#also whoops I’m a bit late I was looking at stuff

[just-rainbow-thoughts]

*Jessica would like to know what all this hooting and hollering is about as it is nearly 3 in the morning where she lives and she would like her phone to not be blowing up*

Second Karkat came in with a miku drink

[ken-katayanagi]

I’ve read your google docs of the katayanagi twins’ fashion. Super interesting stuff and I love it as both a fashion enthusiast and fan of the siblings. Your document really emphasizes the distinction between those two even with the very little info we have on them (kyle’s style could be late 80s japanese pop while ken’s style could be more leaning towards visual kei). Also matches their personalities (ramona mentioned kyle is the hothead of the two, so I guess the pretty and proper bad boy kind of look fits him)

Something about your endnote fascinates me, however. You mentioned something about the twins’ relationship being strained but then strengthened after ramona’s betrayal. Would you implore more on the idea? I’m now invested in it very much…. thank you and have a good day

Thank you!!! I mostly based my looks off this piece of concept art by O’Malley, which makes me think the personalities the twins had in their few anime appearances were just parts that weren’t as well communicated in Vol. 5

(I think that little doddle next to the crossed out “they’re not even Japanese” emphasizes that visual kei comparison you made)

But as for the second bit, I think the twins weren’t exactly on great terms, even before Ramona. A decent part of this has to do with my own personal head cannons surrounding Kyle and how I perceived his and Ramona’s relationship with alcohol, but also with just how different the twins seem to be under the surface. They seem like they would run in almost completely opposite social circles and be invested in similarly opposite things.

And it’s honestly really tied to their teens. Basically, their parents kinda unintentionally set up a dynamic where Kyle felt like Ken got away with everything (piercings, weird clothes, going out to band shows and having a more trusting relationship with their parents) and Ken thought Kyle couldn’t get his act together (partying, showing up back home late, getting in fight with their parents). Neither was true as in reality their parents let a lot of stuff with Ken slide that wouldn’t have otherwise because “well at least he’s not drunk” and Kyle was genuinely going through some serious mental shit but not telling anyone so his actions just looked super random and mean spirited. So by the time they get to college, they haven’t really addressed this weird image they have of the other in their heads.

And it explains how Ramona was even able to two time siblings. They’re not going to the same parties, they’re not really talking at length about their lives (since they never mention enough detail to make the other suspicious), they’re probably not really bothering each other much if they share a dorm. Ramona unconsciously sees and plays this divide, knowing they’re not really together enough for her to get caught.

It also emphasizes for me a very emotional aspect for all three of them. Ramona is hot off a messy break up (Roxie), the breakup that ended her first relationship with a women and also seems to be her first attempt at having something…maybe not serious but genuine (it seemed more important than anything with Matt Todd or Lucas). Shes hardly in the headspace to be in a relationship, and maybe after some nights out, she’s terrified and not sure what to do because whoops she’s in two! And the longer it goes on the less Ramona actually wants to fix it because it’s kinda fun in a messed up way, and the twins aren’t bad company…until it all comes crashing down and she’s out the door before they even notice she’s gone. I think Ramona’s relationship with the twins is her at her actual lowest, with her being most at fault for what happened and the least justified in bolting afterwards. This low point is exactly when Gideon finds her, unsure and upset at herself, in exactly the position to manipulate her. (Sorry if this came off a little Ramona bash-y, I love Ramona but this girl makes bad choices)

As for the twins, I think the really strong emotional beat here is the idea of how avoidable it would’ve felt for them. How if they had just been able to set aside their own bullshit, if they had even bothered to connect at all, they could’ve figured it out in a few days, rather than in a few weeks or a few months. Ramona’s betrayal is catalyst for them to sit down and just…talk out a lot of their own personal crap.

But yeah that’s why. Sorry this got super massively long, but I hope you liked it and it wasn’t too ramblely lol.

[preservationofnormalcy]

Hi, sorry, I know it’s been a few weeks but it really hasn’t felt like it, I haven’t got out of my house much. Oh, to be clear, this is the guy with cracks in his wall, except they’re not cracks or something, I dunno.

Anyway, on what you mentioned, no, there were been no other potential communication attempts if my house was alive. Considering the age of the place and the weirdness happening recently, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my house was alive, but I did a few tests and nothing came up positive sadly.

On to more important stuff though, there’s a reason I got distracted. Mainly because these cracks are really weird. I think I’ve figured out what was going on with the bleeding, or more accurately, why it would start bleeding. Oh yeah, bleeding is a pretty accurate term for the fluid, it’s like it’s coagulating when exposed to air, except it’s not the air it’s reacting to.

That’s probably confusing, so I’ll start about a week after my last message: It’d been a while and I was mostly beginning to forget about the cracks to be honest, what with the big, plastic tarp hiding them. There has been a storm the night previous and my power had gotten knocked out, so when I got up early to head to work I let instinct take over and accidentally stepped badly on the new addition to my home, the tarp. Stepping on it pulled at its bindings and revealed the cracks again, but they were kind of different. The cracks were bigger, obviously, but the main thing was the tar-fluid-stuff. See, the tar only comes when it’s raining, which it had been, and intensely at that, which meant that now there was a big build up of this tarry gunk that was messing up the walls even more than the cracks were! I was already late for work, so I decided to clean it off when I got back.

After finishing work, I ended up getting a paint scraper and a metal brush to get it off. At that point I was more worried about it permanently sticking the tarp to the wall than any damage I would do to the wall, so I was really going at it. I started using the paint scraper as a chisel is what I’m getting at. Anyway, a bit after doing that, I noticed that there was one part that was way easier to clean off, the parts where the cracks were. It took some close looks, but when I was using the paint scraper as a chisel, I was pushing the stuff back into the cracks, and when the tar went back into the crack it turned back into a fluid.

I did a few more tests with stuff I scraped off, and it all turned back into water, flowing into what ever was on the other side of the cracks. While I was doing that, I also poked the paint scraper in, and the part that was put in became floppy. And then I pulled it out and it solidified in the new position.

I’m serious, these cracks are weird, but I’m way way more fascinated by them now than freaked out. I’m still at least a little worried by how they’re growing to be honest, but this was something I could poke! And that’s what I’ve been doing for a while now. Poking the cracks with stuff. And I think I’ve figured it out somewhat.

Stuff that comes through the cracks seem to invert in some way. Water becomes a room temperature solid, stiff metal becomes bendy, hot air becomes cold (that one’s really nice to be honest, nice cool breeze on a hot day), etc. I want to see what happens if I put an active exothermic chemical reaction through it and see what happens, but I have no idea what that could do. Would it become an endothermic reaction? Implode? Change chemical composition and cease reacting? I have no idea, but I gotta be honest, I really want to try.

I have no idea where these cracks are coming from, but they’re really fascinating. It feels like there’s something on the other side, and I can’t tell if it’s a dimension with different conceptual or physical laws, or a being watching me who’s unzipped the wall and has been poking back. Or something else.

Kinda got off track there, whoops. Anyway, I don’t mind if you send help anymore by the way, I kinda just want to about this stuff to someone, it’s really cool.

Yeah, that is not what I expected.

I think we are seeing a sort of break in reality here, but not like I was describing last time. This isn't a "living" home. This is a special case.

We call these Rulebreakers. I'd wager that at some point in the past of the structure, something was done to create a series of tears to a hypothetical pocket dimension that operates differently than ours. And I do mean "hypothetical" - as far as many of our tests are concerned, a lot of times these things are only conceptual. Your seems...frightfully realspace. And it's not often that it's directly, conceptually "opposite" - that suggests a level of human-adjacent intelligence that I'm concerned about.

These are pretty rare - I sent this over to Ambrose and he's very interested in this. Is your place wheelchair accessible?

[nihongoseito]

a brief-ish breakdown of くれる and もらう!

hi all! it’s been a minute since i last wrote a grammar post, but this particular topic has been popping up a lot for me lately so i thought i’d write my own explanation. the difference between these two used to confuse me a lot (and, let’s be real, sometimes もらう is still so confusing lol), but i think it can actually be explained fairly simply. so let’s get to it!!

types of differences between words: grammar vs. semantics

“wait, wait, what??” i hear you say. yes, it’s true—as a linguist i am incapable of explaining a grammar item without also explaining a little bit about human grammar itself. whoops 😉

so, as i’ve implied in the title, words can differ in multiple ways; for くれる and もらう, we’re interested in their grammatical (or “syntactic”) difference as well as their semantic difference. grammar, as i’m sure you know, refers to the structure of language, including word order, word movement, and stuff like that. in this case (くれる/もらう), we’re going to be mainly concerned with particles, an integral part of japanese syntax. so keep that in mind.

semantics, on the other hand, is something you might not be as familiar with (or at least not outside the phrase “just semantics”). semantics basically refers to the meaning of a word or phrase, notably without social context. to give an american english example, the words “you guys” and “y’all” are semantically identical because they both denote the exact same thing: a group of multiple people whom the speaker is addressing. however, any native english speaker can tell you that people do not really use “you guys” and “y’all” interchangeably, largely for social reasons (e.g., where you’re from, your gender identity, etc.).

so, to summarize: grammatical differences are differences in structure, while semantic differences are differences in meaning (without social context). now let’s move on to くれる and もらう!

くれる grammar basics

you might know already that くれる is the japanese “giving” verb. more specifically, it’s the giving verb whose subject isn’t the speaker:

❌ 私が弟にプレゼントをくれた。*

⭕️ 兄が私にプレゼントをくれた。 = my older brother gave me a present.

from these examples, we can deduce two facts about the grammar of くれる:

the giver is marked with が, meaning the giver is the subject.

the recipient is marked with に, meaning the recipient is the indirect object.

these rules apply to くれる used as a solo verb and as an auxiliary (as in 〜てくれる). this grammatical construction is pretty familiar to english speakers, who can say things like “my brother gave a present to me,” mirroring the 兄が私に structure in japanese. english-speakers also might feel like the giver has a more “active” role in the scene, which lends itself well to the giver being the subject.

*in this case, if you were going to use a giving/receiving verb, you would use あげる.

もらう grammar basics

in japanese, もらう is the “receiving” verb, and in fact the only* receiving verb: there is no out-group/in-group distinction here like there is with くれる. let’s look at some examples:

❓ 私に弟がプレゼントをもらった。 = ?my little brother got a present from me.

⭕️ 私が兄にプレゼントをもらった。 = i got a present from my older brother.

the first example, marked with ❓, is not technically grammatically incorrect (as far as i know), but it is sort of awkward, just like in english. the second example, on the other hand, shows us exactly what we need to know about the grammar of もらう:

the giver is marked with に**, meaning the giver belongs to a prepositional phrase.

the recipient is marked with が, meaning the recipient is the subject.

are you seeing an important difference between もらう and くれる? you probably noticed: while the subject of a くれる phrase is the giver, the subject of a もらう phrase is the recipient. this makes it really obvious that くれる is about someone giving something to someone else, while もらう is about someone receiving something from someone else.

as with くれる, the above rules apply to もらう as a solo verb and the 〜てもらう auxiliary construction.

*in this post, i’m ignoring 敬語, so technically there are indeed other receiving verbs (like いただく), but only as far as formalities go.

**the giver in a もらう sentence can technically also be marked with から, but i don’t feel like that’s very common to see.

the semantics of くれる and もらう

let’s compare the two correct examples from the above sections:

兄が私にプレゼントをくれた。 = my older brother gave me a present.

私が兄にプレゼントをもらった。 = i got a present from my older brother.

now, imagine a scene on a stage where no words are spoken: someone labeled 兄 mutely hands a wrapped gift box to another person labeled 私, and then the curtain falls. how would you describe that scene you just saw—using the first sentence, with くれる? or using the second sentence, with もらう?

if your answer was “i don’t know,” or maybe “what’s the difference,” then you’ve actually hit upon something really important about くれる and もらう! while certain social implications might be different between the two verbs (e.g., was 私 expecting to get a present?), the semantics of くれる and もらう in this construction are functionally identical. remember, semantics ignores social context, so whatever the particular circumstances of this gift-giving scene, the fact remains that a present changes hands from 兄 to 私, which can be accurately described by either the first example sentence or the second. to put it simply, the constructions XがYにZをくれる and XにYがZをもらう mean the same thing! it’s easy to remember that way, right?

summary!

so, we’ve looked at the grammatical differences and the semantics differences (or lack thereof) between くれる and もらう. here they are:

in くれる sentences, the subject (marked with が) is the giver. in もらう sentences, the subject (marked with が) is the recipient. 

in くれる sentences, に marks the recipient. in もらう sentences, に marks the giver. this means that the grammatical (particle) structure of くれる and もらう sentences is reversed.

the constructions XがYにZをくれる and XにYがZをもらう are semantically identical, i.e., they mean the same thing. this is true of sentences where くれる and もらう stand alone and sentences where they are auxiliaries following the 〜て form of another verb.

and that’s that! obviously there are always exceptions and complications to rules, but i hope that my explanation of these two words has been helpful for you. i spent a long time not understanding how to use もらう since it didn’t really feel like anything we had in english, but once i learned exactly how it was related to くれる, i think started to get the hang of it—and i bet you can too!

as a final note: if people are interested in more posts about もらう (which i have personally found is the trickiest for english speakers), i might have a post about semantic-passive もらう coming down the pipeline, so keep your eyes peeled! またね！！

[kellanved-ammanas]

TF2 Drabbles: Spy/Engie & Scout - The Guy Your Deadbeat Dad Married

Summary: We need more of the Engiespy as parents

[A/N] I went more for a actual paternal thing this time instead of usual mom-friend vibe but this is just what came to me when I sat down to write this.

~

Engie paused as he stepped into his workshop. Scout was already in it, seated on the edge of the workbench. Evidently he’d picked the lock to let himself in. A bit annoying but well, he was Spy’s son so of course he knew how to pick locks and liked to use that skill to surprise folk.

“So you’re gonna be my stepdad now, huh?” Scout said as slide off the table to his feet.

“You already know ‘bout that, huh?” Spy had literally just proposed last night after pulling Engie up onto the roof to watch the sunset. They’d been planning to tell everyone sometime today.

“Yeah. You guys did it kinda out in the open. Demo overheard and he told me.” Likely everyone else knew by now too then; living on a base with only eight other people made rumors and news spread less like wildfire and more like an explosion. Probably their fault for doing the proposal on the roof. Too late to do anything about it now.

“You got a problem with me marrying your dad?”

Scout was silent for a few seconds, shifting his weight back and forth, before replying. “No. It’s just weird to think about. I went my whole life thinking my dad was dead but turns he just left ‘cause he’s a coward and ‘cause he’s got enemies or whatever. And then one day I end up working with him, find out he’s my dad a couple years later and then whoops he’s getting married so now I’m gonna have two dads. And my stepdad is a guy I knew before my dad even starting dating him. That’s not how those kinds of things typically go, right? It’s just weird.”

In all the excitement of the proposal, Engie hadn’t had time to pause and consider how Scout would take the news. And he and Spy had officially started dating before Scout had found out Spy was his dad. Not much before but still long enough that the topic of how that news affected Scout and Engie’s relationship hadn’t come up. And it had continued to be something they never talked about it until now.

Engie didn’t feel equipped for such a conversation. Scout and Spy seemed to have repaired their relationship as much as was possible and largely got along now. That didn’t mean everything was all good and fine between them though. There was still tension at times, Spy talked to Engie about it occasionally. It wasn’t something Engie particularly liked the thought of getting involved in but he did love Spy enough to take it on. That’s what loving other people was like sometimes, especially when choosing to marry someone. And so they were finally talking about it.

Engie approached a couple steps closer, putting his hands into his pockets for lack of knowing what else to do with them. “You don’t gotta think of me as your stepdad or whatever if you’d prefer not to. I could just be the guy your deadbeat dad married.” There’d be no use pretending it wouldn’t affect their relationship in some way.

“Is that what you want me to do?”

“No.” Engie liked Scout. They’d gotten along fairly well from the beginning and after all the times Spy had confided in him about his son, Engie had grown to see him in a somewhat similar light. “It ain’t ‘bout just me though. I’m not sure what all goes into being a dad, step or otherwise, especially to someone who’s already an adult, but I’d be willing to try if that’s what you want from me.”

Scout’s face scrunched up as he studied Engie, making him look an awful lot like Spy. Also like Spy, what he was looking for was impossible for Engie to guess. Finally though he relaxed and even smiled. “You know, I think you might be a better dad than my actual dad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not that that’s exactly hard to do and all. But like, you know? Congrats on getting married and stuff. Maybe having two dads will make up for even properly having one for so long.”

“Well, I suppose I look forward to forward to helping you find out.”

They shook hands. A bit awkward and stiff but it was nice to be on the same page. Only time would tell how things would actually go but Engie was optimistic.

[cheiyunn]

Kimisute main story [２部 ] Part 1

Side: Fujin Rizing

[Hospital]

Fuuta: I’m glad that there wasn’t any big injury

Mother: Thank you so much, really. C’mon, you need to say thank you too

Child: Thanks big bro!

Fuuta: r-right. Make sure you look both ways next time okay

Child: Kay–

.

[Outside]

Mother: I really don’t know how to thank you enough… um, is your… is it okay?

Fuuta: y-yeah… its’s fine! Then excuse me..!

Mother: ah…

.

[Fuuta leaves]

[Time passes // It’s raining]

Fuuta: Hah…hah…!

Fuuta: Sakutaro…Sakutaro… I’m sorry, did it hurt !?

Fuuta: I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…! Sakutaro, I’m sorry…!

Fuuta: It hurts doesn’t it… I need to get back and get you treated…!

Fuuta: I don’t wanna lose you again!

Fuuta: ….again…?

Fuuta: ….I said… again…. Right…?

Fuuta: …Sakutaro… gh…

[Flash of light]

Fuuta: I’m pretty sure I saw… someone’s…face…

Fuuta: ….gh….

.

[Skyfox Record office]

Sosui: Sorry for calling you all like this, It’d have been better if I could have come to you

Kohei: No worries, we should be the ones coming over. Sorry but Fuuta will be running a little late… he should be here soon I think

Sosui: Thanks for relaying that. Let's get to the main point and talk about your new song

Misaki: Hell yeah! I’m looking forward to it!

Aoi: Thank you!

Sosui: Same here. So, for your new song

Sosui: I was thinking of a song that both your fans can enjoy and at the same time for people who don’t really know you can vibe to the rhythm..

Misaki: I mean, thats how we usually do things so it isn’t much of a change?

Sosui: Yeah. For the time being, its best to keep the showcase as original to yourselves

Sosui: In order to create that familiarity, for people to go ‘When I think of Fujin Rizing I think of this!’ .

Yamato: ..Is that all

Sosui: Of course it isn’t good for the audience to think you’re a one trick pony, so maybe you can try some other things

Sosui: But for now, I think it's better to showcase Fujin Rizing’s main appeal to a broader audience first 

Yamato: …okay

Misaki: Oi Yamato..! Why’re you makin’ such a sour face!

Misaki: Despite Sosui-san doing this and that and thinkin’ about us !?

Misaki: You gotta be more hyped up !

Yamato: I know. Since if we don’t have any new songs it’ll be hard

Yamato: But, as long as we can safely release one, isn't it enough to celebrate?

Misaki: I’m trying to raise the atmosphere high and happy so don’t be sayin’ stuff that brings it down–!

Aoi: Oh come on… you also need to calm down a bit Misaki! I understand where you’re at but we shouldn’t be making a fuss at the office!

Kohei: And Yamato, you don’t need to keep firing back at Misaki. You know how he is

Yamato: That’s true

Misaki: hey, HEY ! Why’re y’all painting me as the bad one here!

Kohei: Anyways, since we got the material from Sosui-san…

Kohei: After we make a light demo, we should contact you right?

Sosui: Yeah, please do

Aoi: We’ll do our best!

Aoi: Okay, let's go home. Once we get back we can discuss the new song

[The others leave]

.

Sosui: If they continue to keep the group atmosphere like today’s… it won’t end well…

Aoi: what…

Sosui: Whoops… seems you heard that. It's just a random uneasiness that hopefully won’t come around

Aoi: …right. We’ll be okay, it’ll work out

Aoi: Then, excuse us

[Aoi leaves]

.

Sosui: …well then, what to do about this…

.

[Sharehouse]

Kohei: Fuuta! Why didn’t you tell us–

Fuuta: Ko-nii ! Sakutaro he, Sakutaro he’s…!

Kohei: ….!? We need to bring it to the repai- Hospital. We need to get him to the hospital immediately…. Aoi, can you bring him !?

Aoi: The normal place right, no worries! Fuuta, let's go !

[shanie]

Ten Questions for Writers 

  Tagged by the wonderful @afterdarkprincess! THANKS! 

  How many works do you have on AO3? 50. Big 50. 

What's your total AO3 word count? 473,524. Huh. More than I thought. 

What fandoms do you write for? Professional Wrestling, either WWE or 2000’s Indies stuff (for the Generico!verse) 

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Sometimes it takes me a bit but I love to respond to comments. I love the detailed comments the most that I can really sink my teeth into and share my insights with. But even people who don’t comment on AO3, my inbox is always open if you want to rant about stuff there! 

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not technically, but I did have one read on a podcast once during the LiveJournal days (Apologies) that they recorded the episode, THEN asked permission to air it, so it’s sort of a little shady. 

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Never co-written, but I did write a sequel to someone else’s fic once. 

What's your all-time favourite ship? You would think Zowens, but no, not lately. Lately I’ve been far more into Steenerico. As much as I love Zowens, I feel like... how should I say this, there’s so much that’s already been done for Zowens. Zowens at this point really does feel like a 20 year domestic marriage. Especially with the tag run. Not that I don’t enjoy it, and I also enjoy Samijey, but for me, exploring the possibilities of a world where Steenerico is REAL, and also, NEVER ENDED, is so much meatier. The storylines of the indies aren’t nearly as in depth, so there’s so much more empty space in the sandbox to build sandcastles in, while still leaving it ostensibly canon compliant.    I dunno, Steenerico just feels like there’s more room to explore the universe for me. But I do still love Zowens. 

BTW: Full confession, due to my regional accent, when I say "Steenerico" out loud, it comes out "Stinerico". I'm aware that's wrong, but it's a thing with the dialect here that you sometimes transfer "EE" sounds into "IH" sounds if you use the word enough. We also say the word "Creek" as "Crick", since there's a ton of those around here.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue. By far. My best writing is almost always discussion between two or more characters. 

What are your writing weaknesses? Setting the scene. As in, literal scenery. I’m one of those people who you will know everything that goes through a character’s mind and out of their mouth, but you usually will have no clue where they are while they are saying it. Whoops. 

First fandom you wrote for? WWF! As in, before WWE. I was writing wrestling fanfic in my late teens during the Attitude Era. I left the wrestling fandom around 2004 or so, and wrote other fanfic starting again around 2011-12 or so, when I first got to Tumblr. But I only started writing full force again in 2019, and it was right back to wrestling.    Have never looked back since. 

Anyway, I don’t know who all has been tagged in this so far or not, so if you feel like doing this, go ahead. I’m always late to the party on these, so who knows!  ETA: Tagging my beloved @imabillyami. I'm sorry I didn't the first time. I love you and I love your writing. Hope that next part of IGYTL is going well.

[lukasdoodles]

Give us Julia content [please] [begging] 🤲

OK WHAT A WAY TO SHOW OFF SOME DOODLES FHENCUENCUWJD

Explanations on their way!!

First doodle is Julia and Andy, Julia’s lil sibling that won’t show up until super late in his story lol. Julia does NOT like her.

Next doodle is Julia just straight up getting his ass whooped, he is not very strong and is also VERY breakable and weak and pathetic and I am crushing him right now as we speak hehe

Third doodle is Ever holding Julia when he was baby, I just thought it was really funny how fucked up I drew him and how powerful Ever looks comparatively fhdnhcjd

And last doodle doesn’t have Julia IN it but it’s implied he’s coming home after a day of fucking around and finding out and Ever is NOT HAPPY when he comes home when Disco drops him off blaring bad music lol (and Kaiser is there)

Onto actual Julia CONTENT bc idk if I can bust out a digital doodle tonight but OH BOY DO I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY BOY

Julia’s name is Julius but people always got it mixed up as Julia when he was young, so he just rolls with it. His friends call him Jules bc it’s funny and it USED to make him so mad his face would get so red but he’s used to it now!!

Julia and Disco have known each other since they were toddlers. They were little shits and would cause SO much chaos until they got separated due later on <\3

Julia loves anything sparkly! You’ll see him sporting bedazzled gloves and practically anything else he owns has gems glued to the surface! He loves the sparkle and shine and ADORES making fun designs with his silly little plastic gems!

Julia is fragile! Bout as bad as Glass Joe kind of fragile. The only reason he’s ranking between Kaiser and Disco is because he put in a lot of hard work (and some other shenanigans but that’s story stuff shh) Disco doesn’t let Julia win because he knows Julia will just get hurt when he fights King Hippo, there ain’t any hope Jules will win against him 😔

Some story stuff with him/ what I’m workin on!

I’m currently working on comic pieces along with some short Drabbles n chapters for Julia’s story! There’s gonna be a few different bits, but I’m excited to explore his friendship with Disco before and after joining the wvba, his relationship with his parents (Mainly his mom- Ever- and her over-protectiveness of him and his dad- Macho- who still refuses to believe Julia is his kid (that man is NOT 27 years old)) I’ll get more into Ever and Macho’s relationship too after a while! I’m also gonna explore how Julia interacts with new people, how he’ll adapt to the world coming at him so quickly- he doesn’t have long! His story is gonna be real fun when I get it up and goin, only reason I’ve not gotten anything posted yet is bc I’m so busy with personal stuff sadly </3 but yeah that’s that for now PLEASE ask me about him again I will surely remember something I missed DHEBFHENFJENFJSK

[ao3screenshotss]

Merry Chrisler your first and early Christmas present from me is Penguin facts

Like otters, a group of Penguins in water are called rafts but Penguins on land are called Waddles (because they waddel <3) During a French expedition is when they were first discovered and a voyager clamed them as "strange geese". Penguins don't have teeth!! They gobble their fish whole I don't know how they do it (they actually have fleshy spines in their mouths). Penguins would huddle around eachother for warmth during harsh Winter seasons, it's also to incubate their eggs and to protect their young ones <33 Penguins behave comfortably around humans and also other creatures since they're so sociable :D

Penguin couples locate each other using distinct calls. Penguin's way of proposal and/or courting is by giving their mate rocks and if their mate accepts the rock then that means it's a yes

And apparently scientist can locate Penguins using penguin shit :D

i’m SO sorry for the late reply but thank you so so much!!! THEYRE ADORABLE!!!!! i was gonna try and choose a favourite fact but i can’t even cause i love them all so so much

the waddling is so cute 😭😭😭 just all of them huddling together to protect their eggs and children is so SNDJNDJCKDNFOSNDKKS

strange geese is HILARIOUS just imagine seeing these slippy slidey things and thinking hey they kinda look like geese!! bit weird but geese!!

the eating thing is so cool!! i JUST realised its kinda like how birds eat right???

i love seeing penguins around humans i saw it once in the happy feet movie and i’ve loved it since

i’m so obsessed with the calling and proposing thing that’s so goals actually - i have heard the pebble thing before but it makes me so happy each time it’s just so adorable

also i didn’t realise that’s what you meant by shit the first time i read it 💀💀 had to reread it a few times until i realised you meant shit like SHIT and not like random stuff whoops

[impkeen]

hi~! i’m 𝑒𝑣𝑒 (s/h) 21+, i’m a little late to posting an intro, because if timezones are going to do anything, it’s whoop my ass. most of what you’ll want to know can be found on his pages, but below the cut are some good old-fashioned bullet points about incidental superstar, commercial model, pretty boy, and true north’s “4D” lead vocal, 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑜𝑛. i don’t use d-scord much, but if you really, really want/prefer to, i can absolutely give it to you; i’m generally 🆗 with using tumblr to get the job done, though. like this to let me know you’d like to plot! either way, i look forward to writing with all of you! :-)

personality

doyeon makes friends pretty easily; he doesn't have any pretenses about the sorts of people he wants to hang out with, and the only real requisite is that they're honest. however, he does admittedly tend to be drawn particularly to people with a certain quirk or oddness, or even misery, about them.

as a friend, he's loyal and unafraid to call people on their bullshit, which is why he appreciates reciprocity in honesty. he enjoys a bit of back and forth banter, platonic flirting, etc. he's a playful chap; it's how he shows affection. skinship is case-by-case, but never off the table. he's down for most things and is pretty much a must-call in a heist situation.

his love language is time spent, so he's likely the sort of friend to be happy doing as little as accompanying his friend on an errand run or sitting next to them while they both do their own thing. he's an extrovert, (or an ambivert, at least) and that alone probably justifies it in his head. some time is better than no time, especially when you look at how precious of a resource free time is in this line of work. he's a carer, he cares. don't mention it.

on the other hand, he likely makes enemies just as easily. his candidness is as charming as it is potentially grating. he's not shy about his opinions and it's not impossible that he's rubbed people the wrong way in doing so, and equally possible that he's joked around with someone too "roughly" and ruined their opinion of him by being an asshole. he's moody and unpredictable, so he definitely antagonizes people on his worst days, or even just when he's bored.

he's vaguely polyamorous in the sense that it's entirely plausible that he could earnestly, deeply be in love with multiple people, but he probably lacks the actual emotional maturity to enter a polyamorous relationship without getting jealous / it ending in disaster; he’s very stingy about the people he loves.

that being said, his genuinely romantic (that being relationships that go beyond the physical) endeavors probably happen few and far between. he's a hopeless romantic, but his whole thing is that he loves the idea of being in love, even loves dating, but he wants to make sure he's with someone that's worth the emotional energy or the inherent risk of ruining everything.

he'll absolutely flirt, though.

facts

his older sister is a backpacker who's traveling the world, but she’s also pursuing a law degree, so he's a little annoyed about her going the extra mile to be a woman of the world and free and well-traveled, too, while he rarely has agency over what country he’s in at any given time span; but he also still thinks the sun shines out of her ass after spending his whole life following her around like a puppy.

his mom is a pastry chef, his dad is a chef and the co-owner of a cafe somewhere in seoul, and they’re both textbook perfectionists, so his whole way of rebelling against that is by being slightly obscure and following his whims. which backfired a little bit, because look who's an idol!

contrary to what you might believe based on him being the way he is, doyeon thinks kpop is at its best when it's unapologetically happy, and weird, and all that other fluffy stuff, so he's a legitimate fan of groups that do cute surreal concepts.

he crochets! close friends of doyeon have absolutely received various crocheted items as gifts at random! he especially enjoys making hats and scarves.

he has a stuffed animal he's been sleeping with since birth that he's torn up literal hotel rooms to find. like, it's that serious.

he's a big handyman in general; if you need someone to help you build furniture or fix a leaky faucet, or anything, really: he's your man. he's great at putting things together.

he is entirely too cute for a man his age, but he's simply. like that. by design. sorry, bro’s a cutie patootie.

talent-wise, i'd say he's very well-rounded and capable of picking up just about any skill. his baseline is generally above average because of how long he’s aspired to be in this line of work, so when he applies himself, he's really exceptional. the problem is that he rarely does. he’s like a gifted kid who moved up into a curriculum that required him to actually study instead of coasting by.

he's very by-the-books in terms of being an idol and is the first to be like "😣 guys, i dont know about this..." if something steers too close to a potential scandal, but still winds up in the mix half the time, anyway, so.

reigning light-weight champion of fan service.

he's bi. historically, his taste in women is truly milf-coded women and his taste in men is big idiots, but he's open to all kinds of people. he falls for men most often, but has been interested in women often enough that it can’t really be written off as incidental.

he's an optimist, but he is also constantly fighting for his life, so it might not even be working.

his favorite movie is scream (1996) and i feel like that says a lot about him somehow.

he is in a constant state of having to remind himself that someone asking about his hobbies doesn't warrant a soul tie

he's like a nesting animal, just picking up bits and bobs and trinkets because he thinks they look neat. he's buying postcards from every country he goes to, to make a collage someday.

he's kind-of a dick when he's in his feelings; vindictive and spiteful on the worst days (like, cause strife in your marriage vindictive-and-spiteful), but he also tries really hard to smooth things over after the fact, because consequences for his actions are scary.

generally speaking, he wants to diffuse any tension, awkward or otherwise, and keep everyone comfortable, if he can, because he really just has no idea how to resolve conflict as a third party, so he'll play jester if he has to.

sometimes you can just tell that he was spoiled as a child. even though he tries to be better and conscious of that sort of thing, he definitely has his moments.

his idea of flirting is probably just staring at you until you realize that he's in love with you. it's really obvious when he's into someone, but it's also entirely plausible that he's simply tripped and fallen into every relationship he's ever been in by pure luck and circumstance and good old-fashioned boyish charm.

he's the polar opposite of shy, so he's one of those people who's friends with people you wouldn't even expect him to be friends with. like, what do you mean you're friends with a 40-year-old street vendor in srilanka, doyeon? how did you even meet that man?

his aesthetic is very atemporal-but-vaguely-early-00s techie who just sort-of throws things on in the morning, and makes it work somehow; he prefers headset earphones over airpods, unless he's on a run or something.

he's got a decently projected voice when he's singing, but his speaking voice is like a third of the volume unless he's yelling.

100% “babygirlified” by his fanbase.

he acts shamelessly but he is actually really easily embarrassed. you can tell because his ears get super red, as much as he’d like to play it off, but he does well on variety shows, because of this willingness to kind of sacrifice his image for the sake of a good tv moment.

very flexible for no good reason.

he's got a master's in domesticity, somewhat of a clean freak.

you could probably drag this man to hell, if you made it sound fun enough.

[wrenandthemachine]

whoops I’m late! But for those Uncommon OC/creator questions - 1, 13, 34, and F for Wren? 💖

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

About five minutes lol Don't get me wrong, she loves to relax but she has to be DOING something. For example, she and Sisre love going to the bath house in their down time. But overall Wren likes being on the go.

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

She loves red and pink and looks pretty good in both. She also loves blue but can't wear it cuz... well, her skin is blue and she thinks it's a bit much lol

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

She absolutely cannot shake guilt. When one of her fireteam members dies, she feels it's her fault and has a horrible time handing it. While it's been awhile ago, she still feels the effects very strongly, especially when she makes moves toward her own future.

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

I've been writing Wren for a long time. I don't know if I feel any specific emotion toward her all the time. It really just depends on what I'm doing with her. Sometimes she refuses to open up about stuff and that's frustrating. Or sometimes she has big emotions that I'm not dealing with and it's hard to get into that space. But overall I think I'm proud of her and all that I've been able to do with her.

[pandolfo-malatesta]

Notes for “Rhythm of My Heart”

First things first: I have never been to a ceilidh, so as usual I looked a bunch of stuff up and then took artistic liberties.  My exhaustive search of Scottish ceilidh bands for hire revealed that many bands these days offer a ceilidh + disco package, where the first portion of the party is the traditional band and dancing, and the second part is the pop music.  This is a little along those lines.

Runes!  Props to NOVA Online for picking these extremely Merida-appropriate colors for their runic name transliteration results.  Below is how they say “Merida” would be spelled.

More important is the following, an actual real-life runic inscription (known as Bryggen B017) found in Bergen, Norway, and dating to the latter half of the 13th century.

That transliterates to “ost min kis [or kyss] mik,” which means “My love, kiss me.”  Some sources.

Slàinte mhòr = Literally “Great health,” a toast in Scottish Gaelic

I didn’t want to name all of the dances that people share, but they are: Merida and Fergus: Riverside Jig (I don’t have ones for Merida and Stoick or Merida and Gobber, whoops) Merida and Jamie: The Dashing White Sergeant—chosen because it seems like it has a great capacity for carnage Hiccup and Elinor: St. Bernard’s Waltz—as Elinor says, it’s less aggro than many others

snakebite and black = half lager, half (hard) cider, and a bit of blackcurrant cordial

Attentive readers may have discerned that I have a bit of a soft spot for Young MacGuffin.  The version of him that lives in my head is a good boy who deserves to be able to rebuild a crofter’s cottage as a little treat.  A croft is a farm; many of them seem to have been as remote as I’ve described.

(I also have a bit of a soft spot for Young Macintosh, precisely because he is kind of an asshole.)

Up Helly Aa is a real thing in the Shetland Islands and they sure do dress as Vikings and burn down a replica longship.

picture source

“Flower of Scotland” is the unofficial national anthem.

“Loch Lomond” is a folk song.  However, the version here is by rock band Runrig; apparently it’s popular at Scottish weddings. 

Merida’s translation is straight from here.

I give you the gift of having Ho, ho mo leannan Ho mo leannan bhoidheach stuck in a loop in your head forever. 

Let me tell you that I love you, and I think about you all the time is from “Caledonia,” written by Dougie McLean.

And finally, our title track. 

But LJ, “Rhythm of My Heart” was originally written for and recorded by a Dutch artist, and Rod Stewart’s version wasn't released until 1991. Rod Stewart isn’t even Scottish!  How appropriate is this for a ceilidh, and how likely do you think it is that that song would be known enough for people to be singing along? A. It wasn’t until last week, when I was scouring YouTube for covers, that I even began to suspect that Sir Roderick’s version was not the original. B. Though Rod Stewart was born in London his father was from Edinburgh.  In late 2022 he received an Outstanding Achievement in Music Award at the Scottish Music Awards; in an interview he said that “there’s a huge part of me that loves Scotland.  It’s undeniable.  I love this place,” and at the ceremony itself he said “I’ve received many awards before, but none from the land of my beloved father, so this is very special to me.  I’d love to think that despite my English accent that I’m one of yous.” C. In 2014, when Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games, a version of the song was performed for the Opening Ceremony and was listed as an “unofficial anthem” of the games, proving that it is known in this century.  I firmly believe Merida would have heard it then.

But if Oh, I’ve got lightning in my veins alone didn’t convince you, nothing I can say will.

[hollandsangel]

WIP tag/title game

rules ; post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it

thank you for the tag @luciwritesstuff !! i need to be held accountable for the absurd amount of wips in my docs...i need a gun to my head.

no pressure tags! @ddejavvu @silkscream @sunshinesteviee

please send in an ask if you wanna know more about this stuff!! i need to be intrested in writing again lmao. (was just telling my bsf last night how i miss writing tragci love stories LOL)

steve harrington 

in the midst/to live for the hope of it all (working title) (one shot; angst)

so cliche, we’ve all read it before but the trope is so GOOD. essentially reader is jealous and a little bit concerned about steve’s realtionship with nancy post break up. it’s been months, but they’re so close, and he even admitted that she was the one that changed him. it never used to bother you, you trust steve, he’s an amazing boyfriend. but things start to pile up, and the image of him confessing that she was always the picture of his future is seared into your memory.

but it’s not real (one shot; angst)

okay so this one i actually hastily wrote up a summary for last night at like two am. i haven’t started writing it at all so im just gonna show you what my docs look like half the time and copy paste what i typed up on my phone in the dark...

being in love with bestie steve but it’s unrequited 

basically him driving you home and imagining the whole “you kiss me in your car you’re driving me home whatever” 

BUT ITS NOT REAL AND HIS FEELINGS FOR YOU DON'T EXIST 

so you watch him drive away and stare up at the sky and it starts to rain bc we’re dramatic here at hollandsangel 

slay.

tom holland 

...buckle up

at every table (one shot; fluff, prob some angst, smut)

this one i have started writing, but i’m not the biggest fan of the tone atm so i’m probably gonna switch a bunch of things up. here’s the summary i have at the top of the doc for this fic lol

BARTENDER TOM BUT HES A SINGLE DAD AND YOU MEET HIM ONE NIGHT WHEN YOU GO OUT WITH THE OTHER TEACHERS AND YOU LEARN HIS DAUGHTER IS IN THE OTHER FIRST GRADE CLASS !!1111!!!11!

there’s also this little prompt i have...

tom taking to haz, not knowing what to do bc he has to look after his daughter and put her first “well ofc you do mate, but you’re allowed to be a little selfish sometimes too, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing”

essentially this is my dream story. i’m really obssesed with the concept but i just. can’t. execute it. it’s literally been in my docs for MONTHS, like probably september of last year, i’m losing it.

perfume (one shot; smut with a little plot)

so this one is inspired by del water gap’s song perfume and is another one that’s been in the works since like august. ive started writing it up but it hasn’t really gone anywehre yet. it’s a def a work in progress but im excited bc i love this song. i think i just need to get back into writing for tom bc lately ive been feeling so...lost wiht him? like idk how to write him bc im so out of practice lol. ALL IN DUE TIME.

anyways, so this story is about tom lowkey lusting after friend!reader and when the whole gang goes out one night, he finally makes his move. everything i write is self indulgent. so.

okay, so the next three are literally just titles and have not been written at all. i just have the basic, vauge idea written under them bc i always get little ideas and then froget them whoops. i do plan on writing these...eventually but they’re pretty low on the priorities list.

when in rome (one shot; smut)

basically you’re on a hot couples get away and you get your period, thinking it ruins any chance of you and tom getting down but he proves you wrong

the extra (one shot; fluff)

this one is based off that tweet that all the extras were instructed not to talk to tom and when he went up to someone he told them he was sad no one would speak to him :(( literally sobbed my eyes out he’s the cutest man alive.

i have like two lines of text written for this LOL not even a summary.

the thunder is shaking the floor (one shot; smut)

i came up with this idea one week where it was super rainy in my town and never let go of it. it is rotting in my docs.

plans get ruined while you’re on vacation bc it’s raining. you make up for it. (basically fuck at a cabin resort while it pours outside and the windows are open)

bsf!tom (this one doesn’t have a title yet, but i love it sm, like i literally wish i had something going on in my head bc i’d love to churn this out. one shot; the holy trinity, fluff, angst, smut)

im giving you the unfiltered summary so you can how excited i was when i first came up with this lol

basically you have the worst luck with guys and you and tom get wine drunk to make you feel better and now he’s staying over and waking up with his hand under your boob and peeling himself away even tho he just wants to touch you and next thing you know he’s making love to you the way you deserve 

UGH wait she scooches closer in her sleep and subtly moans his name under her breath

HE SHAKES HER AWAKE GENTLY AND HIS LOOKING OVER HER AND SHE SLOWLY OPENS HER EYES AND HE HUST WHISPERS “you were dreaming, you kept saying my name” AND THE TENSION IS SO THICK AND SHES JUST LIKE “oh..” AND THEN HE HESITATES A LITTLE AND KEANS CLODER THEN STOPS TO RESD GRR FACE THEN KISSES GER

UGH I FORGOT HOW GOOD IT WAS

director!tom (also no title or summary, just vibes. one shot; angst, smut)

remember sweet? very similar idea, might even throw some fake dating in there who knows, im crazy.

bottom of the glass (one shot; angst, fluff?? maybe??)

i dont have a summary written for this, just like two pages of text...it’s another bartender!tom moment (my guilty pleasure) and him and reader get into a fight and it’s all really angsty. i have a bit of dialoug that’s barely coherent but i’ll give it to you anyways,

“if you don’t want to move in with me, just say so! don’t be a fucking coward tom, this is an adult relationship, and i want to be able to talk about conflicts like adults.” your voice cracks a little bit, but you choke back the stubborn tears that threaten to spill over, “i don’t want to feel so stupid that i get wasted at you bar,” you get quieter, sheepish almost, because you know you hadn’t been acting very adult recently either.

“you know i love you right ? even that was hard to come to terms with-“

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“that i’ve never done this before! i’ve never been in an ‘adult’ relationship and i’ve never been in love and i’ve never lived with a girl and i’m scared im gonna fuck it all up y/n” he flushes, face red with anger and sadness “so i’m sorry i clammed up, im sorry for what i said, i really didn’t mean it..i just got scared”

“and i know i didn’t make anything better but please just..i love you so much, and i know i’m making mistakes but im trying my best i swear”

feeling exeptionally exposed rn.... but this was fun!! i didn’t realize how many half started fics i had and it makes me feel like i still have good ideas!! hopefully i can get some of these out for you guys soon. let me know which ones you’re most looking forward to!!

[katieraven]

insomnia

idol!chan x producer!reader, afab!reader

word count: 4.9k

genre: tiiiiny bit of angst, fluff, smut - minors dni please!

warnings: sleep issues, (work-)friends to lovers, a teensy bit of anxiety I guess, dom!chan, brat!(?)reader - idk how to describe it tbh there's no reeeal dynamic of that kind, oral sex (f. receiving), choking, piv, he calls her babygirl once, darling and baby used very sparingly, basically they've both been into each other and didn't quite realise that until now -- did I miss smth?

summary: chan helps you with a work issue and it turns into something different

a/n: hii so it has finally happened, my first skz fanfic has arrived! I already have wayy too many ideas for future ones and I'm like not a hundred percent satisfied with this one but it's the first thing I've written in a year (?) so go easy on me please. I just needed to get my chan feelings out in some way or form and this happened ANYWAYS enjoy byyye - katie

also hi @chvnnie this is the fic I was talking about - you've been a huge inspiration btw I would almost go so far as to call you the main reason I wrote this at all whoops

this is a work of fiction and does not represent stray kids.

You’re in your head. It’s not an unusual thing, in fact it’s how you spend most late-night hours in your tiny studio. You almost live here, it’s basically your second home. If not your first, your actual flat being your second. While a lot of people stay late to work on their various projects, only very few stay quite as late as you do. 

It’s one of the few moments you are not troubled by the weight on your shoulders. Three a.m. in the morning, absentmindedly reaching for a cup of now cold coffee, drinking it without noticing its staleness, too deeply immersed in whatever you’re working on to care. Your fingers are flying over the keyboard, eyes flitting over the different tracks in the audio program before you, feverishly changing, moving, improving. 

Only today something goes wrong. You don’t know what you did, but within seconds, everything is gone. You blink. The audio program is empty. Not a single track lies before you. The progress you’ve amassed over the last hours, days rather, vanishes right before your eyes. You try a couple of short-keys and combinations but not one single track returns.

“Ugh, fuck me”, you sigh, wiping your face. 

“Well, if you insist …”

It startles you, but once you recognise the voice, you relax. Chan is standing in the doorway of your studio – you had left the door open to let some air in, after a particularly hot afternoon. The building was empty enough for there not to be anyone walking past. Well, almost.

Chan smirks at you, one dimple appearing in the corner of his mouth. While usually his comment would have made you laugh, chuckle at least, you can only huff out a lightly amused breath, before turning your head back to your monitor. Still empty lines where tracks used to be half a minute ago. Chan’s smirk turns into a frown.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” 

His concerned voice touches something inside you and you feel tears well up in the corner of your eyes. No. You’re not going to cry.

“I, uh, it’s nothing, really.” 

“Sure”, he scoffs. “Cause I’m gonna believe that.” 

He appears to the left of you and looks over your shoulder. After a couple more short-keys and opening three folders, you give up and lean back in your chair with a sigh. You’re not going to cry. It’s okay. It’s fine.

“Will you tell me what is going on or do I have to magically divine it from the fact that you are sitting in front of an empty audio program?” Of course, he got it immediately.

“I was working on something, and it vanished.” 

He hums and his eyes focus on the monitor in front of you. 

“It’s not important, really, I can do it again.”

His left eyebrow raises, then he leans over your keyboard and starts working on getting your tracks back. You feel guiltier the longer he takes, it’s just your own, self-indulgent stuff after all.

“Really, you don’t have to … it’s nothing important.” 

“Tell that to the artists you’re working with. Or the hours you probably spent on this.” 

You shake your head. “No, it’s-“

The tracks reappear. All of them. Like magic. You can only stare at the screen, dumbfounded. He stands back up, a proud smile on his face. Then he hits the spacebar, and the beat starts filling the tiny studio. You startle and jump forwards to stop him, but he grabs your shoulder and presses the spacebar himself. 

“Why don’t you want me to listen to it?” He asks, a slight frown on his face. 

You wipe your face. “It’s … personal.”

Chan crouches down next to you so that he’s roughly on eyelevel with you. “Hey. It’s just me.” 

You turn the chair towards him, and he grabs the armrests. You look at him for a beat, then it hits you that you just almost lost everything you’ve been working on for a while. This is different than your usual work. This is personal. It’s a song that you’ve been producing only for yourself, not JYPE, not any other artist. This is your baby. You just almost lost it, and he brought it back. The tears come back, and this time they’re stronger. You just let it roll over you. 

As soon as the first tear falls, Chan’s expression drops. “Oh no, no, what’s wrong?” 

His hands fly from the armrests to your knees, then your thighs, rubbing soothing patterns up and down. Your sobs turn into hick-ups, and you hate it, hate that he sees you this vulnerable. No one ever does, you wear armour at work. It’s what you remind yourself of now. You reach for the shield you put up around your heart with both hands and pull, until it’s up again and your sobs die down. That’s the reason, yes. Not the fact that Chan is still kneeling in front of you and hasn’t stopped rubbing your thighs. 

You breathe out shakily. In again, and out. Then you finally dare to look at him. “Thank you, for saving it.” You gesture towards the screen. 

His look is still probing, searching for what you just broke down for, but a smile curls up the corners of his mouth. “Of course. It wasn’t that far gone, honestly. I barely did anything.” 

You roll your eyes and weakly slap his arm. “Stop always understating everything you do.” 

He chuckles. “I apologise profusely.” The formal tone makes you smile a bit.

“Now. Will you let me listen to this absolutely not important personal stuff you made?”

You hesitate and look at the open door. 

“Let me rephrase. If I close the door, will you let me listen?”

This, and the adorable face he’s pulling, finally makes you laugh and cave. “I guess, yeah.”

Your eyes follow him as he gets up and walks to the door, closes it, and locks it. 

“For good measure”, he winks. 

It’s one of those moments that make you realise that in all the time you’ve been at JYPE, you’ve made a lot of acquaintances and a couple friends, but none as wonderful as him. You often think he’s too good for this world – the rest of his friends do, too. Although the rest of his friends probably don’t get all warm and fuzzy inside when he smiles at them. Or find it hard to concentrate when he wears muscle shirts. Or watches his performances, more than necessary, and then blames it on just wanting to be a good friend. Supporting him, and such. God you’re down bad.

He walks back to his spot next to your chair. His finger hovers over the space bar and he looks at you, the unspoken question in his eyes. You steel yourself and nod. 

Then the beat fills the studio again. It’s the first time you have heard this aloud yourself, so far, you’d only ever listened to it on your headphones. You’re almost scared to look over to see his expression, terrified of his opinion. This is like a tiny piece of your soul, and you just handed it to him, hoping he would not drop it. Of course, he doesn’t. When you finally do, he stands there, eyes wide, looking over at you. His intense stare makes you squirm. 

“It’s nothing special, and it’s not done yet, you know how it is with these things, they take ages to be finished and this is just very rough, I-“ 

“This is amazing”, he interrupts you. Now it’s your turn to be absolutely dumbfounded. “What?”, you blurt out.

He turns the music down a tad, then he turns back to you. 

“I really like it. And it’s different from the stuff you make for other artists.” 

Somehow, you’re still anxious. 

“What I mean by that is that I always hear pieces of you in other people’s music and I’ve always been a bit sad that you don’t get to make stuff that’s entirely your own. This – “, he gestures over to the screen, “is really you. All of this. Like, I can hear some of your inspiration in this, but the entire thing just screams you.”

Which is the exact moment your singing starts, and you want to vanish into the ground. Because his mouth falls open, and he turns the music up again. Moments go by of him just standing there, completely taken by the music. His expression has softened and there is a slight smile dancing around his features. You lean over to turn the music off again, there’s only so much time that you can take listening to your own voice right now. 

When Chan turns back to look at you, head slightly angled down, you’ve never seen a warmer smile from him than right now. It overwhelms you, the sheer affection for this wonderful man in front of you, and you shoot to your feet and throw your arms around him. He is startled for just a second, before he hugs you back so tightly that you feel like he put something inside you back together. It makes you cry again.

“Shh. It’s okay, darling. It’s okay.” He rubs circles along your back, and you breathe in slowly, engulfed by his scent that is so distinctly him. 

“Thank you”, you mumble into his shoulder, and he chuckles, before pulling away. “What did you say?” 

You huff, and lightly punch his arm. “I said thank you.” 

“No, thank you for trusting me enough to show this to me.” 

You try to hide in the crook of his neck, but he keeps you half an arm’s length from him. Somehow, you end up staring right into his eyes. The honesty and affection you find there send goosebumps up your arms, up until where his hands are still wrapped around them. Suddenly you realise how terribly close you are to each other, and how he’s just a friend and this shouldn’t make you as tingly as it does. You shake off his hands and clear your throat. He just sees you as a friend. Right?

Because the way his eyes burn with something you’ve never noticed before makes you question your own sanity. You try and look anywhere but into them. 

“Hey, we should probably unlock the door again, you know, unless people start to wonder.”

He blinks. “Yeah.”

None of you moves. 

“But it’s also 3 a.m. and we’re the only people in the building.” 

There’s nervous laughter bubbling in your throat and you rub your arm only to keep your hands occupied. Then you make the mistake of looking at him again. It’s involuntary, really, your eyes get caught on his black sweatpants and travel up his body almost automatically. There’s not much you can do about it. And when your eyes hit his, you’re done for. He looks at you with such intensity that you simply cannot turn away. A shaky breath leaves your lungs when he blinks slowly, only to look at you again, the same fire in his eyes, pupils blown wide. 

You open your mouth, “Chan, I – “ 

He moves closer, as if you saying his name had shaken him out of a stupor. He reaches for the hand that you wrapped around your arm and gently pries it away. When it falls to your side, he intertwines his fingers with yours. 

“What are you doing?”, you whisper, unable to speak any louder, scared that it would make this real. Make this have consequences. 

Chan’s thumb is drawing patterns on your hand, and it covers you in goosebumps again. 

“I kinda really wanna kiss you.” 

Your breath hitches in your throat, eyes still locked onto his. They’re burning into you, but you can’t bring yourself to look away. He lifts his other hand up to your face and lightly touches your cheekbone. You have to actively keep your eyes from fluttering shut, body still covered in goosebumps. Your cheeks heat up under his gaze. 

“Would that be okay?”

You breathe out a shaky “yes”, and he’s on you in seconds. He lets go of your hand and instead grabs both sides of your face, tilting it so that you’re looking up at him, before sealing your lips with his. 

Everything is happening too fast. For a second, your arms hang limply at your sides, but then he starts moving against you and you can’t help but grasp the hem of his shirt and pull him closer. He hums against you, and you open your mouth almost on instinct. A tiny noise escapes you and he catches it, drinking it in hungrily. You push and he walks backwards until the back of his knees hit your chair. He clumsily sits down, and you move until you’re straddling him.

Only then do you break the kiss, both heavily panting as you stare at each other. You lift your hand from his shirt and start tracing his lips, his cheekbone, until your palm lies flat against his cheek. He nuzzles into it and closes his eyes, hands falling to your waist. God, you think, he’s so pretty. You watch his chest rise and fall rapidly and feel his thighs move under yours, and that’s when you realise what exactly is happening right now.

“Channie”, you whisper, and his eyes fly open, fingers playing with the hem of your t-shirt.

“Hm?”

“What are we doing?” 

His fingers start pulling your shirt up just enough to be touching the delicate skin of your waist and you shiver, biting your lip to stop a sound that would have been decidedly too desperate. 

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m doing something I’ve been wanting to do for way too long.”

Your hand slips to his neck and his eyelids flutter, but there is a concerned look in his eyes. He sees your hesitation. 

“Should we be doing this? Are you even allowed to?”, you ask.

His fingers stop and he lifts his hands to your face, searching for something in your eyes. “I could not care less about what we should or shouldn’t do. The only thing I care about right now, is if you want this. But if you don’t, then that’s okay.”

You melt at the honesty in his expression, shiver at the way his fingertips are toying with the hair on the nape of your neck. 

“What exactly does this mean?”, you whisper. It feels impossible to move right now. Like you’re being held in place by his intense eyes. 

“Well.” His thumb brushes over your cheekbone and you sigh. 

“First of all, I want to kiss those pretty lips of yours. And then”, his fingers travel from your neck down your arms, “I’d like to make you come so hard the only thing you remember is my name.”

A moan tumbles from your lips, and almost on instinct you roll your hips against his crotch. He hisses and grabs your waist. “But I need to know you want that, too.”

You nod, a bit too quick for your liking, but you don’t find it in yourself to care anymore. His hands gently rock you against him and your eyelids flutter, gaze locked onto his. “Use your words, babygirl. I need to hear you.” The condescension shakes you out of your haze.

“Don’t be so fucking patronising.” 

A smirk curls around the corners of his lips. “Still need to hear ya, though.”

You lean down as if to kiss him and sink your teeth into his lip, just enough for it to sting, pull, and let go again. He watches you with the intensity of a predator watching his prey and something inside you relishes in it. 

“Yes, I want that”, you finally give in, “I want you.”

He pounces with a low sound that comes from deep inside his throat, a growl, almost, and latches onto your lips. You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in, kisses open mouthed and messy. His hands keep holding you against him. You roll your hips, both of you moaning in unison, your hands are in his hair, and you pull on his curls until he moans into your mouth, making you smile into the kiss. 

He feels it against his lips and pulls away. “Oh, you’re a mean one, hm?” 

The smile you give him in return would be angelic, if not for the vicious glint in your eyes. It makes him chuckle lowly, before suddenly standing, pulling you up with him and picking you up. Your legs instinctively wrap around him, and he walks over to the sofa in the corner of the room, lowering you down until your back touches the cushions. 

He's kneeling between your legs, propped up with one hand next to you, the other on your cheek again. You tip your head back, baring your throat, and you can see understanding flash in his eyes. His hand slowly moves down until his fingers wrap around you and you feel the slight pressure on your pulse point. Your breath quickens.

It makes you want to rub your thighs against each other, but his legs are in the way, leaving you to squirm under him as he just watches you intently. His other hand travels up your body and pushes your shirt up with it, until he finds your sports bra. His thumb glides over your hard nipple poking through the fabric and it sends a spark of electricity right to your core.

“You wanna play mean? I can do that.” 

His fingers close further around your throat and the increasing pressure ever so slowly clouds your mind, until your mouth falls open and you whisper his name.

“Hm?” 

You try and move your core against his thighs but you’re too far away, his hand keeping you in place. 

“Do something”, you hiss as he just keeps watching you, an amused smile on his face. 

“Did you forget your manners, baby?” 

You roll your eyes but decide to play along. “Please, do something.”

“But you look so pretty like this.” 

Your hands fly up to his arms and you groan, but he just chuckles. “I told you, I can be mean. But I’m starting to get impatient too, don’t worry.”

His hand leaves your throat. All the blood comes shooting back, an intense clarity that leaves you gasping. You only notice that he has taken his shirt off when he leans back down towards you, reaching for the hem of your own t-shirt. He looks up at you, a question in his eyes, that you answer with a quick nod. Then he finally pulls your shirt up, making sure that his fingertips travel over your skin along with it, showering you in goosebumps. 

He pulls the fabric off of you and you reach for him, fingers connecting to the smooth skin of his chest. You let your hands run down his stomach when he leans down to kiss you, trailing along the waistband of his sweatpants. His breath hitches when your fingers dip into his boxers, but he reaches down to stop you.

“Nu-uh. You first.”

He sits back on his heels and pulls on your leggings, throwing the piece of clothing behind him absentmindedly. You’re in front of him only in your underwear now, nipples clearly visible through the thin fabric of your sports bra. 

“You’re fucking hot, you know that?”, he mumbles, and you feel your cheeks heat up before he grabs the hem of your panties and pulls. Cool air hits your core, and only then do you realise how embarrassingly wet you are already. He looks down at you and curses under his breath. 

“Fuck, look at you. Already soaked, and just for me?” 

You nod, “only you”, breath hitching as he lazily moves two fingers all the way up your entrance until they are pressing into your clit. You start moving against him on instinct, eyes rolling back as you finally get some relief. He lets you, for a few seconds, before pinning your hips down to the sofa. Your eyes snap open, a desperate whine leaving your lips.

“Hush, baby. I’m gonna take care of you”, he mumbles, before leaning down and licking a broad stripe along the way his fingers just did.

It makes you absolutely lose your mind. Your hips buck up and you moan loudly, hands flying into his hair, just to grab onto something, anything, to keep you grounded. The tip of his tongue dips into your entrance and your head tips back with a groan. His left hand holds you steady, before he dives in again, nose brushing past your clit with every movement. Your thighs tremble, you’re already way too close even though he barely started yet. You feel yourself clench around nothing.

“Channie, please …”, you sigh, and he looks up at you, tongue not leaving your body. 

“Hm?”

The sound reverberates against your sensitive skin, and you shudder, looking down at him. Fuck, he looks good. Lower part of his face covered in your slick, curls sticking to his forehead, he laps at you like a starved man. 

“Can you – fuck, Channie, fingers, please – “, is all you manage to choke out, but he has mercy on you. 

You feel the tip of his finger tease your entrance and you clench in anticipation, before he pushes in and you close your eyes again, a desperate moan leaving your lips. He curls his finger upwards, and you know he’s close, so, so close to where you need him, but he isn’t quite there yet. You can feel the high approaching, can almost reach for it.

“More, please”, you press out, brows furrowed, and he adds a second fingers, curls up, and hits the spot. You swear you see stars for a second. Your mouth falls open, a string of incoherent words tumbling over your lips, and you feel him smile against you. It almost sends you over the edge on its own. 

“Found it, hm?”, he mumbles, and you hum, every muscle in your body tensed. 

“Look at me”, he whispers. 

You somehow manage to lift your head, moaning at the sight before you. He dives down again, holding eye contact and your fingers pull on his hair, coaxing the sweetest moans from him. He curls his fingers up once, twice, and you snap. Your high washes over you with an intensity you’ve never felt before and he flattens his tongue against you, helping you ride out your orgasm with long strokes. Once you finally stop clenching around his fingers, he slowly removes them, making sure not to hurt you. You still wince at the sudden emptiness. Finally, you untangle your fingers from his hair.

He climbs up until he is face to face with you and you blink until he’s in focus again. He smirks at your blissful expression. “D’you have fun?”

You decide to tease him. “Eh.” You shrug. “Was fine, I guess.” 

“Fine?” He stares at you in disbelief. “Clenched around me like you were holding on for dear life, but you say it was fine?” You chuckle, but the determination in his face sends shivers down your spine. 

“Okay. You know what, I’ve had enough of your attitude.” 

He sits up on his heels, before getting up and taking off his sweatpants, pulling his boxers off right with them. He reaches down for his pocket and pulls out a condom, ripping it open with his teeth, and rolling it over his cock, before he kneels back down, slowly pumping himself. 

“Let’s see what you say after I’m done with you.”

His lips crash into yours and at the same time, you feel his fingers on your clit. You hiss at the slight overstimulation, but pull him closer by the neck, moaning into his mouth. You can still taste yourself on his tongue and it makes your stomach flutter. Then you feel his tip push against your entrance. He pulls away to check in with you, but you pull him back in. 

“Please, Chan, need you”, you pant against his lips, and he groans, before pushing into you. 

It's an entirely different sensation from his fingers and both of you moan at the same time, before he bottoms out and stills, fighting for his composure. He begins moving ever so slowly and you appreciate that he wants to be careful, but something inside you wants him to lose control. You lean up and drag your teeth across the shell of his ear, drag your fingernails across his back. He shivers, his arms buckling and his forehead falling onto your shoulder. His pace picks up and you kiss him on his pulse point, before whispering into his ear, “fuck me like you mean it.” 

He stills. You let yourself fall back down grab one of his hands, leading him towards your throat. “Please.” 

A smirk curls up the corners of his mouth. “I knew you could use your words.”

He pulls out almost completely before he bottoms out again and closes his fingers around your throat. Everything around him becomes hazy, he’s the only thing in your mind, the only thing you see. His hips snap against yours at a relentless pace and you feel the knot in your stomach tighten, instinctively lifting one of your legs. He grabs it and pushes it up against your chest, changing the angle, and finally hits that spot again. Your eyes roll back, moans tumbling from your open mouth as he keeps slamming into you, before slightly adjusting his position. His hand leaves your throat, and your mind refocuses, his thumb pressing against your lips which you open oh so willingly, sucking his thumb into your mouth.

“Fuckin hell”, he groans, rhythm turning sloppy as he watches your lips wrap around his finger. “Such a good fucking girl, hm?”

He pulls his thumb out with a pop and you whine, but he hushes you. “Impatient”, he tsks, before rolling the pad of his thumb over your clit. Fuck, you’re still so goddamn sensitive. His hips snap against yours again and then he hits the spot inside you. 

“’M close”, you moan, and he nods. 

“Come on, let go for me, baby”, he answers, breathless, and it pushes you over the edge. When you thought your first orgasm was intense, it was nothing against this one. You feel so fucking full of him, he feels so right against you, and then his finger leaves your clit, and he falls towards you, hands on each side of your body, riding out his own high. His arms are shaking from the strain, and you push up to press your lips against his. He moves inside you and you shiver before he gives you one last peck and carefully pulls out. 

You fall back against the cushion. He removes the condom, before crawling back up and snuggling against you, propped up on his elbows on each side of your face. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that?”

It makes you blush, and you turn your head to the side, suddenly confronted with what just happened. With whom it just happened. He sees the change in your expression immediately. 

“Hey, look at me.”

You obey him and see the softest smile on his face, before he leans down and gently presses a kiss to your lips. 

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, hm?”

His fingers are playing with your hair, eyes intently fixed on you. You sigh. 

“I – don’t know what this means. To you.”

He raises one of his eyebrows, “but you know what it means to you?”

Your heart lurches in your chest and resumes beating at a much quicker pace because yes, you do, and you hate having to admit it. You don’t know if you should admit it. 

He kisses you again, longer this time. When your lips separate, there’s this softness in his eyes again. “Tell me what it means to you. Please.”

This is the truly dangerous part. Anyone can have meaningless sex, but it wasn’t meaningless, at least not to you. This is where the consequences come in. This is where you have to admit that you just ruined a perfectly fine friendship. You take a deep breath. You trust him. If anyone would be able to uphold a friendship after this, it would be Chan. So you steel yourself, and look into his eyes again.

“I like you a bit more than I originally planned to”, you whisper, not daring to speak up. 

You’re close enough that you can feel his heartbeat. It quickens after he processed what you said, but where you expect him to tense up and leave, he leans down to kiss you again. You’re completely dumbfounded. 

He holds your face and you close your eyes, simply enjoying the gentle pressure of his lips against yours. When he breaks the kiss, you steel yourself again. Your breath hitches when you open your eyes, his own swimming with emotion. 

“I’m so glad you said that”, he whispers, thumb brushing against your cheek. “Because I do, too. And I was so scared this would be a one-time thing for you. I don’t think I could have lived with that.” 

There are tears pricking in the corner of your eyes for the third time tonight, only this time you allow them. He leans his forehead against yours and you wrap your arms around his neck and then you stay like this, just breathing each other in. And you feel like your sleepless nights might have just become a bit easier to bear.

[titleknown]

So, in news of my ongoing quest to do stuff in the physical realm, I kitbashed a figurine of Chicken Leg, a monster from Altered Beast and Golden Axe!

Tho I'm a bit dissatisfied with the paintjob (One side looks way better than the other, I kept smudging it in my impatience, I way over-airbrushed the copper color) I do think the "sculpt" came out well, aside from being kinda off-model due to me forgetting about the tuft on its head until it was too late.

Whoops.

Tho it was pretty easy, I just put together a skull from a skeleton parrot at the 99 Cents Only Store and attached it to the lower body of a dinosaur toy from the Dollar General, blending them using some epoxy putty and a texture roller to make it look properly reptilian.

And also the tail tuft was just a bit of epoxy putty sculpted in that form. Followed by some epoxy paste after I accidentally broke it off in the middle of painting. Whoops.

Either way, I hope y'all dig it!

[wizkiddx]

your voice

angsty vibe, requested by @hollandlover19 than you for th rq and hop this doesn't disappoint too much :)))

summary: tom says something so stupid and has to deal with the consquences

warnings: a bit angsty, but ends in fluff! argumnts and raising voices, I guess could be associated with panic attacks tho not written with that intention

//////////////////////////////////

“Oh, Y/n er sorry.” Harrisons morning dulcet tones were what you were awoken to with a groan.

Everything was achy, and your head was pounding, making you grumble in discontent as you shifted uncomfortably on the technically too-small-to-sleep-on sofa.

This was not the morning you’d foreseen even 12 hours ago.

Lockdown had been difficult for everyone, even removing the tragic health crisis. Being locked in with your boyfriend and his brothers and friends was, for the most part, amazing. Lots of laughs, lots of beers and lots of quality time that you usually didn’t get. But it was also intense.

Without a doubt, since you first got together, this was the longest time you’d ever had with Tom. And it had been brilliant, your relationship getting so much closer and just learning the subtlest intricacies about the other. In fact, when lockdown had been announced, you’d never lived together (the most a week-long holiday).

Though it was also like a pressure cooker, Toms rented house. When one of you were in an understandable but stubborn lousy mood, it affected the whole house.

Yesterday night had been the perfect storm. The weather was unbelievably scorching; your work had announced that they had to let some staff go because of the financial implications of the pandemic; a ‘mole’ had released personal details of your relationship.

And it was like a pot on the stove; everything went from controllable to violently boiling over in a matter of minutes.

Honestly, you didn’t even know why you had started arguing - it was that pathetic. And yet you’d both said pretty horrible stuff - though it was Tom who had crossed the line. Frankly, the way he’d spoken to you was almost unforgivable.

You’d both known instantly too, all his anger at you had immediately evaporated when he’d realised what he had said. It took no time for him to become a grovelling apologetic mess, however even that- it was already too late.

It might sound feeble, but honestly, you’d run and locked yourself in the downstairs loo. You’d cried on the inside- whilst from the other side of the door, he had been begging and pleading with you.

After an hour though, Tom finally gave up - hence why you’d had a pretty uncomfortable night on the sofa.

This brings it back to Harrison, the early riser of the house, barrelling into the living room after his morning run. All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, except also slightly terrified looking as he stood awkwardly in the doorway.

“I’m up now” You sighed, dragging yourself into a sitting position on the sofa whilst massaging your crooked neck.

“You er…. you fell asleep watching the TV?” Rolling your eyes, you sighed at the blonde, even if his poor acting was a little entertaining.

“Are we both pretending that you don’t know what went down last night?” Of course, Harrison knew. The walls were thin, you’d been screaming and he was Tom’s best friend. No doubt, Tom had immediately gone to him for help and advice last night.

Harrison held his hands up in response, caught in the act, and clicked his tongue. “What he said was bad. You shouldn’t be the one ending up with the sore back.” He wasn’t wrong.

“And yet here I am…” With a sigh you smiled which he returned with a sickeningly empathetic one “Anyway, don’t let my sad self get in the way, did you come in here for anything?”

Now, because Harrison was mentally a five year old, that’s how you ended up sat crossed-legged on the floor, clutching a wii remote and angrily shouting at yoshi on the mariokart screen. The whole household was competitive as hell and you were no exception - so some rouge elbows were flying when he viciously knocked you off the track.

Slowly Harry and Tuwaine filtered in and picked up remotes too, so the quiet morning was very quickly switched into a tense atmosphere of yelps and shouts. None more so than Tuwaine, who was possibly the worst looser you had ever met.

Really, you knew all the boys were only doing this as there way of showing you they were with you. That they also thought Tom was a massive raging dickhead. And you appreciated it more than they would ever know. Locked down in Toms house, very much not mutual ground, having three stupid boys behind you meant everything.

Just as you got on to the 18th and final race of the house’s mario grand prix, another voice cut across the tense silence as you waited for the coutdown to turn into ‘go’. Naturally, you flipped round to see Tom, looking as though he literally just rolled out of bed with puffy eyes and messy hair and no top. The sight made your heart flutter, to the point you had to consciously check yourself - refusing to smile softly at him like you usually would, instead narrowing your eyebrows and looking back at the TV.

Tom had so desperately hoped that when he came down this morning, everything would be better. That all it’d take would be a quiet conversation for the two of you to make up - for him to have you in his arms again. Primarily as he had heard your excited laugh echoing through the halls in reactions to Tuwaines yelps of protests - it made him hopeful. Waking up to a cold and empty bed was almost soul-crushing this morning. He did not want it to ever happen again.

Which is why his heart sank so much when all you gave him was a scolding look, before turning your attention to the TV. Admittedly, he was naive to think that what he’d done last night would be an easy fix - he knew it too. So with dropping shoulders, Tom silently took a seat on the sofa, watching from afar. You spent the rest of the race more absent, not joining in with the Harrison or Harrys trash-talking, acutely aware of Tom’s eyes burning the back of your head.

Then came Harry’s celebrations as the overall winner (only just) and when Harrison suggested another game Tom piped up again.

“Give me a turn Harry.”

The three boys kneeling next to you all stiffened, looking immediately to you for what seemed like consent - as if they were engaging with the enemy. (At least it was good to know everyone was on your side).

“I’m gonna go prepare for my meeting anyway.” You spoke quietly, already placing the remote on the floor and standing up.

“Y/n I don’t mind swappin-“

“No. Thanks, H but no.” You weren’t being selfless and giving Tom a turn. You were running away from seeing him.

And Harrison was still really angry at Tom. He’d been so selfish and insensitive and had hurt you- someone who Haz also cared a lot about too. Yes Tom was his bestmate, that he’d grown up with and known for years - but Haz really liked you too, in fact all the boys did. So they were almost as pissed with Tom as you were.

So while you threw the cushion you were sat on back on the floor, Harrison shot Tom the filthiest look and practically shooed him away.

“come on Y/n … just one more? Then you can do your boring work.” You were about to refuse when Haz tilted his head toward the door, only then noticing that Tom had slipped out the room. Now that he was gone ,yes, just one more wouldn’t hurt. The meeting prep wasn’t time pressured; it was an excuse for an escape.

Tuwaine whooped a little when you nodded, planting back down and ready for the first race. Yet apart from that, the room was still a little awkward, you being the first to break the silence.

“Actually Haz, would you mind giving me a lift today?”

“What to the shops?

“Um no not quite.” Tuwaine laughed in his usual innocent and infectious style before asking more.

“Seriously? You know we’re locked down? Boris won’t be happy if you going mad and leaving the house.”

“Just to Y/f/n’s. She lives on her own so it’s legal.”

“She lives just down the road right? Can’t you walk?” Harry was confused, making him look away from the screen, ultimately leading to his ‘diddykong’ falling off the track.

“I’ll have my bags. I um… I think I’m going to stay with her till lockdown eases more.”

As soon as you said that, Harry pressed pause on the race, all three boys looking at you mouth-opened.

“For real?”

“Yeh I um… think me and Tom need some time apart and being locked in isn’t helping.”

“I’m not saying to forgive and forget what he said… but he is really sorry.”

“The twats literally kicking himself.” Tuwaine added, making you smile a little for calling Tom that.

“I know just… I need some space and-“

“Are you breaking up?” Harry almost announced, cutting you off. He would miss you too.

“No! Nono I … well I don’t know. I just- we both need this.”

The boys all nodded, looking at the floor for a moment before Harrison’s blue eyes were back on you.

“Course I’ll drive, but… but I’ll miss you.”

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

You’d left merely an hour later, whilst Tom was holed up in the garden doing what looked like an almost unbearable work out. It meant he was also out your hair and you could throw all your stuff into two suitcases without him being any the wiser. It was probably pretty cowardly to leave without speaking to him, but you couldn’t. It would hurt too much and you didn’t want to break down in front of him. No doubt as soon as you had got to Y/f/n you did - into a blubbering mess of tears - but Tom hadn’t seen so it was okay.

Speaking of. Tom.

Tom was not in a good way at all. He’d been trying really hard to curb his’ short fuse’ lately- all of which had been well and truly blown in the past 4 hours. After finally being realised from meetings, which he’d not been able to concentrate on anyway, Tom had mentally prepared himself for a lot of grovelling. Once he’d vaguely hunted the house and not found you there, he naturally asked Harry and Tuwaine (both of whom were in the living room) if they’d seen you around.

It was a typical question, the answer he was expecting was that you’d just gone on your daily walk. And yet the response he got was… well a lot more confusing. Harry’s eyes widened whilst T did his awkward-uncomfortable chuckle, the two locked in an intense bout of eye contact. It was as though they were arguing with each, but through the powers of telekinesis... and it put Tom on edge. He was already stressed because you were so angry with him, so not getting a clear answer out of his brother and best mate - lets just say it tested his patience.

“You two need to tell me what the hell is going on right now.”

The two boys both looked panicked to speak to him, which was the opposite of the usual situation. They were some of the ONLY people in his life that would just say it how it is, no sugar coating. Like if he was away and being ‘famous’ was getting to his head; or if he wore the wrong pair of jeans. Even yesterday evenings events, they’d both called him out on what he’d said to you.

So why the silence?

Eventually, it was Harry who spoke up, but in doing so, practically just waved all responsibility on to another innocent party.

“Ask Haz.”

And then Tom knew. He knew this was bad. Immediately his heart was pumping at an alarmingly fast rate, taking the stairs two at a time and not bothering to knock before bursting the door open.

“Where’s Y/n?”

Harrison was reclined back on his haphazardly made bed, laptop balanced on his lap as he looked up with a sigh. He’d known this conversation was coming, but it didn’t make it any less easy. With a sigh, Haz closed the lid of his MacBook and sat up on the bed.

“Tom just-“

“Where. Is. She.”

“She’s gone to Y/f/n’s.”

“Oh… okay.” Suddenly Tom’s voice was muted, thinking he might’ve blown his top at nothing. This wasn’t weird - Y/f/n was in your support bubble and you went to hers often.

Tom was grossly underestimating the situation - and Harrison heard didn’t fancy stringing him along though.

“No like gone. She um… she took all her stuff. I think she’s going to stay there till-“

Tom was already out his room at that point, slamming the door as he did so. Making a beeline for his own room, Tom then frantically started to pull out the draws and rummage around the shelves, confirming what he already knew. Your clothes were gone, your toothbrush and toiletries were gone, you were gone.

It’s important to note Tom didn’t really cry all that much. Or if he did - it was more inconsequential, at a sad movie or one of the rescue dog stories from battersea. Actually, when it came down to it, he didn’t really cry.

Now though, it was impossible to ignore the burning of his eyes, as he sank down onto the bed that now felt twice the size. With ragged breath, he repeatedly fisted his eyes, not actually letting the tears fall - but it was impossible to not acknowledge their presence. Harrison stood wordlessly at the door frame, knowing it best not to interrupt - whilst at the same time knowing Tom shouldn’t be left alone. There was a delicate balance between the two, which he was walking on a knife-edge on right now.

After a short while, Tom looked up with red eyes and nodded at Harrison, effectively granting him entrance. With a sigh once again, Haz moved and sat next to Tom on the bed, clasping his hands together nervously.

“She said you both just needed a break from each other. Think lockdown and everything was just a bit too intense.” Haz had tried to explain, yet it seemed Tom had only managed to lock onto one of the first words.

“A break? Or breaking up?”

“I uhm… she didn’t explicitly say ending things. But I just… I don’t know to be honest mate.”

“You see the way she looked at me this morning? Like she hated me. Wouldn’t even acknowledge that I was there.”

“I don’t know what to say… she needs time and space I think.” Tom was silent for a beat, shaking his head as he cradled his forehead.

“I hate the fact you and my girlfriend are on better terms than I am.” Anddd his voice was back to scathing.

“I’m not on anyones side. But your both my friends and she… she needed some time.”

With that, Harrison made a quick exit out, getting Harry to take over the Tom supervision.

Ever since the atmosphere in the house had been tense. To say Tom was highly strung was an understatement, particularly towards Harrison. Deep down he was thankful Haz was looking out for Y/n: he was glad that Haz was checking she was okay. It’s not like Tom could, because Y/n was refusing to answer his calls, texts, whatsapps, even the slip of paper he’d slipped under Y/f/n’s door in the middle of an especially dark night.

So it was good to know Y/n was okay, but the fact she was going on socially distanced walks with the rest of his housemates was rubbing salt in the wound.

After a week and a half of complete radio silence on your end Tom had utterly worn down. He didn’t have the emotional capacity to be angry anymore, he was just tired. Tired of missing you with every breath, tired of the ten-tonne weight of guilt pressing on his chest, fucking exhausted with being angry at Haz and Harry and Tuwaine.

The best thing in his life and one of the very limited opportunities was quality time with the people he loved more than anything else. He had ruined it all.

And it was the small things. It was waking up to your soft, whispered voice in the morning; it was your infectious giggle when he surprised you with a hug from behind and gentle kisses to your neck; it was your quiet singing in the shower. Especially when he knew Haz, Harry and Tuwaine were all still seeing you and laughing with you. It hurt like hell.

Which is how he ended up hesitantly knocking on Harrison’s bedroom door at half eleven at night, with his tail between his legs. Having been so uber-healthy all lockdown, Haz was already in bed following his sleep cycle, though for Tom right now- he would be awake.

“I’m um… I’m sorry I’ve been a knob. There’s no excuse of anything I’ve just… I’ve been a knob.”

“You’re not wrong.” Harrison nodded in agreement with a sly smile, motioning for Tom to come into the room, after which he perched on the edge of the bed.

“I just… I need to speak to her but I… I don’t want to push her if she’s still hurting and I…”

“You absolutely promise not to blow your fuse? Because she couldn’t handle that.” Tom’s eyes widened, thinking this would be a much harder pitch than how it seemed to be going.

“Yesyesyes i- I promise. I just, I feel broken you know? Even if all I get is the time to say sorry, I-I really need to.”

Harrison released a deep breath, nodding slowly before throwing the covers off himself. Tom watched all his movements with a curious gaze, silently sitting as Haz pulled on a hoodie, then socks too.

“Well? Let’s go.”

//////////////////

Now, what Tom had not in the slightest bit been prepared for was this to happen tonight. Really, he hadn’t even thought Harrison would agree to let him talk to you… and even if he had, Tom not in hell thought it’d be at 11:30 that evening.

His heart was thundering in his chest, trying to hurriedly script how on earth he was going to apologise meaningfully to you - as him and Haz walked the short distance to your friends house. Honestly the whole situation was peculiar to Tom - finding it hard to believe that if you weren’t to answer his texts you wouldn’t be open to an in person conversation.

What Tom didn’t know, was how you’d been texting Haz at a similar point of desperation. You weren’t happy and even given everything Tom had said and acted - you missed your boy. No matter how infuriating he could be when trapped 24/7 - you’d quickly learnt this was the only way you wanted to spend these weird times.

So yes, Tom’s best friend knew you were hardly sleeping either, but needed that little push to interact with you boyfriend. No doubt, you’d still be awake to answer the door.

Once he’d arrived at the apartment block and walked up the stairs to the right floor, it still took some prodding and pushing from Harrison to get Tom to knock on the door. Plainly, because he was shitting himself. Haz hadn’t given him enough pre warning, enough time to work it all out in his head. So it took another encouraging nod from Harrison for him to knock on the slightly rough-round-the-edges flat door.

Y/f/n was single and young, starting her career in Kingston - so the flat she could afford was modest at best. When it was just occupied by a single person, that was manageable - two was a push. You’d only been living with her for a week and a few days but it was enough to know this flat was not ideal for two people in lockdown. You were already stepping on each others toes. It also wasn’t technically legal to move households but Y/f/n had always been in your support bubble as a single household otherwise. And so there was also a layer of guilt to it all.

Naturally then, sharing a bed with someone who wasn’t Tom meant you just were not sleeping. Even if you had both gone to bed early (just to kill some hours in the day) you were still wide awake at quarter to twelve - when a timid knock echoed through the minuscule apartment. Curiosity peaked at who the hell would be calling now; you silently slipped out of bed, managing to not disturb Y/f/n, and closed the bedroom door.

Now you weren’t an idiot. Even though this was southwest london, hardly the capital for crime, Y/f/n lived in a dodgy building with some questionable characters. And it was midnight. Hence why you approached the situation cautiously, tiptoeing to the door and waiting with your ear pressed against the wood.

“I told you she wouldn’t answer!”

“She will! Might just be in the loo or something.”

“Haz this is stupid-“

The air in your chest froze when you immediately recognised the smooth tone of his voice. It was him… and you’d missed that so much. Already there were tears in your eyes and you couldn’t open the door just yet. So no, instead you slid down the doorframe before calling quietly out into the night.

“Tom?”

The bickering on the otherside of the door was silenced, but you heard a quite tap on the door... and could envision exactly what was going on. Tom, pressing both palms and his ear to the door, as Harrison took a few steps back - sensing his work was done.

“Y/n? You there?” He sounded desperate, you could hear the emotion dripping off his voice. It was only when you tried to reply did you realise your own voice was having a harder time speaking.

“Yeh its-its me.” It felt as though this heavyweight that had been pressing down on your chest was slowly lifting, making your voice all cracky and low.

In response, there was a short and sharp exhale. It sounded relieved before some fidgeting as you imagined him crouching down beside the door - mirroring your image.

“Fuck, it… it feels so good to hear your voice.”

“Yours too… I’ve-i’ve missed you.”

Tom snorted at that, a gentle bang allowing you to realise he’d just whacked his head on the back of the wood.

“You have no idea how this week felt.” He was wrong though, you did.

Yes, maybe without the insurmountable guilt that Tom was rightfully feeling, but it didn’t mean that the time apart wasn’t easy.

“I do. This hasn’t been a nice holiday for me you know?”

He sighed, knowing that yet again he’d said the wrong thing. This time though, he didn’t rebut instantly (which surprised you), instead his response was more measured and calculated.

“I am so sorry. And of course, I know because I was the one that hurt you too. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that.” You nodded but given this conversation was happening through a door Tom didn’t see your gentle agreement - opting to fill the silence.

“I um… I’m not good at this whole um… speaking my feelings. But I’ve hated myself ever since I picked that fight with you. It was stupid and uh it-it was all my fault. I’m so so sorry for hurting you.”

“‘Why?” You tried to ask, except the words were stuck in your throat, making you have to clear it before asking again. “Why did you say it?”

“To get a rise out of you. It’s stupid and petty and fucking-fucking dumb. I said it not because I’ve ever thought it, I never ever have, but I knew it’d hurt you. I was preying on your insecurities because I was angry at the world and that was so unfair. “

“No shit.”

Silence reigned as you fiddled with your fingers - specifically with the promise ring he’d bought you a year ago.

“You-you think you could ever forgive me?”

“Thats the annoying part. I want to hate you because you literally stabbed me then twisted the knife but… but all I’ve done this week is miss you. Even when I saw Haz or Harry or Tuwaine. I just fucking missed you.”

“Can you open the door please love?”

Clumsily you scrubbed the tear tracks off your face, scrabbling to your feet so you could thrust open the doors. Because you might still be bloody pissed at him, but at the same time - you needed your Tom. Thrusting the door open, the first thing you registered was being pressed into Tom’s chest. His arms slinked around your waist and held him tight, which you reciprocated, squeezing tightly round his neck. Your senses were all being assaulted by one thing and one thing only. Tom.

He smelt like usual, except maybe the slightest bit stronger than usual - you figured he hadn’t showered in a day or two or bothered with cologne. The top of your forehead was pressed up against his chin, and as he readjusted his grip on you, you felt the scratchy feeling of his unshaven stubble. He kept whispering apologies against the top of your head, almost desperate and religiously.

Arching back, you brought both hands to cup his cheeks, looking into his glassy brown. eyes, which looked so lost and confused.

“I’m still angry.”

“Of course-“

“I’m still angry but I’m going to kiss you okay?”

Safe to say Tom didn’t require a verbal response, taking it upon himself to nudge his lips against yours, yet waiting for you to initiate the kiss. And that you did, everything else about this godforsaken week and a half. His index finger traced the angle of your jaw, whilst he held your lower back tight, pressing himself as close as physically possible to you. Needing you.

Eventually arching back, your thumb ran over his deep and sunken under-eyes, which added so much age to his face.

“You look tired Tommy.”

“Can’t sleep without you telling me goodnight.” That was another tradition you had had. Even when he was away, you’d even set an alarm for whatever bedtime was for the other across the world. Just so you could send a little message or voice not saying goodnight. Was it cringey? Yes. Did either of you care? No.

But since you’d been away all the evening wishes were absent from you. Which hurt Tom more than you may ever know.

“I know you’re still angry but will you please come home to me? I need you to be the last thing I hear at night and the first thing in the morning.”

would love to hear any feedback <333 (but think this is a bit of a shitter so im sorry!!!)

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