#THANK YOU I was actually feeling unhappy and you sending me an ask like this kinda cheered me up?

[luveline]

could I get some miguel aftercare pls 🙏🙏🙏

cw suggestive content mdni !! I actually loved writing this it was the highlight of my day, thank you for requesting. fem, 1k

“You’re doing that thing,” Miguel says. 

You’re breathless where he’s fine, voice lost as you ask, “What thing?” 

He smooths his hands across either side of your face briefly. “Locking up. Relax, sweetheart. Catch your breath.” 

You cover your face with your hands but end up too hot, the back of your neck wet with sweat and your face glowing with heat. Miguel laughs softly, blowing cool air up and down your face where he lays beside you. 

He’d usually call you cariño or some other pet name in his native tongue, so sweetheart is out of the blue but no less affectionate. You close your eyes against his cold breath and slouch toward him, where you’re quickly held in his arms again, his voice quieter as he asks, “You okay?” 

“Mm.”

“Yeah?” He works the soft cup of your bra back down over your chest, pressing a kiss to the hill of your breast. “You sure?” he asks, your skin warmed by his breath. 

You curl down around him, trying to keep him there, your face in his hair and your knee sliding up his thigh as you turn onto your side. 

You’re hot all over and aching, but not unhappy. You walk a careful path up his chest and shoulder to his neck, your fingers brushing over the soft surface of his skin one centimetre at a time, not dragging, just touching, searching for his face. You hold his cheek in your hand and kiss his hair, not caring if it’s slightly ineffectual. He’ll know what you’re trying to convey either way. 

Sex with Miguel nearly always leaves you like this. More than satisfied, desperate to be hugged, and desperate to impress upon him how much he means to you if the sex hadn’t already. Your hand moves with him as he lifts his head to yours, eyes aligned, the familiar hint of a smile playing on his lips. 

“You want me to open a window?” 

“I love you,” you say, because what you want is reassurance that it felt the same for him. 

His voice is velvet. “I love you. Te adoro. When I look at you… me dejas sin aliento.”

“Tell me,” you mumble. 

“I can’t breathe.” 

You tip your head back with a laugh, “That’s ironic,” you say. 

He chases you there, his nose down the curve of your throat and his hands pressing behind your back, wrapping you in, hugging you and kissing under your ear, bridging the gap again. It’s weird to be so together, to feel like one person and to have that end, but he hugs you and it’s nearly the same. It’s a different kind of connection. It eases your heart, calms your hot flush. 

“You are beautiful,” he affirms. “I just have better stamina.” 

“Don’t say stamina.” 

“You’re jealous of my stamina, and that’s okay.” He smiles into your neck before kissing it tenderly. 

Moments of this Miguel are rare. He’s so happy, you only get to see him as uninhibited in moments of intense connection, though that can be anything with him. A teasing remark as he helps you up the short step of the tram or a shared smile when you lean back into his chest for no reason at all, knowing he’ll take your weight. 

You savour it. He’s got a good heart. 

And a great physique. “Doesn’t count. You got it all from a bottle.” 

His lips part. “Oh?” he says, the slight scratch of his teeth sending shivers down your arms. 

His lips close in a soft, soft kiss. Miguel pulls away from you to sit up a touch, and then he’s caressing your hip and your knee like he can sense the ache, his face pensive. “Do you want to shower, or should I bring you a towel?” 

“Whatever you want to do.” 

“I want to take care of you,” he says earnestly, hand back up, resting on the strip of fat between hip and ass. “But…” 

You look at him. Unbeknownst to you, Miguel’s taking you in, and thinking you might be the most lovely thing he’s ever seen, not just because he’s fucked you and you took it beautifully, or the sounds you made, or the feeling of your arm wrapped behind his head as you kissed him, but everything about you. He loves you and you know that, but he can’t convey it right. And he thinks if he cleans you up he might spend an hour just looking at you, because you’re the most perfect thing he’s ever seen, all your marks and wrinkles and softness. He’d lose half the night. 

“You want to fuck me again?” you ask gently. 

“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” he denies, leaning down over you. You close your eyes and allow him another kiss. “It’s late, we can’t stay up all night. You’re tired.” 

You hum regretfully. “Yes.” 

“Was it everything you wanted?” he asks. “I can…” His hand trails down to your stomach. 

You laugh under your breath. “I don’t think I can anymore,” you mumble, half flirtation and half aching fondness. “Thank you.” 

“Thank you?” He brings his hand up and squeezes your face, taking another kiss, so many now you can’t count them. 

You smile into his mouth. You’re thinking thank you for being caring enough to think about it, and he’s thinking you’re crazy for not expecting it. Regardless, he doesn’t touch any lower, only dropping his hand and rubbing a sweeping, soothing line over your tummy and your side. “You’re so pretty,” he whispers. 

You peek at him through threaded lashes. “Your eyes are closed,” you whisper back. 

“I knew before I closed them, and I know it now.” He sighs. “Sorry,” he says, kissing your cheek, “forgive me. I’ll get a towel.” 

“It’s my fault, being so enchanting n’ all.” 

Miguel kisses you again. “Exactly.” 

[mouschiwrites]

the creeps!!

how about... creeps x reader who is having a ptsd response due to something/someone from their before life?

your choice!

EEE thank you for giving me a little freedom with this one hehe, you're a doll <33 (hope these are okay; I realize these aren't exactly "comforting" but these guys are messed up,, I don't think you can really expect comfort from them lol)

!!TW!! for depiction/mention of PTSD! Proceed with caution lovelies!!

Creepypasta/MH: How They React When Your PTSD is Triggered

Characters: Jeff the Killer, Clockwork, Jane the Killer, "Ticci" Toby, Tim/Masky

Jeff the Killer

I'm going to be so real with you, his first response is not going to be to comfort you

He is going to kill whoever triggered you, or burn it if it's not a person

You can try to stop him, but he's not going to

Honestly he might lowkey be making it worse, doing it right there and then with you watching

Well, he'll probably tell you to close your eyes and plug your ears first

(But if you want to participate, he'll just say: "let me do this for you, babe.")

All you'll know is that one minute it's/they're there, and the next Jeff is taking you by the shoulders and leading you away quickly

Just ignore the char/blood on his hoodie

He'll ask if you want to talk about it while you're walking

If you decline he'll ask again when you're back home

While he doesn't really need a reason to kill for you, he still wants to know what that scumbag did (or just what happened)

If you're mad at him for what he did, he's not going to care

In his eyes, he did the right thing, and he's not going to apologize for it

Anything that hurts his love deserves to perish, if not for their sake then for his

He can't stand the thought of someone/something that makes you unhappy existing in this world

If you ever stress about it again, he will actually focus on you, holding you, consoling you by repeating "they're/it's gone, they/it won't hurt you anymore..."

There's an eerie smugness to his voice as he says it...

Clockwork

I feel like you guys would've already talked about your trauma

She's prone to attacks too, so it was a mutual discussion about triggers/what helps/what doesn't

So she knows exactly what's going on when you're triggered

Her first concern is you, trying to quell the attack before it gets too bad

She'll do something you told her helps ASAP

It'll make her feel better if you let her stay with you, but she understands if you need space

What she'd really like is to hold your hand and get your mind off of it by talking about something else

She'd be fine if she was the only one talking

Just as long as you're showing signs of improvement

When the attack is over, she'll give you time to process it

But eventually she will want to bring it up again

Specifically, she wants to make plans to... uh... "eliminate" the thing that triggered you

And those plans will be vividly detailed

If you don't want to take part in that, she'll make them (and execute them) herself

She just thought you'd wanna take part; I mean, it's how she """solved""" her trauma

She won't follow through if you explicitly tell her not to, but otherwise she operates under the assumption that this is a plan, not a fantasy

When you have another attack, she won't talk about how it/they can't hurt you anymore; she'll just focus on doing the things you said helped

Jane the Killer

She's pretty good at observing people, so I think she'd be able to sense your attack early on

Even if she doesn't know about your PTSD

The first thing she does is remove you from the situation, wrapping an arm around you and rushing away

She sends the meanest scowl to anyone who looks at you funny while you go

Then she focuses on grounding you; she's not too good with feelings, but she's logical enough to try and figure something out to help you

She won't talk much; just an occasional "breathe with me" or "focus on me" while she holds your hands and maintains eye contact

It doesn't show but she's actually so nervous, she has no idea if she's really helping you

She'll be right there with you through the worst of it, and she'll be there if you want to talk after

She will want to know what caused it, if she hasn't figured it out already

I honestly don't think she'll want to "eliminate" it/them

But she will talk the nastiest, goriest, most illegal shit about it/them

She gets all giddy when you grin about it too; internally she's going yeah!! made them smile!! (happy dance)

She'll try not to bring it up intentionally, but whenever it does come up she makes sure to express her strong distaste

If you ever actually want to... take care of things, she'll help with the cleanup, but she'll want you to have the satisfaction of planning and doing it yourself

I mean, she dreams of having that satisfaction herself (looks at Jeff)

Regardless of whether or not you want to do something illegal, ultimately she respects that it's your trauma and you get to deal with it however you like

"Ticci" Toby

Murder. Arson.

Literally his knee-jerk reaction

He just looks between you and the suspected trigger, points a thumb in its direction and says: "Want me to kill that guy/light that thing up?"

If you say yes he'll do it straight away; he doesn't care who's watching

He'll ask if you want to help first though ofc

Then he'll run away giggling like a second grader, grabbing your hand on the way

When you slow down he sighs satisfactorily, saying how fun that was

If you're still distressed (or if you refused his earlier offer), he finally takes notice of your emotions

He'll ask you quite bluntly what's wrong

When you explain it to him, he just nods solemnly

He knows from experience that having a rough past sucks, so he understands completely

If you haven't already he suggests that you "take care of it"

But if you agreed to murder/arson earlier he just grins again and says "Well then it's good that we did that back there!"

If you ever have an attack again he'll either remind you that the thing/person is gone, or he'll nag you about "taking care of it"

He'll begrudgingly put an arm around you though when you don't immediately calm down

He might offer you something to fidget with, too; that always helps him when he's anxious

Just try not to be too alarmed when it's a box cutter or a butterfly knife or something weird that he puts in your hand

Tim/Masky

I feel like he'd be a little awkward when you start to panic

He'll panic a little too, asking what's wrong and if/how he can help

He'll do anything you say, but if you're unable to respond he just puts his arm around your shoulders and takes you into another room

He'll hug you against him, patting your back awkwardly while you process the attack

He doesn't know what else to do :(

He probably realizes what's happening after a few minutes, and he only gets more awkward when that happens

He sucks at dealing with his own trauma; he is literally the worst person for you to be with right now

At least that's what he thinks

When you start to calm down he asks if you want to talk about it, but then immediately curses himself for asking such a stupid question (he doesn't even want to talk about his trauma; why should anyone else? (just his thoughts))

If you do want to talk it turns into a very deep and candid discussion in which you both open up a bit

He'll ask if there's anything that helps at all

Honestly he's asking for you as much as himself; he'd love to try anything that works for you

I don't think he'd suggest or condone killing/destroying the trigger; from his experience that just brings more issues

He'll basically just tell you "yeah, it sucks, and we just have to deal. Which sucks times two."

Very helpful, thank you Tim 👍

At least he always holds you whenever you have an attack <3

Thank you so much for this request!! And thanks for reading, take care sweethearts <33

(divider by saradika)

[nico-di-genova]

For the ask game:

22. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

For Lestappen please! 🙏🏼

Thank you, have a lovely day 🫶🏼

22. "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice."

Charles has just about had it. Had it with the media who shove microphones in his face and demand to know what happened, why he and Max had ended up tire deep in the gravel. Had it with Pierre making little jokes about Charles and his ‘anger issues’. Had it with the disappointed looks Fred keeps casting his way during debriefs, as the damage to the car is discussed and the cost it will take to fix it. He’s had it with the social media team, the word ‘inchident’, the way his bad English in his teens seem to be one of his longest lasting legacies.

“It’s okay, we can spin this," they say, as if he gives a shit. It was a race. He raced, he saw a gap, he went for it, Max moved, and they both ended up out. It wasn’t anything.

But jesus, if Max gives him another one of those looks, Charles is going to lose every bit of media training he’s ever endured and strangle him right on this stage. In front of God, the cameras and everyone. He clenches his fists in his lap, grinds his teeth, feels his jaw tense. The cameras are probably picking it up, so he schools his expression into bored indifference. A neutral mask, they will know he is unhappy but they will not know it is with the Dutch bastard staring him down from the other end of the couch.

“It was nothing. Just an inchident, right Charles?” Max says, with that edge of ‘I think I’m hilarious, aren’t I?’ that makes Charles want to actually scream.

Instead, he picks up his own mic and laughs, nearly a giggle as he’s been instructed, it plays cuter. Makes him look less like the track menace who rammed into the back of Max’s car on turn sixteen of the Chinese circuit, as he cursed out Max’s speed in the straights over the radio.

“Yes, hah, right. We will, uh, we will do better this weekend.” He hopes he doesn’t sound as strained as he feels, rehearsed, it’s harder to pretend when he can feel the weight of Max’s gaze on him like the full weight of his own car, plus half the rest of the grids just for good measure.

Max grins, wicked little glint in his eye, “Absolutely.” And then he’s spinning the attention away from Charles and back to the Red Bull’s performance in high wind conditions – there’s a tropical storm brewing off the coast and it’s been fucking with the weather. How his team is confident they will be able to pull away from the rest of the grid with enough ease that situations like the last race don’t happen again.

Charles thinks about beating him to death with the microphone in his hands. Not seriously, not in a way he would ever act on, just in a way that would mean he doesn’t have to stare at the back end of a Red Bull wing for another fifty-seven laps.

The rest of media day is fairly uneventful. He knocks out some joint video stuff with Carlos, does a few social media photos and merch signings, and tries to ignore the questions about Max that just seem to keep coming.

Only once does he bite, when someone asks him if he and Max will ever refollow each other on Instagram.

He laughs, “He will have to follow me back first.”

There’s a camera recording his response, grainy iPhone footage that he will definitely see on Twitter later. Good. Let Max see the gauntlet he’s thrown down. Let him see the Ferrari cap Charles had been signing with the easy flick of his wrist and sharpie across the brim. Let him see Charles does not care.

Because he doesn’t.

Why should he?

Except that maybe he does, because when Max shows up at his hotel room that night he can’t help the annoyed sound that escapes him.

“What?”

“What?”

“What?”

“So we’re fine a week ago, but you send me into the gravel and it’s you who gets to play the silent game?”

He’s been ignoring Max’s texts. There had been a lot of them.

“There is no game, I am busy. Meetings. Repairs. You know, the damage to the car.”

“Oh you’re moonlighting as your own mechanic now? Ferrari is that desperate?”

Max is angry, but more than that he’s hurt. Charles can see the flash of it in his eyes and in the tension when he clenches and unclenches his fists at his side.

“You’re-“ Max glances down the hall, at the Aston Martin employee who’s casting them glances.

Charles waves.

Max lowers his voice until only Charles can hear, “You are such a sore loser.”

The sting of it is well aimed, lands right between Charles ribs, pisses him off enough that he drops the act for a minute and tells Max to go fuck himself in Italian before slamming the door in his face.

It’s not that he’s never been called that before, more than he’s never been called it by Max. Somehow that hurts more.

Max wins in Miami. Charles has engine trouble on lap thirty and has to retire by lap thirty-two. The smile that he forces on afterward when he lies through his teeth that ‘it is like this’ hurts more than his pounding head after the DNF in China.

He tries to drown it all out by hiding in his room until his flight the next morning, instead he ends up at Max’s door.

“I hate you,” he says when the man opens it wide enough that Charles can slink past.

His hair is damp, sticking up in spikey points atop his head, and his white shirt is sticking to wet patches of his skin. He smells like ember, or leather, or something distinctly sharp. Charles tries not to think about it.

Instead, he paces tracks into the plush carpet and keeps his eyes glued to the movement of his own feet while the words spew out of him faster than he can stop them. It’s not all in English, spoken so fast he’s sure Max has missed most of it.

“I fucking hate you. You stupid. Moronic. Annoying. Idiot. You and your inchident like I am stupid. Fuck you. That was my race. My line-.”

“Is this about China?”

“Yes,” Charles spits, “Of course it is about China.”

Max crosses his arms. Watches as Charles motions wildly in the air.

“It is about China. And Suzuka. And Melbourne. About every circuit you follow me onto.”

“I follow you onto?”

“Shut up.”

“Interesting perspective.”

“Stop.”

“I didn’t even finish Melbourne.”

“Shut. Up!” He yells, he can’t help it, feels like something in his chest finally snaps and then there is a long silence where neither of them say anything at all. They both stare at each other, like someone took out a gun and shot the other. Charles does not yell. He is polite, kind, he is exceedingly lovely.

He does not yell.

Except that sometimes he does, and right now he would like to just so he could feel the pure release of it. Sometimes he does not want to be fucking kind. But he also does not want to yell at Max, realizes the pointlessness of it all.

“You want to be friends? Still?” Charles asks, because it is Max who had begun this whole dance of repairing whatever shattered thing sat between them from when they were kids. Max who had started texting him asking to play FIFA and paddle, to go running with him, offered his private jet for flights if needed. Giving everything hand over fist to Charles, assumedly because Red Bull had seen how well he listened to team orders, and behaved, and wanted to own him before Ferrari could lock him down again. Charles had played the game, and he’d maybe even become Max’s friend in the process, but there’s still a part of him that is twelve and bitter – bitter that Max has always had the money, the better kart, bitter he can’t seem to catch up no matter how hard he pushes down on the throttle.

“Do you want to be friends?” Max asks, keeping a wary distance from Charles that once would have felt normal but now seems unfamiliar. He looks at Charles like he is a ticking time bomb. Charles hates it. He hates feeling weak.

“I…I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to be, “ Max says, like the thought has not occurred to Charles.

“I know-.”

Max cuts him off like he can hear the growing edge in Charles' voice and wants to avoid alerting the housekeeping staff in the hall to their bickering.

“Then just say that. I won’t text. I’ll leave you alone. Don’t do something you don’t want to do, Charles.”

It is reminiscent of Max telling him choose whatever team he wanted a few months back, telling him to fuck expectation and do something just because he wanted it. Which was ironic coming from the three-time world champion who only wanted to race cars online. Charles chose Ferrari, because there was never realistically a world where he wouldn’t.

The simpleness of it, the way Max is so willing to just let him go, to give up on the bridge they’d slowly been building between them – Charles suddenly hates him all over again. Max Verstappen and his chivalry and his kindness and his brutal honesty because he has no need to lie. It sparks that familiar jealousy in Charles.

Which is maybe why he throws some of Max’s own medicine back at him.

“I have seen the way you look at me,” he blurts out, “When you think I will not notice.”

Max takes a moment to catch-up with the twist in conversation. His eyebrows doing this expressive little dance that Charles almost finds endearing before it settles on hurt shock.

“What?”

“You are not subtle.”

“I don’t-.”

“You’re only nice to me because you think you can fuck me now. That doesn’t make you special Max, that is all anyone wants me for anyway.”

There is a moment where he thinks Max will tell him to get out, a moment where he would go, it is a moment that is quickly lost in the anger that makes itself at home in Max’s eyes. The bridge crumbles, they are twelve and all they want to do is hurt.

“God, how do you see anything over that massive ego of yours, Leclerc.”

“You’re the three time champion, Verstappen. You tell me.”

Max steps closer, Charles steps back, he meets the resistance of the dresser and Max is suddenly there. Chest to chest, the two of them staring each other down with enough vitriol that it would probably put Pierre and Esteban to shame.

“You’re a fucking dick, Charles.” Max growls, “It’s not my fault Ferrari can’t pull their shit together enough to put you in a decent car.”

“Your car is a violation,” Charles spits back, “easy to win when you ignore the rules. Like always.”

They should stop, Charles thinks, knows they’re toeing along the precipice of something. But he’s sick of playing by the rules, so he pushes.

“Cheating is how you win, yes?”

Max's hands fist in the fabric of his shirt and push him further against the dresser before he even has the chance to blink. The furniture digs into his spine, until Charles can’t help the wounded sound that escapes him.

Max wrestles with something inside himself, Charles watches the struggle. He starts to pull away, but Charles grabs him by the hips and keeps him there. Max looks at him with that familiar expression, the one that Charles has been ignoring for months, want and need and longing all wrapped in steely grey that should be cold but might be warmest thing Charles has ever been cast in the light of.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Max says, and Charles feels rage. But it isn’t rage, not at all. It’s want. It’s the same feeling he gets when he’s gaining on Max in a race, hungry with the need to pass, to overtake, to get ahead and taste the clean air for once. It’s what landed them both in the gravel two weeks back.

Charles is smart, calculated when he needs to be, and right now he doesn’t want to play dumb.

“If I want you to hurt me?” he asks, really asks, even if he’s sure he hasn’t read the signs wrong.

Max’s expression does another dance, settles on the same want that Charles is reflecting back at him, “I don’t cheat.” He states.

Charles smiles, and it’s not the PR smile, all pretty for the cameras, it’s the smile of a man who drives on the limit and curses when he still can’t get ahead. “I don’t care. I’m going to beat you one day either way.”

Max wins in Imola, but Charles wins in Monaco.

They stand on the podium as the Monégasque anthem blares and he looks at Charles with pride, longing, reverence.

Charles notices, he always does.

[vesper-tinus]

hiii hope you're doing great! could u pls write sth for Simon with fem reader?? anything domestic, soft and cute tnx sm your writing is beautiful🥰♥️

Hello! I'm doing alright, thank you! I hope you're doing well, too! I'm very busy these days, making it difficult to find time to write (maybe also due to Baldur's Gate 3, haha. I'm hooked). Somebody on Ao3 suggested an ice skating date, so I hope it fills out this criteria too!

𝐈𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female ! Reader

Summary: A date to the ice-rink with your hsuband. Keywords: Female ! Reader, ice skating cate, happy lovey dovey married couple things!. Wordcount: 1051

“No.”

“Please?” you ask again, the smile widening on your face, brightening your expression. “It’ll be fun!” you continue, gleefully dragging Simon along—your hand curled lovingly around his bicep. Just as he is about to tell you no again, you give his muscle a squeeze, and after a brief period of critical thinking, Simon sighs as he turns his attention from you. 

“...alright.” 

At the agreement, you all but shriek with glee, pulling him downwards to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. “It’ll be fun,” you repeat, “I promise! Thank you, thank you, thankyou—” You pull him along with a quicker pace, practically skipping, and even Simon can’t help but be amused at your open display of joy. 

Happy wife, happy life, as they say, and Simon can’t help but agree. Can’t keep the missus unhappy now, can he? 

As you walk, you attempt to quell any worries you might suspect him of listing in his mind. For all his stoicism, you know his mind is apt to create a million-and-one scenarios that could occur on an outing, with a million of them going wrong. “It’s a very low-key place,” you start, leaning closer to your husband, “my friend is actually co-owner of the ice-rink—along with her girlfriend.”

As you talk, Simon feels your intention, and lowers his arm to snake around your waist instead, giving a short hum of acknowledgement.

“Plus, I’ve asked what days and time-frames it’s less crowded, and today—right now—should be optimal!”

“You didn’t have to go through all that,” he responds halfheartedly, knowing well you did all this for him. “but I appreciate it, love.” The dulcet tone of his voice sends a pleasant warmth through you, and when you stop at a red light, he smoothly tilts your head upwards to share a kiss as you wait for the light to switch. “I’m a lucky husband,” he says against your lips, “to have a wife as thoughtful as you.”

There you both stand, happily sharing kisses as a small crowd passes by the two of you. He presses you closer, and now it’s you that feels lucky when his tongue seeks to deepen the kiss. When you part, you can do nothing but stare warm-faced as the light turns from a bright green to red. “We missed the light,” you note sheepishly, leaning against your husband still catching your breath. 

“Doesn’t bother me much,” he says in turn, his faint smile widening slightly. “Leaves me more time to do this…” And once more, he leans down to catch your lips for a kiss, and you eagerly meet him halfway. 

Eventually, with a few distractions, you do manage to reach the indoor ice rink. 

As soon as you enter the building, you’re met with a chill temperature. Fresh and pleasant, and Simon even seems to welcome it.

You hear the echo of a child’s laughter, and the sound brings pleasant memories of younger days. You coax your husband further inside, passing a couple making their way out. They are slightly red-faced, most likely from the cold, but they look happy and exhausted, and it makes you excited for the things to come. 

“Skates first,” you instruct, and Simon gladly lets you guide him around the premise. He has never told you this, but he loves it when you take charge in areas he is unfamiliar with. You’re always physically connected to him—be it by holding hands or taking him by the arm. Leaning against him so he can feel your soothing presence.

You explain things as you walk, and he enjoys hearing it all. ‘Benches for tying our skates’, ‘there’s a café behind those curtains, they make the best hot chocolate’, ‘I feel flat on my face right over there when I was young...’.

Your friend greets you happily from behind the counter, fishing out a pair of skates for each of you. The two of you catch up, making small talk as Simon stands silently beside you, his hand resting comfortably on your lower back. Your friend wishes you a fun time, waving you off as you, once more, guide him along. “We were neighbours as kids,” you explain as you settle on a bench, “even back then she was skating—always dragging me with her.”

You tie your own figure skates first before offering to do his, only to find that he has already tied them with efficiency. Army training, of course.

Before you even have to time to comment on it, he's already shifting one of your legs over his lap.

"Simon?" you ask, watching him untie your skate, only to re-tie it again. Much better than what you did, you note. Tighter, more secure. When you thank him, his thumb is tracing circles against your clothed, lower calf.

"Can't have my wife slippin' on the ice, now can I?"

Your excitement is evident as you carefully make your way towards the ice. You’re no professional, perhaps even a bit rusty, but you’re confident that whatever skill you might’ve had will come back after a few minutes. 

From an outside perspective, he would appear casual, perhaps even disinterested, but you know when he’s hesitant. You notice when he’s uncertain, when his jaw is subtly clenched. Perhaps he would’ve been more comfortable in hockey skates, and you make sure he knows the offer to switch stands. 

“Almost there, sweetheart,” you say with encouragement, beaming a smile over your shoulder. 

The ice welcomes you like an old friend.

You smoothly turn to face Simon, hands outstretched for him to take.

“What we don’t do for love,” he says dramatically, causing you to roll your eyes with mirth. But he takes your outstretched hands in his own to meet you on the ice. Dare you say, perhaps even with a bit of confidence? He pulls you to him, and there you stand, chest to chest. 

“Why, hello,” you coo at him, head tilting to lure him in for a kiss. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Simon takes the bait hook, line, and sinker, warming your lips as you share a kiss. You continue this exchange of brief kisses and embraces as you skate, like a reward for his progress. A carrot on a stick. It doesn’t take long for him to get the hang of it, though he is never completely comfortable either. He hates the drifting, and readily sass you when the opportunity arises. 

Together, you glide across the ice. Encouraging each other through competitiveness and love. 

Your laughter echoes throughout the, now empty, rink, and Simon can’t help but feel awe-struck by the beauty of your enjoyment. To have you willingly share this side of you, one so eager and excited, with him is… humbling. He matches your efforts in earnest whenever you pick up the pace, and whenever he finds it difficult to brake, you’re right there to slow him down. Time passes in the blink of an eye, and only when you pause to catch your breath do you feel the tiredness in your calves and the cold on your face. Perhaps it’s time to call it quits. 

You wave at Simon,  gesturing for him to rendezvous in the middle. 

“Thank you,” you say as you skate into his waiting arms. 

He catches you readily, even if you cause him to slowly drift backwards. He arches a brow, awaiting a continuation. 

“For joining me, I mean. I… had a lot of fun, Simon.” You pause, draping your arms over his shoulders, your smile softening. “It means a lot to me that you were willing to try.” Your husband’s stubbornness is legendary—both a help and a hindrance, yet he finds it increasingly difficult to say no to you. Though, you know when not to press a suggestion, and he appreciates your willingness to compromise. 

“And you mean a lot to me, love.” He kisses you, leaning down to kiss your jaw next. His nose is cold, and it sends shivers down your spine. “Wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be” Which is Simon’s way of saying he had fun. 

“All’s well that ends well,” you agree, preening at his enjoyment of your shared activity. “Let’s head home to warm up?”

He hums in quiet agreement, letting you guide him by the hand as you skate towards the rink’s edge.

Wherever you go,  he will readily follow. 

Wherever you are, he will meet you halfway.

[hyuckmov]

haechan — gold-skinned, eager baby pt.2 (teaser) read the full thing here anticipated release date: valentine's day 2023 &lt;3 read the first part here! 

haechan x fem!reader teaser wc: 653 teaser genre: fluff & suggestive fic details: total wordcount tbc, smut (seriously almost entirely) and fluff anticipated warnings: as always our chest/boobs fixation, hair-pulling, my take on the classic riding him in his gaming chair scene, fingering, oral (f recieving), haechan being a mastermind male manipulator (in a sweet way), haechan not knowing what ovulation is, breeding kink, the usual brainrot topics....

a/n: NOW now now now now.... i have a good feeling about being able to make this deadline so i decided to post this now to motivate me to work towards it to :) i have a taglist set up (fill out the form in my pinned) but also you can just reply to this post/state in the tags if u rb that you would like to be tagged and i'll add you to the list (no need to do that if u alr filled up the form) !!! anyway i hope u enjoy this little bit and look forward to the actual fic <3 and thanks for 600+!!!!

haechan would say that his standard of living had increased exponentially since your second anniversary. 

the two of you had become more open with each other, communicating your frustrations and needs more easily. there was also a faint buzz of something in the air, moments when you would look over at him and he would feel a blush spread across his cheeks, burn low in his stomach. it felt a little like he was falling in love with you for the first time — it had been a while since he had felt so vulnerable and loved by you. 

"what are you thinking about?"

but perhaps the most significant improvement made to his life was the way he could now reflect on your loving and healthy relationship with his face nuzzled against your boobs.  

"love you so much," he mumbles against your skin, placing a small kiss on your cleavage. "that's what i'm thinking about." 

he feels your hand come down to stroke his hair gently, and he closes his eyes at the feeling. sunday mornings with you in bed — you scrolling through your phone while he's given the freedom to love on his favorite parts of you, have become just another routine that started ever since your second anniversary. 

focusing on freckling kisses on your warm skin, he's therefore completely unprepared for when you card your fingers through a handful of his hair only to give it a light, but still significant, tug. 

the sensation sends a feeling shooting down his spine, a slight shudder to his body as he lets out a small gasp muffled against your chest. feeling something stirring in the pit of his stomach, his legs begin to twitch against the bed, and he nuzzles his face into your chest. 

"again, please," he mumbles. 

he feels the giggles you let out right from where his face is pressed up against your chest. kicking his feet, he whines lightly in protest.  

"what's so funny?" 

"found something else you like," he hears you muse. "you're so sensitive, baby."

frowning, he scrambles to push himself up into a sitting position. the visual is slightly amusing — his hair mussed up, his lips swollen, eyes narrowed. 

"it's not fair," he states. you reach out a consoling hand to him, and even as he continues to grumble, he still intertwines your fingers gently, a contrast between his unhappy tone and his tender actions. "you have too much power over me." 

"what are you talking about?" you laugh, and he scowls. 

"you know." he mumbles. "you can just flash your tits at me and i'd do anything you ask-" 

"i can?" 

"-and now you know i like it when you pull at my hair," he whines, a permanent pout forming on his features. "it's like there's nothing i can do that makes you go crazy." 

"that's because i love all of you," you soothe. "all of you makes me feel crazy." 

"do you have any kinks you're keeping from me?" 

"you're my kink," you tease, but your smile drops when he scowls. "sorry." 

there's a pause. haechan looks at you, hard. scanning your face, his gaze doing a slow drag down and up your body, his expression darkening. something had shifted in the air, and suddenly you're a little scared to breathe too hard. 

"haechan?" 

"i'm going to find it," he breathes. 

"what?" 

"i'm going to find it, and then i'm going to make you beg for me to fuck your brains out." 

"what the fuck?" 

but haechan shakes his head, and when he next refocuses his eyes on you, his eyes have the familiar twinkle in them. moving over to you, he cups your face in his hands and plants a kiss on your cheek. 

"love all of you too babe," he beams. "i'm going to go make breakfast, okay?" 

and with that, he all but skips out of the room, leaving you sitting on the bed, feeling unsettled and also just a little bit excited. 

maybe it was time to call mark again.

tags: @91qowngus, @joonpantheress, @sundhaelatte, @jaemboi64, @sassy-author, @krazy-kpoppy

[puppy-byun]

Just Friends... Unless...? | Pt. 3

pairing: Hyunjin x Reader / a sprinkle of Seonghwa x Reader

rating: 18+

word count: 13.3k

genre: smut / friends to lovers / angst / university au

warnings: curse words, weed consumption and drinking (not by reader or hyunjin), angst, bad flirting, more angst, ANGST, sex, please use protection please be smart!!!!, fingering, overstimulation, oral (f. receiving), light dirty talk, pet names

summary: You weren’t crushing on Hyunjin. You couldn’t be crushing on Hyunjin because you were just friends, and there was no way he would ever feel the same way about you. Right? Unless...?

note: we're already done with another one i can't believe... I hope you all had fun and enjoyed this & if you did I'd be happy if you leave me your thoughts in a reply or ask hihi

taglist: @chartrucewhore @hyunfruits @petalsnow @yaorzu-blog

previous | masterlist 

You didn’t expect Chan to wait for you two days later after your lecture, leaning against the wall next to the exit of your classroom, arms crossed like a father waiting for his daughter to get home in the middle of the night.

“Uhm, hi?” you greeted, not unhappy to see your friend but something in your gut told you he was here with a purpose that you weren’t going to like. Nonetheless you gently disentangled his arms and hooked yours through instead, tugging him along down the hallway and towards the building’s exit. “To what do I owe the honor of you picking me up? Don’t you have classes, too?” you mock scolded, already having an idea why he was here. You were sending a silent prayer that you were wrong.

“I do but apparently if you fake a spontaneous bout of sickness they excuse you before you can throw up in their classroom.” Chan admitted with a proud grin and you swatted him over the back of his head, struggling to reach up.

“Skipping class, I see.” you tsked, shaking your head as if you were disappointed in him. “And here I thought you are a role model.”

Chan let out a dry chuckle, raising an eyebrow. “To whom? Jeongin already is the most responsible one out of you guys. I gave up a while ago with the rest of you.”

You laughed with him, knowing that he was only joking because while some of you were indeed slacking off at times, you knew no one more dedicated to their passions than your friends.

“Anyway, I know what you’re doing, and you know just fine why I’m here.”

“Yes actually I just remembered I wanted to talk to my professor so I’m gonna head back-“ you were already about to turn around and make a swift exit to anywhere where Chan wasn’t but he had expected this and caught your arm faster than you could dive away from his grasp.

“Oh no. We are going to talk now.” Giving in with a sigh you let him pull you along but refused to say anything. This talk would only happen if Chan coaxed it out of you word by word.

“Here, I brought you some endorphins because I have a feeling you need them,” he started, fishing one of your favorite chocolate bars out of his bag. You took it with a mumbled thank you but refused to look at your friend, focusing on the chocolate instead.

“Chan, we already talked at that stupid pool party. What more is there to talk about?”

“For starters, we could talk about what on earth went down after we talked, because Seungmin, Minho and Felix have all separately told me that Hyunjin is basically living in the practice room ever since that night.”

“That’s like, two days. He’s done that before, it’s normal,” you waved him off nonchalantly, refusing to admit anything as long as you didn’t have to. You wish you could say you had managed to not think about that night much, or at least everything that had gone down before you had gone inside with Seonghwa. But your mind was as hyper-focused on Hyunjin as ever, even when he was being an absolute idiot.

“We all know that, but if they’re worried you know it’s exceeding the normal extent. And the fact that you’re not looking at me and keep pretending this chocolate is the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen is telling me that you know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Why don’t you go talk to him then?” you huffed, trying not to come off as snappy because Chan didn’t deserve your frustration.

“Because you were my friend first. I can tell you’re unhappy and I want to help, but if you don’t tell me what’s wrong I can’t do that.”

“You can’t help either way, Chan. But alright,-“ you conceded with a sigh “I’ll tell you. Hyunjin and me kissed, okay?” you dropped that bomb in as meek a voice as possible, ready to move on with your retelling and not dwell on this. “And then he-“

“Hold up, stop right there. When?“ he physically stopped mid-walk, eyes big and hand held out in front of your chest, automatically causing you to look up at him.

“Karaoke night.” You answered automatically. “The others took Jisung home and I offered to take Hyunjin because he was drunk. That’s when.” You finished lamely, hoping to skip the recounting of this night in any more detail.

“The next day he didn’t remember anything. Or he pretended not to remember anything. I doesn’t really matter, because I realized how fucked I am either way. And ever since then things have been really weird between us. The kiss-“  you cringed a bit at that word because it had been so much more, and if it really just had been a kiss the whole situation probably wouldn’t have blown up quite like this. “After the kiss it was weird because I remembered. And whether purposely or not, Hyunjin didn’t. But I thought we’d be fine when he asked if I’d come to the pool party. And then he really exploded on me in a nasty way and now everything is even worse.”

“Was that before or after you got cozy with Seonghwa?”

“After,” you added meekly, his gaze telling you exactly where he was going with this. He didn’t even add anything, just staring at you with a raised brow and letting the pregnant silence weigh in.

Finally you gave in, looking away with a grumpy huff because maybe Chan was making some points, but you had just as many to prove that he was wrong, the biggest one being that you had been friends for three years with no instance of Hyunjin ever indicating he wanted to be more than your friend other than that one time two weeks ago.

“You know, I’ve been talking about this with Changbin and Seungmin a lot, but actually everyone except for you knows.”

You didn’t have to ask what he meant, but you also didn’t indulge him with a reply. Just because they thought they were pinpointing some signs correctly didn’t prove anything unless Hyunjn told anyone himself.

“Why do you think none of us have ever made a move on you, apart from the obvious reasons why I haven’t?”

“Because we’re friends,” you supplied with a tone that clearly implied a heavy duh. You didn’t miss the irony of saying the same thing about Hyunjin and you, yet everything between the two of you was vastly different.

“And you think just because we’re friends Jisung or Changbin have never had a crush on you?”

“What?!” you burst out, too shocked now to continue staying nonchalant and blasé about this when you hadn’t been the whole talk anyways.

Chan was only grinning because he knew he got you now. “Well anyways, that’s not the point,” he added unhelpfully, clearly not going to dwell on this topic right after he dropped a bomb like that.

“Why did you tell me then?!” you pressed on, your brain still processing his last few sentences and not quite keeping up.

“To prove a point, obviously. They’re long over it now- actually over it, not the way you were over Hyunjin.” You punched him in the shoulder for that jab, even though he was regretfully completely right again. “They never acted on it because Hyunjin has always liked you, right from the very beginning.”

“As if Changbin is scared of competing with Hyunjin,” you scoffed, still not buying what Chan was selling you because the idea that Hyunjin liked you was simply too ridiculous.

“He’s not, of course, but everyone can tell how much Hyunjin likes you and no one wants to hurt him that way.”

“Chan, I appreaciate the effort of making me feel better, but none of this makes sense. Why was Hyunjin all over Chaeyoung if he allegedly likes me?”

“Why were you all over Seonghwa?”

“Because I want to get over Hyunjin and I want to prove to myself that I ca- oh.” You stopped mid-sentence, realizing you had talked yourself into this one. You hated to admit that Chan was making sense but there was no way to deny it. Neither you nor Hyunjin had ever had hookups in front of the other in those three years you had known each other, but as soon as you had, both of you had reacted so poorly it was downright embarrassing. Him getting drunk and throwing a fit, you jumping on Seonghwa’s offer to fuck just to prove a point. Maybe Chan was right after all. Yet, if Hyunjin liking you meant him treating you the way he had you weren’t sure you wanted it.

“He still said horrible things to me, Chan. I could tell he wanted his words to hurt. Who does that, especially since he allegedly likes me?”

“Feelings do make us act more irrational and stupid. And he was drunk.”

“Yeah, so? And on top of that he had plenty of time to apologize, yet he did not.”

Chan sighed, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side in a comforting half-hug.

“Look, I’m not trying to protect him, I’m one hundred percent with you on this. But we’ve all done and said horrible things coming from a place of hurt. You’re not even sure if he remembers the kiss, yet you’re hurt he doesn’t mention it. But you were sober, and if he remembers but for some reason acts as if he doesn’t, then he knows you remember for sure, yet you don’t mention it either.”

You ignored that technically Chan was, once again, right. You couldn’t really blame Hyunjin if he was pretending not to remember, not unless you held yourself accountable too, because you could’ve brought it up just as well, but chickened out.

“So, we agree he’s probably lying to me?” you settled on instead, because this was easier. Being angry at Hyunjin was easier than facing that both of you screwed up big time.

“Listen, if this were any other guy I’d already have punched him in the face personally,” Chan assured you, squeezing your shoulder gently. “But it’s Hyunjin. We’ve all been friends for years. You have been in love for years-“

“Debatable on his part,” you protested just for good measure but Chan simply ignored the comment.

“-while I was hoping this would explode with you two finally fucking, it kinda went the other direction, but that doesn’t mean it’s unfixable.”

And he was right, you didn’t want to give up on this friendship, on Hyunjin, so easily. Feelings or not, he had been one of your closest friends for so long you did not want to lose that over something this stupid. But you were also hurt, and those feelings didn’t just go away either.

“I’ll think about it.” You finally admitted in defeat, feeling extremely overwhelmed with everything going through your head, but you couldn’t deny that talking to Chan had helped. “It’s just a lot to take in and I’m not sure what to do with any of this just yet.”

You weren’t sure a couple of days later either, but the world regrettably didn’t stop spinning for you to figure out your feelings, so you were left with very little choices but to confront them sooner rather than later.

“Come oooooon,” Chaeryoung was whining for the nth time this morning, and you couldn’t really be mad at her. “It’s a Jackson Wang party, you know we cannot pass on that.”

You rolled your eyes, trying not to groan because she couldn’t know all the reasons you very well wanted to pass on a Jackson Wang party since you hadn’t told her. “I’ve literally heard damn near urban legends about his parties, and when we finally get invited to one you want to say no?!”

She had said this, too, at least twice already.

“What do you mean we? Last time I remembered Seonghwa asked me,” you joked, teasing her because this was the only thing you could do since you couldn’t outright be annoyed with her. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know you had good reasons not to go. If anything, you had to blame yourself for telling her Seonghwa invited you in the first place.

His text message was the first thing you had seen in the morning and in your half-asleep state you had not considered the consequences of telling Chaeryoung you had received an invitation to a party at Jackson Wang’s house. Not only was she dead-set on the fact that there was no way you would decline because she would, quote, ‘rather die than miss this opportunity’.

To make matters worse, she had consequently found out that the invitation had come from none other than Seonghwa directly. Since there were very few scenarios as to why he would invite you her mind immediately jumped to the one plausible conclusion. You didn’t feel like diving into a recount of your night – especially because you’d rather not mention what led up to the decision to leave with Seonghwa, so you just let her construct her own picture of what had happened. You didn’t need to elaborate on whether you had actually slept with him or not before you found out he’s the biggest Star Wars nerd (the R2D2 underwear was a bit of a giveaway though) and had subsequently spent the rest of your night with him trying to convince you you just absolutely had to marathon Star Wars with him.

You were fairly sure that this wasn’t necessarily a booty call (although he probably wouldn’t say no either) – he actually just seemed to enjoy hanging out with you.)

Chaeryoung, however, who was nurturing a never-ending admiration from afar for Hongjoong, had smelled blood, convinced that this was the night she would finally get to make a move.

Since then she had not stopped pestering you for the last three or so hours, constantly bringing up new arguments why you had to go and why there was no reason not to, and you had trouble coming up with an excuse. You couldn’t very well tell her the truth, which was that there was a very high risk Hyunjin would be at the party as well, and you were far from having figured out your feelings and definitely not ready to face him. Then again, you doubted you would know what to do even if you had a week or a month to think about it. Plus, since you doubted Chaeryoung would let go of this, you finally gave in with a sigh, reaching for your phone to ask Chan if he would be going as well and could drive you.

“Don’t ignore me!” Chaeryoung huffed, plopping down on the sofa next to you to catch a glimpse at your phone. “Hold up, are you actually asking Chan do drive us? I convinced you?”

She looked at you so shocked you realized she hadn’t actually been sure she would succeed.

“As if you’d ever let me live it down if I got between you and your shot at getting with Hongjoong.”

“Very true, bestie,” she nodded, poking her tongue out and almost jumping up when your phone buzzed next to you. “Was that Chan? Is he driving us? God I can’t believe I’ll end up making out with Hongjoong tonight.”

If anything, you had to commend her confidence and drive, so you let her have the moment, even though you felt sick at the prospect of probably seeing Hyunjin again already.

Jackson’s house was big, at least from the stories you’d heard. That is what you were telling yourself to calm down and convince yourself there was a chance that you might be spared from running into Hyunjin. Those hopes were crushed mercilessly when you were towed towards Chan’s car by Chaeryoung a few hours later, and you spotted the one boy you had been hoping to avoid on the passenger seat next to Chan. Granted, you only saw the back of his head and the tiniest bit of side profile but that was enough for you to immediately recognize Hyunjin.

Your mood soured almost instantly, feeling a bit betrayed that Chan hadn’t even warned you. Yeah, he was still going with the whole ‘you both need to confront your feelings and sort this out’ thing, but there were subtle ways to push the agenda, and then there was this. Chaeryoung, still thankfully oblivious to the true reason of your hesitancy to go to this party, was dragging you to the car without slowing down, opening the door and greeting everyone with a bright and bubbly hello. You couldn’t share her excitement, half tempted to whack Chan over the head for forcing you into this situation. You hadn’t talked to Hyunjin in days, technically even longer if the awkward half-conversations via texts before that weren’t counted – and they shouldn’t be. And as if to fuck you over even more, the dim lights of the car were not enough to conceal his outfit. God, he had to be doing this on purpose.

He knew he looked good, of course he knew. Ever since he had grown out his hair and bleached it even he couldn’t not notice the effect he had on people around him. Despite that he barely went through any extra effort when you went out, knowing he looked breath-taking as it was.

Not tonight though. Tonight, as if struggling with your feelings for him day by day wasn’t torture enough, he wore his long hair open, casually tucked behind his ears to show off a row of earrings dangling. He’d even gone through the trouble of applying eyeliner – you’d only seen him do that once or twice, despite always telling him how good it looked, but of course tonight he’d remember. It wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the high sleeveless top, that didn’t just show off his arms and shoulders in a way that made it impossible not to look. No, as if that wasn’t enough, the sleeve cut outs were so big if he moved just a bit he might as well just go shirtless. You were just about ready to throw the door shut and run back to your dorm, abandoning ship, but Chaeryoung wasn’t having any of it. She grabbed your wrist and pulled you into the car so decisively you almost banged your head.

At least the light and angle were saving you from the sight of Hyunjin’s lean muscles peeking out thanks to that horrible shirt.

You mumbled out a greeting so silent and grumpy it was only rivalled by Hyunjin’s, and your hopes for having a decent, amicable evening were dwindling rapidly. The looks should have been an incentive to do what Chan kept urging you to do – either talk it out or finally get on Hyunjin’s lap – but in all honestly it only made you angry because there was no way this was a coincidence. He barely ever made an effort, and suddenly tonight he would make sure to tick all the boxes of everything you’d ever mentioned you found attractive?

You were still hoping that Hyunjin might be smarter sober, but the mood between you was undeniably icy already, so you weren’t very optimistic. Even though you hadn’t sorted your feelings out and talking to Chan had only made everything a lot more complicated you desperately wanted to find even the smallest reason to forgive Hyunjin to at least have your friend back. But he wasn’t even looking at you, giving you a vibe so frosty you doubted he even wanted to be forgiven. You had really hoped sober him would be more reasonable than drunk him, but you hadn’t counted on just how petty Hyunjin could be.

“You look good.” You barely caught Chan’s comment, snorting when the words filtered in because he was shamelessly exaggerating.

“If you’d say that to Chaeryoung I’d believe you. I’m wearing sneakers and a shirt, who are you trying to fool?”

You were surprised just how much you were able to shut out Hyunjin and shove those feelings aside even when he was right there. But even so the conversation simply felt off, and how could it not when two out of four people wouldn’t even properly look at each other. It was Chan’s own fault, really, for bringing you both in this situation, but poor Chaeryoung had no idea what was going on. She had undoubtedly caught on to the mood, if her squirming next to you was any indication.

Chaeryoung was talkative by nature, bubbly and sweet, but she could not handle awkward or uncomfortable silences so it had only been a matter of time before she would force up a conversation. You had come surprisingly far before she couldn’t take it any longer; but for the second time today her not being in the loop was coming to bite you in the ass, because what she caught on was the one topic she assumed all of you were in on.

“I wish I could just show up in shorts and a shirt, honestly, but I have a game plan for tonight and that’s getting with Hongjoong, and I’ll be damned if I don’t pull all the heavy weaponry,” she stated, pointing her finger towards her very generously low-cut top as if it hadn’t been clear already what she was talking about. “I still can’t believe you pulled Seonghwa without any effort and you don’t even let me in on your secrets.”

You had laughed when you’d told her about it the first time. It wasn’t so funny now, when you caught Hyunjin stiffen in his seat out of the corner of your eye. Chan, as small as a consolidation as it was, seemed to catch on that maybe this wasn’t the best conversational topic, but Chaeryoung couldn’t know that and judging by how she was worrying the edge of her dress nervously, visibly uncomfortable in this car ride, you already knew she wouldn’t read the room and stop talking.

“If you go home with him again tonight, which, by the way, I really think you should because that pretty boy is quite the catch, you have to tell us beforehand so we don’t end up looking for you all over the house.”

You just desperately wanted her to not push this topic any further but at this point the damage was done and your fingers were digging into the seat of Chan’s car. Hyunjin’s voice came like an icy cut, cold and with a snide you had barely ever heard from him. In a way, this was even worse than the weekend before, because this time he was sober.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask what that even was last weekend. I never pegged you to be the type of girl to throw herself at a guy the way you threw yourself at him.”

For a moment no one said anything, the words sinking in. You were honestly struggling to even come up with anything to say because you didn’t find it in you to throw something equally as malicious at his head when you didn’t mean it.

“What the hell, Hyunjin?!”

It was Chan who spoke up instead, sounding somewhere between irritated and furious, and while you were grateful he felt the need to stand up for you, you feared it would only make things worse. “As if you weren’t close to shoving your hand down Chaeyoung’s bikini top right in that pool. A bit hypocritical to call someone out for flirting, don’t you think?”

You knew Chan was judging neither of you for any of that. But he had already told you that if it were any other guy treating you this way he would’ve already punched him. Apparently Hyunjin slut-shaming you was tethering dangerously close to making Chan forget they were friends.

“Of course you’re going to pick her side.”

You weren’t sure whether you had wanted an answer from Hyunjin beyond that, because it was bad enough, but you should have expected that it would only get much worse when Chaeryoung decided she had to defend you, too, probably irritated at the fact that you were not speaking up for yourself. Outstanding qualities in a friend, but right at that moment you wished she would care for you a little less.

“So, when did you realize you have a crush? Before or after she fucked Seonghwa?” Chaeryoung’s voice was a sneer but what was worse was Hyunjin’s reaction upon hearing her words. Chan had barely parked the car, not even killed the engine yet, and Hyunjin stormed out without another word, banging the car door shut with such force all three of you flinched in your seats.

You had thought it couldn’t possibly be more awkward when you’d entered the car, but now with Hyunjin’s dramatic exit you realized you had been dead wrong. Chan was gripping the stirring wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, and you didn’t even need to fully look at Chaeryoung to catch the look of utter shock on her face. In any other situation you’d have laughed, but now you only felt empty and exhausted.

You didn’t know whether either of them was waiting for you to say something or not, but even if they were, there was nothing you could’ve possibly said. You were as affronted as they were, although probably a hell of a lot more hurt. But now that you were already at the party and the damage was done, there was little you could do, so you decided that you would at least try to make it as pleasant as possible for your friends.

“I thought you wanted to meet Hongjoong, what are we sitting around here for?” you quipped up at Chaeryoung instead, the cheerfulness in your voice sounding forced even to you, but it was honestly the best you could do. You were out of the car before either of them could say something and you heard the car doors shut behind you. Of course they wouldn’t simply leave it at that after what had just happened though.

“Are you sure you still want to go?” Chan’s voice was laced thickly with worry while you heard him hurry after you. You were crossing the ridiculously long driveway with big strides, even more grateful you had opted for sneakers instead of anything less comfortable. You didn’t look back, but you knew Chaeryoung had trouble keeping up with the way she was huffing between her words.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know I was bringing up a touchy topic,” she asserted, sounding honestly guilty even though you’d never dream of blaming her for something that she couldn’t have known and wasn’t her fault.

“You’re clearly upset, can we please go get burgers or something instead and talk about this?” Chan was pleading to a rational part of you that had shut down the moment Hyunjin had banged the car door shut with anger. Of course you were upset, but no amount of talking or fast food could change that.

“Chan is right, this party isn’t important, let’s watch Netflix and trash talk Hyunjin instead,” Chaeryoung reinforced Chan’s arguments, but you weren’t even close to agreeing. Hyunjin had ruined enough of your time by making you upset about him. Turning around with an angry huff you shook your head decidedly.

“Guys, I appreciate your concern but it’s fine. I don’t care. Fuck Hwang Hyunjin.”

You found Seonghwa on the first level balcony, a laughably large space with various lounge chairs, a fire crackling in an iron brazier, and its own, second bar. There would definitely be no one leaving sober for a lack of alcohol.

Seonghwa was lounged on one of the lush looking pillows covering the beach chairs, surrounded by a few other people. You hadn’t been introduced to them but you knew them at least by sight, every single one of them infamous on campus in their own regard. Plastering the brightest smile you could muster on your face you crossed the balcony, side-stepping a few drunk people dancing until you reached Seonghwa, who was already looking at you with a dazzling smile, seemingly actually happy to see you.

“Hey angel. I see you put on the fancy shirt for me,” you glanced down, taking short notice of the shirt Seonghwa was talking about, only to confirm with a nod and a grin.

“Of course. I knew you, at least, would appreciate the effort I took.”

He was still wearing that big goopy grin, but you could tell even in the dim light that his eyes were a little unfocused. If the red cups littering the floor around them and the smell of weed were any indication, you weren’t surprised why.

“C’mere,” Seonghwa drawled, one arm wrapping around your leg so he could pull you towards him. You caught yourself by the edge of the lounge chair before you fell like an idiot, letting him move you on his lap until he was satisfied with the way every part of you was pressed against him as close as possible.

“I get horny when I’m high,” he giggled as an explanation, but probably also as an excuse, when his hand immediately slipped under your shirt to draw small circles on the skin of your hips. So, you might have not come here with the intention of letting this thing with Seonghwa progress anywhere further than indulging his nerdier side, but you were confused, hurt, and suddenly letting him comfort you didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.

Your evening had been ruined enough already, so it was easy to simply let yourself sink into his touch, enjoying the simplicity of spending time in someone’s company where you didn’t have to think beyond how you’d get home with him. Maybe the fact that Seonghwa’s and Hyunjin’s social circles didn’t really mingle, so the chances of seeing the latter again tonight were slim, did help.

Seonghwa was introducing you to his friends, Wooyoung and San, whose names you had already known by their reputation alone, but pretended not to out of politeness. You thought you were doing great, making polite conversation and laughing at their jokes even though most of them had some context you couldn’t understand since they were a pretty tight-knit group, and had been for years. But apparently you weren’t as smooth as you had thought you were because Seonghwa was pinching your side - a couple of times, judging by the impatient notion of the movement - to rip you out of your thoughts and get your attention. 

“Who upset you angel?”

You froze for a second, whipping your head around to look at him, his stupidly perfect eyebrows scrunched in concern despite how drunk he clearly was.

“It’s nothing.” You waved it off, not wanting to get into it. You were looking for distractions, not yet another person to lament your stupid boy troubles to. “I just had a dumb fight on the way here and it’s pissing me off, although I’m trying not to let it.”

You tried to keep it short, not wanting to burden Seonghwa with things he probably didn’t care about. You got along, yeah, but you were far from calling him a friend already and there was probably no way he actually wanted to hear about your problems, despite looking concerned. And even if he did, you had barely talked about them with your closest friends, so you sure as hell wouldn’t with a near stranger, when all you wanted was to get said fight off your mind.

Seonghwa seemed to contemplate your words for a moment – or maybe he was just trying to make sense of them because he looked and sounded positively wasted and high off his ass. You weren’t quite sure which one it was until he bit his lip, hesitant to speak up.

“Just say whatever you want to say, Hwa. It can’t be worse than some things I’ve heard today already,” you sighed, encouraging him to speak up.

“That fight… was it with that Hyunjin guy?”

For a moment you were too shocked to reply, staring at him open-mouthed because if even his drunk and dazed mind had managed to come to that conclusion then you didn’t even want to know how much of this conflict had gotten through to your friends other than Chan.

“It’s- yeah. With him,” you ended lamely, not really knowing what else to say and since he’d already guessed it you might as well go with the truth. After all it had been Seonghwa who had been there last time when you had fought too, so he probably knew more than the people close to you did.

“I take it you did not talk it out?” he implored further, referring to the last fight where you had told Hyunjin that you would talk about it when he was sober, which ended up not happening. You only shook your head in confirmation to his words.

“Can I be honest with you?” the way he asked you knew that if you said no he wouldn’t hold it against you, but you had gone through so much shit the last weeks some part of you wanted someone to be honest and blunt.

“Go ahead,” you nodded, leaning on your arm to sit yourself up a bit higher and look at him properly.

“Truth is, I’ve been wondering how you spend so much time with all these guys and haven’t ended up fucking at least one of them.”

You had expected many things, but you hadn’t expected Seonghwa to say that. You burst out laughing, looking at him incredulously.

“Because we’re friends,” you emphasized, shaking your head in disbelief. “Nothing against friends fucking, but it’s not like that. They don’t think of me that way.”

Your mind immediately went back to the conversation you’d had with Chan and how he’d so nonchalantly mentioned that some of your friends had, indeed, been crushing on you at some point. And you were quite the liar as well, seeing as how you very much had wanted to sleep with Hyunjin, as friends or as more, so at some point at least one person in the group had thought of someone else that way.

Seonghwa seemed to have drawn a similar conclusion.

“Well, one of them clearly does.”

Obviously he meant Hyunjin, and you didn’t know if it made you feel better or worse that even your hook-up was under the impression that Hyunjin apparently was into you. Gnawing on your lip, you didn’t know what to tell him. You hadn’t sorted anything out and you had come to Seonhwa to have a good time, not to talk about your feelings for another guy.

“Tell you what,” Seonghwa finally sighed, seeing how you weren’t going to answer. He was sitting himself up straighter, gently pushing you off his lap and setting you on the space left on the lounge chair next to him. “I think you should go and clear your head. Whatever it is you guys got going on, you haven’t figured it out. As much as I’d enjoy sleeping with you, getting you to ride me is not the solution you seem to think it is. It’s only gonna make you feel more miserable. I’m a big boy, I can handle rejection. And I’m still holding you to that Star Wars marathon, sex or not.”

You couldn’t reply, still processing how drunk and high Seonghwa ended up giving you bette advice than anything you managed to come up with all evening.

“I like you. That’s precisely why I’m not going to sleep with you, because I think you should talk to that Hyunjin dude and at least give him a piece of your mind for being an absolute asshole to someone as stunning as you.”

If you had expected a lot, you had not expected this from Seonghwa. Despite the slur in his words he was making sense and it scared you how reasonable he was being, when he could’ve just used the chance to get you on his dick faster. But he was right, sleeping with him had sounded really smart in your head, but while the sex would make you feel good, the emotional mess you were in would only get worse. And while he didn’t seem to mind, it wasn’t quite fair to use him as a way to try and get over your crush.

“God, I wish I would have fallen for you instead, this is so much easier,” you cursed, gesturing between the two of you and Seonghwa shook his head with a snort.

“You don’t want that, angel, I’m here for good sex but there’s a lot of commitment issues to unpack.”

You rolled your eyes, whacking him on the arm. Now that you had, if not verbally, admitted to him, of all people, that you were in love with Hyunjin, everything somehow seemed much clearer and simpler.

“So, what am I supposed to do now, Hwa?” you implored, hoping that in his infinite weed-induced wisdom Seonghwa would be able to help you yet again, but it seemed his resources of deep advice were all dried up.

“I don’t know, get wasted? Have some really hot angry sex with that guy? Punch him in the dick? Although if it’s the latter I want to watch, ‘kay? Twitch stream it or something.”

You laughed incredulously, not missing how Seonghwa easily managed to make you feel much more relaxed and at ease even though the topic at hand never failed to make you anxious.

“I can’t believe I’m taking advice from you,” you quickly leant in, pecking him on the lips softly and very much innocently one last time, noticing the small pout on Seonghwa’s lips.

“If it goes south, my bed is still free.”

You threw him a thumbs up and rolled your eyes before politely excusing yourself from his friends. Despite what he’d suggested you weren’t about to look for Hyunjin right away. You definitely were not about to punch him in the dick – at least not yet. Rather, you were looking for Chan so he could take you home. Seonghwa’s words did make a lot of sense but tonight simply wasn’t the right time or the right place.

The house was bigger than you had guessed from the outside, a downright labyrinth and after declining a worrying amount of dubious drinks and strolling for thirty minutes without ever seeing the host himself you finally managed to at least find Chan. He hadn’t been picking up his phone so you’d had to resign to searching for him the old fashioned way, relieved when you finally spotted his mop of blond hair and his comforting voice in what seemed to be yet another guest room. He was sprawled on the bed with another familiar face sitting at the foot of the bed, head leant on the mattress. If you had thought Seonghwa was high you hadn’t been ready for Chan and Seokjin. You knew they were both older and had been friends for a while, Chan always ending up at the bar during karaoke Wednesdays to chat with Jin, but you hadn’t known what these two were usually up to when they spent time together. Hyunjin was there too, lying on a sofa with his phone in hand, but you were almost proud you didn’t even spare him more than a glance, almost staying indifferent.

Not knowing if Chan was in any headspace to have a conversation you decide to try your luck.

“Hey Chan, have you seen Chaeryoung?” you weren’t sure whether you should even expect an answer, but since Chan clearly wasn’t ready to take care of you in any way you decided your friend was the next safe option before you’d actually go back to Seonghwa and do something you might regret.

To your surprise he did mumble something in reply that vaguely sounded like ‘Hongjoong’, which you took as a good sign. Maybe this evening had gone the way it was supposed to for your friend at least. It also meant you couldn’t count on her now, but that was alright if it meant she was getting with the guy she’d been drooling over for months.

However, Chan couldn’t possibly drive you, which also meant you were pretty much out of options. As if he was reading your thoughts Chan slowly sat up, soft smile and eyes hazy, holding the blunt he was smoking in your direction.

“You look like you need this,” he offered as an explanation and you cringed a little inwardly at how obvious you were being time and time again.

“That’s very sweet, but no thanks,” you declined, knowing he only meant well, because he always had your best interest in mind. Contemplating what to do now you fell silent for a moment, feeling Chan’s scrutinizing gaze on you. You were hoping he was too out of it to notice that ever since you’d left the car earlier things had become even more of a mess, but you clearly underestimated him.

“What’s up? Wait why are you not with-“ even high he easily interpreted your panicked glare as a sign to shut up. You didn’t want to bring this topic up in front of Hyunjin yet again for the second time tonight, although since he was in the room as well you also couldn’t very well explain to Chan what had happened. Your mind was rattling with ways to come up with an explanation that would be so nondescript it wouldn’t give away your predicament, but it wasn’t necessary, because Chan caught up scarily fast, sending a quick glance towards Hyunjin before focusing back on you.

“You wanna go home?” You did, but Chan was halfway to getting up and there was no way you’d let him make such a phenomenal mistake and drive in this state just so you’d feel better.

“It’s fine Chan, don’t worry. I’ll just call an Uber or something,” you smiled softly to reassure him. “I can probably find someone to drop me off at campus and walk the res-“

“I can take her, you’re not driving tonight anyways Chan,” Hyunjin interrupted, a statement that didn’t leave any room for protest. It didn’t, at least, for Chan, who spoke up before you could decline.

“That’s a fantastic idea!” His enthusiasm was almost worrying, as was the speed with which he was throwing his car keys in Hyunjin’s direction, who caught them easily. The grin on Chan’s face was clearly meant to be conspiratory but he was anything but subtle and you were questioning who he was even directing it to, because you were definitely not on board with this plan of his to reconcile the two of you. 

You were still scrambling for an excuse they would let slide but Hyunjin was already in front of you with the keys lazily dangling from one finger. It was only then it filtered through that he, too, was completely sober, just as you were.

“Alright. Let’s go home,” you admitted with a defeated sigh, hoping that all the horrible scenarios you were already making up in your head wouldn’t be coming true. Hyunjin did seem civil and calm, if not almost like the Hyunjin you knew, but it wasn’t enough to make you forgive and forget all the instances he had shown a whole different side of him and never apologized for it.

You were almost grateful he didn’t put his hand on the small of your back when he led you through the crowds of dancing and drunk people as he usually would have, because you weren’t sure you could have handled it.

The car ride was by far one of the worst ones you had ever experienced, which said a lot considering you had thought the same thing earlier tonight yet were already proven wrong.  Earlier had been awkward and uncomfortable but at least Chaeryoung and Chan had been there. Now it was only Hyunjin with you in the passenger seat next to him, the silence spanning so awkwardly and tensely it felt almost tangible. You couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that, just like you, Hyunjin was itching to say something yet for some reason the words wouldn’t come. While you could usually read him you hadn’t been able to do that in weeks. You couldn’t fathom why he wasn’t talking. He didn’t seem like he wanted another confrontation, but you also knew that kind words or apologies took far more bravery, something you yourself currently couldn’t muster either.

You’d never been so glad to see your dorm building when Hyunjin finally parked the car. You mumbled a quick ‘thank you’ for driving you home before you almost fled from the car, thinking that you had finally evaded that awfully tense mood between the two of you. You were proven wrong when you heard another car door fall shut behind you, Hyunjin’s steps unmistakably hurrying after you. You squeezed your eyes shut shortly, taking a deep breath to brace yourself before you halted and turned around to face him. He looked so devastatingly beautiful with his long hair, smoky eyes and the smooth skin of his stomach visible. It hurt all the more because of the situation you were in and you wanted him to leave, certain that you couldn’t handle this.

“You can’t park here,” you stated dismissively, nodding towards where he’d left Chan’s car.

“I don’t care,” he huffed, but you thought that he couldn’t possibly be worked up from running a few steps after you, so it had to be something else. “If I don’t do this now it might never happen.”

You knew, of course, what he meant with ‘this’. The talk that was long overdue. What you didn’t know was what he was going to say, and if what he would say would make it worse. But you couldn’t just shut him down, not when you still wanted him back in your life. You terribly missed him and even you weren’t self-sabotaging enough to interfere with something that could possibly fix this. You did turn around and start walking again, guessing that if he wanted this talk he’d follow, and if he didn’t… you didn’t want to go there, even just hypothetically.

You could hear his footsteps distinctly behind you although he wasn’t talking until you were already walking up the staircase to your dorm.

“Why aren’t you with Seonghwa?”

You almost stumbled, ready to explode but the rational part of your brain that was thankfully still working told you that unlike the last couple of times, there was no maliciousness in his tone. You tried to calm yourself with a few deep breaths before answering.

“Would you like me to be?” You almost managed not to sound snappy.

“What do you think?” his answer came almost immediately, but you weren’t having it. He wanted to talk, so he would talk.

“No, Hyunjin, that’s not how this goes.”

He fell silent again and this time you weren’t sure if he’d lost his resolve. He still didn’t talk when you’d reached your door and unlocked it, stopping in the doorframe indecisively. Your hopes of finally fixing this were dwindling fast, but you weren’t planning on letting him in if this was all you would get. You should have just left, but one look at his eyes, incredibly sad, were enough for you to find yourself talking instead.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Hwa told me to get my head clear and talk to you truthfully. Which is good advice for the both of us, I think. Except we barely even talk anymore, so why did I think that would work?”

You didn’t really expect an answer, even though you knew you were desperately hoping for one. Neither did you leave, even though Hyunjin wasn’t saying anything and you felt an empty pit in your stomach open up. You didn’t know what else to say, and you wanted to leave him there but doing so hurt you probably as much as him, if not more, so you found yourself rooted to the spot despite better judgement. When you couldn’t take it anymore it was you who spoke again, and you were surprised to hear yourself sob when the words finally tumbled over your lips.

“Hyunjin, what happened to us?”

“I don’t know.” This time the answer came immediately, although meek and silent and barely a mumble, and it made you find your resolve again at last.

“You know damn well. You shouldn’t have fingered me on a park bench because you were horny, called me a box to tick on your bucket list and then pretended it didn’t happen.”

“I’m such an idiot.” He sounded thoroughly regretful, but you weren’t done yet now that you’d started.

“Yes, you are. You ruined our friendship because you tried pretending that mistake we made didn’t happen. I was ready to face that but you made me believe you don’t fucking remember.” Technically he had never told you if he had been lying and did remember after all, but by now you were certain even without that confirmation. Him not denying it was as good as one.

“And instead of owning up to it you turn into someone I barely even recognize, hurting me with petty words whenever you, I don’t even know, get jealous? Instead of just talking to me?!”

You were fuming and hurting and you felt wetness coating your cheeks now. The sight of Hyunjin before you would have broken your heart if he hadn’t already done that. He looked as miserable as you felt, hands clenched by his sides, his eyes portraying the same pain you had gone through for the last weeks.

“I thought I’d ruin our friendship if I told you I liked you.”

“So instead you fingered me to get it out of your system? Is that what that was?”

You had heard his confession loud and clear in the quiet hallways, despite his mumbling, but you couldn’t focus on it right now. Chan had been right, Seonghwa had been right, seemingly everyone but you had seemed to know and been correct in their assumptions. But what good did that do when him liking you meant him hurting you?

“I was scared! It would be awkward for you to have a friend be in love with you. You like guys like Yugyeom, or Jaehyun or Hwa-“ he didn’t quite manage to keep the venom out of his voice at the last one “-not me! I was scared out of my mind you would reject me and I’d lose you. But I was drunk that night, and you kept talking about other guys and I realized that eventually I’d lose you to one of them. I couldn’t bear the thought. I shouldn’t have kissed you, but you kissed me back and I thought if that’s all I can have then I’ll take it.”

Hyunjin was talking almost too fast to follow at this point, but for you every single word still felt like forever. It sounded too familiar, too much of a mirror of your own thoughts and feelings. Both of you thinking rushed, drunken kisses were all you could ever have. Both of you dreading the moment the other would be happy with someone else.

“I immediately regretted it. It’s not what I want from you. No, hold on, of course it’s what I want from you. But not like that. I want to hold you after and tell you that I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. God, you’re always so beautiful. I think… I think in a way losing you now showed me that I couldn’t take it.” He hesitated for a moment, stepping one step closer only to hastily move away again as if he barely could hold himself back. “I’m so sorry. I’m gonna leave. I’m- I’m so sorry I hurt you and said all those things to you. You deserve better than as shit of a friend as I have been.”

You were sobbing uncontrolled now, tears filling your eyes so much it was difficult to keep looking at Hyunjin with how much your vision was swimming. You realized he was misunderstanding your reaction because he was clearly as clueless as you and he didn’t understand that you were melting in every way possible because of his words, so you pulled him in, hands clenched in his shirt, face buried in his chest and thankful he immediately reciprocated the hug without hesitation, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tight.

“Hyunjin, I’ve been in love with you for the past three years,” you finally confessed, the words finally breaking free after having been caged in for so long. Your voice was suffocated by his shirt but you were sure he’d heard you just fine because he stiffened, fingers digging into your back.

“Can you say that again?” his voice was shaky and you giggled through your sobs, leaning back a bit with newfound confidence to look at him.

“I’m in love with you,” you’d thought those words so many times, but you never expected to be saying them to Hyunjin, especially not without feeling any fear of rejection.

“I- I think I should come in,” Hyunjin stuttered, disbelief flooding his voice but he was automatically stepping closer again, the softest smile on his face while his thumb gently wiped over your cheek, smudging the tears more than anything. You agreed, stepping back and finally letting him in. You closed the door after him carefully, discreetly wiping at your tears because you suddenly felt a bit embarrassed at how much his words had made you cry. He didn’t settle down anywhere, even though he’d been here a thousand times and usually made himself at home easily, so you rounded him and sat on the couch, hoping he’d follow your lead. You pulled your knees in and although he sat down in a safe distance, no part of him touching you, it was more of a tentative distance like your confessions were too fresh to quite believe them yet.

“Why did you always try and set me up with other girls?” he finally asked, and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I never saw you hook-up with anyone and I just wanted you to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me.”

“Every time you did that I was even more certain you’d never want me,” he spoke with a desperate frustration that would have been funny if you didn’t realize just how much you had been sabotaging yourself over the years. You had had good intentions, but you’d only accidentally been pushing him away. “Didn’t it hurt to see me with Chaeyoung? Because it sure as hell hurt to see you with Seonghwa.”

“Yeah, I almost didn’t notice,” you couldn’t help put supply sarcastically, not angry at him anymore for his stupid jealous behavior.

“Look, I’m so fucking sorry I behaved like an idiot.” You nodded in agreement, although you were smiling at him softly.

“Of course it hurt. But I told myself it’s what would help me get over you.”

“Did it help?”

“Hyunjin, if I knew how to get over you don’t you think I’d done that in the last three years?”

He looked at you for a moment, biting his lip and you could see he was contemplating something. It became clear when his eyes dropped to your lips for just the fraction of a second, but long enough for you to notice.

“Please just kiss me, I know you’re thinking about it.”

His hands were on your cheeks in a heartbeat, lips pressed against yours without hesitation, the distance between you forgotten.

“It’s all I can think about,” his words were mumbled into your kiss and you felt them as much as you heard them. Even though he was kissing you softly there was an urgency to it that resonated in how you were gripping onto his shirt, as if you both had been craving each other so desperately that you were scared of ever letting go again. 

Your soft kisses turned hungry the second his teeth grazed your lower lip, your hands clenching and pulling him closer. You were utterly overwhelmed, your head swimming but you never wanted to stop kissing him again. His teeth and tongue were caressing your lips until you were panting softly and he used the moment to slip his tongue into your mouth, finally deepening the kiss.

You almost moaned, the kiss so much more intense than it had been the last time because you both knew you had been fantasizing about this for too long. His hands, initially caressing your cheeks, slipped down to your neck and into your hair. The feeling had you shaking with anticipation and you tangled your own fingers through his hair. You pulled a little, just to see the reaction you could elicit, and when he groaned you completely disregarded holding back. The sound was sweet like honey washing down your body and you pulled your leg over his lap. His hands immediately grabbed onto your thighs and you yelped when he lifted you up with him, stumbling a little.

“Bedroom,” he stated, his voice a bit breathless and you could only nod, a husky and surprisingly needy ‘yes’ drowned out when he leant in to peck your lips again. He knew the way to your bedroom by heart, settling down on your bed a bit clumsily while pulling you on his lap again immediately. Wiggling a little to readjust your thighs on either side of his you relished in his reaction, a subtle shiver washing over his body. You moved your hips again, more purposely this time, grinding yourself down on his crotch in a slow rhythm. You could tell he was holding back by the way his knuckles pressed into the bedsheets turned white from clenching so hard. It only urged you on, your hands resting on his shoulders for stability while you pressed your thighs tighter, rolling your hips against him so closely you could feel him twitch inside his pants against your center. For a short moment you contemplated making him come just like that because watching his reactions you were sure you could, but Hyunjin stopped you, his hands settling on your hips when he finally managed to pull his thoughts together.

To your disappointment he readjusted you on his lap, moving you away from the hard bulge in his pants. You were pouting and he must have noticed because he chuckled, biting his plush bottom lip and moving some of the blonde strands already sticking to his forehead off his skin with one hand.

“Bunny, I’ve fantasized about sleeping with you so many times. I can’t come in my pants now.”

His words turned your pout into a giggle immediately, a hand dropping to his crotch and palming his bulge just enough to get a reaction out of him, his head falling back and focus lost again temporarily. His groans were the most beautiful sound you’d ever heard and you pushed him a little further, causing his self-restraint to crumble. Just the way your hands felt on him even through his pants was too much after he had dreamed about feeling you, having you touch him, so many times.

“Fuck. Fuck- you gotta stop, please,” his voice was somewhere between a groan and a whimper and you palmed him once more, not wanting to stop touching him before you gave in and stopping teasing, letting him catch his breath until he was looking at you again.

His eyes were flitting from your face to your body and back, as if he didn’t know which part of you to look at and it sent warm tingles all over your skin. His eyes were holding so much appreciation and warmth despite the fact that he was painfully hard, and you could tell he wanted to draw this out and savor every second he could finally have you on his lap and needy for him.

Even though you stopped touching him you couldn’t entirely stop teasing him. Grabbing onto the hem of your shirt you swiftly pulled it off, his gaze going to your chest immediately, still covered in a black bra.

His lip was pulled between his teeth again and you decided to push a step further, unclasping the bra and letting it slip off your arms and land on the floor.

The whimper falling over Hyunjin’s lips was divine. The hand still on your thighs was clenching, digging his fingers into your skin hard to resist the urge of ravishing you without holding back. You were driving him crazy with everything you did. The way you knew exactly how much you were testing his self-restraint, undressing on his lap, topless and nipples hard.

And as much as you loved his reactions, seeing how much you were affecting him even though you were barely doing anything, you could feel how wet you were and you were dying to have him touch you and fuck you into the mattress until your throat was raw from screaming his name.

You leant in, lips ghosting over his neck, hoping that your words would finally push him over the edge and kill his self-control.

“You can touch me, Hyunjin.” His name was a raspy breath on your lips, washing over his skin and his fingers clenched once more on your thigh before he was palming your tits. You bit down on his neck, his fingers pinching your nipple and eliciting a deliciously painful sensation. He clearly noticed, repeating the motion, teasing your hard nipples and caressing you until you were holding onto his shoulders again, arching into his hands, the kisses on his neck faltering.

“Hyunjin, you don’t need to hold back for my sake,” you whined, pushing him further, your voice not much above a whisper because you were so desperate to feel him. “You can do whatever you want to me. I trust you.”

The moment you said the words you realized it was true. You trusted him more than you had realized despite everything that had happened between you the last weeks. It was worth finally knowing that he ached as much for you as you had for him.

His reaction to your words wasn’t immediate. Instead he stilled for a second and or the shortest moment you were worried you might have done something wrong or overstepped some unknown line, but then his hand wrapped into the strands of your hair falling over your neck and Hyunjin pulled hard.

You gasped in surprise, the sting running straight to your center and causing your hips to buck, your neck bared to Hyunjin. But he completely ignored it, instead going straight to biting down your chest and finally sucking on your nipple. At the feeling of his lips wrapped around your perked nipple, tongue flicking over it, your brain shut down. A loud, raspy curse fell over your lips and it was the reaction that finally broke Hyunjin and made him throw all restraint away. The need to have you moan his name with his dick inside you was too overwhelming to draw this out, even if he planned to savor every moment as much as possible.

His hand ran up your thigh, diving under your skirt without hesitation and dropping to your wet panties, moving them aside easily. You didn’t have time to process what was going on before he had his fingers running up your slit and between your folds, coating them in your wetness enough so he wouldn’t hurt you, before he slipped both fingers into you.

It didn’t compare to last time, not by far. Either times you could feel he wanted you, but this time he was finger fucking you with the knowledge that you want him, you were wet for him and only for him and you trusted him. It made the curl of his fingers against your walls all the more delicious, wrecking your throat with moans.

“Open my pants,” he was barely forming a full sentence, focused on the way he was shoving his fingers deep inside you to feel you clench around him. “Need to be inside you.”

The words ran straight down between your legs and to his fingers pressing into you.

“Fuck, okay.” You weren’t sure if you were actually nodding or not, your fingers shaking when they settled on his belt, but you couldn’t manage much beyond fumbling with the buckle, fingers too weak and shaking too much to open it. You couldn’t concentrate on anything but the way he was fucking you open with his fingers, giving up after another clumsy attempt and slumping against Hyunjin instead. Your face was buried in his neck and when he pushed into you and spread his fingers you all but forgot anything but fucking yourself deeper onto his fingers. He met the movement of your hips, allowing you to pick the pace until you were a mess, his name etched into his skin with your voice repeatedly moaning it. 

“Bunny, can you ride me, or do you want me on top?”

“Top,” you gasped out, clambering off of Hyunjin’s lap while he was slipping his fingers out of you. “Want you to fuck me.”

“God, you’re killing me,” Hyunjin cursed while fumbling a little himself to pull off his pants and underwear. You would have been glad about the payback of him struggling to get out of those tight pants after he’d tortured you with his looks all night, but right now you desperately wanted him, too much to care about any petty feelings.

He was already gripping the hem of that cursed top, eyes fully focused on you kneeling on your bed, and when he stilled you knew he caught on to how you were biting your lip to hold yourself back from saying something.

“Want me to keep this on?” His tone was way too cocky for how hard his dick was and how rattled he already looked, but somehow he still managed. You were still biting down on your lip, unwilling to admit just how much you liked that shirt on him but it wasn’t necessary. “Yeah, you do,” Hyunjin supplied instead with an impossibly cocky smirk, crawling up to you on your bed, surprising you when he gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, a stark contrast to how confidently he had been teasing you just a moment ago.

“Knew I could drive you crazy showing up in this shirt.”

And it was true, but it wasn’t even half the truth.

“Hyunjin, you always drive me crazy.” It wasn’t the words you had expected to come out of your mouth but it was true and you realized you liked telling him those things. Now that there was nothing to be scared of you wanted him to know just how much you liked him, just how much he was on your mind.

He didn’t respond, instead pushing you back onto the mattress and kissing you so deeply it left no doubt he felt just the same way.

The kiss was a tangle of tongue and teeth, biting on your lips and your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist to pull him closer. Hyunjin’s own hand was on your waist to support you, and you could feel his length against your center. He was so incredibly close to slipping inside you, anticipation building in your stomach like liquid fire. You bucked your hips impatiently, causing him to moan into the kiss.

“Shit I don’t have a condom?” Hyunjin breathed, the words barely strung together, lips not separating from yours by more than a breath. “You okay with-“

“God, yes please.”

You knew you shouldn’t be doing this even though you were on birth control, but you wanted Hyunjin so much all your rational thoughts seemed to shut down around him.

It didn’t seem to be going much better for him either, because you had barely said the words when he finally pushed inside you. You were so wet it didn’t hurt at all, and he was stretching you just the right way, not quite painful but filling you up perfectly. Your hand was tangled in his hair, nails digging into his scalp slightly when he was fully settled inside you. He wasn’t moving, and through the haze in your mind you thought he was waiting for your okay until you looked at him and realized he wasn’t even focused on you, his eyes closed and shorter strands of hair falling in front of his face.

“Hyunjin,” you breathed, rolling your hips in emphasis because you desperately wanted him to move. He inhaled sharply, fingers on your hips digging into your skin.

“Hold on – wait. You feel so fucking good. I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”

You couldn’t stop the giggle from slipping over your lips at the confession. Even with his dick inside you he managed to made your stomach flutter.

You gently slipped your hand from his hair, caressing his cheek and tucking the loose, sweaty strands of hair behind his ear.

“Take your time baby,” you softly spoke, the pet name flowing naturally, and you felt him shiver softly under your hands in response. “You already make me feel good like this.”

And you meant that, but the reassurance seemed to be enough because the next thing you knew was your nails digging into his shoulder blades when he almost bottomed out only to push back deep inside you. The gentleness from a second ago all but dissipated and when you’d told him you already felt good you hadn’t been prepared for just how good he could make you feel.

Hyunjin was leaning on his arms next to your head, lips ghosting down your neck, pushing into you at a relentless rhythm. You were trying to match his thrusts but he was fucking into you so good, hitting a spot that made the muscles in your legs contract.

You gave up after a couple more thrust, melting into the mattress instead, clutching onto Hyunjin with weak arms while he kept hitting that sweet spot perfectly with every push into you.

Hyunjin, ever the vocal person, kept gasping your name, slipping in praises matched with his thrusts and you couldn’t do much beyond reveling in the feeling of him fucking you into the mattress so well your whole body felt like it was on fire. Warmth was tingling all over your skin and you couldn’t even gather the words to tell him how well he was fucking you, how close you were.

But he could tell by the way you were gasping, moans swallowed by how breathless you were, clenching around his dick every time he rutted into you until he was struggling to hold back his own orgasm. His hand slipped between you, finger drawing soft circles on your clit and it was enough to finally topple you over the edge and have you see stars.

“Baby I’m gonna- fuck-“ your words turned into whimpers when your orgasm washed over you, skin tingling all over and blood rushing in your ears.

“’M gonna pull out-“ Hyunjin started and you were sure your nails were leaving marks by how hard you held him back in response, keeping his body pressed up against yours, nipples rubbing against his shirt with delicious friction.

“No, please come inside, wanna feel you come inside me,” you were whining, the sound foreign to your own ears but it was enough to convince Hyunjin, whose groan next to your ear was enough to send another wave of shivers racking down your body. You could barely register the unsteady rhythm he picked up again, dick twitching inside you when you felt yourself clench around him again, waves of your orgasm running through your body and finally pulling him over with you. You felt his warm cum spill inside you, his face pressing into your skin, a loud moan etched into your skin, followed by a string of praise. Hyunjin was telling you how good you felt, how much he loved fucking you, punctuated by uneven thrusts carrying him through his orgasm.

You didn’t know how long it took until you could gather any coherent thought again. Your skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, Hyunjin slumped on top of you with his face still buried in your neck and breathing hard. He was still inside you, his length gone soft and you knew if he pulled out you’d be making a mess of your bedsheets but you couldn’t bring yourself to regret having him come inside you, not when you had never felt more satisfied and thoroughly fucked out.

“Promise you’ll ride me next time, bunny?” Hyunjin almost purred against your skin, still out of breath but his hands were already drawing soft patterns on your chest, small kisses pressed against your neck.

“You’ve been thinking about that a lot, haven’t you?” you giggled, trying to suppress a shiver when his thumb brushed your nipple. “I can’t make promises if you make me this weak every time, Hyunjin. I feel like my legs are jelly.”

“Mh, did I fuck you that well?” Despite his crude words his tone was soft and teasing and you could tell by his tone that he was smiling. It made the butterflies in your stomach flutter yet again, and it seemed like they hadn’t calmed down ever since Hyunjin had confessed his feelings earlier. “I didn’t even try, I wonder what would happen if I did?”

When he pulled out of you you were almost embarrassed by the whimper escaping your mouth. You were still way too sensitive, and the feeling of his soft dick slipping out of you, followed by his cum was almost too much to take.

Your hands slipped off his back when he moved up to his knees, readjusting his position so he could run his lips down your collarbones and chest. Realizing where this was going when his hair was tickling your stomach and his hand trailed down to the inside of your thigh, that point already so sensitive you felt an involuntary shiver run through you, you quickly carded your hand through his hair to stop him.

“Hyunjin I don’t think I can-“ He stopped you with a wolfish grin, his fingers wandering from your thigh to your center, ghosting over it so softly he was barely touching you, but even that was already too much. “Fuck, Hyunjin, I’m so sensitive.”

“Want me to stop?” Despite his intentions concern laced through his voice and you knew he would stop if you said so right now. You didn’t say anything, just weakly shook your head while you felt his grin ghost over your skin, down your stomach until his teeth grazed your inner thighs, a hard shudder raking over your body. You knew you wouldn’t be able to take much but you wanted this so bad, didn’t want to let go of Hyunjin, for him to stop treating you as if you were the most precious thing on earth to him.

When he finally licked a soft stripe along your center, tasting himself and you mixed from your orgasms you almost thought you would black out. You were dizzy from your first orgasm, breath already raspy and Hyunjin’s lips and tongue were almost too much. He made sure not to run his tongue over your clit, careful not to send you in overdrive already. Instead, he resorted to soft kitten licks that only mixed his saliva with the mess he had already left between your legs and made you clench around nothing. His fingers were caressing your thighs, holding you in place just enough so you couldn’t clamp your legs shut.

You were gasping, struggling to keep up because all you could feel was the tingling sensations Hyunjin was sending all over your body with his tongue. You vaguely registered that you were whimpering, small little sounds that mixed with his name and your nails were digging into the bedsheets.

You weren’t even sure you could come again already, not when you felt too sensitive to handle Hyunjin’s tongue between your legs, but you were proven wrong when he finally let his mouth run up to your clit.

“Ohmygod I-“ you couldn’t finish the sentence properly, not sure where you would have gone with it either way, because Hyunjin’s lips were wrapped around your clit and he was sucking and you were seeing stars and you couldn’t hear how he was praising you over your desperate gasps.

It took a while before you realized Hyunjin was splattering your neck and chest with soft kisses, meant to caress and help you calm down until you weren’t shaking anymore, his hands lazily wrapped around your waist.

“You good?” he finally asked with a sweet smile when your gaze was finally focused on him, but you could tell by the glint in his eyes that he knew just fine that you were more than good thanks to him.

You took a moment to let your eyes run over him and take in every detail, the loose strands of black hair fluttering into his face and sticking to his forehead. His eyes, sparkling with admiration that made your heart melt. The beauty mark under his eye, his softly sloped nose. His lips, swollen and glistening wetly, pulled into a smile that was so much Hyunjin that you couldn’t stop yourself from leaning in and pressing a light kiss to his mouth.

“What do you think?” you mused in response finally, pressing another quick peck to his lips, a smile gracing yours when he whined when you pulled away.

You thought that you could stay like this with him forever, just Hyunjin and you together, so clearly head over heels for each other that you didn’t understand how both of you hadn’t seen it sooner. But the moment was broken up when the front door banged open so unceremoniously you could almost feel the dent in the wall, and your name was shouted through the dorm room way louder than it should be in the middle of the night.

“Shit,” you cursed under your breath, scrambling out from under Hyunjin, grasping for something to pull on and settling on his shirt because it was the first thing you could grab that would cover not just your chest but the entirety of the sticky mess he had left between your legs. Not that covering it up would discard any doubt of what you had just done. It was still highly uncomfortable and you were pulling down the shirt over your legs as far as it would go from where you were sitting, while Hyunjin was desperately trying to put on his underwear without falling and breaking his neck. He looked even worse than you probably, everything from his hair to his lips giving away that he’d just had sex, if him only being in his underwear wouldn’t have already done so. But there was no time to fix anything else before Chaeryoung, followed by Felix, Seungmin and Chan burst into your room, all of them cramming in together. Both Chaeryoung and Chan were very clearly coming straight from the party, one drunk and the other still very stoned, but Felix and Seungmin had clearly come to pick them up. They were completely sober and thus assessed the situation in front of them way faster than the other two.

Felix had the decency to at least blush, although he still didn’t hold back the grin sneaking on his face. Seungmin, much worse, fished money out of his pocket and casually handed it to Chan.

“Bro, I told you I’m not betting on this!” the other replied, his whole reaction lacking gravity because he was just ridiculously calm even though his words sounded like he would have protested stronger under different circumstances.

Seungmin just shrugged and pocketed his money again, but you didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that he had clearly wanted to bet on whether you were sleeping with Hyunjin or not, because Chaeryoung finally showed her very belated reaction by simply screeching at a volume that was nothing but irritating and could be interpreted in many ways. It almost drowned out the beeping of Seungmin’s phone, who nonchalantly turned the screen towards you and Hyunjin so you could see the messages in the group chat.

“Can’t believe you two were even worse than Jisung and Karaoke Girl. Jeongin says ‘fucking finally’ by the way.”

You didn’t need to read the messages to know that everyone in your group knew about you and Hyunjin before you yourself had even properly processed the entire night, but it was just as well. You had already been annoyingly touchy before, and this way at least they had time to prepare for the fact that there was no way you would keep your hands off each other ever again now.

[lanitalay]

Before I Say Goodnight

Chapter 3

A/n: Chapter 3 yay. Ngl i got feels towards the end. This is a sweet one. I kind of love the Band of exiles dynamic.

Other chapters

“Great, Cassian will pick you up in the morning”.

“Ok” you say between bites. “I have to get some things done before morning, but try to sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow” she stands and leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Ok so maybe this Rhysand can help. Hopefully.  If they are really worried about an unguarded portal then maybe they’ll hurry to send me back and close it up. The thought brings you a bit of peace. Finishing the stew you get up from the bed and place the bowl on the dresser. You look in the mirror and decide that you can’t wear the dress tomorrow,it’s far too long and, honestly, riding side-saddle was terrible, so you resolve to dig up your leggings and sports bra. Now that they have fully dried, the mud and sweat created a layer of crust and the smell… Ew. You bring them to the bathing room and scrub them until  they have returned to their normal color. Hopefully they’ll be dry by morning. An idea pops up. You take the damp clothes down the stairs and place them near the crackling hearth. I’m so smart. Then remember the bowl left on the dresser, groaning to yourself as you walk back up the stairs, pick the bowl up and return it to the kitchen. 

Jurian is sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a book. He looks quaint, much different then the rough looking man you’ve seen the last day. He looks up, sensing someone in the room and his eyes land on the bowl in your hands. “Beef stew is my specialty,” he says with a sly smile. “It was delicious, thank you” walking over to the basin, you wash the bowl and set it to dry with the rest of the dishes. “Tea?” He asks and motions to the pot on the wood stove. “That would be great, actually” you pour yourself a cup and sit down next to him. The tea is mint and there is another flavor that has hints of lavender. You breathe the scent in and try to ground yourself. Finding that if you are not doing something or talking you spiral and begin to think about home. Home. It's been more than 24 hours now. They probably think I’m lost in the woods. You shake your head and ask Jurian “are you human?” He looks up from the book and says nothing. You open your mouth and close it and then say “sorry, I just noticed that you have round ears and Lucien has pointed ears and also Vassa has round ears and the man from earlier had round ears but he had wings and… well in my world all humans have round ears so I'm guessing you’re human and if this is an offensive question I’m sorry. I'm rambling now. I’ll shut up” you look away and sip your tea. Maybe solo travel completely stunted my social skills. Oh god kill me now. Jurian chuckles “it’s fine, yes I’m human, Vassa is also human but she’s been cursed to be a firebird by day, Lucien is High fae and Cassian is Ilyrian. Any other questions?” About a million. “Vassa is a firebird by day?” That seemed like the most important detail. “Yes, it’s a long story though, and it’s also not mine so if you want more details ask her” fair enough. “Ok… how old are you?” He looked like he could be in his mid thirties but something about him felt off. “About 500” you choke on nothing and look at him wide eyed. He chuckles “I’m sensing a follow up question so I’ll elaborate. Yes I’m human, yes I’ve been alive for 500 years. How is that possible? Well 500 years ago there was this war that was fought by humans against the fae and I did some… bad things that got me dismembered and kept conscious in the ring and necklace of this truly awful female. Anyways, there was another war recently where a very powerful king found the cauldron and harnessed its power to resurrect me. Well, to put me back together and now here I am” he motions to himself and smiles bright. Jesus. “And I thought my life was hard, why did they resurrect you?” He sighs “The king was unhappy with the result of the last war and wanted me to help him invade the human lands and enslave the humans.” You put down the cup and ask “So there is no war happening currently?” “No, not right now but Koschei,he’s another powerful king, is up to something. Not sure what it is though”. “I see” you fiddle with your thumbs and ask another question “Vassa said that I’m supposed to go to the Night Court? Is it far?” He nods “ah, that’s right. Rhysand wants to question you. I suppose you have no idea where anything is. Come with me” he stands and walks out of the kitchen and crosses the house until he reaches two double doors. 

When you walk in you see shelves and shelves of books. Oh my god it’s a library. Sick. “Here we are” Jurian says as he pulls out a large book titled “Geography of Prythian and its Surroundings” he opens up and gestures to the bottom of the page. “We are here, these are the mortal lands, pretty self explanatory. You showed up around here” he points “that is the Spring Court, there are seven, as you can see. The Night Court is all the way up here” he points to the north of the map. “Wait, so how am I going to get there tomorrow? That’s at least a few days by horse” he hums. “I’m pretty sure it's only a few hours by flight”. Oh no. There’s no way. “What?” “You’ll be flying, hope you’re not afraid of heights” he smirks, sensing your fear. “And if I refuse?” “Well, they are your best chance of getting back home. If you think I’m old just wait till you meet some of the people at Rhysand's court. They should know something about portals”. “That’s great” you say in a monotone voice. “Listen, I’m going to call it a night but feel free to stay here if you want”. You nod as he walks out of the library. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. You resolve to stay and read the book. Gleaning as much information about this world as you can and not taking note of the time. You doze off on the chair and wake up to the sound of the book hitting the ground. Taking a deep breath and putting the book away, you make your way to your room and fall into a deep dreamless sleep. 

The next morning breakfast is the same: warm bread, cheese and tea. Lucien sits in front of you as you scarf down the meal, having woken up very hungry. “Do they have food where you’re from?” You swallow and scowl at him, “of course we do. We have bread and cheese and tea and chocolate and coffee”. I miss coffee so much and it’s only been two days. “Well you’re eating like a woman starved” you sip your tea and roll your eyes. “Why are you so grumpy? And if you must know I think I’m stress eating. It’s a normal reaction for someone in my situation. Is pie a thing here? I could really go for some pie right now” he seems unimpressed. “I’m not grumpy and yes pie is a thing here. I’ll see what I can do to find some, we are a bit secluded from the nearest village” you beam. “Really? You’d get me pie?” he nods “oh thank you!” You can’t help yourself as you get up from your chair and throw your arms around him in a hug. “I haven’t gotten you anything yet” you straighten up “but it’s the thought that counts”. 

“When is this Cassian guy supposed to get here?” you ask Lucien as you pack your bag for the trip. You suppose it’s only a day and you’ll be back by nightfall but you want to have your things with you just in case and having a water bottle and snacks is always handy. “Soon” you groan “but when-” before you can say anything else a knock comes from the front door. Lucien goes to open it and reveals Cassian waiting on the other side. “Sorry I’m late, the morning got away from me. If you’re ready we can leave now” he finishes looking at you. You get up and put the bag on “I’m ready”. 

“Ok so how does this work?” you ask Cassian. “Well I’ll carry you in my arms and then I’ll take off. It’s a little scary at first but I’m not gonna drop you. Promise” He flashes you a grin and you let out a shaky breath “Listen, I am terrified of heights so please, no sudden movements” he nods curtly and holds out his arms for you. You step closer and hear Lucien snicker at your visible discomfort. “Stop it, Lucien!” you whine as Cassian grabs you and you wrap your arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. “Ok, I’m ready” you scream as he takes off. “It’s ok, the take off is the bumpiest part” you try to speak but nothing comes out as you see how high you’ve gotten in a matter of seconds. You press your eyes shut, refusing to look down and try to steady your breath. I am at home watching tv. I just fell asleep. This is just a very long and convoluted lucid dream. “So tell me, how’s life with the band of exiles?” Cassian attempts to make conversation “Uhm… it’s fine, ah! They have been very nice and accommodating. Whoa!” you hold on even tighter as he dodges some rain. This is all the rain’s fault. Stupid rain. “Sorry and I’m sorry for offending you yesterday, it was not my intention” you gulp “it’s ok, I’ve been on edge recently, ha ha” you shut your eyes again “how much longer do we have left?” Cassian looks at you and you don’t see the pity in his eyes as he answers “about an hour” kill me now “oh god”. 

When Cassian finally puts you down you nearly collapse in relief. “Come on, the meeting is through here” you follow him inside the mountain building and try your best to keep up but his legs are probably twice as long as yours and you’re also still a bit dizzy from the flight. “We’re here!” he says as he walks into a dining room full of the prettiest people, or fae, you’ve ever seen. The male with night black hair and purple eyes says “yes the guest of honor, please sit” you nod and sit next to Cassian. The group all introduce themselves and then the female you now know as Feyre asks you “y/n please tell us, with as many details as you can recall, how you got here” and so you tell them. Trying your best to remember all of it. The rain, the wind, the rocks, the mushrooms. Rhysand then says “can you show me?” you look confused so he elaborates “I can access your mind and see everything you have seen, I would only be accessing that memory though” you nod “do i just sit here?” “Yes, it won’t hurt and it will only be a second” you look around and feel a gentle scrape within your mind and then you’re back in Scotland showing Rhysand what you saw. When he’s done you sag a bit, having to relive your last moments on Earth had been unsettling to say the least and watching yourself in a third person point of view made you want to scream at your past self to just stay on the path. I should’ve just kept walking. Rhysand showed Feyre and Amren and then Mor and then Azriel. “I’ll see what I have about portals, but I’ll warn you that I have never heard of traveling to a whole different realm. Other worlds, yes, maybe. A portal from point A to point B within the same world, of course. But this… this has bigger implications than anything I've seen before” Amren says matter of factly. Your eyes sting and your breathing becomes shallow. She can’t be right. “I’ll tell Nesta to get a group of priestesses to help research” Feyre says and then Cassian adds “I think we should add a patrol to the clearing, the weakened Spring Court borders and the portal business seems like a great opportunity in the wrong hands”. Rhysand and Feyre nod “I can send a few of my spies down there tomorrow” Azriel. “Y/n, you’re free to stay wherever you'd like. But we have a few rooms here if you want to help with the research. I’m sure Lucien, Jurian and Vassa have been very hospitable but they are pretty isolated and I’d feel better if you stayed here”. You try to take it all in but the despair… the sorrow is taking over you and you feel numb. They’re going to think I’m dead. A few tears fall and you nod, “I can stay, but I’d like to get some things I left at the house” . You were mainly thinking of the only change of clothes you had and saying goodbye to the exiles that had offered you shelter when you needed it the most. 

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

I have been reading your work for years now (living for the CYOA updates, truly), and I just need you to know what an impact your Lily has had on me.

I've noticed in multiple of your fics (Shelf-Awareness, CYOA, AOOUC, etc), Lily is this high-achieving person who reaches what "success" should be in her career, only to realize she's really unhappy with her work/life balance. And then she chooses something that is less conventionally seen as "successful", but it makes her happier and she has the time to devote to her passions & her family & friends (and she's still so good at her new path!). And it's so obviously the right choice for her and she's still the same wonderful and witty person (read it and weep, Kit) despite having chosen a different career path.

I just need to tell you how much comfort that has brought me. I, too, was a "high-achiever," but my high aspiring career goals didn't work out the way I thought they would, primarily because I realized I just don't value working all the time. But I've had the hardest time shaking that feeling that I'm a failure or that I'm 'not enough' because I'm not living up to some imaginary potential that I gave myself. But then I read your fic, and I feel better knowing that someone like your Lily could choose to walk away from her law career and still be this character that I absolutely adore; I actually get so proud of her for making that choice when you write her making it. I read your fic and love your Lily and feel proud of her choices and then lambast myself for making a similar choice??? That makes no sense! I'm being Kit, but TO MYSELF. Genuinely, the number of times I've been in a spiral and found comfort in the idea that your Lily is still valuable and good and brilliant after walking away from "The" career... innumerable.

So. Thank you for writing her. Truly, from the bottom of my heart. Her journey in CYOA in particular has meant so much to me.

Hey, this response is not going to be nearly as long as you deserve but I wanted to let you know that I read this ask right after I'd finished crying because I was feeling so ill and super anxious about it, and it was the nicest boost I could have asked for. I am so so so glad to have done you some small bit of good with my writing and I remain flabbergasted that it's something I'm even able to do. I genuinely think it's a real shame that we rarelyl see narratives in popular media around a character being brave enough to walk away from the thing they worked so hard for once they realise that it's not what they wanted it to be. I think we're sold the "work hard and achieve and your dreams will come true" dream too often, and that a lot of people feel trapped in gilded cages of their own making. Lily felt like the perfect character to explore that with, and the fact that it means something to you that I wrote it makes me feel happy and fulfilled beyond belief. So thank you for sending this to me, it means more to me than I can properly express, and I hope that you're having a truly wonderful week.

[gaysindistress]

Sad girl - seventeen

summary: James has an interesting new business proposal and one hell of a condition to deal with.

pairing: Mob!Bucky Barnes x Reader

warnings: cursing, Bucky’s smartass,, the feelings, talks of violence 

word count: 2.2k

part 16 | series masterlist

Taglist: @missvelvetsstuff @angelsincident @spencerreidisagorgman   @i-have-no-life-charlie @esposadomd @iateall-yourcookies  @littlelizardlizzie @alana4610 @kandis-mom @beware-my-thorns @ozwriterchick @goldensunflowe-r @reader-without-a-story @unaxv @wh0reforbucknasty @cjand10​  @vickie5446 @katymae12344 @openup-yourmind

disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on google/Pinterest

“Ok Steve I need you to either watch Bucky for me or go to the store,” her voice surprises the man as she basically corners him in the kitchen. 

“Can I say no?”

“Nope, so pick; Bucky or the store?”

Nat walks in to see the unhappy look on his face and a very adamant Doll, “Let me guess; she asked you to go shopping?”

“And I can’t say no.”

Cocking her head slightly with a raised eyebrow, “Better you than me.”

“Actually you both can go! That way nothing gets missed and it’ll be faster,” the excitement is only shared by her as she’s now roped in both Steve and Nat. 

  Nat lets out an annoyed groan as she approaches the two and snatches the list from the other woman, “Where do we need to go?” Smiling widely, she happily tells them that they need to go to Whole Foods and a fish market to get the ingredients for the dinner she has planned. The two look at each other with the same amount of annoyance but nod their heads in acknowledgment. 

“Thank you, thank you!” she exclaims, planting kisses on both of their cheeks before leaving them. 

“How much do you want to bet that this isn’t the last time we get sent on errands for her?”

“I don’t think she’s going to send us out again but she will definitely ask one of us to come with her,” Nat answers as they head out of the house. 

Upstairs Doll had started reading her book as Bucky was taking a shower. She had only agreed to let him take one alone if he kept the door open just in case anything happened and she needed to rush in. 

“If you want to join me, all you have to do is ask,” the teasing tone in his voice causes her to purse her lips. 

“No I just don’t trust how loopy you are on these pain meds,” she retorts back as she goes to read her book again. 

He only smirks at her as he disappears into the bathroom. When he returns, he ‘forgot’ to bring clothes, so he has to walk through the room with only a towel tied low on his waist. Her eyes briefly look up at him and she has to do a double take at the sight of water dripping down his chest and his short hair glistening. The sound of him clearing his throat breaks her trance and heat floods to her cheeks as she tries to shrink behind her book. 

“See something you like?” he chuckles at her reaction to him freshly out of the shower as he dips into the closet and remerges with black sweats that hang low on his hips and a shirt in his hands. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” comes from behind her book. 

“That’s why I asked,” he tugs on his shirt, wincing slightly at the movement. 

The wince has her dropping her book to make sure he’s okay. He is, of course, and goes back to being a teasing asshole as he wears a shit-eating grin. Her phone buzzes before she can send a smartass remark back. 

“Everything’s in the kitchen. Steve is demanding he gets a plate in exchange for running your errand,” is the text that Nat had sent her. 

The bed shifts as Bucky sits next to her legs. He takes the book and the phone from her hands so she has to answer him. This earns him a confused look which quickly fades to one of surprise as he sets the items down and pushes her legs apart to sit in between them. 

“Oh no, no, no. I know what you’re doing and it’s not happening until your arm is healed,” she tries to tell him as she gently pushes him away. 

“Doll, it's okay. My arm is fine. In fact, I think it would be good for me if we had sex.”

“In what world would having sex be good for the healing of an injury?”

“This world,” with his lips descending on her neck as he fully slots in between her legs, hips meeting hers, “If it makes you feel better, you can ride me.”

“Bucky,” she moans out as he nips at a sensitive spot, “I don’t want to hurt you. Please.”

His lips stop and he raises his head from her shoulder to look at her, “You won’t, Doll. It was just a graze. 

“It was embedded in your arm. You were in the ICU for a week,” she states plainly. 

“Same thing but I’ll respect your no,” he kisses her nose before getting off of her. 

She throws her head back against the headboard and lets out a loud sigh, “If you can make it through the whole day without wincing or being in pain, then we can.”

He grabs her hands to help her off the bed, “I’ll agree to that.”

She scrunches her nose at him and smiles before moving past him, “I’m going downstairs to start dinner. You can come to be my eye candy if you’d like.”

She doesn’t need a verbal response because his eager footsteps behind her tell her he’s more than happy to do so. 

The kitchen is filled with various aromas from her cooking and laughter from their conversation. True to her word, it’s not a date so she’s wearing cream rib-knit pants and his army sweatshirt. It killed her to not dress up for their first date but she promised him that it couldn’t count until they were out at a restaurant. 

“What exactly are you making?” 

“ Risotto with scallops.” 

“Seems a little fancy.” 

She stops stirring the risotto, “are you complaining?” 

“Me?” He puts his hand on his chest in a fake offense, “how could I complain when I have a beautiful woman making me a high-class dinner?” 

“It’s hardly high class.” 

He hops off the counter and grabs her by the hips from behind, “It’s better than what I would’ve made.” 

“And what would that have been?” 

“You’ll have to wait and see.” 

She turns around in his grasp and changes the subject, “How’s your arm?” 

Moving his arm around slightly he answers “Better, still a little sore.” 

Humming in response, she returns to her cooking, half expecting him to jump up on the counter again. Since the hospital, they’ve been more affectionate towards each other, a complete 180 from when they first met. It’s not a surprise when he doesn’t move and instead hugs her from behind to watch her cook. Sometimes their behavior ignores the fact that all of this was arranged and might lead one to think it was real. 

Regardless it’s becoming real to them as she starts asking him a series of random questions. She starts out with ‘what’s your favorite color’ and eventually lands with ‘what’s your sleeve about’ as they are still next to each other on the island, her perfectly cooked meal finished. 

“It started out as something for my mom and just turned into a sleeve,” he explains in between bites, “Doll this is really good. No wonder I married you.”

She clicks her tongue at his joke, “And here I thought it was my stunning good looks.”

“Would you ever get my portrait?”

The question pauses his eating and he takes a moment to think about her question. Would he add her to his sleeve? In theory yes because she is his wife and someone very important to him which is really the only prerequisite to making it on his arm. The real question is would she want him to?

“Is that something you’d want?”

“I think so,” her hand trails over his arm, and the various portraits inked into his arm, “you don’t have any room though so I guess not.”

“If that’s something you want, I’d find room.”

“Where?”

“On my chest.”

“Your chest?”

“That is what I just said,” he gives her a very blank look as he restates what he’d said. 

Dropping her hand, she huffs a little upset he’s so blunt, “I know what you said. It just surprised me.”

The upset is clear on her face and it breaks his heart. He can be a smooth talker when he needs to be; however, in moments like this, that ability slips away and he’s left fumbling over his words. 

“Doll, I didn't mean it like that. It just seemed so obvious to me because you mean so much that it only seems right to have you on my chest forever.”

“You’d want me over your heart?” her voice is small with insecurity that she hasn’t felt in years. 

“Of course, you are my heart,” he grips her hand in his and squeezes it. 

She lets out a small giggle when he launches himself at her to cover her in a flurry of kisses and ‘I love you. Just as she’s about to kiss him back, her phone pings next to her plate.  Picking it up with Bucky still covering her in little kisses, her face drops and pales when she reads the message. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks as he stops his attack and awaits her response. 

“It’s Walker. He sent me a number and said that if I want to talk to my mom, then I could call her.”

“Are you going to?”

“Well no shit,” she quickly clicks on the number, still holding Bucky’s hand, “Hello? Mom?”

“Hey baby,” her mom’s voice comes through the other end. 

“Oh my god, are you okay? Where are you? Are you safe?” the questions leave her mouth frantically as tears start to fall. 

“I’m okay, I’m safe. John is so sweet and kind, I really don’t understand why you broke up with him.”

“Mom, where are you? We’ll come to get you.”

“No no, don’t come to get me. I’m perfectly fine here. He’s helping me get clean so I can see you again.”

“You are not safe. We need to come to get you right now,” she tries to push her mom, “He’s going to hurt you if we don’t get you out now.”

Her mom stops her by harshly saying her name, “Stop. He’s not going to hurt me. I can leave whenever I want. God, you’ve spent too much time with your father, you’ve become bossy like him.”

She takes in a shaky breath at her mom’s words, “Excuse me? You abandoned me. I thought you were dead for ten years.”

“That’s his fault, not mine. I tried to come back but he wouldn’t let me.”

“I don’t believe you,” she scoffs. 

“Believe whatever you. You’re just like him. Goodbye.” 

The end tone rings throughout the kitchen as she starts to cry even harder. Bucky collects her into his chest as he’s done many times before. Whispering reassuring words in her hair and rubbing her back as she cries, Bucky decides that this is the last time that John Walker will hurt his girl again. 

His office had become a place of comfort and safety for him now that Doll had spent time there. The memories of her lounging on his leather couches, working on her computer as he did the same filled his mind. The calming memories were going to be much needed given the nature of this meeting. Steve and Sam are sitting in the chairs in front of his desk while he rubs his jaw at their proposal. 

“We could get Anthony involved but I don’t see that going well,” Sam says.

“He’s not going to do anything,” Steve adds, “If you really want to do this, then your best choice is just to take him out and be done. He’s not going to take well to light harassing or a few broken bones.”

The thought of killing John has crossed his mind several times but the cleaning and cover-up would be too much work. However, his increasing boldness is becoming an issue and killing him might come back on the table. 

“Can we get Marianne out without her getting hurt?”

“Only if you take out John first. He’s always within eyesight of her,” Sam’s answer is not one he wants to hear. 

“We can’t go in guns blazing,” Steve is interrupted by Bucky. 

“We lure him out.”

“How?”

“Promise him a meeting with the one person he wants. He won’t be able to say no.”

The two men’s eyes widened in shock at his suggestion. 

“You’re seriously suggesting that we use my wife as bait?”

“We use the idea of her as bait. She won’t be anywhere near when it goes down. Nat will stay with her to make sure she’s safe. Steve and I will meet with John and Sam will go in to get Marianne.”

Sam shakes his head in disbelief, “That’s the stupidest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Please,” Bucky leans back in his chair, arms resting on the chair’s arms, “Enlighten me if you have any better ideas.”

“We get Anthony involved like I said before. He sets up the meeting at his estate, it’ll seem less suspicious that way and we’ll have the help of Anthony’s men. Doll will stay here with Nat like you said while Steve and I go in after Marianne,” Sam explains. 

Bucky looks at Steve, “What do you think?”

“It could work.”

Bucky pulls out his phone as he nods in agreement, “Anthony I need a favor.”

[luveline]

jade roan being jealous of eddie cause reader is taking care of eddie on a sick day, i know youre working on halloween reqs but i just cant get this off my mind 😭😭 hope you do this after the celebration 💗

thank you for your request! roan being jealous / sad because you're being really sweet on her dad and leaving her out :( ♡ dad!eddie x fem!reader | 1.8k words

"Hello, Mr. Munson," you say quietly, unsurprised to find Eddie exactly where you'd left him. 

"Roan?" he asks hoarsely. 

You want to ask something sarcastic, like No, why? Have I shrunk? But he's really pitifully ill, so you answer his implied question without any wit. "She had to pee. I thought she was gonna wet herself in the car, she couldn't stop wiggling." 

"Told her she has to stop holding it, she'll," — Eddie coughs, a crunchy, awful sound — "hurt herself." 

"I know," you murmur, raking a limp curl away from his weathered face. You know pretty much everything there is to know about Roan at this point, and near enough the same about him.

You kiss his cheek and linger there. You love taking care of him because he's yours, but you miss your healthy, present Eddie too. Poor guy's been sick for almost a week now, and while Roan has helped out endlessly by being on her best behaviour, you need him to keep the ship afloat. Thankfully, he seems to be in the recovery process, and his fever's been gone for days. 

"You feeling any better?" 

"I feel awesome," he says, dropping a heavy arm around your back. 

You take his face into both hands. You'd worried he'd make you sick too at first but whatever it is he has he's yet to pass on. You figure if it was catching you would've felt it by now, and you can't say you care too much when you steal a kiss. He tries his very best to reciprocate, his exhale hot as it fans over your top lip. 

He peels his dry eyes open as you pull away, and you remind yourself to get him a hot towel or a tea tincture, something to ease the soreness. 

"You're on the up and up, handsome," you say. 

Eddie's never been sick like this while you've been together. Colds and the flu when you have a kid as young as Roan are a given; you've both fallen victim to her runny noses and sore throats a thousand times. They're easy enough to work through, especially when Eddie makes his lemon and honey tea. But this sickness, a virus, has had Eddie up against the wall. He's really worried you. 

He can see it on your face. 

"I'm actually feeling way better," he says, sounding extremely like himself despite the undertone of scratchiness to his voice. "Got a damn good nurse looking after me."

Roan's footsteps echo up the stairs. You don't turn to look at her as she enters the bedroom, hand stroking sweet, shaky lines down his stubbly cheeks. 

"Hey, Roanie," he says, shifting so he can see her from behind you. "D'you have a good day at school? Come and tell us." 

"Daddy!" she cheers, climbing up onto the bed and walking across it. Eddie pulls her skirt out of her tights where she's accidentally tucked it in, almost losing an arm as she collapses into his side. 

"Roan," you chide gently, "be nice, baby, your dad's still fragile." 

Eddie wraps his arm around, sending you a very grateful look as he says, "It's okay, I didn't like that arm very much anyway. Now c'mon, I wanna hear all about it. Did Stacy K remember her show and tell?" 

Roan starts to recount the day's events, little legs tucked under her knees and the top of her body draped over Eddie's chest. You keep a selfish hand on the very edge of his face, thumb petting his cheek. After a short few minutes his eyes start to droop. He tightens his arm around Roan and rubs her back, her soft cardigan bunching up under his hand. 

"Baby, I'm still feeling icky, okay? Maybe you can tell me the rest later?" he mumbles, hand slowing.

"You can tell me double," you offer distractedly, frowning at Eddie's unhappy face. He doesn't look peaceful anymore, he looks tired. Ragged. 

"Okay," Roan says, kissing Eddie's cheek three times in a row. You can't tell if she's upset by his lack of attention. She doesn't look upset, but she can be surprisingly deceptive. 

She slides off of the bed. Her steps stop at the door. "Mom?" she asks. 

You beam at Eddie's dozing face and give his slack cheek another quick kiss. 

"What?" you ask Roan, turning away from her dad with a smile. Everytime she calls you 'mom' it makes your day, and today is no exception.

"Can we have spaghetti shapes?" 

You squeeze Eddie's arm before you stand and meet her in the doorway, looking down at her mini features with a fond smile. "Yeah, we can have spaghetti shapes. They had princess one's in Bradley's," you say, suddenly excited as you remember. 

"Really?" 

"Mm. But there's spongebob if you want those ones instead." 

Roan takes your hand and starts to pull you toward the steps. "Princess ones, duh! Please." 

You watch Eddie's face until you can't, following Roan down the stairs and into the kitchen. 

You love how it's started to look as much like her and Eddie's kitchen than just your own. Her drawings and certificates litter the fridge, a family portrait pride of place and secured with upwards of five magnets so it doesn't fall off. There's sugary cereal across the top of the bread cabinet and a safety catch on the drawer with all the batteries. Cartoon characters are everywhere — on plates, spoons, Roan's placemat, and the spaghetti shapes themselves. You crack open a can and place a pan over the burner. 

"What do you want with them, princess? A dinner roll?" 

She wraps herself around your legs. "Two dinner rolls."

"Yeah? You must be hungry from all the running around this morning." 

When you'd dropped her off, her and her friend Jordan had decided they needed to run a race around the playground. You'd cheered from the sidelines.

"Can you pick me up?" she whines. 

You drop the wooden spoon you'd been stirring her spaghetti with into the pan and look down at her pleading pout. "Aw, yeah, I'm sorry." 

You pick her up and find her head quickly buried in your neck. She's almost as warm as the stovetop. You work your hand against her head and feel her temperature, concerned for a moment.

"I thought maybe you were sick like daddy, then, but you feel okay," you say softly, stroking curls back from her face. She's started hiding behind her hair like her dad more often. "Come out, I wanna see your lovely face." 

Roan lifts her chin. 

"That's what your dad said to me when we met. I'd never heard that word before I met you," you tell her. 

"What word?" 

"'Lovely,'" you say. 

She smiles with you for a couple of seconds but then it falters, and she looks at your necklace instead. A gift from her and her dad for mother's day. You'd cried for hours. 

"What's the matter?" you ask, eyebrows pinching together. 

"Nothing." 

You readjust your grip on her hips and lean back against the counter to stop from dropping her. She's getting heavier every single day. 

"Are you sure? You can tell me." 

Roan shrugs. It's adorable, though her next words are heartbreaking. "I don't know," she admits. 

"Are you feeling sick?" 

She shakes her head but won't look at you. You hold onto her tight and wait for her to continue, if she's even going to, the clock on the wall ticking in the quiet, the smell of spaghetti sauce sticky in your nose. 

"Are you sad about something? Did you… have an accident?" 

She shakes her head again. "No, I didn't. It's 'coz… I feel bad." 

"But not sick?"

"Not sick." 

"Oh no," you murmur, biting the inside of your bottom lip as her small face crumples. "Please tell me, Ro. I don't mind what it is, I promise." 

"I feel bad," she says again. "I miss dad." 

You feel your eyebrows jump. It makes sense for her to miss him, he's hardly awake when she's been home and they haven't had much time together all week. It's a sudden change. You feel very guilty very quickly for not realising it. 

"I'm sorry," you tell her genuinely. 

"I miss you, too. We don't have our hug after school now." 

Your guilt amplifies by a thousand. You haven't been spending that time with her after school, too busy checking on your bed bound partner. 

"Aw, Roan, I'm sorry, I've just been so worried about daddy, I didn't mean to forget." 

"You've been giving daddy hugs," she says insistently. 

You lean back further to take in her face. Her cheeks are red with blush, whether that be blood rush from embarrassment or injustice, you're unsure. She's frowning at your chin, eyes flicking up to meet yours. When she realises you're watching her she looks away and starts wiggling to be put down again. 

"Roan, it's okay," you start, arms crossing over her back. You angle your face to get her attention, holding her gaze. Pretty brown eyes edged in dark, long eyelashes like her dad's. "It's okay, bub. Don't wriggle, I wanna talk to you. Can I talk to you?" 

She pouts some more. You pout back, bringing a hand up to the back of her head. 

"I'm sorry I haven't been giving you as much attention as you dad this week," you say. You want to explain how hard it's been to handle everything by yourself, but you don't think it's the kind of thing she should ever have to worry about. "I'm really sorry, Roan, daddy's been so sick that I've been thinking about him all the time when I needed to be thinking about you too. I didn't mean to make you feel bad." Feel bad, feel jealous, feel upset by your redirected affection. "I love you so much. I didn't mean to forget our hugs, but it's okay if you're mad." 

Her spirits are lifted pretty swiftly after that. "We can hug again when daddy's not sick?" she asks. 

"We can hug right now!" you say urgently, carding your hand through her hair.

"On the couch?"

"Yeah, princess, on the couch. You can even eat your dinner on it if you promise not to tell dad." 

"You'll eat dinner with me?" she asks, suspicious. 

No tricks. "I promise." 

She smiles, a mirror image of her dad and all his mischief and her relief clear. "Okay, good, because I missed you and Teddy missed you and I didn't getta tell you about the rabbit we saw at school today. It was this big and it had pink eyes." 

-

You smile at her, a mixture of love and guilt. You're lucky to have a daughter like her, forgiving and patient, and you're lucky her dad did such an amazing job at making her that way. Rest assured, you won't forget your after school hugs again, even if Eddie's two bad coughs from the ER.

He appears an hour later to find you snuggled up on the couch, jealous and petty about it as he slots himself between you both. You and Roan hold hands over his chest. Munson cuddle piles are the best.

more eddie and roan

[drdemonprince]

hi! so a couple months ago, my workplace (a public library) had an outside organization come in to give staff a training on neurodiversity. at the end of the training, the presenter mentioned that her organization does ABA. looking into this place online, it seems like they have a lot of unhappy clients, including some who say their kids have been abused there. i want to make a stink about this, but i’m worried about being shot down or facing retaliation, especially because i’m fairly new to this job. do you have any advice on how to handle this conversation in a work environment? thank you!!

UGh that is so horrible, I'm sorry you had to deal with that anon. I think you can make a stink about it, but be clear first about what your ask even is. Do you want your department to send out information correcting the misinformation about ABA? Recommending an alternative resource for employees to opt into checking out? Do you want your organization to hire a completely new speaker to do damage control (email me if you want)? Do you just want them to know that this organization is bunk and get them put on some kind of list so that they will never be hired again?

Next, who else can you include in advocating for your desired outcome? Is there a neurodivergent employee group? A union? A general purpose company DEI group? Do you have neurodivergent coworkers or ones you know to have similar political alignments to yours? Talk with them and strategize and see if you can get more people on board and willing to sign a letter or attend a meeting about this.

The last bit of prep work you'll want to do is gather resources that explain why the Autistic community does not support ABA. ASAN is a good place to start, as is Stop the Shock, and you can also mine the citations in my book on the subject for a few sources to link to. You want to be able to present these to leadership while you make your requests, knowing they probably will not read it -- but if they see there's a large volume of information backing you up, and a whole social movement behind it, and multiple angry employees, they are more likely to do something.

Finally, watch your back and have a realistic gauge of the place where you work. Is dissent punished? Will you be mocked or treated like you're the problem for raising this? Do you have a fluffy feel good liberal org that could successfully be guilted into a symbolic gesture in the direction of the right thing? What is this worth to you, and what leverage do you have without having to worry about losing your job? Sometimes neurodivergent people do get fired for speaking up. Hell, sometimes they get fired despite being the heads of their company's diversity ERG. So please, please be careful. You cannot ever trust your boss to do the right thing or care about you, and you cant trust HR either. This is why having the support of multiple employees is crucial. If you work in a library I'd say the odds are better than usual of being heard out, and your resources actually being read by some employees...but tread carefully regardless!

[fabaceous]

Is there ever a hypothetical world where Jackie and Shauna’s situation is reversed (as in Shauna dies and Jackie makes it home)? And if so, how do you think Jackie would react and deal with it?

this is ANOTHER of my favorite cans of worms to open lately so THANK YOU for giving me an opportunity to talk about it!!

i was thinking about this mostly because i was thinking about how shauna's hallucinations of jackie provide us with such valuable information about shauna's thoughts/feelings/desires, how she thinks of jackie, how she thinks of herself (via jackie). hallucighost jackie i think sort of has two sides that are intertwined but serve different purposes - there's one side that's more straightforward and even sweet: it shows how shauna, in her grief and pain, wants to remember jackie (the fun, lighthearted moments; braiding her hair, joking about randy). the other side is more dark but gives us just as much if not more insight into shauna: she uses jackie as a mouthpiece for her own bad thoughts about herself. hallucighost jackie is the whip that shauna self-flagellates with. and she punishes herself, but she's also sort of repressing the fact that she even feels guilty (which maybe is why she needs jackie's "ghost" to guilt her, because she can't admit to herself that she feels guilty). and it all must hurt even more coming out of jackie's mouth - which, if you think about it, is probably why she does it (better fuel for her guilt complex).

ANYWAY, i digress (sort of). my point is, i've always wondered what we could learn from jackie hallucinating shauna. how would jackie want to remember shauna, but at the same time, how might the memory of shauna torture jackie?

if we do a simple swap and have shauna leave the cabin when jackie tells her to during their fight and then shauna freezes, that's one option. we get jackie feeling both immensely hurt by shauna's nearly inconceivable betrayal but, at the same time, feeling guilty for sending her out there. this could lead to some interesting hallucinated convos and, personally, i 100% think it could also lead to jackie doing shauna's makeup in the meat shed lmao. (and thats how you know they're made for each other!)

BUT ALSO. shauna's betrayal (i mean, combined with jackie losing her social status in the wilderness and having the other girls turn on her ofc) made jackie so depressed that she was unable to eat, and shauna dying on top of that would have the potential to completely destroy jackie's will to survive. it would be a big ask, at that point, to get jackie through to rescue. id say its pretty likely she dies of a broken heart, so to speak. like, just loses all her remaining will to live (because her will to live was literally hanging on by a thread and that thread was shauna). the only way i can imagine her surviving long enough to go home is if she has a complete and total break from reality and like, just sort of dissociates from the entire year-plus that follows. i think (? let me know if you agree bc this actually just came to me while writing this and im not sure if it holds up) that if the writers really sold it right, they could convince me that jackie basically goes catatonic and retreats into some fantasy world (one where shauna is around, of course!) for the rest of their time in the wilderness. not exactly the way shauna talked to jackie in the meat shed, because shauna knew she was hallucinating and was more or less able to walk away when she had other obligations. i think jackie would actually legitimately just lose her grip on reality, and succumbing to this would be the only way for her to survive. kind of like the bacchanal but about, like, everything.

the other scenario that occurred to me (and it's a pretty awful way for shauna to die and makes me really unhappy btw, so, sorry in advance) is what if shauna's abortion attempt had gone really, really wrong and she had gotten an infection and died from that? obviously jackie has no clue at this point about jeff/pregnancy/rutgers/etc so its pure unadulterated heartbreak. taissa could play a really interesting role in this situation as the only other person who knows this huge, earthshattering secret. would she keep it from jackie? i think that would be the prudent thing to do. losing shauna would already be almost too much for jackie to take, but she could maybe survive that by designating herself as the keeper of shauna's memory and she could probably convince herself she owes it to shauna to stay alive because if jackie dies then shauna is gone for good. but, as we've seen in canon, finding out that shauna betrayed her sends jackie into a really dark place where she doesnt have much will to live. i think she could plausibly survive with her sanity intact if one or the other happens (shauna betrays her OR shauna dies) but, as i discussed above, experiencing both would either break her sanity or effectively kill her.

and i suspect taissa is smart enough to realize this too, so if she wants to keep jackie alive she'll withhold this information (hide/burn the journals?) and let jackie cling to whatever romanticized image of shauna she comes up with. once they get back to the real world, who knows? taissa might tell her because she feels like jackie deserves the truth, jackie might read shauna's journals from before the crash in an attempt to feel close to her again and find out that way, or even jeff might tell her (worst case scenario IMO)... and im honestly not sure what jackie would do at that point, like, murder jeff maybe? (im joking but i actually am not sure how that whole situation would play out. maybe depression 2.0 but in the real world, but that's not as fun as murder.)

i haven't even said what i think jackie would hallucinate, so lets end with that. for shauna, it's primarily about self-flagellation and self-punishment, although it has some ability to soothe her as well, like when she imagines having fun with jackie.

for jackie i think its actually fairly simple: its obvious to all of us that what jackie wants most is shauna's authentic and full love, and my personal theory is that the main (and maybe even sole!) function of jackie's hallucinations would be escapism and wish-fulfillment, and imagining that shauna really did love her.

jackie doesn't have a self-destruction/guilt complex like shauna does. jackie, i think, would be able to just feel guilt in a more straightforward way. as well as anger! so in the scenario where shauna freezes after their fight, jackie would certainly be feeling a lot of guilt, but she doesn't need or want shauna to remind her, she could just apologize. and she's feeling a lot of anger, but she'd be able to say it to shauna's (hallucinated) face instead of putting it through some twisted alchemical process that turns it into something else. like, i think she actually does have a chance of getting closure in a way that shauna doesn't because shauna would never let herself get closure because then she'd have nothing left to fuel her guilt/self-destruction complex.

i think jackie would want closure for her immediate anger and guilt about shauna's death, and because she wants it, she'd be capable of getting it. but after that's dealt with (assuming she survives long enough to deal with it), or in a scenario where jackie doesn't know about shauna's betrayal/isn't responsible for her death, i really think (and i just made myself sooo miserable realizing this btw so you're welcome. or i'm sorry) that the thing that would cause jackie eternal and relentless pain for the rest of her life would be the immense regret and the feeling that she didn't love shauna enough, or didn't love her right. and her hallucinations of shauna would, by and large, simply be an outpouring of all the love she didn't get to show her in life (and imagining the reciprocation of that love that she always wished shauna would give her).

[asmilethatshines]

You can enjoy whatever you want. I’m not saying you can’t like your fantasies or traditional dynamics but referring to one party as the female and one as the male in a relationship where both parties are male feels weird. It’s like straightwashing a gay relationship.

Regarding to my latest post I have received several mixed feedbacks, which I think are from 2 people only.

1/ To the second anon: I have a vague guess who you are and honestly I think all asks sent to me from the day I joined Tumblr have been always from you and I FUCKING LOVE YOU GIRL!!!! I made sure to answer all of your asks with care and effort!!! (all my drawings aren't just 5 min doodles. They took time)

2/ To the first anon: first thank you for reaching out to me not only once, but twice! Now I can safely say that there are at least 2 people actually reading my ghost blog (and it's kinda flattering to know!!!) however after your second reasoning I start to think there is a misunderstanding here!

Looks like anon is unhappy with my wording. I quoted my words ok: "I dead set Mello as the male in Meronia relationship so I've never imagined him as a female". And anon's words: "Referring to one party as the female and one as the male in a relationship where both parties are male feels weird. It’s like straightwashing a gay relationship".

Did I ever refer in my post that Near is the female in a gay relationship? It's simply your quick assumption. Fyi I ship Male!Mello with Male!Near, fem!Near, asexual!Near, non-binary!Near, trans!Near and I can even send you a list of fanfics/fanarts recommendation why I like these relationships and how they fit Near. The reason why Mello always stays as male in my mind is because social media fails to give me a good example on how Mello could be a female. I need to visualize everything before I like it yk. And there's no good enough fanarts of fem!Mello for me to picture her (as you can see I failed at delivering her drawing, most of her face was covered). On the other hand, lately there have been a few good fics about fem!Near plus I was sent a lot of amazing fem!Near fanarts so it's easier for me to draw her as I already have an example how she is. With fem!Matt, I took my own personal image to draw her because I find myself and her have a lot in common! All of these I stated clearly in my posts and I simply drew their appearances (I didn't discuss their roles in the relationship. And I know the correct terms in a gay relationship are "the top" and "the bottom", not "the male" and "the female" - and I used my words correctly). If you want to press more about their gay roles then my answer is that I have no problem with shipping Mello as "the top" or "the bottom" or a mix, as long as the writing is good.

Let's take more examples so we have a clearer look about this: I have 2 other ships Axel x Roxas (from Kingdom Hearts II) and USxUK (from Hetalia).

With Axel x Roxas: I dead-set both of them as males ok. Because again there are no fanfics and fanarts about their female versions that are up to my expectation (so the most I can do is draw them in crossdressing, not even a vague female image as Mello)

With USxUK: it's the opposite, both of them have a wide range of amazing female fanarts and fanfics so I have no problem picturing them as females in my head (and can draw them out easily)

So I am afraid there is no "straightwashing a gay relationship" here *shrugs* it's all about personal preferences and experiences with social media's materials!

I hope this makes sense and I don't wish to continue this further. It's getting too long and there is no point in replying back and forth between only 2 parties. Without any further outside opinion this is highly subjective imo!

[bohemian-nights]

It will forever irk me how some people blame Laena for Daemon’s “unhappiness” in Pentos. Let’s be for real here, it was COMPLETELY his fault why they were still in Pentos. I doubt Laena would have denied Daemon the idea of returning to Westeros; she was the one who wanted to go back to driftmark in the first place. Any unhappiness Daemon had was his own fault and no one but him can be blamed (maybe viserys too but that’s another thing). Everyone who is like “poor baby, he was just longing for Rhaenyra…” blah, blah, blah - just makes me sooo heated!! Laena was right there, they need to stop acting as if she was just this means to an end. I know she’s a fictional character but it still angers me to see how minimalized she is by the fandom (especially when they race-bent her and changed the important relationships in her life - that’s one of the reasons why I say that the book is the only canon canon universe, not the show). The racism this fandom has is so crystal clear, but then everyone is all “stop making it about race”, like that’s exactly what you are doing 😭 why can’t I be upset about it?? I doubt anyone would act the way they do if Laena was white and it hurts to even admit that!

No one should sympathize with daemon in ep6, he was being a shitty person and incredibly selfish, in my opinion. (I know you love him and I’m sorry to bash him, but I know you also see his faults unlike a lot of other Daemon stans, so I hope you can understand me on this). Laena was more patient and forgiving than she should have been, I would’ve liked her to call him out instead of whatever bullshit the writers decided on. Laena was not a shy or docile person, she was brave and fierce, that’s literally canon, and the writers shouldn’t have excluded that.

And don’t even get me started on how icky this deleted script makes me feel: https://www.tumblr.com/darksvster/744315340102762496/excerpts-from-the-house-of-the-dragon . “I loved him well.” But then when Rhaenyra asks Daemon if he loved Laena, THE NIGHT OF HER FUNERAL, he says “we were happy enough.” Shut the fuck up, Daemon! 🙄

I don’t personally think Laena and Daemon’s entire marriage (in the show) was an unhappy one, but it was in such poor taste that they made their scenes the way they did in show ‘canon.’ Laena did not deserve to be shown as unhappy, certainly not right before she died. I’ll never stop saying that she deserved better because she really really did. And that’s another reason why I’m writing my fix-it fanfic for her. I just want her to be happy in the end 🫠

Thank you for reading this incredibly messy rant. I hope you don’t hate me for this lmao.

That’s nothing, but cope cause these walking napkins once again forgot about chokegate.

By their own logic Daemon must have been on the verge of jumping off a cliff with Rhaenyra cause no matter how miserable he was with Laena he never laid a hand on her or abandoned her when she was giving birth to their children🙃

He’s literally always 0.2 seconds from sending Missy Anne to join Gollum. If he truly was longing for her like that he wouldn’t even think of laying a hand on her.

Lol, jokes aside, no way he was completely miserable with Laena and she definitely didn’t make him miserable. If anything she calmed his psycho ass down. The man wasn’t miserable because of her(he was just missing the walking corpse he called a brother). That was the most stable time in his life. Which isn’t saying much, but it is what is even if they don’t want to admit that.

You know what he would’ve done if he was actually miserable, wanted Missy Anne, or wanted out of his marriage? He would’ve broken out the good old divorce rock🪨

We are talking about a man who does what he wants with no impunity. He has no qualms about killing family or abusing/murdering his wives.

He could’ve easily killed Laena(especially while she was in labor), but he didn’t do that. He wanted to be with Laena(which is why he married her even though Miss Maegor was begging him to choose her back in episode 5). For all intents and purposes he was content with the means to an end.

Yeah they are all fictional, but these are people are blending real life with fiction cause it’s clear that the main reason why they keep saying this crap is because Laena was made Blackish. These Karen’s refuse to relate to Black(ish) woman on any level so they now are hyping up their titanic ship because Missy Anne is white and blonde.

Real talk, I don’t even think most of them actually care about Missy Anne as a character. She’s just a mascot cause they want to ride Daemon’s dick(no judgements cause Miss Maegor is lame, and Daemon is hot, but they need to be honest about it. I’d never ship something where my fave is being beaten upside her head by her man).

Now Daemon and Laena’s marriage was far far far from perfect in the show. He was not the best husband to her. She definitely deserved better than what he gave her, but they really are trying it when he keeps going Ike Turner on their self insert.

Yes, Laena dies and she’s a minor character, but she does have an impact on the story and on Daemon’s arc. They won’t admit that though because they actively trying to limit her impact.

(See how they keep trying to associate her girls with Daemon as Miss Maegor’s daughters cause the queen of flops gave birth to a lizard instead of a daughter “who looks like” Daemon to replace the half-breeds).

And even though they took away her fire in the show and made her into some poor helpless unloved woman(aka a stereotype), she still made an impact because if she was truly a bump in the road they would’ve stopped talking about her as soon as she offed herself.

The bar is in hell yes, but they need to recognize where they stand.

Honestly this whole discourse is once again pathetic and riddled with Casper the unfriendly ghost sociopaths being butthurt that their ship is pathetic.

They have to use headcanons to prop it up cause the books make it clear Laena was Daemon’s most beloved wife and Valyrian Karen was abandoned for Nettles(let’s not get into that cause she sends the methheads into a rage) while the show has him beating their self insert black and blue.

No one is trying to make this about race, but when you have people calling fictional characters the n-word, comparing them to monkeys, saying it’s okay to cut a Black character because there are too many Black people on the show, saying that it’s a shame Daemon doesn’t have any daughters he can relate to cause the ones he has aren’t white, and saying that it’s a determintal character trait to have Daemon sleep with Black women, well how else are we supposed to view it?

This doesn’t even cover half the demented crap they’ve said and we aren’t even getting into how they start gang stalking you, and trying to gaslight you into believing their lies, when you call them out on the bullshit.

Someone who isn’t racist would say those things. You can dislike a character or characters, but when you base your hate on racism, well congratulations! You’re a racist!

It’s so frustrating dealing with this fandom because any time you point out the obvious misogynoir you become the bad guy, the hater, the bitch, whatever. People only like you when you don’t rock the boat(aka don’t say anything about this because you’re bringing down the vibes), but how are you supposed to turn the other cheek when you see that?

The moment Laena became Black she became worthless to this fandom and the showrunners, to the point where they are only comfortable with her fitting into a stereotype.

Well now we are both ranting so I think we are even 🤣 I do love Daemon, but I love to drag him when he does wrong(I love my girls more than him so he’s in the doghouse. Book!Daemon would be ashamed of show!Daemon). Thank God fanfiction exists(and the books). Can’t wait to read yours. I’ll be updating mines this weekend)🙌🏽

[wetcatspellcaster]

Hi. So sorry if this is weird but.

Can I just say I’m so proud of you for going out of your comfort zone and writing an explicit sex scene?? An amazing sex scene I might add. So character driven. So packed with Meaning. So hot. It’s what they deserve. Also Rosalie’s use of a pet name did not go unnoticed and was even more touching than I thought it would be. This all feels like a part of a very satisfying resolution of all the Horrors they’ve been through.

Again so sorry if this is weird. And thank you 🖤

oh, it's not weird, anon! it feels a bit strange to receive a handshake for writing sex on the sex-writing website, when other people are doing it so much better than me, but it's not weird to send this to me... it's nice!

so, thank you! I was very nervous and sort-of out of my comfort zone lmao, but not for the reasons you think! while i definitely have Irrational Feelings about the flaws in my own writing and lack of smut being one of them, and also opinions on how my writing style doesn't really fit super well with that mode the way others' does, I mostly just felt nervous bc... it was sex, but it's not smut. I say at the beginning of the chapter, it's not smut! if it was smut, I'd have changed the rating to E! If it was smut, the orgasms would be better! I know that much, at least!!

I've answered your ask first bc you called it a sex scene, and that's exactly what it was intended as! It was a scene I decided I wanted to include lmao. I could've faded to black at any moment - in the first draft, it faded after Rosalie admitted to what she was into: it was designed to be a parallel when the Ascendent tries to cater to a praise kink in Chapter 7 and she immediately shoots it down, because she knows it's got nothing to do with making her feel good and everything to do with shaming her and putting her into a script.

but alongside writing this fic, I have had a lot of thoughts about the decision Larian made to fade to black in the Spawn!Ending and not in Ascendent. I completely get their logic, and I even like it as an artistic decision, but it does mean there's this weird equation between 'sexy -> evil', when in fact... you are allowed to desire your partner, and your vampire boyfriend. the more I thought about it, the more I realised that there is this weird dynamic in Pieces where Rosalie often represses the hell out of herself and then the plot makes that into a good decision. And basically... no. that's not right! She's incredibly lonely, and unhappy, and she's also not allowed to admit what she likes or what she wants or what she's into bc it's not a safe place in which to do that. That's all that's going on there! once the situation is right, she's allowed to want things!

So in the end I decided fade to black wasn't the right call. The things that happen in Chapter 26 all reference back to when Rosalie was consensually with the Ascendent, and anything that was non-consensual is quickly changed. Then the Second Chance got me, and it became awkward. I thought of all the ways an Ascendent smut scene would probably be incredibly fucking hot and near perfect but also feel um... not to pun... soulless, and so what ended up happening is that we got something that isn't well-choreographed and has these moments where both of them are haunted by what has come before, but it's selling point is that it feels genuine.

maybe I'll write actual smut one day, but this was honestly just a scene I felt the plot needed! and i'm really happy you enjoyed it and that it felt character driven and that you found it sexy. I found it sexy. it is what they deserve.

[gracieart]

Ugh please don’t draw Elucien! She feels uncomfortable around him and shrinks in on herself in his presence. I love your art sm and it makes me very sad that you would support a week that celebrates forcing a woman to be with a man she is uncomfortable with 😭

Hello anon. I’ve looked at this ask so many times, attempting to come up with a good way to answer you. But… I just don’t have anything I could say to make you happy. And honestly that’s not my job. It is not my responsibility, or anyone else's to make you happy.

I was debating not even answering this ask at all, but there are some things that need to be said here. Quite a bit actually, because I am a human being with a lot of feelings.

First off, I know that in your mind this is coming from a place of “I love your art sm” but when you frame that around your dislike for something I expressed my enjoyment of, it loses all its meaning. Seriously. It took me like four rereads of this ask to even realize you said you like my art. Thank you, by the way.

What I’m curious about is what you hoped to accomplish by sending me this. Did you think I would suddenly change my mind and not draw something I just said I was excited about drawing? Imagine:

“I kinda like this idea. I’m going to take time out of my day to create something for it because I enjoy it!”

“No don’t do that.”

“Oh you’re right. Okay I won’t create something I like. Thanks for telling me what to do, I didn’t know otherwise.”

…you can see how that doesn’t make sense right?

I think what a lot of people don't understand, especially people who haven't attempted to share something they create before, is that us artists do not owe you anything. We are not mindless machines that create whatever you want whenever you want. I create what makes me happy. I create because I feel inspired. I do not create because you tell me to. I find enjoyment in creating art and I find enjoyment in sharing it with you guys. (Although recently, not so much anymore.)

My point that I want you to take away here is this: coming up to someone and hating on something they just showed an interest in is very rude. You keep that to yourself. That's just basic human decency. Like, if someone is happy, why go out of your way to make them unhappy? In reality if you saw someone who is very happy eating their chocolate ice cream, would you go up to them and throw their ice cream on the ground, just because you personally don't like chocolate flavored ice cream? It's as simple as that and yet I will never understand why people fail to recognize this.

Now, about the actual ship. I want to keep this brief because I despise with a burning passion anything "ship war" related. I hate that term.

I have read the books, same as you. And I know all about Elain losing all her newfound boldness and all that jazz. I am well aware of everything between them, so there's no need to remind me. But what you seem to think here is that I ship her because she shrinks away from him. That is not true. I do not like them because it promotes forcing a woman to be with a man that makes her uncomfortable. No Elucien I have ever met ships them because of this. I like the idea of them because of what they could be. I like their characters and I genuinely think they would work well together, even if it is just as friends. So in the fandom here, yes, I ship them too. But in terms of canon, I believe Elriel is most likely to happen. So you don't need to worry about "losing" an Elriel or anything like that. I can enjoy both. Actually its very pleasant. Double the love, double the fanfics and fanart! You can enjoy multiple things without "compromising" your true beliefs. There's a difference between having a personal preference and having an idea of what will happen in canon. And seriously, multishipping is so fun. You should try it some time!!

Now I want to close this off by making this clear. I was once in your place. I was so closed off from anyone and anything that opposed my own ideas. There was... a lot of hatred. But let me tell you, letting hatred go is so freeing. I have met the kindest and most loving people by stepping out of the little bubble I created for myself.

So to me, there is no "ship war." There are no sides. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy things. There is no battle that is going to be won with theories and headcannons and throwing insults at people who believe different things.

I am here in this fandom because I enjoy being here. But for some reason, people like to tell you what you can and can't enjoy. Crazy, right?

(This was kind of a lot, I apologize. Anon, I am not coming after you personally for sending me this. Your ask just provided the perfect vessel for me to express my feelings on the matter.)