#I saw this instagram post and RAN to my only friend that can photo edit and was like MAKE HIM OPHELIA

[realkilljoyhoursnow]

[let-me-luve-you]

Overlooked and Overworked

Tom Holland x Sister

Summary: Being Tom Holland’s little sister was great growing up, but after his success she’s a little left behind. Y/N Holland is willing to do whatever for her family because she loves them.

Warnings: Angst, fluff ending, rude Tom, overworked, sleep deprived

A/N: I don’t think Tom or any of the members of the Holland’s would allow this to happen to any member of their family or friends, I just had this idea and wrote it. Also I wrote this back in like January and just now got the guts to post it!

MASTERLIST    BUY ME A COFFEE

The past couple of years for you have been an emotional roller coaster. You’ve been so excited and happy to see your brother succeed in his career. It’s always fun to see him on the big screen as someone else. But it’s also been tiring and sad because you feel left out. You don’t get to go to set often, you don’t get to travel with him, and you aren’t a part of his charity. The Brothers Trust is just him and your 3 other brothers. Given you help out way more than all of the brothers. Since you went to school for business, you help your mum and dad with both of their businesses and then run The Brothers Trust.

Tom is the oldest, then it’s you, the twins, and then Paddy. You’re only a year and a half younger than Tom. You were very close growing up, but once he started doing movies, you slowly grew apart. Him and the twins then grew closer. You loved him dearly but it just wasn’t the same since you never felt included. He took Harry to sets with him and on press tours. Sam would join along when he wasn’t working at the restaurant. Paddy would join during school breaks. But every time you would try to join him, he would say no. That he was too busy or too tired. You didn’t want to fight him but you were always crushed.

When he got the role of Spiderman, he decided then he wanted to move out into his own apartment. You offered to help him find a place since you had been looking for yourself. You offered to share a place and split rent but he said he wanted to be completely on his own. But shortly after he moved into his new 4 bedroom apartment, he had Harrison, Tuwaine, Sam, and Harry move in.

“The twins are moving in with Tom. Can you help pack and move them this weekend?” Your dad asked.

“What? They’re moving in with Tom? I thought he wanted his own space?” You asked him.

“He said he wanted to be around people because it was too lonely and quiet. Did you ever find a place? If so, you may want roommates too.”

“No I realized I can’t afford a place in a nice area to live alone. All my mates have moved off to continue their education or they have jobs else where.” You said sadly.

“Tom should of asked you then. I’m sorry y/n/n.”

“It’s fine. He hangs out with all four of them all the time. I would of just been in the way.” You said as you got up and left the room.

It’s been a couple of years and you still can’t afford to get your own place. Between helping run three businesses, you don’t have time to get a part time job. You pay your parents for rent and help pay bills so you are doing adult things. Plus it helps your parents financially. It’s busy season since your mum is picking up gigs for photoshoots, your dad is on tour for standup and his new book, plus you are planning a movie event through the trust as well as trying to get all the merch bagged and shipped. You have been working 14-15 hour days for the past 3 weeks without a day off. You are feeling the tiredness mentally and physically.

Tom has time off from the movie he is filming now. They gave him a month off for the holidays. Him and Harry have been home but all they have done is hung out with friends and go to the pub. You have been holed up in your office/bedroom for 3 days straight. Only to go out to the bathroom and kitchen to grab food.

“Where has y/n been? I haven’t seen much of her since we got home.” Harry asks Tom.

“She might be finalizing the Spies in Disguise event and getting things ready.” Tom responded.  

“Oh good. Y/n is great at getting a head start on things so I’m guessing she’s done with all the prep and souvenirs.” Harry smiled. Tom laughed in response.

On Christmas Day, you only came out of your room for breakfast and lunch and then went back in your room to work. No one noticed the bags under your eyes that you tried to hide with makeup. No one noticed you almost falling asleep at the table. No one thought twice about why you spent most of Christmas alone in your room. But you were behind. You still had a lot of orders to fulfill and send out. You still had get all of the souvenirs together for the event that was in two days. You still had to finish sending out your dads orders for his book as well as finalize his January travel plans and stand up dates. Your mum had booked 12 more shoots and you had to finalize times and dates. And everything was supposed to be done in the next week. You finally caved and decided to ask Tom for help since it was his event after all.

“Hey Tom can I have you help me out for a little bit?” You asked him Christmas evening.

“Do you need me tonight?” He asked.

“If you can that would be great.”

“Sorry y/n/n. I can’t. I’m meeting to boys at the apartment.”

“Well maybe they can help too.” You sounded hopeful to get more help to lighten your load.

“No can do. We have drinks and plans.”

“Well then can you come tomorrow morning or early afternoon?”

“Can’t. I have a meeting with my manager to discuss everything that’s coming up and then all of us at the apartment and Paddy are going into the city. Maybe I can help you after the event?”

“No it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.” You said sadly as you turned to go back to your room.

“What about Paddy? Or mum or dad?” He asked.

“Paddy has football that mum is taking him to before she does a shoot tomorrow. Dad is working on some other stuff for his January shows.”

“Sam or Harry?”

“Well both will be with you tonight and tomorrow.”

“What about in the morning?”

“Sam has to work remember. And I think Harry is meeting with some mates to catch up with them or something along those lines. It’s fine. I’ve got it handled. Have fun tonight and tomorrow. Be safe. Love you.” You turned and almost ran back to your room. You wanted to break down in tears from being overwhelmed and for not being included in any of Tom’s plans of hanging out and catching up. You’ve barely seen Tom in the past year. Only when he’s in London. You shook the thoughts of your brother out of your head and pulled out a sheet of paper. You wrote down everything that needed to be done. Then on your white board, wrote them down in most important the least important.

First up was getting all of the brothers trust bags done. You went to the storage closest and pulled out everything you would need and set the boxes on your bed. Then you went and grabbed a tote to put the finished product in. It took you until 4 am, but you finally finished putting them together. You went into the kitchen and made you some tea. You went back in your room and marked the brothers trust goody bags off of your list. Next you started finalizing plans for your mum. That just involved organizing times and dates. You finished that around 1030 am. You marked that off the list as well.

Before you emailed all of the clients their dates and times, you went to the kitchen to grab and snack and drink. Your mum was in the kitchen.

“Morning love.” She smiled at you.

“Morning.” You said back waiting on your tea.

“So I’m going to drop Paddy off at football in 20 minutes and then Tom will pick him up to go into the city. I have to go to my shoot. Do you have the invoice I can give them?”

“I do.” You rushed to your room and grabbed it from a folder then went back and handed it to her. “Everything is on there. The deposit has been paid and it shows that as well as the price for the shoot and the editing. It also gives the timeline of when they will get the pictures.”

“Great. This is wonderful. Thank you. Also the theater called and said we can set it up today at 3 pm. Are you okay to handle that on your own?”

You sighed but answered, “yes I can handle it. I finished the bags last night. I just need to print off the papers to put on the seats as well. Plus get the itinerary finished which I will have by tonight so Tom knows what’s going on.”

“That’s great. I’ll be there to take photos as well as Harry but the boys will all be busy with fans and making sure they all feel special.”

“Sounds good. Have fun on your shoot.”

Your mum smiled as her and paddy left the house. You went back into your room and emailed everyone for your mum. Then you printed the brothers trust sheets that said what the event was supporting and how we were thankful for their donations. As those were printing you forgot you had to pick up an order of pictures so Tom could sign them for the guest coming to the screening. You looked up and saw that it was 130 and if you were going to be on time you needed to leave in the next 15 minutes.

After you loaded the goody bags into your car, you drove the 20 minutes to the print shop to pick up the pictures. You then went to the theater and set everything out. It took 45 minutes to lay everything out and make sure it was perfect. You then snagged some photos for Instagram and posted them. By the time you got home it was just shy of 5. You went straight to your room to finalize the itinerary. At 8 pm your mum knocked on the door.

“Hey baby. I’m back. How did everything go setting up wise?”

“It was good. Took longer than expected but wasn’t too bad for being the only one there. Also here is the itinerary for you and dad. I also have one for each of the boys.”

“Wow. This is detailed perfectly.”

“It kind of had to be since Tom has an event to go to tomorrow night and he can’t be late. I figured the more detailed, the less things can go wrong.”

“Fair point. Love I’m not sure if the boys notice the work you put in, but I do. Have you slept yet?”

You looked at her shocked, “what do you mean?”

“I mean that I can tell you are exhausted. I woke up at 2 am last night and heard you in here and saw your light was still on.” She paused and looked at your long list on the white board. “And by the looks of it, you have a long to do list. Do you need help? After we get through the event I can help. I don’t have a shoot for a couple of days.”

“I appreciate mum, but this list needs to be done by then. And everything you can help me with will be done already. But thank you.”

“Did you ask your brothers to help? I mean this is there thing. They should be helping you. Not leaving it to you to do yourself.”

“I asked Tom to help so I could have him do the goody bags for tomorrow but he had a guys night with Sam and Harry and them last night. Then they were all busy this morning and then went into the city. But it’s fine. I did the bags last night. That’s what you heard when you woke up.”

“I’m sorry baby. I’m going to have a talk with him. Have you had a break to just hangout with Tom. I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen him.”

“No he’s always in a meeting or with the boys. But if Tom wanted to see me, he’d make time but when I try, he can’t. But with all this work, I haven’t really done much outside of this room in a while so it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You both used to be so close. Almost like you were twins. Weirdly enough closer than the twins have ever been. I hope you two can work whatever this is out.”

“Me too mum. Me too.” You looked at her as she slowly walked out.

After your mum left the room, you got back to work finalizing your dads stuff. Thankfully it was only 12 am when you finished. Deciding to pack all of the orders so you can drop them off to be shipped in the morning, you went and grabbed everything you would need from the storage closet and got to work. You stayed up all night working. You finally finished all the orders at 9 am. When you realized the time you rushed to get dressed and cleaned up as best you could. By 10 am you were out the door to go to the post office to ship the orders and then you were off to the theater to make sure everything was set. By 1pm the rest of your family showed up. And by 2 the theater was full of people who were excited to see the brothers and the movie.

People knew who you were. Everyone knew Tom had a sister. But you did great staying out of the eye of people. None of your brothers posted much about you on social. Your dad mainly posted about Tom and the brothers golf adventures. Your mum would occasionally when she made you model when she was trying something new. So when people arrived, they walk past you and straight to the four brothers who were ready to greet everyone.

When the event started, you weren’t really needed so you went to a back room they had set up for your brothers to relax away from people and sat on the couch. Not sleeping since Christmas Eve was starting to catch up with you but some how you forced yourself to stay awake.

“Y/n we have a problem.” Your youngest brother said as he came in the room. “The movie hasn’t started yet and it was supposed to 15 minutes ago.”

“Okay I’ll go see what’s going on.” You went to the manager of the theater and she explained to you how the light in the projector went out and it was going to be another 20 minutes before it started. She apologized multiple times.

“Hey Tom. Can you do a q&a for 20 minutes or so?”

“No the movie is supposed to be on.”

“They are having technical difficulties and it’s going to take 20 minutes to fix it.”

Tom got annoyed because he knew this was pushing the entire timeline back and it was now be pushing it for him to be on time for his event tonight. “Sure.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you know when we are good to go.”

After 30 minutes. The movie was finally ready to go. Every one was enjoying it and all four of your brothers moved around the theater so the kids felt like they were watching the movie with them personally. When it was over everyone was ushered into a lobby where there was a meet and greet with photos. By the time the boys were done with everyone, it was 20 minutes until Toms next event.

“Great. I’m going to be late. Thanks for that y/n. Why didn’t you have them check everything yesterday?”

“Because I didn’t think of it.”

“So stupid. How could you not think of it? It’s literally the first thing on the list of things to check when prepping the theater. Do your job better. Thats what you are paid to do. I’ll see you later.” Tom rolled his eyes and stormed off. You just stared feeling humiliated since the theater staff and your family had witnessed that. You were holding in your emotional breakdown until you could do it in private.

“Sorry guys. Y’all can go ahead and head out. I’ll clean this up and bring home whatever is ours.” Sam, Harry, and Paddy saw this as a get of jail free card and booked it out of the theater. Your dad came by and kissed you on the head and said I have to finish up some work and headed out. Your mum looked at you sadly.

“I’ll help you baby.”

“No it’s okay mum. Go edit the photos so we can get them sent out.” You smiled at her.

“It’s okay. I can do them later tonight.”

“Mum seriously. Go home. I got this. I’ll be home later. You kissed her on the cheek as you walked back in the theater. You thankfully left the tote yesterday which made it easier to put everything in. You put the tote in your car and headed back in the theater to sweep and clean up the mess. By the time you got home, it was 9 pm. You had been up for 61 hours straight. You were exhausted. You just wanted to sleep. But Tom was home and he was livid.

“What the hell?” He asked.

“What?” You asked back.

“You know I got yelled at by my manger for 30 minutes about how I was irresponsible and immature for being almost a hour late to the event tonight?”

“Why did you get yelled at? You were doing stuff for charity. He should get over it.”

“He was mad because SOMEONE told him I would be done with our event in plenty of time to go to this other one. And when I told him there was technical difficulties because that same SOMEONE didn’t do their job, he got even more mad.”

“I get that I probably should of checked but things happen Tom. Okay? Things I can’t control. Things the theater can’t control. I did this entire event by myself. Sorry for not checking but other than the delay the people loved it and we raised money which is okay because our charity now can help so many more.”

“You didn’t do this by yourself. We all help. And our charity? Our? You mean mine? Sams? Harry’s? Paddys? It’s our faces that make that charity. And when something goes wrong we are the ones that look bad. Not the person behind the scenes that only does some of the work.”

You looked at him like he was a stranger. What he said broke your heart. That’s what he really thought? You just shook your head lightly and walked to your room. You shut the door and locked it.

“Really Tom?” Your mum asked as her and your dad walked in during the argument.

“Yeah mum. We do all the work and she’s trying to take the credit. We’ve all noticed and it’s getting out of hand. You do more than she does.”

“Tom I’m extremely disappointed in you right now.” Your dad said.

“Tom she does all of the work. The planning, the scheduling, the packaging, social media, distributing the money, and figuring out all the ways we can make money to help those smaller charities.” Your mum added.

“She does?”

“Yes Tom. On top of helping me and your father with our businesses. We’ve seen you more than her this past month because she’s been so busy.” Your mum said.

“Wow.”

“Did you know she was up until 4 am on Christmas night so she could finish the goody bags before we had to prep the theater. That she had those pictures printed so you could sign them for the guest. That she made an itinerary so detailed that nothing could go wrong. Except she didn’t account for technical difficulties. She set up the theater and cleaned the theater all by herself. None of us helped her. We just showed up for the event.” Your mum said.

“Tom have you not noticed how exhausted she looks? It looks like she hasn’t slept in days. She’s trying her best to handle everything so we can have everything run smoothly for us. She even mentioned your event and how she needed to get you out of there so you wouldn’t be late. We’ve all been horrible to her by letting her do this by herself.” Your dad said.

“I... I didn’t know. I’m going to go talk to her.”

Tom got up and knocked on your door. He couldn’t hear anything so he tried opening it. He noticed it was locked and went to his old room and found the key you gave him years ago. When he unlocked it he noticed the mess around your room of boxes, plastic, mail bags for packages, and stacks of papers. He saw you on your bed and saw you were asleep. He went over and tucked you in. He went to your desk and saw the white board with everything marked off under the to do list. He then looked on your desk and saw how your mum and dads plans were finalized. He knew you mentioned everything when you asked him for help Christmas night and now you were done with it. Even all the orders were done and he saw the receipt from the post office proving the orders were shipped. He felt horrible knowing the only way that you got everything done was by staying up all night.

He turned and walked back to you and finally noticed the bags under your eyes. As well as tear stains that he knows he’s the cause for. It broke his heart knowing he was the cause. It also broke knowing that you asked for help so you wouldn’t fall in the deep end, but by saying he couldn’t help, he pushed you in and watched you drown without even realizing.

He gave you a kiss on the head and got up and quietly walked out.

“What time did y/n wake up on Christmas Day?”

“From what we know, maybe around 8 or 9.” Your dad said. Tom sat there quietly while doing the math in his head.

“61 hours.” He suddenly said.

“What?” Your mum said.

“61 hours. That’s how long she went without sleep. She asked me for help and told me why and I said no. She’s finished the list. She’s organized both of your stuff. She’s packed and shipped out all of the orders. She did everything for the event. She hasn’t slept. She’s asleep now but it was 61 hours. How could I let my sister do that? How did I not see it?” Tom asked his parents. They looked at him in shock.

“My poor baby” your mum said.

“We will talk to her tomorrow when she wakes up.” Your dad said.

“I want to be here when she wakes up so I can apologize. I’m going to go see her again.”

He got up and walked to your room. He quietly started cleaning up the mess left from packaging orders. He then laid on the other side of your bed thinking about how he messed up so bad. Shortly after he fell asleep too.

-——————

Around 7 am you woke up still exhausted but you needed a glass of water. When you went to throw the blanket off of you, you saw Tom asleep in your bed still in his clothes from the night before.

You were confused as to why he was in your bed, but you chose to ignore him. You stood up and went to the kitchen. Your mum was already cooking breakfast.

“Morning baby. How’d you sleep?” Your mum asked.

“Alright. I’m probably going to catch a few more hours. Just needed water.” You said. “By the way, do you know why Tom is in my bed?”

“He felt bad about how he has treated you lately.” She said. “He figured out you went 60 something hours without sleep.”

You looked at her shocked and sat down. She came over and gave you a hug.

“Why did you do that to yourself? Why didn’t you ask for help?” Your dad said as he joined both of you in the kitchen.

“You were working on new stuff. Mum had shoots and a house to run. I asked Tom and thought maybe him and the boys could help but they had plans. It needed to be done before the new year and definitely needed to be done before the event.”

“We appreciate you so much baby girl. I hope you know that. You do a lot for this family and this family isn’t great at giving back. We do love you.” Your mum said as she gave you a kiss on the head. “Now please go get some sleep. Sleep all day if you’d like and I can bring you food later.”

You smiled at her and walked back to your room. Tom still hadn’t moved. You sat your water on your bedside table and crawled back under the covers. You turned your back towards Tom. You were still really saddened by his words last night, that you didn’t want to face him yet.

“Y/n/n are you awake?” You heard Tom whisper.

“Go back to sleep or get out.” You said back not opening your eyes.

“I’m sorry y/n. What I said last night was wrong. I didn’t realize you do everything for our trust. I thought mum and dad did it all. I know you’ve been killing yourself to try and catch up then get ahead, but you can’t do that to yourself. You need proper rest. I’m going to make sure you never do the 61 hours straight again. I’d rather myself do it before I let you do it again.”

“Tom it’s okay. But seriously. Leave or go back to sleep.”

“No it’s not okay. I’ve royally fucked up. I’ve let us get so far apart we are almost strangers to one another. I have a charity that doesn’t even have your name on it and you do all the work. You make sure my fans are happy as well as making sure we help other small charities. You’re absolutely amazing and I’ve treated you like shit for the last few years. I don’t even give you the time of day. I promise you this, I will do better. We will be like we used to. Even if I have to kidnap you and take you with me different places. I love you and I don’t want to be the one hurting you anymore.”

You rolled over and looked at him with tears in your eyes. Your brother finally recognized you for you. He finally realized what he’s done.

“Thank you Tom. I love you too.”

He smiled at you and leaned over to give you a hug and kiss on the forehead.

“It really means a lot that you said that. But can I please go back to sleep. I’m still exhausted.” You said.

Tom pulled you to him so your head was on his chest and shoulder. And he cuddled you so you felt protected from all the horrible things that can go wrong for you.

“Get some sleep and when you wake up, me and you will hang out. Just the two of us.” Tom said. You smiled as you drifted back to sleep.

[datleggy]

Post-demise At Hand

TW: mentions of past OD, past drug use, off screen death of character (Alex), grief, anger, misunderstandings 

TK isn’t sure how to react to the news, if he’s being completely honest with himself. 

He learns about the death of his ex through a post on Instagram via an old mutual friend of theirs that he hasn’t been in contact with since even before he packed up his life and moved to Texas. It’s hashtagged: #RIP #gonetoosoon and TK almost laughs out loud like some kind of maniac, because is that all Alex's life amounted to in the end? 

Two half-assed hashtags and a badly edited picture of Alex smirking at the person who took the stupid photograph in the first place. TK remembers that day; Alex had finally passed his drivers test and gotten his license. He remembers telling Alex to smile, remembers his ex boyfriend turning to him, rolling his eyes, saying something like “Why did I bother with this again? We live in New York.” except TK can’t remember what he said to Alex to be on the receiving end of that knowing little smirk. 

The one he can’t stop staring at now. 

“Earth to TK!” 

TK almost drops his phone onto the floor, blinking up at the person waving their hand in his face. “Huh?” 

Judd gives him a curious look. “Been calling you for like a straight minute, kid, you doin’ alright?” 

TK nods. “Yeah, sorry, yeah, I’m good, I was reading an article, I uh, got distracted.” he shakes his head. “What’s up?” 

“Your boyfriend’s downstairs lookin’ for you--” Judd tries not so subtly to peek at whatever it is that’s got TK so enraptured and catches a glimpse of a familiar face, one that gives him pause. 

He frowns. “TK, what the hell? Stalking your ex, seriously?” he blurts the accusation outloud without thinking, which is of course the very moment Carlos and Paul come gallivanting up the stairs, their laughter at something one of them said dying out abruptly. 

Paul’s eyes dart between the two men and he clears his throat awkwardly before motioning for Judd to skedaddle with him. Judd, who couldn’t take a hint if it hit him on the side of the head like a tire iron, simply folds his arms across his chest expectantly. “Well? Your fella’s right over there, so what’re you doing all up in your ex boyfriends business?” 

Paul sighs. Jesus. “Judd. Maybe we should give them some privacy?” Carlos is scarily silent next to him and Paul just knows shit’s about to hit the fan, and he’d rather be far far away when it does happen. 

Carlos swallows hard, wipes his hands against his uniform pants, and says, “It’s fine. I’ll um, I’ll see you at home.” before turning around and going back the way he came. 

“Man.” Paul stares at TK, who hasn’t uttered a single word as of yet. “You’re not gonna go follow after him?” 

Judd scoffs. “And do what? Tell him it’s not what it looks like?” 

TK blinks rapidly a few times, as if coming out of a daze. “I--” His eyes go wide when he realizes what’s happened. “Shit.” he runs over to the edge of the railing to call for Carlos, but his boyfriend apparently bolted, because he’s nowhere to be seen. 

Judd whistles loudly behind him, arms still crossed disapprovingly. “Carlos is a good catch, TK, shouldn’t be messin’ around with him if you’re not--” 

TK whirls around to face him, the look on his face mutinous. “I wasn’t stalking my ex on Instagram Judd! Get your head outta your ass and outta my business!” 

Judd takes a step forward and Paul can see where this is headed; he immediately gets in between the two men, arms raised. “Hey! Enough! You two need to relax.” 

Judd huffs. “I’m not the one tryna step out on my--” 

“Alex is dead.” Saying it outloud is surreal. 

Alex is dead. 

What the fuck. 

Paul and Judd both give pause. 

“What?” 

TK sighs, aggravated, and shows them the post he’d been caught looking at earlier. 

“TK...” Paul gulps. “I’m sorry man.” 

TK nods but doesn’t utter a word. 

Judd cringes. “Crap, I--” He wants to smack his head against the palm of his hand as hard as he can. “I’m such a heel, Jesus TK, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed--I’m so sorry.” 

TK leans his back against the railing and this time it’s his turn to cross his arms over his chest. “Yeah, well...tell that to Carlos.” 

“TK I’ll call him right now and tell him I misunderstood, I swear--” 

TK interrupts him again with a shake of his head. “No, no, it’s better if I just explain it myself.” he looks up at Judd through long lashes and manages a half hearted grin. “I guess I should be happy you respect my boyfriend enough to snitch on my ass?” 

Judd knows TK’s throwing him a bone, but still, he doesn’t feel he can take it. “I do,” he admits. “But that don’t mean I should’ve went ahead and assumed the worst. You deserve better than that and for that I’m especially sorry.” The whole thing with his own father in law stepping out on his Grace’s mother is still messing around with his head, but that was no excuse to think the worst of TK, of all people. 

But TK tells him not to sweat it, he’ll call Carlos and tell him everything, no big, really. And then he asks the two men not to mention anything about any of this to the Captain or to any of the rest of the team, if it can be helped. 

Paul frowns. “TK, it’s not good to try and go through these types of things alone, you know.” 

TK shakes his head. “I’m not trying to, really. I just,” he shrugs, looking a little like a lost lamb. “I don’t really know how I feel about it yet? So I’d rather not deal with everybody’s sympathies right now, if that’s ok.” 

**********************

He calls Carlos but gets sent straight to voicemail every single time and when that doesn’t work he texts him that whatever he thought was going on, there was nothing to worry about, that he would explain if Carlos would just pick up his damn phone. 

Work gets progressively busier after that and TK barely has time to catch his breath, much less to try and get into contact with his boyfriend, and so it’s not until the very end of his shift, hours later, that he’s able to rush home--that is, he thinks sullenly, if Carlos hasn’t changed all the locks on him.

TK shakes his head; Carlos wouldn’t do that. He’s probably stewing though, and that thought doesn’t make TK feel any better as he steps past the threshold and inside. He’s had such a long and tiring day he hasn’t even had time to properly process what’s happened to Alex. 

Carlos has cooked dinner, if the wonderful smell coming from the kitchen is any indication. He’s at the table eating alone with the TV on in the other room for background noise, and he doesn’t even look up to greet TK, only motions towards the stovetop vaguely. “Help yourself.” he mutters. 

TK ignores the food and takes a seat right across from Carlos, leans over the table with a grimace. “Babe, I swear to you it’s not like that. Judd misunderstood what happened--” 

Carlos sets his fork down with a clatter that startles TK into jumping slightly. “Look, I get it, moving in is a huge commitment, it’s scary, I know, but I didn’t think you would--” 

“Please,” TK stops him. “Please let me just explain, please.” he hastily takes his phone out of his back pocket and opens the app. He can hear Carlos sigh above him but it doesn’t deter TK from finding the post and holding it up to his face. “This is what Judd saw me looking at.” 

Carlos reluctantly lays eyes on the photo, his irritation and hurt only peeking when he sees that it’s a photo of TK’s almost fiance. That is, of course, until he reads the caption, notices the hashtags below, and suddenly it all makes sense. He doesn’t know quite what to say, except: “Oh.” 

TK nods. “Caught me by surprise. I um, I haven’t heard from him since, well, you know. So I didn’t really know how to react when I found out and then Judd came up behind me and I mean, you know the rest of the story…” 

“Oh.” Carlos says again, because he’s still trying to process the news. 

“Yeah.” TK shrinks back in his chair and the wounded look of him finally snaps Carlos out of it.  

“Crap,” Carlos groans. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He gets up and rounds the table, kneeling down in front of TK. “I was hurt and I ran off without letting you even get a word in, that was messed up and I’m sorry. Are you ok?” He makes a face at his own question, because of course TK isn’t ok. The man he’d proposed marriage to a little over a year ago now has passed, after all. 

There’s no way he’s ‘ok’. 

“I uh, I don’t know.” TK admits quietly. 

Carlos puts a hand on his knee and squeezes gently. “It’s ok to be sad, Ty.” 

TK shakes his head. “It’s--I’m not. I’m not sad. I think? I mean...it’s not like we were on friendly terms, you know? I’m more surprised I guess, than anything else. He was still so young.” 

Carlos nods solemnly. “How did it happen, do you know?” 

TK clears his throat and scratches at the back of his head. “The obituary I found online said it was some kind of car accident near PA. I didn’t really find out any more details than that, though. The funeral was earlier this afternoon.” 

Carlos blinks. “Oh. None of your friends from New York said anything? Before today?” The fact that TK had to find out through Instagram is probably half the reason his boyfriend is finding it so hard to react properly to the tragic news. 

“I didn’t really bother to keep in contact with a lot of our friends when I left, to be honest. And plus, they were all Alexs’ friends before becoming mine. So he kinda had the right to keep them after the divorce...in a manner of speaking.” TK runs a hand through the greasy locks of his hair and grimaces. “Anyway, I should probably go shower, it’s been a long day and I’m kinda gross.” 

Carlos nods, letting TK worm his way out of the conversation without too much fuss. 

**********************

In the shower TK stands under the spray of hot water and stares blankly at the tiled wall in front of him, irritated by the jumbled thoughts plaguing him. God, he thinks, I could really use a drink right about now. 

What exactly is he supposed to be feeling right now? 

Grief? 

Anger? 

Or perhaps regret. 

It’s not as though TK ever got any real closure with Alex and now he never would. After being rejected by the man and worse yet, told he’d been replaced, TK hadn’t wanted to feel any of that pain and had gone to great and dangerous lengths to make sure he was good and numb that night. 

He hadn’t meant to overdose. But he’d popped a couple of pills initially, so sure that he could control himself this time, that this time it would be different. But twenty minutes later when the two little white pills had done nothing to soothe his aching heart TK thought, what’s two more? And then two more after that, and then maybe two more, and then he’d lost count, but fuck it, if he hadn’t felt better in the moment. 

The pills had worked! He couldn’t feel a thing, his head was blessedly empty and suddenly this giant weight had been lifted from his chest and he could breathe again. Until he couldn’t. 

The water is cold by the time TK steps out of the tub. He dries himself off and slips on a pair of boxer shorts and an old gray t-shirt. 

Carlos is waiting for him in the kitchen with a full plate, reheated, and normally the smell would be appetizing, but tonight it makes TK a little sick. “You alright? You were in there a while.” 

TK nods. “M’good.” 

“Here, sit, you should eat something before going to bed.” he sets the plate down in front of him and TK just stares at it like it’s the first time he’s seen food in a while and he’s not quite sure what to do with it. 

“Thanks, but I’m not really hungry. I think I’m just gonna go to sleep. I’m tired.” 

Carlos nods, his lips pursed like he wants to say something more, but instead all he says is, “Ok.” 

******************

It’s nearly three in the morning when TK wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. He’s not sure how he does it, but he manages not to wake Carlos up as he sneaks out of their bed. 

A few minutes later he’s outside in his sweatpants and a hoodie, mindlessly jogging along his usual route. It’s not drugs or alcohol, but running does help. He runs and runs and runs until it hurts and even then, he keeps on running. It’s not until the cramping in his stomach is too much to bare that he finally stops and lets his body rest on a park bench. 

And it’s then that he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket and realizes he’s got three missed calls. “Shit.” he picks up immediately, holding the phone up to his ear with a shaky hand. “Hey.” 

“Where are you? TK, it’s almost five in the morning. What’s going on?” Carlos sounds frenzied on the other end of the line and TK can’t say he blames him. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t sleep, I went out on a run and I lost track of time. I’m headed home now, sorry. Go back to bed.” 

“I can come pick you up, where are you?” 

TK sighs. “Carlos, seriously, I’m within walking distance, don’t worry, I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes.” he hangs up without letting the other man get another word in, which he knows isn’t right, but can’t really find it in himself to care. 

His legs feel like jello when he gets up and the trek back to their place is torturous enough to make TK regret telling Carlos not to bother getting him. By the time he makes it home he’s limping slightly and his stomach is in knots. 

The door swings open before TK can even take out his keys, and Carlos is standing there at the entrance looking a mixture of concerned and annoyed. 

TK rolls his eyes and ignores the look, pushing his way inside and kicking off his shoes at the door. “What?” he snaps, when Carlos won’t stop staring at him. 

Carlos frowns. “Stop that.” 

“Stop what? What are you talking about? I went out for a run. You’re acting like I went out to shoot up at a meth lab or something. I was gone for less than two hours!” TK half shouts, his frustration spiking up a notch. 

“Stop shutting me out. I know you’re upset about what happened to Alex, but you can’t just-” 

“About what happened to Alex?” TK scoffs incredulously. “Nothing happened to Alex, Carlos, he died. That’s not something that happens to someone and then they like, get the fuck over it! He died! He’s dead! Gone! Never gonna see him again, didn’t get to say bye or even fuck you to the guy, he just went ahead and died and that’s that!” TK lets out a choked little laugh that sounds more like a cry than anything and covers his face with both hands, tries his best to get his shit together and under control, but it’s no use. 

It’s quiet for a long time and then TK speaks again and it's soft and agonized, “I loved him.” 

And Carlos nods, takes him by the shoulders and leads him to the stairs, where they both sit down and TK buries himself into Carlos, into his safe haven, and his breath hitches loudly and Carlos says, “I know.” and TK lets out a big broken sob. 

“I’m here.” Carlos assures him gently, “I’m here. It’s gonna be ok.”

.

[bbyboybrock--archived]

Shipped (Colby Brock Imagine)

Summary: *REQUEST* Omg your requests are open!! Can you do something about colby and reader dating in secret and she’s always hyping him up on everything and fans just think it’s cause they are best friends. But she posts a post wearing the love for hire letterman on accident and the fans connected it because Kat and Tara have it to so they figure out they are dating and go crazy (in a good way) for them 🥺❤️

Written: 2020

Word Count: 1,967

Warnings: Major fluff, Swearing

Masterlist

I harassed Colby into letting me listen to their new music. Let’s just say, when you guys hear this, you’re going to be glad One Direction is on a break. Can’t help but stan L4H!! #numeber1fan

I press "send tweet" before plugging in my phone and taking a quick shower. When I get out of the shower I grab my phone and throw myself onto Colby’s bed. It’s our bed at this point. I spend more time at the trap house than I do my apartment, I might as well move in. I go and read the comments under my tweet. Most of them are good. Some fans want me to leak the boys' music, others are freaking out over mine and Colby’s friendship. Someone makes it a point to mention how cute Colby and I would be as a couple and linked an edit that they made. Someone commented that fans like them, the one that posted the edit, are the problem and the reason why Colby doesn’t have any friends who are girls. There is a whole fight going on under that comment.

I quickly try to defuse the situation between the fans before exiting twitter altogether. I take my towel off of my damp hair and walk back into Colby’s bathroom to detangle it. When I finish doing my hair I grab the first jacket of Colby’s that I see to get warm. Lucky for me, it’s his Love for Hire lettermen jacket. For whatever reason, this jacket is more comfortable than any hoodie I’ve stolen during our entire relationship, maybe it’s because it smells strongly like him. Or maybe it’s because I get to finally live out my high school dream of wearing my boyfriend’s lettermen. Either way, Colby knows that this is my jacket now and he’s going to have to fight me to the death for it back. I don’t know if it’s because I freshly showered and my hair is fluffy, or because my skin is thanking me for not putting makeup on it yet, but something is compelling me to take a selfie in Colby’s bathroom mirror.

I get up on to the counter and try to position myself comfortably. I take a few selfies, while carefully not exposing Colby’s messy counter. I do cute poses with peace signs and my tongue sticking out. I do serious “model” poses with hair looking like I’m in a photoshoot. I take a couple and post them on my Instagram story. I triple check each one before pressing send to make sure they end up on my close friends’ list and not my public story. That would be disastrous. I saw how people were acting in the comments of my tweet supporting Colby when a fan posted an edit wishing we were dating. I can’t imagine how his fan base would react if they knew we really are dating and have been for well over a year.

Well, I can imagine how they would react, I’ve been around Colby long enough to figure out how his fanbase functions. Most of his fans would be supportive. Of the majority, there would be roughly half who constantly would show their support over our relationship. The other half would keep quiet and try not to mention it directly so they don’t “jinx” it. No matter how open Colby is with his fans, there is still so much of his life that he has to keep private from the rest of his fans who wouldn’t be supportive of our relationship. The obsessive ones who think that Colby is a toy and belongs to only them. In all honesty, Colby and I probably would have been together longer if it wasn’t for them. We probably wouldn’t have been friends. There was a period in his life when he wouldn’t make any new female friends because of what his old friends had to go through. Because of that, Colby has always been protective of me.

Even though we’ve been friends since he moved to Los Angles, he only introduced me to his fandom two years ago. Even then, it wasn’t like, boom: “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Colby made sure I was properly acclimated to his side of internet stardom by having me appear in all of his other friends’ videos and photos first before a strand of my hair was placed in one of his videos. And then he said, “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Being a Youtuber myself, I have some experience with fandoms. But nothing could prepare me for his intense fans. For the first couple of months after Colby put me on his channel, I understood why Colby kept so many of girl friends in the dark or why some chose to stop being friends with Colby in general. It’s only a select few fans, but when there are so many comments of harassment and death threats it can get overwhelming.

Those comments died down after a while though. Mostly because I either mute certain words from my comments or I don’t read them. Colby and I try really hard to hide our relationship. If we’re in videos together, we don’t sit too close. We keep our hands to ourselves; even a simple hand on the shoulder can cause a frenzy. We only post our couple pictures on our actual secret Instagram accounts and close friends list. Our friends know not to post anything where we might look too much like a couple. We make it a point to bicker like siblings whenever we do work together. Hell, the reason I still have my apartment is to avoid people finding out we’re dating. If I have my own place, people just think I’m visiting the guys whenever I’m over. And it works, everyone just assumes that we’re really close friends.

“I’m back and I bring food!” Colby yells as he opens the door to the room. I plug my dying phone back into the charger before abandoning it in the bathroom to greet Colby.

“Oh thank God, I was beginning to think you were with your hoes. But then I ran into Sam, Jake, and Corey in the kitchen so I relaxed.” I give Colby a quick kiss and help him with the shopping bags in his hand. I set them on the bed and start going through them.

“I wish, but they were too busy for me. So I went and got us stuff for this weekend.” Colby sets the food down and helps me unload the bags.

“Oh that reminds me, we need to stop by my place after dinner so I can pack my things.” Te whole friend group is renting a log cabin in woods for Thursday to Monday morning for bonding and to get a few collars done. Colby went and got a few road trip snacks without me. Probably because I would get distracted at Target and we would never leave. It’s fine, he remembered to get my favorite snacks.

“Yeah, okay, I figured. We could have gone earlier but I had to let you sleep in after you spent all night watching tiktoks.” Colby walks over to the couch and starts to set up our lunch in front of the tv.

“To be fair, I’m not responsible for the time lost when I’m on the tok. Besides, I learned more dances to teach you!” I take off Colby’s jacket and set it at the foot of the bed before joining Colby on the couch.

“Of course you did. You know how much I love learning a new TikTok dance every day.” Colby jokes before kissing my forehead. He hands me my food and turns on Netflix.

A few minutes into our show, there’s a loud, rapid knock at the door. Annoyed, Colby paused the show and puts his food down.

“What?” Colby asks as he gets up to open the door. Sam stands on the other side, relieved. The last time Sam knocked on the door like that, Colby and I were busy… rearranging furniture.

“Oh Colby, you’re home. But I’m not here for you. Y/N, did you mean to post that on your story?” Colby moves aside to let Sam in.

“Haha, Sammy, I’m not falling for that one. Colby already tried that on me last week.” I go back to eating my food and ignore Sam.

“No, I’m being serious. Katrina said she kept trying to reach you but you’re not answering. Fans are freaking out on twitter.”

“Oh shit!” I quickly put down my food and grab my phone in the bathroom. There are miss calls and texts from Kat, Tara, and Devyn. I unlock my phone and open Instagram to check my story. Sure enough, I accidentally sent one of my selfies to my main story instead of my close friends. The selfie looks harmless enough, except I’m wearing Colby’s jacket and it’s very obvious that I’m in his bathroom. Jake moved in some of the cardboard Colby’s into Colby’s room and one of them faces the mirror, you can kind of see it in the selfie. Most people might think nothing of it, but earlier this week Kat and Tara posted pictures of them wearing Sam and Jake’s jackets. With that association alone, everyone is going to find out.

“I don’t get it, there’s only a selfie on here. Did you already delete it?” Colby yells from the bedroom. I slowly walk out of the bathroom with a confused look on his face.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” I open up my story and check how many people have seen it.

“What, I’m lost… Oh… Oh! Oh, fuck!” Colby finally gets it and does something on his phone.

“‘Oh fuck’ is right. So many people took screenshots that even if I deleted it now, it would be pointless.” I walk to the bed and throw myself facedown, like a teen in a movie after having a shitty day at school.

“And you guys are trending on Twitter,” Sam says. I almost forgot he was still here.

“Dude,” Colby warns.

“Not helpful, I get it. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” Sam leaves the room and I let out a scream as soon as I hear the door close. I feel the spot next to me sink as Colby sits down and starts rubbing my back.

“Hey, Y/N, these aren’t as bad as you think. I’m only seeing positive messaged. Look,” Colby gently pats my back to get my attention.

“Really? Let me see.” I sit up, sniffle, and peek at Colby’s phone as he reads.

“Are you crying?” Colby asks as he wipes my face.

“I immediately got overwhelmed. Let me read the tweets.” I take Colby’s phone scroll through the tweets. He’s right, they’re mostly positive. I haven’t seen a negative tweet yet. That’s the opposite of how I thought this would go. A few people are telling other fans to stop assuming, but even those are calm compared to the fight I saw earlier.

“See, I guess we were stressed all this time for no reason. We can do normal couple things like our friends and not go out of our way to hide everything.”

“That’ll be nice. It was getting exhausting. What do we do now? How do you want to approach this? Live stream? Youtube video?” I look at Colby and he has a big smile on his face.

“Right now, let’s just finish lunch. We can deal with this later. Now, I’m going to take this back. I don’t want you to start crying again.” Colby strokes my hair and kisses my forehead.

“I love you, Colbs,” I say softly.

“I love you too, Y/N.”

[hongnanglen-arina]

The Ulzzang Project - Part 1 | Jeon Wonwoo

Read part 2  

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Genre: Fluff, crack (maybe explicit content in the next chapters)

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x female reader

Warnings: none

Words: 2.6k

A/N: Hello there! Here’s part 1 of my mini series of you and Wonwoo, the next ulzzang stars hahaha :3 I’d be happy to know your thoughts about it. I’m already working on part 2. I might spice it up in the upcoming chapters. If you don’t like that, scream at me and I will stop hehet. So, have fun! And as always, please remember that English isn’t my first language so excuse my grammar ♡

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You sat in Wonwoo’s apartment. It was one of those Saturday nights where you two would order greasy food, have competitive game sessions and cuddle together on his couch or in his huge bed. You’ve known each other ever since your mothers went to driving school together. Both got married to their significant other and soon you two were born, making them joke that you two should end up together when you get older. That didn’t happen obviously. Instead you grew up like siblings, spending nearly all of your free time together, fighting over stupid little things but always making up quickly after. Even studying together, entering the same university and sharing the same group of friends. You two were kind of inseparable. 

“Wait, why is the bucket of fried chicken already empty???” You shot a shocked look at the boy beside you who wasn’t paying attention to you but bobbed his head to the music of the band in the youtube video which was playing on his tv screen, licking his fingers clean to get another slice of pizza. Before taking a bite, he gave you a rather emotionless answer, his face dead ass serious. “Dunno. Maybe we ate it?”

You scoffed at his words. Oh Jeon Wonwoo.

More laughing, more jamming to music and more teasing until you were full, halfway lying on the floor while you talked about the new annoying professor at uni that scolded Dokyeom on his very first day and was on bad terms with him from that day on. 

After a while you cleaned up and started to play Dead or Alive to ‘relieve some stress’. You two had mastered this game for years now, resulting in you and Wonwoo winning and loosing the same amount of times. While you stick to one character, he switched to different ones but even though you two were always close, you would never grow tired of this game and those competitions with him. 

When he left for using the bathroom, you unlocked your phone and scrolled through Instagram, stopping at a specific post of a couple who uploaded a suggestive photo of them without revealing much of their person. You cocked your head to the side and Wonwoo noticed it when he came back. “What are you looking at, y/n?” He sat down beside you and you showed him your phone. “Look, they aren’t doing much and the photo has quite a bad quality - maybe on purpose - but it is still good that I understand why people push the like button. Effortless aesthetic.” 

Wonwoo made an annoyed grimace at your words and you raised an eyebrow. “What?” “Anyone can do that.” “Why do you think that?” Your best friend thought for a moment and pulled out his own phone, unlocking it and going through some apps until he held it in front of the two of you. Before you could ask what he was doing, he got closer to you and took a photo. You noticed that the room was silent. Only some faint noises from outside the window could be heard when he showed the photo to you. It was a photo of you two next to each other but other people wouldn’t recognize you two. The photo showed only your lips, chin, neck and a little bit of your shirt. You looked up at him and saw his grin. Wonwoo moved a little so that it seemed like he was going to kiss you. Slightly panicking, you automatically covered your face, asking him what the hell he was doing when you heard the shutter of his phone once again, signalizing that he took another photo.

The room was quiet when you removed your hands, a soft blush on your cheeks when he turned the screen, giving you a better look of the new photo. Wonwoo used a filter that gave your photo a nice vintage look. Blinking, you were kind of impressed. If you didn’t know better, you would say that it was a photo of a famous ulzzang couple from Instagram. Noticing Wonwoo’s pleased smirk, you hit his chest. “Yah, what was that all about, huh?? You can’t just-“ “I’m going to open a new account. I’m curious how many followers and likes we can get in a month.” 

You had a hard time to follow, squinting your eyes and opening your mouth like a fish without saying anything. He tapped on his phone happily, completely ignoring your confused state. “W-wait, what did you say? What do you mean? A new account? Followers? What?” You tried to have a better look on his screen but he turned around, chuckling a little so that his round glasses slid down the bridge of his nose a bit in the process. “Jeon Wonwoo! Answer!” 

Fighting you off his shoulders, he took his sweet time to do whatever he was doing on his phone and you whined, asking for answers but not getting one at all. Sighing, you gave up after a while, giving his broad back a death glare as you turned around and took your own phone, opening the previous app and pouting while scrolling through the already seen posts. You were facing the other direction, sitting back against back. Hearing Wonwoo chuckle from time to time or giving a thinking noise, he always got your attention but since he never explained what he was doing, you took some selfies, sticking out your tongue and pointing at the boy behind you. After editing it a little more, you uploaded it on your Instagram site with the single word ‘idiot’ and tagged him. Giggling to yourself, you didn’t notice the shuffling noises and the warmth behind you disappearing when Wonwoo literally shoved his phone in your face. Your groan got stuck in your throat when you finally got your answer.

Taking his phone out of his hand, you took a better look. It was a seemingly new Instagram account with one content, zero followers and zero following. Your eyes widen when you click on the only photo in this account. It was you two. The photo from before. You were covering your face while the photo was cut, only showing Wonwoo’s grin against your hands. Your eyes travel lower, silently reading through the hashtags he had added. #cutecouple #shy #ulzzangcouple #saturdaynight and 18 more. It didn’t take long until the first stranger liked your photo and you blinked in disbelief. That’s when you noticed the user icon. It was the sunflower you got Wonwoo when he moved into his apartment. The very first day. You remembered the moment when he stopped you in his door and took a photo of you. Although he cut it, you could still see your hands holding the flowers plus a part of your white dress from that day.

Another notification. Another 3 likes. You turned to Wonwoo, who was awaiting your opinion. Pointing at his phone and the still open app, you asked “Are you serious?” “Totally.” His short remark wasn’t convincing enough and the way Wonwoo continued talking showed you that he understood. “It’s like a little experiment. We take some photos together, upload it and wait. As I said, I’m curious how famous our little site can become. We can delete and close it after a month if you want.”

He watched your face patiently until you met his gaze. “Okay. Fine for me. But I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are we going to upload cute photos only or.. uhm… other photos also?”

“What do you mean with other photos?”

Oh Jeon Wonwoo don’t play dumb, you thought to yourself but lifted your arm, pulling your collar down a bit to reveal more of your neck and collarbone. “This.”

“Sexy?” Wonwoo smirked at you and you rolled your eyes, giving him a hard push so that he rolled onto his back, laughing at your reaction. 

You pouted and crossed your arms in front of your chest in an attempt to distract yourself from the blush on your face. You have seen it often enough. Accounts like that. And you would lie if you say you didn’t like them. Many of them showed their strongly edited faces but some didn’t show their faces at all and you guessed your site would be like the latter. If you are going to include more revealing or suggestive photos, you would care less if no one could see who it actually was. 

That’s how you agreed.

The whole night the two of you brainstormed. You collected ideas for your next photos and had lots of fun with it. Even lying in his bed together, giggling about the most common couple poses and making gagging noises when looking them up. At around 3 am you yawned and Wonwoo put his phone and glasses on the little night stand, opening his arms for you to crawl in as you always did. You just loved to sleep in his arms. It was some kind of habit since you were little. You loved his scent and his warmth and sometimes you even found yourself at your own home unable to fall asleep because he wasn’t there. 

The warm and bright sun woke Wonwoo up. He wanted to turn around and get some more sleep but decided to open one eye instead, noticing that you weren’t there anymore. So he stretched his limbs in all directions and put on his glasses. After grabbing his phone and getting out of bed, he waddled to the living room and found you in the small kitchen corner, humming a song he knew while preparing breakfast - or according to the time on the clock, lunch.

He was about to join you when he stopped in his tracks and unlocked his phone, quickly taking a photo before putting it away again. 

“What is my baby making?”

Facing him, you shot him your infamous death glare. “Baby? Really?”

Wonwoo laughed at your unamused voice and joined you, stopping right behind your small form and looking over your shoulder. “Do you know how I like my omelette?” Snorting loudly, you threatened him with your balled first that he quickly ran to the dining table and took his seat. Like the good and obedient boy that he could be. Sometimes. 

He was silent while you added your finishing touches to the late breakfast but when you started to set everything on the table Wonwoo was waiting at, he took another photo, a smile plastered on his face. "What did I do to deserve you, hm?"

You were about to take the first bite of omelette when you stopped in your tracks, fork just inches away from your lips. "Okay, what's going on, Wonwoo? You are super strange today?"

"Is that a surprise to you?"

"Not really... but today you're super super strange so tell me."

He grinned at you and took a sip of the orange juice. "I'm just happy to be with my baby, that's it."

"There!" You pointed at him with your fork. "What is that all about, huh? Since when am I your baby?? Did I miss out on something last night or what??"

The dark haired boy in front of you chuckled as you tried to squeeze an answer out of him, with no success. Slowly worry crept up your spine. "Wait.. I didn't do anything to you, right? Or, I didn't say anything uh... strange, right? I know we had alcohol but... Wonwoo, tell me." 

You saw him wiggle with his eye brow at you. "What do you wish did happen between us?"

"Yah! Jeon Wonwoo, I- .... I saw you naked more than one hundred times! I know all your secrets! I know you better than you know yourself! I.... I am just not your baby!"

He leaned back, crossing his arms in front of his chest while watching you pout. "Chill. I'm just trying to get into the mood."

"For what?"

"For sexy photos."

"For what?!"

"For s-"

"I heard you!!"

"Then why are you asking?"

The piece of omelette had fallen down from your fork a long time ago and you weren't sure what was more important in this very moment. The only thing that you were sure about was the fact that your cheeks were burning like fire. "I... why the heck do you want sexy photos?!"

"You wanted sexy photos for our experiment and here I am. The bestest friend that has ever existed is willing to take some with you. Shouldn't you feel all giddy or so?"

"Says who?" You mirrored him, crossing your arms as well, trying to remember your exact words from the day before. You thought you did ask about more revealing photos but it was just a question about the content of your shared Instagram, your little experiment or how Wonwoo had called it. You just wanted to be sure. Never have you imagined to take some with him a day later, today.

"Forget it. I'm not going to do that."

"Now I'm sad."

Snorting, you rolled your eyes, sure he said it only to sound funny. 

—

You sat with your friends from uni, poking your lunch with your chopsticks in such boredom that you were more than sure nothing could grab your attention nor lighten up the mood. But you were wrong. Seungkwan hit your shoulder and you were ready to start a fight when he showed you his cellphone screen. "Y/n, what do you think? Yesterday I started a couple Instagram with my girlfriend. It was something I've been thinking about for a while but yeah. How do you find our first post? Pretty nice, huh? We already got 217 likes!"

One chopstick fell out of your hand in surprise but you quickly nodded at your friend. Your own site was a secret. There was no way you would ever tell your friends about it especially if - one day - you would really post less child friendly content. No way. Also, where was Wonwoo?

"W-wow, 217 likes after a day is pretty impressive!"

"To be exact, it's been 20 hours and..... 32 minutes."

"Whatever."

When Seungkwan turned around to the other friends to show them his site, you secretly opened your own with Wonwoo, scrolling through the amount of likes you got until now. That's when you saw the 2 new posts. A photo of you standing in front of the stove, dressed in an oversized white shirt from Wonwoo, bare legs and one from when you set down the food in front of him. Both photos from that morning. Your own face couldn't be seen but they were edited similar like the first post. 

Your eyes flew over the texts Wonwoo had added to each of them.

G'morning baby.

My baby is the best.

Looking around, you quickly made sure that your friends didn't notice what you were doing and you tried to get rid of the warm layer that was covering your cheeks. He wrote baby.

Then you remembered the real reason you opened the app. You wanted to see how many likes you got until now. The newest of the food had 7. The one of you cooking breakfast had 38. And the first one from last saturday had 305 likes. Although you had more than your friend, you wanted the gap to be bigger.

Without noticing, your competitive personality came out. You didn't want to lose to Seungkwan and his girlfriend. Opening Kakao Talk, you wrote Wonwoo a message with a lot of cute shouting emoticons you once bought.

[Y/n] We need more photos - today. I'll be at your place at 7. It's urgent.

⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅

This gif is literally Wonwoo right before he came up with his genius idea lol

[azaffranist]

Frozen 2 deleted/early content

On the road to F2 there were tons of leaks and I saved as many of them as I could in the fear that Disney would delete them (because they loved to shut down whole websites because of that back in the day). As a result I have a lot of pictures saved on my phone and looking back on them... some don’t sound quite right because it’s definitely not what I saw in the movie. So here’s everythinggg I have. I did my best to organize stuff a bit but there are so many things it was... hard. Feel free to add more stuff in reblogs, replies and such!

Something to note is that we won’t take into account the “officially” released deleted content, which would include everything that’s in the Blu-ray, because basically everyone already saw that (Home, I Seek the Truth, Get This Right, Unmeltable Me, the Secret Room scene, Hard Nokks, etc). Generally, we won’t be analyzing deleted scenes from the official trailers, either, because of this very reason. Something “official” that we will consider, though, are the deleted clips animators have been releasing on Instagram and other sites, because those aren’t that popular.

Before starting here’s the link to all the deleted F2 lines I could find as well as some other additions. The post itself has even more links to other posts containing deleted content so have fun clicking on links. 

Last thing to mention, none of the merch photos here are taken by me. I got most of them from the leaks channel of the Arendelle Kingdom server during 2019. If any image in this post belongs to someone here and you want to be credited please let me know and I’ll edit the post.

This post is long. Like really, really, lagging-my-browser-as-I’m-writing-it long. So grab some popcorn and get comfortable or just take a look at what interests you.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

Deleted Artbook Content

One of the most exciting leaks we got were definitely these sample artbook excerpts. None of these pages made it into the final artbook, though.

This piece definitely belongs in Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory, in which the Northuldra leader wasn’t an ordinary man but a shapeshifter.

The biggest picture in this page points to yet another version of Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory. It’s possible to deduce Bruni hadn’t been fully developed yet or created at all since the fire isn’t pink.

The one on the bottom right seems to be an earlier version of the “forest freed” scene in the final movie, or maybe it happened in another moment altogether.

The most interesting of the three, though, is this one. Nothing in the movie points to the existence of a place like this. It’s interesting to note that this peculiar house looks very similar to Iceland’s “elf houses”, tied to the myth of the Huldufólk, “hidden people”, who were said to be small and live in a parallel world, being able to make themselves visible at will.

These are definitely the inhabitants of the Enchanted Lands, who look completely different than in the final movie with their long cloaks, hoods and staves. They look like mages. Were these the very first concepts of the Northuldra, or another group of characters altogether that ended up being scrapped? Only Ahtohallan knows...

Even though the tree and the vegetation illustration is in the book, there’s one missing and that one is the bottom left. One of the most popular theories in the fandom regarding that illustration is that it was an Arendellian military camp tied to the expedition to the Enchanted Lands. I think what we got in the movie is a watered down version of a much more violent and sinister endeavor to invade the Northuldra. The above mentioned deleted scene of the battle of Arendellians agains Northuldrans is proof of that.

This one shows the Arendellian gang and most likely Mattias looking at the walls of a cave with drawings on it depicting the Nokk among other things that I can’t quite make out. I’ve heard people say that an earlier version of F2 involved the gang encountering Mattias in a volcanic cave and that’s where this scene would go, but I don’t know if those are rumors or there’s an actual source. If someone happens to have knowledge on this topic in particular please let me know and I’ll update the post.

_________________________

Incomplete Frozen Fan Fest books and their alternate scenes

As I’ve mentioned in another post, Frozen Fan Fest happened on October 4th, 2019, and it was the official release of the movie’s first merchandise. We were all super excited to look at the storybooks and read the ending!

Except there was no ending and the books ended abruptly right before Olaf’s death, completely skipping over Show Yourself.

You hear that? “Elsa bravely dives into the Dark Sea”. We know the Dark Sea scene was shortened and that’s more proof.

This section of a Frozen 2 storybook explains how it went a bit better. After Elsa was defeated twice by the ferocious waves she climbed up some giant rocks and dove back in. Only Ahtohallan knows how that would be effective in this situation and not a waste of strength, but hey, I’m sure it looked super cool and I’d be down to see it.

”Elsa trudged through terrible winds and thick snow”... um... she didn’t? This might’ve been created when Show Yourself wasn’t a thing yet and her path through Ahtohallan was just that, trudging through terrible winds and snow, and not an inspiring song about self-love and finding yourself. I wonder how that scene would’ve looked.

Maybe we can find something relating to that “unused” section of Ahtohallan in a book called “Anna, Elsa and the Secret River”. Basically Iduna tells them that there’s a secret river out there and after the lullaby Elsa and Anna go nuts and try to look for the river outside. Seems like it was all a shared acid trip because next morning they seriously consider it was a dream.

Maybe here they didn’t realize they were in front of a river, because “Glaciers are rivers of ice” and this is what that Ahtohallan Elsa ventured into originally would’ve looked like? The white river doesn’t know...

This is by far one of my favorite ones. I wouldn’t exactly describe post-Show Yourself as a moment of calm and peace. Maybe peace but definitely not calm. Then it says that the signal meant that “she managed to cross the sea”. That’s a really weird way to describe “horrifying ice statue of colonialist grandpa killing an innocent native man”. I don’t know if they’re hiding the actual plot here of if they hadn’t yet worked out all the details of SY and the moment Elsa found the truth.

Anna has her cloak on as she finds the truth. Readers have no idea what this enlightening truth is because the ice statue is indistinguishable.

As it shows here, the original Iduna being Northuldra reveal was going to happen in a different way. I’m glad we got that final version... Because wow, Elsa and Anna are completely unable to connect the dots here. Anna was smart enough to figure out what to do after receiving Elsa’s message, c’mon! This should’ve been piece of cake...

 Iduna called Elsa “Little Snow”. This points to an alternate All is Found scene and we’ll talk about that more in depth later.

Same scene. Translation is: 

“While tucking the little princesses in, Queen Iduna sang them a lullaby about a far-away river called Ahtohallan, which holds all the answers about the past.

“Does Ahtohallan know why I have powers?” asked Elsa her mother.

“If it exists, it definitely knows that and much more,” answered the Queen.

So in this earlier version, Elsa has always asked herself if Ahtohallan had the answer to her powers... Doesn’t this make Show Yourself work even better? Here she always looked for that answer and she’d learn that she is the answer. I wonder why they took it out because it makes a lot of sense and would give buildup to Show Yourself.

Here what really matters are the squares with text. Olaf never ran through moss or became covered in it. Olaf never looks down a brook to be met by Nokk’s gaze from below. Maybe it’s an alternate When I’m Older?

And relating to that particular piece of merch:

Seems like in an earlier version, the Nokk was associated with waterfalls.

Everyone shut up there’s SWORD ANNA here. Found in a coloring book. I don’t speak Italian but Google Translate says: 

“Anna is a brave one: she does not hesitate to draw her sword to defend her sister Elsa and her friends from any new threat.”

GOOD FOR HER! This is definitely from the version we were shown in the teaser, when Anna wielding an actual sword and slicing someone with it was still a thing. Man, how I wanted that to happen...

_________________________

Alternate fully animated scenes found in animators’ posts

After the release of Frozen 2, animators started to post scenes they had worked on and showing the process behind them. Some of them were deleted, are different in the final movie, or have a completely different score accompanying them.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adam Green (@agreenster) on Apr 6, 2020 at 5:31pm PDT

A completely different dialogue during the boat scene. Pretty heartbreaking and it’s even more buildup for TNRT, when Anna was left by literally everyone she loved in the planet.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Apr 14, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

Apparently, for whatever reason, Gale was going to appear in the castle first.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Mar 29, 2020 at 10:51am PDT

Olaf’s revival was going to be way different, and this implies that his death might’ve been different, too. Maybe his snow just dissipated and didn’t go anywhere? Maybe instead of being neatly placed by a waterfall, it fell all over the Enchanted Lands? I have no idea.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Mar 21, 2020 at 7:11pm PDT

I absolutely LOVE this one, okay, and I have no idea why they’d leave it out. Turn your sound on and listen to the much more tragic alternate score. But more importantly, pay attention when she turns to solid ice: just like in F1 with Anna, her last breath is visible. Beautiful parallels, poetic cinema, and I’m hurt and confused and I want it in the movie. Excuse me while I call the police.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Feb 26, 2020 at 5:47pm PST

Here the only change is the different score as she unfreezes. I love it so much. It’s so tragic, heavy and powerful. You can basically hear the fragility of Elsa’s fate as the ice breaks and she falls. Help. Here, here, and here, you can see other glimpses of this beautiful alternate score. Once again I’m calling the police and telling them Disney hurt my feelings by leaving this out.

I’ve hit the 5 videos limit already, but here is a link to an animation by jdublish. The change isn’t the scene itself but the completely different siren call Elsa hears. Much more ominous and creepy and I also love it, even though I have to admit the final siren call sounds catchier and more iconic. Also, kids under five won’t start crying of fear when they hear it.

Then there were also plenty of changes in the Elsa vs Nokk scene and we got to see one. Thanks to @justlookatthosesausages for pointing this out and letting me use her gif! The original video was set to private for some reason so I can’t post a Youtube link, but this is @justlookatthosesausages‘ gif:

Elsa struggled way more in the original version. Go to her post to see a comparison with the final version.

And now the awaited All is Found alternate scene! Thanks a lot to @lovewillthaw-j who helped me collect all the scenes. 

First two scenes from the trailers: the Official one, Elsa looks up and Iduna gazes at the northern lights.

The Japanese one, in which Iduna kisses Elsa’s hands. @catloafs pointed that out after F2′s release so thanks!

And the last two were found by @antoineharrakblog, so thanks for that! Here and here.

BUT there’s no need to click a bazillion links because @lovewillthaw-j‘s post reconstructs in a single video what the original scene would’ve been like. Go watch it!

UPDATE: Additions by @antoineharrakblog​. Thanks a lot!

Here we can see that originally, as the elements fled and Kristoff held Olaf, he yelled, “Wow, you’re heavy!”. Don’t know why this would be removed. Maybe they wanted to keep the scene serious? Maybe they needed to shorten the movie so that it didn’t exceed 100 minutes and cut little jokes like that?

 And here, showing Elsa seeing how Iduna saved her father, there’s some deleted dialogue: “Get the prince out of here!” “King Runeard, what did you decide?” in addition to a much more tense score in general.

_________________________

UPDATE: Screencaps of deleted/alternate scenes

Thanks a lot to @antoineharrakblog for bringing all of these pictures to my attention! Multiples screencaps have appeared in different magazines or books that clearly didn’t make it to the movie.

Anna never makes that movement in the final movie. There’s more proof of an alternate/extended “Elsa and Anna talk” scene.

This is another one. There exists a lower quality version of this picture which I can’t find right now, but it shows that Anna and Elsa are sharing kransekake in this particular scene (the particular food that we can see at the beginning of OFA).

These are all part of the All is Found scene we’ve been talking about. In the final movie we can see that All is Found serves as a sort of “bridge” between the past and the present, as it transitions from Iduna singing the song to Elsa to Elsa in the castle, reminiscing. But originally, Iduna finished singing All is Found in the past. There’s proof of this here. 

_________________________

UPDATE: Novelization deleted content

This information was provided by @theupsidedownpyramid​ so thanks a lot! There are some really interesting deleted scenes in the novelization.

In this one, Elsa felt the urge to release her magic after hearing the voice at the end of All is Found.

In the novelization Mattias and Yelena’s (or Yelana? Disney will never decide) relationship was a lot deeper than what was shown in the movie.

For more information and a more thorough analysis, read @theupsidedownpyramid​‘s reblog!

_________________________

Miscellaneous

So there’s only one image in this section but believe me, it’s so worth it. 

An animator casually mentioned that there was going to be a head kiss scene. Process it. Can’t? I can’t either.

_________________________

Wow I’m TIRED. I must’ve missed something but that’s all my brain can handle as of now. Thank quarantine for giving me the opportunity to work on this post all day.

Disney committed war crimes when they deleted some of these scenes. I have only one question: Why in the world would they do that? And more information might see the light of day in the future. I’ll never get tired of trying to piece together the convoluted puzzle that is the original Frozen 2.

I will update this post if I remember something else or if someone else has more content to share. Let’s reconstruct F2 together to visualize that movie Disney deemed too cool for us!

UPDATE: Into the Unknown: the Making of Frozen 2 Documentary finally has a concrete release date, June 26th. Let’s hope we can see more stuff then!

[ella-se-vuelve-loca]

Chapter 22

Grand Masterlist

Series Masterlist Surprise! I’m back mis papás fritas! It’s been a while since I’ve posted up a new chapter (or anything new for that matter). Thank you so much for being patient with me. Life these days hasn’t been the best, but I’m finally back in the writing mood and I’m ready to continue this story with y’all! So much is going to happen in our love story and I hope you’re ready for what I’ve got planned! I think I kept you guys waiting long enough, so I hope you enjoy this long awaited chapter of Mistakes Were Made! x

This might need some editing rasgdhfjg lmaooo Previous Chapter

~~

Joel’s P.O.V.

Fuck you, Johann.

Fuck everything. That picture you posted up of (Y/N) on Instagram, your taunting messages, that music video you did throwing me under the bus, your true intentions, our “friendship” - all of it.

I’m done. I have to find a way to gain control again.

Regardless if she’s looked inside the package or not, it doesn’t change anything. She’s still with him even after I poured my heart out to her and apologized. She chose him.

Johann… what did I even see in you? How in the world did we become friends? This whole time… was he just using me for popularity? It’s hard to find real friends these days when all they seem to want from you is your fame.I thought our friendship was real ‘cause it meant a lot to me. I never thought Johann would stab me in the back and pretend to just… wait, this is sounding awfully familiar.

I know how (Y/N) feels because it happened to me. Karma’s a bitch. What I did to her, Johann did to me.

She was different.

She treated me like a normal person and loved me for who I was. And how did I repay her? By being a complete dick and playing with her feelings. I don’t want to let her go, but I need to. I wish I could lose these feelings as fast as I lost you…

I feel like I’m at a tug of war. I want to keep fighting for you and start over, but I can’t. You don’t love me anymore and I need to let you go and move on. My head is telling me to do one thing, while my heart is saying to do another.

I sat up in my bed and ran my fingers through my curls, looking over and saw Chris sleeping peacefully on the other bed beside me. One of his arms was dangling off of the mattress and I could hear him softly snoring. He was the one who was most excited for me about (Y/N) and I let him down. I let everyone down when the truth came up.

I sighed and looked around the room. I need to clear my head.

I got up and reached for my shoes, slipping them on my feet and grabbed my hotel key card. I’ll be back before he wakes up, I’m only leaving for like an hour or so. I walked towards the door and opened it, looking both ways in the hallway before closing it behind me.

I don’t want anybody pestering me about anything right now.

I walked past the closed doors and made my way towards the elevator. I have mixed feelings about going back home. She’ll be there with Johann. He’ll most likely rub it in my face that he’s got her wrapped around his finger and I can’t do anything about it. Why am I the one upset? I don’t have the right to get jealous or cry about what I lost. This is all my fault and I’m paying for the price for it.

The elevator doors opened and I walked inside, pressing the button for the lobby downstairs. Why can’t I get her out of my head? What the fuck is wrong with me? It’s been months, Joel, months!

I reached into my pocket and took out my phone, going straight into my camera roll. I should delete our photos together, shouldn’t I? She doesn’t want me back, so why even keep these memories living in my phone? I’m just reminded of her and what we had. This isn’t healthy.

DING

The elevator doors opened and I walked right out. I went past the lobby and opened the doors to the back, going straight for the lounge outside. I took in a deep breath and sighed, feeling the small breeze hit my face as I was greeted with this beautiful sight.

I made my way to one of the tables and sat down, closing my eyes. I could hear the little splashing of the small waterfall in the background and crickets chirping around me. It’s so peaceful, it almost makes me forget about my problems.

Sending that package was a mistake, I realize that now.

I’ve just been a fool this whole time hoping for something that would never come true. We’re practically at the end of the tour and I feel like everything I did was just a complete waste of time and money. She wants nothing to do with me and I don’t blame her. I heard some people laughing and that made me open my eyes.

I looked over and saw a couple holding hands. He must’ve said something to make the girl laugh and lean into him. A small smile formed onto my lips as my mind thought back to when I first kissed (Y/N).

I had never held someone like this so close to me and feel so comfortable. It just felt so right to hold her in my arms. I looked down at her and slowly lifted her chin up so she could face me properly. My eyes drifted from her own to her mouth. I parted her lips open slightly with my thumb as my hand went to cup her face and glance back up into her eyes.

They look so soft. I wondered what they would feel like.. against mine.

I slowly leaned down and hovered mine over hers, testing to see if this is okay. She didn’t pull away as I stayed there for a moment, hesitating if I should do this.

I wanted to.

She looked like a goddess and I felt like I was in a trance whenever I looked at her. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I couldn’t believe in that moment in time she was mine.

“… Are you.. gonna kiss me or not?” Her voice was so soft that I almost didn’t catch it. It was almost so hard to believe.

I slowly pushed my lips against hers and it felt as if time had stopped and nothing else mattered but her. I moved strands of hair away from her face while she played with my curls, giving them a slight tug and she pulled me in deeper. This feels.. good.. too good. It was like a fire ignited inside my bones and I became addicted to how soft they felt against mine.

When we pulled away, it was as if I came back to reality and remembered where we were. I looked back up at her and smiled. “.. Come back here..” I pulled her in for another kiss and held her body close to mine, smiling against her lips.

Of all things… Why am I remembering this now?

“It’s beautiful out here, no?” I glanced over to my left and saw a woman sitting at another table next to mine. Her wild curly hair slightly covered her face and she held a cup of coffee up to her lips. “Uh.. yeah it is..”

I wasn’t really counting on anybody to be out here this late, much less start a conversation with me. “I’m Gabriella.”

“Joel.”

It stayed silent between us and I couldn’t help but feel a little irritated at the loss of the sweet peacefulness I’ve been craving. “I wasn’t sure if anyone would be up this late.” She chuckled as I nodded. “I couldn’t sleep, boyfriend problems… how about you?”

“Same here… I - I mean, not the.. the boyfriend part. I’m not gay.. not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. I’m just.. uh haha.. I couldn’t sleep. That’s what I meant to say… ” I cleared my throat and continued looking at the view in front of us, avoiding eye contact.

I mentally slapped myself in the face as I thought of how I could’ve said that much better than I did just now. She laughed and shook her head, taking another sip of her cup of coffee. “I see..”

Great, I made it weird. I can’t talk to girls for shit.

I ran my fingers through my hair and felt my face heat up with embarrassment. “My boyfriend and I have been on the rocks lately.” She started off.

“There’s just so many problems and I honestly can’t keep up with it anymore. We’re just about over and I have mixed feelings about it.”

“Wow.. um.. ” I scratched the back of my neck as I tried to think of a good response. “Mixed feelings how?”

“Well, I remember all of the good times we had in the beginning. Love was very easy and laid back. I hold onto those feelings and wish that we could have it once again. I have mixed feelings because I loved him, but it’s time we called it quits. It’s not the same anymore.”

“Huh… wow that’s uh.. It’s kind of heartbreaking.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It is what it is..” She leaned in slightly and moved a strand of her curly hair away from her face.

“So, pretty boy, what’s your reason? Why are you up this late sitting all alone by yourself? You doing okay?”

Pretty boy?

I nodded and cleared my throat. “Never better.”

“Okay, I don’t know you, but even I could tell that was a lie.” She chuckled. “What gave it away?” I asked.

“Maybe it was your slightly sulking face and the reason why you won’t really make eye contact whenever you answer.”

“I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a body language reader. My bad.” I chuckled and glanced up at her. “Hey, it’s not my fault I’m really good at what I do. Maybe you just suck at hiding the way how you feel.”

“Yeah, you got that right.” I sadly smiled and looked back at the waterfall in front of us. “And besides, can’t a guy just sit out here and enjoy the scenery?” I joked. “He can, but you look like you got a shit ton on your mind.”

“Is it really that obvious?” I asked as she slowly nodded, looking down at her phone for a second when she got a text message. I played with the rings on my fingers and thought how I should answer her question. “... Is it a girl?” I bit my bottom lip and nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

“You know… sometimes it’s better to talk to someone you don’t know rather than family and friends. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, I was just curious.” I nodded and let out a soft sigh.

“No it’s just… I’m just thinking about something that happened in the past, is all. Something I wish I could’ve done differently.”

She nodded and stayed silent, wondering if I’m going to elaborate on the story more. “I messed up and I just want to make things right, but… ” I shrugged my shoulders and pouted. “She’s done with me and I think it’s time for me to move on.. “

I’ve never actually said those words out loud before until now.

I cleared my throat and looked up at her. “So that’s my sob story. That’s why I’m all… sulky.” I chuckled and tried to think of a way to change the subject.

“Anyways, that’s pretty much it. I just needed a moment to think about everything.” She nodded her head and played with a strand of her curly hair.

“I understand… I guess we haven’t exactly been the luckiest with love, have we?”

“No we have not.”

I glanced down at my phone and sighed. “Shit..”

“What’s wrong?” She asked. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize the time. My friends and I gotta pack up and be somewhere in a couple hours.”

“Oh, alright then.” She smiled. “I’m real sorry to have to cut this conversation short.” She chuckled and looked up at me. “Don’t worry about it, Joel. I had fun.” I stood up from my seat and grabbed my phone. “It was nice talking to you.”

I started walking towards the door before I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning me around. “Um.. haha I know this probably sounds crazy and I get it if you don’t want to, but is there a way we can keep in touch? I just.. It was nice getting to talk to someone who is really sweet.”

“Uhh yeah.. sure. Do you have Twitter?” She nodded and took out her phone, going straight to the app and opening up her search bar. I did the same as we had both now followed each other.

“Okay, now we can message through here anytime.” I smiled. I looked down at the time once more and cleared my throat. “I’m really sorry, but I really gotta get going.”

“Alright, Joel. It was nice meeting you.”

“It was nice meeting you too.” I nodded her way before walking back inside, going straight towards the elevator and up to my room. As much as I wanted to be alone, I actually didn’t mind her company all that much. She seemed really nice.

Gabriella’s P.O.V.

I waited until he was gone to take out my phone and go straight to my text messages.

‘You could’ve waited until I messaged you first. I was busy’

‘Sorry. I just needed to know’

‘I just “bumped” into him at the hotel he’s staying at’

I waited a few minutes before I received his reply.

‘Good. You know what to do’

‘Okay, forgive me for this, but I don’t get it. I just spent time with the man and I don’t understand why you dislike him so much. He seems like a great guy’

‘I already told you. I want him gone. Do what I’m paying you for and I promise, once my name is everywhere and people talk about me, I’ll make you a star. By you being with him is gonna help you get what you want, trust me. It’s what I did, now look at me. People know who I am because of him’

I shook my head and sighed. I kind of feel guilty about this, but I really need the money…

‘Fine. Whatever you wish, Johann’

Next Chapter

~~

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If I forgot anyone, please let me know! 💛

[cr0wprince]

Now I’m afraid my name might be brought up though. I did some shitty things with her when we were friends. It’s been five to almost seven years (five since the last time I spoke to her and almost seven since I met her). I was 17-18 in the time I knew her and I’m very easily influenced by the people around me, but I’m ultimately responsible for my actions. I saw another ex-friend of hers brought up (not by name) and now I’m kind of scared.

I’m gonna be a little vague and my memory isn’t the best (I try to block things out as a defense mechanism), but I’m going to try to recount it, just for my own benefit. I’m not even going to name her, but will refer to her as LR. I don’t think anyone cares tbh lmao

I met her in 2014. It was probably February or March, so I was 17. We were both cosplaying Attack on Titan, very big at the time. Someone posted in a con Facebook group that they made a cosplay group for the area/con for Attack on Titan. I only had my jeans, shirt, jacket (that I made), wig, and glasses for Hanji at that time and I posted a picture, “I’m not too confident in how I look, but here’s my cosplay.” and she commented that it was a good cosplay. We went from there, started chatting, and made plans to meet at the con. She was 19 at the time, of it really matters, but we were still age appropriate friends.

The con comes by. I didn’t wear Attack on Titan the first day, felt kind of left out when we started meeting other people from the group. She’s always been a social butterfly (I think it’s an attention thing more than she actually enjoys it tbh, but I might be biased??) and I’ve been really shy about approaching people after being bullied in middle school. The next two days I wore my unfinished SNK cosplay, didn’t have the belts, but had a fun time.

She ran a panel and promised that I could be Hanji in it and let someone else be Hanji as well, and this person got more attention because she was more outgoing, which kind of bummed me out, but at 17, I was a very jealous cosplayer and would get jealous about people cosplaying the same thing as me. Not a healthy mindset, but it is what it is and you grow from it.

She had told me she was in pre-med (I’m going to remind you she’s 19 at this point, not unusual but it’s what she tells me next which is the questionable part) and that she’s going to start on the medical stuff the next year. I’m 17 and naive and don’t question it. I know now pre-med takes four years. This is an example of her lying to me/holding things in.

We continued being friends with the SNK group, had meetups at a local park, and whatever. She lamented to me about not being able to go to Colossalcon because she couldn’t afford it or something and my parents pay for cons, so I talked them into letting her stay with us. I had started cosplaying Ymir to her Christa and I did have a cry privately to LR when another girl cosplayed Ymir to another girl’s Christa because the other Christa felt left out by me being LR’s Ymir. I felt jealous they got more attention, again, not a healthy mindset, but I was 17 and convinced I was going to be a professional cosplayer. I know now it’s a bad mindset. LR took my meltdown the wrong way, which I’ll get to later.

It wasn’t long after, maybe a couple months. She had stopped hanging out with the friend I had met her with at the con, which I realize now is kind of sus, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But anyway, a couple months later at most, she makes a post in the Facebook group that she’s been feeling left out of the SNK group. A few people from it got together to talk about it, she finds out, and I get pissed. I make a big post in the group about how they’re purposely leaving her out. I’m loyal to a fault, and sometimes it blinds me. It splits the group, they still keep together, but LR and I separate from them.

We move on to different series and start doing cosplay photos. It’s something I wanted to do for a while. She’s a little hesitant, but I hype it up and she eventually gets into it. At Otakon, she asks mentions if I’d be okay with her cosplaying Juvia (a big comfort character of mine, and one I’d failed to finish a cosplay of that con, but I’d gotten Levy done, which still worked with her Lucy) and I’m thrown off guard. I tell her no lmao. I mean really though, what would I do? But it’s important later.

I have big plans. I don’t always finish my big plans. I want to do a ton of different cosplays and she feeds into me. She finishes things while I normally don’t. I realize I shouldn’t have agreed to do so many, but also, the one’s she made aren’t unwearable? She can cosplay without me matching? But it’s something she internalizes.

We book lots of shoots. It’s fun! We don’t get the most expensive photographers (we’re 18 and 20 at the time) but it’s fun. There’s a particular photographer I wanted to work with and she books her since she’s dealing with it at this point since I have a lot of anxiety talking to people. By the time the con rolls around, my costume didn’t work out the way I wanted and my skirt is held up with safety pins. It shows in the photos, so does her back acne. She goes on a tangent on her Facebook cosplay page about how unprofessional the photographer is, how she doesn’t edit photos for anyone but her friends. I, unfortunately, share it. At that time, neither of us have a big following (I still don’t, she doesn’t really either, only 3,700 after she remade, but did have almost 10k at one point), so it doesn’t go far. The photographer and friends stick up for the photographer and it doesn’t go anywhere luckily.

I’m falling deeper into depression at this point. I’m not finishing projects I’m supposed to do with her, messages are spotty on my end. We still do a couple of cons together. The next con of the first we met at comes around, I don’t have anything done, I’m mortified. I skip a whole day. It’s in driving distance so it’s not like I was wasting a whole hotel day. She gets photos solo. It seems fine.

She messages me one day that her parents kicked her out. Something about a fight over her mom saying minimum wage workers don’t work as hard and LR snapping back. Her parents were really nice the couple of times I met them, which isn’t always indicative of how someone really is, but now I feel in my gut that there had to be something more. It feels like petty reason. She moves into her grandparents (and further selfies match that, so it seems like it had to be bad if she never went back). She messages me this and I’m thrown so off guard. Yeah, we called each other best friends. We didn’t talk to many other people as far as I knew at that point, but I had no idea what to say. It’s bad on my part, but I didn’t answer her for a week.

She didn’t message me or anything, didn’t delete me off Facebook, but vague posted me there about being there for people when they won’t be there for you, and people were hyping her up. I realized it might’ve been about me. I called her crying, terrified. Sent her messages. I don’t exactly remember what transpired, but did make up.

There was a point she told me she was dropping pre-med to become an accountant because it took a year and she wanted to focus on cosplay. Again, stupid 18yo me believed that that made sense and was like, “Oh okay!”

We went to a couple more cons, I’m pretty sure she was using me. We make plans for Youmacon, but I don’t message her for like a week in September of 2015. She asks if I’m okay (the only time) I tell her I’m doing really bad. We don’t talk until close to the con. I admit to her that I was thinking of admitting myself to the psych ward it was that bad, but though I didn’t tell her that, it’s ultimately a very hard, very personal choice. (I made it in May and it’s not an easy choice.) She tears me a new one, saying I should’ve went, that I was using her for companionship. She said she had plans to go to another con?? So the way I see it, she cared more about going to a con than anything else. She never checked in on me after I told her I was doing bad, just to take my time.

She has a new bff at this point. This is going to be so cruel, but her new friend isn’t as put together, which is fine! Cosplay is for fun! But I mention this because they get photos together. After my obsession with becoming a professional cosplayer, LR got into that mindset too. I’m so fucking sure that she used this other girl in photos to look better next to. The difference is so obvious in photos.

I make a cosplay that LR cosplayed when we were friends. I’m so proud. I haven’t finished anything in months. I cosplay a couple of things she did, but we were friends at one point, we like the same series, and there are a lot of big series. It’s bound to happen.

She vagues me on Instagram. She continues to stalk me on there (and I did her, not proud of it, but I’ll admit it). She posts things about how an ex friend had a breakdown over her having other friends (when I confided in her my jealousy over the Ymir/Christa duo), how I wouldn’t let her cosplay Juvia lmao (this still gets me. What would I do? Break your arm? You asked me on the spot and I was uncomfortable.). There was one Juvia cosplay post that I mentioned I had lost weight because while my uncle was dying, I wasn’t eating. I was helping with cleaning his house and I just wasn’t fucking eating. She took that as a jab about her because she has self image issues. There was also a big post she made how she KNEW I was cosplaying all the same things as her to make her jealous and to make her insecure, mentioning me by name even. I reported it and it got taken down.

I’d heard things through the grapevine. How she started shit in the Fate community and she was afraid of being beat up at Katsucon’s public photoshoot. How she tried to make a Love Live group, but when two girls couldn’t afford it and they would no longer have all nine, she threw a fit and cancelled the whole group. I’d also heard about her making a fuss over photos she got back when a cosplayer’s grandparent was dying. I stayed away after like a year, but a couple of people who knew me that knew I was friends with her would tell me things.

I wasn’t the best person, either. I’ll take responsibility for that. I wish I could apologize to the people I hurt while friends with her, but I no longer remember their names. I was a dumb teenager. I still get swept up in the people around me and get carried away when the people I are about are hurt. Maybe it’s something I need to work on. But, I ultimately don’t think she’s grown. I don’t think she’s gotten better. I think she’s only gotten worse over the year.

I’m not proofreading. There might be more, but it was a lot to go through, but I wanted to get it out. I hope the read more works, but I’m gonna throw on a long post warning too. If you read this, thank you, by the way. I just felt like I had to get it out.

[dylshoney]

just a crush｛part two｝

a/n: I got so many requests to do a part two, thank you so much to everyone that enjoyed the first one! more to come soon, if you want to be added to the tag list, to be notified whenever a new part comes out, lmk!

warnings: none

You ran through the crowd, your heart beating out of your chest as you grinned widely. You rushed to the platform Andrew had pointed out to you, showing the security guard your pass and climbing down the steps into the pit right in front of the stage.

 Your eyes widened at how well you could see everything, your hands shaking slightly as you adjusted the settings on your camera, ensuring that everything was perfect for ShowTime.

 You gripped your camera tighter, bringing it up to your eyes and beginning to move around as you looked for the best possible angles. You smiled, you were going to take the best damn pictures that boy had seen in his life and prove to him that you deserved this job.

 The lights began to flash, your smile widening as the entire stadium began to scream. You adjusted your lens for a second – your breath catching in your throat as you watched the gorgeous laughing boy run on stage.

 You couldn’t resist watching him for a second – almost forgetting what you were supposed to do – the smile on his face capturing your attention. You blinked, immediately straightening up, trying to snap the best possible shots of his entrance.

 You felt shivers form all over your skin as he began strumming his guitar, the opening notes to ‘There’s nothing holding me back’ filling the room. You couldn’t resist lightly humming along as you moved about in the free space.

 The songs seemed to change rapidly, the concert flying by in a whirlwind of emotions, stunning performances and endless clicks of your camera.

 You were covered in sweat by the end of it, your feet hurting and your throat sore – but you didn’t mind it one bit, you enjoyed every second.

 Watching Shawn get off the stage was a revolutionary experience for you, your heart pounding as you realized that this was now your reality. You would get to see him do this every night.

 “Y/n!” Andrew’s excited shout snapped you out of your thoughts as he beckoned you closer. You tried to ignore the overwhelming shouts of the fans, mostly asking who you were and where Adam, the previous photographer, was.

 “Hey,” you smiled once you reached him.

 “Such a thrill huh?” He asked, noticing the star-struck look on your face. You couldn’t help but nod, your mind still reeling from the adrenaline of watching one of your idols perform.

 “Come on backstage – I’d like it if you got a few pictures during the meet and greets.”

 You followed him through the dark passages, your fingers tightly wrapped around your camera, your ears still pounding from the aftershock of being so close to the speakers.

 “You can wait in here if you want,” Andrew said, taking you into a large area where you recognized some of the crew setting up, “Shawn should be out in a half hour.”

 “Okay, thank you,” you smiled, walking over to one of the couches where you saw Annie, Shawn’s hairstylist, sitting.

 “Hi,” you sat next to her, your camera placed in your lap as she faced you with a smile, “Don’t you look pretty,” she winked, her eyes trailing over your form. 

You blushed, averting your gaze, “I’m sweating like a pig.”

 She laughed loudly, “Perks of chasing Shawn.”

 You nodded, “He just – has so much energy.”

 “You should see him before shows though,” she smiled, “Bit of an emotional wreck.”

 “Huh?” You tilted your head, staring at her in confusion.

 “He just has a bit of anxiety before every performance, something about wanting to make it memorable for people.”

 You were silent as she continued, “If you ask me, he’s putting way too much pressure on himself. People are going to love him no matter what – it’s inevitable.”

 You couldn’t help but agree. There was something about Shawn that made everyone naturally flock to him – his presence was addicting to be around, you realized – your mind replaying some key moments from the show.

 “Hey,” a friendly voice spoke, your head turning to the left to see Charlie, Shawn’s opening act smiling down at you.

 “H – Hi – ”you spluttered, immediately standing up and taking his outstretched hand.

 “I’m Charlie,” he nodded once you pulled away.

 “Y/n. It’s great to meet you.”

 He smiled, “You as well. It’s nice to finally see the young photographer in person.”

 You bit your lip, “Uh – ”

 “Don’t take it the wrong way,” his grin was genuine, “You’re just a lot younger than Adam.”

 “Yeah,” you blushed, suddenly very interested in your shoes.

 “Shawn said you were eighteen,” he asked, your head perking up at his words. Shawn mentioned you? Your gut plummeted as fast as it rose – what if he talked about how awkward your first interaction was?

 You could feel your cheeks heat up involuntarily, “Unfortunately.”

 He smiled, confusion lacing his features, “Unfortunately?”

 “I’m only legal to drink in Europe,” you shrugged, “And I only happened to miss that part of the tour.”

 You grinned as he began laughing, a pretty smile coating his features, “You’re a big partier, I take it?”

 You shook your head, “No idea. Would have been nice to figure it out though.”

 That only made him laugh harder, your chest swelling in happiness as you realized you might have just made your first friend on tour.

 “You excited for the meet and greet?” You asked as the two of you adjusted your positions, moving to sit down on the couch.

 He nodded, his smile fading a bit as he whispered, “Bit nervous, to be honest.”

 “How come?”

 Charlie shrugged, “Don’t get me wrong, fans are like the best thing in my life,” you silently melted at his words, “But it’s just so nerve-wracking to actually see them all in person. I’m worried I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

 You shook your head, “That’s literally impossible. And even if you do – it’ll only make them love you more.”

 He smiled making you continue, “Seriously! They’ll probably find the whole flustered nervous thing cute. Girls are digging the soft boy look these days.”

 He snorted, “Soft boy?”

 “What?” You look back at him in shock, “Have you opened twitter recently? It’s all people are talking about.

 “I’ve never heard of it.”

 “I’m shocked – Shawn’s basically the epitome of soft.”

 “What would it take to make someone hard?”

 You paused for a moment, a teasing grin on your face as he began to realize his words, “I – uh – I meant –”

 “I know what you meant,” you covered your mouth to hide the laughter that was threatening to burst out of you, “Don’t worry.”

“See!” He groaned, ��I just made a fool of myself now!”

“No, you made me laugh - there’s a difference,” you smiled, trying to control your giggle.

“Maybe I should rehearse what I’m going to say?”

You shook your head, “They’re going to see right through that, you need to be genuine. Don’t worry, it’ll be amazing, I promise.”

 He nodded, still unconvinced, his eyes traveling to look at something behind you. His gaze returned to you abruptly, “I gotta go – fans are about to start coming in – I’ll talk to you later?”

 You nodded, smiling at him and sending a thumbs up, “Relax, you’ll do great!”

 He placed a hand on his heart teasingly before mouthing a quick thank you and disappearing from behind one of the black curtains – which you guessed would provide the backdrop for the photos.

 You watched the camera crew enter the space – setting up their equipment in record time. They were the real photographer’s whose photos were meant to all look the same – clean-cut and professional. It was their website that would be selling all the meet and greet photos later.

 You were almost jealous of them for a second – their job seemed almost perfect. All they had to do was set up the tripod in a position and tell Shawn and the fans how to pose. You, on the other hand, were tasked with a bit more creative task. It was your job to take pictures of the photo- ops from different angles, playing around with the lighting and posing to make everything look candid yet professional. You knew that you would definitely be up half the night editing whatever photos Andrew approved – which would later get sent to Shawn – giving him something to post on his Instagram.

  He seemed to enjoy the aesthetic shots, you noticed once when you were stalking his profile, before you had even gotten the job. He loved black and white – the backstage pictures – the ones with raw emotion, unaware that a camera was on him.

 That was probably why you were chosen to be his photographer; it was your exceptional skill to catch people in their most raw, beautiful, unfiltered form. It was your favorite thing to see someone through the lens and snap a photo – capturing the essence of a special moment, and saving it forever.

 You snapped out of your thoughts as Annie tapped you on the arm. You were quick to stand up and follow the older girl to the middle of the room, where the barricade was set up.

 “Annie!” You spun around at the sound of the breathless voice, your eyes practically jumping out of their sockets as Shawn walked over to her, his cheeks red and hair still wet – presumably from the shower he had just taken.

 “Sit,” Annie’s voice was rushed as she led him to the table where some of her products were scattered, “You should have been here fifteen minutes ago.”

 He coughed, his eyes trailing up to look at you through the mirror. You blushed at the intensity of his gaze, immediately looking away from him and to your feet.

 “Shawn,” Annie groaned, not happy that he was ignoring her.

 “Sorry,” his voice was hoarse.

 “You can’t keep doing this, people have been waiting for over an hour,” Annie’s voice was lost as she turned on the hairdryer, beginning to style Shawn’s hair. You sighed before looking back up to see Shawn already focused on you, he didn’t seem embarrassed to be caught staring – in fact, a small smile adorned his lips.

 You could feel your cheeks catch fire as you attempted to smile back, before stepping away and turning around, as you pretended to fiddle with your camera.

 “Shawn!” Andrew’s hurried tone snapped everyone’s attention to him, “We’re letting everyone in – in ten minutes.”

 Shawn nodded in response, shutting his eyes as he slowly ran a hand through his freshly dried hair. You could feel your breath catch in your throat as you watched him, transfixed on the way his long fingers moved through the locks. You found yourself wondering how soft his hair was, what it would feel like to run your fingers through it.

 “Y/n,” you felt a hand lightly touch your back as you turned to face the sound, Charlie’s grinning face staring down at you, “Could you snap a picture of me with these roses?”

 You didn’t hesitate to nod, “Course, where do you wanna do it?”

 You were happy for the distraction, your mind momentarily forgetting Shawn and the way his eyes on you made you feel.

 “Place them to your nose,” you giggled as you watched Charlie mess around in front of the painted brick wall you had chosen for your backdrop.

 You watched him obey you, his face growing serious as he posed, in what you assumed was supposed to be sexy.

 “You look like you want to eat the camera,” you laughed, as you began snapping pictures, your words brought a small chuckle out of him – his eyes shutting and a wide grin adorning his face. You snapped the picture without a second thought, bringing your camera away from your face to look at the finished product.

 You smiled as your eyes settled on the last picture, he looked genuinely happy, “This one’s –”

 “Perfect.”

 Your words caught in your throat, your body tensing as you recognized the voice that had spoken behind you. You were quick to turn around, your eyes widening as they focused on the larger figure, “I – thank you.”

 He smiled, his eyes not leaving yours as he extended his hand, taking your camera.

 “I have to say I’m a bit jealous,” he spoke, beginning to look through the photos you had snapped of Charlie, “I thought you were my photographer.”

 You swallowed, “I – uh,”

 “C’mon Mendes,” Charlie laughed, walking up to stand next to you, “I had to take advantage of all this talent.”

 You blushed as he turned his head to wink at you, before walking away – presumably to place the roses back where he found them. Shawn seemed to not have heard his words, either that or he was ignoring them – his mouth was opened slightly, eyes narrowed as he brought the camera closer to examine whatever photo he was looking at.

 You could feel your heart drop into your stomach at the look on his face, you couldn’t recognize if it was good or bad, “I uh – didn’t know what kind of angles you like – so I kinda tried all of them. If you don’t like it I can –”

 You cut yourself off as his gaze snapped up to yours, an unreadable expression on his face, “These pictures are stunning.”

 You blinked, your mind registering his words as an involuntarily grin escaped you, “Thank you.”

 He stepped closer to you, coming to stand to your left. He brought the camera between you, leaning closer so he could show you, “This one – it’s – just wow.”

 He stuttered for a moment, your mind blanking as his arm grazed yours, “H –how did you do this?”

 “The highlight on you?” You tilted your head as your eyes left the camera and traveled to his face. He nodded, running his tongue over his lips as he looked back at you.

 “I – I,” you swallowed, trying to calm your breaths, “I followed the pattern of lights, waiting for the right one.”

 He chuckled, “You make it sound easy.”

 “It was,” you shrugged, a surge of confidence waving through you at the sensation of his eyes trained solely on you, “I had a good subject.”

 He laughed again, his eyes crinkling as he straightened up, leaning away from you, “I suppose you did,” his eyes traveled behind you, nodding at something, “I should go.”

 You nodded, taking your camera back. He turned back to you for a second, “I wanted to apologize again, I’m sorry for mistaking you as a fan.”

 “No worries,” you shook your head, “And I didn’t lie. I am a fan – you weren’t too far off.”

 You bit your lip at the look on his face, his head tilted down as a sheepish expression spread over him, color filling his already rosy cheeks.

 “That – uh- means a lot, thank you.” He said, eyes not meeting yours. You tilted your head with a smile, confused at his sudden shyness. You were tempted to ask him about it, but when your eyes locked on a frazzled Andrew you sighed, “You should head to the curtain – Andrew doesn’t look too pleased.”

 He nodded, turning his head to look at Andrew before quickly looking back at you, “Where will you be?”

 You blinked, taken aback by the question, a small smile spreading over you, “Around,” you winked, bringing up your camera, “Now go have fun – I like pictures with you smiling in them.”

 He smiled, dipping his head; “I’ll see you later?”

 You nodded, “Later.”

 You watched him walk away, his body disappearing behind the black curtain. Holy shit. You released a shaky breath, why the hell would you tell him you liked pictures of him smiling? You shut your eyes for a moment, you probably sounded like a psycho. He didn’t care what kind of pictures you liked, only that you took them.

 You bit your lip as you walked to stand behind the large camera, you adjusted your camera for a moment – trying to forget your embarrassment and calm your breathing.

 “Y/n?” You looked over at Andrew, “Don’t worry about taking pictures of everyone he meets, just try to find a few good angles and then you can go get food – you’ve done amazing today.”

 You couldn’t resist the smile, “Thank you, Andrew.”

 “Anytime,” he nodded, “Shawn just told me about the pictures he saw. I’ve never seen him that impressed with anything.”

 You tiled your head, your eyes widening, as Andrew continued, “He seems really happy with you, you don’t know how much that means to me – after Adam … ”

 You were tempted to ask what had happened with the mysterious Adam, but you knew better than to pry in things that didn’t concern you.

 “That’s – I’m – That means a lot,” you finally managed to say.

 He smiled, his eyes traveling to the opening doors to your left, a line of screaming on the outside as the first one walked inside. You smiled at the crying girl, she looked to be a lot younger than you, her wide eyes taking everything in.

 You brought your camera up to your eyes, the lens trained on her. Your breath caught in your throat at the expression on her face as she laid her eyes on Shawn for the first time as he walked out from behind the curtain.

 You snapped the picture, watching her walk up and practically jump in his arms, shaking as he hugged her. He said something in her ear that made her cry harder, your camera snapping another picture of the emotional exchange.

 She separated from him, his face flushed as they stood side by side. He put a hand over her shoulder as they both put up a peace sign. You narrowed your eyes at his close-mouthed smile – a guarded look on his face, bringing your camera down to get a closer look at him.

 The second your camera was no longer obstructing your face, his eyes found yours, widening as he saw how close you were. He looked at your camera for a second, before a wide – exaggerated grin spread over his face, winking at the change in your expression.

 You rolled your eyes with a grin, bringing your camera up to snap another picture, happy that this time he was smiling – even if it was only for your sake.

*

Later that night you were up past two am, which was strictly against Andrew’s orders. He had informed everyone that you were to get up early the next morning so that Shawn could participate in some of the interviews in Vancouver, the next stop on the tour.

 You rubbed your eyes as you shut your laptop and took it off your lap. You had been editing for the past few hours, even though Andrew told you that the pictures didn’t need to be done so soon.

 You were a perfectionist, however, and wanted Shawn to post the pictures of Portland while still in Portland. There was something about seeing your images lining his feed that made you work harder than ever.

 You yawned, sitting up in your bunk before quietly jumping out of it. You hazily walked through the bunks, heading toward the kitchen.

 You looked up at the curtain that separated the bunks from the living area, your eyes widening at the flashing lights that peaked through. You were tempted to turn back and head to your bunk, but your throat was far too dry to go to bed.

 Your hand grabbed the curtain before you could talk yourself out of leaving and opened it, your eyes flickering as they tried to adjust to the brightness of the room.

 Your gaze focused on a figure that was lying on the couch, watching what you recognized as ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’.

 “Shawn?” You said softly.

 He flinched at the sound of your voice, “Y/n?” He sat up quickly on the sofa, turning so he could look at you, a small smile on his face, “What are you doing up?”

 You grabbed a glass out of one of the cupboards, filling it with water and leaning on the counter as you watched him, “Was editing some pictures, you?”

 “Couldn’t sleep,” He shrugged, his smile fading as he looked down.

 “Everything okay?”

 He cleared his throat, “Yeah – I just – I miss home, I guess.”

 You felt an unrecognizable emotion rock through you as you listened to him, “I love touring, don’t get me wrong, I just – ” He trailed off, fidgeting with the frayed edges of his blanket.

 You bit your lip, trying to think of something to say, “I understand. I’ve been gone for barely two days and I’m already homesick.”

 He chuckled, the sound surprising him as he swung his feet off the bed, moving the blanket as he looked at you with a smile, “You wanna sit?”

 “Sure, thanks,” you sat on the couch, placing your cup on the coffee table as you faced the TV, unsure what to say next.

 “Harry Potter huh?” You regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth, but Shawn didn’t seem to notice, his face lighting up, “Yeah – have you seen it?”

 “I went through a pretty intense Harry Potter phase, I think I’ve seen all the movies about fifty times each.”

 He began to smile even wider, “Which one’s your favorite?”

 “Oh my God.” You groaned, “There’s no way I can choose.”

 “Good answer.”

 You grinned, turning your body so you were facing him completely, “What’s your house?”

 “Gryffindor,” he said without hesitation.

 “Really? I would have guessed Hufflepuff.”

 He groaned, “Oh God, that’s what everyone says.”

 “What’s wrong with Hufflepuff?”

 “Nothing – just a bit boring is all.”

 Your smile faded as you gasped, “You did not just say that.”

 “What are you gonna do about it, eh?” He winked, but you were far too insulted to think about it right then, “Don’t tell me you’re also one of those people that thinks all Slytherins are evil.”

 “Guilty,” he shrugged.

 “That’s the worst kind of fan!”

 “What do you mean?”

 “You only like Gryffindor cause that’s the main character’s house.”

 “What’s your house then?” Shawn smirked, leaning closer to you, his leg brushing yours.

 “Hufflepuff.”

 He blinked, straightening up, as he looked over at you, “No way.”

 “What?” You smiled, brushing your hair behind your ear.

 “Didn’t peg you as the type.”

 You smirked, “Not boring enough for you?”

 “W- What? No!” He shook his head, “Now you’re making me sound like an asshole!”

 “Hufflepuff haters are assholes.”

 “I’m not a Hufflepuff hater!” He gasped, placing his hand on his heart in mock hurt.

 You hummed, a teasing smile on your face as he pouted next to you.

 “I’m not,” he mumbled again, making you start giggling softly, covering your face as you turned away from him.

 You heard him huff, before the sofa dipped as he began adjusting himself, stretching his legs until they were practically on your lap.

 “Excuse me,” you gestured to his legs, your eyebrows raised.

 “I’m not gonna sit here and let you call me a Hufflepuff hater – that’s – it’s unacceptable.”

 “So why – ?” You laughed, pointing to his legs as a cheeky smile spread across his face.

 “I’m going to pretend you’re not here and enjoy my movie.”

 You gasped – it sounded like a mix between a laugh and like you were chocking – and lightly nudged his shoulder. This only made him laugh, and begin moving around until his legs were completely on your lap.

 “Wow,” you crossed your arms, sinking back into the couch, but making no move to remove his legs from you.

 You were both silent for a few minutes – your mind focused on Hermione getting petrified, until you felt a nudge on your shoulder again, making you turn and face Shawn.

 “Why are you a Hufflepuff?”

 You opened your mouth, confusion lacing your features, “What?”

 “Like – what characteristics make you a Hufflepuff?”

 “Oh,” you paused for a moment, never before answering that question, “I guess I’m loyal and friendly – that’s probably it, but my friends say that I could be a Slytherin as well, so I guess it depends.”

 He didn’t respond, processing your words for a few moments before a small smile spread over his face, “So you’re kind but evil?”

 You groaned again, “Stop saying that they’re evil!”

 He raised his hands in mock surrender, “They all served Voldemort!”

 “Most of them were too young to know better!”

 He shook his head with a smile, obviously enjoying getting a rise out of you, “Not too sure about that.”

 You rolled your eyes, “They’re cunning and ambitious – doesn’t sound evil to me.”

 “You don’t need to defend the fact that you’re half evil, y/n.” He laughed, throwing his head back, “I’m not going to fire you.”

 “You don’t get to decide that,” you winked, “I technically work for Andrew.”

 He gasped, his face immediately serious, as he pretended to be offended, “Ouch.”

 “Shush,” you nudged his shoulder, “You thought I was a fan – I’m glad you don’t control my paycheck.”

 “Hey,” he groaned, “I thought we were over that.”

 You laughed, “We are, doesn’t change the fact that Andrew treats me better.”

 “I’m letting you watch Harry Potter with me!”

 “You’re insulting my house!” Your laughter was growing, and soon it was getting hard to breath, you were practically hiccupping as you tried to contain your breaths.

 It took you a minute to realize that Shawn was no longer laughing but was instead watching you with a small smile on his face.

 You tried to contain your giggles, holding your stomach as it was beginning to cramp, “What?”

 “Nothing,” He shook his head, the grin never leaving his face, “Just good to have a friend I can talk to about Harry Potter.”

 You calmed down at his words, your mouth set in a small o, “I agree.”

 You turned back to the TV screen, hoping that he didn’t recognize the color in your cheeks, pretending to watch the movie.

 “Y/n?” He asked after a few seconds, making you hum in response.

 “Our next show is in Vancouver and I haven’t been skating in forever.”

 You nodded, looking at him, a bit confused as to where he was going with this, “And I really want to go – but Andrew isn’t going to let me without a reason, so – uh – could you please tell him you think a few shots of me skating would be beneficial …” He trailed off.

 You bit your lip, “Yeah – uh – Andrew told me it’d be good to get a few pictures of you enjoying the cities.”

 “Thank you,” his smile was so wide that you felt like you were going to melt, “You’re slowly becoming one of my favorite people on this tour.”

 You rolled your eyes with a smile; “I already said yes, you don’t need to butter me up more.”

 He laughed, “I’m not! It’s good to have someone my age around.”

 You were tempted to ask about Geoff since you hadn’t seen him around, but knew it was probably creepy to know about Shawn’s best friends.

 “You’re different than I expected,” you said instead.

 “Really?” He smiled, making you nod in response, “Yeah – to be completely honest I thought you’d never talk to me – that I’d just take pictures and then edit them alone, Mason was worried I wouldn’t make any friends.”

 “Mason?” He tilted his head.

 “My brother,” you smiled.

 “Oh,” he nodded, “Well I’m glad to be different than you thought.”

 You nodded, biting your lip as you turned back to face the TV, the intensity of his gaze hard for you to concentrate.

 “It’s 3am,” he mumbled, making you look up at the clock on the wall.

 “Should probably get to bed then,” you nodded.

 Shawn coughed, slowly removing his legs from your lap, and sitting up. You stood, stretching your back for a moment before looking up at him as he stood as well.

 “Night Shawn,” you smiled, taking your glass and placing it in the sink.

 “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he nodded, stretching his arms behind his back – his t-shirt riding up to uncover a small section of his lower stomach, your eyes immediately shutting as you turned away, so he wouldn’t catch the blush coating your cheeks.

 “See you,” you mumbled, disappearing behind the curtain before he could say anything else that could make your heart beat faster.

 tag list: @egg-in-a-spork @tw-stydiaaf @countingstarsmylove  @alone-in-madness  

[nhlgrace710]

Finally going public

First edit please tell me what you think!

Pretty short, might do like 3-5 more before doing a “book” one with chapters... idk

Not my gif!!!

“Auston why can’t anyone know about me” you guys were having this argument again.

“Because Y/N... because” he sounded defeated.

“You’re not embarrassed of me, are you?” You said very unsure.

“No, I’m not in swear” he turned away from you. “It’s just... never mind you wouldn’t understand” and with that he left the room to go to his game.

You moved to Toronto for college and you have been dating Matthews for a couple months. The only people who knew were Mitch and his girlfriend.

You began to cry, wondering if you were really not worth enough to show off. He was a famous hockey player and you were just some fan he met at a game.

You decided to stay home and watch the game instead of going to the arena because you were supposed to drive with Auston but he left you. You threw on Auston’s away jersey and turned on the tv. The game started in about 20 minutes so you made some good while you were waiting. As the game went on you scrolled through Instagram and twitter to see the other maple leafs players post about their wags and it really hurt. Why couldn’t Auston just post one photo or you guys could be official, what was the big deal.

The leafs lost 3-2 to Boston, and you knew Auston was going to be pissed. You were going to change into pajamas but turned around when you heard Auston’s voice on the tv. They asked him typical questions like how do you feel, how can your team approve, etc just as you were about to turn it off someone asked a very unquie question,

“Auston, you seemed off your game tonight. Was it because you broke up with your girlfriend or something bad happened in your family?” This caught Auston off guard.

“Um,” he swallowed. “No, no break up or bad situations going on...”

“So you admit there is a special someone.” They cut him off and this caught your attention. What was Auston going to respond with.

You were staring at the screen when you saw Aus look into the camera and turn to the girl who asked his questioned and smiled, turning red a bit as well.

He cleared his throat, “Yeah, I mean yes, yes there is someone special in my life, in fact her name is Y/F/N Y/L/N. We have been dating for some time and she is someone I really care about.”

Your jaw dropped, Auston freaking Matthews just admitted on tv that you guys were dating. You were so happy that you were dancing.

After you changed and were relaxing in your shared bedroom the door unlocked and opened. You ran up and hugged Auston, who was caught off guard.

“Aus, thank you. I like you so much that I wanted to tell all my friends and family back home when we started dating but you told me to wait.”

“Y/N, I didn’t want others to know because I thought they would give you hate and go crazy. I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to get hurt because I really like you and want to protect you from crazy fans and-“

You cut him off with a kiss.

“I’ll take that as a thanks” you guys laughed and headed to bed.

[peacedolantwins]

Clean Part 5 (E.D)

So this one is pretty long compared to the last part and theres actually some more plot 

warnings: mentions of past drinking 

A few weeks had passed and every time you would think about telling them, you would freeze or you would be cut off by one of them talking about something else as you were about to speak. You were trying, but the timing was always off.

At this point their fans knew you two were together. Some of them supported you two and thought you were cute together, while others saw you as annoying and just using him for god knows what. While you tried to pretend it didn't bother you, it still did. You were just thankful you had deactivated all your accounts on social media before any of this started. It was easier to avoid the hate when no one could tag you or find out more about you.

When you would check twitter or Instagram, you usually just used James account to scroll through things when you were bored. You saw the edits people made of snaps taken of the two of you, but you never really looked at them. You were happy with your relationship and you knew who you were, you didnt need drama accounts to over analyze anything you did.

As you quickly found out, their fans are quite the detectives. Within the first few days of the first picture of you two being out, they were able to find out that you were actually friends with James and Ian. They had somehow managed to find that out even though they had no idea what your name was or even a full photo of you. The picture that had been posted was only of the pair of your guys legs sitting next to each other in the pool and they managed to figure you out just from the small flower tattoo on your ankle.

It was slightly frightening to be honest. You were scared what they would find if they kept digging. What if they somehow found all the old videos you tried so hard to escape from? What if one of the people you used to consider friends still had photos of you when you were at your absolute worst? You tried not to think about it too much, but the thought was always there.

~~

Everyone had decided to go to Disneyland to film a video, and while you were okay staying home, they all insisted you went along. Since they were filming, you considered them to be working so you only agreed if Ian and his girlfriend could come along so you could still have someone else with you.

Well that was the plan anyways.

Within an hour of being there, Ian and her left the group to go off on their own, which essentially left you alone. Today had started feeling slightly… off. You were just easily upset and bitter for no reason and you knew there was no reason to feel like that. Technically, everything was okay with you. But now being ditched and left to follow around the group was starting to get on your nerves.

Maybe things would have gotten better if you had been able to spend more time with James during the day or been able to go on the rides with your boyfriend, but seeing as they didnt bring anyone else to film for them, you were stuck sitting alone while they sat together and had you film them when they needed wider shots. It wasnt exactly how you had planned on this day going, but there wasnt a whole lot of options left.

Not only did you end up filming for them, but you also turned into their photographer when they ran into fans. After asking them for a picture, they just handed you the phone and had you do it. Not even a “do you mind?” or a “thank you” after you finished but it was fine. Its okay. Its not that deep and you knew you needed to get over yourself.

When a few girls had come up to ask for a photo, you were handed two seperate phones. ‘Cant they just send the picture to each other?’ you thought to yourself before taking the pictures anyways. After, you saw one of the girls trying to take a picture of you without you noticing but you saw anyways. The group had already started walking away when you went up to the girl.

“Hi, excuse me, do you mind not posting the picture you took of me?” You tapped her arm to get her attention.

“Y/N-” Ethan noticed you were gone and that you were talking to the girl looking slightly upset.

“Are you serious? I have a right to some privacy here and I dont want photos of me out there all I’m asking is that you dont post the fucking picture okay!” Why wouldnt she just say she wouldnt post it? What was so hard about that? You were already having a shitty day and this girl was just adding fuel to the fire going on inside you.

“Y/N! I’m so sorry about that, you two have a nice day,” You felt Ethans hand grab your arm and pull you away from them.

“Babe, you can’t talk to them like that, okay?” He said to you while still holding onto you and going back to the group.

“Get your fucking hands off of me!” You shook off his hand and started walking away. You had expected your boyfriend to tell them not to post it, but instead he told you something instead. Unbelievable. You had gone off to one of the close by benches and took a seat before taking out your phone.

Ethan had tried to go follow you, but James stopped him when he saw you taking out your phone and holding it up to your ear. “Give her a minute E. What even happened?”

“I dont even know, I turned back to see her yelling at those girls over a picture and I didn’t want to start any drama so I pulled away and here we are,” he sighed and looked around.

“Ethan, what did she tell them? Word for word?” Now James looked concerned and it was worrying him.

“Just something about a photo of her and privacy and ‘not to fucking post it’,”

“Did they say they wouldnt post it?”

“James why does that matter?”

“DID THEY OR NOT ETHAN?” James was yelling now. He had heard Ethan calling your name while you were still with those girls, and he now knew why you were so pissed if those girls now had your name and photo of you. Sure all of them had taken a few photos with or of you, but they were usually all from behind, maybe the side of your face and they made sure not to have your name out there. If there was a photo of you all together, you usually had your face hidden or you slapped a sticker emoji on top. You didnt want anyone from your past being able to recognize you.

“I dont know, okay?” Ethan knew you didnt let them post pictures of you, but he didnt think it was that big of a deal. So one person has a picture and if it gets posted, then maybe a few people see it after it gets lost in the tags.

During all of this, Grayson had decided that this conversation was not something he wanted to be part of and left to grab a churro for you when you came back, knowing you had a thing for sugar. While he passed by you, he overheard part of your conversation with whoever you were on the phone from. Apparently you were talking to some guy named Josh about how bad your day had been going. He knew you could be friends with whoever you wanted, but something seemed off. He decided to leave it alone for now. He also felt his phone go off and saw that James had tweeted.

“If you took a picture with us today and took a picture of my friend without her permission, PLEASE DO NOT POST IT. RESPECT HER PRIVACY.”

You went back to the group and everyone noticed that your mascara had smudged a bit but decided against saying anything. Pulling you off to the side, James took out the beauty blender he had in his bag and got to fixing you back up while talking to you in a hushed voice.

Ethan felt horrible. You had all come out today to have a nice day together but that didnt seem to be happening at all. Not only did he manage to piss you off, but once he was that you had been crying it crushed him. He was supposed to be making you feel good and happy but he wasnt doing a good job it seemed.

“Hey Y/N, I got you something,” Grayson handed you the churro, which seemed to be missing a few bites that your raised your eyes at but accepted nonetheless.

“Thank you,” you smiled at him and took it. “I’m actually gonna go ahead and go find Ian. I called him and he’s going to let me third wheel with him, so I’ll meet up with you guys when were leaving.”

You gave Gray a quick hug, not noticing him looking at you strangely. When did you call Ian? You had been talking to some guy named Josh a few minutes ago? He decided to leave it alone and would talk to you about it later, not wanting to start anything if it was over nothing. But why would you lie about who you called?

“Sweetheart, you dont have to go, stay with us.” Ethan wrapped his arms around you, not wanting you to leave.

“Hey, its okay. You guys are technically working, so I'm just gonna let you finish. I’m sorry for how I talked to that girl we can talk about it later, okay? You guys just have fun,” You gave him a quick peck on the lips and said bye to everyone before walking off to find Ian.

Sure you had planned on spending the day with your boyfriend, but turns out third wheeling wasnt so bad. It meant more turning power for the spinning teacups with all three of you. You all crammed yourself into the carriage for the haunted mansion, and you all obnoxiously sang along to ‘its all small world’ much to the rest of the passengers dismay. You had to sit alone for most of the other rides, but it was okay because you knew once you all got off, it would be like you were all friends just together. There were no phones being handed to you for pictures, no camera to hold to get a wider angle and you were finally having a good time.

When you finally met up with everyone else around 10 o'clock to head out, they were surprised when they saw the three of you. You all had gotten matching mouse ear headbands, Ian included, and you were carrying five of those giant light up balloons that had the mickey outline in them.

“Babe, what's with all the balloons?” Ethan finally asked after you said hi to everyone and they just stared at the giant bouquet of balloons.

“Well one is mine, then I got one for Gray since he got me a churro earlier, then I figured I should get you one too, but then I didnt want to leave Emma or James out so here we are. Five balloons. And Ian and his girlfriend already have theirs.” You said with a smile and held out your hand that held all the strings.

“Pick a different one bitch that ones mine,” you pulled them away when James tried to take the color you wanted. “Plus Grayson gets to pick first since he gave me food.” You held it out and let him pick.

“You're not gonna let your boyfriend pick first?” Ethan looked at you with a pout.

“Mmm… nope.” You said, but you went and put one arm around him.

“Traitor,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled you closer to his side. After everyone had their own balloon, you finally all headed towards the gates. The day might not have started off great, but it got better and that was something you were happy about.

“So, are we good?” Ethan asked you quietly as you walked by his side.

“Hm? Oh, sure but I still wanna talk about it if thats okay?”

“Of course, at the house or in the car?”

“Well everyone is still coming with us in the car so…” as much as you wanted to talk about it, you didnt want everyone else listening in.

“Hey James!” Ethan yelled at James since you two were in the back of the group.

“What bitch?” He turned around to see what he wanted.

“Can Gray and Emma ride with you?”

“Oh no sweetie, you think I want four other people and five giant balloons in my car? You take them,” he sassed back.

“I'll take the balloons with us, just take them with you.” After a moment of thinking James replied with a harsh “fine” and it was settled.

After taking everyones balloons back with you, it turns out trying to shove seven of those balloons in the jeep was a lot harder than either of you thought it would be and it was probably a safety hazard to drive since you couldnt see out of any of the back windows. Once everything was as good as it was going to get, you headed back towards James house.

“So what happened today?” You had barely made it to the first light when he asked.

“Damn we’re getting right into it, okay than… how honest do you want me to be with you?” You took in a breath and slowly let it out.

“One hundred percent babe,” he reached over and took your hand in his.

“Okay, want me to be real or sugar coat it for you?”

“Um, real?” He sounded as if he didnt know which would be better to hear.

“Fine. I didnt want to come today with you guys when James first asked. Like at all. Today was just a shitty day and I dont know why, but I woke up and everything just felt off. But then he invited Ian and Loren along so I still had someone to talk to while you guys filmed, but then they ditched us,” you turned in your seat to face him a little bit more. “I knew that today wasn't going to be a ‘hey lets just all fun at disneyland’ kind of day since you were all filming and working, but it would have been nice to have some fun with you while we were there,” you started messing with your joined hands and playing with his fingers as you spoke.

“Ethan, I came with you guys as a friend, not your camera person or your guy's personal photographer. Do you realize that the most you paid attention to me was when you got mad at me for how I talked to that girl? Not once did we go on a ride together. Hell, one time I didnt even go on one since the cart was full but you guys decided to get that one anyways and made me wait for the next one and you all didnt even care and that was pissing me off. I didnt come to be ignored by my friends, and I get it, you're working but you could have been with me when the camera wasnt on but you didn't. I tried to talk to you a few times but you kept ignoring me,” you said that last part quietly, getting reminded of your last relationship and how that went.

“I just wanted to spend some time with you and my friends today as I tried to make the best out of a shitty day, but that didnt happen. Everything just became too much for me and I snapped. So I figured I might as well third wheel because it was better than trying to fifth wheel with you guys.” You finished and waited for him to say something.

The silence was killing you as you watched him drive. He still hadnt said a word and he pulled into a parking lot and parked the car.

“What are we-” He turned to face you as you started speaking.

“Baby, I am so sorry. I wish you told me something earlier, and if you tried to, I'm sorry that I wasnt listening. We never meant to make you feel left out,” He turned in his seat and was faced you, taking both of your hand in this much larger ones. “And sweetheart I am so sorry that I grabbed you the way I did,” he looked genuinely upset with himself for grabbing you earlier.

“It's okay-”

“No, its not Y/N. I shouldnt have grabbed you like that ever. Thats not how you treat someone you care about it.” He noticed a few tears slip down your face when you looked away so he gently turned your face back to him and he wiped them away with the pads of his thumbs.

“Sorry that I'm crying so much today,” you tried to laugh it off.

“Babe, you cry if you want to, but let me in please? Whats going on in that head of yours?”

“It's just a lot of stuff from before I moved here, the way I was living before wasnt good and something I like thinking about too much… can we not talk about it right now? Maybe when we get to the house because if I’m going to do tell you, I’d rather not do it in a Target parking lot surrounded by light up balloons.” You laughed a little to try to lighten to situation a little bit.

“Of course sweetheart,” he grabbed your hand and gently brought it up to his face and placed a kiss on the back of your hand before letting go and starting the drive back to James’s house.

“Took you two long enough, bitch ass,” James greeted you as soon as you walked in.

“Fuck off, we literally saw you guys at the light before us,” you sassed back at him. On a more serious note, you turned back to him and Ian, “I’m gonna go talk to Ethan for a bit okay? I’ll let you know if I need you.”

Both of them nodded, understanding what you were talking about. You had mentioned recently about wanting to tell Ethan everything, having decided on telling your boyfriend first, then Grayson. You knew both of them together would not go well considering how loud they could get and how overwhelmed you would get with both of them trying to talk over each other. Separate would be a lot easier.

“You can go home if you want Gray, I’ll just stay here tonight,” Ethan tossed Grayson the keys.

“Actually, I think it would be better if you stayed, for a little bit anyways.” Both of the boys looked at you confused. Pulling Ethan down a little bit, you whispered to him, “I just dont know if you’re going to want to stay after I tell you everything.” He looked at you now completely worried but nodded anyways.

“OH! We should play Mario Kart for a bit!” Emma yelled out, already heading towards the living room. Well, that was one way to get everyone to stay for a little bit. Turning back to him, you grabbed Ethan’s hand and lead him up the stairs to your room and shut the door behind you. Both of you sat on the bed in silence.

“You’re kind of worrying me here, Y/N” He looked at you to see you folding a blanket over your legs that were crossed under you. You had also taken a pillow to play with in your lap.

“Sorry, I dont mean to. If I’m going to tell you everything, will you promise me something?” You looked up at him and when he nodded, you continued on. “Let me finish talking before you start asking questions? I’ll answer whatever, but just- I need to get it all out first, okay?” He nodded again.

“Okay,” you sighed and mentally prepared yourself, “okay, so theres no way to ease into it so here we go. I’m an alcoholic. Was an alcoholic. Whatever you wanna see it as, but I had a really bad drinking problem before moving here. It’s one of the reasons I moved here with James. I needed to get away from everyone judging me back home.” You looked at him and saw him trying to hide how shocked he was but you saw it anyways.

“When James moved out here, I ended up alone. He was pretty much my only friend, which was weird considering I’m older than him, but when he left, I didn’t really have anyone else. A few months later, I ended up dating this guy, who had a bunch of friends and along the way, they became my friends. One night, he took me to a party and there was so much there. Beer, wine, shots, whatever, it was there. And sure I had had a drink before that, but nothing too much. Never enough to even get me drunk or tipsy. But there, as stupid as it sounds, everyone was doing it so I figured why not and started doing shots with the other girls. I woke up the next day feeling awful but later that night we went to another party, and this time I only had a few but-” you took a deep breath, still looking down at your lap. “But, that didnt last long. It just became a cycle for us. School, party, school, party, then somewhere along the way it became drinking just at home, in the school parking lot, and I was drinking whenever. I didnt need the parties anymore, but I still went and oh god, there’s still a lot that I have no idea what happened.” You felt him shift on the bed. You couldnt tell if it was closer or away from you and you were scared it was the latter.

“It got to the point where I would have blackouts. I had no idea what happened the night before but my friends usually had some videos. I don’t know who else has any, but the ones I saw- its me doing shot after shot, me dancing way too inappropriately for a public setting, me stripping in front of everyone, theres photos of me in bed with my ex and theres still so much I dont know. What used to be me counting the days between drinks turned into me not remembering the last time I hadn’t had a drink.”

“I ended up breaking up with my boyfriend for different reasons but once I did that, I lost my drinking source. I was only 20, I couldn’t exactly go get any on my own so I,” deep breaths remember, “I would still go to bars if I could get in and I would let whoever buy me a drink- drinks and sometimes that was enough. Along the way word got out to the guys I knew that I was an “easy lay” if you bought me enough drinks, which to be completely honest, wasn’t a complete lie. I didn’t really care how I got my drinks as long as I got them. A few of those guys also had pictures, some are pretty bad, some are just us making out, but theyre out there. And when I turned 21, let me tell you, things got so much worse. One day, I had been drinking at home while my parents were gone and I passed out.” Playing with the pillow seemed to be most interesting thing while you could feel Ethan’s eyes burning into your head.

“I woke up in the hospital. Alcohol poisoning. It wasn’t until I saw the look on my parents faces that I realized how messed up I was. Seeing them look at me with just pure… disappointment, disgust, shame, pity, worry, it made me realize that I couldn’t be doing that anymore. I could have died and I didn’t want to keep wasting my life like that anymore.”

“The detox was absolute hell. Withdrawal was… awful. I was throwing up, shaking, I couldn’t sleep, my head was constantly pounding, and I’m not going to lie to you, I would relapse. Drinking would make all of that go away, but coming back from it was harder each time so I got into rehab. It was the only way to completely keep me away from it so I could get better. I was there for three months and at first it was horrible. Withdrawal came back harder than before and there was nothing I could do to make it go away but once I got past that, it got easier.” You glanced up for a second but you couldn’t make out the expression on his face.

“I started learning piano since they had one there. It was something to distract myself with. I called James to let him know what happened and that, that, didnt go well. He didn’t talk to me for a while, which I get. He was worried I had been around Ian while I was like that so I don’t blame him. He never knew about anything that went on back home since he never came back to visit. I dont blame him or anyone else for this, I know it’s all my doing. No one ever forced me to drink or do anything, it was all my own choices.”

“Once I got out, it was hard. I was going to meetings. I’m still going to meetings here. One day at a time ya know? But over there, everyone remembered me as I was before. I was just the party girl who drank too much and slept with who ever. No guy would be want to be seen with the girl that had been with everyone. Then someone posted pictures and it got worse. I deleted all my social media so I couldn’t get tagged in anything. I dont check anything because I dont want to see if anyone has posted anything. Even going to the store people would look at me and judge me because everyone apparently knew what happened. So when I was talking to James one day, he asked if I wanted to move out here with him. Ian had told him how hard being home was for me and while I was pissed because I didnt want him pitying me or dealing with the mess I made for myself but after some talking we decided I was coming here.” You looked around your room, proud of how far you had come from where you used to be.

“A few weeks later I was finally here, I took care of what I needed to to be sure I would stay on track and then I was officially moving in and then-” You finally looked up at Ethan and reached out for his hand, “then I met you and Grayson and Emma and things kept getting better and well… that’s where were at now. So there it is. I get it if you don’t want to be around me anymore. It wouldnt be good if one day those videos came back up and you were still connected to me and I dont want you getting dragged into my mess. So if you want to go, it’s okay.” You smiled at him even though you were close to tears. If he did leave, you would be a mess but you knew you would get through it eventually. You didnt want to drag him or his brother down with you because of your decisions so it was easier to let them both go now before things got more serious than they already were.

You felt his hand leave yours and you looked up to see him looking at you with a look you couldnt explain. When he got up from your bed and started walking towards the door, you felt your heart breaking.  When he walked out, you could hear him going down the stairs and a few minutes later you heard the front door close and a car start up and you could actually feel your heart shatter. Turns out James was wrong about him staying.  

Tags: @thetallassgirl @notanotherdolantwinsblog

[wwenhlimagines]

"Baby, I'm back!" - Finn Balor

Requested by @rebelfleur22.

6 months ago

I was playing with the new face paint I got when I decided to try a Finn Balor faced demon look on the left side of my face while making my right side up with my usual makeup. I finished off the last few spots of paint on the left side of my face and then set up my phone to take a few pictures of me. I took a few photos including an over the shoulder look, a smiling Too Sweet pose, and finally the classic Finn Balor Demon pose. Once I was satisfied with the results, I decided to edit the photos lightly and then post them onto my Instagram. I captioned it, "Maybe I'm part Demon too. @FinnBalor" and then tried Balor's entrance and wrestling moves in front of the mirror for about 15 minutes. I heard a couple notifications come from my phone but ignored them momentarily as I got in the shower to wash off all of the paint.

10 minutes later

I got out of the shower to hear my phone digging almost constantly. I quickly dried off and ran over to see the Demon King himself had liked and reposted my pictures. I squealed as I ran over to the couch to sit down as I was starting to feel light headed. Fangirls were liking and commenting both good and bad things, but I didn't care. FINN BALOR REPOSTED MY PICTURES!!! I always reading through the comments trying to decide if this was real when another notification popped up.

It was a message...from Finn Balor. My heart was pounding as I hovered my thumb over it and pressed the notification. "Maybe you could do my body paint someday. Your skills are very impressive. 😉"

My eyes bugged out of my head as I stared at the winky face. Was Finn Balor flirting with me?

"There's no way this is real. It was a typo or a fake account." I checked that it came directly from him and waited for him to correct himself saying it was supposed to be a smiley face, but nothing. I took a deep breath and responded, "Thank you so much Finn! Maybe someday... 😁" I don't know where that confidence came from, but I bit my lip waiting to see if he would respond again. About 2 minutes later, "I know your painting skills are awesome, but the other half of your face is breathtaking too. 😘" ANOTHER WINKING FACE! I dropped my phone, jumped up and down, and collected myself before I picked it back up and happily typed back, "Yours isn't too bad either. 😋" Finn and you exchanged numbers the next day after messaging all night.

A month later

Raw was in a city near you, so Finn got you VIP tickets and brought you backstage to meet some other superstars. He introduced you as his friend who posted those awesome face paint photos. You met Roman and Seth who were very nice and friendly before Finn took you to catering to meet Sasha and Bayley. When Finn talked about your photos, you saw Sasha give you a side smirk. "Well, you are very talented girl, it was great to meet you. If he does anything to hurt you, I'll come after him." You giggled nervously as Finn blushed and waved them off. Next, he took you to his locker room. Once inside, you sat on the bench as he sat next to you. "So how was the show?" "It was amazing to see you all live and in person. I had so much fun meeting the superstars too so thank you!" He smiled and scooted a bit closer to you. "Look Y/N, I know I'm constantly on the road, but I want to be closer to you." You tilted your head confusedly, "I'm 3 inches away from you Balor." He sighed and scratched the back of his neck before placing a hand on your knee. "I mean I want to be more than friends. I really like you Y/N. Your personality is a perfect fit for mine as you know when to make me laugh and when to turn on the sass. Whenever I'm texting you, everyone says I'm smiling and laughing like an idiot, but I don't care because it's you. Plus, you're absolutely gorgeous and I still can't believe someone like you is a fan of mine." You place your hand on top of his and lean in a bit whispering, "Is there a question at the end of this rambling?" He chuckles lowly and nods, "Y/N, will you be mine?" You smile and nod your head. "Of course I will." He leans in slowly and your lips connect with his in the sweetest kiss you've ever had.

Present day

Your boyfriend, Finn, is on the road and even though you miss him, you couldn't tell him in fear of seeming clingy. The past few days, he has been texting you less and even though you know he is super busy, you started to get worried about your relationship. He had come back to your hometown once for the weekend and you took a week off to travel with him, but most of your relationship was through FaceTime as expected. Your friends had noticed your mood becoming sadder, so they decided to invite themselves over for a girls' night at your place. You had tried to tell them about dating Finn before, but they just blew you off saying you were just pretending. In the middle of your movie marathon filled with popcorn and candy, you heard someone knock on your front door. It was 8pm, so you slowly made your way to the door before peeking through the peep hole to only see a blue eyeball staring back at you. You screamed and the figure jumped back allowing you to see that Finn was on the other side of the door. You screamed again as you swung the door open, this time from excitement instead of fear. "Baby, I'm back!" Finn dropped his bags and smiled as he wrapped you up in a big hug and spun you around. You hid your face in his neck until he put you back down on the ground. Both hands grabbed his face as you passionately kissed him only to be interrupted by the gasps behind you. You pulled apart to see your friends standing with their mouths hung open. Finn broke apart from you and stook his hand out for them to shake, "Hello, I'm Finn, Y/N's boyfriend. What are your names?" They shook his hand as words refused to come out of their mouths so you piped up, "These are my friends, ___ & ___." Finn smiled as he picked up his bags and made his way to your bedroom. You shut the door and stood with your arms crossed, waiting for them to finally talk. "We are so sorry girl. We really thought you were going crazy or something. I can't believe he's actually your boyfriend." You giggle, "I know it seems crazy, so you're forgiven as long as you pack up and leave. I need some alone time with my man." They laughed and ran to pick up their things. Finn came back out and saw them packing up. "I didn't mean to ruin your night girls, you can stay if you want." "No, we were just here to cheer up your girl, but I think you've got that covered now. It was nice meeting you though! We'll see you at work Y/N." You waved goodbye as Finn wrapped his arms around you from behind gently kissing your shoulder. "So babe, why were they cheering you up? And why didn't you tell me you were upset?" You turned in his arms and rested your forehead against his. "I was getting grumpy because I missed you. I didn't want to seem clingy by telling you how I much missed you, so I guess I was taking it out on them." He kissed your nose making you crinkle it up. "Babygirl, you should have heard how many times I complained to Seth about missing you. He threatened to curb stomp me if I didn't stop." I giggled at the thought and caught his lips in a slow kiss. I pulled back a bit, "So how did you get here?" "Kurt let me have a couple days off after Seth complained to him. Then I booked a flight, went to the airport, got on a plane, got in an uber, and walked up to your door." I looked down and shook my head as he told me every step of his journey and thought, "Wow, I love this dork." Finn lifted my chin up, "I love you too baby." He kissed me again and again until we found ourselves cuddled up on the couch watching our favorite movie.

A/N: Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors. I have not checked it yet, but I wanted to get it posted. 😀

Send in your requests!

[hopeyoulietome]

\ let me love the lonely /

PAIRING: Michael/Y/N

RATING: PG

WORD COUNT:  2.4k

A/N: this imagine is based on the song ‘let me love the lonely’ by james arthur so give it a listen :) although this little imagine is a bit happier than the song but yeah feel free to give me some feedback if you’d like to, i’m really excited to get into the 5sos writing world 

When Luke and Ashton dragged Michael out of his apartment to come to some party with them, he was expecting to seriously hate his night. What he wasn’t expecting was to see a beautiful girl across the room the moment he stepped into the crowded house. Throughout the night he kept an eye on her, catching a few things about her that he’s almost positive no one else notices.

Luke makes some shit joke, you laugh because everyone else is - although you’ve heard the joke before at the last party you ran into Luke and Ashton at. But unlike that last party, their friend and fellow band mate Michael hadn’t tagged along. You noticed him the moment he stepped into the house. Seeming as though he was enjoying this party just as much as you were. You catch Michael’s eye as he too laughs at Luke’s shitty joke, his lips pressing into a tight smile as he realizes you’re looking at him.

An entire hour goes by and neither Luke or Ashton get the hint that Michael wants one of them to introduce him to the beautiful girl he feels he can already connect with, only after a few stolen glances. Now he notices you sitting by yourself on the couch that’s pushed into the corner so people can stand around the living room. Michael takes a deep breath, another big sip of his beer for liquid courage and then walks up to you.

“Hey, is someone sitting here?” He asks. You look up at him and find yourself staring, he was just really cute up close.

“No,” you answer after a few terrifying seconds that make Michael want to run and hide. But once you do say no, Michael smiles and takes the open seat beside you.

“I noticed you’ve been holding that same drink for a while,” Michael says but instantly regrets from how creepy he must sound to you.

You lift up the bottle half full of some shitty kiwi flavoured cooler, “yeah, it kinda sucks,” you tell him.

“Oh, did you want something else? I’m sure there’s another option somewhere for you,” Michael says, looking around the house but only finding the crowd doubled in size since he last looked around.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t really drink anyways,” you admit.

“Me neither,” Michael sighs, picking at the label on the beer bottle he’s hanging into.

“Why come to the party then?” You ask. It’s stupid to question him, seeing as you had just said you don’t drink either. But as you glance at the cute unnamed boy sitting beside you with his face all screwed up and him pushing his glasses up his nose you end up smiling.

“My friends dragged me here,” he states. “What about you?”

“Same, this place is my friends. She never let me miss a party if she’s hosting it,” you explain.

“Quite hostile of her,” Michael says, earning a chuckle from you. “I’m Mike by the way,”

“Mike?” You repeat, making sure you heard him right as the song had gotten more upbeat and louder almost.

“I meant Michael, no one really calls me Mike except my dad when he’s trying to sound cool,” he rambles out, talking with his hands. It’s cute, you think while giving him a smile.

“Michael,” you try his name again. This causes him to blush, his pale cheeks turning a faint shade of red as he hears his name fall off your tongue. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Y/N,” you say.

“I’m sorry if I like came over here and bugged you, I just noticed you were alone and thought you might be lonely or something,” Michael catches himself rambling to you again. But again, it earns a soft chuckle from you followed by a sweet smile he’d probably dream about tonight.

“It’s fine, you’re right,” you shrug, “parties can get kinda lonely,”

“I totally feel that too,”

“Yeah?” You question, brows pulled together. “Usually I say that to people and they think I’m crazy,”

“Well I don’t,” Michael says, “I kinda feel like that one string of a guitar that’s out of tune when I come to these things,”

You somehow manage to furrow your brows together even more, utterly confused by his choice of words. But it makes you laugh again. This guy was both cute and endearing. You nod your head, causing a piece of your hair to fall into your face so you’re quick to push it back behind your ear before meeting Michael’s gaze again.

“Funny way to put it, but I get it,” you say. Michael smiles, that adorable blush still on his cheeks. You can tell the conversation is sorta near it’s end, and you don’t want it to be like at all. “So you play guitar?” You ask, aware his answer is mostly going to be yes. But it sparks up an entire conversation with the cute boy that’s making you feel a little less lonely.

Just as the conversation was getting good, someone is shouting your name from across the room. You glance away from Michael and see your best friend waving you over.

“I gotta go see what she needs,” you tell Michael.

“It’s fine, I should probably check on dumb and dumber to make sure they’re not making a fool of themselves,”

“Luke and Ash are always making a fool of themselves,” you chuckle.

“Fair point,” Michael says, chuckling along with you. And with one last smile, you’re walking off to where your friend is shouting at you again. Almost instantly Michael’s mind is full of regrets. He should’ve got your number, or gone with you or anything. Maybe he’d get to you again during this stupid party.

You’re grinning at a couple, but Michael finds it like you’re a lighthouse without a light. Something he knows because he feels the same way too. Before you can catch his staring, Michael turns away and walks off into the dining room where he knows both of his idiot friends are playing a game of beer pong. Losing, which is no shock.

It’s stupid to think, but Michael is stupid so... he stares at you across the room again a while later. You’re still smiling without your eyes. It’s clear as day that you’re not enjoying your night, well it’s clear to him but not anyone else it seems. But Michael thinks to himself, maybe he could save himself from this party if he saves you. If he had to stand in this dining room and watch his drunk friends any longer he might lose his mind. For a second he thinks of how much better his night would be with some shit anime show. But then he finds you across the room again, time to make this night better.

“Hey,” Michael says as he approaches you again. 

“Hi again,” you smile. 

“I was, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to get out of here,” he says - really shooting his chance here. “I just noticed that you don’t really want to be here and I don’t really want to be here and I saw this pizza place down the street and-” 

“Michael,” you cut off his rambling, grinning at the blush that creeps to his cheeks again. “I’d love to get out of here and get some pizza with you,” you say.

Michael really can’t believe it. You’re walking beside him down the staircase to the street, your white converse avoiding the puddle while he’s too busy watching you to notice the puddle - his boots now wet as the two of you walk down the sidewalk together. If someone were to tell him he’d met a girl at this stupid party and end up getting some greasy cheese pizza while sitting inside a less than busy pizza and donair shop, well Michael wouldn’t believe them. And yet here he was, scrambling to get his wallet out before you can pay for the pizza. 

“It was my idea,” he insists as you narrow your eyes at him in a joking matter. You smile and lean your hip into the counter, crossing your arms at your chest. There’s no missing Michael’s eyes darting down to your pushed up cleavage as you do so. But it’s fine, cause he blushes after and looks to the floor.

“Okay, but I’ll buy us a milkshake to share,” you state while turning back to look at the menu that hangs above the counter. “Do you like chocolate or vanilla?” 

“Either,” Michael squeaks out, clearing his throat before adding, “whichever you want,” 

You smile, your cheeks were beginning to hurt from all the smiling this guy was getting you to do. “Chocolate milkshake please, just a regular size,” you tell the worker before paying. 

The two of you sit at the booth by the window, indulging into the delicious pizza before getting into some ‘get to know ya’ kind of conversation. You learn each others full names, your favourite colour (which sparks up a fight of wether or not black was a colour or a shade), and your both watching on Netflix at the moment. 

“I’m a photographer, mostly for local based clients that pay me to amp up their Instagram feeds, LA people you know,” you joke while telling Michael about your job. Which you did love a lot. 

“So your good then?” 

“Um, yeah, I guess,” you shrug. Then you get a brilliant idea, opening your camera on your phone. “Pose,” you say, chuckling as Michael’s arms move like a horribly functioning robot - clearly not sure what to do. But then he just smiles, and the way the neon sign beside you two shines on his face does your photo more justice that you could hope for. You take a minute to edit the photo quickly before turning your phone to Michael and showing him. 

“That’s amazing,” he says, picking up your phone, “never would guess you took this on an iPhone,” he adds. 

“Thanks,” you smile. 

“Can I post it? Amp up my Instagram,” he says, smiling. 

“Yeah, of course,” you nod and take your phone back from him. “What’s your number?” 

“And here I thought I’d be the one asking for your number tonight,” Michael says. You chuckle at him and shake your head. 

“Well, for the record, I would’ve gave it to you,” 

Michael smile grows wider as he lists out his phone number to you. You send him the photo and then as he’s posting the Instagram he asks for your tag. Without another thought you give him your username and smile as the notification comes through. 

“You know,” you pause to take a sip of the milkshake (you’ve been drinking most of it), “I thought tonight was going to be another shitty party,” you state. 

“So did I,” Michael nods. 

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” 

“You’re welcome,” 

The night continues on with even more smiles and laughter between you two. Michael has to be one of the sweetest guys you’ve ever met. And if someone was to tell you that you’d find a cute nice guy at one of your bets friend’s shitty parties, you sure as hell wouldn’t believe them. And yet here you were, hoping and praying this night would never end honestly. But it does, the worker coming up to you two after some time to let you know they’re closing. 

“I should probably head back to the party anyways, I’m staying the night there,” you explain while walking out of the shop with Michael holding open the door for you. 

“Yeah, I have to head back with Luke and Ashton soon too,” he states while glancing at his phone. Both the guys had texted him recently, asking where he had gone. 

“I really had a great time tonight, Michael,” you say. Michael notices your smile is much different from the beginning of the night. It’s more real, more genuine and just as heart warming as the last to be honest. Suppose he just really liked you.

“Mikey!!!!” 

You both look away from one another to see Luke running towards Michael, arms wide open to engulf his friend in a hug. Ashton’s close behind, laughing at the sight. You can’t help but chuckle as well. The two of them are talking to Michael a million miles an hour, it’s almost intimidating to stand by and watch the boys. It’s nearly two in the morning, yet they’re shouting as if it’s two in the afternoon. You reach back and scratch the back of your neck. 

“Our Uber’s here!” Ashton shouts, running towards the white car that’s pulling to the curb. 

Luke follows behind him, smacking Michael hard on the back as he glances your way. You give him another smile, it doesn’t meet your eyes this time though. Maybe you’re as sad as he’s feeling that the night’s come to an end... Michael kicks his boots against the pavement, looking down for a quick second before glancing back up and meeting your gaze. 

“Can I take you to dinner tomorrow?” he asks, the overwhelming feeling of courage hitting him in the chest again. 

“I can’t,” you say. Michael’s face drops at your words. “I have plans, but I’m free the next day?” 

Michael mirrors your smile, “I’ll text you,” he says before turning on his heels and jogging to the Uber where his drunk friends are awaiting him. 

“That chick was hot,” Luke says as Michael gets into the back seat. 

“Yeah, good pick,” Ashton agrees from the front seat. 

Michael simply rolls his eyes at his friends. You weren’t just a ‘good pick’, he felt like he already knew you before he got to know you at the pizza shop. And unlike usual, he didn’t hide away and stare from afar, he actually took a chance and it paid off. Michael looks out the window, catching the sight of the neon signs of the pizza shop you two had just sat in for almost two hours. He’d probably text you tomorrow morning, knowing he couldn’t wait that long without hearing from you again.

[kpopboysreact]

GOT7 Reaction - Finding Out You’re Bi

For my incredibly sweet GOT7 anon~Bias: Yugyeom! I really hope I don't disappoint you and that you love this reaction 😚 Note: For your ex girlfriends’ names, I literally google searched “list of generic girl names” XD if they suck let me know, I’ll gladly edit them to whatever names you want

Yugyeom

It was just a normal day for you. Yugyeom was at practice and you were going to go out shopping to stock up on snacks for your weekly Friday night movie night with your boyfriend. The thought of ending his week by holding you in his arms and stuffing his face with junk food is what got Yugyeom through the week. That, and your incredibly supportive texts. He screenshotted all the really cute ones and re read them when he was down. Because of the immense love you gave him, he arranged with JYP to leave rehearsal early today so he could surprise you, but that wasn’t for an hour so he tried his hardest to keep his excitement at bay and work hard. You had a mental checklist for what to buy, having gone through this routine every week for the year, give or take, that you and Yugyeom had been together. You bought your favourites, the chocolate candies, and you were just about to pick up the last pack of his favourites, the seafood flavoured chips. There was only one bag left, you were in luck. However, your luck ran out when you noticed that the chips were on a higher shelf than they usually were. You stood on your tiptoes, but you still were just barely out of reach of it. “Y/N?” You turned your head to the source of the familiar voice. Oh, shit... “Do you need help?” “Emma!” You smiled at the sight of your ex girlfriend, then were taken aback, remembering the painful breakup. “How have you been?” “You know...” She reached up and just managed to reach the bag of chips, handing it to you. “Same old, same old.” She avoided eye contact when you thanked her. “You?” “About the same.” Things were awkward. “So, what are you doing back here? I thought you were miserable in this town.” “I was, but sometimes you just don't know what you have until it’s gone.” You avoided what was probably a double meaning by putting the chips in your cart. “Are you going to eat all of that by yourself?” She attempted to lighten the mood, walking with you as you went up to the cash register. “Ah, no. Tonight’s movie night with my boyfriend.” “Boyfriend??” Her eyes went wide. “Wow, so you're straight now?” “Not completely.” She nodded, standing with you while you paid. “I can help you carry your bags out.” “That would actually be really nice.” You smiled at her as she took the heavier bags and walked outside with you to your car. As she helped load your trunk, her movements began to slow. “Are you okay?” You asked her. She chuckled. “Doing something so domestic with you...don’t you kind of miss it?” “Emma-” “Don’t you kind of miss me?” She got too close to you for comfort, but you were at an awkward angle, the hood of your car keeping you from backing up further. “Emma, stop!” “Jagi?” Both you and Emma turned around to the approaching man. You shoved past Emma and quickly ran up to him, Yugyeom, your boyfriend. “What’s going on here? Are you okay? Who is she?” “What are you doing out of work so early?” “Hi.” Emma interjected, bowing to Yugyeom. “My name’s Emma.” He bowed back and introduced himself. “Are you a friend of y/n’s?” “Actually, I’m her ex girlfriend.” Yugyeom’s mouth fell open and you felt your face get hot. “I-I was going to tell you, Yugyeom. I’m bisexual, and I’ve dated women in the past.” You felt your cheeks getting hot with your sudden confession. Emma saw this as a good time to take her leave. “It was nice seeing you again, y/n.” She walked away quickly with her hands in her pockets. Yugyeom turned to you. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Baby, it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that...I didn’t want you to see me any differently. And I certainly didn’t want you to think I don’t love you because you aren’t a girl. Do you understand?” “Of course I understand, y/n. And go you for being so progressive! You know what you want and that’s just one of the things that I love about you.” “Well...” You leaned closer to Yugyeom and whispered in his ear. “Right now, I want you...” You pulled back and saw Yugyeom was biting his lip. “I’ll drive, get in the car right now, pretty girl.” And so you did, and Yugyeom showed you all the love in the world once you got home.

JB

JB found out through scrolling on Instagram. Seeing you were tagged in a post, he tapped it. He was shocked to find you kissing some other girl’s cheek with the caption “old memories die hard” at the bottom. “Jagi, who is this?” You came into the living room and once you saw the post he was looking at, you froze and your face turned red. “That’s...my ex girlfriend.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, cool.” He remarked, then went back to scrolling through Instagram. You stood there, confused for a minute. “My ex girlfriend.” “What about her?” “...I’m bi.” “Good for you. Do you expect me to treat you any differently?”

Mark

“Y/N, who’s this?” Mark was flipping through some photo albums he found under your bed, and was confused as to why he didn’t know the identity of the girl you seemed very friendly with on multiple occasions. “Who’s who?” He showed you one of the pictures and you froze. “Oh, her...that’s Abigail. She’s my ex...” Mark was surprised. “You’re bi?” You nodded. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” “I guess it just never came up. It’s not like I was hiding it from you.” “Well...I’m glad I know now. I like learning about you. Could you help me identify a few other people in this photo album?”

Jackson

Jackson dressed in a pair of rainbow shoes and a rainbow ball cap to show his support for pride week. You decided that, since you knew you could count on his full support, you would finally tell him your sexuality. “Jackson? I have to tell you something a little serious.” “Is everything okay? What’s wrong, jagi?” “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just...well, I’ve dated some other girls in the past. I’m bi.” “Oh, cool. So am I.” “You are?!” “For Mark, yes.”

Jinyoung

Jinyoung was tidying up your shared bedroom, when he decided to organize your jewelry box. You wasted so much time in the morning untangling the chain of the necklace you wanted to wear for the day, so Jinyoung couldn't think of a better way to spend his free time than to help you out. As he worked on untangling your jewelry, he noticed a heart locket he’d never seen before. Upon opening it, he saw two pictures, one picture was of you and another girl hugging, and the other picture was of you and that same girl kissing. His eyebrows raised as he examined the photos, then he closed the locket and left it to the side so it appeared untouched. He wanted you to tell him, to show that you trusted him with that part of your life. So, he would wait for you until you were ready and once you did tell him, he provided you with endless love and support.

Youngjae

You were getting married next year, you guessed that if you were ever going to tell your fiancé about your sexuality, you better make it fast. So, when making lists of people to invite to the wedding, you included your ex girlfriend. You hadn’t seen her for a while, but you ended on good terms and you were sure you could build a friendship now that so much time had gone by. Plus, you saw on her Facebook that she had a new girlfriend and was very happy. This was definitely a good time to confess. “Jagi, who’s this? I’ve never heard you mention someone named Sophia before.” He inquired as he read your guest list. “Ah, I’ve been meaning to tell you, she’s my ex girlfriend.” “Ex girlfriend? Girl friend?” “Girlfriend, we used to date.” You started to feel guilty at his shocked face. “I’m sorry I never told you. Please don't be upset...” “Oh, no! I’m not upset, just in wonder...I used to think I was the luckiest man on earth for getting a girl like you to fall in love with me. Now, I’m the luckiest person on earth!”

Bambam

Bambam was looking through your old yearbook, looking at pictures of you and reading what your friends wrote on the pages. One message caught his eye, one from a girl named Isabella saying she’d miss your kisses when you moved away. “Hey, y/n, who’s this girl who stole your kisses?” You walked over to see what he was referring to, and giggled once you saw him reading your old yearbook comments. “Oh, haha, that was probably Isabella. She...was my high school girlfriend.” “You like girls??” “And guys!” “Oh, good. Sometimes people tell me I look like a girl and, well...” He cleared his throat. “Good.”

- Admin Sammie

[isaiahrippinus]

Chrishon Lampley Wants to Bring Love Cork Screw National: ‘Now You See Me, So Let’s Roll’

Love Cork Screw CEO Chrishon Lampley is a wine entrepreneur and négociant with a growing business. She sold 50,000 bottles of wine within the first five years of starting her own business, and has since quadrupled those sales. Still, an unavoidable part of her job is “not being taken seriously” and “people not understanding what a négociant is or taking that seriously,” she says.

(For the record: Lampley does not own a vineyard, make wine in her bathtub, or create custom wine labels for weddings. She owns her formulas and works with vineyards to make custom crushes, thankyouverymuch.)

Before launching Love Cork Screw in 2013, the 45-year-old entrepreneur worked in sales for high-end retailers like Christian Dior and Escada, and Midwestern liquor distributor Breakthru Beverage. Seven years since becoming her own boss, Lampley has sold over 200,000 bottles of wine. “It’s huge!” she says, adding, “I don’t have a company behind me with several employees or a big backer. It’s all me.”

Lampley’s roller coaster career has helped her navigate the strange ride that is 2020. Love Cork Screw is based in Chicago, where the coronavirus pandemic and increased awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement have affected her business directly. When Chicagoland businesses briefly closed amid riots and protests, all but three of her regional accounts paused. Then, things changed. “To be straightforward about it, right when the thought process of Blackout Tuesday and allyship happened, my web sales were up 271 percent,” Lampley says, “but of course, it started slowing down.”

She hasn’t lost sight of her goal: taking Love Cork Screw national. “When money does come from those backers and supporters, it’ll come, but right now, I’m making it and surviving with a close-knit team,” she says. VinePair caught up with Lampley to learn more about her new path forward online, and what’s next in her quest to make Love Cork Screw a wine brand for everyone.

1. What is the best part of your job?

For some people, every day being different is not necessarily a good thing. I get “no’s” all the time. I get turned down left and right. But I love the fact that I wake up to something different and special, and that’s what keeps me going. That is part of “my gift” of loving being an entrepreneur — you can’t control what’s going to happen next, and I like that. [Love Cork Screw] gives me an opportunity to experiment every day with different types of people.

2. What’s one of the coolest things you’ve gotten to do in your job?

Getting the opportunity to have two billboards in Times Square! It was last Mother’s Day. I got picked by a company who wanted to feature women-owned businesses. I was so honored. My creative director and myself flew in for one day. We had our backpacks on and we went to one [billboard] and did a video and photos, and then ran to the other. We were next to CoverGirl! It was the launch of our We Go High Rosé, so to see that big huge bottle was the coolest thing ever in existence. I was pointing at the billboard and jumping up and down, and all these strangers around me started looking up and clapping for me.

3. How do you handle the challenges and setbacks that come with being in the minority as a Black female in the wine industry?

I grew up as one of the only minorities in my area, in an all-white neighborhood, so those types of challenges I faced as a young kid. From my parents having the largest house in the cul-de-sac and getting rocks thrown through our windows with the “n” word on [them], so much happened that I had to grow up quickly to know that I’m just as good if not better than anyone that’s any other color of the rainbow. When it came to this industry, and being a minority and a little teeny guppy in this huge ocean, for me it was like, let’s go! Let’s do it. When I get those inquisitive looks or people are asking [me] 10 more questions than they would ask the white guy who is [also] a négociant? It’s one of the things that I grew up with, so I’m very resilient that way.

4. There has been a much-needed spotlight on Black-owned businesses this summer. Have you seen the support continue since Blackout Tuesday?

A lot of people are coining the term, “It’s not a moment, it’s a movement.” I say that by taking advantage of the moment right now, you can change your life and business, and not worry about what people are doing later to turn it into a movement. In this moment that I’ve taken, I got a large amount of sales. Whether it’s [because of] people feeling guilty or that now their eyes are open, great. Those sales might have started diminishing, but the awesome thing is now the bigger-scale corporations are jumping on the bandwagon. Now I’m getting the calls from the big-box stores that always said “no” to me.

The best analogy I’ve used with people that I mentor is it’s very much like boxing. The boxer gets hit in the eyes several times, to the point where their eyelid shuts. When they go back into the corner, what does the trainer do? They take a razor to open up the eyelid. That’s what happened. George Floyd was that razor that opened up the eyelid.

Now you see me, so let’s roll.

5. Do you see your business changing in the long term because of how you’ve had to pivot due to Covid-19?

I definitely see Love Cork Screw getting an opportunity to go national a lot quicker. I got those “no’s” before, but now I’m getting the eyes open, I’m getting the conversations. I always say, if you give me an opportunity to talk to you, I’m going to win you over; but if you don’t give me the opportunity to talk, I can’t win. I’m too small. Give me one shot. I’ve been a salesperson for 25 years! I wouldn’t be doing this for the past seven years if I didn’t think it would happen. I’m going to take full advantage of that situation, and I look forward to it.

6. What has been the biggest challenge for Love Cork Screw in relation to the pandemic?

It’s the constant person-to-person exposure I need to do as a small company. [I usually] physically have ambassadors go into stores and boutique wine shops to taste the products, for people to spread the word. With wine, you’ve got to taste it, you’ve got to smell it, so that was the biggest challenge. I know people are overusing the word “pivot,” but I was able to pivot and go into the virtual space. I’ve always done virtual events, but obviously, not to this extent. Being able to be on Zoom and Facebook Live and to try my best to explain the wine as we taste together, that definitely has helped me to be able to get back. But it’s hard to gain that exposure. I can’t explain, “If you don’t like my Concord that doesn’t mean you’re not going to like my Niagara, so here, taste this.” That type of interaction is obviously lost.

7. Have you seen any good come out of all of this for the wine industry as a whole?

As a whole: awareness. People are taking more chances now on other varietals and brands. People love to order my 5-pack because it has five of my seven wines in it. You’re able to explore, to experiment, to have some fun.

What I’ve watched happen, especially in my virtual events, is people enjoying wine with their special someone. Whether it be same-sex couples, people that are married, roommates, girlfriend-boyfriend, whatever it is, I love seeing the interactions of people enjoying my tastings and enjoying wine and learning one-on-one. I think the best part that we’re bringing back to the wine industry now is how fun and interesting and connected you can be. I always say some of the best moments are amongst friends drinking wine. People are coming back together, and I love that.

8. Is there anything you’ve seen happen since the pandemic started that you never expected to be possible?

I never thought that brands would support other brands so much. It’s almost like your competitors sharing your information. Even being shared on Dwyane Wade’s Instagram, that was cool, seeing all our names together. That’s something I never saw coming, and I’m loving it. [Ed. note: The McBride Sisters published a list of 67 Black-owned wineries that included Love Cork Screw. Wade later shared this list on his Instagram account.]

9. What opportunities do you see for up-and-coming talent, in both the négociant space and the wine industry as a whole?

What I’m preaching is that there are so many other parts of the industry. I don’t think it’s the perfect time to launch a new brand, but there’s so much room open in distribution … and liquor law, boy, that’s lacking. Take your WSET courses, explore other options, talk to other people who are in the industry. Get educated first. The opportunities are at your fingertips!

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Chrishon Lampley Wants to Bring Love Cork Screw National: ‘Now You See Me, So Let’s Roll’ appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/love-cork-screw-chrishon-lampley/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/628256040551677952

[humanpursuits]

Slide Away: Examining the Art of the Instagram Photo-Dump

VANCOUVER, B.C. – You might call it a soft cultural reset.

12 weeks ago, plain black squares started popping up on Instagram.

The moment, originally deemed #TheShowMustBePaused, but eventually known as #BlackOutTuesday, started as a day of action for the music industry, organized by two black women – Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang.

Spoiler: it didn't end that way.

Thomas and Agyemang's mission to "hold the [music] industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the effort, struggles and successes of Black people accountable," was quickly forgotten. Instead, well-meaning celebrities and civilians co-opted their idea, and ran it into the ground, pivoting from #TheShowMustBePaused to #BlackOutTuesday, a broader, but still well-intentioned protest intended to amplify the work and voice of the black community. It was alright idea in theory, but in practice #BlackOutTuesday accomplished little, with most users posting a black square on their Instagram feed before logging off. Mission accomplished.

While nobody ever said it had to make total sense, #BlackOutTuesday quickly became a case study in the pitfalls of online activism, as people smarter than Drake, Kylie Jenner and Rhianna (but not smarter than Lil Nas X) pointed out that the squares weren't really all that helpful, and in some cases actually hindered people's ability to find black resources, as misguided users paired their posts with the #blacklivesmatter hashtag.

Their ability to do the bare minimum and still feel good about it compromised, many users started deleting their squares. Overnight, thousands of posts amplifying #BlackOutTuesday quietly disappeared without a word. A quick scan of Instagram shows roughly 22.6M posts still carry the #BlackOutTuesday hashtag, but many aren’t what you’d expect, with wannabe influencers coopting the hashtag for content that has little to do with the black experience.

So it seemed, the world moved on.

But while #BlackOutTuesday feels like a footnote in a year marked by violence, disease and protest, it appears to have influenced several new trends on Instagram. Following the incident, there first appeared to be a decrease of in-feed content from self-identifying allies. From June to about mid-July Instagram stories, rather than in-feed posts, became the primary means of sharing escapist quarantine activities. Baking bread or social distanced nature walks, previously considered prime content, were effectively relegated to the sidelines, allowing more serious topics to achieve the sort of permanence only found in-feed. A cynic might call this performative, sure, but the relative silence made space for new voices; in particular, social justice slideshows, which started popping up in late May, but truly proliferated in the weeks following #BlackOutTuesday, as BLM and other racial equality protests spread at home and abroad.

While none of these changes aligned with the original goals of #TheShowMustBePaused, it seemed the #BlackOutTuesday backlash had an unintended effect: Instagram suddenly felt useful. Instead of dealing solely with photos and captions, the app was a hotbed of information and dialogue, suggesting Instagram was a platform that could impact social change. The only question was, would it last?

The answer, it would seem, is “probably not”. While social justice still lives on, particularly in stories (depending on your feed), the self-awareness that inspired mass-sharing of social justice content appears to transformed into a new, and more complicated fad: the photo-dump.

For the uninitiated, a photo-dump involves diving into your photo album and sharing a series of images in an Instagram slideshow. The trend watchers at Elite Daily describe the method as a "roundup" of (3 – 10) photos shared during, or immediately after an event, with minimal editing. Like the social justice slideshows that predated them, photo-dumps aim for high impact with minimal footprint, squeezing several shots into one post, rather than clogging the feed (which, at present, still feels like a cardinal sin). 

While they don’t go so far to define what an ‘event’ is, my extremely expert social media analysis indicates the term could apply to practically anything. Saw your friends for some socially distanced hangs? Dump it. Hiked 3 mountains with your friends and saw a cute marmot? Dump it. Cat drinking out of a mug? You know what to do.

In all instances, the key to a good photo-dump appears to be what I call careless curation. Cute loosies are combined with interesting scenics and meticulously framed thot pics, giving viewers an opaque sense of intimacy, and the overall vibe of the event.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the trend has caught steam with several celebrities, who are utilizing the format to project authenticity while also maintaining an aura of the aspirational. Like most users, celebs appear to reserve their photo-dumps for trips or other key life events. Drake stares reflectively at the blue waters surrounding his boat (seemingly alone). Kim Kardashian West takes her family stand up paddle boarding, while wearing her husband’s extremely expensive foam clog. Halsey treks around the continental United States, as COVID cases continue to climb in several communities.

None, however, hold a candle to Dua Lipa, who, amidst album promotion and the sincere amplification of several legitimate causes, has posted no less than 10 photo-dumps to her feed since June 2. The themes range from extravagant to economical: one set shows her romantic mid-quarantine escape to St. Lucia, another captures a large backyard birthday party with friends. In a dump shared in the middle of writing this article (!!!), Lipa turns the camera on her friends and partner, model Anwar Hadid. The photos, possibly snapped while shooting the video for her next single, serve the same function as “behind-the-scenes” features of decades past. That is, using outtakes or failed attempts as a means of authenticity – suggesting viewers are getting the full picture, albeit one captured and approved by the star. By swinging between the two extremes, Dua Lipa's feed strikes social media’s version of  ‘balance’, walking the fine line between aspirational and authentic.

Or rather, the appearance of the authentic.

In 1967′s Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord argued humans have had their authentic selves stripped away by the capitalist economy. In Debord’s view, we are no longer beings, defined by actions, skills or behaviours. Instead, he says, social life has shifted, first to having and then appearing; where once you might have used raw materials to craft a ring, consumer capitalism evolved to the point where you can now buy, or even rent, a ring – with no understanding of the labour that went into it. Key in all this, Debord argues, are images, which have become society’s primary way means of relating to each other.

This ability to project a version of yourself is, of course, baked into social media. But it finds new life in the photo-dump. A 10 photo slideshow of Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid in St. Lucia may give you a sense of what it’s like to visit the Caribbean: to sit under a palm cabana, or feel the summery rain drip off your bucket hat  – but it isn’t the full picture. It doesn’t provide an authentic experience, other than that of looking at some carelessly curated images. 

Debord would likely say the photo-dump is just the latest illusion designed to distract us from the pitfalls of capitalism. And maybe he’s right. As I sit here, scrolling through Lipa’s photos, it occurs to me that Instagram was at its most useful when life was on hold. The wheels of capitalist production never fully stopped, but they were forced to momentarily slow-down as society grappled with a (hopefully) once in a lifetime situation. #BlackOutTuesday felt like a step  in the wrong direction, but the ensuing weeks proved that social media, like any other tool, is really only as useful as the human’s operating it. When we care about society, Instagram cares about society. By echoing the self-awareness embedded in social justice slide shows, photo-dumps feel like a bridge between narcissism and selflessness. Whether we make it to the other side, remains to be seen.

Stream Dua Lipa’s new album, Future Nostalgia.

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