#Seven year old me was kind of an asshole

[lord-of-pterodactyls]

So everyone’s had that moment where they’ve entered an elevator and forgotten to push the button. You can’t deny it it’s basic knowledge. So mine happened to me once when i was like seven. I know a lot of people would have experienced this but mine is just that bit special because you had like 20 seven year olds crammed into an elevator and half of them are crying because the door is closed and they aren’t going anywhere. And school had this strings program so it was 20 seven year olds crammed into a lift with some violins cellos violas and a couple of double basses. So there is like no room whatsoever but everyone wants to get out so everyone is shoving each other to get to the door. And I get shoved to the back of the lift and notice that no one has pressed the fucking button. And a couple of weeks before that I got blamed for something I didn’t do and no one was on my side about it so I was feeling petty about it (still am and will never be over it but that’s not the point) and I just stayed quiet about it. And I have positioned myself so my back is against the buttons so no one else can realise and free us (I’m very petty okay?) and after like 20 minutes of manifesting chaos among these kids I finally press the ground floor button so we can get out. But we’ve been stuck for 20 minutes and the elevator was old and in need of repairs and the lights sort of started flickering and the elevator was shuddering because of the weight of all the kids and their instruments and this of course creates more screams. You will never understand the joy seven year old me had while shouting at everyone to be quiet because if they shut up they would have noticed that no one had pressed the down button and I was trying to tell them that they forgot the button but they couldn’t hear me because of their screams, and I would have pressed the button earlier had I not been shoved around constantly. A blatant lie to anyone who checked twice but alas seven year olds are fucking stupid (me included took me like 5 minutes to figure out that no one had pressed the button despite the fact I was standing right in front of it). And the reason no adults came to get us was because the music lesson was right before lunch and we were due to spend lunch on the other campus because we “behaved really well and can use the big kids playground across the road” which was honestly a good excuse to not have to put up with our screams of joy for lunch time. Anyway getting off topic. So half of the grade went down the elevator with their teacher supervisor and this woman forgot that the she still had to wait for the other half of the grade because it wasn’t her usual class. And like ten minutes till lunch ends she goes “oh wait shit I’ve lost some children how the fuck” and at this point we’ve gotten out and luckily managed to find our way to the playground thanks to some poor middle school student who I recognised from after school care (I feel bad about this now because this kid was like 13 and honestly if I was approached by twenty seven year olds with string instruments half of whom were crying or are still crying I would just panic). But the teacher has run off because she lost half of the kids she was supposed to be looking after. However some of the older students saw this site and decided that they would be babysitting until the teacher came back because look at these sad miserable children so sweet and innocent (and the other handful of older kids who just did it to laugh at us but I would too tbh). Anyway end of lunch comes and the teacher finally goes back to the playground and takes us back to the very small children side of the school. Honestly I still feel very satisfied about that because I got a gold star sticker from the teacher and was presented a piece of paper for my “ingenuity” during assembly that week. God I’m so fucking proud of seven year old me I was the fucking worst and I got prizes for it too.

[wilwheaton]

hello mr wil wheaton when you were my age (like exactly i think) you were filming stand by me

I turned 13 during production, so if you're about to become a teenager, I hope you'll let me offer some thoughts that I wish an adult had shared with me, then?

I know this is a wall of text, and giving someone this much of your attention is a HUGE ask. Maybe bookmark this for another time, if you're not into hearing an old man talk.

I wrote this a few days before I turned 50. Thank you in advance for listening, and I wish you a life filled with joy, unconditional love, kindness, and adventure.

Hey everyone! An old man is talking!

In seven days, I will be 50 years-old. This is ... weird. I do not feel the way I expected I would feel when I was approaching 50, nor do any of my friends. The only time I feel like I'm middle-aged is when my body does some bullshit that takes me down for hours because I had the nerve to stand up quickly. And I really hate it when I have to use the flashlight on my phone to see a menu. I mean, at that point, I may as well be dropping my pants for free and singing the Old Gray Mare.

Anyway. This has been on my mind for a little bit, so I had something to say when someone used my tumblr ask me thingy earlier this week:

Q: I hope I'm as cool as you when I'm 49. I'd like to think I'm taking the right steps towards that version of myself. A: So I'm not sure I'm cool, but I do know that I don't suck, and that it's a choice I make every day. I desperately wish someone in my family had told me, or shown me by example, that getting older doesn't mean getting stupid and boring and stuffy and extremely uncool. I wish I'd known that, because I spent all of my life until I was in my 40s feeling like there was this day coming very soon when I would have to stop listening to punk, stop playing video games, put on a suit, and start yelling at kids for no good reason. I didn't know that you don't have to suddenly stop being who you are and become something or someone you hate, just because of a certain age. I know that's super obvious, but to young me, it was not. My dad was an asshole, my mom never showed up for me. Directors and people on set had been treating me like a thing for my entire life. I got yelled at for no reason from adults who knew better almost every day. Most of my elementary school teachers were authoritarian, evangelical assholes. All of these different adults, consistently, shut me down and made me feel like I didn't matter, the things I liked were stupid, and my opinions were invalid because of reasons I didn't understand because I was a dumb kid. So I presumed that when you got to be a certain age, that's what happened. I didn't want to be that, at all, and I was sincerely afraid of the day it would happen. But as I got older, I discovered that all that stuff I hated about adults doesn't automatically happen. Those adults I just mentioned all made a choice to be an asshole. I just didn't know it. I was in my early 20s when I did a movie with a cinematographer who was, I think, 45 at the time. He was the coolest, kindest, most artistic dude I'd ever known. He mentored me and we had epic fun making great art together. I remember telling him, "I'm not afraid of being in my 40s like I used to be. I didn't know you could still be cool." It's sad, that I grew up in such a toxic environment, and didn't know any of these things. So, 9 days before I turn 50, here are a couple things I have figured out: You know who sucks when they hit 49 and 50? People who sucked when they were 20 and never grew up. You know who is an asshole at 49 and 50? Yep. Someone who was an asshole as a kid and never experienced consequences for being an asshole. Hitting middle age has been awesome for me. Other than the aging of my body and its reluctance / refusal to do what I want it to do, I love everything about it. I wish I hadn't spent so much of my life being afraid that, when I hit 50, it was all over. Because honestly it's kind of just starting. The coolest stuff in my life to date has all happened in the last ten years, and I'm so grateful that it coincided with me figuring out a lot of shit so I could enjoy it.

The best part of getting older, by several thousand light years, is the part where we figure out how to stop putting up with other people's bullshit, and we contract our social circle until it's only populated with a VERY few people who deserve us. And I am incredibly grateful for these occasional opportunities to be a 49 year-old dad who can say all the things that would have been reassuring for 19 year-old me to hear (he wouldn't have understood, but 29 year-old me would have remembered, and he would have understood. I think.) I sincerely hope someone hears it and finds it helpful. Anyway, you're gonna be fine. Just remember that being cool, kind, honest, honorable, reliable, listening and showing up … they are all choices. If you want to be cool when you're 49, make the choice and set the example for someone to follow you. Treat kids the way you wanted to be treated when you were young. Listen to them when they offer you the privilege, because that means they trust you, and you have credibility with them. Be a mentor. Be supportive. Show up. Make a choice to be the person you need in the world, and never stop being that person. Start today, and when you're nearing 50 like I am, hopefully you'll remember who you needed right now, so you can be that person to someone else in the future. You're already asking the right questions and taking the first steps. I believe in you. You've got this.

Okay, if you've come this far, perhaps you'll follow me a little bit more, and read a thing I wrote about talking to students just a tiny bit older than you, which contains my core values.

Be honest. I’m a very old man, relative to y’all, and I’ve learned that the only currency that really matters in this world is the truth.

Be honorable. This dovetails with number one. You attract to yourself what you put into the world. Dishonorable people will take everything from you and leave you with nothing. Do your best to be a person they aren’t attracted to.

Work hard. I don’t mean, like, at your crappy minimum wage job you hate. I mean do the hard work that makes relationships work, that gets you ahead in your education, that gets you closer to your goals. Everything worth doing is hard. Everything worth doing requires hard work. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into something in your life that’s really hard, and you’ll want to give up, but it’s something you care so much about, you’ll do whatever you can to achieve it. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be less hard for someone who has practiced doing the hard things all along, than it is for someone who doesn’t know how to do the hard work because they’ve always chosen the easy path.

Always do your best. Even if you don’t get the result you wanted, doing your best — which will vary from day to day, moment to moment — is all you can ever do. We tell athletes to leave it all on the field. Whatever your version of that is, do it.

This is the most important one. This is the one I hope you’ll all hear and embrace. This is the one I hope you’ll share with your peers: Always be kind.”

When I read number 5, I looked up at them. I was so happy to see a classroom filled with teenagers who were all listening intently, even the ones I thought had tuned me out. “Here’s the thing about being Kind, versus being Nice,” I said. “I have interacted with lots of nice people who are incredibly unkind. Why is that? How do you choose to be nice but not kind?”

I pointed to my head. “This is where nice comes from,” I said. Then, I put my hand over my heart. “This is where kind comes from.” I put my hands out, like, “get it?”

There was this collective gasp of realization that I did not expect, at all. One kid said “Oh damn!” I saw a few kids look at each other like the trick had just been explained to them. They heard me. They really, really heard me. And it was amazing.

Okay, that's all. If you're still here, thank you for giving me so much of your time and attention. I hope you'll come back in a few years, and let me know how you're doing.

[wood-white-writer]

“Didn’t mean to make your heart Blue” || [1/…]

- OPLA!Buggy x F!Reader

“So, I don’t blame you if you want to bury me in your memories,”

— Mitski, "Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart"

Pairing: Buggy the Clown (Live Action) x F!Reader

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Summary: You were an apprentice of Gol D. Roger’s crew in your youth, long before his eventual demise. Along with the Red-Haired Shanks and Buggy, you were a formidable trio; the embodiment of a new generation of pirates yet to come. But times changed, and so did you and your friends. Years have passed since you last saw Buggy following the dispute that you thought ended your friendship. When you finally reunite with the blue-haired menace you once considered your closest friend, it’s under less than “friendly” circumstances.

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Canon Typical Violence, Slight Canon Divergence, Buggy is an asshole, The reader used to go by "Cross-Hairs" in the past.

A/N: I’m basing this primarily on the LA! version of “One Piece”, as I’ve just recently begun to watch the Anime.

Luffy, for his unyielding devotion towards his dreams of becoming the King of Pirates, evidently lacks the sense of foresight required of a pirate to successfully navigate the seven seas. Then again, it's nothing new.

You’ve always known. The kid's been a hazard to society even in his youth; no filter between his brain and his mouth despite the ungodly amount of food he pushes between his jaws. You used to watch him make his proclamations in front of Shanks' merry band with little more than vaguely piqued interest, indifferent to the youthful albeit naive optimism he exhibited.

Shanks, meanwhile, always used to find his demeanor endearing - “He’s a good kid. Let him dream,”

And so you let him. You watched him dream for the next ten years, making sure that his dreams didn't catch the wrong kind of attention until he was old enough to hold his own weight.

However, back then, Luffy's actions seldom warranted any real consequences. Save for the incident with the Bandit and the Sea King, he's rarely been in any real danger prior to his debut as a pirate.

An unruly child spouting declarations of desiring to become the next “King of Pirates” hardly would’ve caused more of a ripple effect than to make other people shake their heads and laugh. And if it did, you were there to make sure it didn’t.

Now, not only has his actions earned you the ire of the Marines by stealing the Map of the Grand Line, but it has also garnered the attention of other opponents. Far more dangerous ones than the likes of Alvida or even that Axe-Hand Moron.

It was only a matter of time.

So when you find yourself waking up in a wooden cage with the rest of your reluctant crew mates, accompanied by a head-throbbing headache at that, your first instinct is to heave an exasperated sigh.

"Goddamn it."

"Oh, you're up." It's Luffy. He looks unharmed, albeit disoriented, not too unlike yourself. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I just snorted a bottle of rum through my nostrils." You get up into a crouching position, eying your surroundings, which doesn't leave much up for inspection considering your cage consists of broad wide planks. "What the fuck happened?"

The last thing you recall before being knocked out was a Jolly Roger in the distance, too far away for you to make out properly. So, not Marines, but pirates.

You can't tell if that's a good or a bad thing.

"Think we wouldn't have told you if we knew?" The swordsman - Zoro - replies with a deadpan look of boredom on his face as he attempts to peek through the cracks in your confinement. You have half a mind to tell him where to shove it but opt for a more quiet approach.

It's during moments like these when you realize you actually miss that scrawny pink-haired kid with the glasses - Koby. He never spoke to you like this. Granted, he was probably intimidated by the way you were always hovering behind Luffy like a silent guardian, but he didn't provide unnecessary comments like Bounty Hunter over there does.

Small blessings and all that. Very small.

You provide a solid kick to the plank on Zoro's right side without warning, catching him off-guard and earning you a short-lived glare. The planks loosen considerably, probably not meant to contain you for long.

Meanwhile, you listen half-heartedly to Luffy and Nami as they discuss the potential identities of your captors.

"They're not marines," Luffy assures her. "Before I got knocked out, I saw a Jolly Roger. We've been captured by pirates."

You glance at him from over your shoulder. "What'd it look like?"

"I don't know, it looked ... like ..." he pauses in thought. "A skull with crossbones, and a red ... dot? It almost looked like a nose, if bones could have noses, but they don't."

The blood in your veins freezes up, as does the rest of your body until their voices blur into nothing.

You've been keeping occasional track of him in the years that's passed since you parted ways, and when he amounted to a considerable bounty on his head, his signature Jolly Roger was hard not to miss on his wanted posters.

-------

"I didn't know there were so many pirates."

You tilt your head at the wall decorated with various wanted posters of different pirates, some more torn and discoloured than others, some more dead than others. You can't find your own amongst them in Shells Town, but then again, it has been some time since last you were on the Marines' radar. More likely than not, your poster is hidden somewhere underneath the several layers of—

"Hey, there's yours!" Luffy damn-near exclaims in wonder and points at— Oh yeah, there it is, right above Foxy's poster, a little yellow around the edges but still holding strong.

WANTED Dead or Alive "Cross-Hairs" 25,000,000

"Oh, wow, a 25-million bounty. That's a lot of berries."

The image is well over a decade old, taken back in your early twenties, and you were much more easy to identify back then. You were sharper in some angles, softer in others, compared to the present.

You look different now. Less robust, a little older, but no less dangerous in the grand scheme of things. Your sharp eyes remain the same, a trait Gol D. used to remark upon with a mischievous glimmer in his own eyes.

"You have eyes sharp enough to cut through steele," he'd say and ruffle your hair. A sense of loss perforating your being at the memory.

Despite being in your thirties, age tends to alter the appearance of most people, and you consider that a pretty good advantage right about now as you're standing surrounded by an army of Marine officers. Given the fact that you've spent the last couple of years away from the sea without a trace or clue, the World Government probably assumes you've died or gone into hiding.

Be that as it may, they didn't even bother to decrease the bounty since last time. How odd.

While Luffy spends a few moments admiring your old picture like a child that just learned their relative is some kind of famous celebrity, Koby is less than enthralled by this revelation.

"T-That's one of the highest bounties in the East-Blue." He is hesitant to look up at you. "What did ... What did you do to earn it?"

"A little here, a little there. Kicked a few asses, stole a bit of treasure along the way. Nothing too bad." You admit with a half-assed shrug as you continue to inspect the various posters.

For the boy's peace of mind, you won't go into the less ... child-friendly details regarding your reputation. About the way you used to fight to the blood with most of your opponents, Marines and pirates in equal measure. How you'd stand victorious atop a pile of broken limbs and pleading sounds from the defeated crowd.

"Yeah, yeah ..." Koby agrees with a feeble nod. "There are way worse pirates on the Grand Line."

Your gaze happens upon a particular wanted poster, and your demeanor stiffens. Not enough to notice from an ordinary point of view, but it does nonetheless.

His sharp cerulean eyes and bright red nose seem to mock you from his picture, and a heavy feeling settles in your heart. A feeling of hurt and betrayal you've long since thought abandoned in the corners of your heart. Not even the loss of your old captain could hope to compare to it

You snap back to Luffy, your voice a little strained as you speak though you desperately try to cover it up. "Are we done here, Luffy?"

------

It's your fucking luck it had to be him of all people to come after Luffy first.

Why him?

Fuuuuuu—

"We don't need to fight." Luffy's voice snaps you back to the present. "I can talk to them, pirate to pirate."

"Not with this one," you whisper more to yourself than anyone else. The only one who seems to catch onto this is Zoro, but the moment he opens his mouth to ask, Nami beats him to it.

A discussion regarding the duality of piracy quickly causes you to lose all interest in the following sequence.

You don't trust either the thief or the bounty hunter as far as you can throw them, and the feeling is mutual in both parts. Sure, they proved useful in getting rid of the Axe-Hand, and have had thus far been tolerable enough for you not to throw them overboard.

Still, Zoro recognized you on the spot where the Marines failed to, and though Nami doesn't, your status as a pirate is enough reason for her to distrust you.

As mentioned, you don't trust them, but Luffy does, and his lead is the only one you'll follow. This is his voyage, and you’re not here to keep him from making mistakes unless you consider them particularly vital. If this bites him in the end, then you'll be there to keep him afloat.

After all, you made a promise to your old red-haired friend.

"Look after the lad for me, will you? Help him achieve his dream."

With no patience left to wait to get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible, you prepare to kick through the planks. Just then, the top piece of your confinements unfold, and what you're greeted with is the pinpoint definiton of a fever dream on acid.

Tightrope walkers swinging in the air, acrobatics performing acts of impressive feats, someone fire-breathing, and-- was that a guy juggling on a unicycle passing you just now?

A circus troupe. You've been captured by a fucking circus troupe.

"Oh, what the actual fuck?" Is all you can manage to mutter, a sentiment Zoro surprisingly agrees with if the nod he adds serves as any indication.

The troupe has an audience, you come to observe in the distance. They're clapping and cheering on cue with the sign being held in the air, yet they look ... wrong. Forced. Puppets with strings embedded in their limbs, so to speak.

You narrow your eyes in distaste at the view. The hell has he been up to as of late?

In the midst of the enforced round of applause, a voice gradually makes itself more and more prominent through the masses. Deeper and huskier since last you heard it, but yet painfully known to your ears.

"No, no, no, NO! Stop clapping!"

And then he appears. The ringleader himself, exasperated as he throws his arms out to each side and effectively silencing the crowd.

"No, stop! This is all wrong!"

You momentarily forget to breathe as you watch him come into view from behind the audience. He's taller than the last you saw him, that's for damn certain. Must've hit a second growth spurt in your absence because, while you were relatively on equal foot in your youth, he now seems to have grown a head or so taller than yourself.

And like yourself, he's changed, and not inherently for the better. It's a relative statement considering that the life of a pirate is oftentimes a hard one, but it's a fact nonetheless. The years have not been any kinder to him than they've been for yourself. He still has the same hair, the same general appearance, but he's changed.

Out of the three of you, Shanks seems to have had it the easiest in recent years, appearance-wise. He never lost his smile or affinity for the brighter things in life, even when he had his damn arm chewed off.

Meanwhile, you lost your dreams, and he seems to have lost everything you recognized about him in your youth. His smile, his laughter, and even his stance had been replaced by some replica that fails to hold a candle to the original one.

This is a show master, not your friend. Then again, you haven't been friends for a long time now.

Still, changed as he may be from an outward point of view, Buggy's eyes have not. They're clear like the seas, just as they were long ago. (And his nose, of course. How could you forget?).

You can't tell if that's a relief yet.

You're not a fearful person by nature, having lost the distinct ability years ago. Now, however, you feel the tremors vibrating through your ribcage at the sight of him. That's why you decide to turn your face slightly to the side for now, hoping to prolong the inevitable.

Fortunately, your presence evades Buggy's notice for just a while longer as he berates his crew. "The spotlight was late! You completely missed my entrance!"

The sound of said spotlight changing its focus can be heard.

"And where, oh where, was the dancing lion?"

Good! While he's occupied, maybe you can find the right moment to grab Luffy and get the hell--

"Hey! I know you! I saw your wanted poster in Shells Town!"

... You want to dig a hole in the sand and bury yourself right about now.

"You're the clown guy! Uhm ... Binky, right?"

Buggy, you scream inside as you suppress the urge to yank Luffy by the shoulders and shake him until all of his limbs drop down on the ground. Fuck Shanks and fuck the promise. He's Buggy the fucking Clown, and you did not have to go out of your way to pinpoint that fact!

In your internal state of dismay, you settle with trying to locate potential escape routes. Maybe a hole in the walls of the tent, or an absent-minded guard by the entrance. You're stronger than most, with years of experience behind you, but you're not capable of fighting your way through a crowd with three tagalongs so seamlessly.

"Buggy," the man of the hour states as he approaches, still having failed to notice you. "Buggy the Clown."

No one says anything, which he takes as a sign to continue on with - what you personally regard - as a moronic long line of titles.

"Buggy, the Flashy Fool." Still nothing. He raises his arms, like a lost puppy begging for scraps of recognition. "Buggy, the Genius Jester."

Seriously, what's with him and all the names? He’s always been … overdramatic, but this cuts the cake even for him.

"Wow," Luffy seems genuinely impressed, a stark contrast to his companions, who would rather be anywhere than here. "You have a lot of names. I bet everyone in the East Blue knows who you are."

A range of gasps echo from the unwilling audience, and you finally snap your head to the front in alarm. Fuck, he couldn't have used a better word than that. Granted, Luffy didn't mean it in that context, or even that word, but it doesn't matter.

Another thing that hasn't changed about Buggy... And that very same thing might as well be what snaps him out of his theatric act.

You thought Buggy finally would've noticed you by now, seeing it as you're finally willing to face him, but his eyes remain eerily glued to the kid.

"What did you just say?" Buggy asks, calmly.

Way too calmly for your liking.

Oh, no.

Luffy blinks in confusion. "Just that everyone knows who you are?"

You notice the clown lunging before Luffy does.

In the span of a second, you plant yourself between them, the only barrier between him and the clown's rage. You don't move an inch even as Buggy closes in with his gloved hand outstretched towards the boy, having not yet registered your sudden appearance until his fingers are inches from your face.

Your eyes finally lock, the blue in his eyes more prominent now than ever. Almost two decades since the last time you saw each other, and Buggy ceases his attempted assault as though time itself freezes.

At first, there is nothing in his eyes but surprise. Anger. Maybe even a trace of admiration towards the one who dared stand against him. Hot and burning beneath his irises, like glowing embers left behind in a dying pyre.

Finally, there is recognition, and the fire reignites warmer and scorching more than ever before.

He doesn't say anything at first, and neither do you, but the glare in your eyes conveys the message loudly enough that even the performers and troupe members alike know not to interfere.

"Leave him be."

You think of what to say, what you can say, after years of being silent. A simple “Hi” will not suffice, and considering the way of which you parted, there is little room for confessions.

Then, Buggy begins to laugh.

It starts out as a whisper of a chuckle, then gradually develops until he's full-out holding his stomach in wheezes, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes and smudging his make-up.

He points his arm up as he tries to contain himself, and the guy holding the APPLAUSE-sign picks up on the subliminal message. Everyone in the place begins to laugh, both the captives and the captors, so loudly this time that it makes you feel small in a way you haven’t felt since you were a child.

You glance cautiously around yourself, sharing brief looks with your companions before the noises abruptly stop, having most likely been forced to do so.

When you look back at Buggy again, he's smiling wider than ever, but his eyes hold no genuine humor. No, there's an unidentifiable emotion swirling in the depths of his blue eyes that you fail to decipher before he speaks.

"Well, well, well! Isn't this an unexpected surprise?" He raises his arm to gesture to you, as if you're an exotic exhibition behind a display case for everyone to behold. The spotlight is now aimed at you, momentarily blinding your vision.

"Ladies and gentlemen! It is my honor to present to you, the one and only, the myth, the legendary 'Cross-Hairs'! The Beast of the East!"

Applause rings again in the air as Buggy continues.

"She was famous throughout all of East Blue for her many endeavors, with a bounty greater than even yours flashy truly." Admitting that fact looks like it physically hurt him, but he prevails. "And then, almost ten years ago, after her biggest heist yet, she just POOFS!" He snaps his fingers and lets them slowly decline for dramatic effect. "Vanishes out of the blue. Leaving the seas for an unforeseen amount of time."

It would seem like you were keeping track of each other all along.

The next words Buggy utters are so hushed that only you hear them, and his smile is gone.

"Then again, you do have a track-record of leaving things behind, haven’t you?"

Oh, the fucking nerve of this guy. You take a step forward, clenching and unclenching you jaw so much your teeth feel on the bring of cracking. How dare he? How fucking dare he?

You’re about to shout back at him, argue, throwing every caution to the wind just to correct him and scream:

("You're the one who left me, remember?")

Before you can, something taps your right shoulder. Thinking it's Luffy, you turn around, and the last thing you recall before it all fades to black is an air of red dust clouding your vision.

[elliesbelle]

nobody compares to you

chapter 13

pairing: ellie x reader

synopsis: you're in your junior year of college and at a party, you run into the girl who broke your heart: ellie williams. despite the time it took to reset your life, will you risk a broken heart again for her?

content warnings: modern college au, cursing, angst, dealer!ellie, mentions of marijuana and descriptions of its usage, descriptions of anaphylactic shock, brief mention of needles, descriptions of anxiety, mentions of death, descriptions of jealousy, mentions of breakups, several flashback scenes, mentions of LSD and its usage, descriptions of acid tripping, ellie's POV, minors do not interact

word count: 9k

chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen

series masterlist

my masterlist

i have a ko-if if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎

the "nobody compares to you" spotify playlist

songs featured in this chapter (including a surprise audio AND drawing commission in the middle of the fic):

the aaron taylor song “i think i love you again”

the carpenters song “merry christmas darling”

palestine will be free

“Where the fuck even are you?” 

“Not home.” 

“Well, no shit. I’m literally sitting on your living room couch, dumbass.” 

“Get out of my apartment, weirdo.” 

“Stop procrastinating, asshole.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes as a couple of bright yellow leaves slowly dance down on the pavement from the nearby trees on her path home. One hand holds her phone up in front of her with Dina’s face front and center on the screen through FaceTime. 

Having just dropped off a rather large order to a couple of stoner sophomores living on campus, Ellie’d decided to take the longer, more scenic route home instead of the usual way she’d go every day. She had a “date” lined up with Daniela in about an hour or so, a meeting she wasn’t particularly looking forward to being present for. Having no real enthusiasm to actually be on time to meet up with her, Ellie was purposely and leisurely delaying her return home to get ready. 

Dina, busy lounging on the couch in Jesse and Ellie’s living room, busies herself by finishing a bland, microwaveable box of mac and cheese she’d found shoved in the back of the duo’s full freezer. She was casually killing time talking to Ellie through video chat while she waited for Jesse to finish getting ready for their movie date night. 

Jesse enjoyed dragging Dina along to a movie theater in the neighbouring downtown area that showed old and foreign films. Back home in Jackson throughout their childhood, he and Ellie would make Dina sit through old sci-fi pictures, cult horror films, martial arts movies in a completely different language and with no subtitles. Dina would sit in the middle of the two in complete boredom as she listened to them psychoanalyzing background characters who had two lines and spending hours explaining their personal interpretations of a single camera angle in some inconsequential scene. 

When they all began attending university, Jesse was over the moon upon discovering the nearby theater and the kind of films they would show. Dina complained every single time, but she secretly enjoyed these date nights regardless, always arguing with Jesse on the way home with her own analyses of the movie they’d just seen. She was a little less enthusiastic this time, however, upon hearing that the film they were about to go see was an early 2000s Bollywood movie that had a running time of nearly four hours. 

Jesse had just gotten home from working out at the gym and was busy showering, and Dina decided to preoccupy herself in the meantime by thoroughly berating Ellie for her disinterest and voluntary tardiness for her “date” later that evening. 

“El, I really don’t understand why you’re even bothering with her,” Dina says after a huge, wet slurp of her mac and cheese. “Leave that poor freshman girl alone. You really don’t even seem to like her that much.” 

“She’s still got Joel’s jacket and I want it back.” Ellie shrugs nonchalantly. 

“Maybe if you didn’t pass that shabby old thing around to every new girl you see for a month…” Dina replies, not bothering to mutter under her breath. 

“Oh, leave me the fuck alone, Woodward,” Ellie says, chuckling. “Slutshamer.” 

Jesse jaunts into the living room, jet black hair damp from the shower and fully dressed, and spots Ellie’s face on Dina’s tiny screen. He waltzes towards the couch and, without any warning, stealthily snatches Dina’s phone right out of her hand. 

“Hey!” Dina protests indignantly, trying to reach for it back. 

Jesse ignores her as Ellie laughs. 

“Yo, what the fuck, Williams.” Jesse scolds the auburn-haired girl. 

“Wassup, Chang.” 

“What the hell did you ditch me and the gym for earlier? Today’s our cardio day.” 

“Had a huge delivery I needed to make,” Ellie shrugs. “Wanted two 40 bags on top of a few lavender pre-rolls. And they lived on the opposite side of campus.” 

“A likely excuse,” Jesse scoffs. “I think you’ve been harbouring a secret, years-long grudge against me and actually hate me for some reason.” 

“Oh, it’s not a secret. I do hate you.” 

“Dickhead.” Jesse chuckles as Dina heartily laughs behind him with a mouthful of mac and cheese. 

Before Jesse can continue to berate his best friend, his own phone rings noisily from the inside of one of his jeans pockets. 

“Oh, look. Someone who actually loves and appreciates me.” He says indignantly, handing small-scale Ellie back to Dina. 

Ellie playfully rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Jesse’s phone is currently buzzing and blaring with the personalized ringtone he’d set for your contact years ago shortly after you’d all met for the first time. 

Dina, recognizing the familiar sound as well and noticing Ellie’s tight lips and rigid expression, quickly attempts to change the subject. 

“So where exactly are you gonna be meeting up with the Daniela girl?” Dina quickly asks Ellie at the same time that Jesse booms, “Good evening once again to my absolute favourite person in the whole world!” 

Ellie hesitantly begins to reply to Dina but cuts off almost immediately when she hears Jesse’s tone turn serious and mutter a name she’d come to despise. 

“Oh. Hey, Anderson. What’s up?” Jesse says blankly. “Where’s—” 

“Oh, shit.” Dina inadvertently murmurs as Ellie’s face immediately goes red with fury. 

“Why the fuck is Anderson calling Jesse on her phone?” Ellie demands quietly of Dina. 

“I mean… she is on a date with her tonight…” Dina reluctantly admits, knowing that lying to Ellie about your current whereabouts is pointless after figuring Jesse would eventually blab it to her anyway. 

“Are you fucking serious?” Ellie seethes. 

“I don’t really know why she’d be calling Jesse, though. That doesn’t make any sense...” Dina says, setting down her fork and turning her head back towards her boyfriend as Ellie watches intently him from the corner of Dina’s phone screen. 

Both girls stare Jesse down as he intently listens to the other end of the line, the two getting more and more nervous as his face gets stonier as each second passes. When he finally speaks, his voice is grave and urgent. 

“Is she breathing?” 

“What?” Both Dina and Ellie simultaneously say in distress, which Jesse ignores. 

“What did she eat?” He asks Abby. 

“What’s going on?” Dina implores of him fearfully, sitting up straighter in her seat and completely abandoning her partially eaten mac and cheese on the coffee table. 

Jesse holds up a pointer finger as an indication that he needs to keep listening as Ellie hushes her sternly, fiercely trying to eavesdrop on Jesse’s conversation. 

“Okay. What did you eat?” Jesse questions. 

The way Jesse’s face falls elicits a sharply drawn breath from Dina and drains all the colour from Ellie’s face. 

“Did she have any?” He asks. 

While Jesse listens for Abby’s lengthy response, Ellie quickly averts her eyes back to Dina. 

“Dina.” She says hastily. “Where did Anderson take her tonight?” 

“Orchards. It’s that fancy restaurant that’s like, right by here.” 

“I know. They serve a lot of seafood there, right?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Do you think Anderson ordered any?” 

“El, how am I supposed to know that?” 

“Well, does Anderson know that she’s deadly fucking allergic to shellfish? That she can’t even fucking touch that shit?” 

Dina’s terrified face suddenly goes completely pale before she responds. 

“I-I don’t know...” 

“Does she have any pockets or some kind of bag with her?” They hear Jesse say. “See if she has her EpiPen in there.” 

“E-El… I don’t think she does.” Dina stammers.” I helped her get dressed tonight and I saw her before she left, and I-I don’t think—” 

Ellie nearly drops her phone on the pavement from how clammy her hands have become from complete fear. When she hears Jesse fiercely mutter a furious “fuck,” she immediately breaks into a sprint. 

“Dina!” Ellie demands. “Give me back to Jesse! Now!” Dina hastily hands her phone to her petrified boyfriend without question as he quickly asks Abby to stay calm and give him a quick second. 

“Jess!” Ellie breathlessly yells, not bothering to keep her voice down and without any concern for the fellow students she was alarming as she ran by. “Go to my room right now and search in the bottom drawer of my desk!!!” 

Promptly and silently, Jesse darts in the direction of Ellie’s bedroom with Dina following closely behind him. 

“There’s an old EpiPen of hers somewhere in there! I think it’s probably a couple of months expired now, but grab it anyway!” 

Jesse and Dina unceremoniously bust into Ellie’s bedroom and follow her instructions precisely. After forcibly yanking open the bottom-most drawer of her computer desk, they begin to desperately rifle through it. After a few seconds of frantic ransacking through its miscellaneous contents, Jesse pulls out a thick, plastic cylindrical object with tiny lettering embellished all over the translucent plastic. 

“Look for the little slot on the side of it that shows you some liquid-y shit inside!” Ellie presses him. “Is it still completely clear and clean, or is it all brown and murky?” 

“It’s clear.” Jesse replies after quickly inspecting the EpiPen. 

“Okay, go!” Ellie orders. “Dina’s gonna call 911 right now! Orchards is right around the corner from our place, so run! Inject the needle on the outside of her thigh! And check her pulse and see if she’s breathing, ‘cause you’ll need to do CPR if she isn’t! Paramedics probably won’t get there for another five minutes or so, so you just gotta keep doing chest compressions until they can get there!” 

Jesse nods and immediately sprints out of the room after handing Dina her phone, placing his own back to his ear and quickly informing Abby that he’d be there shortly, firmly asking her to check your pulse. 

Dina sets her eyes on Ellie, pure terror engraved on her face. 

“Ellie, s-shouldn’t we grab the EpiPen she has now in her apartment? I think I know where it is, probably. Isn’t that safer than—”

“Her apartment is fifteen minutes away from that restaurant and Jesse can get there in two! We can’t waste any more time!” Ellie clarifies quickly. “Now, I need you to hang up right away and call 911 and explain everything that’s just happened! Go!” 

Ellie doesn’t bother waiting for Dina to end the call and roughly taps on the red button herself. 

She shoves her phone into the pocket of her hoodie and quickens her pace. 

Her lungs winded and her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she couldn't seem to care any less about her own breathing at that very moment. She trusts nothing else but her own feet to get her exactly where she desperately needs to be. She sees nothing and no one else but the pavement directly in front of her, cutting across the university’s campus through the fastest route she can think of in the moment. 

Despite never having been a religious person in any way, Ellie begins to plead a desperate prayer in her mind to whatever god or deity that could possibly exist that you were still breathing somehow and that Jesse had found you and gotten there in time. 

She takes a moment to pull her phone out and check how long it’s been since she ended the FaceTime call with Dina, seeing that a little less than five minutes had just passed. She considers calling her once more for any updates; but not wanting to risk being a possible distraction in case Dina is needed in the moment, she ultimately decides against doing so and instead wills her feet to move faster. 

Unwelcome thoughts begin to involuntarily flood Ellie’s mind as she sprints. 

She thinks of the last time you’d seen each other: that night of your heart-to-heart dinner with Jesse at Sterling’s. It felt almost fated for her and Dina to walk into the same restaurant at the same time that the two of you had been meeting. Ellie recalls the identical look of dismay on both of your faces, equally overwhelmed at the sight of one another. She can still feel the angry yet doleful tears that fell down her red cheeks as she stormed away from the diner, threatening to expose endless repressed feelings of remorse and heartache. 

She remembers the day she saw your sudden reunion with Abby Anderson, you dressed in that beautiful floral sundress and very obviously flirting with the tall, muscular blonde. Her nails were so angrily digging into her palms at the sight of you two that she can still feel the phantom marks that had nearly drawn blood. She’d nearly frightened Dina, who was lounging on the living room couch with a joint in hand, when she busted into her and Jesse’s apartment with immediate choice words that were aroused by her unbridled anger. 

She recalls the last time you’d actually spoken to one other directly after that miserable, unfortunate night of the Sigma Eta party, how taken aback she was at how you were still so undeniably beautiful underneath the pale moonlight. Having been sitting on the hood of her Jeep while she watched in amusement at your futile attempts to keep yourself warm, she thinks of the way your eyes were furiously and desperately trying to avoid her piercing ocean green gaze. The memory of the angry, fleeting look you’d given Daniela when you’d obviously noticed Joel’s old motorcycle jacket resting on her shoulders is one she can never forget; nor could she the air of raw, bitter indignation that radiated off you at the sight of one of your signature lavender joints nestled in between Daniela’s lips. 

She can still feel the visceral rage that sparked inside her from Frat Guy Adam’s casual cruelty towards you, followed by feelings of heartbreak at watching the way your face had fallen at his words. The sheer remorse from pathetically having done nothing right when it happened still weighs on her. Ellie can never forget the simultaneous feelings of shame and comfort she’d felt after your heated encounter with her in the bathroom of Sterling’s: shame from being forcibly confronted with a reminder of the deepest regret of her whole life; and comfort at finally being able to see with her own ocean green eyes, after so long, the face of a person she once adored more than she did anyone else in the world. 

Maybe even still. 

Ellie eventually finds herself at the intersection right where her shared apartment with Jesse is located. Her hasty pursuit is frustratingly impeded when she’s stopped by the angry, glowing red hand at the crosswalk she needs to get past to reach Orchards, cars endlessly coming one after the other. For a few moments, she’s at least able to catch a much-needed, painful breath.

While she bounces up and down on her feet in impatience, very seriously contemplating running across anyway and risking being hit by a speeding car, Ellie thinks of one thing and one thing only: the first moment her eyes met yours all those years ago. The moment when she knew, deep down and instinctively, that everything had changed. 

She’s brutally broken out of her brief reverie by the blaring of sirens booming from around the corner. Her head immediately shoots towards the sound and she watches as two ambulances with flashing red and white lights speed down the road and towards what she believes is the direction of the nearest emergency room. 

Ellie wastes no time bolting down the crosswalk the millisecond that the orange pedestrian signal finally blinks to white, sprinting down the street of Orchards. She’s somehow able to spot Dina’s figure in the middle of a small crowd of people gathered next to the restaurant and immediately sprints towards her. By the time Ellie is able to reach her, most of the unfamiliar bystanders have dispersed with whispers. Her heart races as she sees Dina’s cheeks wet and dripping endlessly with tears. 

“Dina!” Ellie huffs, using the last of her breath and energy to dash to her side. 

“Ellie!” Dina sighs in relief upon spotting her friend. 

They envelop each other in a tight embrace, Dina hiccuping slightly into Ellie’s shoulder. 

“What happened? Did you guys make it in time? Is she okay? Where is she? Where’s Jesse?” Ellie rambles. 

“Sh-she’s okay, I think,” Dina stammers. “She was breathing when Jesse got here, but her pulse was really slow. The paramedics got here a few minutes after Jesse did.” 

She sloppily wipes her eyes with the back of her hands before continuing. 

“They said that the EpiPen probably saved her life, said that she would have had a lot less of a chance if we had just waited for them to arrive. Expired EpiPen was apparently better than nothing, as long as it wasn’t too far off from when it did expire.” 

Ellie takes a relieved breath in at hearing this. 

“Thank god. Thank fucking god. That’s what I thought, but I-I honestly wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember clearly in the moment.” 

“How did you even know that?” Dina asks her in genuine curiosity. 

“I-I… wh-when we were, you know, t-together…” Ellie mutters awkwardly. “I made sure to know, j-just in case.” 

“Oh, Ellie…” 

Ellie wrings her hands together and clears her throat in embarrassment. 

“So where’s Jess? Where’s Anderson?” She asks, changing the subject and voice dripping in disdain at the last word. 

“Jesse rode in the ambulance with her and the paramedics, and Abby said that she’d follow behind in her car,” Dina replies. “I stayed behind ‘cause I figured you were on your way and I wanted to be able to tell you what happened in person.” 

“Thank you, D, seriously.” 

Dina stares at Ellie earnestly for a moment. 

“You really do still love her.” Dina says, not as a question but as a statement. 

Ellie doesn’t respond to this remark, her lips tight and her ocean green eyes unreadable. 

“Come on. Let’s go see her.” 

You had been brought to St. Peter’s Hospital, the closest one located to your university. When Ellie and Dina had gotten there, they found Jesse sitting alone in the mostly empty waiting room. He was staring up at the dreary off-white ceiling, his left leg nervously bouncing up and down as one of his hands gripped his right knee. When he spots the two girls enter the room, he immediately jumps out of his seat to meet them. He pulls his girlfriend into a tight embrace and gives her a tender kiss on the forehead, and then he places a firm and reassuring hand on his best friend’s shoulder. 

“How is she?” Ellie asks nervously. 

“Unconcious still, but she’s alive,” Jesse replies somberly. “The paramedics in the ambulance told me that they were pumping her full of adrenaline; and so now, they’re either still doing that or they’re just trying to get her heart rate back to normal. Apparently, her tongue was so swollen and her throat closed up completely, so they’ve got to reopen her airways ‘cause she’s having a hard time breathing.” 

“Oh, god…” Dina chokes out. 

“Don’t worry, D.” Jesse consoles. “She’s gonna be fine. She’s strong, and we know that. They’re taking care of her, and she’ll hopefully be awake soon.” 

“I know, I know…” Dina sniffles. “It’s really not like me to fall apart like this. But she’s like a sister to me, you know. I mean, she basically is.” 

“Me too, babe. Don’t worry. We all love her too. No need to explain.” Jesse says. 

Dina gives him a soft smile as he gives her another tender forehead kiss. Watching such a small but affectionate scene between the two makes Ellie feel as if she’s intruding on a private moment she shouldn’t be witnessing. Jealousy in the form of a knife in the stomach twists inside her while her heart aches to feel that kind of intimacy. 

“Oh, shit, I should call her uncle,” Dina suddenly realizes, pulling away from Jesse slightly. “I think I still have his number from freshman year. He should know what’s going on.” 

“Good idea.” Jesse agrees. “He’s one of her emergency contacts, but I’m not sure if he knows just yet.” 

“I’ll call the girls too,” She continues, referring to the other girls who lived in the Wilson Valley building with you and Dina during your freshman year. “I know that they’ll also want to know.” 

She pulls her phone out of her pocket before muttering a quick “be right back” and exiting the waiting room. 

Jesse and Ellie watch her walk out silently. After a moment or two, Jesse speaks up. 

“Are you okay, El?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Come on, man. Don’t do that. You know what I mean.” 

“I’m fine, Jess.” 

“Dude.” 

“What?” 

Jesse turns his whole body to face Ellie straight on, crossing his arms against his chest and frowning. 

“You’re completely red in the face, you look the most stressed out than I’ve ever seen you, and you’re here.” 

“So?” Ellie replies stubbornly. 

“Williams.” Jesse stresses sternly. “You know Dina and I saw everything you had in that desk drawer.” 

Ellie says nothing in reply and Jesse continues. 

“You literally still had her old EpiPen from like, two years ago. That entire drawer was full of her shit.” 

Ellie clenches her jaw and balls up her fists. 

“You still have all those old letters she used to write you all the time, all these mementos and knickknacks from when you two were together. You even have Barbie Bear.” Jesse points out. “Do you know that she’s been chewing Dina out nonstop about her for years because she thinks Dina stole her?” 

“Look, she and I just stopped talking to each other all of a sudden before sophomore year. I never had an actual chance to give her all of her shit back—” 

“You literally could have given them to me or Dina or even any of the Wilson girls so we could return them.” 

“Look—” 

“And what about the rest of it? Shit that you didn’t have to actually give back to her? It’s been years. You could have easily thrown it all out.” 

“You don’t understa—” 

“You didn’t even bother leaving all that shit back home in Jackson. You brought it all here with you to keep in our apartment.” 

“I… I—” 

“She could have fucking died tonight, El. And you’re still bullshitting me.” 

“Jesse.” Ellie croaks out through quivering lips and watery eyes. 

“You saved her life. She could have very well been in a worse state right now if it weren’t for you. You told me and Dina what to do. Nobody told you to do any of that. And by the sorry state of you, it looks like you just ran three marathons in a row just to get here and make sure she was okay in person.” 

Tears threaten to flow down from Ellie’s ocean green eyes, and it takes every ounce of strength that she has left in her to will them not to fall. 

“She means so, so much to me and Dina. And to a whole bunch of other people too. When she gets hurt, we feel that shit too.” Jesse says. “I need you to get your motherfucking shit together, Williams. Now.” 

Before Ellie can even form some kind of thought in response to his declaration, Dina suddenly reenters the waiting room. 

“Called her uncle and told him everything I know. He’s currently looking up the first flight out and he’ll hopefully be here sometime tomorrow.” Dina informs the pair as she walks over. “Just got off the phone with Astrid too. Most of the girls are either busy or asleep by now, but she said she’ll let them know too as soon as possible. If she’s awake tomorrow, they’ll try to come by to pay her a visit.” 

“Okay, good.” Jesse nods in response. “Thanks for doing that, D. I was so focused on what’s been going on, and none of that even crossed my mind.” 

“They deserved to know.” Dina smiles sadly before suddenly frowning. “But why did she even go into anaphylactic shock in the first place? They both asked me, but I realized that you never actually told either of us and I didn’t really know what to tell them.” 

“She and Anderson were making out, and Anderson had eaten some seafood bouillabaisse for dinner. Apparently, it had a bunch of chopped-up shrimp in it that she couldn’t see.” Jesse says plainly. 

Dina inadvertently glances at Ellie in slight sympathy, but Jesse looks at her with zero remorse on his face. 

“She didn’t tell Abby that she was really allergic?” Dina asks. 

“Anderson apparently had no idea, said that she wouldn’t have ordered it if she knew in the first place.” Jesse clarified. 

“Anderson should have fucking double-checked re-fucking-gardless.” Ellie angrily interjects. 

“It’s not Abby’s fault, Ellie. There’s no way she could have just known instinctively.” Dina reasons. 

“Doesn’t matter. Isn’t she studying to be a fucking doctor? Isn’t that some basic shit that they teach at med school or whatever? She should have known better.” Ellie seethes. “Where the fuck is she, anyway? I thought she came along.” 

“She went down to the food court for a breather.” Jesse says. 

“Oh, she needs a breather?” Ellie sneers. “Yeah, go ahead and catch your breath when the person you almost killed tonight can’t even fucking breathe—” 

“Ellie!” Dina scolds. 

“Whatever.” Ellie scoffs. 

“El,” Dina suddenly brings up. “Have you talked to Daniela yet?” 

“What about her?” Ellie asks. 

“Weren’t you supposed to meet up with her…” Dina checks the time on her phone. “... almost an hour ago?” 

“So?” 

“Ellie.” 

Ellie clicks her tongue. 

“Fine, let me text her right now that I won’t make it—” She begins to say begrudgingly, but she cuts herself off as someone else enters the waiting room. 

Abby Anderson quietly walks through the door, sipping a plain black coffee from a styrofoam cup. She looks up from her drink and gives Jesse an awkward but polite smile which he respectfully returns along with a nod. 

Ellie’s entire body goes cold with frigid, icy hatred, exacerbated when her furious ocean green eyes suddenly meet with Abby Anderson’s tired sky blue ones. 

“Actually,” Ellie suddenly says. “I’m gonna give her a call and see if she’s still free to meet up tonight. I still want my jacket back.” 

Both Dina and Jesse look as if they’re each about to interject with a response, but Ellie is too quick for either of them to say a word. 

Ellie storms out of the waiting room, not giving a second look at Abby Anderson. 

Ellie throws Joel’s old leather jacket onto her bed, sighing softly. She sheds her sweaty grey hoodie and throws it down next to the jacket before pulling her phone out. She proceeds to call Jesse, but she’s greeted with ten, empty-sounding buzzes before being redirected to his voicemail. She then attempts to call Dina but is greeted with an immediate automated message stating that the call could not be completed. 

Groaning in exasperation, Ellie collapses into her desk chair and roughly kicks off her Converse. After a moment or two, she notices the bottom-most drawer of her desk and the way it’s hanging off the frame precariously. Sighing, she crouches down on the floor and begins to rearrange its previous contents. 

At first, she shoves items back into the drawer at random, but she immediately pauses once her hand grazes across the fur of a pink stuffed animal. 

Barbie Bear. 

She picks up the stuffed animal and stares sadly into its plastic eyes. Noticing that the light pink ribbon around its neck has gotten loose, Ellie delicately attempts to retie it back into a bow. After a couple of lopsided tries, she’s eventually satisfied once she’s able to center the ribbon correctly. She carefully places Barbie Bear back into the drawer before returning to restore its contents with more consideration. 

After replacing a few pairs of old earrings of yours into a small box, she picks up a stack of old letters that she’d tied together with a piece of brown twine. Ellie resists the urge to go through each of them, but when she notices that one had fallen out of the stack and is now lying on the floor, her willpower dwindles almost instantly. 

Ellie picks up the envelope gingerly, almost as if she’s afraid that her touch will cause it to burst into flames. She reads her name on the front written with green ink and flips it over to where the flap of the envelope is torn open. She runs her fingers over the wax seal that had secured the letter inside: the design of Saturn amongst several stars. Nervously, she slips the card out from inside and unfolds it to reveal your handwriting. 

Dear Ellie, 

It is currently 4:27 A.M. and I can’t sleep, and for some reason, I can’t stop watching that story you posted on Instagram earlier over and over. The one of you singing and playing your electric guitar to that Aaron Taylor song. Not to be gay as fuck, but it is so easy to get lost in the sound of your voice. Also, I really like your lips. And your hands. 

I know I said this yesterday already, but you’ve been overworking yourself way too much lately. I’m glad that you’ve been putting a lot of effort into your schoolwork, but have you eaten? When was the last time you had a full meal (microwaveable ramen does not count)? Have you been taking any time for yourself? It’s really sweet that you still make time to come hang out with me most days, but you need some you time too, you know. 

Not that I don’t love seeing your goofy face all the time. I don’t know, I think me writing all that out is me casually acknowledging that I have attachment issues and attempting to work on it. Oh, well. I’m pretty attached to you, fucking dork. 

Okay, heading to bed now. Hopefully, I’ll actually be able to fall asleep this time. But hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow (I know I just said that you need to take more time for yourself, but shut up). You’re always the best part of my day. 

Ellie can’t seem to let herself read the final piece of the letter, the part where you’d signed your name. 

She delicately folds the card once more and places it back into its envelope. Turning it over in her hand and tenderly running her fingers over where you’d addressed her name, she wonders if your handwriting is still the same as it was all those years ago. 

Reluctantly, Ellie tucks the letter back into the stack before tying them all securely together once more. 

Earlier That Evening 

Ellie was fifty-two minutes late to her supposed “date” with Daniela. This was Ellie’s third failed attempt at reacquiring Joel’s old motorcycle jacket, and they had previously decided to meet up outside the coffee shop on campus where Daniela recently started working after the end of her shift. 

But after Ellie’s unexplained absence from their meeting, Daniela bitterly stormed back home to her dorm. She had half a mind to say no when Ellie called her with a half-assed explanation and asked if she could come over to retrieve her jacket. But after giving in, Ellie arrived at her dorm room within half an hour. 

It wasn’t a total shock to Ellie when she was greeted with a look of annoyance when Daniela opened the door for her. Ellie attempted to feign a guilty expression, but all that she could muster was an indifferent grimace. Daniela said nothing as she silently beckoned Ellie to follow her and come in, an AirPod playing music loudly in one ear. 

Ellie took a quick glance around the place, never having actually been inside Daniela’s room before. The twin-size beds, old wooden dressers, and scuffed-up desks were an all-too-familiar sight for Ellie, having gone through the same torturous experience herself only a couple of years back in her freshman year. But a few things were different as Daniela and her roommate had attempted to really personalize their living area. Ellie tried not to make a face of repulsion when spotting a few Taylor Swift concert posters above one of the desks. 

Daniela plopped onto, what Ellie had assumed was, her bed but made no gesture that welcomed Ellie to do the same. She merely stared at her passively as Ellie tried to avoid looking her directly in the eye. 

“You’re an hour late.” Daniela pointed out. 

“Only fifty-two minutes late.” Ellie attempted to joke. 

Daniela only hummed in response, unsmiling. She picked up a faded brown jacket that was sitting on top of her pillow by the collar and handed it over to Ellie. 

“Thanks,” Ellie muttered, tucking the jacket under her arm. “Uh, thanks a lot for looking after it. Needed it back ‘cause it’s really my dad’s old jacket.” 

“Oh, sorry. I would have given it back sooner if I knew that.” Daniela replied, not sounding the least bit sorry. 

“It’s okay.” Ellie mumbled awkwardly. 

There was an uncomfortable moment or two of complete silence where Daniela continued to merely gaze at Ellie, unwavering and unapologetic, while Ellie focused her eyes on her Converse as she wrung her hands together. 

“Hey, look…” Ellie eventually spoke up. “I really am sorry about being late. I just had a really important emergency that I had to deal with.” 

“It’s fine,” Daniela replied remorselessly. “Tara told me that you suddenly had to deal with some shit.” 

“Wait, what?” 

“Tara. Tara Maclay. She works with me at Ruston.” 

“Oh, right.” 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“Your ex-girlfriend, right?” Daniela asks unexpectedly. 

“What?” 

“Your ex-girlfriend. The shit you had to deal with tonight.” 

“Oh, uh…” 

“No point in lying, Ellie.” Daniela shrugged. “Tara already told me the gist.” 

“Oh. What did she say exactly?” 

“Not much. Said that you needed to help deal with something for someone you both know. She didn’t tell me exactly that it was your ex-girlfriend, but it was pretty obvious. I read between the lines.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“She really shouldn’t have told you all that.” 

“She was ranting to another co-worker and I overheard your name and I was curious.” Daniela shrugged again, unabashed. 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“So you still into your ex or something, Ellie?” Daniela spoke up again. 

“She’s not really my ex-girlfriend.” 

“Whatever.” 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“Well?” Daniela asked. 

“It’s kind of complicated.” 

“That’s just the bullshit way of saying yes,” Daniela rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter if she’s your ‘ex’ or whatever.” 

“Look, Daniela—” 

“I know we aren’t serious or whatever, but I don’t really feel like dealing with someone else’s ex drama.” 

“There’s no drama. I don’t even speak to her anymore.” 

“And yet you ditched me to go and help her out with something earlier.” 

“It’s not like that. And it was also an emergency.” 

“So you said.” 

Ellie wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain herself to a girl she barely knew. Part of her felt compelled to do so as if she could continue to actively ignore her feelings by saying these things out loud. 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“God, you’re such an asshole fuckboy, Ellie.” 

“Hey, what the fuck—” 

“You know that you can get girls and do, but you just like to fuck around with them and play with their feelings.” 

“Alright, first of all, you said yourself that we’re nothing serious. We’ve barely even done anything.” Ellie said defensively. “Second, I literally just said that I don’t even talk to her anymore! Not even tonight!” 

Ellie scoffed as Daniela rolled her eyes once more. 

“Look,” Ellie continued through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry that I was late tonight. And I get it if your feelings are hurt. But nothing’s happening between me and my ex.” 

“You just said that she wasn’t your ex.” 

“Sh-she’s— she’s not, she’s—” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniela muttered as stood up from her bed. “At this point, I’m over it, and I really don’t give a fuck anymore. You’re hot and all, Ellie. But this is not worth it.” 

She popped an AirPod in her ear once more and sauntered over to the door. 

“Word of advice. Figure out your feelings for this ‘ex’ of yours and decide if you actually wanna be with her or not before getting involved with anyone else. Nobody deserves that hanging over their head, especially when you’re so clearly still in love with her.” 

And with that, Daniela opened the door and peered at her expectantly. Ellie took the hint and walked towards her direction and through the doorway. Before Ellie could fully turn around and give any parting words, Daniela shut the door in her face. 

Present 

Ellie collapses onto her bed next to Joel’s old motorcycle jacket. She pulls her phone out again, contemplating calling Jesse and Dina once more. But realizing they’ll probably call her if they have anything important that they feel she needs to know, she drops the phone down to her side in defeat. 

She continues to lay in her bed for a while, stewing in her unresolved feelings with nobody to confide in. Closing her eyes, her mind begins to race against her will with reminders of the path life led her down after you. 

First was Marisol. Less than two months into sophomore year of college, Jesse and Dina were completely aghast to see Ellie walking around campus with a girl they’d never seen her with before. She was in Ellie’s Aerospace Engineering class, and Ellie had claimed to have had an eye on her since last year. Jesse and Dina watched helplessly as their friend flaunted her new girlfriend around everywhere for the next couple of months. 

Ellie wasn’t initially sure what it was that attracted her to Marisol in the first place. She was naturally beautiful with her long, black hair and slender figure, and she was the textbook definition of a perfect girlfriend. It took two and a half months of overly extravagant dates and bouquets of Marisol’s favourite flowers and late nights spent at her dorm room for Ellie to understand what it was about Marisol that she was drawn to: it was her eyes. Down to the specks in her irises and how her eyelids curved, Marisol’s eyes resembled yours far too well. After coming to this harrowing realization, Ellie quickly broke things off with her tactlessly and with a half-assed, mostly untrue justification. 

The next was Luz who she had met during her near-daily workouts at the gym with Jesse. Ellie spent several autumn weeks with them, allowing Luz to whisk her about to different parties with different groups of friends every weekend. But one fateful night when they had dragged Ellie to a party at the same Sigma Eta frat house where you’d both first met, a bad acid trip cemented the end of her time with Luz. 

As Ellie’s dilated pupils focused intensely on Luz’s black boots, a pair very similar to your favourites, she felt a sensation begin to roughly tug at something inside her. From her spot on the living room couch, her eyes darted up to a spot by the wall where a small group of partygoers were congregating. She zeroed in on a random girl she’d never seen before whose multi-coloured features, as a result of LSD brain fog, began to morph into those of someone she was desperately trying to forget.

Once the last parts of the stranger’s face had fully formed to impersonate yours, she abruptly stood up from her slouched position on the couch, muttered an excuse to Luz about using the bathroom, and desperately begged Jesse to come pick her up immediately. After Jesse helped her click on her seatbelt in the passenger seat with a tight-lipped expression where he fought the urge to remind her of the significance of this house, Ellie never looked back and swore never to trip on acid again, subsequently ghosting Luz after that night. 

A couple of weeks before winter break, she met a sweet and quiet girl named Simi. They met through a dating app during one of Ellie’s crossfaded swiping sprees at 2 in the morning. Ellie’s affair with her was extremely short-lived, ending things with her a day before everyone left campus to head home for the holidays. While spending the day hanging out at Simi’s dorm room as her new girlfriend packed for her trip home, Ellie suddenly and unfairly started a fight with her after Simi had begun to mindlessly sing the song “Merry Christmas Darling” under her breath. 

Ellie had unkindly demanded for her to “shut up” immediately, understandably hurting Simi’s feelings. The fight was short and confusing, as Ellie had refused to elaborate on her sudden explosion. As she unceremoniously marched out of the dorm room, Ellie aggressively tried to suppress memories of you singing that same Carpenters song on a loop all of December of the previous year. You’d claimed you couldn’t get it out of your head and needed to sing it out loud at least fifty times a day so you could stop thinking about it. Though Ellie had playfully cussed you out and thrown several pillows at you on multiple occasions, that song now belonged to you forever and nobody else. 

After Simi were strings of countless others, some who had used Ellie as their brief college lesbian experience and many whose names Ellie would never be able to recall. She never hooked up with the same person more than twice, never actually took another one out for an actual date until Daniela. 

Ellie had found Daniela incredibly pretty when she’d first laid eyes on her on a warm September afternoon earlier in the year. She was lounging on the quad as Dina did her homework and Jesse lazily strummed his guitar when a group of freshmen walked by. Ellie hadn’t spared them a glance until one of the girls approached her, all shy and giggly, and said that one of her friends found Ellie very cute. After pointing Daniela out and asking for her number, Ellie shrugged and relented. She ignored Dina and Jesse’s identical judgmental looks and eye-rolls in her peripheral vision. 

Ellie enjoyed the undivided attention of someone completely enamoured by her. Daniela was constantly responsive, did whatever Ellie wanted to do, and was always so eager to please her. Ellie’d bring her to the movies, go on long drives with her in her Jeep, take her to whatever restaurants she’d want to eat at. 

To anyone who keenly observed when they were together, it was quite obvious who was far more invested between the two. Despite spending an ample amount of time with her in the past month or so, Ellie continued to keep Daniela at arm’s length. On multiple occasions when Ellie’d convinced Jesse and Dina to allow Daniela to accompany them, the long-time couple would watch how disconnected their friend was from this new girl she’d been seeing.

Dina would constantly give Jesse a raised eyebrow look that silently would ask, “Is she really serious?” to which Jesse would give her a tight-lipped, wordless grimace that replied with “We both know she’s a fucking dumbass.” They both placed bets on when exactly Ellie would eventually ditch this new girlfriend. 

Unbeknownst to them, it’s Ellie who was so easily discarded this time around. Feeling so unmoved and unaffected about the split with Daniela, Ellie tries to feel some kind of guilt over her lack of reciprocation. It’s her own actions, after all, that landed her dumped in the first place. She’s never fully seen Daniela as an actual girlfriend, and she knows full well that she shouldn’t have strung her along. 

But as she continues to lay in her bed, ocean green eyes shut and a hand woven through her auburn locks, she thinks of only you. 

Ellie can’t remember a single moment in her life when she’s felt more in need of another person’s company than she does at this very moment. Unable to trouble Dina to be her listening ear as she always is or bother Jesse to bluntly set her straight as usual, she feels the loneliness of the gloomy, dark room creep into her guilty conscience. 

Her fingers begin to mindlessly search her bedsheets as she continues to stare at her decrepit bedroom ceiling, seeking for her silver joint box that had fallen out of her pocket when she’d collapsed on her bed. Instead of the feel of cold metal, her hand comes across something smooth and warm. Pulling the brown leather jacket up to her face, Ellie’s mind murmurs a single word. 

Joel. 

She pulls her phone out to search for her father’s face within her favourite contacts. She hesitates for a moment but pushes herself to call. 

Joel picks up after only two rings. 

“Ellie? Jesus, kiddo, what the hell time is it?” 

“Hello to you too, old man.” Ellie chuckles. 

“Everythin’ alright?” Joel’s voice asks, tired but urgent. 

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I guess.” 

Ellie can almost hear her father sitting up straight in bed. 

“What’s wrong, Ellie?” 

“I-I…” She stutters. “Joel…” 

With a whimpering tone, she suddenly recounts the night’s events in complete detail. Joel listens attentively, only ever interrupting with sharp intakes of breath and hushed, imperceptible asides. After listening to his daughter’s sorrowful spiel, he finally speaks. 

“Oh, baby girl…” Joel utters. “I truly am sorry. It’s been a real rough night for all of y’all.” 

“Yeah…” 

“That poor kid… I’m glad she had you three lookin’ out for her tonight.” 

Ellie says nothing to this, pursing her lips. 

“How about you, Ellie?” Joel continues. “How are you feelin’ after everythin’ that’s happened?” 

“I-I’m not really sure. I’m not sure I know how to feel.” 

“That’s okay. You don’t have to just yet. It just happened and all.” 

“All I feel is so much fucking guilt, Joel. It feels like my mind is empty but overflowing all at the same time. I feel so motherfucking powerless and I don’t know what to do.” 

There’s a moment of silence before her father speaks again. 

“You given any thought to the conversation we had before you left for school, kiddo?” 

Last August: Jackson 

Ellie’s bedroom was full of boxes and bags packed with everything she planned to bring to college for her junior year. The space was slightly more barren, closet mostly empty and trinkets missing from her shelves. It was only a couple more days before she, Dina, and Jesse would be making their journey back to their university, and she was uncharacteristically ahead of schedule. 

Leaning against her desk with a box full of comic books on the floor next to her, she was casually perusing an old graphic novel when Joel appeared in her open doorway. 

“Knock, knock.” 

“The door’s open, old man. Also, you can literally just walk in, you know.” 

“Who raised you to have so much cheek against your elders, kid?” 

“You, dude.” 

The pair smirked at each other’s smart-mouthed retorts. 

“Need any help packin’ up?” 

“Nah. It’s pretty much done except for a handful of essentials.” 

“Including that book you’re holdin’ right now?” 

“Like I said: essentials.” 

Joel chuckled. 

“Well, the Changs sent over some dinner for us, if you want some. Wisa made K-kaw… Khao Tom Pa… no, Plah…” Joel stuttered, making an effort to pronounce the Thai dish correctly. “Khao Tom Plah, that’s it. She brought some over earlier, thought we might want some. She even made it without the prawns, just the way you like it.” 

“Sick. She’s the best. I’ll text Jesse later to thank her.” 

“Good.” 

Joel lingered as Ellie went back to reading her comic, wistfully looking around his daughter’s nearly vacated bedroom. His eyes fell on a small box sitting at the foot of Ellie’s bed. It was an ordinary, cardboard box just as the others were, except it was heavily sealed with multiple layers of silver duct tape. He frowned. 

“Still plannin’ on bringin’ that box?” 

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, knowing exactly what her father was referring to without looking up. 

“You know you can just leave it here at home, right? It ain’t like I go through your doohickeys when you ain’t here.” 

“So you do go through my shit when I am here?” 

“Ellie.” 

“What?” 

“Why the hell are you doing this to yourself, kid?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“We’ve been having this same conversation for the past year now.” 

Ellie finally peeled her eyes away from her graphic novel, tossing it on the desk behind her and crossing her arms. 

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up, Joel.” 

“I bring it up because I know that you ain’t been talkin’ about these feelings with anyone. Not me or Jesse or Dina. It’s been a year since you ditched that poor girl, and you’re still sulkin’ over it.” 

“She ditched me.” 

“Hold your horses; we both know that ain’t true.” 

“What do you want from me, old man?” 

“I want you to be happy, kiddo.” 

“What makes you think I’m not happy?” 

“Now, don’t try to bullshit me. You can grumble and deny it ‘til the cows come home, but even after all this time, all you ever do is brood and pine after that girl. Plain as day to anyone. You ain’t been the same since y’all broke up.” 

“We weren’t together.” 

“Yes, you were.” 

Joel ignored his daughter’s subsequent eye-roll before continuing. 

“You still have the box, Ellie.” 

“I just forgot I even had it.” 

“And yet, you’re bringin’ it to school with you, just like you did last year. Why?” 

“It was just in my closet stuffed in with all this other shit I don’t touch. Had to take it out while I was packing.” 

“That ain’t amount to a hill o’ beans. And you still ain’t answer my question.” 

“Sorry, dude.” 

“Ellie. You and I would down to Beacon Run all the damn time back when you were growin’ up. You used to beg me to go for dinner whenever you had a hankerin’ to order that cheesy crab dip with all those chips and jalapeños and such.” 

Ellie raised her eyebrow, unsure where her father was going with this. 

“Then all of a sudden, a few years ago, you seemed to hate the place. You’ll maybe get a plate of fries and nothin’ else. Matter of fact, I can’t, for the life of me, recall the last time I’ve seen you eat a plate of seafood with any kind of shellfish in it.” 

Joel’s greying eyes pierced Ellie’s ocean green. 

“Two years.” He continued. “It’s been two years. You almost never eat any kind of seafood no more, and even the Changs never cook us anythin’ that has shrimps or scallops or anythin’ of the like.”

Joel watched as his daughter stubbornly struggled to justify herself. He sighed sadly. 

“I wish you’d let yourself be happy, Ellie. You could be.” 

“That so? How do you figure that?” 

“First step is admitting exactly what is clear as day to everyone around you.” 

“Oh, yeah? And what is that?” 

Present Day 

“J-Joel… I-I…” Ellie sobs. “I love her.” 

“I know, baby girl.” 

Joel helplessly listens to his daughter’s desperate weeping from the other end of the line. 

“So,” He eventually asks in between her snivels. “What now?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs. 

“Kiddo, why do you think your feelings don’t matter?” 

“Because relationships do not work for me. Love doesn’t work for me.” 

“Your relationship with her didn’t work. Past tense. It’s been years. It was a tough situation. You’re a different person now.” Joel clarifies. “And there’s plenty love ‘round you, kiddo. You got a lotta love in your life. I need you t’realize that.” 

“Except I-I’m not a different person, Joel. I-I am just an older, slightly more experienced version of myself. I-I…” Ellie stutters. “I’m afraid.” 

“Of course you are, kid. It’s only natural.” Joel replies. “But you can’t live your whole life closed off from the rest of the world. You need and deserve love, Ellie.” 

“Except I don’t, Joel! I fucking don’t!” She cries. “God, y-you just, you just don’t understand!” 

“What don’t I understand?” 

“She almost fucking died!” Ellie nearly screams. 

A silence falls between the two, only broken by Ellie’s hot and angry tears noisily dropping onto the old leather jacket. She grips it tightly in one hand before continuing. 

“I-if… if none of it happened… if I d-didn’t do all that to h-her all those years ago…” She stutters between shaky lips. “M-maybe she wouldn’t be where she is now. She wouldn’t have gone on a date w-with someone who didn’t know about…” 

Ellie chokes back a sob. 

“I-I… I would have known. I would have t-taken care of her. I would never have—” 

“Ellie.” 

“She needed me, and I… I let her down. Not just tonight. All those years ago. I couldn’t be what she needed. I fucking failed her.” 

“It’s not that simple, kid.” 

“Yes, it is! Her cousin fucking died! He was her whole fucking world, and she loved him more than anything, and he fucking died and I… I ran. I abandoned her.” 

The blurry memory of your sleeping figure in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Jeep appears in front of her, wrapped up cozily in her flannel as she drives you home from Jackson and naive to what lies ahead. 

“I know… I know what I’m capable of, Joel. I loved her so much all those years ago and… I still hurt her. I hurt her so fucking badly.” 

Your image transforms to one of you awake and livid, Ellie’s flannel torn off and tears streaming down your face. Anger and betrayal are etched all over your face, just like they were all those years ago. The shame she’d felt back then is incomparable to what she feels now. 

“I don’t ever want to do that to her again, ever. I just can’t. I won’t.” 

Joel sighs deeply before finally speaking. 

“Ellie. That fear is always gonna be there. But you’re young, and we make plenty of mistakes in our youth. God knows how much of my past I used to regret.” 

Ellie takes deep breaths as her father continues to speak. 

“Everythin’ that happened tonight? None of it was your fault. In fact, I reckon you’re the reason she’s still livin’ and breathin’ right now. I’m proud of you for that.” 

“All I did was—” 

“All you did was save her life.” 

Ellie sniffles but doesn’t respond. 

“Look, kiddo,” Joel continues. “As someone who has known you for a very long time, I know how much of a good heart you got. You’re a lovin’ person who deserves love. I wish you could believe that.” 

The sound of people entering through the front door echoes all around the empty apartment, but Ellie hears nothing else but the sound of her own agonized sobs. 

author’s notes:

belle posting TWO chapters of ncty within less than two weeks of each other??? what is this, may 2023???

saury for not posting this right away like promised yesterday, like i said, going thru some shit rn! but i hope y'all enjoyed regardless ♥︎

i'll give you a kiss on the mouth if you guess the bollywood movie i vaguely reference at the beginning of the chapter :)

the idea of reader being allergic to shellfish and going into anaphylactic shock came to me one day a while back when i was eating something with shrimp and randomly remembered that i am very allergic to shellfish and instead of being like, "i should go take some medicine immediately", i thought, "hmm this would be a wild plot point for ncty" LMFAOOOO

anyway, this is your reminder that if you have an epipen, don't be stupid, bring that shit with you wherever you go sldkfjsdl

the more of jesse that i include in this series, the more i enjoy writing him. he's such a fun character to write hehe

i thought having abby sipping on some hot, black coffee when ellie fucking canonically hates coffee was so hilarious, i pat myself on the fucking back for that one

yes i also pat myself on the back for the line regarding ellie's ocean green eyes and abby's sky blue ones. i fucking love parallels and symbolism. i'm a whore for them, in fact.

btw dina doesn't respond to ellie's phone call bc her phone died (prob from facetiming ellie for that long earlier in the night) and idk, jesse's either not paying attention or being petty LMFAO

the reappearance of barbie bearrrrr, my babyyyy. idk if y'all remember, but yes, barbie bear is a reference to the actual stuffed pink bear i sleep with every night named barbie. i had planned since chapter 4 (which is the chapter barbie bear is first mentioned) for ellie to have had her this whole time because i'm a fucking lunatic LOL

i mentioned in the author's notes section of the last chapter how reader's letterwriting hobby is inspired by me irl cause i do that all the time for friends, but reader's letter in this chapter is actually loosely based on a letter that soulmate ex wrote me, it's not word for word exactly, i altered it a bit to fit the story better, but it's very close because i'm INSANE, anyway

yes "i think i love you again" is on my playlist about my ex-girlfriend and "merry christmas darling" is on his playlist for me, go away

ellie's clear aversion to taylor swift is both a reference to a previous chapter where jesse subtly mentions her dislike for her and also to my personal belief that ellie really would not like her as a person or an artist at all irl lmfao

the names of all of ellie's ex gfs or whatever are inspired by something very specific but that's another heehee secret trivia that nobody else but me will ever know about (let's be real, i'll prob tell star later LOL)

i named jesse's mom after one of my fave co-workers hehe (and the dish she makes for them is thai bc my co-worker is from thailand)

ellie's declaration of love about reader that she makes to joel has also been a long time planned now, idk why i knew it was gonna be chapter 13 when i did it, but i just knew it was. it was always the plan for her to confess it out loud to joel first, above anyone else

the final conversation between ellie and joel is heavily inspired by a scene from one of my fave tv shows, crazy ex-girlfriend. the scene makes me bawl every time i watch it. please watch crazy ex-girlfriend. so good.

we really are thirteen chapters into this series, huh? crazy. anyway, love y'all. <3

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[its-time-to-write]

Omg I would love a Jamie Tartt x reader where the readers ex boyfriend was a footballer maybe a goalie and Jamie has to play against him in a match. I know it’s very vague but I’d love to see what you’d do! No pressure!! :))

I loved this request! Hope I did it justice

would hit him in a heartbeat now

You do not have a thing for footballers you swear. It just happens. You’ve been in exactly three and a half relationships, and only one of them was not a footballer.

He was a coach.

Anyway.

You would describe your type as lovable asshole, but your friends would leave out the lovable. Because of that, none of your splits have been exactly… amicable. Well, that’s not true. Your situationship had been sweet but wrong timing, and though it hurt, there were no hard feelings. 

Really, you were both in your late teens and he was scouted early on, so it was never going to work out. You always keep up with his career though, a part of you secretly cheering him on even if he plays against your boyfriend’s team. From time to time, you think about texting him to see if he has the same number, but the next day you see him splashed in a tabloid, making out with Keeley Jones, so you leave it. 

Six months later, you’re in a relationship with a West Ham goalie named Aleksander.

Seven months after that, he’s broken your heart by telling you you weren’t the right material for a footballer’s girlfriend.

Over text.

While you are at an away game.

Against AFC Richmond.

Eight minutes later you turn off the part of your brain that cares, dig out Jamie Tartt’s old number, and write, hey! not sure if this is still your number, but I’ll be at your game today and wanted to wish you luck. - the original number 9.

Your house number had been 9 when you first met Jamie. He’d write you notes addressed to 9. For example:

9 -

Meet me at our spot at 8?

10 <3

(He called himself a 10/10).

Ten hours later, you are sitting across from Jamie in a pub, laughing about growing up and whatever, all thoughts of Aleksander firmly gone from your head. 

He asks you out after flirting for eleven days.

—

You and Jamie have a certain level of comfortability that comes with knowing someone for so long. Neither of you feel like you have to pretend. You just live with each other, and it is the best. 

You’re on your fifth date, and second one at his house when, as you get up to go, he catches your hand and says, “Stay,” in a voice made gravelly by kisses.

You let him pull you back on the couch, and you do.

You end up staying a lot.

You’re together for a year, when, sitting on that same couch, Jamie says, “Playin’ West Ham next week.”

The marker in your hand slips from where you were coloring his tattoo. “What?”

“We go against West Ham next week. Wanna come?” Jamie asks, oblivious.

You trace the design on his right forearm. “I do, it’s just- Aleksander’s gonna be there. As their goalie. And I’d rather not be there to hear what he has to say to me.” You look up at Jamie. “It’s not because I don’t want to be there for you. It’s that- well, he, he always has things to say about his exes. And it’s not kind. I don’t really think I can handle it right now, you know?”

Jamie looks at you thoughtfully and nods, slipping his hand into yours. 

“D’you want to stay here while I’m gone? ’Stead of hanging around your flatmate. Might be nice to have a break.”

You smile, squeeze his hand and reply, “Sure!” grateful that he’s not pushing it.

Jamie grins back. “Good, I hate coming home to an empty house. Always hearing sounds like there’s ghosts or some shit.”

You laugh and shove his arm playfully. “And here I thought you were being completely selfless.”

—

It’s the day of the West Ham game. You’ve stolen one of Jamie’s jerseys from his closet and are on the couch with the largest bowl of popcorn known to mankind. You’re a little nervous to see Aleksander on the screen, but it’s overshadowed by your excitement to see Jamie play.

A quarter into the game, Jamie starts making his move. The team gets the ball near the goal, he shoots and-

He’s blocked by Aleksander.

Aleksander goes up to Jamie, and from your screen you see him ask a question and then make a lewd gesture.

Jamie’s face goes bright red and in an instant, Colin is holding him back from hitting Aleksander.

You see Jamie be pulled away, then watch him jog over to the coaches. Here’s what you don’t see:

“Permission to be a prick, coach,” Jamie says, still seeing red. How dare that dickhead say something so disgusting about you.

“Fuck no,” Roy says in a tone that says no arguing. 

“Coach,” Jamie says, because he’s never been one for self-preservation, “if you don’t tell me to be a prick, I’m going to be one all by meself, so I really think it’s better if you just give me permission.”

Ted, Beard, and Roy look at each other. Ted nods. “Alright Jamie, if you think that’s best then I guess, uh,” he holds up his middle finger behind his jacket. Roy and Beard follow suit, and Jamie smiles.

The game’s back on and you watch Jamie get going again. He kicks the ball and it hits Aleksander in the worst possible spot.

“Ooh!” You cover your mouth with your hands. That looks like an accident, but you know it’s not. There was a closeup of Jamie, and you can see that glint in his eye. He’s being a little prick.

He goes up to Aleksander to “check on him,” and whispers something in his ear. Aleksander, still doubled over in pain, nods. Jamie slaps him on the back a little too forcefully, then swaggers away, tongue out. 

You’re going to ask him about it when he gets home.

—

Richmond loses, and when Jamie walks into his house you’re on him in a moment. His hands are tangled in your hair and you’re tugging on his shirt and it’s not till three hours later, as you’re laying in bed playing with his hair, that he says, “I don’t regret it.”

It takes you a moment. “What?”

Jamie’s laying on top of you so he pushes himself up a bit to meet your eyes. “I don’t regret kicking that ball into that dickhead’s dick. I just wish I could have kicked him harder.”

“What happened out there, Jaim? You were mad-mad.”

He shakes his head slightly. “What do you think? That fuckin prick asked me a dirty question about you, and I lost it. Didn’t care about the game anymore. Didn’t want him to think he could fuckin get away with it.”

He looks so distraught and sincere that you can’t help it, you have to kiss that look off his face.

“I love you, Jamie Tartt,” you whisper. His face turns devilish.

“Mind showing me just how much?” he asks and you dissolve in a fit of giggles as he begins to pepper kisses along your neck.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for calling out my friend for writing RPF?

I'm in a friend group of about 5. We've known eachother for 5+ years but I'm closest with Sam because I've known them the longest. What Sam doesn't know is that when we first met I was browsing through their Twitter profile when I found a link to their AO3, it was full of RPF of two celebrities they were a fan of. At the time I thought it was kinda weird but said nothing because the fics were quite old at this point and we were both stupid teens, I didn't see it as a big deal. The AO3 stayed up (I am embarrassed to say I checked up on it occasionally out of morbid curiosity or what I don't know) but Sam never mentioned these fics around me and a few months later I saw that the account had either been deleted or renamed and all of the fics had been deleted too.

This was about seven years ago. Although Sam would still talk about these celebs they liked in our group chats (and still does) they never brought up shipping them seriously and only talked about RPF as a joke. I never brought it up all this time because I thought that they'd moved on from writing and the jokes were part of that.

However recently Sam started posting about a new thing involving IRL people. As we usually do in our friend group we were being supportive, asking them questions and letting them infodump ETC. But then one of our friends made an offhand joke about there being fic of this thing out there and Sam totally clammed up. It wasn't super noticeable but they suddenly started trying to change the subject away from it. We let it go but something didn't sit right with me, maybe because I knew about their history with this stuff, later that day I decide to check out the AO3 tag for this thing and lo and behold, there is an account that started posting roughly when Sam started talking about it. Not only that but I skimmed through some of the fics and they had very specific quirks of Sam's writing style and grammar, one of the fic titles even referenced a song by their favourite artist! This was 100% Sam's alt account.

Here's where I might be the asshole. TBQH I don't care about the RPF, I think it's weird and I would never write it myself but it's harmless. But recently Sam has been... kind of an asshole to our other friends about their own interests. We poke fun at each other all the time but recently Sam has been upsetting our friend Kai by 'jokingly' calling his current hyperfixation cringy a lot to the point Kai has privately told me he feels embarrassed infodumping about it any more. Kai is the youngest in the group and I feel really protective of him, this got me really angry. I told him I'd talk to Sam and I will but I feel like what I want to say to them is too petty and over the line.

So, WIBTA if I pointed out to Sam that they have no right calling other people's interests cringe considering what they write? They don't know I know about their AO3, it would definitely be embarrassing for them but that's the point if they think it's okay to embarrass their other friends like this.

[dreamauri]

max c oc!/ self insert driver reader? i love these kind of fics!! esp when it’s an enemies to lovers, maybe their both competing for the championship🥲

♪ —𝗢𝗛 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗬 𝗕𝗔𝗕𝗬 max verstappen x fem! driver! OC! reader (angst to fluff + smut) “. . . you never back out of a fight, and neither does max. but the turn of events was surly unexpected.”

( main master list | more of max verstappen ) ( tag list | requests )

2015

"This is not fair!" You shouted in the radio as you drove the car back on the track, trailing the Dutch driver. "HE PUSHED ME! WHAT IS THIS SHIT SHOW?!" Cuss words dripped from your mouth as you caught up to max, taunting and pressuring him to weaken his defence enough to pass.

"NO! BLIND MOTHERFUCKER!" You shouted, slamming your your hands on your steering wheel angrily. He oversteered into you, crashing you out both into the wall for good. "COME HERE." You pulled your seatbelt of, running after him as soon as you were on your feet.

Standing his ground, Max took the the opportunity to tackle you to the ground first, pinning you on the ground face down. "CAN YOU SHUT UP?" He was angry. Why was a dumb blond crashing into him when she should go put on make up or buy some new high heels.

"NOT UNTIL YOU LOSE YOUR TONGUE." Kicking your foot back, you delivered a good slam to his sensitive organ, pretty much killing him. While you got up, Max was still whimpering on the ground, face red. "Asshole." "Says you. You're a stupid fifteen year old blond virgin who cant drive." "OH YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT—"

"OH! Anaki kicked Verstappen again. That must hurt." "I can't even look, she's putting her whole strength into that kick." "We can confirm now that Froi does not skip leg day."

Walking back you your car, you stepped on his back, putting your whole weight on. "Verstappen scum."

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2017

Walking down the pitlane, crew members and camera men made sure to stay out of your way seeing how you were going to crush the water bottle in your hand from the amount of rage you were radiating. "You might want to run away." Christian warned, there was nothing going to stop what was to come next.

Max looked where his team principle did, eyes widening as he started walking away for an escape. You never showed him mercy, and he knew he's be dead by the end of this one.

Throwing the metal bottle with precision, you hit Max right in the back of his head, making hm wince and turn you with a look of anger. Charging towards you, ready to tackle you down, you dodged putting your leg out to trip him.

"That's for costing me a win." You growled, raising your elbow to drop on him. Your revenge was short lived as someone quickly held you back. Getting up slowly and wiping his nose, he glared daggers at you. The only reason you were not suffering because the two of you were in public.

"Bitch." He mumbled ready to attack only for someone to hold him back. "Say that again." You dared him, venom leaking from your words. "Bit—" Safe to say he wasn't going to have children anymore.

You pulled yourself free as you watched the Dutch fall on his knees and chest, hands between his thighs. "Pussy." You spit, walking back to your garage. "I hate you." He shouted after you.

"Hate is not a strong enough world to describe how much I despise you, darling." You called back, throwing back a middle finger.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2022

"Flight is cancelled. Come back in another seven hours." You repeated, laid on your back face covered by your jacket. You've been waiting in the first class lounge for eternity now, and every now and then people would come and ask you the same question.

Instead of hearing the person leave, you felt someone shove your legs harshly off the couch. Snapping up into sitting position, ready to argue with the disturber of your short-lived peace. You're eyes met with your rival.

"Ew. Get off, rat." You shoved him off, going back to your laying position. "Can you not for once?" He was at his limit with you, pushing your legs off and sitting back down. "Not when it's you." You rolled your eyes covering your face with the jacket again, going back to sleep as you pushed him off.

"I've had it with you!" He ripped your shoes off, throwing them across the empty room. "Hey!" You kicked his side getting up to retrieve the puma, only for Max to lay in your stop. "My spot." "Stop being a child."

"Oh I'm sorry. Are you jealous that I'm still living a childhood you never had?" You mocked, throwing the heel of the shoe at his groin. "What is wrong with you?! Fuckin' Hell! Stop fucking obsessing over my dick like a slut!" "Oh you wanna see obsession?"

Max's legs had been shaking the whole flight, and you sitting a few seats behind could only smile as he winced with ever move and shuffle. He heard the occasional giggle come from you, and when he looked back, you raised your tomato juice pretending to give him a toast.

Arriving in Bahrain was easy for you. You loved the country and its people so it was easy to find your way around. Unlike someone who had to take the golf cart through the airport because he was dying on the inside.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Whoops. Not sorry." You hummed as you lapped the Redbull driver, slightly throwing him off the race line. "Haha, look at him stirring around like an idiot." You laughed in the radio as you watched him struggle in your mirrors. "Alright, byebye." You sighed comfortably, zooming away easily to lap the next car head.

Being on the podium was fun, a great start to the season as you danced happily under the shower of champagne. "This is how you do it~" You sang laughing, a certain Dutch driver caught your eyes as your engineers carried you back to the garage on their shoulders. You held up your trophy, showing off with a bright smile.

you were so dead.

When Max found you in the hotel later that night, he was quick to pull you in a corner out of sight, slamming you in the wall. "You're driving me insane." You looked at him for a moment before feeling a light bulb spark in your head.

"Aww, I'm sorry." You trailed a hand down his chest slowly, looking him deep in his eyes. "Froi." He growled gripping your wrist before it went to far down. "Lets play a game." You whispered in his ear, free hand slowly unzipping his pants and reaching inside slowly. "What are you— fuck—"

Max could only lean his fore arms on the wall as you worked your hand. The same one that had punched his dick a few days ago. He could've stopped you or said no, but he let you, his body shaking from the contrast of the pain and pleasure, blue eyes looking deep in your honey green ones.

A muffled groan sounded through his lips as he finally came in your hands. "Good luck next race." You patted his back, wiping the substance on his shirt walking away. Max could only stay in his place, frozen as he caught his breath slowly.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He understood the game now. You were playing dirty. Distracting him the way you did was successful as you danced on your halo after securing pole position in Saudi Arabia. He'd be starting behind you tomorrow, and that angered him.

He can play the game too.

Pulling you aside once he got the chance, you could guess why. And for the next 3 hours, Max was on his knees, face between your thighs as you sobbed from overstimulation. He liked hearing you so venerable and weak, begging as you gripped his hair. "Verstappen, enough." You could feel your legs shake, the only thing holding you up were his strong arms.

"Sluts shouldn't talk." "I'm not a slu— no no no. Enough. Please!"

He liked this.

And so the battle continued, on and off track. Your fights were slowly decreasing in the eyes of the media and people didn't know why. Your battle off track was the one that decided the winner, the one who threw off the other the most had already secured his trophy the night before.

Of course you two never had full out sex. You never held hands. You never kissed. Never marked. You didn't like each other, right? Right? You never fight it when he pushed himself in your room in the middle of the night.

You don't pull away when he drags you out of sight.

You didn't stop him when he digs his fingers into your core.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The season dragged through and through and the championship was tight between the two of you. You'd practically be alternating each weekend on who had P1.

You'd raise your middle finger to him and he'd raise his to you. It was funny from the side lines really, watching you the two go from kicking each other ( you to him ) to mild insults after each race or qualifying.

Some people would say you matured and others would say the FiA threatened to suspend you for the behaviour ( the fia couldn't ever, you were bringing in money with each fine ).

It was at the Italian grand Prix when rumours truly began to form. When it came to the after party to celebrate your win, you went all out and embraced all types of alcohol, somehow concluding with you switching Italian the whole night.

Max who had gotten second place in the race sat a few chairs away from you, drinking from his glass as his eyes followed you. He could already imagine what he'd do next, and it made his pants tighten. What pulled him out of his thoughts were a group of guys chatting with you, touching you.

Why did that anger him the way it did? It shouldn't have. What did for him was you trying to pull away. He didn't even know how he got there but he secured a good punch to one of the guys face. Too bad for him, the others could fight.

Pnce he got the chance, Max lifted you up on his shoulder, bolting out of there. Goodness knows what would've happened if he didn't step in, and that scared him and bothered him deeply.

After conforming that you were indeed a safe distance away from your assailants, he set you back down on your feet, feeling cold without your body heat and it stirred his stomach sick.

Quickly taking your wrist, he dragged you along to try and find his way back to the hotel. "I wanna dance." You demanded, standing still and pulling him back.

"Froi, I don't have time for this." "I beg to differ. We have all the time in the world, Max." You pulled him closer to you, taking his hand as you twirled yourself.

That was the first time you called him by his first name, and it made his heart flutter.

Say it again.

"Please let me know that it's real. You're too good to be true." You turned into his chest, your finger trailing up his neck and jaw as you looked deeply into his ocean blues. "Can't take my eyes off of you." You sang, glancing down to his lips as Max leaned down slowly, his hands finding your hips and back as he pulled you close.

He could feel your breath on his lips and your heart beat in your chest. Dipping down with the courage he put together. His heart sank when his felt you push him away from his face. "Ew. No way."

Shatter.

'What was I thinking. She doesn't like me.' He thought, sighing as he walked behind her, hands in his pockets as he eyed you in your short red stain dress. He wasn't any better than those other guys with the way he treated you and the way touched you. Thy way he watched you. The way he thought about you.

The way he wanted you.

Finally finding your hotel, he walked you up to your room. "God bless." You groaned falling on your bed. Gently kneeling down, Max started undoing the straps of you heels, committing the mistake of looking up where your dress rode up your thighs.

Setting your heels aside, he was surprised when you pulled him ontop of yourself his collar, a mischievous smile on your face. "What's that in your pants?" You teased. Looking down, Max was quick to put a hand over his crotch, attempting to hide the forming boner.

"I saw it already. You can't hide from me." You giggled, hands slipping under his shirt and pulling it over his head. The Dutch watched as you traced your finger along his skin, drawing shapes and lines aimlessly.

His heart was thumping. Why was he feeling like this? His breath hitched feeling your other hand where he needed you the most. "Anaki." He found himself begging as you pushed him on his back. Your hands were quick to unbuckle his belt, pulling his pants and underwear down.

"I swear it keeps getting smaller everytime." You teased, taking him in your mouth. "Not- not small." ( he's a good 7.6 inches ) He said in between grunts, gently brushing your hair out of your face.

This was out of norm for him, being so gentle with you. Treating you like a piece of glass, cupping your cheek to guide you gently. Unlike the usual when he's rough and unforgiving.

"Ugh fuck." He felt himself relax after his release, his thumb caressing your cheek as you pulled away. He watched you open your mouth, your saliva and his seamen dripping down on his stomach.

"You're playing nice." You commented, crawling up and tracing kisses on his neck. "Mhm?" Max hummed, closing his eyes and leaning into your touch. His hand trailed up your back gently, prompting you to pull off your dress. The blond could only admire you, hands caressing and exploring your delicate skin.

"You're beautiful." He promised, cupping under your chin as his lips traced your body. "Max." There it was, calling his name. "Hmm?" He asked flipping you over so he was on top, finger hooking on the hem of your underwear, pulling it down slowly.

"Max." His heart flutterd as he gently held your thighs, aligning himself to you. "Need you." You whispered, hooking your heels around your waist.

No. This was wrong.

You were drunk. Despite how much as he needed you, and how much it hurt not to be inside you, he couldn't take advantage of you in this state.

A moan sounded through the hotel room as he slowly sunk his two digits in your core instead.

After covering you with the blanket, Max reached for his shirt, pausing through the process to look at your sleeping figure. 'If I leave now, everything will go back to the way it was. And if I don't, I have no idea how she'll take it . . . Fuck it.'

Slipping back in bed after he cleaned you up, Max hesitantly pulled your bare body into his, sharing your body heat for the night.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"No." You gaped making the newly showered Dutch flinch and freeze in his place. He was leaning his back on the bathroom door frame, toothbrush in his mouth.

After staring at each other for two minutes, wondering why the fuck he decided to NOT wrap a towel around himself: "What the fuck?!" You shuffled backwards in the bed falling off. "Ow!"

"Shit." Jumping over and getting to your side of the bed, Max peaked over checking on you. He was greeted with a pillow smacking his face. "Ow! Relax!" He pulled away, holding your hand before you attacked him again.

"Relax?!—" "We didn't fuck. Chill." "Chill? Verstappen, you're naked in my room." You reasoned trying to pull away only for the man to pull you back up on the bed. 'Fuck. Go back to using my first name.'

"You're fine. I helped you get back and you played around." 'That's odd. Nothing hurts.' You thought looking at him suspiciously. "Your joking." You chuckled darkly, seeing his dick harden. "I can't help it alright?" He grumbled embarrassed, pulling you closer and turning you around.

"Hey! Hey!" You protested trying to crawl away. "Anaki! Can you relax and stay put for just a second?" He questioned, holding you by your hips. "No!" You fought back only to be pulled back on your knees, hands held behind your back. "Anaki. I'm losing my mind. It hurts."

Hearing him say your name so desperately threw you off. Before you knew it, he was humping your thighs, his free hand between your legs to pleasure you as well.

This was different. This wasn't fighting or competing. This was love making ( well, less than half way there ). You could feel it in the way you moaned and the way he treated you like a fragile flower. "Verstappen-" "Max. My name is Max." He corrected you, letting your hands go so he could hold himself up and not squish you.

"Max." You repeated, feeling him lean down and press soft kisses to your back and neck. "Yeah?" He could feel your breaths pick up as you leaned up into his chest. He closed his eyes, wrapping an arm around you.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"You and Max haven't fought in a while." "So?" You shrug, acting oblivious. One of the biggest cons of F1 was the interviews, the paparazzi, the media.

"Do you have anything to comment about that?" "Eh." You shrugged, setting your elbow on the table, leaning your chin on your hand. "You guys are boring." You yawned looking at the press conference crowd. "You tell me." Max, a few chairs away, commented leaning his head back bored.

"What's going on with you and Max?" Lando asked once you escaped the press conference. "What is going on with me and Max?" You returned the question, walking backwards. "Well you're calling him by his first name. And there are rumors going around about you dancing with him in the streets back in Imola." He whispered that last part through gritted teeth.

"Oh, do you have a crush on Max? Are you scared ima steal your man?" You joked taunting him. "What?! I don't like Max!" "Ouch." The Dutch commented as he passed by.

"Lando likes you." Carlos patted your shoulder as he passed by. You raised your eyebrows surprised, looking at Lando to confirm the statement. "I- well-" Lando scratched the back of his neck nervously. You could only giggle wiggling your eyebrows as you walked away backwards.

Max crushed the Redbull can, overhearing the conversation. He just got you, he's not losing you.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I brought nuggets." He said once you peaked through the hotel room door, holding out the two 20 packs. You opened the door all the way, looking between him and the nuggets. Should you let him in? Should you send him away? What does he expect? What do you want?

Max could see the thought train running through your eyes and you could see the nervous gulp in his throat. "Please. Give me a chance. I'm sorry for all the bitch shit I've done to you. All of it. I take it all back."

"Give me a chance, Anaki."

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Being in a secret relationship was difficult to say the least. There was tension between you and Max. Hungry glances in press conferences and deep eye contact from across the paddock.

Max wanted to hold you, he too felt empty with you so far away from him. He wanted to kiss you in front of everyone so they can back off. Especially Lando. And although Max knew you would never go out with the boy, he was getting pissed off with how much the McLaren wasn't giving up.

Keeping an eye on you from across the bar, Max watched as Lando tried to hit on you. You could only watch amused as Lando leaned his side on the bar, listening to a story he was telling whilst sipping his whisky. "Have I ever told you about the time I went backpacking in Europe?"

He'll no. Max knew what was coming next and he did not like it.

"I didn't order this." You told the bartender looking at the fancy drink infront of you. "It's from him." A smile crept on your face as you lifted the glass, taking sips from the probably expensive alcohol. "Thank him for me."

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I don't like the way he looks at you." Max grumbled as he pulled his shoes off, tossing them in the rack only for you to tidy up after him.

"You know I'm yours." You leaned down kissing him gently. "He's practically undressing you." He humbled, gently pulling your ancle up and taking the uncomfortable heels off. "I don't even want to know what goes through his head." He grumped tossing the heels away, picking you up and walking with you into the apartment.

"Max, I have legs. I can walk." "I don't care." He threw you on your shared bed, tossing you a pair of shorts and shirt from the closet while he changed into shorts. "It just— I know I'd love you way better than anyone else." He sat beside you, unbuttoning his shirt.

"Max, you broke my nose in 2016." "I apologized! I'm sorry!" He looked at you eyebrows begging. "Here, punch me, break my nose. Return the favour." He closed his eyes, bracing himself. "Max—" "Do it." He flinched hearing you shuffle closer, but all he felt was you kissing his nose gently. "You're an idiot. I'm dating an idiot."

"You love me?" You asked once he opened his eyes, referring to a few seconds ago. "I— yes." He stuttered nodding. You could only smile as you looked into his eyes, dipping closer to catch his lips with yours.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2023

"And Froi wining in formula one 4 times from pole, is going to win from pole again and end the season with celebrations for Ferrari. Anaki Froi wins the Abu Dhabi Grand prix and is the first female champion of the world!"

"YEES!!" You threw your hands up in joy and euphoria as your engineer confirmed your title. "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! GRAZIE! GRAZIE!" You could feel happy tears happy tears stream down your face as you ran your hand over your helmet.

"YEAH! LETS GO!" Max in the car behind you was also celebrating, not his second place in the race, but your championship title. "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! WOHOO!"

Jumping out of the car, you were quick to jump into the arms of your team, hugging and praising you as you cried in their arms. Pulling away, you looked at Max who climbed out of his car.

Might as well, no?

You rand into his arms, hugging him tightly as he did the same. "I'm so proud of you, Ani." He held the sides of your helmet shaking you back and fourth as you laughed. "So proud." He undid the strap, pulling the protection off, before pulling his helmet off. You caught his jaws with your hands, connecting his lips with yours as he wrapped his arms around your waist. Once he pulled away, he held your hand, getting down on one knee.

"Double the joy for me, my darling. Marry me. Lets spend our nights eating cereal when there is a perfectly fine table behind us. Marry me. We can go to the movies and sit in the back row just for us to make out like kids falling in love for the first time. Marry me. slow dance with me in our bedroom with candles on our nightstand."

Dropping down on your knees, you pulled him in a bone crushing hug, nodding yes and you squeezed him tight. "I'm all yours, forever." You nodded.

Your favourite thing about that day was not revealing your relationship to the world, your engagement to your lover, but the look of utter confusion and lostness on Christian Horner's face.

voice notes 🔊 . . . ( this took a way too sexual turn, damn. sorry it took me so long to write this. i really liked it so i hope you enjoy. i wanted to test out second point of view using OC (anaki froi), hope that didnt ruin it )

[hwajin]

✞ 「 .✶۪ .° ✞ : 𝐇 𝐈 — 𝐋 𝐈 𝐓 𝐄 !! : a series

☆ — chapter one; Soda Pop :

✞ 「 .✶۪ : see series masterlist and warnings here

✞ 「 .✶۪ : chapter word count: 12.1k

✞ 「 .✶۪ : chapter warnings: fluff and angst, y/n's kind of an asshole, first mentions of cheating!!, stupidity and immaturity

✞ 「 .✶۪ : heavily inspired by: 'nana' by ai yazawa!

author's note: it's finally here!!!! i've been crafting on this series for a good year now, and while i know it's nowhere near good because serieses aren't my strength at all, i hope you'll still enjoy it!! pleaseee please please let me know what you think of it, every bit of feedback is highly appreciated <3333 enjoy <3

The sound of console buttons and video game soundtrack filled the stuffy studio, particles of dust dancing in the burning summer sun. Han bit against his lip piercing while he plugged his guitar into the old AMP the bunch of you had found on a flea market two years ago – it’s been roughly thirty dollars, and you had sworn to have found heaven back then; admittedly, though the old box was working to its’ best abilities, it was high time to hunt for a new one. Han’s heavy silver rings scratched against the yet untuned strings of his instrument, and the sound was almost uncomfortable; though never quite, for it was music after all.

You would never grow tired of it, you thought. Of music, of everything revolving it – it was your everything, your earliest memories, your dearest experiences; your closest friendships, even. Ever since your parents had bought you your first electric piano – one for kids only, and not of best quality altogether though you had loved it all the same – notes and tunes had been all around you, always. With seven years old you’d been signed up for your first piano lesson, which no other kid in your course had been as excited to visit as you had been; with ten years, mere three years later, when Han had moved into your neighbourhood with his parents, you’d convinced your own to let you visit guitar lessons with him. They hadn’t needed much persuasion; they’d noticed early on just how much you enjoyed the hobby, and they’d never been ones to forbid you passion. There had been fights when your parents had realised you’ve been far more serious about music than they had imagined, or hoped, even; at fifteen years old you had planned to drop out of school with your best friend, and both your and his parents had lost hours of sleep and nerves convincing you of the opposite. Two years later, at seventeen, both you and Han were sure not to apply to college, initially – that, too, had caused tears and frustration over both of you and your parents. You and Han, having felt pressured to take action, had decided to apply to a college, somewhat pretentiously, where you would start an amateur band – it would keep both you and your families happy.

You set up your microphone, guitar long in hand, the worn-out leather band cutting into your neck, pulling at loose strands of hair, the weight of your instrument laying heavily on your shoulders. You were used to it; enjoyed the feeling like nothing else.

“Guys, wrap it up, some of us have classes soon.”

Just then Changbin’s groan sounded against Jeongin’s shout of victory – in three years of knowing the pair there has been only one occasion on which Changbin has won a game of Mario against Jeongin; that the younger had been knocked out drunk back then, Changbin never wanted to admit. The older man threw his console onto the carpeted floor in frustration, emitting a cloud of dust where it hit – his determination to win was admirable, if you were honest, though his pouting and sulking was amusing every time anew.

“Bro, I swear you’re dead next time.”

Jeongin snickered as they both made their way to their positions behind you, and the rest of you erupted in a fit of protests and laughter. “You should accept defeat to be honest, I’d be embarrassed by now if I was you – there’s bad game play, and then there’s you.”, Han’s voice thinned out towards the end of his sentence when Changbin shot him a deadly look – the younger momentarily busied himself with his guitar again, merely smirking to himself at his friends’ sensitivity.

“Guys, c’mon now, we don’t have all day.”

The two friends both mockingly imitated you, though got behind their instruments – Jeongin stood behind the long-ready piano, Changbin picking up his long-tuned bass. The small college studio momentarily filled with vibrations and resonances of instruments – Jeongin playing warm-up chords, Changbin letting chime a long tone, Minho, who all of you – after you’d seen a commercial on the TV you had now long forgotten – had started calling Lino over your years of friendship besides his very active protest against it, gave a couple experimental sounds against the snare of his drums behind the thin plexiglass he was seated. It was heaven to your ears. There was nothing, you’d argue, that you loved more than the sound of the small room filling up entirely with the harmonies of your instruments, every single one coming together to play the songs Han wrote so diligently for your little amateur band besides his college assignments. Not that he was taking them too seriously, anyways – he planned to be a musician, no matter the cost.

“Alright, everyone in position, everyone ready?”, you waited for the lot to groan softly in agreement, looking back at them all to give you a nod, “I’ll count in…”, the tension in the studio thickened now, all bickering forgotten; and everyone waited for your commando, “five…”, a beat, your voice sounding through the room, “six…”, another beat, your voice louder now, your fingers ready on your instrument, everyone else watching you intently, adjusting in their position, “five, six, seven, eight!”

The room erupted in deafening volume, Jeongin’s synthetic piano sounding softly against Lino’s loud kick drums, Changbin’s bass harmonising with Han’s guitar; your voice sounding above it all.

It hadn’t been until you were out of school four years ago when you had started singing, so, naturally, you weren’t the strongest vocalist; it was Han who had convinced you to give it a try, arguing the tone in your voice to be unique, and diminishing, simultaneously, the necessity of looking for a vocalist for the band you had started planning back then, already. Your skills had gotten better over the years – your bandmates had made it fashion to remind you of it, no less because you yet needed to learn to acquire confidence in your skill. Four years later – you liked your voice, and the five of you had found the sound that fitted it best, despite your remaining weaknesses.

‘Hope’ – the name of the band, the name of Han’s and Jeongin’s favourite cigarette brand. You had been nineteen and not very creative, had all, except Lino, met on the first day of college which only half of you took seriously – you were one those after your initial rebelling against it, wanting something stable and secure in case practical music wouldn’t work out in the long run; so, you’d decided to study theoretical and historical music, hoping to find yourself in the same field after all. You enjoyed your studies – as much as one could enjoy talking of chords and cadences and harmonies instead of playing them, or discussing composers of genius minds who have died centuries ago –it was no comparison to the time you spent in the studio, the passion it brought, the utter joy that coursed your veins whenever you held your guitar in hands, stood before your microphone stand. Mozart and Bach could only spark your interest so much, if the small, dusty college studio and your bandmates in it were right around the corner.  

Changbin and Jeongin were both English students; both figured that taking a universally, to quote them, ‘easy major’ would allow them to focus on their music, and to spend as little time in a classroom as it was humanly possible to still pass – you wondered if they’ve ever seen one from the inside, altogether.

Lino on the other hand, a business major and taking his studies with diligence, though never seeming to be actually doing his assignments, only ever having finished them with perfect grades, seemingly magically, didn’t put too much hope into an amateur band, and simply enjoyed his hobby while working towards his future career. It was a shame, though – he was a genius drummer, his loudest when he carried two sticks in his hands; you didn’t remember if you’ve ever truly heard his voice over the past years, though he was compensating his usual silence the moment he sat behind his instrument; and if it wasn’t his instrument, he preferred spending his time with cats rather than with humans.

And lastly there’s been Han and you. Best friends since you were little, though you’ve never visited the same school, so all the more excited when you had decided to apply to the same college together – despite not for the same majors, you would still be together. The band was his idea, initially.

“LOOKING FOR: DRUMMER, BASSIST, PIANIST, SECOND VOCAL FOR AMATEUR BAND. CONTACT HERE.”

had been written on the hundreds of flyers Han had taken with him for the first day of college you had anticipated giddily, and he had hung up the pieces of paper on every free space of wall and pillar he could find around campus – back then you hadn’t been aware of needing a written permission of the colleges’ office to hang up advertisements, and Han was forced to take down his flyers within the same week –, you had laughed at him and called it silly; though Changbin and Jeongin, friends since a little before college, had sat next to you both at the first-semester-students ceremony, and had caught eye of the papers in Han’s lap.

“Wait, it’s your flyers we’ve seen around? We’d be so down!”

You had eyed them sceptical back then – they had looked far too typical for an amateur-college-band, almost, heavy silver chains hanging around both their necks, their nails coloured pitch black, Jeongin looking at you with a nose piercing and blond streaks in his hair, their outfits raven and dark; though you had looked at Han, unevenly self-bleached hair, an eyebrow piercing adorning his face, his own scratched down black nail polish begging to be reapplied, boots on his feet two numbers too big, and you’d noticed, almost shamefully, that all four of you had looked like the prime example of people to form an amateur-college-band on the very first day of classes. It hadn’t needed much more conversation after that; the two friends had been welcomed into the band that had previously consisted of only you and Han, and Lino had contacted you three days later – right before Han had bashfully taken off his flyers.

It had needed some time until the five of you had started to click and work together; though yours and Jeongin’s voice had mixed well from the get-go, and everyone’s skill had been to a far higher standard than either you or Han would have anticipated. Lino had surprised you the most; while Changbin had been cocky from the first day you met him and Jeongin had been confident about his skills, Lino hadn’t talked much, nor had he looked, even, like a typical drummer. Not that there was a certain look to them, you simply wouldn’t have expected that under the quiet nature there was so much vigour and emotion, so much volume the moment he had given you a first idea of his level and skill, to see if he was a fit for your band at all; it had been fascinating, was to this day.

The song ended, the cups of your fingers aching, your neck strained, your voice in need of water; it was a successful practice. Jeongin and Changbin both expressed sounds of satisfaction, Han joining them while the echo of your instruments vibrated in the room for a couple moments, before they died out eventually.

“That was so good! The best we did so far, I think!”

Voices sounding through the room, and you turned around to look at your friends. Everyone joined into exclamations of praise, turning off and unplugging their instruments, stretching, cracking their knuckles. Conversation of pride filled the room; the praise never lasted long, though.

“Bin, stay in my rhythm a bit more next time, especially in the second half – don’t get too excited.”, Lino’s voice from behind the glass while he made room to get up from behind his seat. When you had first started practising with him, the tone in his voice during words of critique almost scared you, though with time you acquired to him, and learned to love his honesty – he was never condescending about mistakes, and always accepting of bettering his own errors.

“Yeah, I noticed too, my bad. I lose my count after the chorus. And I was distracted by you two,” Changbin gave a quick look between you and Jeongin, “you need to harmonise better. There was some dissonance after the first part, you need to sit down and figure out the second half better.”

You nodded at Jeongin, he returned it, knowingly. There were never hard feelings after critique, not anymore – initially, when you had started out, all of you had wanted to prove your rights, all far too proud to accept defeat, though now you loved your bandmates for being able to speak what’s on their mind, for it would only improve you as a whole.

“Well, and you two lovebirds were perfect, as always.”, Jeongin commented nonchalantly while unplugging his piano and mic. He meant you and Han, though neither of you were bothered by the comment. It was a running joke; you bore the longest friendship in the group, harmonised near perfectly every practice – how could you not, if practising and playing the guitar together had been everything you’ve busied yourselves with when you’d been younger? Despite having tried to convince the rest of the band that neither you nor Han bore any feelings for the other, nor would fuck to ‘get it out of the system’, as Changbin had so lovingly commented once, the jokes never ended; you had simply grown indifferent to them. You snickered, shooting your best friend a quick look; he winked at you approvingly, turning off the AMP and packing away his fire-red guitar – you followed him, unplugging and turning off everything that needed to be unplugged and turned off, before putting your own black instrument on the designated stand in between Han’s and Changbin’s ones. Lino already waited by the entrance door, bag thrown lazily over his shoulder, a pack of ‘Hi-Lite’s in his hands, one cigarette between his lips. He offered Changbin one when said male reached him by the door, and didn’t bother offering the rest of you any – you didn’t smoke not to damage your voice, Han and Jeongin couldn’t stand the brand the other two men smoked. Han got hold of his bag lying on the old leather sofa and his scattered belongings – headphones, notebook and a pen, a snack he had bought earlier, a pack of his beloved ‘Hope’s – and gave Jeongin a cigarette while catching one between his teeth himself. The bunch of you made it out of the studio – Lino, as the oldest, bore privileges over the key to the studio, locked the room and scurried over to the rest of you as you already made your way to the main building of the University. You weren’t a college band, not officially, though your location of practice was on campus – you had asked Mr. Hwang, your music teacher and head of the music department, if there, by any chance, was a forgotten room the five of you could use. To your surprise he had been most enthusiastic about both your question, and your band in general; allegedly he’d been in one as well when he was younger which had never lead to success, so he took pleasure in encouraging you with your own; his visiting during your practices weren’t a rarity, and the five of you were quite fond – and amused, slightly – of his support.  

“Ji, you have fire?”

The guitarist searched for a lighter in his jeans’ back pocket, handed it to everyone after lighting his own cigarette.

“God, I need this before class.”, Changbin expressed in exaggerated exhaustion, blowing out blue smoke into the hot summer air. His black hair fell over his darker eyes, and you giggled at his comment.

“Do you, now? As if you and Innie will go to class today.”

Han laughed softly at your words, blew out his own puff of smoke while Changbin and Jeongin started to get defensive – a habit they acquired lately, because both of them were on the verge of failing their semesters. You knew they’d skip their lessons anyways.

Lino was the first to bid goodbye, having to walk opposite of the rest of you for his classes. He left saying he’d be back after his hours for another session of practice; the five of you had acquired to practice twice a day, more if the time gave chance. You all saw him off, continuing your journey further down campus. The heaviness of your boots crunched against the pavement beneath your feet, the black of your clothes attracting the burning sun and making you sweat more than it was comfortable; though you were used to it. Changbin and Jeongin separated at last, despite making their way to their classroom they surely wouldn’t have enough self-control to truly sit there for a whole two hours. You teased them about it one last time before they saw you off with curses and middle fingers, and you and Han made your way to your favourite spot on campus; the vending machine right behind the music building.

Ever since you had started college you had come here with Han to get a drink before most of your classes – it surely wasn’t a healthy habit, it was your favourite one, though. You had deemed it a necessity to find a spot which throughout your college years would work as a safe haven against teachers and possible annoying co-students, a spot where you could talk music and gossip and, inherently, everything and nothing, entirely undisturbed. The vending machine didn’t stand far from a huge weeping willow, working perfectly against the summer sun, and it was being refilled only about once a week – it was an old and shabby machine, and you’ve never seen anyone but you two in the proximity of it.

“God, I’m so unmotivated for class today. Wish I could spend your free window with you.”, you expressed in anguish as you and Han reached the dispenser and the shadow of the tree with sweat-laced faces. Han chuckled while plopping down on the bench by the tree trunk, leaning back, eyes closed and played malicious joy writing his features.

“I told you, we should both drop out and focus on the band. I don’t even know if I’ll go to my one class for today.”

Your loose coins clinked soundly in your palm before you threw them into the vending machine, pressing the number two for a classic can of Coca Cola. You huffed out in amusement at Han’s proposal, snickered at his laziness.

“It’s like you wanna fail. You know your mom’s gonna kill you if you change your major again.”, you bickered while taking the cool bottle out from behind the plastic hatch; the cold condensation felt nice against your hot skin, and your mouth watered in anticipation for a freezing drink. “What are you doing with all your free time skipping class, anyway.” Your tone wasn’t condescending, nor was it much lecturing; you’d lie pretending you didn’t care for your best friends’ education and future, though, and his nonchalance towards it was concerning more often than not – you weren’t even sure what his major was at this point, and it worried you that he might not know, either. He did have the talent to become a successful musician, yet the industry had never simply relied on skills; it was luck and appeal and timing as much as all else.

“Well, first of all; duh, I wanna fail. At least I won’t have to study anymore, and my mom won’t be able to tell me I didn’t try.”, he returned with pride you didn’t quite deem appropriate given the context, and you tsked while he made his way from the old bench to the older vending machine, playing with the loose change in his pocket.

“And second, I use all the free time to write songs for the band you’re in, by the way, so you’re welco-”, he traced off, something external catching his attention mid-sentence, something yet unknown to you, and the man went from cocky demeanour to absolute and utter frustration in mere seconds, “No!! No, this is so unfair, they haven’t refilled my fucking root beer yet!!!” His sorrow echoed through the open, and you needed a moment to register his words, the true mundanity and vanity of them before you started laughing at him whole-heartedly. He went to lean against the glass of the vending machine dramatically, a puffed cheek against dirty glass and it mushed his face, driving to humour you further. One hand of his slid down the glass where the empty spot of his favourite drink stood in all its’ pride; it was almost Oscar worthy, and, to take matters further – and to make you laugh some more, you were sure – he topped it off with fake-crying; you almost choked on the Coke you had started drinking already. You had always adored his humour, his ability to bring light-heartedness into all and every situation – you knew he prided himself in the sounds of your laughter, often took jokes far beyond limit, until your stomach pained, and tears smudged your mascara.

“You know, I don’t even feel bad for you. Root beer is fucking disgusting; it’s a sign that you should change your go-to drink.”, the cold, bubbling liquid felt nice against your lips when you took a gulp after your snarky comment, which earned you a snarkier look. You shut up with a last giggle, and watched your friend carefully eyeing the available options for a drink, brows furrowed as though a far tougher decision than it was, lips caught between his teeth in utter – yet playful – seriousness.  

You loved him. Not romantically, never romantically – you cringed at the thought alone as you sat and lay your eyes on him, huffing out in amusement about his seemingly real frustration; yet you loved him. There was no other person dearer to you than him; you’d had your ups and downs as young teens, when hormones had been the only thing ruling your bodies and brains, though you had survived that time, and had been closer than ever afterwards. He was fun; there had never been a boring day if it was him by your side. He didn’t take himself nor others too seriously, viewed the world carelessly, which you had always admired – there’d been days you needed a listening ear, and days where you needed someone to get you out of the static of your own thoughts. Han had always been able to provide both, never not taking you seriously, besides his immaturity, for the lack of a better expression; he had always been the shoulder you cried on after heartbreaks, or fights with your parents, or ulterior and general hopelessness; and he had always been the happiness you craved for right after, his talent to distract you with music or video games or his own banal miseries far more admirable than he’d ever admit. Around him, you bore no filter, and you knew he didn’t either; with him you were human, had always been.

“Guess I have to be basic and take a Coke too, then.”, he tsked as you watched him dial the same number you had after throwing in his share of coins, and you laughed at his comment. His lip piercing was caught between his teeth as he made his way over to you onto the picnic bench, swinging one of his legs over the seat – his large boots always looked too big against his slim body, almost comical; yet it suited him, strangely. His dry, bleached hair fell over his eyes in bangs as he settled in comfortably, sipping his drink with another exaggerated sigh and faked disgust on his features at the loss of his beloved beverage; you scoffed in amusement, taking another big gulp of your soda. While Han enjoyed a free window after practice – and had both the courage and enough lacking willpower to not visit the class he had scheduled right after –, you had to rot away in music class until the five of you were able to meet up again, for afternoon practice; the hours during classes you always spent counting the minutes to be back in the studio, and sometimes the temptation of dropping out and embracing the band full time with Han by your side was so calling, that mid-lesson texts of it, and hopeless, juvenile plans of a music career weren’t a rarity between your best friend and yourself – the guilt of giving up with no solidity beneath your feet yet always took the upper hand, so big plans of bigger stadiums stayed texts, and you continued spending your daily classes in excruciating boredom.

During the couple minutes you had together, right after practice and before your next set of lessons, Han and you talked of everything and nothing. More often than not, it was involving music, his ideas and plans for new songs, possible schedules to practise, mistakes you and he had noticed in the rundown before and needed to correct for the rundown after. Rarely, though not never, both you and him would express doubts or feelings of hopelessness regarding the band and its’ future; another point you were ever comfortable speaking of in the presence of only him. Not because the others wouldn’t understand, or care; they surely would, and you thought they could even be decent listeners and advisers, much to your surprise had you first met them. Yet you preferred to save insecurities for later, when you and Han were in lonesome, could talk undisturbed; neither did you know of the importance the other three bore for the band, nor did you think it a good idea to talk of pointless negativity – ‘Where do we go after college?’, ‘What if the band never really breaks through?’, ‘Do we want it to break through, or are we simply  five friends enjoying music and each other’s presence?’ –; you deemed those thoughts to lead to discouragement to practise and play altogether, let alone keep the motivation should you ever decide to take the professional route. Yet, you could always talk of such fears with Han, for he always shared your worries; though currently, he was rambling about a new song he was planning – one he was allegedly writing specifically for you, and for your voice.

“I’ll show you the song when I’m done, I still have to edit a ton and it’s basically completely unfinished, and…”, a sip from his Coke and he looked at you, curiously, “I know you’re not the most confident in your voice, and the song might be out of our skill range…”, Han watched you listen to him carefully, piercing eyes following his every word, “but I’m writing this song to fit your range and tone perfectly, like- I’m writing it for your voice.”, his hands fiddled with the tin of the can under your gaze, almost nervously, as if confessing something he shouldn’t. His cheeks painted pink, only a shade or two yet you noticed, and he seemed to suddenly blink more than usual; strange. You emptied your Coke in a last gulp and Han’s eyes caught yours before you scoffed, softly.

“It’s unlike you to be so nervous about it. I’m sure it’s gonna be a good song, and I bet we will like it – I know I will; it’s written for me, basically.”, you snickered, and Han merely replied with a choked chuckle.

“I’m not… nervous about the song. I actually think it’s the best I’ve made so far, and, like- I think it’s gonna sound insane live, just… I don’t know. Whatever.”, another chuckle, forced, almost, and he avoided eye contact; very strange, truly.

You watched him carefully, wondered where the sudden insecurities stemmed from. Music, and songwriting in particular were his passions as much as they were yours, yet admittedly, he bore far more talent than you did; you had always admired it rather than growing envious of his skill, so far more confused now at his sudden humbleness.

“Show me the song when you’ve finished writing it, I bet it’s nice. Don’t be weird about it.” You nipped at the can of Coke one last time before throwing your worn-out bag over your shoulder, sighing exasperatedly. “Anyways, I have to hurry now. Don’t want Hwang to scold me in front of everyone for being late again.”

Han mumbled a reply, and you cocked your head at him in curiosity one last time – he wouldn’t leave a nagging thought uncommented, not if it was truly bothering him, though maybe he wouldn’t want to distract you before class. He would surely, you thought, mention whatever was making him nibble at his pierced lip and light another cigarette before you were even out of sight later before practice, and you took a mental note to ask him when you’d see him again. You left your empty can of Coke by the bench – you always allowed Han the pleasure of the deposit money for both his and your drink; he never not returned it by standing you a soda every once in a while – and made your way apart from him, from the cooling shadow, from the freezing drinks inside the dirty vending machine, from the comfort of your best friend – you bid goodbye with a last “See you later!” and disappeared behind the corner towards the music building, not without questioning Han’s last seemingly troubled expression.

☆.☆.☆

You sat behind your shabby, wooden desk in the hot, sweat-scented classroom, dimming out the chattering and gossip all around you with your earphones, scribbling doodles and lyrics into your notebook. Your blue pen materialised hearts and clouds and words into your yellowish piece of paper as you waited for Mr. Hwang to enter the classroom, as you waited for the two hours of boredom to pass as quickly as it was possible – or for your teacher to talk of a subject which could interest you, for that matter.

You furrowed your brows at the verses you were trying to make sense of; you weren’t much a songwriter, and despite Han’s patient teaching for the past couple months and your urge to improve your skill you were far from happy with any recent results. Your texts didn’t seem to carry a red line, context was hard to make sense of; you wondered if you had any talent for songwriting at all, or if you should leave said work to your best friend. You’ve acquired a habit of writing down anything you could think of for the sake of practice, to gather any spark of inspiration in written form, and going over it with Han on later occasion – only few verses and sentences of yours found themselves in a couple of his songs, and though you wished it could be more, he made it fashion to remind you it was already something to be proud of.

The heavy creak of the door and the following footsteps were the reason you stopped the music which blasted in your eardrums before taking out your earphones, the silhouette of your teacher strutting through the now murmuring classroom, whispers which sounded like questions, and a general confusion spread between the students; unbeknownst to you, yet, as you packed away your phone and opened your notebook on last weeks’ notes, before you finally converted your eyes to the front, finally caught a peak of you teacher; though it wasn’t the teacher you’ve expected to walk into the classroom, not Mr. Hwang, and your jaw would have hit the rough wood of your table if you’d had been any slower at gathering yourself. The man – not a stranger, though unseen and unthought of by you for the past five years – made his way into the spacy classroom, brown briefcase in hand, white dress shirt hugging the lines of his muscles, the ones on his arms exposed as he’d rolled up his sleeves. His attire was missing the tie you remembered him in, and, different to five years ago, the two top buttons of his shirt lay open around his chest – not showing inappropriate skin, though enough to tease, almost, to make you drool in your seat. His black dress pants moved with him as he settled behind his desk, briefcase on the table, one watch-adorned wrist making its way into his pants’ pocket leisurely as he looked around the class. He was visibly older, now that you had a good view of him – smile lines deeper, skin more textured, a certain calmness writing his pleasant features –he was just as attractive as you remembered him to be; more so, you’d dare to argue.

“Hi, my name is Mr. Bahng. Professor Hwang suddenly fell ill, unfortunately, and I’ll be his substitute teacher for the time being. I normally don’t teach college classes, but other professors sadly didn’t have the time – I’m well acquainted with Professor Hwang, though, so I agreed to take over his class for a few weeks.”

He was friendly. A charming smile adorned his face, a slight blush played around his nose as he looked around the room, looking at each student for a second or two before locking eyes with the next. For closure, for trust. Then he locked eyes with you, and it felt just like five years ago, when you were fresh eighteen years old, and a bored high school student in your last year before graduation.

.☆.

“I’ve never been so excited for class, oh my god.”

You had sat giddily in your seat, anticipating the arrival of your new music teacher. You had only seen him once so far, last week, when he had freshly relocated to the high school you’d gone to, and had been, quite literally and much to Felix’s misery and irritation, head over heels for the man – not because your friend had borne a crush for you; simply because you’d been utterly annoying with your high school love for your teacher. You’d known your yearning had been futile even back then, had known that Mr. Bahng wasn’t possibly interested in a mere girl who had just turned eighteen, yet you’d been young and in need for fun distraction, for amusement. And if that meant drooling over a young, hot teacher who had been just your type, it seemed, then you couldn’t complain.

Next to you, Felix had huffed in amusement as you kept eyeing the entrance door of the classroom, then the clock on the wall in front of you, then the door again. He had prepped his material for class already, in much contrast to your own entirely empty desk; saved for a piece of paper and a pen borrowed from your dearest high school friend.

“Your crush is getting unhealthy… he’s not gonna fuck you, you know.”

Felix hadn’t been judging, yet his voice had been teasing. You’d shot him a glance, had tsked at him which your friend returned with a mocking impression of you – fluttering eye-lids, airy lashes, a dumb-ish smile adorning his face.

“I know he’s not gonna fuck me… that’s not the point, though. Class is boring, and you take your academics way too serious to distract me from it.”, you’d retorted sarcastically, which Felix had accepted with a light-hearted scoff, going back to his notes from last week. You hadn’t been wrong; he wanted to get into college, and with good grades preferably. He’d known you had other priorities; he’d respected, enjoyed, even, your passion for music, and you'd always have the talent for it. The two of you had always been inherently different, though it had never bothered your friendship in the slightest.

Just as Felix had been about to retort with a snarky comment – or another far too accurate impression of your behaviour whenever Mr. Bahng was around – the door to the classroom had opened, and your music teacher had walked in – dress shirt buttoned up all the way, sleeves rolled down even in the hot weather, a careful tie adorning his fit. There’d been fewer lines of muscle back then, though they had been prominent enough to drive your teenage mind utterly insane. Your eyes had been glued onto him as he had welcomed the class, and Felix had struggled containing his laughter; you had been bashing your eyes at him, and you had been wearing a stupid smile around your lips at a mere look at him, just like your friend had mocked about earlier – and you had been either unaware of it, or you hadn’t been bothered enough to care.

You had eyed your teacher the entire lesson, and as much as Felix had wanted to stay focused, he had giggled and laughed at you, amused at your heart-eyes for someone so entirely unattainable. More often than once you had been in need to copy Felix’s notes because your thoughts – and eyes – had been elsewhere than the board, and more often than not Felix had pretended to stop helping you out in class any further, until you’d gotten over your crush; only in light hearted manner, though, because he couldn’t truly deny you of his help, would have felt far too bad to. Though, Felix had always admired your self-reflection in the matter of Mr. Bahng – there hadn’t been one incident in which you’d been unaware of the hopelessness and the unattainability your one-sided love presented – much to his dismay, because during free windows you would complain about it to no end –; and altogether, you had never spoken of love, in the first place. It had been butterflies, distraction from lessons, stupidity and immaturity – and you had always been aware of it; had always been aware of the impossibility.

.☆.

“Oh! And…Y/N, right? It’s nice to see some familiar faces!”

While you had been deep in thought, eyes wide and mouth agape – looking but a deer caught in the headlights, and upon the realisation of your expression you grew bashful – Mr. Bahng had named few students he remembered teaching back in school, happy some chose to follow the musical path before he started with the class, not lingering on you for a second longer after you nodded and smiled in approval; it almost frustrated you, his lack of attention to you – though anything else would have been strange, admittedly.

He had changed almost tangibly, though not by a lot, and into a direction far more pleasant than you'd had dared to expect. There was a change to his behaviour; when you had first seen him teach, he had been nervous, clammy; despite never in loss of control over the class he had clearly not borne much faith for his skills as a teacher yet. Now, standing before you in all his glory, black hair carefully slicked back in purposefully messy waves, constant lazy smile painting his features, he was more confident, far more secure in himself. It made sense; he’d been a fresh teacher five years ago, when he had walked into your classroom in uncertainty, so the gained experience surely did his practice advantage. He spoke with ease – about what, you weren’t quite sure –, each of his word dancing past his lips in serious and clear, yet laid-back manner, his writing on the board as messy as you remembered it, and more cursive now, his eyes finding home on every student sitting in class for a few moments before he moved on; he wasn’t pushing, yet he lured you into trusting him, into listening to his lesson – if you hadn’t been far more interested in his alternative qualities.

Mr. Bahng had always been a good teacher – though it had barely been the quality you liked about him most. You weren’t realising the pain your teeth caused your lips while you were looking at him, melting at the sight you had entirely forgotten over the past years. It was embarrassing, the way your eyes scanned the outline of his shoulders straining against his white shirt when he stretched to write on the board, how they followed the lines of his arm, the tensing of the muscles there when he applied pressure to the charcoal. You watched his hands – veinier than you remembered – as he erased older writings with a wet sponge; the water dripping down his skin felt far more erotic than it should, and, as though teasing on purpose, he got rid of the fantasy far too quick with a simple tap of a towel, leaving his hands dry, and you hot and bothered.

It was embarrassing, the way you couldn’t get your eyes off the curve of his back, and how the tucked-in button-down hugged around his torso, the slimness of his waist in contrast to his shoulders. He presented himself so very matter-of-factly before a class not his own, and it didn’t leave you cold – the subtle dominance, the care he radiated got you squirming in your seat, fiddling with your pen. The two hours you usually spent listening and taking notes were spent in utter awe at the man, in fantasising – you suddenly wished to be kissing down his chiselled jaw which tensed with every of his word, dreamt of licking down the vein on his neck which appeared whenever he turned his head to his right. His hands danced upon your body in your imagination, pressing you against his table, hovering over you and engulfing you whole, sending shivers down your spine with every kiss he granted upon your neck, with every bite he teased against your skin –

You coughed, without much purpose but it tore you out of your thoughts, and you straightened your back to sit up-right in your chair. You grew bashful at yourself, your imagination and the wet patch between your legs; you wouldn’t have expected the man to have the same effect on you as five years ago, and if you truly thought about it, it was quite embarrassing. You hadn’t even thought about your high school music teacher the moment you had graduated, had forgotten him entirely; now you were sitting in his class again years later, as though freshly eighteen anew, a dumb student yearning after a far older man; only now, you noticed as you watched him talk, the circumstances were far different – far more to your advantage. Technically, Mr. Bahng wasn’t your teacher anymore; he was teaching you, though you doubted it to count. He’d be gone again in a few weeks, when Professor Hwang felt better – so, you convinced yourself, he wasn’t your teacher, not technically. The age difference had stayed the same, quite obviously; though now it didn’t seem to quite bother you, not anymore – you’ve been with guys his age, and not rarely. Now you were older, and your crush of far better solidity, realer, almost; you could have him, could manage to wrap him around your fingers. The chances were far better. You weren’t, in fact, freshly eighteen anymore, nor were you a dumb student; and you bagged experience. It wasn’t of advantage to you that he remembered you from school – there was a risk you had stayed a student in his memory, young and immature and far too involved into a music teacher, though you didn’t think that would stand in your way; Mr. Bahng would be easy prey, surely. He wasn’t an impossibility anymore, he was there and real, easy to seduce.

“Let’s see… Y/N, you know the answer? You look sort of distracted.”

You hadn’t much realised the shameful path of your thoughts until the very man you had been sinfully thinking about had started speaking to you himself; you had, in fact, been distracted, and, much to your embarrassment, did neither know the answer nor were you aware of the question he had asked, altogether. You blushed, apologised bashfully – he simply continued with an understanding hum and a quick, kind gaze your direction, before picking another student to answer his question; you needed him, as soon as you could have him.

You’d be ashamed of your fantasising and longing, if it had been under different circumstances; though expectantly, you weren’t at all surprised about the tension flooding in the pit of your stomach at the sight of Mr. Bahng, or the way your thighs rubbed together when his eyes scanned yours for mere seconds; it had been ages since you’ve last been intimate with anyone, and your body was urging for closure, for contact and touch – it wasn’t an absurdity that the man who had caused many sleepless nights prior was now the culprit of a similar outcome.

You picked up where you had last stopped your train of thought; you could seduce him. Surely, if you craved intimacy and closure there were far easier men to aim for – but where would be the fun in that, truly? You had always liked a challenge; you had always liked him. And though your skills hadn’t been of much use lately, you believed yourself to have the charm – there wasn’t anything speaking against your plan, if you thought about it. If you disregarded the morality of the situation, that was.

The two hours of boredom flew past you today. Your notebook was entirely empty; you already dreaded having to find someone ready to lend you their notes of the lesson, though you cared only little while you watched student by student disappearing into their next lessons after Mr. Bahng had dismissed the class, each student opening the opportunity of talking to your teacher further and further. You took your time with your own belongings, dragging out the process of packing away your paper and pen, searching around in your bag for your headphones though it wasn’t at all necessary as they lay right atop your other stuff, only standing up when the last student left the hot classroom; and you found yourself alone with Mr. Bahng. He smiled up at you kind and unknowing as you made your way up to his desk, eyes not much lingering on you as he continued collecting his own materials and leaving the desk ready for the next professor; only when your smiling figure hovered over his own across the desk he looked up at you from beneath his lashes, his seating position painting the illusion of curious puppy eyes – he was far more attractive in the close up, and excitement, a sense of anticipation filled the entirety of your chest.

“Y/N, hello! Do you… need help with anything?”

You stood and stared; you hadn’t even thought of things to talk about with him, hadn’t prepared a pretentious question that could work as a possible opener – suddenly you grew embarrassed, bashful. You felt stupid under his gaze; what the hell were you doing?

“Oh, no… I just wanted to say hi! I haven’t seen you in ages… are you doing alright? Are you still teaching in *insert name of school*?”

Not bad, you thought, though you cringed at yourself; you wondered where all the previous confidence went the moment you stood before the man. The effect he had on you was far too embarrassing. You were far too old to feel like a teenager in love.

The teacher cocked his head at you, brows raised; he hadn’t expected the question, hadn’t anticipated small talk, seemingly. Yet he huffed out in amusement after blinking at you for a few seconds, and your heartbeat against the bones in your chest was deafening. You hoped he couldn’t hear it.

“Uh, yeah, it has been a while… I didn’t expect to see you here, to be honest.”, he snickered, stood and continued packing his stuff. “You were… never really good in my class. I never knew you had an interest in music.” Seemingly harsh words though it was a light-hearted comment as he ended it in a laugh, and you joined his amusement. You were sure you were blushing, though you decided to ignore it.

“Yeah… I never had an interest in school, you know. I always liked music, though. I just prefer listening to and making it, instead of… just learning about it.” Your voice sounded smoother now; he was easy to talk to, kind, funny. He gave you a quick look before continuing collecting his variation of pens and a last notebook, a smirk dancing around his lips – god, you needed him.

Mr. Bahng hummed approvingly at your words, locking eyes with you after snapping in the locks of his briefcase. A smile and a cocked head, and you bashed your lashes at him; just like Felix had mocked five years ago. What were you doing, truly?

“Making it? You’re a songwriter?”

The genuine interest in his voice made you light-headed, stole every thought from you. His dark eyes pierced through your own, unmoving and sure, and you almost trembled under his gaze; if you wanted to get anywhere with him, you needed to channel the charm you thought you acquired, and grow resistance against the giddiness he caused in the pit of your stomach. Your current attempts were all but miserable.

“Uhh, not really. Not yet, that is. I’m... my friends and I are in a band, though. We’re practising here on campus.”

You tried to sound as laid-back as possible, watched his reaction carefully; you enjoyed being able to look at him to your desires, eyes travelling his features up and down, growing weaker any time you passed his plush lips he couldn’t seem to stop wetting with his tongue, or his jaw which tensed with every word he spoke. He was as irresistible as you remembered him to be, and you needed to learn to have the same effect on him. You had a time limit after all; Professor Hwang wouldn’t be sick forever.

His brows raised the moment he heard the word ‘band’ – his mouth formed a silent ‘ah’, and your body heated up at the anticipation of his next words; he was interested in you now, and you deemed that to be of advantage to you.

“In a band, huh?”, he huffed in reminiscent amusement, eyes growing softer, “I love that. I’m jealous, actually. My friends and I had always been so busy in college, but making music together has kinda always been… a dream, you could say. If I can be so honest.”, his cheeks blushed at the sudden confession, the tips of his ears reddening; he looked even more insatiable when flustered.

The man swung his briefcase over his shoulder; the conversation was obviously coming to an end, yet you felt as though you couldn’t let it. You didn’t expect to fuck him right then and there, today, to succeed with your plan in the short span of ten minutes – yet you needed more of a lead than you currently had.

“Well, you’re never too old to start. Except, you know, you’re busy with… a wife and kids, or whatever.”, you laughed at your own joke, eyeing him curiously; and the man didn’t join your amusement. His smile drooped, the creases between his brows deepened; and only now you noticed the shimmering gold band around his left ring finger. Undeniably, he did have a wife, and kids possibly; his reaction and the ring spoke for themselves. Yet, undeniably also, and much to your contentment – he didn’t seem to be on good foot with the subject. As the pair of you continued making your way to the door of the classroom you apologised upon having noticed his silence and sudden clamminess, yet, internally, didn’t regret your joke in the slightest; any form of closure and trust you could tickle out of him would work best for you in the long run. You flinched at your own sadism and the utter lack of remorse you felt at your planning. Though, there wasn’t any reason yet to feel guilty; as of now, and as far as everyone could be concerned, you were a student talking to a substitute teacher you’d known from high school. Whatever developed would be as much in your hands as it would be in his own; after all, no matter what your ultimate plan would be, Mr. Bahng would need to be the one accepting or dismissing your approaches. So really, no matter how you viewed the situation, you couldn’t be the villain in the picture. Not really.

“No, no, don’t worry. We’re just… my wife and I had been hitting rough patches lately, for some time. Nothing crazy, just- typical marriage stuff. Not that it is of any interest to you.” Flustered again, his face changing into a light tone of pink, and he hid behind the classroom door he held open for you. 'Rough patches. Some time now.' – his words shouldn’t fill you with the excitement they did, and for only a second you wondered if your plan – dumb, now that you truly thought about it – was futile, immature altogether. You’d be a homewrecker, you’d be moving in morally grey area, you’d get yourself into a messy situation which would distract you from music and the band if you let it get to you; though then you watched the teacher exit the classroom behind you, a hand in his pocket to fish out his keys, warm and curious eyes on you as he locked the door – any doubt ceased to exist that very moment and having the man fall for you over the next couple weeks materialised as a plan in your path of thoughts again after you bid goodbye, the pit of your stomach ripe with giddiness as you hurried to the studio; Han would die hearing the news.

☆.☆.☆

When you opened the door to the studio the soft vibrato of an electric guitar filled your senses; right before Lino’s classes start, he hands the key over to Han, to let him use the studio in his free windows while waiting for the rest of you. You knew the stuffy room was Han’s favourite place to be creative in, to use for writing songs and practice whenever the five of you couldn’t get together. You would always be the first to meet him right after your music classes, the others arriving about half an hour later – though today you took longer, so you didn’t have much time to gush about your news.

“Hi! You’re late today. Did Hwang keep you?”

As soon as Han had heard the door open his eyes had searched for your figure, and the sounds of his guitar died into nothingness. He took his instrument off – the worn-out fabric having left a visible red mark on the soft skin of his neck – and plopped down on the sofa positioned in a corner of the room, right beside the set-up of instruments. He chewed on a piece of gum, lounging onto the old brown leather after placing his guitar on its’ standee; he hadn’t yet noticed the buzz you radiated as you closed the door behind you and made home in the dusty studio, throwing your rucksack against the sofa carelessly. Without awaiting an answer from you, Han started talking mindlessly, scrolling through his phone in the process.

“I actually thought we could practise this new song I finished earlier. I could play it for you when everyone’s here and go over it all. It’s not the one I was telling you about befo-“

“Wait, wait, wait, I need to tell you something. Urgent. Don’t need the others to know.”

Your voice cut off his, and Han’s eyes lost the screen of his phone now. He converted them to you, perplexed; finally, he noticed the blush around your cheeks and neck, the mischievous sparkle in your eyes, the smirk on your lips – you had been up to no good. You stood against the backrest of the sofa, watched him sit up a bit to look at you properly. His eyes were curious, his phone gone in his jeans’ pocket again, his brows slightly furrowed; the look in your eyes was almost scary, your hovering body over his own near bone-chilling.

“Do you remember Mr. Bahng.”, your voice was almost trembling, and he thought to see stars in your eyes at the sound of the name, whereas his heart stumbled in its rhythmical beating at it and calmed only seconds later. The tempo had increased though, and he felt the heavy muscle pump against the bones of his rib cage in silent fear of your next words. He looked at you wordlessly, speechless.

“My high school music teacher.” Your face emitted the same excitement and giddiness as it did when you talked of your many celebrity crushes, in anticipation of something Han wasn’t even sure of, nor wanted to know. You must have taken Han’s silence for memory loss, though he surely didn’t need the explanation.

Mr. Bahng; the name couldn’t not ring a bell. Though the both of you had never gone to the same school, there hadn’t been a single Wednesday in which Han hadn’t been victim to your gushing and thirsting over a man almost double your age, and the whining about the unfairness of the situation – if you’d been born just a little later, or Mr. Bahng just a little earlier you would have had a chance to get into his pants, yet you’d been left to only yearn for him from behind your desk, every week anew, a hopeless teen in a bad romance movie. Han did remember your high school music teacher; though he couldn’t make sense of the importance of him now. And he was scared to find out about it.

After his further silence you continued, Han’s face unchanged.

“Hwang is ill, and Mr. Bahng is gonna be my substitute teacher for a couple weeks. He’s so hot actually... I forgot how hot he was.”, excitement in your voice, and suddenly words gushed out of you in a waterfall, “He like- I didn’t expect him to walk in at all and then he suddenly stood there at the desk and he remembered me and he got so much hotter and like- I sat there and I felt like I was in school again but I realised I’m not in school anymore and am way older now so the age difference isn’t that weird anymore, you know?” Han almost hadn’t caught the question, realised too late that you expected him to say something, anything. Wrongly so, because he was still processing your words. You were excited, far too much for his taste, though he wasn’t sure why he despised the anticipation in your voice when you talked about your teacher. And, besides; ‘age difference’? ‘Not weird anymore’? He wouldn’t be able to answer even if he wanted to, because he couldn’t find any correlation in your words. When Han didn’t make a sound after a whole twenty seconds, when he kept looking at you with big, questioning eyes and a mouth agape you sucked in your breath, stepped closer to the backrest of the sofa. “Do you know what that means!?”

That sparkle in your eyes again, and Han did, in fact, not know what any of your words meant – still his heart sank, his gut felt as though having taken a punch. He wasn’t expecting anything he’d be excited to hear.

“I can fuck him now.”

The boy choked on his piece of gum, coughing in reaction to your words – his eyes watered, his palm beat against his chest in order to get rid of the sting in his throat, to fill his lungs with proper oxygen again. He hadn’t expected your words; and yet internally, he must have. His body had reacted before you had declared your news; when you had first mentioned your teacher. The name itself sent a set of shivers down Han’s entire body. The absurd confession of wanting – and planning, apparently – to fuck said teacher was even worse. A feeling he couldn’t quite explain found home in his chest, in the pit of his stomach, in the veins pumping right beneath his skin. His hands felt clammy, far too sweaty. What was that reaction? It’s not like he was jealous, he couldn’t be; your words couldn’t make sense to him, though, sounded utterly wrong. Fucking? Your teacher? It wasn’t like you.

“That’s insane. He’s your teacher.”, Han retorted after far too many moments of silence in which you had nothing but stared at him, expectantly. Han reciprocated your gaze with an emotion in his eyes that caused you to furrow your brows; it wasn’t agony, per se, but it was more than worry. It confused you.

“Well, he’s not really. He’s only here for a couple weeks, it doesn’t count.” You made your way over to take a seat next to Han, shoving his legs to the side to make room. He let you, feet flapping off it without resistance, the heaviness of his boots against the wooden floor echoing through the room; the strange expression in his eyes deepened, and it was too intense for you to keep looking.

“That’s still… he’s still a teacher. Like, he’s in a power position, you can’t- you can’t just fuck him. That’s insane.”, Han’s voice was far too agitated for your liking. “And besides, I doubt he’d fuck you. You’re just, like- a student. What’s in there for him except the loss of his job.” He didn’t look you in the eyes while talking – a rip in the old leather sofa was far more interesting to him suddenly, and his teeth nibbled on the silver metal of his piercing. The fingers in his lap fiddled; he was too nervous, too upset and it angered you.

Your head snapped at him; you wouldn’t have expected him to be so against the idea. Maybe you had been dumb, after all. Could Mr. Bahng lose his job? Have you been delusional, too enamoured by his looks you had forgotten over the past five years and influenced by the lack, the drought of any recent intimacy? But then again; Han’s reaction enraged you. It felt like jealousy, far less like the worry you would have understood. And you couldn’t make sense why it did.

“First of all, don’t act all high and mighty when I know you’d happily sleep with like half your current professors if you’d be given the chance – the only thing you ever tell me about class is how good Mrs. Yoo's ass looks in the skirts she’s wearing.”, your voice sounded loud through the room; not truly angry, but defending, maybe. You were too stubborn to admit the stupid plan was all but immature; and you despised that Han wasn’t as excited as you had been. His behaviour ticked you off; it didn’t occur often that the both of you weren’t on the same page about something.

“And besides, maybe Mr. Bahng is horny for me, too. His marriage is shit, as much as I know, so he might- “

“Marriage?! Y/N, don’t tell me you’re serious?” Han’s voice vibrating through the studio made you flinch in your seat, and you looked at him, eyes wide and brows scrunched into one thin line. You knew where he was coming from; but he acted differently altogether. You knew he wouldn’t be in one boat with you about the marriage bit, but you hadn’t imagined him to react this way, throughout the entire conversation; he was jealous, and you had never seen him this way. You couldn’t wrap your mind around it, and the irritation over it caused your head to ache.

“Well, I am serious. Just because you can’t get laid doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun with someone I’ve had a crush on since forever, now that the opportunity is there. Besides, I haven’t even fucked him yet, so get your head out of your ass.”

Your words were harsh, and you regretted them the moment they had materialised in the stuffy room. The studio tensed, your bodies did; and you stayed silent. You didn’t apologise; your stubbornness wouldn’t let you. Additionally, you didn’t even believe to be in the wrong, not entirely. Sure, you were moving in morally grey areas, and you had hit a sensitive spot within your friend; but you hadn’t lied, and he knew it as much as you did. Yet he only kept looking at you, for two seconds, for six, for ten; with every second you grew more and more bashful under his gaze, with every passing second the words you’d said sunk into his brain, embedded there. Until he truly grasped them a whole of twenty seconds later; the fact you were ready to screw your teacher, the fact you’d thought Han would have been excited about the news, the fact you wouldn’t apologise now or rethink your plan in the several moments he was granting you stabbed a wound into his fastening heart. A wound the motive of which he wasn’t all too sure about, yet it felt deeper than he’d anticipated it to. You stayed silent and he stayed looking at you; until he couldn’t bear holding your gaze anymore.

“I need to go out for a smoke.”

The guitarist got up, almost tripped over the dirty carpet under the sofa as he made his way out of the studio. You were fuming, felt guilty, felt bad; you were 22 years old; how could you still fight with Han as though you were both mere teenagers? How could you continue being so very stubborn, believe with so much conviction to still be in the right?

Han didn’t get the chance to open the door to the studio; before his hand could reach for the door handle Lino walked in with the rest of your bandmates, all chatting and quarrelling about something unknown – and, in your current state, uninteresting – to you, before they all fell silent at the sight of the both of you; Han’s head hung low, the usual excitement when everyone arrived absent, you sitting in the corner on the sofa with crossed arms and a look in your face which nothing but scared the rest. Changbin looked from Han to you and back to Han again while Lino and Jeongin made their way inside – slowly and quietly – to set up their instruments; not without questioning looks in their faces. The tension in the room was tangible, and the silence between the two of you was unusual, so you didn’t blame them for their sudden bashfulness.

“Yo, did you two fight? You look beaten up man.”, Changbin expressed with a palm to Han’s shoulder. You ignored his question, got up from the sofa to set up your guitar. You would get it over with practice, and see Han again tomorrow; everything would be settled by then, as always. You would talk again as though nothing happened, if you only survived today.

“It’s nothing, just need to get out for a smoke.” Han’s voice not convincing and to make matters worse, he shoved Changbin’s hand off, and the elder looked at the others with confusion-written eyes when Han left the studio without another word. All three of them looked at you then, wordlessly; though you continued setting up your instrument, throwing the leather band over your neck, plugging the cable into the AMP before turning it on, and soft vibratos halled through the room as you started tuning your guitar. None of them said a word, neither did you; you didn’t as much as look at them. Maybe you weren’t all that grown-up, far more immature than you believed yourself to be. Maybe the idea with Mr. Bahng was stupid, and Han had been right entirely; and the fight for nothing, inherently. It wouldn’t be the first time your ego was too big for your wrongdoings to be visible to yourself – though, in the heat of the moment and in your anger, you didn’t want to admit it to yourself, so you continued sulking, until Jeongin declared to go out for a smoke as well, and the others agreed to join him; leaving you in the studio by yourself, alone with your thoughts – you were thankful for it, if they’ve left on purpose or not.

Han was in the wrong, you thought. Not that you were entirely in the right, either; but he had overreacted, surely. Mr. Bahng wasn’t really your teacher – he wouldn’t lose his job if he fucked you, not if no one caught you until he was gone again. And that was only a matter of weeks; you weren’t sure how long it would take to persuade him – if it would work at all –, so, for all you cared he could be gone before you caught the chance of getting into his pants. You remembered your previous train of thought, and Han’s words; if there was nothing in there for Mr. Bahng, the situation would dissolve, anyways. Eventually, it was up to him if he’d accept your seducing or not – you would simply open the opportunity, everything else wasn’t in your hands anymore. The marriage was the only thing you felt worse about after having talked to Han. You felt guiltier now, were aware that you shouldn’t pursue a married man; and yet, again, you remembered your thoughts you had brewed on when you’d sat in the classroom. If Mr. Bahng’s relationship was so great and worth working on, he would shut out your attempts. He would pretend not to notice your flirting – however you would you didn’t know yet – or he would shut you off clearly, verbally. You would only offer yourself; the rest would be up to him.

It was your stubbornness, surely, and maybe you should simply sleep over your thoughts for a night, but no matter from which perspective you looked at the situation, you couldn’t truly feel guilty. Or maybe you didn’t want to – whatever the reason was, though, giddiness filled your insides again at the thought of next weeks’ class and the possible start of your attempts; until then Han and you would laugh about your fight, and he’d be as excited as you were.

Outside, Han was puffing blue smoke into the scorching air. Changbin and Jeongin talked of something he didn’t pay attention to, Lino eyed him occasionally, which he didn’t notice; neither of them talked to him after he had shut off the question if he was fine with a voice that led them to understand he wasn’t really, but wasn’t in the mood to talk about it, either. He was thankful they didn’t push him, that they acted indifferent.

It’s not like he was jealous – he was simply being a good friend to you. Who knew what kind of trouble you would find yourself in if you fucked your teacher; surely, he was only being caring, prioritizing your well-being. The stinging pain in his heart when he remembered your excitement he chose to ignore, and the insides of his stomach flipping and squeezing together in agony at your carelessness about his reaction, about the entire situation he couldn’t quite interpret, so he chose to ignore that, too. Because if he thought about it too much, confusion and perplexity formed his entire being; confusion about his own reaction, perplexity about the fact he had expected to be excited with you but couldn’t be, physically. As though something was holding him back from feeling happiness about your own, when it involved another. He was angry, he was irritated with himself; atop all, he hated fighting with you, deeply. You were the one person he shouldn’t fight with, ever, the one anchor in his life. If things were bumpy with you, everything else felt out of balance.

“C’mon, let’s practice.”

Han hadn’t noticed how the others had grinded their cigarettes with the soles of their shoes, and with a pat to his shoulder Changbin entered the studio first, followed by Jeongin, then by Lino; who didn’t go in without a last concerned look at his younger friend who was eyeing the asphalt beneath his feet. Han almost didn’t want to go in, didn’t want to face you – he feared his bodily reactions if he happened to see you, he feared to feel the sting in his heart again, the one he found so hard to understand, to name. He threw his cigarette on the ground, tapped out the burning, orange blaze with the pad of his boot. He would get over with practice; tomorrow you and him would be back to the old same again.

taglist: @es-kay-zee @jeyelleohe @angelwonie @yvniek4ng @ppiri-bahng @bintificreads @svintsandghosts @llunapastell @sensitiveandhungry @minniesvenus @junebug032 @noellllslut @wolfennracha @unexceptional-h @like-a-diamondinthesky @katsukis1wife @binniesbang @astraystayyh @chrizzztopherbang @qtieskz @rylea08 @miss-fallon @sikebishes @h0n3yj4y @lashaemorow

[mylostloversbookmarks]

Do You Want Me Or Do You Not?

Characters - Joel Miller x Reader

Summary - You have been with Joel and Sarah for 4 years and your life is pretty perfect. Your evening plans quickly take a turn for the worse.

Word Count - 2.3K

Warnings/Tags - 18+ only Minors dni. Typical canon language, Angst, I mean all the angst, Joel being an asshole? mentions of arguing, mentions of drinking.

A/N - Set Pre-Outbreak! This is my first fic and I would like to say a massive thank you to the beautiful @pedgeitopascal for beta reading and encouraging me to share this! This was supposed to be a drabble but I got carried away, open to writing more to this! Feedback is appreciated but pls be kind.

Read Chpt 2 Here! ~ Hold On To Me, Cause' Im A Little Unsteady.

Divider credit to @saradika

You slammed the door so hard that you were surprised it didn’t come off its hinges. Your blood was boiling, leaving a thin sheen of sweat over your skin and prickling up your spine to the back of your neck, making you feel nauseous.

"How could he say that?" you ask yourself quietly.

Staring blankly at the front yard, the streetlights hummed and zinged above your head, making you dizzy. The air was hot and sticky, clinging to your exposed skin like ivy on an old house. You moved slowly, your legs feeling as if they were wading through quicksand. Closing your eyes and inhaling the humid evening air, you feel tears pooling in your eyes and threatening to overflow.

"How did this happen?" you thought to yourself over and over again. Sure, it wasn’t uncommon for the two of you to argue, but they were always silly little fights that you blamed on your short temper and his stubbornness. You'd both raised your voices at each other before, and instead of apologising like adults, he'd do or say something that made you laugh, and no matter how hard you tried—and God knows you tried—to hide it with a bitten lip or a turn of the head, He saw right through you. Giving you that "I know you're mad, but you love me" look with a shit-eating grin.

You would roll your eyes and wrap your arms around his waist. Laying your head against his chest as he rested his chin on the top of your head. The small circles you drew on his broad back and the silent kisses he placed on the crown of your head were just unspoken apologies. Not this time. This felt different. This felt final. Like there was no coming back from the venom-laced words he hurled at you.

It was late, around eleven p.m. if you had to guess. You cursed under your breath as you realised you had left your phone on the kitchen counter. Not knowing what to do, you decided to walk around the block and give yourself and him a chance to calm down.

You felt lost, wandering, your face hot from the tears you hadn't noticed were falling freely now. You tried to take another deep, shuddering breath as you wiped the palms of your hands over your face, but all that was coming were silent, wracking sobs, your throat hurting from swallowing around the lump in it. As you walked the empty streets of your suburban neighbourhood, the argument replayed over and over in your head.

Joel had just returned home from work, having promised you and Sarah that he would be home by seven o'clock at the latest. You couldn't lie to yourself, you wished he was home more, but you understood that he needed to finish this job, so you didn't press him on it. He threw his keys into the bowl with a little too much force and sighed heavily.

"Hey, are you going to make dinner?" he muttered under his breath, without even looking at you, staring at the ground as he removed his work boots by the door. "Oh yeah, of course. Shall I just shine your shoes when I'm there, master?" You snarked at him and laughed, not really thinking he was being serious. When you looked up from your laptop, he was staring at you blankly, the question hanging in the air.

"You know I worked a full day too, right? You said you would be home for Seven, so I took Sarah to the mall, picked up her new soccer kit, and then drove her to and picked her up from practice. It got late, so I made something quick for her. I thought we could get takeout when you got back, and you know it wouldn’t hurt for you to cook once in a while, Miller." You laughed, still working away on your laptop, and when no response came, you paid no mind to the back and forth.

"Yeah, and I'm sure there were plenty of better things you would have rather been doing," he muttered under his breath again, clearly intending for it to be loud enough for you to hear in the small living room that joined the kitchen. Your eyes snapped up as you heard the door to the fridge being yanked open with enough force to knock the condiment bottles from their shelf inside the door. Smashing as they met the cold tiles of the kitchen floor.

"God fucking dammit," he cursed. Joel is known for his colourful vocabulary, but this one caught you off guard. What has gotten him so riled up in the five minutes he has been in the house? You stood up and marched into the kitchen, leaving your laptop on the middle seat of the sofa, watching as he stepped over the mess by the fridge and opened the cupboard under the sink for the cleaning supplies. Still not looking at you.

"What is up your ass this evening?" You asked, irritably, as the prospect of a quiet night curled into his chest with Chinese food in hand quickly passed you by. "Nothing, don’t worry about it," he pushed past you, barely brushing your shoulder in his passing. He had yet to look at you. "I get it! You had a shitty day at work, but you don’t need to take it out on me!" You huffed as you walked around the small, worn dining table the three of you usually share your meals.

"Work was fine," he spat. You bent down to help him pick up the glassy mess, but he flinched back from you, bolting to his feet and crossing to the trash can on the other side of the kitchen in two long strides. He threw the jagged shards of glass into the bin with enough force that it rocked from side to side. You have seen Joel angry on plenty of occasions. If things mess up at work. If Tommy needs to be bailed out of jail for the umpteenth time. He has never been this angry, not with you anyway.

"What’s wrong?! And what did you even mean by ‘I'm sure there were plenty of better things you would have rather been doing’ Joel?!" You asked as you deepened your register to mimic his voice and his earlier statement. "Oh, I think you know what I mean," he laughed out with no trace of humour, his voice like ice. There was the beginning of a pit in your stomach, telling you that something was very wrong here. He has never in the four years you have been together, spoken to you like this. Not even remotely close to it.

"Okay, I really don’t understand what is happening here. Is there something you want to get off your chest?! Have I done something to piss you off or something?" You questioned, throwing your arms up in the air, letting them fall to your sides with an audible snap as your hands connected with your jean-covered thighs. You wracked your brain for something, anything, that would explain the way he was acting towards you. You came up blank. He was fine when he left for work this morning, you had to pry his strong arms from around your waist as he trailed tender kisses up your neck, making you wiggle your behind against him. Giggling and telling him if he didn’t leave now, he would be late for work. He left you in bed with a "To be continued" purred into the shell of your ear.

You could feel your temper bubbling under the surface now, threatening to spill over as you take deep, measured breaths, trying your best not to lose it on him. This didn’t make any sense. He was glaring at you from across the room, chest heaving with angered breath. You could see the strain in his arms as he stood ridged, gripping the kitchen counter as if it were the only thing tethering him to the earth. You were worried he would snap it with the way his knuckles turned white as bone under the force.

"I mean, why are you even here, (Y/N)?! With me? With Sarah?!, If I'm such a pain in the ass, why don’t you just go? Go find some other fucking guy to play "house" with! I'm sure they will show you a real good time!" The words rushed out of him like a tsunami, sweeping you and the little happy life you had made with him and his daughter right out to sea. It was as if he slapped you, even though you knew Joel would never slap you, or any woman for that matter, because he was raised right. The words still made you stumble backwards, bumping into one of the dining chairs.

You had to hold onto the chair for support. It felt like your legs would buckle under you. Looking into his eyes, you could tell he regrets saying it; he knew he had hurt you in one of the few ways only he could. You know you're not the most maternal woman around. But you adore Sarah as if she were your own child. Right to your very core. You would do anything for her, and you would protect her like a lioness protects her young. Ferociously. She knows that…they both know that, right?

"Is that what you think of me? That I would rather be somewhere else? With someone else? Why would you say that to me?" You choked out, your voice tight around the lump quickly rising in your throat, your voice barely above a whisper. Joel takes a deep breath and releases it in a slow, saddened sigh, like the world is crushing his shoulders with the weight of the words he has just cut you with. He can’t look at you, he won’t. He just stares at the floor as he runs a hand through the mop of dark hair atop his head, just long enough to start curling at the nape of his neck. You have to leave; you have to get out of this kitchen. You feel like the tension in the room will suffocate you if you don’t.

Now you stand in the rain that has just started to mist heavily from the blackened sky. Closing your eyes and tipping your head back and letting the cold rain calm your heated skin, taking in a deep breath, and enjoying the smell of fresh rain on the concrete almost make you smile. Almost. After walking the four blocks around your quiet, deserted neighbourhood, You find yourself outside a bar, deciding that you would rather drown your sorrows in a cheap amber liquid than return to a house where the man you love won't even look you in the eye.

You check the pocket of your jeans, hoping that you didn’t empty them of your change into the bowl on the console beside the door, which held the house's spare change and keys, when you got home from work…to the house that isn’t yours, not really, but before tonight had felt like your home. You shake the thought away immediately; you are tired and don’t want to get emotional in public. You say a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher power was looking out for you as you fished the two rumpled twenty-dollar bills from your back pocket. Pushing the door to the bar open, you are welcomed by the chatter of happy patrons enjoying their Friday evening.

Opting for a seat at the sparsely occupied bar, you wait patiently for the bartender to be free to serve you. She approaches you with a friendly smile. "What can I get ya?" she asks in a thick Texan accent. It knocks you for six; his face is immediately in your mind, images flashing before your eyes from your first date, vacations spent with Joel, Sarah, and Tommy. Joel comforting you through your father's death, you beneath him between your cotton bedsheets, to his lack of ability to look at you just hours ago.

"Honey? You alright? Can I get you something?" The bartender asked you again, her brows knitted together in concern. You shake your head, trying to physically get rid of the memories that flood your vision. "Uh, yeah, sorry. Can I get a Jamesons…ah, a double on the rocks, please?" You ask, trying not to meet her worried gaze. "Coming right up," you thank her and prop your elbows on the sticky counter of the bar, ignoring the way the sticky sensation makes your stomach churn. Rubbing the heels of your hands into your eyes hard enough that you start to see purple splotches on the inside of your eyelids. You remove your hands when you hear the clink of ice in a glass being set in front of you.

Thanking the bartender again with a small, polite smile, you hand her a twenty, and ask her to keep the change. She thanks you and kindly leaves you to wallow in your thoughts. There is no doubt about how you feel about him. You love Joel like you have never loved before. It is all-encompassing, sometimes you think the depth of your feelings for him could swallow you whole, and the love you have for his daughter is of equal measure. The question that has been circling your exhausted mind for the last few hours comes front and centre again.

"Why? Why would he say what he did? What could have happened to make him doubt your feelings for him? About your little family?" You take another deep, steadying breath as your emotions threaten to overwhelm you again, rubbing your face in your palm while nursing the burn in your throat and rolling the whisky glass in your other. You feel a presence just behind your right shoulder.

"Is this seat taken, Darlin?" a familiar baritone voice asks quietly.

It’s familiar, but it’s not the voice you were hoping to hear…

[indigosabyss]

Call Back A Warning: Modern Day Senku

Research everything. Test everything. Replicate replicate replicate.

For most of his life, Senku had been painfully aware of how little he knew. Humanity had spent centuries and centuries compiling information, and some of it was correct, a lot of it was wrong but based on good science, and even more were wrong and based on bad science.

His life began as a game of catch up, sorting through information, figuring out what was reliable and correct, charting the mountains of progress humanity had made before he was even out of diapers.

And during that time, scientific discovery continued its relentless march forward, uncaring of whether one person understood it all.

Senku had thought he was fine with that. He could focus on both the cutting edge of science, and the historical truths that had led up to those discoveries.

He had not expected for the world to change quite so drastically in his time.

Or that he'd get a front-row seat to it.

Time travel, Xeno had confided to him, with a curious look at him.

A catastrophe of some sort, Byakuya had explained further, hugging Senku exceptionally close when he landed in America.

Thousands upon thousands of years from the future, an Ishigami Senku claimed to be calling them.

The same Ishigami Senku who was right now being let into the mission room where the Phone To The Future was installed.

"Yo." Senku tapped the microphone, "These guys are saying you're me. How aren't you completely calcified after thirty seven centuries?"

The connection was crackly as hell, but the dry laugh was unmistakable, "Funnily enough, I was petrified for most of that time." His voice, approximately a fifth of an octave lower than Senku's own, came from the speakers, "You didn't read the briefing? The mentalist worked hard on it."

"Some kind of Futurama ass shit." Senku replied with a yawn, "Of course a junk Mentalist wrote that, it sounded like a summary of a wish fulfillment power fantasy."

More laughter, "God, I was such an asshole."

"You still are!" Another voice called out from the other end.

"Shut up, man." Old-Man-Senku shoved something – probably the other speaker, "So, how about it? You're at the same level I was when the Petrification happened, so I can confidently say you can handle some robot parasites. All we need is for you to agree."

Senku thought on it carefully.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know a billionth of the things there are in the world. Just a rando really."

"And I've realized that that's what anyone is. You have a specialization for this field, though, and we could use it." Old-Man-Senku's voice was droll, "So, how about it?"

He was just fishing to see what kind of person he would hypothetically grow up to be. The answer was already decided the second he heard the situation.

"I'm gonna get to go to space, as soon as possible, right? So there wasn't a millimeter of doubt that I'd be going."

A scientist leaned over to whisper to someone behind him, "Wait, we're letting a fifteen year old onto a rocket ship???"

[teecupangel]

For your consideration: mongoose!Desmond. They're small, cute, stealthy, and fully down to throw hands qiwth a lion if need be. Hides in the hood of whichever Assassin he's accompanying at the time and jump out for attack at the most unexpected moment. Alternatively, Altair gets reincarnated in modern time as Desmond's mongoose, and just takes down the whole Abstergo facility when they dare to kidnap Desmond.

It was illegal to keep a mongoose as a pet in the United States.

That was one of the few laws that Desmond knew he was deliberately breaking.

It wasn’t like he had planned to do it from the start.

It had been a strangely freezing morning. Desmond was walking back to his apartment after a grueling 2 hours overtime that he was sure his boss wouldn’t include in his paycheck, citing some shit like “it’s because you’re too damn pretty that those drunks tried to beat each other up for your ass, Derek.” and tell him that it’s only right that he be the one to clean up the mess those two had done after hearing last call.

If he didn’t knew that his boss had the sex drive of a corpse and liked the company of dogs more than people, he would have considered his words as sexual harassment instead of the usual way his boss spoke.

But Desmond knew him long enough and has already made plans to be 2 hours late for his next shift. He’s going to tell his boss that “you don’t need to pay me for my 2 hours overtime since I deducted it from this shift” and his boss wouldn’t have the grounds to dock his pay.

Yes.

It was the ‘perfect’ revenge for his stingy rude boss.

Desmond had just rounded the corner that would lead to the back of his apartment, preferring to enter through the back than the front due to both the stairs being nearer there and also because the back door was less conspicuous.

Years away from the Farm and he still held the paranoia trained into him.

God, he was pathetic.

At that moment, Desmond looked up as he sighed.

And got smacked by some kind of falling fur.

He named the mongoose Altaïr.

To be more exact… the mongoose named himself, using the letter magnets Desmond placed on his small ref. There was only one ‘A’ so the mongoose had to drag the ‘A’ at the start of the name to the empty space between T and I repeatedly. He even went as far as use the ‘:’ magnet to form those two dots above the ‘I’.

Desmond had to look up on his phone how to properly pronounce his name.

Desmond had never had a pet nor did he even know that Altaïr was a mongoose.

He had assumed that Altaïr was some kind of really intelligent pet that someone in his apartment stole from some rich family or something. (No one in this apartment complex would have the money to buy an intelligent pet like Altaïr)

He tried to ask Altaïr who his masters are or if we can remember where he was taken from.

The bland unimpressed look Altaïr gave him made Desmond realize two things:

(1) he was being stupid asking a complicated question to Altaïr regardless of how smart he was and

(2) Altaïr was an asshole

That was fine by Desmond to be perfectly honest.

Altaïr stayed in his apartment and did his own hunting for food. He seemed to only slip inside the small opening on the window that Desmond purposely left for him whenever he wanted to relax or… use Desmond’s computer.

… not that Desmond saw Altaïr use it.

He just had a feeling that Altaïr was using his old wheezing whenever it was turned on laptop that he got for cheap from his bootlegged DVD dealer at the back of the nearest Seven Eleven from his apartment.

Desmond could probably check if Altaïr was truly using it by checking the browser history or something but…

Ignorance was bliss.

Desmond really didn’t want to find out just how scarily smart Altaïr was and suffer the consequences.

So really…

When the power was cut in the Abstergo facility where he was being held, he didn’t immediately think of Altaïr.

Honestly, he had this weird feeling that his ‘roommate’ Altaïr might be his ancestor Altaïr but that was crazy talk.

So he ignored that gut feeling.

Then Vidic got a call from someone who told him that someone had locked down the security room AND all the exits.

Then everything went silent.

He was still strapped in the Animus. He didn’t even know that the Animus had cuffs that could slide around his wrists and ankles (and fucking neck, what the fuck, Vidic) until Vidic pushed something in the Animus itself the moment the blackout happened and Desmond was still groggy from being forcibly kicked out of the Animus.

He heard Lucy whisper that someone was using the emergency sleeping gas and it was spreading throughout the facility.

Desmond was just going “???” because who the fuck added sleeping gas in their goddamn building as an ‘emergency’???

Then…

The laptop on Vidic’s station started making this beeping sound and Vidic walked towards it.

He had a moment to say that someone had taken over their computers (Desmond thought they were having a blackout??? What the ever living fuck was happening???) before the computer exploded and the shards from his monitor hit Vidic on the face and neck.

Desmond wasn’t sure if it was life threatening or not but Lucy was panicking as she rushed towards him.

And Desmond heard the soft sound of something creaking. He looked at where the sound came from and noticed the vent on the floor was now open.

And Altaïr the freakishly intelligent mongoose quietly scampered towards the Animus, looking over Desmond for a moment before scuttling towards the section of the Animus where-

The cuffs keeping Desmond still slid off and Desmond sat up.

They both stared at each other.

And Desmond finally sighed as he admitted, “Okay… you’re no ordinary animal, are you?”

Altaïr gave him the same bland unimpressed expression he had given him all those years ago.

And Desmond realized that it looked exactly how his ancestor would look whenever he heard something stupid from one of the novices.

Well…

Shit.

[sehtoast]

Tender Threads CH7 (Homelander x OC)

chapter seven: a real hero

chapter directory | slow burn, hurt/comfort, fluff, spidersona as original character, original trans male character, smut, sublander

summary: there's more to being a hero than the strings in your back. isn't that right, little spider?

“You ever run out of that, uh… goo?”  

Now it was time to learn the ropes for saves.

“I uhm,” thwip. “No, not really.”

Not saves saves, of course.  No.

“What, d’you make it constantly then?”

Scripted saves– the ones The Seven really did.  It wasn’t just The Deep whose heroics were orchestrated and directed.  Even Homelander was subject to Vought’s oversight when it came to being a superhero, which was far from what Benjamin expected.  See, it made sense for someone like The Deep to be fully scripted. Realistically, nobody was going to be committing crimes underwater in the traditional sense in a way that Vought could market.  Even then, he isn’t quite bright enough to catch the common smuggler anyhow.

So it came as a surprise that the others were restricted in the same way.

“Uhm… sort of?”  Ben says, arcing through the air and shooting his next web while Homelander floats leisurely beside him.  “Just kinda happens, y’know?  I don’t make it on purpose.”

They’d just finished their third official save.  Some stunt man paid exorbitant amounts of money by Vought to stick up some mom and pop joint that likely also received a nice payout for their manufactured troubles.  

The usual:  swoop in, stop him, web him up, Homelander brings him to justice– i.e. Vought Tower– while the adoring public watches and records the whole thing.  Cut and dry, just like the last two had been.

“Gross.”  Homelander smirks, eyes rolling.  “Sticky and strong.  Anything else, or are you just boring?”

Ben signals for them to land atop a well known little place, hopping onto the wall to prepare to run alongside it only to be thwarted by Homelander’s arms hooking under his and zipping them to the top.

Benjamin peers off the edge of the eagle shaped perch.

“Show off,” Ben accuses with a light laugh, stomach fluttering at the smirk and wink Homelander gives in response.  

Oh…  that’s not– 

“I’m…”  The bug hums.  Truthfully, it’s always easier to show instead of tell.  “I mean it’s mostly a ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of deal with me, but I can–”  

Ben holds a hand up, fingers splayed, and he closes his eyes.  He musters that odd feeling, like floating within the realm of himself, letting every speck of his being flow through his body, to his arm, to his fingertips, willing the electrons to release and–

A small zap of electricity crackles from the tip of his index finger, fizzling out as fast as it arrived.

Ben huffs a sigh.  “Harder than it looks.”  And, with the way it’s always been, never to be anything more than a teeny tiny party trick.  Some kind of bio-electricity, he’d surmised years ago, but never anything he’s had much control over.

Homelander snorts a laugh, but the fascination in his eyes betrays him.  For a second he seems to lose himself, lips parting, an unfocused look overtaking his features before he blinks rapidly– a tic of sorts Ben has begun to notice more and more.

“You okay?”  The bug asks, head tilted with a lens surely mimicking the arch of his brow. 

“Peachy.” Homelander deadpans, giving his head a small shake.  

But he doesn’t seem that way at all.

Think, Ben, think.  

“D’you wanna…”  He tries, foot scuffing on the ground to fidget out his nerves.  Strange, though, that none of that anxiousness was fear.  Not at all like when Homelander dropped that bomb on him or when he saw old glory swaying behind the proscenium wall during his speech.  It’s… different now, somehow. Maybe he’s just starting to get used to everything. The threats have faded, the danger has passed… It’s not the same as it was a few weeks back.  “Wanna go find like, actual assholes?”

Great phrasing, dumbass.

The brow raised in his direction makes the bug stutter out a correction.  “Like, y’know, real criminals.  We could take five and… I dunno, swing around– er, swing and fly, I guess.”

“What, were three saves not enough for you?”  Homelander asks, blinking as an unreadable smile settles upon his lips. False and genuine all at once. 

“Afraid you can’t keep up?”  Benjamin teases, once again scuffing his foot against the surface of the perch.  “Scripts are boring.  If we’re stuck together ‘til nine, we might as well have fun, right?”

The corners of Homelander’s lips quirk up a little higher.

He’s rebelled in his time as a hero.  Flown off to fuck knows where, run away from the noise of the city and isolated himself in the stratosphere any number of times.  But he’s never done this. And, frankly, why the fuck would he?  

Homelander was an icon of heroism.  He didn’t need to actually go snooping through the city's troubles to retain that status, nor did he particularly want to.  But somehow this is the one time he doesn’t find himself gnawing his bottom lip in annoyance at the mere thought of helping the poor denizens of New York's disgusting, piss-reeking streets.

He keeps his eyes trained on Benjamin’s form the whole time.  Even that was odd.  Trailing behind the bug, letting him lead.  Sure, Homelander could focus and hear each and every little disturbance at the cost of his sanity, but Ben practically knew where things would go wrong.  What alleys to check, which streets, parks, everywhere.

It’s the first time it strikes Homelander that the bug has been at this for quite a while.

Their first catch of the night is a gaggle of filth trying to break into a car.  They’re not even smart about it, talking loudly, rattling a wire hanger against the slightly cracked opening of the passenger side door in an effort to hook the lock.   The bug toys with them, quipping here and there as he knocks them around.

The best, though, was when Homelander descended from the sky and the group collectively pissed their pants.  Just a flicker of red in his eyes was enough to have them quaking, sending a shiver of exhilaration down Homelander’s spine at the sight.  Their fear is delicious.   It’s what those fucking scripted saves always lack.

It’s real. 

Were he on his own, he’d have just let loose a beam of heat to cut through all of them and call it a job well done.  Sure blood and guts would spill everywhere and there'd be a little property damage, but Vought had cleanup crews for a reason.  Wasn’t his fault if a little crime fighting made a mess.

Instead, he helps round them up.  Watches as Ben webs them into one big mass and then, ever the gentleman, he hoists them by a thread to dangle from a nearby streetlight to save Benjamin the effort.  He makes sure to smile pretty for all of the cell phones that get pointed in his direction.

Beside him on a nearby rooftop, the bug swats his hands clean of dirt and huffs a laugh.  “Much better than that bullshit earlier, yeah?” 

“Mm,” he hums, cocking his head to the side. “I would’ve left ‘em with some permanent reminders for not being fucking degenerates, but I guess.” 

“Yeah… let’s– that’s doin’ a little too much, y’know?” Ben says, clearly put off by the implications.  “C’mon, let’s go.  Cops’ll be here soon, and I’m pretty sure I’m still on their shit list even if Vought settled my warrants.”

Exhilarating was too weak of a word for it.

They’ve been out all night at this rate.  The city was a mess on a good day, but fate must have been cooking up an especially busy night just for them.  Muggings, burglaries, assaults, fires.  And with a speed like Homelander’s, it wasn’t hard to cover that much ground.

Something he has no problem bragging about to Ben.

There came a point where the best course of action was for him to zip around the city with the bug in his arms, listening closely for trouble, then hurling Benjamin at whatever scum decided to bless their night with a little fun.  Hell, even with Ben’s do-good mentality and infuriatingly noble no-killing rule, there was still so much enjoyment in doing something real. It’s almost a pity that it came to an end.

The two decided to call it a night, but still somehow ended up lingering with one another on top of the Queensboro Bridge.

“What do you mean she’ll be mad at us?”  Ben asks, brows furrowed as he leans forward to verify Homelander wasn’t simply lying for fun.

“Oh yeah.  Madelyn’s a thorn in the fuckin’ side about following rules.”  He says nonchalantly. Truth be told, he was in no rush to be met with the backlash they’d both inevitably be receiving for their work tonight.  Paperwork!  Verifications!  Legality! All the bullshit he’s sure to have thrown in his face tomorrow with, hopefully, Benjamin at his side to suffer with him.  “She didn’t give you the talk yet?  You were supposed to stop your antics as soon as you signed on.”

“HUH?”  

“Them’s the rules.”  Homelander purses his lips, gaze falling to the heights below.  Cars passing, headlights dancing along the bridge, the water glistening along the shores of Roosevelt Island.

“Oh, fuck that.” Ben declares, defiance heavy in each word.  “Someone’s higher than a kite if they think I’m stopping.  This is like my whole thing!  You promised I’d–”

There’s a touch of guilt, oddly enough.  Sure, he had an inkling that Vought would start putting such restrictions on the bug, but he mostly expected them to let him carry on.  Like Benjamin said, that is his ‘whole thing.’  It was the niche that made him into the hero he was.  There had been no mention of a cease and desist during the selection stage.  The bug was simply an emergency candidate with stellar public reception despite the media’s distaste for him.  A perfect fit.  Easily marketable, already well liked, enough controversy to keep his name in headlines for eternity… 

What wasn’t to want? Homelander signed off on him within seconds.

“Did you know..?”  Ben asks, defiance turning to something far more somber.  Homelander peeks over to find the bug staring down at the abyss of the river, feet kicking from over the rail they sat upon.

“No.”

It’s not a lie.  Not the truth, but not a full lie.  So why the fuck does his mouth keep running? 

“I thought they might, but I didn’t think they would.”  Shit, shit, shit.   Say something, say it fast, recover now. “But, as far as you're concerned… I’m your boss.”

Benjamin’s brows furrow.  “You’ve said as much, but–”

He holds up a hand to silence the boy.  “Which means it’s up to me if you have to stop.  Not some chucklefucks in suits who have never been heroes a day in their pathetic little lives.”  That hand lands upon Ben’s shoulder, gripping firm, but not too tight. “We’re heroes, not them. You and me, tonight?  We were fucking superheroes! D’you have any idea…”  He stops to clear his throat, looking away briefly as his eyes glass over.

The last time he tried to genuinely be a superhero and stop wrongdoers flickers through his mind like a picture booklet with all the haze of the projectors from the lab.  The screams echo in his ears, the ammunition in those guns bursting from the heat of his lasers, all those civilians howling in terror as he fucked up every goddamn step of it all just to have his ass covered by Noir.  Twenty-some years in the past, but the taste of smoke and death has never left his mouth.

Tonight was nothing like that.

“Tomorrow, when Stillwell’s up our asses…” No, no… that’s not how he wants to say it.  “Keep being you.  Keep being a goddamn superhero.  That’s your job.”

How long has he so desperately hated being a fucking marionette for Vought to yank around to sing and dance for their gain?  All the times he’s grilled the team about who they’ve saved just to hear the garbage fucking fake stunts Vought had coordinated for them that he’d already read about in advance… Now, to have someone legitimate, to have someone breaking the corporate mold?

Benjamin was a fucking godsend.  A genuine superhero.  A building block, if not the foundation, to the dream of true heroism that’s festered within Homelander’s heart since childhood.

The smile that greets him makes him feel like he might just be one too.

The flight back to the tower is slow.  Benjamin is sleepy in his arms– something that’s started to seem like an extremely common quality of the bug.  Even during the daylight, he always seems to be ready for a nap.  Despite that, though, Ben continues engaging in their banter.

Just before they’d decided to call it quits and get some rest, the bug raised yet another invasive question that he had zero reason to even be interested in.

‘What’s your name?’ Ben had asked.

Other than annoying, it was somewhat amusing to see Benjamin once again trying to get to know him.  The time in the makeup room had been bad enough, having been accused of his whole public life being a lie.

Having been accused accurately…

It made his teeth itch to know someone could see past it all.  That there was an inkling of doubt in what he’s been convincing the public of for decades was… unsettling.  The bug was smart, though– almost to a fault.  All the intellect in the world wouldn’t necessarily stop him from poking the bear until he’d find his hand trapped between its teeth.

“C’mon, it’s only fair since you know mine!”  The way he giggles as if he weren’t asking something so… difficult.

There is no good relationship between Homelander and his given name.  It was simply a label assigned to a product in development, nothing more.  An echo of humanity forever chaining him to the tortures he’d never asked for.  Why should he give that away? Why give it one more hold over him? 

“No.” Homelander says for the umpteenth time.

“Fiiiine,” Ben whines, yawning right after.  “I’ll get you some day, though.  You like me, I can tell.”

Whatever that’s supposed to mean…

They’re outside the access panel to Benjamin’s apartment, but the bug doesn’t let go.

“I’d rather be your friend.” Ben confesses, and it’s so fucking earnest that it almost makes Homelander drop out of the air entirely. 

The first thing he does is check if it’s a goddamn lie.  Heart rate, cortisol, adrenaline– it’s all in check.

That’s the worst part.

“We got off on a pretty bad note, I’ll give you that,” Ben chuckles. “I mean, you gave me one hell of a run for my money, but I’m starting to think you’re not as bad as you wanted me to think you are, y’know?  You’re weeeeird, but I get the feeling there's more to you under all that.”

If he only knew the real you, eh tiger?

The bug departs from his hold to cling to the wall, turning to rest against it and stare into what must be the most pathetic fucking expression Homelander’s ever had on his face.  He can practically feel that damned deer-in-the-headlights look settling in.

“And if you ever decide we’re good enough buds that I can learn about you, then I, Benjamin Elliot Colyer, would be happy to know what Mister Homelander’s name actually is.”

His gaze falls, dropping all ninety-nine floors to the streets below.  He can’t explain why the corners of his mouth tug.  Why, even with all of his expertise with acting and self control, he can’t quite contain the way the odd sensation in his gut manifests into the smallest sign of happiness– or maybe it was appreciation.  Maybe it just felt nice to have someone nipping at his heels for the chance of getting to know him.

The real him. 

He floats closer to the bug, lips parted as if he means to speak.  But he doesn’t.  He simply extends one hand and presses against the wall panel, opening it the whole way.  With the other, he reaches out for Ben and guides him inside.

“Get some sleep, Benjamin.”  Homelander murmurs.  

Something in his chest feels tight.  Their time ending seems like a tragedy.  But why?

Ben offers him a drowsy grin in return. “You too, Homie.”  He says.  This time, Ben gets to see the amused roll of the eyes such a nickname deserves.

“And make sure you wake up on time.  I don’t wanna have to face the big bad wolf all by myself.”

[alicentsultana]

I saw your modern! au post and here are some thoughts:

I feel like the Hightower's in a modern au would own a really fancy university in Oldtown plus a Church.

Otto's older brother, I believe he's named Hobert Hightower in the show? anywayyyy he's like the owner of everyone, Otto is a professor and Alicent kinda followed in to his footsteps.

She met Viserys after Aemma dies? Kinda like Viserys started going to church lol and Alicent was already going to church so they meet, he grows an attachment, she feels weird about it? Because let's say here Viserys and Otto were University buddies? Like Viserys was sent to Oldtown to study met Otto they became friends, then Viserys moved back to KL but they still somewhat kept in touch.

But Otto sees Viserys's interest in Alicent as something good, because the Targaryen's are filthy rich so he hopes Alicent and himself by extension will get benefits through Viserys.

Alicent married Viserys, let's imagine she was barley 19? Because a Stepmom to 9 year old Rhaenyra who hated her guts (it's honestly just and expected reaction I think because the poor lil girl just lost her mom and now her dad brings in his new wife so she feels abandoned in a way) and an asshole brother in law Daemon who keeps insulting and laughing at her.

Then there's Criston who's...hmmm a newly hired bodyguard for the Targaryen's? He was mainly in charge of Rhaenyra, him and Alicent don't interact much beyond pleasant hellos and stuff.

After 9ish years? Of a toxic marriage Alicent just has enough of dealing with Viserys, his neglect and straight up bad behaviour towards her. Let's say Aegon is 9, Helaena 8, Aemond 7, and Daeron 2. She takes the kids and hires a lawyer (for the sake of plot lol let's say her lawyer is Larys Strong 🤡) she gets some shares in whatever business Targaryen's have and moves back to Oldtown.

This is getting long lol so to be continued....

Omg I LOVED THAT

Annon if you ever plan to write it or just rumble about it SIGN ME IN!!!!

The post for those who want to read/recap.

Larys as lawyer is 10/10, I wonder how the audit turned out, will viserys fight for custody? Does he visits? The children together have roughly a great percentage of Targwhatever inc than Rhaenyra, I believe someone would try a lawsuit, just to spice things up.

Wouldn't judge the girl either, she just lost her mother and her father is already thirsting around... but I do want her to be close to her siblings, and then everything going -360°

I would love to read and think about Alicent's motivation, do you think otto used religion to say this was right or do you think she ever held some personal ambition? I picture her abandoning her studies to marry, is something that always comes to me, I also would go as far as bringing any kind of kink from his side while she's quite clueless, adding those very dark undertones, he thinks he's in the right.

Also, I must come my alicole bs so bear it with me - he's hating work for this targashian/townner clan, Alicent doesn't have money to keep him when she moves out with the children - so he just find some work around? Maybe even helping in the church, one hour travel to old town every weekend... In the Seven we trust

Please continue, this is sounding awesome!

[beep-beep-sunny]

My new fic "And Then There Was Georgie" has 2 chapters on AO3

The whole thing available to read only on AO3

Chapter 1--What We Lost

It was 1988 when Bill Denbrough lost his brother in the rain. In 1989 it was confirmed he was gone forever. Georgie Denbrough was never coming back. 

--

It was 2016, and a small boy that lost his yellow raincoat long long ago held hands with another friend they thought was lost forever.

The two of them stood at the opening of the sewer where so many atrocities took place. Bill's eyes widened at the sight of his little brother and his surrogate brother figure and childhood friend. Both of them lost because of Bill's negligence. 

“Eddie.” His friend, Richie Tozier, said from behind him, his voice raw. Richie took a few steps towards the spectors. 

Beverly put out her arm. “Stop. Remember, the clown has made Bill see Georgie so many times. This is some kind of cruel echo.” 

Georgie held tightly to Eddie's hand. “What's going on?” His little voice asked. 

“It's dead. We killed it.” Richie whimpered, hands shaking. 

“This could just be what Beverly said. An echo. The powers settling before they fade away.” He tried to sound reassuring, but Bill wasn't convinced. 

“Give me the gun.” Bill said. “Just to be safe.” 

“Wait a minute,” Richie begged. “Please.” 

Mike handed Bill the bolt pistol he'd brought mostly for luck. “Thanks.” Bill said, pointing it squarely at Georgie. His hands always shook when he had to put an end to the distorted memories of his little brother over and over again. 

“What are you doing with that?” Eddie asked. “Bill, buddy, listen to me.” Eddie stepped in front of Georgie. “IT is dead.” 

“No, no.” Bill tried to keep a grip on the gun though the sweat was threatening to make it slip right through his fingers. “That's not my brother. It never is.” 

“Yeah.” Georgie squirmed in Eddie's grasp. “You're not my brother, you're old.” 

Bill narrowed his eyes. The clown usually puppeted Georgie to recognize him immediately to maximize his guilt. He still held as tightly to the gun as he could, his knuckles pale. “Is this some kind of new trick?” 

Georgie leaned slightly into Eddie's back. “That's not even a real gun, it looks funny.” 

“It's real.” Eddie said. “Just stand back, okay?” 

“Who cares? Shooting you will only slow you down.” Bill shook the gun on every word. 

Eddie held up both hands. “I know how this looks, Bill. Trust me. I was terrified when I first saw Georgie.” 

“No offense, but you're also dead.” Bill's voice shook. “How can I possibly trust you?” 

Georgie broke free of Eddie, but Eddie tried to grab him. He slipped through Eddie's fingers like a slippery snake. “You are not Billy.” He said with the confidence of a seven year old. “Billy is not old. Now put down that fake gun you're scaring my new friend.” Bill was so taken back that the gun did start to shift downwards. 

“Eds.” Richie stepped forward again, Bev holding him back. “Please, just say anything believable and I'll believe you.” 

“Right, okay. Well, I don't know how believable it sounds.” Eddie scratched his head. “I had a vision of this turtle.” Bill and Richie briefly looked at each other. “The turtle told me it's been protecting Georgie until it was safe for him to return. This turtle said he couldn't save them all, but he knew he'd need a reward for the kids that would eventually defeat IT. I know that sounds completely fucking crazy, and it probably just makes you want to shoot us more, but-” Eddie was cut off from his lengthy explanation by Richie Tozier crushing him in a hug. “Ow, asshole, I still have a hole in my chest.” 

Richie backed off. “Sorry.” Richie droned on and on, but Bill was locked in on Georgie. It couldn't be true, could it?

Bill was startled by a large hand on his back. The pressure was comforting when he looked back and saw Mike. “Let's talk to him together.” His tone was so soft. Bill nodded. 

Bill still gripped the gun in one hand while they took slow, cautious steps towards the scared, dirty child that looked just like his dead little brother did the day he lost him. Georgie grabbed Eddie's jacket edge the closer they got as if he was afraid. He looked up with big eyes at Eddie who was distracted angrily and passionately talking to Richie. “Stay away.” Georgie finally said when Eddie didn't seem to see his pleading eyes. 

Bill and Mike stopped in their tracks. “This is your brother.” Mike explained. “I know he doesn't look like your brother, but a lot’s happened when you were gone.” Mike was so soft and gentle with him. 

“I don't believe you.” Georgie yanked harder on Eddie's jacket. “Billy is a kid like me.” 

Mike waved a hand in front of Eddie's face to break Richie's spell and he pointed to the child trying to get his attention. “You knew Eddie right? And Richie?” 

“Yeah, they were my friends.” Georgie sniffled and rubbed his face, but he just smeared the dirt. 

“This is Eddie Kaspbrak.” Mike said, pointing at Eddie. “You trust him right?” 

“The weird big turtle said I should.” Georgie nodded. “But I don't trust you. I don't know you. If he's really Eddie he can tell me himself.” Georgie folded his arms in front of his chest. 

“It's true.” Eddie said, “I know I used to be a lot closer to your height.” he leaned over and ruffled Georgie's hair. Georgie smiled a little.

“You're still not far off.” Richie quipped.

“Is now really the time for your short jokes?” Eddie snapped back. 

Georgie scrunched up his face. “They do kinda seem like Richie and Eddie.” 

“See?” Mike said. “And this is your brother.” Mike pushed Bill slightly forward, but all he could manage was an awkward wave. 

“No, he's not. He's a phony. He doesn't look nearly as brave as my brother.” 

“I wasn't sick.” Bill blurted out. “That day when I lost you. I just didn't want to play with you.“ Tears stung in his eyes even though he'd said it all before. This felt different, more real. “And I've never actually been that brave.” 

Georgie stared at him. “You lied?” The phrase made Bill flinch hard, but he nodded. “If you're a liar, how can I trust you?” 

Bill smiled a little. That's exactly something Georgie would say. “I gave you a boat. Do you remember what I told you to call them?” 

Georgie smiled a little too. “She.” 

Bill couldn't hold back his tears, they freely flowed from his eyes and he held a hand to his mouth. “Was she fast, Georgie?” 

Georgie nodded. “Too fast. I lost it.” He pouted. “Are you gonna kill me?” 

Bill furrowed his brow. “No, of course not. Why did you say that?” 

“I lost the boat. I didn't know it was gonna fall in. The ugly clown said you'd kill me.” Georgie looked genuinely scared recounting the memory. Bill fell to his knees and wrapped Georgie up in a big hug. When he hugged him, he could feel the lack of arm at his side. “If you're trying to kill me you're doing a bad job.” Georgie said. Bill laughed hard, he felt delirious. He picked Georgie up and spun him in a circle. Georgie giggled. “A really bad job.” 

Next to him, Richie picked up Eddie and spun him around too. “Put me down you big idiot. You really are gonna kill me. I need a hospital.” 

“Are you hurting anywhere?” Bill asked Georgie. He shook his head and kicked his dangly feet. 

“You're really Billy?” Bill nodded. “Where's mom and dad?” 

“I don't think seeing them is a good idea right now.” Bill explained as softly as he could. 

“Why not? I just wanna go home!” Georgie whined. 

“We can't go home. Georgie.” Bill bit his lip to keep another tear from choking out. “I'll take you back to our hotel so you can get some rest. Are you tired?” 

“No.” He pouted, but his yawn betrayed him as he rested his cheek against Bill's shoulder. 

“What do you guys think?” Bill asked. 

“Let's go back together. All of us.” Beverly shot them a hesitant smile. “What the hell, right?” Ben nudged her and pointed towards Georgie. She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, what the heck!” She took on a silly voice to say the last part. It reminded Bill of Richie. It felt nice that they could all feel like home to each other again. 

Bill felt soft steady breathing against his shirt, when he looked down, Georgie was fast asleep.

(continued on AO3)

[eternal-armin]

SO, HOW SHOULD i begin this?

this is the first time i'm going to do a multi-part fic that goes beyond like 2 or 3 parts (rip to the chandelier fic.) bear with me ;;;; but i'm obsessed with everything everywhere and i wanted to do something with the abilities evelyn and joy specifically have. and, of course, the angst that can come from it. looked over this as much as i could but im exhausted so my apologies for any errors ;;;

pairing : five hargreeves x male/transmasc reader [he/him pronouns]

─────

where : five is instantly intrigued by the eighth sparrow, a kid just like himself, which makes him try to seek him out specifically; nothing better than a second opinion about time from another person who knew its intricacies, right? well, he... may have gotten more than he bargained for.

─────

warnings : future mentions of trauma, fighting and injury (specific mentions of choking), existentialism, reader is just exhausted of life and shit in general, future cheesiness and such because i said so, depression, a whole lot of 'if i can bend reality to my will then how much does it really matter' kind of questioning (later on for the most part.)

the disheartening sight of seven other people—ahem, sorry, and one very confusing cube—was made endlessly puzzling by the appearance of a kid behind them. someone who looked five's age. physically, anyway. they both seemed equally entranced by the other; the kid's eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted, as if seeing someone he had been missing for decades. he furrowed his brow a bit, cocking his head, and klaus found himself peering where five glared.

"well, would you look at that? they've got a little brother, too!"

"zip it, klaus," he hissed, though with a certain degree of gentleness in his voice, even excluding the volume he had to use. looking back at the balcony, he was wearing more casual clothes with a sort of... varsity jacket of the sparrow academy's traditional colors and emblems. he was a sparrow, meaning he was born in 1989, meaning he was around thirty years old. so why did he look thirteen? it clicked then, suddenly; his power could have something to do with time. five felt instantly that he needed to speak with him. and if it needed to be done by force, then...

hands crossed neatly over his lap, barely restraining that very obvious agitation, ben chimed in with, "dad, who the hell are these assholes?"

a chorus of "shit" rang out amongst the umbrellas. five stared at him with the same amount of emotion as usual, mostly overrun by confusion, however his sentimentalities ended there. that balcony, barely a few yards from where five stood, held something—someone, rather—that could be an answer to his predicament. or at least help figure out if he could retire or not. if this world was safe enough to stay in. there was a whole host of colorful characters. if he was the sparrows' number eight, what exactly inspired reginald to adopt him as well? or was it just sort of a convenience thing?

luther stepped forward along with klaus. "is that really you?"

no amusement struck ben. if anything, he somehow managed to look more annoyed.

"and who are the weirdos on the balcony!"

"they are the sparrows. my children." reginald's controlled, vaguely irritated voice was such a contrast to diego's harsh tone.

much to five's chagrin this moment was a bit more important than staring at a boy. he turned on his heel, narrowing his eyes at the old man. "i'm sorry, what do you mean your children? that's not possible, old man."

"of course it is! i think i'd know, wouldn't i?"

well. something was very wrong, wasn't it?

the sound of footsteps and shuffling caught his attention and yet again he looked back forward; all of the sparrows once situated haphazardly on the balcony now stood across the tile threshold. the kid was shorter than he expected, in all honesty, and he seemed to be the least serious out of all his siblings—not to say that he looked like he was having fun or that he was laughing, but that he didn't want to fight. he looked like he would avoid it at every cost.

"everyone else can see ben, right?"

"cute hat, sundance."

"they call themselves the umbrella academy," reginald interrupted, "a group of scheming, perfidious malcontents who accosted me in the fall of '63 when i was away on business in dallas. be warned—they claim to be my spawn." all throughout reginald's little schpiel, five and the other kid maintained eye contact, five puzzled at his existence and him puzzled by five's puzzlement. he seemed to find it weird but, oddly enough, he didn't seem weirded out specifically. occasionally five would glance about the rest of the sparrows, gauge them if he could, and when that happened he would sometimes catch the barest glimpse of the kid looking at two of his sisters with confusion.

should i be worried? he was probably thinking to himself.

with five on his opposition? absolutely.

"claim? look, five, what the hell is going on?" allison sounded like she was moments away from boiling over.

"not sure yet, but it's concerning."

"is he telling the truth?" seeming to sense the steadily-rising tensions, the kid started, very slowly, to back away, retreating to the furthest reaches of the carpet before the battle had even begun.

"not the part about us being perfidious." vanya seemed to kind of placate that cowardice in him. maybe he even smiled at vanya.

"no! no, we're amateur-fidious, at best!"

"but we are his children, this is our house."

"yeah, we grew up here."

"yeah, yeah, we grew up here," alphonso mocked, getting a snicker from jayme, however the kid just shot them both a slightly judgmental look.

"i kind of think we would've noticed you," sloane said, to which luther stated his name and offered out his hand. sloane did not accept, really she didn't do a thing, and some whispers broke out amongst her and her little brother, whispers that five couldn't make out.

"okay. none of you belong here."

"oh! well, then. i guess we'll just pack our bags and move out."

christopher babbled and chittered, milking chuckles from his brothers and sisters. five had to say he looked way better smiling than frowning, though he figured it would probably be the same for anyone.

grace came in to the living room, heels click-click-clicking, holding a plate of cookies in her hand and apologizing that she couldn't do better. five couldn't catch the precise details. it was just kind of nice to see her again, even if she was certainly in need of a... few repairs.

"mom." diego's sentimental mumble caught some of the sparrows off-guard. the kid included.

"she's a robot, you perv."

"it's not a robot."

"don't call him that!"

"or what?" ben challenged.

"come closer and find out." bickering broke out between the two families, vanya and marcus actively trying to keep everyone's heads on straight, and five may have lost track of the conversation. until ben threw the first punch, anyway. he ducked back, watching as luther next was flung like a ragdoll across the room, landing on and breaking the poor couch. he saw the boy duck out and wanted to chase but first kept his loyalties, attacking ben and getting lost in a flurry of sharp punches and occasionally-failed dodges.

"you're alive. that's—great, or possibly horrible, i haven't decided yet."

"is that some weird kind of smack talk?"

"it's more of an existential problem, really, ben."

"awesome. well, here's your next problem." with his arms extending back and torso leaning forward, a grimy tentacle quickly burst from his chest, though not fast enough to stop five before he blinked away and onto the balcony.

"y'know, even though you're a total asshat now," five began, rudely cut off by another attack which he yet again evaded with ease. it was easier to land a punch and he watched as ben crashed into the ground. "it's nice to see you again. really." after seeing a particularly disturbing scene between diego and the cube, he stepped in to save allison from a few of the other sparrows, yet again finding himself on the second-floor balcony.

"thanks," allison managed through uneven breaths.

"no problem." both standing up, both dusting themselves off, they saw someone rounding the corner. it was him. still, that look of passive pacifism remained, now somewhat stoic in nature; he didn't want to fight, but he may need to. he was resigning himself to that fact and five could see it in his setting expression. and most importantly, there was also endless loyalty. oh, well.

five furrowed his brow, readjusting his jacket. "go help the others. i'll handle this one."

his new opponent almost seemed to space out, eyes narrowing just a bit as if being flooded by tons of new information. with grace and precision, and certainly speed, he set into a defensive stance. five blinked behind him to try for an attack and it was blocked. he continued to block, evade, block, evade, as fast as five tried to attack. the only sounds he made for a while were little grunts.

every failed punch and every successful block was adding to five's aggravation and his exasperation.

"y'know, five," he said, and hearing him speak for the first time startled five terribly, "delores wouldn't like you fighting like this! i'm not doing anything to you!" that shocked him so bad he misfired a punch but it landed for the first time because of how he went to dodge. he was weaker than five first surmised, falling onto the ground, and five continued to strike him back down until he was pinned and unable to move. he looked enraged, face twisted, eyes wide, teeth bared and gritted, glaring daggers at the kid, who looked to be in quite a bit of pain.

"how do you know my name?!" he barked. "how do you know her name?!" five got no answer and that was endlessly more irritating. the kid slammed his hand onto the ground and grabbed the first thing he could, a small piece of rubble, but five watched as, in those few fractions of seconds, that small piece of debris turned into a metal candlestick.

a metal candlestick.

the moment five saw that, he teleported, reappearing just a few feet away. he pushed off his total confusion; no time. the kid kept the candlestick in his hand when he fumbled to stand, not getting even a moment before five tackled him into a headlock. he didn't think twice about the look of pain on the kid's face because that wasn't exactly imperative and he didn't hesitate at the sounds he made.

the kid raised the candlestick again and five watched in subtle horror as it flitted between many different forms, each punctuated by a small sound and a bit of light. he only recognized a few of those hundred forms before he saw it land, like a wheel of fortune, on a knife and he plunged it down. five jerked out of the way of the blade. even though he had once been so hesitant to fight, so afraid of hurting other people, he seemed finally able to push that away and actually defend himself. he may not have been particularly strong, but he was swift and flexible while wrenching himself out of five's grip and adept at landing hits that would still make five flinch and pause. the kid blocked a punch and the moment that they came in contact with each other, the world around them... changed.

from the slightly destroyed upper floor of the academy house, it became an office building, papers flying about while people panicked about the violent fight between the aisles of cubicles. in that moment of confusion, he landed a hit on five, right in the gut. after a pained second, eyes squeezed tight, he grit his teeth and kept fighting.

the office building had become a high-rise skyscraper that they were fighting on the edge of.

another punch and they were on the deck of a cruise ship.

another block and they were in a spanning parking garage. the kid advanced and forced five to back up, closer to the edge of the space, and certainly to a painful fall. he continued to evade every attempted hit, no matter how five had calculated them, before pouncing on him and shoving him right out of the concrete monolith, plummeting down toward the ground along with him.

"how the hell are you doing this?!" five shouted, voice swallowed up by the shouting winds. he grabbed his shirt, bunching up his collar tight enough to cut off his breathing. the panic in his eyes welled up very quick.

and then they were back. instead of hitting the hard pavement ground, five lost all the air in his lungs when he thudded onto the carpeted academy floor, gasping for a second as the kid scrambled away from him, coughing and wheezing.

five hadn't even strangled him for that long, what the hell?

five forced himself to sit, to stand, shooting the glare to end all glares at the boy across from him—however he didn't attack yet. after all the disorientation he felt from those few... transitions, he wanted to keel over and vomit. he was in no condition to fight. luckily, however, neither was his opponent.

killing the kid would not get five his answers, no matter how badly he wanted to do it.

the kid was on the ground, propping himself up on one of his hands, his entire body seeming wracked by pained, nauseated tremors. he looked to be heaving, expression conflicted, exhausted beyond exhausted. he held his head the way one would when suffering from a bad headache.

his question went unanswered, which just served to annoy five further. "are you a time traveler or something? no. a multiversal traveler? do you work with the commission? that's the only possibility i can think of." knowing about delores, knowing about his name, certainly knowing his past, instantly transporting both of them to different places, it could all connect to multiversal travel.

but that spacing out part, before he could dodge like some highly trained professional, and that debris-to-candlestick-to-knife part? those still kind of puzzled him.

the kid wrinkled his nose. "that's the only possibility? you've got a narrow range." for someone who sounded so pained and exhausted, he could manage some mouthiness. somehow he sounded more genuine than sarcastic, though. strange. what about him wasn't?

five's eye twitched and his lips pressed hard into a scowl. "a narrow range? a narrow range? my 'range' isn't narrow! i've seen so many possibilities unfold! do you even know what i had to do to get here?" his words hissed with pure venom. that didn't faze his opponent, even whilst he jabbed an accusatory finger at him, as though somehow this was his fault.

"i do, actually," he managed, although still short of breath. "you got trapped in the apocalypse for a few decades, offered a deal from the commission, broke your contract with them and became a fugitive, got back to your family, and have been trying to evade apocalypses ever since. third time's the charm, right, five?" he recounted it all with the cadence and sensitivity of a history teacher summarizing an important, yet complicated, period of time.

"how could you possibly know—stop calling me that! how are you able to do any of this!"

"i'm not gonna stop calling you by your name." he laughed through his words. he laughed.

"is my exasperation funny to you?"

"i-i mean, kinda! do you know how many ways i've seen this conversation going?" five stilled like a statue. "this was the most common outcome. well, uhm, aside from you just killing me. it's just a little funny how you always react the same way." he shrugged a bit, as though this was simply some high school gossip, and not (one of) the most puzzling thing that five had ever been exposed to.

"look," five began, trying to steady himself. "if you don't tell me how you know about me—how you know about delores—this will become a timeline where i kill you. okay? capiche?"

he raised his hands in surrender. they shook. "capiche, five."

"stop. calling me that."

"to even the playing field, i'm [y/n]. there." he sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, checking his hands. yet again he seemed to space out, just for a moment this time, before going through a grounding technique. he looked determined now, not as tired as before, though it did remain rather clearly in his eyes. [y/n] was just a kid again. he looked like a pathetic, sick kitten. "it's my power. i was born like this. you travel through space and time, i travel through reality. all of reality. alternate universes, as you know them. close by, far away, ones almost exactly the same and some with very distinctive evolutionary branches. the further away the world, the... stranger they get. i can see literally any possibility. so i—i fucking know you, five. i know you. i know your brothers and your sister and your in-laws and your niece and every other niece or nephew you could've had. there are so, so many worlds where i was an umbrella, or your friend, or stuck with you in the apocalypse, or... something like that. that's how i know you, and know delores. i was there."

sister, singular?

fuck, why was that his first take-away?

five narrowed his eyes slightly. "you can see every alternate universe," he said, slowly, as if clarifying something to [y/n] when he really needed the clarification for himself.

he nodded. "use them, too."

"use...?"

[y/n] broke into a little smile. his answer remained unknown because their restrained conversation was interrupted by one of [y/n]'s sisters. just one glance and his smile disappeared, staring at five with now-widened eyes, mouthing something along the lines of 'get the fuck out.'

five didn't need to be told twice. a flit of light and he had disappeared to who-the-hell-knows-where.

"who the hell was that creep," jayme mumbled, watching as [y/n] stumbled to his feet and dusted himself off. she grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket out of instinct to make sure he didn't fall over.

"uh... someone pretty interesting," [y/n] said, staring at where he'd once been, the flash of bright light still burned into his eyes. he wanted to find him. maybe needed to find him. probably because something in the world was very wrong, even if no other timeline had figured it out yet.

if any of the umbrellas knew where to hide out, it would probably be klaus, right? simple solution. kind of. as long as he could sneak out undetected by his siblings.

a good bit of time had passed when you finally had the chance to scope out the hotel obsidian. you had changed into something more casual and lowkey, sunglasses now balanced atop your nose and a nice light scarf about your neck. music played over your headphones and you wandered inside of the place, stricken with the sight of heavy art deco. it was rather nice, actually, when you took the time to appreciate it. then again, your mind was rather preoccupied with what was probably a very big deal. on the other side of the lobby, in the little bar and lounge area, you could spot a few of the hargreeves siblings. most notably five, now wearing a white bathrobe. soon his eyes glanced to you and you could feel his gaze sharpen. he looked back at his brothers and excused himself, stepping off the stool and teleporting to you before his feet hit the ground.

"what are you doing here," he hissed through gritted teeth.

"i mean, our conversation got cut off earlier. seemed right to continue it, y'know?"

five looked back at his brothers and then at you once more. klaus was staring after him but you didn't know if he recognized you; luther and diego were still totally enraptured in their chinese food.

the look on five's face told you a whole lot; it was critical to him to talk with you, figure things out, because he guessed—and guessed right—that you weren't just here to politely finish a conversation. something weird was going on, whether he wanted to know or not. "alright. okay. fine. just," he grasped your shoulder after a second and then you were both gone, reappearing instantaneously in a room you assumed to be five's. small cot in the corner, bunk bed opposite, and a couch.

god, you wanted to throw up. you clutched your stomach, squeezing your eyes shut for a minute.

he crossed his arms and looked at you. "so where exactly did we leave off?"

you paused to scrub your mind, trying to recall. a few blinks broke the few seconds of spacing out. usually you weren't this forgetful, but, uh, today was an interesting one. "i said i can use those universes and that confused you. and then jayme came around and i told you to leave."

"right," five muttered. "what exactly did you mean by that?"

"well, obviously i can use them for information." your voice was somewhat soft, actually, which was mighty strange to him.

"hmph. how could i forget." five's flat voice was thick with sarcasm.

you managed a smile. "but i can also use them for skills and stuff. the dodging, earlier; i can't really do that here. there's a world where i star in fighting movies and stuff, where i'm good at dodging and i'm fast and flexible, and i can... link my mind, i guess, and use those skills. and the... the candlestick. knife. thing. i can change things to whatever another me is holding. i can change my clothes. i can change reality."

"so, in essence, your mind is able to find every other instance of you across time and space and access them? and... communicate with them, i suppose, in some way or another."

you shrugged a bit. "about explains it. but the—... can i ask you something?" you suddenly sounded sheepish, hesitant, like you were constantly rethinking what you were about to say. five furrowed his brow, a little surprised to see that look on your face, and he really didn't like it.

"depends on what that something is," he responded, speaking cautiously.

you found yourself spacing out again, but this time not to access some alternate plane of existence. every other universe had its own noise, and every other universe was persistently audible; that loud buzz was starting to give you yet another headache. it was probably possible to overdose on tylenol, right? suddenly that constant look of exhaustion on your face was even more obvious to five. for a moment, he seemed almost sympathetic to that. he could certainly understand it, at the very least. "you've got about twenty-eight years of experience on me," you began, forcing your voice to be steady. "do you have any clue how to deal with the, uhm, existential part of it all?" lightheartedness seemed to be a skill of yours. five could respect it.

you doubted, sincerely doubted, that there could be anything in the world to help you from the persistent noise. or from the pain and exhaustion of swatting from world to world to world in the span of thirty seconds during a fight. it was a wonder you were still walking.

"why should i help you with that, exactly? your family tried to kill mine."

"i didn't try to kill anyone. i hid upstairs the entire time. well, uh, almost the entire time. i can be an ally to you guys. i'd... prefer to be allied with you guys." if anyone else in the world knew about the ins and outs of the umbrella academy, five had no doubt in his mind that it would be you and your presumably-torturous ability. it would probably be a smart idea on their side as well, to ally with you.

"before i agree to help you at all, how can i be sure your family isn't using you as some sort of... puppet? some sort of inside man?"

you shrugged a bit after a second. "i wouldn't be a very good choice."

"seriously? do you think i'm stupid or something?"

you crossed your arms, looking at him with narrowed eyes. "no. i know you aren't stupid. and i'm pretty sure that your first choice wouldn't be a 'weak thirteen-year-old kid with a power that cripples him with headaches and exhaustion whenever he uses it,' either. not to mention that said kid can't hear what's going on sometimes because of literally every other sound in the expansive multiverse." the words were sarcastic but the tone was very genuine, almost excruciatingly so.

"i have... so many more questions now."

you shrugged a bit. "i can answer some of them, i guess." considering that you knew almost all the ins and outs of his life, it seemed only fair to share some of yours. you were too tired to steer the conversation back to why you had came. perhaps you'd already forgotten it.

"why exactly are you thirteen? you were born in 1989, you had to be."

"... i chose to stay this age."

"how can you just choose to stay that age?" exasperation met with confusion in a very strange voice of five's. even after all he'd gone through and learned, you were just springing question marks all over the place. god damnit.

"i can manipulate almost every aspect of reality, five," you said, softly, in response. "it's not out of the realm of possibility to stay thirteen. not for me."

five nodded slightly after a second. that nod steadily turned into a shake of his head. "jesus—i should've grabbed some coffee." he pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "just give me a second."

"oh. uh, no need." glancing about the room, there was a small corner table, atop it an ice bucket and some plastic cups for water. he watched, for some reason a bit puzzled, as you placed your hands on it. spaced out. and it flitted to a fresh coffee pot and a mug. they seemed like something from a diner.

well, that would make sense, wouldn't it?

you poured him a cup and handed it, still steaming, over to him.

five scowled a bit, staring down at the filled mug, before his sharp gaze landed on you again.

"it's just coffee, five. it's not poisoned or anything. here." you plucked it back out of his grasp and took a sip, waited a few seconds, and handed it back. "see? you're fine."

after a second, he nodded. "right." he didn't find himself bothered by drinking from the same mug you had. he'd done a lot worse things, hadn't he?

"so... what were those other questions?"

after taking a few healthy swigs, he cleared his throat. "your ability—it really taxes you? even after all these years?" five would never admit it, but the coffee was pretty goddamn good. whatever diner your alternate-self worked in was worth a visit, if it existed in this world. "is that why you were shaking and panting so much earlier?"

you felt a bit embarrassed. "yeah," you mumbled. "i trained with it a lot, but, i wasn't very strong to begin with." you sat down carefully on the sofa, pulling a bottle of painkillers from your coat pocket.

"when's the last time you had a dose?" five asked, mug to his lips, shooting you a side-eye.

"... maybe three hours ago. why?"

he clicked his tongue and shook his head, plucking the bottle out of your hands. "not now, then."

"dude! what the hell! i-i need those!"

"well, i can't keep asking questions to someone sick from taking too much tylenol. and you can wait three hours."

you groaned but didn't complain, just settling back against the comfortable cushions. "fine. i'll wait." and you mumbled 'you're just like sloane' under your breath.

"good," he mumbled, sitting down beside you after tossing the pills onto his bed. "you said you could hear every sound in the multiverse. something tells me that isn't a hyperbole."

you nodded a bit and slouched down, trying to figure out a decent analogy. "when you remove a door from its threshold, you can always hear what's on the other side, unless you actively tune it out. just, for me, there were never doors. it was always like this. every single feasible universe is out there, fighting for my attention, almost every waking moment." you recounted with a deep sort of mourning. five couldn't blame you, he supposed. you had been robbed of silence, of pure solitude, of privacy. his heart almost ached for you.

had you been born with the doors off their frames? he wanted to ask, he really wanted to ask, but it was probably going to be way too... private of a thing. personal. from what he could tell.

"and i thought wrangling that crowd of toddlers was bad. i can't imagine hearing everything they do, everywhere, constantly," he mused.

you cracked a smile. it had been a while since you were able to joke around with someone, even if that someone had interrogated you like a police investigator. "oh, it's the worst," you giggled, and he laughed along. "i mean, it's bad enough knowing what your brothers do into their socks, it's even worse to walk in on them over, like, over two thousand times."

"i've known you for a very short period of time, but something tells me that's the worst thing you've ever said."

for someone in a very persistent and terrible bout of pain, your laugh, and your smile, were incredibly bright. five couldn't really say that he was expecting this when first appearing in the umbre—ahem. in the sparrow academy building, but he wasn't exactly complaining. this could be nice. he really hoped it would be, anyway.

silence fell on you two for a while. the overbearing static was starting to edge back in now that you had nothing more to say. the pain was ebbing.

"... something's wrong." you sounded deadly serious, it was horrifying.

"s—sorry?" five felt like he had whiplash after such an extreme diversion from the topic.

you seemed to be fighting that urge to space out a whole lot more. this was important, you needed to stay on track, and yet your stress was doing exactly the opposite of tunnel vision. shit.

five noticed; and he kind of needed you to talk, as fast as possible, so reached out and pinched your neck, successfully getting you to tense and wake up, in some sense of the words. offense was replaced with gratitude in your eyes. "i don't know exactly what. no other universe has figured it out. but you aren't supposed to be here, this isn't your timeline, that's—a very big problem. it could potentially 'rip a hole in space and time.'" five muttered along with you, cussing and hanging his head.

"why didn't you say this first?" he hissed.

"i'm sorry!" you sounded very genuine and he felt rather bad. "i-i—the interrogation and then the pain and then the... getting along with you, i forgot." it was another world, some utterance of 'not normal yet' that brought the thought back to you.

your voice was cracking. you felt far worse than five could ever make you feel.

"... it's fine. it's fine."

"it very much isn't. you know that."

five knew it all too well. he groaned, pinched the bridge of his nose, and downed the rest of his coffee. "fantastic."

"i mean, it may be a problem we can solve." you shot him a smile, a tired and weak little thing, but it did comfort him a bit.

"the universe will really mind if seven dumbasses stick around?" his humor had soured, but it was still there. you felt very guilty, unable to look him in his eyes, shoulders slouched as if defeated in some great thing.

"she's a stickler for rules."

"hmph." he scowled a full-face scowl. "no retirement yet, i guess."

out of all the things you could ever have seen, heard, felt, and known, one thing seemed... important. emotionally, anyway. "if it's, uhm, any consolation... retirement did look good on you, by the way."

he couldn't help but smile a bit. somewhere out there was a world where you and five were friends well into his retirement, be that at his confusing age or his chronological age from 1989, where he was happily retired with no time-threatening anomalous issues to draw him out. even if he was bound to die in this timeline, there was some comfort in knowing many other timelines saw him content. "i'll take your word for it."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I quit my school play?

Tl;dr at the bottom!!

For context, I’m 15f and was just cast in my school play. I had never been in one of my school’s productions, so I figured I’d give it a try and make some new friends (I transferred to this school). I really enjoy theatre, and I’ve been in productions since I was around seven or eight years old; I’m no stranger to it.

Well, it turns out the amount of interest for the school play was a lot bigger than they thought, so there were limited roles. Thankfully, I did manage to get into the main cast, so I was like, yay me (even though it was a smaller role, which I was wholeheartedly expecting, albeit a tad sad about)!

Yesterday, we finally started rehearsals and read from the script once, to get a feel of our characters. I didn’t know much about the role, since it was a lesser known play and all that was in the description for my character was ‘foreign housekeeper’. All I knew is that I’d have to have some kind of accent (something I’m not too good at, but I figured it would be fun to get out of my comfort zone a bit), so I had been practicing some kind of accent at home to try out with the script.

But when I was reading through my lines, I quickly discovered that this was NOT what I thought it was going to be.

My character, putting it lightly, is a blatantly xenophobic stereotype. They are a completely one note character whose only personality trait is, ‘foreign’. She can’t speak English very well, and tends to ‘mix up her words’, which the other characters tend to berate her for. She also never speaks in more than four words at a time, and the script goes out of its way to never have her speak in more than one syllable at a time. It’s disgusting, and I fucking hate it!

Here’s a direct line from the play so you can see one of the worst examples.

MY CHARACTER: No nuts in this house!

CHARACTER 2: Do you realize what you did, [my character]? You put all the words in the correct order! That’s wonderful! We’ve been waiting so long for this day!

MY CHARACTER: You thank.

CHARACTER 3 (and this character is the goddamn LEAD): Well, she’s bound to get things right once in awhile.

It just..makes me so uncomfortable. I want to get out of my comfort zone, but playing this character takes me out of it and places me one hundred miles away in the open desert.

The worst part I think is that this show is a goddamn murder mystery, and my character has no fucking purpose. They don’t even end up dying; they’re just there for ‘comic relief’, and it’s all fucking xenophobia! And at the end, it’s revealed that they’re stealing from their bloody employer.

I also think, based on their prior recorded performances, they’re going to put me a costume I’m not comfortable in…so I’m really considering quitting right now.

Here’s why I think I may be the asshole for quitting.

I technically signed a contract (not knowing about the characters but assuming it wouldn’t be more than a few swears and some sex jokes here and there) that I would play any character they cast me as…so I would be breaking that promise if I quit. There IS an understudy, so I won’t technically be fucking them over with this…but god, I am such a people pleaser that I’m thinking about just sucking it up and playing the part.

My parents told me I’m overreacting on the part and that I just need to ‘make it fun’…but fuck, I just can’t with it. I want to cry every time I’m at rehearsal because I feel like I’m condoning xenophobia with it.

So, do you think I’d be the asshole if I quit the play?

Tl;dr: WIBTA if I quit a show I signed a contract for (although there is an understudy) because I don’t feel comfortable with playing a character that is an xenophobic stereotype?

What are these acronyms?