#a Craigslist ad for a roommate. Stranger danger and all that...

[iero]

Every time I mention living alone to my mom, my mom always has to talk about how much she hates that I live alone and always extends an invitation to let me move in with her and her boyfriend and six months ago and before, it was a very hard no and now I'm like... Now I'm considering it to be honest.

Living alone, the number one most negative thing about it is that you’re left to simmer in your own thoughts because it’s just you there and if you’re a Master Overthinker, someone who just gets stressed super easy or you just suffer from classic mental illness? It’s not ideal.

[seochangbean]

SAGE HANEUL LEHN   ★ 07.10.99 ★ "SAGE”

Barista, Student, Dancer, Self-Employed (Detailed Below) 

personality ― ★ )  esfj / chaotic good / type 3 (the achiever) / image-conscious / adaptable / driven /  energetic / ambitious / poised / charitable / exhibitionist / jealous / reckless / devious / loyal / sensitive / clingy / sociable / impulsive / too needy / too selfless / loving / materialistic 

likes ― ★ ) hot chocolate / disney movies / pillow forts / praise / validation / public displays of affection / cuddling / mint chocolate chip ice cream / vanilla lattes / cloud watching / dancing / whiskey / small diners / sweet foods / dungeons and dragons / video games / people watching / candles / rain showers / playing in puddles / good sex / cute boys / poetry / reading / flirting / conspiracy theories / being wanted + needed 

dislikes ― ★ ) seafood / his parents / needles / the dark / getting scared / horror movies / liars / bad tinder dates / being late / heights / roller coasters / homophobics / being judged / being criticized / arguments / sudden loud noises / facial hair / trivia (he’s terrible at it) / swimming (he never learned how) 

appearance whatnot ― ★ ) 5′7 / naturally black hair dyed blonde / green or grey circle lenses / button ups with skinny jeans / chunky sweaters / pastels / combat boots / perfectly styled hair 

quirks & habits ― ★ ) changes his hair whenever he gets bored / interjects into stories to offer up facts he knows / uses pet names / talks to himself when nervous / nervous laughs / plays with his hair / plays with other people’s hair / talks loud / overall loud af / swears when it is the least appropriate time 

aesthetics ― ★ )  late night strolls / hot chocolate by a warm fire / pillow forts / staying up late and exchanging secrets / soft pillows / vanilla scents / bubble baths / lofi music / messy hair / small tattoos / cozy apartments / glittering lights / dyed hair / ripped jeans / stolen glances / pencil drumming / handwritten love letters / cherry lollipops / 

background ― ★ )  

tw: mentions of homophobia, camming 

Sage Lehn is the son of two wealthy Korean Immigrants. His father is a well known plastic surgeon with a practice in Boston (he would commute from Salem), while his wife owns a popular restaurant with her hands in pretty much every committee a person could get involved in - from the HOA to the PTA. They had four children that they held to high standards. The four Lehn children were sent to language school every Sunday, and were subjected to a variety of lessons in music, dance, manners, and other assorted behaviors that the Lehns thought would be beneficial to their children. 

The Lehn’s goals for their children was simple. Get good grades, become a doctor, a lawyer, or a politician. They weren’t really asking for much, in their opinion. They were the kinds of parents that loved bragging about how well their children were doing at parties and proving that their children were the best. 

Sage was sent to the best schools money could buy. He went to private school in Boston, and from an early age developed a sense of independence because he was responsible for getting himself on the train and to and from school because his parents didn’t have time to take him themselves. He was usually accompanied by one of his siblings, of course, but the train was still a dangerous place for a kid. 

At age thirteen, he started to realize how different he was from his siblings. While all of his siblings had been in relationships at that point, he had not. He was coming to terms with the fact that, rather then wanting to date girls like his brothers, his eyes had always been on boys. Namely, his best friend’s much older brother. His heart would always beat faster when he was in the room, he couldn’t help it. 

He tried confiding in his mother about this, having told her everything else. He asked if it was normal for guys to like guys instead of girls, and the response he received was not what he had been hoping for. Being gay was disgusting, his mother said, and pointedly told him that she would not be accepting of having a gay son. 

So he decided that he wouldn’t be gay. Like that is a thing that a person could really decide. 

This involved a lot of attempting to ignore his obvious feelings for guys and try dating girls. All of these relationships crashed and burned because Sage just couldn’t become interested in them. 

Finally, he gave in and dated a boy for the first time. And it was like letting a large part of himself out of prison for the first time. He was seventeen at the start of this relationship, and as secretive as he tried to be .... his parents found out shortly following his graduation from high school. They cut him off and kicked him out, leaving him on his own. 

His boyfriend’s parents were accepting and allowed for him to move in with them. The first couple months of this arrangement were nice, but being rejected by his parents the way he had caused for Sage to go through some emotional struggles that caused for him to lash out at his then-boyfriend. Realizing he wasn’t in a good place, he broke things off and moved out. 

He answered a want ad on craigslist for a roommate, and he quickly discovered that adulthood was difficult. He grew up  with a silver spoon in his mouth, and was used to getting whatever it was he wanted. Even living with his boyfriend, he didn’t have to worry about much because he had a roof over his head and food to eat. Now living on his own, he began struggling to put food onto the table. 

He got a job as a barista at a local coffee shop, but quickly learned that rent is expensive. He could get the very basic of bills paid but as for food on the table? He was lucky if he could afford instant noodles. He missed being able to buy himself nice things, let alone eat real food. 

It was a late night with his roommate that gave him the idea on just how he could make a living for himself without being so fucking poor all the time. Well, his roommate suggested becoming a stripper. But the idea of complete strangers being able to touch him was repulsive. He’d been to gay bars, he’d seen some of the weirdos that went to those kinds of places. 

Camming, on the other hand, seemed safer. It turned out there was a market for it, since there was a large gay / curious community and mostly girls in camming. It made him quick money, and he was able to return to the comfortable lifestyle he was accustomed to. 

He’s traded up from the shitty apartment with his former-roommate to a nicer apartment with his childhood best friend. His former-roommate and his best friend are the only ones that are aware of the secret as to where his money comes from. As far as everyone else knows, he just does really well for himself as a barista. Admitting to what he actually does is truly the most humiliating thing to him.... but the pay keeps him from stopping. Will probably die if someone he knows finds out. 

existing connections ― ★ ) artemis campbell - has had a crush on him since he was in middle school 

needed connections ― ★ ) his best friend (artemis’ younger brother), ex boyfriends, people that know his secret, enemies, rivals, dance buddies, pretty much everything 

[whiskeytangofrogman]

Magic AU. Bitty is a baker who really messed up this maybe-not-recipe. Jack is a powerful but quiet demon who isn't sure what's going on, but there's pie.

Okay you sent this a literal year ago, but it’s finally done. Also, it’s 5k. 

I will post another, more refined version on ao3 (with betaing, even) in December, after NaNo, but please enjoy!

“Aaand… done.” Bitty shuts the oven firmly, and claps flour off his hands. He picks up the yellowed piece of paper from the counter, and scans his eyes over the recipe. He’d had to buy a few… weirder ingredients from the internet to get it done, but as long as it came out of the oven correctly, he’d get an A on his project, meaning that he would be officially done with his Bachelor’s degree in American Studies.

Now, to wait. The recipe said an hour, but Bitty’s oven was, obviously, better (though not by much) than a simple fireplace stove, and so he’d set it for thirty minutes, which was just enough time to finish that new movie he’d been watching.

Thirty minutes later, he pulls out a steaming pie, and grins. The crust is a beautiful golden brown (and all the symbols the recipe said were necessary stood out nicely, a darker, richer brown than the rest of the crust, unexpected but pleasant). “Perfect,” he mumbles to himself, setting it on the counter. He was tempted, all of a sudden, to cut into it. But it needed to be perfect for his professor, and she was a renowned stickler. He’d fail if it wasn’t perfect, and he didn’t have the money to buy the ingredients for another try. There were only so many places one could get rat tails for cheap.

He grabs a towel and throws it over the top, and the temptation goes away. He nods then, satisfied, and pulls out his phone. “Final project for history and culture: done. On to studying French.” He tweets, adding a nauseated-looking emoji at the end. He casts one last proud look at the pie, and leaves the room.

There was one slice left of the pie, and only a day left until it was going to spoil. Bitty had forgotten about it completely, between finishing his finals week, cleaning his house, and baking for the holiday season. When he’d finally gotten around to being able to rest, the last thing he wanted to do was eat more pie.

But he also wasn’t one to let such an expensive thing go to waste. “Oh well,” Bitty mutters under his breath, foregoing a plate and grabbing a fork. “I’ll just have to double down on that New Year’s resolution to exercise more, I guess.”

Bitty works his way through the now slightly stale slice while flipping through the channels on his small tv. There was nothing on, as per usual, and so he settled in to catch the tail end of a hockey game.

He’d played hockey in high school, but had stopped after his senior year. There wasn’t much of a place on college teams for someone so… slight. He sighed, shoving the last bite into his mouth and swallowing, hard. If only, if only. He frequently found himself wishing it was still something he did, this exact moment included. He’d loved it so much despite how mediocre he’d been.

At that exact moment, post-swallow and mid-reminisce, his tv began to smoke. “Shit,” he muttered, getting up. It was a cheap one, an old vacuum tube set he’d bought off Craigslist midway through fall semester when his last roommate had moved out and taken his nice flatscreen with him.

Bitty gets up and bangs his hand against the side, trying to get the fuzz to go away. The tv hisses, and then snaps back to clarity once more. He sighs, relieved, and turns around.

And comes face to face with a tall stranger, standing in the middle of his living room, smelling of sulfur and campfire burn.

He screams.

Half an hour later, one and a half beers, and a considerable amount of questions had calmed him down. Or, calmed him as much as he could be calmed.

Because this man? Was a demon, apparently, summoned through a mixture of Bitty’s pie (an old witch recipe) and his wishing. The recipe, the demon said, was notoriously difficult, and this anyone who managed to pull it off was entitled to three wishes.

Bitty was now entitled to three wishes. Because he’d accidentally summoned a demon.

“Do I have to sell you my soul?” The demon’s eyebrows twitch, and he sighs, dragging a hand down his face and looking altogether way too human for something apparently hellish in origin.

“For the third time, no. That’s part of the recipe.”

Bitty swigs down another gulp of now-warm beer (clutching a glass bottle in one’s hand so tightly one’s knuckles turned white wasn’t necessarily conducive to properly chilled alcohol) and tugs on the ends of his hair. “And I get three wishes? Just for baking a pie?”

The demon looks agitated. ��Yes. Like I’ve explained three, no, four times now, it’s an old clause in the rule book, one we haven’t had to uphold in near half a millennium, and one we’ve been meaning to get rid of. His highness just hasn’t seen the need to,” the demon says, adding a glare. “Until now, of course.”

Bitty giggles, high pitched and sharp. This can’t be happening. I’m dreaming, he thinks. “Well then, fuck it.” He chugs the rest of the beer down, and slams it on the table. “I want to pass my class.”

The demon frowns. “You’ll need to be more specific.”

“CUL 458. I want to pass it with at least a B.” 

The demon stares for a second, and then rolls his eyes. “You’ll pass it.”

“Cool, so two more wishes-”

“No, that’s not a wish. I already know you’ll pass it.”

Bitty flashed the demon a confused look. “Are you omnipotent? Like god?”

The demon winces. “No. I just have slight… sight, for these sorts of things.”

Bitty shrugs. “Okay. Well, then I want to pass French.”

The demon nods, closes his eyes for a few seconds, and then opens them up once more. They’re glowing a pallid yellow, and he blinks a few times, the color draining back into black as he does. “Done. That one you wouldn’t have passed. How are you so bad?”

“Hey!” Bitty points an accusatory finger. “French is hard.”

The demon mutters something like not that hard, and opens his palm. “Your next two wishes?”

Bitty thinks for a second, and then frowns. “I don’t know.”

The demon groans, and stands. “I’ll give you a week.”

Bitty nods, and watches as the demon disappears as fast as he’d come, leaving the room smelling faintly still of sulfur, and now of ozone.

“Fuck,” Bitty mutters.

He wakes up the next morning, draped over the couch with his phone making indents on his cheek. The ”ping!” of his notifications had woken him up. Blearily, he sits up and unlocks the screen. He recalls the weird dream as he scrolls through Twitter, and snorts. “Musta been somethin’ in that pie. That’ll teach me to treat old recipes like they can store the same,” he says to himself.

There’s an email from his French professor, probably one letting him know that in order to pass, he’ll need to do the last minute extra credit paper, something he’d been prepared for since his final earlier that week. This was his last semester of the two year language requirement, and he’d been in danger of failing all semester.

He opens the email, and reads it over.

And then stares, and reads again. And again.

Somehow, he’d passed the final with enough points to land him at a respectable 73% in the class, just enough to pass.

The dream (or maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all?) came flooding back to him. There was no way in hell.

Bitty closes his email, and begins gathering the remnants of the previous night’s boozing to toss in the trashcan, the fuzzy edges of his dream twisting and fading until he’d finally convinced himself that it was a dream indeed, one born of stress and too much beer, and that the final grade he’d received was based not on a demonic encounter but on the ten straight hours of review he’d done the night before the test.

By the end of the week, he’d forgotten all about his weird dream. His last final had come and gone, and he was well into prepping the baked goods he’d promised his mom for his short trip back to Georgia before his last semester. His final batch of cookies was almost done when the one thing he’d convinced himself wouldn’t happen, did.

The demon came back.

Bitty didn’t scream this time, but only just. The demon looked much the same: human enough to seem normal until closer inspection, tall, brooding, and altogether much too handsome to be a creature from hell.

“Have you thought of your next wish, yet?”

Bitty groans, and slouches against the counter. “I thought I made you up.”

The demon stares at him. “Obviously not.”

Bitty clicks his phone off, and buries his face in his hands. “Look, I-” He sighs, and peeks through his fingers. The demon was watching him intently, eyebrows cocked. “I don’t know what I want, and I don’t want to die, so please don’t kill me for bein’ indecisive.”

The demon huffs. “I’m not going to kill you.”

The oven dings, and Bitty moves the demon out of the way, bodily. “Hang on.” He dons oven mitts, and pulls the tray out. The cookies, despite all of the work he’d put into making sure ol’ Betsy wouldn’t fritz out on him for this, are burnt.

Beyond repair.

Bitty resists the urge to screech. Instead, he slams his mitts down, and clicks the oven off. “I wish this damn thing wouldn’t burn anything. I don’t know how many times a week-”

“Done.”

Bitty stops mid-rant, and looks at the demon. “What?”

“Your wish. It’s done. Your oven won’t burn anything anymore.”

Bitty frowns, and looks down at Betsy. He stares for a moment, pondering, and then looks back up. “That wasn’t going to be my wish-”

“It’s too late to take back.” The demon interrupts.

“But.” Bitty glares. “I’m not mad.”

“So-”

“But I also don’t have a third wish.”

The demon looks even more cross now, eyebrows folded as far down his forehead as they’ll go, the inky black of his eyes only barely visible through his squint. “You’re incredibly annoying.”

Bitty’s protest fall on nothing but his kitchen appliances, as the demon disappears once more.

He sighs, and begins mixing a new batch of cookies, despite his flight leaving in less than four hours. If the universe was gonna give him an oven that never burns, like hell he’s gonna wait another week and half to try it out.

And, true to the demon’s word, the cookies come out a beautiful golden brown, the likes of which he’s only made once on his moomaw’s oven back home.

“Well, sure as shit,” he says, hands resting on his hips. Guess I can’t pretend it’s a dream any more, he thinks, picking up a perfectly crisped cookie and biting into it, letting the chocolate melt over his tongue while he thinks about what else he could possibly wish for.

The demon comes back a few days later, and Bitty’s sick of referring to him as the demon. “What’s your name?” Bitty hands him a plate and sits across from him across his island bar.

The demon looks puzzled. “Why?”

“Because I feed people,” Bitty says, taking a bite from his own plate. The recipe was an old family one he’d been playing with on and off since he got to college, but never had the oven to get the temperature just right.

Until now, that is.

The demon sets the plate on the counter, and delicately sits down, as if he’d never been in a chair before. “No, my name. Why does it matter?”

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Because I like to know who I’m working with.”

“You won’t know how to pronounce it.” The demon picks up a fork, and jabs it into the pie, the crust giving the smallest of satisfying crunching noises.

“Try me,” Bitty says, setting down his own fork onto a now-empty plate.

The demon utters a noise that makes Bitty lean back in his chair, and wiggle a finger in his ear, trying to get out a ringing that isn’t there. “Uh.”

The demon settles a look on him, cool blue eyes, normally void of any emotion, now showing a hint of smugness. “I told you.”

Bitty sighs, and stands up. “Fine. So what do I call you?”

The demon falls quiet, and when Bitty looks at him, he looks deep in thought. Bitty waits, quietly cleaning up the results of his latest test in the meantime. “Jack.”

Bitty rolls it over his tongue, mouths it quietly to himself. “Why Jack?”

“My name is equivalent to that in English, in terms of how common they both are.” The demon — Jack — shrugs. “Plus, I like the way it sounds.”

Bitty hums. “Fair enough, Jack.”

“Do you know-”

Bitty interrupts Jack before he can continue. “I don’t know what I want to wish for, yet. Sorry.” He feels only slightly guilty.

Jack’s gone before Bitty can even finish the sentence.

Jack comes back, again and again, every time with the same question: Has Bitty figured out his third wish?

And every time, Bitty gives him a slice of pie, or a cookie, or something. Eventually, Jack starts eating them too. And Bitty stalls for as long as possible, asking Jack relentless questions to make him stay.

Do you have horns? “No, not usually.”

Why aren’t you red? “I can be, if you want,” Jack says, his skin tone rapidly changing to match that of a particularly vibrant strawberry. And then back, because Bitty won’t stop laughing at him.

What did you go to hell for? “What do you mean?” Aren’t demons all sinners that went to hell? “No, I was born there, like you were born on Earth.”

Jack’s answers are reluctant to come at first, he grumbles about how he shouldn’t be answering any of this, and then answers them anyway. He starts to stay longer each time before he asks Bitty if he’s figured out his third wish, and lingers before disappearing.

Bitty, for all he’s been trying not to, is liking Jack more and more by the day.

On the fourth, maybe fifth time Jack appears, Bitty’s back home in Georgia. It’s Christmas Eve, and he’s nervous for tomorrow. All his relatives come over to the house, and though they love him, they don’t understand him.

It’s “the gay thing,” as his mom’s uncle calls it. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” is a motto in their family, when applied to him. They don’t understand it, and he still gets asked about a hundred times every Christmas if he’d found a girlfriend yet, despite the fact that he’d been out for half a decade now., as if one day he’s just going to decide he’s not gay anymore.

He thinks he hates Christmas.

He’s in the kitchen, kneading dough brutally, when Jack appears beside him. Bitty tries to smother a shriek.

“Have you-”

Bitty throws a towel at him. “Be quiet,” he hisses, glaring. Jack looks taken aback, but he stays quiet.

Bitty sets the dough to rise until morning, and tiptoes back to the guest room, gesturing for Jack to follow.

Jack does, footsteps not even making the wood of the old house creak in the slightest, something Bitty had only achieved after years of living here and sneaking out at night, a practiced sort of silence. Bitty’s almost jealous.

Bitty shuts the door behind him as silently as he can, and wheels around to face Jack. “What are you doing here?”

Jack looks confused. “The same thing I always am?”

“How do you know where I live, though?” Bitty folds his arms across his chest.

Jack’s confusion grows, visibly. “What? It’s you.”

Bitty makes a noise in the back of his throat that prompts Jack to continue. “I don’t need your address. I just find you, and go there.”

Bitty frowns. “Oh.”

Jack looks around the room, and then sits on the bed. He looks… worn, in a way that he usually doesn’t. It’s only been a few weeks, but Jack looks five years older, and tired. Bitty sits next to him. “Are you okay?”

Jack’s eyes settle on Bitty’s own. “No,” he answers, blunt.

Bitty takes in the rings around Jack’s eyes, how rumpled he looks. He looks… human. “What’s wrong?”

Jack drops his eyes, and fiddles with the edge of his suit jacket. He always wears the same thing, a gray suit over a light blue shirt and black tie. It brings out the blue in his eyes, Bitty notes, and then promptly tries to forget. “Demons shouldn’t… be on earth. This long.”

Bitty’s concerned frown gets deeper. “Why?”

“We’re not meant to take this long. I’m supposed to get what I need from you, and then go back for the rest of my life.” Jack meets Bitty’s stare again. “We only get one contract in our lives, and it’s never supposed to take this long.”

Bitty feels guilt sink in his gut, twisting his insides ragged. “Oh.” He settles a hand on Jack’s cheek, and rubs a finger under Jack’s eye, as if he can smudge the circles out. “You should have told me.”

“I didn’t want to pressure you.” Jack’s eyelids flutter closed, and he lets out the smallest of sighs. “The magic won’t work right if it’s not something you want.”

Bitty gnaws at his bottom lip, thinks. He still doesn’t have an idea for a wish, and it only makes the guilt worse. “I’m sorry.”

Jack opens his eyes, but doesn’t lean away, doesn’t push Bitty’s hand away. “Don’t be,” he whispers.

Bitty feels like they’re on the edge of a precipice. He leans in.

Jack meets him halfway, and they’re kissing, soft, slow. Jack’s hand finds Bitty’s hip, slides up under his shirt. Bitty cups Jack’s face, fingers curling through the strands of Jack’s hair.

And then it’s over. Jack pulls back, looking startled. He stands. “I have to go.”

Bitty reaches out a hand. “Wait-”

Jack’s gone, with an audible pop, and the air is sucked out the room, leaving Bitty alone. He presses his fingertips to his lips, and thinks.

Jack doesn’t come back until the day before the new semester, almost two weeks after Bitty gets back from Georgia. He looks even worse now.

“Hi,” Bitty says, and hands him a plate. “Try this.”

Jack is silent, but takes the plate and sits down. He makes a noise of approval at the spongy cake, uniced but dusted with powdered sugar. “S’good.”

Bitty smiles. “Thanks.”

Jack finishes the cake, not offering up anything more until he finishes. He opens his mouth to speak, and Bitty holds up a hand. “Wait.”

Jack frowns, but lets him continue. “I’ve been thinking. About my wish.”

Bitty’s fingers tap against the edge of the counter. Truthfully, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since Jack left last time, running through his mind all of the possibilities. He could wish for anything in the world, and Jack would give it to him.

“Do you like hell?”

Jack lifts an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Just answer it.”

Jack shrugs. “It’s alright. Cold.”

Bitty hums. “I want-”

Jack interrupts him this time. “You don’t.”

Bitty gives him a look, frustration creeping in. “What?”

“Whatever you’re about to wish for, you’re doing it because you feel guilty.” Jack stands, and meets him on the other side of the counter. Bitty had known Jack stood over him since the first time they met, but he hadn’t realized how severe the height difference was until now. Jack towers. “Don’t say what you’re about to say.”

Bitty steps closer, angry now. “You can’t stop me from wishing for what I want.”

Jack leans down. Over the course of the several months since Bitty’s pie incident, Jack had gone from emotionless, robotic, to something more, something emotive and less and less other. He looks angry now, and Bitty’s never seen this one. “I can’t, but I’m asking you don’t.”

Bitty huffs, and pulls him down. Jack meets him easily, submitting to Bitty’s angry kiss. Bitty pulls away. “Fine.”

Jack’s lips twitch into the smallest of smiles. “Good,” he says, and leans back in.

Jack stays for the longest time yet, before he says he has to go. It’s been almost an hour of talking mixed with more, and Bitty doesn’t know what to with their newfound closeness.

Jack disappears, leaving Bitty sitting on his kitchen counter, dazed, confused, and a little bit in love.

Jack comes back, again and again, but he stops asking Bitty if he has his wish. He spends longer at Bitty’s side each time, learning how to bake, watching movies.

He looks worse every day, by small increments.

Jack doesn’t seem to mind, but Bitty’s guilt only grows. He can’t think of a third wish, and he’s too selfish to try, because if he does, Jack will be gone, forever. He’s told Bitty he goes back to hell, and “gets unmade,” which Jack makes sound boring. His purpose, Jack says, once filled, makes him useless, and so he’ll disappear. “It’s the way demons are,” he says, false cheer in his voice.

Bitty’s terrified by the idea.

Jack stays over more and more, and falls asleep despite telling Bitty demons don’t technically need to. He looks like he does, though, dark circles under his eyes almost purple, clothing in disarray, though different every time, now. Jack shows up in t-shirts more often now, and Bitty comes to find he has terrible fashion sense.

It’s three in the morning the first time Bitty realizes he’s in love with Jack. Jack’s arm is curled around his middle, skin warm against Bitty’s bare chest, soft breath making the back of his neck tingle.

“Shit,” Bitty whispers, frozen. He’s in love with jack. He loves Jack.

Jack, who can’t lattice a pie for shit, who thinks yellow running shoes and green shorts are acceptable as an outfit. Jack, who’s laugh sounds halfway between a high pitched giggle and goose honk and is still endearing anyway.

Jack, a demon who will disappear once Bitty gives him his third wish.

Bitty starts to shake, anxiety building and choking him. He doesn’t know what he wants, he can’t want anything because what he wants is Jack, here, alive, and for the rest of his life.

Jack stirs beside him. “Bits?” His voice is sleep rough. He props himself up on an elbow. “Y’okay?”

Bitty nods, fighting back tears. “Bad dream,” he mumbles, squeezing his eyes tight and trying to make his internal chant of Jack is going to disappear and you’ll never see him again stop.

Jack leans down, and presses a soft kiss on Bitty’s temple. “M’sorry.”

Bitty turns in his arms, pulls him into a real kiss, and tries to put all the feeling he can into it. “It’s okay.” he whispers back, stroking a thumb down Jack’s cheek. “It’ll be okay,” he says, trying to convince himself of something he knows he can’t.

Bitty withdraws. He can’t do this anymore, can’t hurt Jack like he has been. The longer Jack’s on Earth, the more ragged he becomes., the more sleep he needs, the more food he eats. It makes him better temporarily, but Bitty knows it’s only a band-aid. He has to make a decision.

But for Bitty to end that, he’ll also be ending Jack entirely. Jack begins to notice when Bitty withdraws, begins only visiting every other day, and then once a week.

Bitty makes it to finals week before he breaks. Jack’s visiting for the first time that week, and he’s pale. His hands shake, and he sounds like he has bronchitis, voice scratchy and a cough constantly lodged in the back of his throat.

Bitty breaks down, tears flooding down his cheek as he curls into a ball. Jack looks alarmed, tries to soothe Bitty in between coughs. “Jack, Jack stop.”

Jack pulls back.

Bitty wipes his cheek. “We need to talk about my wish.”

Jack sighs, and folds his hands in his lap. He looks resigned. “I know.”

Bitty draws a shaky breath inward. “I don’t know what I want, but I need to want something.”

Jack nods. “I know.”

Bitty scoots closer, and twines their fingers together. “Please, tell me what to do.”

Jack shakes his head, smothers another cough. “I can’t. I can’t influence you like that.”

Bitty pushes Jack’s hair from his forehead, locks their eyes. His skin is clammy. “I wish you could stay.”

It’s like the room freezes. Jack sucks in a breath.

It’s then Bitty realizes what he’s said. “Oh, no.” He’s panicking. “That doesn’t count, does it?”

Jack stares at him, and then gulps. “It can. If you want it too.”

Bitty stares back, mulling it over. “What would that mean for you?” He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of this possibility, of using his wish to make Jack whole again. “Will you be sent back?”

Jack frowns. “I… don’t know. No one’s ever done that. No one’s ever taken this long.”

Bitty squeezes his hand. “Please, tell me it would work.”

“I don’t know.” Jack pulls his hand back. “I have to go. I’ll… I’ll be back.” To the sound of Bitty’s protests, he disappears.

Bitty barely makes it through finals. His grades aren’t amazing, but he graduates. His parents come up for the ceremony, but he can’t even muster up enough cheer to enjoy it. He answers every question about campus, about the football team, all in a voice void of any emotion. His mom gives him worried looks all throughout, and finally pulls him aside after what’s supposed to be a celebration dinner, but feels more like a funeral.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” She looks concerned, in a way only a mom can. “You just graduated, aren’t you happy.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m just tired, I guess.”

She smiles, sadly. “You upset it’s over?”

Bitty winces. He’s not upset school is over. He probably killed Jack with a careless word, and there’s nothing he can do to get him back. “Yeah,” he lies.

She pulls him into a hug. “It’ll feel better eventually. You got that job at the bakery lined up, don’t you?”

He nods in agreement, but doesn’t think it’ll ever feel better.

He pulls up a list of romantic comedies a friend from one of his economics classes had given him a while ago. Adam had said it was his “cheer up” list, and Bitty finds himself, if not feeling better, at least distracted.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t at your ceremony.” Bitty yelps, pauses the TV, and turns around. Jack’s there, behind him, dressed in another suit.

He looks the worst he’s seen yet. His skin is pallid, and he looks starved. Bitty’s eyes burn with unshed tears just looking at him.

“Jack?”

Jack smiles at him, a wide smile Bitty’s never seen before, still tired, but alive. “I’m sorry I took so long. I had to do some research.”

Bitty hops off the couch, and wraps him in a tight hug, which Jack returns happily. He’s lost weight, and Jack’s arms around him return his hug weakly.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” He looks up at Jack. “How long do you have?”

Jack’s face drops into confusion. “What do you mean?”

Bitty looks away. “You have to go back, right?”

Jack puts a hand under Bitty’s chin, and tilts it upward. “Tell me your last wish.”

Bitty shakes his head, eyes refusing to meet Jack’s. “I can’t. You’ll be gone.”

Jack repeats himself, more forcefully. “Tell me your last wish.”

Bitty shoves backward. “No! Jack, if I do, you’ll be gone.” He leans against the back of the couch, and folds his arms across his chest.

Jack kneels, and forces Bitty to look at him. His blue eyes are wide, pleading. “Bitty. Bits.” He grabs Bitty’s hand. “Eric. Please.”

Bitty gives up. He can’t do this anymore, can’t cause Jack any more pain. “I wish you could stay.”

Jack grins. Before Bitty’s eyes, Jack’s skin flushes back to a healthy tone. The exhaustion he’d been wearing like a cloak for the last few months falls off his shoulders. In less than a minute, he looks like the Jack from the first time Bitty saw him.

Bitty drops to his knees as well, takes Jack’s face in his hands. “How?”

Jack pulls Bitty into a kiss, and if Bitty wasn’t already on the ground, the sheer force of emotion wafting off Jack would have put him there. “Your wish.”

Tears spring to Bitty’s eyes, happy this time. “You can stay?”

Jack stares at him for a second, and then nods. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

Bitty pulls him in. “Forever,” he whispers.

Jack explains to him that he’d had to search through records of previous deals. There had only been one wish made before, asking for a demon to stay on Earth, after much the same situation had happened as Jack and Bitty’s. “There was precedent for it,” Jack says to him, after telling him the story. “All I had to do was ask.”

Apparently, not many demons fell in love with humanity (with a human, to be more specific) the way Jack had.

Jack gets more and more human as the days pass. One day he wakes up, and the faint rings of etchings into his skin, the marks that made him demon, have completely faded. Bitty hadn’t been able to see them, but Jack knew what this meant. Bitty’s wish had come true.

Next Christmas, he brings Jack home, and when his aunt asks where Bitty found such a good man, they share a small, secret smile. “I wished for him,” Bitty says, and leaves it at that.

[heebiejbies]

Drabbles Game!

Update: Closed as of August 9, 2017

So, I’ve collected a list of prompts from around the web that I thought were neat ideas. Therefore, I have decided to do a little drabble/mini-scenario game with them! I will only do one prompt once so I will mark them off as they are requested. The list of groups that can be requested are after the prompts.  A lot of these are AUs because I really love AUs omg.

Here are the prompts:

Instead of having a guardian angel, you have a guardian demon. His methods are often much more violent, but much more straightforward.

Guardian angels are granted a life on Earth for as many years as they keep their assignment alive. Determined to succeed, you set out only to find you’ve been given one of the worst assignments possible.

Greatly over-exaggerate someone opening a Peanut Butter Jar.

You are a serial killer and have been hiding your murders from your spouse. One day, while cleaning up your newest kill, your spouse walks in on you. They calmly raise their hand and say, “It’s okay. I know.”

Your parent is a therapist, and they have recently brought home one of their patients—someone who is deathly afraid of other people. Cue you trying to convince them that you are harmless and wow… They’re also really attractive.

You are depressed, and then become possessed by a very nice ghost. He works to improve your life.

“We met in an online chatroom and you were too afraid to meet me because you are paralyzed from the waist down and didn’t know how I would react.”

You accidentally summon a demon by trying to pronounce Ikea product names.

Most people are born with three names tattooed on their wrist: Their true love, their biggest enemy, and their greatest ally. You only have one name.

Traditionally, vampires could not see their reflection because mirrors were silver-backed. With the invention of aluminum-backed mirrors, a vampire sees their reflection for the first time only to find out they are the ugliest thing they have ever seen.

“You just knocked on my door and I opened it yelling ‘I don’t want any damn cookies’ and you just moved in next door. I’m so sorry”

“You’re the ghost haunting my house and I can’t see you, but I just bought an ouija board so we can talk.”

You have a messaging system built into your body but you can only contact your soulmate.

“Will you stop flirting with me you just got seriously injured and I’m the EMT trying to tend to your wounds in the ambulance, I don’t give a fuck that I look cute when I’m concerned, you’re lucky you’re not dead you dipshit.”

“You’re living in my old apartment and you’re really cool but I’m a ghost and I’m not sure how to hang out with you without scaring you away.”

“Dude, just because I come from a different planet doesn’t mean I can’t understand English. Yes, this does mean I did understand that comment you made about my butt.”

After an incredibly scarring supernatural experience that still had a happy ending from when you were little, you decide to share your true story on the subreddit, “Let’s Not Meet.” Many people read your post and comment on how terrifying it must have been, how disgusting the monster was who put you through such an ordeal at such a young age, etc. However, there was one comment that chilled you to the bone. It said, “I can’t wait to see you again.”

“Of course I’m angry at you! You kept kicking the back of my chair while I was trying to watch the movie!”

“You tried breaking into my apartment when you were drunk because you thought it was yours.”

“You repeatedly come into the store I work at and pick up a head of lettuce then halfway through the store decide you don’t want the lettuce and you put it back on the shelf next to you regardless of what aisle you’re on.”

“We were goofing around with an old ouija board, but now the lights are blinking and there’s a screaming coming from outside of the house, so I think it’s safe to say that we done messed up.”

You find a doll on your doorstep which has a certain something that draws you in; soon after, the doll begins whispering sweet nothings into your ear, like the serpent it was. With its tendrils so deep already, it was easy enough to get you to follow its commands…even if it meant harming your roommate.

You have just moved into a new apartment with your best friend and one night, while you can’t sleep, you see somebody that is definitely not your friend walking through your apartment. Freaked out, you scream and the “person” vanishes. You continue to see and hear this “third person” moving around the apartment at all hours of the day, but your friend continues to tell you that “it’s just the hot water pipes” and that there’s nothing to worry about. You really, really wish that you could believe them, but lately, you have been seeing the mysterious person in your dreams, and it’s determined to not let you sleep while its spirit isn’t at rest.

You are a writer who’s taken a retreat to the mountains to find inspiration for your new romance novel. While up there, you meet a clairvoyant who says that you are in danger. This wouldn’t bother you – you’re not superstitious, that’s silly – but you’re getting the unsettling feeling that something is stalking you.  

You are a detective whose memories of your past decade are fractured. Almost every time you try to recall an event, it seems like something or someone is missing. The only thing you know for sure is that you have a wedding ring, but your partner is nowhere to be found. Someone with unusually pale skin hires you to solve a murder. Soon, you realize that they were the victim of the murder. As you unravel their death, you also come to realize that they are the key to regaining your lost memories.

When you were alive, your favorite place to hang out was in the library, so it only makes sense that you would continue to hang around there even after you had died. The librarian is highly skeptical of the ‘ghostly activity’ that everybody has been reporting – the cold spots are from the drafty building, the whispers are from the patrons, and the creaking is from the old book shelves, obviously. One night, while shelving books, they accidentally bump into the ghostly form of you.

A few days back, you got bitten by a vampire and since then, you’ve been holed up in your room going through the painful transformation from human to undead. Coming out of your room, you are ravenous and ready to flee into the night to find something to feed on – but that’s right as your roommate walks through the front door.

It’s nighttime and you made the foolish mistake to walk home alone. With your knife at the ready, you are jumping at every shadow and small sound, so when a stranger emerges silently from the gloom, your first reaction is to stab them in the chest. They are a hungry vampire who was trying to find a bite to eat when they accidentally bump into you and find a knife protruding from their chest. It won’t kill them but golly it hurts and they sure are angry now.

You are working at a funeral home, and you’ve been given the task of putting makeup on a cadaver. This doesn’t really squick you out, but while you’re adding some more blush to their cheeks, their eyes snap open. They are a new vampire that’s been mistaken for dead. Opening their eyes, they are expecting to see their sire leaning over them, not the horrified face of you.

“I mean, yes I’m technically immortal, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still feel pain! Getting stabbed really hurts! Rude!”

You have recently moved into a new house, and you’ve had a weird bout of bad luck recently. From almost falling down the stairs, to leaving the stove on, to forgetting to lock the door at night, you just can’t believe how sour your first few weeks have been. Unbeknownst to you, there is a ghost haunting your house, and they’re convinced that you are their old nemesis/ex-lover/killer/etc. and is hellbent on making you pay for hurting them. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have the ability to do much more than give you small shoves and be a general nuisance.

You aren’t special, you’re just a regular human trying to live your life and stay out of trouble, but when you do a kind act for a stranger, it turns out that you helped an angel in disguise, and now they are your temporary guardian angel. This would be cool, except they are nauseatingly helpful and it’s driving you up the wall.

You feel like you’re dating the perfect person.They’re smart, funny, and they honestly care about what you have to say. When they tell you that they’ve been keeping a huge secret, you weren’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t: “I’m an angel on Earth.”

“Yeah, I’m dead. In the beginning, I was all like, ‘Oh no I’m dead this is so tragic’ but now I’m all like ‘dude I can float and go through walls, this is amazing’ and anyway, hi, this is – or was – my house. What’s your name?”

While moving into your new home, you receive an ominous warning from your neighbor that your apartment/house/dorm room/etc. is haunted. On the first night – thoroughly spooked and ready to fight any ghostly apparitions – you walk into your living room, only to find someone standing there, criticizing your furniture and decorating options. No matter how many times you put your furniture back in place, they always move it, insisting that it looks much better.

“In a completely hypothetical situation, if I told you that, I don’t know, that the roommate I found on Craigslist turned out to be a ghost, what would you say? It sounds crazy, right? Like, ghosts can’t start an eBay store out of their room and pay rent…but apparently, they can.”

You are a firm non-believer in anything relating to religion, the supernatural, or anything that cannot be proven by hard science. There is a ghost that’s been haunting you for what feels like ages, and they are so fed up with your “too cool for ghouls” attitude. When you advertise that you’re in need of a roommate to split the rent with, a self-proclaimed medium takes up the offer. Upon meeting you and your ghostly roommate, and feeling all of the bad energy between you two, the medium dedicates themselves to doing a sort of “couples therapy” for you and helping you realize that yes, ghosts really do exist.*

You are a magic user who is trying to summon a low-level demon. Suddenly, in the middle of the summoning, you are shaken by an earthquake and almost crushed by one of your falling bookshelves, but the demon appears just at the right time, pulling you out of the way, and saving your life.

You are a ghost who has chosen to stay in the house/apartment/etc. where you died. About a decade later, someone moves into your old house/apartment/etc.; you are annoyed with this turn of events, and get back at them by playing small pranks on them – leaving plastic camels all over the place, taping Shrek’s face onto photographs, removing the labels off of canned goods, etc.

When you finally break your old phone, you drive to try to buy a second-hand iPhone off of Craigslist. Everything seems to be in order, except when you start receiving text messages from the past owner.

You are a DJ that drowns out your anxieties in the heavy, thumping bass at the club where you work. Most nights, you are too engrossed in your work to really pay attention to what’s happening on the dance floor, but at the same time, it’s hard to miss what a certain someone’s hips are doing when they clear out the dance floor. They have been dying to get the attention of the cute, stoic DJ. After a night of extreme partying, they are getting ready to hang up their dancing shoes when you walk up to them.

You are a hit man that has planned on getting close to your latest target, by inviting them out on a date. While out on this date though, you are actually really impressed by them and aren’t sure if you’re okay with going through with the job.

You feed off of affection…literally. Without love and attention, you will wither away. In order to stay healthy and strong, you have a string of people you’re not-quite dating so that you can cuddle on a regular basis, but you make sure not to develop serious feelings for any of them. It’s been working pretty well. Then you fall in love with the least affectionate person ever.

You are a scientist, and you hear about a series of experiments being done on a rare mermaid. Out of curiosity, you go to visit the mermaid in its tank and you see how miserable it is.

After going on a lovely date with someone, you think that the two of you really hit it off and can’t wait for a second date…but they never text you back. After a few weeks, you assume that you’ve been ghosted – meaning they weren’t interested and are ignoring you – and move on. Unbeknownst to you, they actually died, and their spirit can’t move on since they have unfinished business on Earth.

When you move out of your family’s house and into a small apartment, you realize that the apartment is haunted by a spirit who, after learning that you aren’t going to drive them out—it’s pretty cool to have a ghost for a roommate—finds infinite enjoyment in mapping out your romance life with two other people—their best friend and older brother.*

“So the world is being invaded by aliens and the only way to tell the difference between a real human and a human imposter is by shining a bright light in their eyes, so hold still and let me put my flashlight up to your face. Stop struggling! You’re not making a convincing case for yourself!”

“It’s been like ten years since we made alien contact and while it’s weird to have been chosen to foster an alien in my house, it’s not as bad as you would think; it’s weird, but in a cool way.”

You have recently been crowned as the new ruler of your country, and you’re throwing a masquerade ball to celebrate. With all of the guests in fancy outfits and masks, you are able to slip away from the crowds of people and take a stroll through the empty gardens, which is where you meet an assassin that’s been hired to kill you. Arriving at the ball in formal attire, they follow you out to the garden, saying that they want to make sure that you are feeling okay. They had planned on this being an easy beginner’s assignment – with the mask covering their face, they’re practically anonymous – but as you begin to open up about your apprehensions about taking the throne, they aren’t sure that they can go through with killing you.

You and your boyfriend are actually the same height, but you love to wear shoes with a heel and like to annoy your boyfriend with short jokes when you are both out.

“Listen, I love you and all, but can you please stop hiding all the good junk food on the top shelves where I can’t see them?”

You grew up in an environment where you weren’t offered very much affection as a child and now that you’re older, you have a lot of trouble conveying any emotions outside apathy, sarcasm, and being mildly interested in something. But after befriending an extremely lovey and affectionate person, you begin to fall hard for them. Awkward romance shenanigans ensue as you get flustered over hand holding and hugging because affection is relatively alien to you.

“We’re both psychology majors, and it’s great and all that we know everything about the topic, but it would be awesome if you could stop diagnosing me with being a dick - it’s unnecessary and definitely not a legitimate condition.”

“You found me crying in Barnes & Noble and thought that I was reading a sad book so you tried to comfort me but really I was just super happy that the dog didn’t die at the end.”

As your New Year’s resolution, you are trying to kick your addiction – to substances, adrenaline, shopping, crime, etc. – and every time you feel the need to indulge again, you go out and buy a house plant. Soon your apartment is filled with plants and you’ve become close friends with the gardener who has been selling you plants and giving you tips on how to take care of the different plants.

You don’t think that you’re an attractive person – and maybe you’re not – but to them, the literal grim reaper, you are one of the most beautiful people that they’ve ever seen. Cue them purposely going out of their way to extend your lifespan and to make your life a little better for them.

“I’ve killed 89 members of the royal family in my time on this Earth, but NEVER have I met one target as impetuous as this one. They quite literally saw my grappling hook catch their windowsill then just sauntered over with a pair of nail clippers and snipped the rope, waiting until they heard the *THUD* of me hitting the ground, then proceeded to turn on their iPod and blast “Oops, I Did It Again.” …I’m going to murder this brat until they are absolutely and completely dead, you mark my words.”

“If you put that needle in my arm, you’ll be losing much more than your medical license, my friend.”

“NOT ALL MAFIAS ARE ITALIAN. WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK THAT?!?”

You love to watch the night’s sky, and one night, while looking up at the stars, you see a blindingly bright light streak across the sky, and land in the woods/a park/a lake/the desert/etc. near your house. Going to inspect what just fell, you find a softly glowing figure that’s safely nestled inside of a smoking, broken asteroid.

“My familiar keeps wandering underneath my porch and won’t come out unless I beg it to. I’ve been wondering why it has spent so much time under there these past few weeks and I found my answer when I went looking myself only to find another person’s familiar cowering in the dirt.”

After you inherit a box of antiques from your deceased grandparent, you discover an antique mirror that holds the soul of a 1900′s show performer. Even though the two of you are separated by almost a century, you find out that you have more similarities than you would expect (and they give great makeup advice.)

“I know I probably look like just another predator or scientist or something that’s going to hurt you, but I promise, I only want to help you and get you off the streets.”

You are a history buff, and while looking through an old textbook, there’s a picture of a portrait that happens to catch your eye. Not just because the person in the portrait is really attractive, but because the person looks exactly like your roommate.

Your roommate is notoriously tough and strong and one day is frightened by a cockroach. They yell for you who comes running to the rescue, only to find yourself slipping on the wet bathroom floor. This ends in, shall we say, quite the awkward landing.

“You are in fact the worst burglar I have ever seen!” “How many burglars have you seen???” “Exactly!”

“Okay, I know I told you I’m an alien and everything but I swear to god if you try to get me to say ‘greetings earthling’ I will punch you. Of course no one says that! What is this an ‘80s film?!”

“I don’t know what would’ve been worse, me finding a bear in my kitchen at 4 AM eating all my food or a cute alien eating all my food at 4 AM.”

“I got hunted down and dragged out of hiding and now I’m in some scary lab (pretty sure I’m about to be dissected) but just before the operation, this scientist came in to check if everything was alright. Wait what… you’re unhooking me from the machine now we’re running away out of the science lab? Man, maybe humans aren’t that shitty after all.”

“I lost my cat a few days ago and I saw you carrying my cat in your purse and and you looked intimidating so I couldn’t ask for them back.”

“You come to the pet shop every day and look at the dogs but whenever I ask, you say you don’t want one… But you keep coming in. Are you sure you don’t want one because that one time I let you hold a puppy you nearly cried.”

“I’m babysitting this kid in the park but a dog startled him and he dropped his ice cream, I can’t believe you bought him a new one that was so sweet of you.”

“My pet tarantula escaped and I forgot to warn the guy below me who is scared of spiders.”

“I need you to pet sit my pet this weekend and I forgot to mention it’s a giant snake, the mice are in the freezer, thanks bye!”

“One of my neighbors went blind as a teenager and he’s never asked me what I looked like until today and I completely lied to him about what I looked like.”

“My stupid cat sneaked out on the balcony and into your open window and he has this habit of destroying furniture and peeing everywhere so I followed him inside and you came home earlier than I expected and found me in the middle of your living room but I swear I’m not a burglar okay.”

“So you’re the asshole that took my username.”

“I rented the apartment above your flower shop and in the last two months you’ve gotten a new flower I’m allergic to so I keep buying bouquets until I can figure out which kind it is”

“Um, hi, I know how this looks but I promise you I’m not a burglar. I’m a celebrity from a foreign country and as I was being chased by fans, I saw your garden so I hopped your fence to hide in your plants and I’m so sorry that I crushed so many of them but please don’t make me leave yet.”

“We met in a movie theatre and now you’re clinging to me because you’re terrified and I’m okay with that because it means I get your popcorn.”’

*For these with more than one character mentioned, you can request more than one person. 

The list of groups I will do for these are as follows:

B.A.P

Big Bang

Block B

EXO (OT12 s/o to my first love Tao)

Got7

Monsta X

NCT U

NCT 127

NCT Dream

Seventeen

VIXX (Closed)

So, yeah, you can send those in! If you have any questions, feel free to ask~

[blackbrian6-blog]

The Financial Confessions: “A Scary Roommate Situation Left Me Nearly Homeless”

This post is brought to you by Wealthsimple.

Screwing up your finances is one of the most horrifying things that can happen during your adult life. Although nobody is perfect, the reality is that one misguided decision can have a tremendous effect on a person’s future. And when the negative outcomes of those decisions spiral out of control, it can lead to some dangerous situations. For instance, I’ve made many, many money mistakes in my life — several of which I’ve written about on this site. But none of those mistakes haunt me as much as one decision from several years ago that placed my financial stability and safety at risk.

The story begins back when I was a college student on the hunt for housing. I desperately wanted to live with my good friend, Kylee*. Initially, Kylee suggested we share an apartment together for $2,200, but I couldn’t afford to spend $1,100 on rent. I felt discouraged by our apartment hunt and considered applying for student housing instead. In retrospect, this would have been a smarter long-term financial decision. But, of course, my 20-year-old self was far more concerned with satisfying my social needs than my practical ones.

One day, Kylee came to me with an idea: Instead of going with an overpriced apartment, we would go bigger. The plan was to rent a house and fill it with more people to make living expenses cheaper. She pitched it to me like it was going to be one big, happy reality show. And while I’m pretty embarrassed to admit it, I was immediately sold on the idea. (To be fair, Jersey Shore was also really popular at the time.) We would do our homework while sipping wine outside in our beautiful backyard. There would be barbecues all summer that we’d talk about for years to come. Plus, we were going to save money! What could possibly go wrong?

After touring the location once and meeting only three of the seven potential housemates, we agreed to sign the lease. $7,200 per month. To be honest, I’m not sure how I deluded myself into believing that shelling out $850 to occupy half of a bedroom was “a steal.” However, in effort to pretend like I was a responsible adult, I used my lump sum financial aid check to pay ahead for three months of my rent. I continued this pattern for the rest of the school year. This meant I never really “felt” that money disappear. Plus, I remained optimistic by justifying all the perks that came with the house. I was now within walking distance of my campus. I had a view of the ocean. And best of all, we had our own washing machine.

But eventually, on any given day, the general vibe of the place was somewhere between an unkempt hostel and never-ending spring break party. In other words, it wasn’t a functional place to live — and it didn’t take long for things to take a turn for the worse. Around December, tensions were rising among all the housemates. Of course, that’s to be expected when cramming nine twenty-somethings under the same roof, but believe me when I say the situation started seriously getting out of hand. Some memorable issues included people having sex in the only downstairs bathroom during most hours of the day and night. There were other problems too, like people smoking cigarettes indoors, neglecting to clean up their messes and, the most criminal of all, stealing food. I wish I could say we all handled these disputes like rational adults. But after my car was mysteriously scratched days after sending a text asking about a missing container of hummus, I knew it wasn’t going to go down that way.

I was finding it increasingly difficult to justify staying there. I constantly joked about it with friends to convince myself it was fine. Yes, I had to remember to label my hummus immediately if I ever wanted to eat it, but hey, I was saving $300. (Technically, that money went directly toward my other bills, so I never actually saw that savings.) And it wasn’t like I was totally alone in the house with a bunch of strangers. I had Kylee, who had a patience level I could only hope to develop over a lifetime of serious meditation. All I had was a fear that I had paid close to $8,000 to hide for nine months spent in one small corner of an entire house.

There were just over two months left on the lease when everything came crashing down. One morning, two police officers greeted me at my doorstep as I was leaving for class. It turns out one of my housemates had been accused of a serious crime, and they needed to interview the rest of us as witnesses. (For the sake of privacy, I won’t go into details about the exact nature of the crime. However, I’ll say it was serious enough to make me realize there was absolutely no way I could stay living in that shitshow any longer.) That evening, I stuffed my suitcase with as much clothing as it could fit and headed for my friend Maya’s* place, six blocks away. I spent about a week sleeping on the floor of her bedroom before her housemates rightfully became annoyed with my presence and asked what my plan was. Of course, that was the problem: I didn’t have one.

Remember how I had paid my rent up front every three months? Well, I had no way of getting that already-paid money back. And my part-time jobs weren’t going to make me enough money in time to put a deposit on a new place to live.

I returned to my former home one day to chat with one of my housemates, Mason*. He was the guy responsible for collecting the rent money from everyone. I explained to him that I had been gone for the week because I didn’t feel safe anymore. I also mentioned that I wanted to find a subleaser to take over my spot for the final two months so I could make up my loss. He laughed. “I don’t really get why you’re worried since he (the roommate dealing with the police) hasn’t technically been convicted of anything yet,” he said. “There’s only two months left on the lease. If I were you, I’d just stick it out and avoid him.”

Avoid him. I was at a loss for words. Mason’s advice was to continue hiding in my own house. Nevermind that one of the women who lived with us had already placed a deposit on a new place because our problematic housemate made her uncomfortable. On top of that, Kylee had started sleeping over at boyfriend’s so often that I rarely saw her. She wasn’t even around when the chaos ensued. I didn’t have those options.

Despite what Mason said, I tried to find a subleaser anyway. I put an ad on Craigslist and hoped for the best. No bites. Not one. I was caught between two terrible choices: stay and potentially risk my safety, or walk away from $1,560 that I would never see again, with nowhere to go. My savings balance was barely above the threshold where the bank starts charging fees for having an account. For lack of a better word, I was fucked.

Eventually, one of my coworkers noticed I looked severely stressed and exhausted at work. After nearly breaking down when explaining my situation, she graciously offered to help. I slept on her couch for an entire month and a half before I had enough money to stand on my feet again. Between all the double shifts I picked up that month, I must have worked between 25 and 30 hours during the weekends alone. The only time I went back to the house was on move-out day to retrieve the personal belongings I left that I felt were worth keeping. And once I found a new roommate whose personality and livelihood was a better match for me, I paid my friend back for her kindness and never looked back.

I share this story because that year would have ended differently for me if I didn’t have a friend who was willing to save me in that moment of crisis. I know not everyone has the privilege of help, and every time I reflect on this experience, I realize how lucky I am that I didn’t end up living on the street. But more importantly, I know now this situation could have been avoided had I been more careful with my decisions — especially when they involved my finances.

The truth is I didn’t pay several months of rent ahead of time to prove to myself that I was responsible. I did it because I didn’t want to think about it. I lived like I was destined for this negative, self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein I would always struggle financially. If I ever came upon what I considered “extra” money, I spent it. To be honest, I didn’t even consider saving to be a real possibility for people who weren’t already wealthy. I thought I had to have all the resources in place first — the right career, a degree, a certain amount of disposable income — before I could even start feeling like I was allowed to form a long-term plan.

But in reality, there is no rulebook that says you have to be at a certain point in your life to start thinking strategically about your finances. I started getting serious about saving immediately after I left that scary situation, even though I hadn’t yet secured a new home. Years later, I make sure a portion of my income goes toward developing a fund that allows me to make those adult life decisions with confidence. If you’re interested in taking that step to better prepare for your own future, Wealthsimple makes the process super easy and stress free. It takes less than 15 minutes to start building a personalized investment portfolio on their platform that lets you connect with money experts who can help you reach your goals.

Remember, the scariest things that can happen to your finances might not be some expected. Whenever I look back on this horrific situation, I feel an immense gratitude for what I have today. It’s so easy to say paying for things we don’t want to pay for sucks, especially emergencies. But when you have specific funds set aside to comfortably care for yourself — whether it means buying a tire when yours pops on the freeway, or securing a deposit on an apartment — suddenly paying for those things isn’t so annoying. It’s as if the very act of paying for an emergency on your own becomes a constant reminder of how far you’ve come with your money, and to a greater extent, your mindset.

Learn how you can protect your tomorrow by investing today with Wealthsimple. *Names have been changed.

Savanna is a freelance writer in Northern California whose hobbies include all things theater and dog-related. She hopes for a world where avocados will be included in the price of her entrée and a 12-step program is widely available to people who obsessively collect air miles. Follow her on Twitter here.

Image via Unsplash

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/the-financial-confessions-a-scary-roommate-situation-left-me-nearly-homeless/