#I do hope he shows up in the new series as a cameo

[jtl-fics]

Getting the email reminder that part 3 of Pokemon Ultimate Journeys is now on Netflix means that I will now become a VERY different person.

[onlyswan]

summary: in which for you, jungkook would commit crimes and his mother would peel oranges.

idol!jk x reader | fluff, angst | word count: 9.5k

warnings/content: oc passes out in the shower / jk does something crazy i’m literally insane about this / baby bam cameo 🥺 / stitches >:( / blood draw / mention of speeding / jealous not but rlly jealous oc is pissed owfffff at the nurse who has a crush on jk lmao / jk and his mom loves them to death tho so obv who wins / love is beautiful let’s all cry <3

> in which masterlist!

note: *sitcom sound effect of crowd cheering* I’M BACK 🥰 hope u enjoy the product of my madness during finals season hehehe. and special thanks to my cutieful proofreader rio!! you’re one of my most favorite people i’ve ever met 🥺💕 + my beloveds who came to the rescue when i had medical questions !! i didn’t expect to receive help from soooo many and i’m so freaking grateful i could cri :")

—

“i ordered it the other day. how did it arrive so early?”

jungkook walks back inside the apartment, arms occupied by a stack of boxes that arrived in the mail yesterday.

he arrives at the living room, head tilting to the side in confusion when he realizes that the netflix show he was watching on the television is no longer playing. instead, there is the news channel.

he gasps.

“baby, you’re alive!”

your swollen eyes flicker up to him.

you’re lying on the sofa with your legs lazily dangling on the edge. there’s a toothbrush in your mouth, foam of bubbles between your lips, but your arm barely exerts the energy to make it do its job.

“you were asleep from afternoon to morning. do you know that? you’ve never done that before!” he exclaims, carelessly tossing the boxes on the floor. “i was getting scared!”

you only hum to acknowledge his existence, pushing yourself up from the sofa and unknowingly dodging the hug your boyfriend wanted to greet you with.

he ends up collapsing face first on the empty space you left, hurt and offended.

the bathroom door opens and closes.

he flips over, whining. “yah, we didn’t see each other for a day. didn’t you miss me?!”

still not a single word from you. sleeping that long must not have cured your exhaustion, jungkook surmises. you tend to be glum and cranky when you’re feeling unwell, as is usually the case when you wake up as unrested as before.

he doesn’t always know how to make you feel better, but he always tries anyway.

“our new bedsheets arrived!” he announces from the other side of the bathroom door, making himself loud so that you can hear him despite the shower running. “do you want to unbox them with me?!”

he allows the seconds to pass, but with his hands on his hips, he eventually begins to tap his foot on the floor.

“baby? may i go in?”

he turns the knob, just to be prepared incase the answer is a yes, but it doesn’t turn. a sad pout forms on his face.

huh? why is it locked?

you must genuinely don’t want to be bothered today.

“guess that’s a no.” he mutters to himself before calling out to you. “okay, i’ll wait for you!”

with a crestfallen sigh, he begins to walk back to the living room.

he doesn’t go far, however.

only several steps later, a series of loud crashes is heard from the bathroom and his heart thunders in his chest with a combination of numbing shock and fear.

“____, what was that?! did you fall?!”

he aggressively pounds at the door, extremely desperate this time around. he has no plans on leaving until he knows that you’re safe and sound.

“baby! open this! are you alright…? are you hurt? you’re scaring me. please, answer!”

he pauses, catching his breath as his mind runs a thousand miles per hour.

“____!”

he strikes the door with an open palm one more time, more so to express his frustration that is only growing worse with every tick of the clock. he only ends up hurting himself in the process.

“that’s it! i’m opening the door!”

he frantically whips his head around, racking his brain for the location of the key. there are two copies of it somewhere in the apartment, but in his panicked state, he is unable to pinpoint either of their specific spots. and he can’t fucking afford to waste any more time.

“ah, fuck!” he curses, left with no other choice but to give in to the instinct of breaking down the door with the strength and durability of his body alone.

he would most definitely break his shoulder first before the door.

only after the first try, that much is clear.

and so, with madness inconsiderate of his agony, he resorts to kicking it over and over again.

the repeated loud collisions rattles poor bam from his slumber. not long after, the dog’s barking creates a booming dissonance with his grunts and kicks at the door.

when it finally swings open, the force of his own body sends him stumbling on the bathroom floor, but he doesn’t waste time in bouncing back to his feet.

the twisting of his stomach is instantaneous.

there lies your naked, unconscious figure behind the glass— surrounded by bottles of hair and body products that must have fallen when your hands were searching for something to hold on to.

his voice cracks, breathless.

“baby, no… no, no, no.”

he kneels on the floor, and despite the strong urge to carry you out of there, he tries to calm down. it’s the first rule in every emergency case; professionals reiterate in seminars and news channel segments.

keep calm. keep calm. keep calm.

he won’t be able to forgive himself if he ends up causing more harm than good.

“____, can you hear me?!”

his instinct tells him to inspect every inch of you for any sign of injury, but then his vision becomes too blurry. he curses at the hindrance and forces himself to turn off the showerhead that was left running.

he harshly wipes his face, rushing back to you.

“please, please, please. wake up.” he begs.

he has a feeling that it’s futile. you can’t hear him and he’s wasting his breath. the thing is he doesn’t know what else to do.

“baby…”

he carefully turns your head over, almost relieved because he hasn’t seen blood so far.

almost.

at last, he gets a full view of your face, and he finds blood dripping. this has always been one of his most paralyzing fears— seeing you get hurt. now that it’s become a reality, there’s a part of him that wants to believe this is some kind of twisted dream.

“how- how did this even happen…?” he cries out, his own blood running cold.

for everything that happens after, his body acts on its own. bam is a constant presence in his peripheral, but he is barely in his right mind to acknowledge the presence aside from, “bam, move. daddy might step on you.”

he carries you out of the bathroom, kicking aside the beaten up door. he has made up his mind about bringing you to the hospital, but he can’t bring you like… this.

he lays you down on the bed, all that gentleness switched off in a split second so he can sprint to the walk-in closet. he hastily grabs whatever is on top of your neatly folded stacks of shirts and pants; and then a fresh towel on the way out. the gentleness returns as he pats your face dry, the pure white stained with dark red. he flips the towel and uses the other side to wipe the rest of your body, in a race against time but mindful of treating you like fragile glass.

once that is over, he dresses you in a pair of gray sweatpants, and with some difficulty, an orange t-shirt.

any person with functioning eyes will be able to tell that the shades don’t go together.

if you were conscious, you’d definitely berate him for making you wear this outfit.

but you’re not.

jungkook effortlessly swoops you in his arms— dripping wet hair, his and yours, leaving behind a trail of raindrops from your apartment floor to the cemented parking lot.

—

your body feels like it’s floating.

are you dreaming…?

you must be dreaming.

you hear an uncoordinated symphony of voices, but you can’t comprehend a word. in pursuit of clarity, you force yourself to open your eyes.

the voices grow a little louder. faceless figures hover you; a bright light shines over your face.

your senses must be playing cruel tricks. now it feels like you’re drowning, sinking into the unknown, and your body has succumbed into numbing defeat.

you want to sleep a little more.

you must truly be exhausted. it’s okay.

you’ve fought hard until now. you’ve done enough… has anyone tried in life as much as you did?

just as your eyes flutter shut, you regain sensation of your hand; a soft squeeze and a call of your name.

—

jungkook gently strokes your hair, sighing for the nth time since you got transferred to a private room. he’s relieved that all the scans came back clean so serious head and brain injuries have been ruled out. the doctor also asked him questions and ran some other tests before concluding that electrolyte imbalance caused you to pass out; the culmination of stress and fatigue from work, as well as your strong period, most likely being the main reasons. he didn’t even know about the latter until you stained the white sheets with blood.

it was fucking frightening being in the sidelines as they rushed to check on your vitals and to administer oxygen. even now, it’s unbearable to see you with a needle in your hand and a few stitches above your eyebrow. he already anticipated you not being pleased with having to get stitches specifically either; gasping and sitting up as soon as you heard the word come from his lips post-consciousness. consequently, the dizziness hits you. the doctor wasn’t happy about that.

“this is so annoying. i don’t want a scar.” you whine as you study your face on the camera of jungkook’s phone. “did i have to fall on my prettier side?”

“what are you saying? you’re pretty from any angle.” he interjects. “be careful. the wound might open up.”

you jut out your bottom lip, looking up at him with glassy eyes. the sight instantly tugs at his heartstrings, and he pulls you in for a hug. maybe he’s a little sad that you don’t appear concerned about the fact that you passed out, but god is he relieved to finally hear your voice again.

“ah, i should call the doctor.”

but his face remains buried in your hair.

“they told me to do so.”

“you should-”

“why?!” he abruptly reacts, drawing back. “does anything hurt?”

“chill. you said that they told you to.”

“oh, that’s right.” he sheepishly smiles. he can’t help but to overreact; he hasn’t turned off the alarms in his head. “i’ll go tell the nurse to get her.”

he starts to walk towards the door, but a tug at his shirt holds him back.

you shyly look at him with a scrunch of your nose. “i’m nervous. hug me for five more seconds.”

fuck, he would move heaven and earth to protect you from everything that can cause you harm.

“why would you be nervous? i’m right here.” he scolds you lightheartedly, not hesitating to seize the chance to hug you again. “i love you.”

“i love you more.”

you pull away after five seconds, and he’d be disappointed about you being too true to your words if you didn’t kiss him on the cheek so ardently.

his heart almost jumps out of his chest when you gasp out of nowhere as if you just realized that you left the gas tank open at home. your eyes nearly pop out of their sockets.

“bam!”

oh, right. your child.

“my brother’s house!” he eases your mind.

you breathe out in relief, the heel of your palm pressing against the left side of your chest where your heart lives. “good… i was worried. he was probably more scared because he didn’t understand what was going on. i feel bad.”

you love bam so much; it makes him so happy. you’re so concerned about him even when you’re the one on the hospital bed. you make pretty good parents, huh?

“that’s right. he was worried about you, too. that’s why you need to recover quickly so he won’t be sad!”

—

the doctor kindly asked jungkook to give the two of you some time alone, so he’s been idly sitting at the lobby after buying a bottle of water. he’s pretty much used to visiting the hospital for routine checkups considering the nature of his job, but it always feels strange to be here for the other different purposes of the place.

is there any other building sadder than this?

if you heard him utter this question, he could easily predict what you’d say: but is there any other building with more love?

if he tries hard enough, he could listen to your voice and paint you in his mind.

you see love in every place that you step foot into.

his curious eyes continue to wander around. he spots people carrying flowers, baskets, and containers of food. there’s also a teenage boy in his high school uniform, carrying a teddy bear larger than him.

not that he wants you to stay longer, but if you have to, he writes down a mental note to bring one of your favorite plushies.

he eventually gets tired; considers scrolling on his phone again, but he decides against it when his gaze lands on a little boy sleeping soundly on his mother’s lap. suddenly, he is reminded of his childhood before he moved to seoul.

how simple life can be when you’re innocently sleeping on your mother’s lap, trusting that everything will be alright.

“ah, i miss my mom…” he utters absentmindedly. “i miss my mom so much. i should call her.”

his reminiscing is interrupted when a wheelchair rolls by infront of him. it is leisurely being pushed by an old man who wants to bring his wife outside for some fresh air.

in a parallel universe somewhere, jungkook can imagine them as you and him.

he sits up straight, looking back at the clock on the wall.

how long has it been? he wants to be by your side again.

—

“jungkook!” your face lights up as soon as your boyfriend steps into the room. “what took you so long?”

“i know. sorry, baby. i got a little distracted outside.”

“i’ve been waiting.” you pout. “why? were people bothering you?”

“not at all. don’t worry.”

you pat the empty space beside you. “here.”

“i think the bed is meant for only one person- damn, okay, okay-”

he swiftly gives in upon seeing the hurt on your face, occupying the space you reserved for him. “i love you. don’t be sad.”

you’re aching too much to wait for him to get settled. you wrap your arms around his waist like you’re a magnet attracted to steel, clinging to him for comfort.

if you’re being honest, you don’t know how you feel about being in this situation. overwhelmed? maybe a tiny bit relieved. in the past, it didn’t matter whether you were sick or not. you needed to work or else it was guaranteed that you wouldn’t survive. life is easier now. you have the luxury to use this as a reason to take a break. you have someone who takes care of you as naturally as he breathes.

“how was the doctor?”

“she’s nice… she just asked me about the things i remember before i passed out. then about my work, diet, sleeping schedule… stuff like that.”

you pull away a little, just enough so you can see each other’s face. you squint at him suspiciously. “did you have to get an expensive room?”

he chuckles. “how did you know? they didn’t tell you that, did they?”

“i literally have the perfect view of the fountain from here!” you point at the large window behind you. “i just passed out. i would’ve been fine downstairs.”

“don’t say it like that. it could’ve been so much worse.” he says with knitted eyebrows, palm cupping the back of your head and caressing softly.

he heaves a sigh.

“i was so scared that you injured your head. seriously, i thought i’d go insane if i lost you! i went past the speed limit driving you here!”

the distress he was under is apparent. you can’t help but to be racked with the guilt. you always do this, making him worry himself to death. you don’t usually do it purpose, and that only makes you feel shittier.

“you’re right. i’m sorry.”

“well, i…” he sighs. “it’s okay. i know you didn’t want this either. it’s not your fault.”

you press your lips into a thin line. “it kind of is.”

your lost eyes meet, and a connection is established like it’s a constellation sending a secret message. your heart flutters when he giggles, dimples and starry eyes and crinkled corners.

“stop it. it’s impossible to scold you when you’re so cute and self-aware.”

“then don’t scold me.” you sniffle sadly to kindle pity in him. “i’ve had enough of it from the doctor.”

your brain still works well enough to help you escape from trouble. that’s a good sign, right?

“my poor baby.” he coos, cradling your cheeks.

his hands are warm. you put yours over them; a wordless signal telling him you don’t want him to go away.

“let’s not get hurt again, please. we need to stay healthy and take good care of ourselves so this won’t happen again, alright?”

you nod in obedience. your eyes are fixed on him but you’re not certain if you’re registering what he’s telling you in your pitiful, shaken brain.

“the hospital already did me many favors. if we go back, i might have to build them another fountain as a gift.”

and knowing jungkook, with his golden heart and his black card, jokes become half-meant.

“what do they need that for?!”

he bursts out laughing, yet again, after you chide at him for his ridiculous and unnecessary expenses.

“nothing, i’m just grateful! i was really so scared but i’m relieved now thanks to them. i can’t remember the last time i felt that way.”

“you’re not scared of a lot of things.” you point out.

“that’s right.” he agrees. “only you scare me these days.”

you grimace. “am i scary?”

“you are, sometimes.” he laughs, squishing your cheeks together. “but i mean the things that could hurt you.”

as if on cue, your stomach grumbles and bellows like a monster stuck in an empty cave. your eyes grow twice its size in bewilderment, which then morphs into embarrassment.

“my stomach hurts.” you say quietly.

your nostrils flare as jungkook miserably fails to hold back his laughter. one of his hands leave your face, rubbing your tummy over the thin hospital gown.

“oh no, what are we going to do? where does it hurt? here?” he pouts. “should we go feed you now to make it go away?”

“what is wrong with you?” you slap his shoulder in annoyance. “i’m not a baby!”

“yah, be careful!” he yells, wincing as if he is the one in pain. “be gentle with the one with the iv!”

—

“you know one good thing that came out of this?” you gush out of nowhere.

you’re mixing up the ingredients of your bibimbap bowl with a spoon and a pair of chopsticks.

jungkook noisily drinks the final sips of his banana milk. afterwards, he makes a game out of shooting the box in the trash bin.

“what could that be?” he asks, doubtful.

he sits on the chair beside your bed. you greet him with a delighted grin, licking your thumb stained with gochujang.

“you proved your love. you committed a crime for me.”

he gasps to humor you, body freezing as if he’s currently processing the newly-learned information in his brain.

“oh? you’re right- i did! and you know what? i’d do it again!”

with a mouthful of rice, you shake your head in disagreement furiously. “you’re cute. but that’s the first and last.”

“but how are you sure that it’s the first?” he raises an eyebrow quizically.

silly enough, you envy him for being able to do so.

you hum in thought. “i guess you’ve stolen a few things for me, too.”

“few? you mean a loooot?”

“you’re the one who brings home food and random things.” you roll your eyes. “i never ask you to.”

“you told me you wanted the service bell!”

you feel yourself become flushed with sheepishness. he’s not lying. you’ve always found the object fascinating as a child, so you couldn’t help but to tell him to sneakily take one home after filming a competitive run bts episode.

did you have a silly phase where you and jungkook used it to summon each other just to laugh together about it?

perhaps.

“well, you’re rich. you could’ve bought me one instead.”

“but it was already there.” he reasons with a wide grin, gesturing infront of him. “i wanted to give it to my lover right away.”

his lover?

jungkook has successfully replaced your frown with an enamored smile.

“i made your heart flutter just now, didn’t i?”

a hospital stay has never felt this comfortable— not terrifying. you have stitches on your face and to add to that, this hospital gown feels super unflattering. somehow, your boyfriend’s loving gaze remains steady and you are melting.

“shut up,” you mutter, flustered, handing him the pair of chopsticks. “please eat with me. i can’t finish this on my own.”

—

“why would you let them put the needle in my dominant hand?”

you stomp your feet on the ground as jungkook squeezes some toothpaste onto a newly-bought toothbrush.

“i’m sorry! i was too stressed out so i just pointed! i think i got confused with- with left and right.”

you didn’t realize this while you were eating; that you were unconsciously holding the spoon with your non-dominant hand because the other felt uncomfortable. maybe because it was a simple task, scooping food and bringing it to your mouth. brushing your teeth, on the other hand… can be quite an arm workout.

“eeeee!”

he shows his complete set of teeth, urging you to do the same. you stare at him blankly.

“eeeee!” he repeats with heightened enthusiasm.

left with no other choice— you copy his awkward smile.

“there we go!” he praises you with an over-enthusiastic beam.

he carries on to brush your teeth, gingerly holding your chin to keep you steady as he does his job.

this is the first time jungkook is doing this for you. today is definitely not one of your finest moments. it feels a bit silly to be in this situation, and you feel bad for putting your boyfriend in this position in the first place. you can see that he’s trying his best—unnecessarily focused—and that he loves you, but you just hate giving him a hard time.

with a soft smile, he wipes the bubbles that overflowed past your lips.

“okay, spit.”

you spit out more of the bubbles on the sink. you assume that he’s finished, except he’s making another vowel sound for you to mimic the mouth shape of.

“ahhhh-”

“this is embarrassing!”

“baby, really? this is where you draw the line?” he playfully squeezes your cheeks together. “it’s almost over! ahhhh!”

and you let him do this thing, but not without a glare that is masking the embarrassing truth: you might be enjoying this more than you care to admit.

“see? was that so bad?”

as he tenderly pats your face dry in the aftermath, he says: “i’m sorry. bear with it a little more. let me take care of you so you’ll be healthy again.” and you feel every ounce of his sincerity pierce through the barriers surrounding your soul.

“stop it…” your voice suddenly comes out broken.

you want to put all the blame on your period for the tears that are now brimming your eyes, but jungkook is your biggest weakness of all and that is an explanation enough.

“why are you crying?” he panics. “what did i say?”

“it’s your fault.”

you break down into loud sobs, incapable of even keeping your eyes open. you never understood why we close our eyes when we cry, but right now, you know that you can’t bear to witness his reaction.

“you’re so sweet.”

the towel that was wiping the water from your mouth is now drying the tears from your stained cheeks.

“am i making you sad?”

you furiously shake your head. how could he say such a thing? he is the greatest joy of your life.

“no?”

“no!”

“okay, come here then.”

he wraps his arms around your trembling figure, caging you in the solace of his entire existence. a sense of calmness washes over your system, especially as he runs his hand across your back in gentle strokes. this isn’t his goal though, it seems. you hear none of his quiet shushes beseeching you to stop breaking his heart. he hopes you let go of everything that has been weighing on you, but he has already eased all your pains by loving you.

“ugh, i probably look horrible right now.” you force a chuckle to lighten up the mood, wiping your face with the back of your free hand. “i feel gross.”

“that’s not true.” he gazes at you fondly, brushing your hair with his fingers. “it’s actually infuriating how you look so beautiful still.”

“i know. i’m nice to look at; that’s why you tolerate my attitude.” you conclude in jest.

“yeah, sometimes.” he rides on the joke.

“what…?”

“i’m joking!” he rushes to take it back with a laugh. “of course i’m joking!”

you pout. “are you really?”

“oh, come onnnn.”

he coaxes you with a kiss on the lips— a good morning kiss long overdue. you’ve been spoiled rotten with affection; he knows you need more than one. he interrupts himself several times to kiss you.

“you know i’ll love you until our hair turns white and our skin all wrinkly.”

to be brutally honest, you’re not fond of imagining that far ahead. it’s daunting. you doubt your capability to age with grace. you’re horrified by the thought of having the majority of your life behind you. nostalgia has always been more bitter than sweet. but maybe this memory could be the sweetest of all, if jungkook truly stays by your side until then. in a cottage at the countryside like he said once, or a cabin by the ocean.

you’re both so young; so arrogant when it comes to making promises that are a shot in the dark. so fucking in love.

“me too.” you half-smile, scrunching your nose— a telltale sign of your joy. “now, get out. i really need to pee.”

his face becomes drained of blood. “but you’re st-”

“i won’t lock the door this time.” you cup his cheek, looking at his eyes reassuringly. “we don’t need property damage added to the bill.”

—

“did you not hurt yourself?”

“me?”

“you broke down the door. that’s not easy to do.”

you and jungkook make the best out of a bad deal. you’re squeezed together on the bed, browsing through television channels that seem to never end.

“it was easy because you were on the other side of it.”

that is what he claims confidently, but you are not fully convinced.

“wow, why do they have more channels than we do at home?”

“you didn’t answer my question.” you pout. “did you hurt yourself?”

“i didn’t hurt myself. i’m totally okay. i promise.”

he maintains eye-contact as he speaks. given the assurance, your tight chest unrestricts. jungkook is not a good liar. it’s a trait that causes him inconvenience every now and then, but it helps you to sleep soundly at night.

“should we just watch funny animal videos on youtube?”

“i guess that’s fine.”

it doesn’t show but you feel excitement run in your veins aside from the iv fluids that feel peculiarly cold.

from under your cheek, his chest vibrates with a giggle. “okay, hold on.”

as he pulls up the application, you tangle your legs together beneath the thin blanket. you hear the rapid tap tap tap of the remote control navigating the keypad while he types on the search bar, but your attention is someplace else. you’ve found the crook of his neck to sneak into, lazily kissing every inch of his exposed skin. your lips eventually trail up to his jaw. he smells so nice. you’re addicted.

“baby, someone can enter any minute.”

“i’m not doing anything.” you mumble.

you smile against his lips when he gives you a kiss as sweet as honey anyway.

“i’m curious about another thing.”

“what’s that?”

“did you cry?”

he comes to a still. the answer to that question requires a little time and thought.

“almost…”

“why almost?”

“no time. i had to bring you here, of course.” he replies.

you huff a laugh, exhaling a twinge of melancholia. “don’t cry.”

“i won’t. i’m happy now because you’re awake and fighting with me.”

“ow-”

your cry of pain is silenced when he squeezes you in an embrace that makes it nearly impossible to breathe.

“red panda!”

a squeal assaults both of your hearing as soon as your eyes land on the wide screen infront of the bed.

“i want one so fucking bad.”

the enunciated curse makes your boyfriend crack up in amusement. “that much?!”

—

jungkook opens his eyes to a nurse lightly nudging him awake.

“i’m sorry, i had to wake you up. i need to check vitals and draw blood.”

“shit, i’m sorry.” he panics.

his brain is foggy from the nap, but he still carefully sits up on the bed, wary of the iv line connected to your hand.

“i… was tired and i fell asleep.”

“it’s no problem; don’t worry.”

she smiles at him, but he doesn’t see it.

“you look adorable sleeping.”

“ah, really?” he awkwardly responds, absentminded. “it’s embarrassing.”

he stands on your side, about to disturb your peaceful rest much as it makes his heart ache with guilt, but you’re already stirring due to the absence of his warmth.

your heavy eyelids blink at the nurse in curiosity. “oh… do you need my blood?”

“yes, but i’ll take your blood pressure and temperature first.”

“okay,” you mumble, offering your arm. “it might be higher now because i’m scared.”

she chuckles at your joke. jungkook tries to share an endeared look with her and non-verbally communicate adorable, right?

“i promise i’ll be quick. although we definitely want it to be higher than earlier’s.”

you wince as the cuff around your upper arm goes as tight as it could, and you sigh at the same time that it begins to deflate.

“good, good, good,” she chants with a mumble. “it’s back in the normal range again…”

she brings out a digital thermometer from her pocket.

“you know where this goes.”

she hands it over to you, and you awkwardly place it in your armpit, holding it in place. it’s quiet as you wait for the device to make the beeping sound, except for her pen creating friction with your chart as she takes down notes.

“how’s your stitches? do you feel any discomfort?”

“it’s fine. thank you.”

not long after, you hear the beep. you return the thermometer to her, but not before taking a peak at the numbers displayed on the tiny screen. 36.8°C. you think you’ll live.

“i’ll draw your blood now.”

the nurse’s voice is sweet and reassuring, but it doesn’t quite ease the nervousness evident on your expression. your pupils shake as you watch her disinfect the area, and then comes out the long needle.

another one, jungkook laments inside.

“____, i’m right here.”

you crane your head, whimpering out his name. “jungkook,”

“it will be just a pinch. i’m inserting the needle now, alright?”

you take a sharp inhale.

if only he could switch positions with you, he would do it in a heartbeat. unfortunately, all he can do is caress your hair and whisper that it will be over soon.

“it hurts.” your damp eyelashes flutter, face twisting in discomfort. “i don’t like it.”

really, just a pinch? obviously a lie.

“hey, baby. look at the tv.”

the autoplay was left turned on after you fell asleep together. inside the screen is a puppy rolling around a snow-covered lawn. the wagging of its tail, the wide smile, and the pupils as big as boba balls: they all scream the happiness of an innocent.

“it’s so cute… i miss bam already. can we go to a dog park again?”

“of course!”

that promise sparks your smile. you turn to your side, and jungkook also catches a glimpse of the cotton taped to where you were poked.

“all done. you can go back to resting.”

“thank you. will you need to take blood again?” you inquire at the nurse.

“hm, probably. it depends on the doctor based on the results we get from this one.”

“can’t you just do it while i’m asleep? or is that not allowed?”

“baby…” jungkook snorts, hiding his face behind the palm of his hands.

the nurse laughs at your desperate suggestion. “that is honestly not a rare request, but the thing is… you might wake up in the middle of it and injure yourself. we can’t do that.”

“that won’t be a problem!” you passionately argue your case. “i’m a deep sleeper. seriously!”

“ah, thank you so much for your hard work!”jungkook intervenes, bowing to the nurse out of respect and gratitude. “i’m sure you’re busy. i will handle this!”

“oh yes, yes- thank you. please don’t forget the medicine for after dinner.”

“i won’t!”

“if you need anything, you know where to find me again.”

“yes,” he nods, chuckling. “thank you.”

“then i should leave…? but you’ll see me again later! bye!”

the door shuts, and his attention lands on your unimpressed form: a blank stare and arms folded infront of your chest.

uh-oh.

“did she seriously wink while saying that?”

“what?” he freezes, genuinely clueless. “i don’t know. i didn’t see anything. i was looking at you.”

“i’m right here- i’m the patient. why would you need anything from her? huh? why is she so excited to see you again?” you ramble angrily.

“right?!”

he climbs on the bed, reclaiming his spot next to you.

“that was weird.”

“what if she made it hurt on purpose? that…” you frown, glancing at your arm. “that didn’t really feel like a pinch to me.”

“ey, calm down. she wouldn’t.” he makes a doubtful face, laughing off the accusation. “…i don’t think so?”

you blink, exhaling in disbelief. “are you taking her side now?”

“of course not! baby, i’m just saying… a professional won’t do that.”

“why not? she’s still human. humans do stupid things when they like someone. she obviously likes you.”

“and so what?”

he grins with a spark of mischief, leaving an inch of a distance between your lips.

“i’m obviously yours.”

but you turn your cheek and your eyes fall on your lap, a pout highlighting your downcast mood.

“it’s so annoying.”

the regret sinks in after. he should’ve stuck to the golden rule: agree with everything that you say. there’s no point in having an argument no one will win. does it matter who’s right and wrong if each other’s sadness is contagious in addition to their own? your gut has almost always been right, and he’s old enough to be conscious of not allowing a stranger to put a dent on your relationship.

“are you serious? are you uncomfortable?” he tilts his head to try and get a better look at your face. “should i request for a different nurse?”

it’s quiet for a beat and he feels inclined to fill the silence with whatever enters his mind.

“i love you.”

almost immediately, your features soften and he knows your heart is also melting. the two of you bite the inside of your cheeks to hide a smile.

“no, there’s no need for that.”

but he still can’t help but to be worried. your peace of mind is his top priority. he doesn’t want you to be more stressed out, especially by things that he has the power to solve.

“are you sure?”

“she pissed me off. i need to piss her off too.”

of course, his ever stubborn and competitive lover. he sits up properly, amused and curious.

“and how will you do that?”

“i don’t know,” you nonchalantly shrug. “i’ll come up with something.”

—

“come up with what?”

to your surprise, a voice you haven’t heard in weeks echoes from the door.

“mom…?”

you’re stunned after only hearing yourself react to jungkook’s mother’s unexpected entrance. your head whips to his direction; your eyes wordlessly interrogating him.

“i need to go to work so i called her to watch over you.” he explains.

“why would you do that?” you argue with him as quietly as possible, lips barely moving as you try to hide your face from your mother-in-law. again, not one of your finest moments. “you didn’t have to. i can take care of myself.”

“but you don’t have to because you have us.”

jungkook marks the conversation finished with a kiss pressed to your temple, leaving you dumbfounded. he jumps off the bed and for a split second, you make eye-contact with his mother before he towered over her for a quick hug.

her kind smile is embroidered in your memory; a memory that wraps your heart in a type of warmth only a mother can provide.

“mom! i’m sorry. i really, really, really need to leave now. but! i’ll try to come back early so you can go home early too.”

“aigoo, stop stressing yourself out.”

jungkook receives a slap on the back, somehow more loving can scolding.

“i can stay the night so do what you need to do. you don’t have to worry.”

“it’s not only because i’m worried!”

she sassily puts a hand over her waist. it takes everything in you not to laugh out loud.

“then what else?”

“mom! what else?” he cheekily smiles. “of course i’ll miss ____ too much.”

did your boyfriend just…? to his mother? your jaw becomes slack from the shame.

“i missed ____ too!” she contests. “go to work and give us our alone time.”

you shyly smile when she transfers her attention from her son to you.

“hello, my baby. are you hungry?”

—

“does my son feed you well?”

“he does! but it’s funny- other mothers ask the opposite. are you feeding my son well? do you make sure he’s comfortable?”

you think out loud, transfixed on how she peels oranges with ease. your hands would always be stained by the juices, (and eyes red and teary from accidental splashes) (it’s too embarrassing to even think about) but hers are still magically clean.

“is that so?”

you graciously accept the slice she feeds you. she laughs when your face lights up like a christmas tree one more time. it’s way sweeter than you anticipated. you can’t get over how delicious it is.

“mhmm!”

perhaps you relied too much on dramas when it came to your expectations of what a relationship with your in-laws would look like. you imagined yourself running around like a dog trying to prove yourself worthy of their son, yet for some reason, it looks like they adore you for simply existing. it makes you feel extremely grateful, but you don’t understand.

“mom, i have a question… i know it’s probably too late to ask this now, but…”

“what could that be?”

“are you really not against me and jungkook living together?” you swallow your fear of the possibility of an unpleasant truth. “are you not… worried… that i’m receiving too much from him?”

because you would understand the apprehension. as a parent, one’s main concern would be their child. to outside eyes, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that jungkook is being taken advantage of and he’d be better off dating someone with the same status. sometimes you wish you were that someone too.

she utters your name sadly.

“he receives happiness and love from you. those are the most valuable things you could give to a person.”

she caresses your hair like she wants to erase the anxiety poisoning your mind.

“my dear, how come you’re worried about that until now? haven’t we told you? you’re part of the family. forget about my sister! i don’t welcome her negativity in our house!”

“living together is different. it’s a big deal. it normally happens in a relationship after…” the following words feel foreign in your mouth; they come out quieter than the rest of your sentence. “getting married.”

“then tell me. why did you agree to live with him?”

because you’re selfish. because you want more time that you can have him all to yourself. because you want to be accessible— the first person he runs to when he’s seeking comfort and stability. because you want goodnight and good morning kisses. because you were afraid of the risks but you’ve grown addicted to the thrill of love.

“he said… no matter how hard i push him away, he will stay within my reach.”

you hear your own shaky breathing. that moment— it’s still burned into your memory. you’re still holding on to it. it’s a promise he is yet to break and you pray that he never, ever does.

“i don’t want to push him away. i want to be within his reach too.”

you’re two people loving each other with everything within your means. after the endless pains and the deafening noise, you like to think that’s what makes this relationship worth fighting for.

“does my opinion still matter knowing that? will you let me stop you?”

“no, i won’t. i’d make you change your mind.”

if you had a machine connected to you, she would see how your heart rate has gone off the charts. but you’re known to say whatever’s on your mind and that, much to your dismay, isn’t switched off despite sitting infront of the woman who birthed and raised the love of your life.

you sniffle, pursing your lips nervously. “but i feel like there might be a right answer to that one.”

what you didn’t expect was her to laugh until her belly hurts; placing a hand over her mouth in an effort to calm herself down and keep grace.

“mom! stop, i’m so embarrassed!”

“no, ____, don’t get me wrong!”

she is teary-eyed as she gathers herself together.

“the more time i spend with you, the more i realize why jungkook loves you so much. i’ve seen him show incredible commitment twice. do you know that? first, when he went to seoul to become a singer. second, when he told us he got an apartment because he wants to be with you… of course, as his mother, i’ll admit that he’s young when he made those decisions, but he always proves to me that he’s smart and responsible.”

the urge to cry returns and strengthens as she speaks. you feel your eyelashes become damp with unshed tears. you don’t know how to act. you fiddle with your fingers. you stare at the strings and peels of the oranges you can still taste.

“i believe we both know jungkook’s personality well. he wouldn’t have let me stop him either. i’m happy to know that you’ll fight for him too.”

“thank you…”

“tsk, tsk, tsk- what is there to cry about? jungkook will get angry at me if he discovers that i made you cry.”

she wipes away your tears; however, the unmistakable scent of oranges that has clung to her hands and the affection in her tone bring forth a waterfall.

“seeing this makes me sadder.” she laments, referring to the stitches on your face.

“me too,” you babble in the midst of quiet sobs. “it makes me sad. it’s so ugly.”

—

you can’t remember the last time you felt this alone. perhaps it’s the effect of staying in an unfamiliar building of complete strangers. without your mobile phone, may you add. you managed to persuade jungkook’s mother to leave an hour ago because you didn’t want her to sleep on the uncomfortable couch.

the lights are turned off except for the lamp beside your bed, and with the television muted, you could hear a hairpin drop.

you’re alone and you can do whatever you want.

you dragged the visitor’s chair infront of the window to admire the garden like it’s a painting in motion. you watched people converse, stroll, and drink coffee. you watched them run for shelter when the clouds became too heavy and the sky began to fall. oh, so that’s why you couldn’t see the stars.

at this moment, there’s nothing left to amuse yourself with but the trembling of the leaves and the raindrops forming temporary rings when they fall in the water fountain.

your senses crave for more. you reach over and crack open the window, just enough to allow the sound of the rain and the scent of it permeating the earth to enter your room.

“this is kind of peaceful.” you whisper, amazed by the new lightness carried by your heart.

you close your eyes and you breathe in the petrichor deeply. you want nature in your lungs as a reminder that you’re alive. you welcome the cold wind kissing your face. you can feel your hair touching your neck. you always do, but for once, you’re choosing to acknowledge it. your thumb slowly brushes across the palm of your hand, perceiving the texture of your skin, the softness, and the lines. and your feet, they’re in the clouds, the fluffy slippers jungkook’s mother bought outside because she knows they’re your favorite to wear.

you’ve loved and despised this body for a million different reasons. your mind and heart have accepted defeat countless times, but your body wakes up to every brand new day without fail. your body implores you to live. did it finally give up on you today?

“baby!”

you look behind to search for the source of the sound.

you get your answer from the kiss planted on your lips.

you only saw his face for a split second, but even if you had your eyes closed, you’d know it has to be jungkook kissing you.

you can smell him. you’ve memorized the way the shape of his lips fits with yours.

oh, the sounds of his kisses too. you like to call them the butterfly call because they make butterflies appear in your stomach.

you could trace the scar on his cheek with your finger if you want to.

god, what a privilege it is to experience life in this vessel.

a knock on the door forces you to part too early. the same nurse from earlier enters and you internally scream all the curse words in your dictionary. jungkook acknowledges her with a bow and a quick ‘hello’ before squatting down infront of you.

“i committed another crime for you today.”

“huh?”

your wide, confused eyes take a glimpse at the nurse who is doing something with the controls of your iv line.

hahaha… she knows he’s not serious, right?

“what did you do?”

his smile is so big that his eyes have turned into little crescent moons. you’d make a guess but there is an infinite amount of things jungkook could possibly be this excited about.

…apparently, one of them would be strawberry cake.

you gape at the transparent box he was hiding behind his back all along.

“did you steal somebody’s birthday cake?!”

“it’s a producer’s birthday and he received lots of cakes, so he told me i can take one home.”

“how is it stealing if he allowed you to take it?”

he tosses his backpack on the couch as he sets down the box on the table. he rummages through the bag his mother left behind, successfully bringing out a spoon. meanwhile, you get your blood pressure taken again.

as he opens the box, he sends a smirk your way.

“no. i hid the strawberry cake because there’s so many who wanted to eat it.”

“are you crazy?!”

the nurse clicks her tongue. “don’t talk and stay still, please.”

“oh,” your hand flies to your mouth on instinct. “i’m sorry.”

“i’m sorry.” jungkook also apologizes.

you and your boyfriend secretly share a look, exchanging a smile that is stifled laughter inside. your lips remain zipped as the nurse restarts the process of taking your blood pressure. on the other hand, jungkook eats a spoonful of cake, teasingly wiggling his eyebrows at you. you roll your eyes and he tries harder to laugh without a sound.

seconds later, he grumbles about the room being too warm. he wipes the beads of sweat on his forehead using the back of his hand, and he does the worst thing he could possibly do at this moment. he reaches for his back, pulling his sweater over his head. naturally, his inner shirt rides up and allows wandering eyes a peak at his glorious toned abdomen.

passed out in the shower. busted your eyebrow open. front-row seat for a woman flirting and ogling at your boyfriend.

how fucking great.

“hello? i think it’s done.” you snap.

“a-ah, yes.”

you hear her swallow as she removes the cuff from your arm. she may be wearing a mask but she’s hot and red all the way to her ears. you’ve only read about it in books. you didn’t even believe this could happen in real life until now.

“i will check your temperature too.”

“go on.”

you repeat the same process from hours earlier, drumming your fingers on your thigh as you wait for the beep.

“yah, why is the window open? you’ll catch a cold.”

jungkook, yet again, steals the attention of every person in the room when he rises to his feet. his shadow casts over you as he closes the window.

“i wanted to smell the rain.”

“is the room getting too stuffy for you?”

you shrug. “i just wanted to smell the rain.”

you feel the nurse’s stare. you offer her a smile and her nameplate briefly gets caught by your vision. kang ji-woo.

“ji-woo; that’s a pretty name.” you pay her a sincere compliment. “it’s healing, don’t you think?”

“yes? uh-uhm, y-yes…” she replies, unsure and confused by the sudden small talk. “actually, it’s been linked to a reduction in stress and anxiety levels.”

“thank you! babe, did you hear that?”

“uhuh, think about my stress and anxiety levels.” he leans against the window with his arms crossed, raising an eyebrow at you.

so now he’s flexing his arm muscles. cool, cool, cool. you know he’s not doing it on purpose and his entire existence is just naturally hot and it’s infuriating.

“i’ve been worried sick about you all day.”

his statement makes you frown for a new reason. at the same moment, the thermometer beeps.

“could you please tell him that i’m fine?”

“37.3, uhhh- that’s slightly above normal. how do you feel? does your head hurt? are you cold?”

“i feel fine though?”

“okay. please take a lot of rest and stay warm…” her gaze lingers at jungkook who is blocking the window. “keep the window closed. hopefully it won’t be higher when i check again later.”

seriously?! you could cry. you want to go home where it’s comfortable. where it’s only you and jungkook and bam.

but you bet somebody would be happy if you had to stay longer.

“i’ll look after ____.” your boyfriend sighs, pulling out a jacket from his backpack.

“you shouldn’t have kissed me. what if you get sick?”

your blatantness causes the nurse to pause in updating your chart. she awkwardly clears her throat. “yeah… that… that isn’t currently advisable.”

“i’m sorry. i’ll control myself.”

you earn a glare from jungkook, then he fakes a smile which you gladly return.

“before you go, may i request for a new blanket? sorry, i spilled something earlier.”

“sure thing! i’ll come back with that right away.”

—

“she seemed happy to leave.” jungkook remarks. “i can’t tell if you were actually being nice or being passive aggressive.”

you smile innocently, taking a bite off the strawberry you stole from the top of the cake. “i’m a fucking angel.”

damn it, why is he suddenly turned on?

were you serious about the no kiss rule?

“would you rather i be the type to pull their hair?”

he shakes his head with a laugh. “but you did slap someone once.”

“you want to see me that furious again?”

“never in my wildest dreams.”

he kisses the top of your head, producing an exaggerated ‘mmmwah!’ sound that makes you giggle happily.

“here, have some more cake.”

he offers you a spoonful of cake.

no, it’s bigger.

as a matter of fact, the piece could probably pass off as a cupcake.

you gawk at it as if you’re figuring out the logistics of putting it in your mouth. his heart does a flip when you tilt your head and do your best to take in the whole thing. however, in the middle of it, you decide that you can’t, and you end up biting it off a little more than halfway.

oh my god, he loves you. he loves you. you’re so fucking cute.

your cheeks are full as you struggle to chew. you cover your mouth with your hand but they don’t touch. you’re so elegant in your ways and sometimes he wonders how you’re still attracted to him after he acts stupid.

also, plain white nails? that’s new. you always want colors.

“your nails look pretty.”

he is so focused on you that he fails to take notice of another presence occupying the room.

“your mom did them for me.”

“i figured. she wants to do mother-daughter things with you.”

the short break of silence speaks volumes. you look at him, blinking with eyes hinting at a type of joy you’re lost on how to express.

“did you choose white?”

“no. we were watching a drama and it was the couple’s wedding.”

oh, that makes total sense.

“let me guess,” he trails off with a half-embarrassed, half-entertained smile. “she asked when we will get married?”

“why would she ask me that? how would i know?” you scoff.

his heart starts at a thousand miles per hour. fuck, are you hinting at him? are you messing with his feelings again? with you, he always needs to remind himself to be rational.

“i need more time to prove to you that i’m husband material.”

“what? stop it. i don’t care. i don’t need a ring.”

your unpredictableness pushes him to the edge of his seat.

“don’t pressure yourself. you already treat me way better than most husbands do their wives.”

the pride painted on your face is unmistakable. he feels his heart swelling in his chest. has he been doing a better job than he originally thought? after what happened today, he was terrified that he hasn’t been paying enough attention to you.

“i’m so happy with what we have.”

you offer him a delicate smile before eating the rest of the cake that was left on the spoon. he swears there’s a glowing halo above your head.

could your temperature have magically dropped in the past five minutes? would you kill him if he kissed you right now?

“is there anything else i could assist you with?”

and then he is rudely snapped out of his hopeless adoration and daydreaming.

“that’s all! thank you for your hard work!” you chirp.

he turns to the nurse with a lovesick grin.

“please come to our wedding.”

the unforeseen wedding invitation earns him a slap on the chest. he clutches the affected area, wincing in pain.

he hears you mutter. “don’t invite strangers to our wedding.”

the irritated glare he predicted to face isn’t there. rather, you’re wearing the flustered smile he only sees when he knows that he did something to make you fall for him all over again.

before ji-woo left, she tried to subtly reject the invitation by jokingly saying that she’d die to go, but most probably, she’d have to work that day. you know… being an overworked hospital employee and all. you caught her glancing at you with bitterness failed to be guised as indifference. you get it. you’d hate it if another person was in your place. frankly speaking, you could be miles pettier.

your boyfriend wipes the corner of your lips, thoughtless as he licks off the cake frosting from his thumb.

damn it, you wish she was also here for that.

“you haven’t stopped smiling.”

“you love me and you never let me forget that.”

you give an answer despite the lack of a question mark.

you just made his world stop spinning on its axis and you’re not even aware.

jungkook knows the heavenly feeling of knowing that he is loved, but he has never deeply considered the joy and relief when the person he loves believes that he loves them.

“i’m so lucky. i love you.”

you push yourself up to plant a kiss on his forehead. it’s a rarity he treasures and keeps.

“i love you too.”

he cries infront of you.

almost.

he excuses himself to the bathroom and cries in there a little.

you’re so easy to love— that’s why it makes him want to do difficult things for you. like commit more crimes?

[hier--soir]

a lover's pinch | six

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni summary: joel and rachel have dinner. a confession is made. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, JOEL POV, sexting/nudes, joel has bad restaurant etiquette lmao, descriptions of arousal, references to past smut, the guilt and shame that sometimes go so neatly hand in hand with wanting, miller daughter cameo, mild angst, discussion of a car accident. word count: 4.8k series masterlist | main masterlist a lover's pinch playlist a/n: just a reminder that this is set within ALP5, when joel goes to have dinner w rachel. just a short little peek into my beloved professor’s mind, and some context between j & r. hope you like it x follow @hier--soirupdates if you'd like to be notified when i share my writing this is part six of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five.

Sunday.

“Nina thinks it’ll rain tomorrow. Overcast too, probably.”  

There’s a faint hum through the phone as she speaks. A vague buzz that crackles and pops in almost every beat of silence. Not for the first time, Joel wishes she would let him buy her a new phone.

A gust of wind whips against his face and he cringes, turning his back against the draft.

“Okay,” he replies. “That’s okay, right?”

“It’s fine,” she grumbles. “Wanted to take you to this bar, though. They do these tacos we love. Nina says it’s the best Mexican place in New York.”

“Now how many times do I have to tell you there’s no good Mexican food in New York?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Joel can practically hear her rolling her eyes. He chuckles.

“What time are you coming ‘round?” Ellie asks. “I’ll be in the studio for most of the day, but we normally get home around five. Could do dinner around eight?”

Joel hesitates, and then raises his voice to be heard over the rushing wind. “I was actually thinkin’ I’d come see your studio.”

A moment of humming, crackling silence.

“I’d love to see some of your work,” he continues, peering in through the window of the restaurant. He thinks he can see Rachel through the frosted glass – her mess of dark curls vaguely visible, tucked away somewhere in the corner of the space. He hears Ellie breathing through the phone as he looks. “And s’been too long since you showed your old man any of your paintings.”

“Joel,” she huffs, and it’s that smartass, pained tone that has him grinning wider than anything she’s said up until this point.

It’s few and far between lately – hearing that name coming from her mouth. Joel. Something that’s been intermittent for almost a decade, and has been steadily decreasing since she moved to New York five years ago.

Joel, Dad, Joel, Dad, Joel, Dad.

Joel for years, and then one day—Dad.

It was Summer; Ellie was eighteen and he was thirty-nine, and this word that he’d grown so accustomed to hearing suddenly felt like a fist squeezing around his heart. It became something new, something different. Because Joel knew that, for her, family had always meant mistrust. Had always meant loneliness. Knew that sometimes her childhood felt like a knife stuck in her throat, and on those days, she had to decide whether to leave it in and stem the blood flow, or pluck out the blade and watch everything turn red.

And then one day, years on, it seemed that she’d drawn that dagger enough times. The blood stopped, the mistrust fell away, and—Dad.

Dad to Sarah and now, finally, Dad to Ellie.

“Ellie,” he imitates her tone, well-versed in mirroring her attitude after so many years of practice.

A voice rears up directly behind him and Joel stiffens, glancing over his shoulder to watch a couple exit the restaurant. Coat collars dragged up to protect their necks, arms linked as they smile and start down the street. He imagines Rachel sitting inside, alone, and his smile falters. He knows he should go back in soon, but can’t quite bring himself to cut this short.

“Yeah, okay,” Ellie answers finally, and he can feel the weight that rests in those words.

The admission, but also everything that goes unsaid alongside it. A silent acknowledgement of years spent reading between the lines, trying to know each other; years of her locking her bedroom door, hiding her journals, her artbooks, her pencils. Anything to keep someone else from seeing the way she expresses herself – from understanding that she feels anything. And this yeah, okay – well, it’s as close to I love you as the two of them ever get.

Joel says, “I’ve been missin’ you, kiddo.”

And she says, “I know.”

More silence. More contemplation of how to respond, how to keep emotions level when he is not Joel in this moment, but Dad.

Plucking out the blade.

“Ten tomorrow morning. I’ll send you the address,” Ellie says after a while. “Don’t be late or I’m not showing you shit, old man.”

Heat blasts his face when he steps back inside the restaurant. He tugs his jacket off as he wanders his way toward their little corner table inside San Vecchio—old saint. A small Italian place that Rachel likes to visit whenever she’s the city, and has slowly but surely grown on him.

When he gets close enough to see the table his stomach drops, face twisting into something apologetic as he lowers himself into his chair.

“Shit,” Joel mutters, staring at their food. Brought out while he was on the phone, sitting untouched; she didn’t even pick up her fork in his absence. A shameful heat rises in his face. “I’m sorry, Rach.”

“Hon,” she just laughs him off. “It’s okay, it only just came out.”

He nods, grateful, and lets her pour him a generous glass of wine. Red. A bottle of the Carignan, please, he remembers her telling the waiter. Although, when he takes a sip, he can’t tell the difference between this and the twenty-dollar cabernet he buys once a fortnight from the grocer.

They press the lips of their glasses together and murmur soft calls of cheers and another conference done, the words all but swallowed up by the raucous sounds around them.

“How is she then?” she prompts, never able to tame her curiosity.

“Ellie?” Joel’s eyebrows jut up, and he sets his wine glass down. “Good, yeah, good. It was nice to hear her voice, I, uh, I’ve missed too many of that kid’s calls over the past few months.”

Rachel nods, and when she smiles his chest feels a little lighter, because it’s the type of smile that says it’s okay, everything is okay, you’re a good dad, you took the call. And she has always had that kind of soothing effect on him, since the day he met her all those years ago. There’s this compassion to her character; a warmth akin to that of a sister. Smarter than hell and kinder than she’s ever been given credit for.  

“Are you seeing her while you’re in town?”

“Mhm, tomorrow.”

“Well, that will be lovely,” she beams and takes a sip of her wine. Carignan stains her mouth. “Is she still with Nina?”

“She is.”

“God, that must be, what, four years they’ve been together now? That’s great, Joel.”

“I’m happy for her,” he smiles, gripping his fork. “They’re renting out this art studio together at the moment – Nina’s an artist too, did I—?”

“Yeah, you told me.”  

“Yeah, they’ve been using the space to work on some new stuff. Ellie was tellin’ me ‘bout this gallery downtown, how they’ve offered her some exhibit space. Gonna have a show down there in March.”

“Wow, that sounds amazing,” Rachel’s eyebrows raise, top lip quirking into a soft smirk as she twirls her fork through a mess of red pasta. “Do you think they’ll get married? Follow in Sarah and Tim’s footsteps?”

Joel can’t help but laugh at the idea. He tries to imagine Ellie and Nina in a chapel, or on a beach, or anywhere, professing their love for one another with friends and family watching on. Tries to imagine Ellie, all tattoos, messy hair, and gangly arms, tucked into a suit or a dress. The image doesn’t come easily.

“I don’t really think they’re the type,” he admits, and Rachel laughs too then.

“No,” she agrees. “I guess not.”

She asks more questions about the girls, the way she always does. Asks about Sarah’s job at the primary school, if teaching is all she thought it would be.

And something like halfway through their meal, around a mouthful of food, Rachel says, “You know I’m glad we’re here, because I need to ask you something.”

Joel’s hands still, face going slack as he meets her eye. There’s something conniving in them. Something sly in the way she smiles, baring her teeth at him. It makes his stomach twist into a tight, burning knot. What does she know?

“Okay,” he says slowly, lowering his knife.

“So,” she hums. “At the conference yesterday…”

“Yeah?” he rasps, blunt nails digging into his thigh beneath the table.

“I couldn’t ask you about it because I didn’t want anyone to overhear us, but… did you see what Professor Neilson was wearing? That blazer?”

“Jesus,” he deflates.

“Oh, come on,” she sputters, and there’s lipstick stained on her front teeth and he finds himself smiling too, relaxing.

“You’re a filthy gossip, you know that?” he raises an eyebrow.

She grins back at him. Winks and says, “Don’t act like you don’t love it, Miller.”

So, for an hour they eat, and talk, and drink. Don’t stop until their cheeks are sore from smiling and their ribs are tight and aching from laughter.  

With full bellies and rosy cheeks, they scrape their plates clean. Lips purse and pucker around final sips of wine, and then… and then Rachel reaches across the table and places her hand atop his.

And Joel has never noticed that she has sunspots across her knuckles. Never noticed that she wears a ring on her pinkie finger, one with a dark emerald stone in the middle. Never noticed the thin white scar beside the nail on her index. She squeezes his hand, the pad of a finger skimming his wrist, and he remembers how he held someone else’s wrist only hours before this. Felt her skin beneath his fingers – the frailty of the tendons and veins beneath it, swimming with life as his thumb pressed down.   

Joel feels his eye twitch. Works to keep his face relaxed, calm. And when she leaves her hand there, he laughs a little. A choked, wary sound. Turns his hand over so his knuckles are against the table and his palm is against her palm and squeezes once in return. Rachel isn’t smiling anymore.

“You okay, Rach?”

“Do you…” she pauses, mouth twisting into a shy smile as she clears her throat. Joel feels something heavy settle in his stomach. A type of dread that curdles and burns like red sky at morning. “Do you remember when Sarah was in that car accident a few years back?”

Joel swallows. Her hand feels too warm against his, her palm tacky with sweat.

“We were… we were at work, and… and Tim called you and told you she was in the hospital—”

He almost cringes at the memory. Her husband’s name flashing across his phone screen during a lecture. Stomach churning and why is Tim calling me, heart racingand Tim never calls. Remembers hearing those panicky breaths down the line and thinking Texas and Maine had never felt further apart than in that moment.

“You drove me to the airport,” he nods. His knuckles feel tight – he wants to pull his hand back and crack them. Wants to feel the joints pop beneath his skin, let the tension slip away like a sigh.

“You were so distraught,” Rachel sighs. “I’d never seen you like that. So uncomposed, so… chaotic.”

Joel huffs out an awkward laugh and tries to pull his hand back, but she squeezes harder. Keeps it in place beneath her own.

“What’s this all about?” his eyebrows furrow, face pinching into a sort of scowl. He can feel it, he can always feel it when his face does this. So unpleasant, so unwelcoming, and he knows it. Just never figured out how to stop it from happening.

“We were in the car,” she continues, and her eyes are so earnest now. So wide, the whites shining, her lashes darkened and fanned out around them in a way he’s never seen before. She’s wearing makeup. “And you didn’t even have a bag packed, you just wanted to get to your girl. Needed to see her with your own eyes, make sure she was okay.”

His jaw feels tight inside his head; teeth clenched painfully, digging into the gums around his molars as the memory plays in his mind.

Tim’s voice wavering, crying, she was unconscious when they pulled her out.

His hand is numb beneath Rachel’s. She’s fine, he reminds himself. Sarah’s fine, that was years ago.

“I think I knew then,” she says quietly.

“Knew what?” Joel tries to keep his voice level. Ignoring the odd feeling that twists in his chest and has his heart racing faster, so much faster than normal, faster than it has ever raced for Rachel.

“That I loved you.”

It’s almost dreamlike, the way everything seems to blur and fade around them after she says it. Or perhaps nightmarish is the right word. A sharp pain sparks between his ribs and he feels his body stiffen and then loosen all at once. Face, shoulders, hand beneath hers – everything softens. Fuck. His mouth tastes like sandpaper, tongue resting fat and gravelly against the roof of it as she stares at him.

When he doesn’t say a word, she says, “I’d always known you were so kind, so generous to the people around you. But to see the way you love? It’s… shit, Joel, I just knew.”

He’s convinced his throat is tightening.

“And I held it in all of these years, and I’m sorry for that. I was just never sure of how you felt, and you never tried anything with me, never hinted at any feelings. But after the conference yesterday...”

“The conference?” he whispers. He pictures that bench outside NYU. Remembers the nasty wind, an empty champagne flute on the ground, the side of his body going hot where it pressed against hers.

“Walking around that hall together,” Rachel smiles. “You kept holding your arm out for me to hold, and I thought, god, maybe this is it. Maybe you actually feel the same.”

Joel imagines that this must be what people describe as critical velocity. Everything that once was smooth turns turbulent. Every second, every minute, that he’s allowed himself to careen forward, wanton and reckless, on the deliciously destructive course he’s set for himself – all of it just for someone close to him to step directly into his line of fire.

And his silence is so painfully telling. He knows immediately when it’s been too long, too much quiet, too many seconds of nothing said, of no reassurances offered. The muscle in her jaw ticks, and a vertical line appears between pinched eyebrows. Confusion, surprise, hurt. Her hand pulls back, and he tucks his in his lap quickly.

“Oh,” she whispers. “Oh, shit.”  

Joel is suddenly certain that he’s going to be sick. His hands shake beneath the table, a violent tap tap tap where they’re clasped against the inside of his thigh.

“Rachel—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Please, don’t apol—”

“I shouldn’t have said—”

“Rachel,” Joel’s voice raises, just a little, just enough to make her pause, enough for conversation at the table beside them to halt for a second. ���If anythin’, I should be the one apologisin’.”

She laughs; a sad, quiet thing. Shakes her head at him.

“I guess I… somewhere in my head, I thought you knew,” Rachel says quietly. “Thought you….” The unspoken words hang in the air between them. Thought you felt the same.

And it hurts. His skin prickles at the sound of her voice; laced with pain, with rejection. Your fault, he thinks. That pain is your fault.

“Is there someone else?” she asks then, and her voice is so feeble. So small, so un-Rachel that it makes his chest feel tight. Your fault.

Joel sighs, cringes, fumbles for the right words. The words to explain something that he himself doesn’t even fully understand. Words that will make her feel better, that will put her at ease. Put him at ease.

“It’s not….” he trails off, half-prepared to lie. But then he meets her gaze. Sees the tears that have settled on her waterline and knows he can’t. Wants to hate her for asking, wants to beg her to take back the question. But in the end he just admits quietly, “I suppose there is.”

She sniffles, and when she speaks again, it almost sounds like a question.

“You never mentioned anyone.”  

“I know,” Joel nods. “I’m sorry, I think I just… it’s complicated, and it… it’s new.”

“New,” she repeats softly. “And you never… you never thought of me that way.” This time it isn’t posed like a question. There is nothing open ended about it. Instead it’s resigned; final.

The corners of her mouth are downturned, and her lower lip wobbles, a movement so miniscule that he could have missed it if his eyes weren’t trained on her face. Trying painfully to understand this situation that feels as if it has crept up on him in his sleep. 

“I’m sorry,” Joel finds himself saying again, and he thinks his eyes must be wide, unblinking, because they’re dry, and he feels panicked.  

In his mind all he can think of is every cup of coffee in her office, every borrowed book, every sly joke in the corridor at work. Comforting smiles offered at conferences, snarky notes passed back and forth during faculty meetings. His friend. One of the truest, longest, most persevering ones in his life. One so dear to his heart. The idea of all of that being no more seems almost too painful to contemplate in the middle of a restaurant, with your fault thundering in his chest.

Rachel waves a hand. Feigns nonchalance and offers a watery smile.

“I’m happy for you, Joel,” she says. He doesn’t miss the waver in her voice, nor the harsh splash of crimson humiliation that stains the skin of her face. “I am. Really.”

Except he doesn’t know how to respond to that, doesn’t know what there is to be happy for. Can only watch her face. Can only sit, and stare like a fool at the way the skin beneath her eyes tightens as she draws back tears.

“I’m—” Rachel swallows. Sucks in a huge breath and flattens her palms against the table. Her napkin, stained with soft blots of red and brown, is pressed beneath the fingers of her left hand. The one with the sunspots and the ring and the scar. “Sorry, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’m going to use the restroom—”

“Rach,” he tries, hand reaching across the table for—for what? Joel isn’t sure. What is there to do? To say? “What can I do?”

“It’s okay,” she stands, holds a hand out to silence him. Steps out from the behind table and squeezes past him. Her fingers brush against his arm as she goes. “It’s fine, I’m fine, I just need a second to freshen up.”

Joel watches her weave through the restaurant, shifting around tables, until her back disappears through a door at the far end of the room.

There’s a minute of painful quiet. A sort of buzzing in his ears that won’t go away. For a moment all he’s aware of is the look of disdain coming from the woman on the table to his left, and the sharp pain in his chest, and then the sounds of the restaurant come rushing back in. Cutlery scraping against plates, conversation, laughter, the sound of a bell ringing. And something buzzing, really truly buzzing this time. Something against his leg.

Joel pulls his phone out of his pocket and tries not to wince when he sees her name on the screen.

Are you enjoying your dinner?

The glance he spares over his shoulder is short, searching, looking to see if she’s coming back yet. Don’t make this worse than it already is.

Yeah, the restaurant is nice.

What are you doing? 

Well my bags are packed, and I just tucked myself into bed

Something tightens in his stomach, and he knows what she’s doing, knows this game so well. The way she always manages to creep beneath his skin. Knows exactly what to say, to do, to have him hanging on her every word.

His fingers hover over the screen, contemplating a response.

Is that right? he types out, and then grimaces, backspacing quickly.  

Want some company? he types next.

“Christ,” Joel mutters under his breath, erasing that too.

Embarrassment itches across his body. And then guilt, like a tidal wave chaser rushing to cool his inflamed skin, as he notices Rachel walking back toward him. You fucking asshole.

He straightens in his seat, tucking his phone out of sight as she hovers beside the table, eyes darting between him and her empty chair. She doesn’t sit down again.

“I think,” she takes a deep breath. “I think I should probably go. Early flight to catch, you know? I need to get some rest.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

He can feel his mouth hanging open, dumbfounded, ridiculous, as his brain scavenges for something to say. Never the right words, never when he needs them. Not for her, and not for Rachel.

Rachel reaches for her purse, and he holds out a hand. “Hey, let me… I’ll cover this.”

She pauses, nods. “Thanks.”

“Course,” he says gruffly. She pulls her coat from the back of her chair, wraps it around herself and does the buttons up slowly. Her mascara is smudged. “Hey, Rach, can we… should we talk about this some more? I don’t want to—”

“Not tonight,” she interrupts sharply. “Please, Joel, I’m sorry, just…. not tonight.”

—lose you.

“Sure, okay.” His throat is tight, your fault lodged heavy against his Adam’s apple. “You need help to get a taxi?”

“I’m fine,” she places a hand lightly on his shoulder, and presses her thumb against the skin beneath his collarbone. “Get home safe, okay? We can talk in Maine.”

“In Maine,” he repeats, and the words split and sour inside his mouth. “Okay.”

He doesn’t watch her leave. Doesn’t want to have to see her retreating from him. Doesn’t want to think about if this will be the last time they get to do this.

The waiter returns and he pays the bill, hastily jotting down a generous tip, and offers the women at the table on his left a tight-lipped smile before standing up.

When he finally makes his way outside, he finds a tax idling by the curb, lights on. The driver notices Joel staring; rolls down the window and raises his eyebrows. Where to?

Joel only shakes his head a little, leans his back against the dank, cold brick wall behind him. He takes a deep, shuddering breath before opening his phone, and sends two words.

Show me.

And then, when she doesn’t respond for a moment, he sends another message. Insistent now. Desperate, and even more desperate not to let it show.

I know you want to show me, sweetheart.

And when she does show him, it takes all of his might not to let this guilt consume him. Takes everything not to ruminate on how quickly he can shift from I’m sorry to Show me.

Because her skin.

So much skin.

Soft, smooth; shrouded in a robe that covers more than he’d like, and he knows how it tastes. Knows how it feels. Could press his fingers, his lips, his nose, to every part of it that he’s touched, in the exact same places, from memory alone.

It’s cold outside – windy, the beginnings of tomorrow’s storm twisting through the air. He feels it snake across his neck, curl beneath the lip of his collar, as he takes in the curve of her breast, the stiff point of her nipple, peeking out from behind white fabric. His cock stiffens in his pants.

He gazes at the softest part of her stomach, the thatch of curls that cover her mound, and wants to press his palms against the plush of her thighs. Wants to lay himself atop her, feel that skin against his again, hear her whimper and moan beneath the broad weight of him as he slips inside her. Wants to snatch her finger from her mouth and glide it inside his own. With her slick and her skin against his tongue, he’d sink his teeth in and inhale that warmth, that beating, pulsating force that he’s found himself so intoxicated by.

And to think, only hours ago, he was doing just that. Lowering himself to the ground in a public bathroom and drinking her down. Feeling the muscles in her thighs pull tight and then loose against the sides of his head. Anything to satisfy the craving that only she seems to inspire in him.

Resolute, persistent – a probing, prodding thing that nips at his heels and thrusts him forward at a double time pace.

A hunger that follows him down the nights and down the days.

A hunger that can only ever be sated like the taking of a sacrament – on his knees, devotion in his eyes.

Jesus.

Are you wet?

You know I am.

Are you touching yourself?

Joel’s jaw tightens. He holds his breath and waits. Can’t quite tell what would be worse; knowing that she’s touching herself, alone, thinking about him, or that she isn’t, that she’s waiting for him. He can feel his cock leaking against his thigh.

No.

He exhales heavily, and the faintest hint of a groan slips out with it. Fuck, pull yourself together.

Joel’s fingers float over the keyboard, and for a moment he thinks of Rachel.

Thinks that if he could only bring himself to look up, to look away from her, he might be able to see Rachel still. The back of her coat, the dark scrawl of her hair, disappearing into the night. Joel thinks of the tears in her eyes, taunting him, threatening to spill spill spill, to streak down rosy cheeks and wet the hollow of her throat. Feels something throb and crack in his chest – a painful, resounding ache that hurts so much like fear, like loss. 

Your fault, your fault, your fault.

And wouldn’t that be so much easier? If he were to look away, to chase his friend down the street and tell her that he was wrong, that he wants her, that it makes sense for them to be together. Wouldn’t it be easier if that were true?

But he doesn’t stop looking at her. He thinks of Pothos, of Himeros, and stares at the soft curve of her stomach, the indent of her belly button.  Looks at the way her lower lip rests below her finger and pictures it swollen, slick with a medley of her spit and his. Even notices a small mark, nestled in the crevice between her hip and the top of her thigh. A fading remnant of where his teeth had once pinched – like a tangible little footprint, whispering that he was there.

Longing and desire flame between the cracks of his ribs; a bright white heat that curls itself around your fault until he manages to shake the thought.

What was it that Kaminsky said? There was no mythology: Odysseus hanged himself. Homer drank to death and stank of mud.

And perhaps he was right; for there is no witness to this. No being over his shoulder, God or mortal, to lay their eyes upon this moment and understand that all he has ever known of love is deprivation. That fondest, blindest, weakest part of his being that has always yearned for, or perhaps grieved over, this love that once seemed so intangible and now, at last, maybe he has been deemed worthy of.

Alone so long, living in a body grown accustomed to such quiet. Familiar with no touch other than that of his own rough palms. And now… the intensity of it shakes within him. The urge to sink his teeth in like a bad dog and hold, hold, hold, to consume and be consumed, and never yield to anyone who wants to take this away from him.

No, there is no looking away from that, from her. Joel feels the noose tighten around his neck the longer he stares – a dog on the leash of its own longing, that need only sharpening with every second that dares to pass.

And Joel knows that nothing has ever been easy. Considers the idea that maybe that’s how it was supposed to be for him. And perhaps he doesn’t want easy, doesn’t want simple. No – Joel was always drawn to the flame.

Good.

Dinner finished early. Where are you?

And that flame welcomes him now in kind. The arms of a lover spread open for embrace; the address of her hotel sent directly to his phone.

Joel looks up and makes eye contact with the taxi driver again. Light still on.

Where to?

**the Kaminsky mentioned in this is Ilya Kaminsky, and the quote is from Dancing in Odessa.

thank you for reading! x

[1-800-hwahui]

match of the season

member  |  college student radio host!junhui x fem student!reader genre  |  smut, fluff, humor word count  |  ~7,300 warnings  |  virgin!jun, shy clueless jun, fr that man does not know a single thing but it's endearing in a silly way, top!reader bot!jun (but no real dom/sub dynamics, more like reader leads until jun figures out how to take over), unprotected sex, jun big cock agenda, VOICE KINK (listen. you all knew it was coming), so much dirty talk, lots of consent bc it is very sexy, riding, little bit of dry humping?, mentions of an iud/birth control, jun is implied taller than reader (maybe size kink but only if you take it that way), jeonghan cameo and he's a menace, lots of fluff at the end (but also kinda throughout), please lmk if i missed any warnings! notes  |  this is a nsfw sequel to a sfw fic on my main writing blog @junkissed called sounds of the season, which is part of my series of winter-themed fics! if you haven't already, i would highly recommend reading that before reading this, since the stories are pretty closely connected. thanks to @onlymingyus for reading over this for me <3 i hope you all enjoy this as much as you enjoyed the first part. also like i said in part 1 i have no idea how radio works so if it doesn't make sense just roll with it lmao

you’re just putting the last finishing touches on your final paper when your phone buzzes. you glance down, grinning when you see junhui’s name on the screen.

unable to hide the butterflies in your stomach, you press a button to accept the call. “hi, junnie.”

“oh! hi,” his voice plays through your speaker with a giggle. “hey, i like that. ‘junnie’. do you want a nickname? but your name is so pretty, i don’t wanna change it–”

“whatever you want is fine,” you say, trying to hold back a smile. god, he’s cute.

“okay. i’ll think about it. oh, wait, yeah!” he says suddenly, as if he’s just remembered why he’s calling. “jeonghan left town early this week so it’s just me in the studio today, and it’s our last show of the semester. so anyway, do you wanna come over?” he stops, stumbling over his words. “well, not like, come over come over, i mean, we can just hang out, i–”

“give me half an hour,” you laugh, endeared by his eagerness.

“yay!” he cheers, and you shake your head with a smile.

half an hour later, a text pops up on jun’s phone, alerting him that you’re waiting outside the building. he leaps out of his chair, an excited grin on his face as he flings open the door and dashes downstairs to let you in.

he’s out of breath by the time he reaches the communications lab door, leaning on the push bar to let you in. “sorry, forgot they locked it already,” he pants.

“it’s fine,” you giggle. “so… everyone else is gone?”

he nods. “yeah, mr. choi said as long as i don’t mess with anything he’ll let me close by myself, so they all left early for break.”

you smile and hold out your hand for him to take, and he beams, hastily grabbing your hand and lacing his fingers with yours.

he leads you up the stairs to the sound booth, squeezing your hand the whole way.

it’s your second time being in the school’s recording studio, but the feeling is still new and exciting. you definitely understand now what jun meant when he said being around all the equipment is a lot of fun.

once inside, he shuts the heavy door with a click, locking the door and flipping on the “on air” light. not that anyone could get in anyway, but it’s a habit he doesn’t want to accidentally get out of before he comes back next semester.

he slides in front of the computer for a second, queueing another song so he has more time to grab what he’s designated as “your chair”; the comfiest one in the studio, according to him.

he pulls it over next to his chair and pats the cushion for you to sit. you giggle and plop down on the seat, scooching closer to him once he’s sat in his own chair.

he raises his eyebrows at you with a grin, then clears his throat and moves closer to the microphone as the song ends to do his job.

ever since you accidentally admitted to him that you like the way his voice sounds, he’s teased you about it—or at least, attempted to tease you about it. he's too sweet for his own good, so even when he tries to poke fun at you it comes out like a compliment.

he presses the red button and begins to talk. “that was one of the classics, ‘a holly jolly christmas’ by burl ives. coming up next, another favorite, ‘the christmas song’ by michael bublé, and more great songs on your favorite program: 111.7fm’s sounds of the season.”

he lets go of the button and sits back in his chair, spinning it around to face you as the slow music starts softly playing. “hi,” he says shyly. “did you like that?”

you smile. it’s a little bit of an odd question, but you’ve started to understand his awkwardness; he just needs a little encouragement. “i always like it. you’re really good at this.”

“i like it a lot,” he grins back, bouncing his head in excitement. “can i kiss you now?”

you laugh at his enthusiasm but nod, leaning forward to press your lips to his. he sighs into your mouth, his hands falling naturally to your waist. for supposedly not going out much, jun is really, really good at kissing, you’ve quickly learned over the last few days. how he got so good at it, you may never know, but the feeling of him pressed against you is too perfect to waste time questioning why.

despite being surrounded by the cold, metal recording equipment, the sound of michael bublé’s crooning voice and the gentle warmth of junhui’s lips makes the studio feel like the coziest place on earth.

his hands tug at your waist and you slide easily out of your chair and onto his lap, sitting sideways across his legs, never breaking the kiss.

he pulls away for a second, his cheeks dusted with pink. “let me… put the playlist on,” he says, his voice a little breathier than usual. 

you hum in confusion, attention still focused on the curve of his lips and the little noises he makes when he’s kissing you. “what playlist?”

he laughs. “for the show. so we can keep doing… this, and not have to worry.”

“wait, so you mean, not all of it is live?”

he shakes his head. “almost all of it is, but there’s a backup playlist in case we get busy and can’t sit around pressing buttons for the whole hour. i used it a couple weeks ago when i had to finish my chem paper.”

he spins the chair around, facing you both in front of the computer screen and tapping a few buttons on the keyboard. he turns a dial on the soundboard and the background music in the studio gets lower, so quiet you need to strain to hear it.

he hums, and your attention turns away from the machinery and back to his eager smile.

“can i kiss you again?” he asks softly.

you giggle and put your hands around his neck. “you don’t have to ask every time.”

so he’s pushing his lips on yours again, kissing you like you’re the most delicate thing in the world.

and that’s when you feel it. the butterflies deep in your stomach that make you want to do things no person should be doing in a school building.

he pulls away for a second to catch his breath. “you’re so pretty,” he says dreamily, and you hate the way it immediately sends shivers down your spine, landing directly at your core. 

you hold back a whimper and shift the way you’re sitting, moving so each leg is on either side of his legs, straddling his lap.

he pushes his mouth against yours, hands gently kneading your hips. your fingers dance beneath the bottom of his shirt, fingernails gliding over the warm, soft skin of his stomach and feeling his abs contract at your touch.

“wait,” he whimpers, and you pull back immediately, taking your hands off of him and putting them on your thighs.

“do you want me to stop?” you ask quietly. shit, you hope you haven’t completely ruined this by going too fast.

“no!” he nearly shouts, looking panicked, then clears his throat. “no,” he repeats. “i don’t want you to stop. i’m, just…” he trails off, avoiding your gaze.

“you can tell me, junnie,” you say gingerly, wanting him to be comfortable.

“i know,” he whines. “i’m… embarrassed,” he says, voice small.

“i’m not going to laugh at you,” you say softly.

“i’m not– i haven’t–” he freezes. you give him a small smile that you hope looks encouraging, and it must be, because he sighs and starts again. ���i’m a… virgin,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“oh! that’s all?” you ask, taking his hand and threading your fingers in between his. he looks up at you, trying (and failing) to hide the surprise in his expression. “you don’t need to be embarrassed. everybody has a first time.”

you pause, not wanting to force him into doing this if he really isn’t ready. you don’t care, you have plenty of ways of getting yourself off if he wants to wait longer. because you are willing to wait. “we don’t have to now, junnie,” you say. “i’ll wait as long as you want me to.”

“i want to now,” he says quickly, shaking his head. “i just… don’t know what to do,” he mumbles.

“that’s fine,” you whisper, bringing your other hand up to his face and kissing his cheek tenderly. “we’ll go slow, and you tell me what you want.”

he hesitates, then tentatively places his hands on your waist, still holding your hands. “i want to kiss you again.”

you smile. “i can do that.”

and you lean back in, pressing your lips to his. gently at first, until he grips your waist a little harder and starts kissing you a little deeper. you let him get used to it, allowing him to set the pace he wants.

testing the waters, you push down on his lap a little, starting to grind lightly on his crotch. he whimpers and tugs at your hips to help you, beginning to fall into a steady rhythm. 

you stay like this for a while, leisurely making out on his lap, for longer than you normally would with someone else. but this isn’t someone else, this is junhui, and you’re more than content going as slow as he wants. plus, all this is just making you wetter and wetter as time goes on, riling you up the more you think about what’s to come later.

you can feel him getting harder underneath you, and you moan into him, eagerly but patiently waiting for him. his hands climb up your back, hooking around your shoulders and pulling you almost completely flush with his chest.

he pulls away after a minute, lips red and puffy from the contact and breathing hard. “don’t– you need a c-condom, when… so you, don’t get pregnant?” he stutters out, struggling to get the words out and to stop from bucking his hips against you.

“i have an iud, it’s alright,” you say, also panting for breath.

“okay.” he exhales and leans back, letting go of your hips.

you look at him in confusion at his sudden pause. “why…?”

he stares at you. “uh, don’t you have to go put it in? or did you do that before you got here?”

you snort. “my iud? no, it’s in all the time. it doesn’t come out.” 

“oh,” he says, his cheeks flushing pink. “sorry, i didn’t know–”

“it’s okay, junnie. don’t apologize,” you say, trying your hardest to hold back a laugh. poor sweet, oblivious junhui. you’re not laughing at him, you’re laughing at how adorably clueless he is. you find yourself hoping you might be the one to help him understand these things, if he wants you to.

“have you… before?” he asks shyly, avoiding your eyes again.

you pause, knowing he’s already embarrassed and trying to answer him as gently as possible. “yes,” you say finally, and his face droops a little at your response. “but that doesn’t mean anything. it’s my first time with you, too, so we’re learning about each other. that’s all it is. so just… don’t think about it, okay? the only thing i’m thinking about right now is you.”

his cheeks are a deep shade of pink, but he nods. you take his hands carefully and put them at the hem of your shirt, guiding him to pull it up and over your head. you unclasp your bra and turn around to toss it over to your chair.

“now your turn,” you say gently, looking up at his eyes, which are still focused on your boobs.

“ju-un,” you murmur in a sing-song voice, and his eyes snap back to your face. “do you want to keep going?” 

“yeah,” he chokes out. “i mean– yes. yes, please.”

you coo at his manners, moving off of his lap to wiggle your pants down your legs. his eyes are completely transfixed on your body, admiring every inch of you that he can see.

“do you want to now?” you ask, and he nods rapidly. he stands up and throws his shirt off, and his pants are quick to follow until he’s sitting back in his chair in only his boxers. the lines of his stomach seem even more defined in the low light of the studio, and you so desperately want to run your hands up and down his torso, and feel every inch of him, but– one thing at a time.

you slide your panties off and go back to your position straddling his lap. “is this okay?” you ask again.

“mhm,” he hums lowly, and you feel it deep in your abdomen, walls clenching around nothing at the sound.

his eyes dart around your face, and you reach up to run your fingers through his hair, tucking it gently behind his ear. “are you ready?” you ask softly.

his eyes widen, and he springs into action, his hands flying to your waist again. “oh! okay, yes, yes, um…”

you try not to giggle at his enthusiasm. you trail your hand carefully down to the waistband of his shorts, slipping the tip of your finger inside the elastic. “you have to take this off, junnie,” you whisper.

“mm, okay,” he whines, and you lift up a little so he can slide them down without standing up. he kicks them off and you sit back down, looking down to see what you’re working with. now that he’s fully hard, you can see that he’s… big, much bigger than you expected from a man this shy.

but who are you to judge, so you adjust on his lap, sitting up to reach below you and take his cock in your hand, positioning it at your entrance. he whimpers at the contact as you slowly drag his tip through your folds, spreading your wetness around. 

“you just sit here and let me do all the work, baby, okay?” you hum, gripping his shoulder with your other hand. “let me make you feel good, hm?”

he lets out a garbled noise in response, barely comprehending your words at how engrossed he is with the way you’re holding his cock so delicately, waiting to push it inside and finally feel you.

“junnie, need you to use your words, honey,” you say gently, moving the hand on his shoulder to lightly cup his jaw, lifting his chin so his gaze lands on your face. “you have to tell me if you don’t like something or you wanna do something different, okay?

“i wanna do you,” he says, staring blankly into your eyes, and that’s when you know he’s already gone.

you giggle. “i know, baby. you’re going to. but you have to talk to me.”

“‘cause you like my voice.”

you resist the urge to cringe, still embarrassed that that’s the thing he remembers about you. “yes, i do, but no, that's not why. you need to tell me if you want to stop, at any time, and we’ll stop, okay?”

hearing your tone get serious, he seems to snap out of it a little. “okay,” he whimpers. “can i…?”

he trails off, and you shake your head. you know he’s shy, but you can’t let him off the hook every single time, or else he’ll never learn. “can you what, honey? use your words.”

by now the tips of his ears have turned red, and he’s beginning to lose control, his hips starting to grind against you involuntarily. “can i… fuck you?” he rasps.

“of course you can,” you coo, slipping your hand behind his neck and kissing him gently. “good job, baby.”

he mewls at the praise, and you finally start to sink down on his cock. it burns at first with how girthy he is, but soon the stretch feels good, and you have to fight to keep yourself upright on his lap, soft whimpers escaping your lips.

he groans, throwing his head back against the back of his chair, his grip on your waist tightening. it takes some time, but you finally sit all the way down on his lap, legs splayed on either side of his hips.

immediately he thrusts up into you hard, and you yelp, pushing on his shoulders to get him to stop. “wait!” you pant, squeezing your eyes shut in pain. “just… wait a second first.”

“s-sorry,” he whines, his adam’s apple bobbing with each labored breath.

“s’okay,” you breathe, beginning to adjust to the feeling of his thick cock throbbing inside you. “you’re… big, gotta– gotta give me a second, oh my god.”

he hums absently, clearly pleased with your response, but he manages to stop moving for a little bit.

you sit still on top of him, your muscles gradually beginning to relax as you get used to the feeling.

he sighs, his hands sliding up your back, caressing your skin beneath his fingertips.  “feels so good, just wanna… fuck, just wanna be inside you forever.”

you would be surprised at the sudden lewdness of his words, if you weren’t so focused on the way the tone of his voice has abruptly dropped an octave. he’s starting to get more comfortable, you can tell, and you won’t lie: it’s dangerous for you.

“can– are you okay now?” he asks, eyes focused back on your face again.

“mhm,” you manage, letting out a short exhale. you start to wind your hips in circles, bouncing slowly on his lap as his hands roam your body, touching every inch of you as if he’s trying to memorize every last curve.

it’s a gentle pace; although much too slow for you, you’re hoping it’s just right for junhui to start out with. you’re not used to being on top, so you’re doing your best to keep up, but your thigh is starting to cramp from the position you’ve been sitting in and having to do the work yourself.

he must notice your discomfort, because his hands fall back down to their place at your waist, kneading your skin as he lifts his hips against you in rhythm.

“can i take over?” he mumbles, voice breathy. “please, let me, please.”

“yes, please,” you sigh, your head falling forward to rest on his chest. his skin is burning hot beneath your cheek, and you exhale, closing your eyes from exhaustion.

as soon as you relax and stop moving your hips, his own start moving immediately, your surprised cry punctuated by hard thrusts up into you, over and over again.

you’re still trying to figure out where the hell he got all this stamina from when he starts murmuring in your ear, sweet, dirty whispers as he pounds into you from below.

“you’re so… beautiful, oh my god,” he says in the low voice you’re still struggling to get used to hearing come out of his mouth. “you’re so good, wanna have you like this forever, please–”

“jun, ke–keep talking, please,” you whimper, squeezing your eyes shut in pleasure.

“you like my voice, but you sound so pretty right now,” he groans. “you should hear yourself. wanna hear you cry and make you feel so good, wanna hear you– god, wanna fuck you like this all day and never stop.”

you let out a moan, his words going straight through you. the rumble in his chest as he speaks reverberates against your head. 

the combination of his brutal pace along with the innocently filthy words from his mouth brings you right up to the edge, and you feel the knot in your abdomen tightening.

you shift a little, moving up so you can wrap your arms around his neck, hiding your face in the crook of his neck.

his hips falter for half a second at the contact, but he recovers quickly, wrapping his long arms around you and pressing you flush against his chest, jerking you up and down on his cock with fervor.

“you’re so pretty, you’re so beautiful, you’re so perfect,” he babbles, somehow remembering to keep talking you through everything. “love you so much– fuck, thank you, you’re so amazing, you’re so–”

you almost miss the four-letter word that slips out in between his praises, but it rings through your ears, nestling itself in your heart. you decide to ignore it for now, too focused on chasing your rapidly approaching high, but you promise yourself you’ll talk to him after this is all over and figure out what this is between you two.

you whine, breath catching in your throat as your own words tumble out of you in a constant stream. “keep going, jun, please– keep going, so close, please, junnie please, need you–”

“are you gonna cum? you’re so perfect, please cum for me, please, baby, lemme hear you.”

“fuck, yes!” and with that you’re catapulting over the edge with a sob, clenching around his cock as your orgasm slams into you.

he keeps thrusting into you, not once stuttering as he fucks you through your high, content to keep going and going and going until–

“jun,” you call out weakly, head swirling as you try to sit up. “jun. jun, you can s-slow down.”

his hips begin to stop, slowing down until he’s gently rocking you back and forth on his lap. “did you cum already?” he asks in surprise. like a dork.

you choke out a laugh, head lolling as your arms loosen around his neck. “yeah. yeah, i did.”

“oh.”

if you weren’t so exhausted already, you would burst out laughing. “you’ll figure it out,” you wheeze, hoping it sounds reassuring. 

he starts to move his arms to let go of you, still wrapped around your torso, but you whine and he freezes.

“just… stay here first,” you say, letting your eyes fall shut for a second.

“why?”

you sigh. “because it’s nice.”

“oh,” he says again. he settles back into the chair, holding you on his lap, arms wrapped around you, just sitting quietly.

after a few more seconds of peace you pull yourself upright, pushing your hands against his chest.

“ …what now?” he asks quietly, eyes finding your face.

“you didn’t cum yet, right?” you say. he hums out a no. “then we keep going.”

he yelps in surprise when you start to lift yourself off his lap, his still-hard cock slipping out of you, now soaked in your juices. “don’t we have to wait for you?”

you fight the urge to slap your hand over your forehead. “i can cum more than once, honey. we don’t need to wait,” you say with the straightest face you can muster.

he nods, taking in this clearly unheard of information.

“do you want me to suck you off?” you ask, bringing his attention back to you.

“wh-what?” he stutters, face turning red, clearly not expecting it.

you take in a deep breath. “where do you want to finish?” you try instead, thinking it might help him decide.

“where will you let me?” he replies, wide eyes searching yours as if it’s a trick question designed to make him fail and you’re hiding the answer somewhere in your tender gaze.

“wherever you want, junnie.”

he pauses, like he’s making sure you aren’t lying to him. “can–” he clears his throat and starts again, more sure of himself. “i have an, um… idea.”

“mhm,” you breathe, watching him expectantly.

“do you think i could, maybe… stand up? and, have– you, over the…” he trails off, gesturing to the empty table beside you and hoping you’ll understand what he’s trying to say.

“you want to bend me over and fuck me on the table?” you translate for him, blinking.

instantly his cheeks flare, the shyness returning. “well, i… i. no, um, uh–”

“you can say yes, junnie. it’s hot.”

“you think so?” he squeaks in shock.

you giggle. “yes. you can do whatever you want to, just ask me first.”

his face breaks out into a wide grin. “okay. will you please, um, follow me?” he asks, holding out his arm like a waiter leading you to a table at a restaurant. if he wasn’t so damn cute you definitely would’ve smacked him by now.

you finally move off of his lap and step away, giving him room to move from his chair. you’d forgotten how big he is until he stands up, towering over you, and it sends an involuntary shiver down your spine. he turns and starts walking away, expecting you to follow him.

you laugh and grab his arm, pulling him back. when he looks at you in curiosity, you take his large hands and place them on your waist, motioning for him to guide you.

his mouth falls into an ‘o’ and he follows your lead, pushing you by your hips over to the table.

he stands behind you, caging you in against the table with his tall frame but otherwise not doing anything. you glance over your shoulder at him, nodding in approval.

his hands leave your waist and ever so gently press on your lower back to tilt you over. you comply, letting him move you how he wants.

“is that good?” he asks softly.

“it’s great,” you say, wiggling your ass playfully. “good job asking.”

he hums, so low it’s more like a growl, and it sends another shiver down your spine. at this angle you can feel his dick pressed against your ass, hard and throbbing.

he grinds against you, dragging his cock up and down your hole. you know he’s not doing it intentionally to tease you—you’re not even sure if he’s capable of that—but it does plenty to rile you up.

“junnie, please?” you gasp out, writhing your hips in search of friction, anything. his grip tightens on you, stilling your movements.

“what do i do?” he whispers.

“put it in,” you whisper back, unable to stop the giggle that slips out. he whines in annoyance, so you stop, giving him real advice this time. “just go slow. you can do it, baby.”

you angle your ass up, hoping to give him better access to your dripping hole. he’s already been inside you once, so surely he can find it again… right?

your expectations are clearly too high, because suddenly you feel his tip pressing in between your ass cheeks, and he’s—

you yelp, and he freezes, his hands flying off of you. you reach behind and stick your index finger into your pussy, using the rest of your fingers to spread your folds apart so he can see. “this one, baby.” at least he was going slow, like you said.

“oh! sorry, i’m so sorry,” he mumbles, and even without looking you already know he’s redder than a tomato. 

“jun. don’t apologize. it’s okay,” you say softly. you move your hand away from your pussy and reach it out to him, craning your neck to see him. you wave your fingers at him, and he takes your hand, automatically twining his fingers with yours. it makes you smile. “just go for it, honey.”

“okay,” he breathes, and he starts slowly pushing into you again (the right one this time).

tiny gasps fall from your lips as you feel him fill you up again, stuffing you with his cock, inch by careful inch. once he bottoms out you exhale, letting out the breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding in.

when you don’t feel any more movement, you realize he’s stopped, waiting. you almost whine at how cute and considerate he is, but instead you just squeeze his hand. “baby, you can move.”

“okay,” he says again, and pulls out carefully before slowly pushing back in.

you moan as he starts to increase his pace, rapidly pumping into you as his hips smack against your ass. you arch your back a little, trying to angle him in deeper. each powerful thrust pushes you against the table, your hip bones hitting the edge in a way that’ll definitely leave bruises. but you can’t bring yourself to care when junhui’s thick cock is thrusting into you like his life depends on it. 

still holding onto his hand, you slip your other hand down to run your fingers over your clit, rubbing small circles. you can feel the pressure in your abdomen growing, and—

“fuck, you’re so tight,” jun groans, voice thick with need, and he begins pushing into you even harder than before, something you didn’t even think could be possible. you whine and move your hand from your clit back to the edge of the table to stop yourself from ramming into it.

he notices your elbow bent at an awkward angle to protect yourself, so he lets go of your hand and snakes around your stomach to pull you back so you’re standing upright, both his arms wrapped securely around your body. “feels so good… god, wish i had done this sooner, you’re so amazing, so perfect, for me.”

you whimper at his words, unintentionally clenching around him. “jun,” you cry out softly.

“fuck, baby, say my name again– please, like that, baby, please say it, again,” he begs you, fingers pressing into your skin that you’re sure will leave you covered in little oval-shaped bruises by the time he’s done.

“jun! please, i’m so close, jun,” you moan, repeating his name over and over again like a mantra, getting closer and closer to your release with each syllable.

“i’m cl-close too, baby, please… you’re so good, fuck! you’re so good.”

the constant praise is almost too much, and with one more sharp thrust you’re coming undone on his cock for the second time. your legs wobble as you struggle to stay standing, your hands coming up to hang on to junhui’s strong arms wrapped around you for support.

he whines loudly, and you know he must be getting close, too. “can i– can i cum on your back?” he pants out, still gripping you tightly. as much as he really, really wants to cum inside you, he figures it might be messier than cumming on you. and besides, he doesn’t want to get too greedy; it is only his first, after all.

“yes! yes please, yes, jun,” you manage, still wading through the aftershocks of your orgasm.

a little harder than he intends, he’s shoving you roughly down onto the table again, pulling his dick out of you to jerk himself over you.

“junnie, please,” you whimper out weakly, and the sweet sounding words on your lips have him choking back a sob as he cums, thick spurts of white painting your lower back.

he keeps moving his hand on his cock until he’s completely finished, panting heavily. by the time he’s done you’re both sticky with sweat, breathing like you’ve just run a marathon.

you let out a long sigh, feeling exhausted but satisfied. silence settles over the studio, the music long stopped, but you can’t tell if it’s a good silence or a bad silence.

you realize you’d closed your eyes while jun was cumming, and when you don’t feel his touch anymore, you slowly pry them open again, wondering where he went. 

you prop your head up in your hands and look behind you to see jun hastily pulling on his boxers and jeans. 

your jaw drops in horror. you’d thought, with his inexperience, he wouldn’t be like all the other guys who fuck and then take off, but apparently, you thought wrong.

“jun!”

his head whips around as he pulls his zipper up, eyes wide like a deer in headlights.

“are you seriously gonna just leave?”

his mouth falls open. “no! of course not! i was just putting my pants back on.”

your expression softens. “oh,” you say quietly, face flushing at having jumped to conclusions so quickly. “sorry.”

“why would i wanna leave after this?” he frowns, looking genuinely appalled at the mere idea that someone might do that. “you’re still here.”

“i thought, since–” you start, then pause. discussion for another time. “nevermind, it’s not important. but why were you putting your pants on like you were gonna leave?”

you’re the one feeling embarrassed, but it’s junhui that turns red and starts stuttering. “well, i– um, i didn’t want you to… see…”

you laugh and put your head back in your arms. when you don’t say anything, he calls out your name nervously, and you look back over at him.

“junnie, your dick was just in me. twice. i don’t care what it looks like.”

“okay,” he says shyly, but his fingers still fumble with the button of his jeans.

you sigh once he finishes adjusting his pants. whatever makes him more comfortable, you suppose. “jun, can you… help me clean up now, please?” you ask timidly.

he glances over at you, looking like he’s about to ask why you need help, but then he sees you still bent awkwardly over the table and his cum still covering your back, and his eyes widen. “oh! shit, yeah– yes, i’m so sorry, i will–” he stammers, almost tripping over his backpack in his hurry to go get a tissue from the box by the door.

you sigh, more exhausted than mad, knowing you can’t really fault him. he comes back over a second later, gripping a wadded-up handful of tissues.

he drops them on your back and begins wiping at your skin, gingerly cleaning you off. when he’s satisfied with his work, he balls up the tissues and tosses them into the small can by the door.

“oh!” he says, realizing. “i think we have antibacterial wipes in here too, do you want me to use one of those? er, wait, i don’t know if they’re safe for skin…”

with your back (mostly) clean again, you stand up, wincing at the ache in your hips. “it’s fine, don’t worry about it. i’ll shower when i get home.”

you limp over to your chair, picking up your clothes and sitting down to start getting dressed again.

when jun finishes pulling his shirt over his head and looks over at you he gasps, seeing the bruises across your hips and tummy. “holy shit! did i do that?” he asks, looking horrified, and you look down to check.

“oh. yeah, that and the table,” you shrug, hooking your bra behind your back.

“i’m sorry,” he says, voice quivering, and he genuinely looks like he’s about to cry until you convince him you’re alright and he didn’t do anything wrong.

“it’s not supposed to hurt, though, i thought,” he frowns. “i don’t want to hurt you. i lo– um, like you,” he says, “why would i want to hurt you?” he catches himself quickly, but you heard what he started to say. you decide now isn’t the best moment for you to bring it up, so you leave it alone.

“sometimes people like it when it hurts. sometimes people like it not to hurt. everybody’s different,” you tell him instead.

he nods, thinking. “i… liked this,” he says finally.

you smile, finishing putting the last of your clothes back on. “good, i’m glad. you’re supposed to enjoy it.”

“did… you like it?” he asks tentatively.

“yes, i did like it,” you giggle, and he beams, clearly proud of himself. and he should be. obviously it wasn’t the most perfect of your life, but when is it ever? it was close enough to perfect that it might as well be.

“you live on campus, right? so i don’t need to walk you to your car?” he asks, grabbing his jacket that somehow fell on the floor and tossing it onto his chair as he starts to shut everything down in the studio.

you sigh. damn, you’d forgot about this part. sure, a couple hours ago you could walk just fine to the communications building on the complete opposite side of campus, but you hadn’t planned on getting railed within an inch of your life so you hadn’t exactly thought to bring your car. “yeah, but i… it’s on the south end, and i probably won’t be able to walk very far,” you mumble, avoiding his gaze. “i’ll take the shuttle.”

he frowns. “i’m not gonna let you take the bus. i can give you a ride.”

“you don’t need to, jun.”

“yes, i do,” he says assertively, and it startles you enough to meet his eyes. you haven’t ever heard his voice that firm, and when you look up his expression is as equally determined as his tone. not that you’d ever admit it to him, but it is kind of… hot.

you decide not to argue with him, knowing you won’t be able to change his mind anyway. you nod an ‘okay’, and his face instantly brightens to the awkward, nerdy jun you’re used to, beaming like he did when you first agreed to another date, back in the café what feels like ages ago.

“are you doing anything tonight?” you ask, watching him shut down the equipment and turn all the knobs and dials to an off position.

“no. i mean, i was gonna catch up on my show, but then, i didn’t expect for… this, to happen, so…” he shrugs. “i don’t know.”

“do you wanna come over? i… i mean, not to do anything. just… wanna be with you.” your voice comes out smaller than you intend it to, but jun still hears you loud and clear.

“yeah,” he grins. “yeah, that would be really cool.”

he pauses, looking like he wants to ask you something but not sure if he should. “can i give you a hug?” he says finally.

you smile. only junhui would ask for something as small and sweet as a hug after having sex. “yes, please.”

he crosses the room in two strides, barely giving you time to process before he’s squeezing you in his arms. you sigh and automatically melt into his arms, inhaling the perfumey scent of his cologne lingering on his wrinkled clothes.

it feels… good, being cared about.

he finishes shutting everything down quickly and grabs his things, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as he flips off the lights and closes the door behind you, making sure it’s locked before heading down the stairs.

you hate the way your legs tremble going down the steps, cursing him for being so good at his first time, because who the hell is that good their first time? already at the bottom of the stairs, jun looks back to see where you are and why you aren’t beside him, and, seeing you gripping onto the side railing for support, he dashes back up the steps two at a time to grab your arm and help you.

“you weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t walk,” he giggles, holding the door open for you, and oh my god you want to hit him. “does that always happen? i thought people always just made that up to sound cool.”

“yes, i wasn’t kidding, and no, it doesn’t always,” you mutter, face heating in embarrassment. “depends on the person and how rough it is.”

his smile widens, the implied meaning of your words sinking in. “so what you’re saying is, my di–”

“junnie, if you finish that sentence, i swear to god i will never have sex with you ever again.”

he giggles, but he shuts his mouth, helping you the rest of the way to his car in silence. this time you know for sure, it’s a good silence.

his car is nicer than you’d expect a man’s car to be: clean and fairly organized, and there’s no half-eaten fast food in the backseat. he swings open the door for you and tries to help you sit down, but you swat his hand away.

he jogs around to the driver side door and slides into the seat, slamming it shut behind him. he buckles up, then grabs a candy cane from the pile in the cupholder and holds it out to you. “candy cane?”

“i’m… good,” you laugh, forcing yourself not to make a joke about having better things to suck on. why does he even have those in his car?

the ride to your apartment complex is pleasant. as expected from the radio man himself, as soon as the key is in the ignition, he turns the radio on, humming along to every song. you find yourself spending most of the drive staring at him, studying the tiny features in his cheeks when he smiles and the way his adam’s apple bobs when he hums.

after a shower, clean pajamas, and a raid of your refrigerator for snacks and something to drink, you’re snuggled up on the couch with jun, catching up on the show he wanted to watch. it’s the middle of some random season and you have no idea what’s going on, but you don’t care. just being here with him is more than enough for you, and you’re glad he’s enjoying being here, too.

“do you have a voice kink?” he asks suddenly at one of the commercials.

you nearly choke on your gatorade. “i– well, i mean… i didn’t used to, but…” you sputter out, your cheeks burning in embarrassment. “where did you even hear that?”

“jeonghan said you might.”

you scoff. you still haven’t met junhui’s broadcasting partner yet, but you already have some choice words in mind for him when you do finally get to have the pleasure of meeting him. “well, tell him to keep his thoughts to himself,” you say, taking another smaller sip and avoiding his grin.

“so is that a yes?”

you roll your eyes and ignore him, which might as well be a yes, but you choose not to admit it. you know you definitely need to talk to him about… everything, but he seems so happy right now, you don’t want to risk ruining the evening.

but luckily for you, he brings it up himself at the next commercial break.

“how long do i have to wait until i can ask you to be my girlfriend?” he says, muting the tv and looking over at you.

you laugh. “were we not… already?” you ask. “we’ve been on, like, four dates. usually that part happens before you have sex.”

he looks a little disappointed, for some reason. not exactly the reaction you’d expect when someone tells you they want to keep seeing you. “oh. um, well…” he starts, scratching at the back of his neck. “i planned it all out, i was gonna do this big thing and ask you. i thought i was supposed to. i meant to do it earlier, but…” he trails off, cheeks turning pink.

your expression softens. “you… can ask me now,” you say, putting your hand on his thigh.

“okay.” he clears his throat, sitting up straighter on the couch. “will you be my girlfriend?”

you try not to laugh at how serious he is, knowing he’s really, really trying. “yes, of course,” you reply, trying to match his seriousness.

“is that okay? that i didn’t do it right?” he asks nervously, fiddling with the hem of the blanket covering your laps.

you smile and bring your hand up to his cheek, pulling him towards you to give him a quick kiss. “you did it perfect, junnie.”

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[wondernus]

˗ˋˏ a winter interlude ˎˊ˗

synopsis: maybe this is meant to be an interlude – an unforeseen passing moment in each other’s timelines. but with the stroke of a conductor’s baton, the symphony lands on the fermata hovering above the note. do we allow this interlude to become something longer than a short period in our lives, or do we end it after all of it is over?

pairing: wonwoo x coworker!reader

genre: romance, drama, light angst

tags: children's book illustrator wonwoo, publisher reader, enemies to lovers, fake marriage, food/drinks, work husband jeonghan cameo, small town dynamics, snowed in, scene where reader almost gets physically injured

wc: 11.3k

message from nu: waaaa first fic of the year. special special special thank you to my beloved madi (@heartkyeom) for being my beta reader well after midnight. I also wanna thank mars (@onlymingyus) for being mars c: I remember a while ago I answered an ask with a possible wonwoo work husband spinoff. this is it. this is wonwoo's work husband spinoff. this can be read as a standalone fic. happy winter and happy new year to all of you. I hope you all enjoy this svthub snowventeen collab fic - nu ♡

wondernus's masterlist / snowventeen collab 18+

one

“Don’t forget to wear you layers because it’s about to be chillier as the week passes by. For those trekking into the mountains, make sure you look out for weather updates from the signal tower and stay indoors because a large snowstorm is about to paint the mountains white. Stay safe, and have a great day. Now, onto Yoon Jeonghan with the traffic.”

“‘Trekking?’ What are you? A protein bar wrapper? Anyway, thank you Joshu-"

Never really understanding why other people say they often find themselves turning down the music while driving to see better, you find yourself doing the same – driving in silence as if the silence could create such a frictionless surface that would shoot and propel your car to your destination. A couple of hours late to your annual winter work retreat, a clear understatement defined by the speed at which you are driving, what was supposed to be a carpool event turned into you sitting in a pool of cars while stuck in traffic.

The Sun shines lightly, a gentle kiss against your skin, but not enough to hug everything it touches in warmth. With the heater on high, you sit in your front seat sweating and dreading the moment when you have to get out of your car, thighs peeling off the leather seats and leaving a pool of sweat where you were sitting. Perhaps it is not the Sun and the heater’s heat that causes you to sweat, but a psychological factor – an amalgamation of stress and anxiety that stemmed from the moment you realized you were late.

No longer can you allow yourself to forgive him that easily, yet you really did not want t blame him for giving you incorrect meeting minutes. But when the retreat itinerary clearly stated to meet in the morning at seven in front of the publishing house, you should have known better than to wholly trust your ditzy new intern to attend your office meeting while you traveled out of town to hunt down your author for her overdue speculative fiction novel draft. Instead of writing the correct time to meet, he incorrectly noted the arrival time.

This unprecedented-precedented blip is the catalyst for a series of chain reactions that would metaphorically send you pummeling down the steep side of a mountain in a snowy avalanche that you could have avoided. But you do not know it, nor do you know how it, whatever “it” is, ends.

Dark circles under your eyes and a forgotten paper-thin pimple patch a jolt over a speedbump away from falling off your oily skin, you keep telling yourself that everything will be okay once you get to the camping grounds. Hopefully, this sort of denial could make up for the fact that you spent all of last night kicking your feet under your covers while binge-watching the reality show that your favorite boy group filmed rather than packing for your trip. But there is only so much your heater turned on high can do for someone wearing an old flimsy university tee with a couple of cat teeth-made holes who forgot to put their contacts in last night. You are better off skipping the winter retreat, but you are already nearing the mountains. There is no turning back – especially on winding roads.

And the embarrassment. This feeling of creeping anxiety seemingly washed away the moment it stepped foot into your head even though you are utterly unprepared and inappropriate for being late to the paid work retreat. Because this sudden realization hits you mid-drive: the only person who you would be embarrassed to meet in your current situation is excused for the retreat. Reasons unknown. And not that you would let any man define you, but at your core, you are simply a person with an embarrassingly big fat crush on your co-worker (and seemingly everybody else you work with). This crush is so bad that if HR made every team create their own set of photocards, you would put his in a protective cover with tiny holographic hearts, and then in a sturdy toploader decorated with overpriced stickers. One glance at him would put you in a trance, daydreaming about what it would be like to wake up in his arms on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, and him with a soft smile on his face.

Except for one thing – he hates your guts, so you decided to hate his too.

They always say “try, try again,” but how many tries would it take before the attempts turn Sisyphean? Sure, Hades enchanted Sisyphus’s boulder so that it would roll away before Sisyphus reached the top, but what about you? Car tires struggling against the icy roads, you drive carefully so your car does not turn into a giant hockey puck or a curling stone on (what is essentially) a giant ice rink. But being careful does not help the fact that you are unprepared. And being unprepared means your car has absolutely no way for you to drive over any sized slopes, no matter how many times you try.

You only realize any further attempt of going over the slope or taking any other route is fruitless when your tires spin in place after digging themselves well enough into the road. And you slump against your steering wheel like an exasperated character in a movie – pounding your head against 12 o’clock a few times for good measure. So much for a fifteen-minute-saving de-tour through a small town you have never seen before. And so much for you trying to drive over a slope you could easily walk over. Trying sucks.

Still, the only thing that keeps you from abandoning your hand-me-down car to trek forty-five minutes to the campsite is the fact that it is freezing outside, and your cellphone Wi-Fi gets especially spotty when you are in areas of high altitudes. With one final sigh, you push yourself away from your steering wheel to sit upright, leaning the back of your head against your headrest. There is not much to do except to put your car in neutral and try to push your car out of the little hole it dug itself in.

The thing is, the texture of real snow is a lot different from the snow that giant portable snow machines shoot out of their gigantic cylindrical nozzles to cover the courtyard in front of the city hall whenever the local city has its annual winter festival. Real snow is also incomparable to the “snow” a child creates along the perimeter of an ice skating rink, hands holding onto the rails for support while they repeatedly scrape the inside of one of their blades towards the inside of their other shoe, creating soft ribbons of shaved ice before the navy blue Zamboni can create a clean slate before private lessons start.

Real snow is relentless toward anybody who does not come prepared to interact with it. So, no matter how much you try to dig and twist your sneaker sole into the snow, that tactile grip that you wish to create that supports your feet while you are pushing against the back of your car can seldom be created. You slump against your car’s bumper in defeat. The Sun still shining on your skin, a little bit stronger now, leaves you with the same warmth you felt against your skin, a bit tingly and upsetting, when you knew your skin would still burn no matter how nice the cordiality of the Sun felt on that one Spring day in the past.

Plus, there is a little more time to observe your surroundings when you have given up completely.

In the grassy median strip that denotes the entrance into the small town is a wooden welcome sign with the name in loopy golden lettering against a beautiful pine green: “Welcome to Interlude.” A few feet ahead of you, the mountainous road marries smooth concrete, and the sidewalks pave in a festival town-esque brick lining. And you conclude you must be on the outskirts of the town. Leftover snow fills the grooves between each brick and covers the dark-colored awnings in front of each shop along the town strip. Where flashy LED shop signs and brightly colored bulbs decorate sidewalk trees drawing visitors in from around the world, is surprisingly a lack of people. And you frown while thinking about how you would be able to push your car to the side of the road if another vehicle wants to enter the town.

Not a few moments later, a navy blue truck slowly climbs up the road, and you feel the littlest bit of hope surge into your body. Forcing yourself to stand up, you move out of the way and wave at the incoming car. But as your day could not have gotten any more unfortunate, your car starts rolling backwards towards the pickup truck. And you cannot help but see your entire life flash in front of you – a person dressed too lightly for the snow and the used car passing by like a celebrity on a parade float, all in a moment.

What is scarier than the fact that your car is now bumper-less and the pickup truck remains unscathed is the man who hops out of his truck. Looking like a snow-stage boss from a video game, the man who is large and menacingly looking enough to make his shiny dark green car look like a minivan next to him stalks over to you with his finger pointed directly at your face. The only thing missing from the scene is the army of ice ogres that are supposed to follow closely behind him.

However, the only thing you can register is the fact that he is yelling at you – face glowing bright red and spit flying out of his mouth. Your body is frozen in fear. There is a lack of capacity for you to be able to stand up for yourself while you are shocked and unable to recognize your surroundings while terrible words spill out of the man's mouth. And you cannot do anything except take in his expletives while teardrops well up, ready to spill out of your tear ducts.

But they do not. A figure puts himself between the man and you, and your view is too obstructed to see the other side.

“I called the insurance company. Give me your information and I’ll handle it,” the mysterious person says.

“And who are you?” You hear from the other side.

“I’m their husband.” He fishes for his wallet in his back pocket and takes out a business card, handing it to the man between two fingers. “Call me. Email me. Your choice. I’ll get it sorted. Sorry about the whole thing, I didn’t have time to drive my partner. Bad husband right?... So, I heard you’re the new fishing shop owner? I’ll drop by sometime.” He tries to switch subjects to lessen the tension while slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

The thing is, it works. The presence of the man who uses his body to shield you calms the angry pickup truck driver almost exponentially. And the man who yelled at you seemed to forget he was yelling at you just because he realized your marital status. The man calms down, and even falters in his speech.

“Ahh…I’m not a fishing shop owner. I guess it’s fine now that you’re here, but you know men. There aren’t bad husbands, only ba-”

“I’ll be at Town Hall if you need more information from me.” The man who calls himself your husband purposely and curtly cuts the other man off, knowing very well that he would be even more upset if he heard the man finish his sentence.

The man does not turn back to address you until he is done taking photos of both cars and waving the other man goodbye. And your piece of junk car stays in the same spot, bumper-less and bruised, while the pickup truck, clearly without any injury, smoothly makes its way into Interlude, disappearing from your sight.

“You’re just going to dumbly let that man say those things to you? About you? Do you have no respect for yourself?” He lectures you, his deep voice muffled by the black wool scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.

You see him clearly this time, how his black locks fall in front of his face in neat curtain bangs, set in a defined “C” shape. The oversized fleece-lined collar jacket falls to the middle of his thighs, leaving little room for his cream-colored sweater to peep into view. And his stance, focusing his weight on his right heel while his left foot slightly protrudes forward, allows him to tap his foot against the snow while he waits for you to answer him.

But what is shocking to you is not the code-switching he uses when speaking to the driver versus when speaking to you. What is shocking, you realize, are the thin silver-framed glasses that sit on the bridge of the man’s nose and the familiar deep woody scent that clings onto him, touched with a hint of peach.

It couldn’t be.

A cold chill leaves your tongue dry and squeezes your stomach.

“Are you dumb? Did you not hear about the snowstorm coming?” He asks you, a voice without concern, all while pulling out his phone from one of his pockets.

He tugs his manicured thumbs out of his gloves to wake his phone and proceeds to reveal his face from under his scarf to unlock his phone. After a few loud keyboard taps, you hear your phone’s notification sound from your car. But all you can do is stare back at the man, stomach gurgling and queasy.

“Yn,” your co-worker sighs, clearly annoyed by your lack of response. “Why are you here?”

two

A backpack-wearing piglet who happily crosses the street. A fashionably dressed lumpy toad who rows across the pond in a wooden paddle boat. A shrew who picnics with a chipmunk in a grassy city park. Tiny children who sit between each of a stegosaurus’s scutes. An angry and scruffy-looking Siamese cat who wears a cone too big for it to see. The backside of each illustration states:

Jeon Wonwoo ILLUSTRATOR Same Dream Publishing House Work Email | Work Number | Personal Website

Nicely squared recycled textured card stock printed with soy ink, Jeon Wonwoo’s business cards can very well double as collector cards. And the owner of these cards himself, in your eyes, is the most beautiful man you have ever laid your eyes on. No fantasy writer, no Renaissance artist could ever truly depict how you see this man. Yet it makes you feel terrible, so entirely rotten on the inside, knowing that he would rather crawl up several flights of stairs made of tiny plastic building blocks than take a fifteen-second elevator ride with you.

If you could pinpoint the exact day Jeon Wonwoo started hating you, it would be the Monday after coming back from a previous work trip to the vacation home of a poet the two of you were assigned. The two of you were amicable with each other, even more so – close friends. A power couple in the children’s books and short stories field – a force to be reckoned with. And the hotel rooms adjacent to each other where the two of you decided to sit on opposite sides of your shared door and talk to each other with both your backs against the door. You remember the sound of his hair brushing against the wood and his soft chuckle when you accidentally bump your head against the door. The goodbye after the trip lingered for a little too long while the first hello back never came. And you can only watch from the back of the crowd during meet and greets and panels, sometimes only catching the tip of his tiny flyaway from far away.

It would hurt your feelings a lot less if he turned away whenever you walked near him, but he chooses to frown instead. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you like him any less. But you do not know what you are holding onto (or if there is anything to hold onto at this point).

Even now, there is a blatant emotional and physical distance between the two of you. He briskly walks at least a meter in front of you, never turning his head back to see if he left you behind or if you were following closely behind.

The thick uncomfortable shoulder strap keeps slipping from your shoulder, unable to find any traction against the smooth nylon of the puffer you put on earlier. And it is just a walk, a measly ten-minute walk to the police station where you can report the accident, but it is hard to walk while looking ahead when you are so close to crying. No matter how much you try to adjust your shoulder strap so it doesn’t stop falling, it finds a way to slip from your sore shoulder or frozen grip. Overwhelming emotions usurp any will to continue onwards and leave you feeling so annoyed, so dejected, and so frustrated with everything that happened today. And when your bag’s strap slips again, you let it slip from your shoulder, sending your entire duffle bag crumpling against the wet and icy brick pavement. 

And so you crumple with it, sinking to your knees and wallowing in your unhappiness.

The winter boots that clop in front of you never stop. Jeon Wonwoo would never stop for you, never walk backwards to pick up your heavy duffle and offer you a hand. So it wracks your head trying to understand why he would help you out in the first place, leaving you in the snow once everything was settled, and threatening an IOU coupon for the future. Why he would be in this town in the first place.

The shop window lights of the tiny electronics store to the side of you flicker on. On display and pressed flat against the glass are a bunch of old television sets stacked on top of each other, creating a large screen if not separated by the thick plastic television frames. Golden tempera paint in a modern Serif font exhibits the store’s logo across the glass: “Stay For A While,” in a wide downward pointing arc.

Every single television screen livestreams the local news. According to the subtitles, a giant snowstorm is about to hit the local area. Residents are advised to seek shelter and stay home. The sunny weather is only a farce. 

But you don’t notice the news. To you, the only thing in front of you is a lachrymose shadow of a blob trapped in a foreign town with nowhere to go. And your heart follows closely behind the man as if dragged by him on a leash – blindly bouncing, cobbling, and getting scratched by the various pebbles and dirt on the pavement.

The man never looks behind to check on the organ. He doesn’t even know it’s there.

“What do you mean you’re cat sitting? Jeonghan, you never volunteer to do things willingly…Oh, for the friends who are high school teachers? Then road trip with their cat and save your cousin who is stranded in the mountains.” You adjust your grip on your phone while mindlessly browsing through the several knickknacks for sale in the souvenir shop in the town’s only lodge.

Passing the wall of graphic tees and sweaters and passing through a shelf of souvenir mugs, you stop at a shelf of tiny woodcarvings. Your eye lands on a figurine of a whittled cat, hand-painted orange with a white belly. On the other end of your phone call, your cousin complains about the weather, but you don’t listen – clearly too entranced by the tiny cat.

“Of course I listened to the radio this morning,” you mutter while running the tip of your pointer finger against the cat’s ear, feeling the smooth sanded wood under your touch. “Okay, you got me. It was for background noise. Look, I’m not asking you to pick me up today. I somehow ended up booking a room after finding out cab services are down today. But if you’re not going to pick me up then I’m going to hang up and solve this myself. But if you don’t hear from me in three days, then call a search party. Okay?”

Except he hangs up before you can say goodbye, grumbling about how you never listen to him. Still, you’re unbothered by his action. The tiny cat, now in the palm of your hand, looks so content with life, unbothered by what goes on around it. Your mind wonders about its artist, how long they must have spent carving the cat from a single block of wood, the hours it must have taken to create something so tiny yet so fulfilling to own. And you wonder about the artist’s emotions, if they ever felt sadness after parting with their cat. If the cat was the artist’s friend, even for the brief moment, that juncture, in their individual timelines.

It would be best if you left the cat on the shelf, you think. Just in case the artist ever changes their mind about selling the cat. And the cat looks happier sitting on the shelf with its other animal friends, happier than what its painted lazy smile suggests.

And for the first time today, you feel a tiny bit of happiness – a halcyon moment surrounded by forest-themed trinkets and flashing keychains with generic names and soft 2010s pop music playing from the store speakers. That is until you see a familiar figure being escorted to the lobby of the lodge. Curiosity causes you to leave your spot in the souvenir store, edging closer to the creation of a new scene.

“I have a room.” You hear him try to reason with the security guard. “It’s not called loitering if I am a guest.”

You can’t hear the security guard, but it seems like Wonwoo’s bluntness is not a strong enough source of logos for the guard. And the guard stands in front of the illustrator, fully unconvinced that the man wearing a suit and holding his work briefcase would be any other out-of-town guest. And one look of pure panic on Jeon Wonwoo’s stupidly handsome-looking face sends you on autopilot, making your way to his side for no good reason.

“Babe.” You lie through your forced smile while looping your arm around his right arm. “Where were you?”

His arm jerks in the tiniest bit before it relaxes as if he hesitated for a moment before making his decision. Of course, another explanation could simply be because he experienced a negative bodily reaction to your mere presence. Flabbergasted, he would mutter. The nadir of today’s excitement. And you would hate him even more for using vocabulary without incorporating any malapropisms. He is as pretentious as the outfit he wears.

“Baby,” he grits through his teeth. “This gentleman seems to think I’m stalking the halls like some animal out to hunt its prey.”

“Sorry, Sir.” You pout at the security guard, hoping your natural pathos could appeal to the man. “My husband has a tendency to walk around whenever he’s bored. It’s been a while since we went on vacation, and he clearly has too many thoughts in his head. You see his outfit? It’s a bad habit.”

The security guard strokes his chin and nods, eying Wonwoo’s ineffable outfit. He wonders why the man in front of him would pack a business suit for a vacation in the mountains, but he doesn’t want to be the one too quick to judge. Rather, he agrees with the fact that the suit actually fits the man very well. If the man wasn’t stalking the hallways just a few moments ago, he would’ve asked him about which tailor he sees. “If he’s so bored, why don’t the two of you join couples night tonight? Winners get a free bedroom upgrade. And between you and me, I heard there’s a famous author who’s staying with us,” he whispers the last portion, a quick cheeky wink.

You don’t realize that you are still grabbing onto his arm until you dragged him into your room. And he shrugs you off, taking the extra step to smooth out his suit fabric while looking through your vanity mirror before turning to you.

“You have the grip of a snapping turtle,” he scoffs while looking around your room.

It is a standard room with a single queen-sized bed at the center of the room. If it were not for the carpeted floors, the entire room would look like a wooden box from its Western Red Cedar planks that make up the four walls to the wooden paneling that covers the ceiling, giant circular wooden beams that keep the ceiling steady by design. The rooms in this lodge are a termite’s dream feast and an art deco enthusiast’s nightmare. Even the bedframe is made of logs, cylindrical in every piece, and the bedsheets are of deep burgundy red bordered with silhouettes of black bears as if it came straight from the video game your cousin was so obsessed with a few Summers ago.

What catches his eye is not the fact that your duffle bag is thrown across your bed, nor the fact that the lamps in your rooms may as well be oil lamps. Rather, he stares at the door to the right of your mounted television, the divider between your room and your neighbor’s. And you can’t help but wonder what is going on in that head of his.

“You are insufferable, you know that?”

“How long did it take for you to think of that comeback?” His attention is drawn away from the door and aimed toward you. “Just because I compared you to a turtle didn’t mean you had to act like one.”

Your jaw drops and becomes your turn to scoff at him, loudly. You cannot believe what you are hearing, and your breathing becomes shallower as you glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Me helping you literally saved you from being pathetically kicked out by the security guard. You should be happy I didn’t record it and post it online.”

“Like you would have enough followers for it to go viral,” he sneers while taking a step toward you. “And I never asked you for help.”

“Loitering in the hallways? Wearing a business suit when you’re supposed to be at the retreat?” Now there is almost no space between the two of you. And you reach over to his chest, grabbing the plastic nametag that dangles from his neck, and holding it up to his face. The item feels as cold as the person who wears it. “Wearing your work badge? Fine, I’ll admit I have no idea why you’re here. But if you thought that walking around and waiting for some author to come out of their room and have some preplanned accidental meet cute could work, then you’re so wrong. And I’m not going to let you defame our company just because you have no social skills whatsoever.” You let go of the item you’re holding, letting it drop against his chest.

“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and admit that I was waiting for the author my team wants to work with to show up. But talking about defaming the company? You want me to care about what you say when all of that was coming from someone who would rather let some random man verbally degrade their worth than to stand up for themselves? You’re all bite and no tongue. Just like a snapping turtle,” he says, his face entirely without emotion.

“SNAPPING TURTLES HAVE TONGUES. DUMBASS,” you snap at him.

“That’s exactly what a snapping turtle would say,” he challenges you.

The thing is, Jeon Wonwoo likes to keep things short even though he is not as quick-tempered as you are. He prefers to relay everything he wants to say at once, saving anybody from asking for clarification. Yet, you can feel that Wonwoo only seeks to maim you with his words. Even at your most imperturbable composure with your intern, you cannot stand being alone in a room with Wonwoo once he starts opening his mouth to speak. And stupidly and repeatedly you let his elementary quips affect you like rubbing salt on an open wound. The laceration in your heart.

“You’re so rude Jeon Wonwoo. No wonder I hate you more and more every single day. You’re the single-most worst person in the entire world, and I hate how I once considered us friends.”

He looks like he has something to say to you but mentally drops the notion. Instead, he sighs and makes his way to the door beside your television, unlocking the knob and opening the door. He doesn’t make some offhanded comment about being your neighbor and only quietly closes the door behind him, making sure it’s locked with a tiny click.

three

It is a tiny office breakroom, the kind with a beige refrigerator whose motor is a little too loud, a low-watt microwave, and light green walls decorated with random pen marks from the lodge workers signing up for holiday potlucks. The late afternoon sunlight shines in an ethereal orange glow through the window, casting what could be the day’s last warm ray across the round wooden table in the middle of the room. Central heating runs throughout the building, and the lodge manager sits in the hot seat, his hands folded in front of him while he stares at you and your “husband.”

“Darling?” A nice elderly receptionist on break holds up a bag of mini marshmallows, the tri-colored kinds you can only find in baking stores, and points to it with her manicured finger. “Marshmallow?” she asks you from her place near the kitchen cabinets.

“No thank you,” you reply, your hands wrapped around a warm disposable cup filled with generic brand instant hot chocolate. Gratis, courtesy of the elderly receptionist before the manager arrived to talk to the two of you.

You bring the sugary drink to your lips, blowing softly and watching the steam disappear into the air. The drink itself, velvet chocolate that coats your tongue, is a warm invitation to this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, you cannot help but feel the only thing – or person – that unwelcomes you is the man who tries to angle his body away from you and the manager if the two of you ever cause trouble for your neighbors. Again.

“Look, we’re not going to kick you out. It would be inhumane to kick someone out during a snowstorm. And also we’re all kinda snowed in…actually, we’re super snowed in so nobody is coming in or out at this point. Funny how it was sunny earlier, right? Anyway, word has it that the two of you are married. So why don’t you two take some time to work things out, yeah? I’m no relationship counselor, but this is a small lodge in a small town so word gets out fast. So, seeing how far the two of you are sitting apart from each other, maybe channel that pent up anger into some competitive spirit during couple’s night because we can’t have you two being loud and arguing elsewhere. And I hate to be the bad guy here, but no more calls from your neighbors complaining about the two of you arguing or else we will contact authorities. Alright? Just keep it down and work it out, would ya?”

The manager’s lengthy spiel is immediately followed by silence, although not awkward, but one that provokes thought. And when you sense Wonwoo, being the smartass he is, open his mouth to counter his marriage status, and you immediately kick him in the shin with the heel of your tennis shoe. And he folds like his latest pop-up book, glaring at you while trying not to wheeze in pain. A fake smile and a solemn pledge to not bother the other patrons for the rest of the night are enough for the two of you to be excused from the conversation with the manager.

But not from each other.

How you ended up blindfolded and dizzy with a bat in your hands while Wonwoo angrily yells at you from the sidelines is beyond you. For the time being is what the two of you agreed with, albeit this one is far from Ruth Ozeki’s version. It’s a small promise to try to prove the two of you are more than amicable: attend a few games and activities together with the other couples, attempt to act like a married couple, and dip after an hour.

After twelve elephant spins with your forehead against the baseball bat, you and the other blindfolded contestants try to cross to the other side of the banquet hall in order to smash one of the many squashes on the large blue-colored plastic tarp laid across the floor. And Wonwoo, along with the other separated pairs, barks into the open air in the direction he wants you to move.

The funny thing is, you would expect to hear him call your actual name out of all of the pet names being thrown around, but Wonwoo cannot yell for the life of him, so much to shout your name in public. So even though you hear a bunch of people getting confused with the various forms of “honey” and “baby” being called out, you struggle to find his voice amidst the cacophony of shouts. Once the physical dizziness from spinning around evaporated, you feel a new kind of dizziness from being agitated as an aftereffect of trying to find Wonwoo’s voice in the middle of the crowd. By the time you decide on giving up, the shrill sound of a whistle signaling the end of the game fills the air. Shrugging the blindfold off your face, you look around to see the aftermath. While the other pairs are on the other side of the room surrounded by broken pieces of squash, there is only one man standing in front of you alone and separated from the others.

Your breathing hitches when you realize he’s walking towards you – long, even strides like the romantic lead in a movie. By the time he places himself in front of you, your baseball bat is in his hand while your cheek is in his other.

“It was hard, wasn’t it?” he whispers while looking into your eye.

Except you can’t help but train your eyes elsewhere, unable to look him in his eyes while it feels like your heart is beating erratically. And even though you know very well how he is faking everything, you can’t help but regress to the same you, the same you who is so helplessly in love with the man you hate. The same you who spends every day wondering how did the two of you end up that way.

“You only took the bat from me because you’re scared I might whack you with it. And not going to lie, I was contemplating it,” you mumble.

“It’s okay babe.” He tries to cheer you up, a slight undertone of insincerity in his voice. He continues to ignore your statement. “You did your best. Snapping turtles are slow, but they still manage to survive.”

Ignoring the fact that Wonwoo’s hand is warm because he has warm packs in each of his loungewear jacket pockets (and the fact that he refused to share one with you), someone catches your eye in the distance. Where workers are cleaning up the aftermath of the squash game, a familiar-looking man stands to the side where some lodge patrons flock around him with rectangular objects in their hands. Once you see him turn his head your way, your entire body freezes – Wonwoo’s touch suddenly begins to feel cold against your skin. And Wonwoo, who was expecting you to get mad at him for calling you a turtle, can’t help but notice your state of panic. And he not so subtly turns around to see who could be causing you so much fear.

“Oh my,” he mutters, coming to his realization.

“I can’t believe –” you begin before Wonwoo interrupts your train of thought.

“I hope he rots in hell before he can get his next book deal,” he almost spits at the man from several feet away. He drops his hand from your cheek and takes a tiny step back before taking a deep breath as if he is about to ask you something that he would regret, “Do you mind staying a little longer? I want to make sure chauvinists never win book upgrades.”

“Room upgrade,” you correct him while glaring at the other man from afar.

“What?”

“You misspoke.” You guide your attention back to the man who is, for what you think is the first time, looking at you attentively and without malice. And the fact that he is looking at you amicably makes your brain go haywire, but you subdue your thoughts and continue the conversation. “It’s the ‘room’ upgrade that we’re trying to stop him from winning.”

“Book upgrade or room upgrade, it’s the same thing.” He frowns while tapping the end of the bat against the ground. “It turns out your pickup truck man is the author my team is after. But I’d rather be jobless than to work with someone like him.”

So he works with you, absolutely demolishing the competition during the Dinner and Paint section and loudly cheering for you while you stacked plastic cups. And the way he smiles at you, lovingly and with the glimmer reflected from the ceiling lights contrasted against the cocky attitude he surrounds himself with when one of you wins a game – it almost makes you forget that you’re supposed to hate him. How easily he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against his embrace so much that his cologne lingers on your clothes, leaves you feeling hopeless. Because the only time Jeon Wonwoo could ever approach you without visibly withering in repulsion is when he acts like he is in love with you.

Outside the cozy lodge, the Sun sets its rays on the heavy layers of snow. While the Earth turns to face the other way, the rays wash the pillowy white crystals in a warm and deep burgundy orange – a warm embrace, a promise to return, before parting for the night. As you clean Wonwoo’s smudged glasses with the hem of your shirt, he sneaks his right arm around your waist while he leans further into his seat as the Couple’s Night host announces the next game. You feel something warm enter the pocket of your jacket and look down to see Wonwoo’s hand back on your waist. The untouched hand warmer gradually feels hotter in your pocket when you gently place your fake husband’s glasses back on the bridge of his nose. He whispers a small “thank you,” and you can only smile back at him with a heaviness in your heart that only you can carry.

The hand warmer feels like it would burn through your clothes at any second.

four

“Team Snowball, what did your partner answer for the question: ‘What is your partner picky about eating?’” The emcee points at the woman sitting next to you who gladly flips her sketchbook around for the other half of the room to see. She squints her eyes, trying to read the woman’s squiggly writing, and smiles when she realizes it’s a match. “Soft grapes? It’s a match. Point to Team Snowball.”

Despite everything going around you, you can’t help but fidget in your seat, the sketchbook’s pages starting to feel damp in your sweaty palms. Wonwoo sits with the separated pairs across from you. He crosses his legs, and his sketchbook lays comfortably across his lap so he can twirl his black marker in his hand. Even when you know you wrote the correct answer to Wonwoo’s food preferences, the two of you are still several points behind the other teams. Your stomach cannot help but feel queasy every time you embarrassingly flip your sketchbook for others to see. Because every single wrong answer about your “husband” whom you love very much feels like a punch in your gut every time you hear snickers from the others around you.

Seafood is your answer; you’re the last to answer this round’s question. You earn a small cheer from the woman reading your answer and a small smile from Wonwoo. He sneaks you a tiny thumbs up, the tip of his thumb poking out of his sweater.

“Next question,” dictates the emcee. “When did you know they were the one?”

It’s an abstract question – one that doesn’t necessarily need matching answers from both sides. Still, you look across to look at Wonwoo, uncertain whether or not he would put much thought into an answer he would have to pull out of thin air. Uncapping his marker with his mouth, he pulls the sketchbook closer to him to scribble down whatever comes to his mind. The action leaves your mouth feeling dry: one, obviously, because he uncapped the marker with his mouth; and two, he was the first to start writing.

Some answers are simple. Some answers are meaningful. Some answers are like yours – “love at first sight.”

Corny, overused, and unusual, your answer is the safest route you knew you could take. And despite how clichéd your answer is – its timelessness, its Hallmark-ability – still garners a series of awws from everybody around you. Technically, there is some truth to your answer. You developed a tiny crush the first time you saw him at the office. Who wouldn’t? He surrounds himself with illustrations of anthropomorphic animals and has a laugh that bellows and fills any room with joy. He made your days brighter by simply existing.

Now, the brightness struggles to navigate its way through the thick fog. And you’re left alone in the cold, the fog’s misty droplets clinging onto your skin.

It’s weird how in this life, time moves linearly, but moments and experiences with others exist in intervals – interludes that we can relive over and over again through memories. Sometimes we experience interludes of happiness, interludes of pain, and interludes where it only seems like there are only two people in this world. But nobody can determine how long these interludes can last and for how long you can try to hold on to these moments before letting go.

“Let’s see if Team Turtle can earn a point. Please show us your answer.”

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he softly chuckles, voice more sonorous than ever, while standing his sketchbook on his knee.

9 pm is his answer. You, and the rest of the people sitting beside you, cannot help but gaze at his answer in confusion.

It is only when he sees you staring at him he finally clarifies, “When we were sitting in my car eating donuts while the waves crash on the shores in front of us. You smiled at me with pieces of maple donut glaze stuck to your upper lip.”

You. He speaks in the second person and looks directly at you with a soft gaze. It couldn’t be, you think. But it is true, you recognize his diction as true. He’s speaking to you.

And you remember that shared moment in the front seats of his car, the night of the work trip. The donuts were for the poet, but the two of you had the door slammed in your faces before being able to hold a full conversation with the poet. And after an entire day of confusion and apologies, the two of you were finally able to fulfill your portions for the work trip. Who knew that the tiny suggestion of walking along the pier after dinner would turn out disastrous – frigid ocean winds strong enough to blow people away? The clothes the two of you packed were not meant to sustain harsh winds but harsh sunlight – after all, the work trip’s destination is a beach town. So the two of you sat in his car, eating donuts, people-watching, and sharing anecdotes to get to know each other better. It was the type of conversation that you would do anything to prolong its duration, the type of conversation with the right type of person.

“You were so happy,” he finishes.

You were so happy, it echoes in your head.

Are you happy now?

“How about you?” The emcee turns to you for clarification. “Your partner gave us such a beautiful explanation. So, you have to explain your ‘love at first sight.’ Tell us about it.”

“Ohh,” Wonwoo begins awkwardly while giving an equally awkward chuckle. “You don’t have to if you do-”

“I was having a really bad morning.” You smile into your lap and look up at your supposed husband. You don’t know why or how the full day with unease bubbling inside of you dispersed so quickly after Wonwoo’s particular answer. But you launch into your story, letting the words flow out of your mouth like melted snow on a grassy hill under the bright Sun. “A really bad morning. I ended up working overtime and accidentally missed my morning alarm. I had to chase the bus while my hot coffee poured out of its opening and onto my skin. My entire day at the office was a mess because I kept messing up. I felt awful and exhausted. So I worked overtime for the second day in a row to clean up my errors. Someone places hot green tea in front of me, the free ones at the office. There is a doodle of a stingray with the dumbest-looking smile on its face. It looked so pathetic that it made me feel a little better about myself. He says that he accidentally boiled too much hot water and thought to make a cup for me. And then he holds his own up in front of his face. There’s a picture of a cat wearing glasses. ‘You can do it,’ he tells me in a squeaky voice. And he leaves. We don’t meet again for about a month, but his kind gesture pieced me back together. And I held onto his kindness for days.”

He stares at you, a few strands of his hair out of place and in front of his eyes. He doesn’t care to move them back in place. There’s that smile on his face, the exact one you imagined to be on his face that time he sat on the other side of your shared door. Soft coral lips relaxed, but the cupid’s bow is slightly perked as the corners of the lips turn upward. He tries to hide the fact that he is smiling, keeping his happiness hidden and only to himself.

So you smile at him. An honest, genuine smile where the cheeks kiss the lower lashes. And his lips stretch thinly so that his brilliant white teeth shyly make their way into the open. He smiles back at you.

Musicians know that an interlude, in music, is an interrupting or intervening passage that connects different parts of a song. An interlude can also be a song in an album. In other words, there are different ways for musical interludes as well as temporal interludes to exist. Now, there is a new interlude in your timeline, this shared moment where two timelines from two completely different lives collide and converge. Anybody can tell that this shared moment is filled with happiness and understanding…perhaps, even longing.  

But what do you call it when these two timelines have converged in the past? If two timelines that once converged reconverge at a further point on the timeline, did that initial interlude ever truly end? Are interludes simply short periods in our lives if these interludes stay in our timelines forever, even when the moments they denote end?

Nevertheless, at this moment, you know you’re happy. And you can only hope the man who sits across from you, the one who looks at you with a reminiscent expression you once experienced so long ago, is feeling the same way.

“Okay. We’re in third place. If we win this one, then we’ll be a point ahead of them.”

“I tied it pretty tightly. Is the tightness okay with you?” Wonwoo frowns from below you, seemingly exploring a different problem at hand. He inspects the rope he tied around your leg, poking and prodding at different sections. “It’s a three-legged race, but I don’t want you getting hurt from an accidental rope burn because I tied it too tightly.”

“Wonwoo, it’s fine.” You pat his left shoulder, letting him know he doesn’t have to worry.

He grabs your stretched hand, and you help hoist him upwards. But there is an apparent frown on his face.

“Why do you still call me Wonwoo,” he mumbles while wrapping your arm around his back and on his waist. There is a tiny pout on his face pointed downwards as he naturally loops his arm around your shoulders like he had done it a thousand times. “Are you not comfortable with calling me ‘babe?’ Any other name also works.”

Deep down, or not even deep down, you know he is right. You are uncomfortable with the idea of casually calling him by these pet names over and over again. Calling him by fake pet names, not counting the many idealistic scenarios that once played in your head, in this case, feels very wrong. His sudden change in attitude towards you as well as his overall demeanor after the last game left you in shock. A plot twist in a season finale would be less shocking than what you feel at this very moment. Like every other hypothetical person in your situation, you choose to ignore your problems by focusing on your other problems at hand. Because you know very well, allowing yourself to fully play into this fake husband rouse, even in times when you’re truly happy, would only hurt you in the end. And you’ve been hurt by him before, not really sure if you ever fully healed.

But you can’t deny he looks and seems nothing like the literal he-devil he was this morning. In fact, he seems to be the opposite. Even without being physically tied to you, he trails behind you like a lost puppy and clings onto your sleeve like a cat who kneads dough on your arm, nails hooked onto the fabric of your clothing. And you let him hold you close to him so much that he leans his chin on your shoulder while listening to others talk. And you let his hair tickle your scalp and would let him melt into you if he asked.

Getting hurt by the same man twice does not make a right. Succinctly, it only makes you dumb. So, to protect yourself, you use the image of the screaming man from the morning to remind yourself that everything is a rouse no matter how much you enjoy each moment with the illustrator.

The three-legged race’s course starts in the banquet hall, passes through the hallway and into the lobby, takes several twists and turns throughout the sitting area, and finishes in the banquet hall. Wonwoo takes the lead, firmly holding you against him while he chants “in, out, in, out” to direct how the two of you should speed-walk. But the excitement of the games and the promise of the upgraded room must have gone over the heads of several of the teams, causing each team to speed walk into a sprint once they left the banquet hall.

Wonwoo and you are also victims of wanting to win, or at least of wanting to beat the author. But in this incredibly small lodge, there are only so many paces you can take before having to try to squeeze past another team. And Wonwoo practically hoists you onto his foot without notice, penguin-walking you to make it past another team to navigate through the sectioned seating area.

Startled by his sudden lack of communication, you demand he set you down. “Let me go,” you grunt after being jostled against one of the round wooden tables. You are absolutely sure your hip would bruise in the morning if he bumped you into one more object. “It’d be easier if one of us walks ahead of the other.”

Does it look like I care?” His ego slips from his tongue, completely coating the sweet words that came out of his mouth before the game started. His sudden change in tone catches you by surprise. “I’ll buy a sled from the gift shop if it means I get to drag you instead of hauling you around.”

“It’s just a game.” You try to push yourself off of him, annoyed that he’s suddenly being uncooperative with you. In the meantime, the team behind the two of you catches up and pulls ahead. “Let me go before one of us gets hurt.”

Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t trained on you. Instead, he stretches his head to look at the few teams in front of the two of you. Surprisingly, the two of you make it out of the seating area without any trouble. Before the two of you can make a sprint back toward the banquet hall, you pull yourself away from Wonwoo, yanking his arm off of your shoulder.

“Babe, come on.” He holds out his hand for you to grab onto. “We’re going to end up being last.”

But your hand never reaches out to meet his.

“Babe? Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Are you really calling me ‘babe’ right now?” You almost shriek at him if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you are standing in proximity to the reception desk. But you are exasperated, your voice wobbles as you voice what is bothering you. “I’ve had it with you, Wonwoo. I tried communicating with you. I tried voicing my fears. But your head is so far up your ass that you couldn’t even think about the safety of the person right beside you. Am I sad and mad about what happened this morning? Yeah, I still am. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, but nobody deserves to be ignored. I don’t care about winning anymore. I feel humiliated, utterly and devastatingly humiliated by you and by myself. To think I let myself have fun around you. To think I believed for a second that you truly did care about me. At one point, I thought we were friends. At one point, I really did like you for who you were. But I guess I can’t expect people to stay the same, can I?” More words and sentences pour out of your mouth – like a small tornado that grows larger in size after picking up all of the things you left unsaid, the words that threatened to slip from your tongue all picked up and twirled into the tornado, you ended up saying more than what you meant to say.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” he begins, but he can only hopelessly stare at you squatting in place to untie the rope that binds the two of you.

“There.” You bitterly drop the rope in his free hand. “You’re free from me now. You can go back to hating me all you want.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

“I’m done, Wonwoo. I’m done with being confused so I’m just going to give up and wallow in my room until Jeonghan picks me up once the snow clears.”

five

“No offense, but I would never spend that much time or energy on a guy…especially a guy who treats you like that. He even stopped pounding on your front door so that obviously means that he’s the type to stop trying after a while,” your cousin rants from the other side of your phone screen. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while the cat he is looking after purrs contently on his lap. “So what are you? A masochist? You like men who treat you poorly and then reward you with like an hour of happiness? That’s literally like if professors gave you the hardest final you’ve ever taken in your life and told you to grab a free cookie after you turned in the final. What are you even holding onto at this point?”

“I don’t know,” you wail at the older man, crumpling your used tissue in the palm of your hand. It quickly joins the growing pile of snot-riddled balls of tissue at the edge of your bed. When you recline into your initial position, the shifted blanket knocks Wonwoo’s hand warmer onto the floor.

“Eww stop holding your phone so close to your face,” Jeonghan complains, “Vernon says I kinda look like you, and I can’t help imagining that’s how I look when I cry.”

“I don’t know why I still like him,” you mumble to your cousin. You honestly still don’t understand why you like him despite every single recent negative encounter with him. To be honest, your heart doesn’t flutter as it does with the characters in the novels you read. Nothing cliched happens when you see him, like how the world stops and he is the only one who walks in slow motion. Quite frankly, your days pass by whether you see him or not, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of him crosses your mind every once in a while.

“Maybe you just like the idea of him,” he offers with a sigh. There isn’t much that he could do for you in the middle of a snowstorm except to be on a video call with you and hope that the can solve whatever you have going on before his bedtime.

“I make up scenarios of him in my mind but I still prefer the real him,” you admit with a twinge of embarrassment. You can only sink deeper under your covers, pulling the cabin-themed sheets closer to your chest. Maybe you’re still holding onto the Wonwoo who existed during the work trip, and maybe, you think, he still exists somewhere.

“Hypothetically, do you maybe think that the reason why he’s so bad at everything is because he spends most of his time with children and draws instead of writing so his communication skill is basically hindered? Like how you’re good with feelings and ideas because that’s the bulk of the media you surround yourself with daily so you have more exposure to that area. So you have man-child versus person with skewed expectations on love and relationships. But then you literally have people like me…perfect in every aspect.”

“Shut up. You talk about traffic every morning but you can’t even name the model of your car. You were also tricked by a catfish.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I’m sorry,” you beg him. “Please don’t.”

“My point is.” He places his phone down on the sleeping cat to use as a temporary phone stand while he gathers his thoughts. “The two of you seem like total opposites. And the only time the two of you seem to work well together is when you meet in the middle. So, have you ever tried communicating with him? Ever pulled him to the side to ask him why he’s such an ass?”

Yoon Jeonghan’s simple solution to your problem causes your brain to briefly short-circuit. Silence fills your lonely cabin room as your mouth slightly hangs open while your cousin silently judges you from the other end of the phone. It took a simple suggestion to make you realize that you have been hanging onto Wonwoo’s personality change to even think to consider the idea of confronting him about it. And Jeonghan’s hypothesis may not be wrong at all – life isn’t a fictional novel where everything can be magically solved in the incoming chapters.

“No?” Your answer is meek. You don’t know what to feel after this revelation. Anger? Despair? Peacefulness?

“And is he still knocking on your door? Trying to talk to you?” His tone is gentle for once.

“Yeah?” You look to the right side of your room where the door stands between his room and yours. Slips of lodge notebook paper often found in the nightstand drawers slowly shove themselves through the tiny crack under the door. “I think he’s pushing slips of paper under our shared door.”

“Then go talk to him. But throw away your snot pile and fix your appearance before you do. Yeah?”

“What would I do without you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Bye.”

Sitting on the floor with your back leaned against the door, you shuffle the sheets of paper in your hands. There are a couple of sorry notes partnered with sad and apologetic-looking animal doodles. There are a few slips where he asks you to forgive him. Then there are these series of slips – a mini cartoon of his morning, this morning – that somehow cause a small upwards curl to form on your lips.

Blue ballpoint pen ink depicts a series of panels starting with a text he received this morning. This comic is void of cute tiny animals and can only be drawn with the sincerity of a children’s book illustrator. He draws himself staring at his phone screen in confusion – you’re missing, and the rest of the work group chat has no idea where you are. And he’s worried. Everybody is worried, but nobody is worried enough to send search parties for you. Blue-figured Wonwoo rushes out of his room, completely abandoning his presentation for the author, to rush to the entrance of Interlude. Because he knows that your team always passes through Interlude, but you’re known to arrive at the campsite while rubbing your eyes, hair frizzing from the static built from your head rubbing against the headrest while you were sleeping on the way there. But the scene he stumbles upon makes him angry despite how relieved he is to know that you are okay.

The few pages that you hold in your hand are smudged with blue ink, and the ending is unfinished. Wonwoo softly rasps his knuckles against the shared door, calling out your name. When you don’t reply, he sighs and sits down with his back against the door. You feel a tiny jolt with his added pressure against the door. Still, you can’t bring yourself to confront him. At least not yet.

“I’m childish and I let myself get caught up in moments. And you were right, if something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for hurting you. At one point, I really did forget that the reason why we agreed to work together was because we didn’t want him to win. I ended up wanting us to win, or at least for you to win so you could have the upgrade. I’m really sorry for not communicating well with you, and for how I acted.”

The sound of his hair leaving the door lets you know that he probably dropped his head toward his lap.

Taking a shallow breath, he mutters into his hands, “And I wasn’t lying when I talked about us at the beach. I really did like you then. I still like you.”

“Then why ignore me? Why act like you hate me? What did I do to deserve how you treated me?” The questions leave your mouth in a flare of anger.

“I started ignoring you because I was hiding from you. I couldn’t confront you because I knew I would make it obvious that I liked you. But I guess I hid from you for too long because you thought I hated you.” His voice muffled from being on the other side of the door.

“So all of this happened because of some big misunderstanding? Just because we couldn’t confront each other?”

So it really was a simple problem with a simple solution. The revelation feels like a sore punch in the gut, one that’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.

“I’m sorry, Yn. I really am.”

“I’m also sorry.” You feel really guilty now that you know that you were wrong to believe that he hated you. “I should’ve confronted you about this earlier.”

“Does it still hurt?” His voice sounds clearer as if he shifted his body so he sits facing the door.

“Oh, from the race? Actually nothing happened.”

“From when you fell from heaven,” he finishes with his voice trailing in diminuendo, almost as if he is slightly embarrassed from using the overused pick-up line.

“It actually hurt a lot,” you joke. “But I’m glad it was you who found me in the middle of the road.”

“Then can I stay by your side? Not separated by doors, but by your side?”

So you push yourself away from the door, turning around to unlock the brassy knob. The door slowly swings open to Wonwoo, who is still sitting on the floor, now facing you. And you awkwardly sit in front of him, not really able to meet his eyes.

“I think I have a lot to learn.” He fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll start by being more communicative about my feelings,” he promises with a soft smile. “Because I really do like you.”

“I like you too.”

There is a magnetic pull that slowly draws the two of you closer together, a comforting sort of sensation that offers a moment of solace created from two extremes. The outside world is dark. The snowstorm has long gone. The surfaces where the sunlight once touched are replaced with the soft yellow glow of several lamps around both of your rooms. Kaleidoscopic remnants of shards of light scatter around every surface. But the two of you, seemingly in the very corners of your shared world exert a different type of glow - one that can only be created in a collision like the break of dawn after a devastating snowstorm. 

“I really like you too,” you can’t help but reaffirm.

“It’s actually ‘I also like you.’” He can’t help but playfully correct you. “You’re the publisher. You shouldn’t be making these errors.” He teases.

“And you’re the illustrator, so shouldn’t you stay quiet so I can kiss you?”

one month later

At the base of a computer monitor, a tiny wooden whittled cat naps lazily next to its turtle counterpart. Two people sit side-by-side in the breakroom a few rooms away, the metal seats practically stuck to each other. While their lunches heat up in the microwave, the two happily discuss the upcoming young adult novel they are finally working on together. Under the table, their pinkies naturally interlock. The man who scrolls through art ideas on his tablet can’t help but let his eyes linger on his partner for a little too long while they scroll enthusiastically through the several concept art slides he created. When the microwave sounds, he quickly leaves a soft and brief kiss on the side of his partner’s temple before getting up to remove their heated lunches. And the partner smiles while turning back to look at him, a smile brighter than the soft sunlight that wraps the room in a warm afternoon glow.

There’s a new interlude in their timelines. In this interlude, the two opposites are taking it slow, learning to meet in the middle.

dedicated to ellie (@flowershu/@eliphant). just wanted to thank you for supporting wondernus for all these years. happy new year <33

Copyright © 2022 Wondernus. All rights reserved.

[madelynraemunson]

mini series

GO BACK | NEXT LEVEL 🔒 | theme song: new divide - linkin park

player zero: level one

ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴍᴇᴛᴀQᴜᴇꜱᴛ ᴄʜᴏᴏꜱᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜ — ᴀ ꜱᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ꜱᴜᴘᴇʀ ꜰᴀɴ — ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇꜱᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴠɪʀᴛᴜᴀʟ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ (ᴠʀ) ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱ ᴠᴇɢᴀꜱ ꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇ, ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴏᴍᴇʜᴏᴡ ꜰɪɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱᴇʟꜰ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟ ꜱʜᴏᴡ.

I remember black skies, the lightning all around me.

disclaimers: 18+, psychological thriller, blood, violence, sexual themes, swearing, reader interacts with the st characters, eddie falls for reader who goes by “zero/000, player zero”, reader’s gender identity isn’t specified but does have a vagina, unintentional plot divergence, upside down exists, vecna/001/henry exists, everything is basically canon until reader shows up… 😳, joseph quinn cameo at the end | pairing: eddie munson x reader x joseph quinn

a/n: enjoy everyone! i’m sorry this took so long to come out but i am committed to only releasing my best work to you guys 🩶 i hope you all enjoy level 001!!

[WC: 2.0k words]

“Player Zero…do you copy?”

🎮

By the grace of your headset, you begin to scan the dark, almost void-like, aperture that’s hijacked your surroundings.

“Copy,” you report back to James.

“Excellent.”

Everything around you is black, a noisy puddle sits at your feet. The room is crisp from the AC, and the props smell like rubber tires. And soon, with a push of a button, you will come face to face with the Mind Flayer, saving everyone from this ill-fated town once and for all.

You can’t believe this. What thousands will pay to do, you get to experience for free, having been one of the few selected to try out the new Stranger Things: Virtual Reality Game at the Las Vegas Sphere. (Not to mention, you're the biggest Stranger Things fan in your hometown and quite possibly the biggest Joseph Quinn fan in the state of Nevada).

Eddie's death left you completely shattered. He just fit in so well with the older members of the party that you were almost certain the Duffers would keep him around. But to your despair, alongside many others, they did what they do best and killed off another fan favorite.

But there was something beautiful that came out of Eddie's death. Because of Stranger Things 4, Joseph Quinn has been getting booked for acting gigs left and right, getting asked to come to fan conventions, and you were able to find a community on Tumblr who shared the same love for him and Eddie Munson, and with that notion alone, means the silly metalhead lives on through you guys.

Your dream is to meet Joe one day. You’ve been frantically saving up for the day you get to hug him and thank him for everything he’s done for you and others. Whenever that may be. Until then, all you could do is support his work and contribute to all of his supporting franchises. Much like this one.

“I can’t wait to tell all my mutuals all about this game,” you think to yourself.

James permits you to walk around in order to adapt to your environment. You’re already planning what to tell your friends based on your observations so far. But since pictures aren't allowed, your phone remains in your back pocket for the time being.

“Alright Player Zero,” your guide further instructs you. “You’re going to walk through the gate. And from there the game will begin.”

“And what if I need to pee?”

The comment earns you a chuckle from James. “That’s fine. You’ll just have to take your headset off and call out to me.”

James asks you if you have any other questions. You couldn’t help yourself.

“Will I interact with any characters? Like Eddie?”

“No Eddie unfortunately, it’s primarily the Mind Flayer,” James answers honestly. “Goal of the game is to fight the monster.”

“Understood,” you pout in disappointment.

“Hey but I’ll be surprised if you run into anyone though,” James laughs. “Tell ‘em I say hi if you do.”

Just then, a neon orange projection appears from the corner of your eyes, followed by some squelching noises that gnaw uncomfortably at your ears. And as you get closer to it, you can hear the shrieks of some very familiar, unearthly creatures.

“Walk through the gate now, Zero,” James instructs you.

You take a deep breath, a little scared at how vivid the graphics are but reassuring yourself that all of this is just a game.

“Walking,” you report.

Hobbling into the gate, the synthetic warmth massages your ankle as you squeeze your way on in. You land on the bottom tier, a floor below the floor you started on... one that you weren't aware existed until you continued to walk around.

“This isn’t so bad,” you mutter to yourself.

Just then, the noise around you cuts off and your headset broadcasts to black.

Tssssss.

Unsure whether or not this was part of the game, you continue to tread around the nothingness that is around you. Holding your arms out to keep your balance doesn’t seem to help, because the more you graze onto nothing, the more panicked you become.

This is odd. Where’s the Mind Flayer?

“James?!” you call out, your heart nearly beating out of your chest now.

Nothing.

Suddenly, obnoxious TV static overpowers your headspace. It’s accompanied by lightheadedness, the brightness of it all mercilessly stinging your eyes, and the high-pitched feedback noise that soon fills your ears is probably enough to make you go deaf for the day. Great, now you know why this is a trial run.

“James!” you hiss again quietly. “Anyone?!”

No response. You were never warned about this part. Was this even supposed to happen?

Absolutely frustrated now, you reach for your headset to get out of the game yourself. But to your surprise, you’re stunned to have gotten two palms full of your hair, and part of your face. There was no headset on your head. You’re walking in a void of nothingness, with no one around to help you.

“I need to pee…” is your final attempt to connect with somebody.

The ear-piercing, scratching sounds start up once again. This time grainier, louder. It continues for a while as you run around in a panic before halting to complete radio. silence.

“Wh-” you pant. “What’s happeni-”

JOLT!

“OH SHIT!”

You’re then met with an abrupt, devastating PUSH that sends you flying across the room and down — what you could only describe as — an endless black hole. Your hand clutches at your chest as an attempt to soothe yourself. You’re almost sure your heart stopped for a minute due to absolute shock.

SMACK!

In a millisecond, your body lands on a prickly patch that you soon make up to be loose straws of hay. Blending into the scenery now is that of a remote grass field, with the smell of fresh trees and newly cut blades of grass dancing around your nose.

You can’t think of any place in Las Vegas that would have a barren field like this. Nor can you think of a town nearby with this much of a Midwestern flare, this much empty — and grassy — land, and this much Kodak green undertone to its atmosphere. Unless…

It can’t possibly be. Are you in Hawkins?

You're standing around like an idiot trying to figure out how this could've possibly happened.

You knew this experience was 'all-immersive', but judging by the description, you were supposed to be taken to the Upside Down... and the backwoods by Reefer Rick's hideout was a long commute from. Was this Mind Fight going to be after-the-fact?

Trudging towards Reefer Rick’s now, you begin to think of other ways to get James' attention. But when you hear the faint voice of someone else coming from inside the abandoned lake house, suddenly getting out of the game becomes less of a priority.

“Eddie…” the familiar voice softly commands.

Eddie?

The voice you register belongs to no one other than Gaten Matarazzo, or Dustin Henderson in this sense. But that’s impossible, you think to yourself. James said that there were no characters in the game.

“We are on... your side...”

Oh, it’s this scene. Peaking through the door that was open a mere three inches, you're stunned to see the four dimensional manifestations of the characters you've grown to love right in front of your very eyes.

IMPOSSIBLE.

It's them. You almost stumble backwards when you see Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke alongside Gaten; and despite having their backs towards you, you know it is for sure them, and not some workers hired to play the part.

Your eyes travel to the corner of the room. Very much to your surprise, evident by the butterflies in your stomach, you're met with Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, and Joseph Quinn... the love of your life... in the flesh... your Eddie. Both characters are too focused on each other to even register your presence. If they are even able to see you at all.

You continue to be the fly on the wall while taking a few collected deep breaths. There's no way that they're in front of you right now. There's no way a whole SCENE from the show is panning out in front of you right now. Almost as if it's real time.

“I swear on my mother!” Gaten Dustin continues, trying to reason with Eddie so he can drop the knife and let go of Steve. He turns to the others for help.

“Right?! Guys?!”

“Yes, yes we swear,” the party clamors together in attempts to calm Eddie down.

“On Dustin’s mother,” Maya Robin attempts.

“Yeah, Dustin’s…Dustin’s mother…”

Keery’s voice is strained as he gulps in fear. Reasonably so, because there’s a knife pointed at his throat in this scene.

You clear yours at the doorway, causing everyone to deadpan to you in shock. So they can see you. And sure enough when this happens, that’s when your gaze lands on him. And his gaze lands on you.

It’s insane. It’s like you are looking Joseph Quinn in the eyes, but at the same time, it’s not him. It is literally — Eddie Munson. He's even more beautiful than you imagined.

“On Dustin’s mother?” you speak.

“Jesus, where did YOU spawn from?!” Gaten Dustin exclaims.

“Who’s that?” Sadie Max wonders.

“I…don’t know,” Maya Robin answers.

Immediately, Dustin runs to shield Eddie from your sight. But it’s already too late. And plus, Eddie’s eyes have already met yours. Studied yours.

“I’m…” you speak. “I’m here to help.”

You figured while James figures out what the actual fuck is wrong, that you’d interact with the characters. They’re right in front of you after all, and actually responding.

"I'm Zero..." you explain to them. "I'm not... I'm not from here, but I know a hell of a lot about this place. A lot more than you guys think."

“You know about what’s going on around here?” Robin inquires.

You nod. “And I know part of who is behind it all, and what we can do to stop him.”

"H...him?"

Eddie's timid stare pierces straight into you. It's enough for your knees to buckle, but you know you have to keep yourself collected otherwise the projections of these characters would probably freak out at you.

You hear a tiny thud sound against the wooden floor. Eddie has dropped the knife. Breathing a sigh of relief now, Steve sinks to the ground to gather himself. Meanwhile, a small circle gathers around you.

“There are… greater forces at bay,” you explain. “And it goes way beyond what you know about the demogorgons, the shadow monster, the Mind Flayer… There’s this... really powerful warlock…and a shadow that looms over him to do some really horrible things. And it’s not who you’d expect.”

“You know about those too?” Steve asks.

You nod. Eddie only seems more confused.

"A lot more than you know..." you warn him. "Trust."

"What else do you know about?" Dustin questions.

"I know about Eleven, and Will," you answer. "And how they're safer in California than here, but that doesn't necessarily exempt them from danger."

They all exchange looks with one another.

You can't help but look over at Eddie again.

"I know what happened to Chrissy," you say to him. He looks back up at you. "She's that nice girl from the middle school talent show, right?"

"I left her there," is all he says. He knows you understand what he meant by it. "I'm just a coward."

"You're not a coward, Eddie. Nothing you could've done could've prevented what happened at the trailer."

“Zero…” Dustin whispers to himself. Then he looks up at you with suspicion. Pointing an accusatory finger at you, he says, "How do we know you weren't sent by Hawkins Lab to spy on us?! You're a number after all."

"I'm not a number from the lab, trust me," you roll your eyes, slightly annoyed at Curly and his superstition. But it makes sense. "I don't even know Eleven, okay? Just think of me as... a guardian. From another universe. I think I was sent here to help you guys. I know how this shit ends, after all."

“How does it end?” Eddie asks you. “F-for us? For me?”

You turn to him in anguish.

“Not well, I’m afraid,” you respond honestly. “But if you guys are open to my help, I can get us out of this mess unscathed. Build up some leeway.”

You turn to Max who only seems to be backing further away from you. It's definitely in her character to do so, Maxine has always struggled to ask for help. But you know, deep down in those fearful blue eyes, she wants your help as much as she wants to run away from it.

"And we're gonna break you out of that curse," you say to her.

You're no expert on the laws of space-time, but it doesn't take a scientist to realize that you're in a different Hawkins reality. And knowing there are countless outcomes and experiences for existence, you can make this reality your own.

Which means, if you choose to stay in this 'game', and play the cards correctly, the Eddie standing directly in front of you has a second chance at life.

Now’s your chance to fix it. And experience an altered timeline. You don't know how this is possible, but it is. And after all, the Rule of Probability states, "the probability of an impossible event is Zero."

“If you guys want to save everyone in Hawkins, including Eddie and Max, you guys have to do EXACTLY what I say do you understand?”

taglist: @winchester-angel, @arthurcerverogf, @damon-loves-pie, @breezybeesposts, @swiss-mrs,@leelei1980, @skulliecadaver-blog, @katethetank, @mexicanfolklore, @ali-r3n, @nailbatanddungeon, @hugdealer, @wtflindsay, @yourdailymemedelivery, @kellsck, @kthomps914, @daydream-believer19

cyberpunk dividers from: @k1ssyoursister @sillycircus-decoarchive

[hairstevington]

Stranger Therapy

Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington

Summary: Based on this text post, Steve and Eddie match on Tinder and decide to go to couple's counseling on a first date to see how long it takes the therapist (Murray) to figure them out. Link to Ao3

Word Count: 3K, check out part 2 part 3 part 4 and epilogue!

Warnings: Nothing too serious, Steve/Eddie went to high school together but don't know each other, modern day AU, aged up, brief Robin cameo, Matchmaker Murray, and my fav tag of all - gay scheming!

A/N: I'm a counselor in training currently but I don't specialize in couple's counseling so this may or may not be accurate? Idk man it's just fun and silly I love our stupid boys sm. Original post by @hxneyfarms

It’s a match!

“Robin, it worked!” Steve shouted from the couch. She ran from the kitchen and joined him, peering over to stare at his screen.

“I told you it would! It’s funny!” she insisted. Steve rolled his eyes and anxiously pulled up the profile of his new match. 

“Oh, shit,” Steve said. “I remember swiping right on this guy. Didn’t think I had a shot.” He looked through the pictures. They were all candids, slightly blurry, or shots of him with his friends, but due to his distinguished look it was easy to pick him out even in a crowd. 

“Show me his bio,” Robin ordered. Steve closed out the pictures and scrolled until the bio was in full view.

Eddie, 25. Shit at bios.

“Well that’s kind of boring,” Steve said. 

“Yeah. You think he’s a bot?” Robin asked.

 “Or a catfish, maybe,” Steve mused. “Either way, I still think I should take your joke down. I don’t talk like that in real life, and people might get confused.”

Robin had convinced him earlier to change his bio and replace it with - let’s go to couple’s counseling and see how long it takes the therapist to realize we don’t know each other. Steve had been a little tipsy when he agreed, and he assumed nothing would come of it. But then, Eddie matched with him. 

“You’re thinking way too hard about this, Dingus,” Robin replied. “People write weird shit in their Tinder bios all the time.” 

“Eddie didn’t,” Steve countered. 

“Yeah, but look at him,” Robin responded. “He’s distinctive. It’s attention-grabbing in itself.”

“And I’m not?” Steve asked. Robin chuckled.

“You’re the kind of pretty where if you don’t have something witty in the bio, people will think you’re just some ignorant surface-level airhead who’s never worked a day in his life, and that’s not cute.”

“Okay, ouch,” Steve said. 

“It’s a compliment!” she insisted. “Like, you need to show that you’re witty and funny and able to poke fun at yourself, otherwise you’re going to attract the wrong kind of people.”

“And this guy’s the right kind, huh?” Steve opened one of the pictures back up - one where Eddie was passed out on the couch with a beer still in his hand. As they looked at the screen, a notification popped up. Eddie sent you a message.

“Let’s find out,” Robin said. 

-

Eddie: If your bio is serious, I’m in

Steve: Wait, really?

Eddie: Yeah xD sounds fun

Eddie: You got a therapist in mind?

Steve: Honestly didn’t think I’d get this far

Eddie: Boo. 

Eddie: You’re lucky I know just the guy

Steve: Okay…

Steve: So how do we do this?

Eddie: Dude, it was YOUR idea

Steve: Ok but I’ve never done it before!

Eddie: Steve! I’m your first? <3

Steve: Yeah, yeah. I’ve never pranked a therapist before. 

Eddie: I hope you’re either rich or have really good insurance. Otherwise this is gonna be an expensive first date.

Steve: I got it covered. 

Eddie: I figured you did. I’ll call the guy in the morning and get back to you with the appointment time. 

Steve: Okay. How’s your night going by the way?

Eddie: Nope!

Eddie: That’s not part of the deal, Steve. We go into this blind or not at all.

Steve: This is insane.

Eddie: Once again, your idea. I’m excited. Are you excited?

Steve: Thrilled.

Steve: I’m still concerned about how you know the perfect guy for this.

Eddie: 😛

Eddie: Don’t worry about it.

-

“I don’t even think he’s serious,” Steve said after he recounted the entire interaction to Robin.

“I don’t know, Steve. Sounds serious to me.” 

“What if he’s like - not right in the head?” Steve wondered, reading the interaction over and over again. “Like, who is this therapist and why does he know him? Is he actually going to make an appointment? What if this whole thing crashes and burns?”

“I honestly think he plans on it crashing and burning,” Robin replied. “And then after, the both of you either hit it off and laugh about it forever, or you have an amazing failed date story to tell your friends until the end of time.”

“That’s…actually genius.” 

“I know.” 

Steve read the messages one last time, focusing on the bits where Eddie was mildly flirtatious. Steve! I’m your first? He could tell if Eddie was being condescending, or what vibe he was going to bring to this absolute insane first date. But, as Robin said, it would be a story no matter what. 

He tried to focus on that and not the anxiety that started brewing in his veins.

-

The appointment was set for two weeks later. Eddie still refused to talk to Steve other than for details on where to go and at what time, so for the whole fourteen days, Steve assumed he was being pranked right back. Eddie was messing with him, or he’d cancel, or Dr. Bauman didn’t actually exist, or he’d be murdered, or, or, or -

None of that happened. Instead, on a Tuesday afternoon, Steve pulled up to an office building about fifteen minutes from his apartment. He’d passed by it several times and never once wondered what went on inside. 

Apparently, really weird first dates.

They had decided to meet up in the parking lot and walk in together. The whole thing was crazy, but having one of them pick the other up so they could drive in together was way over what was needed to commit to the bit. 

Steve got there first. They needed to be fifteen minutes early to fill out paperwork. It was twenty minutes prior to their appointment time. 

This was weird. It felt a lot different than all the times he’d met someone for coffee. In another world, that’s how he and Eddie would have met. But no. He had to agree to this stupid thing, and now he was too far into it to back out. Jesus Christ. 

Eddie’s car pulled in a few spaces down. Steve knew it was him from the hair alone - unmistakable. He got out of his car and walked towards his date, his palms sweaty. Eddie got out of his car a moment later, eyeing Steve as he approached him and smirking. 

“What gave me away?” Eddie asked. 

“You think I wouldn’t recognize my boyfriend?” Steve snapped back, pleased at the way he was able to take Eddie off guard. 

“Touche. Well, come on, then. Let’s do this.” 

-

Before they knew it, they were sitting in a cramped waiting room, alone, filling out paperwork. It consisted of insurance information first, followed by names and some quick background questions about the “couple.” Steve began filling it out, thankful that he was still on his dad’s fancy rich-person insurance. It covered basically everything, even fucked-up couples fraud with Dr. Bauman.

“Are you not worried I’m gonna, like, steal your information or something?” Eddie asked as Steve wrote down his policy number.

“I mean…should I be?” Steve responded. 

“No,” Eddie answered with a shrug. “I gotta say, though, you’re way more trusting than I am. It’s ballsy. I like it.” 

“Uhh…” Steve was trying to concentrate on the paperwork, but the compliment was throwing him off. “Thank you, I think.” He continued filling out the paperwork.

“You’re from Hawkins?” he asked. Steve nodded, absentmindedly. “I’m from Hawkins.” This caught Steve’s attention. 

“No shit.” 

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Small world,” Steve replied before turning his attention back to the form.

“You have a cute middle name,” Eddie teased. 

“Shut up,” Steve responded. He wanted to find Eddie’s pestering annoying, but instead he found himself smirking, even giggling a little bit. This whole thing was so ridiculous. He shoved the clipboard onto Eddie’s lap. “Your turn, lover.”

“Euch,” Eddie groaned. “That is not one of our pet names, no way.” 

“Noted,” Steve chuckled. He was…kind of enjoying this way more than he expected, as weird as it was. He’d grown accustomed to a lot of even stranger things in his life, so this didn’t feel as shocking as he’d initially thought. 

“Don’t look,” Eddie said as he covered the paper.

“What? Why not?” Steve asked, confused. 

“Because not all of us are as blindly trusting, Steven,” Eddie responded. Steve shook his head and looked away. 

“Good thing we’re in therapy to work that shit out, Edward Munson.”

“You looked!” Eddie exclaimed. 

“It was right in front of me!” Steve pointed out. 

“Fair enough,” Eddie sighed. “Okay, now we gotta put down a reason for doing this.”

-

Fast forward ten minutes, Eddie and Steve were seated next to each other on a relatively small but cozy burnt orange couch. The color was ugly, but the seats were comfortable. Steve noticed the cushions had a natural dip that kept inching him closer to the person sitting on the opposite side. He figured this was certainly intentional. 

The doctor sat in front of them, reviewing the papers the pair had just filled out.

“Hello, my name is Dr. Bauman, and one day I may let you call me Murray,” he began, his eyes fixed on the papers in front of him. “I see here on your sheet that you’ve been feeling distant from each other, and that you’re looking to feel more connected, right? Can you tell me more about that?”

“We’re just launching right into it, huh?” Eddie asked. 

“Well, we are on a time crunch here. Your decision how you spend it,” Dr. Bauman answered. 

The man was immediately intimidating.

“Ooookay,” Steve said, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess it just feels like - like he and I don’t even know each other anymore.” Eddie stifled a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand to make it seem like he was maybe getting emotional or perhaps trying not to sneeze. 

“I see,” Dr. Bauman said, eyeing them both suspiciously. “Let’s begin with how you two met and we’ll go from there, okay?”

“We were high school sweethearts,” Eddie replied with a grin.

“Wow,” Dr. Bauman commented. “Well, it’s common for a lot of development to happen from then to now. How did you two get together?” Eddie looked to Steve, as if to say, you’re up.

“It just kinda…happened, I guess,” Steve began. “We were assigned as partners for a project and really clicked.”

“Yeah, and then we snuck around for a while. Sneaking kisses in janitor's closets and empty classrooms, you know the drill.” Steve tried not to blush at the thought of sneaking around with high school Eddie. If they were both from Hawkins, did they actually go to high school together?

“Snuck around for the thrill?” Dr. Bauman asked.

“No,” Steve responded. “I wasn’t out yet.” Eddie looked at him curiously, as if he wasn’t expecting Steve to say something so serious. He wondered if it was actually true. 

“Well, that and -” Eddie added. “- he was a popular jock and I was kind of a freak.” This time, Steve looked at Eddie curiously. Steve was a popular jock. Eddie could have assumed that, or made a lucky guess, but something told him that wasn’t the case. 

Eddie Munson. Munson. 

Oh.

Oh!

It took Steve a minute to recover from that information. They did in fact go to school together, they just had never interacted. Eddie obviously remembered, and he obviously knew that Steve didn’t. So what was the goal here? Was Steve being punked or something just so Eddie could get free therapy?

“Steve, you look a little pale there,” Dr. Bauman noticed. “Did that trigger something?”

“Yeah -” Steve croaked, now unable to look at Eddie. If he had, he would have noticed Eddie didn’t look as smug as Steve assumed he was. “Yeah, I just don’t think about high school that much anymore.”

“Why not?” the doctor asked. 

“Because, I - I’ve changed so much since then. I’m not that guy anymore, and I don’t want to be that guy.”

“Ah, I see,” he hummed. “So, Eddie fell for someone who no longer exists. I think I’m understanding the problem here. Eddie, do you feel that you’ve changed?”

Damn. This guy’s kinda good.

“Uhhh -” Eddie began. Neither of them expected this to get so serious so quickly. It didn’t even feel like it was about their imagined relationship anymore. “N-no, I don’t think I have.”

“And Steve, do you think Eddie has changed?”

Steve thought about the limited memories he had of Eddie in high school. Cocky, slightly unhinged, just as he was now. But there was something different, he just couldn’t really pinpoint what. Maybe if he’d talked to Eddie for longer than like ten minutes total in his life, he’d have a better idea. 

Then, he realized the point of this wasn’t to be serious. It was to make shit up. Steve pivoted back to the original plan. 

“Yeah, I mean -” He shifted in his seat, finding himself now thigh to thigh with Eddie, despite not meaning to be. “He’s, uh - it just feels like we don’t have anything in common anymore?” It was something he’d heard lots of couples say.

“Do you want to make this work?” Dr. Bauman asked. 

“Why else would we be here?” Eddie answered. Dr. Bauman narrowed his eyes. 

“You tell me.”

Eddie and Steve were kind of not good at this. Their story was based in truth and not very exciting. They both seemed to realize this at the same time.

“Steve slept with the dogwalker,” Eddie proclaimed. Steve scoffed, half-amused, half-offended. 

“Yeah, well you sold drugs to my mom!” he shot back. The two guys looked at each other, pretending to look angry while simultaneously wanting to laugh. 

“Woooah, there,” Dr. Bauman responded. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Do we want to begin with Steve’s infidelity or Eddie’s illegal activity?”

“That’s not gonna, like, go on record or anything, right?” Steve asked, suddenly anxious. “Like, the cops aren’t gonna show up at Eddie’s door?”

“Our door, babe,” Eddie clarified, not the least bit nervous. 

“Depends on how long ago this happened, I suppose,” Dr. Bauman answered.

“Long time ago,” Eddie said. 

“Are you still currently dealing?”

“No, I don’t even do drugs anymore. Well, like, except pot - but that’s legal now so it doesn’t really count, I think.”

“Dude,” Steve whispered. 

“You brought it up,” Eddie replied just as softly. 

“Right,” Dr. Bauman responded, taking it all in. “No report needed, then. Let’s move onto the dogwalker.” 

They continued to add to their lore as the appointment went on. At one point, Eddie even faked tears. His acting was…decent enough to avoid suspicion, thankfully. When the clock hit 1:45, their time was up, and they’d successfully managed to fool Dr. Bauman. Mission accomplished, date over. Right?

“Well, thank you so much, Dr. Bauman,” Eddie said. “I think you’ve really helped us out today.”

“Yeah, seriously,” Steve said, smiling. “We feel so much better.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Dr. Bauman said with his hands up. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, in my professional opinion.”

“There is?” Eddie asked, confused. 

“Oh, definitely. Most couples go to a minimum of four sessions, and that’s still a low average. Plus, this was only intake. I mean, unless you guys weren’t happy with the counseling I gave you today…”

It felt like a challenge, and Eddie loved challenges. Meanwhile, Steve was too awkward to come clean or tell the doctor they weren’t interested. 

They made another appointment.

-

“Well, that went pretty well, I think,” Eddie said as they left the building. 

“You knew me already?” Steve asked once they were a safe enough distance from the office and Dr. Bauman. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I just knew your name and face, man. And, like, your vibe,” Eddie answered. “Back in high school, anyway.” 

“You should have told me,” Steve said. 

“You should have remembered,” Eddie shot back. “Whatever, it was fun. Right?”

“Eddie, I have no idea what that was,” Steve replied. “We have to cancel that appointment.”

“Why? You don’t want to see me again?” Eddie grinned. Steve rolled his eyes.

“No, I - I mean, I don’t want to waste his time. That spot should go to other couples who need it. Meanwhile, we could go get coffee like normal adults.” 

“I dunno,” Eddie said, kicking a pebble in the road as they walked. “I kinda liked it. You can’t tell me you didn’t.”

It was true. Steve couldn’t say that he didn’t.

“Doesn’t matter.” Steve unlocked his car and made his way to the door. “We’re canceling.”

“He’s the one that wanted to see us again, Steve,” Eddie reminded him. 

“Yeah, because he thought we were an actual couple.” Steve was getting frustrated at Eddie’s antics, and the way he refused to back down. “I don’t know if this is gonna work, man. This has been, uh - well, it’s been weird, but I think -”

“We have to go, otherwise you’ll be charged a cancellation fee,” Eddie blurted out. It was a lie, a bold-faced lie, and yet -

“So, I’ll pay the fee. Can’t be more than the cost of a full session,” Steve figured. 

“Ugh!” Eddie groaned in frustration. “Okay, fine. Look - I’m annoying as hell, I’m a mess, I’m broke, and I could never afford someone like Dr. Bauman. I don’t know about you, but some of the things he said actually made me think and I kind of want to ask him about, like, real shit.” 

Steve stared at him blankly for a minute. 

“You - you want me to keep going to fake couple’s counseling with you so you can get actual therapy?” Steve asked, stunned. 

“I mean, you could work your shit out, too,” Eddie suggested.

“What shit? I don’t have shit,” Steve insisted. 

“Of course you do! Everyone does!” Eddie yelled. 

“You’re insane,” Steve muttered. The thing was, he wasn’t saying it out of anger. He was saying it in understanding. 

Because the thing was, Eddie had a point. Dr. Bauman was good at what he did, and Steve knew he’d never sign up for individual counseling. He already had the appointment. Eddie smirked. 

“You’re with me, aren’t you?”

Fuck.

“Fine,” Steve agreed. 

-

Notes from Dr. Bauman - 3/18

Eddie and Steve

Together since high school

Feelings of disconnect

Steve/dogwalker

Eddie/mom/drugs

Clearly lying

Clients are faking their relationship for me, for some reason. Will continue to work with them to figure out why. 

They aren’t dating…but they should be

(next chapter)

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

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[platypus-quacks-too]

A not complete, neither lucid post-mortem (ha!) list of thoughts after the series finale:

I enjoyed it overall. It was good. It ended probably the only way it couldn't end. Still, I was hoping for a more hopeful note. There was, but it also felt very much bittersweet. I mean, I knew I would have cried. I've always known that. But boy, did I cry.

This said, the first episode was some of the toughest 20 minutes of television I watched in my recent years. Of course you say, there are dramatic things out there but also consider this is a comedy, and we were with the coopers for the last 7 years.

What was more heartbreaking: Missy's anger, Mary's regret, Georgie sudden weight of responsability? Yes. And then there was Sheldon's endless loop of regret, replaying in his mind over and over his last moment with George. And it was Spock's latest words, and it was simply saying bye, and it was telling him out loud he loved him. The way he never managed to do in life (oh, I did not forget the first time George's death was acknowledged in show was Sheldon remembering he never got to thank George for what he had done for him…)

Their last goodbye at the funeral was- lord, where do I ever begin. I'm glad Missy managed to say goodbye, and Mary, and Georgie. I'm so sorry for Sheldon. Again regret, when he didn't make to do the eulogy.

And Mary was right. It's so cruel George died just when they were at their happiest. I see why she was so angry when we first met her.

It was nice to see again most of the people that had a role in the story. Brenda, Billy, June, even a mention to Veronica later on. They missed only Paige, which I am disappointed because I am sad the last we saw of her was in a bad place.

Second part was series finale 101. The (lovely!) recap of the Cooper story so far, all the recalls back to the pilot, the ending scene closing the circle. And of course, the reveal of how the storytelling is actually happening.

And of course, Sheldon Cooper in all his glory. Amy freakkin' Farrah Fowler in all her glory. I really needed to pinch myself twice that I was looking at new scenes of the two of them 5 years later.

Their house! All the memorabilia! (Gollum, the Nobel pic, the medal, the DNA, the Rubrik cube, the couch from 4A!!!). We knew more about Leonard. We kinda get confirmed they have two kids in total? And Leonard has a younger sister who wants to take acting classes and spent time with Penny. Excuse me I need a moment.

It was pretty much weird to see shamy in single camera tho? Like watching a fanfiction being played. No audience laughs. Multiple povs. A closer look to them. I was good. It was weird.

I admit, maybe it was this, but especially their first scenes felt a little off? Especially Mayim as Amy. Like she was having difficulties to come back in Amy's clothes. And because she was arguing with Sheldon, without the comedy timing given by multicams, it felt… harsher than usual?

(Again with the once at year birthday thing I swear I am giving up)

Their final scene instead was perfect. There! There I saw my sweet shamy again. Amy's tone was softer. She made Sheldon do the right thing with love the way she always managed to. (SNIFF)

Unpopular opinion maybe: I kinda wish their only scene in flesh was the final one. The previous ones were nice but could have been easily a voiceover as usual. I wanted more time with the 1994 Coopers.

Back at the beginning of this list: it was indeed a bittersweet end. Sweet: Sheldon's final moments at Caltech, that music playing, old pal Dave Saltzberg cameo!

Sheldon accepting to get baptized just to make Mary happy, because "he believes in her" (SNIFF). The final moment of him and Missy was with a smile. Their exchange in the bedroom. Mandy trying to cheer Missy up. Georgie keeping the family together. Connie recognizing she found peace finally with Dale.

And yet. Missy is angry, so angry and she's left with Mary in a house what was full and now it's just the two of them, and they are barely talking. Their last scene was a fight. Mary got sucked in the faith again, and this time we know it's the definitive, worse one, and Connie or anyone couldn't do anything for her. It ended like it needed to, but I wanted more reassurances that also Missy, Georgie, Mary and everyone else had their peace eventually.

It was heartbreaking and lovely see adult Sheldon saying goodbye to that house. He kinda did on our behalf as well.

I am gonna miss the Coopers so much. I am really do.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/24/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast&CrewSightings; Samba BTS; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Damien Gerard; Guz Khan!; SaveOFMD Crew Billboard; AdoptOurCrew Saturday Sillies; Making A Difference; Articles; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika;

Been a long Saturday yall. Hope you enjoyed the BTS and general clown/honking going around!

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= Samba Schutte Feat. David Jenkins! =

Samba's back with more BTS for us today!

This time the Crew Shoutout is for Chaos Dad himself: David Jenkins! So good to see Chaos dad having such a great time BTS. We love you David!

Videos on Tumblr:

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

= Rhys Darby =

Rhys decided to take it up a notch today on his Tiktok/Instagram and tell... someone they've created a monster. Who might that be?

== Damien Gerard ==

Our crew-mate @patchworkpiratebear got a Cameo from our lovely Father-Teach, Damien Gerard! There's a bit of a story behind it, see below! Cameo link

== Guz Khan! ==

Hey! It's been a hot minute since we've seen our friend Guz Khan-- and now he's showed up on a cat! Good to see you sir!

== Save OFMD Crew ==

There have been questions raised about the billboard that the SaveOFMD Crew have been posting teasers for on their socials. The Crew had a meeting today wherein they discussed the concerns of the fandom, and have taken that feedback to heart. They are currently working on a clear information packet regarding the logistics of the current billboard efforts. They have kindly asked for your patience while they finish putting those last touches together!

== @adoptourcrew Saturday Sillies! ==

Our friends over at @adoptourcrew were kind enough to set up a new Saturday Sillies this week! This time they made custom OFMD Wordles! There were WAY too many images to include in the recap, so if you'd like to check them out, please visit the tumblr post below!

Wanna play? You can visit a tumblr post here

== Making a Difference! ==

Thank you to everyone who contributed to, or shared the fundraiser for Trans Pride Brighton! They've finally met their goal and can stay open another year! You made a serious difference in the lives of trans and non-binary folk in that community!

== Articles ==

Deze HBO-serie is gecanceld, maar had een 95% op Rotten Tomatoes

Schwule Romanze zwischen Piratenkapitänen

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. I hope you had a fun Saturday/Sunday wherever you are. I know some of you are already closing out the weekend. We made it through another day-- and there's all sorts of action going on across all the platforms. I hope you got a chance to have fun, but also to rest. I know you know this, but even though I do too I often forget it. Rest is so very important. It's so easy to burn out, especially when we're constantly exposed to so much online. I think to myself "oh it's fine I'll just get a few more things done" and then it's suddenly 3 hours later and I've had only 4 hrs sleep in the last 30. Please please please give yourself self care today. Go brush your teeth, or take a shower. If you feel like you can do more, brush your hair, or make yourself a nice cup of tea. Do something for you that makes you relax and feel rested. On your last day of the weekend, make sure to take a few moments to yourself and just remember how awesome you are. You may not feel like it sometimes, but I can tell you now you truly are Awe-some. You bring so much life and love to this world and you deserve all beautiful things you want. Anyway, I'm very sleepy and I'm rambling again (what's new). Sleep well and enjoy your day lovelies, see you tomorrow.

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

I'm being lazy tonight again yall. Just two goofy gifs that caught my eye, sorry I am running on fumes. Tomorrow I'll try to find some themed ones for ya <3

Rhys Gif: Courtesy of @fandomsmeantheworldtome

Taika Gif: ohnotheydidnt.livejournal

[dribs-and-drabbles]

The things I loved about Last Twilight ep 11:

Night joking with Day about not farting whilst stood at his hospital bedside...the same place Mhok then wears a shirt with 'Proud' on it later as Night explains Porjai's baby's name is Poomjai - which translates to 'be proud' - harking back to the Fart Proudly shirt from ep 2. 👏🏼

Mhok's 'St Louis Blues' shirt at the beginning of the ep setting us up for all the heartache later:

"I hate to see the evening' sun go down...

...I got them Saint Louis Blues; just as blue as I can be

He's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea

Or else he wouldn't have gone so far away from me"

"You're not disappearing on me, are you? / If you can see again, don't disappear on me." | "I can't see" | "Let's break up"

Mhon, Day's mom, watching Day and Mhok through the hospital room door and slowly warming up to their relationship. Explaining that she's not against them dating but that she's concerned that Day needs someone who has the means to take care of him. Inviting him to be there when Day takes his bandages off, effectively inviting him into the family circle, giving him a chance.

Day reassuring Night that he doesn't need to feel guilty still when the operation doesn't work. 😭

This shot in particular, as the series has shown us before, Mhok is Day's eyes:

"True blindness is the inability to see any hope" and Day's singular tear.

I'm mentioning it again but Mhok wearing a shirt with 'proud' on it with Day in a shirt with 'goodtime / nice dream come true' on it, whilst Night tells Porjai she should be proud to have carried the baby alone, and for both Porjai and Night to have gotten the dream family -> her baby and a wonderful parent/soon-to-be-spouse.

But also them wearing those shirts during dinner with Day's mom and Night - a dream for Mhok to be accepted and both Mhok and Day being proud of Mhok's achievements. #proud

Food as a love language -> come eat with us, try this food I created and cooked and gave to my two sons and now I'm offering it to you...be part of our family.

Without realising perhaps, Mhon sows the seed of pressure on Mhok to be able to provide for Day when they're talking in the hospital when she says she just wants someone who can really take care of him - who has the means to do it. And then in letting Day go to Songkhla with Mhok to test whether they can live together, she's increasing the pressure Mhok feels. Which then gets amplified during the car accident and when Day doesn't answer the phone. All this leads to his decision to not leave Day.

The parallels of Day/Mhok and Porjai/Night when it comes to roles in their relationships. Night says he doesn't understand what his mom means when she says 'being a caretaker and a boyfriend are two different things' - now, we haven't seen much of Night and Porjai's relationship but I'd be willing to bet he's being more of a caretaker to Porjai than a boyfriend at the moment - he calls her Khun, she brushes off any suggestion that something is going on between them, and she goes to live with her mom... I wonder if we'll see Night coming to an understanding about this differentiation in ep 12, and whether it will play a role in helping Day and Mhok's relationship 🤔

TOTO!! I had been waiting for an appearance by Au. By the way, Day's new caretaker in ep 10 (the rude one from the end of the interviews in ep 1) is also an assistant director on the show, Meng Chaiyapat, so that's two cameos. I wonder if we'll get a third with Aof.

Mhok's blue lightening underpants! Plus the parallel of Mhok waking Day up with the dripping wet hair on his face.

How gestures and touches serve as a language for Day and Mhok - touching the lips as a way to communicate that one wants to kiss for example - and that touch in general is so weighted for them...but that they also use these things to trick and keep teasing each other.

The green and blue towel hanging next to each other over the airer in Day and Mhok's room. 😭

Mhok's 'Hawaii' shirt when he tells Day he wasn't chosen to go. (I missed this the first time round).

The way Day actually is giving it the most on the dance floor and genuinely deserved to win but can't see/understand that. Day automatically assumes that every good thing that comes his way is because people pity him. It's not surprising that this is the fear he falls back on when he finds out Mhok lied to him. This is his go-to gut reaction/response. That and feeling like he's a burden or causing trouble to others.

THE 'I LOVE YOU SO DAMN MUCH' CONFESSION SCENE. Mhok's face, the way the depths of his feelings settle within him just before he says it, the callback to the 'come closer' moment they had earlier in the ep, Day's voice cracking as he says it back, and the hug afterwards. It's all so perfect and not enough people are talking about it dammit.

Night in Mhok's blue, even Mhon has a blue dressing gown over her grey pjs, but Day is in that pink and white shirt but the pink is only over half of his body, and not on his left side over his heart, spelling trouble ahead. And as @grapejuicegay pointed out - it's not a groove mindset kind of a day, it's a rains county. The colours are colouring and the t-shirts are t-shirting.

The PARALLELS. "Read this to me" harking back to ep 1 when Day asked Mhok to read something to him, and now Day asking Mhok to read the paper. What was the text on Mhok's blue bag? 'I love to hear your voice'...? Ooof, hits hard.

Mhok respecting Day's last wish like he did when he burst into Day's room and got fired, and when he took Day up the mountain and offered to quit to appease his mom. Mhok is just so good.

"Mom, did I do the right thing?" Day realising immediately that he was too impulsive. 💔

[gffa]

The latest ending of Ahsoka really made me realize one of the big problems with Felony's writing and why so much of the Masndo-verse and Felony's modern writing falls flat compared to OWK and Andor. Shock value. A BIG twist cliffhanger that leaves us all mouth open and HYPING up the next episode in hope and filling the forums with discussions in anticipation. Understandably, he can't write what we wrote in our heads for 7 days and top that. 1.

2. But once that shock is gone when the story has moved onto the next big thing, or you watch it again when you know what it pays off in, or watch the whole series or season again, it just doesn't hold up. It's empty. Vapid. Because it's all about the shock. The twist. The discussion. The hype fodder. It's not saying anything or adding anything. OWK and Andor was a lot better at that, without the use of the nostalgia baiting that Felony relies on. 3. It becomes an endless circle of low lows and high highs, while OWK and Andor both slowly built up to the crescendo of discussions and speculations and both have stayed in the fandom consciousness alot longer thanks to that. And because they have something to say, both to the world and to the viewer. While with the Felony and the Fraudrou verses, it's just a constant barrage of oh wow, moving on, what's next? ehh, it's over, let's move on.

I feel like one day I'm going to do a longer analysis on why exactly Filoni's writing feels weak to me (where I try to be more fair than I'm usually feeling about his writing), because I don't think he's without a lot of talent and there's certain things he really does get about Star Wars, but I think so much comes back to that he's a writer who is caught in a difficult position--playing in someone else's sandbox but has to now establish his own new corners of that sandbox and I'm not sure he's strong enough to be a big picture kind of guy when he works better in smaller focus. His work on TCW and Rebels is content that we do come back to again and again for analysis, during my rewatches of both those series, those shows hold up! But I think they're ones where he had stronger guardrails up, and he was forced to stick to things in one place. I think live action has been bad for Filoni's writing because of the way so much is structured, that there are multiple series going on and I feel like his writing doesn't have the patience to actually tell a story in a single space, that's why we get Grogu's story being split between The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, that's why we get Mandalore's story being splintered across Rebels, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and now Ahsoka. We still haven't even seen half of the events that happen in the Mandalore bigger story! And you're right that he and Favreau both lean too hard on the cameos and echoes/rhymes for nostalgia's sake. And those reference points are often extremely fun in the moment! And I'll grant that the Luke episodes are ones I go back to fairly often, because I think there's some really good content in there about what attachment actually means. But I don't think it's that surprising, looking back, how quickly the Favroni shows fell apart for us and how it doesn't feel like they're establishing anything that can support a bunch of books and comics. I suspect that Disney's not allowed to have books/comics/etc. based on Favroni's shows because they want creative control over those characters while they're still actively writing for them, but also I look at the OT and the PT and look how much was built off those movies+TCW as a foundation, I look at how much you're able to still watch those and find new things to analyze, and I just don't feel that with Filoni's writing anymore, not since Rebels, not to that level, anyway. (I'll grant that I've been a lot more excited about the Ahsoka series and what we can say about it/find in analyzing it than I expected, I expected nothing but shitposts like we did with Mandalorian s3, but I've had fun with serious meta in Ahsoka! I was genuinely excited to come on-line after episode 4 and talk about themes and structure and how well Filoni did with that there!) Ultimately, I think Filoni (and Favreau) both have a lot of talent, but I think they're being pushed too hard to make too much too quickly and that it shows that they're making this up as they go along, rather than that they had a vision they've been crafting for years and any kind of idea of where they want the end goal to be. Like, yeah, Lucas wrote some stuff on the fly, he changed his mind about things along the way, but he had an end point in mind for his story, so the echoes/rhymes felt more resonant for me. Favroni don't feel like they have any idea where they're going and so much winds up feeling like shock value and self-reference for nostalgia bad for me instead of something that's Going Somewhere.

[scifrey]

Keepsakes

Status: Ongoing Ficlet collection; unbeta'd

Series: the Hob Adherent series

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature-ish.

Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death. Some sexytimes. Some whomp and hurt/comfort.

Relationships:  Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Patrick the Bartender, Harriet Butler, Matthew the Raven

Summary: Short ficlets set in the Hob Adherent world, based on prompts received from readers. Feel free to DM me or leave prompts in the comments, and if it resonates with me, I may write up a ficlet! Thank you for the inspiration in advance.

Set amid the events of Cling Fast and Carpe Diem

READ ON AO3 OR READ BELOW:

Postcards

"So, a sword in Buckingham's army, a bandit, a printer, a shipwright and then a merchant middleman for the dockyards, a knight, a beggar, investment broker--"

"Slaver," Hob interrupts Harriet as she counts off his professions on her fingers one slow, sunny afternoon at The New Inn. "Call the thing what it was."

Hari offers him a sympathetic smile. They're the only ones in the pub proper today, as Patrick is off to tend his ailing mother, Dee doesn't come in Mondays, and Morph is having lunch with his editor.

"After which you were an MP and staunch abolitionist, a soldier again in America for the North, an industrialist and labor rights advocate, a yuppie and silicone valley early adopter--"

"Apple paid for most of this," Hob agrees, selecting a glass and checking it for water spots or lipstick stains.

"--and now a professor and publican. Am I missing any?"

“Oh!” Hob remembers as he pulls a pint for her. "And I was ruler of Hell."

She leans across the bar from her stool, and thwacks his arm. “Fuck off, you were not, you old liar,” Hari laughs.

"Was so!" Hob protests, setting her beer down in front of her. "Ask my husband. He was there. I was ruler of Hell for thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds on my six-hundred and sixty-sixth birthday."

Hari raises a challenging eyebrow at Hob over her pint glass as she takes a sip. "I won't believe a thing the Prince of Stories tells me," she says decisively, when she sets the beer back down. "And I don't believe you."

Hob pulls a postcard from L.A. off the bar back, where it's been pinned to a corkboard among a handful of others, all from the same city. This card depicts a cartoon devil drawn over a photo of the Hills, lounging on the iconic Hollywood sign. It says "Greetings from Sin City!" in bright yellow font.

Hob hands it to Hari to inspect. Her face gets drawn as her eyes flick over the handwritten note on the back.

"To my fellow former ruler of Hell; I did it! I opened a nightclub, just like you suggested. Visit me at LUX any time you'd like, Hobsie. xxx Lucifer Morningstar," Hari reads in a voice that grows increasingly strangled.

She hands the card back to Hob with trembling fingers. Then she shotguns the rest of her pint.

"So hell is real, then," Hari warbles.

Hob shrugs. "Everything is real. Humans create gods, not the other way around. If someone believes in it, it exists."

Hari nods thoughtfully. "I suppose you would know, being married to a god."

Hob chuckles. "Well, former god-ish. And don't worry, only people who believe they deserve to go to Hell actually do. Self-punishment or fulfilling prophecy, or something. I try not to think to much about that Celestial stuff."

Hari nods again, and without asking, Hob refills her pint glass. He has a feeling she's going to need it.

"But it is something I'm going to have to worry about," Hari says softly, accepting the drink with a nod.

"Not any time soon, I hope," Hob says, folding his arms on the bar top and leaning close to offer her a comforting look. "And when it does happen, I can promise you that my sister-in-law is gentle and kind. You have nothing to worry about."

Harriet runs her arthritis gnarled finger up and down the side of the glass, collecting up the condensation. "You know, that is actually a comfort." She looks up at Hob with a wicked little grin. "Especially knowing your husband."

Hob throws his head back and laughs.

[fractualized]

I finally got around to reading through another classic batjokes story: Lovers & Madmen, which takes place in Batman Confidential #7-12. I highly recommend it, particularly if you are interested in stories about Jack-era Joker. Batman first meets Jack at the tail-end of his first year as Batman, and we get all the batjokes goods, including plenty that aren't evident from the isolated panels that go around. (Plus cameos from aspiring med student Harleen Quinzel and aspiring asylum administrator Jonathan Crane.)

This isn't a full recap, so I hope my rambling will spur you to check it out.

(Beware of gore and suicidal ideations.)

The key thing to know from issue #7 is that Bruce's mission has been going incredibly well. He has been operating for only 42 weeks, and he can feel the city quieting down. He's so proud! So content!

And we can't have that. Enter Jack, goon for hire. Bruce comes across one of his murders and becomes obsessed with how clean the scene is, how little a trail there is to follow. He investigates and investigates and investigates and comes up with nothing to his dismay.

Meanwhile Jack is also having a sad at a bar because there's no challenge or entertainment to his job anymore. :( Luckily a nice server gives him a little pep talk.

Jack does give things another go at a bank robbery, but it's still no fun. He trips the alarm on purpose, but a shootout with the guards is no fun for him either. He's literally in the middle of asking a guard to kill him, when Batman finally shows up.

"He's an idiot. I love him." Nothing like infatuation to restore your will to live. #8 opens with Jack being sure to leave Batman a thank you note before he escapes.

And Jack must see the Bat again, and of course the only way to ensnare him is to commit a series of awful but perfect crimes. And Bruce is infuriated! Here he is taking out his frustrations on a mugger— with Jack watching from afar.

Bruce is just so mad he's been unable to stop Jack, like, "All those books! All that preparation! But crime man keep criming?!"

Batman and Jack next meet at a charity gala planned by Bruce's love interest in this story, Lorna, and boy do things escalate. Jack picks Lorna as his hostage, threatening to shoot her so he can get away, and Bruce ends up grabbing another gun and shooting Jack's gun out of his hand. But then Jack just stabs her good, and while Bruce can't leave her to die, he doesn't just let Jack escape.

Jack isn't even the goddamn Joker yet and Bruce has intentionally given him a Glasgow smile as punishment. And even more insane, is that Jack appears to verbally respond to Bruce's inner monologue.

With Lorna slowly dying in the hospital, Bruce goes to a professional to try to figure out what it is about Jack that makes him seemingly unstoppable— and of course that professional is Jonathan Crane, and his professional opinion is basically, "dude that guy is clearly just insane and you're doomed to fail lol."

Oh yeah? Would an insane man be this untroubled about his face being cut open?

"He'll have to pay for that. Then again… it's nice to feel something." Just summing up Joker's cycling feelings about Batsy in the years to come. lol

And here's the plot point that sticks out to me most, after years of reading Bruce stalwartly refuse to kill Joker, including in other versions of their first meeting:

Bruce has been Batman for less than a year and he's already like, "Fuck it! I give up! This guy stabbed my new girlfriend and made me lose faith in books! He has to die!" In a short time, Jack has burrowed so deep under Bruce's skin that Bruce tosses away the one solid crime-fighting principle he has. It's oddly refreshing??

So Maletesta, who is a crime boss Jack stole from, takes some goons and captures Jack at the doctor's while he's unconscious from surgery. They then take Jack to a pharmaceutical plant, and Maletesta starts beating him while he's still out. Except Jack is actually awake and just kind of bored by the torture attempts and slipping back into ennui. This issue, #10, really goes into Jack's struggle between wanting to live but not feeling there's anything worth living for.

As you can see, Jack does eventually escape his bonds to fight back. As he and Maletesta fight, they end up in the bottom of the vat.

Meanwhile, Bruce is being quietly insane.

Bruce. Bruce, what the fuck are you talking about. I have to unspool this because like, Bruce knows Jack has killed lots of people. But what he's fretting about is the ways Jack's madness has metaphysically harmed the world, maybe, and thinking, "I know he's caused so much damage, but what about the damage to my moral integrity?!" and putting that above all the material harm. I know Bruce already does this all the time, but it feels so much more explicit here, and it gets worse, and just... Sir. Sir. You are not well.

So Bruce arrives at the plant too late to save Jack but just in time to see him get doused in chemicals.

Jack spends more time thinking on whether or not he wants to survive, but we know how this goes.

Jack ends up on the riverbank, and there's a wholesome edge to his psychotic break.

And so begins the criminal career of… the March Hare!

Kidding. The issue ends there, with Bruce lamenting that his change of heart came too late, that even if Jack is still alive, something awful has happened.

But then when issue #11 starts, Bruce finds he's not sure what he saw on the bank, if anyone. He gives chase but…

But if Jack is still alive, then Bruce's soul may be intact. He keeps searching well into the day, but finds nothing.

When he returns home, though, he learns that Lorna will survive after all. He immediately heads to the hospital, to "the only good news in the world."

Ah, Bruce is finally anchoring himself to the bedside of his ladylove. After he colluded to get someone murdered and seemingly succeeded. And it's the fear of what that says about him that sent him to Lorna. Almost like he's turning to her less because of his affection and more to hide from his moral failure. Romance!

Jack does soon appear in his new clown persona, and Bruce keeps his word and refuses to leave the hospital despite the multiple horrors Joker commits. Joker is not happy that Batman is MIA.

Some idiot Joker's captured feels it's necessary to inform him that Batman tried to have him killed, and of course Batman doesn't care. Joker scoffs, because Batman doesn't kill.

Faith restored!

Back at the hospital, Alfred verbally kicks Bruce in the ass, pointing out that committing himself to an unconscious Lorna isn't helping anyone.

Bruce finally suits up to respond to the bat signal, but it turns out Gordon isn't the one who lit it.

My Telltale-loving ass like:

In issue #12, their fight commences, and after some mutual stabbing, we get Joker's real plan.

It's like a dozen Lornas! Only this time Joker is telling Batman to come at him instead of trying to escape, and instead of taking action, Bruce suddenly feels overwhelmed.

Joker says something similar earlier about Gothamites. They're "poor sickies" who can't even see the bunny on the moon. They need the same "medicine" that Joker got to see the big picture, to find true joy. Of course he wants to do that for Batman too!

But once Batman shakes the poison off and starts rescuing the civilians, Joker is also pretty cool with killing him.

Bruce survives, as expected, and Joker isn't really upset about it.

And destined to do this forever, you might say!

Joker goes on to say that Batman gave him a purpose, a world of color to live for. Bruce reiterates that Joker is murdering people and asks why. Joker asks why Batman saves them.

(This panel goes right to left, btw.)

Joker's got a ways to fall, so Bruce has time to contemplate letting him die. "Let it happen… Let chaos prevail for the six more seconds it will take for madman to meet pavement… or the rest of my life will be spent picking up the pieces."

Bruce has already had a moral crisis about what it would mean for his soul if he let Joker die. In the end, he simply doesn't accept there's a meaningful difference between someone who takes a life for personal gain and himself taking a life to prevent the suffering of others. The vat is the same as his parents' graves. Letting Joker hit the ground is the same as pulling a trigger. Bruce chooses Joker over countless future victims. He choose Joker over Lorna, who he'll soon break up with at the hospital, weaponizing the carelessness of his socialite persona. Bruce decides that, amongst all options, taking responsibility for the monster he created means spending his life picking up the pieces.

And he immediately accepts that fact, what's to come. Gordon talks to Batman about the total dead, saying, "Would've been worse without you," and Bruce responds, "Don't be so sure." Don't be so sure today and for the decades to come, because Bruce believes that if that clown dies, then so does his own soul.

Joker sees that future too, and he is delighted!

Interesting detail, the Jack and King visible in the hat, side by side. Brings to mind how not too many years later, Snyder will have Joker crown his Bat King.

So there's Lovers & Madmen. Again, much more goes on in this story, particularly Jack's suicidal ideations and how he links the "enlightenment" Batman bestowed upon him to his contempt for regular people and his need to separate himself from them (and reconciling that with a good deed he does for a future henchgirl). The issues are collected into one book, and if you enjoyed this post, I encourage you to pick it up.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (2/5)

This line might just encapsulate the entire movie. "Yeah, sorry, folks. They made me the star of the movie this time, so it probably won't be as good. Why are you all cheering? Did Goku walk by or something?"

Last time, we set up the main villains of the story. Now, it's six months later, and we find Piccolo sparring with Pan near his house. Yeah, Piccolo has a house now. I remember when they revealed the house in an early promotion for the movie, and everyone was nuts about it. Piccolo has a house! What's inside? Look, he has a mailbox! What kind of mail does he get? What a time to be alive.

So Pan is three years old, according to this movie, so I think the idea here is that this is set just before the 25th Budokai and the finale of Dragon Ball Z. So Super Hero represents a turning point for the franchise. Up to now, every story told under the Dragon Ball Super brand has been set during the ten-year-gap between DBZ Episodes 288 and 289. But now we're at the end, which means the next movie, anime, or manga arc has to make a big decision:

A) Set the story after the 25th Budokai, and work around Goku's decision to train Uub at his home village.

B) Ignore the "End of Z" continuity altogether and just keep trucking along like it doesn't matter.

C) Just keep telling stories in the small time interval between Super Hero and the 25th Budokai and hope no one calls attention to it.

D) Jump back to the beginning of the ten-year-gap and tell stories out of chronological order.

I think A or B is the most likely option, since they wouldn't have jumped this far forward in time for Super Hero if they were worried about staying inside the ten-year-gap. I also suspect that they'll try to respect the "End of Z" lore, if only because they've mentioned Uub a few times in the DBS anime, and Uub actually had a cameo appearance in the manga.

But no matter what happens, Things Are Going To Be Very Different. In theory, Toei/Shueisha can do just about anything with the franchise now. They could kill Bulma, or give Majin Buu a whole new transformation. I guess they could try to steer the storyline towards the events depicted in Dragon Ball GT, but I'm pretty sure that ship sailed when they turned the Pilaf Gang into children. The point is that anything is on the table.

But back to the matter at hand. Pan's whole deal now is that she trains with Piccolo at his house every morning, then runs off to attend preschool until 1pm. Piccolo thinks she's showing great promise as a martial artist, even more than Gohan did when Piccolo first trained him, and Gohan was a year older back then. Pan thinks that qualifies her to learn how to shoot energy blasts like Goten and Trunks, but Piccolo says she has to master the fundamentals first, which means Pan has to learn how to fly, among other things.

This is Pan's character arc for the movie. She's not a major player in this story, but she still has an obstacle to overcome, and by the end of the movie, she succeeds. This is a big leap forward from the Pan we saw in GT, who remained static through the entire series. I guess she sort of learned a life lesson in the TV Special, but she was 110 in that story, so I think the implication is that GT Pan was a bossy twerp for a full century, which isn't exactly satisfying.

The weird thing is that we saw Pan fly all the time when she was a baby. In the DBS anime Baby Pan flew out into space, and she'd float around the house and such. I guess she forgot how to do it, or it got harder as she grew up and gained some weight.

Pan asks if it's true that her dad (Gohan) could be even stronger than her grandfather (Goku) if he tried. Piccolo says that used to be true but he isn't so sure anymore. Pan says she's never seen Gohan in action, and Piccolo explains that he hasn't had to fight, but if the need arises, Gohan will fight when necessary. Then he sends her off to preschool. A short time later, he gets a phone call from Pan's mom, Videl.

Okay, so let's unpack all of this. Piccolo has a cell phone, but he just leaves it in his house while he's training outside, because his Namekian hearing can pick up the ringtone from hundreds of yards away. Also, he holds it like a weirdo, dangling it from his fingers like he found it at a crime scene. Also, the case looks like a cartoon character. This is Penenko, an in-world fictional character that seems to be very popular. Its like a cross between a penguin and a cat, and it has a green tie like Yogi Bear, which I think is a classy touch.

As for Videl, she needs Piccolo to swing by the preschool this afternoon to pick up Pan. This is because Videl teaches a combat sports class, and they're having a tournament today, so she can't make it. As for Gohan, he's too busy working on a scientific presentation, and he hasn't come out of his study in days. Piccolo is annoyed with this, but he agrees to pick Pan up. Videl offers to buy him lunch, but he reminds her he doesn't eat food, so Videl considers buying him a Penenko plushie instead. Piccolo doesn't want one, though, because he already has a pile of them in his house. Presumably those plushies represent a whole bunch of past favors he's done for Gohan and Videl.

Okay, more importantly, let's talk about Videl. This is her only appearance in the movie, save for a still image in the closing credits where she comes home to find the house has been damaged. Still, this conversation tells us a lot about what Videl's been doing ever since she and Gohan got out of school. She's teaching a "combat sports class". This makes sense to me, as she must have given up the vigilante work around the time she was pregnant with Pan. But teaching students how to fight would be easier for her, since she could set her own schedule and arrange for the students to train independently when she's not available. It's the perfect career for the new mom with a talent for whippin' ass.

The thing is, Videl's not just any martial artist. She knows basic ki techniques, but besides that, she's the daughter of a world famous celebrity buttkicker, and she earned a reputation of her own as a crimefighter. So this can't just be any old "combat sports" class. I mean, they're participating in a tournament for goodness sakes.

So this is my Videl headcanon: She's teaching people to fight crime. And not just any crime, but the rocket-launcher-weilding maniacs she used to fight when she was in high school. Videl stepped away from that life to focus on her family, but she's still got one foot in that world. It started as a self-defense class for women, and then she decided she could show them more advanced techniques, until eventually she had a cool stable of badasses.

The tournament she's talking about isn't some fun little romp, although to her it would be, and it's barely beneath Piccolo's notice. But to everyone else, it's some kind of hardcore mixed-martial-arts event. Videl brings her students in and they're all wearing kick-ass uniforms to represent their school. What kind of uniforms? Here's a hint:

GTH. That's the name of Videl's dojo. The Go To Hell Combat Club, so-named because you have to go to hell to learn the combat style of Mr. Satan's daughter. Imagine going to some indy wrestling show and instead of wrestlers out comes a bunch of MMA guys all dressed like Pan from this movie. It probably looks cooler on grown adults, which is why Pan likes to wear it.

So what's Videl wearing when she leads her squad to the competition? Oh, we already know the answer to that question, because we saw her return home from the tournament.

I mean, it makes so much sense when you think about it. remember, we saw Videl wearing regular clothes when she called Piccolo. She must have changed into her Battle of Gods red-devil dress specifically for the tournament. She might have a different outfit for fighting, but this is what she wears when she's in the corner for her students. She's like a sexy ECW manager, which explains the red leather dress, black tights and white go-go boots. She's so over-the-top with this thing that it makes the Great Saiyawoman outfit look dull by comparison, because she's trying to get over this image of smash-mouth combat supremacy. It's the same reason Mr. Satan wears the cape.

This is a weird tangent, I know, but for so many years I've heard fans lament the way Videl was depicted in Dragon Ball Super, and they're absolutely right, but I'm a "yes and" kind of guy when it comes to this stuff. There's nothing wrong with having Videl be a housewife as long as it doesn't preclude some other, cooler lore from happening off-screen. And Super Hero seems to be holding out an olive branch to the fans. Yes, Videl has a life outside the home. She teaches martial arts, so she clearly hasn't given up fighting altogether. How and how much she fights is left to the viewers imagination, and I can imagine a lot.

Anyway, I need to commission some art of the GTH school looking cool. Videl's in the center of the group with a riding crop or something. Gohan's in the background with a snack tray. He made Chex Mix for the whole class because he's a sweetie.

Back to business, Piccolo decides to head for Gohan's house and confront him over this. He knows Gohan won't answer the door, so he just flies to the window of his study and scrapes the glass with his fingernail to get his attention. This fucking rules.

Gohan's working on a study of a newly discovered ant species that glows yellow when threatened, like a Super Saiyan. Piccolo isn't even a little impressed, but he agrees to pick Pan up from preschool anyway. He asks why Gohan never trains anymore, and Gohan gives the stock answer about how nothing bad will happen, and even if it does, Goku and Vegeta will surely deal with it. I mean, that is what happened in the last movie, but they cut it pretty close in Resurrection F. Piccolo uses his clothes-altering powers to make Gohan wear his old training outfit, but that's about all he does.

I don't really understand this constant back-and-forth about whether or not Gohan trains enough in DBS. Obviously, Gohan let himself go in Res F, and then Gohan asked Piccolo to train him again to get him back in fighting shape. Then they made it look like he'd slacked off again leading up to the Tournament of Power, except he did really, really well in that arc. And now it's like he's slacking off a third time.

I mean, there's time for that. We're talking about a five or six year period here. It just seems odd to me that no one mentions we've been through this cycle before. I think the disconnect is that Gohan trains, just not often enough to satisfy the likes of Piccolo or Vegeta. He'll stop training for months or years at a time, so that he can concentrate on his biology career, and then he whips himself into shape when he has the time. This movie pretty much confirms that pattern, but each time it comes up, the characters always act like we haven't been here before.

Gohan offers him another Penenko plushie as thanks for picking up Pan, and Piccolo insists that he never liked them. I think it is very likely that Gohan and Videl do this to him on purpose. I mean, Videl knew this tournament was coming up, and she could have made other arrangements, but this way Piccolo feels obligated to be involved with their family. If they just invited him over to things, he'd probably decline, but this way he feels like they need him and he can act all put-upon, but he still gets to spend more time with Pan and such. Also they might be trying to fix Piccolo up with Pan's teacher, but we'll get to that later.

So now Piccolo just has to get in as much training as he can until 1pm, right? Wrong, because as soon as he sits down to meditate, some new guy shows up and attacks him. He refuses to identify himself, but the Red Ribbon pack on his uniform pretty much gives it away. Plus, this guy has no ki signature, so he must be an android or cyborg like Gero's creations.

So they fight, and it doesn't go well for Piccolo. At one point he asks why he can see words appear whenever he gets his. I thought this was a cute fourth-wall-breaking joke, but in fact this new guy has a holographic projector that makes the comic book sound effects appear behind him.

The mysterious attacker only refers to himself as a super hero, and after he blows up the butte Piccolo is on, he flies back to his base, thinking Piccolo is vaporized. But Piccolo escaped unseen, and he decides to trail this guy and find out who he's working for.

This leads Piccolo to a secret base inside what I believe is a crater. It looks like the crater is full of lakewater, but it's actually a holographic illusion. Piccolo finds a goon in his size and swipes his uniform.

Inside, he finds the bad guy command center, where the new android reports to Magenta and Hedo. Piccolo learns that his name is Gamma, and there's actually two of them. Hedo already watched Gamma 2's attack on Piccolo via a remote feed from 2's eyes, and his only feedback is that 2 should have done a cool pose after killing Piccolo. Gamma 1 is more concerned that Piccolo might have survived because 2 was too sloppy to check for a body.

Sure enough, 1 reviews the footage and discovers evidence that Piccolo escaped. And since Magenta insisted that the Gamma's wear RR patches on their costumes, there's a real risk that Gamma 2 tipped their hand to the enemy. Gamma 2 isn't worried, though, because he still overpowered Piccolo, and the end goal is to defeat Dragon Team, so if this escalates the conflict, then so much the better.

And that pretty much sums up the Gammas' characters. They both play the superhero role they were designed to resemble, but 1 is more cautious and responsible, while 2 is more carefree and funloving. Earlier in the film, we see pictures of Hedo at some sort of autograph signing, and there's a character who looks almost exactly like the Gammas there, so I assume he designed his androids to look just like that character. Hedo doesn't seem too concerned with originality.

Carmine agrees with Gamma 1's concern. Their enemies have the combined power of Goku, Vegeta and Majin Buu, not to mention Mr. Satan. Apparently, the Red Ribbon Army still isn't clear on how powerful he is. If they find out about the Red Ribbon too soon, it could jeopardize everything, no matter how powerful the Gammas might be.

Hedo disagrees. Once he collects enough combat data from 1 and 2, he can simply upgrade them and create even more Gammas until they have enough power to tip the scales.

Apparently, Hedo doesn't think it would take very long to get more Gamma's manufactured, which is why they have these two booths already set up. This makes me wonder if Gamma 3 and 4 are already in there, just waiting for Hedo to activate them.

As for Magenta, all he wants to talk about is Hedo's other project-- Cell Max. This leads to a heated discussion over the value of the project.

Basically, Magenta considers Cell to be Gero's greatest creation, and while the RPC has Gero's notes on how to make Cell, they were too complex for anyone to reproduce the experiement. This isn't much of a surprise, since Gero never finished Cell the first time. When Gero learned that it would take decades to complete the work, he turned it over to his computer and moved on to working on his other plans. That computer never finished, because Krillin and Trunks destroyed it and the embryonic Cell back in DBZ Episode 145. However Magenta got the data on Cell, it must have been sent to him before then, but it would have only represented the earliest stages of the project. No wonder his own scientists couldn't get very far with it.

The only reason Magenta even considers it worth pursuing is because a completed Cell showed up to menace the world. Magenta thinks that Gero must have pulled it off somehow. What he doesn't know is that this Cell came from an alternate future where Gero's computer had time to complete the project. So Magenta knows what the finished Cell is capable of, but he doesn't have a complete recipe to make a new one.

But Dr. Hedo is even smarter than Gero, which is why Magneta hired him. The Gammas are fine machines and all, but what Magenta was really hoping for was that Hedo could take the notes on Cell and figure out how to build a new and improved model. And to his credit, Hedo was able to do that, but not completely. He created Cell Max's body and made him far more powerful than the original Cell, but he's still not done because his brain takes a long time to develop. I don't know if this is like a programming thing or Cell Max needs time for his brain matter to grow complex enough to support his mission.

At any rate, Magenta just wants to turn Cell Max loose right now, because he's so high on the prospect of unleashing such a powerful weapon. But Hedo warns him that they won't be able to control Cell Max the way he is now. If they activate him now, Cell Max might easily run wild and destroy the world, which defeats the purpose of using him in the first place.

Hedo's argument is that they don't even need Cell Max, so instead of wasting time on him, they should focus on the Gammas, who are more than powerful enough to carry out Magenta's plans. They can defeat Dragon Team, then the rest of the world will fall to the Red Ribbon Army, and then Magenta can reveal Cell Max to show off his power to the world. Magneta seems to buy into that idea, at least for now.

The thing is, we really don't know how long it would take for Hedo to finish Cell Max. It took Gero's computer decades to finish the original Cell, so maybe most of that time was spent developing his brain, and yet that Cell never did follow his programming completely. So maybe Cell Max would be uncontrollable too, no matter how much Hedo tinkered with him.

Then again, Hedo built the Gammas in just six months, so he's demonstrably smarter than Gero ever was. It's possible that he could finish Cell Max's brain in a matter of weeks and make him fully obedient. He just doesn't want to spend the time because it's busy work and Max doesn't look like a super hero, so he's not very motivated to complete the project. It kind of makes you wonder what Hedo could have accomplished if he'd given it his full attention.

Needless to say, all of this freaks Piccolo out, so he excuses himself and finds a quiet spot to make a phone call to Bulma. She tells him Vegeta has been away for three weeks now, training on Beerus' planet. And Goku went along with him, so they're both unavailable. Piccolo asks her if she can use that device Whis gave her to call him, and she says she'll see if she can reach them that way.

I just want to pause here to admire Bulma's yellow jumpsuit. This is definitely one of her hottest looks, perhaps because it's so workmanlike and unsexy. She just makes it look cool because she's Bulma. She just got done welding a quantum computer to a ham radio or something.

In the meantime, Piccolo leaves the RR base to go to Korin's Tower and get some senzu beans. He's still in the mindset that Goku and Vegeta will be the ones to take care of things, but he has to do as much as he can in the meantime to improve their chances.

As he flies through the holographic lake, we get a nice exterior shot of the base. So yeah, it does look like a couple of craters, although I'm not sure what the use was in disguising the inside when you can see all this stuff built up around the outside. I guess they have some sort of phony mining operation set up if anyone snoops around.

And that'll about do it for now. I've still got a couple of image spots for this post, so let's show off the photos on Gohan's desk. Pretty cool.

And here's a cool shot of Cell, since he came up in conversation.

[mothmans-wedding-photographer]

Finished Thunder! Here are my thoughts (spoilers obviously):

SQUIRRELSTAR SQUIRRELSTAR WE WON

Oh my I have so many mixed feelings on this book. I mean first of all I'm so excited for Squirrelstar but I digress. Also I'm pretty good with Ivypool deputy, I was rooting for Twigbranch but she was my second option :)

Frostpaw and Whistlepaw's friendship was so cute, Whistlepaw cares so much for her :) and I loved the bonding between Frostpaw and Nightheart, they're such good friends. It's nice to see Nightheart with someone with problems a lot worse than his, gives him some perspective.

The fact that Frostpaw was spayed is... interesting. I hope the story team doesn't make her be a medicine cat because "hey i can't have kits what's even the point of being a warrior :(" in real life TNR is great but from the perspective of humanized cats it feels so awful :(. Im not entirely against the plotline, I just hope it's handled well.

I hate Riverstar in this book he's so annoying and OOC. I did like the fact that they essentially sent Frostpaw to therapy to work through some of her trauma though lmao. Waffle is so cute, and I love Rook and Bee. I felt Wasp was a bit of an odd choice to come back to the Clans but whatever.

CURLFEATHER COMFIRMED EVIL YES our first main series female villain and she's complex?? She's awful and she used her kid, but she still loves her enough to sacrifice her life?? That's so cool. Splashtail is fine ig

Nightheart really did not need a POV this book lmao he just spent it worrying about Sunbeam. I do like that he's learning he's not the main character though lol, and again his friendship with Frostpaw is so sweet.

Sunbeam was sooo good this book I loved how they showed her learning to want to be in ThunderClan for ThunderClan, not just Nightheart. And she girlbossed when she stood up to her mom and Cherryfall, she's no longer a pushover! Character development.

I will say that argument at the start of the book between Bramble and Squirrel was stupid like ah yes the perfectly mentally capable woman somehow walked STRAIGHT INTO ANOTHER CLANS TERRITORY without realizing but somehow Bramble with his deteriorating mental state is right. Not misogynistic at all

OTTER CAMEO WHOOHOO

The ending with Berryheart was so anticlimactic and awful like she gets exiled for?? Expressing that she doesn't agree with her leader?? What the actual fuck??? I know she's xenophobic but she's not being exiled for that, she's being exiled for exercising her rights. Thanks I hate it! I wanted her to get kicked for like. Getting someone killed, or starting a fight, not this bullshit. Also Puddleshine miss me with that shit about how "one grudge can exploit this new code" like yeah ok but he's fucking invading and controlling another Clan, even if he has good intentions that's still a fair thing to be mad about?? (To be fair though Berryheart was being more xenophobic than on the side of RiverClan's freedom so I guess I can see where Puddleshine's coming from. I guess)

Speaking of why are all the protagonists so forgiving of Tigerheartstar like "he invaded, beat up, threatened to kill, and forcefully took control of this Clan and gets mad when people question him but he just has good intentions UwU" like no.

Splashstar real? That's going to be interesting. And I'm excited to see more of Podlight as a character

Overall an ok book, probably my least favourite of the arc so far but I still enjoyed most of it

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hello! I was wondering if I could request Wrecker x reader where they sneak off really late at night for a cute little walk because they haven't been getting enough alone time. And it's a new relationship, so everything's still all cute and giggly. Maybe they think they are being quiet when they are sneaking back in, but something funny happens and reader is like dieing laughing and Hunter walks in like wtf is going on. Idk, feel free to ignore. Ily ♡

Warnings and Information: No real age warning for this one. 2nd person POV, undescribed Reader that can be read as gender neutral. Little sprinkling of Mando'a. Minor language (everyone say "thank you, Crosshair!"). It’s all the giddiness of a new(ish) relationship with the powerhouse of Clone Force 99 that is Wrecker. 🩷 Impromptu date late at night. Decided on a Modern!AU for this one where (most of) the Bad Batch work as a construction crew, and there's a few cameos of other Clones too. Hope you enjoy what I came up with! 

Word-count: 4,544

Setting your bag down on the welcome mat, you thread your house key into the lock with an eager sigh. You're pretty tired. You finally have a free night, thankfully, and you've been away from home all day. 

You're looking forward to just vegging out on the couch to catch the season finale of your favorite show for the next hour and crawling into bed as soon as you finish trawling the 'net for other people's impressions of the finale. There's a lot of speculation regarding the dashing rogue of the series, and whether or not they'll finally pluck up the courage to share this big secret the show writers have been dangling over the fans. You just hope some news article doesn't show up in your social media feed only to come along and spoil it in the headline. 

"People really need to learn to tag their kriffing spoilers… It's not that hard." 

You bump the door open and hoist the bag back over your shoulder just as someone calls out your name. 

"H-hey! Wait up!" 

You pause in the entryway, cheeks pinching with a large smile. "Hey Wrecker." The way he's doubled over, hands pressed into his knees while he pants for air, you can guess Wrecker had likely jogged over to your place from his. He lives not too far from you, and it's a jog he's made several times before, but it has been a slightly warmer than average day that has only just begun to cool off in the last few hours. Tech, one of Wrecker's brothers, calls the phenomenon the "heat island" something or other. Effect? (If that wasn't right that sounded close enough.) "You okay? Here, come on in. Would you like some water?" 

"B-but- Weren't you jus' leaving?" Wrecker manages between slowing pants. He used the edge of his sleeve to mop the sweat from his brow once he's upright, fixing you with a woozy smile when you hook your fingers around his own and lead him inside. "Oh, no, I just got home, actually. How come?" You fill a glass from the cold tap and rummage around the freezer for some ice to make it a little more refreshing. Wrecker just ran so hot sometimes you were surprised he didn't pass out on some of his job sites as a construction worker. 

"I- oh, thanks, cyare." Wrecker greedily gulps down a few mouthfuls of water to relieve himself of his thirst, careful not to spill down his front or all over your kitchen floor. 

The intimacy of the pet name makes your ears flush with warmth, and your cheeks pinch a little more with a tender smile. "You're welcome." 

The worst of his thirst now quelled, Wrecker could explain why he thought he had caught you leaving the house. "I, uh, I came over to ask if you wanted to go do something. Together. Jus' the two of us. Worried that I got off work too late or took too long to clean up a bit and I caught you about to leave. I know it's nearly eleven, but it's been a while since we had a moment to spend time together… just to ourselves." There was good reason for the emphasis on the last three words. In the infancy of your relationship with Wrecker, you have only had one date together that wasn't interrupted in some way by his job, or one of your day to day priorities, or one of his brothers. 

You liked his brothers well enough thus far, but sometimes they really needed to learn when to butt out. Or what was appropriate for company. 

"Wrecker, have you seen my live specimen?"

"Hunter! One of Tech's kriffing specimens got loose again! Can't find the damn thing!" 

"Oh Maker…"

"L-let's leave, cyare. It's not a dangerous specimen or nothing, but it's jus' creepy." 

You smiled at Wrecker, and to him, those smiles could have thawed out an ice planet like Hoth twelve times over. Smiles that could get Crosshair, even in his most sour of moods, to return the gesture even for a fleeting moment. "Time just to ourselves sounds very, very nice… What'd you have in mind? I'm down for anything." The minute you pulled him across the welcome mat you decided you wouldn't mind watching the final episode of the season another time. Wrecker was here, and by happy coincidence, your schedules were completely free for the weekend. You could stay up as late as you liked.

"You wanna go for a bite? Or maybe go take a walk?" Wrecker offers. You like the idea of a casual walk, now that it's cooler. You glance at your footwear, a pair of sandals, and think for a moment it'll be smart to put on a pair of closed-toed shoes. "A walk sounds nice," you reply brightly, "You wanna go… uh, how about by the lake in the park?" 

Wrecker grins at the idea. He's got such an infectious smile that gives you butterflies in the pit of your stomach and a booming, boisterous laugh that you just loved. "Sure, tha' sounds nice! Been meaning to go see it one'a these days, but I'm busy helpin' my brothers with work most of the week." He'd love to go check it out with you, he says. 

Going to the lake took you past Wrecker's house, all dark save for two windows. Tech's, of course, and you believe the second is another brother of Wrecker's who's moved in only recently. 

You haven't had the opportunity to meet him yet. You hope to, one day, when he's ready. 

"He's… been through a lot. One'a our other brothers thought it might be a good idea if he came and lived with us for a bit. Quieter. Less people." 

"How many brothers do you have, Wrecker?" 

He had laughed, scratching nervously around the back of his head with a great shrug. "I dunno, honestly. I have a lot of brothers. But, I get along best with Hunter, Tech and Cross… So I hope I get along with Echo too." 

"I'm sure you will, Wrecker. You're friendly and kind and sweet… a-and um…" Your mouth had gotten away from you, then. You had only been friends back then, and you'd slowly grown closer, grown feelings for this gentle giant. You were that close to blurting out that you thought he was handsome, cute even, down to the scar and replacement eye that was a result of an accident on one of his very first job sites. He had said your name with that same jovial laugh and winning smile and, jokingly, asked, "What? You gonna say I'm cute or somethin'?" 

That's all it took. Just a few months later, here the two of you were, playfully bumping into one another as you entered the park hand-in-hand, making jokes and laughing together. 

"No-no-no, that's not what the joke means!" you insisted, feeling the ache in your sides growing the more you laughed until you were nearly breathless. "You realize Cross is messing with you, right?" 

"Yeah, 'course I do!" he replies, "But so am I! It's jus' how the two'a us are. It's a lot of fun to purposely misunderstand a joke and see how long it takes before Tech can't take it anymore. Our record was two hours. Hunter even joined in!" 

"But I thought he hated it when you and Cross goofed off on your job sites." 

Wrecker grins through mischievous laughter. "Naaah. Hunter goofs off on job sites just as much as us when we can get away with it, but he's more… subtle about it. Unless he wants to show off to our older brother Cody. He's a contractor and the one who suggested the job to us; so we try an' behave a little more than usual when he comes to check on how construction is going." Wrecker explains. They've been part of the crew who initially came in to renovate some very old apartment buildings here in this little, growing city, but overnight the sign that had previously said "RENOVATIONS UNDERWAY" for the first few weeks became "DEMO AND REBUILD". Now you know why; Cody's the one who made the call on that, and you wonder why the sudden change. 

"Oh, huge infestation that went untreated for too long. I don't remember what Tech calls them or what they are, but Cody said it was gonna be better to scrap everything and build fresh. I ain't complaining!" 

That was something you appreciated Wrecker for. He complained about very little. He was often optimistic and in high spirits. Happy to do almost anything he was asked so long as he was with his brothers and didn't have a want of food. All that manual labor makes a person hungry, so it doesn't surprise you to find him snacking on something if he's left to his own devices and the thought comes over him. 

Actually, in fact, you hadn't just walked past his house on the way to the park: you briefly came inside so he could throw a few things into the cooler bag he takes to his job sites (he, Hunter and Cross bounced between at least two or three sites if Cody needed a few more hands for something on a particular day) and have a little picnic on the grass with you. You both took care to be quiet so as not to disturb his brothers. Wrecker did however bump into Crosshair in the kitchen, who took one look in the lunch bag and said "Unless you plan on drinking that kriffing disgusting lake water, I suggest you take something to drink, too." before he snatched a few slices of cold pizza from a box in the fridge and shuffled off. 

Not much of a talker, Crosshair. But that's okay. 

"How's this for a spot?" you ask, coming across a bench after walking roughly one half of the man-made lake. Walking and talking with Wrecker was enjoyable, the late-summer air carried by a gentle breeze across the water was cool and soothing here. Not too far from the water's edge, and you could hear some of the lake life, little frogs, croaking and singing in the reeds and lily pads from here. Wrecker nods approvingly, setting down the cooler bag. "Perfect! Here, made this for you. Sorry if it's a little smushed or if I forgot a condiment." 

He offers you a brown paper bag, and inside, you find your favorite sandwich you often throw together when you need a quick bite to eat. "Aww, you made this for me? Wrecker that's so sweet of you, thank you." You bite into it with eager anticipation, and it's definitely the way you like it. "Oh Maker," you moan blissfully, chewing slowly to savor it, "that's a good sandwich." Wrecker smiles bashfully as he takes a seat beside you on the bench, unwrapping his own sandwich. 

"Did I-?"

"No, not a single missing condiment." you tell him. Shyness and uncertainty turn to pride for the man beside you. 

"Oh, good! I made it kinda quick-like from memory so we could get goin' without bothering my brothers." He takes a bite of his own sandwich, and allows himself to chew thoroughly before he speaks again. "I, uh, I make everyone's lunch in the mornings. Except for Tech's sometimes, he's pretty particular about what he takes to his lab." 

You think back to what Tech's job is, but the proper name for it escapes you. "He works in the… preservation department at the local museum, right?" 

Wrecker bobs his head as he takes another bite of his sandwich, smaller this time. "Yeah. Works in at least three labs. Real smart. Like scary smart. He'd get bored if he worked in just one lab. And because I don't remember what lab he goes to on what days, he and I agreed it'd be best for him to make his own lunches most days. Oh, I almost forgot! Here!" He reaches into the cooler bag again and pulls out one of your favorite, non-alcoholic, bottled beverages. "That's for you. Can't have a proper picnic without something to drink." 

Wrecker's attention to detail, his memory of things he's learned about you only very recently, it all makes you feel giddy and warm inside that he's so incredibly attentive to your likes and dislikes. Other romantic partners, whether they had been potential or well and truly established, had not been quite so aware like Wrecker. What had taken others five months or more to remember that you did not like on your pizza, Wrecker had remembered in just five days. 

Hunter had called your name from the kitchen, ready to place an order from a little place new to town called Gregor's Grub-hub and asked what toppings you liked on your pizza, apologizing for not remembering what you had taken from the assortment of pizzas the crew offered to share with you when you stopped by Wrecker's job site to return the comically oversized jacket he loaned you. 

"That's okay, I remember!" Wrecker had declared from the couch as the two of you sat together, trying (and failing) to take this board game seriously. It was just so much more fun to bend the rules or try stacking all the game pieces. Whatever silly idea possessing the pair of you was swiftly entertained. 

It was just so easy to have fun with Wrecker. He found joy in the little things. And he cared so deeply about his brothers. He cared so deeply about you. 

You crack open the bottle, and together the two of you mock-toast to this late-night, lakeside summer picnic the pair of you took on a whim. You're so glad to be out here with him. Just the two of you in the light of the full, silver moon hung in the sky above this beautiful park, serenaded by the frogs and distant cicadas in the trees.

"Thanks Wrecker. Cheers!"

"Cheers!" Wrecker laughs brightly, the sound as bubbly as the lapping waves of water against the shore, and as distinct as the ping from the phone in your pocket as your phone begins to blow up with news about the final episode of the season you originally planned to watch tonight. (Damn. Maybe the dashing rogue will pluck up the courage next season.) You can't even be mad about the spoilers. 

You're enjoying this rare evening together with Wrecker far, far too much to be annoyed about that. 

"Nice night for a date…" you murmur fondly, leaning into Wrecker's side as you sit on the bench and eat some of the other snack foods out of the cooler bag now that the two of you have finished your sandwiches. "... thanks for the late, lakeside picnic, Wrecker." You giggle softly when he shyly asks if you're okay with a little kiss on the cheek. He kisses the top of your head for good measure as well, emboldened by the smiles and giggles. "Yer welcome. We should do this more often." he says, looking out over the glimmering water with you. 

You should do this more often. Maybe the next time you come here, you can take him here in the sunlight and come feed the waterfowl on a day that his brothers could get by without his help. Crosshair didn't need help the clambering up onto the scaffolding so he could do his job as a roofer, but he often let Wrecker help him because it eased his brother's fear of heights, or the fear that Cross was going to fall from the scaffolding again after a really nerve-wracking incident, more rather. 

A strong gust of wind had ripped through the construction site before the structure had been secured against the frameworks, and his brother had lost his balance. Wrecker had been there to catch him in the nick of time. 

"Maybe it gets under my skin a little that my brothers make fun of me for my fear of heights," Wrecker admitted somberly to you in private shortly after the scare. "But I'd never willingly let my brothers fall. I'll always be there to catch them… if I can." 

Once the two of you have finished most of the food from the cooler bag, you diligently pack away all of your trash until you pass by another trash can. "Let's finish walking around the rest of the lake. Then let's maybe call it a night." you suggest. It's too nice a night not to. You just hope the city police don't come along and spoil the moment by suggesting that you need to leave, since park lock-up happens at 12:30. It's only midnight, and the rest of the lake won't take long to walk at a decent pace. 

Common opinion is that some of the force can be overly stern, even how the chief of police is characterized as "heartless", but you've come to understand that these officers with red police cruisers (an unusual color choice) are decent men. They're just chronically overworked. You feel for them, now. They're only doing their jobs, however unpopular it might be. 

Thankfully, where you'll complete your full circuit of the lake with Wrecker is not too far from one of these entrance and exit gates that are found along the wall of the gated park. 

Joking and laughing with Wrecker once again puts a pep in your step, now that the two of you are comfortably full and content with the late-night meal. 

Wrecker suggests walking a little closer to the water, just before you leave. Give the lake a closer look, maybe see if he can't get a picture of one of the frogs for Tech. "He could probably tell us all about 'em! Tech loves that kinda stuff… sharing what he learns with people." Wrecker says with a grin as he quickly snaps a photo of a plump frog resting on a lilypad. He's carefully crouched on the edge of the bank in order to get it. You creep down closer to the waterline so you can take his phone for him so he can use both hands to pull himself back up the slightly steep bank. The water is deep here, and you're both hoping to avoid falling in.

"Here, I got it." you offer, holding out your hand. 

You slip on a slick patch of grass and mud as you collect his phone, and as luck would have it, the sandal slips off as you stumble and it falls into the lake with a splash.

Wrecker had caught you before you fell in as well. "Gotcha, cyare! Are you okay?" 

"I'm f-fine," you assure him with a tiny stammer, glad you hadn't dropped his phone or fallen in. "Just lost my shoe. Thanks for catching me." 

"Of course, cyare. Didn't think I'd only be there to catch just my brothers, didja?" He's teasing, of course, but the question makes you flush. No, of course you didn't think that. 

Wrecker peers down into the water, trying to see if he could spot your sandal. Man, why didn't you change into something with laces? You'd thought about it and everything, but you were just so excited about spending time with Wrecker that you dashed out the door without giving it a second thought… 

A car door closes in the distance. It sounds like it's from a car parked near the gate. Uh oh. What time is it? 

"Wrecker, we need to go, I think the-" 

He's up to his elbow in the lake water, carefully swishing his arm around while seeing if he can't find your shoe. "Just a second, I'll find your shoe and then we can go cyare." Wrecker promises, trying to settle your nerves. He's so focused on being sweet and helpful that he doesn't hear or notice the officer starting down the path. 

"Wrecker, c'mon, it's okay. It's just a cheap little sandal, we really should go!" 

The way Wrecker is hunched over the water on his hands and knees in the dim light of the moon, the officer mistakes the position for a starting dive and he calls out in warning. "Hey-! There's no swimming in the lake!" 

Wrecker falls in with a great splash, startled. He surfaces shortly, the water up to his chest. Okay, maybe the water wasn't as deep as you thought. "I'm okay!" Wrecker splutters, coughing up lake water. "I found your sandal!" 

You turn to the officer now standing on the edge of the lake, glowering down disappointedly at Wrecker. "I'm so sorry, sir," you say, "he was just trying to get my shoe and then I think you startled him an- O-oh, Officer Fox! I didn't realize it was you, I'm so sorry!" Fox didn't realize it was you, either, turns out. He speaks your name with great surprise, then takes another look at the sopping wet figure carefully climbing out of the water with your wet, muddy shoe in hand. "Wrecker?"

"Yup!" 

Officer Fox removes his peaked cap and scratches his salt-and-pepper hair with a weary sigh. "... I thought the two of you were a couple of kids or something. Got a call from a "concerned citizen" about some "hooligan youth" in the park. Some busybody of an old man who's constantly inventing problems for me because he has his mind made up that I don't have enough to do…" 

You grimace sympathetically. "Mr. Sheev, again?"

"That old bat's still alive?" Wrecker asks disbelievingly. No one's quite sure how old Mr. Sheev is, but he looks like he's been dodging the grim reaper longer than it should be natural. 

There's a mutter from Officer Fox that sounds a lot like the word unfortunately before the cap is replaced and he has to do his job. 

"C'mon… park's locking up for the night, soon. And since you're wet," he nods to Wrecker, "and you're half barefoot," Officer Fox nods to you this time, "I'll give you a lift in the cruiser." 

Officer Fox takes you both back to Wrecker's place, watching the two of you from the car as you're huddled on the porch, wrestling with the ring of house keys. Darn things seem to make themselves invisible or slippery when they get the slightest inkling that you might be in a hurry to get inside. 

Wrecker says he'll have to mop up the water in a second, trying and failing at threading his house key into the lock with shaky fingers. Lake water was cold and he was soaked to the bone trying to do a kind thing by retrieving your sandal for you. 

Fox, the chief of police for the city, calls from the cruiser that Wrecker better get into some dry clothes soon, and not to feel bad about getting the seats wet. "Shit like this happens more than you think. I gotta ask Cody if he's the guy I gotta talk to about getting a proper walking path around the lake… as soon as I'm done with all this other kriffing paperwork. Goodnight." You help Wrecker get the key into the door and thank him for the lift. "You too, Officer Fox! Thank you again!" 

As the two of you try to squeeze inside, someone knocks over the coatrack bearing three high-vis vests and a crisp lab coat. "Whoops!" Oh stars, that clatter was sure to wake someone up… It was nearly one in the morning now. 

Wrecker's foot slips in the growing puddle of water, and trying to help him, or make sure that he's okay, you yourself trip over the coat rack and fall on top of him with a yelp. Once again, he breaks your fall, and tries to break the nervous tension with a corny joke after you both frantically apologize to one another. 

"Guess we're a couple'a angels if we keep fallin' for one another, huh, cyar'ika?" 

You can't help it. The joke is so silly and undeniably sweet coming from someone like Wrecker that if the coat rack, and then the two of you falling over and on top of one another didn't wake Wrecker's brothers, your laugh certainly would have. Four pairs of feet plod down the stairs at varying speeds, Hunter the fastest. He's fresh out of bed in nothing but a pair of red and black boxers, face wracked with confusion. Wrecker is soaking wet and smells like algae. And you're now damp after having landed on top of him. Hunter was told the two of you were just going for a walk, how the hell did his brother and his date end up getting wet?

"The kriff are you two doing on the floor?" Crosshair yawns from up the stairs. 

"And why are you wet?" 

You smile apologetically up at Hunter, "Wrecker fell in the lake trying to get my shoe for me. I was trying to keep his phone dry after he took a picture of a frog for Tech and-" Your eyes dart further up the stairs when you hear Tech excitedly ask "A frog?" from behind Cross, and you spot the brother who must be Echo behind him. He's a little paler and his face is gaunt compared to the others. He looks rather disoriented and anxious after you probably woke him up so unexpectedly. 

"Oh… hello there; are you Echo?" 

He nods timidly. "I am. And you are…?" He seems surprised to hear you know his name, but he doesn't seem to recognize you. You wait as he carefully makes his way down the stairs, one step at a time. The horrible accident Echo had suffered from was some time ago, but three of his limbs haven't quite been the same since. Minor weakness and numbness, to your memory. You waited until he was closer to put out the appropriate hand to introduce yourself with a polite smile. "Nice to meet you. Officially." Echo manages apologetically. "Sorry, guess I didn't recognize you because I've only ever heard Wrecker talk about the person he's started dating." 

You smile reassuringly at Echo, and flash Wrecker a cheeky look when you hear he's been talking about you to his brothers. You're sure he would look just as flushed as you if the light from the kitchen wasn't so dim. 

"I'll get a mop and clean up the water," Wrecker promises Hunter when his brother takes a look at the floor by the front door after Wrecker picks up his cooler bag and dumps all the trash into the kitchen's garbage can. 

Hunter shrugs lazily. "Nah, don't bother. You two should go shower or something. I'll take care of it. Besides falling in the lake - apparently - was your walk nice?" 

"Oh yeah!" Wrecker says with a giant grin that you return when you share a look. "I think the two of us might do it again soon. This time without losing any shoes." 

You can only nod and laugh softly in agreement. The next time you go on one of these late-night walks with Wrecker, if this becomes a regular thing in your relationship, you are definitely going to start wearing better shoes with laces.

Note from Frost: The idea of Palpatine being a nosy cranky senior citizen who calls the police over "hooligan youths" having fun came out of nowhere but it tickled me too much not to include it lmao. (Poor Commander Fox...)

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