#aka i almost cried at the bus stop | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miraculous-sunflower · 4 years

Text

doing it for the views

Alya knew Lila was lying. Like come on, Jagged Stone never had a kitten, he had Fang, his crocodile! And why would you openly state that you are best friends with one of the Heroes of Paris? Lila was bad at lying. But Alya didn’t care. When she posted the interview she did with Lila, she got SO many views. More than anything else she had posted! Alya knew Lila had so many “connections” so this could be her big break, leading into her reporting career, even if Lila was lying. It wasn’t like anyone was going to find out...

“ALYA! SHE’S LYING! Why can’t you believe me? You’re my best friend!” Marinette cried. I know she’s lying, girl, but this is helping my career. If you knew, you’d understand. I’m sorry, but for now, I have to act like she’s telling the truth, Alya thought.

Alya took a breath and responded to her claim. “Marinette! She’s not lying! You’re just jealous because of how close she is to Adrien, and jealous of all her connections! You’ve got to stop!” All of their classmates agreed with her, brushing off Marinette’s attempts to warn them as jealousy.

Marinette gasped. She thought Alya was being ridiculous not believing Lila, but now including her crush on Adrien? Marinette broke. She was done being categorized as being mean because of Adrien! “Wow. I thought you’d believe me. But I guess I was wrong. All of you don’t believe me! Even my oldest friends.” She glanced at Nino and Kim, who looked away guiltily. “If you don’t believe me, fine. Believe the liar.” Marinette walked out of the room, just as Lila strolled in.

“I saw Marinette looking mad. Is she alright?” Lila asked in a faux sweet voice.

“She’s just being jealous of you because of Adrien. She’s so annoying!” Alix grumbled.

“I know! Can’t she be considerate of all of Lila’s disabilities?” Rose cried.

“Oh no, was she fighting with you guys about me? I can’t believe I’m wrecking your class apart! Maybe I should just leave...”

“NO! Lila it’s not your fault that Marinette can’t see how great you are! We are willing to sacrifice our friendship with her if it means sticking up for you.” Lila hid a smirk.

Alya couldn’t believe how low her class was. They just believed Lila over Marinette! They were playing with her feelings! How could they! ______________________________________________________________________________________

NO WAY. 10,000 VIEWS?! Alya though as she scrolled through the LadyBlog. She checked on the interview of Lila she posted, and BAM! 10,000 VIEWS! Alya loved to bask in compliments and fame, so she decided to look through the comments...

dolphinlover8726: ummm, this isnt true

ladybugxcatnoir: ladybug’s best friend? ha, as if

peterparkerfan_12: xd her lies are almost as bad as trump-

totally_ravenclaw: hold up, jagged stone never had a kitten...

miraculous_sunflower: this is false information. please take it down, ladyblogger

Many of the comments were like that, but who cares? Lila’s lies weren’t hurting anybody. Maybe I could wait until I got an internship. Then I could spin this whole story about how Lila was lying the whole time, and I, Alya Cesaire, aka the Ladyblogger, unveiled them! That would make me even more popular, Alya thought. Oh, she would get popular all right, just not in the same way... ______________________________________________________________________________________

“How was your day, Alya?” her mother asked. Alya, watching the news intently, was hoping for scoops of celebrity gossip.

“It was good,” she absently replied. Her eyes were glued to the screen as Nadja Chammack’s show had just appeared.

“Don’t be bemused! It’s just the News! This is Nadja Chammack on ‘Face to Face’. Let’s start off with our most recent story. The LadyBlog, which used to be a blog dedicated to the Heroes of Paris, has fallen. The Ladyblogger has been posting false claims about a girl, Lila Rossi, saying that she rescued Jagged Stone’s kitten, when he has never had one. Now, helping us clear the claim, joining us now is internationally-known rock star, Jagged Stone! Hello, Mr. Stone. “

“Hello, Nadja, and call me Jagged. Now, what’s about these stories I’ve been hearin’ about a girl saving my kitten?”

“Well, Jagged, it’s posted on the LadyBlog that this Lila Rossi has saved your kitten on an airplane turmar, as well as claiming that you’d written a song about her. Are any of these statements actually true?”

“Kitten?! Haha, that girl is a bad liar. I’ve never had a cat, only Fang ove’ here. And writing a song about her? That sounds weird. A 30-year old man writing a song for a 15-year old? I’ve only written a song for Ladybug, and that’s because of how awesome she is! ” Jagged responded.

“On the topic of Ladybug, Lila Rossi has also claimed that she is best friends with her. Any comments?” Nadja asked.

“There’s no way Ladybug would befriend someone like her! Whoever this Lila chick is, you’re a horrible liar, and the Ladyblogger has messed up a whole lot. Anyways, I got to go, love. Good-bye, all of my beloved fans!” Jagged waved dramatically.

“There you have it! The LadyBlog has indeed been posting false claims, and Lila Rossi is a liar! Next up on Face to Face, we have Mirelle Caquet joining us to talk about the hardships of being a weather girl! Stay tuned!” Nadja concluded. Alya went pale. _______________________________________________________________________

Alya went into class the next day, and sure enough, the class was eerily quiet. Lila looked like a ghost, her face as pale as a sheet. The whole class looked angry, sans Marinette and Adrien.

“Alya, you saw Face to Face yesterday, right?” Alix asked.

“She lied! Lila lied about everything!” Rose cried.

“Yeah, I did.” Alya replied calmly. She was going to explain the situation to her classmates, and of course they’d understand why she was doing this, and maybe they’d help her spin the story to make it seem like-

“WHY DIDN'T YOU FACTCHECK?” Alix yelled, clearly furious with the situation.

“Let me explain. Don’t get mad, but I knew Lila was lying,” Alix growled, and many other classmates gasped, “But hear me out. I only kept posting her lies on the LadyBlog because of the views. I knew if I wanted an internship, I’d have to do anything to start up my career. You guys understand right?” Alya obliviously said. “YOU’RE ALMOST AS BAD AS ADRIEN NOT KNOWING MARINETTE HAS A CRUSH ON HIM!” The class blurted out. Adrien looked shocked, and Marinette gasped and turned a shade of red that shouldn’t be possible.

“Whaaaa…” Alya was confused. What did she do?

“You could’ve warned us that they were lies, Alya!” Rose sniffled.

“You only thought about yourself, not us!” Mylene attacked.

“Guys, I was doing it to help my career! Also, it wasn’t like her lies were hurting anyone!” Alya retorted.

There was a period of silence, until a confident voice flowed through the classroom. “They hurt me,” Marinette said. She calmed down about the whole crush thing, but her face was still tinted with the slightest shade of pink.

“Lila threatened me the day she came back from her supposed trip. She said that she would take all my friends and make me lonely,” Marinette left out the part about Adrien, “And I guess she was right.” Marinette turned to a confused Lila. “Thank you, Lila. You’ve shown me that my friends don’t trust me. I now know who my real friends are.” She glanced at Adrien timidly, and was relieved when he sent a timid smile back. Long before Lila’s exposure on ‘Face to Face’, Adrien took back his “take the high road” advice as soon as he heard that Lila threatened Marinette. He tried to tell his classmates, but they’d never listen to him. He helped Marinette out as much as he could.

Marinette sat back down, but not in her usual seat. She went and sat next to Adrien, who looked at her, shocked for a second, then took her hand in his.

Everyone was shocked when they learned what Lila did to Marinette. Alya started, “Girl, I’m so sorry! If I’d known she -”

“It shouldn’t matter if you knew or not. You should’ve believed me, but you didn’t. Our friendship is broken. Permanently.” Marinette stated.

“WHAT?! WHY?!” Alya demanded.

Marinette sighed. Alya truly was oblivious to her actions. “First of all, you acted like you didn’t believe me, which hurt a lot. Second, you only acted like you believed her because you wanted views on your blog! You don’t get it, Alya! Your actions cost you consequences, and I’m not sure if you understand that.”

“Bu-but,” Alya tried to stutter out, but Adrien gave her a look that mimicked his father’s.

“Lila hurt us too. She gave us false promises. She told Kim that she knew Michael Phelps, and that she’d put a good word in for him. She told Nathaniel that she’d introduce him to that super famous manga artist in Japan.” Ivan pointed out.

The class understood Ivan’s point. Alya gasped. She never really thought about it that way. I mean, nothing hurt her!

“Marinette, we’re so sorry. We understand what our actions did to you, and we apologize. We understand that you’d want some space to yourself right now.” Alix said, and the rest of the class nodded.

Marinette smiled. “Thank you for understanding. While you’ve lost my trust in you, I’d like to build up our friendship again. Alya, on the other hand, I’d like to talk to you.”

The class smiled back, and sensing Alya’s anger, shuffled out of the classroom, with Adrien leading the way to leave the two girls alone to talk. Lila blinked, and also strolled out.

“C’mon, Mari! What did I do! You understand that I only pretended to believe her because of the views, right?!” Alya started out.

“Alya, you understand, do you? Lila hurt all of us. You made a bad decision not telling the class as soon as you found out, and now you’ve lost all their trust in you. You should have told me that you knew, and shouldn’t have been so selfish about your own career. I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done. And I don’t think I can ever build up our friendship again.” Marinette walked through the door frame.

“Goodbye, Alya.”

At that moment, Alya knew she messed up. She knew she lost the LadyBlog, and her reputation was damaged, but worst of all, she lost her best friend. She only did it for the views.

#alya salt #lila salt #lila exposed #class salt #class sugar #adrien has a spine

296 notes · View notes

charmed-asylum · 3 years

Text

RUMOR HAS IT

DARK STEVE ROGERS X OC MINI FIC

Reqested by @sage1998c request: Hi I was wondering if you would please consider doing a dark Steve high school au story starting Kat Graham as the main oc/face claim. I would really appreciate it if you would think about it.

WARNING: ALOT OF CRAZY SHIT!!! I never did a dark fic I am going to miss a few but let start with the basics NO ONE UNDER AGE OF 18 SHOULD READ THIS. BLACK MAIL/ SEX/ YANDRE/ RECORDING OF SEX WITHOUT SHARE AGRREEMENT/ ETC ETC

SUMMERY: Life was perfect for American boy, aka Steve Rogers. Great friends, hot cheerleader girlfriend, love and adore by everyone. Everything was perfect till senior year when Angelina came around and an anonymous gossip column, Rumor Has It, threatening to expose everyone's dirty laundry.

~ MASTERLIST~

SNEAK PEEK // Angelina OC

TAGGED: @geralt-jaskier20 @hypersonicxd-blog @muralskins @readermia @muralskins@david-winters-93@alagalaska @SAGE1998C

Thick FOG COVERED Rear WINDOWS of his navy blue 1967 Chevy Camaro. A deep moan came from his mouth as he digs deeper into her wet centerfold. His colossal hand holds tighter to her tiny neck, trying to take all his thoughts else were. “OHHHH FU FUCK. HARDER,” Jane shout from behind his thick fingers. His eyes squeeze tighter; he was close still but so far. Think think think of something Peggy beast No. Jane wet means you sure hit new heights with her. She is enjoying it. He opens his ocean blue eyes and gazed back at Jane; her back was arched, moving closer to his cock. Trying to get more. Greedy bitch.

He couldn’t wait until he was destroying her. By the end of her fifth orgasm (pushing her fourth ), she would know to never mess with him again. She ends this fuckin blog once together. Finally, end his bad luck streak. All this was messing with him mentally and psychically. Maybe after this, he can finally get in with Angelina. Fuck now; she was a piece of art. Body carve from god himself. He thought Peggy was an angel, his perfect dame, but then Angelina came back into his life. Right when he needed her. It’s been forever since he saw her. Just then, Jane let at whining cries for him. That and imagining it Angelina and her virgin pussy finally help him release. God, that’s it, he thought to himself. It has been happening a lot. Lately, he felt he was in love. He knows it even though he is young. No matter what it is, he was thinking about her. He can’t sleep, eat, think.

Whenever he had a chance to stop thinking of her, it’s about this FUCKING BLOG. RUMORS HAS IT. STUPID SHIT! It already got a few of his friends, and even though he is unstoppable invisible. His fears he was going to be next. That’s why Jane has to be the person behind it. No one else knows Thor secret besides him, Thor and his family, her, and that child’s family. So stupid. So Thor was involved in an accident and drunk and got a child in a fucking coma. With one peek at the camera, he stares back at the feedback, good he is still out of frame.

Jane utters another whimper. Almost there, he thought to himself. Jane’s sparkling baby pink cat claw nails scratch deep into his pecks and across his ample shoulders. The sight of her nail polish reminds him of a dress Angelina once wear. The last time he saw her, matter of fact, was 12 years ago. She was only three years younger than her. He can taste the chunky chocolate chips that melted into the cookies. He can hear the playful voice she uses when she would pretend to play house. He was daddy, and she was mommy. No matter what he did, she always looked up at him like he was god-like. He was the only one who could ever make her feel safe. Even as a weak, pathetic boy like him. Maybe she was that high he felt once and had been trying to get ever since. He can remember like it was yesterday when they share their 1st kiss. She wanted it; she kisses him sweet dreams of a cloud 9 type of kiss. He would have relished that kiss if he had any common sense instead of screaming around like an idiot. He accidentally pushed her away and made her hurt herself. Even though he was the cause of that pain, it was him she looks at to save her. Make her feel better. Fuck, where did that pretty brown eye with pink tails in tutu little girl go?

She turns into a fuckin unstoppable beast, a storm of everything that drove him crazy. Everything he saw was wrong with the world. Still, he wanted more. Man, he had to get Jane to understand she was messing up his chance to be with his little angel. God’s gift to him for what he has done what he has accomplished.

“OH STEVEEEEEE” Jane shouted, her legs clenching tight around Steve waisted her mouth in the notch of her neck. Five

“I told you I could make you come at least five times. Having the best sex you ever got, huh. Tell me I’m better no one can ever fuck you. Not even your stupid boyfriend, Thor,” Steve said breathlessly.

Jane nods and whimpers softly. It’s you.

“A no. Doll, I need you to shout it louder for the camera,” he whispered into her ear.

So far into her sexual bliss high, she did not hear him say that but instead agree with him.

He smiles, now holding the camera close to her wet fold. Jane lay back, eyes close, dazed. With a flash, her eyes peak open to see the phone filming her. She pushes up only to be pushed back down with one finger by Steve, still holding the camera. One hand holds down her arms above her head. A Pitch of Steve’s sweat drips onto her.

“Come on, Jane Baby. Say hi to the camera. Man, I made many sex tapes, but you are the first girl I made come without much effort. That is how much of a gold digger slut you are. Your boyfriend hasn’t even cleaned out his locker, but you are already begging to suck my cock. Tiss. Now now, what are we going to do, huh? One-click, and this goes quicker than one of your rumors. By the time you get out of this car, everyone will know what a dirty slut you are. No more Thor, no more ivy school options. The only thing you can do is give yourself to homeless people. Right, where you belong” Steve chuckle watching Jane cry, begging him to stop.

“But why Jane baby, you were holding me with an iron fist singing my name to the high heavens. Haha, you bitch. It would be best if you had someone to teach you—the right way. Don’t worry; I do that. Mmm. Would you like me to show you the right way? Show you how to be a lady, not trashy dirty whore” He said, proceeding close, sniffing her dark locks. Could Angelina still smell like sweet sugar and honey? Wonder if she uses a different shampoo than whores like Jane or Peggy. I bet she sounds different too.

“Please don’t. Do this I. I. I do anything. Please don’t post the video,” Jane said between each sob. Her tiny wrist was starting to burn from the tight grip.

“Oh, no amount of tears or begging to go to stop me. No. You are going to shut up and listen to me bitch. One-stop your blogging, shut it down, and then redact it all. I don’t care what you say, but you end this shit. THEN you’re going to be Thor’s slave. Do whatever he wants behind closed doors, and in front, you will hold tight to his arm to every court hearing throughout the trials. I don’t care if you miss school; I look or hear you miss anything. I’m posting this gem here. Understand,” He said, tilting his head to the side.

“Bu Bu bu it was not me I not the person behind it. I promise I got mad at Thor yes, he was flirting with girls at all the games. But I promise Steve I never do that. But I admit it if that what you want me to do,” She said, crying with chubby tears. He looks deep into her eyes, trying to see if she was lying. Maybe she didn’t. She was like him in a way, using Thor to better herself. He loosens his hold but remains on top. He savors this for future use, but he won’t tell that. Yet. No, he was going to have a bit of fun with this one.

“Not enough. Huh, I guess that’s bye-bye to a bright future. Or else. You come here and show me just how much you want me to keep this little homemade video a secret. Huh. Make it quick. I got a date with destiny, or should I say, little angel. Remember, you use those pearly whites teeth, or don’t swallow all of it up. Bye-bye future, “Steve says with a huge grind and dark eyes darker the midnight sky.

#dark marvel #dark fic #dark steve rogers #dark steve x reader #dark steve x you #steve rogers #steve x you #chris evans x you #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x black!oc #Angelina oc #jane foster #captain america #marvel #rumor has it #dark marvel fic #mini fanfiction #request #dark steve

56 notes · View notes

haokyeom · 4 years

Text

last a lifetime | xu minghao

ミ★ synopsis: sometimes forgiveness doesn’t just mean forgiving another person, it’s forgiving yourself too. aka, in which the virtue of forgiveness helps you forgive yourself and open your heart again.

ミ★ genre: virtue of forgiveness!minghao, angst, some fluff

ミ★ warnings: minor character death, mentions of blood

ミ★ word count: 8,824

ミ★ pairings: minghao x female reader, joshua x female reader

ミ★ notes: hi guys ! it’s lila, aka, @viastro. you know how it be. uh, this might be one of my favorite oneshots i’ve written? as well as my upcoming oneshot for this collab that’s coming next week hehe. i’m just incredibly proud of this piece even though it is incredibly long. i hope you guys enjoy it, make sure to give minghao lots of love <3

previous | masterlist | next

“Are you seriously going to walk out on me? Without an explanation?” Juyeon asks from behind you, and you clutch the door handle in your hand. You don’t dare turn around, because you know that if you do, you’d fall back into the toxic cycle.

“Yn, please?” You stare at the wooden door, wondering how the cycle first began. How Juyeon became someone you cared about too much, to the point that you’d die for him if necessary. It’s scary how fast you go to him when he needs you, how you’re the shoulder he cries on every time his newfound relationship didn’t work. What’s scarier is that he could never see how much it hurt you each time.

how could he not see that you loved him? You wonder to yourself. You feel his hand rest on your shoulder, causing your breath to hitch.

“Please stay, yn.” Juyeon mumbles, staring at the back of your head with tears filling his eyes. He clutches the back of your t-shirt in his hand as a means to make you stay, and it almost works.

almost.

“I can’t anymore. It hurts too much.” You state, biting the inside of your cheek once a tear falls from your left eye. “What hurts?” Juyeon asks quietly.

The two of you stand in silence for a moment. With him wondering what he did wrong, and you questioning whether you should simply just risk it all.

You decide on the latter.

“Loving you, but seeing you fall for everyone else.” You answer, before opening the door and stepping out of Juyeon’s apartment. You quickly run over to the elevator, pressing on the buttons before Juyeon can make it over to you.

“Yn! Wait!” You hear him call, and you thank the heavens that the doors open just in time. You push the button that closes the elevator doors, and you scream internally at how slow it takes for them to shut. You hear Juyeon’s running feet, and you watch through the sliver of the door, catching his heartbroken expression before they finally close.

You let out a breath, feeling a sense of pain when the elevator begins to go down. You wonder whether it was better to have talked out your feelings with him, if you should’ve stayed. What would’ve happened if you did?

no, juyeon doesn’t love you back.

Your thoughts get cut off when the elevator doors open, and you step out into the main lobby. You head over to the entrance, only to freeze when you hear the call of your name. Turning your head, you see Juyeon standing where the stairs are, and your eyes widen.

“Yn!” You run out the doors, sprinting over towards the crosswalk so that you can get farther away from him. The closer you are to the bus stop, the closer you are to getting away from Juyeon.

“Yn, please! Hear me out!” Juyeon yells from behind, begging for you to slow down and talk to him. You continue to run, not even thinking twice when you step onto the crosswalk. Juyeon’s eyes widen when he sees that it’s not your turn to cross the street, and he turns to see a truck not making any means of slowing down.

“YN!” Juyeon screams, running faster to get to you. You finally turn around at the desperate call of your name, a tone you’ve never heard from Juyeon before. Juyeon’s sprinting towards you, yelling words you can’t decipher. You see bright lights out of the corner of your eye, and you glance to your left to see a truck heading straight towards you.

“Juyeo-” You get cut off when you get pushed out of the way, landing hard on your side. You hear the loud screech of the tires and the slam of the car, and you stare at the ground with wide eyes. The crosswalk light turns green and the signal begins to repeat itself like a mantra. Telling you to walk, walk, walk, as the blood drains from your face when you turn your head to look at what happened.

The signal soon gets drowned out by the sound of your screams.

you never get to learn what Juyeon wanted to say to you, or why he wanted you to stay.

you still wonder what would’ve happened if you stayed.

three years later

“Yn, I need you to go to the coffee shop down the street and buy four iced americanos.” You glance up from your desk, shooting a glare at Joshua, who simply gives you a bright smile in return.

“Why would I do that?” You ask your peach haired coworker. At first glance he seems like an absolute angel, and could never do anything wrong. After working with him for a year though… you learned he’s the exact opposite. However, you have a lot of love for the guy. Even if he makes you do all his small jobs.

“Cause you love me.” Joshua says in a singsong voice, and you let out a sigh. You look back towards your computer, showing no means of getting up from your desk, and Joshua pouts. “Okay, I’ll treat you to pork belly at that new high-end restaurant when it opens next month if you do this for me.”

You smirk, turning off your PC and standing up from your desk at the mention of meat. Joshua lets out a sigh, knowing that paying you back in food always works. It’s a win/lose situation for the man. The pro, he doesn’t need to walk down the street to buy the coffee. The con, his wallet pays the price whenever he treats you to food for doing his job for him every time.

“Four iced americanos, correct?” You ask, and Joshua nods his head. You grin, reaching your hand out for him to give you the credit card. To which he carefully places into the palm your hand.

“I’ll be back in a few.” Joshua gives you a thumbs up, letting out a sigh as he watches you leave the office.

“Maybe I should just buy the coffee from now on.” He mumbles to himself, turning around and walking back over to his own office.

You step out of the hospital, walking down the sidewalk with your hands in your pocket. The weather is a bit breezy, with the slight winds tousling up your hair. You glance up when you reach the coffee shop, stepping inside as a warm burst of air hits you.

Letting out a breath, you walk up to the register and order the four americanos. The whole interaction takes less than a minute, and the preparation of the drinks is rather quick as well considering that there’s not many customers at this time. Within fifteen minutes you’re back outside, the wind hitting you as you walk back towards the hospital.

You’re close to the building when you hear the sound of tires screech, the sound of cars crashing following soon afterwards, and you fall to the ground immediately, the iced americanos spilling around you. You glance up towards the road, seeing a car crash right in the middle of the intersection. Those around you all begin to hurry over towards the site, pulling out their phones to call for emergency services, while you sit there, the memories flashing past your eyes.

You reach up and cover your ears when the sound of those talking worriedly fills your senses, reminding you of the horrid night. You close your eyes, hoping that it’ll calm you down, but all you can hear is the sound of the crosswalk signal telling you to walk, walk, walk.

You feel tears fall past your eyes when the sight of Juyeon floods your brain, and you rock back and forth as you try to calm down. Those passing by begin to look at you strangely, all except one. He walks over and kneels down in front of you. He reaches up and rests his hands over yours, startling you into looking up to see who is helping you cover your ears.

His hair is pitch black, parted down the middle but you can still tell that it’s rather long. His eyes bore into yours, and you get distracted from the noise for a short moment. He mouths the words, it’ll be okay, and for some reason, you feel that he spoke the truth.

The two of you stay like that for a moment, just staring into each other’s eyes until you feel your heartbeat slowly go back to normal. You close your eyes, lowering your head as you take deep breaths. Suddenly, the feeling of his hands over yours disappear, and you look up to see Joshua staring at you with concern written over his features.

“Yn, let’s go inside.” He tells you, but you can’t hear him. Joshua lets out a sad smile, mouthing that he’s going to pick you up and that you should just close your eyes. One arm goes under your knees, and the other around your back as he lifts you up from the sidewalk, quickly taking you into the hospital, away from the chaos of outside.

You slowly remove your hands from your ears when the two of you are farther away from the entrance of the hospital, and you wipe away the tears on your cheeks. He steps into the elevator, pressing the button for the sixth floor. You pat his shoulder, signaling that it’s okay for him to let you down, but he just shakes his head. Once the elevator doors open, he brings you over to your office where you counsel your patients.

“I shouldn’t have let you go alone, I’m sorry.” Joshua says sadly, as he sets you down onto the small couch in your office. You shake your head, giving him a small, reassuring smile.

“It’s not your fault Joshua. I’m sorry for the coffee.” You respond, and he scoffs, muttering how you guys will just order coffee for delivery from now on. Joshua sits down beside you on the couch, turning his head to glance at you, “Besides, that’s not what’s important, yn. What matters most is your mental health.”

Your breath hitches and you turn away, staring at the childish painting on your wall that was painted as a joke by Juyeon. It’s the two of you as dinosaurs, him holding out a pink flower in your direction. You were never able to tell what the type of flower was, and Juyeon refused to tell you. You ended up keeping the painting though, and you don’t plan on ever taking it down.

“Can I just be alone for now, Joshua? I’ll talk to you when I feel better.” Joshua lets out a breath, feeling slightly disappointed at the fact that you’re avoiding the topic once again. He hardly knows the story, no one really does. All he knows is that you’re terrified of car crashes, and the sound of the crosswalk signal is a trigger for you. However, he won’t force you to open up.

“Of course, yn. I promise to get you the best pork belly when that new place opens next month.” Joshua tells you, and you give him a soft grin, nodding your head. He gets up and steps out of your office after your response, and you immediately rest your head into your hands, feeling mentally exhausted.

The memory of the handsome stranger who helped you a few minutes prior lingers in your head, and you find yourself wondering who he is, and why he helped you.

You look through your notes on your last patient, pausing when you hear a knock on your door. Without looking up from your journal you say, “Come in!”

You hear the door open, and you glance up to see Joshua standing there with a small smile, holding a matcha latte in his hand. He steps over to your desk, placing it beside your journal, settling down in the seat across from you.

“This for me?” You ask with a smile, and Joshua rolls his eyes at you, knowing that you already know the answer. You mutter a quiet thank you, and he nods his head.

“How was your last patient?” Joshua asks, smiling at your reaction of you pursing your lips. You let out a sigh, taking the latte and taking a sip. You lean back into your seat, giving Joshua a tired look.

“He told me about his sex life in great detail when I asked how his day was, so that was rather interesting.” Joshua frowns, before breaking out into a laugh that sounds like music to your ears. You find yourself giggling as well, the common effect of Joshua’s contagious laugh.

“That sounds lovely.” Joshua jokes once the two of you finish laughing, and you stick your tongue out at him. You close your eyes for a moment, feeling tired from a long day, and Joshua lets out a small smile at the sight.

“You want me to drive you home?” Joshua asks after a moment of the two of you just basking in each other’s company, and you open an eye to glance at him. He chuckles at the sight, and you grin, shaking your head at him.

“It’s okay Joshua, I need to stay a bit later tonight anyways.” You answer, and Joshua nods his head slowly. He stands up from the chair, running a hand through his wavy peach colored hair. You find yourself staring a bit longer than usual, and Joshua takes notice of this. He smiles, “Want me to stay with you?”

Your breath hitches at the question, and you look down at your desk. Joshua bites the inside of his cheek, wondering if he asked the wrong thing based on your reaction. You let out a shaky breath, before glancing back up and shaking your head at him. “Nah, I know you’re tired too. I’ll see you tomorrow Joshua.”

He nods his head, reaching out and giving you a soft pat on the head. You smile at the gesture, and he puts his hands in his pockets once he’s done. “Don’t stay too late working. I’ll see you tomorrow, yn.”

“Night Joshua.” You call when he places his hand on your doorknob. His heart warms at your soft voice, and he opens the door, stepping out of your office. Once the door closes, you’re left alone once again. You let out a tired groan, leaning back into your seat and closing your eyes.

The incident from last week still recurs in your head. You’ve done a decent job at suppressing the memory of Juyeon over the past three years, but ever since last week you’ve been having nightmares again. The sound of the crosswalk signal plays in your head once you wake up, reminding you of what you dreamt moments before.

“When are you going to forgive-”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” You scream, standing up from your chair and staring directly at the black haired beauty standing in front of you. You notice that his black hair is a bit wavy this time, a bit curled around the back of his neck. His apparel is all black, and your breath hitches when you realize his black turtleneck is cropped, revealing his toned stomach.

“You’re the guy from last week.” You mutter, and he nods his head. He glances around your office, hands stuffed into his pockets as he awkwardly stands there.

“How did you get in without making a sound? The door was closed. Wait. How did you disappear last time-”

“If you sit down then I can explain everything.” He states, and you frown slightly. The man lets out a sigh when he sees how apprehensive you look, and he does a quick spin for you.

“I don’t have any weapons on me if you think I’m going to murder you.” The man tells you, and you purse your lips. He lets out a sigh, showing you his hands, and you take notice of his slender fingers.

“My hands are too pretty to try and choke someone to death as well.” He adds, and you finally sit down in your leather seat after a second of thinking. He sits down in the chair across from you, resting his chin on his hand as he tries to make you out.

“Are you going to explain?”

“In a second.”

You raise an eyebrow, and he gives you a small smile. He leans back into the seat and runs a hand through his hair.

“Well yn, this is going to sound ridiculous, but I’m not human.” He begins, and you frown at him.

“Yeah, and I’m a furry.” The pretty man pauses, glancing at you to see if you were serious.

You squint, “I was joking.”

He nods his head, muttering a quiet, thank god, before continuing. To which you glare, not appreciating the fact that he thought you were serious.

“Anyways… you know the seven deadly sins I’m assuming, correct?” You nod your head at the pretty man. “How about the seven virtues?” You nod your head again, and he lets out a relieved smile.

“Okay great. That makes this easier. Well, I’m the virtue of forgiveness, Xu Minghao.” You stare at him in silence, and he stares back at you. You close your eyes, resting your head in your hands, and he tilts his head at you.

“Are you… okay?” You look up at him, seeing how he may not really be human even though he looks like it. There’s no way a man can be this pretty and be human at the same time. We humans are not worthy of living alongside a man who is as ethereal as Xu Minghao.

“No.” You answer after a moment, and he purses his lips.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” You ask, and he shrugs.

“I could disappear for you or something.”

“Damn, deadass?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it right now if it’ll make you believe me.”

“Okay, bet.”

You watch as Minghao literally disappears from the seat for a moment, and you stare with a blank face when he appears back in the chair. He raises an eyebrow at how unimpressed you seem to be, opening his mouth to ask what you think, only for you to fall out of your seat.

“YN?!”

You blink your eyes open, only to shut them with a loud groan as you roll over in bed. You quietly thank God that it was just a weird dream as your hand roams around the sheets, only to pause when you realize you’re not in your bed at all. You sharply inhale when you recognize the leather surface you’re laying on, and you open your eyes when you realize you’re on the couch in your office. You turn your head to see Minghao sitting in the seat across from you. He tilts his head and gives you a soft smile, “Morning.”

“It’s morning?!”

“Nah, it’s only been about fifteen minutes. I ordered us chicken since you haven’t had dinner yet, and I assumed we’d be here for a while.” Minghao explains as he opens up the cardboard boxes holding the fried chicken. You find yourself unable to argue with the grumble of your stomach, so you sit up on the couch and reach out to grab the small paper plate Minghao set out for you. You place two pieces of chicken onto your plate and begin eating.

The two of you eat your food in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s more of you slowly taking in the fact that Minghao is not at all human, while Minghao wonders whether or not he regrets not ordering soda with the food.

As he takes another bite of chicken, he decides that he does regret it.

Once the two of you finish, you help clean up, placing the cleaned up chicken bones into the box that once held them. Minghao swipes the crumbs off the table and into the plastic bag. You hand him the box holding the bones, and he places it into the bag too. He ties it up, and leaves it by the door, telling you he’ll take it out later.

Once you settle back down onto the couch, the silence soon becomes awkward. With Minghao staring at you, and you looking at anything but him. He lets out a breath, leaning back into the seat, “Do you know why I’m here?”

You glance at him, shaking your head. He gives you a look that basically says, now i know you’re fucking lying. While you give him an expression that says, I’m absolutely lying.

“Why do you blame yourself for Juyeon’s death?” Minghao asks, reaching forward and grabbing the water bottle you offered him. You freeze at the mention of his name, and Minghao takes a sip of water, gauging your reaction.

“I don’t.” You mumble, looking down at the floor. Minghao shakes his head, “But you do.”

“I don’t wanna talk about him.” You say, reaching forward and drinking from your water bottle. Minghao purses his lips, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “If you don’t talk about him now, then when will you?”

You don’t respond, instead standing up from your couch and walking over to your desk. Minghao spins the chair so that it faces your direction, continuing to stare directly at you as you begin packing up your stuff to head home.

“Yn-”

“Can you just leave me alone? Please?” You plead, and Minghao lets out a sigh after a moment. He stands up from your chair, brushing off some crumbs on his black jeans with his hands. He runs a hand through his black hair, watching as you zip up your bag.

“Sometimes forgiveness doesn’t just mean forgiving another person.” Minghao begins, and you glance up at him from your bag. “It’s forgiving yourself too.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, looking away from the man. He walks over to your door, picking up the trash bag holding the food the two of you ate. He turns back towards you, giving you a small smile.

“I’ll always be there when you need me yn, I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you in the first place.” Minghao says, before opening the door and stepping out. You fall into your seat, feeling tears fill your eyes from all the weight on your shoulders. You shake your head, resting it onto the cold surface of your desk as you close your eyes.

“Why would he use the door when he can teleport.” You mutter quietly as tears fall down onto the carpeted floor, all alone in your office once again.

“Yn, you wanna get lunch with me?” You glance up from your pc, seeing Joshua standing at your door frame with a smile on his face. You look at the time, seeing that your next patient won’t be coming in for about half an hour. Turning back towards Joshua, you see him waiting expectantly for you to come with him.

but you won’t.

“I’m sorry Joshua, I have to sort out of notes for my next patient.” You tell him, and you almost regret turning him down when you see his smile drop slightly. He gives you a nod, “That’s okay. Next time.”

You smile, but don’t agree that there will be a next time. Joshua closes the door behind him, and you turn back towards your computer, letting out a sad sigh.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” You’re not shocked at the fact that Minghao is in your office again, considering that this is the fifth time you’ve seen him today. He has made it his mission to randomly appear at your workplace whenever you’re alone for the past week. The two of you have built a relationship of sorts, and you’ve grown rather fond of Minghao, as he feels the same towards you. While he may have made his appearance present whenever you’re at work, he hasn’t made any means of showing up at your apartment yet.

You glance up at him, finding that he’s wearing an oversized maroon and cream colored cardigan, paired with a white turtleneck and cream colored pants to match. You wonder why he’s so stylish, but you hold back on asking the question as you remember what he just brought up.

“Cause I’m busy.” You mutter, reaching into your drawer to grab a granola bar to chew on. Minghao frowns, placing his hands on your desk and leaning close to your face. You look up into his eyes, and your breath hitches at the close proximity between the two of you.

“Is it that? Or is it because you’re afraid?” Minghao asks, and the quick flutter of your heart soon disappears due to the question. You frown at him, reaching up and pushing his face away with your pointer finger.

“No.”

“You need to be a bit more descriptive.”

“Fuck you.”

“Rude, I’m the virtue of forgiveness you know. I could report you.” You give the black haired beauty a bored look, and he purses his lips. He quietly curses to himself at the fact that you’re now seemingly unaffected by his otherworldly status.

You try to work again, but let out a sigh when you feel Minghao’s eyes still on you. You glance up at him, seeing that he’s giving you one of his looks that basically he means he’s seeing right through you. You lean back into your seat, taking a bite of the granola bar before beginning.

“I just. I’m scared.” You mutter quietly, swallowing the chewed up granola. Minghao nods his head, feeling a bit happy that you’re finally beginning to open up. “Why?”

You think back on Juyeon for a moment, remembering how beautiful your friendship was. You glance back down at your pc, letting out a sad smile at what could’ve been. You begin typing away on your computer again, promptly ending the conversation before it got anywhere. Minghao runs a hand through his hair, before reaching out and patting the top of your head softly.

“We’ll talk when you’re ready.” Minghao says, before disappearing from your office once again, leaving you alone.

“YN!” You hear Juyeon scream, and you turn around at the desperation in his voice. You watch him sprint towards you, and you see bright lights flash at you out of the corner of your eye. You glance to your left to see a truck heading straight towards you, and your heart practically stops.

“Juyeo-” You’re shoved out of the way, landing hard on your side. You hear the loud screech of the tires and the slam of the car, and you stare down at the road with wide eyes. The sound of the crosswalk signal goes off, telling you to walk, walk, walk. The blood drains from your face, and you turn your head to see Juyeon laying on the ground, motionless.

You quickly stand up and stumble over. Your heart practically stops when you make it to him, and you fail to notice the tears falling from your eyes. You fall to your knees, and with shaky hands you reach out and touch his wrist, seeing if there’s a pulse.

It’s incredibly faint, and you almost let out a breath of relief. You turn your head to see the driver standing in front of his truck in shock, and you hold back from screaming at him. Glancing around, you find people stopping around you, phones held close to their ears as they call emergency services.

“Yn…” You turn your head immediately, seeing Juyeon giving you a tired smile. Your heart drops at the amount of blood beginning to surround the two of you. You try to rip off some of the fabric from your shirt to try and soak up the blood from his wounds, but Juyeon tiredly rests his hand over yours.

“I’m sorry.” Juyeon mutters, and you shake your head, tears falling from your eyes as you give him a smile to try and reassure him that you’re okay.

“No, it’s my fault. I’m sorry, it’ll be okay.” You ramble, sobs slowly building up in your chest as you do. Juyeon tries to raise his hand up towards your face, but he grimaces in pain, and you shake your head at him. “The ambulance will be here soon.”

Juyeon doesn’t listen, instead attempting to reach up to cup your face again. His hand makes it to your cheek this time, and he slowly wipes away the tears with his thumb. He opens his mouth to say something, and your eyes widen in horror when his arm falls back to his side, eyes closing.

“Juyeon. Juyeon, please. No, no, no.” You try to feel his pulse, and your heart sinks when you don’t feel anything. You get pushed away by a fellow witness, and they begin to perform emergency CPR on Juyeon as you stare at his lifeless body in shock.

The sound of the crosswalk signal goes off behind you, telling you to walk, walk, walk. The tears fall from your eyes at a rapid pace, and the sob builds up in your chest as more people begin to surround you and Juyeon. You shake your head, trying to reach out and hold him, but get held back by another witness who tries to calm you down.

“Juyeon! JUYEON!” You scream, voice cracking as you continue to scream his name in agony.

“Yn!” You ignore the call of your name, screaming loudly as tears fall from your eyes and onto the road. Your throat is hoarse as you sob, continuing to try and reach Juyeon but being held back by the arms of one of the witnesses.

“JUYEON!”

“Yn!!”

“YN!” You gasp awake, sitting up in bed and locking eyes with a worried Minghao. He reaches out and cups your face, attempting to wipe away the tears falling from your eyes as you stare at him in fear. He watches as your lip quivers, taking notice of the tight grip you have on his shirt.

“Leave.” You mumble after a moment of silence, dropping your hands and looking away from him. Minghao raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Leave, Minghao.” You repeat, the tears falling silently past your eyes as you stare blankly at your bed. Minghao shakes his head, resting his hand on your wrist. He opens his mouth to tell you that he’s not going to leave, but you snap.

“I said leave! Go!” You shout, looking up into his eyes and hitting his chest with your hands. The saltiness of your tears is all you can taste as you yell. Minghao stares at you with a pained expression, just standing there and letting you punch him.

“Did you hear me? LEAVE! GO! GET OUT!” You scream, voice cracking as you cry out in pain.

“GO BEFORE YOU DIE TOO! LEAVE!” Minghao glances down at your hands now tightly clutching his shirt, and he lets out a shaky breath. You open your mouth to scream again, but get cut off when Minghao wraps his arms around you, pulling your head into his chest as you begin to sob. He rubs your back to try and calm you down as you wail into his shirt, and he bites his lip at how your sobs are filled with nothing but pain.

“I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere.” Minghao mumbles, cradling your head softly in his hand as you cry loudly into his chest. He blinks when he realizes his vision is blurry, and he takes notice of the tears falling from his own eyes. Minghao’s crying. Something he’s never done for a human.

Minghao bites his lip as an attempt to stop from hiccupping or showing any indications that he’s crying, and he rests his cheek on the top of your head. Closing his eyes, he holds you close until your sobs slow down.

“I’m not going anywhere, yn.” Minghao whispers, and your eyelids flutter shut, the last of your tears falling past your eyes and landing over Minghao’s heart.

“It was my fault.” You state as you and Minghao stare up at your ceiling, laying on your bed side by side. It’s long after you finally calmed down, and you’re left with swollen eyes and the inability to breathe through your nostrils. Minghao almost left when you calmed down, but you pulled him into bed with you, and now here the two of you are. At three in the morning. Staring at your off-white ceiling.

Minghao turns his head to glance at you, seeing that you’re finally ready to open up. He rolls over onto his side, resting his head on his arm as you take in a deep breath. He chooses to be quiet now to let you express everything you’ve been suppressing for three years.

“Juyeon is- was. He was my best friend. We've known each other since we were kids.” You begin, letting out a small smile at the memory of a small Juyeon first introducing himself to a tiny you back in kindergarten. “We grew up together. We went to the same school all the way up to university.”

Minghao watches as a tear escapes your eye, and you quickly raise your hand up to wipe it away. Letting out a wet laugh, the pain strikes your chest again. “They always said I’d fall for him, and I never believed it. Until he told me he met someone for the first time, and I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest.”

You suck in a shaky breath, and Minghao reaches his hand out towards yours, to which you gratefully intertwine your fingers with his. You bite the inside of your cheek before continuing. “After things didn’t work out with that person, I ran to his apartment as fast as I could. That’s how the cycle began. After every newfound relationship didn’t work, I’d run to him no matter what I was doing. But he could never see that it was hurting me in the process.”

Minghao squeezes your hand, and you close your eyes. You take in deep breaths to try and control your breathing so that you can be able to finish. Minghao watches with sad eyes, but he knows that you opening up about what happened is important in the steps on finally letting you forgive yourself.

“I loved him. He was everything I wanted my forever to be, but I wasn’t his. I knew that from the start, but I still had hope, you know? But it became too much for me. The day Juyeon died, I ran out of his apartment after telling him I couldn’t do it anymore.” More tears fall from your eyes, blurring the sight of your ceiling. Minghao props himself up in bed to get a good look at you. And you shake your head at him, motioning for him to lay back down, to which he slowly does.

“I was so fucking stupid, Minghao. I didn’t look at the road before going onto the crosswalk, so I couldn’t even see the truck coming my way.” Your voice cracks, and you let go of Minghao’s hand to cover your face with your hands. Minghao feels his own heart shatter at how much pain you’ve been harboring to yourself, wanting nothing more than to take it away from you. “Juyeon saved my life. If I would’ve just stayed then he wouldn’t have die-”

“Yn, it’s not your fault.” Minghao interrupts, and you shake your head as more tears spill from your eyes. “It was my fault.” Minghao rests his hand on your wrist, rubbing circles on the bone with his thumb as he shakes his head.

“Sometimes we can’t control our actions when we’re going through a lot emotionally, let alone think properly. You’re not the cause of Juyeon’s death, he saved you on his own accord. He knows you would’ve done the same for him.” Minghao explains softly, and your shoulders shake by how hard you’re crying. Minghao pulls you close to him again, nuzzling your head into his chest as he rubs your back.

“Juyeon wouldn’t want you to blame yourself either, yn. He would want you to live.” Minghao whispers, and you quietly sob into Minghao’s chest at his words. His hand trails up and cradles your head, resting his cheek on the top of it.

“I don’t know what to do anymore.” You say, and Minghao bites the inside of his cheek. He rubs your back, quietly muttering that it’ll be okay.

“We can’t change the past, but we can take charge of our future. You just have to forgive yourself for any change to happen.” Minghao responds in a soft voice, and you let out a shaky breath, closing your eyes.

“I miss him so much.” You mumble tiredly, the sobbing having taken a lot of energy out of you. His breath hitches when your arm wraps around his middle, having not expected you to hold him. He rubs your back slowly, trying to regulate his heartbeat so that you can’t hear it. Through the last tears falling from your eyes you add, “I don’t care if he didn’t love me back, I just wish he was here.”

“He’s always here.” Minghao mutters after a moment, fatigue taking over as you find it hard to keep your eyes open. However, you fight your exhaustion to hear Minghao’s words.

“So live for him.” Is the last thing you hear before you succumb to sleep. Minghao follows soon after, hand stilling on your back as the stars shine brightly in the sky.

You type away on your computer, quite a bit of weight lifted off your shoulders since the heart-to-heart you had with Minghao a week ago. Your heart is warm, and you feel a bit airy as you turn to glance out the window of your office, seeing the birds flying high in the blue sky.

While you may still be fearful of crosswalks and trucks in general, you’ve felt better since you let out all the pain you’ve been feeling. As well as remembering Minghao’s words to you, because deep down, you know that Juyeon wouldn’t want you blaming yourself. So you’ve taken the steps into looking into therapists, even though you’re one yourself. Minghao’s helping as well, knowing that this will be good for you in the long run.

There are still moments where you feel the weight back on your shoulders, and you want to hide from the world. However, it’s understandable. You can’t forget the trauma and internal self-conflict you’ve dealt with for years based on one heart-to-heart talk. It’s helped push you into taking the proper steps to fully heal though.

Hearing a knock on your door, you glance up to see Joshua poking his head in with a big smile on his face. You find yourself smiling back, as both his laughter and the sight of his smile are contagious to you.

“Hi Joshua.” You greet, and he steps into your office, two bobas in hand, causing you to clap your hands excitedly. He places it before you, sitting down in the seat in front of your desk. You smile, glancing up into his eyes. “You spoil me.”

“It was a two for one deal, couldn’t resist getting one for you. It was basically a sign from the heavens telling me to get you boba.” Joshua jokes, and you roll your eyes, shoving your straw through the plastic seal after shaking up the drink. You take a sip, letting out a content sigh at the sweet taste of milk tea.

“How was your last patient?” You ask, and Joshua grins. “He’s opening up a bit more each time, it makes me feel happy to know that he’s slowly trusting me.”

You nod your head with a smile, understanding the feeling. The two of you converse for a moment, occasionally taking a sip of boba mid-speech as the drink just seems to be too addictive. You glance down at your keyboard when Joshua clears his throat, causing you to look up at him.

“So you know how I said I’d treat you to pork belly once that new place opens?” You nod your head, taking another sip of boba and chewing on the tapioca pearls. Joshua lets out a shy smile, running a hand through his peach hair.

“Well, it opened, and I was wondering if you wanted to go next Friday?” You pause for a moment. Something in Joshua’s invitation seems different this time around, from the slight blush rising to his cheeks, as well as the nervous smile he has on right now. Your heart pounds against your chest when you realize, and you bite the inside of your cheek.

After a second you nod your head, and Joshua visibly relaxes. “Yes, I’d love to go with you.”

“Nice! I’ll text you the details, okay?” Joshua says as he stands up from his seat, and you glance at your watch, seeing that his next patient will be coming soon. You give him a thumbs up, and he lets out a breath, sending you another smile.

“It’s a date!” Joshua calls, and you nod your head, giggling when he shoots you finger guns before closing the door behind him. You let out a sigh, glancing down at your keyboard when you feel a presence right in front of your computer.

You look up to find Minghao leaning against your desk, a peaceful look on his face as he stares down at you. His hair is straight this time around, still parted down the middle. He’s wearing a burberry plaid shirt with ripped black jeans, showing off a bit of his thighs.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

The two of you stare at each other in silence for a moment. Minghao takes in the slight glow to your aura, showing that you’re healing. While you stare into his eyes that hold so much depth to them, but you never know what he’s truly thinking.

“Going on a date, huh?” Minghao teases, and you glare at the virtue. He chuckles at the furrow to your brow, reaching over and smoothing it out with the pad of his thumb. Your heart leaps in your chest at the contact, but you stay unimpressed until he places his hand back on the table.

“It’s not a date.”

“You sure?”

“... no.”

Minghao giggles at your response, causing you to softly laugh as well. He rolls his eyes, standing up from your desk and raising his arms above his head. You lean back into your seat, taking a long sip of boba as you wait for him to speak.

“Well, I hope you have fun.” Minghao tells you, and you let out a small smile. Nodding your head, you give him a thumbs up. “I’ll make sure to tell you all the details after it happens. However, I have to pee so I’ll be right back.”

Minghao watches with a fond smile as you get up from your leather seat and scurry out of your office. It slowly drops from his face once the door closes, and he bites the inside of his cheek. He lets out a sad laugh, resting a hand over his heart, clutching the fabric of his shirt with a tight fist.

“I’m so happy, but why am I so sad too?” Minghao mutters to himself after a moment, only to quickly switch back to his happy persona once he hears your door open again. You give him a smile, walking to your desk and sitting back down in your seat.

“Wanna play among us?” You ask, and Minghao smirks. He sits down into the seat in front of your desk, wiggling his pretty fingers towards you. “I hope you know that I’ll win, sweetheart.”

You begin cursing at the man, and Minghao just laughs at your reaction. He lets you ramble, promptly ignoring the dull pain in his heart as he chooses to instead watch the way your eyes sparkle at him.

Minghao finds you beautiful when you’re happy.

and that’s all that matters.

“I’ll see you next week Doc.” You nod your head with a smile, glancing down at your notes, only to pause when you realize your door hasn’t shut yet. You look up to see Jacob staring at the dinosaur painting Juyeon created years ago.

“Is there something else you wanted to speak about, Jacob?” You ask, effectively startling the boy out of his thoughts. He turns and gives you a smile, shaking his head.

“It’s just that I noticed the flower. I don’t see it painted that much.” Jacob answers, and you raise an eyebrow. You walk over and stand beside your patient, staring at the familiar pink flower that Juyeon refused to tell you the name of. “Oh yeah? My best friend never told me the name of it for whatever reason. Guess he just wanted to be more knowledgeable than me.”

Jacob chuckles, turning to glance at you. You look back at him, and he gives you a knowing smile, causing you to raise an eyebrow. “What?”

He points at the flower dinosaur Juyeon is holding towards dinosaur you, “That’s an arbutus flower.”

You purse your lips at the unfamiliar name, turning and glancing back towards the painting. You tilt your head to the side, wondering where Juyeon learned of such a flower. Jacob giggles, resting his hand on the doorknob of your door to open it, before turning back to you.

“It means that you’re the only one he loves. It’s basically a promise that the love he has for you is not only warm, but will last a lifetime.” Jacob says, before stepping out of your office, the door closing behind him. You stare at the painting in pure shock, your heart already dropped into your stomach as you stare at the pink flower dinosaur Juyeon is holding out to you.

“He. He loved me?” You mutter to yourself, resting your hand over your heart as you stare at the painting. The tears fall from your eyes before you know it, and you slowly fall to your knees, laughing quietly at the ridiculous way Juyeon confessed his love for you.

Minghao appears beside you in an instant, and you immediately turn to him, resting your head in his chest as he wraps his arms around you. After a moment of the two of you staying like this as you silently cry, you mutter, “He loved me, Minghao.”

Minghao nods his head, running a hand through your hair he softly whispers, “I don’t see how anyone couldn’t fall in love with you, yn.”

You close your eyes, wrapping your arms around his middle as you quietly cry into his chest. Minghao rubs your back, letting out a soft smile when he recognizes this as being the last stage of closure you needed. He hopes in another life that you and Juyeon ended up together, but he’s grateful that he was given the opportunity to see you forgive yourself and open up to someone you liked again.

“I can’t believe he’d confess through painting us as dinosaurs.” You mutter, letting out a laugh and Minghao chuckles in response.

“I expect nothing less from him though.” You whisper, closing your eyes with a soft smile gracing your features. Minghao glances down at you, and he grins, “Has he done something like this before?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course he has.”

Minghao watches as you slowly light up, explaining the different things Juyeon has done, as well as the weird quirks he had. A stark contrast to the pain and sadness that would be etched across your features when anyone would so much as mention his name. Minghao lets out a soft smile, feeling his heart warm knowing that his mission is done.

“You ready for your date?” Minghao asks, and you let out a nervous breath at the thought of Joshua about to pop up in front of your apartment building any second now. Minghao’s waiting with you outside of your building as you wait for Joshua, considering the fact that you didn’t want to wait alone.

A small squabble ensued where Minghao was like what if he sees me doofus?! To which you replied, just disappear before he can tinkerbell!

“I think I’m gonna shit myself.”

“Well, don’t do that.” Minghao states, and you shoot him a glare. He rolls his eyes at you, reaching out and patting your head. “It was a joke.”

“I know what jokes are.” You bite back, and Minghao purses his lips at your reaction. He lets out a sigh, wrapping his arm over your shoulders. You glance up at him and see him staring down at you with a small smile on his face. Raising an eyebrow you ask, “What?”

Minghao just shakes his head, and you watch in a slight state of awe when you take notice of the fact that he holds the whole galaxy in his gaze as he stares down at you. “I’m proud of you.”

You purse your lips at his sweetness, feeling a blush rise to your cheeks as you push him away. Minghao lets out a giggle at your reaction, finding it rather endearing. He turns his head to see if he can spot the head of peach hair, and his eyes widen when he does.

“It’s time for me to disappear. Have fun on your date, okay?” You tilt your head to the side when Minghao shuffles from one foot to another as he debates on something. You open your mouth to ask what, only for Minghao to lean down and press a soft kiss to your forehead, before disappearing.

You raise a hand to your forehead, feeling warmth flood through you at the sweet action. You silently curse Minghao for being such a sweetheart, knowing that as the virtue of forgiveness, he should be rather nice.

“Yn!” You turn your head to see Joshua smiling at you, and you wave your hand at him, quickly walking over so that the two of you can meet in the middle. “Ready for pork belly? I heard their meat is really good quality.”

You smile, nodding your head excitedly. “Of course I am! What kind of whack ass question-”

“Are you trying to fight me? On our first date?” Joshua teases, and you roll your eyes, nudging him with your shoulder as you try to hide the blush rising to your cheeks. The two of you begin walking in the direction of the kbbq restaurant, playful banter between you both as you do.

At some point Joshua intertwines his fingers with yours, and the two of you can’t hide each other’s blushes from each other, but promptly choose to ignore them as you continue to converse. You feel your heartbeat a bit faster when you realize you have to cross the street, and Joshua pauses. He glances down at you, “We can go the other way?”

You stare at the crosswalk for a moment, before shaking your head at Joshua. You turn your head and look up at him with a bright smile, “No, I’ll be okay.”

Joshua mentions that if you change your mind the two of you can just go the other way a few more times until you make it to the edge of the sidewalk. You reassure him that it’s okay, even reaching out to press the button which signals that you want to cross the street. You squeeze Joshua’s hand, biting the inside of your cheek as you stare at the white lines on the crosswalk.

You watch as the crosswalk signal turns green, hearing it say, walk. Glancing back down at the white lines, you suck in a deep breath, before taking your first step. You hold Joshua’s hand tightly as the two of you cross the street, and he gives you reassuring words until you make it all the way across.

You look up at the peach-haired man with a happy smile, and he smiles back down at you, eyes full of endearment as he does so. You’re about to open up your mouth to make a joke, only to pause when you smell the lingering scent of grilled meat coming from your right. You and Joshua turn your heads to see the new kbbq place, and let out excited grins.

“To the grilling of meats!” You shout, and Joshua laughs at your antics.

All while Minghao watches from the other side of the street, a proud smile gracing his features at the happiness radiating off of you. He lets out a breath, before turning around and walking the other way, hands shoved into his pockets.

mission: help yn forgive herself and open her heart again [COMPLETED]

previous | masterlist | next

192 notes · View notes

tardisbadwolfrose · 3 years

Note

For the character thing, please do Rose Tyler

Ooo thats fun. I was not expecting a doctor who character. Ok. Lets go.

Why I like them: part of it is just because she was my first companion. I fell in love with Doctor Who through her. But also, theres something to be said for a perfectly normal, ordinary person with flaws and who probably doesnt think much of themselves, who is young and naive and loving, who ends up doing extraordinary things without some preternatural destiny guiding them. The only other companion who really hit on that was Bill. Donna had a bit, but there were elements of s4 that implied that it was all some sort of prophecy coming together. The DoctorDonna and all that. Rose really was so ordinary. Even Bad Wolf was born of something so ordinary, so human, this intense love and desire to protect. Rose was, in so many ways, such a perfect first companion, because from the beginning shes such an every girl. And she has so much compassion for so many. Everytime she interacts with people, especially people who work for other people, she treats them like people and like equals. Theres the mechanic in "the end of the world," gwenyth, etc. I just... Ugh. I love her. Bills still my fave, but rose is a VERY close second.

Why I don't like them: her selfishness. I dont know if its really that I dont like her because of it, because I like that she has a real, human flaw, and its a real reason that people might dislike them. It means shes well written, and feels real and human. But it still bugs me. Especially in s1, but even in parts of s2. She treats Mickey and her mother with this dissmissiveness, which is very immature. Like she thinks they only exist when shes around. She gets called on it though, and pretty early on. She never fixes it fully, especially where Jackie is concerned, but she makes an effort. But you can especially see it in school reunion, with her jealousy of sarah jane. She has a problem with the people she loves fully having lives outside of her, especially when those lives seem like a threat to the one shes creating.

Favorite Episode: the Parting of ways, fear her, turn left, or stolen earth/journeys end. Aka, im a simple girl with simple pleasures, and those pleasures are rose being a badass/saving the day. Special mention for the idiot lantern bc i must have watched it 20 times and they give me LIFE the doctor and rose in that episode.

Favorite season: 2. Shes starting to get more confident and sure of herself, but shes still human and flawed.

Favorite Line: whatever the hell she says during the christmas invasion, when shes trying to get the sycorax to leave. Its utter bull, makes zero sense, and its beautiful.

OTP: Doctor/Rose. Any doctor. Im a little desperate to see rose/thirteen. Also Rose/doctor/river. If ianto didnt exist, id say rose/jack/doctor, but alas, he does.

Favorite outfit: oh god. Either the one in the unquiet dead, the idiot lantern, the long game, or the doctor dances. There are so many more though. Her costuming was brilliant.

BroTP: rose and jack.

Headcanon: you mean besides time lord/immortal Rose? Ok here it goes.

So when Rose dropped out of high school for Jimmy Stone, she ran away. Went off on tour with Stone and his band. While on tour, she got.very close to the other band members, including the lead singer/lyricist, a very cute 20 yr old Welshman going through his rebellious phase named Ianto Jones, who helped her figure out she needed to go home and, in the process realized he needed to stop rebelling and start acting like a mature adult, leading to him eventually signing on with Torchwood. Meanwhile, Rose is stranded all the way in Paris because she won't stay on that tour bus with Jimmy, and she's terrified to call her mum, who had told her she'd never forgive her if she ran off and wasted her life on Jimmy. Penniless and desperate, walking alone in the rain, Rose thinks she's never going to make it back to London when she almost gets run over by a car after forgetting to watch where she's going and wandering into the street. The driver swerves and just barely miss her, and after pulling over, a man hops out of the car and starts admonishing her, when Rose bursts into tears. Feeling badly, the man insists on taking her home. She tells him home is in London, too far away for her to accept, but the man refuses to listen, telling her he was heading to London anyway, and here, why don't you borrow my cell phone and call your mum, I'm sure she wants you home. He's right of course, and Jackie cries from relief at hearing from her and is thrilled she's coming home. The man's name was Rory, she learned on the drive, and he was married to a wonderful woman who he loved named Amy, and they lived in Leeds but he was travelling around from work and he was heading from Paris to London because of it. It took six hours to gt back to London, and once they got there, her mum treated Rory to breakfast and he went on his way and rose never saw him again.

Yes, it was that Rory. He was with Amy and the Doctor and he got stranded in Paris in the early 2000's and he wasn't heading into London at all but he felt very bad about almost hitting the poor girl with his car and he recognized her from an old picture he found while he was wandering the Tardis and he brought it to the doctor to ask him about it and the Doctor got very sad and very quiet and walked very quickly away from the conversation and Rory figured that meant that he used to travel with her and there was a sad story in there somewhere and he was curious about the girl and how she'd inspire that kind of emotion from a man he'd rarely seen care about anything real.

Should I make this a fanfiction? I kind of want to make this an actual fic... Anyway.

Unpopular opinion: ...She is a very much not straight woman. I don't know if that's unpopular, but it isn't popular. Or at least, it isn't talked about.

A wish: That she comes back in S13 and we see a reunion. I am but a simple girl with simple pleasures and I have been WAITING WITH BATED BREATH FOR A ROSE COMEBACK FOR YEARS AND I AM O V E R D U E.

An OMG-Please-Don't-Ever-Happen: For a character that is no longer in the show there isn't much I can say. I'd be very disappointed if they brought Rose back and ruined it but that requires them to bring her back first.

5 words that best describe them: Kind, good, jealous, badass, loving

My nickname for them: I don't really have one

Give me more characters! I love this!

#doctor who #new who #rose tyler #rory williams #ianto jones #jack harkness #characters #my favorite characters #nine #ten #ninth doctor #tenth doctor

16 notes · View notes

thekisforkeats · 3 years

Text

The Joys of Fandom, or, how TMA helped me rediscover my love of tea

So among the many (many) good things The Magnus Archives podcast has brought to my life, none has been quite so profound as remembering how much I love making a good cup of tea. I’ve got a whole post about how it’s helped me categorize the anxiety cloud I live with on a constant basis, how it’s gotten me writing again, and writing poetry which I haven’t done in forever, how identifying with so many openly queer boys going through so much crap has helped me figure out that I want to transition.

But.

Tea is the reason we’re here today, because making a pot of tea has become a daily ritual since I started listening to TMA, and it’s been one of those tiny things that’s changed my life profoundly, and I have TMA to thank for this almost entirely.

I did not grow up drinking tea. I am from the Seattle, Washington area, and I’m just old enough Starbucks was a popular local coffee shop when I was a kid. My parents both drank a TON of coffee, my mother basically runs on the stuff, and by the time I was 6 I was drinking coffee too. Tea, growing up, was Lipton, sometimes iced or sometimes not. I didn’t even realize herbal tea was tea. Green tea was a thing one drank at Chinese restaurants. I was not at all informed.

When I got my first job, I would stop at Starbucks during the bus layover (as once does in the Seattle area) and one day in a fit of teenaged desire to be “cool” and “writerly” because I’d seen a tin of “Writer’s Chai” in the store I bought a chai latte. I loved it, and that became my go-to Starbucks drink.

I still didn’t really get tea, but I at least started learning how to boil water in the kettle and waiting for it to actually boil, pouring it over the tea bag, etc. I didn’t put in milk or sugar because I drank coffee black unless it was a latte or a mocha. I would just sort of... boil the water and pour it over and wait a few minutes and drink the tea with the bag still in the mug.

It wasn’t until I moved to Toronto that I sat down and had a good cup of tea. The woman who hosted the social group I was part of had her particular tea-making rituals, and she encouraged me to try it with milk and sugar, and it was... amazing. Life-changing, even. My perseveration drive kicked into full swing and I had to know everything about tea and its history and how to make a proper cup and so on and so forth. I learned all I could from our hostess, and then turned to the internet.

I bought a kettle to make tea at home but my ex wasn’t really supportive of my desire to brew tea on the regular, so loose leaf and teapots and “does the milk go in in cup before or after the tea” had to wait until I moved out and got a place of my own.

Then I moved to Tallahassee.

In Tallahassee, the coffee was atrocious unless it was from a couple of specific places, mostly serving cafe con leche. But I had my own place and my own dishes and I could have a teapot and make tea and nobody could stop me. So I did. Mostly for myself, while I was contemplating things, and it was really nice to sit and stare out at the ridiculously heavy Florida rain--which hit, in Tallahassee, right about 4:15 in the afternoon all summer so perfect for tea time.

I moved back to Seattle with my spouse, and we moved into my mother’s house. For a long while we didn’t have a kitchen of our own and we had small children, so tea wasn’t a thing I did any more. I had leftover coffee (or canned/bottled coffee) for the caffeine fix, but rarely tea. When my grandmother died and we moved into her old apartment we didn’t have a stove, and I despise heating water for tea in the microwave.

So for the better part of a decade, I barely drank any tea at all. I did discover Oi Ocha in this time, which is bottled green tea from Japan, which is amazing and I love it, but again--it was in a bottle. Not a thing I was personally making.

Then I started listening to The Magnus Archives, and I really identified with Martin Blackwood, because of reasons too complicated to get into here. But it inspired me to want to make tea again, and so I started getting K-cup pods, but it just... wasn’t... right. It wasn’t the same. I mean, it was tea, but it wasn’t... tea.

So I went and bought an electric kettle, and a teapot, and a strainer, and ordered regular deliveries of loose leaf tea, and started making tea for myself and my spouse. I developed my own ritual: cold water in the kettle, put hot water into the teapot (so it doesn’t crack), put three scoops of loose leaf in the strainer. Pour out the water in the teapot when the kettle boils, put in the strainer, pour the boiling water over the strainer. Wait four minutes or so, and while you’re waiting put a splash of half-and-half in the tea mugs (milk goes first so it doesn’t scald and we like the taste of half-and-half best). Then pour the tea into the mugs. The mugs are big enough that I take three spoons of sugar and my spouse four, so put all the sugar into the mugs and then increase the entropy (aka stir) until the sugar’s dissolved. Bring the tea out into the living room, enjoy.

The first time I got it all right, and made a good cup of tea, I literally cried, I was so happy. It was like seeing the sun after it had been dark for so long I’d forgotten what the sun looked like.

The thing I have come to realize about what tea means to me is something that Jon says in the trailer for Season 5 of TMA. Martin brings him a cup of “tea” and Jon goes “that’s not tea” and, indeed, it turns out to be some weird skittering thing. The following exchange really crystallized things for me:

Jon: This is no longer a world where you can trust-- Martin: Tea?! Jon: Comfort.

And that was it, right there. Coffee is fuel, for me. Coffee is “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There.” (Quite literally; part of playing Persona 5 was remembering how much I love trying out new coffee blends.)

Tea, however, is comfort. Tea is slowing down. Tea is caffeine, yes, and therefore focus for my poor ADD/autistic brain, but it’s afternoon focus. It’s contemplation. It’s sitting and breathing in the aroma and thinking about things in a way that isn’t spiraling or catastrophizing. Whether it’s breakfast tea or Earl Grey or green tea, or an herbal like peppermint or chamomile, tea for me is self-care.

Taking those few minutes to get up and go make a pot of tea in the afternoon, to stop the business of the day and just stand there waiting for the kettle to boil, is something I’ve desperately needed. Coffee is easy to sort of make as “fire and forget,” to the point that I’ve gulped down cold or lukewarm coffee I’d forgotten about just because I need the caffeine. Tea, though, if you’re doing it right you have to stand there and wait for the water to boil and wait for the tea to steep. If you walk away to do something else you’ll ruin the whole thing. I completely understand why Martin is running around making tea for everyone in Season 2 all the time, because everything is falling apart in slow motion and it’s a chance to stop, to focus on making the tea, and then to take the time enjoying the tea itself.

Making tea for others also means love to me. I make tea for my spouse alongside myself. I included one of my teenaged children in tea-making for the first time yesterday and my youngest keeps getting the last bit of tea in the pot, and it’s such a joy to see their faces light up. Bringing someone tea means bringing them a mug of love and care. Another reason I identify with Martin--I often don’t know what to say to help someone, so I try to be sure they’re fed and hydrated and cared for. And I, too, had to learn to stop setting myself on fire to keep those people warm. I had to learn to be sure I was fed and hydrated and cared for, so I could care for them. But even now as I get older and wiser and grumpier I still run around making sure everyone’s fed and has had their mug of tea, I just don’t do it at my own expense anymore.

One of my next crochet projects is a tea cozy in the shape of a green owl, in honor of the Magnus Institute owl, because my little tea-making ritual is always going to be connected to TMA in my head. Also I have a “Fifteen Fears” mug and my spouse has a “Magnus Archives” owl symbol mug, so it’s literally just this really intense connection between TMA and tea, for me.

It’s funny how much comfort a horror podcast has given me since I’ve started listening. There are a few fandoms that have profoundly changed me--Star Trek was the first big one, Babylon 5 was the first that directly inspired me, Mass Effect helped me get out of suicidal depression, Persona (specifically Persona 5) inspired me to take responsibility for myself in a way therapy never quite managed.

And here I am with TMA, figuring out how to navigate anxiety and pain and grief in a world that feels like it’s falling apart around my ears. The concept that what we do matters; that right or wrong you should be making a decision instead of just reacting from fear or surprise; that sometimes you screw up and there’s nothing to be done, that “sorry” doesn’t fix everything, that sometimes nothing you do will fix anything and you can’t let that paralyze you... it’s all been necessary, and helpful, and I’ve been terribly grateful.

Thanks to TMA I’m writing again after years of terrible writer’s block. I’m facing my own fears and accepting that despite (because of?) my terrible arachnophobia I’d probably serve the Web if I served anything (although Eye and Lonely would also get a look in--I did say I identified with Martin pretty strongly). I’m recognizing dysphoria and dealing with it after years of trying to deny the elephant in the room.

I’m also making tea again. And for that, I am eternally, profoundly grateful.

#tma #the magnus archives #tea #martin blackwood #tma spoilers #i guess sort of?#i mean just in case #long post #my writing #seriously i cannot overstate how much tea means to me #it's been one of those things i didn't realize i needed until i started doing it again #i will definitely be posting pics of the tea cozy owl as i make it #because it's gonna be adorable af

13 notes · View notes

bangtan-madi · 4 years

Text

Top Albums of 2020

I was tagged by the amazing @joonni to list my top nine twelve albums of 2020! This was honestly so hard, but so fun. I love any tags to do with music xD (Your music taste was amazing btw! Sorry I went a little crazy and did a few extra lol.) Thanks lovie 💓

I went with the albums that I loved as whole (aka I loved most, if not all, of the songs) and listened to the most this year. Some choices have deeper meanings, while others were just flat-out enjoyable. I also stuck with albums that came out this year only, but I wasn’t sure if that was inherently part of the challenge. I wasn’t too picky on the criteria, just went with the ones that made up the score for my 2020. All albums have Spotify links incase something catches your eye! (Apologies for my extra-ness; I added recommendations from each album and a brief...ish explanation as to why it made the list.)

Also, they’re in no particular order, because this was difficult enough...

Map of the Soul: 7 by BTS

Explanation — This album was my first comeback as part of the BTS Army. There are so many tracks that I adore, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so excited for music. It breathed life into my Spotify, it was the album I listened to the most this year, and Black Swan was my most listened song. The differing music genres that they played with, all the way from orchestral to trap to hip hop and synth pop, left me more and more excited as the songs progressed. If there was a #1 on this list, it would be MOTS:7.

Highlights — Interlude: Shadow, Black Swan, ON, We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal

Zero: Fever Part.1 by Ateez

Explanation — This was the soundtrack to my summer. I hadn’t heard much from Ateez, but what I had heard, I wasn’t a huge fan of? Maybe I hadn’t been grabbed yet, but oh boy. Zero: Fever definitely did that. Every track is such high energy and memorable, so it was so hard to pick favorites! I’ll always think back on this one for summer, and will be transported back to plenty of sunset commutes.

Highlights — Fever, Thanxx, One Day At A Time

The Dream Chapter: Eternity by Tomorrow x Together

Explanation — Until this mini album, I had only listened to TXT in passing. I liked their stuff, but I feel like this is where they really found their stride. TDC:E caught me totally off-guard, in the best way possible. To me at least, this one is a work of art. Each of the six tracks is so entrancing, and so different from each other while still working together as a cohesive story. And don’t even get me started on the MVs! This is an album that I listen to for feels and fun, which to me, TXT are just brilliant at.

Highlights — Fairy of Shampoo, Maze in the Mirror, Eternally

Dystopia: The Tree of Language by Dreamcatcher

Explanation — It took me forever to find a girl group that I could really stan, like hardcore. This comeback for Dreamcatcher was when I realized they were it for me. This album in particular is so diverse. Their voices are both haunting and beautiful, and the way they interweave rock/alternative elements into their music has always turned my ear. They are so different from so many other girl groups out there, from the sound to their stage presence to their aesthetic. I will never stop talking about them, and this album really shows the best of their work thus far.

Highlights — Red Sun, Sahara, Paradise

BE by BTS

Explanation — How could BE not be on this list? What a perfect end to a shitty year. There’s something so comforting yet uplifting about this one, and I will happily admit I cried when I first heard Blue & Grey. Who am I kidding, I still do. There’s only one other artist I have listed on here with two albums, so BTS is in good company. What more is there to say other than BE was the warm hug we all needed.

Highlights — Life Goes On, Blue & Grey, Dis-ease, Stay

Heng:garae by Seventeen

Explanation — This is another group that I hadn’t listened to much before this album. I was so surprised and excited. Every song that passed, I found myself smiling more. Their voices are astoundingly beautiful, and the songs are sickeningly catchy. Another album that I go to just to have fun. It’s one of my favorites to just put on when a day is good, but doesn’t Seventeen make it a little better regardless?

Highlights — Fearless, Kidult, I Wish, Together

The Untamed by various

Explanation — If you’ve seen the Chinese drama The Untamed, then you know exactly why this is on there. This album is a collection of songs that are themes for the characters in the show, most of which are sung by the actors themselves. Let me tell you; I don’t know a lick of Mandarin, but these are some of the most stunning songs I’ve ever heard. It’s one of the things that drew me to the drama to begin with; everything, including the music, is breathtaking. The classical Chinese sound plays so well with the character’s stories and singer’s vocals. They tell stories all on their own and give the drama so much depth. Even if you’re not a fan of the show or webtoon it’s based on, give this one a listen. You won’t be disappointed!

Highlights — [Wen Qing] woodland, [Wen Ning] Chi Ni, [Lan Xichen] Bu You, [Jiang Yanli & Jin Zixuan] Yong Ge, [Interlude] Yi Nan Ping, [Nie Minghao & Nie Huaisang] Qing He Ju

Humanity (Chapters I & II) by Thomas Bergersen

Explanation — If you know anything about me, you know how important orchestral music is to me. It’s been a huge part of my music journey ever since I was in middle school. Thomas Bergersen has been my favorite composer for years; the way he integrates the classical with the modern is just...there are no words. These two albums cannot be listed separately; they’re part of a seven-part project titled Humanity. Chapters I & II came out in 2020, and honestly, I have no words. The way he tells a story through almost entirely lyric-less work is just immaculate. I’ve never felt more powerful, emotional, or inspired than when listening to these two. I cried when I first heard Your Imagination and Materialize. No matter how I am feeling, whether I need inspiration or hope or just some peace of mind, I go here. I’ve never felt more healed than when listening to his work. If you take a chance to listen to anything on this list, PLEASE. Give these a try.

Highlights — We Are One, Wings, Humanity, Your Imagination, Materialize, Innocence, The Stars Are Coming Home

Brightest Blue by Ellie Goulding

Explanation — I don’t listen to a ton of western music that isn’t orchestral or lofi, but I used to adore Ellie Goulding. Halcyon was my entire teen-hood. When I saw she came out with a new album this year, I gave it a listen for sentimentality reasons. And boy, I still love her. Her voice is both angelic and haunting, and her sound is so unique. The messages given in these songs are powerful, potent, a tad bit bittersweet, and especially valid for young women navigating adult life. Also the instrumentals backing her vocals are often big and grand and symphonic, filled with piano and violin. That’s enough to get me to listen. And to top it all off, the collabs she has on this album are so fitting for each track, it’s absolutely beautiful.

Highlights — Start, Cyan, Ode To Myself, Woman, Flux, Overture, Slow Grenade, Hate Me

Beneath Your Waves by Sleepy Fish

Explanation — If there’s one kind of music that shuts off the little anxiety bug in my brain and gets me to work, one that isn’t as intense as orchestral music and that doesn’t put me into sensory overload like orchestral sometimes does, it’s lofi. And Sleepy Fish does it so freakin’ well. This album that came out this year is one of my most often repeated over and over. When I’m struggling with sensory issues at work, I put this one repeat and my mind just...goes...quiet. It’s like medicine. And the tunes are so catchy and sweet. I’m instantly transported to someplace magical, some seaside city straight out of a Ghibli film, and far away from the things that are troubling me. Then I can finally get some work done, get to sleep, or just quiet my mind. If you struggle with sensory issues or anxiety like I do, give this album a shot. Also, the album titled My Room Becomes The Sea from 2019 is excellent.

Highlights — Velocities, Sunbreak, Swimming, Nights Like These, Winter Winter

WOOPS! by Woodz

Explanation — Another mini album that is just a blast to listen to, but it also has such a soft side that hits me in the feels. I don’t see a lot of people talking about Woodz, but you all should give him a listen. He’s so talented, and his voice on this one is just *chef’s kiss* everything. The mixing is also impeccable and pairs so well with his vocals.

Highlights — Bump Bump, On my own, Sweater, Tide

D-2 by Agust D

Explanation — I mean, we all knew this one was gonna be dope. Yoongi did not disappoint. This mixtape is so different from most of the stuff I listen to, but I absolutely adored it. The truth and rhythm and pure talent in each and every verse stuns me still. I find myself especially drawn to this one when I’m frustrated (not exclusively, but often, ‘cause 2020.) Both his truth and sound give me a safe place to feel that frustration and anxiety and vent/work through it. I don’t know what it is about Yoongi, but to me, all of his work is like a comforting friend going, “Hey, you’re totally valid and okay for feeling this way...but it sucks, doesn’t it?”

Highlights — Daechwita, People, Dear my friend

Now, I’ll tag these lovely people! Only if you wanna :)

@kooala @cultleaderyoongi @yoontopia @hobicomeholla29 @helenazbmrskai @moon-write @dreamcatcherjiah @ditttiii

#tag #tagged #mutuals #get to know me

12 notes · View notes

katsukis-sad-angel · 4 years

Text

Ferris Wheel

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou

Word Count: 1.5K

Summary: Mina takes the Bakusquad to a carnival. Just as the sun begins to set, she gets everyone to hop on the Ferris Wheel to enjoy the view. You end up sitting in a carriage with Bakugou.

Warnings: vomiting, reader has a fear of heights, swearing, fluff

baku sideburns

“Guys! Oh my god, a Ferris wheel!”

Mina nearly dropped her ice cream in her excitement, grabbing your arm and dragging you toward the huge, rickety structure. The rest of the Bakusquad trailed behind, shaking their heads at Mina's childish reaction to the well-known fair ride.

When your pink-skinned friend had heard about the huge carnival coming to Musutafu, she nearly exploded. Without consent from anyone in the group, she bought tickets and forced you, Sero, Kaminari, Bakugou, and Kirishima onto a bus and now you were enjoying the fair. The food wasn’t bad, the rides and games were fun, and so far, everyone was content. Including Bakugou.

At the moment, the blonde looked very nice in the pre-sunset glow; shiny, orange-tinted sunglasses perched on his nose, orange t-shirt, and low-slung black sweatpants hugging his tiny waist. He trudged along next to Kirishima, who was happily devouring an elephant ear.

He looked really good in that shirt. It gave you a pleasant view of his meaty biceps.

If only you could tell him that.

You really liked the blonde… like… a lot.

He was just so effortlessly handsome, you knew you didn’t have a chance. Lucky for you, he was delicious eye-candy and you planned on enjoying every side-wise glance.

“M-Mina… Ferris wheels are boring! Do we have to?” You whined, hoping to avoid the scary ride.

“Yes!” She squealed, running toward the horned operator and handing him six tickets, “Kiri, you’re with me! Sero, sit with your boyfriend! Bakugou, you get to sit with Y/n! Ok? Ok! Let’s go!” Grabbing the red-head by the wrist, she tugged him into a bench swing seat, the operator secured the bar in front of them, and they ascended a few yards until it stopped to let Sero and Kaminari on.

When another empty bench came around, Bakugou huffily plopped down on the swing and waited for you to join him. You stood as still as a statue on the platform.

You hated heights.

You hated Ferris wheels.

You didn't want to embarrass yourself in front of your crush.

"Oi, stop standing there and sit down!"

A gruff voice roused you from your thoughts and you jumped slightly.

"Right." You whispered, gingerly sitting down on the smooth metal bench, "S-Sorry Bakugou."

So now you were sitting on a rickety metal bench with only a bar keeping you from falling to your doom and your crush less than 6 inches away. He seemed unaffected by the incredible height. The wind softly ruffled his locks while he slouched in his seat, chin resting in his hand as he looked out over the sunset colors painting the carnival grounds.

You, on the other hand, weren’t doing too well. You gripped the bar with two hands, breathing heavily and squeezing your eyes shut every time your carriage plummeted downward. You wiggled your toes uncomfortably, trying to appreciate the gorgeous sunset, but you just couldn't.

Bakugou noticed your obvious distress; your face was becoming paler every time you went a full 360 in the air. You were gasping for breath and holding the bar so tightly, your knuckles had gone white.

“What’s your problem idiot?” He barked, eyeing you suspiciously, “If you’re gonna hurl, do it over there.”

“Please… don’t even talk about vomit… or I just might.” You breathed, voice breathless and pitchy with fear. Your carriage went down once again and you squeezed your eyes shut, trying to ignore the drop of your stomach. “I’m sorry if… if I do. Please d-don’t watch me wh… when it happens…”

“You afraid of heights or something, nerd?”

You nodded frantically, a single tear sliding off your trembling chin and into your lap as your bench rocketed upward.

“Closing your eyes makes it worse dummy. Here- Look at me…” Before you could respond, Bakugou’s hands clasped your cheeks and gently turned your chin so you could look him in the eyes. Tears dribbled onto his warm palms as you met his vermillion gaze. All while silently begging your stomach not to regurgitate all three funnel cakes you had consumed.

“Don’t cry,” He continued, voice kinder and softer than you knew physically possible for the aggressive teenager. “It’s just a stupid ride and it’s almost over, just keep your eyes on me.”

Sniffing loudly, your lips continued to tremble as you looked into those deep, crimson irises. Every now and then, a wide thumb would brush over your cheek to wipe stray tears away and the quiet words of encouragement kept on coming until disaster struck.

Suddenly, at the highest point on the wheel, the ride came to an abrupt stop and the bench started swinging.

You were done for.

Jerking away from his grasp, you whimpered and quickly leaned over the edge and sent your lunch plummeting 264 feet. The sickening slap as it hit the dead grass at the base of the ride made you cringe. Finding purchase on the bar again, you faced forward and waited for a disgusted insult from your crush.

“Holy shit, are you ok?” He asked, knitting his eyebrows together with worry, “Come here dumbass.”

On impulse, Katsuki Bakugou pulled you into his arms so you could hide your face in his firm, caramel-smelling chest. He dabbed your lips with a napkin he's found in his pocket and the ride started up again, stopping every now and then to let people on and off. When it was finally your turn, Kaminari, Kirishima, Ashido, and Sero were standing on the platform waiting. All of them looked extremely worried- especially Mina.

Bakugou lifted you up bridal style and carried you away from the horrid ride, letting you down as soon as he'd led the Bakusquad off the platform. One hand was still secured on your lower back, holding you steady as you regained your bearings.

“Y/n… why didn’t you tell me you were afraid of heights?” Mina cried, rushing forward to give you a gentle hug.

“I… didn’t want t-to ruin your fun.” You whispered hoarsely, weakly returning the hug.

She let go and stood back, taking in what she has created. The aggressive blonde was quietly standing at your side and holding you. Mina quirked a smug eyebrow in your direction. Seeing her gesture, you blushed more deeply and murmured: “B-Bakugou, I’m f-fine now. Thank you for helping me… I really appreciate it.”

“I’m not letting go until you drink something. Come on. There’s a food cart over there.” Bakugou scoffed while leading you to the cart and bought you water. After taking little sips and sitting on a bench for a while, you insisted you were fine.

As promised, Bakugou’s warm and comforting arm left your body as soon as you were deemed ‘not 100% ok, but not dead either’ and the Bakusquad continued the exploration of the carnival.

On the bus ride home, you found yourself sitting next to Bakugou. Again.

Thanks Mina.

“Can’t get enough of me, can you?” He asked cockily, a self-satisfied smirk adorning his features.

Aka the reason you fell so hard for the blonde asshole.

“You… you could say that,” You responded, tilting your head cutely, “Or Mina is trying to set us up. Either works for me.”

He snorted, "The fuck do you mean by that?"

Blushing, you let your neck relax against the base of the headrest. It was now or never. "W-Well um... I like you, like more than as a friend. It's totally fine if you don't feel the same way, I just-"

"Don't even finish that sentence. Are you fucking serious right now?" He interrupted, sitting up and turning to look at you. You started, surprised by his outburst.

"I m-mean yeah, why wouldn't I be?" You stuttered, avoiding his ruby stare.

"You like me?"

"M-hm."

"Damn. I thought you had a thing for Kirishima."

You shook your head, lifting your (e/c) gaze to meet his flaming one. "I've always liked you, Bakugou."

"Katsuki. Call me Katsuki." He replied. "'S not every day the girl you like confesses to you... Cuz if I'm being honest, I like you too Y/n."

You bit your lip, trying not to look too happy. His cheeks were the cutest shade of pink when you asked, "S-So, what does this make us?"

"You wanna be my girlfriend?" He asked softly, jolting when he felt your soft hand grasp his calloused palm.

"I... I do." You murmured, holding back a huge, goofy smile. "I'd really like that Katsuki."

"Holy shit! Eiji, did you hear all that? DAYUM GIRL!! I'm so proud of you!!!!" Mina squealed, destroying the moment.

"I know I did!" Sero chuckled from the seat in front of you, Kaminari joining in on the laughter.

"Nice going Bakubro! Now you can shut up about how pretty she is and tell her to her face!" Kirishima cheered.

"Oh! Don't forget to tell her about what you said last Saturday! You know, about he-"

"SHUT UP, DAMMIT!" Katsuki interrupted with a dangerous snarl. You did NOT need to know what he'd let slip out while training with the boys.

He pouted and looked out the window, red dusting his pale cheeks as he glared at each and every street light that flashed past. You smiled. Despite the argument, he hadn't let go of your hand.

Squeezing it comfortingly, you settled down in your seat and prepared for the rest of the drive home.

92 notes · View notes

minjoonalist · 5 years

Text

Predilection | Chapter five

Pairing : Jikook x Reader [Feat. Taehyung]

Words: 1.8k

Genre: Angst, eventual Smut, fluff

Warnings : explicit wording, characters under the influence, bad judgement, (I will make it clear that the characters in this chapter are definitely of age.)

Description: you want him, he wants you, but he also wants him, and him wants you- but him hurt you. So You hate him.

+++

Its somewhere around 7:00 am in the morning and amongst all your fellow early classmates waiting to board the trip’s bus, you find yourself spacing in and out of your own head. Your stomach in knots, eyes puffier than usual and although you’ve tried to calm yourself through an entire night of restless tossing and turning - you just couldn't shake the miserable feeling of dread.

“ Y/n...Y/N?!” There's a hand waving in your face catching your attention. Like a trance being broken, your best friend watches worriedly while your eyes seem to snap open in shock. Seeing him, makes the question ring in your head for the hundredth time, the very one you lied to. Whether or not you found your own body betraying your emotions for the boy you hated.

You kissed him back.

Jeon jungkook knew what it felt like to have your lips moving desperately against his in such an intimate fashion. Your lips permanently painted with the feel of his impressionable touch. The event, unfortunately, was still on your mind heavy, your thoughts consumed within the strange dilemma that you’d somehow gotten yourself into and to make it worse- you now truly had no one to really talk about it with.

“Did you...D-Did you sleep at all last night?” Taehyung stumbles in front you and it if it weren't for the devastating guilt running through you, you wouldn't have noticed the very clear and real suitcase coming by his side. Which reminded you of your suitcase...and that you were really going to be stuck with those two for an entire week...

Focusing, You try to swallow in your very dry mouth, your eyes blinking slowly to take on the equally as sleep deprived looking boy. His eyes a bit dark all around, hair disheveled, and there's an alarming aura around him that you couldnt say you were used to.

Was he nervous?

“Me? Tae you look like you want to get hit by a train.” you retort yawning in exhaustion “something Tells me I'm not the only one who didn't dream of pillows and sheep”. Letting your bag down from your shoulder, you wince from your tense muscles screaming in agony and a sigh could be heard from him.

“Excuse you, but I did get some sleep- at least that was before you came panicking at my door.” he denounces while creating an evil glare.

“ we only talked for an hour, don't blame your obvious insomnia for yoongi on me” you spit back and while taehyung was too busy dropping his mouth to the floor, the scarce amount of your classmates had begun to fill in including your professor.

By then, the sun was beginning to rise even further in the sky and by the looks of all the tired faces surrounding you, you could tell it was almost time to depart on the trip - aka hell. Your nerves suddenly getting the better of you, you slowly start to sink further into the troubling mess of your emotions and just as you were beginning to realize how surreal your situation was, your eyes catch a notable figure in the distance.

Silver hair shining within the powerful breeze, as a ringed hand comes up to help keep it at bay. He struts up towards the surrounding crowd of students, catching multiple glances of onlookers, but whether or not he acknowledges them through his square rimmed shades, it remains a mystery. A black leathered luggage by his side, Jimin stops his stride just a few feet away from you and tae, however his focus remains on the phone held within his other hand.

“Oh great! The ballerina's here.” taehyung cheers sarcastically, meanwhile every fiber within your body was stilled from how aware you were of his presence. Okay...so this was still just a bit harder than you’d thought it would be...you think while taking a deep breath. As much as you wanted to pretend you felt absolutely nothing for the male hovering by the both of you, you couldn't deny the quickened pace within your chest when he suddenly snaps his head in your direction.

Your gaze quickly goes elsewhere.

“Tae I don't know if I can do this...” you swallow, a hard lump coming into your throat. You think you’re going to be sick…

“Do what?” Taehyung frowns, A deep crease in his brow from your confession, however it disappears once he puts its together himself. Both of his brows now shooting up towards his hairline “You're not thinking of Failing this course are you? Y/n we’ve talked about this, you're going to be fine. I’ve told you, you can stay the night with me and yoongi if you don't want to be on your own.”.

And just like that, You cast your gaze downwards, a feeling of hopelessness washing over. You suddenly find your feet a bit too interesting “ I- I don't know…I think this might be too much Tae. I know you w-want to be alone with yoongi and I...well I’d pretty much just be cock blocking you. Plus, I just don't know if I can handle being with them the way it is-” you stutter shakily.

Stepping closer, Taehyung pulls you into an abrupt warm hug, bringing you closer until your head was resting comfortably on his firm chest “ Hey, Hey- no matter what, I’ll be glad to have you around anytime. Besides, it’s pretty bold of you to assume I wouldn’t be pounding into min yoongi, because you're in the next room- I couldn’t care less if you watched.” he pulls back to look you in your eyes, a clear look of doting support across his features.

Meanwhile you scrunch your face up in disgust “I think I’d rather hear them before I hear you- at least I won't really be able to visualize their faces.”

Tae stares at you blankly before he lifts a brow “...You’re telling me, you wouldnt want to watch me fuck someone else...me? The unbelievably hot best friend who had you shirtless the first time we met?”

You cringe again “ You seriously have to stop talking about that night...I would like to not remember getting my heart broken and then having even my current best friend reject me.” you move to step away from him and more towards the slowly growing crowd. You never liked talking about the night you met Taehyung, because in all honestly- it was probably the worst night of your life. Unfortunately, it also happened to be the night jimin and jungkook had first debuted as couple and on top of that- you really dont want to venture back into a territory where sex was possible between the both of you.

Getting closer towards the others, you feel taehyung easily catching up with your walking figure. His arm comes naturally around your shoulder like always before he speaks “ Well of course I rejected you, you were completely heartbroken like an adorable sad puppy.”

“Wow this conversation just keeps getting better and better....By the way this is doing wonders for my confidence, just thought you should know.” you mutter sarcastically while trying to shove his arm off of your shoulder. He doesnt move it, instead catching on to the hurt hidden behind your sarcasm. He then uses his arm to stop you, the pressure of it keeping you from walking any further.

He rolls his eyes “Wait, because I don't think you understand. The reason I stopped wasn't because you were just some sad random girl. Well- actually yes it was, but it was also because…” he huffs “ You were also really sweet and innocent, you didnt deserve some asshole who was going to fuck you senseless and then disappear the next day. So I stopped and when you broke down then cried, I held you, remember?” he tries to put on a smile that opposes your bitter pout.

As much as you hated to admit it, Everything he’d just said was true. Taehyung did stop that night and you knew that, because you remembered that night vividly.

The both of you bursting through some random bedroom door for privacy.

Only moments ago you’d just seen your best friend and your crush making out in back the of a graduation party together and when you confronted Jungkook about it, he’d acted as if he had no idea what you were talking about. Angry, you stormed off, tears collecting your eyes and you made your way over towards the snack table to down an entire cup of vodka.

Moments later, A firm hand suddenly sliding it’s way onto your back that makes you turn to look at the culprit. Enters Taehyung. Dark hair, boxy smile, but red sultry eyes drinking in your poor body as he pulls you closer towards him “ You look like you could use some fun, want to go upstairs?” he would breathe slowly into your ear.

You remembered sliding your eyes back towards the raven haired boy that just so happened to be watching you and Taehyung like a hawk from across the room. Your eyes just barely being able to find him through the sea of people, An emotion swirling dangerously behind them.

In a time like this, Jungkook would already be there ready to save you when needed. But with the combination of anger, the vodka, and a growing euphoria of feeling Taehyung’s hands roaming all over your waist, you were certain you wouldn't need it.

Which brings you back towards the private room. Taehyung locks the door behind him, reaching for you to slam his mouth onto yours. The kiss is sloppy, aggressive and you were loving every second of it. His teeth nipping and pulling at your delicate lips before he’s lifting you up into his arms. A soft yelp leaves your mouth and he chuckles arrogantly into the kiss while walking the both of you further in. In a flash, he has you landing on top of the small room’s bed, his own body coming to hover above yours and you relish in the feel of his hips sliding between your legs.

As if a chill comes by, you suddenly shudder under him. The heated make-out warming you up enough to definitely have your panties soaked, but for some reason...you felt cold. Taehyung continues unknown to this, laying wet kisses from your mouth and down towards your neck. His own drunken lust, blinding him from the way your arms were desperately hugging him closer to feel any kind of warmth.

It wasn't until he suddenly sat up from you. His hands reaching for the hem of your shirt to pull it above your head and have you falling down onto your back. He takes a moment to look at your half naked torso, a look of appreciation washing over his eyes as he rakes them further up to stare at you.

He-

Why were there tears in your eyes?

+++

Chapter Five | Next Chapter | Masterlist

Taglist: @rkivemagic @peterrogers15 @sessi03 @brokencrownqueen @cainami @icedoutmywristtitanic @kawaiimusiccollection @toddsgirl27

135 notes · View notes

thefanficmonster · 4 years

Text

Forever With You

Sam Giddings (Until Dawn) x Emo!Reader (Female)

Warnings: Death, Mourning, Swearing, Slight Gore

Genre: Angst

Summary: Living with knowing that your life was basically given back to you from near-death thanks to the demise of a loved one is the closest feeling to death with your heart still beating. Sam now knows that. The whole group knows that. Good thing friends stick together even after death.

Requested by my lovely Until Dawn Anon. Hi babyy! I hope you enjoy the read and I sure as hell hope this isn’t the last request of yours I’ll be writing. We’re business partners at this point LOL. Love you ❤❤❤

QUICK NOTE - Some elements of this fic, by request of Until Dawn Anon, have been inspired by a certain drama series. I’m not gonna name it to avoid spoilers for both the show and this fic, but whoever’s watched the show will recognize which show is being referenced.

Sam’s POV

“You’d make a mean hunter!“ Chris comments as Y/N lowers the shotgun after shooting her mark for the fifth time.

“Nah, I’d never hurt animals.“ She gives him a sincere smile, “But I appreciate you thinking I have the proper skillset.“

We’re waiting for the world’s slowest cable car to make its way to our station, aka the lower station so we can meet up with the rest of our group, assuming that any of them are already there.

When I arrived at the station Chris, Ashley and Y/N were already there. They were sitting on the benches outside the station, waiting for me. I was actually supposed to take the same bus as them but something came up right as I was about to head to the bus station, forcing me to take the bus an hour after theirs.

“Sam, I will never forgive you for this, I swear!“ Y/N says, standing up from the bench and heading in my direction, “You let me thirdwheel alone! I mean, I could only survive watching these two beat around the bush for so long!“ She lowered her voice when she said that, giving the couple us two and Josh call Chrashley a quick glance over the shoulder.

I took her hands in mine almost instinctively, “Aw, I’m sorry. But look on the bright side: the love radiating off them is so strong it kept you warm as well!” It was true, her usually freezing hands were not so frozen. Still colder than a person’s should be, but not yet to the point of provoking concern.

She smirked, rolling her eyes, “You know I’d rather freeze to death than have love keep me warm.” She spat the word ‘love’ as though it was poisonously bitter in her mouth. Luckily, before I could say anything more, Chris dragged us to the makeshift shooting range he had found at the side of the snow covered clearing.

It didn’t take long for him and Y/N to start getting competitive with one another, like the not-blood-related siblings they are, so now Ash and I are observing their little competition of who can hit the most marks with the smallest amount of prep time. It’s obvious Y/N the one winning, but Chris isn’t the quitter type so while she is shooting even the smallest of pebbles in the snow we point out to her, he’s still aiming for the hanging sacks of sand and the glass bottles.

With the two of them being so immersed in their ‘competition’, Ashley and I are chatting while remaining a safe distance away from the shooting pair - Chris especially. Y/N has at least slight experience in the field. Being at the distance that we are, we are also out of earshot for them. So, both Ash and I bring up the obvious topic that never remains unspoken - RELATIONSHIPS.

“You and Y/N have been really close as of late. Finally making things official?“ Ash nudges the conversation first as she adjusts the beanie she’s wearing.

I sigh, a white cloud created from that breath of something between disappointment and dread, “We’re not even unofficial. We’re just friends.“ I take the opportunity to take a teasing stab at her, “I’m not luck enough to have my...“ I make quotation marks with my fingers, “’crush’ feel the same way about me. Unlike you.“ I smirk at her, noticing the color of red appearing on her cheeks despite the cold breeze that’s caressing every inch of exposed skin, making it worryingly pale.

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Sam. For both of those statements.“ She says diplomatically, scanning the shooting duo with a quick once-over. “She isn’t as reserved when she’s with you. I know you don’t notice, but everyone else does. She’s different, warmer even, with you.“ I expect her to go on, explaining her situation with Chris, but she doesn’t.

As much as I’d like to get her to go on and spill a little of what she feels about Chris, even though everyone and their grandmothers already know, I can’t help but let my mind go down the rabbit hole of ‘what if’s. I’m not oblivious nor blind, I can see the way her demeanor changes around me in comparison to, let’s say, when she’s around Mike. However, she’s ‘warmer’ with Josh, Chris, Matt and Ash as well. It’s called friendliness. It’s no secret that she’s never been too fond of Emily or Jess or Mike. The friendliness of a person can so easily be taken out of context when someone’s crushing on them.

And Y/N’s friendliness especially. This girl hates romance. Absolutely hates it. The word ‘love’ itself gets her annoyed and bothered to the point of discomfort sometimes. I have never tried to probe and try to figure out why. I say I haven’t cause I respect her privacy, but truth be told I am scared. I want to believe there is a small part of her that still wants to experience a romantic relationship, a love connection, and I’m afraid that prodding the subject would shatter all the hopes I have.

How did I end up falling for this dark, broody, Catwoman like emo girl? - I have no idea. It was only natural if you ask me. I think I’m not the only one who’s so whipped by her, but I could never be sure. I mean, how could someone NOT fall for this raven badass: black hair, eyes just a shade lighter than black, tattoos - perfect combination of beauty and brains. And balls, she’s probably the boldest person I’ve ever known or will ever meet. What really caught my attention when I first laid eyes on her was the way she shined. Literally. I don’t mean that as a cheesy metaphor - the girl is always covered in jewelry that reflects the sunlight perfectly. She mesmerized me from day one. She made me a big hypocrite - I was always the one to tell Chris and Ash to make a move, to confess their feelings, and now here I am, in their shoes as though they have cursed me.

“Hey, eagle eyes! Our ride’s here.“ Ash announces, handing Chris his backpack as they fall in step, walking side by side around the station.

Y/N falls in step with me, elbowing my ribs gently, “Slow down, let’s give them some privacy.” She slows her pace to a frustratingly slow walk and I oblige, “I don’t usually say things like this, but they are really cute.”

We’d be really cute

Wait, where did that thought come from?!

“Yeah, I know.“ I say through the fog of confusion that has taken over my brain. “They sure are.“ I clear my throat, trying to hide the fact that my own mind just shocked me. Damn, what is happening to me? What is this crush doing to me? It’s exhausting and terrifying but....I don’t want it to stop.

�� * * *

“It’s ok, baby. You’re ok.“ Y/N’s voice echoes in the eeriness of the mines.

How did this night make a swerve for the worst so suddenly. All of it, all the horrors just piled up so suddenly. We’re fearful of our own shadows at this point. We are terrified of each other as well. We’re all in a fragile and vulnerable state, with out sanity hanging by a thread. We are all slowly losing ourselves more and more, the events of the past few hours and the hours to come dragging us in the depth of this seemingly endless void of terror.

And then there’s Y/N. Mike, her and I have just found Josh who was having some sort of hallucination-riddled breakdown in the mines. While Mike and I stood aside, contemplating our next move, Y/N didn’t waste any time hesitating. She ran right to his aid and literally pulled him out of his horrific delusions, wrapping her arms around him tightly, murmuring words of comfort as he cried on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry. For everything. I should’ve done something...I should’ve saved them.. I shouldn’t have done this to you guys.“ Josh’s sobs tear my heart to pieces. Seeing him like this is like watching a disaster happen right in front of me, but I’m incapable of doing anything to prevent it or aid help the people affected by it. I’m helpless, I can just stand aside and watch. Watch as he falls apart and Y/N desperately trying to keep him together as if she’s strong enough to carry such duty on her shoulders.

“It’ll all be over soon, it’ll all be ok. Hannah and Beth know it wasn’t your fault, Josh. We forgive you too. Please, don’t do this, at least not now.“ Just as she says those word, an inhuman screech comes from somewhere in the distance behind us, accompanied by another shortly after which came from right up-front.

Good thing we don’t have to head in either of those directions, not that we’re safe no matter which path we take. We’re walking through thigh deep water which could be hiding anything below the surface yet we wouldn’t know because it looks more like ink than water. We’re not the most discreet nor quiet as we move forward, taken that we are doing our best to push through with letting out as little curse words and sneers due to the inability to feel our lower body.

My foot hits something solid and rather sharp, most likely a large stone, causing me to let out a loud hiss before I could stop it. I freeze, listening on the noises surrounding us, expecting those screeches to emerge from behind the nearest wall and put an end to this torture we’re enduring.

I nearly jump out of my skin when a hand wraps around my wrist gently. My first instinct is to pull away, all my muscles tensing as I try to take a step back.

“Hey, hey relax. It’s ok.“ Y/N’s voice is unusually soft and sweet, just like when she was comforting Josh. It’s the voice she uses when aiding a hurt animal, or calming a weeping baby. “You’re ok, nothing bad will happen to us, ok Sam? We’re making it out of here.“ She’s carrying the mom role, the older sister role, the nurse role and the pillar we’re all leaning on for support. She’s keeping it together so we can too.

Her hand moves down to mine, unfolding my fingers that I’ve curled into a tight fist due to the uncomfortable sensation of being half frozen and half numb. He holds my hand open while quickly slipping off a ring from her pointer finger and putting it on mine. It has a small brightly blue rock on it. I recognize it right away - it’s the only ring she wears permanently. She changes all her other accessories, but never this ring. I can swear I’ve heard her joke that she’d like to be buried with it when the time comes.

“The lady that gave me this ring said it symbolizes the courage to carry on while carrying the world on your shoulders, and that really stuck with me.“ Her tone takes me to a different place, somewhere nice, safe and warm. Her words wrap around me like a safety blanket, for a moment letting me forget everything: the past few hours, the present and the yet to be determined future. “I have a feeling you need that courage more than I do.“

I nod but I’m physically unable to look up and meet her eyes. My gaze is fixated on her hands, which I’ve never felt so warm, holding mine as though it’s made of porcelain.

“If you keep going at this rate, all your jewelry will end up on me.“ I fish the necklace from underneath my hoodie, holding the charm so she can see it.

It’s a necklace she gave me right before she went on her first forest ranger training program. We weren’t sure if we’d see her again when we were at the train station saying goodbye. She said there was a chance of her staying at the camp to fully devote herself to what she wanted for her future. Thankfully though, she returned about four months later. I remember how hard I had to fight my tears that day. I should’ve know it would be useless - Y/N notices everything. That necklace, a beautiful blood red circular pendant hanging on a silver chain, was her saying ‘see you soon, hopefully’. I haven’t taken it off me since.

“I’ve already written it all to you in my will.“ She gives my hand a squeeze before letting go and continuing forward. After a brief return to the present reality I follow, making sure to always be an arm reach away at most from Y/N. Being within close proximity to her makes me feel like it will be alright. I mean, she said it would be, and she’s never wrong.

We enter an area where the water isn’t as still anymore. It rushes towards this small cliff where it creates a waterfall, pooling in the lower level in the form of a deep lake. The water is way higher there and the ground at the bottom is not reachable.

“Let’s try not to get pulled.“ Mike declares, his walk now more of a struggle just like everyone else’s “If we can reach that wall without dying we should be ok.“

We all nod, more as a way of reassuring ourselves than a response to his statement. We are less than fifteen feet away, I have a strong belief we can make it.

Ten feet away. We’re almost there.

And then we hear it - a deafening screech. It’s right next to me.

We turn to see that monster grab Y/N by her throat, throwing her into the water. Before we even have time to react, it’s too late. The thing has once again picked her up, holding her high above the surface of the water. She looks at me, her eyes screaming the way her vocal chords can’t. The fear has silenced her.

The wendigo’s other hand pierces through her chest, pulling her heart out.

She’s gone. She’s gone. She can’t be gone! WHY HER?! Why couldn’t it be me?! Why am I still drawing breath when she just let out her last one?! WHY DID IT GO FOR HER?! Is it because it knew that’s the quickest way to kill me?! TO KILL ALL OF US?!

The wendigo throws Y/N’s body over the cliff and into the deep lake below right before it climbs one of the stone walls and leaves our sight. It didn’t see any of us. We were too frozen to move even if we tried, of course it didn’t see us.

“We..- we gotta keep moving. Sam, come on. It’s over. She’s gone. We can’t help her.“ Each word shakier than the last, but still like sharp stabs right through my chest. Mike has taken hold of my arm and is leading me towards the wall we are supposed to climb to get out of here and back to the lodge.

* * *

I don’t remember climbing the damn thing. I don’t remember the way back to the lodge. I can faintly recall the pained cries of everyone in the basement when Mike told them what happened. All that time I couldn’t utter a single word. I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. It all happened so out of the blue and it was over so quickly, like it wasn’t the end of a human life. Like it didn’t matter and it wouldn’t have any lasting effects on anything that followed. As though her death wasn’t worth to be remembered.

It all sunk in only after I was out of that hell-hole lodge, the flames dancing in front of my eyes, surrounding the structure that within its walls held several of those monsters, one of which was the one that killed Y/N.

Y/N

Thinking of her got me to look down at the pendant of the necklace around my neck, the fire being reflected off its smooth red surface. Like a pool of blood in the middle of a forest caught by a wildfire.

See you soon, hopefully

I take one look at those woods, my heart sinking at the thought that behind those trees there’s an entrance to the mines. The mines that are now the resting place of the girl I loved. The girl that deserved better.

“Sam, they’re here. We’re safe. They’re saving us. It’s finally over.“ Mike’s words are nothing but a faint echo at the back of my conscience.

What’s on the front lines of my mind is that phrase - See you soon, hopefully. I’ll be seeing her soon. But not through death, she would never wish that upon me or anyone.

She’ll come back. She won’t let this be the end. She’s too stubborn.

“SAM!“ The screams fail to reach me completely as I run as though my life depends on it. My feet barely touch the ground, my instinct leading me to the nightmarish depths of this mountain.

I will not allow it to be your resting place, Y/N!

I jump from the top of the wall into the shallow water, letting the water drag my shaky form towards the cliff. With zero hesitation or doubt, no regard for the filthiness of the water or the horrors that may await me below its surface.

It’s pitch black. I can’t see or feel a thing. My body feels like it’s being stabbed by thousands of needles, causing it to go numb. I push my lungs to their limits, testing every cell of my body, begging them to not fail me.

The discourage starts settling in, accompanied by the pain that’s spreading throughout my chest due to the lack of oxygen. I’m just about to swim to the surface to breathe when I see it.

A glow. More of a reflection, actually. The reflection I was talking about earlier. The minimal light that’s pushing its way into the mines has made it to this depth and is being reflected by a metal ring connected to a pale hand.

Dizziness and pain all but forgotten, I push myself to swim lower, grasping the hand and giving it my all to pull it up. I only realize I’m above water when air enters my lungs in large gulps. It takes me a second to take in the fact that I’m holding the bloody, pale, unmoving body of Y/N with a hole through her chest.

“Please...“ I beg through gasps for breath, “Please open your eyes, live. Oh God, a wendigo or not just...just please come back to me, Y/N! Come back to take me with you!“

Despite my words of desperation, my screams of agony, I know they are in vain. I know she wouldn’t come back even if she could. She would rather stay dead than return as a threat to her friends with the risk of actually hurting them. She would never bring harm to her loved ones.

Images flash before my eyes: The hurt in her eyes when Josh’s scheme was revealed; Her comforting Ashley while Chris was out with the Flamethrower Guy; Talking Mike into putting the gun away and not shooting Em; Her standing up to Emily, grabbing her arm before she could hit Ash; Her comforting the disoriented and scared Josh we found in the mines; Her looking at me a second before her death.

There are two scenes that have been permanently engraved in my memory: Seeing her shining form for the first time and seeing her ink-like eyes, filled with terror for the last time.

* * *

We’re sitting in a room with bright neon lights and security cameras in each corner. I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t even remember leaving the mines. We were all given a change of clothes and a blanket. They offered us food and something to drink to refuel our bodies but after those horrors we saw, non of us are able to hold anything down. Josh was taken to a separate room the moment the helicopter landed and we haven’t seen him since.

I’m sitting on a bench next to Chris and Ashley, opposite Mike, Jess and Emily. Poor Jess has had it the roughest out of all of us. She has been drained of all emotion, her face isn’t even pale - more see-through. Mike’s arm is protectively wrapped around her shoulders, keeping her close. Matt and Emily are holding hands, unable to say anything to each other. Chris has Ashley tightly wrapped in his arms as though he’s prepared to protect her from anything.

And I’m alone.

I saw a black body bag being unloaded from the helicopter. I knew whose body it contained. No one dared say a word about it. We had run out of tears and words at that point.

I keep my head hanging low, my eyes fixated on the white tiled floor beneath my feet. The lights are too bright compared to my pitch black world. It’s all just empty and meaningless now. Looking back, I should’ve taken my own advice and spoken up about how I felt. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed much, maybe everything would’ve been different. And that’s the real torment - I will never know.

I straighten up, squinting at the artificial blinding lights, resting my back against the wall behind me. As I’m doing so, I catch a glimpse of something shiny in front of me.

My heart leaps.

It’s such an irrational reaction to something so simple. So ordinary to anyone else.

The shine is coming from the light reflecting off the chain Mike’s wearing around his neck. A familiar chain I’ve seen on someone else.

“That’s Y/N’s.“ I bark at him angrily, gaining his attention, “Why do you have it?!“

“Sam...“ Chris’ hand rests on my arm, “We all have something hers. She was sentimental, remember?“

‘Was‘. That change from ‘is‘ to ‘was‘ is killing me. And the ease with which everyone has accepted that Y/N is now a thing of the past.

“She gave me a bracelet.“ Ashley shows me her wrist

“She gave me this cool watch...“ Chris rolls up his sleeve, “I’m glad it survived all the crap it was put through with me. Not a scratch.“

“She’d haunt you if you scratched it.“ Matt smiles but his eyes are dull with sadness

“She’ll haunt us regardless.“ Emily says, “I hope she does.“

The rest of the crew shows the pieces Y/N left them of herself and it’s the most heartwarming while also heartbreaking feeling. The room has a different atmosphere all of a sudden. We are seven people, each with a soul of our own and a piece of Y/N’s.

As long as all the pieces are near each other, she’ll be alive and present. She’ll live on to watch over us and guide us. She’s probably looking down at us right now, relieved that we made it out. Overjoyed that Chris and Ashely are finally where they’re supposed to be - in each other’s arms. Glad Matt and Emily have found a stable middle ground. Proud of Jess for what she survived back there and happy she has found safety in Mike’s embrace. And what does she feel about me? As I said, I’ll never know, I can only hope she heard what I said to her back in the mines.

Assumptions aside, her message is crystal clear and leaves no room for speculations:

As long as we’re together, she’ll be with us. Forever.

17 notes · View notes

blackgwenstacy · 5 years

Text

highlights from the lightning thief musical

i saw the lightning theif last night at the straz in tampa and it was so!!! good!! my inner theatre kid was so satisfied and i wanted to make a list of all my favorite parts (which is basically the whole musical lmao) spoilers ahead

so the musical started with this LOUD ass clap of thunder and half the audience (including me) nearly peed

PERCY’S ENTRANCE WAS SO DOPE after the Prologue the demigods rip away the lightning banner and Chris McCarrel s l i d downstage into a “thinking man” position and goes: “look. i didn’t want to be a half blood” i DIED

when sally gets home from work percy goes something like “hey mom how was your day mine was great went on a field trip got expelled did some homework nothing extraordinary hahaha”

when Smelly Gabe made his entrance percy suddenly had a can of air freshener and was OBNOXIOUSLY spraying it LMAO

when grover appears after Strong he’s like: “thERES A FURY” and percy responds “no, YOU’RE ALL FURRY” but the audience definitely heard “you’re a furry” we were dying

percy meets poseidon in a dream and goes “oh look. a strange man in a Hawaiian shirt.

poseidon gives him a sea shell and he talks really deeply and slowly. he was like “what beloooongs to the seeeaa can alwaaays returrrrn...it’s a sea shell” and does the Shaka hand gesture and walks offstage. i cannot make this up.

grover’s actor also as mr. D? A+

silena gestured to her crotch when she said charlie grew sunflowers “everywhere”

katie gardener went on a spiel about not senselessly slaughtering trees and Mr. D just....aggressively sharpened a pencil in front of her

during Another Terrible Day percy was so confused and overwhelmed he just started clapping to emphasize what he was saying: “WHAT👏🏽 IS👏🏽 HAPPENING👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽” i screamed

CHIRON’S CENTAUR BODY WAS JUST A TAIL STICKING OUT OF HIS PANTS AND HE JUST WALKED REALLY ABSURDLY TO EMPHASIZE THE FACT THAT HE WAS HALF HORSE. suspension of disbelief was really my friend here.

when Grover and Percy get reunited Grover’s scared that Percy will be mad at him for not protecting both him and his mom but Percy just goes “i’m so happy to see you!!” and they share the biggest hug i’m 🥺🥺🥺 grovercy rights

Percy has only seen Annabeth in his weird dream sequence so when he actually sees her in real life he blurts out “HEY YOU’RE MY DREAM GIRL” and everyone onstage is just like...did you really just-

to represent water they used a toilet paper roll and leaf blowers. they literally TP-ed clarisse in the bathroom scene

the campfire scene was probably one of my favorites like the bonding!! complaining about their annoying parents!! the little dance they all did at the end kinda seemed Greek influenced but i couldn’t tell ah!!

they japed the entire audience during percy’s claiming. they couldn’t actually show a trident above his head so they were like “LOOK IN THE SKY. IT’S A TRIDENT” and pointed toward the back of the house and the audience turned around in their seats looking for the damn trident we looked stupid

Chiron: “All hail Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

Percy: “Son of a SEA GOD?? SWEEEET!”

and then everyone started panicking because “holy shit son of the Big Three we’re doomed.”

Mr. D legitimately wanted to turn Percy into a dolphin to avoid Zeus’ wrath

Mr D (about the Master Bolt): THIS ISN’T SOME TIN FOIL COVERED CARDBOARD PROP IN A TRAVELING MUSICAL

The Oracle was SO COOL like all the actors were inside her dress to make it move with her hand movements it was creepy but COOL

GOOD KID!! Good Kid was so intense like you could see Chris SPITTING. HE WAS SO INTO IT

there was a heart to heart between Luke and Percy after good kid at the lake and it was so beautiful I ALMOST forgot Luke was the traitor

can I just say the OG trio is amazing omg frick. they were so excited during Killer Quest I love them 🥺

as soon as Act 2 started it jumped right into them being chaotic aka them exploding a bus

random bus passenger: “believe it or not this isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened to me on the greyhound”

Grover explaining how he can talk to the squirrel during Lost! and Percy went: “I think that’s kind of nuts” and just SMIRKED. the entire audience started clapping for the f*cking pun they had to hold the scene for ten seconds it was golden

I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS EARLIER BUT EVERY TIME SOMEONE COMPLIMENTED ANNABETH SHE WOULD GET SO HAPPY!! Luke said she was the strongest person he knew and she was like “you think i’m strong??🥺” and Medusa was like I just HAVE to take a picture of you and Annabeth was like “you want a picture of ME?? 🥺🥺” someone please give this girl the praise and love she deserves

Kristin really sang her heart out during My Grand Plan like I had chills literal CHILLS. KRISTiN YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE.

during Tree on the Hill they had Grover on the ground level singing about what happened then up on the scaffolding Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia were acting out what he was singing and during Thalia’s death Annabeth, Luke and the actress who played Thalia stood with their backs together and used their arms to form a tree and i cried

THEY HAD CONFETTI CANONS FOR THE END OF DEAD ON ARRIVAL I WAS SO IMPRESSED

annabeth: “guys...i think that pit down there is Tartarus”

percy: “THE FISH SAUCE??”

“we need to get out of here before hades finds us!!”

Hades, in an exaggeratedly southern, flamboyant accent: “WELL, it’s TOO LATE FOR THAT!”

hades radiated chaotic gay energy i swear. you know the john mulaney new in town bit where the guy’s like “i’m a homosexual and i’m new in town” that is hades.

Hades: “give me the lightning bolt”

Percy: “there’s no way in HELL--oh”

Hades really emphasizes the fact that there’s no way out of the underworld without his help and then Percy remembers the shell his dad gave him and blows into it which opens up a PORTAL and Hades goes “oh, COME ON”

ANNABETH AND GROVER REFUSED TO LET PERCY FIGHT ARES ALONE MY BABIES

Ares singing his version of Clarisses “Put You In Your Place” vs Percy singing “Son of Poseidon” all during a fighting sequence. poetic theatre.

for the climax of Son of Poseidon percy, annabeth and grover all had leaf blowers and TP-ed the front three rows of the audience to represent percy defeating ares with his powers. jesus.

percy told his mom Medusa’s head was a “do it yourself statue kit” scream

annabeth: hey clarisse we met your dad, he’s not as strong as you think

clarisse: you met my DAD??...did he say anything about me? 🥺

LUKES EVIL YET HEART WRENCHING VERSION OF GOOD KID WHILE HE AND PERCY ARE SWORD FIGHTING

“I’ll do anything I don’t care if I hurt anyone it doesn’t pay to be a GOOD KID A GOOD KID A GOOD SON”

he stabs percy and runs and also rips down the CHB banner on his way out. what kind of anarchial mess.

annabeth goes “seaweed brain!” while giving percy ambrosia for his stab wound and percy smiles and goes “wise girl :)” and they nearly touched foreheads. nia.exe has stopped working

during the final moment of Bring on the Monsters white lights focus on percy while the rest of the stage is dark and he smiles while singing “I’ll be back next summer, I’ll be back next summer.” and there’s a final blackout. my heart.

there’s so much i want to say and a lot i probably forgot but just know this musical did that. the actors are all so talented and so many of them played 3+ more characters!! like imagine the amount of quick changes and lines and songs they have to remember!! they’re bad asses all of them. it’s true to the actual pjo books as well. if you have a chance you should totally see it because the tour is closing soon :’)

#tlt musical #the lightning thief musical #pjo #hoo #tlt #pjo musical #musicals #theatre #theatre kids #The lightning thief #percy jackson #percabeth #nia says stuff #mine

1K notes · View notes

justapetertingle · 4 years

Text

Secret Admirer: Chapter One

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Rating: Fluff

Warnings: Language, minor-violence, suggestive themes/language.

Summary: Peter Parker’s life is as normal as any other teenager. The main obstacle in his life? Y/n. He’s been in love with her since they were kids, so how is he meant to tell her when his superhero life keeps getting in the way?

A/N: This is set in MCU Spider-Man (aka Tom Holland’s movie version.)

Word Count: 4,653

Right now, I have two things on my mind: my imminent death and the unavoidable physics test in Mr. Dell’s class. Peter swings his body, shooting two webs out and hurtling his body to wrap them around the front of the truck. It hangs precariously off the side of the bridge, threatening to plummet into the water below. He slings some more webs connecting to the bridge before flipping over the bus, connecting the last to the rear of it and pulling. The bus lifts from the web that was cradling it as he leans his whole weight back, arms straining to pull his classmates to safety. Once he pulls the bus upright everyone cheers and students pour out, some crying, some shouting encouragement and thanks at him. Peter’s whole-body tingles, eyes widening as he glances to his right just in time for a stray tire to slam against his chest, knocking him off the side of the bridge.

For a moment it feels like his body is suspended in mid-air, and Peter sighs, debating his choices. I could swing back up, save New York again. He presses the button on his palm, a web shooting out towards the bottom of the bridge. On the other hand- he grabs the web with his free hand, angling his body to swing under the bridge, letting go and briefly free falling before shooting another web- if I die, I don’t have to deal with finals. He swings upwards, shooting far past the bridge and twisting his body, eyes scanning the ground. But if I die- He lands next to the bus in crouched position, leaping up and shooting a web at the beams above the bridge, gaze locking in on his target- Aunt May will kill me.

Peter’s briefly taken away from his thoughts by a loud scream. His gaze scans the ground underneath him, trying to find the source of the strangely familiar scream. His attention settles on a figure being flung through the air, a large, metal claw gripping the thick winter coat engulfing her form. Something tugs at his subconscious, a tingle running up his spine. The Vulture’s suit jerks roughly as it propels him upwards, dangling the girl beneath him as she writhes in the air. Peter’s head tilts as he squints, slinging another web and hurling himself upwards. Why does she sound so familiar? Peter’s arms shoot out to his side, the fabric connecting to the arms allowing him to glide for a few moments in the air before shooting two webs, aimed at either side of The Vulture’s suit. The web sticks to the wings and Peter twists his body downwards. He shoots another short web, tying the ends of the two webs together and holding them in one hand. Peter shoots a web at the bridge’s column, connecting it to the end of the webs attached to The Vulture. He shoots more webs down, connecting them to the bridge, cars, and various objects, shooting one last web to the column of the bridge and swinging his body over the webs, effectively tying them all together.

He lands on one of the beams of the bridge, turning his attention back to the girl still being held by The Vulture’s talon. He leaps up, The Vulture dragged down just enough from his previous work to attach a web to the girl’s chest. Peter closes his eyes. Come on, Spider-Man, don’t let her fall. The force of his weight on the web yanks her from The Vulture’s claw and she screams. Peter clears his throat, shooting a web at the column, holding onto the one connected to her and glancing over. “Don’t worry ma’am, y-” Her body flies past him and Peter squeaks, releasing the other web to shoot another one onto her back, connecting it to another one that he shoots at the bridge, pulling himself to launch his body forward. “Karen, activate grenade web!” He cries out, aiming for the gap between the two columns and slinging multiple webs all around him, one connecting to a part of the web that comes out from the we grenade and pulling it, connecting it to the other side of the bridge’s column.

Peter lands on the thin web hammock, eyes locking on the girls form as she’s falling-and screaming- through the empty sky. Her body falls onto the make-shift hammock with more force than he was expecting, and the sudden strain on the thin layer of webbing causes it to dip. Peter reaches down, “h-holy sh-” the thin layer of webbing snaps and the scream- which Peter now fully recognizes- startles him out of his surprise. Peter reaches out, grabbing the string leading off from the webbing connected to her chest from earlier. He tips forward, body horizontal on the tight-wire type web he balances on. The girl screeches again as Peter pulls her up to him. Peter wraps an arm around her and clears his throat, gaze darting around as he jumps off of the webbing. He shoots one final web at the bridge and swings down to the ground, landing next to the school bus he previously pulled to safety. The pair stand there, Peter breathing heavily, his grip tightening around her waist. Get it together, Peter.

The girl clears her throat and Peter practically jumps away from her, his eyes widening as he lets out a strangled yelp. “Uh…thank you.” The girl murmurs, her arms falling to her sides as she looks down at the ground.

“Ah,” Peter clears his throat, attempting to lower his voice, “ah, yes. No problem.” Peter’s voice cracks, causing the girl to cover her mouth in an attempt to hide her smile.

“You saved my life…” She looks up at him and Peter’s face heats up at the blush spreading across her cheeks, “my name’s Y/n.” She holds her hand out and Peter’s hand shakes slightly as he raises his arm.

She has to know it’s you. How can she not know it’s you? You almost killed your best frie- a loud, metallic creaking sound pulls Peter’s attention away and he stutters, pulling his hand away as a nervous laugh bubbles past his lips. Damn mask doesn’t muffle anything- “Sorry, I uh- villain to go, detain. Nice meeting you, Y/n! I’m glad you didn’t die!” With that, Peter jumps away, scaling up the bridge’s column and swinging across various webs to get to The Vulture.

In a matter of a few seconds he has The Vulture restrained, out of his suit and stuck to the bridge, leaving a short and simple note for the police, signing it off with regards, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Peter swings into the open window of the Avenger’s building, sliding in next to Tony Stark, who’s arm shoots out as his suit apparats around his hand. “Woah, woah, it’s me, Mr. Stark.” Tony’s suit disappears as he turns around, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And you think you can just swing into the building, unannounced, and not get shot at?” Peter opens his mouth to answer and Tony turns around. “Not a question, kid.” Peter pulls his mask off, holding it in his hands as he moves forward.

“Mr. Stark, did you see me? The Vulture he like, swooped down and everyone was screaming and running away and then the bus almost got knocked off the side of the bridge- and so I pulled it back up and saved my entire class! And then I heard this girl screaming, Mr. Stark, and so I went over to save her and her voice was so familiar and I could almost place her voice- anyways, I tied The Vulture down and I saved her and then when I put her down on the ground-”

“Kid, this better have a point.” Tony cuts in, giving him a pointed look as he continues messing with a new suit prototype.

“It does! When I set her down, I saw her face and I knew who she was. I don’t want you to be mad, Mr. Stark. Promise you won’t get mad.” Tony turns to Peter.

“Who was it?” Peter’s face falls slightly and he glances away, toying with the mask in his hands.

“Well, it was…your daughter? Mr. Stark…” Tony’s eyes close and Peter holds his breath, peeking at Tony from the corner of his eyes.

“Is she okay?” Peter nods silently. Tony sighs. “Good. That’s good. Thank you for keeping her safe.” He puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Not that you had a choice.” Peter smiles wryly.

“I know.” Tony holds his hand up, shaking his head as he steers Peter towards the elevator.

“I’m also glad you’re okay,” his sentence comes out muffled, covering his mouth as he coughs, shifting his gaze away from Peter. “This is dangerous stuff, kid. I know you know that, but I worry.” Peter looks away, eyebrows furrowing as his grip tightens on the mask. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you again,” Tony ushers Peter into the elevator, going in after him. “Take us to the lobby- anyways, Peter, if you ever get hurt, I’ll have to take the suit away from you. I won’t be the one letting you get killed. Not again.” Peter frowns slightly.

“I wouldn’t let that stop me from saving people,” he replies.

Tony’s jaw clenches and he looks away, nodding once. “I know kid, trust me.” The elevator comes to a stop and they exit, Peter hanging his head slightly as he follows him. “You can skip training today but I want you to get checked up,” Tony says, “make sure you’re not hurt. I saw a bit of the fight on the news in the beginning, it looked pretty nasty.” Peter shakes his head.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he mumbles. Peter bumps into Tony’s back, not noticing he stopped walking.

“Steve.” Peter looks up quickly, peeking over Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony.” Steve nods, his gaze flickering to Peter. He offers him a warm smile. “Queens.” Peter smiles slightly, stepping out from behind Tony.

“Hey, Mr. Rogers.” Steve’s eyes narrow slightly as he grins, pointing at Peter.

“You got lucky today, Pete. You were set up to spar with me.” Peter swallows thickly, nodding as he looks away.

“Next time, then?” Steve nods.

“Sounds good.” He turns to Tony, his expression shifting instantly. “I assume you know?” Tony nods, waving his hand in the air before placing it back to his temples and groaning.

“Kid told me already,” Tony walks over to the kitchen counter, leaning down against it and hanging his head. “She’s fine, thanks to Peter.” Peter fidgets, glancing between Tony and Steve as Steve moves to stand next to Tony.

“Yeah, I saw that.” They’re both silent for a moment and Peter can tell from the look on Steve’s expression he’s debating something. Steve softens his demeanor, shifting his body to face Tony. “You know,” his voice is lower, and calmer, causing Tony to turn his full attention to him, standing up straight. “She’s been asking for it for a while. I think a bit of training might be beneficial. Maybe a suit- just for safety, Tony, you know she’s been in more situations like this than you’d like.”

“No, no, Steve. I’m not…I’m not setting another kid up to be some sort of warrior.” Peter’s face heats up when Steve glances at him.

“What, this about Pete? He’s fine, Tony.” Steve lowers his voice on instinct, although it won’t do much to stop Peter from hearing it. “He’s fine. Look. He’s there, Tony. We won.” Tony’s expression falls dark and he turns to Steve, pointing briefly towards him before his arm falls to his side.

“He was gone, Steve,” Tony’s voice is so quiet Peter can barely hear him. “That’s on me. That will always be on me. No one else.”

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter’s voice shakes slightly and he clears his throat, looking up to see both men staring at him. “I, uh…I don’t want you to feel bad about that.” He looks away. “Even if you hadn’t ever given me this suit- if you hadn’t had me fight Captain America…I’d still be doing this. Yeah, maybe I wouldn’t’ve fought Thanos, but I don’t think that would’ve changed anything.” Tony’s expression falls and his eyebrows furrow. “All I’m trying to say, Mr. Stark, I’m here. If anything, I’m safer because of you.” Tony watches Peter, blinking and looking away. His expression is unreadable for a moment, but then he nods, his eyebrows raising slightly as lets out a sigh, studying Peter before looking at Steve.

“I guess I can let her train. I’ll think about designing a suit only for emergencies.” Tony points at Peter. “Kid, come here.” Peter pauses for a moment before moving forward.

“Yeah?” His voice cracks slightly, causing his face to heat up when he notices Steve’s smirk.

“Would you still keep an eye on her? Just…just until I know she can be safe on her own.” Peter nods quickly.

“Yes, of course. I won’t let anything happen to her,” The elevator door dings and Peter turns to see who it is, but Tony grabs him by the shoulder’s, quickly meeting his gaze. Steve stands up straighter, glancing at Tony.

“Hey, dad. You won’t believe what happened- and I swear, this wasn’t my fault, okay? I was just on my school bus when it all happened, okay? I didn’t go out looking for trouble or whatever it is you think I’m always doing. I was literally sitting there, studying for Physics class when-” her sentence cuts off short with a small squeak. “O-oh. Uh…” Peter’s spine goes rigid, his face bursting into flames as Tony walks past him to go hug his daughter. “I’m okay, dad.” Her voice is muffled as it cracks slightly. “I’m not hurt…” Tony clears his throat, stepping away from Y/n.

“You could’ve been. If it weren’t for our friend Spider-Man over here, you could’ve been dead.” Y/n looks down. She mumbles an apology but Tony quickly dismisses it. “We’ll talk later Y/n, okay?” She nods and Tony turns back around. He snaps, causing Peter to jump slightly. “Spider-Man,” Peter starts to turn around again, but luckily Steve stops him, grimacing as he glances back at Y/n. Peter’s face reddens even more when he hears Y/n laugh slightly. Tony moves forward, “just go see Banner if you’re sure you feel alright. He’ll check up on your suit.” Peter nods.

“Hey, Spider-Man?” He opens his mouth, stammering slightly as he glances between Steve and Tony.

“U-uh. Yeah?” Peter attempts to lower his voice- or change it at all- and Steve looks up, turning away from him and covering his face to try and suppress his laughter.

“Thank you for saving me.” Peter swallows roughly, quickly pulling the mask over his head so he can turn to face her.

“Hey- yeah, no problem!” His heart pounds wildly in his chest when he sees the blush spread across her face.

“Did you get hurt? Are you okay? It looked like a pretty rough fight.”

Peter, I’ve detected an accelerated heart rate, although you are not currently active. Should I alert Tony and the other Avengers?

“N-No!” Peter blurts out, the response meant for Karen, although it startles everyone else in the room.

“What? You said were fine,” Tony’s voice is slightly panicked and he steps forward at the same time as Y/n.

“Are you okay? Do you need to go to the medical bay?” Y/n’s voice is gentler, but hold the same fear as Tony’s.

“N-no, sorry, I’m fine. I was, um. It was my suit, Karen. I was talking to…the suit, it said something. Sorry. I’m all good, really, I’m fine.” His pitch is all over the place as he panics, trying to mask his voice but failing miserably as he holds his hands up, taking a few steps away from Tony and Y/n. “I’m sorry- I’m good, yes. M-maybe I got hit in the head a few too many times,” he laughs slightly, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck through his suit. “Now that I mention it, I do actually feel kind of funny? I’m…I think I’m gonna go…” Steve moves forward, placing his hands on Peter’s shoulders.

“I’ll take him to go see Dr. Banner. He’ll be able to get the suit checked out, and I’m sure he’d know if anything was wrong with this thing,” Steve moves one of his hands to the top of Peter’s head, grinning at Y/n. “He’ll be good though,” Steve directs the comment towards Tony, noticing the way his shoulders slump. “He’ll just be in the medical bay.” Tony nods.

“I have to talk to this one anyways,” Tony motions at Y/n, who’s face turns bright red at the condescending tone.

“Mr. Rogers?” Peter’s voice is quiet as he leads him away. Steve glances down at him, “you think Y/n’s gonna be training when I’m training?” Steve purses his lips.

“You two are close, yeah?” He ignores Peter’s question, a small grin forming on his face when Peter’s demeanor changes.

“Y-yeah. I mean, I’ve known her for a while? Since before I had my powers. We sort of just went to school together and eventually we became friends.” Steve nods.

“You know, Queens, I’m not an expert on this stuff, but you seem pretty nervous around her.” Peter shrugs.

“I mean, I almost let her die today. Well, she almost died because of me. If I weren’t there, she would’ve died. But she’s…thanking me? And I’ve never seen her look like that before- she seemed so nervous and she’s normally comfortable around me.” Peter pulls his mask off once they get in the elevator and the doors shut.

“Take us to Banner,” Steve states, “Pete, you know why she was so nervous?” Peter shakes his head.

“Maybe because I’m a stranger? Well not me, Peter, but Spider-Man.” The elevator stops and they get out, “but she didn’t seem nervous? More…I don’t know.”

“Man, you really are young, aren’t you?” Peter stands up straighter, glancing at Steve.

“I’m 17.”

“Man, 17. You ever had a girlfriend, Queens?” Peter glances away.

“Yeah- yeah, man. I mean, I went to Homecoming with Liz, but her dad ended up being The Vulture so I…I kind of left her, but I mean, I didn’t really have a choice.” Steve nods, laughing slightly.

“There isn’t anything wrong with choosing being a hero over the girl,” Peter nods silently, looking down at the mask in his hands. “I just think…maybe Y/n might have a thing for Spider-Man, you know? You did save her life.” Peter laughs shaking his head.

“Nah, Mr. Rogers, I know her. She wouldn’t…I mean, I could be an old man for all she knows. She’s smarter than that, she wouldn’t…” Peter frowns. “I don’t think she would?”

“I don’t know her like you do.” Peter frowns, looking down at the mask in his hands and sighing. “Banner!” Peter looks up, his eyes widening for a second as Bruce turns to look at them.

“Hey, Steve. Peter, you good? I saw the news.” Peter opens his mouth to respond, but Steve beats him to it.

“Kid says he got hit in the head a bunch, we just wanted to make sure he’s doing good.” Bruce nods, glancing over at Peter.

“Let’s get you checked out,” Peter nods, following Bruce over to what looks like a large metal detector, standing in it and glancing over at Steve.

“Uh, Mr. America- sir, do you think Y/n is going to get in trouble?” Steve and Bruce share a look and Bruce ducks to hide his grin, turning towards the machine and queueing up different check-ups to run on Peter.

“Pete, I wouldn’t worry about her if I were you.” Steve crosses his arms and leans up against the wall. “I think Tony’s just going to issue her some training. I’ve seen him working on a prototype for a new suit as well.” Peter frowns, looking down at his feet and wringing the mask in his hands.

“Are you sure Tony won’t be upset? I mean…at all?” Steve shrugs.

“I can’t guarantee that he won’t be upset, but I know neither of you will get in trouble. Tony’s likely to blame himself more than anything. Really though, don’t worry too much about it, Pete.” Steve pushes off the wall, moving over to the door. “If you have everything under control, Banner, I have some business to attend to.” Bruce nods, turning away from the control panel.

“Yeah, it’ll only take a second. Everything looks good so far.” Steve nods, waving at Peter and walking back over to the elevator.

“Okay, Peter, right?” Peter nods.

“Yeah?”

“Could you turn and face that wall?” Peter nods, shifting his body and tearing his gaze from Steve as the elevator opens.

“Y/n? What are you doing here?” Y/n’s voice sends chills up Peter’s spine as he stands up straighter, his hands clenching into fists at his side.

“Hey, Steve. I- uh…I just wanted to check in on Spider-Man,” she walks out of the elevator. “My dad just got done talking to me and uh, I just wanted to make sure he’s okay, you know?” Bruce looks over at her, exchanging a silent agreement with Steve as he starts the machine up and steps away from the panel.

“Well, I’m about to run some basic tests on him. We should know if everything is okay in a second.” Bruce laughs, shaking his head. “I swear, some of the tech Tony comes up with…” He sighs, taking his glasses off and moving over to greet Y/n.

“So, what’s the deal?” Steve pauses outside the elevator, turning back to Y/n. “What’d Tony say?” Y/n chuckles, a small smile gracing her features as she looks over at Peter.

“He wants me to start training. Just so I can defend myself, you know? And, uh…I mean…He said that I can just start training with you and Spider-Man.” The machine stops suddenly and the room is filled with complete silence as Bruce once again turns away and moves over to the panel to hide his grin. Steve smiles brightly.

“That’ll be great. Right, Spider-Man?” Peter hurriedly throws his mask back on and turns around, his heart once again beginning to race when his attention lands on Y/n.

“Y-yeah, it’ll be nice not to be the new guy,” Peter’s voice shakes slightly as he steps off the platform. “I’m fine, by the way. Really, don’t worry about me. Thanks, Mr. Ba- Dr….” He swallows roughly, briefly glancing to Y/n before clearing his throat and attempting to lower his voice. “Thanks, Bruce. I’ll see you guys Saturday for training, yeah?” Bruce holds his face in his hands, attempting to contain his laughter, much unlike Steve who laughs and slaps Peter on the back.

“See you there, Queens.” Peter nods.

“If you’re going up, I can walk you out!” Y/n steps to the side, standing in front of Peter and looking down, her heart fluttering in her chest.

“O-oh. Uh…I…” Peter stumbles back, motioning over his shoulder. “I actually, I’m gonna go the Spider-Man way. I, uh… Mr. Ban-B- Bruce, how do you get these windows open?” Peter moves over to the large, floor to ceiling window.

“You really think Tony has a feature on his highly secure base for the Avengers to open a window in the medical bay?” Peter’s eyes widen and he stutters nonsensically, waving around the room and praying that Bruce understands. Steve steps forward, slapping his hand down onto Peter’s shoulder.

“Bruce, cut the kid some slack. You know what he meant. The landing pad, just open that up and let him out.” As the ceiling opens up, Peter waves at Bruce and Steve, whispering so Y/n won’t hear.

“Sorry, Dr. Banner, Mr. Rogers, I’ll be back Saturday.” Steve nods.

“Do what you have to when she’s around to protect your identity, kid.” Peter nods.

“Uh, okay, well, bye, Y/n! I guess you’ll be here Saturday for training?” Y/n nods, her face lighting up. “Well, see you then. I have to go- protect the people of New York and stuff,” and this Physics homework. If I don’t get that finished Mr. Dell will kill me. “Spidey out,” Peter cringes inwardly at that, coughing as he rubs the back of his neck, raising his other hand and aiming at the edge of the hanger doors. “Okay, well, bye.”

Peter jumps and shoots a web out, swinging up to lift himself out of the room. “Bye, Spider-Man!”

He looks down, thankful for the mask hiding his smile as his gaze locks with Y/n’s. The minor distraction causes his body to slam into the wall, but he quickly clambers up the side and out, letting out a squeaky, “I’m okay!” As he tries not to focus on her loud laughter.

Peter makes his way back to Aunt May’s apartment in record time, crawling through his window, up onto his ceiling and silently thanking himself for shutting his door before leaving. He leaves one hand on the ceiling as he drops down silently, letting out a sigh of relief and sitting down on his bed. He pulls the mask off and hits the Spider emblem on his chest, allowing the suit to loosen around his body and hang off his chest. Peter kicks the suit off, opening his door a crack. “May, I’m home!”

“Are you okay, Peter? I saw the fight on the news and it looked pretty bad.”

“No, I’m good. Sorry for missing dinner, I’m really tired so I think I’m just gonna sleep.” There’s a long pause before May opens the door and Peter steps back, clearing his throat slightly as he shuffles in place. May sighs, picking up the suit and placing it on his desk.

“Get some sleep then.” She turns away and pauses, turning back to him as she grabs the door handle. “Make sure to eat in the morning, okay, Peter? You need to take care of yourself.” Peter nods.

“I’ll make sure to eat, May.”

“Okay. Get some rest. I love you.”

“Love you too May.” She shuts the door as she leaves and Peter collapses back onto his bed, letting out a long sigh.

How the hell am I supposed to see Y/n every single day as two different people? Peter climbs under the covers and punches his pillow lightly before burying his face in it and groaning. “Why would Mr. Stark do this?” Peter lets out another groan, rolling over onto his back and covering his face with his hands. If Mr. Stark finds out that I’m in love with her there’s no way he’ll let me train with her, let alone be her friend. I can’t let him know. Peter drops his arms back onto the bed, sighing. Does Y/n really…like me? “No, Peter, don’t be stupid.” He whispers, his eyebrows furrowing as he closes his eyes tight. “Even if she likes Spider-Man, she doesn’t know it’s you. If she knew I was him…” Peter’s voice trails off and he shakes his head, rolling onto his side and pulling the covers close to his chest, pulling his knees up and curling into a small ball as his head pounds. Y/n wouldn’t like Spider-Man if she knew I was Spider-Man. She only likes you because you saved her life. I’m sure she’ll be over it by Saturday. Peter’s heart flutters in his chest as his stomach drops. More importantly, how the hell am I supposed to act like everything’s okay tomorrow? What do I even say to her?

Peter’s mind slowly calms as exhaustion drives him to drift to sleep, completely forgetting about the paperwork sitting on his desk, unfinished- although, that was by far the least of his worries.

17 notes · View notes

mackies-thoughts · 4 years

Text

Life in Music

Music has always been a major part of my life, so naturally my life can be defined by what music I was listening to at the time. I will listen to my music on shuffle and say “Oh, I remember listening to this in [insert random moment in time here]”. Thus a definitive list of my life in music is born!

Fall 2018

Shawn Mendes album (I listened to this on repeat while suffering through my online algebra assignments)

Youngblood - 5SOS album (I listened to this for the first time packing for winter break!)

Oye Como Va - Tito Puente (this was discovered during my World Music class and my roommate and I would listen to it over and over again)

Duck Tails theme song (again, my roommate and I have weird taste in music I guess)

Killer Queen - 5SOS

Polaroid - Jonas Blue, Liam Payne & Lennon Stella

Fine - Spencer Sutherland (I would listen to this song on repeat at least 15 times in a row)

Shotgun - George Ezra (My dad got me into this song)

Still New York - MAX and Joey Bada$$

8 Letters (album) - Why Don’t We (the beginning of a lovely obsession)

Happier - Marshmello (DO NOT watch this music video, whatever you do)

Have It All - Jason Mraz (This is a super specific memory but I was listening to this walking to Centennial Hall and it put me in such a good mood which algebra class ruined immediately)

LANY (album) - LANY

Spring 2019

Dan and Shay - all albums (but I like the Obsessed album the best I think)

Unbelievable - Why Don’t We (the best WDW song to date, I will fight people on this)

Don’t Change - Why Don’t We

Phases - PRETTYMUCH (I remember many cold mornings at 7 am walking to Chemistry and listening to this on repeat)

If I Can’t Have You - Shawn Mendes (I remember driving to surprise our best friend at his college graduation and blasting this song with the windows down, such a fun day!)

Look What God Gave Her - Thomas Rhett (I have a specific memory of driving to Walmart with my roommate and choosing this song to listen to)

Someone to You - BANNERS (this song was used in After and I saw that with my roommate and another friend during Block Party weekend)

NIKES - Jake Miller

Here With Me - Marshmello feat. CHVRCHES (I listened to this one so much that my roommate actually banned me from listening to it around her because she was so sick of it)

Love Me Less - MAX & Quinn XCII

Who Do You Love - The Chainsmokers & 5SOS

I Don’t Belong In This Club - Why Don’t We & Macklemore (pretty sure there’s a video of me singing this song very poorly 😂)

comethru - Jeremy Zucker (feat. Bea Miller)

Cody Simpson - all new albums (this obsession started after I saw him in Anastasia on a trip to New York and I’m now in love, he has such a summer vibe in all of his newer music)

Fall 2019 (aka worst semester everrr)

Kill My Mind - Louis Tomlinson (anxiously waiting for Walls to release!!)

Yellow Hearts - Ant Saunders (courtesy of TikTok)

Fine Line (album) - Harry Styles (my roommate became obsessed with Watermelon Suger so I thought she would become obsessed like me - thought wrong; the video for Adore You dropped and I watched it while getting ready one morning to which my roommate said “What the heck are you watching?”)

Ophelia - The Lumineers (TikTok again, I might be obsessed)

5SOS - Sounds Good Feels Good album and Teeth (this semester made me feel angsty and SGFG definitely helps with that)

Colors (EP) - Jacob Whitesides (I may have cried out of pride listening to this the first time which was as soon as it was released)

What Am I - Why Don’t We (changed my mind, this is the best WDW song)

Next to Normal soundtrack (watched a bootleg of this on YouTube and cried)

Flicker (album) - Niall Horan (I’m a bad fan but I just now listened to this album...oops. It was on repeat studying in the library for finals with my roommate)

Put a Little Love on Me - Niall Horan

Nice to Meet Ya - Niall Horan (this song excited me because he speaks French and the only class I enjoyed this semester was French so)

Suburban Girl - Lostboycrow (I jam hard to this song, I was listening to a chill playlist while doing laundry and that’s how I discovered this song)

10,000 Hours - Dan and Shay (I also listened to this one on repeat as soon as it came out, along with Kill My Mind)

Mother - Charlie Puth (I saw this king in concert and he will forever be one of my favs)

Things That We Drink To - Morgan Wallen (I discovered him on a band bus ride back from Shippensburg University and I fell in love with this Australian country singer)

Aaand during winter break I have been listening to High School Musical: The Musical: The Series which I was ready to hate but I’m actually in love with!

Spring 2020 - aka Corona Virus University

Goldfish Crackers - Good Revere (best TikTok dance everrrr, my roommate and I are obsessed with it and we do it together a lot, even if it is just over FaceTime)

Heartbreak Weather (album) - Niall Horan (so so amazing, I could listen to it over and over for the rest of my life which may or not be happening)

CALM (album) - 5 Seconds of Summer (again, great album and have it on repeat)

Common Sense - Joshua Basset (cute, cute song from a cute, cute boy)

IDK You Yet - Alexander 23 (another really cute song)

Starry - (this is a musical based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh, sounds a little bizarre but I promise it’s incredible! Dillon Klena is part of the team now although he didn’t sing on the actual recording)

Whistler - Kathryn Gallagher (she’s part of the Jagged Little Pill company on Broadway and she’s so good!)

Jasper Avenue - CaRter (vibeeees)

Little Women Soundtrack - (all instrumental and I’ve written many an English paper/Genetics paper to it)

Intentions - Justin Bieber feat. Quavo (I only know a few words but that doesn’t stop me from vibing as hard as I possibly can!)

Sunday Best - Surfaces (another TikTok song but it is so so good and gets stuck in my head. Bonus is that I can do the dance!)

Winter Hurts (EP) - Jacob Whitesides (another banging album from my dude! Go check it out if you haven’t already!)

Beautiful Soul - Jesse McCartney (this has always been my favorite song but it now has so much more meaning to me because it was Corey La Barrie’s favorite too. Rest in Paradise bud<3)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch album (specifically the Riverdale cast album, some may say it’s cringey but I loved it! - “Here’s to Ronnie...”)

Fall 2020

Fallin’ - Why Don’t We (such an amazing group of guys that are finally producing music that is 100% them! I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of their album because if it is anything like this then it is about to break the charts)

Julie and the Phantoms Cast Album (OH MY GOSH I need to make a post with all of my JATP thoughts because this show has so many layers that make it absolutely incredible. There are no skips on the album AT ALL)

Hold Me Down - Jacob Whitesides (This is his best song by far and I streamed it for about 24 hours straight so my boy could rack up his streams on Spotify 😌)

mama’s boy - LANY (another amazing album by them! My favorite differs from day to day but currently it is (what i wish just one person would say to me))

Lotus Inn - Why Don’t We (This is such a feel-good song and honestly I’ve listened to it so many times and am still not tired of it at all. The music video is incredible and it was another of Corey’s favorite songs <3)

evermore - Taylor Swift (holy cow, this girl is amazing! My favorite is happiness, tolerate it, and gold rush!)

Wonder - Shawn Mendes album (so many cute love songs and Monster with Justin Bieber is sooo good!)

Almost Maybes - Jordan Davis

Spring 2021

Every Girl I Ever Loved - Noah Schnacky

It’s Not You It’s Me - EBEN

Roses - The Band CAMINO

Greek Tragedy - The Wombats

About You Now - Sam and Sounds

Glad You Exist - Dan and Shay

Honeymoon (Demo) - The Shadowboxers

remember the mornings - Clinton Kane

CHICKEN TENDIES - Clinton Kane

Break My Heart - JC Stewart

u suck - Emily Bear

afraid to die - Jacob Whitesides

losing a friend - Jacob Whitesides

Summer 2021 (CMERA in particular)

everything sucks - vaultboy

Alaina - John Harvie

Casual - Ian McConnel

Lemon Drop - Raynes

Big Kids (Bergie Remix) - Lukr, Bergie

Cheers to My Teenage Years

Best Thing Ever

Fall 2021

Love Back - Why Don’t We

I Guess I’m In Love - Clinton Kane

7 notes · View notes

marveldc-imagines-hub · 5 years

Text

That’s Not a Real Kiss (Telltale John Doe x Reader)

A/N: Here’s a thing nobody asked for that I’ve had on my mind literally since I created this blog. I love soft John Doe and just want him to be happy because Harley’s abusive and Bruce is a jackass; you’re welcome.

My take on the Telltale Harley Quinn/Joker dynamic is that it’s essentially a switcheroo on the regular representation of the couple, with John Doe being the unstable but more or less well-meaning pushover and Harley being the manipulative, abusive mastermind. With a side of Bruce also being kind of a dumpster fire of a character, in my opinion. I just mention this because I recently realized that this apparently isn’t the most popular take on Telltale’s Joker and a good portion of people still think he’s the main mastermind and has Harley wrapped around his finger. To each their own.

Word count: 1999 (2001 before editing; longer than what I usually write, woo)

Summary: You’ve been close friends with John for a while now, but have grown tired of his blind affections for people didn’t seem to think nearly as highly of him. During another late night of listening to him fawn over Harley and Bruce, you end up deciding to confront him--and corner yourself into confessing your own feelings for him in the process.

Warnings: Mentions of abuse (nothing too graphic), a bit of a cliffhanger? (I might make a sequel if people are interested); I started this months ago and just continued/finished it at three am this morning, so while I did edit it and al that jazz, there may still be the occasional grammar error and choppy writing. That being said, I did also try to write it in a way that felt lengthy and breathless and jumpy? I guess? In hopes of portraying how the reader was feeling and the way their brain was buzzing out of nervousness. Lemme know how I did.

Like what I do? Leave me a tip!

~~~~~

You sat crouched against the wall of John Doe’s scrappy home within the warehouse hideout of the criminal group he’d decided to attach himself to, a scowl etched into your features as you watched him flamboyantly pace around. Seeing him so happy would normally make you happy too, and if he wasn’t talking about the two most manipulative people in his life like they were gods, you would have been. Unfortunately, though, Harley and Bruce were the ones bringing that adorable grin to his face, so you sat unenthusiastically nursing the drink John had provided and stewing in a mental pool of God, I wish that were me.

Then, against your better judgement, you decided to do something about it.

“Hey, Johnny.” You placed your drink down with a hard clink against the concrete floor and glanced up at the man, who had stopped his affectionate rambling with an embarrassed grin; god, you loved that grin. Most people found it unnerving, saying that paired with his paper pale skin it made John look like the living dead--or a clown if they were a crackhead. You, however, found it fitting for him, a strangely cute smile for a strangely cute man. You just wished you were the cause of it more often.

You also wished that what you were going to say wouldn’t result in an argument but you knew it probably would anyway. Shaking aside your butterfly-stirring thoughts and grumbling--partially in case Harley or her criminal buddies were still wandering around the warehouse at this hour, mainly because you’d almost immediately lost all the confidence you had about five seconds ago--you repeated, “Hey, Johnny--”

“Hey, [Y/N/N],” John chirped back, relaxing enough to take a seat on an overturned crate across from you. Curiosity and a bit of confusion sparkled in his green-gray eyes, and his head was tilted slightly to the side. He looked like a puppy; a sweet, dorky, green-haired, white-skinned, horribly lost puppy. One of those pretty soft eyes was still purple-black and partially swollen shut, a punishment from Harley Quinn herself after John had gotten a little too excited and caused a mission earlier today to turn sour. Better than getting a bullet through the eye instead, though that thought didn’t make you feel much better about it.

Still, he smiled, shining like a ray of sun in the dark chaos that was Gotham these days. Still, he fawned over Harley and treated her like a queen.

The idea of it made you want to hurl. You could almost feel the frown lines etching themselves into your skin.

“Why do you like either of them?” you blurted, louder than you had meant to and apparently cutting John off from speaking at the same time; his lips had parted and one of his hands had risen just as words were pouring from your own mouth.

John’s response was a blink, then a chuckle, then that rubbing of the back of his neck that he did when he was flustered. He’d blush if he could, but he couldn’t so he started talking instead. “Well, as I was saying--”

You winced at the slow way he’d said ‘saying,’ like he was annoyed that you’d prevented him from continuing his love-struck rant about a couple of bullies. “You know what I mean, John. I don’t want you to go off on another tangent. We’ve talked about this before.”

It’s true. Despite your unwillingness, this wasn’t the first time you’d gotten enough courage to call John out on his self-destructive bullshit. You’d initially joined The Pact because you had had nowhere else to go at the time, a Gotham newbie with no money but with an attitude and a penchant for eavesdropping and minor pickpocketing--the key was to return the wallet from the person you’d taken it from, acting like they’d dropped it during you bumping into them; everyone in Gotham was too busy to check if anything was missing right then, and you were bland enough in appearance to have basically disappeared and been forgotten by the time they’d noticed. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you might even be mistaken for a homeless ragamuffin and given more money than what you stole from a particularly sympathetic victim.

By the time you’d impressed Harley enough to join her squad of crazy, saving you from sleeping at bus stops and bathing in sinks at gas stations, John Doe was showing up with his friend. His friend Bruce Wayne, AKA Batman--it wasn’t difficult to figure out who the man behind the mask was, if you were really looking; the fact was that no one in Gotham really wanted to ruin the illusion--who you soon realized wasn’t really a friend at all. Like Harley, Bruce used John as pawn at every turn, and you, who had made friends with the lively man pretty easily, couldn’t stand it; you’d quickly learned that John was brilliantly clever, entertaining, had a very intriguing set of gray morals, and was almost completely unaware of the poor treatment he was receiving. After a few weeks of enduring the irritation of watching two mightier-than-thou Gothamites treating your friend like a doormat with the intelligence of a box of rocks, and in some cases saving him from and nursing him back to health after suffering Harley’s wrath, you decided to put on your adult pants and deal with the problem head on: showing John what he was avoiding seeing and hoping to whatever being of high power that he believed you.

At some point among the many high-energy, zany moments you’d experienced with John, but more likely during one of the few gentler, more caring ones, you had caught feelings for the bizarre but lovely man. This realization had you further searching for shooting stars, tossing pennies into fountains, praying, doing whatever else you thought may help every time you every time you considered talking with him about his toxic loved ones. Silently begging that he wouldn’t get so upset with you that he’d decide to completely cut ties with you, or worse--tell Harley what you’d been trying to do, most likely resulting in your corpse being thrown off a Gotham pier.

Now John sat across from you, his long-fingered hands fiddling with each other and his purple-shoed foot tapping and his pale gaze shifting to look anywhere but at you as he considered what to say. You could almost see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure out how to explain his love for an abuser and a manipulator without losing the one person who never seemed to grow tired of him.

“[Y/N],” he finally drawled, hesitant, then with a chuckle, “I know you don’t like them but they’re great guys, really; you just need to give them a chance. Harls? She can be real sweet, as long as you stay on her good side and do what she says. And Bruce! Sure, he’s a little grumbly around the edges but--”

“John,” you cried softly, desperately, and rose to your feet. In a few steps you were right in front of him, kneeling and gently pressing a hand to the side of his face that was still bruised. Your face was twisted in pain, none felt for yourself, as you brushed a hand over the surprisingly cool but still puffy skin under his black eye; you looked directly into it, a half moon of silvery green almost hidden by purple flesh, as you continued, “Bruce is a rich boy with a hero complex doing whatever he needs to do and screwing over people he doesn’t think matters in order to finish a mission. Harley Quinn is a menace. She would have smashed your head in if I hadn’t distracted her with new mission plans; that wasn’t even twenty-four hours ago! The bruises from her almost strangling you because you went out to the carnival with me without telling her are just now beginning to fade. I didn’t get a punishment like that, and you know why? Because she thinks I’m useful and she thinks you’re a toy that she can play with and then throw away whenever she wants. She knows you worship the ground she walks on, but I’ve seen you noticing that you don’t deserve the treatment she’s dealing out. People who love you don’t treat you like that, John. Bruce and Harley don’t care about you. They don’t love you. They’re not even your friends.”

Emotionally exhausted and scared that you had crossed a line you shouldn’t have, you ended your speech with a slow breath. You took a moment to look away, shake off the feeling of your eyes burning. You only looked back at John when you felt his cold hand on yours, felt his face lean into your warm palm.

The green-ette who was all limbs and jawline--he looked more like a deer in headlights than a curious puppy now--was watching you, his eyes wide and conflicted. He seemed to be struggling to say something again; you could feel his hands quivering and see him chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. Then he blinked, pressed his cheek more securely into your hand, and asked in the quietest voice you’ve ever heard him use, “Do you?”

You grew more flustered and confused the longer the moment stretched on, and it was your turn to tilt your head slightly. “Do I…?”

“You said they don’t love me,” John clarified, and you felt your mouth go dry. “You said people who love me don’t treat me like that. You’ve never treated me like that.”

Attempting to bring moisture back to your mouth in order to protest, to deny the truths John was claiming, only resulted in what you assumed was pretty unattractive grumble and cough. Not that you thought John would care; you knew he wouldn’t. You did, however, realize that talking was futile, so you took a moment to think of the next best thing. Just as John began to start a new thought again, just as doubt began to blossom in his eyes, you decided to throw all caution to the wind and kiss him.

A small kiss. A very slight brush of the lips. And not on his lips, but right in the center of his forehead.

There was a moment of silence, another excruciatingly long one that briefly made you feel like you were having a heart attack, until you felt the brush of eyelashes on your jaw when John blinked once again.

“That’s not a real kiss.”

You could help bark a short laugh at the pouty tone your friend’s--friend?--voice had. You began to sit back on your heels, apologizing more about the fact that you had kissed John at all than because he’d considered the kiss ‘fake.’ Before you could pull away fully, however, you felt chilly hands make their way from your arm to your shoulder, then to your neck and jaw, pulling you closer. You hadn’t noticed that you had closed your eyes until you opened them again, and then inhaled sharply. You saw the look on John’s face, something new and breathtaking and lacking any of the sadness or doubt that was usually there lately, and smelled a faint cologne all around you--did he always wear that?--and finally felt his breath on your lips when he spoke again.

“It’s okay,” he said, responding to your apology. Pulling you ever closer--you could brush noses and lips now, and even though you felt your eyes flutter shut again but could still see that face behind your lids--he continued, “I’ll do it.”

You weren’t sure, as John’s lips met yours, where this kiss would take you or where the man’s thoughts were at. All you did know was that your doubts of having a chance with John flew right out the window at you leaned into his touch, and that if Harley wanted a fight for him, you’d give her a war.

238 notes · View notes