#also if you missed it I edited her last card

[speedycoffeedelight]

An Animalistic Disaster

CH-17: Mr. Cottontail

Masterlist

Summery:

Where you recollect more of your memories and open a bunch of trading cards. And a duo might have figured out the reason behind transformation, but we'll see.

A.n : There's going to be some heavy lore drop here. So just brace yourself a little. Also from now, the animal's dialogues will be in italics so it's easy to understand. I'll get to editing the previous chapters as well.

"I swear to god...one of these morning I'm going to have a heart attack."

You grumbled while sitting and held your head in your palm. You looked at Cherri who was in a makeshift cage made from a big plastic basket, trying to shake it and screeching. She had to learn her lesson some way. Your head was still pounding right now.

Then you looked at Husk who was trying his best to fit into the biggest shirt you had. The buttons on his chest were holding on for dear life. Honestly, it kinda made you jealous.

Husk was a black man who seemed to in his late 40's or 50's. He had black hair pulled back with white streaks on them as well as a small goatee. He had light yellow eyes that looked tired as hell. And the muscles in his hand, holy shit, it looked like he could easily carry you up like a feather. Husk was easily the best thing of this morning.

He of course also had feline features like before. A pair of black cat ears and tail adorned his form. He also had slitted black eyes. His nails were a bit sharper too.

And of course neither of you were prepared for him to transform in middle of sleeping, nobody was. God the embarrassment and confusion you felt when you opened your eyes to see an old handsome man staring at you with sleepy eyes, just as confused as you were.

You would have immediately swooned if not for the fact that you didn't know this guy and the fact he was shirtless, on your fucking bed, cuddling you.

So you did the first thing that came to your mind. You let out a loud scream and pushed him off the bed. He landed on the ground in front of Charlie and others with a big thud. "Oof, what the hell-" Cherri burst out laughing beside you. 'Now that's more like it!'

"Husk are you alright?" Charlie immediately kneeled down to check for injuries. "Husk??" You pulled the cover to your chest and looked down to see him properly. But you quickly averted your gaze when you saw he was shirtless with just a pant on. But that image will forever be engraved into your simp brain.

So after that was all over, you learnt what happened and caged Cherri. She was grounded till she learnt her lessons. You rubbed your head in frustration as Niffty brought you a cup of coffee.

"Here you go miss (Y/n)!"

You thanked her and took a sip. She still looked at you like she was waiting for something. Confused, you raised an eyebrow.

"...Do you need something Niffty?"

"You didn't pat my head." She said it like it was obvious and kept looking at you with wide eyes. You got surprised at this answer. 'She wants to be petted??' but then you remembered she was part dog now and that's probably the reason she was acting like this.

You reached out and patted her head making her smile happily as she wagged her tail. 'Adorable~' you thought in your mind.

Last night's memory was a bit hazy to you. You rubbed your head in frustration trying to remember it. Angel climbed onto the table grinning at you.

'Toots, didn't know ya were such a lightweight. Haha, but you gave quite a show last night, I'll give ya that." Niffty translated it, making you more worried. You asked her to recount the things to you. Pentious joined you since he wasn't there last night as well.

" I did what?"

Last night's memory came flooding back to you bit by bit as you listened. You, you finally petted Alastor's ears! You couldn't believe it.

'What's with the screaming, my dear?'

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. You grinned as you turned to face the stag. "I finally patted you, you smiling bastard!" You mentally cheered as you looked at him with a prideful smile. Alastor felt his face get hot again at that memory and he bonked you on the head with his antlers.

"OUCH what was that for!"

After you finished eating, you drove Charlie off to the cafe. Apparently Vaggie knew how to drive so she went with you two so she could memorize the roads. Once she memorizes she could drive Charlie sometimes as well.

After waving her off at the shop, you quickly departed. You let Vaggie take the wheel this time while you gave directions. Vaggie was an excellent driver. You were quite impressed.

Charlie took a deep breath as she got dropped off and watched you two drive away." This is it Charlie. You gotta make them proud. Right, let's do this!"  she entered the store after mentally cheering herself.

"Oh hi there Charlie. Good to see you back."

Adrian gave her a warm smile as he was middle of cleaning. He put the broom he was cleaning with aside and guided her to the counter. He gave her a new apron to wear that had the cafe's name on it.

"Alright, I'll show you the ropes first time. Then it'll be up to you."

Charlie nodded and took the apron.

"Also won't you take off those horns and ears? You're in middle of work now."

She gulped, right, these weren't normal. But she hadn't practiced what to say during this. She thought it would be okay since they didn't question it before.

"Uh...can they please stay on? I promise you they won't cause any trouble!"

"Huh? Oh..okay then. I just thought it might be easier if you took them off."

Just then a ring sounded out from the door, signaling someone entered the shop. Adrian flashed Charlie a quick look while smiling.

"Come on, it's showtime!"

At evening, you went to go pick up Charlie. As Charlie was about to get into the car, Adrian called out to her.

"Charlie, wait!"

You and Charlie both looked at Adrian who rushed to you guys with a small bag.

"A small gift for your first day at work." He handed Charlie the bag and grinned.

"There's a piece of strawberry cake inside. Have a safe return home."

Charlie delightfully thanked him and got back into the car. While you were driving she told you about her experience which you listened to happily. It seemed like the day went pretty well. Even though there weren't much customers, Charlie enjoyed her time there. Plus from what you heard and saw, Adrian seemed to be a good boss.

The next day, you drove Charlie again as Vaggie sat with you. Pentious joined you this time as some of his works were done. Husk came as well to buy some clothes and as well as take a look at the human world. During the drive, Husk remembered something.

"Hey kid, I forgot to ask you this before but who the hell is cottontails?"

Those words hit you like a lightning as you brain started to overwhelm with memories. It's been a long while since you heard that name.

"W-where did you hear that name?"

"When you were holding me a day ago. You whispered you missed whatever it was."

"That was my pet bunny...I lost him when I was six. That night, my parents had a huge argument after dinner and we moved to my uncles house the very next day. In the end, I never knew what happened to it."

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You weren't allowed to keep pets when you were a child. Your dad claimed it would be a waste of time and it will take your attention away from your duties. One day, while you were walking outside on your lawn, you stumbled across a small frail baby bunny. There was only one and it looked like it didn't even have the energy to move. After looking around, you found no signs of any other rabbits around.

You found yourself in a pickle. Your heart cried to take it home and care for it. But another part of you warned that if your father found out, you'd be in big trouble. You picked up the small thing, lost in thought and whispering "What am I going to do with you little bunny? "

The bunny moved a little and sniffed your hand, making your heart swoon. You decided immediately "Heck with it! Having a small bunny will be fine! Plus they won't make any noises like kitties or doggies! I can do this! I'll just need to be careful!"

The bunny again stopped moving in your arms and seemingly fell asleep. Your eyes glazed over it, trying to think of a name.

"I think I'll call you....mr.cottontails!"

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Several months went by after getting mr.cottontails. You kept him under your bed. You always cleaned your own room by yourself so it wasn't a problem. You would let him run around your room once you locked the door and quickly hide him when someone was coming. Your dad was quite suspicious at how you looked so cherry recently but didn't question it. On the other hand, your mom was quite happy with this change in you.

Then one day, while you were on your way to your room after finished studying with your tutor, you spotted your dad. He seemed to be amused by something. He spotted you as well and gave you a smile.

"Isn't it a nice day today? Are you doing alright (Y/n)?"

You were taken aback by his sudden change of attitude but nodded and said everything was fine. Something was clearly wrong, you could feel it in your gut.

You rushed to your room after that and looked for your rabbit. It was gone... "Cottontail? Mr.cottontail??" You called out yet you couldn't spot the familiar ball of fluff running towards you like usual.

You spent the rest of the day trying to find him but no avail. There was no sign of him anywhere. And you couldn't even ask anyone else if they've seen him cause you're not supposed to have one in the first place.

Then your mind went to your father earlier, it had to him! That's why that damn man was smiling at you.

At dinnertime, you were fighting to keep your tears from coming out. You couldn't afford to let yourself be broken in front of him. You knew that he knew about you knowing what he did. He was just waiting for you to burst so he can properly punish you for going against his rules.

While your mom was serving you the stew for that night's dinner, she could sense something was wrong.

"(Y/n) dear, is everything alright?"

"Y-yes, mom, everything's fine. Don't worry."

"Of course everything's fine with her. (Y/n), today's stew is extra delicious, go ahead and try." Your dad said from across the table, grinning at you. You couldn't bear to look at this man's face properly. The rest of the dinner was quiet with you almost crying in the middle.

After you finished eating, you went straight to your room and locked the door and started crying. Sometime later, you heard your parents fighting over something. You pulled a pillow over you head to stop hearing to those as you sobbed harder.

You hated this. You hated screaming and fighting. You hated living here. You hated your dad. You hated it, hated it, hated it.

You wanted to go out and be with your mom. But you knew better then to do that. The last time you did, you just made things worse. You don't know after how long, it could have been several minutes or several hours, but your mom knocked on your door to tell you to pack and that you're leaving. The rest of the time went down in a haze and before you knew it, you both were standing in front of your aunt's house.

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After dropping off Charlie, you and Pentious went around shops to try and resell those fixed products and let Vaggie show Husk around a little. You successfully managed to resell some of the products.

After that, you bought some cloths for the bartender. Husk had been nagging you nonstop to buy some booze since the beginning. So you did, but you made him use his puppy eyes first. Husk hated every second of that but he swallowed down his pride for booze. He was too far gone at that point.

After coming home, you received a delivery of the cards you ordered. You immediately got down to opening them after squealing in happiness.

"Please give me an Alastor card.. please give me an Alastor card..."

"You really want Alastor's card that badly?" Charlie said laughing and sitting next to you.

"Of course I do! He's my favourite character!" You mumbled while collecting the packs from the box. Suddenly you could feel eyes on you from the back. You sighed.

"Alastor I can feel your smugness from here, stop it." You turned around at the deer behind you.

'I didn't do anything dear. I'm just standing here and observing ' Alastor had shit eating grin in his face. 'Though I am very much charmed you consider me as your favourite.'

"Someone tell me what he's saying. I know he's enjoying this too much." You picked up a pack and finally opened it.

Niffty translated it for you. "Yeah well I liked you better when you were in a cartoon, not annoying my ass off."

The first holo card you got was of Charlie's. Charlie's face lit up seeing it and immediately showed it to Vaggie. You got Angel, tom treanch and a new character called lute in too. After opening  three more packs, you were presented with holo Angel, Vellevette and razzle and dazzle. And you also found an ultra rare card of Lilith. Yet there was no sign of Alastor.

You were lucky enough to get normal cards for most of the cast present with you though. You handed them their own cards. Sighing you picked up the final pack and looked Alastor dead in the eye.

"You better be in here deer boy."

'Oh she means business this time angie.' Cherri chuckled leaning onto the spider. 'yeah and this shits hilarious to watch.' Both of their own cards were in front of them. Angel with his holo card and Cherri with the normal one.

"Is that a fucking condom you're holding there?" Husk was leaning down looking at Angel's card while pointing at it. Angel shot him a smug grin while wriggling his eyebrows. 'Yeah, it is. You like what you see here kitty?'

Husk didn't say anything and just knocked Angel away with a flick of his fingers. The corner of his lips turned up seeing how easily he can move angel away now.

'What, hey! What the fuck Husk?!'

"You deserved it."

With your heart pounding, you opened the last pack and pulled out the holo one. Others looked at you eagerly to see your reactions.

"I fucking got Alastor! Let's go!"

You jumped up on your bed from the excitement, surprising everyone.

"Look! Look! Alastor it's you!" You practically shoved the card in front of his face, making him take a step back. Before he could see clearly you took back the card to see it again while fangirling.

"Look at my little boy with all these creepy symbols around him! He's so pretty!" You were so happy that you couldn't care less that the real Alastor was right in front of you. Until Alastor nudged you on your head with his antlers and grabbed the card with his teeth.

"Hey, give it back!" You streached your hand to grab it but he turned around and placed the card on the table before you could do anything. He finally took a good look at his card. 'Hm, not bad.' You finally went to the table and snatched it back.

After you carefully stored the cards, you began preparing dinner while humming. Angel and Cherri was lazily sitting on the counter while looking at you.

'Hey Angel, how come we didn't transform yet? It sucks being in this form..'

'You tell me toots. That snake boy and kitty cat got to transform before I did. Now that's some bullshit right there.'

'There's gotta be some kinda link somewhere right?'

'There have to be! Wait..if we think about it... when they all transformed...they were all with (Y/n) right?'

'Shit, Angie you might be onto somethin'

You gave the guys their food. You had to drag Husk to the dinner table since he was passed out drunk on the couch. You called Pentious from outside as well. Recently he took on a new task. He volunteered to fix the shitty wooden sofa set you had. You were truly grateful for that.

During dinner, Cherri climbed on top of your right shoulder and Angel on left. You paused eating to look at them with confusion.

'We decided that we want to stay as close to (Y/n) we can from now on!'  Cherri said making everyone squint their eyes at them.

"Uh, guys...can y'all tell me what they're saying?"

Charlie translated it for you making you even more confused.

"But why?"

'Because we want to!'

Everyone just shook their head thinking this pair was just being their usual chaotic self. But you realised they weren't joking when you went to sleep and they both cuddled up to you, declaring they'll sleep there. Normally you'd think this was cute, however there were two problems.

One, is that, you might move in your sleep and accidentally squish these small creatures. Especially Angel.

Two, they were laying on your chest....

"Angel..Cherri...can I ask why you decided THIS would be a good place to sleep on?"

'What? Ya got nice pair of tit's and they make a nice pillow.'

'Plus Husk slept too did't he?'

Niffty who was sitting beside you translated it making you go blush madly. You quickly shoved them both away and pulled the cover closer to yourself.

"Fuck no. Pervert! I was drunk that time! Either sleep on a pillow next to me or get out of my room!"

At last they both slept next to you after you scolded them for some time. Next two days went the same way. Angel and Cherri were with you everywhere. They even tried to sneak into your shower before you found out and kicked them out. Currently they were both sitting on top of your kitchen counter, munching on nuts and fruits lazily. Husk was making himself a burger currently.

'Nothin's working...where did we go wrong?'

'We definitely missed something. Our plan was bulletproof! We're just missing one key point...'

'We spent the whole last two days with 'er twenty four hours. I think we have seen and know everything about her already! We even know how she almost cried while editing her news'

'Or how she tilts her head when she doesn't understand something?' Cherri piped in.

'or when she sings when she thinks no one was listening.' Angel said laughing. 'Oh her face is priceless when she gets caught. She still sometimes forgets that she lives with a whole bunch of demons now.'

'Have you noticed the BL manga's of her's-'

They continued chatting like this for a while, pointing out small details that you do, things that you like or dislike and laughing amongst themselves.

'Haha...that girl really is something..'

'Yeah, She's completely my type.'

'Ya might want to confess quickly then. Otherwise I might just steal her first ' Angel said winking. Cherri scoffed and bumped him with her tail.

'Hey what gives? I thought you were gay?'

'I am, But who am I to resist a sweet thing like her. She's an exception.'

' You already have Alastor and Husk to fawn over. Leave (Y/n) to me bastard.'

'No can do sweetheart. First come, first serve'

They both looked at each others eyes for a second then burst out laughing. It might seem like they were joking from the front, but they both knew they were seriously attracted to you.

Suddenly they both got engulfed in golden light. Husk stopped in the middle of biting his burger and looked at them wide eyed. Now in place of the spider and the squirrel, there were two humans.

Angel and Cherri looked at each other, wide eyed. Angel opened his mouth first.

"Shit I think I know the key behind transforming!"

A.n: Now I know there are tons of fanarts of human Husk with White skin but I'll always headcannon Husk as a black man, the same colour as his VA. And I'll die on this hill defending that.

Plus it's refreshing to have different veraites of race and colour presented (⁠~⁠‾⁠▿⁠‾⁠)⁠~

Also might go on a little break since some of my important college exams are coming up. Hope ya enjoyed the chapter ~

Tag list: @legostars @glowinthedarkbones1150 @darifes @aria-tempest @rainbowcake1212 @luxylucylou

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #38 | 2.27.24 ๋࣭⭑

How is it already almost March omfg.

Anyways Happy Valentine's Day month!!! This year, I was swamped with work, so I didn't get a chance to make Valentine's Day art. I did make a Valentine's piece last year though.

BUT we did have beloved @magunalafay make these Valentine's Day cards this year for the community!!! <3 If you missed it, well Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!

She made these as a gift, and I love her very much. Maguna u r so talented

This month was pretty busy for me, but I'm super happy with the progress made this month ^^ I feel like I've started the year off in a pretty good groove after it being all over the place for a hot second, yay!!!

This past month, Etza and Druk's routes. With the revamped demo finishing its revisions, it left a lot more time for me to focus writing on full route development.

If you missed the announcement, I FINISHED Etza's first draft!!! YAAAYYY!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!

That means 4/6 routes are finished in terms of the base writing, which is so exciting to MEEEEE. I've always seen Etza's draft as The Milestone because with their route finished, it would mean the four Central routes are done writing. And to me, while there's a good chuck of writing left, we are nearing the end of it.

There's only two routes left and that means it's about ~100k words which is CRAZY compared to when I had ~300k to write (:cries:). Even if that sounds like a lot, once I start chipping away at those routes, that 100k goes into the "double digits" aka 90k...80k... etc. and that makes me want to pee my pants

We also finished editing Druk's route, yay!!! So we reached a lot of milestones this month ^^

We are nearing the end of the Vui background commissions. It's very bittersweet; I'm so used to mentioning him in my devlogs now </3 There's only like 3(?) more BGs left for him to make, and then all of the BGs for the game will be finished. Very Wild! I think Alaris will have 25ish BGs, and they are all Stunning.

It's been a while since I showed you all a BG, so I'll give you all a preview of one I just got in!

Isn't it cozy? Guess whose house hehe

I personally have been doing a lot of sprite work this month to finish the final art assets for the demo. I added some expressions to Druk and Aisa that I'd been procrastinating (I don't even know why I was procrastinating them). And I finally finished Mom and Kimura's updated sprites! Patreon already saw them, but I'll show the new versions here too ^^

Preview of Mom (left) and Kimura (right) updated sprites. Now everyone's sprite styles are cohesive YAY!!

Aside from sprite work, much of my "art" time has been on finishing up/putting together the last of the screens for the GUI. Specifically, I got THIS BABY up and running. She is my crowning glory.

Memory Screen to Replay Unlocked Free Time Dates

Oh my god.... You all have NO IDEA how much of a pain this was to code. There is a transparency gradient going on in the left and right B&W previews (courtesy of community programming angel feniks/shawna).

And then the effort to have the Titles and Descriptions of the Previewed Date change tilted me on Multiple Occasions. But we finally got it to work thanks to bestie @siyo-koy pointing out I just coded one stupid "if" statement wrong LJAFSLIEFJIEJ. But the effort was WORTH IT because I'm so proud of her!!! I hope you all like it too as a way to relive Free Time Dates. I had a lot of fun with the Titles and descriptions.

I also put together the Stats and Affection Screens

Preview of Personality Stats & Affection Screens

So I coded both of them a bit differently from each other. The Personality Screen shows you a breakdown of your traits so far. Think of it like a pie graph! So in the preview picture, your choices indicate you are 33% Brave, 16% Charismatic, etc. I felt like this was a more natural way to portray personality rather than how many bravery points you've collected so far!

And then for Affection, it works in a more traditional way, where it counts it based on how many you've gotten out of the total amount you can get. This way, as the story progresses, how close you are to the person reflects how much your relationship as developed!

I've also added little descriptions underneath each that change depending on the percentage. So for example, if you have gotten 82% of the affection points for Kuna'a, the description of your relationship might change as well hehe

Other than that, I've mainly focused on getting the demo together. We released the beta demo earlier this month (? LOL). And the feedback has been so kind!!

A lot of this month was spent polishing so that the demo can be ready for early access and eventually public release. I updated sprites, made sure music crossfades with each other so that transitions between soundtracks feel smoother, I added/polished all of the screens I needed to (e.g., Memory Room, Full Credits, Cleaning Music Room, Adding Stats Screens), and I FINALLY as of yesterday added the Voiced Lines!!

One thing I added in the Extended Demo that I'm really happy with is the use of Extended Pronouns (courtesy of Angel Feniks). Below is a preview of how it works now!

Preview of Extended Pronouns Function. Credit to Feniks

Basically, you can choose multiple pronouns for yourself, including custom pronouns (e.g., xe/xem, fae/faer, etc.). On top of that, you can choose how often you'd like the pronouns to alternate (e.g., every line versus every scene) and what kind of terms you'd like to be used for you (e.g., neutral vs. masculine vs. feminine)!

Overall, the demo is getting closer and closer to release!!! Early Access will hopefully be ready by the end of this week or next, so if you all would like access to it, please feel free to subscribe to my Patreon for this upcoming month! Available to Wyvern tier ($5) and up.

I didn't have any time to really play any games this month because I was drowning in work LMFAOSLJIEF. I did play the Threads of Bay demo by @lavendeerstudios and it was GORGEOUS! Very cute game with lovable characters and charming visuals. Andrew, I will have your number

Every other section was really long, so I'm going to throw it here even though it's not market research. But Intertwine recently hit 600 ratings, which is crazy. Thank you for still enjoying that game even if it's not one that is my main focus anymore. I'm really happy people still like it :on the verge of tears:

Anyways, this has been a long devlog. Here's to continuing to Ball in March. Hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you soon! <3

[daisys-reality]

[ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴀ ᴘɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ ]

What is the missing piece?

Here is another pac reading focused on your reality shifting / manifestation journey !! I hope you find some useful advice/words in here! I wish you all the best 💛 If you like to read more pac readings from me, feel free to check out my masterlist ! (Also, for your information, I don't own any of these cool pics, I just edited them a little.)

:: pile one

seven of cups, queen of cups, (the world)

Hello my dear pile one. You currently seem to be or feel like you’re underwater…in the depths of the ocean. You’re losing your sense of orientation, the pressure is getting higher, pitch black darkness around you, everything seems to be uncertain - is that light in the distance a prey or a predator? You may be faced with a lot of choices but you’re not sure what will benefit you and what not. Not only the pressure might rise but also the desperation, your inner world gets messier and messier. But being overly cold or overly dependent on something is not the solution. You’ve started to bottle up more and more feelings, ignoring everything and getting lost in daydreaming, - things that give you quick pleasure but sadly nothing long-lasting. 

I asked what the missing piece for you on this journey is to reach your goal/desire and I got the Queen of Cups. She is someone who is warmhearted and emotionally secure. She is in tune with the emotions of herself (and others). She has this motherly vibe around her and is supportive of herself and her growth and honors her authentic self. The type of person that values the intangible over the material things in life. Someone leading their life with a strong intuition. No judgment here. The QoC welcomes everything with open arms and provides guidance and emotional support. That’s what you need to work towards in your last steps. Be the queen of cups towards yourself. Work through your emotional insecurities. Feel those feelings and don’t ignore them. Guide yourself compassionately through these dark waters. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Calm yourself and your inner world down, give yourself a hug every now and then, okay? You’ve come so far already. All this confusion might have made yourself feel like you’re back to zero and everything was for nothing but that is not true. If I had to ‘rate’ how far you are on your journey (but don’t take this too seriously, it's a general reading!), I would say 7+ out of 10. You know, this ‘dark foggy’ part of your journey is like the darkness before dawn. I’ve got the world card as confirmation for this. All your work will be paid off and you’ll feel a sense of closure soon once this cycle has come to an end. You will start seeing the big picture and where you’re standing in the world around you. It will all make sense soon.

:: pile two

the hermit, the high priestess

Hello my dear pile two. Let’s see where you are right now…You seem to be in a period of introspection and self discovery - nice! I see you evaluating how things are going and whether or not to change direction - for example if you’re working on reality shifting, I see contemplating on your script and what you really want to experience and what not. You’re trying to look inward, researching, planning carefully (I wanna say scripting carefully lol).  You might have been in this withdrawn kinda hermit mood for some time already. You took some time to soul search for your true desires - which is a really good thing! You might have also deepened your relationship with spirituality overall and meditated etc. (I felt the need to say that you’re doing so well!)

I asked what the missing piece for you on this journey is to reach your goal/desire and I got the High Priestess. Very interesting... in this tarot deck I own, the High Priestess is represented by a white owl emerging from the pitch black background while holding a scroll with its feet. It’s the scroll of knowledge. The HP is the ruler of the unconscious and beckons us to pass through the veil and look inward - which you’re kinda doing already! But there is a slight difference between the HP and the Hermit (which represents where you are rn). I believe with the Hermit you entered this pitch black space, looked inward, mentally planned a lot etc. Your approach was more practical in a sense and you were very cautious (intense scripting lol). You found out new things and gathered knowledge, right? So, you have captured this scroll of knowledge. Now, you need to leave this darkness with this scroll like the owl did. You need to get a bit more abstract so to say because the HP is more linked to one’s intuition. The HP has a deep connection with her inner core and has all the necessary knowledge within, she just needs to access it through her intuition - so with her, everything becomes more intuitive! You will leave this practical planning mode more and more and start listening to your inner voice - just acting intuitively. It might not make much ‘sense’,  it’ll just happen in a mysterious way - just like your desire (your shift, lucid dream, manifestation,...) will manifest randomly soon I think. Also, you’re asked to pay more attention to your dreams and instincts in this upcoming period. You’re accessing your unconscious potential more and more. Another thing I got, specifically for my shifters, was to stop comparing realities because it leads to you spiraling in negativity (which I think you’re already aware of). As I rated how far pile one is on their journey, I will do so too for you, pile two (but don’t take this too seriously, it's a general reading!), … out of 10, you would probably be at 9 but really close to the 10!!! like for some it’s like 9,9999 lmao. Wow, you’ve got this, pile two! You’re super duper close :’)

:: pile three

ten of swords, the magician

Hello my dear pile three. Right now, I see you feeling like you’ve reached rock bottom, down on your knees. :(  It seems like you feel like you recently experienced a crushing ‘failure’ or you felt majorly betrayed or backstabbed by someone …or something? By the universe? Right now might feel like a disaster to you… there are some repressed feelings building up like anger, frustration…which seems to push you more and more closer to the edge… are you feeling like you snap soon or that you’re losing it completely? I’m so sorry dear that you’re feeling this way but you’re asked to be mindful of not making yourself into a martyr because of this. 

I asked what the missing piece for you on this journey is to reach your goal/desire and I got the Magician. The Magician card talks all about willpower. He already has all the things to achieve his goals - ambition, skills and resources! He just needs to utilize those things to create what he wants in life! You might feel like you're back to zero or that everything has been in vain but this is not true!! The 10 of Swords card (which represents where you are rn) might not be the most happy or comfortable situation to be in but it is a 10 and 10s in tarot always represent the completion of a lesson and the beginning of a new cycle/journey in some way - both physical and spiritual. You know what this means? You’ve learned your lessons and you’re completing this cycle, you’re close to the end! What you’re experiencing is like a ‘purge’ - you’ve gained the necessary knowledge, you’ve experienced many changes of perspective which might have made you question yourself a lot but it was for the learning process. Now, you’re releasing everything from this journey that attached itself to you which you won’t need anymore on this new upcoming journey… feelings of resentment, hopelessness, self doubt etc. This right now is the ending and that’s why it feels so shitty. Take your time and don’t rush this process, your feelings are legitimate. Let these wounds heal and move on… Move on from the 10 of Swords to the Magician. Gain your willpower back. You won’t need to hold back anymore, be in charge of your life and your reality. Take action and concentrate on your desire/your goal and be creative with it. Realize that you’re not powerless! And you’re not lacking clarity! You will know exactly what you want I can assure you. You are in charge and you will succeed. All the signs are saying so. As I rated the progress of the other piles as well, I will rate how far you are on your journey to your goal/desires (but don’t take this too seriously, it's a general reading)… and damn I got 9/10 for you guys!! You are close to the finish line! Please don’t undermine what you’ve been through and how far you’ve come just because right now feels like a disaster to you. You’ve done so well. Work through your feelings and don’t forget to pat yourself on your shoulder every now and then, okay? You’ve got this. :)

:: pile four

king of wands, the high priestess

Hello my dear pile four. Currently, your position or situation is represented by the King of Wands. He is the king of the fire element, he is a natural born leader and a visionary who can change the world. He is very much focused on his goals and lives his life with ambition and intent. You’re very eager to reach this goal you have in mind. You might be very active, trying out many methods and just being bold in your approach. You have a vision and you just wanna take control of the situation. In this mood,  you’ve probably already overcome many challenges and made major progress! 

I asked what the missing piece for you on this journey is to reach your goal/desire and I got the High Priestess similar to pile two. However, yours and pile two’s current standpoints are different. While pile two needs to progress from their practical (planning) approach to a more intuitive approach; you guys (pile four) need to progress from your overly action-oriented approach to a more ‘passive’ approach so to say. The High Priestess talks about intuition, higher power, hidden mysteries, the subconscious mind and the inner voice. She teaches us that the world is not always as it seems and that more profound influences are often at play. It is time to be still so you can tune in to your intuition. The HP has a deep connection with her inner core and has all the necessary knowledge within, she just needs to access it through her intuition. Slow down, meditate and visualize. Listen to your inner voice. Solutions to your current issues won’t come through excessive thinking or rationalizing, but by tapping into and trusting your intuition. Look at areas in your life that may be out of balance or lacking ‘flow’ and ease. Be assured you’re on the right path. The more you listen, the more you will flow. Balance yourself. Feel, rather than think. Collaborate, rather than compete. Trust your divine feminine energy, even if the masculine energy around you may appear to be stronger. You’ve been in the King of Wands (very masculine) energy up until now and you’ve made great progress but only so far. From here on, you need to be more in the High Priestess (very feminine) energy. Your intuition, your instincts and even your dreams may guide you now in the right direction. Calm your inner fire a little down, connect to your inner core and work through any repressed feelings. As I rated the progress of the other piles as well, I will rate how far you are on your journey to your goal/desires (but don’t take this too seriously, it's a general reading!)… I’d say ca. 3- 4 out of 10 but don’t let this discourage you! Most of you guys might still be in the beginning phase or it just hasn't been long since you’re decided on engaging yourself with these things. I feel like some of you will soon make major progress in a short amount of time though. I also feel like a minor part of you guys are actually quite far but it is just… idk 5-10 % of pile three. Either way, don’t take the numbers too much to heart, please focus more on the advice. You’ve got this. I believe in you. :)

[pleasantlyinsincere]

John and Julian (and Cyn) through the '70s

Last edited on 8 October 2023. All edits listed at the end. Text in between [ ] are my thoughts.

Since John and Yoko had moved into Tittenhurst in August '69 Julian often spend weekends with them there.

"And then I'd live for the weekends I spent with my dad and his new love Yoko at Ascot. My feeling toward their relationship was helped by the way I was treated. I was given incredibly expansive toys to play with and there was always something happening." Julian, 1982

Cynthia describes that she was relieved that Julian got on reasonably well with Yoko, but she was concerned by some of the more bizarre stories of what was going on at Tittenhurst park.

"One of the hardest aspects of letting Julian visit John was accepting that Yoko would presumably look after him when he was there. I didn't know what he would make of her cool manner. But in fact he seemed fine with it, and perhaps it was better for him to have a rather distant step-mother than one who was all over him. He never told me that she was unkind in any way, which was a relief. After that first weekend Peter rang regularly to arrange visits for Julian. Much to my amusement Julian had started to call Yoko Hokey-Cokey." Cynthia Lennon: John, p.314

Photos of Julian at Tittenhurst in 31 January 1970. [John and Yoko only returned from Denmark January 27th, so Julian came to see them the first weekend back.]

Rest of the timeline including pics, quotes and audio behind the cut because it got ridiculously long.

23 February 1970

An article is published in the Evening Post talking about Julian and Kyoko. It mentions that in 1969 there were four months that father and son didn't get to see each other and also spent Christmas apart.

Some quotes from John:

"Julian, last time I saw him, was a bit too protected, like all kids are. It took him two weeks to unwind, when he was last with us." "I'm not a daddy with a set of bricks to play with. When I'm with the kids, they just come along with me and be with me, whatever I'm doing." Link to article

March 1970

Over the New Year John and Yoko had spent some weeks in Denmark with Tony Cox, his new partner and Kyoko. That arrangement had worked quite well and it seems it motivated John and Yoko to try to get closer with Cynthia and Roberto also. It seems in the end not much came of these good intentions.

Up until now, when Julian came to spend the weekend at Tittenhurst Park, it was Les Anthony who shuttled him back and forth between his parents. However, shortly after their return from Denmark, John and Yoko made a conscious effort to spend time with Julian, Cynthia and her fiancé Roberto Bassanini. John later remarked: "All five of us ate together and we saw to it that the children see us all together. Maybe six of us will go on vacation with Kyoko. Julian, Cyn and Roberto, so that everyone feels secure. That's very important. In order to have peace, it's necessary to start inside the family." Lennonology, source L'Express [3/23/70]

Instead John and Yoko left for LA 23 April 1970 to undergo Primal Scream therapy with Janov. They stayed for almost five months in the US and returned to England 15 September 1970.

June 7th, 1970

While John and Yoko are in LA doing their therapy with Janov. One of the topics discussed was John's troubled relationship with his son.

The meeting, which Vivian Janov describes as 'a very strong emotional day for him,' had taken place in April, and John was making an effort to maintain communication with his son. From Los Angeles, John posted a card to Julian today: 'I'm sorry I haven't called or written much. I've been a little sick. We miss you a lot, and send you our love... won't be long till I see you'. Lennonology

After the return from the US in September Julian continued to regularly visit Tittenhurst. During those visits he usually played a lot with Les Anthonys four stepchildren, who at the time were also living on the estate.

"Once Dad had a little white shed built on an island in the middle of a lake on the grounds of the house. He had bought these little white amphi-cars that sped across the lake. The three of us all dressed in white to spend the day there. Crazy, but wonderful."Julian, 1982

In this interview Julian describes going over to Tittenhurst just to be an idiot with his dad but also how scary the big house and his bedroom situation could be to him at night.

[The floorplan of Tittenhurst (LINK) actually shows Julian's room just across the hallway from John and Yoko's room but half a stairway down. There's not really a closer bedroom and he may have been put there, so that he has his own bathroom. It being so far away, small (somewhere he or Cynthia call the room a closet) and scary are after all the memories from a child's point of view.]

For the most part the visitation arrangements seemed to have continued in 1971. In the summer, when John and Yoko were filming for the imagine documentary, Julian can be seen roaming the property with his friends.

Saturday, July 17th, 1971 With the cameras rolling, John and Yoko roamed the Tittenhurst Park grounds in a golf cart with Jill Johnston. As promised, Blue Pools delivered the new lake house, and the Lennons spotted location. More footage was taken of the house under construction, the Lennons and Johnston rowing on the lake, and Julian and the neighbor children reading excerpts from Grapefruit on camera and running amok in the fields. Lennonology

Lennonology

Julian Lennon: Tittenhurst was this enormous palace-like place with 99 acres, golf-cart buggies, a lake, a little island in the middle of the lake. It was like a house of fun. It was wonderful. I loved the place.

LINK to a longer version of the quote but in German. Not adding much just both John and Julian sharing a mutual love for Dr. Pepper at the time, playing the mellotron and the children daring each other to enter a 'haunted' building on the property.

It's also at Tittenhurst that Julian meets May Pang, who had started working for John and Yoko as an assistant through ABKCO in NY and had come to England as a messenger to bring film rolls.

"There were a lot of great moments at Tittenhurst that I do fondly remember, you know, giggling and laughing with Dad. And, as they say, shooting the shit. But it was difficult to know, you think, 'OK, well, is this going to stay? Is this what it's going to be, now? Can I count on this? Can I be here next weekend or the weekend after? Is that going to happen?' That was one of the, obviously, the hardest pill to swallow, was the constant change. You know, you thought things were going to settle down, but they just never quite did." Julian, 2018

"I lived an ideal life between then [Cyn and Roberto] and John and Yoko, but it all ended when Cynthia's marriage broke up and Dad and Yoko moved to the States." Julian, 1982

The big cut happens when on August 12th 1971 John and Yoko leave for NY and take up residence in the St. Regis Hotel.

At first their plan was to search for Kyoko, so that she too could come for visits at Tittenhurst like Julian. In September John and Yoko appeared on the Dick Cavett show and briefly talked about their wish that both their children could be with them.

Maybe a Christmas present:

Christie's auction

[In her Lost Weekend doc, May talks about Julian calling and Yoko not allowing her to put the call through to John. She says at that point they hadn't spoken for a couple of years. Then a few weeks later she is in the audience for George Harrison's appearance on Dick Cavett. The show is aired in November '71, so if there is anything to her anecdote she may mean they hadn't seen each other for two months instead of two years.]

26 May '72

"Lennon admits that he is scared to say too much publicly about the case, because it was the initial publicity that had spurred Cox to vanish. He talks about how hard it is for Ono to see pictures of her daughter: I have to hide them. Asked about his own son, Julian, he says: I don't have that 'where the hell is he?' bit. But he reveals that when they were in England, and Julian visited them every weekend, it was difficult for Ono to be with him when her own daughter wasn't there: It was killing her." source

28 May '72

Cynthia quoted in a Sunday paper: "John hasn't seen Julian since he went to America. It is rather a long time. He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now. He does write to Julian, just normal letters, asking how he is getting on at school and things like that. And he sends him presents. He sent him a toy truck at Christmas. I don't keep in touch with John anymore. It's purely through Julian that we keep in contact. Julian loves his father. He follows his career in the newspapers. He goes to a private boys' school where people don't bother who he is. He went to a state school but he had problems there."

14 June '72

Cyn's complaints are repeated in the LA times, where it said that John hadn't seen Julian in eight months. "He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now."

On 22 September '73 John and May leave for LA and only a few days later on 2 October '73 it is reported in the newspaper that Cyn separated from Roberto Bassanini.

Cynthia gave some interviews on her recent separation and the fact that she and Julian moved back to Hoylake, where Julian goes to private school.

"Unhappily Julian misses his father, which is only natural. We only hear from John at Christmas and when the birthdays come around." 7 October '73, Sunday Mirror

"Julian is always asking after him but of course John is in America now. It's been hard for him not seeing John for several years. This sort of thing is naturally upsetting for a child." 7 October '73, Sunday People

According to May's book, while John had broken up with her, she went to the Dakota to be with Yoko. Yoko there told her that she had decided it was time for Julian to come for a visit and May should at least reunite with John for that period to help him with it. May agreed to go back to John for two weeks, but it ends up being more like a year.

Christmas gift '73

To Julian from Daddy Christmas 1973

[Julian has sold an NFT of the black guitar. LINK ]

Shortly after Christmas '73 Julian and Cyn travel to LA to spend his school holidays with his father. They stay at least until the Happy Days taping they visit together on 5 February '74.

During the over a month long visit May writes, that they went to Disneyland three times and had brunch together the first morning. Meanwhile John is still having some wild times. Since Julian is staying with Cynthia, he goes out with May. The Kotex incident and nearly killing Jesse Ed Davis happen at the same time of this visit. May also places Cynthia asking John to have another child together during this trip.

As the visit ends May makes John promise to call Julian regularly.

"It is the right thing to do. I promise you, Fung Yee." He was silent for a while, then John said suddenly, "I really would like to keep in touch with me son." May Pang, Loving John p.168

Julian too, took a lot of positive out of the meetings around this time.

"Mum and I flew out to the States and stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. At least Mum did, I spend every minute of every day with my Dad and Yoko. " Julian, 1982

In later recollections Julian correctly puts the first visit in the time-frame that John was with May.

“Dad and I got on a great deal better than,” recalls Julian. “We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang: Loving John. About this visit and how it was set up.

In April 74 Julian sends a Thank you tape to John and Yoko for his birthday gift. Even though John is with May at this time, the present it seems was sent from the married couple.

The present in question according to Julian was a guitar, decorated with a mirror, writing and other stuff:

John writes to Cyn 22 June '74 a typed letter asking about Julian's holiday plans. Interestingly as the return address he gives the Dakota. He wants to send May to bring Julian.

19/20-25 July 1974 Instead of being collected by May, Julian sails with Elton John, Tony King, and Cyn per boat from Southampton to New York.

[In her book Cynthia wrongly remembers this as her first visit with John in the US. She also claims this visit was completely her initiative, which as proven by the letter wasn't the case. The whole anecdote is interesting however because she says that it was never the plan to stay with Julian, John and May but stay in NY with Jenny Boyd. Jenny apparently wasn't told about that plan, because in the end she wasn't there to home Cynthia. (May on the other hand remembers that Cynthia was staying with friends but they left without her and she was lonely, so she ended up coming with them.) In the end (and to John probably rightly or wrongly suspiciously) what was planned as just a trip for Julian with his dad turned into Cynthia coming along most of the time.]

Cynthia'a account about how this meeting was set-up and why she was with them during the trip.

Tony King in The Tastemaker simply writes: “John Lennon wanted to see his son, so I took Julian and John’s ex-wife Cynthia along with me.”

August 6th '74

John, May, Cyn and Julian return to LA for John to record Goodnight Vienna with Ringo.

In the summer while working on Walls and Bridges Julian visits the studio. He records Ya Ya with his dad.

Little interview bit with Julian about being in the studio.

August 19th, 1974

John and May take a trip to Denver. Instead of coming with them Julian stays with Cyn in LA.

When the whole vacation is coming to a close, it is decided that Julian should come for another visit for Christmas. John is clear that he wants him to come alone.

Both May Pang and Cynthia wrote about this visit in their memoirs. [Cynthia is clearly mixing up and merging the first and second trip together in her recollection of it.]

Cynthia's account.

May's account.

December 19th, 1974

Julian, accompanied by Apple staffer Steve Brendell, arrived in NY on this day for Christmas with John and May. Mimi was also invited but declined to come.

While they were in NY Yoko also came by because she wanted to greet Julian.

John, May and Julian flew to Florida on December 22. Lennon said he accepted Levy's Florida invitation "because I was so worn out anyway" from back-to-back studio projects "that I didn't know what to do with my son Julian." John figured that at Disney World, "I could sort of sit in a room or something and Julian could play with Morris's kid." John's quotes are from his trial testimony Big Seven Music Corp, 75Civ, 1116; In Stan Soocher Baby You're a Rich Man, Suing the Beatles for Fun and Money

Until 29 December they spent time in Palm Beach and later returned to Orlando (Disney World).

During this visit, Julian was helpful in influencing John and George making up and the thus the dissolution agreement of the Beatles coming along.

Julian remembers his Christmas visit with John and May fondly: “My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear - they were the happiest time I can remember with them.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang in Loving John on this visit.

Cynthia writes about this visit in her book.

Video from May Pang's Lost Weekend documentary. [She says Long Island but I guess it's Palm Beach.]

In early February 1975 John moves back into the Dakota and resumes his marriage with Yoko.

John gives an interview to SPIN magazine in early spring 1975. In it he is asked about his private life, his recent return to Yoko, what his relationship with May is like now, and also about Julian:

How about you as a father? How old is your son [Julian] now? He is 11 now. All I know is that you took him to Disneyworld … right? Yeah, that was hell. Disneyland was better, the first time, in L.A., I took him there. Because I went with a gang, and there were a few of us who were flying a little. But Disneyworld — I was there on the most crowded day of the year, around Christmas or something. Seeing him is good. What we do is irrelevant. I went through a period of, “What are we gonna do?” and all that crap. It doesn’t really matter. As long as he’s around. Cause I don’t see him that often. How is it for an 11-year-old boy to have John Lennon as a father? It must be hell. Does he talk about that to you? No, because he is a Beatle fan. I mean, what do you expect?? I think he likes Paul better than me … I have the funny feeling he wishes Paul was his dad. But unfortunately he got me … It must be hard to be son of anybody. He is a bright kid and he’s into music. I didn’t encourage him, but he’s already got a band in school. But they sing rock’n’roll songs, ’cause their teacher is my age. So he teaches them “Long Tall Sally” and a couple of Beatles numbers. He likes Barry White and he likes Gilbert O’ Sullivan. He likes Queen, though I haven’t heard them yet. He turns me on to music. I call him and he says, “Have you heard Queen?” and I say “No, what is it?” I’ve heard of them. I’ve seen the guy … the one who looks like Hitler playing a piano … Sparks? I’ve seen Sparks on American TV. So I call him and say, “Have you seen Sparks? Hitler on the piano?” and he says, “No. They are alright. But have you seen Queen?” and I say “What’s Queen?” and then he tells me. His age group is hipper to music … at 11 I was aware of music, but not too much.

Link to the SPIN interview

March 11th 1975

John is interviewed by Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test. He sends greetings to Julian, Mimi and the rest of his family in England.

30 July 1975

About Julian ... I'm lucky if I see/hear from him myself. She allowed him over here twice last year ... but insisted on coming herself! You can imagine how thrilling that was ... she thought she could walk back in coz I wasn't with yoko!! Now we're back together again she stops him phoning me ... which he did a lot last year ... once a week. He's a bright little boy ... a bit 'sneaky' like his dad ... but he's gonna need that to survive his mother! Our relationship is pretty good --- he knows where I am and what my life is like ... he thinks of me a litlle too much in terms of 'money' etc ... which is what cyn and her mother (so called) have taught him (by example). He will run right to me when he's older ... we all run somewhere ... so I can wait. I got him well hooked on America ... which isan extraordinary place to say the least ... more on that in other letters perhaps. Oh yes the baby is due in November! Conceived feb 6. I tried to send Julia to see julian ... she was given the cold shoulder. When I get to England I'll show you them both. I would love to see yours. Letter to Leila, John Lennon Letters edited by Hunter Davies

After only five months being back with Yoko, communication with Julian has become more sporadic again. To his cousin Leila John complains that it's Cynthia keeping Julian from calling and about her tagging along the previous year. He also claims that he sent Julia to check in on Julian.

Julia Baird in a '83 interview confirms John's claim to Leila, that he hadn't heard from Julian and sent his little sister to check up on him.

"He kept asking in letters and on the phone, 'Please will you go and see Julian? Will you go and see Julian? Will you go see and see Julian? I haven't heard from Julian. His mother's got a cob on. Can you please go and see what's going on?' [...] Anyway eventually Aaron persuaded me that I should go. He was the one that when we got another letter asking, 'Have you been to see Julian yet?', he said, 'Look, he's never asked you to do anything. I think you should go.' [...] We went and John had given us the address, I didn't know where it was. And she seemed very embarrassed to see me. In fact so much so, that I backed off. I just said, 'Is Julian there, please? I'd like to see him.' And she said, 'No, he's gone out.' And I just said, 'Well goodbye, then.' It was very odd, very bizarre."

In her memoir Cyn doesn't mention John sending family to check on them but has an opposing recollection of who was unreachable:

"Initially he did: he phoned Julian as before, every few weeks. But the calls became less frequent, and all too often when Julian tried to phone John he couldn't get through. Yoko, or one of their employees, would tell him that John was sleeping or busy. Discouraged, Julian would wait weeks before trying again. " Cynthia Lennon, John p. 346

1 May '76

Cyn marries John Twist. John and Yoko send a telegram: "Congratulations, good luck, God bless the three of you, John and Yoko.”

According to Cynthia a few weeks later John calls her to invite Julian over for a visit during the school holidays to meet his brother. Yoko and John take the children for a holiday to Long Island. Cynthia also writes that Julian was mugged during his stay in NY, when John told him to go out by himself to buy a harmonica he wanted.

Photos of Julian with John and Yoko in summer 1976.

The only other person I have read mention the '76 visit is John Green in Dakota Days.

As the apartment at the Dakota grew more crowded, John retreated to the quieter and more spacious southern shore of Long Island. He took Sean with him and brought Julian over from Britain. Yoko kept him posted with a barrage of phone calls. "How goes the war, Charles?" he chimed into the receiver. "No casualties so far. How goes the peace?" "Great. It's absolutely beautiful. I've got a bit of sea and a bit of green and my sons, and even once in a while I even have my wife. You should come out here and get some of this. It's delightful." Dakota Days, p.97

[Aside from Cynthia's and Green's brief mentions of the trip, there is very little information on this NY visit. Even Robert Rosen, who supposedly read John's diaries multiple times, has nothing to say about this or the '77 visits. He even claims repeatedly that Julian and John first reunited in 1979 and hadn't seen each other for four years at that point.]

One of Julian's memories that most likely fits this visit:

Julian first played piano when he was thirteen, visiting his father and Yoko in Montauk, Long Island, after Sean, his half brother, was born. Their next-door neighbor had a piano, and Julian and his father went there one day. Lennon played a couple of tunes, then Julian asked, "Can I have a go?" Julian to Rolling Stone, 1985

Another one that Julian doesn't connect to a date but he remembers the new situation after his little brother was born:

[Yoko] was very loving towards me, even after their son Sean was born. Right at the beginning I felt a few pangs. They were there with their own son. Where did I fit in? But every time I went over Dad would lay on amazing treats, and Yoko was always loving towards me." Julian, 1982

In the same interview Julian also tells the story of his dad offering him a joint when he was about 12, so that might have also been the '76 visit, or the '74/'75 Christmas visit.

Cynthia claims she had trouble getting the money she was supposed to use for Julian's school. She asked John to split the trust fund, so that she can withdraw money from it easier. John agreed.

Cynthia publishes the letter in her book John and calls it "cautious, polite and to the point":

"I explained that, as he and Yoko were out of the country, it was impossibly difficult for me to get at Julian's money: 'Nothing can proceed without your signature - it means I'm forever overdrawn at the bank and have to wait on the convenience of your lawyers ... I want the best for Julian, and his standard of life shouldn't suffer because of lack of good management on your part, which has been happening since the fund was set up ... The money, instead of having doubled through good investment, is dwindling through lack of interest on your part ... It's just so important that this whole arrangement is sorted out without animosity or aggravation ... The way things are going Julian's financial prospects when he is 25 will be virtually nil and he is going to want to know why... It is one thing fighting for your rights but totally ridiculous fighting against your own son's interests, which is what seems to be happening.' "

[She says she ends the letter with thanking them for arranging the Concorde flight for Julian last summer. However according to wiki Concorde didn't fly to NYC until November 1977. (That years Christmas John and Yoko do indeed book a Concorde flight for Julian.) So I suspect that her supposed letter is specifically written for her book and not an actual document as the presentation suggests.]

In mid-October Cynthia gives an interview to Woman magazine that also got picked up in multiple newspapers. In it she talks about their relationship splitting after their first LSD trip, John getting upset with Julian when he couldn't eat with a knife, alleges that she was being followed by a private detective in Italy,...

A report on the article in the Burton Daily Mail from 19 October '76 also quotes Cynthia as saying:

"Since then their relationship has been beautiful," she says. "They talk a lot on the phone, there've been other visits and he's going again this year. I believe now that John is completely off all drugs, has been off them for years, otherwise I'd never let Julian go."

[He's going again this year indicates that there was another visit planned in 1976. If that happened or fell through, I haven't found anything about that.]

October 25th, 76

John sends Julian a postcard from Singapore. “What happened to ya?”

Even though the previous few months there was a visit and positive communication about the finances, Cynthia's decision to publicly complain in the papers angered John. He responded on November 26th 1976 with an open letter in the Daily Mail.

"Lennon tells first wife: Stop blaming Yoko," it read: "As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of LSD or Yoko Ono. Your memory is impaired to say the least. Your version of our first LSD trips is rather vague. You seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether. You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko Ono, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence. During that visit you didn't allow me to be alone with him for one moment. You even asked me to remarry you and give you another child 'for Julian's sake.' I politely told you no and that anyway I was still in love with Yoko. Finally, I don't blame you for wanting to get away from your Beatle past, but if you are serious about it you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers. We did have some good years so dwell on them for a change."

Cynthia answers to the press after this, saying she doesn't want them to throw mud at each other and repeated "All I want to do is forget the Beatles and enjoy my present life". Still, only a few months later in 1977 she starts to write A Twist of Lennon (allegedly gleefully on a typewriter Yoko had gifted Julian). In her later memoir John she writes she was persuaded to do it by her husband John Twist who believed it would make their fortune.

Julian is sent to boarding school for that time. [In her book John Cynthia explicitly remembers that she moved to Ireland to write. However newspaper reports from the time suggest that the move happened later. So, probably Julian wasn't boarding at this time but those months in '78.]

At the same time communication between John and Julian was happening regularly and according to his diaries he got excited by the idea of buying Julian a keyboard.

July 14th, 1977

December 25th 1977

Julian comes by Concorde to stay at the Dakota during his school holidays.

[At the time of Julian's visit John and Yoko were still helped by the FBI to deal with the kidnapping threat and extortion attempt that had been going on for weeks and scared them badly. Also, Tony Cox had made contact by phone and agreed that Kyoko could visit for these holidays but then disappeared again and John would never hear again from Kyoko. I don't know if Julian was told any of this but I assume it probably was one of the more tense christmases.]

Going by Giuliano because neither Cynthia nor Robert Rosen mention this trip by Julian at all, John was very excited about Julian coming getting up early and baking bread for him. Julian gets close to Nishi and thereby brings forth John's competitive streak. John tries out the parental philosophy of wanting to spend time with Julian instead of giving him material goods, Julian goes 'oh, really' and John caves in. When he leaves John draws a portrait of Julian. Source

[Since Robert Rosen, who also read the diaries, doesn't even know about the '76 or '77 visits (and Giuliano too thinks they saw each other last at Disney World), they may not be the source for the above. I thought it might have been from Dakota Days but it's not. John Green mentions the '77 Christmas visit but says the family were going to Florida to meet Julian there because of the security threats. I think Green is confusing this and a later visit, so I will insert his account of what John told him on returning there.]

Julian stays most of January. Goes to see the musical The Magic Show with Yoko and the band Riff-Raff with John. 

In February of 1978 Cynthia and her husband sell their house and move away from Ruthin to Eire to avoid a 'wealth tax'. They leave Julian to be a boarder at his school. Cynthia and John Twist return in December, probably because they missed Julian.

April 1978

[It's not actually dated aside from being from 1978, I just assume the guitar was Julian's birthday gift.]

GIBSON Les Paul 25/50 guitar

"Dad gave me this special order rare model - it was always exciting to receive something like this from my dad. When I visited Dad we would sit down together and he would teach me a few chords and help me improve my technique." Julian in Beatles Memorabilia. The Julian Lennon Collection.

May 19th 1978

A conversation with Cyn and excerpts from her memoir A Twist of Lennon are published in News of the World.

John, Yoko and Sean are in Japan for their summer vacation. Through his London lawyers John tries to stop the publication of Cynthia's book as a serial in the News Of The World.

Tuesday, June 13th, 1978 Having been telephoned in Japan with the details of Cynthia's memoir excerpt in News Of The World, John instructed his solicitors to issue a High Court injunction in an effort to prevent the publication of a planned second installment. Frere Cholmeley & Co., Lennon's attorney in London, described the piece as 'a salacious and gribby little article,' although it was qualified with the statement: 'He does not deny that he held parties or took drugs, but he deplores the publication of intimate details of his married life.' Friday, June 16th, 1978 In the case of Lennon v. News Group Newspapers Ltd and Twist, Lord Denning rejected John's application for an injunction in London's High Court today, permitting the publication of more excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon. For his par, Denning was not impresses with John's argument that the article's publication was a breach of confidence of the marriage: 'I cannot see that either of these two parties have had much regard for the sanctity of marriage ... It seems to me as plain as can be that the relationship of these parties has ceases to be their own private affair. They themselves have put it into the public domain.' Sunday, June 18th, 1978 Having successfully defended the right to publish excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon, today's edition of News Of The World featured part two of their series: 'How Yoko stole my husband.' " Lennonology

When the book actually was released feelings turned out to be much softer than expected. Cyn ends her first memoir with the words :

I still feel very proud of the Beatles and their accomplishments. My life during that period was an education, an education I wouldn't have missed. It has left me feeling enriched, not embittered, enlightened not blinded. All I can think to conclude my story is to say, 'Thanks for the memories, and in the words of the I CHING, no blame.'"

After finishing reading his ex-wife's book, according to Robert Rosen, John was relieved and enjoyed the nostalgia. He said a prayer for Cyn: "Dear God, please show her The Way. Thank You. Thank You."

Postcard to Julian:

[I can't make out the date on the card. Julian's Beatles memorabilia book says it's from '71 but that's obviously wrong with Sean being included and Julian's Ruthin address on it. John makes the reference to being a farmer. They bought their farm in February 1978, so I put it that year. May be wrong though.]

March 21st 1979

Julian is supposed to join John, Sean and Yoko's visiting nieces in Palm Beach.

[John taking a photo of Julian in '79]

There are multiple, very different accounts for this visit, that includes Julian's 16th birthday celebration.

John bought Julian a motorcycle for his birthday.

At one point they went to Disney World, (which none of the accounts of the trip even mention), where this photo of Julian and Yoko's nieces was taken:

Accounts from:

Robert Rosen [Rosen writes that Dan Richter's children came for a visit. Correction: I said before that that because Dan wrote in his book that he never saw John again after 1974, it seemes unlikely to me that his kids would be sent out to John and Yoko five years later. However Dan Richter does confirm that in his interview on the Podcast Glass Onion: On John Lennon episode 16:

"My kids would go down, they had a place down in Palm Beach or whatever it was down in Florida. And they were there at Christmas and bring Julian and they would fly my kids down to play with Julian. And everybody, the sense we got was they were happy!"

This visit doesn't happen over Christmas but it sounds like he is talking about more than one occasion that happened and probably Christmas is one example. Could also mean that Rosen is mixing up the occasion for that anecdote.]

Cynthia Lennon

Fred Seaman

Geoffrey Giuliano

John Green [Green puts this actually to the '77 holiday visit, where he wrongly writes they went to Florida. I think (if his stories are to be believed at all) he confuses John's anger and disappointment upon return with this visit of Julian's. It also fits with being in Florida.]

[I recommend to read all of them. Lots of drama. I may one day make a comparison post between all the account because they are fascinatingly different.]

April 9th 1979

John writes to Mimi saying Julian would be welcome to live with them if he so chose but there had been no arrangements made.

Q: Did you ever plan to go and live with him [John] in New York? Julian: "When I was in my early teens we'd spoken on the phone about the possibility of me going to college over there. I think it was wishful thinking on both our parts because I felt uncomfortable about the situation and I believe he did, too." Hello! Magazine, 1995

April 25th 1979, Postcard to Julian from NY:

Julian declines to join his dad, Yoko and Sean for their family's yearly vacation in Japan.

[July 1979 In the context of getting one of his guitars Julian said that John bought him a Sony Walkman as a gift when they were brand-new. He puts around '73-'74. However according to wikipedia the Sony Walkman was first sold in July '79, so that present would have been sent to Julian around this time, maybe directly from Japan.]

December 1979

On 3rd-4th December there is a two part feature in the Daily Mail called "The Sons of the Beatles" on Julian and Zak.

"When I'm in New York, we go out quite a lot together round some of the art galleries, or to his house at Long Island. When we stay in we have musical jam sessions together singing out latest songs to each other. I still listen to Beatles music. Although I quite like some of my father's solo albums, I much prefer what he did with the Beatles." (quoted from Lennonology p. 508)

Also that month:

"More disturbing to John were the ongoing trials with Julian. The sullen teen continued to vex his father with his on-again, off-again plans to visit over Christmas. At first Julian said maybe, as long as they didn't go to Florida. Then it was a flat no, using school exams and a new girlfriend as an excuse. At the last minute he called saying he would come to New York only if he could bring a friend, but Yoko turned him down. As usual John didn't challenge her. Julian retaliated by sending his father a tabloid article about rock stars' sons, which focused on both him and Ringo's son Zak Starkey, and went into detail about the trials of being the offspring of a Beatle." Lennon in America by Giuliano p. 218

On the other hand John Green does write that Julian spent Christmas '79 with John, Yoko and Sean. He even says that Julian stayed until February. ("John stayed in the Palm Beach house until February, luxuriating in the sun and sea, forging new ties with Julian and delighting in rediscoveries of himself." p.229) [This can't be true however because John was definitely in NY for Christmas and New Years. John and Yoko did buy a house in Palm Beach late January however and were spotted there a few times in February. I can't find a mention of Julian being spotted with them, so it may or may not have happened. I do think between the two of them Giuliano's account is probably more accurate. The Daily Mail article he mentions of Zak and Julian had come out on 3 or 4 December, so that is also believable that it had come up in pre-christmas discussions. But of course it's possible that a visit happened anyway.]

1980

Julian called in February 1980 to set up another meeting with his dad. This time John denied him, surprisingly because he was worried about Julian's schooling. Through Cynthia he had learned that Julian was failing his O-levels, had started smoking, staying out at night drinking, had gotten in trouble with the police for setting up fires and racing through town on a dirt bike. "John just prayed that Julian didn't hurt himself." There is also continued conflict over money. John felt that Julian every time they spoke asked him for more money. "And though John continued to feel guilty about having abandoned Julian and Cynthia, he'd be damned if he was going to be like every other rich asshole father who'd abandoned his family and then used money as a poor substitute for love and companionship." source

In March 'A Twist of Lennon' gets its paperback release and new reviews are printed in the press.

Summer 1980

When John sat for a portrait painting with Sean for the artist Nancy Gosnell, he wondered if she could also do one of him and Julian from a photograph. He wanted to give him a father and son portrait for his birthday, according to Fred Seaman.

September 1980

PLAYBOY: "Your son, Julian, from your first marriage must be in his teens. Have you seen him over the years?" LENNON: "Well, Cyn got possession, or whatever you call it. I got rights to see him on his holidays and all that business, and at least there's an open line still going. It's not the best relationship between father and son, but it is there. He's 17 now. Julian and I will have a relationship in the future. Over the years, he's been able to see through the Beatle image and to see through the image that his mother will have given him, subconsciously or consciously. He's interested in girls and autobikes now. I'm just sort of a figure in the sky, but he's obliged to communicate with me, even when he probably doesn't want to." PLAYBOY: "You're being very honest about your feelings toward him to the point of saying that Sean is your first child. Are you concerned about hurting him?" LENNON: "I'm not going to lie to Julian. Ninety percent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, were born out of a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night, and there was no intent to have children. So 90 percent of us... that includes everybody... were accidents. I don't know anybody who was a planned child. All of us were Saturday-night specials. Julian is in the majority, along with me and everybody else. Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me and he always will."

Playboy: I was under the impression that you still weren't seeing Julian much. Lennon: Well, no, he's comin' here over shortly now. I see him whenever he get's off school. Playboy: Has it been hard for him to be John Lennon's kid? Lennon: Yeah, he has his own... Everybody has a cross to bear, and Julian has that cross, and he'll deal with it. He's a clever boy, and as he gets older we can communicate and he'll understand.

[I wasn't sure what upcoming visit John is referring to since I couldn't find one mentioned anywhere. However there is an article in the Daily Mirror from 8 October 1980 including interview passages with Cynthia that mentions Julian currently being in New York. So without any photographic evidence, he isn't in any of the birthday photos, or anecdotes about it, there still might be the possibility that there was a (pre-)birthday visit from Julian to John and Sean in 1980. Julian himself hasn't been completely consistent on when he last saw his Dad. He has said that his '79 birthday visit was their last meeting (which I think is most likely correct), but he also claimed that he was flying out regularly.]

"According to Cynthia, Julian, now 18, plays guitar better than his father. He has left school and is off to New York to stay with his famous dad." Link to the article

In an interview with Jonathan Cott on 5 December John reflects more on the troubles of being a Beatle's son and on how mistakes in his decision for Julian's schooling changed his outlook on his plans for Sean. [Julian had been going to private school since at least 1973.]

"[...] because he can't possibly be an average child, being the son of famous parents. I tried that game with my son Julian, sending him to a comprehensive working-class school, mixing with the people, but the people spat and shit on him, because he was famous, as people are wont to do. So his mother had to finally turn around and tell me to piss off: 'I'm sending him to a private school, the kid is suffering here.' "

Cynthia writes that by the end of 1980 Julian felt a breakthrough in his and his father's relationship. John played Julian songs from his new album over the phone, asking his opinions. source

Julian himself reflects on his and his dad's relationship by the time of his death like this:

"I know that dad's presence will be around for a long time. He was always joking, always sounded happy, which made me think more of him as a friend than a dad. My earliest memory of my father was when I was about three and he sang happy birthday to me. We were living at Weybridge, Surrey, and dad threw a birthday party for me and brought in a long cake shaped like a train and festooned with candles." Sunday Mirror, 5 April 1981

As early as 1982 negative feelings would influence Julian's memory, saying he didn't get to see his father for five years, that he only heard on Birthdays and Christmas from him or that after the first US visit it was again years before he got to go another time, when it was merely months.

"The Beatles sang 'All You Need Is Love' - and that is all I wanted from Dad. It is difficult to explain why I should feel so strongly, when we shared so little. Never once in all the years he lived in America did he even think about coming to see me. Apart from rare visits, I lived from birthdays to Christmas just to hear from him." Julian, 1982

[Those false memories/presentations may have been the result of his beginning break from Yoko around that time and the conflicts about money, or maybe his memories just adapted to the way it was talked about in his family.]

"It was more of one man to another than the usual father and son relationship, because he had been away from me a lot, and he said he realized that. I was just getting through to him and growing up myself and growing out of the silly giggling I did as a young teenager that really annoyed him, when Dad was killed." Julian quoted in Ray Coleman's John bio, pp.620

"Dad was such an influence in my life, it must have been hard on Mum. She'd do her best with presents at birthdays and Christmas, but I always waited for that special present that was bigger than anything else - from him. Yet he never sent anything spontaneously. He'd phone up and ask what I wanted, and it would arrive. I don't think he was trying to buy me in any way. It was just a chance for him to do something for me. He knew I wanted to be a musician and kept telling me to take a long time to get it right. He removed a lot of the stress I suppose other kids might feel. I didn't do very well at school. I don't think I'm dense, but I suppose I'm a bit lazy. There's only one thing I want - to know for sure that Dad loved me as much as I loved him. Or maybe to have him back." Julian, 1982

Edits: 29 April - December 1974 John trial quote added; September 1980 Playboy interview quote added 6 May - added Julian quote about relationship to his father by the time of his death 7 May - added Old Grey Whistle Test clip March 11th 1975 18 May - added info about 3-4 December '79 Daily Mail feature on Julian and Zak, added all the info I could find on any visits in John Green's Dakota Days and multiple notes on to those mentions. 20 May - added Cyn's quote for 28 May 1972. 23 June - added the Tittenhurst floorplan and the link to an extended quote from Julian about being there in German 8 July - added quote from 5 Dec 1980 to Jonathan Cott 20 July - added Julia Baird audio on trying to see Julian for John 1975 22 July - added info on a possible 1980 visit, 1973 interviews, 1976 info, 1980's quote 30 July - Spin interview '75 added, Cynthia quote from Burton Daily Mail '76 added 1 August - added bits from Julian's 1982 article throughout, transcribed some of the jpg quotes, so that I may add more photos, some photos added 4 August - correction in my comments about the likelihood of Dan Richter's children being with them in 1979 19 August - Box of Smile 8 October - Added some postcards, the guitars, reset some photographs because of the picture limit 12 November - Added the video clip from May Pang's doc

[lotuslolitasblog]

ROTI phone hcs, go!!!

Anne Maria:

The phone case is pink.

VERY PINK.

Pink & purple leopard print. I am right. You can’t fricking deny it

She has a phone string with purple and golden charms on it

It’s a pretty new model.

There’s a crack on the upper right corner.

She has trouble typing up the code with her nails, so she has Touch ID.

Her lockscreen is probably some bad pic of her and her gal pals or a great one of her and Vito

Her home screen is some dreamy purple background. Probably some clouds with tiny sparkles all around

Her ringtone… this one was hard. I don’t know any techno! I decided to go with like the one song I know, Evacuate The Dancefloor by Cascada.

She has a special ring tone for Vito, Everytime We Touch (also by Cascada)

She talks about the most unhinged gossip on the phone in public

Every contact is saved with a pretty emoji next to them (Jo insisted that if she HAD to have her name saved with a heart, it had to be the black one)

B:

…

…

Nah, kidding.

He has a clear phone case. Simple, but efficient.

His phone is pretty old, and he knows it inside out.

His phone has been through some shit, but the screen is somehow intact.

His Lock Screen is probably some pretty science-ish thing, like a butterfly nebula.

His Home Screen is just one of the default ones.

His ringtone (I don’t know why anyone would call him, but anyway) is some instrumental… I can’t come up with what he’d listen to tbh.

Absolute meme lord. Has a meme or a GIF for every occasion.

He has one alarm at 6:30 every day and never misses it (TEACH ME YOUR WAYS B)

Brick:

Black leather phone case. Dare to tell me I’m wrong. I am not.

His phone is absolute blasted. You cannot tell me there aren’t at least ten cracks. That man is a KLUTZ

These bullet points really show you who my favourite character is up until now

His lock screen and home screen are the same green army pattern background.

He changes the Home Screen to a picture he stealthily took of Jo

Old model.

iPhone? What is that???

His ringtone is absolutely awful. No song in mind, but Brick just sounds like someone with absolutely no taste in music.

Reveille is his alarm sound which goes off at 0600 hours every day. He’s also an adept at waking up with one alarm. Bro is always ready to seize the day

Talks ridiculously loud over the phone

Has absolutely no social media. He is nowhere

Cameron:

Bought a phone with the prize money

It’s one of his most prized possessions

His mom bought him one of those mom phone cases with the wrap in front (I don’t know how to word that correctly)

It’s black

His lock screen is a picture of a butterfly. Not just any butterfly! A Danaus plexippus (AKA a monarch butterfly - the orange and black ones with those little white dots)

His home screen is a picture of him with Mike and Zoey

His phone is a pretty new model. His mom was afraid it would overheat too much if he had an older one

His ringtone is You’ve Got A Friend In Me

He doesn’t need an alarm because his mom wakes him up every day

Dakota:

Pink,pink,pink!

Bubblegum pink!

She has a personalised pop socket! It has D written in gold and the rest is - you guessed it - pink

Her lock screen is a picture of her and Sam (cutie piessss)

Home Screen is her favourite picture of her

It’s the newest model (obvi)

Touch ID & Facial recognition for easy use

Has paparazzis on speed dial

Her ringtone is Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen

If you have some time, check out the music video. The last few seconds are PRICELESS

She has every social media app you can think of

She’s verified too!!

Uses emojis religiously. Always uses !! or ?? instead of a single sign

Dawn:

Got a phone solely to be able to give tarot readings over call

She gives the money she makes from it to associations

She has a clear phone case, but she put an upright Fool card in it

It symbolises innocence and free spiritedness

I looked it up on Wikipedia. Thanks Wikipedia (Henry Cahill would be disappointed)

It’s a decently old model, but she doesn’t plan on changing it anytime soon

Somehow always charged

Her homescreen and lockscreen are different pictures of her friends (both human and animal)

Has a ringtone, but she can somehow always sense when someone will be calling a few seconds before it starts ringing

It’s probably some New Age music (Gwen: 😖)

Always answers 3 to 5 business days after you send a message. It’s better to call her directly

Jo:

A simple black phone case

Her Lock Screen is just a black background with white text that says: “Why are you even touching my phone?”

Her home screen is literally the worst picture of Brick ever.

She always manages to catch him at the worst moments

He used to hate it, but he finds it endearing now

Again, you can really see who are my favourites rn

Her workout playlist goes hard!

Her ringtone is It’s My Life by Bon Jovi

She doesn’t have an alarm

Alarms are for chumps

You’ll die before you ever see her use an emoji.

There’s a few cracks around the lower corners

It’s a miracle there aren’t more considering how much it falls while she runs

Her voice mail says: “It’s Jo. Just don’t call me.”

Lightning:

Newest model. There is no way he isn’t one of those people who change phones every time a newer one comes out

Has a personalised phone case.

It’s a blue one, with yellow lines, his jersey number and his name

Both the Home Screen and Lock Screen are pictures of him

As it should, king!!

His workout playlist is also great

He listens to Brick’s music recs too much though, so it’s not as good as Jo’s

Only sends voice messages

Sends every sports video he ever sees to Jo and Brick

Jo nearly blocked him because of it

Has an awesome group chat with the rest of his football team

Again, my favourites really show

His ringtone is Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5

Thought Jagger was a football player for the longest time

Mike & Co.

Mi: Black phone case so the system won’t go crazy

Mi: His Lock Screen & Home Screen is a picture of him and Zoey

The System: Writes out entire convos in the notes app

V: Everytime he’s in control, he changes the Home Screen to a picture of him and Anne Maria

V: He also calls her every single time

Cutie pie

V: voice messages are his thing

V: definitely dropped it a dozen times. It’s cracked all over.

S: Follows every gymnast you can think of on social media

S: She’s the reason Mike has a Russian keyboard too

S: Her and Simone Biles are literally besties

S: Forced him to install Duolingo to learn Russian

Mi: He makes her learn Italian

MS: Tries to install dating apps every time he’s on the phone

MS: Searches for “Single Women In The Area” way too many times for it not to be concerning

Reminder: He’s married.

MS: Mike changed the password and no one can tell him what the new one is

C: “Alarms? Back in my day, we woke up with the sun!” *disables it*

C: Also doesn’t know the new password

Ma: Are you kidding? Obviously doesn’t know the password.

Ma: Guessed it once, and changed Mike’s ringtone to fart sounds

Mi: The original ringtone was Under Pressure by David Bowie & Queen

V: Likes to change it to Ice Ice Baby because Mike won’t notice it instantly

Ice Ice Baby <3 Thank you Laurie Elliott

Sam:

A Mario phone case. No other option.

His Lock Screen is the same as Dakota’s

CUTIE PIESSSSS OMG I LOVE THEM SO SO MUCH ASIDHDHS

*cough*

Anyways, his Home Screen is probably some game related Easter Egg.

Not an actual easter egg jic someone gets the wrong idea

His ringtone is Jump Up Superstar by The Living Tombstone

My personal fav version is the one by VGR

It’s a pretty new model

Dakota offered to buy him a newer one but he said it wasn’t necessary

It always has a low battery percentage so he carries a charger everywhere

Definitely a moderator on a few gaming rated subreddits or Discord servers

A lot more low-key than his gf on social media

They have matching profile pictures

Scott:

His phone is a hand me down

It’s so old it’s nearly a family heirloom

Dude doesn’t have a phone case

It SHOWS. His phone is beat up.

His lockscreen is a photoshopped pic of his sister’s head on the body of a donkey.

They’re each others biggest hater

His homescreen is just a big pile of dirt.

It always reminds him of home.

I’m having so much fun with this one you have no idea

Scott and Jo have the most insane Twitter beef I swear

There’s a Tumblr account dedicated to it.

Scott also has several fan accounts (all ran by me lmao)

His playlist is absolutely insane.

The only Kanye songs I listened to are Monster & American Boy - because he’s awful - and they’re both 10/10 songs I fear

Scott actually has an amazing taste in music

Dude probably loves Whistle

I hate to admit it but it’s a good song

His ringtone is Right Round by Flo Rida & Ke$ha

Staci:

Phone case is light blue.

Both backgrounds are family photos

The family group chat is crazy

She makes it her job to alter Wikipedia articles every weekend

Her calendar is full of family functions

Her ringtone is Beautiful atiful Liar by Beyoncé and Shakira

Unfortunately her music taste is great too

Her voice messages are infinitely long. So are her voice mails

Multiple people from Total Drama (Jo and Scott) have her blocked

Zoey:

Her phone case is clear. She slipped a Polaroid photo of the Revenge cast inside

She made her phone string herself. It’s full of cute charms like little mushrooms, flowers, ladybugs, leaves…

Her Lock Screen is a cute (and slightly goofy ) picture of her, Cam and Mike

Her Home Screen was a group selfie taken on a girl’s night she had with the Revenge girls. Jo has her middle finger out - it was painted black at Dakota’s insistence-, Dakota and Anne Maria are posing while Dawn and Staci have each other in a half-hug and Zoey is taking the picture and doing a peace sign

I should draw that sometimes…

Anyway, Zoey is definitely an avail emoji user too. Also kaomojis (/*•*)/

Her ring tone is Take Me Away by Christina Vidal

Freaky Friday anyone??

She posts the cutest pics on social media

Tries to defuse the Jo/Scott beef

Fails, miserably

[wavernot4love]

hello fun 2ourdust albany things (note i typed this at like 4:30 am last night when i simply couldn't sleep but then passed out before i could post it so it may not be the most coherent)

- pete talking about upstate being special 2 him due to memories of taking a bus to a tattoo parlor in syracuse and feeling inspired by all these cool achc dudes... god i love hardcore scene lore fob stuff ESPECIALLY when upstate gets brought into it

- reinventing the wheel for the first time in apparently seventeen YEARS (i take full responsibility for making this happen due to my showing up in my tttyg crewneck /s)

- andy waved to us!! long story short about 30 of us were waiting by the wrong buses sadly & just barely missed pete & patrick meeting folks by the right ones. we were pretty heartbroken when we came over & found out, but a combination of the andy thing & meeting/trading bracelets/caroling along to folie songs (if ya know ya know) with cool folks turned waiting after the show into a fond memory regardless. i love the fob community, dude. t/2ourdust has changed everything for me.

and still i just find it worth noting how sick it is that this tour pete & patrick have been taking the time to come out & talk w folks. you don't see that much with bands playing arena shows and it makes me happy to see.

- lots of celebration for the smfs anniversary!

muse live (shit is INCREDIBLE live dude), kintsugi & what a time to be alive for medley, lil pete speech about the record.

- ginasfs instead of sixteen candles as a wild card again!!! i cannot believe i have heard her three times now when if you asked me two years ago i never would have thought i'd hear her once!

- smfs is definitely a worthy replacememt for srar in every sense. i appreciate both similarly, and i love that they recall tourdust's srar performance in the sense of it serving as a great medley transition, also in regard a to collaboration (everyone joining in to sing at the end, in this case joe especially)

- that reminds me, it seemed like pete did a lot of backing vox tonight which was nice

- i may only really know a handful of jimmy songs well but great band and jim adkins is one of those people that just seems nice. i like watching the dude do his thing.

- seeing hot mully in an arena was crazy. was pretty sad they cut featuring mark hoppus but still was nice 2 see them

- i remain wholly not a fan of seated shows, at least not for this kinda music, that did get me down at a couple points as i just can't move the way i wanna (not being able to mosh to cbts etc like at tourdust sucked, as well as just being confined to my seat/row all night) & also it seems to keep the crowd in general way more stagnant.

but at least i could see well + no one around me was particularly disrespectful!!

i also respect fob's ability to make a concert at an arena like this still feel like a SHOW (in the scene sense)

- and finally, have nightmare quality pete randomly crawling inside the inflatable dog (i am currently forgetting dude's name)

[chicksung]

Slippin’ || P.JS

Genre: fluff, strangers to lovers, slight enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, high school au, skater boy au, PG-15

Pairing: skater boy!jisung x tutor!reader

Word Count: 14.6k

Warnings: lots of swearing, underaged drinking, non explicit details of injury, kissing, she/her pronouns used, inaccuracy about skateboarding (i know nothing bare w me)

Synopsis: Three days a week, two teenage hearts, one boy to tutor and several missing assignments. If there’s one thing you’ve learned since you started tutoring the one and only park jisung, it’s that it’s not just his grades that are slippin

Sophie’s Salutations: OH SHE’S FINALLY HERE!! I am so so sorry for how overdue this fic is 😫 but she is finally here and I couldn’t be more happy to release it! A special thanks go to @lebrookestore​ for helping with formatting, editing and listening to me ramble and rant about this fic. Feedback is highly appreciated! 

playlist

Taglist: @lunaflvms @mora134340 @hanniejisungi @jisunglttlstar @yixingtion @flower-lise @mark-wife-renjun-whore @beemarkie @thesunsfullmoon @grassbutneo @jaeyunverse @lebrookestore @earth-to-that-asian @heartshyuck @jenotapes @fullbitchsun @sunfuls @duolingofanaccount @gyuwrites​ 

Prologue: The One and Only

“Do you know Park Jisung?”

God, at this point, who didn’t?

He was the boy who never said much, never paid too much attention, not even to the girls who gave him goo-goo eyes during class. To him, all that mattered was his bluetooth headphones, his god awful music taste and most of all, his skateboard. He spent more time mastering tricks on that damned piece of wood on wheels than he ever did studying. It would definitely explain his straight D’s on his semesterly report card.

It would also explain why you were asked to stay after class by your English teacher for a quick talk.

“I mean, I know of him. I wouldn’t say that I know him,” You answered, readjusting the strap of your backpack in an effort to dilute the awkwardness. She smiled gently, turning away from you to retrieve a brown folder from her desk. It was labelled in thick bold writing, most likely from a black permanent marker.

‘PARK JISUNG - MISSING ASSIGNMENTS’.

She thrusted the folder towards you and gave you a sad, sympathetic smile.

“Jisung is failing my class. No matter how much I’ve tried to engage him, he won’t listen to me,” she explained, watching you as you flicked through the familiar papers, “I’ve given him the highest grade I possibly could without any of the coursework, but it’s not enough.”

“Miss Barnes, with all due respect, what makes you think that I can help him pass?” You looked up at her, seeing her hopeful expression.

“Trust me, if there is anyone that can help a struggling student like Jisung pass this class, it’s you,” she placed her hand on the folder one last time before she grabbed her keys, “Good luck, Y/N.”

Luck? Yeah, god knows you would need it.

i. Miss Optimistic

“Are you Jisung?” You asked. Considering he was the only student who had their skateboard resting against the desk he had claimed as his own, and the only one who had a fringe long enough to act as a barrier between him and the outside world, you could only assume you had the right person.

He didn’t respond.

With furrowed brows, you repeated your question once again, but to no avail.

You bent over, the covers of your books pressing into your chest, and were met with strands of his hair in front of his partially closed eyes. Had it not been for the slight nodding of his head to a silent beat, you would’ve mistaken him for asleep. From this angle, you could see the dark cups of his headphones and you were going to take that as the reason he couldn’t hear you.

After another failed attempt to get his attention, you knew why it may not be the best first impression, desperate times call for desperate measures. With one swift movement, you yanked his headphones from his head and undoubtedly a few of his hairs too.

“What the fuck?” He exclaimed, looking up to you, an unfriendly scowl on his lips. You sighed, only pulling back the seat across from him.

“I did call your name at least three times,” you said emotionlessly, sinking into the plush seat and placing your belongings on the table.

“Whatever,” he said in annoyance, shaking his hair out of his eyes. In a desperate attempt to fix the impression, you held out your hand to him, inviting him for a handshake.

“I’m Y/N, your English tutor,” you introduced, the best expression you could offer him was an awkward lopsided smile. To your unpleasant surprise, Jisung laughed in your face. The mean and sarcastic manner he did only dwindled your hope of helping him.

“Miss Barnes set you up to this, didn’t she?” He ran his tongue over the fronts of his teeth, a possible habit you pondered.

“You seem like a smart girl, so let me give you some advice,” Jisung watched you in amusement as you leaned closer to him. “You’re wasting your time. You want my opinion? Take this back to Miss Barnes and we will never have to deal with each other again,” he pushed the folder back towards you, a smug smile on his face. You, determined not to be discouraged by some boy who cared more about a piece of wood than his grades, slammed the folder back down to prove your point.

“I will not. If I didn’t want to do this, I would’ve told her,” you told him matter-of-factly, opening the folder so the two of you could look at the contents of it.

“And what makes you think I care?” He asked, boredom lacing his words. You realised you weren’t making any progress with him, your mind frantically looking for a way to engage him.

“You know, Miss Barnes said that if you don’t pass her class, you’re gonna be held back a year,” you lied, keeping a cool and composed front, but behind your eyes, you were panicking and hoping he didn’t detect your lie. A long groan left his lips, slowly turning himself back to you.

“Fuck, fine. Fine. I’m listening,” he groaned, his hands raised on either side of his head like he was surrendering to the authorities. “What do I need to do?” Satisfied with how smoothly you managed to trick him, you started pulling out assignments and tests that Jisung had either failed or failed to turn in.

“This is the coursework you need to complete, and depending on whether or not you do well enough, the coursework you need to pass,” you explained, laying out each one on the table. Jisung ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh at the sight of the workload, stress becoming evident on his face. Most papers had been marked with a rather large ‘D’ or ‘D-’ and on the rare occasion, a ‘C-’. They weren’t exactly grades to be proud of, in fact, you found it quite disheartening that Jisung hadn’t even tried to reach out for help, but it was his own choice.

“It seems like a lot, I know, however, there’s still another quarter left until summer break. I’m sure we can get through this,” you offered him a friendly smile, but it was quickly rejected by a scowl.

“Right. Not to burst your bubble, Miss Optimistic, but I’m not exactly a good student, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he leaned forward, the scowl turning into a smirk, “and you expect me to finish this in a matter of weeks? Keep dreaming, sweetheart,” his mocking laughter made your cheeks burn with embarrassment, but this kid was getting on your nerves, and you were convinced he knew it too. Brushing off the pet name, you stared him down.

“If you want to be kept back a year, then that’s your decision, but if I were you, I’d rather not be the laughingstock of my friend group because I couldn’t keep my feet off a piece of wood with wheels. I’m here to help you, and you have a test next week, so you better start paying attention.” Another angsty teenage groan later and he straightened his posture.

“There. Are you happy now?” He complained, and in return, a sarcastic comment of your own.

“Ecstatic.”

ii. A Deal with the Devil™

“D+? Really, Jisung?” You scoffed as you looked over the results of his most recent English test, and it wasn’t exactly the turnaround you were hoping for. The black-haired boy could only shrug in response, obviously not too fussed by the result. “I literally went over these topics with you yesterday. How did you forget so quickly?” Again, you were met with a  shrug. With a groan, you threw the paper to the desk and pressed against the back of the chair.

“What went wrong?” You asked gently, not wanting him to feel guilty for his grade. Yet again, he shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just forgot,” he dismissed, his bangs covering his eyes. A long sigh fluttered past your lips as you glanced between Jisung and the test.

“Okay, let’s go over this step by step,” you said, twiddling your pen between your fingers, its nib pointing at the first question, “what is the difference between an adjective and adverb?” Jisung mumbled, but his voice was too deep for you to decipher what he was saying, “Park, speak up and clearly.” He cleared his throat and tried again.

“One describes a word, one describes a verb in particular,” he answered, which satisfied you. However, it was his written answer that disappointed you.

“So why did you explain a proposition instead?” You lost count of how many times he chose a wordless response over actually answering you, but it was better than being ignored. You didn’t understand why he didn’t just provide a reasonable explanation, but upon pondering this, you noticed Jisung wasn’t looking you in the eye. In fact, he wasn’t looking at you at all, and you didn’t have to follow his line of sight to see what he was looking at.

“You went to the skate park instead of studying again, didn’t you?” You deadpanned, biting the tip of your tongue to kill the long string of insults and pent-up frustration from flowing freely. “Jisung, if you want to pass, you can’t keep doing this,” you felt bad at the fact you sounded like a teacher scolding a misbehaving student, but given the situation, you both found yourselves in, it wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

“Please, you think I want to?” He looked away and scoffed, as if he was trying his absolute hardest to stop himself from laughing in your face, “Listen here, sweetheart. Why should I have to suffer through something I find no joy or passion in, just to appease the capitalist views of society?”

His hands comfortably sat within each other, waiting patiently for your answer. His blunt yet pointed response, paired with the nickname that dripped with sarcasm, flustered you and rendered you speechless.

You gaped at him like a fish out of water, desperately trying to breathe again. Amused, he placed his pointer finger underneath your chin and forced your mouth shut, “Didn’t want you to catch flies,” he snickered as you swatted his hand away.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you hissed, folding your arms across your chest, “then what? At this rate, we are making no progress. Surely, there is something I can do to engage you.” You admit, your approach was desperate and another teasing opportunity on his end but you were running out of options, and never once was one of them to quit.

“There is actually,” Jisung answered, clicking his fingers as a lightbulb went off in his head, “what is your view on skateboarding?” His question made you roll your eyes, which apparently was enough of an answer for him.

“Good, I know exactly how you can engage me.” He gestured to the skateboard that leaned in its usual spot against the desk, “if I do well on my next test, you come to the skatepark with me, at any given time.” You groaned, your eyes rolling so far back, Jisung was convinced you were looking at your brain.

“Seriously?” Of course, he chose the skatepark, what else would he have said?

“If I have to suffer through something I don’t like, so do you,” he smirked, unclasping his hand to stick one out towards you, “so do we have a deal?” He looked at you expectantly, stifling his laughter at your conflicted expression. Pushing all voices to the back of your mind, you completed the handshake, giving it one firm shake at that.

“Deal.”

What the fuck were you getting yourself into?

iii. only Idiots catch feelings

“He’s so annoying,” you ranted to your best friend as you paced around your room, practically ripping your hair out of your head. “He thinks he’s top shit, like he has this sort of power over me.”

“Well, from the state you’re in, he kinda does,” your best friend Wonyoung commented, having to hide her smile to avoid having a cushion throttled in her direction at a hundred miles an hour. You swiftly turned on your heel, squinting your eyes at her.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” You interrogated, walking towards her. Wonyoung snorted with laughter behind your pillow, her only source of protection.

“Repeat everything you just listed off to me. Everything about him you find irritating,” she prompted, placing the pillow in her lap.

“Well,” you started, a little confused, “he’s never on time, he gets some sort of separation anxiety if his skateboard isn’t within his field of vision, he is constantly listening to this shitty underground artist and thinks it’s the greatest piece of media to grace this planet, he never studies, he always has this stupid smirk on his face, he keeps calling me ‘sweetheart’. The list goes on, what’s your point?” You couldn’t comprehend why Wonyoung was giving you such a strange look, not until she spoke.

“Someone has a little crush,” she teased. You picked up the teddy bear that sat at the end of your bed and threw it at her.

“What the fuck? No! Absolutely not!” You denied loudly, flabbergasted by her outrageous statement.

“Well, do you think he’s cute?” She asked, hugging the teddy close to her body. You froze, her words drowning out your sense of reality.

Jisung wasn’t unattractive, by any definition of the word. He was devilishly handsome, which went hand in hand with his devilish personality. In fact, he was quite popular with the girls at school, and he either flirted with them out of boredom or ignored them completely. Sure, he was cute, but to go as far as to say that you had a crush on him? No way, absolutely not. You scolded yourself for even entertaining the stupid idea.

“Earth to Y/N? You never answered my question,” Wonyoung reeled you out of your thoughts so fast, you swore you felt dizzy. You straightened your posture and folded your arms, ignoring how your heart was hammering in your heart.

“No,” you answered curtly, your voice certain and sharp. She snorted and looked at her phone, the fast tapping on its screen signifying that she was texting someone.

“Sure,” she raised her eyebrows with her unconvinced response, thankfully deciding to abandon teasing you. The conversation may have been over, but her words still swam in your head and mixed your thoughts and feelings into a strange concoction you could only describe as confused. Despite all the mixed feelings and incoherent thoughts, you concluded that you did not like Park Jisung.

Only an idiot would catch feelings for him.

iv. Nerds are NOT morning people

You didn’t understand why Jisung looked so smug when you came in for the first of three tutoring sessions for the week. He adorned his regular black hoodie, black ripped jeans that were more holes than style in your opinion, and white vans with the skeletal structure of a foot painted on them with black paint. The only difference you could pinpoint was his headphones hanging loosely around his neck, translating to he was listening for you, waiting for you. It was a foreign idea, and one you had mixed feelings on.

“You’re here,” he spoke first before you had even sat down.

“It does seem that way,” you quipped, moving to place your pencil case and book on the desk when you noticed a sheet of paper on the table. Curiosity tugged at your heart, your fingers gently pulling it towards you.

“What’s this? Did you put this here?” You questioned him as you picked it up, your heart thumping as you flipped it over. Your eyes focused on two things, his name written surprisingly neatly at the top of the page and the large 72.5% marked at the top of the page. Your jaw dropped dramatically as you stared at the red number, and you could feel Jisung’s eyes boring into you, his smirk undoubtedly growing wider.

“I believe I recall a certain someone promising that she’ll come to the skatepark with me if I passed my next English test,” he spoke, cockiness coating every word he spoke like chocolate-dipped strawberries. You slammed down the paper, your face showing utter disbelief.

“How? How did you-” you stammered and stuttered before Jisung shut you up.

“You told me to study, so I did. Are you pleased?” Pleased would be a stretch. You were beyond ecstatic but you couldn’t properly express it, still trying to get over the shock of the whole situation.

“Jisung, that’s a B grade,” you stated stupidly, your speech granting you the ability to finally able to formulate full sentences. He cocked a singular eyebrow, smirking in amusement.

“Does that mean you’ll come to the skatepark for the whole week?” He pushed, testing your limits. You glared at him.

“What? No? Well, I-Maybe? Fuck, fine!” You knew you might grow to regret your decision but you would come to that consequence when it came around.

“Gimme your phone. You’re gonna need my number in that case.”

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Oh lord. The time had come. You groaned tiredly, rolling over to check the rather loud notifications on your phone.

demon spawn: hey

demon spawn: i’m at the skatepark

demon spawn: i expect u here in 10

You slammed your phone back down onto the nightstand, looking up at the time. 5:41 am. The numbers glared at you in their bright red light. You refrained from throwing a fit in the bed, in fear of waking your family.

You silently resented yourself (and Jisung too) for dragging yourself out of bed at five am on a Saturday because of a stupid bargain you made with a failing student just so he would study. He passes a singular test and thinks he’s on top of the world. Smartass.

“Fucking hell,” you grunted as you pulled on a warm jacket and silently slipped out the front door. You momentarily worried about how you were going to explain yourself to your parents when they realised that their child was not residing within the warm covers of her bed, but eventually abandoned the idea when you started to think about the possible consequences that would be in place. It was still dark outside, and the early morning air was cold, cold enough that it quickly numbed the tip of your nose.

Whilst recounting the last ten minutes of your life, your mind became a forest and you were very, very lost. You walked, and walked, and walked. You would’ve kept walking if it hadn’t been for the voice that called out to you.

“Is the skatepark that hard to spot?” The familiar voice that belonged to the one and only, Park Jisung. Grey beanie, white shirt, the classic ripped jeans, however switching out his regular black for blue, and black Converse, a style you had never seen on him.

“You know, judging from your personality, I never took you like a morning person,” you teased as you rubbed your eyes, an attempt to dispel the last of the sleep from them. Jisung snickered at your remark, stomping on the end of his skateboard to flick it upwards.

“Applying that logic, I never took you as someone who wasn’t. Aren’t nerds, like, supposed to like mornings?” You scoffed at his side smirk, crawling up the skate he was standing on.

Having only seen him hunched over on the cushioned chairs in the library, you hadn’t realised how tall Jisung really was, around 6’, 5’11 at the very least.

“There’s a reason I brought you out so early,” he announced, breaking your train of thought.

“You mean at the ass crack of dawn,” you quipped grumpily but listened closely for his explanation.

“Whatever you wanna call it, drama queen,” he rolled his eyes, shifting his skateboard to the edge of the dip, so his back wheels were touching the silver tube-like barrier, “but I wanted to show you the sunrise over the city. Thought it would be pretty,” he shrugged slightly, his eyes cast back to you.

“Really? You dragged me out of bed at a ridiculous hour of the morning to watch the sunrise?” You huffed, feeling annoyance rise in your chest, yet when he looked at you like that, you couldn’t channel that annoyance towards him.

“Well, and this,” Jisung winked as he placed his left foot at the front of his skateboard and he fell into the bowl. Picking up speed as he whizzed towards the other side of the bowl, he shot his hand out, catching the piping, the other hand holding onto his board as he turned it and his body to you, zipping in the same direction in which he came from. He slid back into the position he originally held next to you as if he weighed nothing as if he had the dynamics of a feather in the wind. You looked up to him, clearly impressed with his stunt.

“Wow,” was all you could muster, making Jisung laugh. Not snicker, not sneer, but genuinely laugh, as if he had just watched a puppy fall over itself from excitement.

“I can do it again if you’d like,” he suggested, which was met with a positive reaction. You sat down, your feet dangling into the bowl as you watched him excitedly skate around the cemented pit. Your eyes followed him, drinking in every trick and stunt he pulled. An unknown smile broke across your lips, one that contained no nasty emotions, hidden by a sickly sweet facade.

Your heart gave a flutter when he skated past you and flicked his hair out of his eyes. Your previous annoyance had evaporated into nothingness and was replaced with something completely new, something different. Due to your nature of order and organisation, you didn’t like different. It threw off your whole balance and it would take a while to rebuild the balance you once had, now with the added weight of whatever ruined everything in the first place. However, this difference felt sweet, it warmed you against the chilly early December air. It felt safe, a homely feeling.

Still intoxicated by this feeling, you glanced to the sky, noticing that the previous deep navy that was littered with tiny stars had been broken up by streaks of burnt orange, pink and white.

“Jisung!” You called to him, pointing to the sky. The boy in question whipped his head around, almost slipping off his skateboard from his lack of concentration on the concrete he was skating along. You stifled a laugh and patted the empty space beside you, inviting him to fill it. He smiled softly, clamouring up the steep bowl and accepting your invitation.

“I understand why you wanted to show me now,” you sighed, shifting all your weight onto the palms of your hands. Jisung nodded wordlessly, mimicking your position. His feet kicked to and fro, an absentminded habit of his as his gaze shifted from the sky to you. He noted every feature of your side profile, specifically how the sunrise gave you a heavenly glow as if you weren’t a mere human being beside him, but in fact an angel. He examined every part of your face that was so uniquely yours.

“It’s so beautiful,” he breathed. You nodded, agreeing with him, but you didn’t see the context he was speaking in. Jisung knew it wouldn’t be long before you caught him, choosing to glance at his watch instead. “It’s nearly 7. We should probably leave before your parents realise you’re missing,” he commented, expertly hiding his reluctance to end this moment. You let out a deep but short sigh.

“Time flew,” you noted, stretching as you stood up, brushing the dust off your backside, “wait, what about your parents?”

“They won’t be out of bed until at least 9. They probably haven’t even noticed that I’m not at home,” he shrugged, tucking his skateboard under his arm, “and because of that, let me walk you home.” The bluntness of his request spooked you. You didn’t think it could even be classified as a request.

“Jisung, that’s not necessary-”

“Nonsense. I dragged you out here, let me at least take you home.” Your heart gave a soft squeeze at his words, and you knew you couldn’t turn him down. You pointed him in the direction of your house and set off down the path together.

You walked in silence, partly awkward, partly not. It was as if you had spent every word in your vocabulary on each other and neither of you had a new word to say. The chill was still by and froze the tips of your ears. Jisung noticed you trying to rub your ears, as you would your hands, to warm them up. Without skipping a beat, he tugged his beanie off his head and offered it out to you.

“Here,” he muttered, his long fingers holding it loosely.

“Oh,” you whispered before breaking into nervous chuckles, “it’s fine. I don’t need it,” you held up your palm to push it back towards him, but he shoved it back.

“I insist,” he declared, his eyebrows raised expectedly. You groaned a small ‘fine’ and snatched the beanie from your hand, pulling it onto your head. Jisung let out a chuckle, tugging at the side so it properly covered your ears. You fell back into the silence and completed the journey to your house. You stopped outside the small wooden gate that allowed access to the front yard and the pretty garden. You turned on your heel and gave Jisung a small lopsided smile.

“Thanks,” you said, stumbling over your words and thoughts to say anything more than that. He nodded and smiled back. You bowed your head to take off his beanie before he stopped you.

“Keep it,” he insisted, “I’ve got plenty more at home. Besides, it looks better on you.” His words heated your cheeks, convincing you that if it were to start snowing right now, the snowflakes that landed on your cheeks would melt at first contact.

“O-Okay. I’ll see you later,” you smiled at him one last time before lifting the latch of the gate and walking towards the front door. Jisung nodded and spun on his heel, impulsively crossing the street towards his best friend Jeno’s house.

You pulled your phone out of your pocket, opening up your text messages with Wonyoung.

y/n only: fuck you. you were right. i think i am catching feelings

Satisfied with your sudden declaration to your best friend, you pushed open the front door. No sooner did you step through the threshold, than did you feel your heart stop dead.

“So,” your father started, “do you wanna tell us where you’ve been so early in the morning?”

v. Studying (your face)

You had dodged a bullet with your parents, the only punishment you received was to wash the dishes for the next two weeks without complaint. A single complaint would result in not leaving the house for however long they saw fit. However, you weren’t too distraught about not hanging out with Wonyoung, but more about the tutoring sessions with Jisung.

Ever since that morning in the skatepark, your feelings about the skater had been mixed around and twisted. Sure, he was annoying, and boy, did he make sure to remind you, but it didn’t seem to bother you as much as it used to. You found it charming if you defined charming as the stupidly irritating characteristic someone has that you learn to tolerate.

As ‘charming’ as he may be, he still had assignments that were missing and needed to be done, whether he liked it or not. He still had to hold up his half of the deal.

You shifted from one foot to the other anxiously, waiting for someone inside to answer your timid knock at the door. Your palms felt slick with sweat, why were you so nervous? Maybe it was because Jisung had randomly texted you, asking if you could study at his place instead. His excuse was ‘a change of scenery’ or something like that.

Your ears pricked up at the sound of shuffling behind the door. The door creaked open and revealed a petite middle-aged woman, presumably Jisung’s mother.

“Oh, you must be Jisung’s friend,” she smiled, one that perfectly replicated her son’s.

“Yes. I’m Y/N. It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Park, I assume,” you extended your arm for a handshake, which she graciously returned.

“Yes. It’s so good to meet you too. Jisung doesn’t bring many friends over, aside from Jeno and Chenle. It’s nice to see a new face,” you felt your cheeks heat up over her words and you nodded.

“Speaking of, where is Jisung?” You asked politely, leaving your shoes by the door. Mrs. Park pointed up the staircase, her other hand ghosting over your shoulder.

“Up the stairs, third door on the right. There’s a sign with his name on it if you get lost.” You thanked her and trekked your way upstairs.

The decor was enough to tell anyone that entered the home that the Parks were a happy family. The wall beside the stairs was lined with family photos, ranging from the perfect nuclear family of a mother, father, and two boys; to sporting events, family gatherings, and birthday celebrations. It blended in perfectly with the white paint on the walls, with not a scratch or smudge of dirt in sight.

You reached the top of the stairs and spotted Jisung’s room immediately. A small sign was tacked at eye level to the door that read, unsurprisingly, ‘Jisung’s Room’ in childlike font, a glimmer of his childhood innocence shining through his hard outer appearance.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in,” his voice called from inside. You cracked the door open to see Jisung, one earphone embedded in his ear, a pen in between his fingers, and a small smile curved on his plump lips. “Took your time,” he teased as he paused his music.

“Interrupt study time, did I?” You teased back, placing your bag at his door.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” he gave you a sly smile as he tugged the other earphone out and swung his chair around to you.

“Right,” you strung out the sound, paired with a sarcastic nod of your head. You leaned over, doing a quick once over of his desk, disappointed but not surprised when you found Jisung had not been writing out the notes you had set for his homework, but in fact, he had been writing what seemed like poetry on several different pieces of paper.

“Really, Jisung? I gave you one job,” you exasperated, collecting the pages to get a better look at it. Before you had a moment to decipher his almost illegible handwriting, he snatched them out of your hand.

“Don’t look at those!” He squawked, pulling them out of your reach, his cheeks colouring a dark pink. His reaction had caught you off-guard.

“Jisung, they’re just sheets of paper,” Jisung shook his head at your claim.

“To you, maybe,” he corrected curtly.

“What are they, then?” He opened the drawer of his desk, messily shoving the papers inside.

“It’s not important right now,” he dismissed harshly before seating himself on the end of his bed. You occupied his desk chair and cleared a spot to place your book and folder.

“Alright,” you began, retrieving an assignment from the folder, Jisung’s name etched on the paper in his teacher’s handwriting, “this is the next assignment you’ve been set, well reset,” you explained, watching his fingers steal the paper from your fingertips. He skimmed over the task outline, his eyebrows furrowing the more he read.

“Short story task?” He deadpanned, glancing at you over the paper. You shrugged at his apparent annoyance.

“I can give you some ideas,” you suggested, swivelling around to grab your book, accidentally nudging a pencil of sorts off the desk. Cursing under your breath, you leaned down and collected it off the ground. As you went to place it back on the desk, you noticed the gold inscription on it. ‘Salem Black Eyeliner Pencil’. You spun back around to the boy sitting not a metre away from you. You flicked your gaze between Jisung and the pencil. How had you not noticed?

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” You asked, amused. He snapped his neck towards you, seeming just as amused.

“Yes I am. Is there a problem?” He mused, going back to the rubrik in front of him.

“No, just didn’t expect you to wear it,” you admitted, twiddling it between your fingers.

Jisung shrugged, “It makes me look cool.” You cocked an eyebrow at his comment and scoffed.

“News flash, Park. Wearing eyeliner isn’t a personality trait,” you taunted. Jisung laughed quietly, leaning closer to you.

“Have you ever worn it?” He was met with silence, “No? Too much of a goody two shoes?”

“I-It’s not like that-”

“Then let me put it on you.”

You have no idea what compelled you to say yes. Maybe it was the cute way his lips turned up at the thought of you wearing eyeliner. Maybe it was the sparkle in his eye, or maybe it was just because you simply could no longer say no to him. You were now sitting opposite him, your hands resting in your lap and bumping knees with him. His left hand held your jaw to prevent your head from moving too much.

“Keep your eye open and look up,” he instructed, pointing to his roof, helping you notice the twenty or so glow-in-the-dark stars tacked to it. He began his fiddly work, keeping his hand as still as possible so as to not poke you in the eye. Your bottom eyelid spasmed from the sudden contact of the sharp pencil to it.

“Do I really need to tell you to stay still?”

“Sorry.”

Jisung’s finger wiped across his work, smudging and blending it a little, again causing your eye to twitch. He leaned away for a second to study his handiwork. You watched as a grin painted onto his pretty lips. Did you just call his lips pretty?

“Y/N,” your friend breathed, “you’re staring.”

“Am I?” You stuttered, your cheeks heating, clearly embarrassed. Jisung didn’t say anything, choosing to lean in closer. Your noses were millimetres away. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears. As if on cue, Jisung’s gaze dropped from your eyes to your lips. Hesitantly, he slipped his hand along your jawline and cupped it gently. You would’ve squeaked had your voice not failed you.

Slowly, your lips touched his in a gentle kiss. It was hesitant, sweet, and filled with teenage exploration. Feeling him kiss back, your hand fell on top of his and added to the sweetness of the kiss. Your lips moved in sync with one another, each movement more heart-fluttering than the one before. Jisung pulled away reluctantly, the sparkle in his eye growing brighter with astonishment.

“Woah,” was all he could manage to say.

“Woah indeed,” you gave a breathless chuckle, your lips stretching into a smile. Jisung nodded before turning back to his paper, now a little crinkled.

“You should probably go home. It’s getting dark and you’re already on thin ice with your parents,” he advised, giving you a tight-lipped smile. Nodding, you climbed off his bed, stacking your belongings on top of each other before pressing them against your chest.

“If you need any help with the assignment, you have my number,” you rattled off as you picked up your bag from the door, “oh, and Jisung?”

He raised his eyebrows at his name, “Hmm?”

“Thank you,” you said bashfully, “for doing my eyeliner and, you know,” you couldn’t bring yourself to say it, but he knew the silent words that died on the tip of your tongue.

“Anytime,” he winked and with one last giddy smile from you, you left the room.

Jisung let go of an unknown breath, slumping into his desk chair and opening his drawer. He retrieved the papers he had hastily stuffed away. His eyes lazily glided over the words, thoughts and rhymes messily scribbled onto the page.

He promised himself that he was going to rewrite it in a manner that was readable, but that’s what made it so precious to him. The raw emotion and scrambled thoughts were poorly printed, words crossed out for various reasons, the simple doodles that decorated the white space in between.

He exhaled again, picking up his pencil, searching for a blank space to fill in at least one thought. The scratching of an HB pencil against paper was satisfying to Jisung, but not as satisfying as the sound of the pencil nearly bouncing off the table from how hard he slammed it down. He gave a peaceful smile as he reread what he had written, the words flowing from his lips effortlessly.

“If only you knew how my heart races for you, Y/N.”

vi. Complicated

“Wonyoung, you know I’m not a party person,” you reiterated to your friend. She was begging and pleading for you to accompany her to the seasonal party she attended.

“Please Y/N, Jaemin’s gonna be there and I don’t want to show up by myself. I’ll look like a loser.”

“You’re gonna look like a loser either way,” you teased lightheartedly, tossing your phone to the side.

“Hey, that’s not nice. I’m practically your older sister,” she furrowed her brows at you.

“What’s in it for me?” You groaned, propping yourself up on one elbow to better glare at your friend.

“I heard Jisung might be there,” she gave you a suggestive eyebrow raise, “he’s skating buddies with Jeno, so knows Jaemin by association,” she continued. She was dead set on having you attend this party with her.

“Ugh. You know what? Fine,” you caved, your best friend’s face lighting up like a golden sunrise.

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best?” She squealed, tackling you in a hug.

You snickered, “Only when you get your way.”

“Oh, do not. Now, come on. We need to get ready,” she pranced around the room like a child on Christmas morning and you had to laugh at her ridiculously high energy. The things you do for friendship.

When you pulled up to the address of this party, your jaw hit the floor. The ‘house’ was more like a mansion and was like a sister location to the White House. The outside’s plain exterior was decorated with LED lights, displayed from hidden projectors, and you could already hear the bad EDM music blaring from within.

“W-Whose party is this again?” You asked your friend in a state of shock.

“It’s Donghyuck’s, but Chenle’s parents are out of town for the weekend, so he offered up his place,” you understood why Hyuck wouldn’t pass up on such a gracious offer. You felt like a fish out of the water as you walked along the cobblestone pathway to the entrance. You forgot what made you say yes to this, but you refused to believe that was by the mention of a boy’s name and informing you of his attendance.

Before you could work out what to do, Wonyoung had been dragged away by people who you assumed were friends of hers, leaving you alone at the threshold.

“Congrats on your first party,” you mocked to yourself, a hint of fear behind your words. This is not what you were about. You were all rules and dress codes, expectations, and high grades. Certainly not cramped spaces and sweat, loud music, and underage drinking.

You weaved through the sea of strangers, faces blurring together beyond recognition. You had no idea where you were going, looking around desperately for someone to stand out to you. It wasn’t until you fled to one of the many hallways that you finally did.

Ripped jeans, customised Vans, a silver chain, and a tank top of a band he definitely didn’t listen to. That was Park Jisung to a T. He hadn’t noticed your appearance, wrapped up in a conversation with three girls you didn’t recognise. You assumed they were friends of his. You took note of the phone in his hand, the Mickey Mouse cover confirming that it was undoubtedly his. You pulled out your own and typed out a quick text under his name.

y/n only: look behind you, dummy

You saw him crane his head away from the conversation to check the new notification. He squinted as he read it before turning around, looking around like a lost puppy. His lips curved into a grin that pushed up into his cheeks when his eyes fell on you.

“You were the last person I thought would show up,” he greeted you with a side-on hug, one you reciprocated. You let out a breathy laugh.

“So did I,” you explained, “my friend dragged me here.” He nodded as he tried his best to hear you over the thump of the music, loud enough to resonate in your chest. He hadn’t dropped his arm from around you, somewhat pulling you into him and allowing you to inhale the intoxicating amount of cologne he had. You weren’t going to voice your complaints, it did have a pleasant aroma to it, one that you could get used to.

“Judging by how you dressed, you’ve never been to a party,” he poked fun, looking over it. Embarrassed, you pulled your top down a bit.

“Blame Wonyoung. She convinced me to wear it,” Jisung broke out in a smile, his hand trailing down your arm.

“It’s fine. You look good,” he commented, “did you want a drink?”

Your eyes blew wide. “Jisung! Neither of us is old enough,” you sputtered, shocked beyond words. He couldn’t help but laugh at your naivety.

“Thank you for reminding me,” he said with gentle sarcasm, “it’s really not that bad.” You shook your head.

“My parents would kill me if they found out I’ve been drinking,” you declined, resulting in a snicker from your friend.

“Goody-two-shoes,” he teased.

“Lawbreaker,” you quipped, albeit weakly. Jisung shrugged and looked into the swarm of people.

“I’m gonna grab one. Wait for me, okay?” His hand came up slowly, his index finger gently brushing against your cheek. The small action was enough for butterflies to erupt and flutter in your stomach. He stared at you for a moment longer before dipping his head downwards and pressing his lips against your forehead. You felt like a malfunctioning robot, unable to process and turning you into a giddy mess as he disappeared into the ocean of strangers. Amidst your flustered state, you hadn’t noticed the three girls Jisung had been talking to before he ditched them to talk to you instead. The daggers they stared into the side of your head were sharp, burning hotter than your cheeks. It wasn’t until you heard voices that you saw them, ogling you like three hungry wolves hunting the same rabbit.

“Is that her?” One muttered to the rest of the group. You weren’t sure if they were trying to be discreet, but if they were, it certainly wasn’t working.

“Has to be. Did you see how quickly he left the conversation? He never acts like that towards any of us,” another whined, her arms folded over her chest and her bottom lip jutted out like a spoiled brat who had been told no.

“Right? He saw her and suddenly we didn’t exist,” the third one rolled her eyes, shooting you a side glance, “I don’t know what he sees in her. What does she have that we don’t already offer him?

Your heart hit the floor at her words. You had honestly forgotten how popular Jisung was, especially when it came to the ladies. You remember your friends referring to him and his friends as ‘heartthrobs’ and ‘stupidly attractive’.

With that in mind combined with what you had heard, you reevaluated your social status compared to him. How much higher he was on the social ladder than you, how he was compared to a god on a skateboard, and you were compared to nothing more than dirt under his mostly pristine Vans.

The thought of it all was sickening. Suddenly, your heartbeat was the only thing you could hear, the hallway felt like it was collapsing around you, and the butterflies started to lodge into your throat like bile. You shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong here.

Fragments of thoughts collided in your mind, each one a ridiculous question with no solid explanation. With every person you bumped into, a new thought would project itself into your mind like a lottery, and with every ‘sorry’ you muttered, you would compare that thought to the situation you currently found yourself in.

The atmosphere was suffocating, the heat from the attendants mixed with the amount of sweat in the air made you feel flushed, in some sort of drunken daze, despite not having tasted alcohol in your life. Your sights were set on the door, your one way ticket out of here without having to consider the window as an option.

Between his conversation with Chenle, Jisung caught something moving from the corner of his eye. Normally, he would’ve ignored it, waved it off as someone desperately trying to make it to a bathroom for whatever reason. However, something about it made him turn his head, and his eyes landed on you. You seemed skittish, unwell. He swore he hadn’t been gone more than five minutes.

“Hold that thought, and my drink,” he thrust his aforementioned drink into his best friend’s hands and rushed after you. He shouted your name over the music, his calls falling on deaf ears.

He squeezed and pushed through people in an attempt to catch up to you. Winter’s freezing breeze brushed against his cheeks, the sensation enough to make him shudder.

“Y/N, slow down,” he called after you and you stopped in your tracks.

“I’m going home,” you told him, refusing to look behind you. You couldn’t bear to look at him, knowing that if you did, you would come face to face with the reason those girls had talked about you in the first place.

“I know the first party can be intimidating, but it’s not all that bad. Trust me. I can show you,” he continued, his hand resting on your shoulder. You slapped it away.

“The party? This has nothing to do with the party,” you hissed at him, throwing him a sour look over your shoulder, “this has got everything to do with your little fanclub.” Jisung furrowed his brow in thought, recalling the situation.

“Mina, Hyejung and Yoonah?”

“I’m guessing so. I don’t know who they are,” you swallowed.

“That doesn’t make sense. Sure, they may be a bit thick, but I’m sure they didn’t mean it that way,” he defended, though his tone was gentle.

You scoffed, “I find that hard to believe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He glared through squinted and harsh eyes.

“It’s supposed to mean that they helped me realise something,” you worded it vaguely.

“Care to enlighten me?” Sarcasm dripped from his words as if to hide the toxic venom behind them.

“They made me realise how girls act around you. Pretty girls. Girls who are aware they have a sliver of a chance with you. Girls that aren’t like me,” a singular tear slipped down your face. How cliché of you, “They were right. What do I have that they don’t already? I’m not worthy enough to even stand in your shadow.”

Jisung could only look on as tears fell like falling stars down your cheeks. He hated this. He hated seeing you like this, he hated this cold winter night and even a twinge of hate towards Jeno for convincing him to come along. The feeling was mutual between the both of you.

“I hate you, Park Jisung,” you hissed bitterly before walking up the path you had come from not twenty minutes beforehand.

Jisung silently watched you, the girl he had applied eyeliner to and kissed in his bedroom just days before, walk away from him. He felt empty, void of any and all emotion. The alcohol in his system mixed with the headache-inducing music and what just played out in front of him was enough to make him feel nauseous. He trudged back inside, mood noticeably dampened.

“Hey, what was that about?” Chenle questioned, his concern for his best friend grew when he walked past him and grabbed his skateboard.

“I’m going home. If anyone asks, I’m feeling sick,” his words were rushed, distracted.

“Dude, you can’t just say that and expect me not to be worried,” Chenle’s brows furrowed, spinning Jisung round by his shoulders, “what’s going on?”

“I’ve fucked up, man. I’ve fucked up big time.”

vii. you have one (1) new voicemail

“Hey, this is Y/N! I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m out living my life, but if you leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as I can!”

“Hey Y/N. It’s me, Jisung. A-Again. Look, I know you’re still upset at me, but please. Surely we can talk this out. Please call me when you get this. If you pick up and actually listen-or text me! Anything. Please. Bye.”

Jisung’s throat went dry when he heard your voice again. It was happier than it was the last time he encountered you. You hadn’t spoken to him since the party, whether it was at school, or through texts and missed calls.

You had started cancelling tutoring sessions for reasons he described as ‘bullshit’. Feeling unwell, even though he had seen you looking glowing and healthy that very same day, was your most recent excuse. It was one you had used previously, maybe because people tended to sympathise when they find out someone is sick. He didn’t like being lied to, but he can’t say he blamed you. Hell, he’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t used the excuse to get out of things he didn’t want to do.

However, this wasn’t some church activity his mother had signed him up for and he wasn’t eleven years old anymore. He was a high school student, a failing one at that, and his tutor, the girl he liked, refused to speak to him.

“Hey, this is Y/N! I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m out living my life, but if you leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as I can!”

“Hey. It’s me again. I wanted to follow up on when our next session will be. I have a test coming up and I’d really love it if you helped me study. Please return my calls or messages. Bye.”

“I know she’s upset, but I just don’t understand,” Jisung confided in his closest friend and partner in crime (sometimes quite literally) Chenle, “I don’t know how to fix it if she doesn’t speak to me.” Chenle nodded, pretending he understood the heartache his friend was going through.

“Have you tried approaching her? Like, at school or something?” Chenle asked, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

Jisung shook his head. “What am I supposed to say? ‘I know we’re fighting right now but let’s talk about that’?” Chenle gave him an apologetic smile and gave him the classic “maybe” shoulder shrug, hands positioned out and all.

“Helpful,” he rolled his eyes, falling back into his mattress and gazing at his ceiling.

“What did she say that night?” Chenle questioned, copying Jisung’s actions and laying next to him. His memory worked too quickly than he wanted to admit. The memory was stuck on replay in his mind, and had been for the past two weeks.

“She said something about pretty girls always falling at my feet. Made a comment that she wasn’t part of that category. How she wasn’t ‘worthy of being in my shadow’,” he made the air quotations as he recited his memory. Chenle hummed, the cogs whirring in his brain.

“So she feels unworthy of your attention?” He wanted to make sure he had Jisung’s story straight.

Jisung shrugged, “I guess so. In case you forgot, she hasn’t spoken to me since,” he said sarcastically and exhaled so harshly, his fringe flew upwards and stuck up awkwardly.

“She can’t ignore you forever. Especially if she’s your tutor,” Chenle offered, lifting himself up onto his elbows, now able to make eye contact with his best friend.

The best friend in question only sighed, muttering a ‘yeah’ before pulling his lips in a tight lipped smile, a habit of his.

The hours ticked by. Chenle had long returned home, leaving Jisung to his own thoughts and devices, probably the worst mistake anyone could make right now. His bedroom was completely dark, only the glow of his phone screen and the pale moonlight that shone through his window illuminated the small space.

He was staring at your contact. He hadn’t changed it since the day he logged it into his phone. The same stupid nickname with the same stupid emojis on either side of aforementioned nickname.

It wasn’t an unusual occurrence for him. You were one button click away, and yet he felt butterflies lodge in his throat, knowing the rejection that lay on the other end of the line. Jisung was strong, but temptation’s urges were stronger than anything he had ever encountered. He chewed on his fingernail nervously as the line rang. To no one’s surprise, you did not answer.

“Hey, it’s Y/N. I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m out living my life, but if you leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as I can!”

Before he could speak, he was surprised to learn that you had changed your voicemail.

“If this is Jisung…please stop calling me. Just don’t call me.”

viii. F in Feelings

Sunshine bathed the hallway Jisung trudged down, juxtaposing the horrible feeling that sat at the bottom of his stomach. He hadn’t tried to contact you since the last time he tried. That was nearly a week ago, and right now, he was scheduled for a progress meeting with Miss Barnes. He hadn’t done much with his schoolwork.

You kept cancelling sessions in the library, he had passed his English test by the skin of his teeth, and his grades were, once again, slipping.

As he walked, Hyejung and Yoonah appeared at his side.

“Jisungie!” Hyejung squealed, the nickname and pitch of her voice making Jisung grimace, “We haven’t seen you since Donghyuck’s party!”

“Yeah,” he said dismissively, trying to walk away.

“Oh come on, Jisung,” Yoonah whined, grabbing him by the cuff of his jacket, “we should hang out soon. Now, even.”

“I have to get to class,” he hissed, swiftly shaking off Yoonah’s manicured hand. Both girls looked at each other, both confused and shocked.

“Come skip with us, Jisung. Pretty please?” She batted her eyelashes at him, which only repulsed him further.

“I said no, Yoonah,” he reiterated bitterly, readjusting his backpack.

Hyejung scoffed, “What has gotten into you?”

“Yeah, since when have you been like this?” Yoonah added.

Jisung furrowed his brow, “Like what?”

“You’re telling me you actually want to go to class?” Forced laughter rang throughout the hallway, “You’re so funny, Jisung. Did you know that?”

“Like what?” Jisung repeated through gritted teeth.

“Like a nerd! You’re acting like a nerd. Are you trying to suck up to teachers so they’ll fix your grades?” Hyejung went to slap his shoulder in laughter, but he batted it away harshly. She hissed in pain (Jisung knew she was faking it. She just liked his attention) and looked to him, confused.

“What the fuck? Jisung, I-” Jisung cut her off.

“A nerd? Is that what you called Y/N?” That name. It felt heavy on his tongue, foreign even.

The girls looked confused, “Y/N?”

Jisung nodded curtly. “The reason I have been avoiding you lot is that you hurt her. She heard you talking about her and now she won’t talk to me,” he confessed venomously, anger rising quickly in his chest. His chest ached as he thought of you, the hurt expression you wore that night on the cobblestone path. Anger and hurt are a lethal combination.

“For your own selfish gain, you put someone else down, someone else who I care deeply for. How stupid and self-centred do you have to be to act so recklessly?” His words were like bullets, forceful enough to pierce through skin and loud enough to attract the attention of other students going about their day, “you want to do me a favour? Fuck off.”

The two girls stood before him bug-eyed, and with one final warning from him, they scampered away, their tails between their legs.

Jisung readjusted his backpack one last time before continuing down the hall to Miss Barnes’ classroom whilst occasionally throwing warning glares at students who were staring a little too long.

If he wasn’t upset before, he was now seething. The audacity they had was laughable.

Self-centred, airheaded idiots.

He knocked on the door, catching his teacher’s attention.

“Jisung, you’re here,” she smiled brightly and gestured to one of the two chairs placed neatly in front of her desk, “take a seat.” He nodded and accepted her invitation. “Now, we’re just waiting on Y/N,” she announced, plopping down in her chair and starting to remove his assignments from his folder.

“I’m not sure if she’ll come,” Jisung muttered, swallowing thickly. Miss Barnes looked up, concerned and a little confused.

“Whatever do you mean?” He felt his mouth dry out at her confusion. She doesn’t know.

“Ah well, you see, Y/N and I-”

“I heard my name.” Speak of the devil.

“Y/N, so lovely of you to join us,” Miss Barnes smiled, repeating the gesture she made to him when he had first entered the room. You reciprocated the smile and took your place next to Jisung. He swallowed thickly, deciding it best if he didn’t look at you. Did it make him look like a dickhead? Maybe, but he wasn’t ready to turn into a flustered, sobbing mess in front of his teacher.

“So, how has the tutoring been going?” She wasn’t asking him, she was asking you.

You visibly hesitated. What tutoring? There hadn’t been any for weeks, and it was obvious in Jisung’s grades as of recent. Your facade was faltering, and you needed to keep it up for the next few minutes of your life.

“They have been going well. Jisung struggled for a bit, but he was able to fix his study habits, and he has managed to make up most of his missing assignments, as I’m sure you’ve seen.” The most fluid set of lies you’ve ever told, especially to someone with so much authority over you. Sure, you had lied to your parents, who hadn’t? But to the faculty? Never in your life.

“I certainly have, and he’s made quite the improvement,” Miss Barnes agreed, licking the tip of her forefinger before flicking through the stack of assignments on her desk. Jisung reacted repulsively and made a mental note to wash his hands when she hands his assignments back to him.

“Jisung, your short story is absolutely beautiful. I had no idea you were capable of such things,” the compliment felt backhanded, but Jisung simply brushed it off for the time being.

“The development between the characters, the raw emotions between the both of them, the storyline. Everything was so well thought out,” she paused to skim over one of the paragraphs again, “if I’m being completely honest with you, I cried whilst reading it.”

You looked at him. Short story? He had never mentioned a short story to you. Sure, you had discussed that he needed to do it, the night that you both were majorly distracted by one another.

“Thank you, miss,” he mumbled, fiddling with the rings on his fingers.

“Now, even with all this good work and high grades I can award you with, Jisung,” she said, placing his work on top of the neat stack of papers, “there is one point of concern. Your last test score.”

Chills ran down your spine. You briefly recalled Jisung asking for help with his study for it, and yet his plea fell on deaf ears.

“It’s the first time you’ve received a score like this in quite a number of weeks,” the teacher explained, her face riddled with concern, “I just want to know how this could’ve happened.”

“Oh Jisung, you goose,” you piped up and slid the test paper towards you, “we went over this the week before, don’t you remember?” Lies dripped from your tongue like honey, your voice sickly sweet like it too.

He was absolutely dumbfounded. “What?”

“Come on, Dory. We covered this.” Your lies were multiplying, and doing so rapidly.

“So, he just simply forgot? Could it be to do with your study plan at home, Jisung?”

Jisung shook his head vigorously, “I-It’s not like that-”

“I’m sure these concepts just slipped his mind, miss. I’ll work with him on improving his study routine,” you gave the teacher a pseudo smile and gathered your things, “I have to get to my next class. If you’ll excuse me,” and with that, you were gone.

“Um, I-I have to get to my next class. Thank you for your time, Miss Barnes.” He grabbed his bag, and made a beeline to the door, hot on your heels.

“Wait, Y/N! Wait up,” he chased after you down the hall until you turned around.

Your face was void of any emotion when you swivelled around. No sickly sweet tone, no smile visible on your face. Instead, you looked annoyed that he had to interrupt your day.

“What, Jisung?” The way you said his name made his heart clench and twist to the point of near shattering, and yet, it pissed him off further. Acting like nothing ever happened, like you hadn’t just spouted countless lies to your teacher.

“What the fuck was that?” He pointed back in the direction from whence he had came. You glanced over his shoulder, pretending to look around. A few seconds ticked by and you turned your attention back to him.

“I don’t see what you’re talking about,” you shrugged your shoulders. He clenched his jaw in response.

“I’m not as dumb as I seem,” he spat, venom lacing his tongue, “don’t play it.”

“I thought I made it clear that I don’t want to talk to you,” your arms were folded across your chest, clearly disinterested in the conversation. Jisung’s anger bubbled and rose in his chest. How could you be so nonchalant? How could you act like there was nothing there?

“Now if you’re quite done, I have a class to get to,” and with that, he watched you saunter away, leaving him agape and speechless.

Were things ever gonna get better?

ix. this is what happens when i leave you unsupervised (kiss and make up)

Things were not improving. Not even the faintest glimmer of hope gave Jisung the slightest chance of having you back in the life he was cursed to call his own. He heard the rumours that were chanted in the hallways that the closeness between you and him was for a different reason and the turmoil was due to a disgustingly messy end to whatever students say your official title was.

“Dude, just ignore it. It’ll die down in a couple days. It’s not all that important,” one of his close friends Mark advised. For someone who always boasted about being the eldest and demanding the most respect, he wasn’t very wise, Jisung noted.

Nothing changed. Rumours continued to circulate, tension was high, and once again, his grades were slipping. Jisung was never one to believe in destiny or luck, but in this case, he truly believed that both decided to simultaneously fuck him over and run his senior year of high school into the ground.

His grades fell from a lack. A lack of studying, a lack of attention in class, a lack of tutoring sessions with you. Initially, he thought tutoring sparked the want to learn and improve for him, so he asked Miss Barnes if he could be tutored by someone else after making some excuse about you having picked up after school shifts at a new cafe.

It took him no less than three minutes of sitting at the same table as Shin Ryujin to realise that it wasn’t tutoring itself that sparked his want to study. It was you. The very same person who would evade him in the hallways like he was the carrier of some kind of deadly virus, would pretend there was music blaring in her ears to excuse why she wouldn’t answer when he called her name and didn’t seem affected by the rumours that were spiralling out of control.

He had started to frequent the skatepark more often like the place was a drug and he was an addict. His preferred time of day was in the ungodly hours of the night when the air was the chilliest and the population of the park was one, Park Jisung.

Setting his decorated board down on the ground, he took a deep breath. The week had been terrible, a repeat of the last three weeks and each spookily identical to the point where Jisung had pondered whether or not he was stuck in a time loop.

His heel balanced on the back of the board, the front stuck out over the bowl like a pirate’s plank, that is if a pirate’s plank was covered in stupid stickers and meaningless graffiti.

The euphoric rush of adrenaline was what he craved, the feeling that he was untouchable and free. It was his drug and over these last couple of weeks, he relapsed into his addictive ways in his desperate attempts of escapism. He rolled back and forth in the bowl like it was second nature, occasionally adding a trick into his routine. He felt free, happy, and relieved. Hell, he even felt invincible. However, that analogy was short-lived.

Amidst his impressive moves and tricks, he was gaining speed with no hope of slowing down anytime soon. His vision was blurred by the velocity of his skateboard, the wind whipping past his face and numbing his cheeks from the sensation. He went for another lap around the bowl when his footing on his board slipped, throwing Jisung from his skateboard with a crash.

Wearing pain ripped from his wrist down his arm, crying and hissing in pain. He clutched his wrist tightly and rolled onto his back, continuing to wail into the silent abyss of the night. He was sure that his wrist was broken, or at the very least sprained, but he didn’t have the stomach to look at it.

His phone was within arm's reach from him. Must’ve flown out my pocket when I fell, he thought. Bracing himself for the worst, he momentarily released his wrist to grab my phone. With one hand, he scrolled through his contacts until his eyes caught on one. His thumb hovered idly over the top of it, twitching in hesitation. It was your contact. He hadn’t altered anything about it, not even bothering to edit the emojis he had placed there out of it. He sighed gently, he knew his options were narrowed down to two; you would pick up or you wouldn’t, but the situation was much different than it had been over nearly a month, he thought it would be different. He was injured and he was in desperate need of your attention, medically and physically.

Ring ring! Ring ring! The shrill sound of your ringtone echoed throughout the room and more importantly, rudely interrupted your studying playlist. You glanced at the contact, a pit forming at the bottom of your stomach. You had given up your tally on how many times he had called after 17. It was getting slightly ridiculous, to the point that the sight of his contact sent your blood boiling. How many times did you have to tell him that you didn’t want to talk to him? How thick was he?

Enough was enough. The record had to be set straight between him and you, besides your ringtone was irritating. You made a small mental note on the urgency of changing your ringtone. You tapped the green button, stirring up a thousand nasty sentences on your tongue before he even had time to speak.

“Stop fucking calling me! How many fucking times do I have to tell you that I want nothing to do with you. Seriously, how delusional are you-”

“Y/N,” Jisung interrupted, his voice raspy and quiet. The sound of your name on his tongue sent alarm bells off in your head, something was wrong.

You softened, visibly and verbally, “Jisung, is everything okay?”

A halfhearted chuckle tickled your ear, “Not particularly.”

Your heart rate spiked as you thought about every horrible scenario your brain could conjure up in seconds.

“What’s wrong? Where are you? Are you hurt?”

His silence was telling as if it told a thousand words he couldn’t.

“Are you at the skatepark?”

“Yes,” he muttered, hissing at the pain that was planted in his wrist.

“I’ll be there in five minutes with a first aid kit. Stay put,” you instructed, clicking off the call without a goodbye, and began rushing around to find your coat and the first aid kit your family stored somewhere in the house. You located it quickly (it was under the bathroom sink behind the year’s supply of hair products) and raced to the door. Your parents’ confused demands to know where you were going so late at night fell upon deaf ears. Your priorities were on Jisung and making sure he was safe.

His voice rang in your ears. You recalled the way it broke in certain places like he was trying to mask his pain, his tears. You cursed yourself aloud for letting your damn pride get in between your job and Jisung. There wasn’t a day that slipped by that you didn’t think about the damned boy. Sometimes, you would groan and mumble obscenities when you did, but in others, an ache settled heavy in your heart.

The skatepark grew closer in your peripheral vision. Your legs pumped faster as you raced up the hill and looked into the bowl. There sat the black haired boy, his bangs still covering his eyes just like the first day you had met him. The only difference between that first meeting in the school library and now was he was nursing his wrist against his chest.

“Jisung,” you called to him. He snapped his head in your direction, his eyes softened the moment he saw you.

“You actually came,” he replied, a little astonished. You shuffled down the sides of the bowl in an attempt to not slip and land face first onto the concrete similarly to Jisung.

“Of course I came. You’re hurt. I couldn’t just leave you out here in the cold,” You exaggerated your sigh as you knelt in front of him, plopping the first aid bag beside you and rifling through it to find the equipment you needed to patch up your skater boy.

Your. That word, when associated with Jisung, felt foreign in your mind. Proclaiming the injured boy as yours, pretending that for the last two weeks that you hadn’t been ignoring him, ignoring his calls, his texts, his entire existence.

Yet you picked up his call tonight. You remember the gut-wrenching feeling that set in your stomach like cement when his caller ID flashed across your screen. Something compelled you to pick up the phone, and that ‘something’ was the boy who preferred his skateboard to his textbooks.

You gently touched his wrist, earning a hiss of pain in return. You glanced up at Jisung, whose eyes were glazed over with a thin sheen of tears and he jerked his hand away from you.

“I can’t stop it from hurting if you don’t let me touch it,” you scolded lightly. Jisung it down on his bottom lip in thought for a split second before letting go of his wrist and letting you take a look at his swollen wrist.

Your eyes blew wide. “Well, that’s a sprain if I’ve ever seen one,” you commented, which was met with a blank glare from him.

“Wow, really? I never noticed, Captain Obvious. Thank you for that astute observation,” his voice dripped with sarcasm, making your face fall into a similar expression as his.

“I could leave you here and let your wrist heal incorrectly,” you threatened, turning to pack up the first aid kit. Jisung visibly panicked and shook his head.

“That’s what I thought,” you couldn’t suppress the small smile that graced your lips as you picked a bandage and ice pack out of the bag and pressed it against his wrist. Jisung winced at the cold surface of the ice pack that made you laugh.

“How did you even get yourself into this mess?” You asked as you compressed the pack to his wrist, sounding a little astounded. Jisung snickered and shrugged his shoulders.

“I fell off my skateboard. There’s not much more to it than that,” he laughed, his shoulders shaking as he did. His laugh was like music to your ears, soothing and pretty to listen to. It was a perfectly full sound, like it would play whenever you opened the lid of a child’s music box.

“You never fall off your skateboard,” you crinkled your brows and looked him up and down as you removed the ice pack and picked up the bandage and began to wrap his wrist.

Jisung knew you were right. The last time he had fallen off his skateboard was freshman year, and even then, the biggest injury he sustained was a moderately sized scrape on his knee.

“Distracted, I guess,” he tried to play it off but you were stubborn and adamant.

“Bullshit,” you replied.

“Maybe,” he gave you a small smile.

“So, tell me.”

He swallowed thickly and diverted his eyes from yours, trying to pull his hand away from your touch, however your grip was firmer than he anticipated.

“Why are you acting like this?” Annoyance bubbled inside your chest.

“L-Like what?” He stumbled over his words, shifting his body weight onto his good hand, the uninjured one.

“Like you’re hiding something from me,” Jisung scoffed at your words.

“Why would I be so quick to tell you anything? You haven’t spoken to me in weeks,” he hissed as he attempted to push your hand away, yet was met with yet another fail. His words made you freeze mid-wrap.

“I was selfish, I know-”

“No shit,” he spat. Your heart sank in your chest at the sharpness of his words and the way they plunged deep into you.

“I’m sorry. Really I am,” you apologised gently, your thumb running over the back of his bandaged hand. It was a small gesture but one that meant a great deal to Jisung. It brought back colourful childhood memories of his mother and the caring and gentle ways she would handle situations with him and his older brother.

“You,” Jisung blurted out. You gave him a strange look.

“What? What about me?” You asked, making him shake his head.

“The reason I fell off my skateboard was that I was thinking about you.” His sudden confession took you off-guard, like someone had knocked the wind out of your chest.

“O-Of me?” You swallowed thickly. Had ignoring all of his attempts at conversations, all the chances of reconciliation made you a constant thought? A thought living rent free in his mind, and one that was eating him from the inside out.

“Do you need your hearing checked again? That’s what I said,” there was a teasing tone behind his words, and it lightened your heart.

“Even after everything?” He nodded, seeming a little distant to be thinking about the topic.

“As much as I didn’t want to, you seemed to be the only thing on my mind for weeks. I tried to convince myself that I shouldn’t miss you, but somehow that made me miss you more.”

You sat there, the silence between you growing larger. Somehow, you became hyper aware of how his hand twitched and moved under your touch. Your words sat uncomfortably on your tongue and you swear you could see the twinkle of the stars taking its pretty place in his eyes.

Jisung’s gaze drifted upward and the smallest yet prettiest smile formed across his lips. “You kept my beanie,” he noted aloud. His public observation made you fluster quickly, unintentionally telling yourself to touch the soft woollen hat. You fumbled over your words in a poor attempt to explain yourself, cut off only by his gentle laughter.

“Dork,” he teased, pulling it off your head. You squawked in surprise and swiped at the hat with your free hand to try and grab it. Damn Park Jisung and his long limbs.

“I’m surprised you kept it. I thought you would’ve thrown it out or burned it by now,” he said half jokingly as he admired the hat, swiping the pad of his thumb over the brand patch on the front of the beanie.

“I couldn’t bring myself to do either,” you admitted, shrugging your shoulders and disguising the fact that your heart was beating so erratically you could hear it in your ears. The thought of destroying something that a, didn’t belong to you, and b, belonged to the one and only Park Jisung, was against your moral code.

“Also, stay still, you need to elevate your wrist,” you instructed and lifted his forearm upwards.

Jisung threw the beanie back at you, “It’s cute,” he commented. The conversation fizzled back into silence and fleeting glances. Time froze as he tried to ignore the way your fingers would delicately glide over his like he was made of glass. His mind focused on how your fingers gently curled around the space between his thumb and his index finger.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” You asked as you fixed his bandage and tightened it. Jisung nodded wordlessly, ready for whatever question you had.

“Do you think we could…try again?” He picked up on the slight yet unmistakable crack in your voice.

You missed him, and greatly at that. It didn’t matter how many times you ignored his texts or calls or his presence when he walked past you in the corridor, you felt this twinge of pain in your heart. You still had to see his contact pop up in your notifications every time you looked at your phone. Hell, even your voicemails were full because you didn’t have the heart to delete his voicemails. Sure, you were an asshole to Jisung after the party, and you regretted every moment of it, but you missed him. Even right now, when sitting in his presence, you missed him.

“We could,” he said stoutly. His tone didn’t immediately indicate if he was joking around or not, but your gut told you that it held a slight bit of resentment. You swallowed thickly and sighed loudly.

“Would you let us?”

“I might,” he said in the same tone as before. You looked down before shifting on your knees.

“Jisung,” you groaned at his lack of response, and he visibly caved.

“Okay,” he breathed, “we can try again. But no storming out on me at parties,” he teased gently as he watched you tighten his bandage.

“Don’t take me to parties and that won’t be a problem,” you gave him a loose smile, scooting closer towards him. The dark haired boy gave a hearty chuckle, until he jerked his hand in the wrong direction, to which it was sharply cut off by a hiss of pain.

“Alright, maybe we should take you to the ER,” you suggested, “I may have done my best but I’m no doctor.”

Jisung nodded wordlessly, looking over to his skateboard. Dissimilarly to him, it had sustained no injuries.

“Don’t even think about, Park Jisung,” you warned him as you helped him up, trying your best not to worsen his injury, and better yet, get him away from that stupid ass skateboard.

“Well, I can’t just leave it here! I paid good money for that skateboard!”

“You spent $150 for a plank with wheels?”

“And I’m not letting some runny-nosed, sticky-fingered iPad kid get their grubby hands all over it.” He huffed, leaning down to collect his skateboard, “also, it wasn’t $150.”

“Oh really?”

His cheeks tinted pink, “it was 175,” he mumbled. You reprimanded him for wasting such a large sum of money on a piece of driftwood and Jisung only scoffed and rolled his eyes, reminding you that it was a very good piece of ‘driftwood’. Despite your distaste for the activity, you picked up his skateboard and tucked it under your armpit.

“Now no little sticky fingered kid can get their hands on your ridiculously overpriced skateboard. Happy?” Jisung gave you a closed lipped smile, his cheeks causing his eyes to disappear a little.

There was a pause.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You turned to him.

“Yes, Jisung?”

He displayed a small but grateful smile.

“Thank you.”

You reciprocated the smile, and a soft hue coloured your cheeks.

“Don’t mention it.”

The two of you walked together down the path. The air was still freezing and the silence between was just as bitterly cold. Your feelings on Jisung were mixed and stirred, like a drink whose flavour was bittersweet. Yes, you disliked him for the shitstorm of a party incident, but that didn’t stop you from thinking. Thinking about the hours you spent on him, hours of your life you would never get back. Did you really regret those hours? The answer was no. Time flew past before you could conceptualise it, which paled in comparison to how slow these last couple weeks moved for you. Not to mention that Jisung had loosened you up. You felt less tense in strange social settings and admittedly less uptight than you were before. He showed you that your teenage years were still meant to be fun, that you didn’t need to figure out what to do with yourself immediately. Jisung was your guide through a different side of the world you thought you knew.

You looked over at Jisung as you walked. He was nursing his injured wrist against his chest, his other hand helping support it. His bangs were pushed to the side and revealed his eyes and their deep shade of hazelnut brown. Slivers of light shimmered like stars in his irises whenever he passed underneath a streetlamp and swore he had this heavenly glow behind his figure, and you felt a little awestruck just looking at him.

The bright lights of the hospital buzzed quietly as you made your way to the front desk. A middle-aged woman with dark circles under her eyes and an expression that explained that she needed a cigarette and a nap sat behind it, mindlessly tapping on her keyboards and only drew her attention away from her monitor when the two of you approached.

“Can I help you two lovebirds?” Her comment alone turned the tips of Jisung’s ears pink and he looked away from the receptionist.

“Uh yes. My friend here hurt his wrist while skateboarding and I have reason to believe that it’s sprained,” you calmly explained as you pointed to Jisung’s wrist.

The woman leaned over the desk to get a better look at his bandaged wrist. She briefly raised her eyebrow before plonking herself back into her office chair and sluggishly pulled her keyboard towards her.

“Friend, huh? Is that what you young people call your partners now?” She joked. At least, you hope she was joking, “And does your ‘friend’ have a name?”

“Yes. Uh, Park Jisung,” Jisung spoke before you could. He may not know much but he can at least remember his own name for his medical records. His answer was responded with the obnoxious clacking of her keyboard before she asked for her date of birth, residence and emergency contact.

“Alright, just take a seat over there. We’re not busy tonight, if you couldn’t tell,” she gestured to the empty waiting area, “so the doctor will be with you shortly.”

You and Jisung thanked her before taking seats opposite each other and began to wait. The receptionist was right, they weren’t very busy. Obviously, they didn’t usually get patients who have sprained their wrist because they were trying to skate their feelings away. In fact, this whole situation was laughable. You swore you despised him twelve hours ago, but all it took was one phone call and you were running back to him. Did you even despise him at all?

Ten minutes had passed before the doctor emerged from the main hallway to the waiting area, asking for ‘a Park Jisung’. The boy in question pricked up his ears and twisted his neck in the direction his name was called. The doctor smiled widely.

“Park Jisung?” He said again in a cool voice.

“U-Uh yes, that’s me,” he stammered and scrambled to his feet. He turned to you, looking at you as though he was asking for your permission.

“Go. It’s your wrist that’s fucked, not mine,” a teasing smile displayed on your lips, “Unless you need mommy to hold your hand.”

Jisung scoffed in mock disgust and announced that he’d be back soon. With a final nod of your head, he followed the doctor into another room.

The room was in pristine condition. Every surface seemed to sparkle under the fluorescent lights and he was convinced if he looked at the counter, his own reflection would stare right back. The room was decorated with space related decals that were meant to appeal to young kids; planets and stars strategically placed on the door and wall next to the desk, and an astronaut with a visor that obscured his face and holding a flag that said ‘Dr Lim’. On the other side of the desk was a chair reserved for patients, and that is where Jisung sat himself down.

“So,” Dr Lim started, making Jisung turn his attention to him, “you’ve done something to your wrist?”

Jisung nodded to confirm his theory, lifting up his hurt wrist ever so slightly as to not cause himself more pain. Dr Lim gestured for him to bring his hand closer to him, and once it was in his reach, the doctor began unwrapping his hand.

“Did you wrap your hand yourself or was it the girl you came in with?” The doctor asked, noticing how well done it was.

Jisung shook his head, “Oh no, it was her. I think she did a good job.” Jisung felt flushed just thinking about those brief moments.

Dr Lim nodded, “She did a fantastic job. You’re quite lucky to have a friend like her.”

Jisung was sure that the good doctor hadn’t realised how much those words meant to him, but they made a small giddy smile settle onto his lips and painted the tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks a dreamy shade of pink.

“Yes, sir. I am extremely lucky to have her.”

[fluffabutt]

Wrote this with heavy inspiration from @leggerefiore’s yandere works and encouragement and inspiration form @bellafragolina riffing off the idea of a reader with a pokemon that requires lots of time and built up trust saving the reader from a yandere

I also wrote this in discord and am copy pasting this from there with minor edits.

Gender Neutral Reader x Yandere Ingo

Warnings: Power Imbalance, attempted kidnapping

———————————————————————————

You were given a Ralts as your starter for your pokemon journey. You had been clumsy as a child, a little lonely, and maybe your parents thought having a pokemon that looked like a little sibling would help you plant your feet a little more strongly.

You never stopped being clumsy, not really. But as your Ralts grew into a Kirlia your pokemon used telekinesis to keep you from falling and scraping your knees.

Unless it was funny.

But, you know in this moment you’ve never been more thankful for your Gardevoir. Tessellating hexagonal shapes forming a secure barrier around the both of you.

And standing before you, the man who had just turned your world upside down, with his Chandelure, shocked.

—————————————————————

You had worked for the Gear Station for a few months, slowly getting closer to your coworkers. And of course, surprisingly, Subway Masters Ingo and Emmet. You had always considered it temporary, despite the great hotpots and parties they hosted for milestones.

You had many a tearful goodbye and promises to visit once you had settled into your new job.

Except for Ingo.

You had entered the twins’ shared office with your formal two weeks notice, and looking back at it:

The red flags were obvious.

Emmet seemed shocked as had Ingo, but the typically verbose twin simply stared at you while Emmet launched into a series of rapid fire questions.

Were you unhappy? Did something happen? Etc.

You had laughed it off with a small wave of your hand. You explained how you’d been looking for positions in the career you wanted, and tried to be clever by saying, “The Gear Station was a lovely, but also temporary stop on the tracks to victory.”

Emmet’s smile seemed strained, his eyes darting over to Ingo.

The older twin blinked, almost resetting with the information, but he took your resignation letter.

“We hope even if your employment here was temporary, that you would come to visit… when you find the time.”

You had smiled, a relief washing over you when you promised that you would.

You entered a handshake over that promise. You remember how he had squeezed so tightly that it hurt.

You wish you had taken that seriously.

——————————————————

On your last day of work, you had been making the rounds to say goodbye. Numbers exchanged, presents given.

You had said goodbye to Emmet before he departed for the last Double Battle Line of the day.

You didn’t understand the weary look in his eyes, when he exhaled and softly patted your shoulder.

Your gut twisted when you walked towards their office to turn in your final time card to Ingo.

Looking back… he knew… and some part of you knew to.

You knocked politely on the door, waiting for Ingo’s loud voice to give you permission.

You could hear the soft tones of his Chandelure as you crossed the threshold of the door.

A beautiful pokemon near in sync with her trainer, Ingo stopped to look at you with a forlorn expression, accentuated by his typical frown.

He rose from his desk to take the time sheet from you personally.

“Thank you for everything, Boss.”

“Ah, please, Ingo will suffice. No need for formalities any longer.”

You gave a nervous laugh, “Oh right, of course.”

The subtle glow of his Chandelure made you yawn, the motion as it slowly rocked back and forth.

Ingo walked from his desk to the portable coffee pot, gesturing to you with a cup to see if you wanted some.

You shook your head.

The song Chandelure seemed to hum didn’t ease the silence.

“So, uh did you need-“

“You’re going to be missed.” He said suddenly. The usual volume he spoke with always made you flinch.

“Oh yeah, everybody was very nice. Jackie got me a little gear station keychain-“

“It’s unfortunate you cannot continue to work here.”

You were tired from a long day, getting interrupted two times in a row was getting on your nerves.

You gave a nervous laugh, to ease some of the tension in your shoulders. “Yeah, but the new job I’m going to start at was what I’ve always wanted to do. So I’m excited-“

“I wish it hadn’t come to this.”

Did the room seem darker?

“Come to what, sir? Everybody has to follow their tracks to happiness,” you don’t hide the frustration in your voice. “You’ve always advocated that to us and our riders.”

Ingo faces away from you as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

“You’re right, which is why I had hoped our tracks would converge.”

Goosebumps run up the length of your spine as the hairs on your neck rise.

You’re too shocked to say anything to that.

You’re not certain if you could say anything other than “What the fuck?”

“When you had joined the Gear Station I was intrigued. You were a wonderful team member: kind, quick-witted, passionate. I couldn’t help but…” He trails off as he turns to face you, and you beg to Arceus and every god that’s listening to teleport you away from here.

You never want him to finish that thought. Not with how it makes you so nauseous your head spins.

He looks at you dead in the eyes, and you wish that you could understand what he’s trying to find there.

Your eyes pulse in your skull as you feel a bead of sweat run from your temple to your cheek. Your chest feels so tight you can barely take a deep breath.

You look into Ingo’s eyes begging for him to just end this moment. Something like a “Just Kidding!”, anything that would let you relax. Anything that would give you an excuse to walk and not run out of this office.

He does not.

“I had a crush on you-of course I couldn’t pursue you!” He says like that clarification is going to ease the tension, but it just makes your hands shake as you clench them. “I was your boss! That would’ve been highly unethical.”

You want to say “Like it isn’t now?”, but you bite back the urge when he takes a two steps towards you, and you walk two steps back.

You feel the sweat on your back make your shirt stick. Your skin itches.

His brow furrows at your motion, and it’s almost like the purple glow of his Chandelure gets brighter when the corners of his mouth tug down even further.

“I would have hoped that you and I could have continued down our tracks together, but now our paths have begun to diverge.” He continues walking towards you.

You don’t look away from his gaze, you’re terrified of what could happen if you did for even a second.

You slowly match his pace as you walk backwards, you don’t even dare blink.

You feel exhausted.

“You are going to soar away from here. As much as it pains me, I cannot bear to have you leave our station.”

You swallow harshly. “I’m sorry sir-“

“As am I, call me Ingo.” He says like he’s frustrated. Like he has any right.

“Sir,” you say with a heat that has him taken aback. “I cannot reciprocate your feelings. I am quitting today.”

You try to lay it out, through clenched teeth. Like if you say every step of the situation he’ll back off.

“You don’t reciprocate them now, but with time-“ he says with an exasperated sigh.

“No. Not now, not ever. I am going to leave and go home.”

“You are leaving… but you’re coming home. Our home.”

The door handle stabs into your back suddenly as you step back. Your attention finally breaking with a yelp as you twist to turn the handle.

You didn’t even notice that his Chandelure had been floating towards you. Your eyes meet her empty yellow orbs, and hear with alarming clarity over the thundering pounding of your heartbeat in your ears.

“Chandelure, Hypnosis.”

You can’t look away from the eyes of his pokemon as the lullaby it hums has your eyelids fluttering. You feel your body start to drop from the stress and exhaustion, even if you’re screaming in your head.

A flash of light pops from your hip, the sound of a poke ball bursting open.

————————————————-

You had heard tales of Gardevoirs pushing the limits to protect their trainers. You heard severity ranging from saving a trainer from injury to even sacrificing themselves to save a trainer from dying.

And here you are, the protective shield covering you with a calming green glow, a contrast to the purple hazy hue of Chandelure.

Your Gardevoir stands with fury between you and your attackers, psychic energy pulsing of their body as their brilliant red eyes glow.

You’re exhausted, and you’re terrified, but your Gardevoir looks back at you for a second.

And when their shoulders square you know they’d protect you with every last essence of their being.

You turn your gaze to Ingo, you don’t know what expression you wear. Only that you hope you can communicate every last ounce of your contempt.

The adrenaline running through you has manifested in a terrible headache that weighs your head down like the hypnotic pulse Chandelure used.

You press down on the door handle, running numbers in your head of how to get out of this.

You’re in a type disadvantage, and from friendly battles you know his pokemon hits harder.

You don’t have a speed advantage either.

It all came down to a coin flip, using the opportunity your pokemon gave you.

Ingo is quickly working through the shock of your Pokemon protecting you, and you do the best you can to whip the door open behind you and twist into the hallway out of the gear station.

The shout of your name nearly has your legs locking in fright, but you stumble into a sprint as your Gardevoir gracefully floats backwards keeping their eyes focused on the now enraged Subway Boss and his accomplice.

You can only hope you’ll get to the safety of the sunlight past the subway steps before he catches you.

—————————————————————-

Hhhh thank you for reading

[solradguy]

COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO UNOFFICIAL GUILTY GEAR TRANSLATIONS + SOME OTHER STUFF

THIS POST HAS BECOME A PAIN IN THE ASS TO UPDATE AND I WILL ONLY BE UPDATING THE NEOCITIES PAGE FROM HERE ON OUT. SORRY.... GUILTY GEAR FAN MEDIA TOO POWERFUL https://solradguy.neocities.org/ggmasterpost

----

Please contact me if there are translations in other languages (or I missed something) and I will add them to this post. If you find this post through a reblog with an old "last updated" date, check the original post on my blog for more recent information. There is a mirror of this post on my Neocities page. The Neocities page also has better navigation, organization, and will now be updated before this post.

Wanna help out but have never scanned a book before? Here's a guide I wrote on book scanning: Tumblr Link

I have done my best to link all of the works here back to their original scanlator/translator's uploads and hosting websites:

🔥 Volcanic Fighter (aka Nincopyjasb) - If there's a surviving archive for something Guilty Gear, Volcanic probably has it. Works in English and Spanish.

Twitter - Youtube

🔥 Justice Revival Project (aka Longshotte) - Formed solely to translate the GG Xtra manga.

Mangadex - Twitter

🔥 Ed Chang - One of the first, and most prolific, JP>EN translators in the GG community, as well as a popular Gamefaqs author for the old GG games. Used to have a personal website that hosted his works but it is lost to time. He is a name you will see often in old archived works.

🔥 Sol Radguy :) In case my Tumblr gets nuked

Email: junkyarddogmkii [at] gmail [dot] com Archive.org - Neocities - Mangadex

🔥 Tillman - Scans and archives manga and Encyclopedia/guide book volumes, as well as rips animations and other information from Vastedge and the old games.

Neocities - Tumblr - Archive.org

🔥 LesbianGiratina - Has scanned a very substantial chunk of the Guilty Gear trading cards. Also scans some of the rarer side media or special release editions of games.

Tumblr

🔥THIS IS A LONG LIST🔥

NOVELS/TEXT-BASED STORIES //

🔥Guilty Gear Begin - Light novel focused on Frederick (pre-Gear Sol Badguy). The current earliest point in the lore.

English (Sol Radguy): Tumblr - Archive.org Español (Volcanic): Dropbox

🔥 Lightning The Argent - Light novel focused on Ky. Currently does not have a full translation but Volcanic has made what he's translated into Spanish so far public. Sol Radguy is currently working on an English translation. All current translations listed here are by Volcanic.

English, Chapter 1: Dropbox Español - Dropbox (complete) Español Resumen - Dropbox (story summary in Spanish)

🔥The Butterfly & Her Gale - Light novel focused on Chipp. Translations here are by Volcanic, who is also working on a full translation.

Español Resumen - Dropbox (story summary in Spanish) English, Chapter 1 - Dropbox

🔥Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- Material Collection - Art book for Overture. There are 8 short stories in it.

English, Volcanic (Izuna, Paradigm, & Valentine) - Dropbox -- Español - Dropbox English, Sol Radguy (complete) - Tumblr - Neocities -- Archive.org (.PDF + uncompressed scans)

🔥GG Xrd: The Unseen Sign - Intro? story to Guilty Gear Xrd included in the Arc System Works 25th Anniversary Official Character Collection art book. Translations by Volcanic.

English - Dropbox Español - Dropbox

🔥DRAMA CDS - The English files for these are also hosted on Sol Radguy's Neocities site if the .ru domain is blocked for you. That site also hosts a .PDF of all the following English translated files so that they are more portable/easier to read than the raw .TXT format some of these are currently in.

Neocities

🔥 Night of Knives - GGXX drama CD mainly focused on Zato and Millia with some Venom and Slayer. Translations by Blade (vol. 1-3), Mei (ES side stories), and Volcanic (EN side stories). NOTE: The volume 1-3 translations done by Blade (aka Blade Galewind, Mimeblade, gear-project), who is known for purposely misinterpreting lore and inserting headcanons into translations. Unfortunately, these are the only translations out there of these drama CDs. The Spanish translations of these 3 volumes worked off Blade's English ones. Read at your own risk. A new translation is currently in progress by Vaporbabe.

English: guiltygear.ru: Vol.1, Vol.2, Vol.3 Español: Dropbox +Robo-Ky side story: English: Dropbox Español: Dropbox + A.B.A. side story: English: Dropbox Español: Dropbox Axl side story: English: Neocities Español: Dropbox

🔥 GGX Drama CD - A bunch of the cast have a big fight over some Old War Technology (black tech). English translations by Ed Chang, Spanish translations by Aegis High and Volcanic. NOTE: There are significant errors in Ed Chang's translation (& possibly in Aegis High's & Volcanic's, which worked off of Chang's text), the biggest of which is the infamous "Johnny Sfondi" last name mistranslation. Cross-reference information presented in these texts with more recent confirmed canon before using it as a source or citation. Ed Chang's statement on these translations can be read here: screenshot. Tl;dr: Chang was new to Japanese translation and the mistakes were honest accidents. These translations are nearly 20 years old. Vaporbabe may very well do a new translation for this CD too.

--Disc 01: English: guiltygear.ru Español: Dropbox --Disc 02: English: guiltygear.ru Español: Dropbox +Dizzy & Testament side story (from when they first meet): English: Included at the end of Chang's Disc 02 translation. Español: Dropbox

🔥GGXX Drama CD Sides Red & Black - This is an alternate timeline where Ky is killed during the Crusades. English translations by Ed Chang, Spanish translations by Volcanic.

English: guiltygear.ru (red) - guiltygear.ru (black) Español: Dropbox +Night of the Living Dolls extra story (feat. Zappa): English: At the end of Chang's Side Red translation. Español: Dropbox +Letter extra story (a letter from Dizzy to Testament): English: At the end of Chang's Side Black translation ("A Message from Dizzy to You") Español: Dropbox

🔥GG Petit 2 - Fanny & Faust arcade modes dialog. Translation by Volcanic.

English - Dropbox

== Fanny win/lose quotes. Translation by @kaialone.

English - Tumblr

MANGA/PICTORAL STORIES //

🔥Guilty Gear (1998) Comic Anthology - The first anthology manga published for GG. This is a collection of isolated stories, both original to the volume and recaps of parts of the lore. Sol Radguy is currently working on this. Fábrica de Lutadores and Maxima-Dub are also working on a Brazilian Portuguese translation. Chapters 1 - 8 are in English, while the first two are in Portuguese.

Full volume raws (Japanese): Archive.org English & Portuguese translations: Mangadex

🔥 Guilty Gear Xtra - Manga that introduces two new characters that promptly get forgotten by the lore at large. Scanlation by Justice Revival Project.

English: MangaDex - Archive.org (incomplete) Español: Dropbox

ART BOOKS //

🔥Artworks of Guilty Gear X 2000-2004 - Art book collecting a decent chunk of Daisuke' art from GGX through to early GGXX. Contains more rough sketches than the 2007 sequel as well as an interview with Daisuke in the back. The available scans are very low quality. The original interview translation was by fairymisao with additional translation and editing by Sol Radguy.

Raws: Archive.org Interview, English: Archive.org

🔥Artworks of Guilty Gear X 2000-2007 - Art book collecting (most) of Daisuke’s work going from GGX through to Isuka. Does not have anything from Overture, despite it being in production around the time this book was published. Translation by Sol Radguy.

English: Tumblr tag - Archive.org

🔥Guilty Gear X: Drafting Artworks - Collects a bunch of concept sketches for character designs but most of it is roughs for their moves. Has some lore stuff and map design stuff.

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥Guilty Gear 2 Overture Material Collection - This is a loose folder of all the artwork from this art book but a bit out of order and with additional illustrations from the Overture era of Guilty Gear.

Japanese: Dropbox

🔥Guilty Gear Xrd (Revelator) Visual Book - Small art book included in the special edition release of XrdRev in Europe and Japan. This is a scan of the European book, which is in English (mostly). These scans were done by@birthdaytrain and were compiled it into a .PDF for Archive by Sol Radguy.

English: Archive.org

🔥Guilty Gear 10th Memorial Book - Book celebrating the 10th anniversary of Guilty Gear. Clear images of some rare illustrations in it that weren't reprinted elsewhere, such as the Isuka arcade ending art.

Japanese: Neocities

🔥ASW 25th Anniversary Official Character Collection - Celebrates Arc System Works surviving for 25 years. Sol's on the cover but has stuff for Blazblue and some other ASW properties. Originally scanned by tokimekicn. - This could use a rescan.

Japanese: Archive.org

MAGAZINES, ETC. //

🔥Channel 3 Records Guilty Gear: Missing Link Vinyl Art and Interview Book - A 2LP that came with a short booklet containing some ML era GG art and a brief interview with Daisuke himself. Sol Radguy did not rip the music from the records for this archive. In-house translation.

English (some Japanese): Archive.org

🔥Dengeki PlayStation F, Volume 10 (October 13, 1995) - Volume 19 of the Japanese gaming magazine, Dengeki PlayStation. Has an article on what appears to be the first printed appearance of any sort of Guilty Gear 1 material. Very early prototype stuff in this. Translation by Sol Radguy.

Japanese, English: Archive.org

🔥Dengeki PlayStation F2, April Special Issue, Volume 19 (April 10, 1996) - Volume 19 of the Japanese gaming magazine, Dengeki PlayStation. Has an article on an early build of GG Missing Link. This issue also has articles for Final Fantasy 7, Tekken 2, Street Fighter Zero, Darkstalkers, and a lot more. Translation by Sol Radguy.

Full magazine raws: Archive.org English translation of the Guilty Gear article: Archive.org

🔥Asura System Guilty Gear Trading Cards - Scans of some of the Guilty Gear cards made for the Asura System TCG. Scanned by @lesbiangiratina . The cards are in Japanese.

Japanese: Google Drive

MISC. //

🔥Guilty Gear Vastedge XT - The canon pachinko machine. This upload contains all the ripped assets (meshes, sound FX, animated assets such as cutscenes, UI assets, etc), the .APK and two .OBB files from the Android port rip, all the concept art, the JP dialog script (+Volcanic's partial EN translation), Shmuel's restored/remastered opening animation video, and some videos of the gameplay and of the physical machine all into one place. Full credits for this pack are long, please see Archive link for them.

Archive.org

🔥A.B.A. Design Documents - Original analog sketches used for A.B.A.'s design and for the design of her moveset. Courtesy of famiccha on Twitter.

Google Drive

GUIDE BOOKS/ENCYCLOPEDIAS //

No one has translated any of these and a lot of them are uploaded together. Most of the guide books have not been scanned. See the MISSING STUFF section below for what's not here.

🔥Guilty Gear Complete Bible, GGXX The Midnight Carnival Starter Encyclopedia, GG Isuka Complete Guide, GGXX Accent Core +R A Gainful Material, + 1st Gig Artbook. - 1st Gig scans by Lux/Xaeldritch.

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥Guilty Gear X SLASH Encyclopedia - Scans by Sol Radguy. Special thanks to @dizzyrobo for lending a copy to be scanned.

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥GGXX The Midnight Carnival Burst Encyclopedia - Scans by Tillman

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥GGXX Slash Beat Encyclopedia - A.B.A. and Order Sol were introduced in XX Slash, so this guidebook has a lot of stuff featuring them. Intro/win dialog transcriptions + Slayer haiku table, too.

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥Guilty Gear Petit 1 & 2 Official Fan Book - Guide book for the Wonderswan games. Scans by Tillman.

Japanese: Archive.org

🔥Vastedge Official Guide Book - I don't know how you make a guide book for a pachislot machine but, well, someone found a way. Scans by Tillman.

Japanese: Archive.org

MANGA RAWS, NO TRANSLATIONS //

GGX Plus Anthology Comics vol.1 (Bros. Anthology Comics):

=== Archive raws

=== Google Drive - Chapter 1 translation by Renexuz. This project has been dropped by Renexuz and no further work on it will be done by her. Please let me know if someone else picks this up.

GGX Anthology Comics (Bros. Anthology Comics) - Archive raws

GGX Plus Anth. Comics vol.2 (Bros. Anthology Comics) - Archive raws

GGXX Anthology Comics vol.1 (Bros. Anthology Comics) manga - Archive raws

GGXX Anthology Comics vol.2 (Bros. Anthology Comics) manga - Archive raws

GGXX Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics), Volume 1 - Archive raws

GGXX Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics), Volume 1 - Archive raws

Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics) - Archive raws

Guilty Gear Isuka (Ohzora Comics) manga, scans by Lux/Xaeldritch - Archive raws

Guilty Gear XX 4koma Kings (DNA Media) vol.1 - Raws on Archive

Guilty Gear XX 4koma Kings (DNA Media) vol.2 - Raws on Archive

Guilty Gear XX 4koma Kings (DNA Media) vol.3 - Raws on Archive

Guilty Gear X 4koma Kings (DNA Media) vol.1 - Raws on Archive

Guilty Gear X Plus 4koma Kings (DNA Media) - Raws on Archive

MISSING STUFF //

Character Designer Issue 1. 2003 (キャラクタデザイナー ISSUE.1 2003年秋) - Has SUPER early concept art for a lot of characters in it, including concept art for Baiken when she was initially planned to be male. - lesbiangiratina is currently scanning this; Sol Radguy translation of the GG pages is in progress.

The EU special edition release of GG Accent Core Plus. Came with what's likely to be an official English translation of the 10th Memorial Book OR a book called The Lost Archive, which seems to include artwork for Overture but additional information is unknown. Which book it came with depended on which version of the SE was bought. These were limited to 200 copies (100 each) and are very expensive (>us$450). (thanks to Renexuz & Tillman for this info)

Arc System Works 25th Anniversary Memorial Booklet - A Japan-exclusive limited-edition artbook that was available at the Arc System Works Festival 2013 to commemorate the company's twenty-fifth anniversary.

Guilty Gear 2 Overture Secret Gig & Secret Gig Neo - Two different booklets given out at Tokyo Game Show (2006?) that have some Overture art in them that wasn't included in the GG2Overture Material Collection art book, mostly of Valentine and Chimaki. Neo has art by guest artists, including a Valentine body pillow... Neo also seems to be the rarer of the two, but both are pretty hard to find.

Manga:

Username by the book title denotes that someone owns it and will scan it eventually. For @tillman, double check with its pinned post to make sure the listings here are up to date.

Guilty Gear Isuka Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics) - Tillman

Guilty Gear Isuka Yonkoma Kings - 4koma - Tillman

Guilty Gear X Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics) - Tillman

Guilty Gear X Plus Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics) - Tillman

Guilty Gear XX (Ohzora Comics) - Tillman

Guilty Gear XX Slash Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics) - Tillman (both volumes)

Guilty Gear XX Slash Yonkoma Kings - Tillman

Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload Yonkoma Kings - Tillman

Guide Books/Encyclopedias:

It's difficult finding information about the guides/encyclopedias. Drop me a message if you find one that's not listed.

Guilty Gear X Official Guide - Dreamcast-specific guide

Guilty Gear X Plus Official Guide

Guilty Gear XX Complete Guide - Sol Radguy

Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload Complete Guide - Radguy

Guilty Gear XX Slash Complete Guide

Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Break Encyclopedia

Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Complete Guide

Guilty Gear Isuka Outlive Encyclopedia - Tillman

Guilty Gear Isuka Technical Guide

Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- Complete Guide

Magazines:

Names are left in Japanese to make them easier to copy-paste into web searches. Here is how to read them:

電撃プレイステーション = Dengeki PlayStation

Vol. = Volume number

1995年10月13日 = 1995 [year], 10 [month], 13 [day], so October 13, 1995. All dates are yyyy/mm/dd format.

There may be additional Dengeki PS articles from 1995 and 1996. DPS April Special Issue Vol.19 1996/04/10 has been scanned/translated (see above).

電撃プレイステーション F Vol.10 1995/10/13 The ML beta character bios scans. - We have scans of the GG article from this but they are very poor quality.

電撃プレイステーション vol.14 April 1996 Beta GG article, page 22

電撃プレイステーション vol.59 1997/11/14 Beta GG article on page 28

電撃プレイステーション vol.32 1996/11/22 Beta GG article on page 14. - There exists in the current GG archives a poor photo of a double-page spread with a blue background from this issue. It's illegible but shows a different UI than the final release of GG1.

電撃プレイステーション vol.72 GoGoRPG Special Issue 1998/4/24 GG article page 34 - This issue was published about 3 weeks before the official release of Missing Link. Very likely shows final-release stuff.

電撃プレイステーション vol.73 CD-Rom Special Issue 1998/5/22 Came with a physical disc. GG article on page 12

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

Hi, so I wrote a little fic, and I posted it. I gave it to Dani, she laughed at it, I asked if I should edit it, she said "fuck it we ball"

The entire fic will be below the cut because it's short enough to post here, but if you'd like to leave comments or kudos, it is also posted on my AO3. It's only 1k words.

Dress Up As...

This is the stupidest party they have ever thrown. They know that.

This was the stupidest party they had ever thrown, and they all knew it. No one was sure whose idea it had originally been, and no one was quite brave enough to own up to it. But it was their last party at Hillerska — their last third years’ party — and it seemed like a pity to go out without throwing at least one entirely stupid blowout. 

The theme was truly very simple: Dress Up Like… 

Throughout the entire week before, each third year had one at a time drawn a card out of a hat to find out what or who they would be dressing up as for the party. Every person had a different theme. No one should or would be dressed for the same party. In theory, that’s what made it fun. 

What made it decidedly not fun was the fact that no one was allowed to redraw their theme. Once the card was in their hand, they could not switch with anyone or draw a second theme. That factor made the whole thing more than a little stressful. Because not everyone had the clothes they needed just lying around. Some of them had even resorted to stealing from First Years just to complete their looks. 

But now it was the night of the party, and one by one they started to trickle in, costumes ready and on full display.

Some were better than others. 

Henry wore a black tank top and bright green basketball shorts, chunky sneakers and a backward baseball cap. The entire night, he carried around a can of beer and would randomly start shouting about his human rights. Dress Up Like… An American. 

Walter, his ever present counterpart, looked truly ridiculous. More so than usual. He showed up in short-shorts and a crop top, an LED flower crown sitting pretty atop his head. He had a mesh shawl overtop that went farther down than his pants did, and somehow he had managed to find what could only be described as cowboy boots. Dress Up Like… A Pinterest Girlie. 

Stella wore a baby pink nightgown with a fairy pattern and clearly not matching blue bunny slippers. She had her hair tied up into pigtails and she was carrying around a worn-in looking stuffed bear. She was drinking her alcohol through a sippy-cup and every once in a while switched to suck on a lollipop. Dress Up Like… A Five-Year-Old. 

Fredrika had it (arguably) the easiest out of all of them. She was quite literally wearing a bedsheet that she’d pinned into a toga and some sandals she’d managed to find on short notice. She’d gone the extra step to make herself a wreath for her hair, but pretty much everyone was mad at her for her lucky draw. Dress Up Like… An Ancient Roman. 

Alexander had somehow gotten his hands on neon spandex. He went all out for his costume, even finding someone to give him a perm. There was a neon sweatband on his head that had “mysteriously” gone missing from the locker room a week ago. He’d completed his look with sunglasses that were too big for his face and Henry’s orange wrist-watch. Dress Up Like.. The 80s. 

Madison wore a muscle tank and tight biker shorts. She was carrying around a big bin of vanilla protein powder and every time someone asked her a question she would respond with “do you even lift, bro?” She’d gone as far as to draw on faint mustache hairs and no one was actually sure if she was kidding about having bought into cryptocurrency as a way to commit to the bit. Dress Up Like… A Gym Bro. 

Sara had spent all week stressing about her costume, only to give in and ask Henry if she could borrow his tuxedo. The one she knew he had just lying around because it was Henry, and of course he had a tuxedo lying around. She’d stolen a ring box from Simon to keep in her pocket, as well, and she had found a top hat somewhere in their mother’s box of old Halloween costumes. Dress Up Like… A Groom. 

It was a lucky coincidence that Felice was her counterpart in all of that. They looked ridiculous, but at least they looked ridiculous together. Felice had taken the time to go to the thrift store in Bjärstad for her costume, though. Not even the students of Hillerska had wedding dresses lying around. She was able to find one for relatively cheap, too, and it had come with a veil. The dress was nice if you pretended it wasn’t from the 70s and ignored the suspicious stain. Sara had gotten her a bouquet to really sell the look. Dress Up Like… A Bride. 

Wilhelm had borrowed his entire outfit from Felice. It was a blue dress and some gold jewelry. Nothing too scandalous, though he was still sure Jan-Olof’s heart would fail if he saw it. They still hadn’t told him about Wille piercing his ears yet. Wilhelm had opted to wear his own shoes for the night, as much as Felice begged him to try out high heels. He’d promised her he’d try another time when he wouldn’t have to commit to an entire night in them whilst slightly drunk. Dress Up Like… Your Best Friend.

It was Simon that truly caught everyone’s eye, though. With the exception of a long coat and scarf that they knew wasn’t his, he looked like he wasn’t dressed up at all. Everything he wore was seemingly something he wore every day. A sweatshirt and jeans, converse and a silver chain hanging around his neck. 

“Oh, come on, Simon! You could have at least tried,” Fredrika called out, somehow already tipsy despite the party having just started. 

“I’m dressed up,” Simon said. He shrugged off the coat and scarf before depositing himself in Wilhelm’s lap. 

It was an obvious lie. 

“Simon, you wear that all the time,” Henry pointed out. 

Simon nodded, running his fingers through the hairs on the back of Wille’s head. “Yes, I do, and I’m still dressed up.” 

Wilhelm looked like the cat who caught the canary and, most of the time, the rest of them would take that as a clue to just accept Simon’s words as truth and move on. But not tonight. No, they had all made asses of themselves trying to commit to this stupid ass party plan and they would be damned if Simon ruined it. They would force him to go home and change if they had to. They’d drag him by the ear back to Bjärstad and stand guard until he emerged looking just as idiotic as the rest of them.

“I would bet all the money in my wallet that you are not dressed up properly,” Walter said. It would have been a serious threat, too, had he not looked so ridiculous. 

“Are you sure about that?” Simon asked, a smirk tugging at his lips. 

“I’d like to join in this bet!” Maddie declared, pulling her wallet out of her waistband. And, soon, they were all betting some kind of money on the fact that Simon had not properly committed to their stupid plan. 

Wilhelm didn’t say a word. He just sat back with a smug look on his face as Simon got all of his friends to bet him a small fortune. He, of course, knew what Simon was supposed to be dressed up as. He, of course, knew Simon was about to be several thousand kronor richer. 

When everyone had placed their bets on the table, his own sister included, Simon pulled his card out of the coat he’d earlier discarded. He knew they were going to challenge him on his costume. He’d come prepared for this. 

He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter, though it was difficult with Wilhelm’s arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. “Everything I’m wearing — boxers included — is something Wilhelm has, at some point, stolen from me,” he announced. He threw his card down on top of the make-shift money pot and then leaned back into his boyfriend with a satisfied smirk. “Read it and weep, bitches.” 

Dress Up As… Royalty.

[sacharinee]

cute moments i imagine with peter pt. 2!

pairing: peter parker x reader

wc: 2006

a/n: hi guys!! thank u for the support on my last post - it means a lot to me :,) i dont rlly like this one but oh well. i swear these posts r supposed to be little blurbs but they keep writing out to be kinda long. anywaysss, i’d always imagine peter being the cutest when shopping with him. also peter is 100% a passenger princess and u cant convince me otherwise. this isnt my best work but im kinda tired of editing it so i hope u like it :(

part: I lll

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“may, have you seen my good cologne?!” 

you straighten your outfit as you stand outside peter’s apartment, coming to pick him up for your little shopping date. you’re dressed in a pretty black skirt with sheer dark stockings and a fuzzy cardigan to keep you warm. you know peter loves your skirts.

“what good cologne?” “the one i bought two months ago? the one that smells nice?” “oh… i threw it out. happy used the rest of it before he took me out to dinner.”

you can already picture his pinched face in disgust and you chuckle at the thought of peter and happy using the same cologne.

you’ve barely knocked three times before peter opens the door, hair messy, pink cheeks, and a soft smile adorning his cute face. 

“hi baby, you look pretty,” he breathes out. you giggle at his appearance, “hi petey,” planting a sweet kiss on his cheek.

“oh my goodness, y/n? hi! i haven’t seen you around in a while, i missed you!” you see may peek her head behind your boyfriend, looking extremely excited to see you.

you open your mouth to greet her but get cut off when peter rushes out the door grabbing his coat, “kay see you later, may! love you!” he departs. you sneak a quick “bye!” to let her know you heard her.

peter grabs your hand and swings your laced hands together as you both walk down the dark hallway, “that was mean,” you tease. peter sighs back at you, “she would’ve made you stay and try her new meatloaf recipe, and trust me, you don’t want to try it.”

his comment makes you laugh. you guess he’s right, but may’s been a second mom to you ever since you can remember, and you’ve had your fair share of eating one of her meal disasters before.

“hold on,” peter pushes you into a small and secluded corner of the corridor, shielding you from looking at the rest of the view and only him. he looks a little nervous when he looks into your eyes, then down at your plump and inviting lips. your left-hand grabs onto his bicep, “what’re you-” he takes you by surprise, shutting you up quickly with a deprived kiss. his fingers are warm against your chilled face. his rough, calloused fingers graze your soft puffy cheeks and you lean deeper into him, tilting your head for more access. 

you feel his other hand snake around the small of your back, gently tugging you closer to him and your hand grips tighter against his flexed arm. your free hand trickles up the side of his neck feather-like, sending chills down his spine. only you can make his knees weak and leave him completely melted into a puddle with a single touch. it’s why he’s addicted to you. he craves how serene you cause him to be one minute, and then utterly captivated and haunted by you the next. 

his kiss was urgent and needy, one that was suppressed for days due to his absence from a previous mission. his hand moves from your cheek to your velvety hair, and his fingers travel behind your ear, delicately carding himself through your smooth strands. his mouth is hot on yours and his tongue sweeps slightly across your bottom lip, to which you eagerly responded by opening your mouth wider, inviting him. you hum into the kiss; you feel soft against him, silken and satiny. you’re too much for him. your blazing touch, your round lips, that sweet honey-like scent of yours, and that short skirt you wear- you make him dizzy. 

peter breaks off first, licking his lips and faintly panting; your foreheads rest against each other. a simple “missed you” with a shrug is all of an excuse he can muster up for you. you peck his lips gingerly, “i missed you too.” a shy smile graces his face and you think it’s wild how diffident he quickly gets after knocking the wind out of you. you snap out of whatever trance peter held you in and realize you really want to get going on your planned shopping date with him, “c’mon, it gets dark quickly.”

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

you and peter both make it to your car in the busy parking lot to which he walks a few steps before you, coming to your side of the car and opening the door for you. you laugh at his gesture and express an appreciative “thank you” before getting in. he’s been doing this for years and it never fails to make you all giddy inside. you think it’s the cutest thing ever, and it makes you laugh even more when you consider the fact that he’s riding in the passenger seat and he still makes romantic efforts for you. 

you drop your purse off in the backseat when peter enters and buckles in, then you start the car and pull out of the parking lot, off to your first destination. “so where we goin’?” he hooks up his phone to your bluetooth and plays music from your shared playlist.

“well, we could go to barnes and noble? i finished reading all the books on my list so i was thinking i could buy some more, and then we could get some food if you’re hungry.” “sure, y/n/n” he smiles at you. 

you originally wanted to make it a girl’s day with mj and betty; you figured it’d be nice to spend some time with your two other best friends. but once mj heard the word ‘shopping’ come out of your mouth, she immediately declined, claiming that she needed to study for an upcoming geology exam. you understood at first but then realized classes didn’t even start for another four weeks because of winter break. betty also had to decline when she got asked to babysit last minute. but you don’t mind peter tagging along instead, in fact, you prefer it. you’ve been separated for quite some time since he went away on that big mission. 

back when you and peter were both 16, he got his license a full month before you did. however, you were the one that got a car first, a hand-me-down, which was gifted to you by your parents when you turned 17. so for the next two years, you’d arrive at peter’s apartment before school, pick him up, and carpool together. 

you don’t mind it though, you like driving. peter once confessed to you that being in the driver’s seat makes him a little anxious and causes his senses to go a little haywire, especially driving in new york. ever since then, peter prefers to be your little passenger princess, bringing you coffee or bagels from delmar’s deli as a thank you.

so you enjoy doing the little things for peter. you like making his life easier any way you can. 

usually, when you’re out running errands or going to the mall, peter rarely has time to go with you. because of his part-time job as spider-man, it takes a big chunk of his freedom away from hanging around with you. but the second he does, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing to be with you. and today is one of those days.

“okay, we’re here!” the beloved bookstore could almost be considered your second home, seeing as the amount of time you spend here is excessive. you reach out for your purse in the backseat, turn off the engine, and open your car door. it barely even opens a few inches when it forcefully shuts back on you. peter’s staring right at you through the window with a blank expression and pursed lips. all you can offer is a look of shock and confusion. he waits a few seconds before opening the car door for you with a bashful smile forming on his face. 

you gape at him in bewilderment as you shriek with laughter, “what the- what is wrong with you!?” peter’s no better, laughing back at you and grabbing your hand to pull you out of the car.

“y- your face! oh my god,” he pretends to wipe a tear from his eye. you roll your eyes and shake your head at his antics, “i can’t stand you.”

when you enter the store, your loud banter outside is a stark contrast to the environment inside. it’s quiet and reserved, people are consumed in a different reality as they flip through the pages of the book they curiously selected. 

“let’s go over here.” you drag him into the romance section, requesting him to have his arms outward parallel to each other. for the next ten minutes, peter follows you around like a lost puppy, carrying your large stack of books while you give a brief description of every novel you pick up. he thinks it’s adorable how excited you get about the littlest things.

“ooh! this one is my favorite type of trope,” you pick out another book and whisper the next words that come out of your mouth, “it’s a mafia romance.” you watch his face contort into disgust and confusion, “ew, why would anyone want to date a mobster, that’s so dangerous. they’re so risky.” he shakes his head in distaste. you snort back at him, “why do you think i’m with you?” peter immediately frowns back at you, “hey!”

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

you take some time with your boyfriend to sort through the books that you’re thinking of purchasing. peter wasn’t much help, every time you’d ask for his opinion on a book, he’d mumble the same “yea, i like that one” or “that’s a nice book.” nevertheless, you narrow your choices down to three novels, and head down to the registers to check out. 

once hearing your total, you shuffle your wallet out of your purse to pay, only to immediately hear the transaction go through successfully. confusion paints your face until you look at peter shoving his phone into his back pocket and grabbing your stack of books, “we don’t need the receipt, thank you,” and he’s off. 

you rush to catch up with him. “peter,” you groan, “why would you do that? you didn’t have to pay for my books.” “i know” is all he says. you instantly feel bad. although you appreciate peter doing sweet things like this for you, you’re always against him spending his money on you like that. 

he’s by the exit when peter realizes you’re still standing near the end of the registers. he walks back up to you, “baby, it’s no big deal, really. i haven’t seen you in a while. i wanted to do something nice for you.” his eyes are genuine when he offers a small shrug. you mirror peter’s blushing smile.

“thank you.” his eyes crinkle when you plant a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “at least let me buy you a latte.” you tug at peter’s hand and he lets you drag him to the connected starbucks. “you sit,” urging him to take a seat in the seating area. you don’t trust him to come up with you to registers anymore. when you place your order, you remember you still own a gift card with leftover credit from the cafe and you hand it to the cashier, deciding to use it after glancing at the expiration date. you turn back to your boyfriend, watching him flip through your chosen books. 

when the baristas call out your name, you happily take the drink, giving it to peter, and taking his hand to lead yourselves back to the car. he takes a sip of his latte and raises his brows in contentment, “you still remember my order?” “course i do, it’s the same as always.”

you’re buckling yourself in and starting the car when he takes another sip of his hot milk coffee, “did you really buy my drink with a leftover gift card?” your shocked face tinges in embarrassment and you look back at his raised eyebrow and smug smile.

“what, it expires today!”

[a-valourous-choice]

To Rebuild A Home - Chapter One

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Warnings: death mention, food mention, anxiety and negative thoughts. Edited by: @winterwynd

Also available on Ao3 here.

-----

“Okay, let me get one more for your grandparents. Big smile!”

Patton was awarded another cheesy grin as he took another photo of Thomas. “Darn.” He cursed under his breath when a pop up announced that the memory card was full and would not allow any more pictures unless he deleted a couple.

Patton had even broken out the proper camera for the occasion, much better than the blurry phone. 

He really had to upload the images to a computer or get them printed. It was something he had been putting off for quite some time though, as he knew the camera contained some of the last ever snapshots of his wife.

“Oh well,” Patton said, returning the lens cap. “We got a lot of great photos!” 

He was just sad that he hadn’t been able to get any of Virgil and Thomas together before Virgil had bolted out the front door.

“I wanna see, please and thank you!” Thomas insisted, making a grab for the camera but Patton held it just out of reach.

“Later kiddo,” he chuckled. “It’s time to go into class now.” 

Even though Patton was the one who said it, the words still cut through him like a knife. His youngest child, his smallest baby, was about to start kindergarten.

He could feel the tears coming on. 

“Actually.. Thomas, are you sure you want to go to school this year?” Patton said. He had no issues holding Thomas back if it meant he got to have more time with him.

Miss López, Thomas’s teacher, wandered over at that moment, seeming to be no stranger to the nervous parent. “Don’t worry Mr. Sanders,” she said. ��Thomas and I are sure to have a great time, aren’t we?” she smiled at Thomas who nodded. 

“Yeah!” Thomas said.

“It is time for him to head inside and join the other children now though,” Miss López told Patton gently. 

“Okay.” Patton took a deep breath, the other tearful parents walking past were not helping. “Have a wonderful day, Thomas.” He bent down to hug his son. “I’ll be back to-”

“Bye, Daddy!” Thomas said and ran into his classroom.

Oh. Well, okay then. 

Miss López giggled behind her hand. “Don’t take offense, Mr. Sanders,” she said. “I think adults have a much harder time adjusting than the children do.” 

“It sure seems that way,” Patton said, straightening up. “I guess I’ll see you this afternoon Miss López.”

“Please call me Vanessa.” 

“Okay, Vanessa,” Patton said. “Have a nice day.”

With my son…while I wallow in my sadness… 

“You, too.”

Patton thought about those two words as he trudged back to his car. How was he supposed to have a pleasant day when his youngest son didn’t seem to care for his absence, and his eldest barely acknowledged his existence?

Truthfully though, it wasn’t Thomas he was concerned about. Patton knew that Thomas had just been excited to start school and he was sure that he still loved his dad, but Virgil on the other hand…

Patton could remember Virgil’s first day of kindergarten - how unlike Thomas he had been; a tiny ball of nerves clinging to his dad’s legs that had needed to be coaxed into the fray by his teacher. 

Virgil had once relied so heavily on his dad for protection and comfort, but nowadays it felt as though they barely spoke to one another. It wasn’t for lack of effort on Patton’s part though, it was just that every attempt he made was met with contempt and resistance. 

Patton slid into his car, wondering what he could do to repair the damage between himself and Virgil.

He sat idly for a while before coming to the conclusion that he should go visit his parents. With both kids in school, Patton had no desire to be alone today; besides, his folks were clever people, maybe they’d have a solution to his problem. 

-----------

“You have no idea how wonderful it is to have you home.” Patton’s father Ethan said as he handed over a cup of coffee. Patton definitely had some notion; one of the best things about moving back into his hometown was getting to reconnect with his family again. 

“I missed you guys, too.” Patton said, and Ethan lightly patted his son’s cheek. 

Harmony, Patton’s mother, was flipping through the photos on Patton’s camera with a wide smile on her face. “Thomas is so adorable,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to print these for you?” “No,” Patton said. “I’ll get around to it, eventually.” 

“Alright, dear.” Harmony sighed. “Such a shame you couldn’t get Virgil in any of them, but I suppose he’s going through his teenage rebellion stage, isn’t he?” Patton took a small sip of his coffee. “If you want to call it that,” he said. “I think it was because of me that he didn’t want his picture taken though.” If Thomas had asked then it would have been a different story; Virgil did just about anything Thomas requested of him. 

“What do you mean?” Ethan asked. 

“He’s just so angry at me,” Patton said. “I know he didn’t want us to move but I didn’t think he’d hate me for it. I thought he’d at least be excited to live closer to you both.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” Harmony said soothingly. “You know what teens can be like.” 

“This is different.” Patton was no stranger to Virgil’s teenage mood swings, but this animosity Virgil currently had towards his dad was something new entirely. 

“Well,” Ethan began carefully. “He has been through something traumatic, more so than any of us could even begin to understand. Perhaps he is just struggling with those emotions and is unfairly lashing out at you.” 

“Maybe.” Patton said, unconvinced. 

“Have you thought about a therapist?” Harmony suggested. 

Patton would be lying if he said that he hadn’t considered it, but he just couldn’t see Virgil bonding with a total stranger. “I don’t know,” he said. “He doesn’t really trust anyone these days, I don’t know if a therapist could get through to him.”

“It’s worth a shot.” Ethan said. “Tell you what, your mother and I will look around, see if we can find anybody we think is suitable and we’ll let you know, okay?”

“You don’t have to-”

“Patton, let us help.” Harmony said firmly. “You’re dealing with a lot too - navigating your own grief while getting the boys through theirs, you have to remember that you’re not alone in this.”

“In any case a therapist would be good for all three of you,” Ethan added. 

Patton felt his shoulders sag - whether with relief or defeat, he wasn’t sure. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”  As a parent himself, Patton was well aware that it was Harmony and Ethan’s duty to assist whenever they could, but he still sincerely appreciated it. 

“No need for that,” Harmony said. “It’s what we’re here for.”

“There was something else I wanted to discuss with you,” Ethan said after a short pause. “Have you figured out what you’re planning to do for work?”

Patton exhaled slowly. That was a tough question. 

Patton and his wife had previously owned a store together but after…. everything that had happened, he had sold it; the money he had received for it had been enough to buy his new house, but it also meant that he was without an ongoing source of income. 

“I was thinking of going back to school.” Patton admitted. “Even though I know it isn’t possible, with the boys and needing some money in between.” 

“School?” Harmony echoed. “As in veterinary school?”

Patton shrugged shyly. It was a pipe dream, of course, but ever since he was a child he had dreamed of being a veterinarian; unfortunately, becoming a father at a young age had forced him to drop out - and now that he was a single father those plans were to be put on hold perhaps indefinitely.

He’d never blame Virgil or Thomas, he loved his sons more than anything in the entire world, but sometimes he wished that he could be both; a great dad and a successful veterinarian.

However, he wasn’t sure he could be either these days. 

Forcing himself out of his tangled web of a brain, Patton noticed his mother and father staring at each other with unreadable expressions on their faces. “Are you okay?” Patton said. 

Harmony gave a small nod and Ethan shuffled forward, placing his hand over Patton’s. “Is that what you truly want?” 

“I’d love it.” 

“It would take a long time,” Ethan said, “and many sacrifices and effort on your part.”

Patton was unsure of what was happening, hadn’t he just said that he couldn’t afford to do it? “I know.”

“As long as you’re aware of that,” Ethan squeezed Patton’s hand comfortingly before letting go. “Then your mother and I will help you.”

It took some time for the words to fully sink in. Patton stared wordlessly at his father before he managed to blurt out, “what are you saying?”

“Look, I need some extra hands at the cafe,” Ethan said. “If you and Virgil work for me then Harmony and I will pay for you to go back to school and finish your degree - this way you can take time off whenever you need to and still pay the bills.” 

“I’d also be happy to babysit Thomas whenever you need someone.” Harmony chimed in. 

Patton felt tears stinging the corner of his eyes. Gosh, he loved them. 

Patton had been Ethan and Harmony’s miracle; the only child they’d been able to conceive after years of trying, and due to that, he had always had an extremely close bond with his parents… but he was quite sure that he had never felt as grateful for them as he did in this moment.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” he said.

“You’re not asking,” Harmony replied. “We’re telling you.” 

“But I-”

“Patton,” Ethan interjected kindly. “I know what it feels like to be passionate about something, almost like an itch you can’t scratch until you go after it.”

Patton knew that Ethan was telling the truth; his father’s biggest love had always been cooking. Ethan had worked as a chef for a long time - even opening a cafe in his later years - so it was possible that he knew better than anyone what Patton was feeling.

“You would be doing us a favor.” Harmony insisted. “Ethan would be able to be with me more often.”

“That’s a good point.” Ethan said, stroking his chin. “I have seen the way Herbert looks at you during bingo, if I’m at work too much then he might make his move and steal you away.”

Harmony snorted.

Patton watched them through watery eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything.” Ethan smiled. “We just want to see you and our grandchildren happy again, that’s our biggest concern.”

Patton agreed with that. 

Fixing his family was of the utmost importance to Patton and he had always thought that it had to start with Virgil…but maybe he had gotten it all wrong. 

Maybe the best way Patton could repair their little trio was to start with mending himself.

----- Taglist: (please message me if you wish to be taken off/added on) @violets-gay-thoughts @warcats-cat @firefox2215 @shapa-likes-art @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat

[t-nd-rfoot]

BABY ON BOARD aka The Youngest Dagger

Hangman wasn’t exactly wrong when he said ‘Bob’ meant ‘Baby on Board’.

Warnings mentions of alcohol, but nothing excessive; insecurity of feeling left out. this has a happy ending, i promise

Word Count 2.6k

Note inspired by my research on the TG:M cast’s ages so I wanted to use this as my own twist on the whole ‘baby on board’ prompt for Bob! (though Tarzan is actually the youngest being born in September but for the sake of this story, my HC is that Bob is the youngest). I pretty much just trusted the process with this one. A writing exercise, if you will. Edited myself so apologies for any typos/errors! Also, it’s my v first fic, please be kind

If you enjoyed this, please reblog! Reblogs are the best way to support creators (writers, artists, gif makers, everyone!) on this platform. Share the content, share the love!

There’s no denying that much about Bob at a first glance was ‘baby’—his big blue eyes that gave off the innocence and curiosity of a newborn, his wallflower personality like one of a child’s on their first day of school, and his enthusiasm for aviation could rival a toddler’s on a sugar high.

Of course, the more people got to know Bob, they’d realize he’s anything but. But no matter how old he was, that didn’t change the fact that he was the youngest of the dagger squad, and they never let him live down that fact since the day they found out.

.

Being the private person he is, Bob celebrated his birthday as if it was any other day. Had he been anywhere else, he would have maybe had a nice, simple dinner with his big extended family back at home, or made plans with a special someone if he had any.

But since he had to prepare for another mission in Miramar on that particular birthday, personal affairs naturally took a backseat pun intended as he focused on the professional matters at hand, making sure the aviators around him remained unaware of the day’s importance. He was almost in the clear when he and the squad were leaving the hangar at the end of the day, and he chose then to busy himself replying to all the birthday messages from his friends and family.

“Well, someone’s Mr. Popular today,” mused Phoenix at her backseater.

“Huh-what?” Bob startled as he looked up from his phone.

“Dude, you’ve been glued to your phone since after your last run,” Fanboy chimed in.

“Yeah, everything okay, bud?” Payback asked.

Careful not to give anything away, Bob subtly fell a few steps behind to keep his phone out of view from prying eyes. “Yeah, all good,” he replied with a small smile and went back to texting.

Never missing an opportunity to make fun of their teammate, Coyote and Hangman huddled Bob on either side to take a peak at his phone screen as Bob comedically tried to dodge their attempts.

“Aww, keeping secrets from us now, Floyd? Hey, one round from everyone else on who can figure out what Floyd’s hiding,” Coyote joked, “I say, spicy texts?”

Hangman scoffed, his famous shit-eating grin plastered on his face, “please, I bet the spiciest thing in little Bobby’s phone is an email subscription for special-made BCGs.”

Bob rolled his eyes as he finally escaped the grasp of the two pilots and opened another birthday email, this time, a flashy e-birthday card GIF from his great-aunt Lacy and uncle Taylor. He laughed to himself, humored more at the idea of his less-than-tech-savvy relatives discovering GIFs than at the actual GIF on his screen.

“No fuckin’ way,” a voice came from behind him, susprising him so much, he nearly dropped his phone. “It’s your birthday?!” Rooster exclaimed as he peered at the phone from over Bob’s shoulder.

At this point in their friendship, each of them had already had a birthday, so shock and disbelief hung on their faces as they stopped in their tracks and turned to face him. They couldn’t believe he nearly let one year as a group go by without even telling them when his birthday was.

“What the fuck?!”

“Dude…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Bob nervously stared at them as they stared back at him. “It’s just—the mission’s coming up and with the drills today, and I’m not really one for celebrating my birthday, anyway—” He struggled to find an excuse when Coyote and Hangman appeared beside him again.

“Look, Bob,” Hangman led, “I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re all used to your whole not-sharing-anything schtick, and we’re cool with it.” But as the cocky pilot placed an arm around Bob’s shoulders, Bob braced himself for whatever bullshit Hangman was going to say next. “But to deprive us of our only opportunity to finally get you wasted?” he continued, that obnoxious grin returning to his face once more.

Bob’s blushing complexion immediately paled at the squad mimicking Hangman’s wide smirk as they all looked at each other wickedly.

“Ohhh no, no no no no n—” Bob’s blue eyes popped, attempting to get out of the group’s grasp while they pushed him in the direction of The Hard Deck, his protests drowned out by the group’s whoops and hollers all the way to the bar.

The Hard Deck was packed when the squad arrived. Maverick was at his usual seat at the bar, flirting with Penny like young lovers while she served drink after drink to customers.

“Penny, my dear!” Hangman practically shouted from the entrance. Payback and Fanboy pushed Bob to the front once they reached the bar.

“Guys, seriously, it’s not a big deal,” Bob protested still.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Maverick greeted his old students.

“We got a birthday boy on our hands here, Mav,” Rooster mused, his hands resting on the shoulders of an embarrassed and defeated Bob.

“Oh yeah, that’s right! Happy birthday, Bob,” Maverick greeted and patted Bob on the back, to which the young aviator replied a shy thank you.

“You knew?” Payback asked.

“Of course, it was in his file,” Mav said like he was stating the obvious.

Hangman turned his attention to the bar owner. “A round of shots for the squad if you will, Penny? One for every year this son of a bitch has been alive.”

Penny smiled at Bob and, setting shot glasses on the counter, “and how many would that be?”

“Just to make sure, you are legal, right, Bob?” Maverick teased.

Bob and the rest of the squad laughed. “No, yeah, yeah, very much legal, Mav.” Bob settled into the bar stool and started to relax a little more.

“So c’mon, man, how old are you?” Fanboy asked.

“29,” Bob replied. There wasn’t much use hiding that he was the only one still in his 20s, now that they all knew what today was.

A mixture of disappointed and endeared reactions came from the group—as the oldest of the squad, Payback and Rooster let out a few groans, while Hangman and Coyote let out low whistles. Phoenix and Fanboy gave noogies to and pinch the cheeks of their little brother. Penny and Maverick laughed at the group’s reactions knowing that the rest of the group weren’t that much older anyway.

“I know I’m older than most of y’all, but why did hearing him say a 20-something age make me feel even older?” Rooster wondered, pondering his mid-30s age.

“How do you think I feel?” piped in Payback, dwelling on the fact he had just entered his early 40s.

Maverick and Penny laughed. “Welcome to the club,” she said, making the two pilots groan even more.

Penny finished filling up the shot glasses in front of them. “Alright, gang, 29 shots ready to go and on the house! Consider it a gift, Bob,” she joked.

“Thank you, Penny!” Coyote joked back in a high-pitched voice, swiping a shot glass for himself.

Bob silently gulped at the sight. “This isn’t all for just me, is it?” He dreaded the thought of having to drink all of those in one night.

“Of course not, you really think we’re gonna pass up a free round from Penny?” Hangman said as he got one and started passing them to the other members. Penny loved to remind them that being Mav’s special students didn’t get them free drinks.

Soon, everyone had a shot in their hand, ready to toast the celebrant. Though the non-drinker he is, Bob toyed with one of the remaining glasses on the table, reluctant to drink but also not wanting to spoil everyone else’s fun.

“Only if you want to,” Phoenix assured her backseater.

Bob looked around at his friends all around him. He still couldn’t believe that they were there to celebrate him, the quiet small-town-kid with a natural talent for being invisible. Even after the uranium plant mission, Bob always questioned if he really belonged to their little team. But now, here they were, making him the star of the night when they could have easily said their greetings and went their separate ways for the day. He looked down at the shot glass, welcoming it as a sign of proof for himself that he finally found his place among them, proud to be included in—and even the center of—the squad’s newest core memory.

“One shot,” Bob decided, albeit a little nervous, and reached for the drink, “just this once.”

“Baby steps,” she smiled back. The guys cheered, excited for Bob to take his first drink with them.

Maverick stood, one hand on the young pilot’s shoulder, the other raising his shot glass in the air. “To Bob! May he have a great rest of the night, an even greater year ahead. Enjoy the last of your 20s, Bob!”

“To Bob!” everyone cheered and downed their shots. Bob even managed to drink his shot without coughing, though a little disgusted at the slight burn in his throat.

Cheers and pats on the back came from all around as the group greeted the wizzo once more as they decided to take the party to the dart boards and pool tables. Bob stayed behind at the bar for a bit, taking in the events of the night and holding his now-empty shot glass with a little more certainty than earlier. But he was quickly brought back to reality as a glass of water and a small cup of nuts were placed in front of him on the bar.

“Happy birthday, Bob,” Penny greeted before serving the other patrons.

Bob thanked Penny with a grateful smile, and replied to a few more greetings on his phone before joining the others in their games.

The squad spent the following days showering Bob with their late birthday gifts.

First—surprisingly—was Hangman, who stuck a ‘baby on board’ sticker with a badly drawn party hat and glasses on the baby, to the side of Bob and Phoenix’s plane. Still high on the birthday fun from the night before, Bob was amused at the phrase-turned-inside-joke, though, he did tear off the sticker before Cyclone could see it. Little did he know that Hangman actually slapped another sticker to the back of his helmet when the pilot pretended to congratulate him and Phoenix for completing the drill. It actually took awhile for him to notice, but even after discovering it, he didn’t tear it off.

As TOPGUN’s resident sweet tooth and kid at heart, Coyote was actually a bit bothered once he realized that Bob didn’t have a birthday cake, since it is a universal sweet tooth rule, after all, that the best part about birthday parties is cake. There was a bakery just at the edge of the city that made—what Coyote considered as—the best cupcakes in California, a statement he stuck by after his third visit in a row since finding the place. On his latest visit, he asked for another box of assorted flavors and a candle and brought them to The Hard Deck the next day after training. Bob was excited, to say the least, after he discovered the chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake, and shared the rest of the treats with everyone else.

Payback was nearly stuck on ideas when he got inspiration for his gift from a literal baby. He was on a video call with his sister and spotted his goddaughter entertaining herself with her wooden blocks. As soon as they hung up, he searched online for the best Lego fighter jet set he could find, and found a store nearby that had some in stock. Building Legos was an absolute favorite pastime of his that he was a firm believer that no person was ever too old to build Legos. “Lego knows no age!” he told the judgmental store clerk when he bought it. Bob actually had a mini freakout over it and insisted that he help him build it. Every now and then when they had a few days off, they’d look for another Lego set to build together, dividing up the collection they had built.

Fanboy—being Fanboy—got a custom Funko Pop bobble head pun definitely intended of Bob, which actually managed to make him look even more like a child with those big eyes on it. The two wizzos shared an interest in comic books and various sci-fi media, so he threw in a few comic books from his personal collection to lend. He and Bob would trade whenever new issues would come out, though Fanboy did have to try to stop giving away spoilers since Bob would actually throw mini tantrums every time he accidentally slipped one in their conversations. Bob proudly displayed the bobble head on his nightstand and read the comics every night before sleeping.

Being an only child, Rooster spent his childhood wishing he had a sibling to play sports with, only to gain many of them three decades later in the form of the Dagger Squad. He figured from dogfight football that Bob was a lot more athletic than he let on, so he got him his own baseball glove and bat so that they could play catch together during breaks or days off. Bob developed quite the arm on him from their practices that he was always Rooster’s first pick whenever the Navy officers decided to play baseball at the local park. Other times, they’d also watch Padres games either together or with the other members, usually fighting each other to catch a fly ball if it was hit in their section.

Last, but definitely not least, was Phoenix. If she had it her way, she would have given her gift the day after Bob’s birthday, but she took quite some time preparing it. As Bob’s most trusted friend in the squad, she wanted to give something a little more sentimental. So she compiled and printed as many pictures of him with her and with the rest of the squad as she could and placed them in a ‘baby’s first album’ book (she was going to place it in a regular album but once she saw that the blue hardbound was on sale, she just couldn’t pass up the opportunity). Bob actually teared up looking through it that he didn’t even mind the little blue teddy bears printed on every other page. He also emailed pictures of the album to share with his parents.

There’s no denying that much about Bob at a first glance was ‘baby’, a characteristic he was reminded of daily—by the baseball equipment by his closet, or by the bobble head and comic books beside his bed; by the nearly-finished f-18 Lego set on his desk, and by the bright yellow sticker on his helmet sitting by the front door; by the leftover cupcakes in the fridge, and by the photo album on his coffee table. To an outsider, these were mere objects—possessions that gave glimpses of the person who owned them. But to Bob, these objects were so much more; they were testaments that showed that his teammates really thought more of him beyond their teasing and jesting.

No matter how old he was, it didn’t change the fact that he was the youngest of the Dagger Squad. Yes, people still realized he was anything but a baby when they got to know him. And yes, he still most definitely rolled his eyes every time he was called ‘baby on board’ out loud. But in true ‘youngest sibling’ fashion, every time he looked around at his chosen brothers and sister, he realized he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Disclaimer I do not own Top Gun: Maverick or any of its characters. Please do not copy my work or translate without my permission.

[jestersvanity]

Another Friday Night: Patrick Bateman x reader

Oneshot

Warnings/Content warnings: Smut, sex n stuff, major noncon, blood, cutting, virginity loss, Dom! Patrick, he is a psycho, Patrick Bateman being Patrick Bateman yk the classic stuffs

Note: Idk wrote this cus yk why not and I was feeling extra spicy (deranged), only did minor edits so sorry if it's kinda shit. This was very VERY self-indulgent. I tried to leave it gender neutral but it's definitely more fem. Sorry

Summary: uhhhhhhhh yeah

It was about that time of the year where things started ramping up for Pierce & Pierce : Mergers and Acquisitions.

Well not really it's a very grey place to work. You. Well you were just an office runner, no real handling of anything important appart from maybe keeping the pens in stock and making sure there was enough paper in each printer. Making sure the common areas were kept up like restocking kitchen suplies, cups for the water fountain and mediocre coffee station.

The best part of the job was spending the company credit card on snacks and stocking up the snack bar in the "kitchen" area. The kitchen wasn't really a kitchen it resembled a tiny apartments sad excuse for a kitchen but it was missing the stove and oven. Instead replaced with a tiny bench top microwave. Besides the point spending money on cute little snacks and restocking the snack bar was very therapeutic.

You took alot of pride in the "kitchen". I mean there's not much u can take pride in, in this job. You were technically a "secretary" but... It was mainly Jean which took care of the classic secretary jobs.

I'd like to think of it as secondary secretary or on call assistant. Unlike Jean you moved around a lot more whereas she was more glued to her desk replying to emails and phone calls. She was always so polite when she needed me to run some papers to another person. Usually you were last to leave the floor, after Jean leaves for the night you stay back replying to the last lot of emails she didn't get to, usually it was just 5-6 emails with 3 sentence replies.

She's pretty good at getting through the influx of emails everyday but the ones left weren't anything too big so you didn't mind getting the rest done.

Also, you stayed back just in case someone else on ur floor stayed back and needed some errands run.

More often then not its was to pick up food... Again. Half the time you were on coffee runs, lunch runs, another coffee run, another late lunch run, snack runs etc. The snacks run out rather quickly actually. If it wasn't food you would be picking up things from the post office, things from the dry cleaners or once again running a Manila folder to another big grey building down the block. Tonight wasn't so different. You stayed back like usual today there weren't any emails to reply to so you sat at Jeans desk surfing the Web and online shopping.

Tonight Patrick was staying back, you didn't know why it's not like he does anything appart from being a dick. Everytime u passed his office you saw him he reading a magazine in his office or doing a crossword. Everytime he had called you in to run a task it was something useless like throwing a piece of paper from his desk to his trash can in the left corner of his office which he was too lazy to do. He definitely does it just to fuck with you because every time there was a condescending or snarly comment. Of course you would without fail glare daggers at him or reply with an equally snarky and condescending remark.

Scrolling mindlessly for shit you didn't need untill the phone started ringing. It was Bateman. So with a annoyed sigh you picked up "Yes, what." you said impatiently. Honestly you just wanted to go, it was boring and you wanted to use your new artisan bath bomb. Plus it was Friday. "Come here" and then he promptly hung up. What could that prick even want. Getting up with a heavy huff and an attitude walking up to his glass office and pushing open the door.

You stared at him with an expectant look, 3 seconds had passed before he decided to speak. "I need you to carry this" gesturing to the fancy wine and Armani wine glass set that he got gifted today. "seriously... Too weak to carry this your self?". He ignore you putting on his blazer and picking up his breiff case ready to walk out. Bending over to carry his gifts you follow behind him leaving his office.

The elevator ride down was silent and full of tension. What a dickwad you thought. As we got to the ground floor there was a Porsche already waiting. Walking around back to put the wine and glases in the boot suddenly hearing "no I need you to hold on to them in the car, don't want them breaking now do we" he says emphasing the last few words. The driver opens the door for you to get in and shuts it after you give him a slight nod.

Patrick is already seated next to you and staring out the window. God even the way he sits is pretentious. Sooner or later we arrive at his apartment complex. We get out and he waves the driver away. What a dick move, you now had to call your own cab home. After he makes you carry the shit up to his apartment on he makes you call your own cab home??? God what did you ever do to make him hate you so much.

The whole journey you had been glaring at the back of his head trying to burn a hole through his skull. He unlocked his door and opened it up waiting expectantly for you to walk through. You do. As you look around trying to find a table or something to put his stuff down on. At this point your arms were tired and you were exhausted. Not to mention that it was a fucking Friday night. Your eyes landed on his white marble counter top and finally dropping his useless glasses and stupidly expensive wine off. His place was nice but boring as you expected. Clean but a maximalists nightmare.

As the weight left your arms you sighed and went to turn around and leave as you heard a *click* the sound of the door locking.

Did this bafoon straight up forget he just let someone into his apartment??? Walking up to Bateman who was leaning back against his apartment door looking sly. "okay ur stuff-" before you could finish your sentence he had you in a choke hold with a cloth over your nose and mouth. Struggling like a maggot in the beak of a bird, thrashing around untill all went dark.

Blurry white was all you could see. What happened. What the fuck. As your vision came back you sat up slowly. Where. What. You were confused and still trying to figgure out what was happening. Hands shakey reaching up to rub the blurring out of your eyes. Checking yourself for any missing limbs or anything that might indicate what happened. As you explore you feel a thick collar wrapped around your neck. Huh?? Pain shoots through your whole body. In two distinct pulses. As soon as it stopped you hear a chuckle comming from behind you. Turning you see Patrick sat on a chair looking awfully proud of himself. "Patrick..what's going on?" there were tears welling up but you were not going to let them spill.

He hold up a remote with 3 buttons shaking it like a toy in front of a baby tauntingly not saying anything. Pressing one of the 3 buttons with a click that almost echo's in the room. Instantly you feel the pulsing pain shoot through you body again. This time it went on for one second longer but it felt like a minute.

Angry and scared you shouted at him but all that came out was a high pitched pip and air getying caught in your throat. "awww what's wrong? Cat got ya tongue?" he teases walking closer now being over to meet your eye level.

You were on his bed, atleast he had the courtesy of putting you on his bed instead of the hard floors. Gathering your voice back up "Patrick what the fuck?" you manage to snap.

"I would drop the attitude if I were you"

"No Patrick what the actual fu-" pain sears through your limbs once again making you double over onto your side. "Be nice. Or ill shock you till your brain oozes out of your thick fucking skull" Patrick spits out, the dislike apparent in his voice.

As the pain subsides you open you eyes back up eyes landing on the knife he was now holding in his other hand. "Patrick why... Why?" looking up at him as he looms over the edge of the bed, voice no longer as strong or determined but quiet. Putting the knife down oh is side table he grabs a fist full of your hair making you sit up and look him directly in his eyes. "since you think ur so fucking smart why don't you figgure it out" adding a hmmm at the end as to belittle you even more. As if this wasn't already enough.

"what do you want" you whine out eyes casting down. His eyes were piercing straight through you. You didn't want to admit it but something inside you found this oh so very hot.

Letting go of you hair and grabbing his knife back he opens a closet. Watching his movement closely trying to figgure out what he was possibly going to get. He starts to set up a tripod. Oh God what the fuck you think to ur self. Panicking even more if that was even possible.

Adjusting the camera to face you he clicks a few buttons then clears his throat. "Ass up for the camera" in a stern demanding tone. Looking at him questionably to counter he holds up the remote for the shock collar you had on. Almost challenging you. Reluctantly you get on all 4s and arch your back with ur bum facing him and the camera. His footsteps comming closer untill you feel cold sharpness run up the back of ur thigh. Staying silent as he rips you skirt off leaving you in your stockings and a thong. You were still basically dressed but felt so naked and vulnerable. As he threw the now fabric rectangle on the floor he spanks your ass. The stinging making you involuntarily let out a little whimper of confused pleasure. "oh, so your are a little whore" feigning surprise. Hearing something scrape against the bed you try looking for clues as to whats to come next but fail as he strikes you with a whip? Cane? Unknown but it stung. Yelping as the thing made contact. The weight on the bed shifted as he got closer shoving ur face into the blankets "don't move bitch" he whispers into you ear before moving off again. Now you have deduced it was infact a cane and he wasn't going to tap you lightly. Striking your ass with the cane again and again while berating the living hell out of you. It hurt so good as tears soaked into the sheets. You could feel your pussy pulsing but you couldn't let Patrick know that.

"please stop" you were begging him as he kept whipping your cheeks with the cane. "Patrick please it hurts so much" "yeah it's supposed to hurt you dumb cunt" a few strikes later he stops. "stand up" he orders. Mustering up the strength you feel your stiff joints scream as you step onto the floor and straighten you knees and back. He's behind the camera "go have a good look at yourself" gesturing with his head to the mirror.

As you near you see the dark red lines left by the cane. Beads of blood forming at the skin and the skin that did split the blood was smeared by the other smacks all across your cheeks. "you see that" you nod slowly still looking at the carnage of your cheeks. "that's what sacarstic sluts get, I'm not letting you off with just that either" he warns as he roughly grabs you arm dragging you back to the edge of the bed and forcing you into your knees.

You could feel the heat and the pain radiate from your ass as your knees made contact with his carpet. With a hand firmly grasping at you hair and the other one skilfully undoing his belt and fly he pulls down his silk boxers revealing his massive hard cock. "don't just stare open up" yanking your head back so you would be looking up at him. Opening your mouth reluctantly he roughly shoves his cock in. Your hands automatically push against his thighs to no avail. He was so strong all you could do was grip at the fabric of his pants as he kept gagging you. He didn't let you breath and all you could hear was triumphant groans of pleasure comming from him. Your things were pressed together trying to quell the throbbing down stairs. As he pulled his dick out and let you breath he yanked to to your feet and forcefully ripped your shirt off and harshly yanking your bra off as the straps snapped and the claps split. "oh wow would you look at that, you don't know how long I've been wanting to fuck you brainless" as he roughly fondles your chest. His hand making its way up to you neck and then pushing you back onto the bed. "Patrick" you pleaded "Patrick please don't I'm" struggling to get out the words as he tightened his grip around your throat.

All you could do was let out a strangled moan. Finally letting go he sat back onto his knees and spreading your legs so that his cock was right at the entrance of your coochie.

Looking at him with pleading "Pat please don't, please I'm.." "finish ur sentence bitch" as he rest a hand on your inner thigh ready to rip your tights off. "I'm a virgin please don't"

"ur so fucking stupid ur pissing me off you fucking whore" as he rips a hole in your stockings and completely ripping your thong off leaving fabric burn marks on your hips. Without a second he thrust his girthy penis inside. Instinctively you tighten around him yet your legs were trying to push him away. None of your protest did Jackshit. Leaning to the side he grabbed the knife off the night stand again. Pressing his body against yours as he slid the knife up too your throat holding it there as he looked into your eyes while fucking you. All you could do was hold onto his forearm to lessen the pressure of the blade against your throat.

It hurt so bad but he didn't slow down he was pounding into you harder and faster. A shamefully moan every time he trusted into you. "you like my cock you little cum slut? Ofcourse you do u pathetic bitch" "because that's what you are aren't you" he cooes as you moan. He keeps ramming into you harder and faster untill you feel him cum inside of you.

A few final pumps and as he lifts himself up pressing his hand on your chest admiring what a mess you had become. "look at me" you had to fight your mind fog to look at him. "mm pa-" he slaps ur face leaving a sting hand print on your cheek "it's Sir." "slut" he spits out. "sir please no more" pleading with him again now fully exhausted. He just chuckles and walks back over to his camera taking it off the tripod and filming manually. "open up" hitting you leg lightly expecting you to spread them open again. But you didn't hear him still in a daze trying to process what just happened.

One quick shock back to reality quite litteraly you instantly spread open your legs. Kneeling down with his camera he reaches his fingers to display his hard work to the camera. You could feel the warm cum oozing out of your slit. As he kept using his fingers to spread your lips open. Standing back up again. "hands off your tits bitch" he demands. Slowly uuncrossing your arms from your chest you prop yourself up to face him properly with your legs still open. He's filming you. "okay repeat after me, I'm just a hole" "I'm just a hole" you whisper weakly. He drops the camera a bit to look at you and sighs with disappointment "a bit more enthusiasm and smile a bit" tilting his head to the side in sly mockery. "your a slut. Act like one" he states impatiently then lifting the camera back up. "I'm just a hole" this time you exclaimed with more life, surprisingly a smile was easy to muster up.

That sick part of you enjoyed this. "see that's not so hard is it" he teased as he propped the camera back on the tripod. This time he opens the night stand and grabs something. You couldn't quite see. *click* he opens it to reveal a switch blade. Frozen you followed him with your eyes as he sat opposite you. "patric- sir w-what are" squealing as he lunges at you pressing you back down on the bed.

His weight and strength being impossible to struggle against. "stay still doll, it's easier if you stay still" he chuckles as the knife nears your face. "pat" you manage to squeak out as he sliced up the corner of your mouth and up your cheek. The warm blood running down the sides of your head and down your neck. You actually started crying now the tears which you held back so long came pouring down mixing with the warm thick blood from your cheeks. He had finished with your other cheek now sitting back. Losening his tie and undoing a few buttons of his shirt. "look at how much prettier you are now" looking at you with admiration for his handy work. Taking off his tie "hands" he said composed like he didn't just mutilate your face, you stretch out your arms to him as he ties your writs up with his tie then strapping it through a slot in his headboard.

Grabbing his switch blade again he drags it up your thigh stopping when he reaches your sternum. Paralized in shock, fear and... Love? Your breaths slow down as he looks back up at you. "it's okay doll, just customising you a bit alright?". Proceeding to slowly carve his name into your torso. Each letter painfullfully deep and deliberately slow. Making you squirm with each slice. The muffled sobs bouncing around the room.

After he pumped 3 more loads into you he flopped onto his back and reaching for the smokes on his side table. Lighting one up puffing away nonchalantly. After he was done, he snuffed the cig putting it out above the I making the the dot above the I in Patrick.

Untying your wrist and you stared at the wall. Making his way to the bathroom and bring back a warm towel he kisses you for the first time tonight on your now dried up bloodied cheek.

Before tenderly wipeing the blood and dried tears off your face. You sat there on the bed not moving but concious just not moving. He got a second warm towel after the first one got drenched in blood to wipe down your torso and the rest of the dried blood off your body. "Get under the covers" his voice now softer. Before heading back to the bathroom to do his night ime routine. Getting under the blankets. Curling up into the fetal position despite the pain of the cuts in your torso screaming to stop. Trying to fall asleep. The lights flicked off and the bed dipped as Patrick got under the covers his warm body pressed up against your battered body. You were divided. You hated him more than ever you were scared, confused, angry, tired and yet your body seemed to move on its own. You sank back into his chest and arm as he pressed a kiss on the back of your neck. He was completely different than who he was 30 mins ago. You couldn't imagine the Patrick you saw in the office doing all that to you. You couldn't imagine the Patrick that cut you up pressing that soft tender kiss he just kissed on the back of your neck. Yet he did.

Note: y'all got the good ending smh I might write a different ending with more smut lol idk.

Lmao

[idabbleincrazy]

You're Welcome ~ A Missing Scenes Fic

Fandom: Angel (Buffyverse)

Rating: E

Pairing: Spangel, mentions of Cangel & Spuffy

Characters: Spike, Angel, Cordelia

Word Count: 7107

Warnings: Missing scene fic 5x12, angst, minor fluff, grief, emotional hurt/comfort, canon character death, blood drinking, Sire/Childe dynamics, smut, oral, intimate sex, anal fingering, anal, coming untouched, coming on command, solace

Summary: Spike helps Angel through his grief. Angel gives them a kind of comfort they both have needed for a long time.

A/N: I actually started this fic over two years ago, about the same time I'd started Destiny, and I am soo sorry it's taken so long to get this one finished! I may have lost the thread somewhere along the line, but I think it still works. Also, think of this as my 'except that one...' fic, as to me, Spike referring to him and Angel being intimate would be more than just regular sex, and specifically post-soul.

*Edit: forgot to mention a huge thanx to @leatafandom for giving major parts of this a beta read!

Squares Filled: "Could you stay a bit longer?" for @fandombingo , Leap of Faith for @anyfandomfluffbingo

Become a Patron Tip Jar Help me save for dental surgery

“You guys go on ahead to the bar, I’ll wait for Captain Forehead and the Cheerleader and we’ll catch up.” 

Spike headed back through the parking garage and made his way upstairs to fetch the pair of stragglers. Angel was still staring at the spot where Cordelia had been standing before the phone rang when Spike walked through the office doors. 

“Angel, Cord, are you two comin’ or-”

Spike stilled when he saw Angel standing in the middle of the otherwise empty room, looking around for Cordelia.

“Girlie off takin’ a powder? Angel?” Spike finally noticed the pained look on Angel’s and the tears in his eyes. He took a breath and the taste of grief hit him like a punch to the gut. “Angel, what...what happened? Where’s Cordelia?”

“She’s dead, Spike.” Angel’s voice was a faint whisper and Spike dashed forward quickly over to him as his legs buckled. Spike caught him around the middle just before his knees hit the carpet, shouldering his way under Angel’s arm and leading him over to the couch by the window. “She never even actually woke up, not really. She told me it was her gift from the Powers, to have one last day with us, to set us, set me, back on track. She’s gone, Will.”

“Cor, we’ve got to stop fallin’ for breakable little humans. No good ever comes of it, does it?” Spike kept his hold on Angel and Angel let his head fall to his shoulder, slumping against him with a sound somewhere between a huff of amused agreement and a sob. With the lack of space between them, Spike could smell her scent clinging to him, trailing from his breath. It smelt of love, of longing and peace. They’d kissed, and she’d poured every bit of herself into it, let it wrap around Angel like a veil. Spike couldn’t help but envy her for that. Being able to give herself to his Sire like that, in a way he knew Angel would never accept from him. He shook it off, knowing precisely the acute type of pain he was feeling. “I’m sorry, luv. She was a special bird, that one. Even before the Powers set their sights on ‘er. Brave as they come, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah. And so strong. God, the things she lived through, and she never gave up. Just always kept fighting, no matter what the Powers put her through. She deserved more than just twenty-three years in this world...” 

Spike could smell the renewed tang of tears as Angel spoke and he couldn’t help but to reach a hand around to card his fingers through strands of gel-stiffened hair. It’s what he did, wasn’t it? What he was. Cold comfort to soften the pain. Always that. Dru, Dawn, the Scoobies, Buffy, Anya...always turned to him when the loss was at its freshest. Needed the cold of his arms, his lips, his body, to chase away the white-hot flare of grief. Only to leave him there, chilled beyond the bone, once the tears dried. Except Dawn, of course. The Li’l Bit, at least, had seen him as more than just a shoulder to soak up all that salt. Had come to him as a friend, to hang out and watch whatever was on T.V., or just talk about the goings-on of the day. Before the reason for the soul, anyway. After, Buffy had come close to it, he was no longer her pillow to scream all her rage into then, had even held him back that last night, the closest they had come to being equal. More than he had ever dared to ask for, to even hope of receiving from her. 

His thoughts ran their course as he listened to the soft sobs of his Grandsire, felt the wet of his tears spread through the fabric of his shirt, and just held him. He could tell the worst of it was being held back, the demon warring with the soul for its weakness at such emotion. Knew how Angelus was in there, rattling the bars and spitting venom. Had spat venom at himself for crying that night and so many nights after, all one hundred and forty-seven of them. Couldn’t stand to see Angel struggle against the pain like this.

“‘S alright, Liam. It’s alright to grieve for her, Sire, no matter that the demon says otherwise. It’s not weak to cry for the loss of love.” Spike held him closer, his own eyes stinging in sympathy for Angel’s pain. He felt a hand clutching at the fabric of his shirt, and his dead heart clenched in sorrow. “Shh, Angel, it’s okay. Just let it out.”

And he did, then. A wail of misery, the likes of which Spike hadn’t heard since a similar sound had been torn from his own throat nearly three years ago. High-pitched and keening, like an injured animal, the pained sound filled the air, bounced off the walls of the office and back to them. Spike clenched his eyes shut at the sheer rage he felt lying beneath the layers of it, and clutched Angel even closer, one hand rubbing slowly along his arm as his Grandsire howled out his despair into the hollow of his throat. 

How long they stayed like this, Angel’s face buried in his shirt, tears soaking into the thin cotton, Spike couldn’t say. He felt tears roll down his own cheeks as the minutes ticked by, the evidence of Angel’s pain tearing at his heart in a way he hadn't realized he was still capable of feeling for the elder vampire after what they’d gone through the past few months. 

Eventually, Angel’s sobs died away, but the brunette made no move to pull away. Instead, he merely turned his head slightly, so that his nose brushed along the curve of Spike's throat. Spike stiffened as Angel nuzzled into his neck. Great, here he was again, an empty vessel for the ones he loved to pour their pain and grief into, needed only for the night and then shunned and shoved away in the morning; Drusilla had needed him at night but wailed for Angelus throughout the day, Buffy had taken him into her body in the dark shadows of Sunnydale but cried out for Angel when morning came, and now the one he could never be, the one he’d had to pretend he didn’t need just as much as they did, was holding onto him like a lifeline, needing him to save him from drowning. If only Spike could believe he wouldn’t cast him back out into the churning waters when the storm had settled. 

Frost had once written, 'home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in', so if that were true, shouldn't the reverse also be expected? How could you turn away your home, your true home, the one place, where, wrapped up in its solid comfort, you always felt safe? Angel was his home, his foundation, no matter how much he wished otherwise, and he couldn't find it in him to leave his Sire adrift like this.

As Spike felt tear-wet lips press against his skin, he let himself give into the innate desire that would always be the reaction to the touch of the elder vampire, turning his head to briefly capture Angel's mouth in a fleeting, gentle, kiss. Breaking away before Angel could deepen it, he stood up, pulling the brunette with him. 

“C’mon, pet, let’s get you upstairs, yeah?” 

Angel allowed himself to be trundled into the elevator, burying his face into Spike’s shoulder as the car rose up to the penthouse, fingers grasping tight at his shirt, Spike’s arms around him the only thing keeping him from collapsing into a nearly-catatonic heap on the floor. When the doors opened, Spike began maneuvering the bulky vampire towards the master bedroom, only for Angel to stop him and tug him down the hall towards the guest room. The room he knew would no longer smell like them, but her. With a sigh, he allowed himself to be led into the bedroom, unsurprised when the brunette let out a fresh sob in the doorway at the scent of the seer. 

Spike held his breath, unwilling, just yet, to inhale the flowery, sweet scent that would have taken the place of the smell of the blood and cum that had previously been spilled here. The too-recent memory of him writhing in Angel’s lap as they brought themselves to completion flashed through his mind, and he shook his head ruefully. And here they were again. About to go through with another bad idea. He knew what Angel would want of him, in his grief, and he didn’t have the willpower to deny him. Christ, he was beginning to feel like a fucking ping-pong ball. 

He helped Angel over to the bed and turned back towards the door, Angel's voice a desperate whisper behind him.

"Don't, please."

"Just gettin' you a whiskey, pet, tha's all." 

Spike walked back through the apartment, so very tempted to flee. He’d be well within his right, after all. Last time, Angel had denied him his presence when he’d all but begged him to stay a little longer. But he just couldn’t, for whatever reason. He couldn’t walk away from his Grandsire and leave him alone with his misery, not if there was a way he could help to alleviate it. Shrugging away any thoughts of running, he poured a couple large glasses of whiskey and headed back to Angel. 

“We…we need to call the others, let them know.” As Angel spoke, his hands were shaky as he searched his pockets for his phone. Spike crossed over to him, taking the cell from him and replacing it with one of the glasses of amber liquid. 

“Let ‘em have their victory for a few hours, yeah? There’ll be time enough for tellin’ tomorrow.”

Angel nodded silently in agreement as Spike set the phone on the nightstand. Gulping down his whiskey in two swallows, he watched as Angel sipped slowly at his own. Once Angel’s glass was empty, he took it from him and placed them both on the table beside the cellphone. 

“‘S the weekend, can have a proper Irish wake for your bird tomorrow, if you want.”

“Yeah…that would be nice.” Spike winced at the flatness of Angel’s voice.

Angel stared down at his feet, his shoulders slumped against the weight of his anguish. Spike was surprised he hadn’t yet tried to restart what they’d put on pause downstairs. Maybe he’d figured wrong.

“You sleepin’ here tonight, then, pet, or you wanna head to your room?” 

Angel didn’t answer, just turned his head to look at Spike, the pain he felt etched across his face.

“Here, then, I reckon.” Spike answered for him, slipping from the bed to kneel on the carpet. He took Angel’s shoes off and set them aside. Straightening up, he pulled Angel to standing, leaving him there to sway unsteadily as he pulled down the covers. Turning back to the larger vampire, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off his arms. His eyes lingered over the reddened flesh that was still healing from where the slimy little fake had pierced his heart, and he felt a rush of relief that the imp had not been fighting his Sire with stakes in hand. He unbuckled and removed his belt, but made no move to undo his slacks, stepping back to give Angel room. “C’mon, Peaches, into bed with ya.”

Angel came to himself enough to crawl under the sheets and grabbed Spike's wrist as he made to pull the covers up around him.

"Could you stay a bit longer? Please. I know I have no right to ask you, after…last time. I just don't - I don't want to be alone."

Spike looked down at Angel's pleading face and simply nodded. Kicking off his boots, and pulling off his duster, he turned off the lamp and climbed into the bed in the space Angel created for him. Immediately, Angel pulled himself against Spike, his arm wrapping around the slim waist and clutching him close. He let the brunette bury his face in his shoulder as the salt-tang of tears hit his nose, his hands soothing through his hair and over his back as Angel cried out the fresh wave of grief.

“‘S okay, luv, let it out. ‘M here, Angel, I'm right here. "

This new bout of tears was quieter and shorter than the first, petering out to small sniffles after just a minute or so. 

"I'm sorry."

“Sorry for what? Soakin’ my shirt? Don’t be, mate, trust me, I blubbered worse over Buffy. Sure you did, too.”

Angel sniffed again and lifted his head from Spike’s shoulder, looking at him in the dim light emanating from the hallway. 

“No. I’m sorry for not staying last time, when you asked me to. And for all the other shit I’ve put you through since you got your body back.” Angel sat up on his knees, wiping a hand across his tearstained face, and Spike scooted back to sit up against the headboard, eyebrows scrunched in confusion at the unexpected turn in Angel’s thoughts. “I’ve been an ass, I know, fuck, I’ve practically been acting like Angelus with you…on his better days, anyways. Pushing you away, only to turn around and pull you right back. Hell, I practically handed you over to Lindsey on a silver platter, made it so easy for him to get to you. I just wanted to keep you safe from the Senior Partners, make them think I really hated you, so they’d leave you alone. I never would have thought Lindsey would be dumb enough to come back here and try some dipshit stunt like this.”

Spike stared at Angel, his eyes wide at the sudden confession. This was certainly the last thing he had expected from the brunette, at least without an extremely loud argument and not a small amount of pain to instigate it. He hadn’t thought Angel would have admitted to his recent behavior all on his own, and now that it was all laid out like this, after having the big lunk crying his eyes out on his shoulder, it just didn’t matter. It wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, at least not right now. Besides, Angel's yo-yo treatment of him was far from the top of his list of worries…more pressing was the matter of whether his apartment was still just that, his apartment, now that Doyle - Lindsey - was gone. He didn't even know what name the lease was under. God, what a pathetic vampire he'd become, worrying about such human things as lease agreements. He was becoming…domesticated, and wasn't that a scary thought?

And anyway, just hearing Angel apologize seemed to go a long way to undoing some of the damage. The hurt was nothing new between them anyway. They’d only spent a couple lifetimes at it, after all. Blinking, he shook himself out of his scattered, bouncing thoughts, reached up, and wound his hand around Angel’s neck and pulled him down into a soft kiss.

“Don’t think I’ve ever ‘eard you string together that many words ‘less you were yellin’ ‘em.” Spike’s voice was thick with unchecked emotion as he whispered against Angel’s lips. “Look, mate, I’ve plenty of yellin’ I wanna do, an’ probably more than a few punches to throw, but not tonight. Let it go, yeah? Least for now. What’s done is done. Your heart’s hurtin’ for Cordelia, my ego’s bruised thanks to that shrimpy git, we don’t need to deal with more than that tonight.”

Angel nodded his acceptance and agreement and recaptured Spike’s mouth, deepening the kiss, letting himself get lost in it as his tongue delved between parted lips. Spike slid back down on the bed, his head resting on the pillows as Angel explored his mouth, the gentleness of the kiss taking him by surprise. Last time, after the incident, their kisses had been feral, bloody and brutal as they let loose all the built up need that their fight had only served to bring to a head. This one, though, held none of that brutality, no snarls of hunger and dominance, no fangs piercing into soft flesh as they devoured each other. But, underneath the tenderness, Spike could sense Angel’s growing desperation as his tongue stroked inside his mouth; desperation and longing. His cock hardened unsurprisingly fast at the evidence of Angel’s yearning that belied the quiet softness of his kiss, his hips arching up to brush his denim-clad erection against the matching length tenting Angel’s slacks, both of them moaning into each other’s mouths at the contact.

Breaking the kiss with a low growl, Angel began mouthing a trail down Spike’s throat, hands tugging at the thin cotton of his shirt as he nuzzled into the dip of his collarbone.

“Off,” Angel growled as he pulled away, eyes dark as he stared down at the blonde.

Spike groaned at the husky order, quickly shedding his tee shirt and pulling Angel back down to his newly bared chest. Angel snuffled at the hollow of his throat, a quiet keen vibrating against Spike’s skin as Angel pushed his nose into his clavicle, as if trying to push through, bury himself there.

“I still smell her.”

Well, duh. Spike rolled his eyes and bit back the automatic, heartless response. 

“Be hard not to, luv; she was laying here not that long ago.”

“No, not the sheets.” Angel nuzzled into him again, blunt teeth scraping over the skin of his throat as he whimpered. “Here. I can still smell her here. God.” 

Understanding clicked in Spike’s muddled mind and he hesitated, unsure whether he wanted to shove the brunette away or hold him closer. Of course, it wasn’t about him. Always about the girl, only the names change. 

Angel licked over Spike’s skin again, heedless of the blonde’s inner pouting. He knew he shouldn’t be practically pleading for Spike to allow him to bite, knew that drinking from him would only complicate things between them way beyond the tangled mess it already was. But, he just couldn’t help it. Cordelia’s scent lingered under the thin, pale skin, mingling with that of his Childe and calling to him more powerfully than either ever had separately. 

“Please”, he asked in a rough whisper, hoping for concession, praying for denial. 

Damned yo-yo string's gonna break one of these nights. 

Spike closed his eyes in resignation, and nodded once, turning his head to the side to bare his throat to Angel’s access. And, if he was perfectly honest, he was quite surprised that Angel had actually asked, rather than just tearing into his flesh and taking what he wanted. Hell, the scent of the ex-cheerleader that lingered on the sheets mingling with that of both of their own hesitant arousals was making it hard for him to keep his own demon from snarling and snapping. 

“Do it.”

He heard the crunch and shift of bone as Angel let the demon to the fore, and gasped softly at the needle-sting of fangs as they slid smoothly into his flesh. Surprise washed over him again at Angel’s unexpected care of the matter, how gently he bit into him. He let out a low groan at the slow pull of blood from his veins, only now realizing just how much he’d missed this, the feeling of blissful pleasure that came from family feeding from you. He’d seen that feeling etched on Angel’s face when he’d fed from him to speed his healing after the Dana incident, and he had to hand it to the brunette for holding back from returning the favor. Already he wanted nothing more than to twist Angel’s head to the side and complete the connection, tear into that thick neck and gulp down the rich blood that screamed of family, belonging. 

As Angel slowly sipped at Spike’s blood, a low keen sounding at the back of his throat at the taste of Cordelia and Spike and Aurelius, family, belonging, he let his hand trail over the bare flesh of the slim body beneath him, stroking softly down his neck, over his chest, and down, further still, along the concave of his stomach, fingers stroking across the pale skin just at the edge of his jeans. He could taste Spike’s need threading through every mouthful, and his own arousal surged higher, his cock painfully hard against the zipper of his slacks. 

This beautiful creature beneath him was offering him comfort, despite the pain he’d been causing them both over the past few months. Despite all the emotional whiplash, his boy was still here, providing him with a vessel to absorb his grief, allowing him to mourn in their way, the only one who would understand just what kind of solace was required. 

Swallowing a final mouthful, he let out a groan of gratitude around the fangs embedded in the smooth, cool flesh. He retracted his fangs from Spike's throat, laving his tongue over the torn skin until it began to heal. Once the last trace of blood was licked away, Angel continued his interrupted path, trailing his mouth over the pale skin of the muscular chest beneath him. He felt Spike tense slightly as he flicked his tongue over a pink nipple, sensed the blonde's hesitancy at taking it further, and a jolt of realization struck him.

"You're not her, Spike. That's not what this is. The blood was, but not this. I thought it was, too, but it's not." Still nuzzling his face against Spike's torso, he slid his hand down to cup him through his jeans, squeezing the hard length just enough to drag a soft hiss of pleasure through gritted teeth. "This is about us, Will, we both need this."

Spike let out a groan of capitulation, his heart wanting to believe Angel's words. His head warred with him though, still unable to accept that Angel wasn't imagining soft warmth where he was only hard and cold. Her life under his hands instead of his dead flesh.

Angel knew Spike wasn't completely mollified by his words, despite the slackening of his previously tense state, knew his boy was still reluctant to take his words at face value. Yes, he was still acutely feeling the loss of Cordelia, but it hadn’t been grief that had driven him to try to initiate things down in his office. Well, not just grief. He was tired of keeping Spike at arms length, tired of the longing, the loneliness. Pushing him away hadn't kept him safe like he'd intended. Pushing him away had instead left him vulnerable to Lindsey's slick lies, ready to believe anyone who offered him a glimmer of hope that he belonged somewhere. 

Guilt struck him as he realized Cordelia's death had merely given him the ready excuse to let himself give in to the always present need to lose himself in the blonde. The man in him would always love Cordy, would always regret the missed chances she represented, but both soul and demon had always yearned for the hard, cool body beneath him; it was the one thing they’d always agreed on. 

Pushing Cordelia to the back of his mind, he focused on the half-naked blonde lying prone under him, determined to put proof to his words. Spike’s eyes were heavy-lidded and dark with undeniable desire despite the wariness that still showed through. Angel's hand still encircled his hard cock, and he watched the younger vampire as he stroked down the length of the shaft, his own cock twitching as Spike bit into his bottom lip to stifle a groan. 

"Let me hear you, Spike, don't hold back. Wanna hear what I do to you, boy, all those sweet, filthy sounds you make." 

Spike let out a soft moan as Angel nipped at the edges of his abdomen, giving into the delusion the brunette was presenting him with, letting himself believe the lie even though he knew he was setting himself up for fresh pain when it was over and Angel kicked him out again. 

"That's it, my beautiful boy." 

Angel swirled his tongue briefly into the dip of Spike's navel, his hand still working the denim-covered erection, and mouthed lower still. Twice they'd come together in the past few months, and both times he'd denied himself the full pleasure of this intoxicating creature. He knew it wasn't wise to give in this time, either, but couldn't find the strength to hold steadfast to the restraint he'd managed before. Couldn't resist the need to taste again what he'd never forgotten, to see desire and pleasure etched into the marble features that haunted so many of his dreams. 

Letting himself enjoy this as much as he wanted Spike to, Angel teased his tongue along the expanse of skin just above his hips, licking at the cool flesh until a quiet plea was whimpered out through reluctant lips. The plea was louder the second time as he pulled away to undo the jeans that separated him from his goal.

Legs lifted without thought as hands tugged the fabric down and away, returning to that pale, sculpted flesh after soft woolen slacks landed atop the rough denim on the floor. Cursing the lack of moonlight in the windowless room, Angel made the most of vampire senses and two decades of memory as he gazed upon the naked figure sprawled beneath him. His eyes honed in on the one part he had avoided spending much focus on during their previous encounters, fresh arousal rushing through him as he took in the sight of the long cock that curved up toward a hard, flat (still too thin) stomach. 

Leaning down, Angel did what he had barely restrained himself from doing that first night and flicked his tongue over the weeping head that poked out of the quickly retracting foreskin, eyes fluttering closed at the salty taste of Spike's pre-come, so similar to the blood he had drawn from the blonde, but distinctly singular in its flavor. There was no Cordelia Chase here, no Aurelius; the slightly musky, earthy tang on his tongue spoke solely of William, a flavor he had not forgotten in the century plus since he had last savored it. 

Spike gasped aloud at the feel of Angel's tongue caressing over the tip of his aching cock, shocked by the act. As Angel groaned softly in response and closed his lips over his throbbing length, he felt the scale tipping closer towards the belief that this truly was about them, about their needs, and not about the grief of a dead cheerleader and love lost before it had the chance to blossom. Yo-yo thread fraying thinner, dangerously closer to snapping, and Spike's sanity with it. 

Angel slid his lips down the shaft, taking the substantial length into his mouth until his nose brushed the wiry curls surrounding its base. Swallowing around the girth, and relishing the moan he drew forth, he inhaled the uniquely masculine scent of the blonde's sex, memories flitting through his mind of times when that scent would fill their rooms for days, lingering in his nostrils even as they'd reluctantly separated from each other long enough to slake another kind of hunger. 

"Oh, God, Angel…" Spike couldn't stop himself from thrusting up into his mouth, it had been so long since he'd experienced its talent, and even back then, it had happened so far and few between, given only when Angelus had felt generous enough or when William had managed to make him particularly proud. "Too good, pet, gonna make me come too soon." 

Angel groaned, aroused further by the realization he could still bring Spike to the brink so quickly. Not wanting things to be over with too early himself, he reluctantly released Spike's cock and climbed off the bed. 

"Angel?" 

"Gotta find something…the only thing to use in here is her lotion…I-I can't…it's too-"

"I understand."

As Angel went off to find a suitable lubricant, Spike let out a soft sigh of relief, touched by the lengths Angel was going to to keep him and Cordelia separate in this. It gave him a smidgen of hope; not as much as doing this in the master bed might have, but some. And that would have to be enough for now. Even if, in the back of his mind, he knew that sooner rather than later, Angel would go back to his initial stance of keeping at a distance in the foolish hopes of shielding him from the Senior Partners radar; his Grandsire was a slow learner, after all.  

Angel returned in short order, naked now, bottle of lube in hand. He hurried back onto the bed, stopping Spike when he made to turn over. If he was going to give in, then he was going to do this the way he had wanted to in the first place. 

"Don't. I want to see you this time." 

Spike laid back down and Angel settled back between his legs, guilt renewed by the vulnerable look on his face. At least he wouldn't have to worry about finding perfect happiness, there was too much despair clouding the moment. Slicking his fingers, Angel began preparing Spike with more care than he had the last time, not wanting pain, at least, physical pain, to be a part of their coupling tonight. 

As he felt Spike relax beneath his ministrations, he eased a second finger in beside the first, scissoring them slowly until his Childe moaned in need, trying to buck down on the slippery digits.

"Please, Sire. Harder."

Angel groaned at the wanton, husky plea, thrusting his fingers into the loosening passage at a slightly faster pace, but still maintaining the force behind them, unwilling to let the blonde escape the nature of this moment behind a wall of pain. 

"That's not what you need, little one. And it's not what I want."

Spike groaned, turning his face away from Angel's intense gaze, reluctantly giving himself over to his Grandsire's determination to convince him this was different. He felt the thread draw taut, snapping under the tension, leaving him falling from an impossible height with no way of knowing if Angel would be there to catch him, or if he would end up splattered across the pavement like a bug on a windshield. He had hoped for at least a modicum of rough treatment to keep his mind focused, a sting of pain to ground him and keep him fettered to his belief that Angel was treating this the way he had the last time. Without that distraction, with Angel being so gentle, so like the good times they'd had before everything went wrong, he couldn't deny his heart, no matter what doubtful thoughts nagged at the back of his mind. He could only let himself dive headlong into what was being offered, and hope it wouldn't leave him devastated.

Angel wanted Spike to look at him, wanted him to stop hiding away, but knew he couldn't press the issue, not when he'd caused the doubts in the first place. Instead, he let his actions say what he never could, his fingers stretching Spike open little by little, a third digit slipping in only when there was more than enough give. Ignoring his own cock's throbbing need to sink into the willing body beneath him, he sought out Spike's prostate, working the nub teasingly until the younger vampire wrenched his head back towards him, a cry of pleasure falling from his lips as their eyes finally met in the near dark. 

"Please, Angel...need you now."

Angel nodded and eased his fingers out, deftly slicking up his aching erection before shuffling forward, notching the head of his cock at the rim of Spike's clenching hole. As he pressed slowly into him, he grabbed Spike's hands in his, raising them to lay entwined on either side of his head. He stretched himself out to hover over the blonde as he bottomed out, his head dipping down to smother Spike's broken moan with a deep kiss.

Spike's eyes rolled back at the feel of the slick slide of Angel's cock as it filled him, his grip on the brunette's hands tightening as he felt himself stretch to accommodate the steely girth. Giving up on holding back, he threw himself into the kiss that fell upon his lips, his legs lifting to wrap around Angel's waist as their tongues grazed across each other's, his heels digging into the older vampire's taut backside, urging him deeper, pulling their bodies closer together.

Angel felt the moment his doubtful Childe stopped resisting what he was trying to show him, and he couldn't hold back the groan of relief. Releasing one of Spike's hands, he cupped the side of his face, continuing the passionate kiss as he started thrusting slowly within him. 

Spike soon began squirming under Angel's teasing pace, his free hand sliding under Angel's arm to clutch at his back, nails digging into the shoulder blade where he knew the tattoo rested. He wanted to break the kiss, turn his head away again; not to hide again, but to offer his throat to Angel once more, and to free his mouth to voice his keens of desire to the silence of the room, but Angel was keeping him nearly immobilized in his all encompassing embrace, swallowing down the sounds of need and returning them like an echo. 

He could feel the tip of Angel's cock brushing against his prostate on every instroke, his own aching length trapped and leaking between them, and he felt his orgasm drawing inexorably closer. Finally, Angel released his mouth, the brunette's lips trailing along his jaw as he fought to catch a breath he didn't need. 

"Angel, fuck, please…" Angel's teeth grazed over his throat where he had previously bitten, and his words caught in his throat, his cock pulsing out a steady stream of pre-come to pool in the hollow of his heaving abdomen. "Bloody hell! Bite me, luv, please; bite me or fuck me harder, something…I'm so close, jus' let me come!"

"Not stopping you, William, just feel it, and let go." Angel nuzzled into the curve of Spike's neck and raised his head, staring down at the blonde. "Look at me, little one, wanna see you." 

Angel kept his pace steady, unerringly striking against the nub of flesh he knew was driving Spike towards climax. His own release loomed within reach, the sight of the blonde writhing beneath him, the feel of Spike's cock rubbing against his stomach with each thrust, of his tight hole clenching around him, pushing him closer to the edge with every passing second. He still wanted Spike to finish first, this time, not as a show of dominance, but in order to see the face that haunted his dreams contorted in pleasure. Angel dropped the bulk of his weight down on Spike, pinning his hips to the bed and providing extra pressure against his cock as his pelvis ground against it with each thrust.

"Come for me, Will, I'm right behind you. So tight. Jesus, so perfect. Come for me."

Spike scored his nails down Angel's back, exacting pain if he wouldn't be allowed to feel it, and the soft hiss and faint scent of fresh blood drove him over the precipice he teetered on. His cock pulsed between them, tepid seed surging hard and fast from the prolonged need to come. He arched up into the miniscule space between, lifting his head to smother his howl of release into the curve of Angel's throat. It was all too much, the slow, gentle lovemaking, Angel's insistence that this was about more than grief; he wasn't sure if he would be able to handle whatever came next. 

"Oh, fuck, Spike!" Angel groaned out and thrust deeply once more, letting his orgasm wash over him as Spike clung to him. Spike may have buried his face in his shoulder, but not before Angel had caught a glimpse of the intense pleasure that had rippled across his features. It was a sight he had regretted missing out on the few times they'd come together like this since Spike's re-corporealization, and he knew he'd been right in his assumption that he wasn't the only one who'd needed it this way. 

As they both came down from their climaxes, Angel rubbed his cheek against the side of Spike's head, allowing him his privacy as he came back to himself. His spent cock slowly softened and he let out a soft grunt of regret as it slid out of the tight sheath of flesh surrounding it, Spike's responding groan making him clutch the blonde closer, finally releasing his hand to encircle his waist. He maneuvered them both onto their sides and let Spike remain wrapped around him, just as he used to after their more rigorous bouts of lovemaking had left William too worn out to do much more than snuggle in closer. Like back then, Angel began murmuring soothingly, the past so painfully present as he held the slighter vampire close.

Spike hated this. The waiting. Waiting to see if Angel would push him away again. He wanted to run away, scramble out of Angel's soft embrace, snatch his clothes off the floor and hightail it out of there before his Grandsire had the chance to break him. He wanted to. But he couldn't find the will to move; not with Angel's arms still wrapped around him, the soft susurration of his voice in his ear bringing him back a hundred years. They had never been like this; not once, since the curse that took Angel away. This was the first time in a century that he and Angel had not just fucked, but been truly intimate with each other. He only hoped it wouldn't be the last. 

Finally needing to face whatever repercussions came from his giving in, Spike disentangled himself from Angel, rolling away to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. As he made to stand, Angel's hand caught at his wrist, stilling him. He didn't have the strength to turn and face him, nor to pull away.

"Will you stay?"

Spike's shoulders slumped in relief and he fought to keep the welling of emotions out of his voice as he responded with a bravado he didn't quite feel.

"Yeah, alright. Prob'ly don't have a flat to go back to anyways, right?"

Angel gave a shaky laugh and Spike let himself be tugged back down to the mattress, settling into the curve of his body as he pulled the comforter up over them. Angel draped his arm over Spike's hip and pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck.

"Sleep, William. I'll have Gunn take care of it in the morning."

Barely two hours after his eyes drooped shut, Spike awoke to Angel's screams. Blurry eyed and muzzy from sleep, he merely soothed his hand along the vampire's arm as the screaming turned to sobs. As Angel calmed, he whispered softly to him, nothing in particular, just quiet words of comfort; things he'd have wanted to hear when he had been in his place, those three years ago.

When the brunette had finally settled, he pulled Angel into his arms and wrapped the covers back over them as Angel burrowed his head into the curve of his neck, his lips pressed softly against the spot he had so recently fed from. 

As Spike began to drift off again, he felt a presence in the room, not human, but not dangerous, either. He lifted his head enough to crane around to look at the doorway, but found nothing there. Shrugging it off as just his weary emotions projecting outwardly, he settled back down in the bed, letting sleep find him as Angel unconsciously clutched him closer.

Cordelia hovered by the bed, a small smile on her face as she reached down to brush a stray lock of hair from Angel's forehead. 

"Salty goodness, indeed. You'd think, having already seen you two getting groiny almost constantly for nearly twenty years way back in ye olden days, not to mention the dozen or so times within the last century, I'd be over how unbelievably hot that is. And, actually, pretty beautiful. I swear, if I ever get another reprieve from all this celestial hoo-hah, you know, time off for good behavior", she cast a glance heavenward pointedly, "I'm definitely gonna see about getting in on that action.

And you, mister,” Cordelia turned her gaze to the slighter vampire, “you better not screw up this chance you were given. We pulled a lot of strings making sure the world’s sleaziest lawyer was able to find the right spells to retrieve the amulet, and you with it. Hilarious that he actually thought he was slick enough to have done it without a little divine intervention.”

Spike shifted restlessly in his sleep and she smoothed her hand along his cheek until he calmed, her smile turning sad.

"I'm counting on you, bleach-boy, don't let me down or I will find a way to smite you. Angel cares about you more than you realize, take it from someone with inside information. He's gonna need you by his side for what's coming. And, yeah, he's going to piss you off royally, and the big buffoon’s gonna keep trying to push you away, thinking he needs to keep you safely away from all this, but, just give him the benefit of the doubt, huh? Our boy has a big task ahead of him, and you're a huge part of it, for whatever reason. You are a Champion, Spike, you've got a chance to make a real difference now, don't waste it, either of you. Take care of our boy, Blondie."

Leaning over the two sleeping vampires, Cordelia pressed a whisper of a kiss to their cheeks, sighing softly as Angel relaxed further into Spike's comforting embrace. Straightening up, she cast them one last wistful glance and faded away, her heart heavy with the pain she knew was coming to them, but hopeful for their future beyond it. The Powers had brought Angel his biggest ally, whether he would admit it or not, she'd given him her gift, gotten him back on his path, and now, she could only hope for the best, the rest was up to them.

****

All Things Spike: @leatafandom

[hyperfixation-or-death]

answer some or all I wanna know more about you 👁️👁️

Do you have freckles? 

 Do you drink tea or coffee? How do you take it? 

What was the last song you listened to? 

Do you sleep on your back, stomach or side? 

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? 

Do you prefer drawing or writing? 

What’s your ideal number of blankets to sleep with? 

What’s your favorite band/artist? 

When is your birthday? 

How tall are you? 

What color are your eyes? 

Who are five (or more) people you want to hug right now? 

Fears? 

What’s your favorite color? 

What’s your favorite season? 

Want any tattoos? What of? 

Want any piercings? Where? 

Who is the last person you texted? 

Do you have a best friend? How long have you been friends? 

What/who do you miss? 

How was your day today? 

How much sleep did you get last night? 

Do you believe in aliens? 

When was the last time you cried? Why? 

What’s your favorite decade? 

What are some seemingly childish things you like? 

What’s your favorite book? Or just one you’ve read a few times? 

How are you, really? 

Does it take you a long time to make decisions? 

What are you looking forward to in the near future? 

What are you looking forward to in the distant future? 

If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go? 

Do you sleep with your door open or closed? 

What’s your favorite flower? 

Do you currently have a squish? 

Do you like your middle name? 

Do you prefer dogs or cats? 

Do you have any phobias? 

Do you stay up late?

Do you like the beach? Do you prefer it sunny or cloudy? 

What’s your favorite cartoon? 

Tag 5 of your favorite blogs

Do you have siblings? How many? 

Who was the last person you said “I love you” to? 

Is there anyone you would die for? 

What do you need when you’re sad? 

Have you memorized your phone number? 

Who’s someone you can trust with your life? 

What does your last text say? 

Wild Card. Any question, ask away. 

i'm answering all of them >:)

Not a lot, just three on one arm and two on the other, I think. The three are in a triangle shape though! (edit: i looked in the mirror; i have one on my collarbone that i forgot about.)

I like both, but I drink coffee way more often. I drink coffee with a slightly unreasonable amount of creamer. I like the green tea that's infused with peach flavor, and I drink it plain.

It was either Remember Them by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, or Glory and Gore by Lorde.

Either stomach or side, I don't remember.

I technically have several stuffed animals somewhere on my bed, but the main one that I sleep with is a very long stuffed cat, like a squishmallow, but long. She is excellent, I use her as a pillow a lot.

6. Writing!! I've been getting into drawing lately, too, but writing is my favorite thing on earth.

7. Just one large blanket, so it doesn't get tangled.

8. Probably the Crane Wives!

9. May 19th.

10. Short enough for my entire family to make short jokes at my expense, apparently.

11. Blue.

12. My queerplatonic bf. My little sister. This creature I dreamed about the other night that was a combo of a panther, dog, and bear and also loved me. My beloved mutual @ashclouds366 (hi <3). And you, I am metaphorically hugging you right at this very moment. >:)

13. When I was in first grade, I read the magic tree house book, High Tide In Hawaii; it was about a tsunami. Despite living in a landlocked state at the time, it freaked me out. To this day, the majority of my nightmares are about tsunamis, and I don't know why.

14. Green!! <3

15. Maybe fall? Either fall or winter; I like the cooler weather, and I feel like spring and summer don't have as many holidays as the colder months do. Also summer is the season of existential crises, and spring is the season of being bored and wishing it was either winter or summer.

16. I love tattoos in theory; in practice, I don't think I have a very good pain tolerance. But if that wasn't an issue, I think I'd get some kind of green plant that symbolized something cool. Or something with some kind of sun imagery, that would be neat.

17. Previous issue of pain tolerance, but if i could get an eyebrow piercing, I think that would solve literally all my problems. I love eyebrow piercings. They're awesome.

18. At the time of reading this, it was my family's group chat, but then I texted my sister a keysmash in all caps in response to some screenshot she sent me.

19. Well. I have anxiety around calling people my best friends, because what if it's a one-sided sentiment, or whatever. But if it weren't for that anxiety, I would say that a long distance friend of mine (who I am not naming in case she sees this) is probably my best friend. We've been friends since eighth grade. She's awesome. <3

20. The aforementioned friend, eating grilled cheese, not having a cold, and watching Parallels. (Technically, nothing's stopping me from watching Parallels right now, but I still haven't watched it in a while, so I miss it.)

21. Not too bad; I had a cold, I had some fun conversations, I fell asleep at one point and briefly forgot what day it was, and I had some pretty good pasta. Kind of all balanced out.

22. Not a lot; had to stay up past 1 AM writing a current events paper that I left to the last second.

23. When it comes to complex aliens, I feel like it could go either way, honestly. But I think that things like alien bacteria species or simple organisms like that definitely exist. I don't know a lot about aliens, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

24. I think it was last week? I was stressed about an essay, and I cry pretty easily.

25. I'm gonna pick the boring answer and say 2010's; I think there are good and bad things about all of history's decades, but since that one just finished up, it's all still fresh in the world's mind. Good things from the 2010's just off the top of my head: My dog was born, my little sister was born, Jorge Rivera-Herrans started working on Epic the musical, I met an incredible friend of mine, Into the Spiderverse came out, and I'm sure there's other good things I'm forgetting.

26. Oh, there's probably a lot. I've ended up absorbing a lot of what my younger siblings like. Can I admit that I saw the second paw patrol movie in theaters? My little brother is obsessed with paw patrol, so i've seen both the movies about a thousand times. and they're pretty good. as for kids' shows that i like, The Inbestigators is a fun show, and odd squad will never not be a cinematic masterpiece.

27. Ooh, probably a tie between When Did You See Her Last? (All The Wrong Questions, book 2) and Shouldn't You Be In School? (All The Wrong Questions, book 3). Haven't reread ATWQ in a while, but I love it, especially the two middle books in the series.

28. Emotionally? Doing great, I did a lot of fun stuff yesterday and I now feel socially fulfilled. Mentally? Kind of stressed, I have a huge paper due tonight that I still need to make an edit to. Physically? I'm on the tail end of a cold, so not as well as I could be.

29. Oh, absolutely. I was told just yesterday that I am the most indecisive person in existence, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. It's part of the reason it takes me so long to text people back.

30. I'm going to a concert for the first time this Thursday! Definitely looking forward to that.

31. Not sure how distant it would be, but I would love to take a creative writing class at some undetermined point in the future!

32. I would go to Texas, because I know people who live there that I would very much want to visit.

33. Closed, so that my dog doesn't sneak out to go wake up someone else in the middle of the night. Also, it keeps the cold air from escaping into the hallway, which is warmer.

34. Sunflowers!

35. short answer: yes. long answer: this is such a loaded question because i literally have an entire blog on another account dedicated to rambling about my love and appreciation and platonic pining/yearning for specific people. and i am resisting the urge to link to it because i know for a fact that one of the people i have rambled about on there follows me on this blog, and I will have you know that emotional vulnerability is Harder Than It Looks. but yeah, i get squishes a lot. people are so cool and nice and i love them all. <3

36. Kind of? It's pretty good for a middle name, I guess. I'm kind of neutral on it, since I don't hear it a lot. It's one syllable and it flows kind of nicely.

37. Extremely difficult question; I love them both. I only have a dog, though, so I might have to choose dogs out of loyalty to him. But in all honesty, I think I might love dogs and cats the exact same amount. They're both wonderful little creatures in completely different ways, y'know?

38. Nope.

39. Yes. I procrastinate on assignments a lot, and I'll have to do them the night before they're due, or I'll go on tumblr late at night. This past week, I've gotten very little sleep, and I'm definitely feeling the effects now.

40. I like the beach, it makes me kind of anxious at night, though. I like it sunny if I'm swimming, and cloudy if I'm just wandering around looking for shells.

41. Probably Ducktales 2017. Favorite episode is probably A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill. I also liked the Dragon Prince, but I haven't seen it in years, and I think I only made it a few episodes into season 3? So idk what any of the later seasons were like, but I really liked the parts of the show that I did watch.

42. Here's a few blogs + one of their main fandoms: @ven10 - very cool ASOUE posts. @aka-ar - very cool Parallels posts. @foxymc - very cool Ducktales posts. @ashclouds366 - very cool Ninjago posts. (also, if ocs count as a fandom, then also Incredibly Cool oc posts.) @platonic-moment-of-all-time - okay, this one's a tournament blog, but it's one i'm very invested in that (I think) is still waiting on submissions. Very cool tournament idea.

43. Yep! I'm the eldest of four. Two sisters, one brother.

44. My dad, I think the sentence was: "Okay, goodnight, love you!"

45. Depends on the circumstances; I would probably freeze up or have an anxiety attack if I was actually given the definite choice. There are a ton of people I'd definitely risk my life for without putting a lot of thought into it, but if it was a clear-cut situation where I knew for a fact one of us would die, I feel like I wouldn't be able to decide in time.

46. Physical contact and human interaction, without a doubt.

47. Yes.

48. Hm...tough question. I think I have different people who I would trust with different parts of my life. Like, depending on what my life was depending on, the person I would trust with it would probably change.

49. ...unfortunately, at the time I started writing this, the last text I sent was this:

(the context is that I have a cold, and I was annoying my family's groupchat with that information.)

50. Wildcard answer, uh. Well. I dreamed last night that I was in a timeloop. After I saved the person I was trying to save in the timeloop, I ran around yelling at everyone about how I solved the timeloop, no thanks to them. And then I stepped in mud while wearing socks, which was so annoying I almost woke up. But before I did, a limo rolled up and invited me to join some kind of organization due to the fact that I had time loop powers. Very interesting dream.