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#also really sexist to see some girls like Only for Friendship and others Only for Sex
irascible-iridescent · 10 months
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I just don't understand why ppl insist on having an out right war about romantic vs platonic love. Or even go to friends vs s/o. Like it doesn't make sense bc your partner SHOULD BE YOUR FRIEND.
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horizon-verizon · 3 months
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I'll spend the next month and a half fearing that they will take away the overwhelming number of houses that supported her from Rhaenyra and give them to Aegon the same way they made the entire smellfolk of Kl will support him in that play and during the coronation 🫤
I feel deeply exhausted every time I think about it because instead of seeming like they want to emphasize that Rhaenyra has an uphill struggle as if viewers are stupid They seem to genuinely mean that Rhaenyra had 0 hope of ever ruling and she and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
We get multiple instances of Rhaenyra being helpless and needing a man to save her, of Rhaenyra being overlooked, of Rhaenyra being disowned, and of Rhaenyra being humiliated.Where are the scenes of Rhaenyra being supported? Of Rhaenyra taking control? She is supported only when she is passive (Rhaenys) and when she takes control and acts according to her privilege she is branded a girl-boss and spoiled entitled brat.
Rhaenyra was loved and had institutional and popular support but they have been unable to show it. But of course we had time for Aegon, magnanimous king of the people 🙃☠️
I know it's misogyny and I know I shouldn't expect anything from this show, but I still fear that they will make it worse
I think that it doesn't help that we see her not having her female friendships or female supporters/Rhaenys coming in hot only until the last second, her relationship w/Harwin unexplored, and that we don't get to see her actually rule the island and people around Dragonstone, too. With Aegon, no one in that scene of the 1st episode really liked him or even understood him...bc he's been in the castle all his life doing fuck shit else but philandering and drinking. They don't know him as a ruler, we were seeing a first impression meeting--Aegon trying to familiarize and establish some sort of relationship with the general common folk.
It's also partly bc HotD writers/many people in society believe that in order for any victim to be truly supported they have to be sympathized with and they have to be sympathized with by them being in really dire straight. The "extreme" must become the "normal" before one recognizes that the victim is the victim or has some conditions set against them, long term or short term phenonmena that build into the "last" obstacles against them as the greens/Hightowers built under Viserys' political careless neglect.
People need to realize that even if Rhaenyra is shown to be happy most of her adult life time--happier and more in control or practicing her authority at Dragonstone--she would still be a victim of smaller sexist or abusive behaviors from her stepmother, some from Daemon, selfish neglect from her father, usurpation on account of her gender (discrimination), the mobilized patriarchal violence afterwards, then femicide. These all do happen....AND IN SPITE OF (not "because of" or "totally free of") all that. Then there is the fact that she was called "Realm's Delight" since young childhood and only under the context of fear, hunger, displacement, and exacerbated poverty during a war the greens started (yes, I do also place a tiny bit of blame on her for listening to Celtigar without exploring other options but not much AND maybe its bc I'm just stupid or GRRM made it way too easy for her to fail but I genuinely don't know what we'd/I'd do in that situation?) that the smallfolk truly started to turn against her.
These are the elements that define the tragedy of the death of not only her but the chance of female-rule precedent/female rule/matrilocality-esque [a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents]/matrifocality [mothers head families and fathers play a less important role in the home and in bringing up children]/rise of the value of matrilineal legitimacy.
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I see a lot of talk about whether or not it made sense for Arya and Sansa to dislike Daenerys and I’m curious about what other people think about how these characters would get along if they met in entirely neutral ground. Completely divorced from any politics. Assuming we’re talking about the current versions of these characters as they exist in the books and not about hypothetical future versions of these characters or these characters as they exist in the show.
Because personally back when I was show only, before season 8, I was really excited for Sansa and Daenerys to meet. I always saw a lot of parallels in their stories and I thought they’d be able to connect over shared experiences. Then I got sucker punched by the lame cattiness we got with the sexist “part of the reason Sansa doesn’t like Daenerys is that Dany is very pretty” shit that one writer said. They could’ve had some interesting conflict but what we got in the show was bad.
I’ve seen it said that it’s sexist to hold the idea that all female characters should get along and they’re not allowed to have conflict and I do agree with that but I don’t see much of a reason in the books that Sansa and Arya wouldn’t like Dany when meeting on neutral ground. I think Arya especially would think Daenerys given the way she idolizes Nymeria. All three girls enjoy the companionship of other girls. Arya especially will befriend anyone from any walk of life.
There are some catches. Arya and Sansa would know that Aerys is responsible for the deaths of several of their relatives. Likewise, Daenerys thinks of Ned as a traitor for his role in Robert’s rebellion. But I’m not positive that this would be enough to preclude friendship for any of them. After all, Daenerys never even knew her father and she does not wish to punish those who are innocent, I don’t think she would consider Ned’s daughters guilty by association. One could point out her crucifixion of the masters as a counterpoint, but all were guilty of owning slaves even if they did not take part in the crucifixion. And she herself believes what she did was “a horror just as great.” Plus, Daenerys does not shy away from being critical of her relatives. Obviously she looks down upon Viserys, but she is even critical of Rhaegar despite her overall positive opinion of him: “Princess Elia was there, his wife, and yet my brother gave the crown to the Stark girl, and later stole her away from her betrothed. How could he do that?”
I’ve also seen it said that Sansa and Daenerys have conflicting ideals, but I’m not entirely sure what those would be.
If you have thoughts about this, please share! I’d love to hear from fans of all three characters. Tell me if you think Arya and Sansa would get along with Daenerys if no battle or politics were involved and why you think so!
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festeringfae · 1 year
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The dual settings of Yellowjackets really highlight for me how even well-written media centered on depicting women as complex, multifaceted people struggle with imagining or depicting scenarios where women's emotional struggles are not based on their relationship to men.
In the comic that inspired the Bechdel-Wallace test, Wallace's expy specifies that the last movie she was able to see was Aliens. That means, the last circumstance she knows of where a movie believed it was plausible that two named women would talk about something other than a man is a situation as dire-- and unrelatable-- as being attacked by an intergalactic space monster. In Yellowjackets, it takes an all-girls team, a plane crash, AND a supernatural threat to provide enough justification to imagine interpersonal dynamics between girls that don't solely revolve around boys.
And even then, when the girls become women in the "normal" world of 2021, the show seems unable to think of ways to move the narrative forward or progress the women's characterization without disproportionate focus on their relationships with men.
Obviously, many women have multiple, very important relationships with men in their lives. I have no issue with depicting that, and Yellowjackets depicts it in more honest and dynamic ways than most other media. That's why I'm using it to make my point: even with the best, this still happens. And even as someone annoyed by it, it still takes me one episode into season 2 to even notice it.
At the beginning of season 1, the first time we meet Natalie, she reveals that she thinks the motivation behind her self-destructive tendencies is that when she left the wilderness, she "lost her purpose," and implies that she thinks she's found it again. Based on the context we're given, we can perhaps assume this purpose is to hunt down whoever sent her the threatening postcard. Which, yes, she does focus on doing for the rest of the season-- but that purpose becomes convoluted very quickly with her mourning & needing to know what happened to Travis. That's a real, frequently occurring dynamic outside of fiction, and it really is related to the overall plot, so I don't mind it much. I mind goth freak Kevin Tan is conveniently a cop, but not much more, and like some parts of it for similar reasons related to exploring the complex messiness of grief. I mention these instances primarily because of their small piece of an overall pattern.
A pattern maybe best exemplified with Shauna. Now, Shauna's narrative subverts and inverts a lot of sexist tropes, and I give credit to it for that. A teen boy is given next to no personality because he exists only as a catalyst to analyze the relationship between a friendship between two girls. A manic pixie boy is fridged by Shauna for her womanpain and to progress her narrative. Her husband actually loves her despite her moral depravity. I love all that!
But when I look at the Adam arc from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what greater purpose it might serve in the narrative beyond S2E1, it's inclusion and construction really makes me marvel at how easily we, as audience members, are limited in imaging women having relationships outside of men. Because while yes, Jeff dealing with loan sharks is played for laughs, and realism is not an innate virtue in entertainment (especially in fantasy/horror)...if it turns out the only function of Adam's existence was to have Shauna accidentally murder someone/create further distance between her and Callie, would it not make more sense for that character to be...literally anyone besides a guy weirdly unfazed by being rear-ended, who inexplicably has no interest in promoting the art he rents an entire studio to regularly create, and who also doesn't come up on Google as a staff member at an autoshop for some reason?
I'm not trying to rewrite the show, but go with me for a minute here: why was I, as an audience member, willing to suspend my disbelief for all of that at the end of last season, even as I raised an eyebrow at it seeming a bit unnecessarily convoluted? Why did the writers imagination go to money troubles= mob= misunderstanding= deus ex machina boyfriend = callie strain + stabbing the wrong person, before it went to money troubles= moving back in with in-laws= callie strain + stabbing the wrong person?
Again, I'm not trying to rewrite the show, and I think the psychosexual element of young Shauna/Jeff/Jackie completely justifies the narrative wanting to give her an affair outside of that dynamic to explore. My point of contention is mostly with myself, and a larger pattern in media. How many shows and movies would sooner introduce loan sharks & manic pixie deus ex machinas before it considered a subplot entirely focused on the dynamic between a mother or mother-and-law and a 40-something daughter or daughter in-law, and how it impacts their respective relationships with a teenage [grand]daughter? Why did "thinking the judgmental, overbearing old lady whose house you live in might have stolen your journals & snitched to the cops, but turns out she didn't so you killed her for nothing & yr husband and daughter are gonna find out" not occur to me as an alternative possibility for the length of the entire season break?
Moreover, why is every conflict within Taissa and Simone's marriage centered around Sammy, with little to no commentary about their relationship outside of motherhood and the campaign? I don't think Sammy's gender is relevant here-- but Simone's is. While I don't believe it makes sense the show to give Simone POV scenes (although, credit where due, it does in the S1 finale), none of her scenes with Taissa characterize her outside of her roles as The Good Wife or The Good Mother. The most Taissa has to say about Simone in a confessional manner to Shauna is that she lacks the It Factor of Van-- characterization as vague as it is disposable. There's no divorcing this dynamic with Simone from the show's anti-Black colorism (the only other deep-skinned Black woman or girl we've seen is a JV whose name I can't recall and who I didn't see in the cabin during S2E1). It must be acknowledge that when media asks, "who can be the Black Best Friend to a Black Girl?", the answer a lot of media comes up with is "an even darker girl" (see also: JV and young Taissa). That being said, I think this dynamic exists in tandem with Simone and Taissa being More Than Friends. Since Simone can't know about the details of the plane crash or the supernatural elements going on, the writers would have to actually consider what two adult Black women who don't appear to have any men in their professional or personal lives talk about. The only answers we are given is: child, and a campaign that, by definition, has only been going on for much less time than their relationship. What else exists between them? We don't know, and my point is, it's horrifying how infrequently it seems to occur to people to ask. We know Jeff sells sofas and likes Sports Center. We don't even know what kind of apology present Simone would like, because it doesn't even occur to either Taissa or the writers to bring her one along with Sammy's.
Finally, Misty. If you've read this far, 1) thank you, holy crap, and 2) you might be thinking "what about Misty! Adult Misty's narrative isn't tied to any man!" And you're right, no matter what ends up happening with Elijah Wood's character down the line (although I will admit to a bit of anticipatory side-eyeing.) I have no issue so far with the Young Misty and Coach Ben stuff in terms of her focusing on him, and I'm not sure if Adult Misty ever says more than 2 lines to a man in season 1. But frankly, while I don't think this specific show should play this specific character any differently, there IS a broad pattern, I think, of shows looking at an adult, single woman with no kids, and deciding that her plotline therefore must be that she's ✨Crazy✨ in a quirky, endearing way that is as intentionally ironic as it is legitimately frightening. There is a vague backstory to provide even vaguer explanation for Why She's Like This, but never anything concrete or broad enough where you could picture years of therapy having any kind of effect. She's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Dark Reprise).
Again, I'm saying none of this to shit on Yellowjackets, or even ask them to change anything (except the colorist misogynoir: That's Gotta Go.) What I'm wondering is, if it takes a show as good at portraying women and girls as Yellowjackets is to get me to even CONSIDER such basic possibilities-- what would TV and film look like if less fantasy-based projects also considered exploring the POV of women over age 30, who talk to other women over age 30, about their relationship with each other?
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sizzlingpatrolfox · 1 year
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do you think its ageist/sexist to find it uncomfortable when jikook shippers are in their 40s+ and have husbands and kids? i just feel like if they were truly satisfied with their relationship they wouldn't be living vicariously through 2 guys in their 20s (i know they would deny this but that's literally the psychological underpinning of shipping). like i get older women have hobbies and can still be in fandoms thats fine, but the shipping seems to be coming from a kind of sad/creepy place. especially because they're 20 years or so older than jimin and jungkook but constantly talking about how attractive they find them
for younger women shipping can be very unhealthy too of course but it makes more sense for them to be living out their relationship fantasies through celebrities because most young women haven't found a long term partner yet
Sexism for me is a really serious issue. It really doesn't matter if a woman gets called dumb because they like a ship as long as they can vote and go to school and aren't confined to a hut when they're menstruating because their culture deems them unworthy if they bleed. There are extremely difficult and serious issues women face as to consider calling middle class Becky "hag" as misogyny.
Same goes for age. I'm sorry if you feel offended that someone said you can't be shipping men at your big age. Kim, there's people dying. It's not a big deal. I've told I was too grown for some things and I really dgaf. So I can't feel empathy for someone who gets sad because someone told them they're old to be part of boraland.
I'm young, but not so young. Sometimes I even get uncomfortable at myself for still liking a celebrity so much. Likewise, I do get uncomfortable and think it's interesting (for lack of a better word) the amount of adult women in shipping spaces. The craziest thing is... they're always the most delusional ones, the ones with the theories and the analyses. 90% of them are straight women, too. I'm not saying this because of jikookers only but of course taekookers, and larries too. I was in the larry/one direction fandom, and the "big blogs", the most known shippers, they were all well above 30 or even 50 years old. It's literally the same with the few "big" jikookers and taekookers bloggers/twitter users that I know.
I think there's a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings that have to do with culture changes. I mean, there are as many types of relationships as there are people in the world. From what I've seen, the forms of friendship that we see from kpop idols, are very different from what male friendship looks like in the US. I'm from LATAM, and a lot of the friendship I see between kpop idols is the same or very similar to the forms of friendship in my country. I also went to an all girls school all of my life, and the skinship and familiarity you develop with people of the same gender in environments like those (say, school/trainee life) are very different from other environments. So I've been hardly shocked with the things I've seen in BTS and kpop in general.
Adding to the current differences in cultures, there's the difference that comes with time. A relationship in the 1950s does not look the same as relationships look like now. A friendship in the 1950s doesn't look the same either. Men and women in general act so much different than they did 40, 50 years ago. I once told my mom something about vaginas that I had been talking with my female friend and she was surprised and told me "when I was your age, we didn't talk with friends about that stuff, we didn't even know that part of the body existed".
What I mean is, sometimes I see shippers talk about Jungkook grabbing Jimin's ass like it's something straight out of porn when it's literally just guys being guys. Or when people were screaming GAYYY at the fact that Taehyung tried to go to pee with Jimin. I would literally bet my entire right arm that they've all seen each other naked. I'm 28 too and my friend still pees with the bathroom door wide open even when I'm at her place.
This isn't to confirm or deny any ship, but it's something I do wonder about a lot. If a lot of the conviction some older women have about ships, has maybe something to do with them being easily impressionable with young people's relationships. I personally have family members that work with people half their age, and my family is constantly SHOCKED by the things the younger ones do and say. Because it's just relationship dynamics that my 45 year old aunt didn't know or experienced.
There's also the fact that "I've been married since 1970" shippers are the only ones who are so adamant that yxz ship is in a long term relationship. And I'm like... of course if a long term relationship is everything you've ever known, that is the only thing you will see because you just wouldn't recognize anything else. I've talked about it before, but I personally think the assessments of someone's who's been out in the world and has had many different types of relationships are actually more valid than the opinion of someone who's been married for the past 40 years. Times have changed. There's no way I'm ever asking for love advice from my mom, for example. I'm sure she wouldn't understand half of my relationships.
I don't like using personal experiences because I'm just one single person in the whole wide world, and my experiences aren't really statistically valuable in the grand scheme of things, but in this case I'm using examples just for the sole purpose of saying "this stuff happens".
On the other hand, something I've always thought about and is actually some sort of self criticism too is.. why male ships? Why is it always that women are shipping MEN? Okay, straight women of course wouldn't think of two girls having sex because they're obviously not interested and the idea doesn't excited them at all. They like men so men having sex is something they actually want to think about.
But even lesbians and bisexual women all ship men instead of maybe just... look for female couples? It's why I never believed people when they say they seek "representation" in jikook or other gay ships. You are a lesbian, girl. Find lesbians to represent you, not men that you believe could be queer. We're not even talking about men that are out lmao, because if they were out queer men that loudly advocate for queer people, then that's a different story.
I think this brings into light too the fact that (something I've talked about before too), a lot of female shippers don't actually have any idea of what male friendships look like. Everything is romantic, everything is sexual and everything is gay to them because two men do it. But if they were to see the exact same action between two girls, it would just be girls being girls. I say it's a self criticism thing too because I've always been aware of that. I could see two girls holding each other boobs and I wouldn't even blink. But I know when men do stuff like that it comes across as more shocking. And I think that's precisely the reason why it's always male ships, why even lesbians and whatnot don't think twice about other women's relationships. Because they know in depth about women's boundaries with each other, they understand female relationships better and they have also experienced lots of skinship with other women that wasn't romantic, even if it was intimate. But their understanding of men falls short and so everything is exaggerated and blown out of proportion simply because it's unknown or unseen for a lot of women.
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semper-legens · 1 year
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110. Class A, by Robert Muchamore
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Owned: No, library Page count: 291 My summary: It's the first real mission for CHERUB agent James Adams, and he's in for a treat. Taking down a major drug gang by befriending the leader's son isn't going to be easy, but James and his friends have been trained for this. But James has other problems. His love life, for one. Does Kerry feel the same way he does? And will it matter if they can't get this guy to justice? My rating: 3/5 My commentary:
I don't know how I feel about the CHERUB books. I remember being really into them when I was a kid - as I was reading, I recalled plot points and events with some clarity - but in retrospect I'm not sure what I saw in them. There is a lot to like here, don't get me wrong, especially if one happens to be an eight to twelve year old who thinks they could totally be a super spy if given half the chance. But I don't think it holds up particularly well, even when placed in the standards of its time. This book came out in the mid-2000s, and it shows in a lot of ways. I really wish the series was about one of the other characters, because James is very much not working for me right now.
So let's talk about James. In a lot of ways, James is exactly the stand-in for the young reader that you might expect. He's boistrous, rebellious, too cool for school, but he's also smart, strong, and brave. Unfortunately, he also shows the same social attitudes as a kid in the 2000s. He's horribly sexist to all the girls in CHERUB bar his sister, and his affections bounce around easily. He's also homophobic - when his roommate/friend Kyle tells James that he is gay, James immediately thinks that it's disgusting and wrong and he doesn't want to hear any more about it. And that's never really questioned by the narrative. Other characters give it the token 'ugh James Kyle's just Kyle there's no need to be grossed out by him', but James doesn't lose any friends over it, and Kyle seems mostly okay with the proceedings. Disappointed, obviously, but there's not a lot of pushback, which feels like an oversight. James just lost all my sympathy, really - he's rapidly becoming kind of a shitty kid.
The mission itself is for the kids to befriend the children of a particular cocaine dealer, in order to bust him. James, Kyle, Kerry, and Nicole are all posing as the adopted children of mission controller Zara, and each have a target to befriend and use to gather information. James has no problem fitting in with the bad boy crowd, but Kerry struggles with her target, feeding into her sense of inferiority. She winds up getting with a different kid, and finding where the dealer is packaging his drugs, which is a huge breakthrough. But it's James' friendship with Junior, the dealer's son, that really pays dividends, as James becomes a street seller for the dealer and earns his respect so much that he's invited on holiday to Miami with them. Of course. I would have liked to have seen a bit more balance showing how all the kids are working, but we're tight on James' POV and, while I guess that makes sense, it did make it seem like James and to a lesser extent Kerry were the only ones truly working this mission.
Speaking of the mission, I've talked in my last CHERUB post about this story's relationship to realism. CHERUB supposedly has an ethics committee, who clears the mission concepts before the kids even see them, and sets strict rules. As this mission involves dealing with class A drugs, the kids are warned that any class A drug use by them will result in expulsion from CHERUB. Which comes back to bite Nicole and Kyle. Nicole was only on this mission because our fearless hero recommended her, because he wanted to get in her pants. Smooth. She ends up having a breakdown because of her own trauma and issues, taking a bunch of coke, and needing to be hospitalised. Naturally, she has to leave CHERUB, though they set her up with a foster family and a therapist, which is probably the right call. Kyle, however, is found to have traces of weed in his system; not a class A drug, but also a punishable offence. Poor Kyle can't catch a break. It's also interesting how quickly the situation in Miami deteriorates. James has a plan, but is forced to abandon it when the situation escalates out of control, and he winds up having to shoot someone. He's pretty messed up about it, but justifies it as doing what he needed to stop the bad guys. Which. This series likes to set up its criminals as the bad guys, much as James and co have issues seeing them as more than 'my friend's dad' or suchlike. It's an interesting assumption, but I'll talk about that more when I talk about the next CHERUB book.
Next, some spooky tales of winter hauntings.
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fictionfixations · 1 year
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I don't know how long AO3 is gonna be down so I'm gonna post the fics for WC/DC week for yesterday and today ----- July 10th | Scar Reveal |
Jason often got used to his imperfections. His flaws.
He understood that that thing could generally be a turn-off to other people, so he ended up fully existing in the cape community. Because everyone understood. They wouldn’t pity, there would just be understanding, because they all had scars. They all had their bad moments, that was just how it worked.
Except, he’d gone undercover, as Neal Caffrey.
Back into the ‘normal’ world, where things were different. People in New York wouldn’t expect an art forger to have bullet wounds and knife cuts, but those in Gotham would. It was like an average Thursday for them, and why children would be taught in schools self-defense.
In a way, he was double out of his depth, considering he was effectively out of the cape community, and out of Gotham.
He’d been in Gotham for most of his life, and the one time he left, he died, so there were some bad memories there.
Regardless, all in all, it led to a whole lot of issues, in which Jason was probably not the greatest person to act undercover (he’s pretty sure Dickie-bird would be the better choice to pose as Neal, but Dick was also famous. Jason, however, was legally dead).
So Jason endured. 
He’d jokingly flirt despite never having actually been interested (it was why he had so much fun flirting with Diana. Like meets like, gay meets gay– And not to be sexist, but it was generally that girls outside of Gotham were softer. Or at least the ones that threw themselves at him. Likely they just saw his muscles, and fantasized of some buff guy to protect them. However, he’d ended up losing all interest after Talia had taken advantage of him once he’d been resurrected. He couldn’t have.. consented, then), And generally just became the complete opposite of who he really was.
It was freeing in a way, but also constricting.
Freeing because no one would expect the worst of him. No one would see the hood before the guy, and he generally did not have to worry about that. But they’d also label him as a criminal. Honestly, Neal Caffrey’s crimes weren’t even that bad, yet so many had treated him as if ‘once a criminal, always a criminal’. It felt.. racist? Well not racist racist but. That-ist. Criminal-ist. He was failing at his word game at the moment. 
So it was constricting. Especially with the stupid tracker anklet. Goodbye privacy. He’d always been expected to run at any chance, and it felt like sometimes, that it’d been a mistake ever trusting some of them because they’d never share that same trust. 
But with all his friends effectively cut off from his life (unless he called them on his very non-approved phone), it felt stifling, and humans were social creatures.
It only was natural that he came to rely on Peter as a partner.
Except sometimes he’d have moments where it felt like his eyes had been opened, like he’d dipped into cold ice water and had a moment of clarity, where Peter would do something that made him realize that, no, they weren’t a team. He wasn’t even a sidekick. He was just a CI that Peter would never actually trust, no matter how much friendship they build.
And fuck, it felt worse then Bruce. And Bruce was, well, Bruce!
It hurt like a bitch, and he wasn’t being sexist! He knew some pretty tough girls, and bitch slaps have very much earned their right to be called something other then just a slap, because the sound would fucking echo in a room, and it’d sting like hell. 
Truthfully, Jason didn’t know if he was ever gonna be released. Well, the days would drag on of course, but the way they thought made him feel like they were just gonna pull shit to keep him as a CI, with the shitty pay and honestly sometimes shitty people.
Despite all of that, he could get along with some people. ..Mainly Diana. Again, like meets like. She’s faced discrimination, he’s faced discrimination (and even when he was just a street kid, automatically thought of to be a thief. They weren’t wrong about him, but some people kept to their morals even if it killed them). It was cool beans.
So regardless, he’d been mainly content. He didn’t know how much of that was him being so used to pain and dysfunctional teams and partnerships and whatnot, but he could enjoy the silver linings (and people used to say he was a glass half-empty kind of person, hah). 
White Collar crime was the perfect place to take a break. Without any hardcore action, he could relax for a second (not that he didn’t miss it sometimes). 
Until it wasn’t actually white collar and their suspects had guns, which, fucking hell, he hated these suits (how do people fight in these things!?). They were just a little bit too tight in some places, and it’s not like he could get one tailored for him with enough space that it’d be comfortable because then they’d wonder where the hell he got the cash and assume he scammed someone.
Woo, some pent up resentment there.
Unfortunately, this was one of those times where their suspect had a gun. Hurray for him. Except apparently not all FBI are trained enough to avoid it (or maybe they were but got rusty with time), and so he did the valiant and ‘hEroIC’ duty to take the bullet, which ow? But also, hey, not that bad. 
At least they weren’t the ones that really dug in there and would scratch at you when you try to pull it out, so small wins. 
Of course, Jason made the dumb decision of forgetting about his scars that when the medical people (he wasn’t paying attention) took his shirt off, everyone stilled.
And he zoned back in, frowning at their pale and speechless faces, before he looked down at himself, and realized oh.
It was another oddity of his. While many in the cape community had scars that decorated all over their body, almost like a piece of art, however messed up that would be, they didn’t have what he had. 
Not to be pretentious, but it wasn’t everyday someone came back to life, and thus he had the horrid autopsy scar that would horrify even the most veteran of heroes.
With its raised skin that you could almost trace with your eyes where they made the cut, it made a lot of people squeamish. And for good reason.
“Fuck,” he cursed.
Neal Caffrey shouldn’t have a stupid autopsy scar, and they’d be horrified and maybe pity him for whatever he went through to get that (assuming it’d been done on a live person, which that seemed more horrifying because he knew they covered the eyes, stitched the mouths, suck out the blood and fill it with stuff..), in which he might’ve ruined his cover.
After all, Neal Caffrey was smooth where he was rough, and logically never should’ve been in that big of a trouble to have been hurt so bad.
Sometimes he wished that there were ways to remove scars, but he also knew that his body would feel wrong without them, that it wouldn’t truly be his.
Like how the white streak was his too, and to get rid of it felt like he was covering up a part of himself. A part of himself that basically meant he survived.
And fucking hell. 
No matter how hard he puts himself into this role, to encompass anything and everything that Neal Caffrey as a person is…
He is not Neal Caffrey, and Neal Caffrey was never him. ----- July 11th | Identity Reveal | “Your reputation proceeds you…”
Neal had a secret.
For the vast majority of his life, he was a Shadow, an assassin for the League of Assassins. 
If you asked him, he couldn’t tell you who his parents were, or his real name was. 
Neal Caffrey didn’t exist. 
For a while, he didn’t think he could ever leave, and so he barely entertained it as a thought. What was out there anyway? Freedom? 
He wouldn’t know how to live. With too much blood on his hands, he never felt like he could fit into a sort of apple pie life.
But then the Demon’s Heir had left.
The news spread like a wildfire, of the heir who left the nest and ended in the clutches of their enemy, Batman.
And for once, hope blossomed in his chest. It sparked and it grew, until every passing day he’d imagine being free, being able to metaphorically spread his wings and just. Fly.
Of no longer being stuck in a bird cage, only being let out with clipped wings.
‘No more’, he thought.
If the Demon’s Heir could leave, could manage to have a stable life even with all the blood that stained his hands, even with all the messed up teachings and trauma, could become accepted, then who's to say no one else could?
And so he left.
He wasn’t all that important anyway, so it wouldn’t be as much of a priority to look for him, but he couldn’t explain how utterly joyful he felt when he was free.
Such huge relief, as if a weight that had been tugging him down to drown had finally lifted. Where he could breathe. 
The former assassin had taken up the name of Neal Caffrey, going a little bit ham.
Enjoying things that he never would’ve been allowed to otherwise. And so what if he forged stuff? It barely stood a chance against the body count he had before.
Yet he let himself get caught, knowing if he took it too far he’d be found. Neal refused to let himself become an Icarus, flying too close to the sun by becoming too infamous, and then being shot down by the League. 
So he became just another face, until he ended up becoming the CI for the New York White Collar branch.
It was fun.
Sure, it hurt sometimes when they’d no doubt think that he couldn’t really ‘reform’, but he also knew he deserved it. Knowing that they’d hate him if they knew how many lives he’d stolen, over the many years he was in service to the League.
Neal wondered if it was so hard to believe that he truly did enjoy being in their company, however, or if the personality that was Neal Caffrey made his real self seem unbelievable.
It was generally okay. A lot of times there’d be references to media culture and the like, but Neal had been basically sheltered for a large part of his life to where he’d often have not had or seen anything that the other agents would speak about, which would cause them to gape at him in shock. 
(“What, were you sheltered or something, Caffrey?”
Neal smiled mirthlessly. “Something like that. It was all traditional, you know? Barely any technology, no art, no music, not even any books unless they were instruction manuals, or something educational. Terribly boring. It was just ‘work, work, work’. Never thought about leaving until someone else did, and then I realized that was something you could do, so then I did. I became obsessed with art, but you know that. I don’t really regret it. I wasn’t really my own person, then.”
“..Ah. … ..Were your parents really strict?”
“I don’t remember my parents,” he stated bluntly. “I don’t even remember who I was before I became, well, me. Neal Caffrey. I’m sure you know it’s fake, but it's similar to new and carefree. Honestly I don’t remember anything from when I was really young. I refuse to defend that place and say it was like a group home or an orphanage like I want to. It’s bullshit. I can’t even tell you if I was kidnapped, if I went willingly, or if my parents were assholes and sold me to them. I’m not afraid to say that that part of my life was hell, but it was all I had for a while. I guess you could say it was a cult. Surprising, huh? Who knew Neal had such a story. But I don’t regret being here. I have so much more freedom, even if I’m stuck in a radius. It’s good, actually. I’m less likely to be found. If my feats kept going, I likely would’ve ended up on their radar, and killed for abandoning duty. It was a join or die thing, y’know?”
“Oh. I. ..Neal..”
“Was that too much? I guess it’s a lot, since you are in White Collar. Sorry for dumping it on you.”
“No, I- Well, maybe. Why didn’t you tell anyone? If you tell us the name then we can let people know and get it dealt with.”
Neal shook his head. “Too risky. ..Now that I think about it, I think I was in WITSEC for a while before I got involved with the.. cult. That’s right. My dad was a corrupt cop, so they didn’t like me much. Besides, I’m more likely to be registered as a foreigner, even if I might’ve been born here.”
“Wait, you’re not–?”
“I know! My accent is so convincing right? I was in an entirely different country- A new continent, really. Doubt I could be considered American anymore.”)
It all came to a head when one day, the Demon’s Heir had come to the White Collar office.
He didn’t even know why Damian might’ve been there, especially in New York, but instinct came first, and he rushed to greet him, falling down onto his knees to acknowledge the other as superior.
He tuned out anyone else around him, keeping his attention on the heir, and only on him. 
"Your reputation precedes you, my أمير. Are you going to take me back?"
There was a minute flinch from the heir, giving away his surprise.
"Back? Tell me ظل, what are you doing here?"
Neal didn’t hesitate to confess the truth. No matter how much he enjoyed his life here, you couldn’t get rid of loyalty that easily, especially loyalty that’s been so deeply ingrained. 
"حرية. You were able to leave, so I thought I might be able to as well. I am a CI. A nobody. A ظل would've been expected to stay off the radar, so instead I let myself get caught. I wasn't a league native anyway, merely brought into the fold when I was young. I am older now, and I'm content with my life as it is."
Damian stared at him for a long time. 
"-tt-. لا. I will not. The rules state that those who wish to leave shall be beheaded. However, I have seen the kindness of this world in the time I have been gone, and thus I shall spare you. Do not make me regret it ظل, or I will come for your head."
"Thank you, my أمير."
“Do not thank me for giving you the least of mercies. If you are caught, you will face a fate worse than death.”
“I know.”
“Stand up.”
Neal stood up. 
“I will try to avoid you, so that you are not found. Someone else will return. Be safe.”
“Neal? What the hell was that!?”
He startled, turning around. “I.. I think I’m free.” (notes:
Gray Son? Demon brat? idk cult damian likely
Jake Daniels - Two Face
HAHA 7/11 --- like 7-11
https://archiveofourown.org/works/46533643
what if: damian escaping gave neal hope to get out of the life as a shadow (assassin) so he ran and he never looked back
"your reputation proceeds you, my أمير. are you going to take me back?"
"Back? Tell me ظل, what are you doing here?"
"حرية. You were able to leave, so I thought I might be able to as well. I am a CI. A nobody. A ظل would've been expected to stay off the radar, so instead I let myself get caught. I wasn't a league native anyway, merely brought into the fold when I was young and wanted more for my life. I am older now, and I'm content with my life as it is."
"-tt-. لا. I will not. The rules state that those who wish to leave shall be beheaded. However, I have seen the kindness of this world in the time I have been gone, and thus I shall spare you. Do not make me regret it ظل, or I will come for your head."
"Thank you, my أمير."
(or i could just have neal be dick and a talon finds gray son. or with damian.. but ;-;)
i feel like lately ive been ending up stumbling into writing fics that require the use of google translate because i end up including more languages
and im so sorry if its butchered (dude i know how much it sucks now i was comparing it to a latin sentence i translated and then looked at google translate and it was horribly wrong. it most likely wont get wrong with single words however so im jujst gonna. fhsduifh)
أمير = prince, lord osmething something (or i hope it does)
ظل = either shadow or shade but then when it switched to shade it changes to a something instead of zala so im just sticking with the first one
حرية. = Freedom.
لا = no
looking at google translate it looks like arabic is meant to be read from right-to-left instead of left-to-right which oop ;w;;;)
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Reader visits Family Video practically every day, and tries to get service only from Robin, ignoring Steve 🥰
Hoooooo boy went a little overboard with this one but I really really really love it so much- maybe not exactly what you asked for but I hope you like it!
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This Week at Family Video
Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington friendship (and character study) Robin Buckley x a girl who I guess is technically an oc
summary: A cute girl keeps coming into Family Video and Steve is determined to wingman his best friend Robin into a date with her, which turns into a deeper bonding moment when Steve realizes he's grown a lot but there's still room to go and Robin realizes that she's not as alone as she feels.
Content/warnings: Robin talks about how it feels to be closeted in the 80s so there are allusions to period typical homophobia and a quote from Steve from season one which is uncool. It's just like....an analysis of the friendship between the lesbian and the straight himbo and how there's a lot more to it than bonding over hot girls.
(Also I mention a couple movies in here and I have seen none of them so don't @ me)
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9k words
Monday 
    It was an average day at the Family Video. People filtered in and out, a few of whom garnered some appraising, and, admittedly kind of objectifying glances from the two clerks that sat behind the central desk, who’s eyes would flash up as the bell ring, look at each other and make a subtle face to indicate whether or not the thought the girl that just came in was cute. 
Robin admits openly to feeling bad about this ritual, and Steve agreed that it was pretty sexist and they shouldn’t be collectively checking out chicks that came in and consulting on their hotness but at this point it was almost involuntary and hard to avoid when Steve all but lept over counters when a pretty girl walked in. Robin told him that she only did it now so she knew if she’d have to be working the sales desk for the next 2-8 minutes until he’d get rejected and come back to help but he didn’t buy it for a second.
The bell over the door rang and they glanced up to see a cute girl with intentionally messy hair, some oversized layers, and a bucket hat walk in casually. Steve and Robin both looked at each other with raised eyebrows just before Steve walked around the counter.
“Welcome to Family Video- anything I can help you find today?” Steve said, turning on his charm, regardless of how overzealous he was with it at times. “I’m Steve, and you are?” He said, sticking out a hand. The girl looked a little overwhelmed at the attention and laughed awkwardly.
“Uh, yeah I’m Leslie.  I’m just looking for a movie that nobody else seems to have.” She said with a laugh and a furtive glance at Robin, who prepared herself to step in quickly.
“Well, obviously we have a wide, wide selection of movies, what kind of things are you into? Tell me about yourself.” He said, leaning seductively against a shelf and knocking a few of the empty cases to the ground and picking them up while attempting to look like he hadn’t missed a beat. Robin couldn’t help but widen her eyes in mild horror at how poorly he was doing. Then her eye caught the girl’s, who met it with the same look that said holy shit, are you seeing this? Robin nodded and silently laughed as she watched the girl turn back to Steve’s attempted flirtation with an overly exaggerated interest and nodding that Robin delighted in seeing was entirely sarcastic.
“I’m actually looking for something pretty specific that I’ve been having a hard time finding.” She interrupted after the humor of the situation had worn off.
“Of course, yeah- what do you need?”
“A film called Hour of the Wolf?” she said nervously, and Robin’s ear perked up.
“OH, yeah I love that one- Michael J Fox as a basketball playing werewolf- who thinks of this stuff? I used to play basketball, you know. Didn’t need the wolf powers, though-”
“That's Teen Wolf, Steve.” Robin corrected from the counter, earning a grateful glance from the girl, who walked over to her quickly, and Steve threw his hands up and sighed.
“We don’t actually have Hour of the Wolf which is a shame because it really is a masterpiece.” Robin chimed in, pulling a thoughtful face
“I’ve been trying to get stupid Keith to get it but he says there isn’t enough demand. Shows what he knows.” Robin said, making Leslie smile and her own heart flutter at the sight. 
“Whoever Keith is sounds like he’s got quite the expert on his hands…” She said cheerfully.
“If you're into arthouse horror stuff though you should check out Eraserhead.” Robin suggested, and Leslie shrugged.
“Arthouse? Is that like a place, or..?” Steve asked, trying to stay in the conversation, but was largely ignored. 
“Sure. If you recommend it I’m sure it’s a winner...” She said, a little cheeky, glancing down at her nametag so obviously that for a second Robin thought this girl was checking out her rack in the middle of the store.”Robin.” She finished, saying her name clearly. 
 Robin thought that maybe for a second there she died and was resurrected, but it turned out to just be butterflies. She stuttered for a moment, telling her about the cinematography as she got her the movie and finished lending it. As she walked out Robin sighed, glancing at Steve.
“Once again, you blew it, Steve.. I really wish I still had the you suck board.” She said with a wry smile.
“Yeah…I know you do, Robin. I know you do.”
Tuesday
The next day at Family Video, Steve was peppering her with questions to Robin’s ire.
“Okay, explain one more time what an arthouse movie is?” He asked, and she rolled her eyes.
“Why do you want to know? You already blew your shot.” She criticized while put away the tapes.
“Alright, you don’t know that. And she’s not the only arty chick in the world. Maybe that’s why I haven’t had any luck lately.” He guessed lamely and Robin gave him a dead stare.
“You are telling me that the reason you can’t get a second date is because you haven’t met a girl that is artistic enough? You, Steve Harrington, want a girlfriend who’s primary interests are in arthouse cinema? Is that really what you’re saying to me?” Robin asked incredulously, stopping herself from laughing at the idea of Steve on a date with a moody poet who wanted his opinions on verse. Maybe she should help him if she’d get to hear about that. 
“Just give me another movie like that to recommend her if she comes back in.”
“I don’t know- Dr. Strangelove.” Robin pulled out of thin air. He was definitely about to ask more questions but at that moment the bell rang and there was the girl from yesterday.
She gave Robin a big smile and waved the tape in her hand as she walked over.
“Holy shit, Robin. Holy shit.” She said, putting both hands on the counter. She remembered my name, Robin thought giddily.
“Is that a good holy shit or a bad holy shit?”
“It’s a holy shit holy shit.” Leslie said, still a little bit stunned. “I mean, the last scene? With the bandages? I mean what the fuck? I mean it’s a…bold recommendation to make to a stranger that’s for sure but it was a good one.” She said, giddy, and all of a sudden Robin’s worst fears came true: she opened her mouth and couldn’t shut it.
Fun facts about the movie, her favorite things about cinematography, favorite movies in order, all of it came pouring out involuntarily. Steve sensed her panic and stepped in front of her.
“I think what Robin meant to say was that you should check out uh, Doctor, uh,” he glanced at Robin quickly, who tried to mouth the words subtly even though Leslie was standing a foot away. Steve read her lips and confidently looked to the customer and said: “Doctor Trained Dove. It's great. Arthouse.” 
Leslie tilted her head and pulled her lips between her teeth like she was trying as hard as she could not to laugh, Robin put her face in her hands and Steve grimaced, reading the room correctly and guessing he hadn’t gotten the title right.
“I haven’t heard about that one. What’s…it about?”
Steve opened his mouth and looked at Robin helplessly.
“It’s a musical about a surgeon that becomes a magician. It’s a lesser known sequel to Doctor Strangelove.” Robin said dryly, glaring at Steve when she said the real title and Leslie laughed and bit her lip.
“Didn’t know Kubrick did sequels.” She said teasingly.
“No, this one is John Hughes, actually.” Robin said, sarcasm not coming through as much as a hopeful punchline that she was obviously shocked to see land.
“Well, Unofficial Kubrick sequels aside, do you have another recommendation for me?” Leslie asked, now leaning on the counter.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hear about 2002?” Robin said, her voice now fully transitioned to that of a person daydreaming and unaware they were talking aloud.
“I preferred 2003, actually.” Leslie played along, and Robin knew she was laughing too hard as it was happening.
“Or 2004, right?” Steve cut in , and they both looked at him awkwardly as he ran a hand through his hair. “Seems like it’s a long time from now but it’s not that far, huh? Weird. End of the century."
Two two women just stared at him blankly and just like that the magic was broken. Robin was no longer in the nonexistent John Hughes movie where she was the one that got to kiss Molly Ringwald over a birthday cake and the three of them were just standing in a video store again.
“Have you seen Holy Mountain?” Robin suggested, and Leslie left with it in hand.
Robin and Steve sort of just stood there in shock at just how badly that interaction had just gone.
“Maybe you’re my bad luck charm. I feel like the last time I was cool was before I met you.” He said contemplatively.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response besides the fact that I didn’t put you in that sailor outfit. If you want to get her attention tomorrow you’re gonna have to study up, man.” Robin said with a laugh, and Steve frowned at her and cocked his head.
“Me?” He asked, and Robin looked at him with confusion.
“Yeah? I thought you liked her.” 
“I mean she’s cute but I was kinda getting a…. Hm?” He said with a vocalization and a hand gesture that Robin didn’t understand.
“C’mon man, you know I have a hard enough time reading people as it is.” She complained.
“What vibe?” She asked incredulously.
“A vibe, Robin, there was a vibe.”
Steve looked around to make sure nobody was around so he could remind Robin that she was a lesbian and he was pretty sure that girl was flirting with her. 
“She was totally flirting with you.” He said quietly, and Robin looked at him far more aghast than she had any reason to be.
“What? No! No, of course she wasn’t flir- what would even make you think? I mean that’s just-” Robin stammered and Steve’s eyebrows got higher and higher.
“Alright, alright, alright, don’t start spiraling. You seemed into her, though, right? I’m not about to violate bro code and ask out the girl you like just because you’re a chick.” He said in what she assumed was a tone that bros used to talk to each other with a shrug and Robin just set her jaw in disbelief and well meaning annoyance.
    Not for the first time since she met him she imagined getting into a time machine and traveling to Ms. Clicks class and leaning over to whisper to herself See those two right there? See sweet, beautiful Tammy Thompson staring at that dick Steve Harrington? In a couple of years one of those people will be the single person on the planet earth that you have ever told that you’re gay and the best friend you’ve ever had in your life.  I’ll give you one guess to who it is, and if you guess right I’ll give you a billion US dollars. Also you’ll be tortured by evil Russians together. 
    “Whatever- look, whether or not I think she’s cute she’s not a- y’know-” she said, grimacing instead of saying lesbian in such a casul setting without a self pep talk to convince herself it wouldn’t be weird.
    “Returning Fast Times at 53 minutes and 12 seconds?” He offered, and her shoulders relaxed and she loosely pointed at him.
“Right. Sure. She’s not pausing fast times and she’s cool- why shouldn’t you go for it?” She said, now surprisingly adamant in a way that Steve didn’t understand in the slightest as Robin was almost always apathetic towards his love life.
“Because I blew my shot? It’s fine, it happens. A lot, according to the You Suck board.” He justified it, but Robin had a determined look on her face.
“I could coach you! Yeah, she’s gonna watch Holy Mountain tonight, why don’t we watch it too and you can talk to her about it.” She suggested, and Steve emphasized the confusion on his face.
“Robin, it's fine if you like her. You know I don’t have any problem with-” he started, and she cut him off on the spiel. 
He did that sometimes when she was upset and he couldn’t figure out why- always jumpeing to defend himself and assumed he had said something wrong by mistake. It happened on occasion, Steve, as much as she knew his heart was in the right place, was still a white, straight male former highschool bully from Hawkins Indiana with parents that voted for Reagan, he was always honest that he was still unlearning a lot of shit and it was inevitable that something would slip out every once in a while. The first time it had happened, about a month after they started working at the video store she heard him talking to an old team mate and casually dropped the word fairy as a descriptor. She told herself he didn’t mean it but she had still let it fester until he was following her around while she restocked movies asking what’s wrong what’s wrong what’s wrong over and over again like a petulant child. She confessed loudly and angrily before looking around in fear that there was a customer. He swore at himself and apologized profusely and in that moment she was really reminded of that night in the Starcourt bathroom and how, despite how annoying he was, Steve Harrington had a heart even bigger than his hair.
It had been a nice moment, the next time he said something a little off-color he caught it himself, but still apologized a lot. It only got annoying when he started doing it every time he (unfortunately, usually correctly) identified that she was in a bad mood because of a problem that stemmed from her sexuality and assumed that problem was that he said something offensive by accident. The truth was that there were just always going to be some things that she would go through that he would never be able to understand and would be hard for her to explain. Half the time she hadn’t even taken the time to figure out what exactly it was that was bothering her besides the baseline level of worry that came with the small town closeted lesbian territory.
“I know you’re not homophobic, Steve.” She said and he stopped, nodding in relief, but then doubling down on his confusion.
“So then why are you getting all weird about this?” he asked genuinely, and Robin shook her head exaggeratedly, like if she did it super obviously he would believe it more.
“Fine, I’ll watch the movie.” He conceded, as they started to gather their stuff for the end of the day. Robin shook a triumphant fist with a silent yes as she grabbed her bag and  headed out the door to his car.
“I’m not being weird at all. I just think you have a shot and she seems cool. Also I haven’t seen Holy Mountain in a while and it rules.” She said all too casually, and Steve stared at her suspiciously. Robin wasn’t budging, mostly because she didn’t really know why she suddenly had the urge to push them together either besides the odd sensation of trying to make something go away on its own. 
“Is this gonna be a movie that I have to think about a lot while we’re watching?” He asked apprehensively, and did not care for the mischievous and possibly sadistic smile she gave him
Wednesday
    Robin and Steve sat on stools behind the checkout counter, Steve looked shell shocked, to say the very least. More so than he looked after last year's Russian Invasion. Robin was alternating between laughing at him and trying her best to be comforting and apologetic.
    “Steve, I told you you could close your eyes if it got too scary.” She said in a voice she hoped sounded genuine and that he couldn’t hear it shaking a little. He didn’t say anything, just leaned back against the counter staring downwards, unresponsive. “Okay, you’ve been doing this for like a day and a half the movie wasn’t that weird.” she said, and he turned to glare at her.
    “You know that’s not true, Robin. You know that.” He said emphatically, and they glanced towards the door as it rang.
    It was Leslie, walking in with a grin on her face and the movie in hand and Steve was pretty sure that this girl might actually be a serial killer. Robin liked it, too, though, so maybe they were on a crime spree together and they were definitely going to take him outside and skin him alive and hang it up and- ugh, Steve stopped and put his palms over his eyes to get the image out of his head.
    “Is…he okay?” Leslie asked, leaning past Robin to look at the unresponsive Steve.
    “He’s fine- we actually watched Holy Mountain too last night and he's contemplating it.” Robin said, glancing at Steve and pumping the eyebrows of a wingwoman, and scowled when he didn’t see her because his head was now resting against the counter.
    From his vulnerable state, Steve braced himself to hear them babble on about the perfect ratio of that shot of that lady banging that mechanical horse without legs but instead only heard Leslie respond with a disingenuously excited “Oh!”
    Robin was expecting the same as Steve, and she couldn’t quite decipher the way that Leslie’s eyes flitted between the two of them.
    “I’m guessing Steve wasn’t a fan?” She asked, and Robin laughed at him to which he responded with a dry ha ha ha said from under his arms laying on the counter.
    “Well, that’s commitment for you. Takes quite a guy to sit through a movie like that just because he wants to hang out with you.” She said with a tight smile.  The way she said it made Robin wish she was better at social cues because she knew for damn sure she was missing something. 
    “Yeah, he’s alright.” Robin said affectionately. 
    Steve was torn between warm fuzzies at the closest thing his best friend can ever come to a compliment and smacking her on the back of the head for not realizing that this girl now thinks that they’re dating. It never ceased to fascinate him that the person that can decipher Russian without knowing Russian couldn’t hear that telltale sound of jealousy and disappointment in the goodbye of a person who just discovered that their crush was dating sebody already. Then again, he could do that but couldn’t decipher the Russian, so maybe it was just a different skill set. 
    “Wow, I’m sorry dude I really thought that she’d want to talk to you about the movie.”
    Leslie let out a fake laugh and put the tape and some cash on the counter before walking away with an awkward wave and disappeared with the bell. 
    Steve pulled himself up off the counter, his forehead red from pressing against the surface and his hair messed up, and his look was one of utter frustration and disbelief.
    “Holy shit, Robin of course she didn’t. She wanted to talk to you about the movie. She left because she thinks we’re dating and it bummed her out.” He said, almost in a yell at the fact that he knew she wasn’t going to listen to him.
    “Ooooh, that makes more sense. See, I was right, her being jealous is proof that she likes you.” Robin declared and Steve dropped his head back onto the counter with a smack that hurt enough to drive that weird ass flick out of his brain. “I’m sorry you watched Holy Mountain for nothing though. She’s right, it is a rough one if you don’t enjoy it.” She said casually, almost certainly smiling maliciously. He began to smack his head against the counter and he was pretty sure he heard her laughing.
Thursday
    Family Video opened at 11 AM, so almost every morning after he dropped Robin off he’d go and try to figure out more ways to not talk to Keith for an entire shift. Today he had decided to take the stack of returns into the back room and rewind the ones returned by the “unkind” that he secretly wanted to kiss on the mouth for giving him a really easy and time consuming thing to do every morning until his break, where he’d go get Robin, listen to her rant about school, get some drive thru for the both of them, and then finish off the day with his best friend. 
    All in all, it was an alright gig.
    Except for Thursdays. Steve hated Thursdays.
    Because on Thursdays Robin’s band practice goes late and she doesn’t work a shift, and Keith takes off for long periods at random intervals and would leave him alone to mind the store on a pretty busy day of the week.
    Today was slow, both in passage of time and number of customers, so they canceled each other out and made the day suck exactly as much as last Thursday. 
    He continued to rewind movies, noting a few titles for later that seemed interesting. He took out the next tape and pushed it in. The movie turned on and Steve nearly fell off his chair when his screen was very suddenly two very naked women. He didn’t rewind yet as the two of them kissed and Steve glanced down at the tape. Desert Hearts. He quickly checked to see who returned it and it was, unsurprisingly, a long list of male names, a few of whom he recognized from various sports teams and parties throughout high school, and strangely Karen Wheeler of all people, but he wasn’t going to unpack that. 
As Steve scanned the back of the VHS box he read about the plot of the lesbian love affair that blossoms between the two women out west and a plan formed in his mind, and that plan would help him honor his Duty as a Man with a Heart a Soul and The Critical Social Skills Robin Buckley Lacks: He was going to get his best friend laid. Because that's what friends do.
-
Later that day Steve had an okay plan that could potentially pan out and now was just waiting for the opportunity, he just had to wait for Leslie to come in like she had every day this week. He leaned against the counter and idly watched the screens and glanced out the display glass as people passed by.
    That was when he glanced up to see somebody slowing down and peeking inside. It was Leslie. Whatever she saw, she looked away and kept walking. Steve tilted his head in confusion, but pushed the VHS tape into the player and waited. There wasn’t much business today and as the movie played he did find himself a bit enraptured in the drama between the two women. 
 The only time when his attention was torn from the weighty glances between Vivian and Kay was when he saw somebody pause outside the window. It was Leslie again, peeking in. When Steve met her eye and waved a little she looked like she had been caught red handed and awkwardly walked in and waved.
“Uh, hey Sam.” She said a little stiffly.
“It’s- it’s Steve.” He corrected, and she quietly apologized and wandered into the stacks.
Now that Leslie was actually in the store, Steve realized that his so-called ‘plan’ was actually just the idea to put the movie about lesbians on the tv and wait to see if she reacted. He wished that wingmanning for Robin didn’t have to be so subtle. 
She put the box on the counter and Steve began to slowly start checking out the movie to give her time for her to either look at the tv and say…something. This was a stupid plan, he realized, and he made a quick move to salvage it.
Using his stealth skills gained from years of monster hunting and high-stakes babysitting, he tried to secretly watch Leslie around the store and noticed that she seemed to not be looking at the movies, but at the staff break room and around the store for other clues about the whereabouts of a certain missing front desk associate. When her eyes caught the TV screen and saw the actresses that Steve hoped looked familiar her head snapped back in front of her and she stood very still, examining a box without really seeing it for what she deemed long enough to take it to the counter to make a quick escape.
“Do you like this movie?” He asked, pointing at the screen and unable to stop himself from visibly cringing.
She looked up at him incredibly awkwardly. “I’m…not sure what movie that is, honestly.” She said, and he was like 50% sure she was lying.
“Robin likes this movie.” What had happened after breaking up with Nancy that left him so much worse at talking to other people? Was it Dustin’s influence? Was it just that he didn’t know how to be charming without being a total dick? He knew it was probably that one.
Leslie gave him a tight smile. “That’s sweet that you’re watching her favorite movies. She’s a nice girl. I'm glad she’s got someone that cares.” 
“Yes! Robin is a nice girl!” He said energetically, even if that wasn’t necessarily a word he’d use for her. “She’s super cool and smart too. She speaks four languages and can translate Russian by ear.” he said, hyping her up, realizing now that Leslie had meant it’s sweet that you watch your girlfriend’s favorite movies.
“I…didn’t know that. Very impressive. You two make a cute couple.” She said, and it was audibly strained.
“We’re not dating. We’re just friends. Best friends.” He added at the end, a little embarrassed of himself. “But I do watch her favorite movies and thank you for seeing the value in that because Holy Mountain has literally been haunting me for two days and I just think that friends should get credit for doing that shit too.” He added in annoyance at nobody in particular.
“Oh!” She said, and he could hear the audible relief, and saw her glance back at the tv and swallow. Steve could see the gears grinding in her head and he could not believe that his terrible plan might be working. “That’s- I mean- I guess I just assumed.”
“Nope, not dating, she’s totally single. I asked her out a little after we first met because of all the cool hot smart stuff I said earlier but she was not interested and now we’re just friends.” He explained, trying to put emphasis on the not. 
“Best friends.” Leslie said gently with a smile, her awkwardness gone and replaced with a very cautious beginning of a theory he was trying to confirm without saying anything.
“Yes! Best friends. Because she’s the best.” He said, nodding, and then Leslie nodded too. They stood there in silence for a second before Steve remembered he was checking out her movie.
He went to write down the number and furrowed his brow when he saw the title.
“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? This doesn’t seem like your kind of flick.” Steve said oddly, and her cheeks got a little red.
“I was kinda waiting for Robin to give me another recommendation.” She said with an awkward laugh.
Steve saw his opening, and was closing in on his plan quickly and efficiently. “Well, Robin really likes this movie.” He said, stepping aside so she had a full view of the tv and the lengthy stares between the two actresses. “Do you want to rent it?” he asked, suddenly kind of hoping she said no because he wanted to finish watching it.
“Uh, sure?” She said, and he reluctantly turned around to eject it and making it a full spin when he came up with an alternative.
“Oooh no!” He said in a dramatic fake tone akin to a child's television star that didn’t see you come in but wants to show you some puppets anyway. “This is actually Robin’s copy of Desert Hearts, and not the stores. So I can’t lend it to you.” He said in an exaggerated voice.
Leslie furrowed her brow. “Then why is it playing?”
“Becaaaaaause….she thought I’d like it and she knew it would be a slow day and she wasn’t working.” He pulled out of nowhere.  “But- you should come back tomorrow, when she is here and ask her to borrow it. Oh! Maybe you could watch it together and talk about cinema! Now that’s an idea!” He said, knowing he was overplaying it while he was talking and as Leslie stared at him incredulously.
“You…want me. To come in tomorrow. And ask your friend Robin if I can watch her copy of Desert Hearts with her?” Leslie asked, and Steve nodded profusely at the secret code the two of them had developed. 
“Yes. That’s exactly what I think you should do. If you want to.” He said encouragingly, and he could tell that Leslie was running some serious cost-risk analysis gymnastics in her head trying to decide if this really weird situation was actually trustworthy. Steve knew that if he said anything else he could blow his cover, so he just kept his mouth shut.
A little smile came on Leslie’s face and she nodded.
“ I guess I’ll be back tomorrow, then.” She said, and Steve thought it was adorable how she was trying to hide her excitement.
She left with a little spring in her step and, unsurprisingly, National Lampoon’s stayed on the counter with him. Steve grinned, imagining how excited Robin was going to be, and started to rewind the movie because he was sure that he’d missed something important while he was talking to Leslie.
Friday
It was Friday at Family Video and Steve was acting….weird. 
“Dude, tell me what’s wrong you know I can’t read body language.” She scolded and he shrugged energetically.
“Nothings wrong. Everything’s great!” He said, and reached out to pick a piece of fluff out of her hair so she would look her best when Leslie arrived but she smacked his hand away.
“Don’t touch my hair-Is it the Russians again?” Robin asked seriously.
“What? No. Why do you always assume it’s Russian?”
“Because of the time that it was Russians.” 
“Yeah but it was only once.” He said calmly.
“That’s already too many times, Steve.” She said dryly. “Okay, fine, nothing’s wrong but something is up. What is it?”
He sighed. “Okay, but I’m only keeping it a secret because I don’t want you to freak out and get in your head about it.” He explained, and Robin’s eyes went wide.
“Oh no. What did you do?” she asked in horror. 
“Not oh no! This is good!”
“Tell me now or I’m going to punch you in the throat Steve Harrington I took a self defense class after last summer.” She said sternly. Robin didn’t like surprises. Especially after the Russian thing.
Steve leaned in conspiratorially, looking around the store to double check that no customers had snuck in. “Leslie’s gonna ask you out today.”
“What?” Robin squeaked, her eyes going wide and her chest filling up with that extra special anxiety that was cooked up for her specifically by Sappho two thousand years ago and Ronald Reagan now.
“Yeah! It’s gonna be great- I had a whole plan to figure out if she was, y’know, pausing Fast Times and it worked and she’s gonna come in later and ask if she can come over and watch your copy of Desert Hearts.” He explained cheerfully, hoping that his enthusiasm would break through what he really hoped was happy stunned silence.
“What? How did you..? Did you tell her I was- I mean what the fuck, Dude- and what is Desert Hearts?” She stammered, trying to gather her thoughts.
“You haven’t seen it?” He asked in shock. “Oh my god it’s amazing the chemistry between Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau is electric and-”
“Steve!” She said, snapping him out of his review.
“Right, sorry. I didn’t tell her anything, I just put on the movie and said that you liked it and she said she also liked it and I said that she should ask if you want to watch it.” He said calmly. “More or less.” he added, but Robin didn’t look any less freaked out. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked her.” He asked, truly confused.
That happened sometimes. Steve would assume he  said something wrong but that’s just because he doesn’t like seeing her upset. If he had just accidentally said something shitty at least he could just apologize but more often than not it was just something that she didn’t believe she could explain to him. He had asked her to try, he was her friend and he knew that he was the only one that knew she liked girls- He wanted her to be able to talk to somebody- he hated that his best friend ever felt alone.
“It’s not about that you just- you shouldn’t have done that.” She said angrily and walked towards the counter away from him.
“Why not? You’re always helping me get dates- why can’t I help you too?” He asked, hoping she could tell he was confused and not just being difficult.
“Because it’s different!” She snaped.
“You always say that but maybe it isn’t! Maybe I would understand. We’re friends, Robin. Just because we don’t have the same experiences doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to listen and help you. You told me about how much you liked Tammy- I thought you wanted to meet somebody.” He said, and Robin glanced at him, her hard gaze softening to something more awkward and nervous and familiar.
“It’s just…” she started, screwing up her face and trying to figure out how to explain something that frustrated her about herself endlessly. “It’s- fuck- okay,” she took a deep breath and tried to start, quickly scrubbing her face with her hand. 
“I knew Tammy didn’t like me back. It wasn’t real it was just a stupid crush and it hurt like hell but it was still safe.” She tried, words spilling out of her.
“Robin, Leslie’s a nice girl. She’s not going to hurt you.” He said, pained at the fact that he got to ask out and get rejected by 20 girls a week and Robin could just watch from afar.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, it kind of is, you never really know it’s just- fuck.” she groaned in frustration, pacing for a moment before finally finding her words.
 “I don’t know what I’m doing, okay?” She said in a furious rush. “I’ve never done this before. It’s not like when you were ten and you got to walk up to a little girl on the playground and ask to hold her hand. I never got to learn how to flirt or ask my friends if the girl I like mentioned me or figure out when you’re allowed to put your arm around a date at the movies. 
“Robin…” Steve said softly, but she wasn’t done and he wasn’t going to stop her. She took another unsteady breath
“I didn’t get a first date, or a first kiss or a dance with my crush at the Snow Ball or-or ever get to ask my mom for dating advice or gotten to hear my dad sternly talk to my date before giving a nod of approval.” Robin sniffed hard, her eyes watering up as she valiantly fought away the tears.
“I didn’t get any of that. And I’m never going to.” She said, her voice now rough with emotion and a little quieter. She wiped away a stray bit of wetness from her eye and twisted her mouth up. “Nobody’s going to be pulling up in a limo to take me to prom.”
“I’m always going to be different, and it’s hard and it hurts that all of that is just gone now and I missed all of it and I can’t ever get it back. I’m never gonna be a kid at the Snow Ball looking at Kelsey Landin sitting by the punch and not understanding what was so wrong about wanting to ask her to dance. I couldn’t even doodle our names in a heart in my notebooks.” She took a gasping breath and wiped away a tear that finally fell. 
“It shouldn’t be like that.” She was almost talking to herself now, taking an angry breath and shaking her head. “I was just a kid. It wasn’t fair that for my entire life every person that has ever claimed to love me might have hated a piece of me so much that if I was sitting on the swing sets at recess holding hands with Jenny Becker instead of you then I would be utterly ostracized by everybody. Not just bullies. Friends, family, students, teachers, strangers. Grown-ass adults that would hate a child for the crime feeling the same way as every other kid but about the wrong kind of person.” Her voice was sad and proud and angry and valiantly holding down the waterworks that were going to come bursting through any second now. 
“I mean, Jesus, Steve, you’re the only person I ever told and I did it totally on a whim fueled by adrenaline and truth serum- you have no idea what it’s like not knowing if anybody else I care about might turn on me and ruin my life if they actually knew me. I still don’t even know if my parents would still fucking love me if they knew I wanted to watch a stupid movie with a pretty girl and put my head on her shoulder.” Robin was humiliated that she was fully crying now, sitting down behind the desk on the floor and unable to stop. She had kept all of this in for so long and now it was pouring out of her involuntarily. Steve walked away for a moment and she felt an irrational panic that he was going to leave and not wantt to be her friend anymore because she couldn't keep the ugly parts of it to herself and left any discussion of her sexuality at vague looks of hot or not when a girl came into the store. She watched him go to the door and her heart froze until he just reached out flipped the sign to closed before coming back and sitting next to her on the floor. 
Relief flooded her followed quickly by more misery that after all they’d been through her instincts still told her that she shouldn’t expect him to be okay with her saying any of this out loud and the tears came back in full force.
 Steve put his arm around her and pulled her close so she could cry into his shoulder and patted her back as comfortingly as he could as his heart just fucking shattered. He remembered when they were in the Starcourt bathroom and she said that if he really knew her then he wouldn’t even want to be her friend. The two of them had just been kidnapped and tortured by evil invading Russians armed with bone saws and floor eating acid and Robin was afraid to tell him that she had a crush on Tammy Thompson. Even worse is that she had watched him be King Dickhead Steve for years and he had almost certainly given her a reason to think he wouldn’t be okay with it at some point.
You know what, Byers? I’m actually kind of impressed because I always took you for a queer but turns out you’re just a screwup like your father. Was what he had said to Jonathan after telling Nancy to go to hell. He felt bad as soon as he said it, but that didn’t stop him. Back then he didn’t know how to be hurt he just knew how to be angry. He had been heartbroken, in love, and an absolute piece of shit about it. About thirty seconds after saying it Jonathan was beating the ever loving shit out of him and each punch really hit home the fact that he absolutely deserved it. 
He had actually thanked Jonathan later for very literally knocking some sense into him, and to his surprise, he forgave him. And it felt good. He hated who he used to be. He really did, so he had made a few phone calls and a few drop ins to make some heartfelt apologies to some surprised people that were genuinely shocked that he would ever have come around. The worst part is that he would never really know everybody that he hurt, never know who was out there overhearing him say something hateful and taking it to heart.
Robin was his favorite person. He wasn’t sure when it had happened but despite all his complaining she was somehow the only person he knew that really got him. She exploited that knowledge constantly and used it against him, sure, but she got him. He wished he could make her feel as understood as she did. But there would always be things like this that he never would’ve considered that she had gone through her whole life. 
Eventually her breathing calmed down and she sat up, her breathing a bit unsteady and her face red and puffy. She gave him a watery smile when she saw their matching tear tracks and she patted him gratefully on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry about that- that was-”
“You don’t need to apologize, Robin. I’m serious.” He said, looking at her so she knew he meant it. “If I’m the only one you have to talk to about this then I want to hear it all, even when it’s sad and it sucks. Especially when it’s sad and it sucks.” He said, and took a deep breath. “You’re not alone anymore. Anybody tries to mess with you or make you feel like shit just come and get me and I know that I’m not enough to make up for the entire world’s garbage but if there’s anything I can do to make all of that even a fraction less shitty for you then I’ll do it.”
He looked at his hands for a moment, feeling a confession of his own coming on.
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, you know.” Steve said honestly, and Robin quirked an eyebrow. “Like, even though I was super popular and knew everybody I still only really hung out with Tommy and Carol and they were just the worst.” he sighed, not knowing how to say this without making it seem like he was trying to get out of responsibility for being a shithead. 
“I have never met two people so good at making somebody feel like a fucking loser like Tommy and Carol and there is nobody better at making you terrified of being that loser like they could. I’m not saying that they forced me to shove nerds against lockers or anything but any time I tried to do the right thing they’d just shut me down and taunt me until it felt like if I didn’t do whatever bullshit they wanted me to then everybody would think I wasn’t a real man or some shit and they’d drop me and then I wouldn’t be fucking King Steve anymore.” He shook his head, his hair wobbling as he swore and looked at Robin, unsure if he was getting across what he was trying to and he saw that she was listening, even if her thing had been bigger and more painful she still cared.
“And that’s exactly what happened. For the first time in my life I stood up to them instead of for them and Tommy punched me in the face and drove away. Never even tried to talk to me again. Then at school they started all kinds of rumors and talked shit about me all the time and then I wasn’t King Steve anymore and…” he trailed off and had a little smile “and then I was happy.” He said, in a little disbelief.
“I was thinking about that the other day, pointing at you and Tammy in Ms Clicks class and asking young Robin one day, one of those two people will be the only person you trust enough to tell that you’re not into dudes.” She said, a little mystically, and Steve burst out laughing, and Robin quickly followed. Their laughter calmed down and they knew that the storm had passed and they came out better on the other side of it. They grabbed each others hands to hoist each other back to a standing position and looked at  each other grinning.
“I didn’t fucking hate myself anymore, I got to follow my own instincts and do the right thing. Sure, Nancy dumped my ass and broke my heart and it actually felt so good to just…be sad. Without Tommy and Carol taunting and yelling at me until I felt so angry and pathetic that we’d spray paint her name on the movie theater again and I would’ve felt like absolute shit about it for the rest of my life. I was totally heartbroken but for the first time in my life I actually got to feel it and it. Then Dustin Henderson of all people comes sprinting at me one day and says that everybody else is busy and he needs my help.” He grinned. “It’s just stupid, right? All that time I only cared about being popular and if I could tell my younger self that someday I’d be working in at the video store for minimum and I’d spend all my time hanging out with a 15 year old egomaniac and a band geek that I was briefly a little bit in love with until she rejected me and the entire male population on the floor of a mall bathroom I’d do it and let him know up front that they’re honestly the reason that I’ve never been happier. Really rub his nose in it too.” He said, and Robin laughed aloud in that special way he recognized because it always preceded I was just about to say that.
“Is my face red?” She asked, touching it and being a bit satisfied at how healthy her skin felt after crying.
“Yeah but just give it a couple minutes.” He said, and she nodded. “Hey, when Leslie does get here you can go hide in the back or something if you really don’t want to talk to her, I know I overstepped, but if you need any advice on stuff you didn’t get a chance to learn let me know, no judgment- guaranteed.”
Robin furrowed her brow. “Wait- how exactly did your conversation with Leslie go yesterday? Did you just point at the screen and ask if she liked the movie?” She asked incredulously, and Steve slowly began to nod.
“Uhhh…yeah. That’s exactly what I did.” He said, and she started to laugh again. Steve grinned when he heard a laugh that seemed a little lighter now.
About an hour later the bell rang and Leslie came in. Steve nodded at her and went into the shelves to give quiet support and maybe some advice via arm gestures from behind Leslie, and Robin took a deep breath.
Both girls were extremely nervous, both giggling when their eyes met in a way that reminded Steve a bit of middle school. He smiled to himself and resented the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes when he thought about her getting a chance at simple, blushy, giggly, inexperienced romance for the first time. She deserved it, more than anybody.
“So, um, this is kind of a weird question but I stopped by yesterday to see if you have a copy of um…Desert Hearts?” Leslie said tentatively like she was giving a secret password at a speakeasy and hoping it was the right one.
Robin had a determined look on her face that didn’t necessarily give off a romantic vibe but he could feel her relentless bravery from where he stood.
“I’ve heard of it.” Robin tried to say mysteriously, waiting for the next part.
“And your friend with the hair- He said that, um, that you didn’t have it at the store but he said that you had a copy and that maybe…..you…might…want to watch it with me?” She said, finishing with a smile that was also a grimace. Steve was delighted at how awkward the girl who had seemed so cool all week had gotten.
“I…would like that very much.” Robin said, holding in all her excitement to seem casual when inside she was exploding.
“Cool.” Leslie said, and she and Robin stared at each other in gleeful silence until they made a plan to meet after her shift and Leslie left, waving awkwardly while walking out the door. The bell rang as the door shut and Robin turned around so she could catch her weight against the counter, but Steve’s eyes followed Leslie out the door first and saw her get into a car parked out front with a driver that was currently giving her a high five and obviously congratulating her. Steve waved subtly to the silhouette of the other wingman and he waved back before they drove  away.
Steve then walked up to Robin to see her smiling dreamily and starry eyed.
“Cool.” She said softly, and smiled again. She wasn’t much help around the store for the rest of the day, but every glance he got of the wistful Robin putting tapes back in the wrong places and saying cool in a whisper every few moments and giggling made it worth it. 
Saturday
    Steve waited anxiously outside Robin’s house before work and was annoying himself more and more every time his brain made the comparison of a parent waiting for their kid after their first day of school to ask how it went when they’ve spent the whole day worrying. It wasn’t like that, but he was still anxious for her to come outside.
    Robin opened the door and waved goodbye to her family and started towards the car. He could see the size of her grin from the moment she was in sight. 
    When she got into the car she was silent for a moment, and he refused to drive, only stared at her expectantly
    “So? How’d it go?”
    Robin was trying to play it cool despite the fact that she was bouncing in her chair. 
    “You know that whole list of things I thought I had missed out on and it was too late for? Let’s just say I…checked a couple things off.” She said coyly, and Steve grinned at her proudly and gave her a victorious shoulder pat. That’s when she exploded into squeals and all that sandy hair shaking around her as she bounced up and down.
    “Oh my god, Steve, it was amazing. She was so cool and pretty and funny and we had so much in common and we, um” She stopped and her cheeks turned red, and Steve’s eyebrows shot up.
    “I knew it. I knew that you had it in you to be a total chick magnet.” He said proudly, and she grinned at him, shrugging in concession.
    “Turns out I’m a natural Cassanova.” She said with only a hint of irony, and turned her head to look at him. “Thank you, Steve. I mean it.” she said with a tone so genuine that it almost sounded strange in her voice.
    Steve nodded and smiled back. “No worries. I’m your wingman, it’s what friends do. And I like seeing you happy.” 
            The End.
    “Well then…you did what you came to do, because I’m really really happy right now. You’re a good friend.” She said with a sweet finality. Things would stop being mushy and go back to normal but they’d never be the same.
As they began their drive to work they glanced at each other and smiled one more time. Robin had never been so grateful to have a friend like Steve, and Steve had never been so proud to have a friend like her. 
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imthebadguyyy · 3 years
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Temporary Fix
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Pairing - Lewis Hamilton x Reader (fem!F1 driver!reader)
Fandom - F1
Summary - You're the only female F1 driver, and you're damn good at your job. Oh, and you also have a friends with benefits relationship with a certain 7x World Champion.
Warnings - smut, best friends -> lovers, slight exhibitionism
A/N - you have the second merc seat in this, so Valterri isn't here : (( not proof read
Sometimes, you hated yourself for following your passion. Driving a F1 car had been your dream ever since you could remember. The long process from karting to F1 had been a difficult one. When you were seven, you had a go kart track manager that you couldn't race there because you were a girl. That had cemented your will to be the best you could be, and you had done it.
You had made it into a Mercedes F1 seat after spending two years in Williams. It was safe to say that you were one of the best drivers, with killer instinct and an excellent eye for overtakes. The likes of Mika Hakkinen, Niki Lauda, Jacques Villeneuve and others had praised your skills, naming you one of the best talents in the current driver pool.
But the glory, the fame, the praise, sometimes you wished you could just evaporate into thin air. This was one of those times. Press conferences sucked, they really did. Reporters and journalists thought they were entitled to ask you the most sexist of questions, brushing them off by saying it was 'just a simple question'. Sometimes the drivers you were paired up with defended you, like Seb or Pierre or Lewis or even Kimi. Sometimes people didn't want to say anything, or they just laughed it off or answered for you.
This was not one of those times. Charles was supposed to be your partner for the press conference, but he wasn't feeling too great so you were on your own. It had started off fine, with the usual questions like 'how are you feeling about the race?' 'is it gonna be a good weekend for Mercedes?' and then it had gone to 'Do you think you being the only woman here, you should have a special suit?' or 'Are you sure it's a good idea for you to continue another year in F1?' that's what had irked you off.
With a roll of your eyes and a shake of your head, you bit back the cutting response that had sprung to your lips, opting to simply look disapprovingly in silence, speaking more words in the quiet. Eventually, the conference was over, and you made your way out of the hall, deep in thought, so lost in your own world, you didn't notice when a pair of arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you into one of the nearby storage closets.
Your protest of "Hey!-" was cut off by a pair of lips pressing to yours, strong arms wrapping around your torso. "Heard you had a bad day with the press" Lewis mumbled against your lips, brow furrowing when you sighed and let your head drop onto his shoulder. "Yeah they're such fucking jerks" you replied, closing your eyes. "I'm sorry you have to deal with them every time" he continued, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. "Eh, I mean I'd rather not talk about it" you continued, letting your fingers trace a pattern on his chest.
The silence in the room was disturbed by the ringing of Lewis's phone, making you jump softly. "Bono" he answered, looking down at the screen. "Pick it up"
"Hello?"
"Lewis, we're waiting for the meeting? And is Y/N with you?" Bono's voice rang through the tiny closet, as you turned to look at Lewis with wide eyes. Shit, the debrief. "Yeah, I'm coming! Oh, and I'll see if I can find Y/N" he replied, making you suppress a smile. The moment he put the phone down, the both of you burst into giggles, before he leaned down to press another kiss to your lips. "Well, we should go" he said, biting back a smile when you sighed, and cuddled into his shoulder. "Fine"
"But I'll make it up to you tonight baby" he continued, as a shiver ran down your spine. Oh yeah, you two had a friends with benefits situation going on too. No biggie
Except, well, you know you couldn't tell anyone, and you were definitely in love with each other, but I mean, of course it was better to be stupid and just simply refuse to acknowledge those feelings for each other.
♥︎☾☁︎
It had happened, when Lewis won his championship in Turkey. The team had thrown a (socially distant) party, and you had gotten just a little more drunk than you should have, but the champagne was flowing, tequila shots were being taken, beer was being chugged so you just jumped in and had a few more glasses of wine than you should have, and participated in a few rounds of shots.
Before you had known, a pair of hot lips had crashed onto yours, and your arms had tightly held onto a broad pair of shoulders, as the pair of you had stumbled up to your hotel room, crashing backwards onto the bed. Your drunken mind had been sober enough to recognise the 'Still I Rise' tattoo across his back when he tugged his shirt off.
At the same time, Lewis had recognised your face, heart speeding up ever so slightly because holy shit he was making out with you, and he really, really liked you. Before he knew it, your dress was down to your knees, and his shirt was a rumpled mess on the floor, your friendship gone far beyond repair, but only in the best way possible.
The next morning, you had let out a groan when the sunshine had flashed into your eyes, rolling over to find Lewis lying next to you, his arm wrapped around your waist as he slept peacefully. Your heart rate had sped up, and you had shot up, scaring the living day light out of Lewis. He had awoken with a start, confusion present in his brown eyes, before realization had sunk in, and he had shot out of bed, wrapping one of the towels around his lower body.
But before the two of you could get awkward, he had strutted over to you, grabbing your face in his hands before pulling you in for a kiss that made you feel weak and light headed.
And then the both of you came to the conclusion that you two wanted something loose and flexible, something fun with no commitment.
But was it what you wanted?
♥︎☾☁︎
Sometimes debriefs could drag on. And on. And on. Eventually, the engineers left the room, leaving only Toto, Lewis, Bono, Angela, James and yourself in the room. Over the years, it had become like a family for you, and you loved them to absolute bits. The mood in the room had changed, as you all joked around for a while.
Watching from the other side of the room, Lewis couldn't help the smile that etched itself onto his face, when he saw you throw your head back with laughter at something Toto said, inhaling sharply when your neck came into clear view, a sudden urge to mark you up settling in on his body.
It was a thrill, to think of how many times you had come undone on his fingers and his tongue, how many nights you begged for him to fill you up with his cock. It was a thrill to think of all the times he had cried your name out in ecstasy while your tongue worked wonders around him. And yet, here you were, acting as if you two were just best friends, not two people who could barely keep their hands off of each other.
Just two nights ago, he had made you scream his name so loud, the person the next room, who just happened to be Daniel, had not let him hear the end of it. Thankfully, the Aussie hadn't realized it was you in his bed. Two nights ago, he had made you see stars, and after that you had rewarded him with the performance of his life to Nights Like This by Kehlani.
Snapping back to reality when a slight poke was applied to his shoulder, Lewis looked over to see Angela looking at him with a slight smirk on her face. He strongly suspected that the woman definitely had some sort of inkling about the both of you. How ? No idea. But she was a crazy smart woman, and was bound to have figured out that he was seeing someone.
It didn't help that atleast half the people on the grid had at some point teased him, telling him the both of you were made for each other. It was like the universe was pushing the both of you to be together, and he kept pushing it away
"So are we feeling confident going into this weekend?" Toto asked, grabbing his attention from the smirking blonde.
"Yup!" Your cheery answer elicited a smile from everyone in the room. "Yeah I think so" he said, watching as you flashed him a quick smile. "Okay, then, I think we're done for now. Any questions?" Bono asked, scanning a data sheet in front of him. "No, i'm good" you replied, reaching over to grab your phone. "Yeah me too" Lewis said, far too concerned with what was going to happen later that night to pay his full attention to Bono.
"Okay then. We'll see you tomorrow"
And with that they departed. Before Lewis could follow you, a hand grabbed his and he turned to see Angela, Toto and Bono looking at him expectantly. "So whose got you all distracted and flustered?" Angela asked, earning a smirk from Toto. "What? No one" he replied, slapping himself mentally for being all day dreamy during a meeting. "Oh really? I'm willing to bet you didn't hear anything I said during the meet except the last bit" Bono said, smiling when his driver got visibly flustered.
"So do we know her?" Angela continued, watching him closely for any giveaway reactions. "How would you know her if I don't like anyone?" Lewis said, hoping to God it didn't come across as awkward as it sounded.
"Never said you liked anyone. I'm saying you're in love with someone" Angela said, watching as her friend's eyes widened in shock, and he shook his head profusely. "Okay are you on something? I'm just gonna head back to the hotel now" he murmured, confused, and somewhat taken aback by her bluntness.
Ignoring the looks on the others faces, he made his way out to the paddock, trying his hardest to make sense of his feelings. Was a casual relationship with you what he wanted? He wanted so much more than that.
Lewis knew, deep down in his heart, that he wanted to hold your hand in public, and kiss you right on the lips in front of everyone when you shared a podium. He wanted to be able to call you his, to not just spend the night with you, but to spend all his days with you. But you didn't want that.
Or so he thought.
♥︎☾☁︎
Back at the hotel, Lewis busied himself with working out, trying to push all his frustrations out via the workout. He knew that you were going to turn up in the night, and he looked so damn forward to seeing you each night, but god, he hated it when you left in the morning. Every morning when your warm body slipped out from under the sheet, his arms would tighten for a moment, before your giggle would bring him back to reality and he'd hastily draw back, smiling at you. His favourite moment was when he came to your hotel room in Spain. In the morning, he had woken up before you, and before leaving, he had pressed a little kiss to your forehead. The most gorgeous smile had curled onto your lips, and his heart had melted into a little puddle when you rested your cheek on his hand
And then in Monaco, when he had taken you to his apartment, you had woken up before him, and he had woken up to the sight of you bringing a tray of pancakes and fruits, followed by a soft kiss to his cheek.
It was those moments he cherished, but it was those same moments that confused him.
His train of thought was broken when a knock echoed in the room, as he walked over to the door, opening it to find : you
"Hey" you greeted him, walking in and shedding your jacket. "Hey" he replied, reaching for a towel to wipe the sweat off of his body. "Wow um, is this a bad time?" You asked, eyes trailing down his abs, watching as his body glistened in the fading sun light. "No its fine, I just finished my workout. You hungry?" He continued, biting back a smirk when he saw your eyes roaming his body.
"W-what? Yeah, i, um, suppose - yeah" you murmured, mind already far down the gutter.
"For food darling, not for sex" he said, making you blush and let out a small gasp. "Lewis!" You chided, shoving him softly. "You know you were thinking it" he mumbled, pushing you up against the wall. "Yeah I was" you whispered back, yanking him forward by his shoulders, slamming your lips against his.
Lifting you up from the waist, he pressed his body further into yours, one of his hands wandering down to your ass, squeezing harshly, earning a moan from your lips. Taking the opportunity, he pushed his tongue into your mouth, groaning when you let your core grind against him.
Leading you towards the bed, he stopped in confusion when you stopped him, maneuvering him towards the balcony. "Want you to fuck me against the window or in the balcony" you gasped out, earning a moan from him.
"Right where anyone could see us, hmm? Didn't know you were into that baby" he growled, grabbing your earlobe in between his teeth, earning an airy gasp from you, as the wetness threatened to seep down your legs.
"Mmhmm" was all you could muster, your mind so clouded with desperation you couldn't form a single coherent thought. The only thing you were aware of was that only Lewis could make you feel the pleasure you wanted to feel, only he would take you to that little piece of heaven, only he would hold your hand and fuck you into oblivion, and he would still be there to clean you down with a sponge softly.
"If you insist"
Grabbing you roughly, he slammed your body against the massive hotel room window, ripping the mercedes team shirt you were wearing off of your quivering form, letting it drop to the floor, before he hooked his fingers into the material of your jeans, tugging the denim down your legs
With a soft groan, you pulled his nike shorts down his legs, moaning when his cock came into view, the throbbing in between your legs making you whimper, arousal and need growing tenfold in your tummy.
"Please" you whispered, meeting his eyes, so he could see the pure desperation in your eyes. "Please what?" He said, a certain roughness you hadn't heard before creeping into his voice
"Please fuck me" you moaned, gasping when he brought his hand up to your neck, squeezing ever so slightly. "Oh trust me doll, i will. But first, i want to have you dripping wet and ready for me. I want to make you cum on my fingers, so you're wet and ready for my cock. Do you want my fingers princess?" he continued, feeling his arousal grow when you whimpered and whined.
"Words baby girl. Or I'll just leave you here with your pathetic fingers. I bet you can't even reach all those spots inside you that make you scream, when your tiny little fingers try to please yourself. I bet you just feel like sinking into yourself, but the thought of my fingers keeps you awake. Do you do that, sweet girl? Do you pretend your fingers are mine when you're touching yourself, hmm?'
When you didn't answer, he delivered a smack to your ass, groaning when you moaned at the pleasurable sting. "Yes" you whispered abashed.
"Don't be shy baby. Its okay. I know you feel so good when I love on you. I can see it when you scream my name" and with that, his pointer finger began circling your clit, rubbing circles around it before shifting so he was rubbing the sensitive bud directly.
Your moans of ecstasy were music to his ear, a smile gracing his features, as he let his middle finger slip into you, thrusting it in and out of you. Your soft cry of "fuck" cracked when he shoved his pointer into you as well, scissoring them in and out of you
"Oh fucking hell Lew-" "Shh my darling, i didn't say you could talk, did I?" He said, fingers working at an indescribably quick pace, as the knot in your tummy tightened and threatened to loosen. "I'm gonna-" "go ahead baby" he murmured, using his pointer and thumb to pinch your clit roughly, as you came around his fingers with a scream
"Good girl. You wanna put that pretty little mouth to use somewhere else?" he asked, watching as you dropped to your knees eagerly, (just like I would do irl) reaching up to rest your hands on his hips.
"Someone's eager to suck my cock hmm? Be a good girl for me, and don't waste time" he ordered, a shudder running down his body when your nails traced the veins on his cock, and then as they reached downwards, your thumb circling his tip, collecting his pre cum on your finger. Then you shoved your thumb in your mouth, swirling your tongue around it, before sucking softly on your digit, rolling your eyes back. You were snapped back to reality when Lewis roughly yanked your head up, pure arousal clouding his pupils
"You better use your mouth right now, or i swear i will leave you here alone to pleasure yourself" he threatened, moaning when you took his tip into your mouth at once, sucking softly before swirling your tongue upwards.
The feel of your tongue on him made him buck his hips into your mouth, the unexpected movement pushed him quite far back in your mouth, looking up at him, you hollowed out your cheeks, taking more and more of his cock into your mouth, the sounds he was making above you fuelling you. You took him as far back as you could without gagging, as a strangled moan of "Fuck Y/N!"left his lips. He grabbed your hair, tugging upwards, the tingling on your scalp sending shockwaves of pleasure through you. "Fuck baby, you're gonna have to stop now, I really want to fuck you now" he growled out, pulling you up before pushing you towards to balcony railing
Lining up with your entrance, he watched as you let out a shaky breath, eyes falling shut, as you clenched in anticipation.
"Are you sure you want this Y/N?" he asked, eyes searching your face for any sign that he was being too rough, or that you didn't want what was coming next
"Turning your head around to face him, you pulled him in for a passionate kiss. "I've never been more sure baby" was your affirming reply.
Kissing you back with the same fervour, he slowly pushed into you from behind, the both of you groaning in sync when your walls enveloped him. "fuck you feel so good darling. So fucking tight" lewis moaned, making you moan as well as the pleasure coursed through your veins.
Reaching around you, Lewis rubbed your clit while he continued to snap his hips against yours, making your breasts bounce against your chest, your hands gripping the balcony railing for dear life. Thank god it was dark.
He continued to rub and pinch you clit, before swiping his fingers through your wet folds. Then he shoved his fingers into your mouth, prompting you to suck on them
"Be an angel and suck on my fingers for me" he growled, moaning when your mouth eagerly closed around his fingers, sucking them with fervour.
Snapping his hips into you desperately, his hands encircled your waist, pulling you back to meet his thrusts, swishing his fingers around in your mouth. "Fuck baby thats it, i'm gonna cum" he groaned, capturing your earlobe in between his teeth, moaning when you clenched down on him again
"Oh fucking hell-" with a moan, he came into you, pulling his fingers out of your mouth to rub your clit again, sighing with satisfaction when you came around him with a scream of "Lewis!"
Panting, he dragged you back to the bed, both of you collapsing into the covers.
Your chest rising and falling rapidly, you curled up into his chest, letting your head droop onto his shoulder, as his fingers traced his initials onto your hip.
"Well princess, we seem to have a problem here" he said, as you snapped your head up to look at him in confusion.
"I think i'm in love with you"
♡☾☁︎
A/N - part 2? Also feel free to drop a comment, i'd really appreciate it 🤍 thank you so much for reading 🤍
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kooktrash · 3 years
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14 and jk pls
okay bestie, 14: sleepover and decide to play t or d BUT WITH A TWIST. I got inspo from the CUT game Truth Or Drink, but anyways. hope you like it. omg I’m scared
summary: you’ve been friends with Jungkook for months now, a severe thunderstorm and a drinking game blurs the lines between friendship and more.
warning(s): mature language, college friends, drinking, jungkook is a bit flirty, some of the questions are dirty, implied smut, friends with feeling. Plot with little porn.
truth or drink | jeon jungkook
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- “The weather app sucks ass,” he huffed, staring out the window into the thunderstorm waiting for him outside. His eyes shifted down to the app, which changed from a warm night to showcasing clouds of gray and thunder on his screen.
“Severe Thunder Storm warning, if you are from any of the following districts, blah blah blah, remain sheltered from the time being until 6:45am the following day,” you read the weather alert out loud. Jungkook looked back at you, “Um what? I live clear across town, how the hell am I gonna get through that?”
It was true. Your dear friend lived far from your place, and the original plan for the two of you tonight was to study for your Psych exam and then go out for drinks with your friends. It had already been a struggle trying to get him to study, but now he was in an even worse mood because you weren’t going to be able to go out drinking. “Just sleepover crybaby,” you rolled your eyes making yourself comfortable on your couch, “Let’s drink or something.”
“Just us two?” He gnawed on his bottom lip nervously stepping away from the window and looking down at you, “Won’t it be boring?”
“Jieun’s got some drinking games here somewhere, check the media console,” you instructed him, stretching lazily as you pushed yourself up again, “I’ll go find something to drink for us. I think we still have some bottles of Soju laying around.”
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“Truth or Drink, what the fuck is that?” Jungkook asked, scooting next to you on the coffee table as he held a little white box. Upon opening it he was met with four different card deck boxes, he read them carefully, “Which one should we do?”
He read the box, Last Call, eyes skimming the quick summary on the back, “Warning, do not play these questions unless it’s very late and you’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s play this one. Wait but it says three or more people.”
You poured Soju into two small glasses, “Yeah it’s to help find winners because the dealer has to choose between two answers. But let’s just play it a different way, there’s usually two questions on a card, we choose the best one, ask the other person and if they can’t answer they drink. And then we can ask the second question if we want to.”
“I need a beginner’s drink real quick,” he chugged down the liquor set in front of them, urging you to do the same, “I want to go first. I just have to pick a card from the pile and ask you?”
You nodded, setting two small piles on the table and waiting for him to decide which one he wants to ask. His eyes widened, “Oh fuck, these questions are heavy. First one and it’s already a lot. Um anyways,” he shook his head as if giving himself motivation, “Does our relationship bring out the best in you? In me? If not, why?”
You thought about it for a moment, “I think, we bring out the best in each other. You’re my best friend and you make me laugh easily and always make me feel comfortable and not a lot of people make me feel that way. I do think I am a better person because of our friendship.”
He wiped at his eye, pretending to shed a tear, “That was beautiful. Okay hurry up, ask me something.” He set the card to the side, waiting patiently for you to choose one. You laughed reading the question, “Who is in control of our relationship?”
“Fuck you, you know you are,” Jungkook huffed crossing his arms in front of him, “Everybody calls me your little puppy. I have separation anxiety it is not my fault.” The two of you chuckled, you watched him reach into the deck again, brows arching as he read, “What am I the most ignorant about?”
You debated answering. There were a few things your friend was ignorant about but you weren’t sure how to say it. In reality the two of you had barely been friends for a little over a year and though you hung out all the time you weren’t sure you were ready to have any deeper conversations. You reached for your drink, taking a drink swiftly ignoring the way his jaw dropped to the floor, “Don’t play with me, answer.”
“I can’t,” you shrugged, “I already took a drink. It’s Truth or Drink, not Truth and Drink.” He leaned forward a little, pout evident on his face, “Please. Please just answer this one. This is the only one I’ll ask you to do.”
“Fine!” You groaned throwing yourself back onto the pillow you set behind you, “I think you can be ignorant when it comes to your looks.” His brows furrowed, turning toward you, tempted to lay down as well. “I mean,” you thought for a moment, “Everyone knows you’re an attractive guy, except you. You’re always complaining about being single or lonely. And I know a ton of girls who’d kill to go on a date with you.”
“Wait,” he shook his head trying to process the information, “You think I’m attractive?” You rolled your eyes, sitting back up with a sigh, “That wasn’t part of the question. My turn.”
You sighed, reading the question out loud, “Do I often seem like I’m being fake?”
He thought for a moment, “Yes. Sometimes I feel like, you don’t really want to be friends with me, or that I annoy you and you just don’t know how to tell me to leave you alone. Or that you just keep me around because you’re bored.”
“Aw,” you frowned, “Oh my god, Kook I’m sorry I make you feel that way. I promise our friendship is 100% real and I am not being fake about it at all.” He smiled widely looking over to the other decks, picking the red one up, “Extra Dirty, let’s play it.”
“No,” you groaned as he changed the mood in the room rather quickly with his distracted mind. He ignored you reading the summary, “Sex, drugs, and rock n roll. All the questions your dark subconscious wants to ask your friends. Yeah let’s play it, the other deck was getting too emotional, can we do this one instead?”
“Fine but if it’s anything too weird I’m just drinking,” you told him. He nodded understandingly as he reached for a card, choking on his own spit for a minute before an evil smile came to his face, “What’s something you wish your ex would have done sexually, but didn’t?”
Fuck. Of course he’d be smiling at this question. Jungkook absolutely hated your ex boyfriend, Hobi. He thought he was rude and sexist and you had to agree just a little. You were friends with Hobi now but he wasn’t the best in a relationship. “Fuck,” you bit your lower lip in concentration, “I’ll tell you but this stays between you and I.”
He stuck his pinky finger out, locking it with yours as he waited eagerly for your answer. You weren’t going to pussy out of a question again so you were just going to say it. “He could never make me cum from eating me out, like never, not even with his fingers,” you hurriedly covered your face with your hands embarrassment filling you as it sat quietly on Jungkook’s end. The breakup was fairly recent so it was still a little awkward and the few hook ups you ve had since then sucked ass. “My turn,” you reached for a card taking his silence as a sign of awkwardness.
Huffing, you read carefully, “Do you find me physically attractive? What if I bat my eyelashes like this?” You did as the card said, batting your lashes at him with innocent and big eyes. He sat for a moment, “Most definitely, he said quickly grabbing another card, “You’re unbelievably attractive. Anyways.”
You could see his tongue push against his cheek, brows knitted together, “What’s your most complimented anatomical feature as described by your lovers?”
You chuckled lightly, “Realistically? Probably my chest.” You caught the way his eyes lingered down for a moment, face softening as he nodded his head. You giggled looking down at the card you just picked from the pile, “Are you loud during sex? Demonstrate with a dramatic interpretation of your signature sounds.”
“I’m drinking,” he mumbled but you shook your head laughing. “No no, you had me answer a question after I drank so I’m gonna do the same. I really want to hear what you got.” He groaned, covering his face in his hands, “Give me a minute, let me take this drink first.”
“Okay so,” he cleared his throat, “I wouldn’t say I’m loud, but I’m not quiet either. I think it also depends on what we’re doing. I’m louder when I’m getting my dick sucked, and it kinda sounds like, um,” he paused for a second. Breathing getting heavier as he began to show you, his mouth fell open, small whines leaving his lips followed by a couple grunts, “Fuck! Okay I’m done. Let me pick a damn card.”
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You bursted out laughing as his ears turned a dark red. “It’s getting serious,” you giggled not noticing the way his embarrassed expression turned into a sly smirk, “Got your ass bestie, now it’s your turn. Give a passionate example of your dirty talk.”
You threw yourself back dramatically, debating on taking a drink or not. He smiled, “If you drink you’re a pussy.” “Fine hold on,” you say up scooting closer to him. Clearing your throat, you touched his shoulder lightly, bringing yourself closer to his ear too scared to say it loud so you chose to whisper instead. “You have really pretty hands Kook,” you started. He tensed underneath you for a moment, “I wouldn’t mind having them wrapped around my neck here and there.” Maybe it was the liquor already in your system but this wasn’t as embarrassing as you thought it’d be, and the goosebumps on his skin were making you want to say just a little bit more before it ended.
“And your fingers are so long and pretty,” you looked down at his tattooed hand, “I wonder how they’d feel all over me— Okay I’m done! My turn,” you grabbed a card, ignoring his silent stance. “If we were in a porn together, what category would it be under?”
He cleared his throat sitting straighter as he recollected himself, “Probably something along the lines of, ‘College Hunk Destroys Bratty Girl’ yeah that’d definitely be it.”
“You’re annoying,” you rolled your eyes as he went on for his turn, reading it loudly, “Are you a good kisser? If so, demonstrate.”
“It does not say that,” you muttered. You knew for a fact it didn’t. When Jieun got the game the two of you read every card in every deck and none of them were that suggestive. They said crazy things but nothing that involved intimate physical contact with someone else playing. “It does,” Jungkook said as matter-of-fact. “Okay then show me where it says that.”
“No.”
“Then you’re a liar,” you reached for the card but he held it away, “If you’re a bad kisser just say that Y/n.”
“I’m not!” You whined stretching forward for the card, hand pushing in his knee. He smiled at you, holding the card high as your faces were just a mere inches away from each other, “Well then demonstrate or take the L.” You sighed, hands using his legs to push yourself forward. He stared down at you, arm slowly lowering but his grip on the card was tight in case you tried snatching it out. You looked down at his parted and waiting lips, debating if you should actually go for it.
You were both a little tipsy, and you could always just blame your kiss on the alcohol. It wasn’t like you never thought about Jungkook in that way but you did your best to keep it as a simple friendship. Getting the courage, your back arched slightly as you leaned up to connect your lips with his softly. It was a soft kiss, his lips mets yours immediately going in for it. It wasn’t anything special but he was very obviously a good kisser. When you felt him dip in to further the kiss you attempted to pull away, his following lips going after you. Before you could catch your breath after your separation, his hand dropped the card, Both hands flying to your jaw and cupping your face in his hands as he pulled you in again.
You fell forward, hands gripping his shoulders to steady yourself. His large hands were soft, the pad of his thumbs caressing your cheeks as he pushed his tongue against you. You opened your mouth a little more allowing him access. Your could hear buzzing in the back, but as you tried to pull away, Jungkook only held you closer. You didn’t mind though, if you would’ve known kissing your best friend felt this good, you might’ve tried it sooner. His hands trailed down to your waist, pulling you swiftly onto his lap, as he leaned back against the legs of the couch. You pressed yourself closer deepening the kiss as your hands grinned onto his hair lightly. His hands brushed your sides and under your shirt. His cold hands on your bare stomach surprised you, the hand gripping a lock of hair pulled causing him to let out a breathy groan.
He pushed you down onto the floor, hovering above you as he wrapped your legs around his waist. His hands pushed your shirt up, kisses trailing down your jaw and neck, “If you don’t want this, tell me now because I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”
“I want you,” you told him as he looked down at you with doe eyes. “I want you too.”
yoongi: i got locked out of my place. ur at y/n’s right? can I come over?
yoongi: hellooooo
yoongi: ANSWER YOUR PHONE
yoongi: if I catch a cold I’m suing fat
A/n OKAY LISTEN. I wanted to put smut in but I wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable with that so I chose not to. I hope you like it, and I can always do a Drabble with smut if that’s something you want. Thank you for requesting bestie, and DONT BE SHY
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jenomark · 4 years
Text
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➔Pairing: Haechan x Reader (Female)  ➔Other Members/ Characters: -.- ➔Genre: Fluff ➔Warnings: Angst | Mentions of death | Cursing ➔Word count: 6,865
➔Summary: He was always yours, even before you wrote a book about him, even before he disappeared from your life after high school, and even before he broke his promise. 
➔Request: can I request a drabble of haechan friends to lovers? 🥺
➔ I hope you don’t mind that I turned this into a longer story that is more on the fluff side. I felt really inspired to do so. Thanks for sending in the request! 💚
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You
  You hated school. Not because you weren’t serious about your studies. You liked the subjects well enough. You liked eating lunch at a table, a little package of apple slices, and a chocolate milk that always tasted like the carton it was in. You liked hanging up your coat in the coat closet, little rain droplets dripping on the wooden floor when the weather was bad. You liked your teachers and how they would encourage your love of reading. You liked all the things to like except one: school hours meant time away from him.
  Him. He pulled your hair sometimes when he was bored. You cried once, your mother saying something sexist about how he must like you. Your father never paid attention, just kept watching the television. You wondered if all boys were that stupid. He also made fun of the way your nose would wiggle when you talked. He had a smart comment for everything. He thought he was smarter than you, even. There weren't many nice things to say right off the top of your head, but you loved him anyway.
 During the school year, the school hours especially, you never talked to him. He was off parading around with his squad of friends, each one more pigheaded than the last. They’d act like they didn’t care about school in the schoolyard, but all of them got decent grades. Sometimes they would pick on others boys, the principal telling others that that’s just what boys did. Sometimes he would raise his hand in class and answer the right question, and even though you sat next to each other in class, he’d never look at you. 
  Your school life was a little different. You were off spending time hovering by doorways, wishing the days would end until you could see him again. You looked at him from the corner of your eye, a question of whether you truly knew him or not always on your tongue. You didn’t spend time pretending other people were your friends, because your best friend had always been him.
  After school felt like a different time zone. Neither of you took your time with homework. You would rush, a telltale sign being poorly erased letters and crumpled papers shoved into bookbags. Usually, he would walk to your house and meet you in the tent in the backyard, talking long before he reached the entrance. He always talked about his day as if you weren’t in it. He liked to talk a lot.
“I don’t want to hear it.” you would say. “I don’t know why you’re friends with those people.”
 You were both at an age where you were figuring stuff out. You fought a lot, with him storming out of your backyard tent and walking home, and you resisting the urge to follow him. There was always a phone call from his concerned mother, eased by your own mother reassuring her that you’d both work out your differences soon. You’d been best friends since you were even younger, clinging to each other only when other people weren’t looking. It was too late to make a clean break.
 Summers were your favorite because you had him all to yourself. At that age, you weren’t aware that keeping him was holding him back from other things. You were all too happy to lounge on a beach with him, watching him get stuck in the sand and laughing at him until your stomach hurt. To you, it was the purest form of love. 
 Time made things weird, as it does. The summers you used to love started fading out. He no longer came on family trips. Instead, he went to summer camps with other thirteen-year-old boys. He would come back boasting about being taught to shave his face by the older kids, and then he would show you his new skills. Even though you were disinterested, you always watched him intensely, thinking that if he let you in to this one valuable piece of information, he would open the door to the rest. He never did.
  Gradually, after-school hangouts were taken away from you, too. Your father’s only contribution to any conversation was to say that your best friend would be more interested in girls now. Even as your parents left you alone, the words of  “But I’m a girl!” leaving your lips until the last light was shut off, you never really understood what it meant. In fact, it wasn’t until he flirted with someone else in front of your face that you got the hint. You were a girl, but he never thought of you that way. And he would rather spend his time after school walking to someone else’s house.
 None of that was as bad as high school was. Up until then, you’d been clutching at straws to make the friendship what it once was. You made the tent bigger to accommodate his growing frame. You offered to pay for movies if he’d come alone, and you would even sit through the boring ones just for him. On the rare chance that you’d guilt trip him into staying a little longer with you, it was enough to keep you enduring. When high school truly hit, the studying took up most of your time. The scraps that were left were spent having family time, or visiting schools your mother wanted you to attend after high school.
 Though he no longer ignored you in school, things had gotten harder. He was dating often, sweeping girls off their feet with his wild, charming sense of humor. It was hard for them not to get jealous of you. Though you weren’t around much, the bond you both shared was obvious to everyone who watched the pair of you together. He never really wanted to choose between his childhood best friend and someone he was seeing, but the choice was always very apparent to you. 
“Maybe you should date, too,” he had said.
  You shut it down quickly, appalled that he would even suggest a thing. When you realized your dismissal must have hurt his feelings, you backtracked.
“Do you have anyone in mind?” you asked.
 His smile made you feel like you were on top of the world. Of course he had someone to introduce to you. Thus, the double date was born. You could tag along with him and his girlfriend, with a friend of his you eventually started dating. It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but it had rekindled something in your friendship you didn’t know you’d been missing.
 He had even come around to your house more. You came home from a study group one time to see him in your childhood tent, his long legs sticking out of it. He bent his body forward, holding up a bag of snacks you recognized.
“You still sit in here?” he asked.
You sat down next to him, the plastic of the tent hitting you in the forehead. “When I need to think.”
“You have a brain?”
“Funny.” you said. “Why are you here?”
  He got a far away look in his eyes, like he did whenever he was truly going to say something stupid. There were times he spoke philosophically, because deep down, he was never the stupid little boy you said he was.
“Life is moving too fast,” he said. “Remember when we were kids and it moved so slow? I would suffer waiting for summer.”
“I remember it vividly.” you said. “Are you feeling nostalgic?”
  He ate some of the snacks, offering you some. When you didn’t take it, he pulled on your hair a little bit. It pulled you to wherever he was at, back in time to when things felt much easier than they were. High school was ending, and you were all walking down different paths, none of them leading back to this tent.
“I want you to promise me something.” he said. “After high school, I want us to always be best friends. This last year has made me realize how much I missed you.”
 You wanted to tell him how much you missed him, to take his hand and hold it in yours. There was something in you that couldn’t do it. You just kept chewing, waiting for him to keep talking. 
“Let’s promise to call each other at least once a day when we’re adults.” he said, getting this excited look in his eyes. He felt more like the real Haechan right then than he ever had in the past five years.
“Promise.” you said, holding out your pinky and getting ready to kiss your thumb.
  Haechan linked his pinky with yours, his thumb connecting to your thumb. You leaned down to kiss it at the same time, your faces coming closer to each other than they had in a long time.
  Sadly, after high school, the promise was never kept. The image of him walking away from your backyard was the last time you saw him in any place you called home.
                                                          ~♡~
  You held the phone away from your ear because it was too hot. In your other hand, you held a cold, strawberry smoothie, the condensation dripping down your fingers. The sidewalks were busy, so it was tricky trying to weave in and out of the people, all while holding an unfinished manuscript for the next book you were writing. Years of dodging kids in school hallways made you a pro. As you were about to collide with a delivery man, you spun around gracefully and avoided disaster. After taking a sip of smoothie, you brought the phone closer to your ear.
“Do people still do book signings for physical copies?” you asked. “I thought everything was about selfies now. I definitely don’t look good with the flash on.”
“Of course.” your agent told you over the phone. “I don’t think anyone over the age of existence does. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.” you said.
 Your agent on the other end sighed. “You’re too young to be worried about any of this. I’ll book you for the signing and people will come, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
 You wanted to rattle off all the reasons you were freaking out over it, but you were in public. You took another sip of smoothie and looked at the manuscript tucked against your body. Twenty-four and published, with your book rising in the charts, and a second book underway. You shouldn’t be so scared to have human interactions with strangers who enjoy your work, and yet...
“Okay.” you said, closing your eyes for a moment.” Okay, you can do it. I don’t know why I get like this. Seriously, you’re the best.”
“I know. I know.” your agent said. “Take a bath and relax. Call me later.”
  You hung up and threw your phone in the deep recesses of your bag. Your one hand was wet, and you didn’t want it touching the papers, so you tucked them deeper against your body and kept on walking.
                                                        ~♡~
“A book signing. Can you believe it?” you said into the phone. There was no answer on the other end, not even a little static. You walked a little slower on the sidewalk, letting the outside world disappear from your vision. You took a deep breath. “I sold so many copies, mom. I know you would be proud of me.”
  The message ended with a beep. You left the phone on your ear and stopped walking. You stood still, wondering if one day calling your mother and leaving messages on her old cell phone would eventually make you feel better. She died shortly after you graduated from high school, and the phone number was the only part of her still kept alive. You called it whenever you felt a little lost, or on days when you had exciting news to share.
  Feeling a tightness in your chest, you turned off your phone and dropped it into your bag. You were almost home, but you felt like you weren’t ready to face your apartment again. You found it so funny that your professional life was so full and booked, but your personal life was so hollow and empty.
  You turned away, thinking that you could retrace your steps and find yourself on a street with a cafe still open. You would gladly sit at that table and write, watching strangers living their lives, each one stuffed to the brim of character. Men that tried hitting on women who were disinterested, the click-clacking of their heels walking away from potential danger. Mothers with their children, each child holding a mushy, spit-covered ice cream cone. There was always someone who didn’t belong in the crowd, someone your eyes glossed over, and someone who brought up memories of someone you used to know. It was your favorite pastime: watching people who weren’t watching you. You smiled at the thought of getting to live those many lives, when you remembered that there was always a writing deadline to attend to.
  Another time, you thought, before taking the remaining steps to your apartment and looking through the darkened glass front door. Maybe you would take up your agent's suggestion of taking a bath.
 Feeling a little more jolly, you walked up the steps and let yourself in. You stopped to check your mailbox (empty), stopped to check your phone messages one last time (also empty), and lastly, checked your surroundings. When you were sure no one was around, you walked up the steps, feeling tired both mentally and physically. When you reached the top of the hallway, you stopped.
“Haechan.” you said, his name too quiet for him to hear.
   Sitting outside your door, a hood over his head, sat the boy who used to pull on your ponytail. Only now, the figure in all-black clothes, a little 5 o’clock shadow on his face, the one that looked up at you like he didn’t recognize you, pulled at your heartstrings. 
                                                           ~♡~
  You liked to remember Haechan often, especially considering the main character of your book was written with him in mind. Well, you changed his name in the book and made him a lot cooler, but the core of him was the same. Both men were the epicenter of your whole world, even though one of them had left years ago. 
 Looking at him sitting on your floor transported you back in time. Briefly, your mind tried to convince yourself that you were seeing a ghost from the past. But, when he got up from the floor, approaching you cautiously, and he paused for a second before reaching out his arms to hug you, your fingertips knew what your brain didn’t: he was real.
  “Why are you here?” you blurted, pulling away from him, your body regretful that you had let him go.
“I don’t get a hello?” he asked.
  You raised your eyebrows, the surprise on your face real. You were struggling with words, which annoyed you as a writer. All you could do was look at his face and how much it had changed over the last few years. He was a man now. He was a little taller, and the baby fat on his cheeks was gone. He still couldn’t dress right, and the old confidence faded, but he was still as handsome as ever. When he smiled to show that he was joking, you couldn’t stop looking at his teeth.
“How did you find out where I live?” you asked.
“Your dad.” he said.
 Haechan didn’t so much as give his apologies for missing your mother’s funeral, and he had the good graces not to bring her up at all. You felt grateful, saving the pain of both things for another time. 
“I don’t talk to him much anymore.” you said. “He only comes by to give me old things he thinks I want.”
  Not knowing what to do with the piece of information, Haechan shoved his hands into his pockets. You hated how awkward it felt being in front of him. The silence outside of your apartment was magnified by your deep breathing. 
“Are you here because of my book?” you asked.
Puzzled, Haechan blinked. “Book? I didn’t read your book.”
  You adjusted your bag in your hands and thought of something to say. Before you could speak, Haechan motioned to the bag he brought sitting in front of your apartment door. You looked at it, the big black boulder holding no significance to you.
“I was actually just passing through town. I was wondering if you could let me stay a night.” he said.
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Him
  He said he hated the apples, even though they were his favorite fruit. He put them on your lunch tray when you weren’t looking, because if you’d seen him do it, you would have made a fuss. Then, he’d get up from your table and go back to wherever his other friends were, because that was what was expected of him. But his eyes always went back to your table to make sure you were eating well, and he would try his best to remember the way you’d smile when you looked down and saw what he had left behind.
 He hated school. It was full of adults who tried to change him. Laugh a little less, they said. Don’t be a clown. Don’t make too much trouble. There was never any room for dreamers or troublemakers, never any kind of future for those who didn’t have plans by the time they were pulled from the womb. Behave and listen. Listen and learn, or we’ll call your parents. He had heard it all by the time he was thirteen, and he hated every bit of it.
 Not you, though. You never tried to change him. You let him go on his way, even though he knew you felt like he was abandoning you. You were the only person he trusted most days, and in the tent in your backyard, he had felt most like himself. 
“I don’t want to hear it.” you had said once. You were angry, he could see it in the way you tried not to say what you wanted to say. “I don’t know why you’re friends with those people.”
 He hadn’t known, either. They liked the way he made them laugh, and he liked the attention they gave him. They were different, in the way that they didn’t remind him that friendships were temporary, that everyone you know might someday disappear. He was terrified of that, of the idea that good things didn’t last.
“Are you jealous?” he asked.
 He wanted the words to sting. He knew you were jealous, and he knew you would never admit to it. He would have been jealous, too, if the roles were reversed. He wanted nothing more than for you to admit that you cared about him, that you loved him, or to rouse any kind of feeling in you at all. Those words spawned a fight that made it hard for either of you to bounce back from. He pulled and picked at you until you were deteriorating in front of his eyes. Choice words were said, and though the wounds healed as you both grew older, neither of you really forgot the beginning of the end.
 Summer came and went, time never slowing down for anybody. The hatred  burning in his heart subsided as he grew into himself more, though he never really learned how to savor the moments as they happened. He was always reaching for more, stuffing his greedy face full of anything that could keep him content.
   His phone calls to you melted down to just one call per week. He didn’t stop by the tent as much, didn’t ask to catch up on homework. He was drifting through school, using the passage of time to measure the length of girls legs, and how they’d move in his direction any time he smiled.
“Maybe you should date, too,” he had said.
 His bright idea didn’t rub off on you. You didn’t smile, didn’t look at him the excited way he looked at you. When you shut it down so quickly, he wondered if your rejection had something to do with him. He was trying really hard to keep your friendship alive, even catching up in the hallways before class to make sure you were taking care of yourself.
“Do you have anyone in mind?” you asked, a simple smile appearing and disappearing before he could blink.
 Introducing you to one of his friends, in hindsight, wasn’t the best idea. He’d had better, but he could hardly take it back. You looked happy when his friend's attention was on you. You were radiant. And it was the perfect set-up. You both could double date and spend time together, just like the old days, even making both of your dates uncomfortable by how close of a bond you had together.
  When the jealousy arrived in a perfect little handbasket, he was sure it was payback for treating you differently, as he was getting to know himself more. He burned whenever he saw you with the other boy, whenever you reached out for his hand, your lips quivering for a kiss. He would stay up late at night in a restless fit, his mind taking turns convincing himself that you were losing your virginity every waking moment. 
 “You’re spending a lot of time at my house.” you had said to him on more than one occasion. 
“Do you mind?” he asked. “I can go home, if you want.”
“No.” you said quickly, your eyes sparkling.
 He wanted to kiss you then. It was a fleeting , special moment, and it hovered in the air between you both from that moment forward. He thought maybe he was imagining it, but he had been close to many girls, and no one looked at him the way you did.
 Sitting in your tent, his legs stretched out of it because he was too big, he thought back to every time you made his heart do backflips in his chest. Ever since you were small, he had feelings for you. In fact, his parents used to joke that the two of you would end up together one day, maybe have a wedding in the backyard,  your inside jokes written into your vows.
 Hearing leaves crunching underfoot, he sat up.  “You still sit in this thing?” he asked.
You sat down next to him, the plastic of the tent hitting you in the forehead. “When I need to think.”
“You have a brain?”
“Funny.” you said. “Why are you here?”
 He wasn’t sure why. He had been taking a walk and found himself there, his feet knowing exactly where to go. He had been thinking too hard about life after high school, and about what kind of man he wanted to be.
“Life is moving too fast,” he said. “Remember when we were kids and it moved so slow? I would suffer waiting for summer.”
“I remember it vividly.” you said. “Are you feeling nostalgic?”
  He ate some of the snacks, offering you some. When you didn’t take it, he pulled on your hair a little bit. Getting you to eat properly was important to him. If he wasn’t around to remind you to take care of yourself, how would you survive the rest of life without him?
“I want you to promise me something.” he said. “After high school, I want us to always be best friends. This last year has made me realize how much I missed you.”
 When he felt like he was going to cry, he shoved more food into his face. He was watching you out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he should continue. When you remained quiet, he began again.
“Let’s promise to call each other at least once a day when we’re adults.” he said, getting this excited look in his eyes. He felt more like the real Haechan right then than he ever had in the past five years.
“Promise.” you said, holding out your pinky and getting ready to kiss your thumb.
  Haechan linked his pinky with yours, his thumb connecting to your thumb. You leaned down to kiss it at the same time, your faces coming closer to each other than they had in a long time. It would be so easy to seal the deal with a real kiss, one that had been years in the making. But he didn’t, and neither did you.
“I have to go.” he said, getting to his feet. “You’re going to keep your promise, right?”
“Have I ever broken a promise to you?” you asked.
                                                       ~♡~ 
  He was raised not to comment on the state of other people’s homes, good or not. Looking around yours, he wanted so badly to tell you how well you were doing for yourself, and how proud of you he was. He looked around, his fingers itching to touch the pretty ceramic birds on an end table, to run a fingertip on a dustless counter and hold it up to the light. 
“You can put your bag down over here.” you said, motioning to a spot beside the couch. “My couch isn’t much, but it is comfortable.”
 You were a little awkward, your eyes unable to connect with his. He could see your mind waiting to defend yourself against the little jabs old Haechan would have made about your space. When he didn’t, you didn’t let your shoulders relax. He moved further inside your apartment, and to your confusion, he said it was a nice place, and that he would be happy to sleep wherever. 
 Compared to your nerves, he was quite calm. He felt like he had walked into a time machine and transported himself into the backyard again. It was like nothing had changed at all. You still looked the same, with nicer clothes that looked more expensive than the average persons. It looked like you went to the hair salon to ask for an “adult” haircut, but your baby face made it hard to take you seriously. 
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” 
Haechan shrugged. “Sure.”
  When you didn’t ask if he was hungry, Haechan made himself comfortable on the couch. You sat on an opposite chair, folding your hands in your lap. You kept looking around the room nervously, as if you were scared to be alone with a stranger. It hurt him a little bit, but he was mature enough to let it slide.
“Thank you for letting me stay.” he said.
“It’s fine.”
Haechan sighed. “This is much harder than I thought it would be.”
“What is?” you asked, touching your fingers to your neck.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
  You got up from your chair as if you’d been electrocuted. “I forgot I need to make a phone call. I will be right back. Don’t touch anything.” 
  Haechan watched you as you grabbed your bag and left the room. Never one to keep still, an old habit that never died, he got up and looked around. He came across the room you entered and saw that the door was ajar. He didn’t listen to the conversation, just grabbed little pieces of it regarding a book signing to take place the next day.
“So soon?” he heard you ask the person on the other end of the phone.
 Haechan walked away, his attention set on the fireplace. On top of it sat a bunch of picture frames, one of which he was in. Haechan stared at it for a long time, his eyes tracing the outline of the little boy he used to be. In the picture, the two of you were hanging onto each other. You were maybe eight years old, ice cream running down your chin, and a blissful ignorance only a child can carry on your sweet face.
 He didn’t know where things had gone wrong. The two of you should have been friends forever. It just made sense. He reached out to touch his fingers to the photo but reeled back when he saw your face in the reflection.
“My mother took that photo.” you said, appearing behind him.
He nodded. “I remember.” 
 The air was heavy. He wanted to apologize for not going to her funeral. He had been out of the country during that time, but he should have called you. He could have written a letter, he could have done anything else but ignore it. 
“I was scared.” Haechan said, the words surprising himself.
You held up a hand, as if you didn’t want to talk about it, but Haechan continued, “I loved her, too.”
 You turned your back and went into the kitchen. Quietly, Haechan followed. He wasn’t going to bring it up anymore. He sensed your sadness because it brewed in his chest, too. He sat on a stool as you got yourself a cup and poured cold water from a pitcher into it. 
“How was your trip?” you asked, your voice shaky.” Are you still traveling?”
 Since he left high school, Haechan felt aimless. He needed to explore the world in an attempt to further his education surrounding himself. He had traveled to many countries and met many people that changed him. Disappearing was never the plan, but it was addicting to not have phone calls, or to adhere to schedules. 
“I’m seeing where it goes.” he said. 
  You took a sip of water and never stopped looking at him. When you were done, you placed it on the counter. “I guess I should ask the million dollar question.”
Haechan leaned back in his stool, “Hit me with what you got.”
“Why are you here?” you asked.
“I didn’t want to pay for a hotel.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not a liar.”
“Haechan, I’ve known you all my life.” you said. “Lying is your calling.”
“I wanted to see you.”
You inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.” he said. “I’ve never lied to you.”
  The bitterness was morphing your face. He could tell you were thinking back to the promise, about how broken it had made you. After he left, he heard from his parents that you called his house often to ask where he had gone. You wrote him letters that were undelivered. You nearly followed him halfway across the world until your mother got sick. 
“Okay.” he said. “It wasn’t a lie when I made that promise. I had every intention of being with you until we were old and wrinkly.”
“Please.” you said. “You knew what you were going to do before you did it. You booked the plane ticket two weeks in advance. You were with me at graduation. You kissed me.”
  He remembered the kiss well. He had thought about it often on his travels, remembering the way your velvety lips felt, and how he never wanted to stop kissing you. The kiss made sense. It was the one thing time had every permission to slow down. 
“I know.” he said.
  He kissed you. You didn’t kiss him. He was happy about graduating. He was riding the high of the plane ticket, of the unknown waiting for him. He was scared it was the last chance he had to show you his feelings. When you kissed him back and it felt so good, he was then scared that he would never have the guts to leave. 
  You continued speaking, each word obliterating his thoughts, “ You want to think going away was just some spontaneous thrill, Haechan, but it fucking wasn’t. You could have told me it was what you wanted. I would have understood. You didn’t have to leave without saying goodbye. You didn’t have to-”
 You couldn’t say the words, so he finished them for you. “-leave. I know. I’m sorry. This isn’t an excuse, but I...didn’t want to lose you.”
  The words felt stupid as soon as he said them. You held your hand up to your head and said you had a headache. Haechan took the time to excuse himself and use the bathroom, locking himself away to figure out what he really thought was going to happen when he showed up at your door to get you back.
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You 
  You collapsed onto your couch. The last hour felt like a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings. You were older and more equipped to handle confrontation, but there was something about seeing Haechan that made you want to curl in your mother’s lap like a child. You bit down on your thumb and thought of the ways you could ask him to leave your private space. There was a hotel down the street that was relatively cheap. 
  You looked at the photo on the fireplace. The little boy staring back at you had no idea one day he would break your heart into a million pieces. He was still a little unsure of himself, his smile unknowingly gearing up to be mischievous in a few years time. You thought of the grown man in the bathroom, and how the years had passed, but he still felt the same. A part of you wanted to pinch his cheek and wrap your arms around him like you would when you were young. An even bigger part of you wanted to kiss him to see if the feelings still lingered, even though you already knew the answer to that.
  Moving your foot, you accidentally nudged his backpack. You looked down at it. It was worn in places, with band buttons adorning the front. One of the zippers was open and the edge of something was sticking out. You looked at your closed bathroom door and back to the backpack before gathering up your courage and unzipping it slowly. 
  Digging your hand inside, you pulled out a corner of his underwear. With a quick “Ew”, you shoved it back inside. Your knuckle touched against something hard. You wrapped your hand around it and unearthed it to see that it was your book. You pulled it out even more and audibly gasped. 
“You liar.” you whispered.
 Hearing the toilet flush, you panicked and pulled the book all the way out and shoved it underneath your couch pillow. Quickly, you zipped his backpack and sat back, crossing one leg over the other. When Haechan came out, he hardly looked at you.
“Coming here was a bad idea,” he said. “I don’t know what I expected.”
You stood up. “Wait.”
  Haechan didn’t hear you. He grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder. You could see that his face was wet where he had thrown water on it. He didn’t make eye contact with you, just waved his hand and apologized for being an inconvenience. 
“Leaving again?” you said.
  Haechan stopped moving. He turned back. “I thought about you every day I was gone. Every day. And every day, my next thought was that I didn’t deserve you.”
 You didn’t know what to say, so you said nothing at all. For a beat or two, you both stared, your eyes searching each other's. You could see every age of Haechan since you’d known him on his face, from the adorable child to the handsome adult. 
  You let Haechan leave this time. He closed the door with a soft click, his presence feeling like a fever dream. Mindlessly, you sat back down on your couch, and only remembered the book still laying there after some time.
 You took your book and placed it on your lap. It was so worn that some of the pages were slipping out of the binding. You opened it carefully and flipped through the pages, the margins filled up with black pen ink. Haechan had written down his input on most pages with things like:
Am I really like this? There is no way this guy is cooler than me.
You know? You’re actually kind of funny. 
Your mother was better than us all.
  You closed the book with a snap and felt the tears falling. You put your head down and tried to feel everything all at once.
                                                         ~♡~
  Your agent walked next to you, her stride slowing to match yours. She didn’t outright say you looked like shit, though it was the truth. Your eyes were a little red, your cheeks were puffy, and you kept itching your neck all throughout the night until there were red scratch marks all on your skin.
 She held open the door to the bookstore “Are you nervous?”
“Am I nervous?” you asked. “I’m shitting myself. I don’t think anyone is going to show up, but with my life, I’m pretty sure I can deal with the embarrassment.”
 Your agent rattled on and on about how special you were to people. She dragged you throughout the two story bookstore, pulling you harder when you tried stalling. You mostly blocked out her words to save your sanity. You didn’t love when people tried buttering you up.
“Just over in this section.” she said. “It starts in twenty minutes, so don’t expect many people right away.”
  When you both turned the corner, there was a sizable line leading up to a table stacked with new books. When the people saw you, they gawked. Some clapped, which made your face turn as hot as your neck. 
“I can’t do this.” you whispered.
  Your agent directed you to a chair, holding you down by your shoulders, so you wouldn’t run away. You took a sip of cold water sitting by your side.
“They’re all here for you.” she said. “Smile and try to be happy.”
“I’ll try.” you said, but when someone smiled at you in front of the line, you felt yourself returning a genuine smile.
 Twenty minutes passed by faster than you wished. When the first person approached the table, you tried to remember your school teachers who believed in you. You recalled all the people who inspired your stories, making a mental bid to thank them for making the first signing so sweet. 
“I really love how you write.” someone had said. Hearing those words made you feel touched. You tried your hardest not to tear up, signing your sloppy signature as best you could.
“Thank you.” you said, the gratitude you felt hopefully being translated well.
  You signed for a long time, the line growing and growing as time passed. Some people came with their own dog-eared books, others with fresh copies. They asked what your upcoming book was about, which made you excited to finish writing it. 
“There isn’t a set ending quite yet, but I’m writing like crazy!” you said.
  You looked down at a book before you and smiled, your fingers touching the pages softly. You signed it and handed it back, giving the fan a smile that reached your eyes. When your eyes locked with his, you felt the world move. Staring back at you was Haechan.
“I would have given you my own copy to sign.” he said. “But I seem to have misplaced it.”
 There was a knowing smile on his face that made you feel flushed all over. He took the signed book back and tucked it underneath his arm. Since yesterday, he looked freshly showered in a similar black t-shirt and jeans. His hair was carefully laid flat on his head like he cared what he looked like in public. He looked handsome, and his cheeks were definitely not puffy.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you read the book?” you asked. 
“You and I both know I don’t make the best choices.” he said. 
  You smiled faintly. There was pain in the smile he returned. You wanted so badly to reach across the table and smooth away the lines on his forehead.
“I know this isn’t the best place.” he said, turning around to look at the line behind him. “But I came here to tell you the truth of why I was outside of your door yesterday.”
“Okay.” you said, your attention no longer on those people.
Haechan continued. “You see, I’m not traveling anymore. “
“You’re not?” you asked. “Then, what are you doing?”
“I’m coming home.”  
 You didn’t know what he expected of you, but he looked a little deflated when you held out your hand. He looked at the book under his arm and back at your hand, his smile unsure. He took the book out and placed it gently into the palm of your hand. You placed the book back onto the table and opened to the space where you had signed your name.
“I’m not going to ask for promises anymore.” you said. “I’ve always asked you for too much. For now, I would just like to tell you something.”
In the book, just below your name, you signed “I love you, Haechan.”
  Before you could even close the book, Haechan came around the table and brought you into a big hug that certainly felt like home. 
184 notes · View notes
baggebythesea · 3 years
Note
In a peacetime modern AU of SPOP where the characters are fans of a show similar to our SPOP, how would they engage in fandom? For example: Who would ship whom? Who would write fic or draw art? Who would write or draw smut?? Who would have a wall of theories with evidence connected by a web of threads? Who would do their own thing shipping a rare pair and who would be a card carrying popular ship shipper? Who would strongly empathise with their parallel character and who would just not get them at all? Would anyone cosplay? Which older adult would shock the young'uns by saying 'Well I wouldn't say no...' as they sip their tea from the doorway? (Obviously answer as much or as little as you like!)
Ooooh! Great ask.
Glimmer declares the show the best thing ever (because it's pink and princessy and kicks ass), and the best friend squad watches it religiously. Adora doesn't really get what the big deal with shipping is supposed to be, but she think it's neat that Netossa and Spinnerella is a couple. Lowkey ships Glimmer with Bow because she likes the idea of childhood friends falling in love with each other. Also, she really likes it when the title character gets a horse. Hangs out a lot in fandom space but doesn't really produce content, at least until Bow and Glimmer manages to talk her into writing down some of her many, many theories of how the show will turn out and just what the logistics network through the whispering woods are supposed to look like. She secretly worries when one of her posts don't get as much attention as the last one.
Bow is just hung up on poor Catra and want for her to get some love. Mostly he cheers on Scorpia, but he would ship Catra with Adora or even Double Trouble in desperation for someone to take the cat away from the hole she spend most of the series in. He takes up sewing and makes a point of cosplaying every single princess. Comments on everyone's fanfic and likes everyone's posts.
Glimmer sees a bit of herself in Catra (because she too knows the pain of having a mother who doesn't understand her). She totally ships the cat-girl with the glitter princess and writes really messed up fanfics about them. So much passion. So much delicious, delicious self-destruction. Practically drools at the end of season 4 and all the angst that goes down there. She regularly asks Bow to beta read and traumatises him badly. Gets into fan-fights on social media about stupid shit. Cosplays Catra on a con and makes out with a Glimmer cosplayer.
Angella vaguely recalls the first show from when she was young and earns some much needed mom-points with Glimmer when she digs up a mint condition original She-Ra+Swift Wind toy from a carefully labelled box in the basement. She ships Glimmer with Bow because she really likes that boy. Micah used to watch the show as a kid and had a bit of a crush on the original She-Ra. Ships Bow with Sea Hawk and cheerfully fills the hashtag #SeaBow with memes at least a decade out of fashion. Mortifies his daughter when he take them to a con and insists on cosplaying as Hordak. Ends up in the bar together with George and Lance and sings karaoke to My Little Pony-songs.
George and Lance don't really get the show but are happy to take the kids to con. Cosplays as characters from old Belgian comics.
Catra thinks the show is silly (and watches every episode passionately. Shut up. Just humouring Scorpia, is all). She thinks the Catra character in the show is a wimp, but ships her with Double Trouble because she likes it when villains get their way. Draws really good fanart. A bit of a troll on social media because its so fun to rile up people like Glimmer.
Scorpia ships Catra and Adora and cries just as much as Bow in the First One's Temple part of season 1. She is completely floored by the large, femme and kinda clumsy Scorpia character hooking up with the beautiful, beautiful Perfuma because... um... Writes really bad but 100% heartfelt self insert fanfics. Draws stick figures of Perfuma and Scorpia holding hands. Reads and re-reads her favourite fanfics until her eyes are red from crying and in the end leaves a shy little "it was good"-comment for the last chapter. Tries to work up the courage to go to a con and talk to other fans. Wants to cosplay but has too bad self esteem.
Entrapta thinks the robots are unscientific for reasons she is happy to write hundreds of blog posts about. Ships Darla with the Velvet Glove (the word 'docking' is used extensively). Considers Hordak a total hottie and draws really - and I mean really - explicit fan art. Spends her first convention on the parking lot trying to fix her Emily cosplay.
Lonnie rage-quits watching the show the moment Adora leaves the Horde but thinks Adora and Mermista should just do it already.
Kyle ships Bow with an OC named Lyle who everyone likes and no one makes fun of. Has written a ten chapter fanfic which no one has commented.
Rogelio ships Tung Lashor with Sea Hawk. His fanart can melt through steel.
Sea Hawk ships EVERYONE with Merm-iiiiiiiiiista. Runs ten different fan-events simultaneously. Mermista just ships Adora with Lonnie or whatever. They do duo-cosplay on cons, much to Mermista's embarrassment.
Perfuma ships Entrapta with Hordak, writes post after post exploring their psychosocial dynamic and is downright gleeful when it becomes canon. Spends the cons friend-momming on the rest of the group and makes sure they are all hydrated.
Frosta thinks shipping is stupid and want to see more of princesses teaming up and beating the shit out of the bad guys with the power of friendship. Also has a really detailed backstory for her OC. Only ask if you have plenty of time. Has a pretty good Glimmer cosplay.
Huntara ships Juliette with Castaspella and writes surprisingly sweet fics about them crushing on each other. Keeps order on social media.
Castaspella ships Shadow Weaver with Angella and writes fanfic that could easily be published as high class erotica. She's a really good commentor on other people's fics, giving tons of support and little constructive hints where she feels it might be well received.
Juliette has better things to do than watching a children's cartoon, but she does enjoy some of Castaspella's stories.
Spinnerella ships Catra and Adora and is just so proud when it turns out to be canon. Tells everyone who wants to listen how little representation was available in her first fandom and how far things have come.
Netossa ships Adora and Mermista and draws really hot fanart of them making out in gym showers and the like. Prefers modern aus and couldn't care less about canon as long as it gives her hot characters to play with.
Shadow Weaver doesn't ship anyone because no one is worthy of the love of Adora who is the only worthwhile character. Writes a 40+ chapter story about a badly out-of-character Adora who takes over the Horde and laughs at her enemies from the throne. Is enraged when people dare having the wrong opinion about things but can't tell them so because she feels social media is beneath her. Secretly reads Castaspella's fanfic.
Horde Prime ships Horde Prime with Shadow Weaver. She is written completely out of character in a rather insulting and sexist way. Completely insufferable on social media and insist on everyone signing up to his headcanon.
Hordak says he doesn't ship anyone because romance is silly. Cries over Adora's redemption arc when he thinks no one watches and ships her with Glimmer because he just wants to the poor, rejected Horde soldier lost in a strange land she doesn't understand to get some love and kindness.
Wrong Hordak ships Scorpia with Perfuma because love finds a way. Draws the purest fluff you'll ever see.
Double Trouble trolls social media at every turn and gleefully ships the most messed up shit they can think of. Shadow Weaver and Perfuma, Catra and Sea Hawk, Angella and Hordak, Horde Prime and Swift Wind... Also ships the characters they deem to have most dramatic potential to derail the story such as Entrapta and Hordak, Glimmer and Catra, Glimmer and Double Trouble... kinda has a low key crush on the sparkly character but denies it if anyone asks. Really good at cosplay and runs a tutorial at the cons.
Swift Wind thinks there are too few horse characters. Ships Swift Wind with Rainbow Dash.
Light Hope only ships canon pairings because by definition canon is the only thing that is valid. Writes long, convoluted predictions that she updates after every episode. She gets an existential crisis when her predictions don't pan out in canon.
Mara ships Adora and Glimmer. Still gets hot and fussy every time she thinks of the s1 hot spring scene. Wants the hardworking perfectionist to get love.
Razz write novel length stories where she ship a character mentioned in passing in an unpublished Dickens novel with her old middle school math teacher. No one has any idea what she is going on about or why she posts it in the she-ra tag, but her stories are good and she's a complete delight at cons, so she's welcome in the fandom.
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clarythericebot · 3 years
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potential internal conflicts/character arcs for nhie s2
(based on the table read, news, and things that i personally just want to see :P)
- Devi learning to see others as ends of themselves instead of means to an end. No-brainer that this is going to be a theme next season (especially with that pros and cons list of her love interest), but I’m so excited to see how the show’s going to handle it. As I rambled about on this post, one of Devi’s biggest developments as a character was to stop treating Ben as an extension of herself (either as boxing him into the role of Antagonist/Nemesis in her own narrative or as a hateful mirror that points out personal traits she dislikes) and as an actual person and friend, and it’s that which sparks the small epiphany of her feelings towards him. From the table read and the stills, though, it sounds like she might be putting him in a new, albeit prettier box: Love Interest. The same box that she puts in Paxton, who at this point also does have genuine feelings for Devi. She’s looking at them as experiences, not people, and it’s all going to inevitably blow up in her face.
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- The Devi/Fabiola/Eleanor friendship changing somehow. I had this impression that all season 1, the three of them have been hanging on to a dynamic that just doesn’t work anymore, in light of Devi’s grief, Eleanor’s abandonment, and Fabiola’s identity conflict. While Devi is definitely in the wrong of blatantly choosing a guy’s inconvenience over her best friend’s weightier problems, I think the larger problem here is that they don’t seem to know how to be there for each other for difficulties larger than to do with school, although the care and concern is there. It actually takes a third party to push them towards solving the overarching issues in their friendship, and even then only briefly. I’d really like to see this explored as a conflict shared between the three of them, instead of it being sidelined completely as Devi being selfish.
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- The narrative that Devi will tell Princeton + the parts of herself she’s willing to take to college. (These are technically two conflicts, but I feel like it would make sense to intertwine them, especially since they’ve already been intertwined in the Ganesh Puja episode.) Devi has expressed her intention about leaving her Indian-ness completely and utterly behind her, as well as all the other embarrassing and painful parts of her identity (her grief and her insecurities). She’s come to terms with her father’s death to an extent, but she doesn’t seem to have yet accepted how his death has shaped and marked her. I think this is going to extend with how she deals with her Indian identity, and perhaps how she deals with her relationships.
- The double-standard between Kamala and Devi. On one level I understand Nalini probably treats them different because of her differing relationships with them—one’s her niece that only came to live with them and the other is her only child, her whole family. On the other hand, from the narration Devi has never really experienced her mother expressing such a blatant double standard in favor of Kamala before (about her secret boyfriend); she fully believed her cousin would get into trouble. It never did get addressed.
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- In the first season, we experienced how Kamala’s western ideals influenced the part of her life still infused with tradition (her relations to other Indian people and her arranged marriage). The still of Kamala in a labcoat makes me hopeful for the inverse this season: how Kamala’s arranged marriage and traditional ideals affect her career as a scientist.
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- Paxton engaging in the fact that he likes someone who is smarter than him (at least in a bookish sense). I’ve never seen this conflict delved into before—most writers just ignore it, focusing on what the love interests have in common (and don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to Paxton engaging Devi in this way, either by trying new things or revealing some hobbies or interests we haven’t made privy to). This insecurity is so close to his chest, though, and as much as Devi seems to make a point not to make him feel bad about it, it would be fascinating friction since Devi is very rightfully proud of her intellectual prowess. I imagine this will only be accentuated with knowing that his competition for Devi’s affections is someone razor-edge smart.
- Ben’s anger, and it being dealt with in constructive and destructive ways. I think one of the (numerous) things that I love about Ben and Devi is that they have different approaches to their internal and external conflicts. Devi runs away internally, refusing to face grief and sadness, while she delves head-first into external situations (e.g. asking Paxton to have sex with her, going to a Model UN trip with absolutely no prep and being willing to steal alcohol, talking to her friend’s estranged mom in other to get back into said friend’s good graces). Ben, on the other hand, has remarkable emotional intelligence underneath his high school immaturity (he can read Devi beyond her words actions, he doesn’t deny the isolation and loneliness that he feels, he is prepared to be vulnerable in certain situations) but he doesn’t do anything about it (he stops himself from telling his parents how abandoned he feels, he gives in to his girlfriend essentially using him as a prop, he is ushered into dining in his nemesis’ house by her concerned mother). Then Devi kisses him, and suddenly he’s willing to put his eggs in one basket. He stands up to his parents and demands that they spend family dinner together—because of her, he claims. He breaks up with his girlfriend, finally admitting that what they had wasn’t real, and earnestly informing Devi that he thinks what they have is. “I’m all in,” he tells her, thus crushing my heart. Because what’s strongly being implied, at least by the first part of the first episode, is that Devi’s either going to choose Paxton or neither of them. I imagine that Ben, used to being abandoned time and time again, will not react well to that. (This is expanded in this really awesome meta by @catty-words). There’s potential for the show to frame this as sexist entitlement, but I’d like to hope that the creators will be more compassionate to Ben’s conflict, as they have been in the past. It would genuinely be hurtful for someone you’ve displayed a lot of vulnerability to suddenly turn tail and say it didn’t mean as much to her. My guess is that he’ll lock into their nemesis status quo from before and lean into it hard, and it will likely hurt him badly. What I’d also like to see, though, (if only to assuage my own heartbreak) is him taking steps to deal with this a little more constructively, in addition to the inevitable self-destruction. I’d love to see him get back in touch with his ride-or-die middle school friends or even make new ones. In fact, I suspect that’s who the character of Aneesa is going to be, regardless of whether she becomes a contender for his love interest.
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Aneesa is described as someone whose confidence and radiance will pose an immediate threat to Devi. I doubt that means she’ll be another academic rival, at least not completely; Devi already has Ben for that. As for romantic rivalry, it is likely not going to be Paxton Aneesa will be paired with, since it’ll only be a rehash of Devi’s insecurities of Paxton liking ‘hotter’ girls like Zoe and vying for his attention. (There’s a possibility she and Paxton will have history together and that threatens Devi even if she’s already in a relationship with him, but for me, that’s a less interesting choice than letting Devi focus on the challenges that will be inherent with Paxton being her boyfriend.) I think Aneesa will be another mirror for Devi—who she could have been if she pursued friendship and openness and maybe even a relationship with Ben, and that’s likely going to make Devi bitterly jealous. If this results in friendship and openness and maybe even a relationship for Ben (a deeper, more genuine one than his previous), I’m completely here for it, even if I am still hoping for a Bevi endgame.
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(Low-key theorizing that Ben's smiling at Aneesa here, btw)
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stephspurs · 3 years
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A Family Affair | Euro 2020 Football Fanfiction - BONUS MOMENTS
Surprise!!! I'm back with a select few bonus #bamelia moments!! I just couldn't let the love story of Ben and Amelia die, I hope you don't mind. Love Always, Steph xx
PSA: To all new readers, you don't have to read the series (link below) to understand this, however it would help so that you can understand the preconceived emotions behind the chapter!
Champions Again | di nuovo campioni
warnings; none word count; 1865 writing tools; third person until dashed line, first person thereafter. link to fic masterlist here
They had done it, again. The Chelsea boys were lifting their second team trophy for the year, they had just won the Supercup. This was Amelia’s first competition final with the Premier League giants and if she had her way, this wouldn't be last. She was beginning to get addicted to the feeling of winning, of proving to every little girl out there and every sexist male she had ever come across, that anything boys can do, girls can do better. She was letting her results speak for themselves, she was making history and there was nothing that could bring her down from the ninth cloud she was currently riding.
As proud as she was over her own achievements, she was equally as proud of her friends. Whilst she wasn’t part of their Champions League victory, she knew that this moment was just as special to the team that just loved to win. The scenes before her were ones she hoped she would never forget - the look on Jorgi’s face as he lifted his third trophy of the last few months, the crinkles beside Mason’s eyes as he grinned at the camera that was desperate to capture every moment of the evening, the tinge of pink on the apples of Ben’s cheeks as he stood with his hands on his hips while he watched Amelia give her first post-match tactical analysis to the Sky Sports reporter - proud that she was his girl. These were the moments that made Amelia forget all of the hard times, or rather made her realise that all of the hard times were worth it to see her friends, her team, her man smile.
With every great victory comes an even greater after party, and even though the Super Cup final coincided with the start of the season, the boys still believed that they deserved an afterparty to celebrate. Captain Cesar Azpilicueta had kindly offered the grounds of his Surrey home to host the bunch of rowdy boys, and their onslaught on mates and partners on the Sunday afternoon between the Super Cup final and the first match of the Premier League 21/22 season. Whilst they were under strict instruction from the higher powers of Chelsea Football Club (namely; Thomas Tuchel) to keep the drinking to a minimum and to keep themselves out of trouble, the boys were allowed to be boys for one more night.
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“Benj, what are you wearing? I don’t know if I should wear a sundress or denim shorts! Please, I need help!” I shouted out to Ben who was currently somewhere in his large house.
“Why would my outfit be able to help you with that decision” I could hear his voice getting closer, his footsteps getting louder as he began to ascend the stairs up to the main bedroom that I had slowly started to take over in the last couple months.
“An opinion is all I’m after - stop being cheeky mate” I shoot back at him as I begin to stand up from my place in front of his wardrobe. It was still his wardrobe, he hadn’t asked me to move in yet so it was still technically his even if it was half full with my clothes. As I got to my feet, I turned to see him leaning in the doorway with his arms and ankles crossed over each other. Wearing a tee shirt and some denim shorts himself with a cap covering his ungelled hair - a request from me because it was much easier for me to run my hands through if it wasn’t laden with gel...and because it gave me an excuse to push it out of his face whenever I felt like it (which was often).
“I wouldn’t mind if you stayed in that outfit to be fair, however, that would also mean we would be skipping this afterparty altogether and be spending the afternoon celebrating in an entirely different manner” He states staring at me while I’m currently standing with my hands on my hips, staring at the shorts and tank top combo I have laid out on his bed - again, his bed not ours - he hasn’t asked me to move in yet so it was technically his even if it did have the new bed sheets I purchased a couple weeks back with the matching throw cushions on it. The barely-there outfit that I was currently sporting and that had him licking his lips as he pushed himself off of the doorway to walk to me and wrap his arms around my body from behind was a bralette and a pair of his Chelsea shorts.
“Ok sorted, you’re in denim shorts so I’m going to wear mine too. Done ok move get off me I need to change or we’re going to be late” I exclaimed as I pushed him off me with my hips. A bad move? Absolutely not. I got to feel all of him against me and remind him of what he gets to come home to every evening, if he choses.
“Wow what's the rush now Mils? Why are you walking around like you’ve got ants in your pants?” He questioned as he tightened his grip on me and turned me so I was facing him, looking up into his curious baby blues.
“And don’t say nothing, I’ve picked up on all of your tells already” He further questioned as he could see the wheels begin to turn behind my eyes, desperate to come up with an excuse to mask my jitters so I wouldn’t have to tell him the truth.
“I regret ever letting you become friends with Fede, he’s spilling all of my secrets...Ok fine. I’m nervous to see Jack. I haven’t seen him since...ya’know and I haven't spoken to him since I gave him a telling off before international break and Ben I promise you I haven't thought about him once but I’m still worried that there's unresolved anger there from him and I don’t want to get into it again just when we’re getting back into the groove of us and it’ll impact your friendsh-” my rambling was cut off by his lips, which were simultaneously reminding me to breathe between my words and leaving me breathless at the same time. He always did have a way with his lips, the power they held over me was unmatched by anything.
“Calm down love, I promise it’ll be okay. Jack and I have had it out already, a long chat on international duties which may have only been prompted because Mase and Dec locked us in the kit room after our first session, sorted it all out.” Ben reassured me as he began to rub his thumbs over my cheeks and his hands held both sides of my face.
“I do know he wants to apologise to you though - so don’t be surprised if he tries to do that early on in the evening. You know just how awkward he can be so he’ll probably spring it on you before you’ve even put your bag down.”
“Oh great, I’m gonna need to do a couple shots before we leave the house - you’re good to drive right?” I said as I walked from his grasp and down the stairs to grab the bottle of vodka for some good old fashioned dutch courage.
______________________________________________________________
Ben was right about Jack, he had approached the couple only moments after they had arrived at Azpi’s house. Amelia had spotted him making his way towards them so she began to walk in a different direction to Ben, stretching their interlocked hands and letting him go as she mumbled something about needing to put her bag down. Ben really knew both of them too well. Jack gave Ben a hug hello, still in the grovelling stage of repairing their friendship.
“Hey bro, how’s it goin?” Jack spoke as he pulled away from Ben.
“Yeah bro all’s good with me, how are you? Congrats on the move again, million dollar geez you are, aren’t ya? Don’t forget me when you're mingling with Messi in a couple years” Ben joked back with the boy who has been literally a brother to him for the last few years.
“Ahhh you’re jokin me, could never forget a brother could I? We’re basically blood at this point I reckon. Where’d Mils run off ta?” Jack questioned with his arm around Ben’s neck, both of the boys looking out into the garden for the girl in question.
“Right here super Jack” Amelia spoke from behind them. During their brief discussion, Amelia had put her bag down and ran inside to grab herself a drink before walking out to face the music of Jack’s apology. Overhearing how lighthearted he was with Ben, coupled with the reassurance that Ben had provided her earlier in the evening plus the two or three vodka shots she had downed in their kitchen before coming to the afterparty had meant that she left her worries at the door.
“Mils, darlin', you already know what's coming but I truly am sorry...to both of ya ya’know. Benny, we’ve already had it out and it took me ages to get over that black eye but please believe me when I tell ya I am so sorry for treating you that way Amelia. From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry and I regret nothing more than how I made you feel.” Jack could feel himself getting teary whilst thinking about how he made the girl feel, how he made his best mate and chosen brother feel, how he really put a spanner in the works of their blossoming relationship.
“Jack, I’m not going to say it was ok because it wasn't. But it wasn’t just your fault, I also played a part in it that has me cursing myself every day for ruining things with Benj. I forgive you, Jacky.” Amelia spoke while reaching up and wrapping her arms around Jack’s neck to give him one of her signature squeezy hugs, to truly convey that she was moving on from their tumultuous past and hoped that he could stop beating himself up over it and do the same.
Jack had left the couple to return to the table and grab himself a refill of his drink. Ben’s arm had found its natural position around Amelia’s shoulders as they both stood there looking out at their friends. However, Ben was looking down at Amelia. Without missing a beat and keeping her eyes focused out on the yard, Amelia spoke only loud enough for Ben to hear.
“So, you gave Jack a black eye over me huh? That’s hot”
Amelia took a few steps forward before turning to look at the expression on Ben’s face as she continued to walk away from him, backwards. The slight shock turned into a full on smirk as he walked towards her eager to close the gap between them with a kiss. He knew she loved him with her whole heart, but he hoped that she would understand just how much he loved her right back.
The Proposal | la proposta
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loliwrites · 3 years
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I'm having a really hard time believing that Alex and Addi didn't at least have a make out session before they started dating 😂 their chemistry was on another level even when they were just friends. It seems like their "friendship" is very playfully romantic so maybe one night they've had a bit to drink and they have at it and then Addi is all weird because... she's Addi, but Alex is all sweet and gentle and wants to talk about it with her. I'd love to know if that's something that you also think would happen between them xx 😘
(We've been hitting' pre-relationship hard lately, haven't we friends? ☺️)
Oh man Non. Got me thinkin'.
I know it seems totally implausible that nothing would've happened because of how affectionate they are in their platonic relationship, but like... it does happen 😂 I have honest proof of it. I have a friend like that and I shit you not, he was a saving grace during the pandemic. You know the point where you just need another living human body to cuddle with that's not family? Good cuddles for movie nights (especially the back to back National Treasure viewing where we took a sip of beer every time Nic Cage was sexist towards Abigail Chase 🥲). And still just only friends. No wandering hands, glances, or lip placements.
But I could see how given a group of friends and some free-flowing alcohol, how that line might get a little blurred. Because sometimes a group of close friends can get some pretty weird ideas when left alone to their own devices... and gin. Sometimes a group of adults can devolve into younger versions of themselves, and games they would've played in middle school or high school resurface with newfound enthusiasm.
Like Spin the Bottle. Or Seven Minutes in Heaven. Maybe as fate would have it, they got lucky during Spin the Bottle. Amid the various couplings that emerged, Alex and Addi didn't get pinned for it. In fact, maybe they kissed a handful of other people and the turn of the bottle didn't transpire for them. Shit, maybe they don't even think it'd be a big thing or weird for them to kiss during the spin the bottle. They weren't actively hoping they wouldn't have to kiss. It just didn't become a thing. Until --
That beautiful and slightly traumatizing little game -- Seven Minutes in Heaven. You know the one. The one where two people go into a closet and have seven minutes to do... I dunno, whatever they're gonna do (author's note: to be honest, I was too much of a nerd to be invited to parties where this game was being played). So Addi gets chosen first and she makes her way into the closet with a blindfold. Secretly she's hoping one of their mutual friends gets chosen to go in with her. They've been vibing all night and even shared a pretty hot kiss during Spin the Bottle. So yeah, she's looking forward to someone.
The closet door creaks open and she chews on her bottom lip in anticipation. Her body perks up a little bit when she hears the door shut, waiting to be swept up in another kiss. What she doesn't know is that the person standing in front of her is Alex. And for the life of him, he's trying to sort out a game plan here because his best friend is sitting cross-legged on the floor and he has to admit she looks pretty adorable. But again... this is the girl he calls his best friend. He wants to do the right thing.
"It's me, kid," he drops to his knees and contorts himself to be cross-legged in front of her. As soon as he's comfortable, he notices Addi's already taken off the blindfold.
She twists the fabric between her fingers shrugs, "I guess that's for the best." Her shoulders deflate a little bit. The alcohol coursing through her system was giving her enough courage to throw caution to the wind with their mutual friend. Now she likely wouldn't get the chance to. She darts her eyes to Alex with a playful and disarming smirk, "it's not like we're gonna kiss, old man."
"Why not?" He flashes a quick smile at her, "that's breaking the rules of Seven Minutes in Heaven." Scooting forward a little bit, he's shocked but not displeased that she doesn't retreat, "one kiss so we don't have to lie to our friends when we get out of here. You're a terrible liar,"
"Am not. I'm a great liar," her gaze upon him alters slightly to adjust for the fact that he's advancing a bit closer to her.
"Fine, I'm a terrible liar."
"You're an actor for a living. All you do is lie,"
He lets out a quiet huff. "It's just a kiss, slugger. It means nothing. I just kissed like three dudes out there during Spin the Bottle."
As he nears, Addi feels her heart rate pick up. Her cheeks go hot. Everything is bubbling up inside her, woefully excited by the possibility of whatever this is. But that's just it. What is it? As her body shivers involuntarily, she leans away from him. "Alex, no."
He pauses, bites his bottom lip, all the while not breaking eye contact. "Is that a real no or a nervous no?"
"Does it matter?"
There's a second where he says nothing at all just to allow the anticipation fade from his veins. "No, it doesn't,"
She exhales. "I know we kiss on the cheek and head... the lips is just different,"
He nods but he knows what he can say to get this backtracking. "So when you kissed Lindsey out there, that was different for you?"
Addi cocks her head to the side with her lips pursed. Oh, leave it to him to make this difficult, "Alexander. You're you. And a kiss on the lips between us is different. You know that,"
He nods again. They've been toeing this line for awhile now. This line that they both knew was more flirtatious than any other friendship they had with the opposite sex. The line that had been the reason for late-night cuddles in Germany and random naps in LA. The line that had also been toed when they divulged intimate details about their lives and what shaped them into being. A kiss between them was different than between anyone else in the room because no one else in the room knew them as well as they knew each other.
Alex backs up a tiny bit to give her some room. Not too much so she feels like he's retreating from her, but enough to give her confidence that he's not going to sprint past the thinly drawn line. "You know you're my best friend, right kid?"
She nods affirmatively and averts her gaze to her lap. They've only got a few minutes left before the timer outside goes off and one of their friends will come knocking on the door. And she figures a few minutes more isn't too long to hold out on this. But as the seconds tick by and they sit in silence, Addi starts to think. Having too much time in her own head is never a particularly great thing for her, but on this particular night, it's got her making a list of the reasons why a kiss really means nothing. She's kissed four girls and three boys tonight. One of those boys slipped his tongue into her mouth. And surely Alex wouldn't do that. Surely their kiss wouldn't be much more than a peck --
A sturdy knocking on the closet door yanks her from her thoughts. Alex stands and holds his hand out to her so she can use it to help her stand up as well. No sooner than she's on her feet and Alex is reaching for the doorknob, she whispers, "hey old man..."
He turns back toward her as she's leaping up on tip toes to reach him. And catching her by the waist, he leans in as if on cue to meet her halfway. The kiss is just as each of them expected -- only a touch longer than a peck. And by the time they part and exit the closet, none of their friends are wiser. In fact, they all steadfastly believe the two shared a rather uneventful seven minutes in a dark utility closet. But they know the truth (regardless of how minor that truth was), and Addi knows that after the kiss, Alex was a little more hands-on with her all night. Again, their friends couldn't have discerned the difference. It was so slight. A quick touch here, a gentle brush of an arm there. At one point as they all huddled on the back porch for night caps and cigarettes, Alex kept his free hand on her mid-back. Undoubtedly given confidence by the cover of darkness.
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Text
Ryan, Sophie & Mary go to the beach.
“She gives you butterflies” - A Wildmoore fanfic
“Oh my GAWD, why is it so freakin hot!” Sophie whined. Sophie was lying on Mary and Ryan’s couch with her head on one end and her legs perched up on Ryan’s lap. Ryan had her head thrown back with her hand over her face and Mary was lying on her stomach on the floor and she had a cold rag draped over her neck. 
“Well you could take you butt back to your own place, having one less body here would probably make it less hot.” Ryan shot Sophie a glance. And Sophie hit Ryan with a pillow. Ryan was too hot to retaliate. 
“My place is just as hot and it has no trees or areas of shade! It’s not my fault the power went out all over town. And hey, you’re Batwoman, why don’t you go find what happened and fix it or something?” Mary rolled her eyes but didn’t look at Sophie and Ryan. She now understood that this was Ryan and Sophie’s way of flirting with each other. At first when they bickered like this and were mean to each other, she thought they really hated one another- and they probably did. But somewhere along the line they started to hate each other less and hang out more. But that didn’t stop the tension. Mary wanted to ask one of them what was going on but she also wasn’t so sure they themselves even understood it. So for now she was comfortable just letting them be annoyingly flirty and oblivious.
“I’ve got it!!” Mary exclaimed and sat up quickly. Glee on her face. Sophie and Ryan both turned their heads expectantly at Mary, waiting for whatever their genius doctor friend had to say. 
“Swimming! We should totally go swimming!” Mary waited for Sophie and Ryan to leap with delight at her brilliant idea. That didn’t exactly happen. Ryan and Sophie silently communicated with each other through their eyes- something they started doing a lot lately. Mary patiently waited, watching the cute faces they were making at each other. 
“Ok fine.” Ryan said. Mary had not heard any exchange but based on Ryan’s tone, Sophie thought the swimming was a great idea and Ryan did not. But Sophie had convinced Ryan to go along with it. Mary wouldn’t admit this out loud to anyone but she liked watching the dynamic between Ryan and Sophie. She would be jealous of their connection if she didn’t suspect the two had feelings for each other. While she sometimes felt like a 3rd wheel, she knew that what those two had was developing into something deeper than friendship. She sometimes wanted to get Alice in the same room and have her start psychoanalyzing the pair. 
“Oh come on Ryan, this is gonna be fun. Beside it’s hot as hell, don’t you wanna get wet?” As soon as the words left Sophie’s mouth, Sophie felt her cheeks get warm. She prayed Ryan would let it go. 
“You know what Soph, I do want to get wet, but there are other ways that I can make that happen.” Ryan smirked at Sophie and gave her a suggestive look. Then she replaced that look with her wide signature smile, the one she knew Sophie couldn’t resist. Sophie cracked a smile.
“Somebody needs to get fucked.” Sophie said. 
“I’m not the only one.” Ryan shot back. Sophie’s eye brows raised. 
“OKAY! Sophie, let’s stop by your place on the way there and you can grab your suit. They said power would be back on in a few hours so hopefully when we come back all our food isn’t rotten. Grab some snacks and water that you have. Ryan go grab your shit that you need from your room and I’ll get what I need.” Mary enjoyed Ryan and Sophie’s dynamic but she didn’t need to hear them making sex comments towards each other. She also didn’t need them to bone each other right in her presence. Maybe going to the beach with these two hormonal teenagers was not one of her more genius ideas after all. 
Scene 2: The Beach++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Come on you slow asses!” Sophie called from the water. She apparently was a mermaid in her past life and she loved the water. Mary and Ryan were in a spot in the sand that was partially covered by shade. 
“We’ll be down in a second!’ Mary shouted back at Sophie, then watched her dive under the water and then resurface, dive under, and resurface. The sun sparkled on the water around Sophie, and Mary lifted her eyes to look at the sky. It was a gorgeous day. Beside her, Ryan was putting on sunblock, pretending not to be interested in watching Sophie. Mary decided maybe now was a good time to just put the idea in Ryan’s head. Or at least show Ryan support. Ryan was a very proud person and her relationship with Sophie and the crows had been, rocky. To put it lightly. Even though Sophie was no longer with the crows, Mary knew how hard it was for Ryan to finally let Sophie in. 
“You know, it’s alright if you like her.” Mary started off slowly, she didn’t want to piss Ryan off and make the whole day uncomfortable. Ryan visibly stiffened and then relaxed. 
“Who?” Ryan went for acting like she didn’t know what or who Mary was referring to. Mary rolled her eyes. 
‘Ryan, you are not that good of an actor first of all. Sophie found out you were Batwoman in point 5 seconds. So let’s leave the acting to Viola Davis, shall we?” Ryan didn’t say anything. Mary tried again. 
“Sophie. Ryan, I’m talking about Sophie. It’s ok if you like her. You know like, like her like her.” Ryan was quiet for a second. 
“I can’t like a crow Mary. Me and Soph are friends now and that’s it. Do I think she’s pretty, of course, I have eyes. But that would never work.” Ryan clapped the top onto the sunblock and stared out at Sophie. Ryan felt butterflies in her stomach and she absentmindedly put her hand over her belly. She didn’t realize Mary was watching. 
“She gives you butterflies.” Mary stated matter-of-factly, she had followed Ryan’s gaze that was still trained on Sophie. They were quiet for a few moments and then Ryan looked at Mary.
“She gives me the whole damn zoo.” Ryan finally said. Mary laughed and shoulder bumped Ryan. “Tell her.” Mary said softly. Ryan gave Mary a, bitch are you serious, look.
“I’m not telling Sophie shit. It’s just a crush, besides I just ended things with Imani, it would be weird to just jump into another relationship. And she already was suspicious of me and Sophie.” Ryan sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “Besides, a crow? Ew.” 
“Kay, Sophie is not with the crows anymore, stop using that as an excuse. Second, Luke told me you hated having to keep your Bdub identity from Imani. Just think you wouldn’t have to hide that from Sophie because she already knows.” 
“I already know what?” Sophie had walked up on the pair as they were deep in conversation and had lost Sophie among the sea of beach goers; they had not realized she’d gotten out of the water until she was in their face. Ryan changed the subject quickly. 
“Um you already know that I can win in a foot race to the water.” Ryan knew that was a weak cover but she hoped Sophie would let it slide. She played on Sophie’s competitive side. 
“Girl, now I know you’s a damn lie.” Sophie said. Ryan chuckled and she stood up. 
“Ready set go!” Ryan counted off fast and took off running trying to get the advantage of starting off early. Sophie’s longer legs had no issue keeping up with Ryan. They got to the edge of the water and Sophie grabbed Ryan from behind and lifted her. Sophie spun them around and they both went crashing into the water. They wrestled and tussled for a bit. Touching each others mid sections playfully and letting fingers and hands roam and linger longer than what was appropriate for people who were just friends. Mary watched on from her spot in the sand with vivid fascination. 
“You know I won, right?” Sophie said slightly out of breath from the running and then the rough housing. They were now wading a little over waist deep in the water. Sophie was half a foot taller than Ryan so the water wasn’t covering her as much. She shivered. Ryan instinctively reached out and put her hands on Sophie. She knew it would not warm her up but she wanted an excuse to touch her again. She started on Sophie’s arms and then put her hands on Sophie’s waist and slowly pulled her closer. It was weird being this close to Sophie, it felt intimate. But natural. Comfortable. Right. Sophie looked down into Ryan’s eyes with a bit of a question mark circling her orbs but she let Ryan continue. Ryan had these deep chocolate brown puppy dog eyes that Sophie could never get enough of and right now they were melting fires into Sophie’s own. She contemplated saying something, but she didn’t know what and she didn’t want to interrupt whatever was happening between them. She thought that if she spoke that maybe this spell would be broken. Suddenly, Ryan pulled herself up slowly and kissed Sophie on her neck. It was one of the sexist kisses that Sophie had ever experienced. She buried her head into Ryan and felt Ryan’s soft wet lips kiss and suck and then give a little bat bite. Then it was over and Ryan pulled back. Sophie’s looked at Ryan, not sure of what was going to happen next. She let Ryan take the lead because she seemed determined. 
“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Ryan simply said. And then she laughed and put her head against Sophie’s chest. Almost embarrassed now by her own bravado. Sophie wrapped her arms around Ryan and they stood there like that, holding each other. Not fully understanding the magnitude of the situation, but also not wanting to make a big deal or extravagant gestures and speeches. Suddenly they both got drenched with a huge wave. They looked around to see who the culprit was and their eyes landed on Mary who was smirking. They both splashed her back and they all screamed and shouted playfully, trying to see who could splash the other with the most water.
“I told you guys the beach would be littyyy,” Mary said cheerfully. 
‘Yeah yeah.” Sophie and Ryan both said in unison. 
“Oh also, I better not catch you two having sex on the couch.” Mary splashed Ryan and Sophie and then quickly dived under the water. Ryan and Sophie’s mouths hung open, and they slowly looked at one another, then back at Mary who was getting further away. Sophie thought she heard Ryan mutter, “can’t make any promises” as they raced to catch up with their friend. 
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