick out, we’ll take it for a test run.”

Sharon smiles back.

“You can be my girl in red, then.”

“I’d be glad to,” Natasha says. “Dinner tonight at six?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Their dinner goes smoothly. Their night even better. They find out that Sharon looks good with the red lipstick, although it’s rather hard to get off with just water and soap. (Nat ran out of make-up remover.)

[missbeautyandherbeast]

Night Moves

Raphael X Biker!Reader

Part One

Summary: Rain prevents you from riding the next few days and you’re growing restless. You wanted to ride. You wanted... to see him. You missed him against your better judgement. But what was wrong with missing him? Nothing at all. What happens when he misses you too?

A/N: As requested a Part Two to Midnight Rider!! I loved the responses on it and I wanted to thank you all for such positive feedback. Here’s something a bit softer and cozy for the hard times. Let me know if you want another part and what you think of this one!! I love you guys! ((P.S. I just finished my last paper-a twelve page research paper-for the semester so now I have more time for creative writing!!))

Bob Seger Vinyl Ft. in this Fic

Tags: @brightlotusmoon @boatloadsofheart @legandarybeauty @crazywritingbug @bitch-kms @ravn-87 @just-a-casual-fangirl-011 @unicornjoos @stuckoutsideofthebox @ilikestuffproductions @whygz @coffee-addicti @sugarspooks15@leslieebee@serperiorkb@blossom-skies@fantastical-67impala-fangirl@coresan @big-banging-red @iceprincess2019 @raphaeladdict @thirstyforvenom @merindagriese @depressedemo-152 @bengewatch @corabmarie @bitemebro522 @tmnt-queen @muleka-loka @violet-sky-96 @curadopordeus @artemismohr18 @thewhisperpen @xjupitermoonsx @bisexualbumblebeesstuff @merindagriese@oceans-daughter-3 @dixonreedusfangirlforever @shanidenise @thegayestfish441 @lovelyyroseee @yourlieberhoe @dolphincommander @molzies-fanfics @fuzzy-panda​ 

Rain pattered against my window as the sun went down leaving New York in total darkness. I sighed and wished for sunshine or a clear night when I could ride again. When I could see him again. It had been a few days of constant rain and I was becoming stir crazy. But I wasn’t stupid enough to go riding in the rain. It wasn’t worth the risk.

I stared out my opened window and watched the raindrops race against each other. Curling up in a large sweater with a cup of tea, I settled down for the night.

A dark form in front of my window made me jump and curse, adrenaline racing. Then I realized who blocked my window. It was my daredevil rider.

I pushed the window open, throwing my hands up in dismay.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I scolded. “It’s raining, it’s not safe to be out there,”

“I had to see you,” Raph admitted sheepish as he ducked in through my window.

I headed to my small bathroom and threw him a towel or two to dry off, turning a light on in my wake. The gentle fairy lights glowed with the candles it accompanied.

“Gotta say, didn’t think your place would look like this...” Raph trailed off, his eyes taking in my studio apartment. “It’s so... cozy,”

“Thank you,” I smiled and stood by his side admiring my handiwork with him. 

I had made it cozy. My solace. My safe space.

“How’s your shoulder?” I asked, picking up my mug of tea.

“Fine,” He replied a bit too quickly.

“Well, you’re welcome to come and hang out... if that’s what this is.” I gave him a dopey smile. “I can make tea for you if you want.”

Raph stared at me like I had two heads.

___________________________________

“Not what you were expecting?” A smile played at her lips as she curled up in an armchair. 

“Not at all,” Raph muttered.

In his head he had this version of her.

Y/n. Her name forever engraved into his mind.

She was strong, confident, badass. She took no prisoners and always knew what to say. But this?

She was soft, and gentle, and he had seen it the other night in her concern. But what he saw before him, he wouldn’t have imagined. She was kind, and soft behind all of the edge and angst she gave off.

He almost loved it more, knowing that she offered both in who she was.

Y/n,

“So, what brought you around?” She mused, tucking herself under an afghan.

“It’s been raining, I haven’t seen you in a while,” He admitted again, taking a spot on her rug leaning against her couch.

A smile played at her lips and in the soft light, she was just as beautiful as she was in leather on a motorcycle. She didn’t make fun of him either, His brothers did. They thought it was ridiculous that he went to find her. Leo ordered against it. As if.

He had grown bored again with the rain coming down and he wanted to see her. 

“You haven’t been riding have you?” She asked, concern coloring her voice. 

“No,” It was the truth.

Mainly because he knew that if she found out, she’d have his ass for sure.

“Good,” She seemed pleased.

 ______________________________

Knowing sleeping had left my short-term plans, I uncurled from my chair and headed over to my record player and started the Bob Seger vinyl that I didn’t put away from earlier.

“You’re a classics fan?” He mused as the music started

“My mom was... I picked it up from her,” I admitted. “Now that I’m up do you want that tea?”

I made my way to the kitchen despite his answer and began to make another cup.

“You like classic rock then?” I asked back, leaning against the counter.

He had shifted so that he could still see me from my vantage point in the small kitchen. 

“Zeppelin,” He offered. “Though my vinyl collection isn’t as impressive as yours,” He muttered. I smiled and rolled my eyes.

“Why am I not surprised you like Zeppelin,” I laughed. “Find something more original, Bon Jovi, Meatloaf! Hey, you might actually like Meatloaf,” I paused in thought. “Not that I know what you like... it just seems like... a very you band.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He acted offended, but there was a smile on his face.

“I dunno,” I could feel my face flushing. “They just seem like... you.” I gestured. “I can let you borrow my record.”

“No, I can’t ask that.” Raph shook his head, standing in protest.

“You’re not asking, I’m giving it to you.” I smiled and offered him his tea as we both settled back in my living room area.

________________________________

Raph still tried to figure her out. There was still the fire in her veins that he had seen when he rode with her. This was that same fire, but in a softer way. In one that made him take care of himself, and that allowed her to be selfless.

She hummed softly to the music and sipped her tea absentmindedly, lost in thought he presumed.

“How is your family?” She asked after a while. “It’s been a while since you guys have done anything.”

Raph laughed.

“Yeah, there isn’t much to do anymore. It’s why I started to ride again. And we’re okay, I guess. Mikey has vowed to watch ever Doctor Who episode with Donnie and it’s taking them a while to get through it all.” Raph rolled his eyes.

“I should do that.” She murmured. “I haven’t watched it in a while.” 

“You like that nerdy show?” He raised an eyebrow.

A laugh bubbled from her lips. It was soft and carefree. Somehow, even though he wasn’t racing through the streets of New York, he still felt free. A sort of freedom that crept in slowly and comforted him like a blanket.

“I do,” She smiled. “You might,”

“You keep saying that,” He challenged.

“Oh?” A smirk grew on her face and a fire in her eyes.

“That I’ll like things when you don’t really know me,” Raph contested.

She went quiet, a smile still on her lips.

“Maybe I don’t know you that well, but I think I have a good idea of what you might like.” She quipped.

“Yeah?”

She nodded, her smile growing.

A clap of thunder shook her windows as lightning flashed. She didn’t flinch. Fear didn’t occupy her features. He knew Mikey was afraid of thunder, and Donnie didn’t prefer it, but she seemed almost at home among it.

_________________________________

“Tell me then,” I whispered. “Who are you?” I moved onto the couch and curled up on the side, waiting and listening.

“What do you wanna know?” His voice held a note of uncertainty.

“How old are you?” I mused. “That’s an easy one.”

“Is this twenty questions now?” Raph raised an eyebrow.

I chuckled. “That would mean yes or no answers, this is just... a conversation.” I decided. 

“Alright, but if you get to ask questions, so do I,” He countered.

“Deal.” 

“Eighteen, you?”

“Eighteen,”

We went on like that for a while, question after question. His favorite singer was actually Billy Joel; I hated the Beatles; he never thought to read anything other than magazines; I couldn’t remember the last time I had read a book; he had never been out of the state; I had been along the east coast on road trips; he hated spinach and cucumbers; I hated smoothies and tomatoes; he had four brothers; I had one.

“Where did you learn to ride?” He asked as it neared one am.

“My mom,” I yawned, blinking slowly. “She’d take me on her bike when I was little... my dad was a mechanic...” I gave a small shrug. “Why do you ride?” I countered.

“It’s... freedom.” He replied.

I nodded, knowing what he meant. It’s why I loved to ride. No one telling you where to go or what to do or who to be, you could just ride and not stop.

“Did you miss me?” His question came softly and hesitantly.

I nodded, my eyes slipping closed from tiredness. Talking to him like this made me feel safe and more at home than I ever had before. Like I was a child, curled up on a winter night waiting for Christmas as snow fell softly into the quiet of the night. A simpler time.

“I did. It’s not the same when I’m not around you... I looked forward to our rides.” 

______________________________

Raphael watched her eyes droop closed as the hours passed. He was on a high learning so much from her and letting his walls down over stupid trivia that had him laughing and her blushing.

But being up late tonight didn’t seem to rest well with her despite their late-night rides the week before. He wondered if it was the rain that lulled her to sleep.

It didn’t really matter what it was, she was all but fast asleep on the sofa above him. Peace washed over her like this, though no smile was on her face, a gentle expression rested in her features.

“Y/n?” He asked softly, standing and stretching. He loved the feeling or her name on his lips.

She hummed a response, not opening her eyes. He wanted to laugh.

“You need to get to bed,” He muttered, taking her mug and his and carefully putting them into her sink, very conscientious of the space around him.

“Too far,” Her voice grew jumbled. “I’ll sleep on the couch,” She seemed resolved about this.

“No, you’re not,” He smiled and shook his head at her antics. “It’s not that far, lazy,” he teased gently.

“M’fine,” She tried again, her words slurring.

Raph stared at her curled-up form and her bed that rested against the back wall of her apartment.

Maybe the rain had calmed him too, or maybe being near her had let him be someone who didn’t thrive on anger and deflecting, but he carefully lifted her from the couch and walked her over to her bed and gently laid her down.

She immediately stretched out and found her way under the covers, cuddling a pillow. Her eyes never opened.

“Thanks,” She mumbled, the faintest smile playing at her lips. “Tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow,” He promised.

.

.

Like my stuff? Here’s my masterlist!

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 12: 1x10 Journey to Babel

My favorite Star Trek episode! Possibly my favorite episode of anything... I’m not going to have much of anything deep to say about it but I did enjoy it immensely.

I actually know the opening of this ep really well because I was using it as the basis for a still unfinished AOS-verse fic that I still want to write but it doesn’t get old regardless.

We can relax when the Vulcans get here! Can you though??

Spock’s utter non-reaction to the name Sarek. But inside he’s gotta be feeling a lot, right? I mean at the very least, nerves at the impending awkwardness.

I feel like Sarek is so subtly suspicious in this scene. Like... why is no one acknowledging we’re related? What’s going ON?

And Kirk knows something’s up but he’s not sure what.

So rude! Asking for another guide. That really is a rift.

And then Amanda’s look when Kirk mentions Spock’s parents. So subtle, so confused, so judgmental.

Also this is a great concept for an Enterprise mission.

I think Amanda’s really interested in the ship! So this is where Spock works...

Humans smile with such little provocation... Whereas Spock smiles when Kirk isn’t dead

Lol the parallels with Sarek and Kirk calling Amanda and Spock over. Mr. Spock, attend.

Sarek taught him computers! So adorable.

Mrs.Sarek lol. But she proves the unpronounceable name can be sort of pronounced.

Idk if I believe this whole depiction of Vulcans as patriarchal... It doesn’t really square with T’Pau running the whole planet. Nor is it logical.

Amanda is so glad that Spock has friends!!

I love to see Kirk defending Spock.

Lmao at the idea of Sarek following the teachings of his father. Was he doing that when he took a HUMAN wife??

Kirk and Amanda bonding over their stubborn husbands.

Oh no, the signal is coming from inside the ship!

Kirk is sure loving this.

So Sarek is 102. That would make him 60-some years older than Spock.

Sarek’s vote carries the others! He’s so important.

Now Kirk is trying to charm the aliens.

I just noticed that Amanda asks Spock if she can share the sehlat story. She looks at him and he very obviously inclines his head. He’s okay with McCoy hearing this.

Alive with six inch fangs!!

Sarek being so protective of Spock and his dignity. “He’s a Starfleet officer!!” Honestly so proud of him.

Sarek/Amanda is actually the best ship.

I feel like Spock gets his humor from Sarek honestly. Like the way he talks to the Telluride Ambassador is so similar to how Spock talks to people.

Can’t believe Kirk had to break up a fight between Spock’s dad and another ambassador lol.

Of course Kirk has to be shirtless for the dramatic reveal of MURDER.

Spock doesn’t think Sarek killed anyone. (Even when he kinda throws him under the bus with that “my father is capable of killing.”)

But then there’s Sarek “I agree, I am a very suspicious person here.”

Meditation cannot be discussed with Earthmen.

Sarek had 4 heart attacks and didn’t tell his wife. The nerve.

Sarek and Spock ganging up on Bones. A real bonding moment.

Spock’s blood has human blood elements...interesting.

Spock was researching for Sarek. Idk why that hits me so hard... He finds this really long shot solution, an experimental drug that isn’t even used on Vulcans and just says “okay problem solved we’re going to fix my father now.”

Calling his father by his first name... cold. He doesn’t do that with Amanda.

*Stefon voice* This ep has everything, mystery, intrigue, family drama, diplomatic drama, medical emergencies, shirtless Kirk, and a fight scene!

Poor Spock, on top of everything else, his space husband is injured too.

Now Spock is off to question the prisoner. Eep, wouldn’t want to be that prisoner.

I feel like Spock’s excuse of not wanting to give up command is total Scotty erasure, and seems really flimsy on its face.

The Andorian tells him to think about passion and gain...asking Spock to think about passion!! How dare?

Not a lot of Kirk in this episode but every Kirk scene is gold. He’s being charming again. And he has such devotion to Spock and his family, even risking his own health to make sure Spock can help Sarek--and Sarek hears all of it! We are specifically shown that he’s awake!

Kirk’s face when he looks at Spock in the Captain’s chair is just so loving.

Hmmm I guess no one trusts Scotty around here!

Bones is not encouraging confidence by not knowing what Vulcan blood pressure should be.

Haha just knocked Spock the fuck out. “My patients don’t walk out in the middle of operations.”

“Sir, we stunned the Andorian and pieces just started falling off.”

I love that the inside of Sarek is smoking.

...You know actually the Enterprise did need Kirk specifically to command in this crisis.

How is CHEKOV the next in command lol? He’s 22 and the lowest ranked person there.

It’s interesting that the Orions are the bad guys in this episode.

Spock’s parents can so clearly tell how in love Kirk and Spock are.

“One does not thank logic.”

When Kirk collapses and Amanda moves closer to him, Sarek is still holding his fingers out for a kiss like a lovesick nerd.

Bones gets the last word!

And now Kirk, Spock, and Sarek are going to be recovering in the same room for a while lol.

I didn’t write any notes on the Spock and Amanda scene because it’s just... too much. Too overwhelming. It’s so dramatic, first off, and... Amanda is just so human. You know in some ways she’s assimilate to Vulcan life--how she can pronounce Sarek’s last name and how she thinks the Vulcan way of life is “better”--but she really wasn’t written to e like a long term Vulcan resident imo. I mean when it comes right down to it, she’s very human. I like that but I just think it’s interesting.

I’m a little uncomfortable with like the degree of emotional manipulation... saying she’ll hate him forever, slapping him. But Spock’s excuse looks pretty flimsy when you consider that there are other people who can command the ship. But then... well like I said, there WAS an emergency and Kirk really was the best man for the job so like you do get an example of how not all officers are interchangeable. And I was trying to wrap my head around the argument that this isn’t just a Starfleet position, it’s a Vulcan one, and one Sarek would understand: duty, rules, and the many before the one. So I guess it does make sense, and the tension is appropriate for the scenario.

I also appreciate how the point of this episode was to show, as DC Fontana said, three people who hadn’t been a family for a long time becoming a family again, so you can see all the complexity in their history and how the differences in their cultures blend together sometimes awkwardly, and how hard it is for all of them.

This is the best ST installment for Vulcan fashion. Like, this ep, T’Prng’s dress in Amok Time, and Ambassador Spock’s asymmetrical coat in STXI are the only valid Vulcan outfits. I never got the robes and head coverings thing. Like, are robes logical? I think not. Plus, they are desert people but they are NOT austere, so I don’t get all the dark colors and shit. Vulcans should absolutely all be wearing hot pink wide legged pants and fur-trimmed ponchos; I am not joking. Also I thought Sarek’s outfit was great: it’s simple and professional but still has a lot of color on it; it’s exactly what it seems like a Vulcan ambassador would wear. And they never reach that level in any later installment!!

The Amazon trivia tells me that deleted dialogue said that Sarek was an engineer before he was an ambassador, which I don’t totally get (that’s not... a science...and he went to the VSA right?), but I do find it VERY interesting and I wish I’d known that when I wrote HAICG and had Spock name his son after an engineer.

Next time is Friday’s Child, which is also a great episode to watch and think about HAICG.