#also i refuse to learn how to draw cigarettes

[slocumjoe]

Trying to find a quicker, less picky/perfectionist way of drawing + need to draw more angles of faces + need to draw more dudes = sketch @wastelandhell's "miserable orange cunt" (their words)

[thedirtybeanlife]

Random Task Force 141 Headcannons That I Need to Get Out of My Head

-Ghost-

has the biggest heart ever and refuses to show it to 99.9999% of the population

sleeps with a nightlight because he's scared of the dark

has a strict routine after missions are over, and he gets irritated if it's interrupted

prefers savory over sweet

enjoys beans on toast and eats it nearly every morning

listens to so much Queen and old classic rock

hates noisy environments

thinks a hot dog is a sandwich

likes dogs; bigger the better

^^ wants a st. bernard and plans on rescuing one when he retires

always carries a lighter and a single slightly bent cigarette on him

he doesn't smoke it, but he takes it out and looks at it every so often. nobody knows why

(it's his moms)

occasionally, if the times line up right, he stays with Price when they're both on leave.

they usually just grill and talk on the back patio sharing a bottle of the best whiskey they could find on short notice having the most random conversations

makes soap sew parts of his mask back together because he can never thread the string through the needle and Soap has steady hands

refuses to eat seafood

wears fake designer colognes that smell exactly like the real thing and lies about it

has never used mens 3-in-1 and brags about it

-Soap-

the worst case of adhd to ever exist

expert at cleaning guns

loves puzzles with complicated pictures

tired to learn how to play guitar and gave up on the first day

it still sits against the dresser in his room

skydives with practicing trainees when he gets bored

listens to the weirdest mix of music

i.e. Black Sabbath to Childish Gambino

(Gaz influences a lot of his music taste)

always has hidden candy somewhere

broke his wrist once and didn't realize until almost a week later

when he brushes his teeth he practically showers in toothpaste from how violent he does it

spends a lot of his time drawing whatever comes to mind in a small notepad he keeps in his pocket

gordon ramsey level chef over here

the entire task force begs him to cook for them when they have free time

has a shitty stick n poke tattoo on his ankle he did when he was 16 with pen ink and an earring

it's an uneven, wobbly smiley face with x's as eyes

is either really calm or really chaotic

no in between

-Gaz-

loud, contrary to popular belief

at least when he's not out in the field or working

avid video gamer

loves calm games like Stardew and Minecraft

the best music taste to ever exist

can also cook pretty well

soap and him often team up and play their own version of Chopped when they're bored on base

has a golden retriever named Max that stays with his sister when he's deployed

he got Max before he enlisted

hates beans on toast

beans make him gag

Ghost bullies him for it

likes working on the military vehicles and learning about how they work

even with his young age, he struggles more with technology than most of his superiors

doesn't like drinking or being intoxicated in any way

complains he's hot but proceeds to sit under five different blankets

will eat an entire pack of Oreo's in one sitting if you let him

please don't let him

he gets sick and complains that his stomach hurts all day

-Price-

big morning person

always awake by 5:00am

prefers his coffee overly sweet rather than bitter and black

has a small office in his house where he keeps his fancy cigars, liquors, and whiskey glasses

collects cool lighters

the team buys him a new one every year for Christmas

reads every morning when he drinks his daily morning coffee and every night before he goes to sleep

he's supposed to wear glasses but he doesn't like the way he looks in them so he only wears them when he absolutely can not see

cat person all the way

like Ghost, he's waiting to retire until he gets a new furry companion

he's not the best chef in the world, but he can cook a decently good meal

likes to help soap and gaz sometimes, especially if they let him grill something

gets stressed really easily, which makes his job so much harder

this poor man deserves a year long vacation istg

winter is his favorite season

root beer barrels are his favorite candy

always has some stashed somewhere on his person no matter where he is

absolutely has a dollar shave club subscription and uses the code from a survival YouTuber he watches

[worldwright]

The Trigun Gang Learns To Swim, AKA I Have Ideas But Do Not Know How To Write Fic

So my sister teaches adults to swim and has some fun stories, and I have wanted to throw these idiots in a pool for months so. here goes

- idk how they got a pool. maybe there's one on the Earth ships. we're not worrying about that

- Meryl sits at the side with her feet on the top step covered in three inches of water for half an hour insisting she's good no she's fine not going in this is good thanks

- Milly loses her footing as she walks in because she didn't expect the water resistance and needs to be rescued by the instructor because she can't figure out how to surface again

- this does not help Meryl's confidence

- Milly gets used to walking around and conspires with Wolfwood to carry Meryl into the water. this ends with Wolfwood being rescued by the instructor because he also did not expect water resistance and did not learn from Milly's mistakes. Meryl is desperately clinging to Milly like a koala

- Vash has at least seen large bodies of water in pictures and has perhaps seen videos of people swimming so he figures he's got this. he is also trying to show off. he slips straight into the deep end and immediately some plant instinct kicks in and he goes limp and just. floats on his back. it takes several minutes to shake him out of this, after which he is extremely embarrassed

- Vash has weirdly neutral buoyancy and can almost just chill upright without treading water. the only reason he doesn't outright float is his prosthetics increasing his density

- Wolfwood sees this and assumes it's learnable, much to the instructor's distress. much flailing ensues

- Milly is still being a ladder and refuses to move close to the walls to let Meryl off. she's slowly crouching lower and lower to try and get her senpai in the water. Meryl is now clinging to her head and shoulders

- Vash does some kicking exercises and picks it up quickly. he's the most at home in the water and is soon doggy paddling around. Wolfwood tries to push him under. they are giving the poor instructor a migraine

- Vash, suddenly underwater, quickly learns that he does Not have the normal human diving reflex of Hold Breath as he instinctually inhales a lungful of oh-shit-this-isn't-plant-tank-soup. Meryl dives straight in to save him. this goes as well as you'd expect

- Vash sits on the side of the pool for a bit after that

- now that Meryl has been fully submerged she insists that she's been fine this whole time and would quite enjoy standing here in the shal--niCHOLAS D WOLFWOOD GET AWAY FROM ME

- Meryl Stryfe Learns About The Deep End™️

- Wolfwood Is Temporarily Banned From The Pool

- Wolfwood Discovers The Snack Bar

- The Gang Discover Chicken Strips

- obligatory 30 minutes after eating before swimming. the instructor does an emergency safety briefing because these idiots are Something Else

- after the snack break, Vash works on consciously holding his breath and discovers he's pretty good at it. he swims back and forth across the pool underwater for a bit

- Milly tries to go upside down underwater and has a bad time. the instructor helpfully informs her that you have to exhale. or hold your nose. Milly develops the novel method of puckering up her face like a pug so that her upper lip blocks her nostrils. Wolfwood is in hysterics. Meryl finds it incredibly endearing

- after they have all sufficiently demonstrated that they are able to not drown under minimal supervision, the instructor cracks open a crate of pool toys and goes to have a fuckin cigarette

- they have an intense watergun shootout all around the pool deck. looney tunes style. do you see my vision

- Vash and Milly pretend to die dramatically at least three times each

- they all manage to fall into the water at once and decide to call it a draw all around. then they just float for like 20 minutes playing lazy bumper boats

- they are eventually kicked out of the pool because the staff are Not staying two hours past closing thank you

- sunscreen and pool water and evening light are washed off in the showers and they have their best sleep in years

[lockandkeyhyena]

You mentioned once that Poor George is a Hercules song, can we hear more about how that beast of a song fits him by any chance? Sorry, can't think of any other way to word this right now. Also I love his design so much!!

first up, thank you!! secondly- of course!! +some colour references for the pmv when i make it because i’ve been trying to answer all my oc asks with at least one drawing.

so, first off, poor george as a song is quote “a mock pity party for the male species” and that alone already suits hercules. the song is about a ‘a man whose daddy handed him the keys to the castle and showed him how to be a man. But the times are changing and the growing pains are real’.

here are some lyrics in particular that really really fit him

the lyrics ‘cant help he was born a king’ reference hercules’ status as the son of a mob boss and someone who’s eventually going to inherent that empire.

‘she said she wanted everything’ in general, hercules’ relationship with titan growing up

‘look what you made me do’ goliath -> titan -> hercules perpetuating the cycle of abuse

‘he’s going blind to watch you lose’ hercules throwing everything into his crime empire, to the point of neglecting himself.

‘takes a drag through the hole in his neck, he’s a marlboro man.’ hercules trying to epitomise typical masculinity and follow in the footsteps of his father (represented by the cigarette mascot). also smoking.

‘daddy said we could ride forever, what’s the back-up plan?’ more legacy stuff, goliath being a mythical figure hercules wants to emulate

‘momma taught him right from wrong, how to love and how to talk, never learned how to stop’ this one is just self explanatory tbh.

‘you can kill him, but you'll never kill his pride’ how he refuses to self-reflect, certain he’s in the right

‘beating his chest from the top of the empire, leading lady caught up in the gunfire. i’ma climb till they shoot me down, guns drawn, choppers off the ground’ aaand finally his ambition and sole focus on expanding the crime empire that his parents left for him that he doesn’t realise he’s hurting himself or those around him. his single-minded ambition.

[my-soliloquy-chamber]

My dad died last week.

It was too early, he should have gotten another ten years at least. I’m not ready, and I never really got to say goodbye because he wasn’t really conscious. I know I was there with him, but he doesn’t.

My dad was a feminist and a pacifist, an innovator and an artist, and an educator. He had a sharp wit and a kind heart. And he’s gone.

I’m never going to sit in the passenger seat listening to him talk about his life and interests again.

I’m never going to get a hug from him again. He was really good at those.

When I was a kid, my parents would alternate nights putting me to bed. My mom would read me books, my dad would read me comics or sing songs.

He was the one who stayed home with me if I was sick from school. Or took me with him to work and tucked me in on a couch.

One time when we kids were blowing soap bubbles, my dad made one with cigarette smoke. Creating a gorgeous, pearlescent orb that mesmerized and captivated little me. My mom got mad at him for that so he never did it again. As an adult, I understand it’s because she knew it would lure idiot-child me to steal cigarettes so I could make the bubbles myself, so she was right. But I’ve never forgotten that bubble he made.

He made wonderful, neat and funny sketches and drawings. He had real talent. Actually everyone in my family has a talent for drawing, including his grandchildren. I’m the only one with zero innate ability. He was also a sculptor, making animals and vases out of clay.

When I was a kid he would sing all the time, and play the guitar. As he got older that petered out but he continued to hum made-up tunes, and drum random rhythms on tables or the steering wheel.

He loved music. One time he recorded over my favorite my little pony movie with AC/DC live in Sydney. I was devastated and didn’t let him forget that transgressions. Twenty or so years later he gave me a stack of CDs onto which he’d burned every single My little pony movie and show he could find on the internet.

He spent so much time teaching me how to iron, fold sheets, make a neat bed. And I never learned properly. But imagine how terrible I’d be at it if he hadn’t even tried.

He wasn’t allowed to smoke inside the house after my mom quit smoking, so in my teens he would go outside for a last cigarette before going to bed. So he would stand out on the stoop late at night, watching the night sky. Often he would come fetch me (being a teen who refused to sleep) to see the neat things he saw. He would tell me about planets and constellations, point out satellites. Sometimes we just stood there and watched northern lights or shooting stars.

I’m going to miss my dad so much. I was not ready for this at all.

[hmslusitania]

I was tagged in WIP wednesday by @theladyyavilee! I'm...a fool and somehow thought the fixit fic I wrote would exorcise the demons (compulsion to write stranger things fic) because this is the one and only area of my life where I refuse to learn from past mistakes, so, uh:

Nancy follows the pointed finger through the bullpen of the Hawkins Police Department, drawing stares from every single one of the cops seated there. The office at the end of the row is labelled Chief Jim Hopper, and although it’s empty, it’s also unlocked and she’s able to duck inside and take a seat opposite the desk. 

She has enough time to start picking through her new math textbook before the office door bangs open and a man who must be Chief Hopper stomps in. Nancy jumps to her feet, trying to rearrange her books and extend her hand all at once. 

Hopper ignores her extended hand. 

“You the arsonist?” he asks without looking at her, flipping through some stacks of paper on his desk. 

“Technically it was an accident,” Nancy says. 

At the sound of her voice, Hopper slowly looks up from his papers. He looks her over, expression darkening. She retracts her extended hand. 

“Jesus motherfucking shit,” Hopper says, dropping to his desk chair and then letting his forehead fall onto his desk with a loud thunk that makes Nancy jump and knocks his hat off. 

“Um—”

“I told them I was retired,” Hopper groans, and Nancy doesn’t really think that’s directed at her but there’s no one else in the room. 

“From being Chief of Police?” she asks. 

Hopper lifts his head from the desk, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Stop me when this stops sounding familiar — you were going about your normal every day life in — where are you from again?”

“Lenora Hills, California,” Nancy says. 

“You’re going about your normal every day life in Lenora, everything’s all peachy keen, and then out of nowhere, you’re suddenly super strong! And you’re super fast! And super agile! And then monsters start turning up and trying to kill you, but it turns out you’re also preternaturally good at killing them right back! And then some Jeeves-looking bastard shows up with a stupid-ass English accent and tells you he’s your Watcher, and by the way, you’re the Slayer, magical protector of humanity or some shit, one in a generation, yadda yadda, how am I doing so far?” Hopper asks. 

Nancy’s pretty sure her entire face has gone slack. 

“Right,” Hopper says. “What was it under the gym? Vampires or something more exciting?”

“Va-vampires,” Nancy says. 

Hopper exhales, his entire moustache bristling, and pulls a box of cigarettes out of his desk. 

“Are you a Watcher?” Nancy asks. 

“No,” Hopper says, dark and flat. “I’m retired.” 

Nancy the Vampire Slayer anyone? Tagging @starry-eyed-guttersnipe @littlespoonevan @mellaithwen

[oldgooddaysoldgooddays]

225

It's now two mornings in a row that I've locked eyes with Paul Mescal in my neighbourhood right as I'm snot-rocketing into my own glove. I sense pity in his gaze but I could be wrong

More curatorial hell from R who has crossed from the inane (people getting massaged in the show) to the downright unethical (people receiving therapy in the show). I don't know what I did to deserve this line of discussion, and surely as the artist it's MY job to present harebrained concepts? Must I, really, "think about the exhibition as an object in itself"? Must I do institutional critique? And would R still like my institutional critique if it was - as V correctly posited - my critiquing her forcing me into doing institutional critique as a method of institutional critique? Well????

On Tuesday I pour coffee into my Bialetti and realise I bought beans, not grounds. I order espresso, and when I am charged a small order fee, I add a juice I won't drink all at once, and the order is still too small so I add a bunch of other garbage. And they say it's not hard being single

When I see V for the first time in three weeks it is like being shot up with antibiotics after a subtle yet pervasive infection. As always, I hate her momentarily for the reality check she clobbers me with concerning my predictable dating life and wonky food logic, my general sense of myself. I am quick to lose perspective. She waits patiently for me to say all my nutty theories out loud and then masterfully destroys them with, as right wing pundit Ben Shapiro calls it, facts and logic. We eat phô and I cry a lot, in a way I really needed to, and she gets out a new tarot deck she was gifted. I draw The Tower, something something transitional period, something something the old rules aren't working. Then a couple other cards: money and property isn't everything, don't play dirty in order to be right, don't be a victim. All fall on deaf ears with this crybaby. But when your own mind becomes the crazy animation that plays after you win solitaire on a Dell computer, it sure is nice to narrow things down to a couple of stupid cards. Oh and also before I know it I'm booking a second coffee date with the beautiful and possibly secure-attached Senegalese writer from my 5 days on Hinge

Now that China has opened its borders somewhat, a Shanghai collector / museum owner / nightclub magnate visits on Tuesday afternoon and his female companion translates back and forth as he looks around my studio poker-faced. Eventually he, she, V and I settle on my couch and the conversation relaxes. V is right in her generalisation about the Chinese having quiet BDE. This man especially, a major art world figure who never felt the desire to learn English, the ultimate power move. Neither V nor I had known quite the scope of the lockdowns in China, and it is wild. We sit aghast at the accounts of mind-crippling isolation, state-issued food arriving late, being refused freedom without clear logic, fear of expressing dissent or anger. They say one of the greatest joys was sporadically getting one's hands on Coca Cola. 1920s-type statements about 2020. I think about how much Diet Coke I drank in the 2 year period in question and shudder with decadent guilt. V will later say she thought I was having the worst time, but I was enthralled. Enthralled by the man's much younger girlfriend so busy translating Mandarin to English that she is almost a ghost in the room, if ghosts wore fur-lined Monclers and immaculate foundation. Enthralled by the man himself and the near impossibility of connecting with him. Delighted by his lagging laughter when my dumb jokes are relayed, and never quite knowing if they were done justice, or whether they deserved translation. In some ways it's the most peaceful studio visit I've ever had. I explain to them that I have found it hard to collaborate in music, being so used to composing everything I make - this, painting, songs - alone. When we say goodbye and I'm rolling a cigarette the man says, in Mandarin, "you really don't need anybody else, you even make your cigarettes yourself"

Netflix tells me Emily in Paris's new season has aired and so I watch from the beginning to better remember the plot of the thing….realise quickly there is no plot

[witheringvoice]

Thoughts

I don't know what to do right now so I'ma just talk about random shit.

My leg was bouncy because I have too much energy, really wanna go on a late night walk right nowwwwww BUT I CANNTTTTT.

Living in a shit neighborhood and being a miner (IN MINECRAFT DUH) and a biological female really fucking sucks sometimes.

Reminds me of this story one time-

TW: Mentions of near kidnap, knives.

So one time my sister went on a late night walk and she was walking forever and got lost. She started getting nervous so she started messaging me, right? The sister in question is four years older than me, I believe this story was...Two years ago? Or so? I don't remember exactly, but anyway, so she was walking around she was lost, it was really late at night. But she did bring a knife with her, she has a knife for self defense purposes. And so, as she was messaging me, she told me she saw a van and she's seen it multiple times already driving past her. And she started getting really scared and I started getting really worried because- THAT IS MORE THAN A HORROR MOVIE/CRIME SHOW BEGINNING SCENE THAN ANYTHING IF I'VE SEEN ONE- And well, I kept trying to keep her calm and asking her about where she was and if there was anybody around, there wasn't. There was also no like businesses or anything around so, this was a scary situation. Eventually, she said the van was slowly driving up towards her, so she put her knife in her hand. And to this day, we assume the glint of the knife or whatever scared that van off because they sped off and didn't bother her the rest of the night, or ever again as far as I know. She got home safe. True story.

~~TW END~~

What else can I talk about?

Oh!

I'm the kind of person who talks about how broke they are and shit and complains about it (because it's funny), and then if someone tries to buy me something, I will immediately refuse and get really guilty. Unless it's consumable. I fucking love food and sweets and drinks, okay? I'm a sucker for them, though it still might take some convincing sometimes.

Very few people actually know this, but when I was little, before I got asthma (which was in first grade), I actually loved sports.

Especially soccer, or football depending on where you're from lol.

Anyway, I actually lowkey wanted to play soccer for school or something if that was somehow possible or if I could.

Because I really loved running and soccer was just so fun.

Then, my mom ignored the fact I'm allergic to cigarettes and smoked in our house quite a lot.

Got asthma, no longer enjoy physical activity, started loathing most sports, and yeah.

I love hiking and swimming though. Except I can't swim, true story.

I also like rollerskating but I haven't been very much so I'm not too good.

Basketball and volleyball are the only interesting sports to me now, but I don't bother actually learning how to understand it soo....Yeah

I am to this day pissed that Allegiant literally didn't explain about the shipwreck that was in the other two Divergent movies (divergent and insurgent), and I specifically read the books to figure out WHAT THAT SHIP WAS ABOUT. And you know what? IT DIDN'T EVEN MENTION A FUCKING SHIP IN ANY OF THEM. I'M PISSED. WHAT WAS THAT SHIP ABOUT HUH??? HUH???

To this day I can't get over it, it's been years (2-4) since I finished the movie series and it's only been a year or so since I finished the books but still- Fucking pissed.

My two favorite flowers are flowers and roses but I love dandelions and just about any flower.

I've had a baby minecraft pig stuffed animal for as long as I can remember and named him Porkins in respect of the Yogscast series playing on the adventure map: The Last Potato but am planning on figuring out how to make a crown and renaming him Porkins-Blade or something in dedication to Techno as well because I was never able to afford his merch and I don't know if it's still possible to get, or if I'll ever have money to afford it if it is. Because the little drawing I did was not enough respect in my opinion.

My favorite youtubers when I was younger were Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, Pewdiepie (but mostly when he was playing with Marzia), the Yogscast (mostly Lewis & Simon), and I think that's all I really watched? My brother tried to get me to watch Soot House, but he always dissed anything I liked (unless we both liked it), so I spite the things he tries to show me most of the time, to this day. It took me so long to finally watch Wilbur Soot because of that, Quackity too.

I spent most of my elementary school days playing Minecraft (first the demo over and over, then the Xbox360 version), Skyrim, Oblivion, and a few other games...While also watching Minecraft videos (Sky does Minecraft, stampy long nose, captain sparklez, dantdm, popularmmos, Minecraft parodies), mostly Minecraft parodies though. I loved Minecraft parodies with a passion, it was scary.

I still watch Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, and the Yogscast occasionally, but Markiplier is my favorite now. It used to be Jacksepticeye, and before that the Yogscast because Minecraft was my life and I loved their adventure maps and yoglabs and shit.

I didn't really understand social media for the longest time, not really knowing it existed because, I just didn't have a phone or an iPad for the longest time and didn't care for social media. I still don't care for it too much, but I do indulge in it now.

In elementary school my favorite class was math, when sixth grade happened, I no longer thought that.

My favorite food is potatoes (most kinds), and my mom thinks that's because I have a lot of Irish blood from both sides of my family, but I was born in America so I disagree, believing it is just because potatoes are holy and delicious.

When I was little I wanted to be a singer not realizing that I'd have to be famous for that and when I did I no longer wanted to be a singer

Nowadays I want to be a music writer/musician, content creator, photographer, artist, and mostly writer. But I don't want to get big, just big enough to inspire people. That's what I really want to do, help people and bring beauty to their world.

I also want to be a psychologist/therapist/counselor or English teacher, but they're mostly backup plans.

I plan on getting a PhD/doctorate in psychology and maybe English (at least what a BA in creative writing), but not just for a backup plan, also because I like the idea of being called a doctor and I really like psychology + I like writing so I might as well know a lot about English, right?

When I was little I wanted to be a profiler or private detective but when I thought harder about it I decided against it because I don't think I'd handle that kind of thing well

I've always hated blood and I don't know why, I hate that specific monthly occurrence with a burning passion.

My favorite fruits are grapes and apples but I only like certain apples because some taste gross and I can only explain it as they taste/feel bubbly and it's just disgusting, and I don't like super sour grapes or grapes with seeds.

My favorite vegetable is corn + potatoes but I always forget potatoes are a vegetable, I just think of them as their own thing.

I joined the DSMP community around the time of Tubbo and Ranboo's meetup, and when the benchtrio meetup, that's when I decided I wanted to check out the community.

I have always wanted to watch Minecraft Manhunt's after seeing an edit and not knowing who it was about, but I spite things that are popular for no reason in particular.

My first contact with the DSMP fandom either technically came with Wilbur or Quackity before the fandom existed but their content wasn't entertaining to me at the time because I can never focus on things for long, even though I can totally do that, I honestly don't know why they didn't entertain child me. Maybe I just preferred other content back then.

I jump from thing to thing as a coping mechanism and my "obsession" never usually lasts more than a year but the DSMP has already lasted a little over that, so I have a feeling that this is going to be like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Skyrim, and Minecraft. They'll stay for good no matter how much I might end up hating it (I won't).

I love(d) ds games, specifically drawn to life, but the second game was the one I finished and am still yet to finish the first because it is much harder, and I will always love the games.

One of my favorite cartoons (before I got to watch adventure time/gravity falls) was team umizoomie or whatever the fuck, the freshbeat band, and that yogabagaba one. Umizoomie one because of the math, the band one because of the music, and the gaba gabba one because it was funny.

I have always had a slight interest in burning things, but you'd never be able to tell because it was usually quenched by making smores. Now it is quenched by randomly burning things with bad memories or with a lot of emotion (poems, pictures of my father, etc)

My father shortly left my mother after my first birthday because he was threatened by my grandfather to pay rent because they were living in his basement at the time. He sends a lot of child support from time to time, or none at all. He is supposedly the worst person my mom has dated before and that makes me feel like I might become a terrible person.

I always got really good grades, still do for a matter of fact, but my biggest weakness was always homework. Not even forgetting, sometimes it would be finished and in my fucking backpack, and I'd just never take it out. LIKE WHAT THE HECK MINI ME???

I've always struggled with sleeping for as long as I remember. When I was little I'd wake up before the fucking sun to do whatever that day, and I'd always struggle with restlessness when trying to go to sleep + jumpiness, which I'd try to quell with reading, or doing workbooks or playing, or staying up watching youtube videos or playing games, but my mom assumed it was just me trying to stay up late. it was in fact, not, it was me not being able to fucking sleep.

In second grade the thing I obsessed over ended up being the titanic and i'd fall asleep watching documentaries about it because it was so fascinating to me, I don't even know why. I could state multitudes of facts about it, but I can no longer.

I love frogs and toads and geckos.

My favorite animals are cats.

I love foxes, trash pandas, pandas, and red pandas, and just animals.

The chromebook is about to die so I guess that's all for tonight Tumblr, hope you enjoyed lmao? I was bored.

[visd3stele]

Reminder that Sirius probably knows how to play the piano and speek french, but he refuses to because he sees it nust like another fancy thing forced on him by his parents. He also knows how to dance ballet, of which he's probably embarrased. He's definitely a smooth talker, what will all manners and etiquete shoved down his throat, but he uses the skills to whisper things to Remus until the werewolf is no better than a tomato. I headcanon him as a talented artist: painting, drawing, sketching or creating masterpieces on hidden canvas, you name it. But mostly he enjoys using a coal, beacuse it's messy and needs special attention to not smudge all over and his mother once talled him he should use the expensive, proper tools instead of a pieve of charocoal. He has to be well read, in wizarding lit, at least, but his curiosity makes him read Remus' muggle books in secret -he has a reputation to maintain. He picked up smoking after he bought his engine, spending so much time fixing it - something he enjoys. Tattoos and rings, clearly.

Reminder that Reggie probably learned to play the violin so he could be different than Sirius. He's talented and could bring even a statue to tears. I headcanon him with an angelic voice, so he'd sing to his brother after a bad encounter with their parents until he falls asleep, but when Sirius leaves him, he sings quietly to himself to sleep every night. Like his big brother, Regulus speaks french - proudly - and dances ballet - he doesn't tell anyone, but he does it to let go of stress. Obviously he's well read too, and has a silver toungue to bring people to their knees and ready to do his biding. But beneath his cold façade, he's a softie, who bakes and cooks for himself and Kreacher since he was a child so he can feel the family warmth Walburga and Orion didn't offer. He can't stand a cigarette's smoke and has zero tollerance for alcohol - though he wouldn't admit it. Rings, and ear piercings, totally.

[youryanderedaddy]

Hello, do you accept order? If yes, you could make a single one shot of Yandere! Brat Spoiled, please...

What would it be like if Yandere were the son of wealthy parents who always have everything they want, when they don't always get what they like, always act like a spoiled brat (and also his parents are afraid of their son, as they have already seen what he is capable of when he gets angry)... that's where the reader comes in. She is a new student at school, a nice and kind person, so the yandere knows her and falls in love so strongly that she never felt that way in life, but the reader is always rejecting her advances for being a spoiled brat and the way he treats the people around you.

What happens next?

Title: Eat the poor

Tw: non - consensual touching, obsessive/possessive behavior, violence, low-key bullying, blackmail / coercion, reader is in university

Part 2

It had started during your very first year of college, back when you still felt motivated to go to school and meet new people. You had heard the rumors about him before ever meeting his gaze and oh, did they disappoint.

You met Gabrielle for the first time when the snowdrops bloomed and the birds returned home – in the early autumn, at night, in a small crowded room reeking of alcohol, sweat and cheap cologne which you quickly realized wasn’t his. The man smelt like the cigarettes he never got bored of and sweet caramel. He was wearing a big leather jacket and a pair of dark jeans, yet the simplicity of the outfit seemed to suit the expensive brands displayed on the clothing. In a way the student represented the typical youthful boyish beauty with his golden locks, eyes the color of the sky and frame tall and well – built. Yet his face remained motionless the whole night and his body stayed still despite the mass of bodies dancing around in rhythm. But then some poor unfortunate fool managed to bump into the male, spilling his drink all over him, and his pretty face quickly twisted into a mask of disgust and anger.

“You stupid piece of shit!” The male yelled shortly after as his fist connected with the stuttering boy’s stomach. His clear eyes were now two wild thunderstorms pouring rain and lightning over the tipsy guy who was nervously apologizing and promising to pay for the damages done. “Do you know how much this costs?” Gabrielle spat with venom and pushed the other onto the floor, bringing his black sneakers to that white shirt until there was a mark of dirt formed on the otherwise clean fabric. Everyone else in the room had stopped drinking now and all the eyes were pinned onto the two men yet no one had the courage to do anything. Your own heart was beating hard in your chest at the sudden display of unnecessary violence but you had always been a calm kid, a kind soul too scared of its own shadow to learn how to fight properly. So you had no idea what to do.

“My father can have you expelled, you know.” The blond man suddenly spoke out in a quiet eerie voice as he pressed his foot harder into the shorter boy’s stomach causing him to whimper and squirm. “Unless you are willing to beg for my forgiveness, that is.” The bully proposed with a sly smirk on his pink lips as he glared at the victim underneath. The student on the ground was clenching his eyes tight so no one could see the tears in them when he shook his head no. You finally decided you couldn’t let this inhumane scene go any further.

“Stop this madness right now!” You shouted manically, drawing all the attention to yourself as you made your way between the two men. Gabrielle immediately pinned his burning gaze on you in unhidden intrigue. “This is too cruel. He didn’t mean to bump into you. Please, leave him alone.” As much as you had wanted to curse at the spoiled rich boy there was this suffocating feeling in your lungs telling you to be careful and play the mediator. The others quickly started gasping and some were already gossiping at your reaction proving your point that the guy was indeed dangerous.

Then he looked you straight in the eyes with his deep blue ones. He chuckled softly before smacking his lips in an unpleasant way, his “tsk” sending shivers down your spine. You had fucked up. “Well, well, well… Looks like the new girl wants to play hero. How cliché.” The bully grinned as he let his gaze roam up and down your body, your cheeks turning red in return when having realized he was handsome even while doing something so vulgar. “But if you do want to help him so badly…” The golden – haired man paused for a moment pretending to be deep in thought. “Maybe we could have a little deal, bunny.” He moved his leg away from the sobbing boy and stepped in front of you. From this close you could feel the warmth of his skin and the sweet aroma of burnt sugar it radiated. Gabrielle tilted your chin up almost gently and whispered in your ear “Kiss me.”

You tried to break free from the uncomfortable pose but the student simply squeezed your jaw line harder, his eyes cold and calculating, following your every move. You mind went blank and foggy at the forced intimacy and you couldn’t think straight with his breath on your neck. It felt like the time had slowed down just so the sadistic snob could mess with you a little longer. You opened your mouth to voice your protests but fortunately you didn’t have to say anything because at the very same time the host of the party appeared, ready to stop the fight.

“Gabrielle, I’d have to ask you to leave.” The dark – haired junior growled enraged as he pushed the taller male away from you. You couldn’t help but smile at him in appreciation. He was the only one brave enough to help you after all. “You are ruining the party for everyone. ” The stranger continued. The blonde seemed irritated at the sudden interruptance yet it was obvious he was powerless against the owner of the house. Still he grit his teeth and signed in annoyance as he turned to face the host. “Fuck you, Jackson!” The man cursed but eventually moved towards the door, red with anger. “My father will hear about this.” He looked at you as he reached for the golden doorknob, his features softened. “See you around, bunny.”

This was the first time you met Gabrielle. You already wished it was the last.

-------------------------------------------------------

After the incident the snob seemed interested in you, blatantly so. He would eye you up in the halls like you were a shiny new toy in a claw machine and try to strike a conversation no matter how much you ignored him. The man never once apologized for what happened at the party but at least he didn’t bring it up so you counted it as a small victory. You gradually understood just how much power and money the heir had. His father owned casinos, hotels, banks and apparently even the university you two were studying in received major monthly donations by the big businessman. This explained why everyone was so scared of the blonde, especially when he did nothing but flaunt his status at the slightest inconvenience. And now he wanted you.

In your eyes the boy was just an annoying brat who lived off daddy’s hard work, there really wasn’t much to him that intrigued you. The male was handsome, pretty even, but his grades were terrible and his interests were bland and shallow, mostly involving expensive brands and grand parties. But the worst thing about him was his personality. The snob treated his friends like servants and his enemies like dirt, but you he rather saw as a challenge. Gabrielle would ask you out every time you were unlucky enough to run into him. The first time the man gave you so many roses you couldn’t even count them, the second he demanded your affection with a silver necklace in hand ready to cover your neck in his mark of ownerships. You couldn’t recall all the other gifts the blonde used to try and court you with but you remembered refusing each and every one.

“Why can’t you just give me a chance?” He exclaimed one day after you had just returned the expensive bracelet you had found in your locker. It was a dark winter night and the heir seemed irritated with you for the first time, his eyes a deep electric blue just like the sky. The man had you cornered against the wall but you were used to his pathetic attempts at intimidation. Yet today there was something different in the air around him, some small voice at the back of your head wondered whether this time he wasn’t just joking around. “Are you still angry about that little wimp I expelled, bunny?” Gabrielle asked contemptuously yet his pupils remained cold and distant. Once again he was too close for your liking, too close for you to function properly, but that was probably exactly what he wanted. You to be compliant and obedient like all the others who crawled and kneeled at the very sight of him. “Or are you sulking because I beat up Jones after he asked you out, hmm?” What? The blonde man was the one who gave Tony the black eye? But he had told you it was just a street fight… Why had your friend covered for the bully you both hated?

“Why would you do that to him?” You whispered, staring at the twisted boy in front of you. Your heart was beating fast and your blood was boiling hot in your veins but you couldn’t let him win by showing him how much his actions affected you. Gabrielle reached out and cupped your cheek gently before smirking mischievously. “He was trying to take something that belonged to me.” The heir said casually as if he was talking about the weather. His fingers were cold against your warm skin and you fought the urge to vomit right then and there. “I am not yours.” You spat out with poison and pushed his hand away from your face. Next thing you know his knee was separating your thighs, lifting your short black skirt up, his breath lingering on your neck. “S-stop.” You stuttered and tried to squirm out of his hold but the man easily caught your wrists and brought them above your head, pinning you further into the wall. He was stronger than he looked and you felt so small and helpless in that moment you could have cried if your stubbornness hadn’t prevailed.

“What don’t you like about me?” The blonde suddenly spoke out, his voice unnaturally broken and needy, bordering on a whine, crying out in desperation. You weren’t sure whether he was trying to manipulate you now or if he actually wanted you to answer so you decided to be honest anyways. “I hate the way you treat other people. I could never love someone as cruel as you.” You inhaled deeply, ready to voice all the painful thoughts you had kept inside since the beginning of the semester. “You are spoilt rotten. Metaphorically and literally.” The man was breathing sharply like a wounded animal after hearing your words and as much as you wanted to sympathize with him, you couldn’t bring yourself to after everything he had done to you and your friends. He was irredeemable. “Let me go.” You finally demanded, hoping to use him weakened emotional state to your advantage.

Instead Gabrielle clenched his teeth and squeezed down harder on your already bruised wrists causing you to whimper in dull pain. His eyes were wet but the tears had finally stopped just like his willingness to show you his vulnerable side. The man had tried being nice and sweet to you, patient, then mean and patronizing, and neither worked. So obviously it was time to become the terrifying bratty monster everyone was so keen on believed he was.

“Have you noticed how many people seem to go missing after talking to you just once?” The heir whispered in your ear as his free hand traveled down to your waist, drawing you into his hard chest. You groaned at the sudden realization that the snob was actually right, less and less guys seemed to show up to your shared lectures in the last few months, but you had always assumed they just needed a break from school. University was stressful after all. “Did you…” You started off but couldn’t find the right words. Did you force your father to expel them? Did you harm them? Maybe a part of you didn’t want to know the answer. “I did.” Gabrielle responded before you could even finish the sentence. The sly smirk you knew way too well adorned his lips and it wasn’t hard to see he had already won. “And I will keep doing it until you agree to be mine and mine alone.” The man stated confidently as he sucked the sensitive skin of your neck until you arched your back in shock, your eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “N-nhgg.” You whimpered as you felt his teeth dig into your warm flesh leaving a scarlet mark for all to see. “Come on, baby, we both know you are too good to let them suffer because of your own selfishness.” He taunted you as he left a line of small wet kisses along your exposed collarbone. You wanted to argue, to yell at him how you weren’t the crazy, selfish one, but deep down you knew it was pointless. Gabrielle had power and you had nothing to bargain with. He could have anyone yet he wanted to torment you. “Give into me. I promise I can make you happy if you let me.” The blonde uttered softly as his lips brushed against yours, almost touching them, following your reaction with his clear eyes. Your own were puffy and red from the tears but he didn’t seem to care much about your misery and discomfort. The man wished to own, not to please, but you couldn’t do anything. And of course you wouldn’t let him ruin the lives of the innocent. Of course your stupid heart was too good and human for your own good. So you closed your eyes and slowly connected your lips with him even though they tasted almost metallic, like blood and defeat.

“I knew you would come around, bunny.”

[spiltscribbles]

Prompt: remus and lily as siblings or half siblings or biological family in any capacity pls 🥺

Oh God!!! Baby!!!🥺🥺😭 This is such a favorite AU of mine!! I’m literally— sorta— writing a To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AU right now and they are the bestest siblings in that!!!  They share a little sister and they are just so cute!! And Petunia is conveniently off in university oaiwefjoiaswejfiogreghoij And I just love Remus and Lily both so much it hurts!!! And so I wanna spit out a bullet point Ficlet at you! And I’m not even sorry just because I love you so endlessly for tossing this into my inbox foiwaeifmkaeoirfgjieoarujoidkioweajgh 

So like in my head, becs that Voldy bitch doesn’t know how to actually world build, the Muggle born children who get their Hogwarts letters, are also invited to join this like support group for ordinary folks with magical children. It’s like a thing that’s held in the Ministry of magic over in London once a month, and the parents are taught about the Wizarding world while their children kind of go to this separate room to intermingle and read Hogwarts; A History with one another, and just vibe, because pure bloods and those close to that have always sorta known one another and such, so this is a nice way for the Muggle borns not to feel so excluded.

So the thing is, obviously Lyall was a wizard, but also we all know I don’t fuck with him lmfao. So I picture that after he leaves for the final time when Remus is around nine, and finalizes the  divorce with Hope, she— being the bad bitch that she is, just marches to the ministry with her half-blood, werewolf son, and demands to learn everything about the world he’s part of, because she refuses to let him be deprived of anything. 

Eventually she becomes one of the tutors for the adult section because she’s such a quick study— being a professor herself back in Cardiff and just being an all around bombshell tbh. So one day, in February of 1970, there’s this ginger haired, northerner who stumbles in with his daughter who looks so much like him that it’s crazy— dimples and smile and upturned nose. Though she has her mother’s eyes, who had past away when she was only seven from a freak car accident.

And when he first shake’s Hope’s hand, he’s like kind of mind boggled over how beautiful she is, and thinks that maybe all wizards just put on some sort of charm to look unearthly, till he finds out that she’s as Muggle as he is towards the end of his visit. And he is just entirely love struck tbh.

And for the next couple months or so, he kind of just yearns from afar, and then spends the ride home to Cokeworth listening to Lily’s excited chortling about her friend Remus who’s apparently a half blood and who likes the same treats as her and knows how to draw things so amazingly, and it isn’t until like May, when he ambles to the other room and realizes that Remus is actually Hope’s fucking son, and he already knows that she said she began this group after separating from her husband who was a wizard himself. So Lily’s father— Nate— quite literally just shoots his shot and asks if Lily would like to get ice cream with her new friend since Petunia won’t be coming back from there Grams’s house till late, and Hope sorta smirks from over the kids’ heads because she sees exactly what he’s doing and is impressed that he’s finally done something for fuck’s sake.

And like obviously they fall hard for one another, and they probs get married like Lily’s second year at Hogwarts.

Wait, just Lily’s you ask??

Yes my beautiful duckling,  because plot twist!! (We lovee plot twists!!!)

In this AU i picture that McGonagall kind of visits during the summer months leading up to the children’s first year at Hogwarts, just to give them some supplementary readings and answer the questions for their future schooling, and when Dumbledore tells her about Remus’s full situation with his lycanthropy and all, she does some research, and figures out how Beauxbatons is much, MUCH more accommodating to “dark” creatures, and she’s already pretty chummy with Hope and knows that she’s actually a French citizen herself, the daughter of Algerian immigrants. So Remus technically has the possibility to attend Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, and so Hope and Remus talk on it long and hard, and she knows he’s already become fast friends with Lily and their thick as thieves with one another, but it’s also just so much safer for him.

So the week before Lily is set to go off to King’s Cross, they fly over to France and they get Remus settled in his dorm abroad.

I think while they’re away, Lily and Remus actually somehow become closer, because their parents are still dutifully dating and neither of them are all that familiar with their surroundings, so they send one another so many fucking letters through that first term, that the owls of their schools always give them the dirtiest looks lmfao. And they really catch on like a house on fire, like it’s one of those relationships that is just innate? Like you know when you have a best friend you guys kind of just slip into one another lives? Like even when you don’t talk for a while or whatever, it’s just natural<3 <3 

So neither of them ever spend the hols of winter or spring in Hogwarts/Beauxbatons, becs that’s when they really get to vibe.

They tell one another the different cool charms they’ve learned, and hate that they can’t show them with their actual wands yet. And they watch all their favorite films and almost adopt this secret language that’s only the quirk of their brows and twitch of the lips, and Petunia hates how freakily attuned they are with one another and sneers at them for being such freaks in all aspects. Also in this AU Lily fucks off from Snape wayyyy sooner, because instead of having to deal with that nasty, bigoted, slime ball she has the cutest and funniest and most amazing bestie in Remus!

And before Hope and Nate exchange vows in the winter of their second year, the little family of five go to this tiny park that’s all lush grassland and a shiny jungle gym and a pair of swings tucked away by trees, and they sit at this picnic table, and Hope— with her steady, ever buoyant voice, explains to them why she and Remus decided to send him to Beauxbatons instead of Hogwarts, and Petunia is like gawking in fright, and Nate looks sort of distressed, but Lily just cocks her head and shrugs her shoulders, because it’s still Remus— her closest companion Rem— and nothing could change that. So she takes his hand from where it’s fiddling with a splintered piece of wood on the tabletop and she squeezes it tightly, watches him glance up at her with the late summer wind billowing in his tawny curls and the fear in his honey eyes, and she simply tells him that it doesn’t matter. And Lily will never forget the way his features spasm at that, going suddenly loose and bright and thankful, and then Nate probably tousles his hair and kisses Hope’s temple and shyly asks how they should accommodate once they move in with one another.

And that park becomes sorta special tbh.

It’s in that alcove with the swings and trees where Lily and Remus go when things are becoming too much, or they would just like to escape the world by one another’s side.

It’s where they tried their first cigarettes that Remus had gotten from an older bloke in Beauxbaton’s when they were thirteen and feeling adventurous. And where they go to listen to the releases of their favorite albums, and when Remus told Lily that he’s gay for the first time before leaving to both their fourth years and it’s like one of those spots they both think of and feel golden.

Oh God! Imagine how cute of a celebration that Nate and Hope hold for them both becoming prefects!!! Hope and Nate definitely insist on some sort of summer todo! And they invite their friends and all that jazz and OMFG what if Lily’s wearing some sorta powder blue sundress that matches Remus’s oxford shirt and they both are grimacing in all the photos and are just not thriving foieajfoierjgiearfoijsdkgxh But like they would be doted on rotten that whole day! This is so cute! OMFG! And this probs means James became Prefect as well and so Remus gets to tease her when he sends her some sort of congratulations letter and she’s totally blushing and trying to hide her grin, and Lily retaliates by kicking his ankle tbh bahaha 

Okay also now I’m thinking of like Lily’s like fifth year, and her Muggle studies class is doing some sort of seminar to see if these idiots can actually survive in a totally Muggle area without a lick of magic, so like it’s spring hols, and guess who she’s partnered up with??? 

Cookies for you because we all know she had to work with James and Sirius lmfao!!! 

And she’s totally still trying to hide her crush on James— who’s nearly always leering and winking her way— and she might actually punch Sirius’s face simply because he’s such a smug bastard, and being from a working class family like herself, she’s like always ready to fight preppy rich boys tbh

So James and Sirius decide to plan out the simulation in her house that’s right outside Cardiff and Remus is cackling the entire morning before they’re set to arrive because she’s so pissy about it lmfao

Okay so like obviously the boys end up taking the port key and land in front of her place and it’s Remus who answers the door, still painted with humor because Lily was just screaming about “if Potter brings that insufferable snitch here I’ll bloody shove it up his arse” and James is immediately on the defense because Lily’s only ever talked about her sister and brother who live with her at home, and this dude is golden where she’s pale and has curls over her straight hair and just, obviously they’re not related by blood at all. And for his part, Sirius is like *Oh! Oh! Oh! Pretty!!! Pretty boy!! Muggle boy? Pretty Muggle boy!* 

But Remus obviously knows who they are straight away, so he like waves them inside before rounding to the stairs and calling for her to stop clogging the toilet or something else mortifyingly embarrassing, and Lily promises to put like pickles in the next set of face masks that they do because she knows how fucking allergic he is to them, and she wants her chuckles damn it!!  

“Potter— Black,” is how she greets them with a derisive sort of glower that Remus can completely see through, so he has to excuse himself while laughing over to the kitchen. “You’ve met my delightful brother I see.”

And James’s entire posture relaxes and he’s back to grinning like a dope, and the only weird part is that Sirius has got on the very same face, *Pretty Muggle boy is Evan’s brother* So like they are both scary levels of elated, rip.

But sucks to be Sirius because Remus leaves after that to meet up with a friend from town who’s also the best dealer tbh, and  so he has to deal with James’s awful levels of flirting with Lily while they scrounge up their itinerary to send their professor for the seminar type thing, and he doesn’t even have a pretty distraction XS

But Lily does force Remus to come along with her on the trip to London because “On God, if I spend a day alone with those bellends by myself I will punch a wall” 

And it is literally the worst, but best double date/first date that’s full of Sirius and James fucking up with everything— including asking some poor Tesco employee where are their fudgeflies and giving a homeless man a hand full of galleons and James’s snitch somehow ending up in the meaty hands of some kid at the tube. But also tbh it’s hella cute when Lily lets James give her his jacket when they’re walking along the Thames and it’s getting chilly, and when Remus lets Sirius share his stick of cotton candy and they both sorta stare at the sugar on each of their lips.

But then they go to some tiny museum, and while they’re looking at a impressionist piece, Sirius is totally trying to show off to Remus and is explaining how he could turn the bench their sitting on into a really nice bouquet of Lupins, and in the middle of his stupid showboating, Remus lightly corrects him on some facet of Gamp’s law, and Sirius freezes— shocked still— and he’ sort of gaping like an idiot, before Lily stops his blustering with a scoff “He’s a damn wizard also you arse.”

And Sirius is floundering for the rest of the evening, and he has so many questions, but they all die on his lips every time he glances over at Remus and he’s just smirking at him with this electric glint in his golden eyes

So obviously when they’re back at Hogwarts he pesters Lily every second of every day about Remus, and why he’s not at Hogwarts. “None of your fucking business.” And asking where Remus goes instead. “Beauxbatons, thankfully far away from you.” and he asks her about a thousand other questions that Lily either scoffs at or simply cuffs him around the head for daring to even try getting his address.

And she pokes fun about the situation to Remus and tells him how much more of an idiot he’s acting like, and how hilarious it all is. And she’s shocked when he responds to her letter merely by saying, “Hah- he’s cute.”

And so obviously she shoots back a reply that’s a letter of all his worst traits, mainly that he’s an arrogant toerag, and that he’s a posh idiot who could probably live off his inheritance for three lifetimes without blinking, and about how he doesn’t date anyone for longer than a couple months, and how he’s practically brothers with James bloody Potter, and yet again, Remus just tells her, Hah- he’s cute, before mildly moving to talking about his latest charms paper and how he’s been asked to be their DADA’s professors TA next year, and how Andrew keeps trying to try again with him but Remus would rather poke his eyes out with a spork.

So Lily is totally fuming when she recognizes that she’s lost and begrudgingly gives Sirius Remus’s info, after telling him lowly and with her most menacing glower, “IF you fuck around with my brother I will murder you without a flinch.” And she’s quite literally five feet nothing to Sirius’s broad, six-foot frame, but he knows that she could do it with a snap of the finger, and he promises that it’s not just a gag on his end. And Lily actually believes him.

So Remus and Sirius begin writing to one another a sickening amount, like so steadfastly that it gives Lily a complex whenever she finds Sirius waiting at the Owlry every Wednesday morning for the bird that arrives with two letters tied to it’s leg, one for each of them.

And God, one time, right before they let out for summer hols, Lily accidentally takes the one marked for Sirius— and holy christ!!!, She did not need to know just what exactly her brother has been getting up to in the sex department of things— like she legit contemplated using a memory charm on herself JFC

And Sirius probably ends up on their doorstep again in late July, with James at toe, and somehow their is a small harmony painted between the four of them, and it’s by Christmas of sixth year when James and Sirius begin talking about how amazing it’ll be when they’re actually in-law brothers, and Lily blames Remus for everything when she’s pretending to be cross over it, but then James puts his arm around her shoulders, and she sees how gentle Sirius is when he twines his fingers into Remus’s own, and it feels good, feels right. 

It feels like something that can be forever.

Send Me A Prompt/Chat With Me💜  |  My Wolfstar FIC Masterlist

[novelconcepts]

FOUND IT!!! Consider this an official ask for 3 and 14 combined! #wheee

smiling into a kiss and play wrestling

Having a best friend again is strange. She’d gone so long imagining the phrase as a sort of neon sign staked firmly in the past: Best Friend, already spoken for. Eddie had always been it; no other volunteers need apply. 

But Eddie’s gone now, out of her life, living out wherever his might go in another country altogether, and Dani finds the position has--slowly, without really planning for it--been filled once more. Not that she planned for it. Not that could ever could have. 

She didn’t come to Bly looking for Jamie, and if you’d told her the gardener who refused to so much as meet her eyes, much less introduce herself, would become the most important person in her life--well. Life is full of surprises.

There is so little of Eddie in Jamie, she sometimes wonders how both could have occupied the same shape in her heart. Sometimes wonders how Eddie--who prized cleanliness, routine work hours, dinners at his mother’s once a week--would look at Jamie, if he could see her. Jamie, all tousled hair, happiest with a cigarette between her teeth and both hands buried in soil. Jamie, who has never kept a nine-to-five, never craved Sunday afternoons with her parents, never looks at Dani like she expects firm posture, bright smile, neat clothes. 

They couldn’t possibly be more different--and yet, somehow, Jamie is her best friend. Unfair to think it, maybe, but she might be the best friend Dani’s ever had. Her sense of humor is dark, her vocabulary wallpapered with curse words and shorn letters; she smells of nicotine and sunscreen, dresses in wrinkled flannels and torn jeans. Where Eddie looped an arm around her shoulders, Jamie nudges her with bony elbows; where Eddie pressed his lips to her temple, Jamie leans carefully away. Different, in every measure. 

And it isn’t that she likes Jamie more. That wouldn’t be fair--not after so many years in Eddie’s company. It’s just that when Jamie looks at her, eyes bright, dirt smudged on one cheek, sometimes, she feels...

“You’re thinking,” Jamie observes. She doesn’t say it the way Eddie would--the way he always pointed out when she was clenching her fist under the table, or picking at her nails, his voice edged with concern bordering on condescension. Her voice is light, her lips curved in a small smile. 

Eddie never quite smiled at her like that. Or, if he did, it didn't pluck the same chord in her stomach. Not that that matters. Not that that affects the sincerity of friendship. 

Not that it’s making her feel weirdly flushed this afternoon. 

“Am I not allowed to think?” she asks. The sun, she thinks, is responsible for the goofy smile on her face. The heat of the day, which stretches on and on the way only early July knows how.

“Not arguing,” Jamie says. “One of us ought to.”

She’s on her knees, pulling weeds, her face shining with sweat. There’s something about days like this--afternoons where the kids are occupied helping Owen bake cookies, leaving Dani to nurse a glass of water and pleasantly-meandering conversation--that feels almost too good to be allowed. Eddie would have wanted to do something with a day like this: hike, or clear up the yard, or go visit family. 

Jamie, on the other hand, pushes to her feet and surveys the bed she’s spent all day working. “Think that’s good enough for a break. Here, budge over.”

Dani obediently scoots to the edge of her seat, amused when Jamie flops down half in her lap. A year of working at the manor, and Jamie’s gone from a woman who couldn’t make eye contact to save her life to this: gangly limbs tossed haphazardly over Dani’s, sweat-slick skin sticking where it lands against Dani’s shoulder. It’s too hot for cozying up like this, but she can’t seem to convince herself to push Jamie away. 

“There,” Jamie sighs, tilting her head back against the plastic of the lawn chair. “Christ, feels good just to breathe.”

“You breathe,” Dani says, “and I’ll think. Together, we make an almost-functional human being.”

“Almost,” Jamie says wryly. Her hand loops around Dani’s, teasing the sweating glass out of her grip long enough to take a sip. Dani nudges her. 

“Could get you one of your own, if you ever learned to ask politely.”

“Don’t like me polite,” Jamie says with a shrug. “My brand is prickly-yet-charming, and we both know I’m your favorite for it.”

“Technically,” Dani corrects, “Flora is my favorite. Mainly because she doesn’t make me remind her to say please.”

“Please,” Jamie says without missing a beat, “keep pretending you aren’t captivated by my winning personality.”

Dani laughs. “Oh, is that what I am?”

“Mm.” Jamie takes another sip, reaches over her to set the glass down on the table, closes her eyes. “S’what you were all pensive about just now, I’m sure. How entranced you are with my witty banter.”

“Entranced,” Dani repeats.

“Beguiled. Mesmerized. Drunk with adoration.” Jamie’s face is pink, a bead of sweat neatly lining her upper lip. Dani only realizes she’s staring a fortunate beat before Jamie rolls her head to the left, peering at her with lazy amusement. “Go on. Tell me how much you love me.”

“Love how ridiculous you can be, maybe.” And how sweet, and how unquestioningly soft, though she doesn’t see a need to put that into words--or a way to do it without sounding entirely out of her head. The heat, she thinks, is absolutely getting to her. 

It’s the heat, making her want suddenly to slide an arm between the plastic back of the chair and the cotton of Jamie’s tank top, pulling her even closer. The heat, making her want to displace the normal back-and-forth ease of friendship with something else entirely. 

She’s had a best friend before. She’s never quite wanted to do with Eddie what she is, more and more, thinking about with Jamie curled up beside her. 

Distract, she thinks, because Jamie is still watching her with that half-lidded expression she gets when the sun is particularly bright, the day’s work has been well-tended, and Dani’s shoulder is a cushion beneath her head. More and more, it’s been feeling like a dangerous sort of moment, Jamie’s face lingering near the crook of her neck. Jamie’s breath coasting down the neckline of her dress. Jamie’s smile sweeter than should be allowed, given the grumpy way she slouches around the grounds. 

“Thinking,” Jamie says, her voice almost soft. Dani shakes her head. 

“It’s not illegal.”

“Is,” Jamie says, “if you’re gonna just stare at me all googly-eyed while you do it. C’mon, what gives? Is today some holiday I’ve forgotten?” She sits up a little straighter, her face comic in its sudden concern. “Shit, Poppins, it’s not your birthday.”

She almost wants to say it is, just to watch Jamie turn fascinating new shades of maroon. “No--just--it’s hot.”

Jamie sags back with palpable relief. Her arm is freckled, Dani notices, beyond the norm; the summer is drawing all sorts of secrets from her skin, and it’s suddenly painfully tempting, the urge to trace her nail along these newfound constellations. 

Distract, she thinks again, more urgently this time. Without thinking it through, without considering the consequences, she dips two fingers into the glass of water and flicks the still-cool moisture directly into Jamie’s face. 

Jamie, to her credit, hardly jumps. She’s just blinking at Dani like their conversation has taken an unanticipated left turn into another language, water dripping from the end of her nose. 

“Okay,” she says. “If that’s how we’re playing it.”

Her arm reaches across without hesitation, replicating Dani’s playbook: two fingers dipped, flicked, landing back in her lap as Dani sputters. 

“You got me in the eye.”

“Cooled you off, though?” Jamie asks, almost politely. Dani laughs, and suddenly, it’s war. There’s barely enough room on the chair for the both of them to sit like adults, much less to squirm around, hips knocking, legs tangled up as the remainder of the glass finds its way--droplet by droplet--into Jamie’s face, down Dani’s neck, sometimes missing entirely and disappearing into the sizzling summer air. 

Dani is ultimately the victor, an upset decided when she grasps the glass--now containing maybe two inches of water--and upends it directly over Jamie’s head. She’s laughing almost too hard to breathe, particularly when Jamie gives a firm shake of her hair, looking like a rumpled dog after a bath.

“That,” Jamie says in a low, dangerous tone, “cannot stand.”

She’s up before Dani can stop her, sprinting toward the garden hose uncoiled in the grass. Dani twists in her seat, knees drawn up to her chest, arms extended.

“Don’t you dare!”

“All’s fair,” Jamie says, almost apologetically, depressing the trigger. 

They are, Dani notes somewhere in the back of her mind, full-grown adult women. They are thirty years old, gainfully employed, responsible for the upkeep of an entire house and the well-being of two small children. 

They are also now chasing one another across the lawn, Dani sopping wet, Jamie laughing so hard she nearly trips over her own feet taking a corner too fast. The hose is growing more and more tangled by the minute as she dashes in a zig-zag pattern, periodically firing a jet of water over her shoulder, and Dani has no prayer of catching up--not with her shoes squelching, slipping on wet grass, her lungs clenched around a soundless jag of laughter. 

Adults, she thinks, as Jamie makes the insurmountable error of trying to bolt past her like a quarterback dodging a tackle; she makes a successful leap over the tangled hose, but forgets at the last second to factor in the edge of the lawn chair. Dani has her around the middle before she can dart out of reach, the both of them tumbling over in a cackling heap of grass clippings, puddled hose water, freckled limbs. 

They’re rolling, shouting wordlessly around giggles, Dani struggling to pry the hose out of Jamie’s hands. It’s harder than it looks; Jamie is small, but strong in an annoyingly wiry sort of way. Even when Dani manages to get her onto her back, the water is inescapable, dousing in short jets across her chest, down her arms, pooling awkwardly between them. 

“You are,” she laughs, “a child.”

“Could a child do this?” Jamie replies, jerking upward at the hips with unexpected force. Dani rocks up with her, one hand grasping the sodden front of Jamie’s shirt for balance, and drops back down without budging from her seat. Jamie releases an oof as her back makes rough contact with the ground again, giggling too hard to successfully shove Dani over.

“Yes, actually, I think a child would be exactly that effective,” Dani informs her. Her body has never felt quite this alive, her muscles aching with the effort of an unplanned run. Jamie, chest heaving for breath, is practically glowing. 

“Just want to remind you,” Jamie says, “you did start this.”

“Does that mean I win?” If she hasn’t, she can’t imagine it would feel any better than this: straddling Jamie’s hips in the soft grass, cool water seeping down her back, her dress sticking pleasantly to warm skin. Jamie allows the hose to drop from her grip at last, her head tipped back, eyes closed.

“Call it a draw.”

“What if I wanted to win?” She slides a hand up without thinking, pinning Jamie by the wrist before she can decide to take up her watery weapon again. Jamie draws a deep breath, face flushed, grinning. 

“Guess you’d have to work harder for it.”

Children, Dani thinks--but suddenly, it doesn’t feel childish anymore. Suddenly, she’s overly aware of her dress rucked high around her thighs, of how short Jamie’s shorts really are, how her body is considerably less obscured than usual with her shirt plastered to her frame. Suddenly, she’s aware of Jamie’s hand flexing against the grass, pinned beside her head with a loose enough grip to break--though Jamie isn’t breaking it. Isn’t even trying.

Jamie is, instead, gazing up at her with hair mussed, eyes bright. Jamie, whose free hand is sliding up to rest along the curve of Dani’s hip. 

She’s Dani’s best friend, like he was, but this doesn’t feel like it belongs in the same category as late-night stories swapped by the fire, or letting each other steal the vegetables the other doesn’t care for off their plate. This feels like a category all its own: the way Jamie licks her lips as Dani’s head lowers, the way Dani’s fingers graze the freckles painting her wrist on the way up to notching her palm against Jamie’s. 

Her hair is wet, and Jamie’s face is sweaty, and there’s so little romance to the whole picture, it takes her by surprise. She’s always thought there should be talking before a thing like this, at least--a decision made on equal footing. 

“I don’t have to,” she says, even as Jamie is saying, “Do you want to?”

Children would laugh again, go back to wrestling, go back to how it all felt just a few minutes before. They are not, Dani notes as she lowers her head--as Jamie shifts up at the shoulders to meet her--children. 

She’s hyper-aware of all of it now: the sun beating against her shoulders, the hand Jamie is using to grip the back of her dress, the exact angle of Jamie’s mouth parting beneath her own. Her tongue is gentle, brushing Jamie’s, and the sound Jamie makes into her is anything but. 

She’s smiling, she realizes, so hard, it hurts--that deep, wonderful hurt of laughing too hard for too long, of slipping in the grass and landing in a heap with someone who couldn’t help catching her on the way down. She’s grinning into Jamie even as she’s kissing her, even as she’s letting her body stretch out to press Jamie more firmly against the damp ground. 

And Jamie, fingers curled between her own, making soft sounds of appreciation into the kiss, is grinning right back. 

“This was your plan all along,” she accuses, brushing the hair from Dani’s eyes when they break for a breath. “Awful lot of work, for a kiss.”

“All’s fair?” Dani suggests--and she genuinely, honestly cannot decide which she likes more: the way Jamie kisses, or the way Jamie kisses and laughs at the same time. All of it, she feels, goes a country mile beyond best friends. All of it goes a country mile beyond anything she could ever have dreamed up, walking away from him the way she did. 

It couldn’t possibly be more different.

[gisachi]

Hi ^^ I know that your requests are now closed but I was thinking that, given you have written jealous Shinichi, I would very much enjoy some jealous Ran! Maybe you can mix it with one of the prompts? Just throwing the idea out there, no pressure. Delete this if you don't feel like it, it's okay really. Thank you for writing these amazing fics, the shinran fandom is in your debt. ❤️

So this is the last (!!!) and longest (!!!) of the kiss prompts, and I dedicate it to multiple-requests Anon and to this Anon. I hope both of you still see this. It took me a while. ^^;;

P.S. Special thanks to @artycreaty for keeping this in check. You are awesome. 🥰

41. Kisses shared under an umbrella. 46. A lingering kiss before a long trip apart. (6,489 words)

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.

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Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She has hundreds of reasons not to. They’re merely childhood best friends. Life would be much easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven. Shinichi absolutely doesn’t look at her that way. And so forth.

She wonders why they’re even friends in the first place. If their parents hadn’t enrolled them in the same kindergarten, she was certain they wouldn’t even be on speaking terms. He lives in a world of grisly books and crimes, she in a world of martial and visual arts. Their hobbies don’t overlap. They excel in different fields. They enter the same university with completely unrelated majors. The only bond they have in common is their shared history. Literally bonded since they were four, until now at nineteen.

So when she sees him all jolly around his newfound circle who hold the same interest in Holmes or detective work, it shouldn’t surprise her as much. It’s part of university life, it’s normal, they expand their horizons, and Ran understands that it hits much differently when they bond with people who like the same stuff they do. Something she’s aware they cannot share a hundred percent.

She’s proud of him, and she absolutely has no right to feel jealous, especially when she sees him around taller, prettier, more interesting women from his course block. There is no reason for her to look away with a heavy weight in her chest everytime the women get giggly and touchy while he’s absorbed in narrating his stories.

Everytime she does, she reminds herself of how he didn’t seem to mind when she was casted as the protagonist of their high school play and the leading man was the handsome Araide-sensei. Or how he simply shrugged when she fawned over the brother of a classmate because he looked so much like the karate senpai she was crushing on. Or when she secretly caught Sonoko dragging the detective behind gym after P.E. to confront him about his opinion regarding an upperclassman courting Ran and his only response was, ‘She can like whoever she likes, Sonoko. I’m not her boyfriend.’

He never showed her any sign of jealousy, therefore he must not be into her. Simple as that. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him differently. Getting snarky just because he received sixteen new fan mails again, more now that they’re in uni, and two even coming from the popular criminology seniors he is often teased to? Or ignoring him unprecedentedly just because his eyes followed the back of a woman with long chestnut hair and voluptuous curves? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s bound to be attracted to someone else. This is a pill she ought to learn to swallow eventually.

Eventually.

“Shinichi-kun, you never told us about your scariest case yet, tell us about it?”

Kaori closes her notes and so do the other two girls across her, and Shinichi’s eyes twinkle. He truly seems to enjoy study sessions with the little group they made consisting of some of his and Ran’s coursemates because they love listening to his stories.

“At the top of my head is this murderer disguised as a bandaged man, and he targeted us one by one…” and so the detective drones. Ran pauses typing and reminisces quietly. Ah, that one from summer three years ago. I was almost injured by that crazy man during my sleep but Shinichi woke me up in time.

“Ran-san,” Shun, her friend and coursemate, mutters beside her, also stopping his typing to listen to the detective’s story. “It’s ridiculous how popular Kudou-kun is with the girls. He’s full of wild adventures.”

“Yes, he is,” Ran says, smiling. “He’s been a girl magnet ever since high school.”

She watches as Kaori inches closer to Shinichi, listening attentively, chin on her palm and flirtatious smile on her lips as the detective rants on and on.

For the third time that afternoon, Ran looks away.

.

.

Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She does, everyday, but it’s hard when he smiles at her, cares for her, holds her in a way she’s never seen him do for anyone else. It gives her hope every time the girls cling to him but he never touches them back, whereas he automatically slings his arm over her shoulder because she’s afraid or cold or he simply feels like it.

Then again, maybe she’s giving herself too much credit. Perhaps it’s a free pass for being around him for too long. She even gets to spend time with him during weekends and holidays. It isn’t special because it’s normal.

And that’s all she’ll ever be, a normal girl in his eyes.

“Ran? She’s pretty special.”

Ran reacts to the mention of her name and catches Shinichi looking at her. “She appears quiet but she can kick anyone’s ass without breaking a sweat. It’s bad if you cross her,” Shinichi gloats with a grin.

“Oh my god, really? We can bring her with us then!” Kaori claps her hands in excitement.

“Ah... But she won’t like that,” he follows up, wary. Ran has missed the topic they were talking about and now she’s curious.

“But ghosts aren’t real and Mouri-san can give them a good beating!”

“Gh-Ghosts?” The color in her cheeks drains, eyes freezing at Shinichi who has probably already expected that reaction, for he sports that same look of concern as those times he had expressed whenever she joined him in his way-past-bedtime elementary school adventures.

“We’ll investigate an abandoned house I always pass by walking home,” Kaori explains. “Last night I saw a faint cigarette light at the second floor window. It might be a fugitive or a homeless person or a ghost, who knows?”

“You don’t need to come if you don’t want to, Ran,” Shinichi assures.

Gulping, Ran contemplates whether going with them will do her any good. It’s a nice change, it’s been a while since she last tagged with Shinichi in his cases. But she isn’t exactly proud of shrieking like a little kid in front of serious criminology majors who may feel like she’ll drag their covert investigation down if she joins.

“...I’ll pass,” she answers meekly, and his coursemates sulk except Shinichi, who offers her a smile of understanding.

“Man, I thought we’ll be able to see Mouri-san in action!”

“That’s ok, maybe next time. We still have Shinichi-kun!”

“Shinichi-kun will protect us, ne?”

“Hah. Right. Invite Hakuba too, use him.”

“Oh c’mooon, Shinichi-kun!”

Ran closes her eyes, struggling to zone their voices out.

In her silence, Ran ponders if she has made a wrong choice.

.

.

Ran has no right to be jealous. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him this way.

The following weekend, Shinichi narrates what happened in their late-night investigation. Hakuba wasn’t there so Shinichi was the only available guy as usual. Ran refuses to hear any more details, both of the haunted house and secretly of the girls chancing onto him during the investigation. Shinichi is puzzled.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Nah, just swamped with work.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to assist?”

“No.”

Her replies are curt from the couch of his house, not looking at Shinichi on the other end as she mindlessly cleans up her digital sketches. She hates how snappy she sounds but her brain is too absorbed with conjuring spiteful imaginations to even think of masking her annoyance.

“Ran, hey. Look at me.”

His low voice freezes her from drawing, and she slowly looks up to meet Shinichi’s serious eyes.

When this happens, she knows he’s reading her. She inwardly chants a prayer because now isn’t a good time. Whatever time isn’t a good time. She doesn’t know what to say when she’s aware everything she’s been feeling is irrational and unfair. She’s being selfish.

“You’re… stressed.”

“No, I’m… Eh?”

He scoots closer, an arm’s length away. “Your dark circles are more prominent now, you need a break.” His eyes turn a soft blue. “Let’s have dinner out? My treat.”

Ran is surprised, to say the least. The last time he invited her out was two weeks ago. She’s become so used to seeing him around others that any initiative from him sounds too good to be true.

“But I need to finish this project by tonight.”

“Let’s have food delivery then!” Shinichi announces, not rattled by Ran’s indirect refusal. “I know exactly what you want. Ramen and shaved ice.”

Her eyes thin at the absurdly goofy expression she knows he makes when he’s being mischievous. “Clearly you’re ordering that ramen for yourself. I only like shaved ice.”

“Damn! Miss Detective gets it.” A mile-wide grin stretches across his face, earning an eye roll from the half-smiling woman. “Let’s eat together on your short break, please?”

He leans within a respectful distance and she sees his smile better, pair of kind eyes locking with her overworked ones. “It’s been a while.”

Her heart throbs for him. So much.

She caves - of course she does - and breathes her acquiescence.

After two long weeks, they have dinner together, just them and Shinichi’s ramen and Ran’s donburi and shaved ice, Shinichi taking a spoonful of dessert from the cup when she isn’t looking and Ran snatching a slurp from his take-out bowl and laughing when he catches her.

With how heartfelt his laughter is in her presence devoid of any mysteries, Ran knows she’s probably giving herself too much credit, but for once she wants to believe she is the cause of why Shinichi’s happy.

Just for that night, she gives it to herself.

She’ll change the dark colors of her digital artwork to brighter ones after they eat.

.

.

Despite everything, Ran finds it difficult to contain her recurring jealousy.

The more she shares precious time with him, the more it gets harder to suppress the selfish emotions. What is so unsatisfying about being the best friend is that she is only the best friend. No more no less. At the end of the day, she isn’t the one he gets to cuddle with, to tease then kiss, to tell ‘I love you’ to, romantically.

“I love you.”

Ran feels her heart about to leap out of her chest.

“But please. Stop. Tearing. The. Cushions!”

The little furball he has scooped underneath a throw pillow wiggle from his grasp. The kitten and detective engage in a brief staring showdown before it jumps away to hide under a farther couch.

Snapping out of reverie, Ran watches her childhood friend slink dejectedly onto the partly scratched furniture. He’s fortunate enough that his mother isn’t around to give him a long lecture on Why Pets Aren’t Allowed in the House 101. She can always take Yukiko-san’s role and reprimand him for it, but as for this and the cat, she finds herself not wanting to intervene.

“Kaori-san sure is taking her time with her parent’s permission. By the time she does, Momo would’ve shredded all the pillows in this house.”

“You named the cat?” Ran asks, amused.

“She did.” He thinks for a moment, then sniggers. “Actually I did. I suggested a random name. She took it.”

Ran merely hums. What can she say? They’re getting close. Close enough to team up as parents to an adopted kitten.

“I’m surprised you also agreed to keep Momo when you never took in animals before.”

“Kaori said she’ll treat me to the latest Detective Samonji movie this weekend if I do. Can’t resist that.”

“Just you two?”

“Yeah.”

A beat. Then he turns to her.

“Wanna join? I can ask her to count you in since you’re kinda helpi—”

“N-no need,” Ran quips, “It’s—It’s fine.”

“No really,” Shinichi insists, “Kaori-san has a lot of money, she—”

“I’m going to Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum with Shun-san this weekend... so... I can’t.”

“Ah.”

Silence.

“It’s, um, for a project,” she bolsters.

“I know.” The faintest smile graces his lips. “It’s your thing. Both of you.”

“Mm.”

He doesn’t say anything else after that.

“Shinichi, you’re a detective, right?” she blurts out of the blue.

“Yeah...and?”

Then deduce what I feel. Here and now.

“Then you’re going to enjoy that movie!” Ran forces a beam, giving Shinichi a thumb of approval. “And you can discuss it with Kaori-san over dinner. I’m sure you two have a lot to say about it.”

Shinichi’s eyes linger on her, reading her like a book, and Ran has her mind reeling again, afraid to be read.

“Yeah, we do,” he finally says, ending the conversation.

Only a few words are uttered the rest of the afternoon.

Momo resurfaces and curls beside Shinichi.

Momo’s purring is loud, but Ran’s shattering heart is louder.

.

.

Ran must not feel jealous. She is not a girlfriend.

Because she isn’t a girlfriend, he’s free to fall for and date anyone else. Who is she to gatekeep him? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s one big catch. Ran believes she’s a big catch, too. With the way she loves dearly, her future boyfriend is going to be very lucky.

Her future boyfriend is not going to be him.

“...mber the required fieldwork in one of my majors I told you? We actually go by batches. The first batch did theirs last month. The second batch was last week… and I— Ran, are you listening?”

“Ah! Yes,” Ran notices they have already reached her station and are now walking two blocks to her apartment. “Your fieldwork, right?”

“...Yeah,” he carries on. “I’m in the last batch... This whole winter break.”

“I see, I understand.” She smiles, getting what he means. No Christmas or New Year’s Eve together. The first time since they’re four. It’s fine, honestly. If it’s a required activity, then there’s really no way to go about it. She isn’t going to lash out just because she can’t be with him in her most favorite time of the year.

“And Hattori-kun and Hakuba-kun will be with you?”

“Hattori did his last month. Hakuba is in the previous batch. I’ll be stuck with the girls.”

Ran’s heart momentarily squeezes. “Where will your fieldwork be?”

“In Akita.”

Her pupils constrict. “That far?”

“Yes... so to cut on expenses, Kaori-san offered her house for me and the others to stay while we’re there—”

Kaori. Again with the tall, beautiful, intelligent Kaori. She bets it’s amazing to spend the holidays doing what he loves and with Kaori beside her, snuggling with him by the fireplace in a romantic snowy night and she might even confess, and it’ll be a great catch for Shinichi, and he’ll return with a girlfriend, and—

“Kaori-san is lucky.” The words flow out of her mouth, unbridled.

Shinichi looks at her. “Lucky?”

Ran remains quiet and keeps walking. It’s dangerous to say anything. She only has one thing in her mind and she doesn’t want to say it out loud. She has no right.

“Ran, hey.”

She doesn’t stop walking.

“Ran.”

She ignores his call.

“Ran… you’re jealous.”

She stops walking.

“Excuse me?”

“...You’re jealous…” Shinichi repeats quietly.

A contrast to his calm tone, his irises beset hers in the cold twilight and Ran attempts to shield herself but her bag and umbrella are in the way. She thinks of turning away but her feet are frigid like icicles, and Shinichi steps closer.

For the third time, he declares, “You’re jealous.”

Hearing her thoughts echo through his words renders her speechless.

It seems to take a moment before Shinichi’s brow arches, lips curl up as his eyes refuse to stray, and she hears a faint exhale even, like he’s exasperated, and suddenly he’s smiling - or is he smirking? sneering? - and...and...

It stings, is her immediate reaction.

For the longest time, she’d wanted him to take a hint. But if she had known this was how he’d react, she’d rather live a life having him oblivious of her emotional struggle. Dealing with that is more tolerable than witnessing him gaze her down in blatant mockery. He sneers as though he’s about to crack a joke and move on and forget such a laughable matter. That’s the last form of acknowledgment she wants for her honest feelings.

Heartbreak and shame and pain build up in her chest like a volcano closing eruption. Water begins to cloud her vision. She clenches her fist tight on her umbrella and Shinichi notices, and he takes another step forward.

“Ran…?”

“I am not, and you’re a fool.”

In a span of a breath, she’s sprinting in the opposite direction, tracing the path where they have walked, ignoring the distant yells of her name behind her. She runs and runs, and as she runs farther, with her thoughts muddy and breath short and dry, she wonders if she may have overreacted.

If he’s done that on purpose, screw him. If not, screw her.

After all, they are merely friends and she has no logical reason to act this way.

“Stop... running... will you!”

She hears heavy footsteps close in. It takes all the energy Ran has to prevent herself from turning her body around but his strong grip overpowers her.

“Let me go!”

“Why are you running?!”

“I can’t...deal with you!”

“Why? Was I right?”

“Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter!”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because I am your best friend!”

On another occasion, she would’ve successfully jilted away and run farther, but Ran is floored when he yanks her into a one-armed hug, so floored she drops her umbrella to the snowy ground.

“Stop saying that!” he hisses in her ear, frustration apparent.

“What are you— Let me go!”

He hugs her tighter.

“If you don’t let go in three seconds, I will screa—”

“I am happy!”

Ran stops struggling, eyes widening in shock.

Icy huffs tickle her neck as he half shouts, “I’m happy you feel that way!”

“You’re...You’re happy because I’m suffering?”

“What? No! I—”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? How?” The hurt in her tone is impeccable, prattling muffled against his chest as she spares him no moment to butt in. “You think I wanted to feel this? That I enjoy griping in helpless jealousy? And you’re rejoicing that I am? How full of yourself can you be?!”

“That’s not...You don’t underst—”

“I do understand! I understand that I am so incredibly stupid for catching this disgusting heap of emotions for an obnoxious, stuck-up deduction maniac that is my best friend and maybe it’s better after all that he never, ever sees me the way I see him!”

“Stop saying that, Ran!”

She thinks he has broken away, but he drags her back with an insistent tug, crashing his lips onto hers as she stumbles into his arms.

All willpower rippling through her disintegrates quickly like snow in high heat.

An impatient pop resonates as he separates, eyes slowly opening, breath thick and ragged.

“I know that is not how we explain things, but does that explain anything?”

She hears it. The madness. But more than madness, yearning bleeds through his voice so much that her frustration turns into physical pain. Blinded by an all-consuming ache, she tips her chin and presses her lips back against his, demanding for cure in the wrong place. Shinichi freezes, then relaxes. He moves his hand to her nape, four fingers in her hair, thumb treading her jaw.

They look like a scene in a movie.

Under his umbrella and hidden from view, they communicate through brushing lips and tilting heads. His mouth closing over hers with gentle force, her hands splaying across his chest, heavy with something that makes his heart pound under them.

She is so lost in the chase and his tender embrace that for a second she forgets she is kissing her best friend.

Best friend.

This doesn’t explain anything. It worsens it.

She pulls back, ending what she has so recklessly started. “N-no, I’m— No.”

She pushes him away, gathers the stuff she drops, and runs without looking back.

“Ran!”

He shouts her name. Twice.

On the third call, his footfalls die down. On the fourth, he stops running.

She doesn’t.

.

.

Thirty minutes before midnight, Ran stands outside his gate, boots buried half foot under the snow as she rings his intercom for the second time, thinking to herself how foolish she must be to cut communications with him for a week and then show up his doorstep looking miserable like a stood-up date.

It’s the start of winter break.

He’ll leave for Akita in ten hours.

She needs to give his Christmas present before his departure.

She’s crazy, pathetic, still frustrated, and hurtfully in love.

“Oi. You better have a good explanation for why you’re buzzing at goddamn midnig—”

“Shinichi.”

His surprised gasp is apparent even through the intercom. A rustle follows and with a croaky voice, he responds. “...Ran.”

Surely he isn’t expecting this. Not after the tantrum she threw days ago. He probably thinks she hates him more than ever. But what she truly feels is more overwhelming than all negative emotions combined, and may god grant her all the strength to address it all, tonight.

“May I come in?”

“The house is—The house is a mess I, um. I’m packing my stuff for...”

“I’ll help you.”

“...”

She’ll understand if he decides to turn her down. But the answer that follows the deafening pause is a low and quiet ‘Okay’.

Despite psyching herself hours before she came, courage wanes when he opens the front door and gate in his pullovers. She is welcomed in, and the trip up his room is wordless. Shinichi only talks when he points out that he’s already packed clothes for two days and will need help for two weeks’ worth. He lamely laughs when he instructs her to pick the tops and layers, and he’ll take care of the pants and underwear.

On a normal instance, she would’ve humored him and they would’ve been talking right after. Now she simply pulls an empty smile and then they fall back into silence.

She supposes he’s trying to act unbothered, to treat what happened a week ago as a one-and-done glitch in their friendship, never to be discussed again. She cannot fault him when she’s trying to do the same. But it’s not easy when in the stillness of the night the echo of their altercation howls, raging persistently in their ears.

What has he been thinking of for the past week?

Has he been kept up all night by the words she said and the words he left unspoken?

Are they still friends? Will they still be friends after this?

The kiss... What about the kiss?

So many questions. So little words. So little time.

Ran is seated on the floor, folding shirts and stuffing them neatly in his duffel bag. Her back faces Shinichi who is sorting out bottoms in his cabinet. She senses him sit on the floor, back against her but not touching. Neither dares to speak first.

A ringing phone cuts the silence.

“Mm, still awake. Good for two weeks right? Gotcha. No, I’ll meet you girls at the station, no need to fetch me. Pfft. I can walk. Ok, see you tomorrow.”

If Ran wasn’t so hyperaware of where she is and what she’s done, her mood would’ve shifted to the one she’d been trying to avoid. Now isn’t the time to think about that. Midnight sneaking out to go to his house is something she wouldn’t do even on good days. She scans her bag on the far couch, deliberately bringing a bigger one to hide his gift. Maybe she can just sneak it in his bag and leave once she’s done and he’ll discover it only when he’s prefectures away. Brown has always suited him, and he’ll definitely find the overcoat useful as spare protective gear.

That’s right. She always cares for him like this. She is his best friend first, and... and nothing second.

“Don’t just leave after putting your present in my bag. At this hour, I can’t let you walk home alone,” he says swiftly.

Ran’s eyes fly wide.

“How did you…”

He doesn’t say anything and continues with his business.

Again with the throat-drying silence.

Something in Ran’s gut compels her to speak, but she is surprised when he does first.

“I... I don’t like Kaori-san. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Ran stiffens, pausing mid-motion from folding. “I’m not…”

He leans his back completely against her and she shudders, voice reverberating through her skin. “Ran, if you could just hear me out.”

Unable to talk and move, she does.

“Kaori-san and the rest... They know I love mysteries. They know I want to build my own private detective agency. They know my favorite Holmes’ story is The Sign of Four. They know how many crimes I solved in Tokyo. All the information about me which anyone can read from the internet and newspaper and from what I told them when they ask, they know. Ran, you know all that. All that and more.”

He angles his head to the ceiling as if he’s talking to someone there. Ran supports his weight, curling to her knees as she silently listens.

“You know of my first ever deduction because Christ, my first deduction was about you. You know of the two cases which haunt me until this day because I watched the culprit die in front of my very eyes. You were with me the nights I locked myself in here thinking about them. You know of the interesting, the boring, the absurd cases, everything, because I told you or you were there. You know of the odd way I play the violin while I ponder over a case. You know I forget to eat when swamped with new books to read. I have three copies of The Sign of Four but the one I keep beside my bed and read almost weekly is the one you gave me on my tenth birthday and that is all I need. You know me for me, Ran. Everything about me that is off the record, the good and the bad, you know all of those. Only you. The same way I do... about you.”

She feels him crane slightly to the side, addressing her.

“Ran.”

“Mm.”

“I love you.”

Ran’s heart almost completely stops beating.

“I love you,” he whispers, “more than I am even supposed to.”

All words seem to have fizzled out of her vocabulary as she sits still, stunned at what she’s hearing.

“I’m happy growing up with you, studying with you, bickering with you, acting stupid with you, investigating with you, eating with you, napping with you, hugging you, holding you, taking care of you, simply... being with you. Before I know it, it’s not the cases or Holmes or mysteries that complete my days, it’s you.

“For you to keep repeating that ‘best friend’ phrase, I…” He lowers his head.

“For who knows how long, I’ve loved you as that and more.”

Someone pinch her because in no way can this be real.

“I was happy thinking you’re jealous because it meant a sliver of chance you feel the same way. We could’ve remedied the misunderstanding easily, Ran. We could’ve talked it over like we always do. But I was stupid and emotions were high and in the end I… kissed you…” he takes another deep breath, “But—but you kissed me back, and my heart couldn’t stay still...”

Pulse drumming loud, Ran tilts her head on the side where he leans, wanting to see the slightest expression he makes as he continues.

“If my deductions are wrong and you’re mad for a different reason, and—and you returned that for a different reason...” she hears the pang of remorse in his tone, “then please forget I ever said anything and I’ll leave myself to die in humiliation once I’m out of your sight.”

He lays one palm flat on the floor and she notices.

“But if my deductions are right and you were indeed jealous, I...” She feels his head swivel enough to feel his warm breath fan across her cheek, before shifting back front and releasing a slow, guttural exhale he’s kept contained within.

“I’ll wait... until you accept it. Accept me.”

Ran may have choked on her throat for how long she’s held her breath.

In spite of herself, she knows she doesn’t need to think of what to say. She had it all in her head before coming here. Yet expressing it out loud is a different matter.

She isn’t ready, but when will she ever be ready? Shinichi undoubtedly isn’t too. Yet here he is, laying the groundwork for her, no holds barred and a stuttering mess at that. How she plans to build from it is the question she asks herself next.

Inhaling as though bracing herself, she places a hand beside him, pinky slightly grazing his.

“I didn’t... You never showed any signs.”

Careful and calm, he extends his little finger over hers. She doesn’t flinch, and both hands crawl closer until two fingers overlap.

“Either I’m a great pretender or you’re incredibly dense.”

“I’m...I’m not dense.”

“I’m a bad actor, then.” He slides his hand further.

“I was trying so hard to be a supportive best friend for you.”

“I sensed that but ignored it because I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“You did though. Now we’re here.”

“Would you rather we aren’t?”

“I would rather we spend the last weeks of this year talking like normal than being stupid idiots before you leave.”

“It’s just two weeks, Ran.”

“Two special weeks I would’ve wanted to spend with my best frien-... with you.”

Without knowing it, his hand has completely nestled atop hers, four fingers curled between her thumb and index finger.

“Ran... You must really hate the idea of falling in love with me.”

“Eh?”

“You’re so wrapped with the thought that we’re simply best friends that you hold your love in chains as though it isn’t permitted to grow.”

“I… I didn’t want to ruin the only connection we have-”

“Two friends falling in love are still friends… They are also more. You cannot ruin an indefeasible connection. Friendship and love may be the only bond we have, but they’re the most important bond of all.”

Ran falls quiet.

“Geez…”

He releases a thick sigh, brushes his thumb across her splayed fingers.

“I have shit art appreciation skills, but I can take you to museums too... as a friend and as a date.” A beat, and a mumble. “Even to better museums than Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.”

She darts her head sideways, realizing something.

“Were you also…?”

“No.”

Ran doesn’t suppress the heartfelt giggle that bubbles out.

“Shun-san has a boyfriend, Shinichi.”

“I—” he pauses. “I wasn’t asking.” Ran giggles more.

“Shinichi.”

“Yes.”

“I love you too.”

The hand above squishes hers all too suddenly like he’s been blown away and is needing something to hold onto.

“I came here to give your present and to apologize for being so shallow and for acting without thinking and for a lot of things actually... but now I feel there’s no need, because then I wouldn’t have...” She looks down at their intertwined hands.

Before she can return his squeeze, he recoils.

“Oh, y-you do apologize. Running away like that.” He coughs, and she can practically hear the tripping in his tone.

“Aren’t you already used to it? I’ve done it many times,” she chides.

“No. Apologize,” he insists. “And look at me while you do.”

Ran’s stomach twists, heart kicking up a step.

It’s easy to talk without eye contact, but to be requested so after confessions are exchanged—

“Face me, Ran.”

The familiar voice of yearning strums her heartstrings, tone sounding a lot like a plea than an order and Ran finds her head instinctively craning at an angle, hand coiling on the floor trying to calm her nervous beating heart. She feels him shift behind as well.

She takes all her time to face him, partly unsure what to do, partly knowing exactly what she wants to do. Despite the deliberate slowness of their movements, it is when they lock eyes that time truly seems to stop.

Shinichi appears so different, so soulful. His blue irises glimmering, fixated on nothing but her as she reveres him with matching intensity. The same guy she treats as her best friend looks at her with tender love in his eyes, darting down her lips and up like no best friend ever would.

“I love you,” he says, breathless. “Make me your boyfriend.”

A wave of emotion sweeps over her, heartbeat fluttering in overdrive as they huddle on the floor, bags and clothes and time forgotten.

“From best friend to... such a shift-”

“Nothing will be different.” He rests his forehead on hers, gaze of soft blue patient though more intimate now, knowing what they share is mutual. “We’ll still do what we do... With exclusive romantic commitment and sweet nothings that translate to ‘I love you’ in more ways than one.”

She attempts a jab on his chest but he catches her fist, soft but jesting beam all too apparent and she does but play along.

“What about when we fight?” she asks.

“Same. But...” he slides a thumb over her quiet lips, parting them slightly, “I can do this once we make up.”

“...Like right now?”

“Like right now.”

A genuine smile is the last thing she sees before delicate pair of lips lands on hers, capping their one-week fight and their last night of the year together in the best and most unexpected way imaginable.

.

.

Ran keeps telling herself she shouldn’t be jealous.

Not because they are simply best friends, because they aren’t. Not because life would be easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven, because it wouldn’t.

Not because Shinichi doesn’t look at her that way, because he does.

She shouldn’t be jealous because she absolutely has no reason to, is all.

“I haven’t forgotten about your present. I was planning to buy yours in Akita.”

“Stop lying, you totally forgot it.”

“I didn’t. Stop that.” Half-mast eyes rake her side profile, and Ran covers a mirthful grin with her mitted hand holding the umbrella, then yawns. Hours of packing and talking and laughing left them with roughly four hours of sleep. It isn’t like she slept the whole period because while sleeping in his room isn’t new, cuddling while they sleep is. Ran couldn’t simply shut her eyes and heart to that.

“I believe though,” he wraps a hand around her free one, pocketing both of them in his brand new overcoat, “I gave half of my present already.”

“Hnn. That doesn’t count as a gift.” Her hand shifted, coddling his own to a warm fit.

“Really?” A smug smirk pulls up his face. “I believe I am a nice present, Ran. That’s why they—”

“Screw this. You are unbelievable. A humbug. Why do people like you.”

“I know. Why do you like me?” Shinichi laughs as he avoids the swing of her umbrella.

From afar, they see Kaori and the girls at the meet-up point outside Tokyo Station, though they seem unaware of their presence yet. Suddenly feeling conscious, Ran feels the urge to disentangle her hand, but Shinichi holds on, firm.

“Why?” He asks in a low voice.

“I dunno… maybe this isn’t the best time…”

“Isn’t now the best time?” His smile is proud and natural, not one ounce of reluctance visible.

Although she gets what he means, that doesn’t free her of shyness and guilt. Somehow she feels like apologizing to Kaori for… she doesn’t know. She just wants to. Letting her see them like this makes her think that she’s giving her an indirect slap on the face. Shinichi certainly won’t agree because ‘What’s with women and their logic?’, but still, whether or not it’s all in her head, Ran needs more time to prepare for this.

But to her surprise, Shinichi lets go of her hand. They are still a few feet from view when he steps in front of her and turns around. “Maah, fine, I get it,” he huffs, then smiles. “Then, just give me your umbrella.”

The moment she does, Shinichi closes their distance and dips his face onto hers. Ran is given no leeway to gasp as loving lips seal her quiet. It isn’t as long as what they shared a week ago, but the emotions are loaded and full, speaking fond thanks and temporary farewell.

She doesn’t realize she has closed her eyes until he separates, and she’s met with the most tender, most angelic expression he wears only on the rarest occasions. He’s saying without telling that her feelings are valid, she doesn’t have to worry,  and he doesn’t have eyes for anyone but her. Somehow, the snow is the sea and fish are swarming around but neither cares because they have already caught each other.

“You don’t have to, silly.” Three layers of pink blanket Ran’s puffy cheeks.

“But I want to.” Grinning, Shinichi hands her back the umbrella. “You don’t like hand-holding. You don’t like being seen. Don’t you think that’s a great compromise?”

“Idiot, many people saw...”

“No, they didn’t!” Upping the duffel bag slung on his shoulder, he steps back and gives her one last goofy beam. “I’ll see you next year, Ran. I’ll call as often as I can.”

Wordlessly, Ran watches Shinichi’s back as he jogs to his waiting companions, who by then have already had their eyes pinned on the approaching figure.

“That is Shinichi-kun! ...And Mouri-san!”

“Ehhh!!?! You’re a thing!”

So much for being subtle, Ran flushes inwardly as she returns the wave the other girls are giving her. At that moment she really does feel immature for her past conduct. All of them are sweet. Even Kaori.

“I knew it Shinichi-kun! Mouri-san is sooo lucky, I’m so jealous!” Ran hears their banter and sees her jab his bicep before acknowledging her. “We’ll take care of him, Mouri-san!”

The Ran from one week ago would’ve had her heart crushed by such declaration, but now she’s nothing but pleased and the smile that forms across her lips is nothing but honest. “Make sure he doesn’t drag your group into a random dead body, Kaori-san!”

“Hey!” surfaces Shinichi’s shout amidst the mincing laughter of the group and the onlooking passers-by, and Ran bids her last wave before they enter the station.

Smiling to herself, Ran returns home, the lingering promise of his kiss committed to memory, knowing that she doesn’t have to get jealous because she has no reason to. Their indefeasible bond is all the assurance she needs.

.

.

.

[out-of-jams]

Across the Board || i || kth

(banner done by the great @kimtaehyunq )

↠ Across the Board ↞ You’d hit a low point in life. With bills piling up and your bank account empty, you were starting to get desperate. So when you got the invite to your oldest friend’s birthday party being hosted at the most popular underground casino in town, what did you possibly have to lose? You took what little you had left in your savings, put your card skills to use, and entered a private blackjack game.

And you’d won. And went back for more, and more, and more.

Until you lost.

And now you’re indebted to the city’s most dangerous mob boss, forced to pay your dues in blood one way or another. With a gun pushed into your hands and your life at stake; once you’re in, you’re in. You’ll never get out.

Word Count: 4k

Warnings/Genre: Set in the Roaring 20s! Gambling. Mature themes. Mafia!au. Mafia Don!Taehyung. Violence. Law breaking. Alcohol use. Death of minor characters. Explicit language. Enemies to lovers. Short series. 18+

                              || Next | Masterlist | |

Danger.

It was a word right up there alongside the definition for the term “stupidity.” While not next to each other in the dictionary, they were close enough that your brain was unable to pick out the subtle differences. Perhaps you’d just always had a habit for screwing your life up, or maybe it was just genetics. Who knew?

You should have listened to the warnings, should have stopped yourself before you got in too deep. Hell, you should have done a lot of things. But you had no one to blame for your current situation except for yourself. However, if you’d learned anything throughout your twenty-two short years of life, it was that life lessons didn’t mean jack if you didn’t get yourself into messes into the first place.

Though staring down the barrel of a revolver sure was a funny way of going about it.

The air in the dimly lit back corner room was tense enough to hear the sound of a casino chip fall to the ground somewhere beyond the shut door. None of the six men sitting around the round, green felted table spoke a word. Their attention — and yours, consequently — was fixed on the single man in the room who barely even batted an eye at the clear panic evident on your face.

He sat on the opposite side of you; the scowl pulling down his bow shaped lips and the narrowing of his fierce gaze had fear chilling your veins. That man was much like an exotic animal; beautiful beyond belief, but dangerous right beneath the surface. A carnivore staring down his prey. The single light above the table threw his shadow against the wall as he casually aimed his pistol right between your eyes.

“You were saying, dollface?”

His neatly parted, straight black hair fell across his face when he leaned forward as if the next words out of your mouth would seal your fate. Not that the thought of having to have your blood cleaned from the expensive carpet beneath his expensive shoes seemed to bother him in the slightest. In fact, he’d look almost bored if it weren’t for the dangerous gleam behind his espresso irises.

“I—” You cut yourself off, swallowing roughly and glancing back down at the table. A depleted deck of cards sat in the center, two hands laid out on the surface. One was yours — a ten of diamonds and a ten of clubs — and the other his. A red ace of spades and a black jack of hearts.

You were out of money.

Having bet more than you possessed, you were also out of chances.

“It’s simple. You owe me money as promised,” his deep, baritone voice spoke up casually over the noise of your heart beating through your chest. “Either hand it over, or you won’t be leaving this room alive. Your choice.”

You closed your eyes for a moment too long to be called a blink, and cursed yourself for ever getting into this situation.

                           One Month Ago

Final Notice of Payment

Ms. L/n,

This is a reminder that you have a balance of $20.54 that is past due. Please make a one time payment no later than—

“Oh, please.” The bill enclosed envelope hit the top of the small, circular dining room table. Or was it the kitchen table? It was hard to tell, seeing as how they were one and the same.

A sigh escaped your lips as you leaned back against the creaky wooden chair, fingers massaging your temples. That was the third bill you’d come across that morning and every single one of them was the final notice of payment. The last warning they’d give before sending someone to collect what was owed.

It hadn’t always been like that. You hadn’t always been in such an insurmountable amount of debt, not until recently. Two months ago your mother, the last bit of family you had left, died. Passed away clinging to the sheets of the hospital bed she’d been laid up in for the past half a year. Cancer, the doctors had said. From all of the cigarettes she’d burned through in the past decade or so.

Irrecoverable, they’d said.

No amount of “sorry’s” or meaningless condolences could fix the massive amount of money that the hospital billed you. Or the debt that your mother left behind, along with her slim-boned corpse that you’d had to bury in the corner of the city cemetery. Perhaps if you’d known who your father was, you could’ve laid her to rest in the space next to his own, but you didn’t. Weren’t fortunate enough to.

Bills had piled up. Rent for the tiny studio apartment the two of you had shared was demanded by the pigeon-toed old woman who owned the rundown, overpriced building. Her husband had passed away two years ago and ever since then, she’d been relentless. She pounded on your door at approximately eight in the morning everyday, shouting through the thin wood that you had until the week was up to pay what was owed. Otherwise you’d be tossed out onto the street with only the clothes on your back.

Combined with the utility bill and the fact that you still had to come up with the dough to feed yourself, you were trapped. The meagre pennies you got from your waitressing job at the diner three blocks away weren’t nearly enough. Nothing would be enough. Not unless you wanted to sell your body on the street corners in the late of night.

Which you didn’t. And you wouldn’t. You’d be more likely to end up dead in a ditch somewhere with your throat cut than out of debt. The city wasn’t safe for women, less so by those men who saw prostitutes as no more than an object to relieve stress onto. And you refused to become another headline in the paper.

Tossing the opened envelope across the table, you paused when familiar handwriting caught your eye on top of the rest of the mail pile. Addressed to you in a curling script that only ever came from someone who could afford a private tutor. You sighed, carefully sliding a knife along the top to slice it open. A waft of sweet, cherry scented perfume filled your tiny kitchen and you almost rolled your eyes at the unnecessary addition.

Jennie, your oldest friend since high school, always had an inclination for the unnecessary. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a gold digger for a mother, she’d had nothing else to waste her time on. How you’d even gotten on as friends with such a gap between tax brackets was still a mystery to you. Maybe it was because she’d always used her wealth and status to get the two of you out of trouble. Whether it was from breaking into the school late at night to get wasted in the halls with the rest of her friends, or to get away with slipping things from the corner store into your dress pockets.

She’d always been a rule breaker.

Which was exactly why when you read the contents of the letter, a laugh tumbled from your mouth. It was an invitation to celebrate her upcoming twenty-third birthday in three day’s time. That wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary, however, if it weren’t for the location. There wasn’t an exact address, there never was. Just a thin piece of cardboard the size of your hand that fell from the envelope. A playing card — a red ace. One that looked normal except for the center that had the name of a restaurant in the heart of the most rich part of downtown printed on it.

It was a ticket to the most popular underground casino in the whole city. No one knew how to get one, how to get your name onto the list that only catered to the rich and powerful. Located beneath a restaurant, it had grown to be infamous almost overnight since gambling and alcohol was outlawed. Even the coppers knew well enough to leave the establishment alone.

The only way to gain entrance was by flashing a ticket to one of the restaurant staff. That was what you’d heard, at least. You had no idea how May had managed to secure one, let alone enough to cover what you knew would be a large party of her closest friends.

Flicking the corner of the card, you couldn’t believe your luck.

Your mother hadn’t taught you very many things, had been too busy gossiping with her friends over a carton of cigarettes to bother. What she had passed down, however, was her ability to draw cards. To play blackjack with the best of them. That’d been the only thing she’d ever bothered to teach you; when she’d had too many sips of wine and her eyes had glazed over with memories of the life she used to live. 

She’d sit you down and make you memorize the names and faces of the cards until you could count them forward and backwards. Could predict what card would be drawn and when. Where she’d learned it, she’d never told you. But that didn’t matter now. Couldn’t, seeing as she was dead and all.

Grinning, you flopped back into your chair.

Maybe you’d be able to pay off your debts after all.

And you had. Paid off your debt, that is.

After clearing out your savings account of the last fifteen dollars you had left to your name, you’d dolled yourself up and gone with Jennie and her friends. Had left the group of flappers tittering and groaning drunk at the line of slot machines at the back of the casino. Calls of bets being placed, dough exchanging for chips, and illegal cocktails pouring into glasses played as a soundtrack.

None of the card tables scattered across the underground establishment held what you’d been looking for. Neither roulette, nor craps, nor slots. The bartender had been the one to tell you where the real games were, where the cash was. A door down a tiny back hallway led to a room where private games were held. If you managed to win at one, he’d told you, then you’d win not only the pot, but an invitation to come back and play again.

Which had been an opportunity that you just couldn’t pass up. No matter the risk.

You’d won.

And now you were addicted.

To the money, the lifestyle, the adrenaline that shot through your veins like a particularly harsh sip of gin. Which was exactly why you’d gone back. Again, and again, and again, every single week for the past month. It wasn’t your fault that it was so easy. So simple to swindle your way into getting your name permanently written down on the entry list.

Oh, and the men.

It was a different group every week, but they weren’t all that dissimilar from one another. They’d sit there and smoke their cigars and drink their whiskey, all while silently mocking you with their eyes. Like they thought they were better than you just because they had a dick between their legs.

You were addicted to that too.

To watching the way their faces would fall in disbelief every single time you cleared the pot and took their money. And how their voices would raise in pitch with their countless complaints about how some lowly broad conned them out of their pocket change. Because that’s all that money was to people like them.

Change.

They were rich. You could tell by the custom suits they wore, the cologne they bathed in, the way they carried themselves. The money they gambled with always had a cap, a max amount that they were willing to bet. And the games never got too crazy, didn’t escalate once they lost to you. Which was a shame really, because you wanted more. Craved more. More of what, you weren’t too sure, but the high that playing brought only lasted so long until you came crashing back down.

Which was exactly when fate decided to change the routine.

“Here to play again, miss?” Felix, the same teenage boy who always manned the door to the gambling room, asked with a slight tilt of his head. His light brunette hair was tucked beneath a bowler hat, different from the usual fedora. Back to the door, he was standing up straight instead of his normal slouch. And the way his mouth was taught around the edges was out of the ordinary as well.

The boy didn’t have a cigarette clenched between his teeth, which should have been enough to set off the bells in your head. But it didn’t. Because you were too bullheaded, had gotten too cocky in the terms of things.

“You know me too well, Felix.” You reached out a hand to pat the lanky boy on his suit clad arm lightly, a smile pulling up at your red painted lips. “Is the usual table ready?”

The volume in the casino wasn’t as loud either, nor were there quite as many patrons. But you’d just chalked that up to the heavy rain pounding a path into the concrete outside. Though the lack of customers did nothing to eliminate the permanent smell of cigarette smoke that lingered, hidden in the walls beneath the fancy looking wallpaper.

“I don’t know if you want to play today, miss.” Felix glanced away from you with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. You blamed the flickering light in the corner of the hall for the way his freckles stood out amongst his slowly paling cheeks.

You raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

He didn’t answer. Not at first. Silence lingered in the hall, drowning in the soft jazz music coming from the band on the stage near the back of the joint. It took the raising of your other brow for the underaged boy to finally answer.

“It’s just not a good day for gambling.”

Now that had you leaning forward until you could finally catch his flighty gaze, voice hushed in a playful whisper. “Oh really, how so? Is there a stool-pigeon running about somewhere? Should we be expecting the coppers to come kicking down the door any minute?”

“No. I—”

“Then why can’t I play, Felix?” You were starting to get irritated. The week had been long and you were ready to forget about it all for the next few hours. Buried beneath the weight of a handful of cards and glass full of gin.

Either Felix could see your growing impatience, or there really was something he was hiding, because he stepped even further in front of the door. “You don’t want to play with this group, miss. They aren’t as welcoming as the others are. It’d be best if you just went home.”

“You ca—”

“And what’s going on back here?” That wasn’t Felix’s voice and neither was it yours. You whipped around, surprised at the new addition.

The man behind you had honey brown hair parted and styled carefully until it was brushed back away from his heart-shaped face. Though some of it still hung in front of a single, dark eye. His other was uncovered, a scar running through his eyebrow and cutting it in half. Everything about him was angular, sharp. From his jawline to the slope of his nose and the corners of his full lips.

One look and you already pegged him for a cake-eater, a ladies man, if you’d ever seen one. Hell, he even dressed like he came right off the front cover of one of those Time magazines that littered the newspaper stands on every street corner. With a navy blue suit and perfect, unscuffed shoes.

“No, sir,” Felix attempted to pull the man’s attention from you unsuccessfully. “The missus here was just leaving.”

The Stranger hummed, tilting his head to study you with those sharp eyes of his. “Were you, bunny? Just leaving?”

You couldn’t help the twitch of your nose at the unfavorable nickname, squaring your shoulders and crossing your arms with a scoff. “No, I wasn’t. I want to play a few rounds, you see, but he won’t let me.”

Perhaps you should have felt bad for ratting out the kid, but you didn’t. Especially not when the Stranger huffed a laugh, a distinct ha-ha-ha! in amusement. Though there was something else in his eyes that you couldn’t name. Didn’t want to acknowledge. “You want to play a hand of blackjack, is that right?”

“Ab-so-lute-ly.” You raised an eyebrow at the man and waved a hand through the air. “I can play.”

“Oh,” He asked, taking a step closer until you had to crane your neck back to meet his imploring gaze. “Playing isn’t cheap.”

You shrugged nonchalantly. “I can pay too.”

He must have been waiting for that answer if the smirk that pulled at his lips was any indication. And he finally, finally broke eye contact to wave aside the boy behind you. “Well, did the dame make herself clear or not? She wants to play.”

You happened to turn just in time to catch the alarm that flickered across Felix’s face as he stepped to the side to reveal the door behind him. Felix reached out with a ringed hand to twist the brass knob of the door. It swung open without a sound and he gave you a quick, wide-eyed stare filled with a warning you couldn’t interpret, before looking away.

“Well?” The Stranger questioned from over your shoulder. You could smell his cologne now; husky with a hint of sweet orange.

His words were an invitation if you’d ever heard one. And you didn’t want to look like a bluenose, a prude, so you stepped inside without hesitation. Though perhaps you should have taken Felix’s unspoken warning, for you had no idea just what it was that you were walking into.

Inside the cramped room was filled with a haze of cigar smoke, which wasn’t unusual at all. What was, however, was the group of six men sitting at the circular table as you rounded the corner with the Stranger at your back. They were beautiful, all of them. A huge contrast to the usual rabble that came to play. Hell, even underneath the dim light you couldn't spot a single flaw on them.

No one noticed your entrance at first.  

Well, at least not until the Stranger cleared his throat. “Gentleman.”

His greeting sounded like it toed somewhere on the line between amusement and respect.

All movement in the room came to a halt as six men looked up from where they’d been bent over the blackjack table. If you’d been a little less prideful and a lot more careful, then perhaps the overbearing confidence that bled from their pores would have given you pause. But as it was, you stood standing, back straight and head held high. Even while their eyes roamed your figure like tigers behind a cage at the zoo right before feeding time.

A pause hovered in the air, lingering with a tension that crawled onto your skin. What seemed like hours passed merely in seconds before it was broken.

“And who’s this?” The question came from the fella who sat in the chair closest to where you stood. He was turned around with his arm propped up on the back of it, head tilted to the side in curiosity. His hair was styled similar to the Stranger’s, though his was darker and the gel pushed through the strands made it gleam silver beneath the dim lamp that hung above the table.

High cheekbones and skin the same color as molten honey, his jaw worked around a piece of gum stuck between his teeth. A smirk pulled up at the corner of his mouth, dark eyes glittering with a touch of interest. With a black and white suit that complimented the shade of his hair, the man was nothing if not a billboard: flashy. Handsome.

“I found bunny here outside arguing with Felix. Something about wanting to play a few rounds of blackjack. Isn’t that right?” The Stranger placed a heavy palm between your shoulder blades. What might have been intended to come off as comforting, only succeeded in making you feel the opposite. Like you were being put on display.

You didn’t let it show on your face. “That’s right.”

“Oh?” Gum Chewer’s smirk grew broader at that, but he said nothing else. Just leaned back in his chair.

“What do you say, should we let her play?” Blond hair, pink kissable lips and dangerous, dangerous eyes. The slim man sitting next to Gum Chewer was attractive in a pretty way that made you envious of his easy-on-the-eyes looks.

While the question may have been asked to the whole room, none of them answered it. Instead they looked towards one of the men sitting in the middle who had yet to speak. If you’d thought the rest of them were a sight for sore eyes, well, they had nothing on him. How your attention hadn’t been drawn to him the moment you walked through the door, you didn’t know.

He wasn’t even looking at you and you already felt tongue-tied. Busying himself with shuffling the cards in his hands against the green felt table, the expensive looking rings adorning his slender fingers caught your eye. He was what your mother would’ve called a timeless beauty. The type of handsome that meant he could walk the streets of the city in nothing but a sack and he’d have women throwing themselves at his feet.

Hair the same shade as a moonless sky made him look intimidating, like he belonged to the shadows themselves. A straight nose, cupid bow lips and long eyelashes that would make any broad jealous; he gave off the type of power that could make even the bravest of men cower at his feet. The longer he took to respond, the more the room grew still. As if your fate was in the hands of a man who’s name you didn’t even know.

Though perhaps it was.

A muffled thud echoed throughout the room as he tapped the deck of cards against the table once, twice, before sliding them over to the fella to his left. Plucking up the glass of scotch in front of him, he finally looked up. And graced you with the prettiest chocolate brown eyes you’d ever seen.

“What’s your name, dollface?”

tagged: @bewitch-me​  @jxngkooksthxghs​   @kaitswrld​  @clarissalance​  @namurkive​ @ifntelyinspirit​  @kotaevln​  @red--aren  @ggukkieland​  @moonlitmyg​  @i-like-puppy-mg​  @aianloveseven​  @drumsofheaven​  @figurativehoe00​ @wonhoandonly​ @wacdon​ @hear-me-growl​ @milaridez7 @1088x1088​ @alana-ba​ @vlntaeg​

[lazywonderlvnd]

*hesitantly steps in the box* Umm.. soo.. I was listening to Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift again and that song (is awesome btw if you haven't listened to it already) just gives me such MAJOR drarry vibes .. like -

" And I screamed, 'for whatever it's worth I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?' He looks up grinning like a devil. "

Like if that's not drarry I'd chomp my pillows. So .. *twiddling thumbs* could you pls write something with that line as a prompt?? Pretty please 🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️ maybe use the song as inspiration.. idk? Whatever you like. ALSO, don't forget I STILL LOVE YOU that ain't changing yet and you haven't seen the last of me! Imma tail after you for eternity and you better take that as the threat it is! *throws love at you* BYE!! ❤️❤️ *vaults outside the box*

my sweetest most loved angel!! thank u so much for this prompt based on a BOP i was obsessed w when the album first came out. it got sm longer than it was meant to be, so it can be found on ao3 as well!! i hope u like it ilysm ❤️❤️❤️❤️

warnings for minor drug use (weed) and implied suicide of a minor character (lucius, extremely vague reference but pls be aware!)

rating: e word count: ~5k

When Pansy asked him how it started, Draco discovered that he didn’t know what to tell her.

Technically, though, it had started at Ernie Macmillan’s party in the beginning of summer, with the cloying scent of Freesias and Freedom Roses (“Imported from the States,” Ernie told Draco pompously, when he asked) and all those string-lights dangling from the cedar pergola, perennial balls of fire inside their clear bubbles like tiny trapped suns. Cheap beer in plastic cups, Marlboro cigarettes, and some stupid Muggle game ... darts.

Technically.  

* * * 

“Get off me, Potter,” Draco says in a failed whisper. He’s laughing and drunk and fuzzy warm under a sprawling summer’s night sky that looks like black paint. Potter tastes like Guinness every time he kisses him, and his hands are surprisingly soft. In direct opposition to his own command he pulls Potter in by the face and glues their mouths back together ravenously. The alcohol makes him sloppy (he likes it, though — the sloppiness of it) and Potter’s skin is warm where Draco slides his hand under an ugly Muggle band T-shirt to touch. 

Around the corner, he can hear music coming from the patio where nearly every single one of their former classmates are gathered, drinking and laughing and getting along famously with a much-needed buffer of five years between them and their Hogwarts days.

Much-needed for himself and Potter as well. Apparently.

He sees him sometimes, at get-togethers like this or around the Ministry, once or twice at a dinner party thrown by a mutual friend. They’re always cordial. He hasn’t insulted Potter to his face in five years.

Except for tonight, when he couldn’t help himself loudly drawing attention to the similarities between Potter’s hair and one of the shrubs in the garden. But they’re kissing now round the side of the house and because of that he’s quite glad for his slip. And it’s their five-year reunion, so. What would it be without some bickering between the two of them?

Potter presses him into the bricks and snogs him breathless, only he keeps grinning and laughing and ruining everything just when Draco starts losing himself in it.

“Quit laughing,” he scolds him. “You’re the worst, Potter. No etiquette at all.”

“That’s rude,” Potter says. His breath wafts across Draco’s mouth. His eyes are excessively green behind their round frames, which have not changed since their school days. The scar is mostly hidden beneath his wild fringe, save for the very bottom where it slashes neatly through a dark eyebrow and touches his eyelid. “I can’t help it, I’m pissed good and proper.”

His hand moves to Draco’s hip and even through the thickness of the alcohol coating his brain like a muffler he feels that touch clear and ripe as daybreak.

“So  that’s  why you’ve decided to snog me rather than …” He waves a hand vaguely, in lieu of the proper witticism with which he might normally have trounced Potter. “You know. Beat me to a pulp.”

“I only did that one time,” Potter says, grinning. Grinning and moving his thumb in circles on Draco’s hip. “And it was because you were being a twat. And I didn’t beat you to a pulp. You’re so dramatic.”

“Semantics,” Draco says. “I had a bloody nose.”

“And you deserved it.”

“Now who’s being rude?”

Potter kisses him again.

Guinness and Freesias.

* * * 

“Macmillan’s party,” he told Pansy. “He kissed me.”

“So that’s where you disappeared to.” She looked smug. Her inch-long nails were sharpened to a point and painted a glossy black, and she drummed them against her cheek, the way a cat flicks its tail. “I’m surprised you kept it from me this whole time.”

“Well,” said Draco, lowering his gaze to his glass of wine and watching it flirt dangerously with the lip as he swirled it. His cheeks felt warm, but he wasn’t embarrassed. “We snuck around.”

Right, maybe a little embarrassed. Mostly conflicted.

“Oh?” For a single syllable the laughter underneath was remarkably transparent.

He looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Yes,” he said a little defensively. “For obvious reasons. At first it was just sex. A lot of it, so he usually came here. Apparently Granger and the Weasel are notorious for popping round his place unexpectedly.”

* * *

He feels opened up all over again every time Potter fucks into him, unhurried and so careful. His hand is hot on Draco’s thigh, both of them sticky with sweat and come. This has to be their third round at least, and Draco’s sluggish brain insists it might actually be four.

An open window lets in the late afternoon air, humid and drowsy and perfumed heavily with flowers (a la Macmillan, Draco planted Freesias and Freedom Roses outside his bedroom window and helped them along to full bloom with some careful magic). Potter’s hair is damp with sweat — from exertion and the relentless heat of July — and Draco slides his fingers into it, tangles them and pulls the way he’s learned Potter likes. If he’s honest, he’s harboured a very secret and  very  desperate yearning to touch Potter’s hair since he was quite young. He doesn’t know why.

Well, maybe he knows why.

Potter makes a quiet, whimpered noise that curls Draco’s toes. He speeds up his hips, closing in on his orgasm and putting his face in Draco’s neck even though it’s too fucking hot for it.

“Fuck,” Draco whines. He tries to lift his leg higher, wrap it around Potter’s waist to get that perfect angle, but they’re too slick with sweat and he lets out a frustrated noise when it falls back to the bed. “Potter,” he says helplessly, arching into each thrust and shaking with the effort. This third (fourth?) orgasm is building too slowly, sitting there hard and stubborn and heavy in his gut and refusing to be coaxed to completion. He’s dripping with the effort, muscles quivering. “Please — I need —”

But he seems to have figured it out for himself. He scoots forward, lifting Draco’s arse higher off the bed and bending him nearly in half. The angle helps him go deeper and he’s suddenly nudging Draco’s oversensitive prostate every time he fucks back in.

“Right there,” Draco gasps, tensing as this new angle lights a fire under his elusive orgasm. His cock is leaking but he doesn’t have the strength or energy to get a hand around it. Potter’s grunting with the effort of fucking him, sweat dripping down his temples and making his neck and torso gleam. “Right there, god, right there, please, I’m so close —”

Potter braces himself and redoubles his efforts, and it’s like he’s reached inside Draco and sunk his claws into that building storm in his belly because suddenly it’s ripped right out of him in a colossal wave of euphoria that approaches too much, cock spurting untouched between them  .  Potter keeps moving inside him while he rides it out, and at some point he feels the warm, wet explosion of Potter emptying in him, mumbling incoherent things that include Draco’s name.

They come down together too. Draco is clutching Potter’s arms and trying to catch his breath and Potter is trembling and clutching him back like an anchor in a veritable ocean of sensation. 

It’s like this every time. 

When Potter drops down onto the bed beside him Draco rolls over and kisses him, long and deep and satisfying, and Potter reciprocates with the kind of intensity that is completely unique to him as a person.

“That one was particularly good,” says Potter, and Draco laughs.

When he feels like moving, he knows that Potter will get up and go to Draco’s kitchen and make tea for both of them, and he won’t need to ask what Draco likes, because he remembered after the first time. They’ll drink it naked in bed as the sun sets on another endless summer day and transforms before their eyes into a humid and pungent summer night, in the midst of which they will fuck at least three more times, and Potter will keep smelling like sweat and bergamot and boy, and Draco will keep feeling starved for him.

And they won’t talk about it.

* * *

“And?” Pansy said.

“And what?”

“You said ‘at first,’” she pointed out, and arched a groomed eyebrow. “When did it turn into more than just sex?”

Draco tamped down on a smile, because that would have been more emotion than he cared to show at the moment. To Pansy or to himself.

He swirled his wine again and took a long sip, stalling. He wanted — needed, really — to talk this out with her, but he was becoming aware of an uncomfortable heaviness in his chest which was suggesting to him that he didn’t want to share everything. Not because he was embarrassed, but, well … it was private. It was between him and Harry.

“There was this one night he came over later than he was supposed to because of work,” Draco said. The memory stirred some emotion. He hadn’t thought of it in a while. “He had this bloody huge takeout bag of Thai food.”

 * * *

He sets it down on Draco’s desk, takes out a container, and after toeing off his shoes drops sideways onto Draco’s bed with it and uses chopsticks to shovel in a mouthful of noodles. Draco watches this in awe.

“Want some?” Harry asks once he’s swallowed (small blessings). There’s grease around his mouth. “There’s a million other things in the bag but you have to get it yourself. I’m dead tired.”

Draco thinks of asking what the hell is going on, because they’re supposed to be fucking by now, but something stops him. Harry really does look exhausted but quite content eating his Thai food on Draco’s bed, and he doesn’t have the heart to berate him for it or remind him that they’re fuck buddies, not friends, and that if he’d wanted to eat and lounge about perhaps he should’ve stayed at home.

And the food really does smell good.

He gets up and fishes another container out of the bag that turns out to be some sort of heavenly-smelling marinated beef, which he brings back to the bed. Harry’s rolled onto his back and has the container of noodles balanced on his stomach.

“They thought they found a Horcrux on a raid,” he says. His voice is perfectly casual, but Draco thinks he can see something troubled in his eyes. He has one foot crossed over the other and  it’s bouncing anxiously; he doesn’t think Harry’s aware of doing it. “Wasn’t. Obviously.” 

“But they needed your expert advice to be sure.”

“Yeah.” Harry looks at him, then his food. “Is that the beef?”

“Yes it is.”

“Good?”

“Haven’t tried it yet.”

He opens the container and chooses a piece, but instead of lifting it to his mouth he follows some crazy impulse and hovers it over Harry’s instead.

“Open, Scarhead,” he says. Harry blinks but does it, and Draco drops it in. He smiles, then chews.

“Brilliant.”

* * *

“We ate it instead of fucking. It was the first time I realised something had shifted.”

“And you let it shift?”

The question gave him pause. He didn’t answer right away, mulling it over. It made it sound as if he’d had a choice, and that wasn’t quite right.

“It already had,” he said finally. “It wasn’t a matter of letting it; by the time I noticed, it had already happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come over with the food.”

“But you did let it continue,” said Pansy. She wasn’t antagonising him, nor accusing him of anything. She looked amused, but not in a way that was at his expense. Pansy was both a twat and a fiercely good friend, the combination of which meant she would do nothing more or less than hold up a mirror and force you to look at yourself, gruesome as the experience inevitably wound up being. “Even after you realised he had feelings for you.”

Draco swallowed. He’d not heard it said aloud before now.

“Yes,” he said. “It felt good. Knowing he fancied me.”

* * *

Harry’s shameless in his staring.

He stands in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom and watches Draco like he’s been invited to do so. Draco pretends not to notice, stretched out in a tub full of bubbles facing the opposite way. There’s incense burning, and candles. Harry is completely silent, but Draco could feel those eyes on him from across a crowded hall.

They fucked a few hours ago and fell asleep afterwards. Draco pretended not to think about it, but had actually made the conscious decision to let Harry continue sleeping when he woke up and decided he wanted a bath.

When he can’t take it anymore he opens his eyes and tilts his head back and a little to the side, just enough that he gets Potter in his peripherals.

“Well?” he says. 

“Well what?”

“Join me, won’t you?”

Harry snorts. Then there’s a quiver of magic in the air, and a small, utilitarian chair appears out of thin air beside the tub. Harry sits down in it. He’s holding the joint they’d only gotten halfway through earlier. 

He’s in his jeans and nothing else, all limbs and sparse chest hair, and when he crosses a leg over the other one, elbow resting on his knee as he hits the joint, Draco feels a bone-deep attraction to him that’s beyond physical.

“May I?” Draco asks. Harry hands it over and Draco inhales deeply before returning it. The humidity of the room mixes with the smoke and the smell of marijuana, pungent and cloying like the flowers. 

After a length of silence, Draco says, “Will you read me something?”

“Will I what?”

He takes his wand from the floor and Summons a book from the shelf in his room — one of his poetry collections comes sweeping in through the cracked door and into Harry’s lap. Harry sticks the joint between his lips and starts rifling through it with his glasses all fogged up. 

When he starts reading Byron (“I had a dream, which was not all a dream”) Draco smiles and sinks deeper into the hot water and bubbles, letting Harry’s voice lull him into a pleasant stupor. 

 * * *

“So you led him on,” said Pansy. “Because you liked his attention.”

He stared at her, then let his gaze drop to his wine again. Had he?

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“Well,” she said, smiling wryly, “I’m only saying it as you’ve told it to me. Maybe if it sounds bad, it is bad. Some things are that simple, darling. Unless there’s more to it.”

“Like what?” he said, not looking at her. There was a touch of pouty defiance in his voice he knew Pansy would detect instantly. He heard her sigh.

“What exactly happened yesterday, Draco? You didn’t give me any context.”

“What context do you need?” he muttered. “He told me he loved me.”

* * *

They’ve finished an entire bottle of wine between them. He’s not drunk, but he’s pleasantly buzzed. Harry’s sprawled on his back, T-shirt rucked up just below his navel so Draco can see the dark trail of hair leading below his jeans. There’s something implicitly erotic about the movement of his chest when he breathes, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched the length of the bed and the other bent at the knee.

He opens his eyes suddenly and grins when he sees Draco looking at him. 

“That wine just made me tired,” he says.

“So go to sleep,” says Draco. He takes a last swig, emptying it, and sets the bottle aside on his night table. He stretches his arms over his head and arches his back, yawning widely, thinking perhaps he’ll give into the tempting allure of sleep as well when Harry says, “I told Hermione about us.”

So he’s not sleeping, then. His stomach clenches hard and a completely irrational sense of panic rises in his throat.

“Us?” he says slowly, sitting up straighter. “What ‘us’?”

Harry looks at him upside-down, then rolls over and rises to his knees. He stares at Draco blankly.

“‘What us?’” he repeats.

“Yes,” says Draco. “What ‘us’?”

“Us,” Harry says. His voice is lower than usual. The word is starting to sound weird and lose meaning. “You and me, Draco.”

“‘You and me?’ Harry, there’s no you and me. We’re just fucking. What do you … what do you mean, you told Granger? Told her what?”

Harry looks … well, he looks fucking crushed. And angry. Draco forces himself not to look away.

“I told her I’d been seeing you,” he says quietly. There’s something … not threatening, but close to it, in his voice.

“Sure,” says Draco. “I see you three times a week, sometimes four. I s’pose if you feel the need to fill Granger in on everything you do with every second of your day —”

“Shut up, Draco,” Harry says. “You know what I meant.”

Draco glares at him. He gets off the bed, slightly lightheaded from the wine, horrified by the emotions welling up inside him right behind the panic, and he points at his bedroom door.

“Get out,” he says. 

“Are you serious?”

“Go!” he says loudly, voice rising. “If you’re gonna start turning this into something it definitely is not then get out of my flat, Potter.” As usual the window is open, but it’s the third of September and getting chilly finally and Draco’s Freesias and Freedom Roses started wilting last week. There’s a chilly breeze coming into that room that is utterly barren of the sweet smells of summer he associates with Harry these days. “It’s time we ended this anyway,” he says. “Summer’s over.”

“So?” From his position kneeling on Draco’s bed Harry shouldn’t feel imposing at all, but he does. There’s no sparkle of humour in his eyes, none of the softness Draco’s gotten used to seeing there. He looks like someone who’s realised they’ve been betrayed.

Worse than that. Someone who’s been betrayed and realises they should have seen it coming.

“What the fuck does summer have to do with anything?”

“Ever heard of a summer fling, Potter? We’re not ‘seeing each other’.”

Harry finally gets off the bed. Draco’s stomach clenches again, more painfully this time. He doesn’t feel bad, he tells himself — this is Harry’s fault. His fault for making a big deal out of something easy and fun and, most of all, temporary. For ruining this with feelings. 

 “That’s not what this was,” Harry says. It’s not an argumentative tone; rather, he sounds disappointed. Devastated, and disappointed. And that look of betrayal, like he’s surprised but not …  that  surprised.

That hurts. 

“This was as real as it gets, Draco,” he says matter-of-factly. “You and I don’t have the capability of doing anything as shallow as a fling.”

“Well, Potter,” says Draco, straining to maintain his level voice, “congratulations, because that is the most disgusting, romanticised, Gryffindorian piece of shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah?” He grabs up his wand from the bedside table and stuffs it into his jeans pocket. “Well here’s another: I love you. You complete fucking prick.”

Draco stares after him as he leaves the room, cowed for the moment. He hears Harry take the Floo powder off his mantle, hears the fire start, and then the sound of Potter disappearing. 

And he feels hollow suddenly.

* * *

“And he said it completely out of the blue?” 

Draco set his wine aside. He was suddenly feeling too sick to put anything else in his body.

“Sort of,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. “He was trying to make something out of nothing. He was just making a point, trying to guilt me, I don’t even think he meant it.”

Pansy said nothing for so long that Draco finally looked up. She had an eyebrow raised.

“Do you really believe that?” she said.

Draco didn’t answer right away. He glanced at the bottle of wine on the table and thought about the way it always tasted a little sweeter on Harry’s lips.

“I don’t know,” he said. “No. But it doesn’t change anything. It was a summer thing, not a … a relationship, for crying out loud. Like I’d date Potter.”

“Why not?”

Draco scoffed. “Why not? Pansy, please. He’s a …”

“A …?”

“He’s an idiot! He’s Potter!  He’s …” He couldn’t think of the right word, something bad enough to express the audacity, the gall , for Potter to think even for a second  that they could …

“Draco Malfoy,” said Pansy. She was smirking. “You love him too.”

Had he felt sick before?  Now he was going to be sick.

“I never would’ve imagined it,” she went on, seeming to take pleasure from his outrage and humiliation. The bint. “Look at you, you’re blushing! Oh my god,” she laughed. And then she stopped laughing, and instead the weight of her own words appeared to descend on her. “Oh my god. You do, don’t you? You are arse over tits for Harry Potter —”

He was up and out of his chair before she’d finished the last word, absurdly,  embarrassingly on the verge of tears all of a sudden. 

“Draco —”

“I’m glad this can serve as your entertainment for the week, Pansy,” he said. A tear rolled down his cheek — could he be any more histrionic? — and he brushed it away furiously. 

“Draco, no —”

“Call Blaise, tell him!” he shouted. “You two can have a good laugh over it —”

“Draco  —”

“Poor Draco’s  fucked himself over again, what a stupid wanker!” 

Pansy got up. He slapped her hand away when she reached for him, but she only came at him again and grabbed it this time when he swatted at her, enfolding it in both of hers. He closed his eyes and hiccoughed and two more tears came.

“Darling, will you please listen to me?” she said softly. It sounded eerily like his mother, which only made him feel young and childish. He tugged his arm away and she let him go, but he didn’t move any farther away. “I am  not  laughing at you,” she told him. “Blaise might, but that’s because Blaise has a black hole for a heart, Draco, the only emotion he’s ever felt is disdain.” Against his will, Draco chuckled wetly. Pansy smiled and took his hand again, tentatively. He allowed it. “ I think it’s lovely that you have feelings for him. I don’t understand what’s got you so upset, I mean … I know it’s Potter, but we’re not teenagers anymore, right? Who cares?”

Draco exhaled a long sigh.

“He let my father go to Azkaban,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. He saw comprehension dawning. “How can I be with someone who could’ve saved my father’s life and chose not to, Pansy?”

“No one could have saved your father, Draco,” said Pansy gravely. His throat was tight, swollen. He hated that he was hanging on her words, looking for truth in them,  wanting to hear something that would make this okay. “He would have done the same thing if they’d let him go back to the manor. It’s not your fault or your mum’s or Potter’s.”

“But —”

“But what?” she cut him off sharply. “Draco, please don’t let your father keep controlling your life from the grave! My god, you deserve happiness, don’t you see that? Even if it’s Potter! In fact, I … I think that could be really good.”

“What, being with Potter?”

“Yes, being with Potter,” she said. “Darling, I say this because I love you: you need to grow a pair of bollocks and start taking control of your own life. I’m not finished!” she added when he opened his mouth to retort. “I understand that it feels like a betrayal of your father, I do, and I’m not saying you can’t have your cherished memories of him, but Draco … you cannot live your life in his shadow, doing things because it’s what he’d want or wouldn’t want. I think that choosing to explore these feelings you have for Potter is the bravest and healthiest thing you could possibly do for yourself.”

He stared at her for a long moment, eyes wet though the tears had stopped falling. 

“What if it doesn’t last?” he said finally. “What if next week he realises it was a huge mistake?”

“First of all, I doubt that,” said Pansy with a roll of her eyes that was clearly meant to be teasing. “You said you’ve been seeing him all summer, that’s plenty of time to have gotten sick of you. And, even if that did happen, I still think it would be entirely worth that week of being disgustingly in love.”

“Do you?” he drawled.

“Yes! I do!” She picked up his discarded wine glass from before and held it up. “Does the effect of alcohol last forever?”

“No …”

“Of course not! And we don’t expect it to. We expect to have fun while we’re drunk and it’ll last as long as it lasts.”

“Dating someone isn’t like being drunk, Pansy,” Draco said sourly.

“Oh, that’s not the point ,” she huffed. “We don’t do things because we know they’ll last forever, we do them because we want to. In the moment.”

“Sounds irresponsible.”

“Well, of course it is,” she scoffed. “Love is completely irresponsible, that’s the fun of it, Draco. Now take this,” she shoved the glass of wine into his hand, almost spilling it. “Drink up, and then get your arse over to his flat and fix this.”

* * *

Granger opened the door. Draco sighed.

“Hello, Granger,” he said lamely. Her raised eyebrows said she was surprised and thoroughly unimpressed by his appearance.

“Malfoy,” she said.

“Is Potter in?”

“I guess that depends.”

“On?”

She looked at him, dark brown eyes impenetrable. Then she closed the front door behind her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To talk to him,” he said tightly. As if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, now he had to pass a test to get past Granger the bridge troll. “I thought he told you —”

“He did,” she said flatly. “And about yesterday.”

“Well I’m here to apologise,” said Draco. Granger’s eyebrows lifted again. Still unimpressed. “And to tell him …” He sighed again and broke eye contact, willing himself not to give up, not to take this as a sign he should just go home and ream into Pansy for giving him such bad advice.

“Malfoy.” He looked up. Her voice was softer now, and her eyes seemed a little less hard. “What are you doing? You really hurt him, you know.”

“I know,” he said stiffly. “I said I’m here to apologise.”

“Well he doesn’t need an apology,” she said. “If you’re only going to let him down again —”

“I’m not.” He rubbed his forehead and looked at her again, exasperated, defeated. “I’ve … had some sense talked into me.”

She looked like it was the last thing she’d been expecting. 

“Have you?”

“Yes,” he said. “So would you please get him for me before I lose my nerve?”

It was the right thing to say. Her expression melted into something much softer and he fancied he even saw the beginnings of a smile.

“Can I ask who affected this change of heart?”

“Pansy,” he said. And, when Granger seemed taken aback, “She’s very wise when she feels like it.”

“I see. Well …” She still looked a bit conflicted, eyeing him and then putting her hand on the doorknob. “All right. I’ll tell him you’re here, anyway, but he was really hurt, Malfoy. I don’t know if he’ll want to hear it.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said.

Granger eyed him another moment and then went back inside, shutting the door behind her. Draco only had to wait a minute before it was opening again, and this time Harry came out. The sight of him made Draco’s heart feel tender and sore.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Potter.”

He waited to see if Harry would say anything else but he didn’t. He only stared at Draco expectantly, arms folded, in all ways closed off.

“I came to apologise,” said Draco.

“Well you can keep it,” said Harry. “I don’t need an apology because you told me the truth.”

“It wasn’t the truth, Potter,” Draco said quietly. “Opposite, really.”

Harry was silent. Then, “You made me feel like shit, Draco.”

“I know. I’m sorry. You freaked me out, springing it on me like that.”

A beat, then two, and then suddenly Harry was dropping his arms and sighing and he looked at Draco with so much vulnerability he nearly had to turn away from it.

“I didn’t mean to tell you …” He licked his lips, scratched his arm. It reminded Draco that beneath everything, Harry was still the same awkward dorky leader-of-the-losers he’d always been, just with a bit more confidence now and the title of Official Saviour of the Wizarding World. “I wouldn’t have said that if … I was just angry.”

He didn’t need to ask what Harry was referring to.

“I know.”

“Not that I didn’t … I mean, I … I do —”

“Please don’t say it again,” Draco said. Harry laughed.

“Right. I just meant … I really do have feelings for you, Draco. Like … mad, crazy feelings, y’know? I don’t want it to be a fling.”

“It wasn’t a fling,” he said. He moved a little closer and Harry watched him carefully, eyes flickering once down to Draco’s mouth. “I didn’t even sleep with anyone else the whole time.”

“Well that’s good to know,” said Harry sardonically. But he was smiling, so Draco found himself smiling tentatively as well.

“I wanna be with you, Potter. Properly. I thought …” But he shakes his head, deciding that now isn’t the time to explain about his father. “I thought it was a stupid idea. Now I realise that it probably is, but that I don’t really care much. I’ve decided to ignore my better judgment this one time.”

“That’s quite Gryffindor of you,” Harry commented drily.

“Yes, well.”

“So I go against your better judgment, then?”

“Potter,” Draco sighed. “Please, I don’t mean it like —”

“I’m taking the piss, Draco,” Harry cut him off. He reached for Draco’s waist and pulled him close, and before Draco could get his breath back from a short, surprised intake of breath Harry’s mouth was on his, warm and familiar and soothing. He brought his hands to Harry’s face and kissed back without bothering to hide his overwhelming relief.

Harry chased his mouth when he pulled away and Draco breathed out a laugh, holding him at bay with a hand on his chest. 

“We have plenty of time,” he said. “D’you wanna come over later tonight, after your friends leave?”

“What? No, come in.” He took Draco’s hand and gestured with his head towards the door. “Please. It’s just Ron and Hermione. They know everything.”

“Really?” Draco drawled. “And you think Weasley won’t try to kill me?”

“I promise not to let him,” Harry grinned. “Please, Draco. You said you wanted to do this properly, right?”

He thought of what Pansy said about being irresponsible, and decided it was worth a try at least.

“Okay,” he said. Harry beamed and tugged him inside.

Towards his ultimate downfall or towards the beginning of the rest of his life, he didn’t know. That, as Pansy would have said, was the fun of it.

[buriedinbaltimore]

Imagine the foxes playing two truths and a lie...

The upperclassmen start playing it as a drinking game one night and Neil is intrigued. Andrew is also intrigued but doesn’t show it and refuses to play.

They are all already pretty tipsy, with Kevin, Matt, Nicky, and Aaron pretty much drunk.

Allison goes first, she has an amazing poker face and calmly says all three statements with no facial twitches or vocal cues. “my first car was a Toyota Camry (truth), my prom dress cost over $10k (lie), and I once made out with Miley Cyrus (truth)”

Renee, Neil, and Aaron guess right, Matt, Dan, Kevin, and Nicky have to drink.

Then it’s Matt’s turn and he is terrible, he starts snickering before he opens his mouth. “I’ve swam with sharks (truth)” he says, but he cannot control his face and it keeps contorting as he tries to maintain a neutral expression. He takes a deep breath to try and control his giggles, “my favorite flower is sunflowers (truth)” then he can’t hold it in anymore and starts hysterically laughing and chokes out, “My favorite city in the world is Newark, NJ (lie)”

Everyone gets it right and Matt has to drink.

Dan is next, she goes for the “one of these is so out there and crazy it can’t be a lie...or is it?” method.

((It is.))

“I’ve never shot a gun (truth), as a kid my favorite food was celery with ranch dressing (truth), and when I was 18 I won the lottery but the ticket was ruined and I couldn’t claim the money (lie)”

Aaron jumps in with “Obviously you never won the lottery, how would you even know if the ticket was destroyed”

Dan has her story ready. “When I first turned 18, I played the same numbers every week. It went on for a few months when my numbers were picked, but by that point playing was more of a habit than anything else and I wasn’t too careful with my tickets. I searched for it everywhere and found that I left it in my jeans pocket when I did my laundry.”

Allison asks what the numbers were, and Dan answers with no hesitation, which makes Allison tilt her head and stare into Dan’s eyes. Dan looks back without guile, totally relaxed.

Nicky is looking at her with his eyes wide and mouth slightly open and asks how much money she would have won

When Dan answers $53 million dollars Nicky gasps and Matt groans.

Neil, Renee, and Allison get it right, but everyone else falls for it.

When its Nicky turn he forgets to say a lie.

He is sitting there trying to come up with something for what feels like forever while every goads him for taking so long.

Finally, after waiting 5 minutes, Kevin says “I’m going because Nicky obviously can’t come up with anything” and Nicky jumps across Kevins lap and goes “No no no no no, I’ve got it!”

Without moving off Kevin he says “I’m allergic to shellfish, I died my hair green once, and I’ve read all the twilight books three times“ He moves back to his spot looking pleased with himself.

Everyone starts discussing theories until Andrew says in his bored, flat voice, “Nicky, those are all true”

Nicky starts to protest, thinks for a second, then just says “Fuck!” and takes a shot.

Kevin rolls his eyes so hard that his entire head rotates then says, while slightly slurring, “Okay, my turn! I’ve played a game of pick up basketball once (lie), I know all the lyrics to We Didn’t Start the Fire (truth), and I’ve traveled to over a dozen countries (truth).”

Matt starts hysterically laughing again, “You know all the lyrics to We Didn’t Start the Fire! oh my god Kevin you are such a nerd!” everyone else starts laughing at Kevin too.

“Maybe I do, maybe it’s the lie!”

“Everyone knows you’ve never played a sport besides Exy in your life Kevin” Dan says, “Will you sing it for us? Please, please, please!”

Allison, Nicky, and Matt join Dan in asking Kevin to sing. Renee even says, “It would be lovely to hear you sing it Kevin” to which Kevin blushes a little and answers, “Maybe later” and then takes his shot.

Aaron is drunk enough at this point to spill some truths he otherwise never would, and will wish for the rest of his life that he never had.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a figure skater when I grew up.(truth)”

Everyone goes completely silent and stares at him unsure whether to laugh or not but he doesn’t realize and continues

“The first time I got high I thought the squirrels in the tree wanted to adopt me as their squirrel king (truth), and I hate Taylor Swift (lie)”

No one says anything at first, and just when Aaron starts to realize something is up, Nicky says “Nah man, you LOVE T. Swift, you can’t deny it!”

They collectively make a silent agreement to ignore this new information about Aaron until he sobers up a bit and can either defend himself, or will be more fun to tease.

In the end, everyone but Renee guesses right, but she guessed wrong on purpose because she didn’t think that Aaron should be having any more to drink.

When it’s Renee’s turn, she smiles sweetly and says, ”I can juggle up to 7 balls (truth), I have never drank diet soda (lie), and I once had a pet turtle named Vincent (truth).”

No one is confident about which is the lie and it is the longest the foxes debate after anyones turn. It doesn’t help that Renee refuses to answer questions, and whenever someone tries to ask her anything she just smiles and shrugs.

It comes out to Neil and Aaron getting it right, while everyone else has to drink.

“How the fuck has it never come up that you’re a master juggler?” Allison asks angrily

“It wouldn’t be appropriate to do it at practice, and we’re not really around balls much otherwise.”

Everyone asks for a demonstration, “I will juggle later if Kevin will sing.”

Everyone looks at Kevin who sighs but says “Okay, fine!”

They all cheer then wait eagerly for Neil to go.

Neil sits quietly for a little while, not as long as Nicky, but long enough that Aaron says, “Come on this should be easy for you! You lied to us all for a year, what’s the problem, the truth?”

Neil shoots him a dirty look but doesn’t respond for a few more seconds then says,

“My mom and I once helped deliver a baby at a truck stop in Alberta, I’ve been bitten by a camel, and I can speak 7 languages”

Everyone just stares at him.

“Two of those things are true?” Matt finally asks

“Yeah.” Neil says, shrugging. Everyone is silent again.

Nicky turns to Andrew for help, but he refuses to say anything. His eyes are bright with interest though and he looks at Neil for a long time. Internally, he thinks the one about helping birth a baby has something off about it.

After much debate, Allison, Kevin, and Matt guess the baby, Renee, Dan, and Aaron guess the camel, and Nicky says the languages, “No one can know SEVEN languages!! I won’t believe it!”

They all turn to Neil expectantly and he says, “It was the first one, we were just outside Vancouver, in British Columbia, not Alberta.”

“But you, Neil Josten, have helped deliver a baby?” Allison asks incredulously.

“Technically I wasn’t Neil Josten yet…”

Everyone groans. Everyone takes a shot.

Cut to 15 minutes later, Renee is juggling an exy ball, some apples, and Matt’s phone while Kevin sings. Nicky tries to sing along with Kevin but definitely doesn’t know the right words, Aaron is watching Renee wide eyed, Dan and Matt are playing air guitar behind Kevin, and Allison is looking for more things for Renee to juggle. Neil and Andrew sit quietly on a desk holding cigarettes, observing their idiot friends.  

Stories Behind the Truths and Lies

Allison

My first car was a Toyota Camry (truth) - Allison’s parents wanted her to learn how to drive in a safe car that wouldn’t draw a lot of attention, so they got her a Camry. She only drove it for 3 weeks before demanding an upgrade.

My prom dress cost over $10k (lie) - This was almost true. She had ordered a custom Zac Posen dress but before it was finalized she made her decision to go to PSU and play Exy, and her mother canceled the order. She ended up wearing something she found in a vintage store that she altered herself. She ended up enjoying it a lot, which led to her decision to study fashion. (In my hc she played professional Exy for 3? seasons but was injured and then started her fashion line.)

I once made out with Miley Cyrus (truth) - While out clubbing one night she met Miley through mutual friends, they were attracted to each other, they made out. Miley asked for her number but Allison wasn’t looking for anything more than a hook up.

Matt

I’ve swam with sharks (truth) - He did this with his mom on a vacation and they both loved it. They also have a tradition where they watch at least one night of shark week together, or at least call each other to talk while they are both watching.

My favorite flower is sunflowers (truth) - No story lol I just think he would like sunflowers.

My favorite city in the world is Newark, NJ (lie) - I love thinking about New Yorker Matt. Raised on the Upper East Side, dad a top plastic surgeon, mom a public figure? Child grew up surrounded by serious privilege. HC that in fifth grade he made friends with a boy who was on scholarship at his school. Let’s call him… Metin. He lived in Queens? He took the subway? Matt goes to his house one day and it is 1/8th the size of his apartment and there are 9 people living there; Metin’s parents, two grandparents, his uncle, his two sisters, and his cousin. They all speak Turkish in the house and it’s loud and crowded but so full of life and love and Matt loves it. He and Metin grew apart when Matt started using, but before that they were best friends for years and explored the city together, Matt learning about and experiencing so much culture that for the first 9 years of his life he didn’t know existed. When Nicky wanted to go to Times Square for New Years Matt knew he had to be a good host and take them but inside he was DYING. I’m getting off track. No New Yorker could ever like Newark. I’m not convinced anybody could like Newark. It is indeed, very laughable.

Dan

I’ve never shot a gun (truth) - Dan hates guns and refuses to shoot one.

As a kid my favorite food was celery with ranch dressing (truth) - Idk I just thought this was cute. And also thinking about young Dan who didn’t have a lot of access to healthy foods getting celery sticks and ranch with her free school lunch and getting SO excited. Trading her cookie to a classmate for their celery.

When I was 18 I won the lottery but the ticket was ruined and I couldn’t claim the money (lie) - I like to think this is part true. After Dan turned 18 but before she was recruited for the Foxes, she played lotto a lot, always with the same numbers that she got from a fortune cookie that said, “Failure is not defeat until you stop trying.” She stopped playing once she signed with Wymack.

Nicky (all truths)

I’m allergic to shellfish - Mostly I love that Andrew knew all these things about Nicky, especially his allergy because he’s always looking out to make sure Nicky doesn’t eat something he can’t.

I died my hair green once - At first, when he took custody of the twins and started showing up for them at school at stuff, he hated the looks he got. He was a 19 year old kid who was supposed to be their guardian? Not to mention the way people eyed his skin and hair when he said he was family. One day he decided to dye his hair blond and he asked Andrew and Aaron to help, to try to bond. Aaron wanted nothing to do with it, but surprisingly, Andrew seem enthusiastic about the idea. He bought the dye and did everything for Nicky in the kitchen. When he was finally done roughly washing the dye out of Nicky’s hair, Nicky went to the bathroom to see how he looked and saw that Andrew had died his hair green. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh at the prank or cry because he foolishly thought he might be getting through to Andrew. When he went back to the kitchen, he tried to laugh it off and said maybe he should go to a salon to get the color right. Andrew told him he was stupid to try and change how he looked just because people were dumb enough to think that families needed to look alike. Besides, they weren’t a family anyway.  “Family” is a toxic excuse for things people put up with, a reason we accept the tragedies and inconveniences forced upon us. (Nora’s words) Nicky was upset, and dyed his hair back to his natural color once the roots started growing in, but he reaffirmed his commitment in that moment that he would show the twins what Erik had shown him, what a family could really be.

I’ve read all the twilight books three times - Nicky was a huge fan of twilight, even going to the midnight release party for the last book. He was disappointed in the movie adaptations but loved the casting and watched for the eye candy. He is loving the twilight renaissance especially the twilight is gay discourse.

Kevin

I’ve played a game of pick up basketball once (lie) - Kevin has never played a game of basketball, or soccer, or tennis, or baseball, or any other sport for that matter and can not understand why anyone would want to.

I know all the lyrics to We Didn’t Start the Fire (truth) - Kayleigh Day was a big music fan, she loved everything from classical to country, but one of her favorite artists was Billy Joel. After she died and Kevin moved into Evermore, he almost forgot about her music because the music at the Nest was all chosen for pragmatic reasons, like its BPM and ability to pump the players up. One day, when Kevin was around 15 years old, a rebellious Raven played his own music while training in the weight room. He and his partner were the only ones in there until Riko and Kevin showed up, and they turned it off as soon as they realized they had come in, but Kevin heard some of “Only the Good Die Young” and for the first time in a long time had a vivid memory of his mother. He asked the boys what had been playing, and Riko scoffed at the name Billy Joel. That night while Riko was sleeping, Kevin downloaded Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits and listened until he feel asleep, and he continued listening to it for weeks until he started remembering more of his mothers songs from his childhood. We Didn’t Start the Fire was one of his favorites because history.

I’ve traveled to over a dozen countries (truth) - Between travel through Europe with his mom while she spread Exy and professional appearances he made with Riko, Kevin is the most well traveled besides Neil.

Aaron

When I was little, I wanted to be a figure skater when I grew up. (truth) - When Aaron was around four or five, he watched the winter olympics on TV and fell in love with figure skating. Tilda never bothered to get him skating lessons, but one day, when Aaron was seven, there was an attempt to revive the Ice Capades. Aaron never thought he would get to go, but Tilda surprised him with tickets. It is one of the few really good memories he has of his mom.

The first time I got high I thought the squirrels in the tree wanted to adopt me as their squirrel king (truth) - I just imagine Aaron trying his mom’s drugs for the first time alone in the back yard, laying flat on his back looking up at a family of squirrels, saying, “I’m king of the squirrels!!!”

I hate Taylor Swift (lie) - Katelyn is a HUGE Taylor Swift fan. When they first started hanging out, Aaron didn’t really like her music but didn’t want to say anything. Eventually he started associating her with Katelyn though, and he loves watching Katelyn sign and dance so much that he now genuinely enjoys her music.

Renee

I can juggle up to 7 balls (truth) - Renee always had a natural juggling talent. She never really tried to learn, it was just always something she could do.

I have never drank diet soda (lie) - She does prefer non-diet soda, but she has tried diet before.

I once had a pet turtle named Vincent (truth) - Vincent was a gift from one of her mother’s boyfriends, the only one Renee ever remotely like. He was horrible to her mother, but had a soft spot for Renee and treated her kindly. They broke up after a couple of months, and he gave her Vincent as a parting gift. She had him until she got arrested, she couldn’t go back home to get him and when her mother went to prison he died.

Neil

My mom and I once helped deliver a baby at a truck stop in Alberta (lie) - This happened while Neil and his mom were on the way to Seattle. It was the middle of the night and they stopped to get gas a few hours out from Vancouver when they heard a woman screaming. There was nothing around for miles and only one other car in the lot that had been there when they pulled in. His mother immediately dropped the gas pump and Neil was already back in the car when the screaming stopped and his mother hesitated. Neil had never seen his mom hesitate with a potential threat around before, and he listened closely to try and understand why she stopped. All he heard was a woman panting harshly, but it sounded almost as though there was a rhythm to it. Mary signaled for him to get out of the car, and ordered him to grab some blankets, the first aid kit, and water bottles and follow her. They walked behind the locked public bathrooms, and found the woman squatting, with tears running down her face. Mary wasn’t very gentle or comforting, but she told the woman in a calm and confident voice that they were going to help. Neil didn’t do much, but he let the woman hold his hand and squeeze until he thought she would break it. He gave her sips of water between her contractions and did anything else his mother said. Once the baby was out, wrapped in a blanket, and in its mothers arms, Mary grabbed Neil and they left without another word to the woman. She stared after them, confused and grateful. Neil and his mother never spoke of it again.

I’ve been bitten by a camel (truth) - Neil and Mary spent a few days in Dubai to get some papers from a specialist there before traveling back to North America. The man did his business out of a racetrack where they held camel races. To get to his office, they had to travel through the back part of the track that the jockeys used to get the camels into position. Neil got too close to one of the camels and it bit his arm, luckily (or not), the jockey was in the middle of beating it and before it closed its mouth too tightly, landed a blow that caused the camel to immediately open its mouth again. Once he was freed, Neil was out of reach in a millisecond.

I can speak 7 languages (truth) - English, German, French, Russian, Hebrew, Czech, Greek. (To clarify he can speak 7 languages but he wouldn’t necessarily call himself fluent in all 7) We all know English, German, French, and Nora had a hc that Andrew and Neil learn Russian so they can talk to each other even with the cousins around which I love. Hebrew - In my hc Neil is jewish, as are Mary and Nathan. After running away, Mary didn’t know where to go once she had left her brother. She didn’t speak any other languages besides English, but she could understand Yiddish from hearing her grandparents and sometimes her parents speaking it growing up, and she could understand Polish from her time married to Nathan. She didn’t want to go to Poland in case any of Nathan’s contacts recognized her, so she decided to go to Israel. She knew there were communities there that spoke Yiddish and she was familiar if not comfortable with Hebrew from going to temple when she was younger. But most importantly she knew Nathan didn’t have any regular contacts there. While they were there, along with learning Hebrew, Mary pretended to be interested in converting to Greek Orthodox in order to get secret Greek lessons for her and Neil. After a while but sooner than she had hoped, Mary got a warning that Nathan had figured out where they were. She didn’t think it would be wise to go directly to Greece so she decided to move them to Prague next, since Czech and Polish are fairly similar and she really had no other ideas. While in Prague she continued her and Neil’s Greek lessons, and they went on to Greece eventually. Mary didn’t want them to lose any of the languages they learned, so she came up with a system that on certain days of the week they would speak to each other in certain languages. After Mary died, Neil pretty much gave up on Czech and Hebrew because he hadn’t been surrounded by them in so long and he hadn’t used either except with Mary since they moved from Prague or Israel. They had lived in Greece for longer than they had in Prague or Israel though, moving to a few different cities, so he felt stronger with Greek.

Fin. 

This is my first time writing anything fanfiction, my first time doing any creative writing at all really, and I would love any and all feedback!! Thanks for reading this long ass post, I hope it wasn’t terrible!!