#and i was going to let her have a short fling since she IS bi

[cyazurai]

Gem still wants to do something different to prevent her midlife crisis, so I sent her to Sulani for a little "me" time.

While there, she met a sim that I made for a Berry Pastel Rainbowcy but forgot her name right at the moment.. anyway, the instant they saw each other they felt a spark. Gem thought briefly about starting up a little fling on the side, but the moment that thought crossed her mind, she remembered Dom at home.. and knew she couldn't do it.

[ihearyou-jikook]

Hi lovely! I'm an avid Jikook supporter and I will always be.

However, there's two things i always go back to. I really wanted your opinion on them!

Mijoo. The hugging picture and the drinks. Her managers/staff debunked the drinking photo, saying that Jungkook was doing something and then met up with her and other people, so it wasn't just them at the table.

The hug, though. Idk, it seemed intimate to me? Her managers, herself and Bighit denied the rumors, but what do you think of the whole thing? Do you think Jikook had bern broken up at the time and they had a brief fling?

2. The girl outside the meat restaurant. Theres that video of Jungkook in black clothes, he signs something and then leaves, and supposedly a girl is waiting outside. I saw the whole video and it seems like he's going to walk past her, but the vídeo ends before that. Here it is: https://youtube.com/shorts/D6khz38appQ?feature=share

Could just be a girl standing outside. But people still talk about it.

So, what do you think?

Anon Ask #2

Hi! I wanted your opinion on something i've been thinking about, with taennie coming out and stuff. Do you remember when Jungkook was seen leaving a meat restaurant and, supposedly, there was a girl with him? You can see her standing outside. What do you think of that?

In my opinion, it was more likely to be a staff, since they're always accompanied by managers/staff wherever they go. I don't think Jungkook would be that bold like Taehyung. I also believe in Jikook, but I remembered it and started thinking about it.

Does anyone know who that girl was? Besides the fake Yubi rumors?

Hello Anons!

Before we get into this, there are 2 things I wanna touch on.

First, I am not the best person to come to about "off-cam" rumor moments. I typically see it, make an opinion on my own about it and move on. I don't keep receipts and I don't have sources. So I apologize if that's what you guys were hoping for. My response to your questions won't be very long or thorough.

Second, both of these Asks were worded nicely and I appreciate that. My Jikook spidey senses tho, well, it's telling me that the next wave of trolls might be coming thru with this kind of stuff to try to drag JK in light of Taennie.

So after this post, I won't be entertaining this topic any further than this.

Alright, coffee & Anon asks, let's get it ☕☕☕

The Mijoo situation was denied first and foremost. && The whole thing seemed sus on her part. No, I don't think Jikook was broken up, nor do I think they had a fling. Why? Because if you've been watching and listening to JM & JK you see that both are romantic AF and respect each other very much. Even if they were going through a rough patch or were on a break I highly doubt they sought out other people.

Newsflash for anyone unaware: It is possible to mutually decide to take a break in a relationship to figure your shit out without being intimate or seeking validation through other partners. I have personally done this and here I am married to that person.

No, I don't think the hug was all that intimate. She had a bf. So that tells me right there, JK ain't hugging this woman, who has a bf, with any interest in her because he's respectful. And her bf would have probably felt threatened if anything intimate was going on there because JK ain't the only man who has possessive tendencies in Korea.

Everyone loves to pair JK with women which I really can't understand why. I personally don't even think he is bi. Pan maybe.

Also if I'm remembering correctly she did tattoos for him? Which he had covered up right?

For the restaurant clip where JK walked out and there was a chick standing on the street 🙄🙄🙄 IMO, looked like he was gonna walk past. The clip is so short, there really isn't much you can tell from it. I have no idea if she was identified. It could have been anyone.

This moment is a drop in the sea of JK voicing who he has loved for years on end.

K, that's all I got for ya! Baiii.

Lip biting Jai-kay inc...

[angelasscribbles]

First Impressions: Max. A Bad Romance One Shot

Series: Bad Romance

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings for series: Riley x Liam, Liam x Max, Riley x Max, Riley x Drake, Riley x Rashad

Paring this chapter: Max x Riley x Liam

Rating: NSFW 🍋🍋🍋

Warnings for this chapter: Lemon Scented

Word Count: 1,599

A/N: Several weeks ago, I published a one shot from Riley’s POV which included a flash back scene to the night they first met. @karahalloway requested that night from Max’s POV, so here it is.

The original one shot is called Beginnings and can be found here.

My other stuff: Master List.

To say I had been excited about the trip to New York would have been a colossal understatement. I’d had a crush on Liam forever. I knew he was about to start a social season to pick a wife. I knew there was no real future for us. Hell, we’d never shared so much as a kiss. A few lingering glances, yes. An almost moment once. And I’d caught him checking me out a time or two over the years. I’d always felt like there was some interest there, but I hadn’t wanted to do anything to mess up our friendship. However, time was running out, he was going to get married soon and then he would definitely be off limits. I was open to a one-time fling. If it was ever going to happen, this trip seemed like the moment.

There were a lot of things I thought might happen in New York, from finally fulfilling my Liam fantasy to being firmly but politely rejected, because let’s face it, Liam is nothing if not polite. I wasn’t sure how it would affect our friendship though, if I made an overture and he wasn’t interested, and that uncertainty kept me from probing our boundaries too much.

But what I never expected, what I never saw coming, what none of us saw coming, was her.

I knew my last chance at a night with Liam was shot all to hell the second he saw her. I watched it evaporate as his eyes locked on hers, filling up with something akin to wonder. I’d never seen him like that before. It was like he’d only been going through the motions before and suddenly he came to life. I just thought he’d been heart-stoppingly handsome before. His face, when he was looking at her, was transformed into a vision of pulchritude. He lit up from the inside.

It was his attention to her that first focused mine there.

My eyes slid from Liam’s face to hers. She was beautiful, but so were a lot of women. I glanced at Drake and saw the same love-struck expression on his face. That brought me up short. Liam, I could understand. Liam was a romantic at heart. He believed in hearts and flowers, love at first sight, all that. But Drake? Not so much. Drake Walker was purely a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy, a one night stand magnet, a commitment-phobe of the highest order. Drake Walker did not look at women like that. But there he was, watching her every move like he needed her to breathe.

They were both so fixated on her, that neither noticed the other one doing it. I noticed. Maybe she didn’t draw me in immediately because I wasn’t strictly straight. I mean, neither was Liam, but he was more woman leaning.

Some people think being bisexual is a fifty/fifty proposition. Straight people think that. Some gay people think that. Hell, I use to think that. I struggled with my sexual identity because of it. What I grew up believing was simple: If you liked girls, you were straight, if you liked boys, you were gay. I had no frame of reference for bisexuality, especially considering that I mostly liked guys.

Put one hundred men in a room and I could pick out fifty to sixty of them that I found attractive to some extent, from mildly attractive to smoking hot. Put one hundred women in a room and that number would drop to five of six. But I would still find that five or six. And that was what confused me. Since I was skewed so far toward men, I thought I was gay for the longest time and the attraction I felt to the occasional woman just confused me, until I finally read an article that explained it. Some bisexual people may be equally attracted to both men and women, but for some it’s more sixty-forty, or seventy-thirty, it can be ninety-ten and you’re still bisexual. I was probably eighty-twenty, leaning toward men. Liam was the opposite, he leaned way more toward women. But I knew a mutual acquaintance that had been with him, so I knew he was bi.

So, Liam, mostly straight, hopelessly romantic Liam falling for a girl that quickly made some kind of sense. But her knocking Drake off his feet as well? And so quickly? That was uncharted territory. My attention laser focused on her in an effort to figure out what kind of magic she possessed that she was able to capture both their attention, and affections, so quickly.

I was only mildly irritated and not at all surprised when Liam invited her to join us for the rest of the night. My irritation dissipated quickly when she appeared in that goddamned body hugging green dress. Well, shit. Liam and Drake weren’t the only ones checking out those curves.

I wanted to go to a club, but we ended up on a beach. That was my introduction to the fact that what Riley wants, Riley usually gets. And that night, what Riley wanted was the beach, and Liam.

Drake built a fire. One minute we’re sitting around it, laughing and talking and the next minute, they were all over each other. Liam had been pussy footing around the issue all night. Finding reasons to touch her hand, her shoulder, scooting closer and closer to her as the night wore on. I watched Drake try to get her attention. I saw his face fall when he couldn’t quite draw her focus away from Liam, no matter how hard he tried. She had clearly made her choice.

It was Riley who finally made a real move. Liam leaned in to whisper something to her and she grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him. That was it, he dove in and didn’t come up for air again. Drake and I looked at each other from across the fire. He shrugged, then got up, dusted himself off and took off. I followed him down the beach a little then turned back toward the dying campfire.

It was Liam I was watching at first. I watched the glazed look in his eyes, the stark hunger I saw there sent tendrils of desire snaking through me. I’d wished a million times that he’d look at me like that. Before long, he was naked in the firelight, the flames sending shadows dancing across his bare chest as he gazed up at her with that look of enraptured wonder he’d been wearing all night, only now it was mixed with unadorned lust.

I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering to her. Liam reached out a hand and drew it down her arm. My eyes followed his hands as they explored her body. I had to admit, it was a magnificent body. Yes, she fell into my eighty-twenty split, easily. She was the most attractive woman I’d ever met. It wasn’t just her looks though. It was the way she carried herself, the way she laughed. When she’d squeezed herself next to me in the cab, there had been electric sparks coursing off her body and into mine. I can’t explain it. There really was just something about her.

Drake had had the good grace to take a walk down the beach, give them some privacy, his own attraction to her be damned. Drake was a better man than me, at least in that moment. I was staying put. God himself couldn’t have drug me from that beach. I had moved away from their immediate vicinity, they probably thought I’d left. If they thought about me at all. They were so lost in each other, I doubted they noticed that I was still there. I didn’t care. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I was entranced by them both.

Then she looked up and caught me watching. I expected her to get upset, yell at me to stop, to go away. At the very least, I expected her to look away, pretend she hadn’t seen me. But she did none of those things. No. Instead, her eyes locked on mine, and she smiled. She fucking smiled! I felt something I’d never felt before slide through me. It was more than lust, more than attraction. It wasn’t quite love, I didn’t know her like that, not yet, not back then.

Listen. It’s not a secret that I am sexually submissive. There is something extremely erotic about surrendering control to someone. To the right person anyway. When she locked her eyes on me and then proceeded to fuck Liam, to control him while keeping her gaze trained on me the whole time, it was like she reached right inside my soul and took possession, took control of me too. She was so commanding; I knew in that moment that this woman was the dominatrix of my dreams. I imagined all the things she’d do to me. Not because I’d let her….oh, I would let her….but because she’d make me, she’d take control and do what she wanted with my body and suddenly I wanted that more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life.

So, even though I understood that Liam had just become off limits to me, because of his complete surrender to her, I wasn’t mad, wasn’t resentful in any way. I couldn’t be mad about her snaring his attention, because I understood it. I wanted her too. And just like that, Liam shifted from romantic interest to romantic rival.

[theramseyloft]

You go on about how intelligent/emotional pigeons are, but you treat them like objects and that bothers me. You separate bonded pairs of these intelligent, loving animals so frequently as if they don't have any feelings. And then you wonder why these birds afterward do not just take a new mate instantly. You are continually traumatizing these animals and causing them to shut down because they probably begin to realize any new bond they make will only be severed.

I do that because they are.

There is a huge difference between treating a living being like an object and acknowledging that the feelings of a non-human will not often perfectly align with those of a human.

Different species are different.

They have different physical, emotional, and social needs, even if there are a lot of close parallels.

And there are certainly a lot of parallels between humans and pigeons;

They are self aware cooperative social learners.

They form societies.

Those societies have a culture that varies regionally and they have a base line of values...

But their society, culture, and values are different from a human’s because pigeons are not human.

Nothing specializes in preying on humans. We generalize in preying on everything, as a species, as a whole.

We change our environment to suit our needs as much as we are able, and we are more able with every generation.

While things, objectively, can happen to any human at any time, out of nowhere..

On the whole, we generally don’t expect them to.

As such, our monogamous relationships are, ideally, “Until death do us part” meaning “Until we both die of old age, preferably around the same time.”

To the extent that closely bonded humans are emotionally devastated by the loss of that life partner.

To many of us, a life partner is also counted as lost if they engage in sexual infidelity, and if this happens, we are just as devastated (if not even more devastated) as we could have been if that partner had died.

Pigeons are a prey species that evolved in a cheetah-and-thompson’s-gazelle-style arms race with the Peregrine Falcon.

Their monogamous relationships version of “Until Death do us part” can be better translated; “Until one or the other of us gets eaten on a foraging trip.”

And sexual fidelity does not enter into the equation for a pigeon unless their partner is treading or being tread by some one else at the exact moment that bird wants to tread or be tread by their partner.

A cock who wants sex will seek out his wife first, but if she is not interested, he will go asking all the hens away from their nest until one agrees and crouches for him.

If his mate changes her mind and wants him to tread her, she will seek him out and crouch to present herself.

He will tread his wife, and after they do the cute little “I just had sex” dance that’s reserved for mated pairs (side flings get neither this nor courtship. Just sex and separate.) she goes off to do what ever she wanted to do.

If the cock is satisfied, he goes with his wife.

If he still needs or wants more sex, he can tread as many hens as he wants. His wife will not care, because she has had her turn.

If a hen wants sex, she will seek out her husband, generally, but if he’s busy or away, she’ll present for who ever she likes.

Her husband does not care who filled the egg. He only cares that she lays it in his nest and he gets to help set and raise it.

Pigeons divorce partners they consider to be inadequate. Cocks who fail to fill eggs, hens who refuse to set eggs, partners of either sex that don’t spend enough time reaffirming their bond with their spouses...

Unrequited relationships and love triangles are also relationships that pigeons find themselves in.

A pair is considered to have divorced if one partner or the other moves in and spends their nights in the nest of another partner, not for mating with some one else.

Some times, divorces are mutual, and both birds move on to other mates.

Some times, they are not. And the partner left will pine and keep making overtures to reconcile with the partner that left them.

But when a mate just disappears and doesn’t come back, they are assumed by the remaining partner to have been eaten.

If they were closely bonded, the remaining partner may wait a week or so at most, in case they were lost, in hopes the missing bird will make their way back and reunite.

If, after a week, the remaining bird is keeping to them self and not socializing, something is physically wrong, and anthropomorphizing it as “depressed” can get the bird killed.

The veterinary term ‘depression’ describes an animal that is physically ill, be that from a pathogen attacking it to ingesting or absorbing a toxin or simple vitamin or mineral deficiency.

For example;

A week after I became aware that breeding pigeons could become salt deficient and gave the flock a salt and trace mineral brick, birds that had shown no interest in bonding or courting for months are suddenly flirting with everything that moves.

They were not too traumatized to before.

They had a mineral deficiency.

They did not court because they did not feel good.

With the addition of their supplement brick, lo and behold, they all feel better and are courting again.

I have an entire flock to take care of, and I am responsible for the wellbeing of every individual I bring into the world.

To avoid overcrowding, I have a cap of 10 breeding pair.

Because that is the number of adults and their offspring under 6 months old that my loft can comfortably house.

When ever a new breeding bird leaves quarantine or a keeper reaches 6 months, a bird of the same sex has to be retired and made available to avoid overcrowding and the stress and disease that come with it.

Who retires when is not arbitrary.

There are very strict criteria.

1. Physical health.

Regardless of whether or not I have a replacement ready, a bird who may be hurt by the physical process of reproduction or the strain of rearing young, or who may pass on genes that may be harmful to potential offspring is retired on the spot and adopted out with a strict nonbreeding agreement.

Gus is a sweet boy,

But this happens to him every molt, and we have since found out that it runs in both sides of his family, proving it to be genetic and cumulative.

As cute as he and Leela were together, I cannot let him breed.

Because I would have to be a monster to be willing to knowingly pass that painful condition on to another generation.

He has a forever family familiar with his condition to whom he is going on Monday.

2. Undesirable structure

I do not mean anything as stupid as “This animal isn’t pretty enough.”

Cody is not only gorgeous, but an excellent father who has served our program very well.

But his muffs are big enough to make walking uncomfortable, so while I like the rest of his traits, that’s one I want to breed away from.

Now that I have a brother and Sister of his with short muffs that do not cause them discomfort, 

Farthing 

and suki

will continue contributions to the project

and Cody is available.

3. Antisocial behavior that disrupts or disturbs their flock mates.

Indica

And Pookie 

Are the poster children for flock disruption.

They are a gay and bi mated pair of cocks, who are literally turned on by prying other treading pairs off of each other.

If they see another pair treading, Indica will grab the hen by the scruff, Pookie will grab the cock by his, and they will pull in opposite directions, prying the treading pair apart, and marching them in opposite directions towards the wall.

Indica and Pookie will then throw the bird they have at the wall and then run back to meet each other in the center of the floor, smooch-feed each other back and forth, and take turns treading each other.

On top of this, they defend 15 of the 36 total nest boxes in my loft, refusing to pick a specific one or let any other pair settle in a box to lay.

You may or may not have noticed that when I advertised the available birds on Thursday, I made a point of saying that I would prefer these two be adopted together because they are bonded and would be happier that way.

A prospective new family is coming to meet them on Monday.

But they are SUCH a violent disruption to their flock mates that if only one had a home lined up, it would be unkind to the rest of the flock to keep them both on the insistence that they go together.

4. Shitty parenting history

Parents who tend to ignore eggs or peeps, leaving all the work of setting or feeding to their partner.

This is a personality trait, and such a parent puts dangerous strain on their partner and stress on their peeps. 

Their partner will usually divorce them for that, so adopting the bad parent out isn’t “Splitting up a bonded pair”.

Their former spouse is usually looking for or has found some one else with out any interference on my part.

5. Too many offspring/grandchildren

This is to avoid any more inbreeding than necessary.

Betty is one of the best studs here.

He is an outstanding father who sits tight on his eggs, pumps his peeps full, and educates them carefully though weaning.

MANY are his children and grand children, and he has a strong preference for birds with faces like his.

He has already bred with his niece to produce Sherry, and I would like to avoid having him breed to any more of his kin.

Once his peep with Liang is weaned, he will be adopted.

Liang is very skittish, and she liked him right off the bat, so I delayed his retirement to give her more time to feel secure with the flock.

But with her egg hatching, she is allowing herself to be casually flirt with more.

Wukong still likes her. So do Cherub and Ginger, so she’ll have her pick when Betty goes to his new home.

6. Temperament

The Therapy Bird Project is working towards developing a performance breed with a temperament conducive to Therapy work.

All else being equal; The birds are all physically sound with no known detrimental genes, no embellishments too exaggerated, not overly aggressive to flock mates, great parents... Then the bird least interested in human company gets retired.

The ground work of physical and mental base soundness has to be laid first and foremost for that excellent temperament I’m aiming for to shine in their handler’s lives for as long as possible.

You probably have not noticed that when bonded pairs retire at the same time, I make a thing of them being bonded in hopes that they will be adopted together.

Dodger and Alex retired close enough to each other that both are still here, and I would prefer they be adopted together.

But if one of them gets a perfect home lined up where I think that individual will be happy, I will not refuse them that good home for the sake of not splitting up a pair.

You care about the idea of that a LOT more than the pigeons themselves do.

[bookwormsid1015]

BNHA: This Time Around

[A Semi-CloudNight Oneshot]

“Aaahhh! It feels so good to unwind like this,” Fukukado Emi, best known as the Laughing Hero: Ms. Joke, laughs in relief as she leans forward against the bar countertop, a mug of whiskey in hand. She’s dressed in her civilian outfit, which consists of high waist blue skinny jeans and a light yellow crop top tee shirt with a bold white stripe stretching across her chest. Her mint green hair is held back in a low ponytail, and black slip-on sneakers adorn her feet; her outfit accented by  a black choker around her neck and three beaded bracelets coating her right wrist. 

Joining her at their favorite bar is Tatsuma Ryuko (Ryukyu), Takeyama Yuu (Mt. Lady), and Kayama Nemuri (Midnight). Nemuri’s rosy red lips tilt upwards into a sly smile, and she raises her glass of red wine to her lips. Unlike Fukukado, Nemuri is dressed to impress, with her beautiful dark blue dress fading to a vibrant pink as it travels down towards the helm of her dress, perfectly matching her light complexion. Black three inch heels adorn her feet, and her deep indigo hair is held over her head in a messy bun, staked into place by a black pin that distinctly resembles a fox tail. 

Nemuri pushes up her crimson red glasses, still smiling. “Me too,” she agrees happily. “My agency has been so busy lately with all the League of Villain madness. It feels great to just be in the moment every now and again.”

Sitting on Fukukado’s other side, directly across from Nemuri, Takeyama stares down at her small glass of champagne, her eyebrows knitted together in exhaustion. The Giant Hero, like Ms. Joke, is dressed in casual clothing, wearing short blue jean shorts with a simple orange tank top and a single star-shaped golden necklace around her neck. Her long, wavy blond hair is tied back in a ponytail, which spirals down to her midback in beautiful platinum waves. 

“I knew starting my own agency was going to be hard, but I didn’t think it would be this hard,” Takeyama confesses, exhaustion lacing her tone. “Like, I can’t effectively take down any villains because my size destroys so much property, and I hate that my fans only seem to like me because they want me to step on them! It’s so weird! People are weird and gross!” She drops her head onto the table and groans mutely into the polished wood. “And here I thought the big city would be different from home.”

Tatsuma places a gentle hand on Takeyama’s back and pats it reassuringly. Like Nemuri, Tatsuma is dressed for the occasion in a simple yet elegant violet dress with a chain of pearls around her neck and diamond earrings in her ear. It is no surprise Ryukyu would wear such beautiful jewelry, though given her status as a dragon, Nemuri wasn’t surprised.  “Don’t worry, Takeyama. We all start off rough, but guaranteed your agency will become amazing,” the Dragon Hero encourages the blond heroine gently, and Takeyama’s shoulders only slightly relax.

Fukukado taps her chin, her dark green eyes thoughtful. “Come to think of it, aren’t you and Kamui Woods, like, a thing now? I heard his agency is successful, maybe you can talk to him about it,” she says, and Takeyama reaches across the table with frantic shushing gestures.

“Don’t say that outloud! We want to keep our relationship private! The last thing we need is the media crawling up our asses about it,” she snarls at the Laughing Hero, and Fukukado raises her hands in surrender.

“Oops! My bad!” Fukukado yelps and frantically checks around her in case anyone was listening in. Nemuri and Tatsuma make eye contact from across the table and snicker to themselves.

“Kamui Woods is a very dependable man, though,” Tatsuma adds. “I’m proud of you.”

Takeyama buries her face in her hands. “Can’t we talk about anything else?” she whines.

Fukukado’s smile returns full force, and a shit-eating grin splits across her face. “But why though? Everyone loves hearing about a good romance!” She cups her hands to her cheeks and swoons giddily. “Like, just the other day, I ran into Eraserhead at a coffee shop! It was so amazing, like something out of a romance novel!” 

Nemuri’s cerulean eyes widen slightly. “Oh yeah, he told me about that. Didn’t he leave the second he saw you?” she asks.

Fukukado’s cheeks flush red, and she chuckles awkwardly. “Oh, yeah, he did. Something about not wanting to deal with my energy or whatever. But that just makes it so much more exciting! I mean, look at him, all dark and mysterious and broody~!”

“Not to mention a total hobo who forgets to shower half the time,” Nemuri adds. The other heroines at the table chuckle.

“AND he’s the only one who I haven’t gotten to laugh yet!” Fukukado goes on, ignoring Nemuri’s remark. “One of these days, I’ll get him to laugh! If not, at least smile! Yeah, that would be amazing.”

“Why not use your Quirk?” Tatsuma asks.

Fukukado shakes her head adamantly. “He erases Quirks, remember? Besides, I don’t just wanna make him laugh! I want to really make him laugh, you know? Something authentic. Using my Quirk would just be dishonest and mean.”

Nemuri shrugs her shoulders, though a part of her is secretly relieved. She’s known Eraserhead since high school, and knowing him, the main reason he wouldn’t want to try dating Fukukado would be because he doesn’t want to be influenced by her Quirk. Then again, this is Eraserhead they’re talking about. After what happened in high school, he probably wouldn’t give her a chance either way. He has trouble enough making friends, let alone dating. The cruel reality of hero work scarred him, and the mere thought of it hurts her heart. Fear guides him, and Nemuri desperately wishes she could do something to help.

“What about you, Midnight?” Nemuri perks up, and finds the eyes of the other heroines glued on her. Fukukado leans forward eagerly, her dark green eyes sparkling like diamonds. “Do you have anyone you’re with right now? With your gorgeous looks and bedazzling personality, I’ll bet yes!”

Tatsuma casts Fukukado a significant look. “Ms. Joke, your bi is showing,” she comments, startling a laugh out of Takeyama.

Nemuri glances down at her wine glass and slowly sways it around in her grasp, watching the dark red liquid roll within its transparent chamber. Her smile becomes wistful. “I’ve had flings, but serious relationships? Nope. I haven’t had any in years. Probably not since high school,” she replies honestly.

Takeyama lifts her head, blinking at the R-Rated Hero in surprise. “What? There’s no way. Your entire aesthetic is about intimacy! Especially the sexy kind,” she gapes, and Nemuri chuckles at her reaction.

“It’s true. I haven’t had a proper boyfriend since my third year in high school, and to be honest…” Nemuri’s smile becomes bitter, and she chuckles in spite of her hypocrisy. “I don’t think I’ll ever date again. Hurts too much.”

Fukukado grimaces slightly. “Oof, was he really that bad?” she asks, and Nemuri immediately shakes her head.

“No, no. In fact, he was amazing. He was the sweetest, funniest, most loyal person I’d ever met. He cared about everyone unconditionally, and he would always go out of his way to help people. Hell, this one time, he found a kitten stuck in the rain and brought it with him to school,” she reminisces, smiling at the memory of him. Even now she can clearly see his broad, glowing smile, and the image sparks an old pain in her heart. “He was my everything. Even though we wanted different things out of life-- with him wanting to start an agency with his other friends, and me wanting to start the Midnight Agency-- we still promised we’d be together. That we'd make it work.”

Fukukado’s brows are drawing together in concern, now, and acid rises in Nemuri’s chest at the realization in her eyes. “Wait, you’re talking about him in the past tense,” she says. “What… happened?”

Nemuri’s smile falls completely, and she utters a deep sigh. “The worst,” she responds. “About fifteen years ago, we were alerted to a villain attack in Tasomiya Ward, a giant monster with the ability to stockpile power.” Tatsuma and Fukukado’s eyes widen nearly simultaneously, no doubt recognizing the event, but Takeyama blinks at Nemuri in confusion; she’s too new to the career to know. 

Her voice shudders, but still, Nemuri goes on, “All of us were there. Me, Eraserhead, Present Mic, and… him. We did everything in our power to stop the monster, but it was too big. We couldn’t do anything. I was evacuating everyone out of the area while he, Present Mic, and Eraserhead went to go stop the villain. Civilians got hurt; there’s no way to protect everyone. But he…”

The image washes over her, stealing away all her breath in an instant. She can smell the salty rain clouds, she can feel the slick pavement beneath her boots, the uncomfortable way debris clings to her sweaty skin. Above all else, she remembers rounding the corner just in time to see a cloud explode to life over a class of kindergarteners and their teacher, leaving them protected but him exposed. Their eyes made contact, and before Nemuri could do anything, before she could call out his name or take a step forward, a giant chunk of debris was upon him, and she was helpless to watch it swallow him whole.

The scene barely lasted for more than a few seconds, but she can still see it. The sickening crunch resonating through the air as his skull cracks open, the violent spray of blood from his head… She suddenly wants to throw up her wine and crumble into a ball. Old insecurities she thought she’d abandoned were suddenly creeping up the back of her mind, whispering terribly in her ears.

“Your quirk is useless. It couldn’t protect anyone, especially not your loved ones.”

“It’s because you’re so useless he’s dead.”

“Why are you even a hero?”

“Midnight?”

Nemuri snaps out of the memory and finds the other heroines looking at her in worry. She quickly realizes she’d dropped her wine glass to cover her face, and while thankfully the glass didn’t break, the wine was splattered all over the table top. It looks exactly like his blood.

“Midnight,” Tatsuma reaches out to her and gently takes her hands, leading them away from her face and gripping them tightly. Nemuri clings onto the contact, desperately wishing her hands were someone else’s. “Are you okay? Do you need a moment?”

Nemuri shakes her head slowly and slips her hands out of Tatsuma’s reach. She hates it when people look at her with those worried eyes. “It affected all of us,” Nemuri goes on. “Obviously, it hurt me. I lost my boyfriend and the guy I wanted to… but Present Mic and Eraserhead lost their best friend. Their brother.”

Fukukado shakes her head, tears springing to her eyes. “Oh, Midnight, I’m… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to open an old wound,” she whispers in horror, and Nemuri shakes her head again, this time with more resolve.

“It’s fine, really. It gave me a horrible wake up call, that above all else, we are heroes. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Every day we go out there and put our lives on the line. We could live, we could die, but what matters most is protecting others.” She glances down at the wine spilled all over the table, and her own reflection stares back at her with wary acceptance. She sighs, long and tired. “Watching him die made me realize how easily life can be lost, how tragedy can strike in an instant. That’s why I want to embrace my youth for as long as I can, so I can live enough for both of us.” Her reflection’s lips quirk upward into a trying smile. “That way, when I die, when I can finally see him again, I can tell him about all my adventures with pride.”

Nemuri looks up and finds herself staring into the wet faces of the other heroes. Tatsuma, Fukukado, and Takeyama are all staring at their senior hero with wide, tearful eyes, and Nemuri likes to think in this moment, they felt more respect for the seasoned heroine.

Nemuri smiles back at them and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Remember that, you three,” she tells them. “Go forward knowing nothing-- not even love-- is certain, but don’t let it scare you. The world is scary, dangerous, and even cruel, but what’s most important is cherishing the people in our lives.” She raises her wine glass and what remains of the wine sloshes around in its glassy imprisonment. “To living.”

Fukukado, Tatsuma, and Takeyama look between themselves. One by one, they lift their drinks to the sky, each glass a different shape containing a different drink. “To living,” they echo, and tap their glasses together with Nemuri’s. The R-Rated Hero smiles truly, her heart swelling with pride.

Nemuri drives home alone that night.

Of course, the four heroines stayed at that bar for hours, laughing and drinking together once the shock of Nemuri’s lost-love bombshell faded away. As their senior, Nemuri only drank a few sips of her wine every now and again (although the gruesome memories made her want to get wasted out of her mind), and she allowed the other heroes to have their fun and get as wasted as they want. Takeyama and Fukukado were joking around, having a blast singing old pop culture songs together, occasionally getting Tatsuma to join in whenever the Dragon Hero got over her shyness.

Eventually, Nemuri dragged the three drunken heroines back into her car (thankful they all decided to take Nemuri’s car there and back), and she drove all the ladies home, making sure they had all their possessions with them before leaving. Once she dropped them all off at their houses and made small talk with any partners they had waiting for them, she decided to gather her wits and go home herself. Today was a long day, and she was surprised to find herself emotionally exhausted so soon.

The bar is a fifteen minute drive from her house, but as soon as she leaves her car and strides up the driveway, she pulls open the front door and steps inside her dark home. Despite it’s nice size, being a two story house with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, only Nemuri lives in it, though she’s not completely alone.

“Meow!” Nemuri looks down, and her heart lifts slightly as her tabby orange cat comes bounding over to her, high in energy despite his age. Nemuri kneels down to collect him in her arms, and she cradles the cat like a baby.

“Hello, Sushi-baby,” she coos at him as she kicks the front door shut and locks it behind her. “How are you doing? Were you keeping the house safe from big bad strangers while I was gone?”

Sushi meows in response and nuzzles her bust.

The house is big and empty now, but one day, Nemuri hopes she’ll marry and settle down, maybe start a family all her own. It won’t be for a while, and honestly, Nemuri is scared to start dating out of fear of herself or her partner dying, but she decided a long time ago to live by her words so she bought the house regardless. She’s getting older now, and at thirty-two, she knows she doesn’t have much time left. At the very least, Oboro would want her to be happy, even if her happiness isn’t with him. She just hopes she can find someone accepting of her tastes and interests, like he did. 

Nemuri enters her living room and sits back in her recliner, pulling out her phone to amuse herself. Sushi immediately adjusts himself in her lap and kneads her legs with his paws, turning around in a circle before plopping down into a comfortable loaf. Nemuri scratches him behind the ears with a faint smile.

“We’ll be okay,” she says, more so to herself than to the cat.

Sushi’s lazy purring is her only response.

Nemuri leans back into her chair and sighs. Tomorrow will be a new day.

[bisluthq]

All the reasons why Haylors are still a thing comes down to marketing.

1) Their actual relationship was very widely publicized. See: the Central Park pap walk.

2) Harry is her most famous ex and has legions of fangirls who would self-insert as Taylor

3) This is supposed to be her most recent former relationship that actually surfaces in the music

4) 1989 is her biggest album. He is tied to it

5) He was essentially marketed as ‘the one that got away’ (see: her interviews about the Style muse showing up at her wedding, that rumor about 1,989 roses, the story about I Wish You Would from the 1989 Secret Sessions, etc). They were also supposed to have been separated by outside forces (I Know Places, Wonderland, Out of the Woods), because their love for each other was great enough to forgive any mistake on either’s behalf (since their breakup was ‘no one’s fault’ according to 1989 marketing).

6) This is the only relationship fans got a rundown of. See: her 2013 Vanity Fair article

The thing is that literally all of this comes down to marketing lmao. Harry denied seemingly unfounded rumors and Taylor’s own official story in VF in the same exact way. In reality, I Know Places is supposed to be a ‘what if’ scenario with maybe some elements of an actual relationship, not a play by play of what happened. The I Wish You Would story makes no chronological sense. I Knew You Were Trouble makes no chronological sense to be about him, either, and she put a ship tattoo on the actor in the mv before Harry even got that tattoo. He wouldn’t have interrupted her wedding because he was eighteen years old. Sure, there are actual sightings of Haylor that lead me to believe they did date briefly, but the story she sold is canonically untrue according to Harry. There are reports of him hooking up with girls and guys alike throughout the his One Direction era.

The truth is that, even if Taylor and Harry alike have never had a single gay thought in their lives, Haylor was not what Taylor portrayed it to be. I’m sorry, guys.

I mean Harry is canonically bi at this point because he says he’s not baiting when he uses those colors BUT I don’t think Haylor was him closeting or anything.

And yes Taylor could be Kinsey -1 and ALL THE STUFF THIS ANON SAYS WOULD STILL BE TRUE.

Haylor is just.... bullshit. Sorry. Being caught up on it is akin to Lucas Till thinking cardigan is for him lmao in ludicrousity. Except neither Tay nor Harry are under illusions with this one tbh. It’s a dumb short largely non exclusive fling AT BEST that got repackaged as some bullshit.

People must make like Elsa and let it go.

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Sand In Your Shoes

2 YEARS LATER 

He lets himself have few pleasures these days.

Hiding from the Empire as a wanted man means that the comforts he knew on Coruscant at the Jedi Temple are, for the most part, long behind him. 

Now, there is sand, and there is his little hut in the middle of nowhere. 

And there is his very old caff maker. 

Which is broken. 

This will not stand.

A fresh cup of caf every other day is one of his few indulgences, and by the Force, Obi-Wan Kenobi will not be denied.

So Obi-Wan Kenobi packs up his caf maker, and hops on the bantha he’s been using to get around (he’s lost his left leg, and getting around is still difficult even with the mech replacement two years later), and rides into Mos Espa. 

He’s heard some of the farmers talk about there being a little fixit shop on the far edge of town that does marvelous work, quickly and for reasonable prices. 

That seems nice. 

When he gets into Mos Espa, he leaves his bantha and heads slowly towards the edge of the city, and the little fixit shop with it's big window in front and dusty sign that reads "repairs."

When Obi-Wan steps in, he finds an incredibly tall woman in lightweight clothing, her long, dark hair swept up away from her face. She's clearly Hapan, though how she got all the way out here, Obi-Wan wouldn't know.

How anyone winds up on this giant sand trap of a planet…

Suddenly he misses rain. And snow. And Satine and Anakin and Ahsoka and everything all at once. 

Amazing how the grief hits at inopportune times. 

"Can I help you?" The woman asks, stepping away from the shelf of electronics she's organizing. 

Obi-Wan shakes himself out of his thoughts. "Er...yes. Yes, please, I…" he fumbles around clumsily in his sack, pulling the caf maker out. "If there is any way to repair my caf maker…"

She nods and gives him a surprisingly kind grin. It looks out of place on her rough features, but it's welcome. "Of course, of course. My repair tech for today is running late, but should be here soon. Have a seat."

"Thank you," Obi-Wan nods gratefully, and carefully sits on one of the benches carved into the building, looking around. 

“While we wait, I’ll start a ticket for you,” The Hapan woman says, stepping behind the counter and pulling out a beat-up old datapad. “Name?” 

“Er...Ben,” he tells her. “Ben Kenobi.” 

She nods and types it in. “Broken caf maker...I’m guessing this is a job you’d like done as soon as possible?” 

Obi-Wan grins sheepishly. “Yes. Yes, please.” He takes a breath. “Is this your shop?” 

“Mhm,” she tells him as she keeps typing into the datapad. “Been here about ten years now.”

“That’s quite a good run,” he comments. 

“Well, we’re good at what we do around here,” she tells him. She huffs and checks the chrono on the wall. “Except, apparently, for timeliness.” 

“Is your technician often late?” Obi-Wan asks conversationally. 

“Ah, he’s got a two-year-old,” she waves a hand with a slightly annoyed grin. “Single dad. I try to be understanding about it.” 

Obi-Wan nods. Padme’s twins would be around that age now. He hopes they’re at least doing alright. The last time he saw Padme, she was holding her newborn babies. 

Anakin’s babies. 

When he’d heard the transmission from Mandalore...that both Ahsoka and Anakin had died under Order 66, he had broken down into tears for his apprentices. 

No. 

His family. 

Those days just before leaving Coruscant for the last time had been…

“Sorry I’m late! Li Sh’ka.” 

It’s a deep, clear voice that rings through the shop. One Obi-Wan can’t believe he’s hearing.

“Finally!” the woman - Li Sh’ka, snaps with a chuckle. “Where have you been?” 

“Luke had a blow-out,” the man says as he settles a little boy onto the counter. “We’ve been working on potty training but so far, he’s a little afraid of the toilet.” 

Obi-Wan watches the man in wonder. He has deeply tanned skin, and short, blond hair. Tall, and blue-eyed. 

One arm.

Scar bisecting one of his eyes. 

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out as the man continues not to notice him.

“Kids,” Li Sh’ka grunts joking. “I gotta make a run across town. In the meantime, we’ve gotta customer with a busted caf maker.” She grins at Obi-Wan. “You’re in good hands, Ben.” 

He manages the slightest of nods, his eyes still trained on the new arrivals. 

As Li Sh’ka leaves, the man snaps up the datapad as the little boy lays down on the counter. 

“Hot,” he says. 

“I know, buddy,” the man says as he reads over the information. “We’ll get some water after I’ve finished helping Ben Ke-” 

He stops. His eyes slowly lift from the datapad to the bench, wide, disbelieving. “No...bi…” 

Obi-Wan shakes as he gets to his feet, his mech leg feeling heavier than ever. He somehow manages to get words out, though he has no idea how. “You mean to tell me,” he croaks. “That you have been here the whole time?” 

The man - who is absolutely Anakin Skywalker - just keeps staring. 

“Hi,” the little boy says, sitting up. “Hi.” 

Obi-Wan takes a deep, cleansing breath and wishes for about the sixth time that morning that he could reach into the Force and gather his calm. “Hello there,” he says, smiling at the little boy. 

“Daddy says hi,” the little boy tells him solemnly. 

Anakin drops the datapad and quickly hops over the counter, bum rushing Obi-Wan and flinging his arm around him, causing the older man to stumble backward. 

“I knew you were alive,” Anakin sniffles against his shoulder. “I knew it.” 

It takes Obi-Wan a long moment to return the embrace, his eyes still wide with shock. “My caf maker is broken,” he says in a horse tone. 

Anakin gives a watery laugh and pulls away, patting the other man’s shoulder. “Hand it over.” 

“Where is your other arm?” Obi-Wan asks as he hands it over. 

“Around,” Anakin tells him, stepping back behind the counter. “Luke, this is your uncle Obi-” 

“Ben,” Obi-Wan snaps. “I’m going by Ben now.” 

Anakin nods slowly and sets the caf maker down on the counter. “Ben. Your Uncle Ben.” 

Luke lights up and flings his little arms into the air. “Unca!” 

Obi-Wan smiles sadly and strokes Luke’s shaggy hair. “Yes, I remember you. I was there when you were born. Little one.” 

Anakin looks at him with such emotion. “I’m so glad,” he says quietly. “That one of us was there for Padme.” 

Obi-Wan swallows. “We...we have so much to talk about.” 

“We do,” Anakin nods as he gets to work, his hand shaking a little. “But I’ve got an entire day’s work to get through before we can. Where are you even living?” 

“Past the Jundland Wastes.” 

Anakin gives a low whistle. “That’s far.” 

“Why? Where are you living?” Obi-Wan asks, looking concerned. 

“The other end of Mos Espa.” 

“Anakin!” 

“I have a toddler,” he says. “I need to be near resources, and I know how to hide in crowds. I barely look like I used to anyway.” 

“You could be staying on the Larrs farm,” Obi-Wan says. 

“That’d go well,” Anakin grumbles as he keeps working. “Obi-Wan, really. I have this covered.” 

“Yes, until the inquisitors get here,” Obi-Wan grumbles. 

Anakin lifts an eyebrow at his old master. “And which one of us is still wearing his old Jedi robes?” 

Obi-Wan’s mouth closes.

Anakin smiles widely. “I missed you, Master.” 

Luke reaches out and tugs on Obi-Wan’s outer robes. “Blankie.” 

“He’s been sleeping with mine as a blanket since he was a baby,” Anakin explains as he keeps working on the caf maker. 

“Back!” Li Sh’ka calls as she steps back in. “How is the repair going?” 

“Fine!” Anakin says quickly. “There’s just some sand where there shouldn’t be. A good clean-out..maybe replace one of the grinders. We should be good to go.” 

“Good,” Li Sh’ka nods, grinning at Obi-Wan. “Parts and labor, that’ll be fifty credits.” 

“A fair price,” Obi-Wan nods, fumbling with his pack again. 

“Li Sh’ka, Ben is an old friend of mine,” Anakin tells her. “I had no idea he was in town until I looked up and saw him.” 

“Oh yeah?” Li Sh’ka says, looking at Anakin. She then turns to Luke. “He a friend, bud?” 

Luke, again, raises his arms in excitement. “Unca!” 

She laughs and ruffles Luke’s hair. “Okay. Naberrie. You can knock five off the price for him.” 

Obi-Wan gives his former apprentice a judgemental look, mouthing ‘Naberrie?’ 

 “Maybe he can take Luke out for a walk while we’re working.” 

“I’d...I’d rather not,” Anakin says. “I heard there’s some bounty hunters in town this week, and you know Luke. He says hi to everyone.” 

Li Sh’ka nods, chuckling a little. “I suppose that’s true. We wouldn’t want him getting sold to the Hutts.” 

“No,” Anakin says grimly. “No we wouldn’t.” 

“No,” Luke repeats. “No no.” 

Li Sh’ka nods. “You okay manning the fort? I’ve got a few more errands to run. I’ll bring back some lunch.” 

“Sounds good,” Anakin nods. “We’ll be here.” 

Once she leaves again, Obi-Wan gives him a pointed look. “Naberrie? Really? You don’t think that’s suspicious?” 

“Me? you’re the one who didn’t even bother changing your last name,” Anakin hisses. “ Ben Kenobi? You don’t think that’s a little noticeable?” 

He waves a dismissive hand. “Are there really bounty hunters in town?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“We’re on Tatooine. There are always bounty hunters.” 

Obi-Wan grins just a little, and watches Anakin as he pokes and prods at the caf maker. He feels both younger and older than he has in years. Watching Anakin tinker with some electronics just like old times...but with Anakin’s two-year-old son watching as well, it almost feels like a completely new experience. 

He smiles anyway.

[pinktatertots99]

🔥 Feelings on the canon ships of Homestuck?

Send Me a 🔥+ a Topic, and I’ll Tell You My Honest Opinion About It

god am i gonna need to go with the sequals too? just og or all ships that’re considered canon by the end? whatever i’ll just go in order in what might be the ‘canon’ ships from all three of these categories. this is gonna be fucking long so anything and everything is under the cut. also i’m SO not gonna add hiveswap that can be its own separate ask. so:

roxygen: it’s a cute ship...but the sequal vers is garbage considering how inconsiderate roxy is to john’s feelings and his house burning down like damn rox this is the guy who sat with ya as ya mourned doom rose’s death give the guy some fuckin time himself.

rosemary: also cute ship...sequal versions are fuckin godawful tho. their barely a thing in meat from wha i can gather and then there’s candy...oh CANDY kanaya deserves better fuck this sense of her sayin she’s over it idc if it was off screen, even then half the cast ate stupid pills during that time so WHY must i be surprised that this is wha happens?

dave/kat: i dun like it. in either universe. meat is just perfect gay bois who have occasional deep talks and literally do nothing else while candy they split up thanks to jade which, geez ya guys must’ve been shit to tell her to fuck off like come on. og hs wise i barely consider them canon if we only get pictures and them just being on equal footing on quadrant talk. not to mention dave implied to be crushing on jade and JOHN not karkat, idk where this couple even came from other then love triangle situation with terezi but like, that’s barely much of a reason to become canon. i’d go with em bein pale/moirails more.

jadedave: i’m guessing candy and meat i thought meat implied they were dating but may aswell. so....it sucks but thats because candy and meat suck, meat dave’s basically cheating on her i didnt hear any implication they broke up and she’s like...chill??? and then there’s candy where she literally forced him and kar to break up and dated after dirk apparently died, i do not like the implications of this whole thing. course candy dave is dead and a robot now so...anyways canon wise dave had a crush on her and if jade does like him i’d hope it’s not cause of davesprite cause despite both being dave’s they were different. it’s cute otherwise.

davepetajade: it’s...cute? i guess? idk i kinda found davepeta a bit...idk overwhelmingly overrated? like i know where their popularity came from but readin the series now after all that hype i dont really see it anyways tho it’s basically davespritejade with nepeta in the mix. and idk nothin implied much of nepeta liking jade, or talkin to her much. and davepetasprite is a mesh of both so idk. it’s a ship with cute fanon works of em hanging with outfits but that’s bout it.

janejake: i hate it. legit. this is disgusting and completely throws out jane’s character. like even in the fixed timeline the talk she had with dirk probably still happened on the god bed’s and how she acknowledged wha she thought was wrong on wantin jake’s kids and so on trickster still happened and how she also realized she might’ve overhyped jake. but lets throw it ALL out the window to force jake in an unhappy marriage in both universes and possibly force him to stay in candy due to having tavvy if i’m reading the implications right. even then jake isn’t good for jane either both got their own needs this ship would’ve been sunked in canon and WAS but the sequals are beyond it so maybe that explains it but it disgusts me.

roseterezi: guess in meat specifically. yeah i kinda dont...care for it, like i still cant tell if rose and kanaya broke up or if she just fucked off without breaking up either one is fucked up on kan’s behalf. even then i just dont care for their kismesis it got brought up once and that was it.

jaderose: candy wise i guess even tho it was a fling. it disgusts me still mostly because of kan’s behalf on bein fucked over and both goin through a ‘surrogation’ process without her notice. like fuck this shit the jaderose fans deserve better.

roxycallie: idk if this one’s canon but it’s heavily implied callie lives with roxy least in candy. it’s cute, cant deny it even in og it was pretty cute, dont really care for candy vers tho but then again maybe their not a couple in it idk what’s canon couples anymore.

johnterezi: literally fucked in meat universe and john has kismesis feelings for her in canon. it’s...interesting, idk tho i feel like it’s one sided on john’s side.

ms paint/spade slick: i cant deny it’s cute, he’d least know how to treat a lady but god i’d hope it wouldnt be his only defining trait with her. also want ms paint to call his bullshit out pls and thanks.

dirkjake: honestly i cant tell if their STILL canon in og or not god forbid the sequals. in general though...i dont. i honestly dont really like em together much. they seem like the type to least stay friends but idk bout another relationship would be a good idea for em. maybe later down the line but otherwise canon wise they need a break.

and now for the canon one timer ships this involves any ships implied, uncomfirmed, ex-relationships, crushes, etc:

arasol: it’s cute, best ship. their quadrant was never confirmed but regardless their cute. sol tho in the sequals deserved better then to get abandoned by aradia goddamn.

fefsol: also cute, i live for both of em bein ass’s together.

erisol: oh boi this one...this was...yeah i cant even deny they wouldnt be too healthy, i like lookin at fanon ways tho for em. canon wise tho yeaaaah no these guys definietly wouldnt work.

gamtav: it’s...cute but boi gamzee needs some help i think.

gamsol: -sollux did imply he either wanted a kismesis or matesprit with him in one of the flashes- again same as gamtav.

aradia/equius: BIG NOPE nope nope nope equi that’s weird wha ya did never do it again thank fuck aradia hasnt been around him since.

karterezi: their actually kinda cute, looking back on em they could’ve worked. stupid doomed timeline bullshit.

daverezi: also kinda cute, idk tho if i got flushed for em tho i get more pale vibes but it was semi-a thing.

kanvris: it’s baaaaad kanaya deserves much better and vriska never seemed much the type for cementing into a relationship.

vristav: even worse, like i’d like to thank fuck tav one up-ed her in the end cause fuck wha he had to go through.

karmeenah: it...could be cute? maybe? only iffy part is the ages, i thought the dancestors were like sixteen tho since the kids said they were teenagers even tho they were at the time about fourteen? idk tho if eighteen is considered an adult in alternia or not tho it’s kinda implied to be? anyways tho it’s just off puttin maybe a bit tho.

meenahvris: it’s kinda cute, it was atleast, idk lookin back it does feel more unhealthy.

rufidama: baaaaaad i love rufi but he’s got some bullshit he needs worked out and damara deserves someone better.

rufihorr: just as bad as above, both deserve someone better or atleast horrus does with some therapy on it rufioh i think should just chill on relationships but it’s so obvious their not meant to be.

mitula: it’s cuuuuuute i cant deny it, ...okay fanon vers is canon is barely anything and tula does give more pale implications for tuna but with how protective she was over damara near him it’s sweet, but god do i wish canon tuna gave more feelings for tula.

kantula: it’s...creepy. like it’s so obvious the vantas bois cant communicate well but kankri’s crush feels almost pressuring on tula when he kept goin about them and goin “oh but we’re totally friends and i’m celibate so it’s okay its whatevs” like kan go to a corner give tula some air to breath.

crotuna: BIG NOPE cronus needs to learn fuckin boundaries thirsty fish bastard.

should i even add cro//eri due to the fact he literally asked an eridan out? regardless gross, ew, no, i’ll take the fanon ampora brothers anyday canon i didnt fuckin need that thx.

porrnea: it was implied to be more of a fling. idk considerin aranea’s track record i cant really say i’d trust her in many flushed quads. and porrim seems the type to have hers open and not a closed off thing so idk they got different cases.

aranea/jake: i cant deny it’s fuckin cute, i’d would’ve loved if they tried to do somethin but aranea was definietly uhhh not a good choice for jake. least she backed off when he didnt wanna be kissed but man yeah, it was cute while it lasted.

kurmeu: i cant deny the idea kur forced himself quiet due to hurting meu hurts me in a sweet way but as of rn them bein ‘pale’ and him mind controllin her when we dunno if she’s alright with this or not is...disturbing.

vristerezi: i am HIGHLY doubtful this is canon considering everything but i guess i gotta cement this. i dont see em as canon in og or sequal wise since vris is still gone in both, even then i dont like, see it, i see it but idk man i like em more pale then pail.

erifef: honestly no. both are much too different for a relationship, kinda glad they uh...got cut short cause honestly even their moirailship wasnt healthy what’s to say a matespritship would? on BOTH sides mind you.

rosejohn: thank karkat’s shipping board. anyways, i think their cute cause fuck it rose is a bi-con to me, canon wise probably wouldnt work but i’ll take fanon.

vriseri: kinda glad they got cut short of their kismesis cause boi eridan deserves a better one with how shit vriska was in breaking up with him.

johnvris: it was cute, i cant deny i’m soft over how the two talked things about vriska’s life and john’s it’s just kinda cute. it’s obvious tho canon wise with wha john went through it wont work out. would’ve loved if they became moirails tho but o well canon is god i guess.

spadePM: i dont like much of their implications, would be an unhealthy relationship regardless considerin spade’s flushed and PM’s pitch, they deserve some therapy and other people.

dadbert/momlonde: their cute i like the implications of em, sad they died though, it was cute while it lasted.

meowrails: may aswell count moirails in this shipping mess. anyways their cute, they gimmie sibling vibes course equius early into it was so...not a good moirail.

kurtuna: i guess it might be cute moirails? idk tho with kurloz’s implications it concerns me.

gamkar: as moirails...karkat was fuckin shit at his job i cant sugarcoat it. i get where it’s from he’s not gam’s lusus and shouldn’t be forced to check on him during his time of gettin high and such, i get they were kids, but god gam kinda deserved a better moirail. and then later on in the series it gets more fucked up between kar gettin stabbed by him and both in a pretty unhealthy moirailationship to the fixed timeline where gamzee is just shut into a fridge and kar doesnt fuckin care, like dude, wow. gamzee was bad yeah but damn, harsh a tad.

terezigam: as a kismesis it’s almost disgustingly unhealthy to me and honestly terezi deserved better and gamzee maaaaybe shouldn’t get a kismesis, ever, unless he can sort his shit out -the sequals tho wont do that lol-

minorly gonna count johndave in this: idk if i can see john reciprocating for dave so dave’s crush on him almost kinda hurts, especially since fixed timeline dave’s john is well, dead and our john is probably still different from his john, has angst but man i kinda dont mind it as a one sides crush it’s nice confirmation of dave bein bi atleast.

nepetajasper/jasprose: i cant see it, it’s disturbing i guess. i like em more as friends but jasprose is probably more creepy bout it.

signless/diciple: i think considerin the implications they were fuckin adorable and deserved the best.

summoner/mindfang: it’s kinda sad considerin its implied mindfang’s love for him might’ve been one sided, they could’ve been cute tho.

orphanor/mindfang: probably sounded like the best kismesis’s until he murdered dolorosa.

dolorosa/mindfang: BIG NOPE i dun like the implications.

condence/orphaner: since it’s implied orphaner had a crush on her, gonna say tho big nope considerin condence is a bitch.

condence/lord english: its hard to decipher their relationship in canon, but to cover all my bases it’s big nope to me somethin bout it makes me uncomfy despite both bein bastards.

[slipperyskell]

Hancock for the headcanons thing

HEHEHEHEHEHEHE 

prepare all ya’ll’s butts for a text block because hancock is mY BOIO JUST LIKE CICERO

very heckin fuckin short boi - not Cicero short, but p damned close. around 5′2″ at most 

heckin fuckin scrawny boi, too - very lithe frame 

tends to fidget with the ends of his coat’s sleeves a lot when he’s spacing out or nervous 

Jewish - his VA (i can’t remember his name) is Jewish and has stated he voice acted Hancock as though he were Jewish, so I’m sayin’ he is

mid to late thirties, early forties - kinda thinkin Mayor McDonough looks a bit older because A. he is older, and B. secretly working as a synth plant and having to deal with the responsibilities has caused most of his hair to turn grey from stress 

really really really good at cooking!!!! loves cooking!!!!! 

favorite thing to work with/experiment on is power noodles. it’s literally the equivalent of ramen noodles and i think just how much you can do with it really fascinates him to no end 

actually really fucking smart??????? he’s got a base intelligence stat of 14, which is the SECOND MOST INTELLIGENT PERSON IN THE ENTIRETY OF FALLOUT 4. the only person smarter than him is Nick and he’s a literal super computer???? so??????? yeah???????????

that being said, his damn near non-existent sense of self-worth makes him think and feel like he’s not all that smart, which, in my canon, is sparked from his older brother bullying him and calling him stupid a lot when they were kids. that’s why he takes Mentats all the time - he genuinely feels like he’s not smart, when that couldn’t be further from the truth 

never pressures sole into doing drugs or drinking, but he always offers whenever he does 

actually a really generous guy unless you’ve proven to be an ass

very very chill, not very judgy - and really whatever judgements he makes are kept to himself

definitely does believe in giving people a second chance if there’s good reason to believe they’ll actually learn from their past mistakes, but they’re on thin ice after that to be sure 

if they fuck up a second time? they won’t get his mercy that time

this does include Danse 

doesn’t lie very often even to people he doesn’t necessarily trust, but does leave stuff out if it’ll make sure shit gets done 

he might’ve lived out in the cities for most of his teen/adult life, but he’s got quite the survivalist’s instinct when it counts 

not quite as versatile as say, Maccready, but he’s p damned close 

really likes going out into the Commonwealth with Sole because it lets him have a rest, both mentally and physically 

actually does less chems and booze while they’re out on the road, and not just because he needs to keep sharp - as much as he loves being mayor for Goodneighbor, he won’t deny it’s a very stressful job for him. Being out on the road and just having to worry about his and Sole’s survival takes a lot off his mind, at least until he has to come back. 

bi/pan without a fuckin doubt. He’s down to clown with anybody yo 

the rads in his system make him very, very warm 

if ya’ll are an item, he’s actually lowkey afraid of you touching him because he’s worried you’re gonna freak out at the feel of his skin, but with enough reassurance, he’s practically glued to you 

more of a cat person, but he certainly wouldn’t say no to a good pupper

will put his tricorn on your head to be a shit 

will also let you wear his coat if you’re really cold, but he makes it clear if you make a mess you’re fixing it or you’re paying for it 

super huge pre-war history nerd

Fahrenheit gives him shit for it on the daily, but it’s all in good fun

speaking of, Fahreheit being Hanny’s daughter doesn’t follow how it goes down in my canon (though if it does in yours you’re totally valid and I respect that). She used to work as a caravan guard like the last year Hancock was in DC, and that’s how they first met. hit it off really well, prolly has had flings on and off in the past but Fahr realized that kind of relationship just wasn’t for her. nowadays they’re just close friends

doesn’t actually want the triggermen operating in his town, but they’d been something so essential to how Vic ran stuff, they had to stay. for the time being, anyway

honestly prolly does catch feelings for Sole regardless of whether those feelings are returned. he never outright says anything since he doesn’t feel he deserves their love, and if they say something, like in-game, he’ll straight up question whether they actually want to go through with it 

all in all, just like.... what’s there even to say? he’s a fuckin ads;fkjadsf;lkjasdf;lkjadf;lkjadf. There, that’s it, that’s his description. 

[bechloeislegit]

2020 BeChloe Valentines

TRANSFERRING MY LOVE

Prompt from FanFiction User ElectronisZappa: High School AU [see the end for the full prompt; I don't want to give anything away].

"Beca!" Chloe squealed when she opened her front door and saw her best friend standing there.

"Hey, Chloe," Beca said, hugging Chloe.

"How was Germany?" Chloe asked as she led Beca into the living room.

"It was good," Beca said. "But, I am glad to be back home."

"So, tell me everything," Chloe said as they sat on the sofa facing each other.

"Um, could we maybe go get ice cream?" Beca said, twisting her fingers. "I want to talk to you about something."

"Sure," Chloe said, looking concerned. "I'll just let my mom know."

Chloe got up and went to the kitchen to tell Charlotte Beale. Charlotte walked out with Chloe, and Beca stood and faced the two women.

"Beca, it's good to see you," Charlotte said, pulling her into a hug. "We've missed you around here."

"It's good to see you, too, Mrs. Beale," Beca said.

"Chloe tells me you're going to get ice cream," Charlotte said. "Why don't you plan to have dinner with us later? I want to hear all about Germany, too."

"I'd like that," Beca said. "I'll let my mom know. Thanks."

"No thanks needed, dear," Charlotte said. "You two have fun."

"Thanks, mom," Chloe said as she and Beca walked out the door. "Do you want me to drive?"

"Um, no, I'll drive," Beca said, pulling out her keys.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

Beca was quiet on the short ride to the ice cream parlor. Chloe was chatting about some of the things Beca missed while in Germany.

"Wait," Beca said, having caught the end of something Chloe said. "Aubrey Posen and Stacie Conrad are a thing now?"

"Totes," Chloe said. "They started dating just before Christmas."

"Huh," Beca said as she parked outside the ice cream shop.

Beca and Chloe ordered their ice creams and sat at a table outside. Beca sighed and twirled her ice cream in her cup. Chloe watched Beca as she licked her ice cream.

"Are you okay?" Chloe finally asked.

"What?" Beca said. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I want to tell you something, but I'm scared of how you'll react."

"You can tell me anything, Becs," Chloe said. "You know that."

"I know," Beca said. She fiddled with her fingers for a minute and took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay, here goes. I realized something about myself while I was in Germany, and it scared me. Um, I had a fling while I was over there."

"Really?" Chloe said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Not a guy; a girl," Beca said, watching for Chloe's reaction.

"You had a fling? With a girl?" Chloe asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Yeah."

"So, what you're telling me is your bi?"

"No. I'm gay."

"Oh."

"Are you okay?"

"What? Yeah, sorry, just trying to wrap my head around you with a girl."

Beca looked down at her melting ice cream. "Oh, um, is that a problem for you?"

"What?" Chloe asked. "No, Beca. You know I'm not like that. So, do you like this girl from Germany? Are you two going to keep in touch?"

"No, She was just a fling," Beca said. "I guess she was my sexual experimentation partner. I don't have any feelings for her."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yeah."

"But you don't have any feelings for her?"

"No, I don't."

"That's good, Chloe said. "I mean it would be hard if you like her and she's in Germany,"

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

Beca spent most of the summer with her friends. Getting together every chance they could. The day before school was to start, Beca picked Chloe up for their traditional "end of summer ice cream" date, a tradition they had started when they were moving on from elementary school to middle school.

Only, this time, Beca had something she wanted to ask Chloe. Beca took Chloe to the same ice cream shop, and they both got their 'regular' order. They were sitting at a table outside the shop.

"Um, so school starts soon," Beca said.

"I know," Chloe said. "We're going to be Seniors. I can't wait."

"Yeah," Beca said and cleared her throat. "So, um, I was wondering-"

"Chloe!" "Beca!"

The two girls looked to see several of their friends coming toward them.

"Hey, Brey," Chloe said when her best friend, Aubrey, made it to the table.

"Beca, are you okay?" Beca's best friend, Stacie, asked.

Chloe looked over to Beca to see a very pale Beca staring behind Stacie with wide eyes.

"My tiny maus," a female voice with a German accent called out.

Chloe looked behind them at an attractive tall blonde woman and then back at Beca.

The blonde moved to Beca and bent down to kiss her. Beca turned her head slightly, so the kiss landed on the corner of her mouth.

"What the Hell?!" Chloe said.

"It is good to see you, my tiny maus."

"Wait, you know Beca?" Stacie asked.

"Intimately," the blonde responded with a smirk.

"Beca, what does she mean?" Chloe asked. "Who is this, this, person?"

Beca sat, still frozen, and couldn't even mumble out a reply.

"This is Kommissar," Aubrey explained. "She's a transfer student from Germany. My family is hosting her."

Chloe looked at Beca. "This is that girl you told me about?"

Beca nodded and looked down at the table.

"Oh, so you've been talking about me," Kommissar said, as she ran a hand down Beca's arm. "I knew you couldn't forget me, tiny maus."

Chloe's mouth fell open in surprise; Beca looked at everyone but Chloe.

"Please, don't touch me," she said, looking at Kommissar. "You gorgeous specimen, you."

Beca cringed as her friends "Oooohed."

"So, you two met while Beca was in Germany?" Jesse asked.

"Yes, we did," Kommissar said, smiling at Beca.

"I thought Beca liked Chloe," Ashley mumbled.

"She does," Stacie whispered back. "But, it appears Beca might have had a thing with Kommissar while she was in Germany."

"Jessica, would you take me home, please?" Chloe asked without looking at Beca.

"Sure, Chloe," Jessica said.

"Wait," Stacie said. "We were all going to hang out since this is our last day of summer vacay."

"Yeah, Chloe," Aubrey said. "You should stay and hang with us."

"I don't think that's going to work for me," Chloe said. "Jessica, you stay. I'll get an Uber."

"Chloe?" Beca said, looking at the redhead. "If you want to go home, I'll take you."

"That's okay," Chloe said. "I wouldn't want to take you away from your reunion with Kommissar."

Kommissar grabbed Beca around the waist and pulled her toward her. Chloe blinked back tears as she turned and walked away.

"Chloe, wait," Aubrey called out.

Chloe walked farther away from the group before she stopped and waited for Aubrey to catch up to her.

"Are you okay?"

"No," Choe said, wiping her eyes. "Remember how I told you Beca said she was gay and had a fling with a girl while she was in Germany?"

"Yeah."

"That's her."

"Kommissar? And Beca?"

Chloe nodded her head and wiped her tears.

"Oh, Chloe," Aubrey said. "I am so sorry. I know how much you like her."

"I was going to ask Beca out tonight."

"What can I do?"

"I just want to go home," Chloe said.

"I'll take you," Aubrey said. "I'll let Stacie know I'll meet up with her after."

Aubrey took out her phone and sent a text to Stacie. She looked back at the group and saw Stacie looking at her phone.

"Let's go," Aubrey said.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

Chloe's first day as a High School Senior was not going the way she had planned. Kommissar was in every class she and Beca were in together. And Kommissar made sure to sit next to Beca in every class.

By the end of the day, Chloe was more depressed than the day before. After her last class, she was putting her books away in her locker when she saw Beca hurrying toward her.

"Chloe," Beca gasped, trying to catch her breath. "I'm glad I caught you."

"What do you want, Beca?" Chloe asked, shutting her locker.

"Why are you mad at me?" Beca asked.

Chloe sighed. "I'm not mad at you."

"Then why did you leave me last night?" Beca asked. "And why haven't you spoken to me at all today?"

"Kind of hard to do with your girlfriend hanging all over you," Chloe muttered. "I have to go. Brey is waiting for me."

Chloe hurried away, leaving Beca standing by her locker.

"Girlfriend? What?" Beca mumbled, confused.

~ 2020 Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

Chloe made it to the door to exit the school. She stopped when she saw Aubrey standing by her car with Stacie and Kommissar.

"Shit," Chloe muttered.

"You okay, Chloe?" Jessica asked.

"Can you give me a ride home?" Chloe asked. "I need to talk to somebody, and Aubrey's got a car full."

"Sure," Jessica said. "Come on."

Jessica and Chloe walked out of the school. Chloe turned her head when Aubrey called out to her about taking her home.

"That's okay, Brey," Chloe said. "Jessica's giving me a ride. I'll call you later."

"Okay," Aubrey said and turned to the others standing with her. "I guess we can go then."

Chloe let out a breath and continued to Jessica's car. Once they were settled, Jessica drove out of the school parking lot.

"So, what's going on?" Jessica asked, glancing at Chloe.

"I like Beca," Chloe said.

"I know," Jessica said.

"I hadn't done anything about it because I thought she was straight," Chloe said. "Then she comes back from Germany and tells me she's gay. She figured it out over there and had a fling with Kommissar."

"I got all that from last night," Jessica said. "What's the problem?"

"Kommissar is the problem," Chloe said. "She's in every class Beca, and I are in. She made sure to sit next to Beca, and Beca let her. I think their 'fling' was more than Beca let on. Kommissar acts like their a couple."

"Oh," Jessica said. "Did Beca say they were a couple?"

"No," Chloe said. "Beca said she was just a fling."

"Sounds like Kommissar has the wrong impression of what they are," Jessica said. "Which doesn't surprise me."

"What do you mean?" Chloe asked, looking over at Jessica.

"Okay, think of it like this," Jessica said. "We all know how awkward Beca is. So, she's getting ready to come back to the U.S. They have the "talk" of will we or won't we keep whatever it was they had going. Beca being Beca probably word vomited awkward all over the place without actually telling Kommissar she wasn't interested in continuing their relationship once she came home. Kommissar mistook the awkwardness for Beca being nervous about having a long-distance girlfriend. And I'm sure Beca thought she gave a very comprehensive denial and truly doesn't have any feelings for Kommissar at all."

"Oh, my God," Chloe said with a laugh. "That sounds spot on. I need to talk to Beca."

Jessica stopped in front of Chloe's house. Chloe reached over and hugged Jessica.

"Thanks, Jess," Chloe said. "I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, and thanks for the ride."

"See you tomorrow, Chloe," Jessica called out and drove away.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

As soon as Chloe got into the house, she sent a text to Beca. Chloe smiled when she got Beca's reply.

Chloe arrived at the diner before Beca. She sat and waited nervously for Beca to show up.

"Hey, Chloe," Jessica said, spying the redhead sitting alone. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm meeting Beca," Chloe said nervously. "I'm going to talk to her and ask her out."

"Good for you," Jessica said.

"I took care of the check, babe," a voice said from behind Jessica.

Jessica's eyes widened, and Chloe smiled.

"Hey, Ashley," Chloe said as the brunette moved from behind Jessica.

"Oh, um, hi, Chloe," Ashley said.

"So, you two?" Chloe asked. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks," Ashley said with a smile.

"Please don't say anything to anyone," Jessica said. "We like being able to be together without all the drama surrounding new couples in our group."

"I won't say anything," Chloe said as she looked out the window. "Oh, there's Beca. You guys might want to leave because you know if she sees you, everyone will know."

"Let's go, Ash," Jessica said, grabbing Ashley by the arm and heading toward the back exit.

"See you later, Chloe," Ashley called out.

Ashley and Jessica disappeared just as Beca came into the diner.

"Hey," Beca said and sat across from Chloe.

"Thanks for meeting me," Chloe said.

"What did you want to see me about?" Beca asked, her eyes downcast.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior," Chloe said, causing Beca to look at her. "I was jealous."

"Jealous?" Beca asked. "Of what?"

"Not what, who."

"Okay," Beca said. "Who were you jealous of?"

"Kommissar."

Beca was surprised; she was not expecting that answer.

"Why?" Beca asked. "Are you afraid she's going to steal your best friend away or something?"

"In a manner of speaking," Chloe said.

"Don't worry about it," Beca said. "You and Aubrey are like sisters. No one can get between that."

"What? No, I. Ugh!" Chloe sputtered. "I'm jealous of Kommissar because of the thing you two had when you were in Germany."

"Oh," Beca said. "I thought it didn't bother you."

"The fact that you're gay doesn't bother me," Chloe said. "The girl you 'experimented' with to get to that point does. It bothers me because I like you as more than a friend."

Beca's eyes widened in surprise, and a smile came to her face. "Do you want to go to the movies with me on Friday night?"

It was Chloe's turn to be surprised.

"Are you asking me out? On a date?"

"Um, yeah?" Beca answered. "Is that okay?"

"It's more than okay," Chloe said. "I've wanted to ask you out for a while now. I'm surprised you asked me."

"So? Does that mean you want to go out with me?"

"I'd love to," Chloe said.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

Chloe's second day as a High School Senior was so much better than her first. She walked into her first-period class and saw Beca, and her smile grew wider. As she started to walk over to Beca, she was almost knocked to the floor when Kommissar rushed past her.

Kommissar immediately went to sit next to Beca. Chloe's shoulders dropped, and she headed for another seat.

"Chloe!" Beca called out, causing Chloe to turn and look at her. "Over here. I saved you a seat."

Chloe's smile was back as she went to sit next to Beca.

"Thanks, Becs," Chloe said as she looked around and saw Kommissar glaring at her. "Did you tell Kommissar you were saving this seat for me?"

"Well, yeah," Beca said, shrugging her shoulders. "I mean, I'd rather sit next to you than her."

Chloe is so happy she wants to cry.

The rest of the week goes by, and Chloe is up and down with her feelings. Some days, Kommissar forces her way between Beca and Chloe; Beca isn't quite sure how to handle her, so she does nothing.

It's Friday, and Chloe doesn't care what Kommissar does because tonight is her first date with Beca.

"I can't decide what to wear," Chloe whined as she went through her closet.

"You could wear a paper bag, and Beca would like it," Stacie said, laying across Chloe's bed.

"She's right," Jessica said. "Beca likes you, and anything you wear will be fine."

"Stacie, where's Aubrey?" Chloe asked. "She usually helps me with this stuff."

"Her folks told her she had to take Kommissar with her if she went out," Stacie said. "She didn't want to, so she stayed home."

"Kommissar," Chloe spit out. "She's really getting on my nerves. She won't leave Beca alone, and Beca doesn't say or do anything about it. How am I supposed to build a more than friends relationship with Beca if Kommissar is always getting between us?"

"Aubrey's had enough of Kommissar, too," Stacie said. "Her arrogance is grating on Aubrey's nerves. She walks around Aubrey's house as if she owns it. And Aubrey's folks don't know how to deal with her either."

"You'd better hurry up, Chloe," Jessica said. "Beca will be here any minute."

"Shoot," Chloe said, looking at the clock. She grabbed some clothes and held them up to her. "What about this?"

"I like it," Stacie said.

"That's it," Jessica said.

Chloe hurriedly got dressed and was finishing her hair when she heard the doorbell.

"She's here!" Chloe squealed and checked herself in the mirror before rushing out the door.

"Beca's not going to know what hit her," Stacie said with a laugh as she and Jessica followed behind Chloe.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

A few months go by, and it's the day before Christmas Break. Beca is standing by Chloe's locker so she can walk her to class.

"My mom wants to know if you want to spend Christmas Eve with us," Beca said. "We usually do up a big dinner and open one gift."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Chloe said. "I'll have to ask my mom. And she wants to know if you and your mom want to come to ours for Christmas dinner."

"I'll ask," Beca said.

"Come on," Chloe said, taking Beca's hand. "We're going to be late."

They hurried to their first class and sat next to each other. Chloe groaned and frowned when Kommissar sat directly behind Beca.

"Hello, my tiny maus," Kommissar said, leaning over Beca's shoulder.

"Could you please stop?" Chloe said. "Beca is my girlfriend. She isn't your anything."

"Oh, but you are wrong," Kommissar said with a smirk. "I was her first. Something you will never be able to claim."

Beca blushed as Chloe turned to face Kommissar with a big smile on her face.

"That may be," Chloe said. "But I will be her last. You know, as in she was saving the best for last."

Beca nearly choked on air as Kommissar scoffed and sat back in her seat. Chloe winked at Beca and faced the front of the class.

"I think that shut her up for a little while," Stacie leaned over and whispered.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

New Year's Eve found Chloe and Beca broken up. Chloe got upset at a party she and Beca attended together when Kommissar kissed Beca under some mistletoe.

Beca kissed Kommissar back and made out with her a bit before pushing her away. Chloe saw them and left the party in tears. Beca knew she messed up, but nothing she did could get Chloe to talk to her so she could make it up to Chloe.

Their friends took Chloe's side because they all consider what Beca did cheating on Chloe even though Kommissar initiated everything. They all think Beca should have put a stop to Kommissar's endless flirting, and she should have pushed Kommissar away instead of continuing the kiss.

Beca and Chloe were both miserable, and neither knew how to fix things.

Early February found Chloe sitting with her friends at lunch. Her once bright blue eyes were dull and sad. Her smile dimmer and absent more than it was present. The topic was the same as it's been since the breakup - Beca and Chloe.

"Do you still want to be with Beca?" Aubrey asked Chloe.

"I, I don't know," Chloe said. "I'm hurt, but I still lo- um, like her a lot. If Kommissar weren't around, I know we'd still be together."

"I'm sorry," Aubrey said. "I told her to stay away from Beca. But she's one of those people who thinks she should get everything she wants and she wants Beca."

"What does Beca want?" Jessica asked.

"Chloe," Ashley responded.

"If she wanted me," Chloe said. "She would never have kissed Kommissar back."

"It's Beca," Ashley said. "She just got caught up in something and couldn't process what was happening. I think you should talk to her and see what she has to say."

"I'm with Ashley," Jessica said. "We've all seen how much she cares about you."

"I have an idea," Stacie said at lunch one day. "The Valentines Dance is in a few weeks. Ask her to go with you."

Chloe looked over to where Beca was sitting with Jesse, Benji, and Emily. She knew Emily didn't approve of what Beca did but wanted Beca to have someone she could talk to if she wanted to.

Chloe sighed. "I'm going to go see if she'll talk to me."

"We're here if you need us," Aubrey said.

Chloe nodded her head and stood up. She took a deep breath and started walking over to Beca. She stopped halfway when she saw Kommissar put her arm around Beca's shoulders from behind and lean down as if to whisper in Beca's ear.

Chloe felt the sting of tears in her eyes and turned and rushed out of the cafeteria.

"Chloe," Aubrey called out as she rushed after Chloe.

At the same time, Beca shoved Kommissar away from her, causing the taller girl to fall to the floor.

"I told you to keep your hands off me," Beca snarled down at her.

Beca grabbed her backpack and stormed past Kommissar and hurried out of the cafeteria. Emily jumped up to follow her.

~ 2020 Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

That night, Chloe was in her room with Stacie, Aubrey (sans Kommissar), Jessica, and Ashley.

"Beca did that?" Chloe asked as Stacie told what happened after Chloe rushed out of the cafeteria.

"Yeah," Jessica said. "We all saw it."

Ashley laughed. "Kommissar looked embarrassed when she got up. Everyone was laughing, and no one went to help her."

The girls chuckled at that. Chloe almost felt bad for Kommissar; that is until she remembered that Kommissar was the reason she and Beca weren't together.

"Look, Chlo," Aubrey said. "The four of us are going to the Valentine's Dance together in a limo. There's room for two more. Talk to Beca. Ask her to the Dance and come with us. I bet she'll say yes."

Chloe was stopped from answering by a soft knock at her door. The door opened and Mrs. Beale came in.

"Chloe, there's someone at the door for you," Mrs. Beale said.

"Who is it?" Chloe asked.

"Why don't you go down and find out," Mrs. Beale said with a smile.

She turned and left the room.

"Maybe it's Beca," Jessica said with a smile.

"Not likely," Chloe said as she made her way to the door. "I'll be back."

The girls looked at each other and collectively stood to follow Chloe. Chloe, and the girls, stopped midway down the stairs when they saw Beca standing by the door.

"Hey," Beca said as soon as she saw Chloe.

Chloe continued down the stairs and walked over to Beca. She stopped about two feet away.

"Hi," Chloe said and crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry, Chloe," Beca blurted out. "I have no excuse or explanation for what I did. I just got caught up in the moment. And I'm sorry."

Chloe's heart broke when she saw the tears in Beca's eyes.

"You really hurt me, Beca," Chloe said softly. "I could have easily forgiven you if it had been anyone else. But, that was the girl who-"

Chloe stopped and wiped at her eyes.

"I know," Beca said. "She doesn't mean anything to me. But, you do." Beca closed the distance and took Chloes' hands. "I miss you, Chlo."

"I miss you, too," Chloe said softly.

"Go in for the kiss, Beca," Stacie whispered; the other girls shushed her so they could hear.

"Can we start over?" Beca asked. "We could go get ice cream and talk."

"I'd like that," Chloe said and smiled. "But, I have the girls over and-"

"We'd love to get ice cream," Aubrey said as the girls hurried down the steps to join Beca and Chloe.

"Um, we kind of want to talk," Beca said. "Privately."

"We know," Stacie said. "But, Kommissar has a way of knowing where Beca is, so we'll be your Security team and keep her away from you if she shows up."

"That's not a bad idea," Beca said. "What do you say, Chlo? Ice cream and talk?"

Chloe nodded. "I need to tell my mom."

"We'll meet you two there," Aubrey said. "I'll take the girls with me."

The four girls left, and Beca waited for Chloe.

~ 2020 BeChloe Valentines - Transferring My Love ~

On Valentine's Day, the dance was in full swing, and Beca and Chloe were dancing to a slow song. Chloe pulled back and muttered, "What the Hell?"

Beca turned to see what Chloe was looking at. She was a bit taken aback when she saw Emily with Kommissar, and they were holding hands.

"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that German bimbo coming after you anymore," Chloe said, glaring at the blonde.

"I think I just fell in love with you," Beca said with a laugh.

"I love you, too," Chloe said, kissing Beca as they continued to dance.

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

A/N: The last bit with Emily and Kommissar was so I could get all the bonus points (what can I say? I'm very competitive).

ElectronisZappas’ full prompt: My idea is kinda simple, Beca did Junior year of high school as an exchange student in Germany where she and Kommisar had a fling. Senior year Kommisar comes to Barden high as an exchange student and competes with Chloe to win Beca's affection. As usual, bonus points for Staubrey and Jashley, and maybe Emily gets a girlfriend?

[spcckyszns]

VALENTINA DIAZ is TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD. People say they look like ALEXA DEMIE, but they don’t see it. They were once known as JENNIFER CHECK from JENNIFER’S BODY, but now they’re just your average VILLAIN. I’d watch out if I were you, I wouldn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side. You never know what might happen…

hey hey hey, i’m h and im super excited to bring in little miss chaos herself and have her just run ramped around town. below i’m just gonna bullet point some things about her life/backstory and the journey that landed her here...as well as a short list of some wcs for her. so here we goooo!

val was an outcome of a accidental teen pregnancy, and it seemed as if jennifer’s soul was already hungry to claim human life as soon as she was born, seeing as her mother died during child birth. lucky enough, her cards were in her favor as usual, there were already plans for young valentina to be adopted and her life was seemingly set from the beginning.

raised in miami, florida with a loving family...she was spoiled rotten all her life. there was never anything that valentina wanted that she didn’t get, whether it be an item or a person, all she had to do was bat her eyes at the right person and she had them wrapped around her finger. so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she climbed to the top of the social ladder as the years went on, head cheerleader by her junior year and always dating the hottest guys.

but there was always this violent impulse in valentina, one that she couldn’t explain, often at night she was kept up with darkness in her head and if she did sleep it was always very vivid dreams of killing people (mostly boys). it wasn’t until the stroke of midnight on her sixteenth birthday that jennifer finally had to drill into her what she was, what was going on, and at first she thought maybe she was just going crazy...up until she finally snapped and killed someone. 

as a proud bi-sexual, she had zero to no tolerance for hateful homophobes. down the street from her cozy little three story home lived a racist and very loud homophobic man who lived all on his own. she couldn’t stand the way he revved his engine up when he saw her walking down the street, he had no idea who she was or better yet...what she was. finally one night, walking home from a house party, he was outside on his porch and cat called her with some distasteful words. so she sauntered over, little to no hesitation and played into his games...of course the creep invited her in even as a minor. that was when she made her move, and for the first time in her life, she slept peacefully through the night and felt even more alive than she had ever felt. 

of course no one would’ve guessed it was her, who would suspect little miss popular? besides it was florida, stranger things happen every single day and no one in her neighborhood really missed the guy anyways. so she went happily along, living her life, but the thirst to kill never seemed to shake after that first blood and soon enough she had to do it again before the nightmares crept back in...besides, it was sort of fun how easy it was to trick these men into letting their guards down. 

after high school graduation, she had about ten kills under her belt, and no one ever suspected a thing. she went off to college at FSU for business or something silly that she probably wouldn’t ever use, but she had the money and the grades so why not? plus in a college party city, the possibilities were endless. her kill count climbed, blamed on reckless partying accidents, and after getting her degree the voice of jennifer was pretty much loud and proud and in control in her body. 

that very voice called for her to move here, to deacon, so she could truly live the life she craved. so she kissed her parents goodbye in talks of going on a grand adventure, of spreading her wings, and found a nice little townhouse when she was twenty three, and since then she’s basically laid in wake. 

currently, she works at the bar as a bartender (even if it is a bit ironic seeing as low shoulder preyed upon her at a bar that was similar, valentina feels in control behind the bar).

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

exes, flings/fwb, neighbors, co-workers, friends, partner in crime, soft spot friend, enemies.

these are just general ideas to get the ball rolling, i’ll work on a wanted connections page soon enough i’m sure!!!

[papipopsicle]

AFTERTASTE PART FOUR

Pairing: Archie Andrews X Short!Reader

Genre: fluff, smut

Summary: In which two best friends since childhood test whether friendship and can co-exist without causing conflict. Including my OC's Flick & Cherry, a lesbian couple and best friends of Y/N. Set Pre-Veronica.

Song: Feeling Good by Sofi Tukker

Warnings: Dom!Archie, Oral (fem receiving), swearing (probably)

Words: 3K

MASTERLIST

feedback is always appreciated

!PING!

Y/N giggled as soon as she saw the picture Archie had posted, it had been taken a few hours ago at lunch. She hadn't even realised he had taken one, off guard beaming up at Moose as he told the group how the Andrews boy had face planted the turf during football practice. The caption read ‘when you're having a lousy day, i'll try my best to make you smile like an idiot’ and her face lit up at the kind gesture.

Today had been utter shit; Michelangelo had gotten into a fight with one of the neighbourhood cats and lost very badly, Josie picked a fight for no reason in Maths and called her a ‘brain dead bimbo’ in front of everyone, and to top it off she'd overheard Chuck sharing very private, personal details with his friends like they were nothing.

She felt miserable and hopeless, wanting nothing more than for this day to be over already. While the boy wasn't there with her when any of these events happened, he knew as soon as he saw her saddened expression that it was his duty to turn her frown upside down. After an hour of cheesy jokes bad enough to make her father proud, Y/N felt a little bit lighter.

Now, the two sixteen year olds were being blackmailed into making dinner for themselves, Y/N's family and of course Fred too. It wasn't uncommon for this to happen though, since Y/S followed in her mother's footsteps when it came to cooking abilities, and they felt bad for always making Y/D cook. So the blonde had rolled up the sleeves of her grey sweatshirt and pulled her hair into a messy bun, while Archie gathered all the ingredients for the perfect steak dinner.

"Okay," Y/N huffed out, putting her arms up and looking over the boy's broad shoulders to see the recipe, "what's the first step, Nigella?"

Two frustrating and hilariously messy hours later, the two teens were serving their masterpieces. Y/N showered while waiting for the steak to cook, her hair now in damp ringlets as she wore a black concert t-shirt and a burgundy pair of gym shorts.

She carefully placed the piping hot plates in her mother and sisters respective places, returning for her own and Archie's as the boy brought out ones for their fathers. Y/D and Fred sat at the heads of the table, with Y/S and Y/M on one side and Archie and Y/N on the other. It had been that way since the very beginning, the teen's chairs always closer than necessary.

The radio played hits from the eighties and nineties in the background; the atmosphere warm and cozy as the group began tucking into their gourmet meals happily. Conversation flowed easily as usual, soft smiles mirrored around the room in the amicable scene.

"How's school been today?" Y/D asked casually as he piled food onto his fork dangerously high, it disappearing into his mouth seconds later.

"Shit." Y/N answered with a shrug and a wry smile as she copied her dad's actions and stuffed her face. Her eyes closed for a moment to fully appreciate the perfection of her cooking, but in that moment she missed the sad look the redhead threw her way. Everyone at the table was aware her high school experience wasn't rose tinted, and she was never able to lie to her family about it.

"McCoy's girl again?" Y/S asked defensively, rolling her eyes in annoyance as she even brought up said name.

"It's no biggie, honestly. She's just holding a grudge against me for something that literally happened over a year ago. She'll have to let go of it sooner or later." The y/h/c girl ended the conversation, continuing to fill her mouth with copious amounts of food. While her parents had moved on to talk about another subject, Archie kept his eye on her and she knew it.

Y/N didn't hate being pitted per se, but she couldn't stand to be watched by loving eyes when the person those eyes belong to wishes to fix her problems for her. Knowing that's what his mind was preoccupied with, the girl turned to Archie sharply and began chewing with her mouth wide open, sticking her tongue out for emphasis.

The redhead gagged and couldn't stop himself from snorting in laughter and Y/N took this as her queue to close her mouth. Not truly phased by the grotesque sight, Archie returned it for just a second, leaving them both giggling. Finishing the mouthful, she bumped shoulders with the boy, keeping her head resting there for a few moments as she spoke with a grin, "You've already done enough, stop making my issues yours. We do everything together anyway, leave me this little slither of sardonic sanity, okay?"

She sat up straight again and sent Fred a wink upon finding his knowing grin slung in their direction. Looking around the table, three other faces have the exact same looks, and Y/N only rolled her eyes, "Can we have just one family dinner without planning our wedding? For all you guys know we could both be gay and just use each other for style advice."

Y/D scoffed, eyeing up his daughter with amusement, "You're not gay."

"What?!" The blonde's cutlery clanged against her plate as she threw her arms up in exasperation, "I could be!"

Y/M cackled her usual laugh and rolled her eyes, chiming in, "Darling, have you seen your wardrobe?"

"Cherry and I share clothes!" Y/N defended herself, only halfheartedly as she knew the conversation was completely false, but still stood her ground.

"Yeah, well, she has a blue-haired girlfriend and you only share dresses when you're going out because you're the same size. I'm pretty sure she'd rather be dead than wear a pair of your heels." Y/S interjected and received her sister's glare with a smug grin.

Archie silently ate his food, but soon his best friend turned to him, "I could be bi, right? Like Elizabeth Olsen and Sebastian Stan both own my life."

"You can be whatever you want to be, Tiger." Taking a sip of his drink, the boy continued, "But, to be fair, have you seen The Bronze? Like if there's someone I'd turn for, it'd be Sebastian Stan."

"See!" Y/N raised her arms in the way Will Smith had when showing the world his beautiful wife, "This is why he's my best friend!"

They high-fived with matching grins and the bubbly atmosphere carried on until Fred left for the night, Archie staying over in lieu of helping with unfinished homework. After washing up, the three teenagers headed up to bed.

But before the elder Y/L/N daughter fully entered her room, she swung back on the doorframe and locked eyes with her younger sister in a deadpan manner, "I haven't slept properly in three days, please have the decency to wait until I'm asleep before you start boning, thanks."

Y/N swivelled in the direction of her room, cheeks dusted pink at the insinuation. She closed her curtains and headed straight for bed, exhausted by everything the day forced upon her shoulders. Finding her phone, she sent a round of goodnight streaks and scrolled through Instagram before the bed dipped and a tuft of red hair came into view.

"It's only just gone ten, you lightweight." He bumped her shoulder with his bare one, soon copying her actions with his own phone but not finding anything nearly as interesting.

"Well, I fancy wasting time on my phone instead of doing anything productive, problem?" The blonde hummed, not turning away from the device holding her attention. A few moments of silence and mindless scrolling passed before Y/N's phone was ripped from her grasp and set down on the bedside table.

"Yeah, I do have a problem with that, Tiger." Archie grinned at her clueless expression, climbing on top of her, either elbow caging her face in his hold. A light pressure appeared between her thighs with a small twitch, forcing a giggle from the girls lips. She hooked her thighs around his waist and linked her feet together, pulling his entire being closer to her own.

"Oh," Y/N forgot all about whatever had been on her phone screen moments ago, hands now brushing through Archie's fiery locks, "and what would that be."

The boy dipped his head without warning, lightly pushing her jaw to the left to expose her soft neck. His tongue slowly ran from her collar bone to the bottom of her ear, kissing small pecks along her jawline until their lips met. Y/N smiled into the kiss, lifting herself up while pulling his torso closer into her own. Her hips moved on their own accord, needing more friction to scratch an itch only his mouth could fix.

Archie broke the kiss, looking down at the petite girl with lustful eyes as his hand found her neck once more, "There's so many better ways for us to waste time than on our phones. But I'm going to need you to stay quiet for me, Tiger. Can you do that for me?"

As the words left his lips, his index finger lifted from her neck and pressed against her own. Y/N couldn't help licking a stripe down the back of it, taking the digit into her mouth and letting it drop with a popping sound. She nodded her head in agreement with an innocent smile and wide expectant eyes.

Archie watched her for a moment in awe, giving her throat a small squeeze before moving down her body. He lifted her ‘All Time Low’ t shirt up, planting wet kisses from her bra line to the waistband of her lycra shorts.

“You okay?” The boys soft voice sounded through the room, any dominance dropped from his tone but ready to be picked up if he got the right answer. Y/N sat up, planting each hand on either side of his face and pressed her lips to his nose lightly.

She grinned down at him, “I’m sure.” Her excited tone couldn’t be missed, and without hesitation she hooked her fingers into the shorts and pulled them away from her velvety skin, flinging them to the floor carelessly. Archie felt another grin filled kiss skim his forehead, a small hand carding through his hair as the girl relaxed back into the plush bedding.

Y/N closed her eyes in content as hot breath traced her thighs, up and down in a slow rhythm, leaving goosebumps of anticipation in its wake. Her hips rutted upwards needing some kind of contact, but Archie’s firm hand pushed her back into the mattress and held her in place. He settled with his legs hanging off the edge of the double bed, pushing her legs to rest open. The girl resisted the urge to squeeze her legs together, desire overcoming her body but submission overpowering her mind.

Archie’s lips left trails down her silky thighs, plotting temporary marks by nipping and sucking at the delicate skin. He enjoyed feeling her squirm under his touch, showing how much she needed his touch. This was more than just helping each other get off, there was a raw urgency and need within them for only one another. He licked around the edge of her pink thong, another unintentional jut from her hips pushing him closer to her heat as a whine escaped her lips.

The redhead’s hand moved from her stomach to her neck while he forced her to look down at him, “No noise, kitten. Okay?” He warned and Y/N’s bottom lip curled under her teeth as she sent him another nod. With that, her underwear, if it could be even called that, was pulled from her body and joined her shorts on the cool wooden floor moments later.

Archie carried on teasing the girl, licking down her inner thighs and getting dangerously close to what her body was pleading for, but he enjoyed watching her struggle to stay silent and it was far too easy to bring her to the edge by barely doing anything.

“Please.” Y/N’s voice begged with a shaky moan she’d tried so hard to keep in. The boy smirked up at her before giving her exactly what she wanted, feeling her fingers tighten in his hair as he latched onto her clit. But as soon as the pleasure started, it ceased once more.

“You want me to carry on, little girl?” Archie asked in a low tone, watching his best friend panting in want from the smallest of actions. “Want me to make you feel good?”

“Yes, please, Arch. Please.” The girl nodded again, never needing a release so badly in her life before.

Archie’s tongue lapped small circles around the bundle of nerves, pausing again to elicit a small noise of bliss, “I need you to stay quiet for me though, Tiger. Don’t want Y/S finding out what a slut her little sister is.”

In any other circumstance, Y/N would slap someone for calling her something like that, and Archie would never let the word slip from his lips. But in this moment, with his tongue skilfully taunting her clit and a finger dipping inside her wet pussy, it sent a wave of pleasure and praise through her entire body.

He was her drug, one touch and Y/N was completely intoxicated, whatever he wanted is what she wanted and there wasn’t a single thing she would say no to.

It didn’t take long for Y/N to reach the edge of release, with Archie’s fingers pulsing inside her while switching from licking at her clit and sucking on it with his tongue swirling her into a trance of ecstasy. He wanted to play with her more, keep her tilting on the edge until she couldn’t handle it any longer.

But Y/N had a difficult day, he could tease her any time he wanted, for now he just wanted to give her one reason for this day to be good. With that, he tactfully curled his fingers bringing them in and out of her hot core, not stopping his mouth from all but assaulting her over stimulated clit. Her hips buckled once again and this time Archie didn’t stop her, then they began rutting back and forth riding his face until her body couldn’t take any more

“Oh god.” Y/N whined in a hushed tone, her body convulsing in euphoria she finally toppled over the edge of her climax. Archie pressed a final kiss to her clit, resting his head on her spread thighs for a few moments as they both caught their breath.

The girl giggled as Archie appeared back at her side, pressing her lips to his not caring about the taste of her lingering in the air.

“You okay?” He whispered, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her under the duvet with him. Her head rest in the crook of his neck, leg over is stomach and hand lightly tracing patterns over his muscular chest.

“More than okay, pretty boy.” Y/N hummed into the dark room with a bright smile adoring her features. “Arch?”

He mumbled an agreeable response, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Archie’s hand found her thigh and he gave it a small squeeze, keeping his hand there to hold her close.

“Can we play a game?” The girl sounded apprehensive yet excited with her words.

She felt him nod, “What kind of game do you want to play, Tiger?”

Y/N couldn’t help but smirk at her idea as the words left her lips, “I’m proposing a little bet.

Clearly were both attracted to each other, and it ends there, yes? Nothing romantic, just two horny best friends who need an outlet. So, why don't we have a little fun with this? We tease the other to breaking point, bring them to their fucking knees begging for it, and the first one to cave, loses. Nothings off limits, but you can't kiss the other, otherwise you lose."

At this, Archie lifted his head wearing a matching smirk, though it couldn’t be seen as the street lamp sending orange hues into the bedroom only lit up their silhouettes, "What does the winner get?"

"Whatever the fuck they want.” Y/N’s hand made its way to the boy’s neck and she tilted her head upwards to whisper into his ear, “And, when I win the first thing I'm going to have you do is eat me out again."

The boy chuckled dryly and shook his head, "Tiger, I'll be doing that when I win anyway."

Y/N giggled, tempted to throw the bet immediately if the consequence was his head between her legs once more. “Game on, Andrews.”

Archie couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of this situation, though he had to admit he couldn’t wait to see what his best friend would do to try and make him lose.

“Okay little girl, it’s time to sleep I think.” His voice felt more authoritative this time, and Y/N loved that about him, he wasn’t afraid to tell her what to do.

“Goodnight, Arch.” The girl said with a smile in her tone, anxious to see what Archie would do to her over the coming weeks. She felt his head shake once more, knowing a grin was etched into his lips. Y/N rolled onto her side, the boy’s arm tightly wrapped around her still as she drifted off into a fairytale land where this was all real. Not just two friends messing around.

PART FIVE

[doctorhawke]

all six of my oc hawkes in one big thing, i have an au where they are all a big happy family and run amok in kirkwall

below the cut theres “brief” bios for them all (including their names because my renditions of their handwriting might not be very legible) and a little chart showing more insight into their personality makeup

all the ages are from act 1, after a year in kirkwall, relative to carver and bethany’s 20 (fyi they both survive in this au and both become grey wardens. cannot IMAGINE that any of these hawkes would let one of their littlest siblings fight an ogre 1v1 when theres literally eight of them lmfao they tag team it like they do everything)

steve hawke- he/him, age 27, adopted by the hawkes at 8. steve is a mage, a healer, and a pacifist. as such when there are fights he will focus on incapacitating enemies without harming them (force magic and mind blast comes in handy) and especially on supporting the team through healing. he’s gay and immediately takes to anders, mainly because he spends a lot of time helping in his clinic. 

he strongly believes in mage rights especially as malcolm imparted a lot of responsibility on him towards his younger mage siblings, nyx and bethany. he’s protective and a bit of a worrier, though as time goes on in kirkwall he becomes more and more exhausted, and starts to cope through making light of things. post-game, he and anders are on the run. 

—————————

kit hawke- he/him, age 24, bio kid, and a dual-wielding rogue. he’s bold, charming, and a bit of a pessimist- all of which kirkwall amplifies by virtue of being a crazy fucking city. kit is also pretty business minded and usually spearheads bone pit related shenanigans. varric (who deeply cares for all the hawkes of course) immediately takes to him and the two are inseparable. 

kit is bi, and likes to have fun, though over time he falls for both isabela and fenris, and over time the three get together and become the most impressive trio you ever saw. all kit’s siblings are kind of like “are you serious dude, we have a limited number of friends and you end up with two of them? what about the rest of us” but considering the amount of drama and heartbreak kit undergoes over the years in relation to his love life, they all kind of figure he’s earned the happy ending. post-game the three of them become pirates on isabela’s ship and free slaves in between tracking down hidden treasure or whatever it is that pirates do, and they eventually have adorable baby twins. 

—————————-

syl hawke- she/her, age 26, bio kid but only leandra’s, she actually is varric’s half sibling (though she does NOT know this and the sibling rivalry that develops upon them meeting is incomprehensible to the both of them). so syl is the shortest of the bunch, and looks a lot more like varric and bartrand than kit, carver, or bethany, despite them all being related. 

syl’s the only warrior of the group (other than carver- a dynamic duo), fights with hammers exclusively, and has a tendency to be super intense. she doesn’t really get humor at all, in the rare case that she accidentally makes a joke and people laugh she assumes they’re laughing AT her. she’s also very shoot first and ask questions later, and the only hawke more protective than steve is. her big sister energy is off the charts and she’s prepared to kill any templar that so much as looks at her family. as such she’s staunchly pro-mage.

she’s a lesbian and has massive game despite not really being any good at flirting- it’s probably her sheer intensity. she and isabela have a brief fling, tallis is very taken with her, and she has a rivalry-fueled sexual tension with aveline for ages (the long road is a VERY fun quest to play through with syl). however she was always very supportive of and close with merrill and eventually the two fall in love. once they’re together they’re insanely sweet and have mega chemistry and i love them so fucking much. post-game they’re forced to leave kirkwall but end up living in the denerim alienage.

—————————-

lith hawke- she/her, age 25, adopted by the hawkes at 9 along with her twin nyx. an archer rogue, with speed taking precedence over power or precision. lith is a lot to take in okay. she’s the only one who’s pro-templar in the group, and is a rabid andrastian. back home in lothering her chantry beliefs were instrumental in keeping her family safe, as she not only knew every templar by name (as the whole family did) but also is endlessly trustworthy to them and to all the chantry sisters and mothers. countless times a templar might have come calling to take away one of her siblings or her father, but was dissuaded by lith- after all, little lith hawke would NEVER help hide apostates, right?

she supports her siblings because she believes that in the end their souls will be saved. (the only thing that freaks her out more than nyx’s blood magic is when syl casually drops that she’s thinking about converting to merrill’s religion.) she doesn’t trust mages if they aren’t related to her, and always advocates for the circle when given the chance. she’s best friends with fenris and they hang out a lot, more and more as the years pass. since merrill and anders both move into the hawke estate (which was already a bit of a circus, can you imagine the chaos?) lith finds herself more and more outnumbered ideologically and often escapes to fenris’ mansion for some quiet. 

during the endgame, she sides against her family and the mages. she basically has a villainous breakdown. she helps them kill meredith and once it’s revealed that meredith had been influenced by the lyrium idol, lith’s whole worldview is pretty much shattered. post-game she leaves the city and seeks out her cousin, ash amell (i have eight wardens so im not going to get into this but basically my amell and my cousland (eve) are in a gay throuple with leliana and its dope as all hell). spending time with ash, eve, and leliana is very healing for her, but all her siblings assume she’s dead and she doesn’t see them for years after kirkwall. 

—————————-

nyx hawke- they/them, age 25, adopted by the hawkes at 9 along with their twin lith. nyx is the blood mage of the group, and is an absolute icon quite frankly. they’re very chaotic, and especially close with kit, merrill, and isabela. nyx has a ton of fun fighting, and they and syl make an especially good team in combat. nyx always looks up to syl and its very sweet, and syl is the only one in the family who never once messed up nyx’s pronouns (everyone is very good about this of course, and by kirkwall its a non-issue, but even lith slipped up once or twice early on). 

they have very noodly arms because they’ve never had to worry about fighting hand to hand when running out of mana, because of the blood magic. this leads to quite a bit of teasing but tbh they pull it off. nyx is bi and has a thing with isabela for a short while but in the end they’re better as best friends. 

nyx and lith are very close. they’re often perfectly in sync when doing things, especially in combat, and have that twin esp thing going on which can get spooky at times. however they also bicker a lot, and obviously clash on ideology pretty much constantly. though this is the norm nyx always assumed they would have each other’s backs no matter what when it came down to the nitty gritty, and lith’s betrayal during the endgame is really heartbreaking for them. 

over the years anders and nyx do a lot of collaborating when it comes to mage rights. they help him polish his manifesto, and smuggle mages out of the gallows. the only real reason nyx isn’t brought into the loop on the chantry explosion was a mixtures of anders’ crushing guilt and his knowledge that if he told nyx and not steve, steve would be really hurt. (however he couldn’t tell steve because he didn’t want the deaths to be on steve’s conscience- anders knows he definitely would have helped if it came down to that). post-game nyx goes on to be one of the leaders of the mage rebellion.

—————————-

lou hawke- he/him, age 22, adopted by the hawkes at 10. hes a cowboy and i love him. an archer rogue, he prioritizes powerful firing over speed or precision. he’s a massive sweetheart, terminally polite, and has massive ears that he’s self-conscious of and tries to cover with his hair. however whenever his hair gets long enough to cover them leandra starts poking and prodding him to get a trim and he’s always too soft to refuse for long, beginning the cycle again (and after leandra is murdered he always keeps his hair to her liking- he gets weepy if it grows too long). he’s the only hawke i’ve drawn without his in-game outfit because this fucking game doesn’t have cowboy hats or cute shirts with tassles and i do what i want. 

lou also plays instruments, he’s got a guitar and a harmonica and plays the piano passably. he IS the piano man in the eyes of the hanged man’s patrons. sing us a song, they tell him, etc. he manages ten minutes of harmonica in the deep roads, citing excellent acoustics, until anders tells him to stop because the darkspawn will hear. when the hawkes get rich lou buys a horse and goes for morning rides out on the wounded coast. 

lou is bi, and runs around for years with a massive crush on isabela but that doesn’t exactly work out. he ends up with jethann (theres a lot of lore here but suffice it to say its extremely tender) and post-game they leave kirkwall and end up owning a ranch not far outside denerim. lou hires lots of farmhands that end up looking to him as a father figure and its super sweet, and jethann refuses to do manual labor. 

—————————-

this got insanely long i am SO sorry flkjsdlkgjlkcxjglsfkd

feel free to send any asks relating to them because i really love this family so much and could talk about them forever dlfskjlxcjglskd if you couldnt tell from this diatribe

[opalescent-cheetah]

Christmas Sweater (Witney)

For @artificialperidot for the @rpdrficexchange. Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this fic <33

Two prompts inspired this story: “Character A loses a bet and has to wear a different ugly Christmas sweater every day till Christmas. Character B works at a clothes store” and “Character A doesn’t feel the Christmas spirit but Character B, who lives above them, keeps playing Christmas carols really loud”.

Huge thanks to @veronicasanders for betaing - you’re amazing!

Willam can still hear Alaska’s gleeful laugh in her mind.

She can’t believe she’s doing this, but she’s not the type to back down. Not even after losing a bet she was at least ninety percent sure she was going to win. No, wait – especially not after losing a bet like that. Willam’s going to wear these god-awful sweaters every day until Christmas and look so good Alaska’s going to wonder what she got herself into.

Well, that’s not exactly true, Willam thinks as she grimaces down at her basket of ugly Christmas sweaters. They’re misshapen and baggy, and far too colourful, even for her. The collection is nothing short of an eyesore. Five days shouldn’t feel like a long time, but when Willam has to picture herself walking around looking like a sentient Christmas tree, it might as well be an eternity. She’s never liked Christmas much to begin with, and these ridiculous sweaters are only going to make the holiday season that much more dreadful. 

She rifles through the rack of garish designs to pick out another of the slightly more bearable sweaters. It’s red and white, patterned with snowflakes and stripes and little reindeer standing so close together they look like they’re about to kiss. It’s the fifth and final one; she shoves it into her basket and turns to walk towards the cash register. The cashier looks away quickly, hiding an amused smile behind her hand, and red-hot embarrassment floods through Willam when she realises that she had been watching the entire time.

She marches resolutely up to the counter, trying not to look as disgruntled as she feels. The cashier – Courtney, according to her nametag – offers her a dazzling smile as Willam places the basket between them. Willam refuses to look her in the eye, partly because she doesn’t want to see the quietly amused gleam she knows she’ll find there, and partly because Courtney is fucking gorgeous and, in a situation like this, Willam doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. If they were at a club, she would be boundlessly more confident, but here – when Courtney is struggling to stifle a smile as she scans the tags of each sweater – she feels a little bit like a baby animal, wobbly and unsure.

“Oh, this is one of my favourites,” Courtney says, holding up the red-and-white reindeer sweater and jolting Willam out of her reverie. “You’re really getting into the Christmas spirit, hmm?”

“I, uh… no,” Willam manages. “They’re for my family.” The lie comes quickly enough, and Willam is thankful for it.

Courtney just smiles sweetly, knowingly, and something shifts deep in Willam’s chest. She leans on the counter, forces it back down, as Courtney nods and scans the tag. “That’s very nice of you,” she comments, folding up the sweater with dextrous familiarity before gently placing it in a brown paper bag.

Willam pays quickly, itching to get out of the store as soon as possible. This experience is twisting her up in knots – she just wants to get home and verbally slap Alaska through the phone. She can feel Courtney’s eyes on her as she leaves, and, against the more rational side of her mind screaming at her to just go, she looks over her shoulder just in time to catch Courtney waving. She simply inclines her head in acknowledgement, the image of Courtney’s gentle, cheerful smile burned into the back of her mind.

 ~

 Everything on the television is boring.

Willam’s skin is prickling with restlessness as she sits sideways in her armchair, limbs spilling out over its edges. The distant click, click as she scrolls through shows blends into background noise, merging with the quiet humming of the heater. She’s curled up in one of the sweaters – the red-and-white reindeer one, which she has to admit is probably her favourite of the whole tasteless lot – and it’s surprisingly warm and cosy, wrapping around her like a warm hug.

And then the singing starts again.

Willam’s been hearing it on and off all night, through the roof from the apartment upstairs. Her skin crawls with irritation; sure, it’s Christmas Eve, but would a quiet evening be too much to ask? The person singing may have an incredible voice, but they’re still being so loud.

After a moment of stewing in her own exasperation, Willam realises the song she’s hearing through the roof is unfamiliar. At first, she’d thought it must’ve been one of those overplayed Christmas songs (especially considering the time of year) but the tune isn’t something she recognises.

She stills, quieting the shuffling of the cushions beneath her restless body, and lets herself listen. As soon as she catches the words mistletoe and Santa, she realises the song is, in fact, in theme with the season, and her irritation floods right back.

Willam has never been a Christmas person. It’s never been much more than another day of dealing with drunk extended family and being forced to help fish the Christmas tree out of the swimming pool. She likes buying gifts for people – the pile of neatly wrapped presents under the miniature tree Alaska gave her will attest to that – but the rest of the holiday has always seemed like a lot of wasted effort.

Whoever’s singing still hasn’t shut up, and Willam has decided that she has had enough. Flinging the remote onto the cushions, she marches out of her apartment and up the stairs, shivering at the cold touch of tile beneath her bare feet.

It isn’t difficult to locate the singer’s apartment. Willam knocks loudly, crossing her arms as she waits. The singing is abruptly cut off before it is replaced by the shuffling of footsteps.

When the door opens, Willam isn’t sure whether she wants to laugh or cry: standing before her is none other than Courtney, the cashier from the clothing store. She’s even more startlingly beautiful than Willam remembers – perhaps it’s the surprised glint in her green eyes, or the slight quirk at the corner of her lips. Willam wants to sink into the ground at the sight of her.

“Hey, I know you. You bought all those sweaters last week,” Courtney says by way of a greeting, her eyes sweeping over Willam’s body before she raises a hand to her face, hiding her smile. “Decided not to give that one to your family, I see.”

Willam feels immediately too big for her skin, her embarrassment running red-hot through her veins. She swallows, forcing her expression to remain neutral and unbothered.

“You were singing very loudly,” she says simply, feeling her confidence trickle back in when Courtney visibly flushes.

“I’m so sorry! I had no idea the walls were so thin.” Courtney looks abashed – and rightfully so, Willam thinks, but that doesn’t stop her heart from thrumming just that little bit faster when Courtney offers her a nervous smile, peering at her from under her lashes.

The silence that follows is awkward. After shuffling her feet for a moment, Willam makes to leave, but Courtney jumps in before she gets a chance to speak.

“Well, uh… since we’re neighbours, I suppose I should formally introduce myself,” she says. “I’m Courtney.”

“Willam.”

“Willam…” Courtney rolls the word around on her tongue, trying it out, and Willam likes how her name sounds in her lilting accent. “Anyways, Willam… now that you’re here, would you like to stay for dinner?” Courtney offers before she pauses suddenly, looking flustered. “O-Only if you’re free, of course! I made myself Christmas dinner but I think I made too much.”

Courtney looks adorable when she’s blushing. 

“I’m free,” Willam tells her, failing to bite back a grin.

“You look really cute in that sweater, by the way.” There’s a cheeky glint in Courtney’s eyes, and Willam’s insides melt under her gaze, unsure whether she should take it as a compliment or a friendly jab.

“I know. I look good in everything,” she manages to reply breezily, stepping over the threshold.

“I won’t argue with that.” Courtney winks, playful, before turning to lead the way into the kitchen, where she pulls out a seat at the dining table and gestures for Willam to sit.

“You learning to be a waitress?” Willam teases when Courtney pushes the chair in under her. “Do I have to give you a tip for helping me into my seat?”

“Wow, who knew I could be rewarded for good manners?” Courtney replies, and Willam grins. She’s liking Courtney more and more with every second she spends in her apartment.

Courtney then disappears behind the kitchen counter, and Willam hears the clatter of plates and cutlery. She fiddles with the edge of her sweater, twisting it up in her fingers, before she asks, “so what were you singing, anyways?”

Courtney’s head bobs back up and she slides dinnerware onto the countertop. “Nothing, really,” she says, and Willam likes the rosy tint of her cheeks. “Just a song I’m writing.”

“You write songs?” Willam can’t help but be impressed. “Sing me a line or two.”

“Are you sure? Couldn’t you hear it the entire time anyways?”

“Yeah, but I’m sure it’ll be nicer when I’m not hearing it through the roof.”

Courtney murmurs her agreement, and part of Willam regrets berating her for the noise. The other part doesn’t – otherwise she wouldn’t be here, sitting in Courtney’s kitchen waiting to share dinner with her.

She watches as Courtney taps the countertop with her fingertips, hears her gently clear her throat before she starts to sing.

“From head to mistletoe

I’ll never let you go

You’re what I’m wishing for

Santa keep me warm tonight…”

She sounds even better in person. Courtney trails off shyly, and Willam starts to clap, a smile tugging at the corners of her face.

“How was that?” Courtney asks, voice soft.

“Bitch, that was fucking amazing. I regret telling you to shut up.”

Courtney giggles. “Probably better that it was you and not the guy that lives upstairs. He scares me.”

Willam has no idea who she’s talking about, but she nods anyways. She watches quietly as Courtney sets the table before bringing out dishes of food, delicious but unfamiliar smells wafting to Willam’s nose.

“Holy shit. You really did overcook,” she mutters, peering at the dishes lined up on the table. There’s mashed potato, a variety of vegetables ranging from cauliflower through to carrots, and something that looks like dry scrambled eggs but smells like curry. “What’s this?” she asks, gesturing to the mystery dish.

“Curried tofu scramble,” Courtney replies. “I’m vegan, so… sorry if you were expecting a turkey.”

“Nah. Turkeys are overrated. I’m lactose, anyways, so at least this means I can eat your mashed potatoes.”

Courtney smiles. “That works out then. Do you drink?”

“’Course. What’ve you got?”

“I’m making my friend Vanity’s Christmas cocktail. If you could call it that, anyways – it’s really just champagne and orange juice, but it’s nice.” Courtney swirls the bottle of juice around for emphasis. “Do you want some?”

“‘Christmas cocktail?’ Just sounds to me like your friend thinks she invented mimosas,” Willam tells her wryly.

Courtney’s standing in the open door of the freezer now, surrounded by icy smoke like dragon’s breath. “Technically, you’re right, but” – she digs around, pulling out a plastic container – “we put sorbet in ours.”

“Sorbet?” Willam asks, startled. “It’s fucking freezing and you’re eating sorbet?”

“Trust me, I know,” Courtney laughs. “But it’s the middle of summer in Australia right now.” 

So that’s where her accent is from. The foreign lilt to her words only makes her more endearing.

“I’ll give it a shot,” she tells Courtney, who puts a generous scoop of sorbet in two glasses.

They make small talk during dinner, and more often than not, Willam catches herself staring: she likes the way Courtney smiles when she speaks, her eyes alight with a wistful joy. Her gaze keeps drifting back to Courtney’s glossy lips, and every time, she has to force herself to look away. She feels tender and relaxed – perhaps it’s the champagne in her drink, but Willam’s pretty sure it’s Courtney.

They discuss their family Christmas traditions; Willam learns that this is Courtney’s first December away from home, that Courtney had called her parents earlier that evening because it’s already Christmas Day in Australia. She listens as Courtney recalls fond memories of summer days on the beach, tanning in the hot December sun and sharing Christmas cocktails with her best friend, Vanity. Willam can’t get the image of Courtney in a bikini, skin glowing gold against the sand, out of her head, and she fights the blush that threatens to creep up her neck.

Courtney asks about Christmas in Pennsylvania, and Willam tells her about the year the Christmas tree ended up bobbing in the pool, about sneaking liquor while her family was cooking, and about sledding down hills thick with snow. Courtney listens with wide-eyed intrigue, and it makes Willam feel important – like what she’s saying really means something.

“That sounds like so much fun,” Courtney says. “Did you really get that much snow every year?”

Willam shrugs. “Most years, I guess.” Her chest warms at the glow in Courtney’s eyes, and she wonders suddenly if she should invite her to Alaska’s Christmas party tomorrow. Courtney’s presence alone would make the small talk and the boring holiday traditions that much more tolerable, but above all, Willam would love to see her again. She can feel the doubtful part of her stirring in the back of her mind, whispering that it’s too forward, that Courtney will say no. 

And then Willam remembers that she’s the kind of person who usually doesn’t have doubts – or, if she does, she ignores them – but as she turns back to Courtney, she realises her gaze is now somewhere else, her focus abruptly torn from Willam. 

“Willam,” she whispers, sounding awestruck, “it’s snowing!”

“No way. This is LA – it never snows,” Willam says dubiously, but when she spins in her seat to face the window, she sees hundreds of tiny white flakes drifting, as light as bubbles, through the air. 

Courtney has already jumped up from her seat, her face pressed against the windowpane as it fogs up with her breath. “It’s a Christmas miracle,” she gasps, clearly enthralled. Willam joins her at the window, standing just close enough for their elbows to brush, and peers outside.

“Nope. Just a snow machine.” She points upwards, where the edge of the machine is just visible. “People like to make things look more festive than they really are.”

“You’re such a party pooper,” Courtney pouts, but Willam can see in her eyes that she isn’t really serious.

“Yeah, and you’re gullible,” Willam replies, deadpan. Courtney giggles, shoving her away playfully, and Willam feels her face break out into a smile. She isn’t sure whether to love or hate what Courtney’s doing to her; it’s like snow is falling softly in her chest, feather-light flakes brushing her ribs, but when they touch her they melt into warmth.

They move to the couch after that, and Courtney pulls a blanket over their legs. They sit and talk whilst Courtney absentmindedly traces the shapes of the reindeer on Willam’s sleeve. Willam’s arms tingle at every touch, goosebumps shivering up her skin despite the comfort of her sweater.

Willam loses track of time, huddled beside Courtney; all she’s aware of is Courtney’s presence, the excitement in her voice as she rambles. She has never been so enamoured by someone before, and she wants to treasure this entire evening. She’s going to wrap it up like a Christmas gift, preserve it, so that she can open it later and feel this delicate warmth all over again. This isn’t like her, and she knows it – but something about Courtney has drawn her in, made her soft.

And then Willam catches sight of the clock, ticking quietly on Courtney’s wall. It’s nearly eleven – for a dinner with someone she’s just met, she’s long overstayed her welcome.

“It’s getting late,” she says abruptly, pushing the blanket aside and getting to her feet. “I – I should probably go.”

Courtney’s eyes dart towards the clock, and she lets out a quiet gasp. “Wow, I had no idea we were talking for that long.” She stands beside Willam, wraps her in a careful hug. “Thanks for spending Christmas Eve with me, Willam,” she says, breath hot against Willam’s cheek. “Will I see you again sometime?”

Courtney’s cheeks are rosy with hopeful sincerity, and Willam starts talking before she can second-guess herself again. “Actually… my friend Alaska is hosting a Christmas party tomorrow, from three till ten pm. Do you wanna be my plus-one?”

She is rewarded with the immediate brightening of Courtney’s eyes. “I’d love to! Here I was expecting that this Christmas was going to be boring… thank goodness you showed up when you did.” She giggles, and Willam smiles.

“I’m a miracle-worker, I know.” She flips her hair over her shoulder, feigning arrogance. “No need to tell me twice.”

Courtney snickers. “You certainly don’t need to hear it twice, you dog!”

“I prefer ‘classy and elegant goddess’, thank you very much.”

“Oh my god, you are too much!” Courtney laughs as she follows Willam to the door. “I can’t believe I agreed to spending an entire afternoon with you tomorrow.”

“Girl, you know you love me,” Willam winks.

“I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of hearing me agree to that.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Willam sings as she steps over the threshold, back into the cold of the hallway. When she arrived here hours ago, she was restless and irritated; now, she’s leaving with a new number in her phone and a smile on her face.

She turns to wave, and Courtney grins, pointing at her chest. “You should wear that more often, by the way. It suits you.”

Warmth blooms behind Willam’s ribs. Maybe she can pull off ugly Christmas sweaters after all.

 ~

 Courtney’s already waiting downstairs.

Willam sees her through the elevator glass as it descends. She’s leaning back into the leather upholstery of the couch, legs crossed at the knee, absent-mindedly drumming her fingers as she watches the passers-by. She looks lovely in her rose-grey coat, blonde hair spilling out beneath a pink beanie. There’s a white scarf wound around her neck and Willam imagines tugging it gently to pull her closer, close enough to kiss.

She shakes the thought from her mind immediately.

Courtney glances over, suddenly alert, when the elevator pings. Her eyes light up when she sees Willam before she abruptly bursts into laughter.

“What are you laughing at, ma’am?” Willam asks wryly as she strides across the tiled floor, stopping mere inches from the couch, where Courtney stands to greet her.

“Lovely choice of outfit today,” Courtney snickers in response. “I see you’re going to have to rethink some of those family gifts.”

Shit. Willam had forgotten she was wearing the final ugly sweater under her unbuttoned coat – after close to a week it had almost become monotonous. This one is far less preferable to yesterday’s reindeer, and Willam marvels at her own stupidity for leaving it for Christmas Day. It looks like a patchwork quilt in the shape of a sweater: pieces of red, white and green are held together by white borders like frosting. Miscellaneous images decorate the garment, and Willam isn’t even sure if half of them are relevant: there’s a bag of flour and an eye surrounded by rainbow sequins, among other odd things. The sweater is an ugly amalgamation of neon-bright colours and bold shapes; in short, it is an eyesore.

“Oh, shut up,” she tells Courtney.

Courtney straightens the collar of Willam’s jacket, her eyes gleaming mischievously. “I’m intrigued,” she says. “If you’re so embarrassed, why are you wearing it?”

“I was cold! You want me to freeze to death, bitch?”

The corner of Courtney’s mouth quirks upwards in amusement. “So, of all the things you could’ve chosen, you decided to wear this?”

“I can’t believe I’ve only known you a day and you’re already bullying me,” Willam deadpans, avoiding the question.

“Two days!”

“Okay. So we’re counting that time you laughed at me while I was shopping.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you, I was–”

“Bitch, you so were! I have eyes, you know!” Willam shrieks in laughter, pushing playfully at Courtney’s shoulder.

“Okay, okay, so maybe I thought you were kinda funny,” Courtney admits. “But you still haven’t answered my question!”

Willam sighs, defeated – Courtney clearly is not going to let the matter drop. “Fine. I lost a bet to Alaska, and she made me wear a different sweater every day until Christmas. You happy now?”

Courtney lets out a laugh. “I knew it was something like that! What did you bet on?”

“I’m not going to answer that,” Willam tells Courtney sagely, turning on her heel and striding towards the door to wait for their Uber. Courtney giggles, heels clicking as she follows.

They don’t have to wait long. Willam slides into the backseat beside Courtney, who primly folds her hands in her lap. She remains silent, distracted, even after Willam speaks to the driver and the car departs. It takes Willam a moment to realise she’s humming under her breath, forehead creased in concentration.

“Hey, is that your song?” Willam asks. The tune is quiet but familiar, taking her back to her evening in Courtney’s kitchen.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Courtney’s cheeks are pink. “I’m just a bit stuck on a lyric.”

“Sing it for me,” Willam prompts her. 

“Okay. It’s the first verse that I can’t figure out, but this is what I have so far,” Courtney says, before launching into song.

“I never thought that I would be

Your gift under the Christmas tree

Unwrap me ’cause it’s Christmas Eve…”

She trails off into a hum after that, quietly tapping her fingers to the beat of the song.

“I’ll do you one better,” Willam says when Courtney goes quiet. She clears her throat, singing, “Come eat me out, it’s Christmas Eve…”

“Willam! You filthy dog!” Courtney shrieks, mouth agape, and Willam dissolves into hearty, seal-like laughter. It’s the perfect way for her to drop hints that she’s a lesbian, and be funny at the same time – although Courtney isn’t laughing, not yet.

“What is it with you and calling people dogs?” Willam retorts, still gasping in amusement.

“Well, it’s better than ‘drongo’, isn’t it? I’m trying to be polite!” Courtney looks like she’s trying very hard – and failing miserably – to hold back a smile, and it only makes Willam laugh harder. She doesn’t even know what a drongo is, but Courtney’s Australian accent was so raw when she said it that Willam can’t help herself.

“Either way,” she tells Courtney when she’s calmed down, “if there’s any filthy dog in this car, it’s definitely you.”

Courtney swats her over the arm for that, but she’s smiling now, green eyes glittering with repressed amusement. Willam feels a spark of triumph, blazing bright behind her ribcage.

“That was lovely, but do you have any serious ideas?” Courtney asks her, leaning back into her seat.

Willam grins at her, not quite apologetically. “Mind singing the tune for me again?”

She listens quietly as Courtney hums. Thinking for a moment, she blurts out the first thing to come to mind. “Everyone’s sleeping, but… uh…”

“But we’re far from dreaming!” Courtney exclaims, as if she’s won a jackpot. “You genius!”

“I am, thank you for noticing,” Willam replies, pleased. She watches as Courtney types it into her phone and adds, “well, that’s one line down, and however many left to go.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking, for the rest of it, that the other person is dressed up as Santa,” Courtney says, pocketing her phone, “so I want there to be some… Santa-themed lines, if that makes sense.”

Willam nods distantly. Person. She can’t help but pay close attention to Courtney’s word choices.

“Willam?” Courtney snaps her fingers in Willam’s face, jolting her back to reality. “Did you hear me?”

“I – yes. Yeah, I was just thinking.” A pause. “Reindeer.”

Like yesterday’s sweater. The one Courtney said she liked the best when she was at the checkout.

Oh, how Willam wishes she’d worn it today instead of this ugly thing. At least it had been bearable. In fact, now that she’s come to associate it with Courtney, she’s even started to like it. Just a little.

“Reindeer,” Courtney murmurs thoughtfully. “Rudolph. Sleigh… sleigh bells?”

“That’s all great, but it’s not a coherent sentence,” Willam reminds her.

“Shush. This stuff takes time, you know,” she retorts, but her lips are quirked in the beginnings of a smile, and Willam can tell that Courtney enjoys this playful banter just as much as she does. She watches as Courtney thinks, mumbling soft phrases under her breath, and wonders how someone can manage to be so adorable.

“Give me more,” Courtney suddenly says, and Willam wrinkles her nose in distracted confusion.

“More what? Reindeer?”

This time she gets a laugh. “No, you idiot, Christmas words. I need more to work with.”

“Bitch, you know I’m not a Christmassy person,” Willam huffs. “Fine. Uh. Snow. Snowmen? Fuck, um, carrots. Cookies… cookies and milk.” She pauses, looking around for ideas, inspiration, anything. But what would she find in an Uber?

Her gaze drifts to her hands, clasped together in her lap, and it hits her. Her sweater!

She rolls up the sleeves of her coat to reveal more of the colourful patterns, and begins listing the things she sees. “The Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus. Uh, a glittery eyeball? Flour. And… cocaine.”

Courtney sputters out a laugh. “Cocaine? Where did you get cocaine from? That list was a train wreck and a half!”

Willam points to the lines of white wool bordering each patch. “Cocaine. Snort snort, bitch.”

Courtney shrieks with gleeful amusement. “Oh my god. I am not putting cocaine in my Christmas song.”

“Okay. How about weed?” Willam offers, feigning complete seriousness, and Courtney’s laughter starts up all over again.

“We’re here.” The driver interrupts them before Willam can think of more ways to make Courtney smile.

“Thank you kindly, and have a lovely day!” Courtney says as she steps out of the car.

“Ew. You are disgustingly polite,” Willam tells her.

“Well, you offered to tip me for it yesterday, so I’m not complaining.” Courtney bats her eyelashes, and Willam has to look away – she’s so cute it’s making her heart hurt.

Suddenly, there’s the clicking of heels on tarmac, and an excited voice calls out Willam’s name. She turns just in time to see Alaska’s arms fly around her shoulders, crushing her in a tight hug.

“Girl, you look fucking ridiculous,” Alaska tells Willam as she inspects her outfit. “And I love it.”

“Well, you better, because you’re the reason I look this stupid.”

Alaska chuckles, her gaze flicking briefly to Courtney. “Wow, and who’s this lovely woman? You could get some fashion tips from her, Willam.”

Courtney giggles, extending her hand to Alaska to shake. “I’m Courtney. Willam and I live in the same apartment block.”

“Lovely,” Alaska drawls, smiling jovially. “I’m Alaska, and that’s my girlfriend, Katya.” She waves at a blonde woman standing by the door, dressed from head to toe in bright red. Instead of waving back, Katya pulls out a rubber chicken and begins sucking loudly on it. Willam can hear the grotesque squelching noises from where she’s standing.

“Where the fuck was she even keeping that?” she asks, although she knows she shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. It’s Katya, after all.

“Probably up her ass,” Alaska jokes, hiding a smile behind her hand before she calls out to Katya. “I can’t believe that chicken is getting more action than I am!”

Katya grins around the chicken, sensually pulling it out of her mouth. “Mama, when you’re busy, I have to find other ways to satisfy myself, you know!”

Alaska opens her mouth to respond, but Willam nudges her before she can say a word. 

“Let’s go in already,” she butts in. “It’s fucking freezing.”

Alaska murmurs her agreement, turning to lead them both inside. Courtney shoots Willam an excited grin as they follow, and Willam’s heart somersaults in her chest.

A small crowd of people has already arrived, and they mill about, swirling drinks in their hands as they chat. Alaska guides Willam, Courtney and Katya – who joined them at the door – through to the bar, where she pours them all drinks before taking a seat on a nearby couch.

“So tell me,” Alaska drawls, leaning back against the cushions with one arm around Katya’s shoulders. “Did you two meet recently? I’m surprised I haven’t heard about you yet,” she adds to Courtney.

“I was working the counter when Willam bought her sweaters,” Courtney explains. “Wait, are you the same Alaska she lost her bet to?”

“Girl, how many Alaskas do you think I know?” Willam scoffs. “Of course this is the one.”

“Has Willam told you the story yet?” Alaska asks, an eager gleam in her eye. “Or was she too embarrassed?”

“Too embarrassed,” Courtney laughs, and Willam huffs beside her.

“Would you like to hear it?” Alaska prompts, looking far too excited to share. Courtney nods eagerly, and Alaska launches into the story.

“Ok, so, Willam’s been really into fitness lately, and the other day, she challenged me to, like, a pull-up competition,” Alaska explains, grinning when she sees the miffed look on Willam’s face. “I upped the stakes by saying that whoever did less had to wear five different ugly Christmas sweaters, one for each day until Christmas.”

“I can already guess what happens next,” Courtney giggles.  

“Yeah. As you can tell, I obviously won,” Alaska beams, smug. “Willam was fucking pissed. She was so sure she had it in the bag.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, just look at those noodle arms!” Willam exclaims, gesturing wildly to Alaska’s spindly limbs. “You literally have no muscle mass. Zero. Zilch. Nada.”

“I mean, clearly there’s something here, otherwise you wouldn’t be wearing that awful repurposed patchwork quilt,” Alaska comments, flexing under her coat. Katya giggles, pulling a comically exaggerated smirk as she squeezes Alaska’s arm, and Alaska licks her cheek in response before they both dissolve into hysterics.

“I have to deal with this all the time,” Willam stage-whispers to Courtney with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “I’m the ultimate third-wheeler. The fucking best. I could make a career out of it.”

“Well, there’s a bet you won’t lose, at least,” Courtney snickers back.

“Fucking bitch,” Willam grins.

“Anyways, Willam,” Alaska says suddenly, hand still resting on Katya’s leg, “you should thank me, you know. If it weren’t for my incredible strength, you wouldn’t have met this gorgeous woman right here.” She gestures casually to Courtney. 

“Nah, I would’ve. She was singing loud enough to wake the dead last night.”

“Oh, and that’s why you heard,” Alaska quips. Beside her, Katya flails her arms in laughter, wriggling in her seat.

They talk for a little longer before Willam excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and Courtney leaves to pour herself another drink. Alaska and Katya sit in silence for several heartbeats, watching as they leave.

“Romance is afoot, Alaska! I can just smell it!” Katya says emphatically once they’re out of earshot, tugging at Alaska’s arm.

“I think you might be right,” Alaska replies, slow and thoughtful. “Maybe we should give them a little… nudge in the right direction?”

 ~

 Alaska and Katya have disappeared by the time Willam gets back from the bathroom. She glances around quizzically, but she can’t even spot Katya’s bright scarlet clothing in the crowd of partygoers.

“Did you see where they went?” she asks Courtney. It’s unlike Alaska to up and leave like that, but then again, she’s the host of the party. Willam’s sure she has plenty of other people she needs to talk to.

Courtney shakes her head. “I just went to get a drink. Turned around and they were gone.”

Willam shrugs, secretly pleased she gets to talk to Courtney one-on-one again. “It’s whatever. They’ll come back. In the meantime, we can chill.” She flops back into the couch cushions, and Courtney takes a delicate seat beside her.

Willam doesn’t get a chance to say anything else: something falls just in front of her face, and for the briefest of moments she thinks it’s a spider and nearly jumps out of her skin. Courtney, too, looks alarmed; her drink has sloshed over the rim of her glass and is dripping down its neck. When she looks again, Willam realises that the item is, in fact, a sprig of mistletoe, crudely tied to a string.

“Oh no,” a familiar voice suddenly drawls, and Willam whirls around to find Alaska crouching behind the couch, Katya bubbling with barely-contained laughter just beside her. “Where did this mistletoe come from? Oh my god, now you have to kiss! There’s no way out of it!”

“Alaska,” Willam growls through gritted teeth, “I hate you so fucking much.”

“You’ll thank me later,” she purrs, winking deviously.

“Fuck off,” Willam sighs before turning to Courtney, who is smiling awkwardly.

“This is… quite the interesting situation we’ve found ourselves in,” Courtney mumbles, tucking a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “If you don’t want to–”

“Willam never backs down from anything, ever,” Katya whispers to her, just loud enough for Willam to hear. “You know, I would just go with it… I’ve heard she’s pretty good with that mouth of hers.”

Courtney immediately turns beet red, and Willam’s heart beats faster, thudding rhythmically against her chest. She has to force it to slow, force her muscles to relax; she tells herself that this isn’t anything new. She’s kissed plenty of women in her time.

But none of them were Courtney, and that makes all the difference. Willam has never wanted someone like this; this is softer, like the brush of a feather or the first touch of snow. This want is warm and heavy in her chest. It feels more permanent, somehow, and Willam wants to be careful with it.

The sprig of mistletoe trembles before her eyes, bobbing in the air like a dancer. Alaska’s shaking the stick, silently urging Willam on, and it’s like a prod in the side; Willam leans forward, charged with nerves, skin hot and prickly under her sweater. Every touch is like fire.

Her lips meet Courtney’s and they are soft and warm. She can taste the strawberry in her lip gloss, smell the artificial sweetness of her shampoo. Willam feels like she is glowing from the inside out; like someone flipped a switch, and all the Christmas tree lights came on at once.

Then they’re drawing apart, huffing quietly, their cheeks rosy and warm. Willam loses herself in Courtney’s eyes, enveloped in a moment of bliss. But it’s tainted with awkwardness; these are hardly suitable circumstances for a first kiss. Definitely not with Alaska and Katya watching, hissing at each other to shut up and stop giggling.

“We should do that again sometime,” Willam manages with a false air of casualness, shattering the moment. Katya wheezes with glee, and Willam watches Courtney turn an even darker shade of crimson.

“You know where to find me,” she responds, smiling coyly, and something warm and soft stirs deep within Willam’s chest.

[stokeme--aclipper]

Just as you are

Summary:

Anna has never been concerned about finding Mr Right and after a falling for Mr Wrong again and again, she's ready to give up altogether. Then she meets Kristoff Bjorgman. And she thinks maybe her luck is changing except there's one issue: he's an arrogant toerag.

Links: Ao3 

It’s Boxing Day and Anna has just arrived at her parents’ house for the annual Arundel Boxing Day buffet and already she wants to leave.

She can’t have been here for more than 3 minutes and already she’s been cornered by her mother’s friends asking if she has a boyfriend yet, cornered by her father’s business partners asking when she’s going to date one of them and cornered by her childhood friends telling her to hurry up and have a baby.

Yep; she just loved these buffets.

She looks around the room and softens when she catches her mother’s eye. Iduna smiles and makes her way over and Anna feels her stomach drop. There is an unusual glimmer in her eye and Anna knows her mother well enough to know its one of two things: her mother has local gossip or her mother is trying to set her up.

God, she’s hoping it’s the former.

“Hello darling, how are you?” Iduna kisses her daughter on both cheeks before taking her in a quick but tight hug. Anna feels herself relax ever so slightly (the butterflies are still fluttering within her stomach) and returns her mothers hug.

“I’m okay thanks mum, how are you? There are so many people here!”

“Oh you’re telling me. I’m certain there is more every year. Your father just keeps inviting more and more people and soon enough we won’t have the room. But anyway, that’s the least exciting part. Guess who is here?” Iduna can barely keep the smirk off of her face and Anna knows she was wrong: her mum is trying to set her up. She shrugs her shoulders, praying to God it isn’t going to be one of the Weselton boys from school. “It’s the Bjorgman’s! They bought their son, Kristoff, with them. He’s very handsome and charming. Let me introduce you.”

Anna doesn’t even have a chance to get a word in before Iduna is steering her towards a group of 3 people and wow. There is an extremely tall man with golden, blonde hair and when he turns around it’s like the world has slowed down. Anna has to pinch herself to remind herself to breathe and take in every detail before he inevitably turns away from her. He has mahogany eyes, a large nose which is complimented by his strong jaw line and there are freckles peppered across his cheeks.

“Anna, this is Kristoff Bjorgman and his parents: Cliff and Brenda Bjorgman.” Iduna is ever the host, smiling as her daughter shakes the hands of Bjorgman’s. “Cliff, Brenda: did I tell you about mine and Agnarr’s holiday to Norway earlier this year? No? Oh I must, come...” And just as quickly as she met them, they’ve gone. Leaving her with quite possibly the most attractive man she has ever laid eyes on.

“Hello, I’m Anna. Which you know already, because my mum just told you! So I don’t really know why I’m reintroducing myself but I’m gonna do it again, hi. I’m Anna.” She holds out her hand again for him to shake and feels her smile falter as he ignores it. “Okay, we’ve already shaken. So Kristoff, did you have a nice Christmas? Receive anything lovely?”

“It was fine, thank you. And not much, I got a reindeer jumper from my mum and some homemade jams from my dad.” He doesn’t ask her the same question and takes a sip from his drink. Anna can feel her cheeks burning but she is used to trying to fill the silence so she does what she does best: talk.

“Well I had a lovely Christmas. I spent it with my sister, Elsa, who unfortunately couldn’t make it today as she’s got a very important case on at the moment; she’s a lawyer. But we had a nice one, we played charades and she is just awful. Do you play? She got this one card and just could not act it out! It was hilarious! And then we just ate chocolate for the rest of day so I have to put myself on a chocolate ban for the rest of season otherwise I will go into a coma!” She laughs and pokes his arm, trying to garner a reaction but he remains impassive. “What do you do for a living Kristoff?”

She is looking at him sweetly and she can see how uncomfortable he looks and it takes him a moment or two to decide whether to answer or not but she doesn’t get his answer as she’s interrupted by her aunt Gerda, who is gripping her cheeks and cuddling her like she hasn’t seen her niece in 6 years, let alone 6 days. Once Gerda has had her full and is satisfied that Anna has been eating enough, she returns her attention back to Kristoff; who is no longer there. She looks around the room and can’t see him anywhere, so she awkwardly makes her way over the buffet table, determined to grab a mince pie (or two. No one said she couldn’t have mince pies) before they all vanish. And that’s when she see’s Kristoff again, who is in a heated discussion with his mum. And not watching the volume of his voice at all. “Mum, I have told you before I do not need you to set me up with anyone! Particularly not someone who loves the sound of her own voice, has a clear sugar addiction and got engaged to a man who she met that day!” Ouch. His voice is harsh and bitter and she can feel the tears building in the corner of her eyes. She goes to leave and stumbles into someone else causing them to drop their glass and she’s aware Kristoff is staring at her so she giggles and raises her glass. “Here’s to Christmas! Brings out the very best in people doesn’t it?” She turns away before she can make more of a fool of herself and blinks away the tears before they can burn at her eyes. She hates this bloody buffet.

_____ It’s been a week since the buffet and Anna is starting to feel like herself again. She’s stuck to her chocolate ban (however she has now replaced it with crisps and its beginning to become a problem), she’s up to date on all her work commitments and chores and she hasn’t thought of Kristoff-bloody-Bjorgman once. Okay, she thought of him a couple of times immediately after hearing him be mean about her but she hasn’t thought about him in 4 days and that’s better than nothing, right? Anyway it doesn’t matter, her new boss is starting today and Anna is determined to make a good impression. She’s hoping to make her short story section in the paper a bi-weekly thing and she has a good feeling she can convince the guy to give her a chance. She’s just sat down at her desk when the doors to the lift open and there’s a flurry of people and her new boss strides in and... oh no, it can’t be. There is absolutely no way in hell it can be him. Hans Westergaard. Her heart falls out of her chest and the office begins to spin and wow, when did it get hot in here? Anna is pretty certain her brain has melted to mush and she is determined to make an escape and is just calculating how much it would hurt if she was to fling herself out of the window when a shadow is cast over her desk and she just knows he’s stood in front of her. “Hello Anna. What an absolute pleasure it is to see you.” His voice is dripping with sincerity and charm and almost immediately Anna knows she is captured in his spell. “Oh, hello Hans. Wow, I didn’t see you there, how funny that we should run into each other in a place like this.” She is flustered and she hates that he still has this effect on her even after all these years but she knows she can’t give too much away otherwise she will never hear the end of it. “How have you been?” “Oh you know Anna; I’ve been all over the place. Flying from one continent to the next, determined to make my name matter somewhere. And yet all this travelling round has done nothing but made me realise my home is here, right here, with you.” He is looking at her now and Anna’s eyes go wide in shock and she has about 3 seconds to process his words when his lips are on hers and he’s kissing her like nothing ever happened. After what feels like an eternity (and not in good way) he releases her and she knows the entire office is staring at her and she wishes the ground would eat her up but he looks so handsome and charming and she almost forgets the reason why they didn’t work out the first time round. Almost. But maybe he’s changed and maybe this time things could be normal and the travelling does seem to have mellowed him... and besides, she wants to make a name here at this company, and so maybe Hans Westergaard is the way forward?

________

It’s been 3 weeks since Hans came back into her life and things have been... good. Yes, good is the word she would describe their relationship. And well she can’t really call it a relationship, its less exclusive than that. They spent time together in and outside of work, they would go for dinner and they would have lots of sex and she means a lot. But he rarely stays over and she’s only been to his apartment once or twice but she’s fine with it. He wants to take things slow and isn’t that the reason they didn’t work out last time; because she was desperate to rush things and put labels onto everything and she just isn’t going to do that this time round. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about it though. She doesn’t think about how nice it would be to go home and see him cooking dinner for her, she doesn’t think about how wonderful it would be to introduce him to people as ‘her boyfriend’ and she definitely doesn’t think about how great it would be to rub it in the faces of those who doubted her before. Of course there was always going to be people who had their doubts; Elsa being the main one. She was less than enthused once Anna had told her that Hans was back in her life and they were revisiting where things had left off. Elsa had had a few uncomplimentary words to say about him and Anna was pretty certain she had never heard her sister use the c-word before. Anyway it didn’t really matter what Elsa thought because Anna was happy and that was all that mattered. Well, happy was probably quite a strong word to use but she was... glad. Yes, glad would suffice. She would have been happier if she wasn’t currently stood in a crowded dinner hall on her own, waiting for Elsa to return and waiting for Hans to actually show his face. She could feel herself growing more and more bored as each second ticked by. She wasn’t even sure why she was here... oh wait, it was for Elsa. Who had abandoned her. For a girl. Which was fine, obviously, Elsa never liked people; let alone a girl so she wasn’t going to complain or interrupt. But Anna was bored and lonely and all she wanted to do was go home and have a hot chocolate and sleep but instead, she was in a too tight green dress (which was being severely underappreciated by everyone), her hair piled upon her head busy dreaming about what movie she was going to watch later. And then she saw him. Kristoff Bjorgman. It had been a couple of months since the Arundel buffet and she hadn’t spared him a second thought. Okay, that was a slight lie. She had thought about him at least twice. Or maybe 3 times but no more than that. What on earth was he doing here? Why would he be at a private function like this? As if he could sense her presence, Kristoff looked up and made eye contact with her. She flashed him a quick smile, which was met with a look of disdain and he turned away from her. Cool. Yeah that was cool. Wasn’t rude at all and she was fine with him not wanting to look at her because she didn’t want to look at him either. So it worked out tremendously. Until Elsa came back and insisted that Anna meet some people who just so happened to be in Kristoff’s group and that’s how she found herself, stood shoulder to shoulder with the man who could not bare to look at her for longer than a minute. “Kristoff, this is Honeymaren Naturra and I believe you know my sister, Anna Arundel. Honeymaren is a trainee zoologist and Anna is a journalist... well a storyteller really. You may have seen her short stories featured in the local newspaper?” Elsa is brilliant at introducing people, even when they don’t want to be introduced. She had a way of grasping everyone’s attention and so Anna could feel everyone’s eyes on her, including Kristoff’s. She refused to make eye contact with him though for fear she would say something incredibly embarrassing. “Oh, was it that delightful story about the girl who managed to crash into a horse and then fall into the pond? That was delightful!” A young woman is trying not to giggle and thrusts her hand at Anna. “Sofia Delcourt. Please to make your acquaintance. Where do you get your inspiration from?” Anna smiles weakly and starts to kick the floor with her shoes. She hates this question because she has to admit that most of her stories are in fact, inspired by her own pathetic and clumsy life, and more often than not she is then met with stares of pity and its all kinds of horrendous. Thankfully someone talks before she has a chance to answer and she grabs a drink from a passing waiter and gulps it in one and decides a second drink won’t go amiss. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by her that Kristoff hasn’t taken his eyes off of her since she joined the group and her stomach is doing flips and she isn’t entirely sure why. She wants to leave and goes to ask Elsa if she can when she realises that Elsa and Honeymaren have gone and abandoned her once again. Elsa better marry this girl otherwise Anna will kill her. “So Anna, where do you get your inspiration from?” Kristoff is still staring at her and she knows she can’t avoid this question forever, so without addressing him directly she answers. “Well this may surprise you, but actually my own life is often my inspiration. I’m quite a unique individual and many of my life decisions are quite hilarious so it would be a shame to not share them with the entirety of London.” She glances at him and is ever-so- slightly pleased to see a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Well thank goodness for your incapability to function like a normal grown woman.” Kristoff is trying to hide his smile behind his glass and Anna can’t tell if he’s joking with her or whether he is suffering from second hand embarrassment. Anna feels like she is quite a good judge of character but she cannot read him in the slightest.

“Unfortunately not all of us are lucky enough to be blessed with your incredible social skills, Mr Bjorgman.” Anna quirks a smile his way and takes a sip from her own glass. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bless my charm and wit on many others in this room. Nice to see you again.” She walks away before he has a chance to say another word and although she knows she has absolutely no one to talk to at this party, she couldn’t stand there and make pleasantries with a man who confuses her in ways she didn’t realise she could be confused. She’s stood by the bar, watching Elsa make conversation with a variety of people and whilst she’s keeping herself busy by drinking the bar dry, her eyes can’t help but wander over to where Kristoff is stood with Sofia and other people whose names she couldn’t be bothered to remember. He is looking rather lovely tonight, in a dark blue suit, with his blonde hair gelled back. It’s a look she couldn’t have ever imagined him sporting but it oddly suits him and those stomach flips have returned and she isn’t quite sure what they mean. He glances around the room a couple of times, and Anna senses he’s a little uncomfortable in this environment, which surprises her seeing as he’s an architect and so she assumed he would be used to such parties as this. He catches her eye every now and then and each time he does, he quickly looks away and focuses on a new subject. It’s quite cute to watch and she enjoys seeing him blush, it highlights all of his features perfectly. On the last time he catches her eye, she’s certain he’s going to come over and talk to her but before she can prep herself, she feels a hand on her waist and she’s ready to smack someone but to her relief its only Hans. “Hans! Oh thank goodness, where have you been?” She throws herself into his arms and he gives her a small pat on the back. “Sorry doll, I was caught up with work. Papers changed their mind about what they want to publish next week so it’s been a massive shit show.” Anna isn’t convinced by his story and she wants to question him but then his right hand is curling around her backside and his left is coming to caress her cheek and her breath hitches and he’s in her ear, mumbling all the things he wants to do to her and asking if she wants to leave and she almost knocks a waiter over in her rush to get out of there. She forgets all about Kristoff and his sideways glances.

_________

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Hans turns out to be a cheating arsehole again but the wounds feel just as raw and new as they did the first time around.

And she knows she was an idiot to give him a second chance and she just knows Elsa is going to lecture her about it again but right now, she really doesn't need any of that.

Right now she just needs her mum.

And so when Iduna opens the door to their family home, Anna can't help but collapse in her arms and cling onto her mother like she's a newborn. She smells like lemon and home and Anna regrets the fact she hasn't been back since Boxing Day and makes a mental note to be a better daughter and she's only been home 10 minutes and already she feels so much better.

"Come in my darling and you can tell me everything." Iduna's voice is soft and comforting and Anna knows she is going to spend the majority of the weekend in tears.

Once she’s settled into her jammies, her dad has given her a kiss on the forehead and a hot chocolate she launches into the story. She tells her mum how she had had a couple of doubts about Hans ever since the last time and how she was nervous it was happening again and when she had confronted him about it, he told her off for being a paranoid and nervous wreck. How she needed to grow up and start trusting him again if this was ever going to work. And of course she wanted it to work so she pushed everything down to the bottom of her heart and ignored all the warning signs and carried on like normal. And normal seemed to be working until she decided to surprise him one night and take him out for dinner and how when she arrived at his flat, a young woman had opened the door (“she was practically naked mum, it was awful!”) and Anna knew then that Hans was never going to change, despite what she had convinced herself into believing. She tells her mum how she had stormed up the stairs and caught Hans in bed with another woman and she realised that Hans was only ever going to be happy when he was chasing something he couldn’t have. She had yelled a couple of insults at him, but when that didn’t work and she didn’t automatically feel better she punched him square in the nose and told him to never contact her again. And she admits to her mum that although she can’t stop crying and is nervous about returning to work (she’s hoping Hans will do the decent thing and quit but she can’t imagine that happening so she’s tempted to quit herself; Iduna quickly scolds her for saying such a ridiculous thing), that she doesn’t actually feel sad about it ending with Hans. If anything she feels... relieved. “Well it’s obvious why my darling. Because you didn’t love him and he wasn’t your true love.” “I don’t think I believe in true love.” Anna scoffs and rolls her eyes, sipping her now cold chocolate. “You’re only saying that because you’ve had your heartbroken sweetheart. But believe me, true love finds everyone eventually. And when you find yours the world will start making sense.” Iduna smiles knowingly at her daughter and Anna begins to wonder whether her mum can see into the future and knows something she doesn’t. “Do I necessarily need it Mum? ‘Cos I honestly think I might be fine. Every man I’ve met or re-met over the last couple of months has turned out to be toe rags.” “You don’t need it now my darling, focus on yourself for a little while and when you’re ready; your true love will show themselves. And who knows, you may already be aware of them?” There’s another smirk on her face and Anna is pretty certain she knows who her mother may be eluding too. “Mother, if you’re hinting towards a certain young gentleman who happens to be related to your best friend, I suggest you remove that idea from your brain. That will and is never going to happen, so please stop getting your hopes up. He doesn’t even like me.” “If you say so, my lovely, if you say so.”

________

It’s Elsa’s birthday and she’s been invited over for dinner and Anna, for once, is excited to celebrate and be sociable. Normally at events like this, she becomes a bit introverted and is usually clinging to Elsa’s side but for the first time in forever, she is feeling good and the best she has in weeks.

It doesn’t even faze her that Hans turned out to be a complete and utter bastard again and whilst she spent the first week crying over him, she hasn’t shed a tear since and she refuses to cry over him again. Or any other man for that matter. So she’s at Elsa’s apartment and she feels positive and wonderful and she’s baked a chocolate cake (hers and Elsa’s favourite) and she’s ready to interact and be human again. So imagine her surprise when she sees not one, not two but 5 different couples sat around a dinner table and they’re all looking at her expectantly and her mouth has dried and she just wants to crawl into a hole and die and she is certain she knows no one here but Elsa and Honeymaren and oh god, why has Elsa invited me here? “Everyone this is my younger sister, Anna. Anna, you obviously know Honeymaren. But this is her younger brother Ryder and his boyfriend, Hunter. Then we have Sven and Rachel, Leonie and Cleo, Mattias and Halima and I believe you’re already acquainted with Kristoff and Sofia.” Elsa finishes with a smile and it’s just so bloody perfect that he would be here and Anna is honestly praying that she receives a phone call telling her that her pet goldfish has died so she has a valid excuse to leave. She can barely bring herself to look at anyone, let alone Kristoff, so she busies herself with the cake in her hand and then excuses herself from the room. Elsa quickly follows suit to serve dinner and Anna rounds on her immediately. “Elsa, why on earth have you invited me to a couples dinner party?!” Anna hisses, barely keeping the anger from escaping. She’s aware the walls are thin so she doesn’t want to be too loud to make things anymore awkward. “Oh Anna.” Elsa laughs wholeheartedly and rolls her eyes. “I haven’t invited you to a couple’s dinner party! It’s my birthday dinner and all of my friends just happen to be...” she trails off and a horrified look slowly creeps onto her face. “Oh no... I’ve invited you to a couple’s dinner! Oh my God Anna! I am so sorry, I didn’t realise! I just wanted to have some of my favourite people here and oh God, have I become the type of person where my only friends are couples? Oh gross.” She groans inwardly and Anna knows it isn’t really Elsa’s fault but she feels so awkward and embarrassed and she wants Elsa to give her an out but she knows she never will (and even if she did, she won’t leave. It is her sister’s birthday after all.) “Look, the dinner won’t take long and then I’ll make it into a more relaxed atmosphere so you won’t feel too weird. Is that okay? I just don’t want you to leave and I really think you’ll get on with everyone.” Anna sighs and agrees, earning a delighted squeal from her sister and she hopes there is enough wine to get her through this evening.

_________ It turns out there isn’t enough wine and so she has to endure all the chit chat about dating and marriage proposals and engagement parties and babies and she is contemplating the quickest way to kill herself with a dessert spoon when Lucy? Lora? Leonie! Asks her about her love life.   “You’ve been awfully quiet tonight Anna. Are you dating anyone? Any wedding bells on the horizon for you?” And Anna knows its a genuine question and she knows this woman will have no idea about the last few months but she can feel the lump clogging up her throat and she has no wine left and so she’s just staring at the group and her head is spinning and why isn’t Elsa helping her? “You’re dating the elusive Hans Westergaard, aren’t you?” Kristoff’s voice breaks the silence and she stares at him. It’s the first proper thing he’s said all evening and whilst she’s grateful for the save she knows now she’s going to have to explain that situation and she attempts too but she just can’t seem to break away from Kristoff’s stare. “Actually Anna and Hans have gone their separate ways; which is why Anna is being unusually quiet. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for her.” Elsa finally comes to her rescue and Anna gives her a small smile as a thank you and returns her gaze to Kristoff, whose eyes seem to have softened and there is a new emotion there, one that Anna can’t put her finger on. Once dinner is cleared and they move into the living room, Anna asks Elsa if she can leave, feigning a headache. She knows it’s mean and rude but she can’t bear to stay another second with all these couples and she can’t get Kristoff’s face out of her mind and she just needs to lie down and clear her mind. Elsa relents and lets her go and Anna can’t escape quickly enough. She’s just putting her coat on and adjusting her hood when she’s acutely aware someone is standing behind her.

“I enjoyed your most recent short story by the way. Very entertaining.” Kristoff’s voice comes from behind her and it’s all she can do not to roll her eyes. But he can’t see her face and so where is the enjoyment in that? “Thank you. I’m here to entertain... clearly.” She turns to face him and is surprised to see him at the bottom of the stairs. He takes a couple of steps closer to her so they’re standing mere inches apart and she’s trying her very best not to stare at him but he looks particularly handsome tonight and the lighting is just right, so the gold in his hair is blinding and the copper in his irises are just stunning.

She really needs to get a grip. “So, things didn’t work out with Hans Westergaard then?” There’s a slight smugness in his tone and all her original feelings towards him come crashing back and she remembers why she doesn’t like Kristoff Bjorgman: he’s an arse.

“No, they did not. I really don’t need to hear the words ‘I told you so’ either Kristoff, so if we could just move on from that.” She can feel her eyes begin to well up and she will not cry in front of Kristoff, she will not. “Anyway, I must be going. If I stay here another second I may murder Hunter in cold blood and you will have to provide me with an alibi. Goodnight.”

She turns away from him and heads towards the door when she feels his fingers brush against her hand. She stops and looks down, just to see him drawing his hand back. He looks awkward and is rubbing the back of his neck, a small blush creeping across his cheeks.

“Look, I’m sorry. That was unnecessarily rude of me. I’m just not the biggest fan of Hans and so to hear your relationship had ended, well it delighted me. And I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about the way I spoke about you at the annual Arundel buffet. It was obnoxious and rude of me. I made a snap judgement on 2 minutes worth of conversation.” He looks at her then and there is such intensity behind his eyes that Anna feels lost. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to apologise and so she’s stuck on what to say back.

“Well, thank you. I appreciate the delayed apology.” She manages to stutter and she needs to leave, but she is also desperate to know the reason behind his intense look. She is the first to break however and goes to leave once more, when a question strikes her. “Why were you so horrible to me?”

He swallows loudly and looks away, the blush returns to his cheeks and it feels like years before he speaks again. “I don’t know why really. I don’t like it when my mum tries to push me into dating women who I don’t know and so I took offense when I really shouldn’t have. As it turns out, my mum knows who I should date because I do like you, Anna.”

She laughs and shakes her head, refusing to acknowledge the words he’s just said. “Oh yeah, you like me? The ordinary girl who writes funny short stories and doesn’t know when to stop talking! Yeah, okay Kristoff.”

“No, I mean I like you, a lot. The truth is Anna, despite the fact that you do ramble on ever so slightly, you’re way too obsessed with chocolate and you insist on characterising every inanimate object you come in contact with, I happen to think you’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.”

There’s a beat of silence as Kristoff’s words wash over her. Anna stares at him blankly, her mouth popping open and she is desperate to stop but her brain won’t let her. He manages a weak smile at her and goes to speak again when Sofia appears at the top of the stairs and ruins the moment.

“Kristoff? Are you coming back? Ryder is telling the most hilarious story.”

He’s still staring at Anna and her heart is in her mouth and so many words are on the tip of her tongue but that’s where they’ll have to stay as Kristoff is breaking eye contact and addressing Sofia.

“Yeah, course. I was just saying goodbye to Anna. I’m on my way.” It’s enough and she’s gone and he’s smiling his cute, lopsided smile (albeit sadder than usual) at her and muttering his goodbyes.

I happen to think you’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.

[ashsilla]

Losses (Part Two)

Book: Platinum

Ship: Raleigh Carrera (M) x MC (Suiko Hono) with hints of Avery Wilshere (M) x MC

Rating: T

A/N: Suiko doesn’t know who to believe about recent events. Avery attempts to get back in her good graces despite Raleigh’s radio silence. The media is having a great day at her expense. But any press is good press...right? 

Tag List: @lunalixo  @furiouscloddonutpeanut @lovedrakewalker @topsyturvy-dream @padfoot0415 @omgjasminesimone @parkerattano @cordoniasmost @poor-bi-choices @msjpuddleduck @mallorycortez @coffeebeandragon @lizeboredom @perriewinklenerdie @greek-elsa

Other Parts: PART ONE

*

Suiko sat glumly in her apartment, scrolling through the top stories on EE! News.

Most of them mentioned her name.

Raleigh Carrera and Suiko Hono remain suspiciously separate after club debacle.

Avery Wilshere seen leaving Suiko Hono’s apartment — does this smell of rebound?

Avery Wilshere pictured with a black eye and bruised jaw, Raleigh Carrera pictured with bruised knuckles. Has Suiko Hono turned them from friends to foes?

All of the evidence that Avery Wilshere and Suiko Hono could have been in love this whole time.

And then of course, the worst one.

“Raleigh and I are in love”: the R&B superstar’s mystery girl speaks out in an exclusive interview with EE! News!

Suiko sighed and took another sip of her coffee. She’d been drinking way too much lately; already today she’d had three cups, and it was only 11 AM. The caffeine had given her hands a slight tremor. She pressed her shaking fingers to one of the articles and began to read.

We’re sure you’ve seen the pictures — pop icon Avery Wilshere, bruised and quiet after being seen leaving Suiko Hono’s apartment! And don’t forget the second half of the puzzle...the bruised and split knuckles on Raleigh Carrera’s hands as seen in his newest post on Pictagram.

They’ve left us dying to know what happened! Here are two of our favorite theories, as sent in by our readers.

“It’s obvious that Avery made a move on Suiko after Raleigh cheated on her! And Raleigh probably beat him up after. I just wonder if Avery fought back! Also, I kind of ship #Wilshono now.” - @youliftmeup476

“Raleigh and Avery definitely got into a fight over Suiko Hono. I bet Avery told Raleigh he wasn’t treating her right (though if you date someone like Raleigh, you’re kind of asking to be cheated on!!) and then they got into a fight over it. I personally think Avery is better for her but I guess we’ll see what happens! Oh, and if Suiko and Raleigh do break up — hi Raleigh! I’m single!” - @sun.set_skateparkk

One thing is clear: fans seem to have reached the consensus that their new favorite celebrity ship is Avery Wilshere and Suiko Hono. #Wilshono trended in the US on Twitter for almost two days after these pictures surfaced!

As always, check back for the newest updates from this story, only on EE! News. Are you team #Raluiko or team #Wilshono? Tell us in the comments!

The sinking feeling in Suiko’s chest worsened. She was about to click on another article -- that last one, the worst one -- when a sharp and efficient knock sounded at the door.

A knock like that could only be Fiona.

Suiko slouched off of the couch, pulling her fluffy robe tighter around her shoulders as she opened the door. Her manager walked in without invitation, dressed in a pressed gray pantsuit. Her heels clacked on the wooden floor.

“It’s almost noon,” Fiona said briskly, and surveyed Suiko with a scientific gaze. “You should take a shower.”

“Thanks,” Suiko replied, her voice dry.

Fiona smiled a tight-lipped smile. A business smile. “I’m assuming you’ve seen the recent headlines, and seen the response on social media. You’ve gained 100,000 new followers in the last day alone. All of this unresolved love triangle drama is great for your brand. So I need you to play it up.”

The words echoed around the room before Suiko really heard them. “Wait, what? What love triangle?”

“I need you to be seen with both of them. Don’t make anything official. Just make it seem like you can’t make up your mind between them.”

Suiko frowned. “But I --”

“I’ve already called Avery. He’s ready to see you today. Take that shower, please.” Fiona adjusted her jacket and set a folder down on Suiko’s coffee table. “Here are some date ideas, and ideas on what to post on your social media.”

There was no use arguing with Fiona. She was a force of nature.

“Okay,” Suiko said, dread already pooling in her gut.

Another tight-lipped business smile. “I’ll call you after your date,” she said, and left the apartment.

Oh, God.

She hadn’t seen Avery or Raleigh since they had gotten into the fight in her apartment. Avery had sent her a bouquet of peonies with a note attached the day after -- they sat, still blooming, in a vase on her table. The note had been short and sweet, classic Avery.

Suiko, I’m so sorry for what has happened. Please let me know if you need anything. - Avery

It was a nice gesture. The kind of gesture she’d expected of Avery.

And from Raleigh?

Crickets.

Not a single text. Not a single call. 

Some part of her hoped for it. Every morning, she would check her phone, waiting to see something, anything. But he hadn’t texted her since the day that the photos surfaced. 

Suiko sighed, brushing her fingers over the tops of the peonies. If Fiona wanted her to see Avery today, then she would. It was probably time for one of these bandages to be ripped off.

Two hours later she found herself opening the door for Avery.

He looked somewhat nervous. His fingers worried at the sleeves of his soft gray sweater, and his blue eyes clung to hers. “Hello,” he said, stiffly and formally, and Suiko found herself laughing. Relief flashed in his eyes.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

He nodded and offered her his arm. They strolled down to the street like that, ignoring the cameras peeking out from behind cars and planters. Fiona must have tipped off the paparazzi on where to get some good shots. “How’s your face?”

Avery grinned. The shadow of his black eye still purpled his skin, and his jaw was patchy blue-green. “Getting better each day.”

“I have to tell you,” Suiko said, “I never would have hung up posters of you in my bedroom if you’d looked like this in them.”

He let out a surprised bark of laughter. “This sounds like quite an interesting bedroom.”

“Oh, yeah. I had all the best decorations. My Avery posters, pink fairy lights, old Sunset Skatepark albums...”

Avery snorted. “Sunset Skatepark? Really? I didn’t have you down as a boy band kind of girl.”

“The more you know,” Suiko replied airily, flashing a smile.

They turned the corner to find a pair of preteen girls holding cell phones up in front of them. “Oh my God,” one of them gasped.

Suiko turned to look at Avery, pretending not to notice as the girls filmed them as they walked by. She might never get used to that part of the industry. Paparazzi pictures were one thing. Being videotaped by random people was another.

“You read the ‘news’ recently?” she asked.

“I’ve glanced over it.”

“Well, we’re the new hot thing, so I’ve learned.” Suiko frowned. “Sorry Fiona dragged you into all of this.”

Avery smiled gently, and lifted a hand to brush away a few stray hairs that had drifted into her face. Somewhere nearby, a camera clicked madly. “I’m happy to do it, love.”

Suiko glanced down at the sidewalk, hoping that the cameras wouldn’t pick up her blush. It’s not like she was in love with Avery, despite what the tabloids had to say. Still, though. She’d loved him as a fan for so long it was impossible to make all of those old feelings disappear.

They enjoyed a nice lunch at a little Italian restaurant, and then a walk through a museum. It actually was a nice outing, excluding the paparazzi. Avery was a gentleman all around. He held doors and pulled out chairs for her, and at the end of the day, he walked her to her door.

“Thanks for today,” Suiko said.

Avery lifted her hand and pressed a lingering kiss to the back of it. “Any time,” he murmured against her skin.

Her head spun as she entered the apartment. In her mind, there were two very conflicting emotions: wanting to cave and call Raleigh, and wanting to fling the door back open and invite Avery inside.

But both were bad ideas, so instead she grabbed a bottle of wine and collapsed onto her couch, uncorking the drink and taking a swig straight from the bottle.

Avery had been so nice to her today.

He was just a nice person. Always sweet, always kind, always good. Except for when he was brawling in her living room.

When had everything gotten so confusing?

She was halfway done with the wine and halfway through a movie when she heard shattering glass on her stoop.

Suiko froze, pausing the film. Someone was pacing out there. Judging by their steps, they were staggering. On tiptoe, she silently crept to the door and peered through the peephole.

Raleigh leaned against the wall just outside of her apartment, staring at the shards of a bottle at his feet. He looked terrible. His knuckles were gleaming with fresh blood -- what had he just punched? -- and his clothes were wrinkled and looked as if they had not been changed in days. The dark curls she loved to run her fingers through were greasy and disorderly.

She sucked in a tight breath.

Then he swung around and slumped away from her door, swaying on his feet. God, he was really, really drunk.

Suiko stood there a moment more, and then her heart made the decision that her brain had been trying to postpone. Not even bothering to throw on shoes, she shoved the door open and ran outside onto the street.

“Raleigh!” she called, head swiveling to try to catch sight of him.

But he was nowhere on her street. No one stood outside except for her.

Suiko sank down onto her stoop, careful to avoid the broken glass. Her hand reached into her pocket, producing her phone. At last she allowed herself to open the article that had been worrying at the back of her mind all day.

“Raleigh and I are in love”: the R&B superstar’s mystery girl speaks out in an exclusive interview with EE! News!

You’ve seen the pictures. You’ve made your theories. But now, be prepared for the whole truth on what happened between R&B bad boy Raleigh Carrera, innocent starlet Suiko Hono, and the mystery woman seen with Carrera at the Theory nightclub last week.

Here we sit down with Leona Lastrum, who reached out to EE! News for comment on the debacle. Read the whole interview below!

Nancy Chapri with EE! News: So, Leona. How did you meet Raleigh Carrera?

“We met just over a year ago at one of his performances. I’ve always been a huge fan of his, so I bought meet and greet tickets to his concert. Somehow, when we got talking, we just clicked!”

NC: Did you see him after that performance?

“I ended up at a lot of his public appearances after that. Obviously I was attracted to him, and it seemed like he might be interested too. But it was hard to get close to him for long periods of time because of his tour and his schedule.”

NC: How did you feel when you found out about his relationship with Suiko Hono?

“Well, at first, I didn’t even know who she was. I looked her up when I saw the headlines. She’s so new to the industry, I wasn’t sure if what they had was a real relationship or more of a mentoring kind of thing. But then I saw some of the pictures of them on dates and at events, and I felt kind of cheated. Raleigh and I had been slowly building our relationship for the past year and then suddenly he was dating this other girl.”

NC: How do you feel about Suiko and Raleigh’s relationship?

“I’m sad about it of course. Also, it’s kind of strange to picture them together. The Raleigh I know wouldn’t want to settle down with, and I say this out of kindness, an innocent and sweet girl like Suiko Hono. He needs someone who can keep up with him, not someone who will hold him back!”

NC: What exactly happened that night that the pictures were taken at Theory?

“I heard that Raleigh was going to be there, and I went to give him a piece of my mind -- ask why he’d started a new relationship when I’d thought we had something pretty special. But when I got there, it was like both of us forgot about all the time that had passed since we saw each other last, and forgot about everything that had happened in that time. It was like we were meeting for the first time again. That kind of chemistry.”

NC: If you could say anything to Suiko Hono, what would that be?

“I’d tell her to stay away from my man! Just joking, but really. Raleigh and I have been seeing each other since before she even landed in the spotlight. I just wonder how she was able to ever date him without thinking about the fact that he was already kind of in a relationship. Anyways, I think Suiko and I could honestly be good friends once this is all worked out. I have some sweet guys I could set her up with that are more her speed, if you catch my drift!”

NC: Finally, how do you really feel about Raleigh?

“I feel the same way I’ve felt about him since the day we met. I mean, you’ve seen him! What I will tell you is that Raleigh and I are in love.”