#august has met his match

[deandoesthingstome]

You guys. I love music. All kinds. I also love a good mash-up. All kinds of those, too.

So I heard this for the first time a few weeks ago (this song is 20 fucking years old wtf???) and I can't get it out of my head and now you get it, too.

IDK. It's giving pornstar!August at the disco vibes.

[petew21-blog]

Friends with benefits

Two long time friends Trent and Brett. A classic story. Met in kindergarten and have been friends since. Grew up together. Spent their holidays together. Graduated together. But then stopped seeing each other as often. Why? Because adult life ain't easy. Brett had to find a job while Trent got into college, graduated and on top of that became a fitness influencer. Brett started his Twitch account and became a gamer, which he had time for, cause how he was constantly doing a different job, depending on what he could find. But both of them always took some time off for a beer with their buddy.

This is Trent

Although he doesn't appear like that, he is a 24 year old male with young looks

On the other hand Brett is also young, but his looks are a bit more mature. Maybe it's because of all the hair

This is Brett

So hairy.

Normal guys, right? Well something was about to change very soon

Friday, August 2nd, 5 PM

Brett:"Hey, dude. Wanna grab a beer later tonight?"

Trent:"Yeah, sure. I am down. Is 8:30 ok? I gotta finish a video"

Brett:"Oh yeah, totally fine. See you then"

Friday, August 2nd, sports bar, 8:33 PM

At the bar Brett waits patiently, only his leg is slightly shaking. Trent comes in through the door. It's kinda funny, cause Trent used to be really insecure and not confident. Now he looks basically like a god. But still, he has this cute shy looking guy whose face doesnt match his body and the fact that he's 24. Brett was kinds jealous, most of the people that didn't know him always thought he was older because of his looks. Trent had the opposite problem. Always had to show ID whenever he went. Yet Brett was probably more jealous about his life in general. He finished school, took great care of his body, which now could help him hook up with anyone he would set his mind to.

Brett:"Hey, maaaan. How are you doing?"

Trent:"Heyyy. Yeah good. You know, single influencer life, haha"

Brett:"The ladies must be driving you crazy"

Trent:"If only it were just ladies. Haha. You should see the messages some of these gay dudes keep sending me. It's insane"

Brett:"You tell me. They always send random shits to my chats while playing. But it's mostly dumb kids."

Trent:"I think we should find you a date for tonight"

Brett:"Nahhh, fuck it. I'm not in the mood. I just wanna chat with my bro."

After a few beers

Brett:"Shut up, you did not!"

Trent:"I swear. She came on to me without a word."

Brett:"So what did you do?"

Trent:"You think I put up a fight? Haha"

Brett:"Maaaan. I want this stuff to happen to me to. That's so hot"

Trent:"Come with me to the gym then, I bet more chicks woukd be into you if you would gain some muscles"

Brett:"You calling me fat?"

Trent:"No, just saying that all that body hair would be good to match with a good body. You're just a walking gorilla right now"

Brett:"Oh shut up twink! Haha"

They finished their drinks, said their goodbyes and went home.

Brett felt amazing. He really needed to get a beer with his best friend. He came back home, sat behind his computer and searched Dark web. He already knew what he was looking for. He wanted to mess with Trent. Just a another one of his pranks. All he needed was Trent's personal item. He found the body swapping website. He read the rules and conditions and filled out his and Trents name. The only next step he had to follow was to go to sleep. And so he did. Only taking off his shirt in the process and collapsing on the bed. Not even brushing his teeth

Brett woke up feeling better than ever. He was used to have a hangover by now, but today he felt great. He opened his eyes and immediately noticed the different sheets. He looked around. This is Trent's place.

Brett:"Trent?" he said, but he heard Trent's voice.

He turned around to get up

His body. He has a different body

Brett:"Holy shit. It worked" he said amused. He looked down at his now soft chest. He got up

Brett:"Oh wow. getting up is so different when you have these hard muscles"

He went to the nearest mirror. And there he was. Trent in his glory. Brett was so happy right now. His prank worked. He is now inside of his best friends body. And the pranks probably won't stop there. Now he can mess with him all he wants. But not now.

He looked from top to bottom how tall and slim his body was. "Almost no hair anywhere. Lucky guy"

He took Trent's phone and snapped a photo to send it to Trent in his body. He knew it would take a while for Trent to wake up so he proceeded in his exploration.

He felt his curly hair. "How come you don't even have widow's peak? So unfair" He traced his jawline, now with tiny baby hair that Brett wouldn't even call a beard. But his sight was now caught by those nice Calvin Klein's. He looked around as if there was someone in the room with him who would judge him. He pulled on the waistband

Brett:"Just as I thought. Also shaved" he grabbed his new dick, that was getting harder and harder by the second, when suddenly his phone received a notification. he let go of his dick

It was Trent. Brett:"Haha, this is gonna be good"

There was a photo of Brett's body, observing his hairy armpits in shock

Trent in Brett's body:"Hey. Got any idea why I am a gorilla now? And why that gorilla looks exactly like you?"

Brett:"Surpriseee. And fuck you"

Trent:"So this is your doing?"

Brett:"Yeah, I kinda wanted to prank you somehow for all the pranks and the gorilla jokes. Joke's on you ape man"

Trent:"Fuck you. So this is reversible?"

Brett:"Sure, man. No worries. We'll meet tonight at the bar again and chat how our day went?"

Trent:"I don't know how to feel about this, bro"

Brett:"Just try enjoying being another person"

Trent:"Do you realise there are some no go things including intimate stuff and hygiene?"

Brett:"Sure I do. I'm already holding your dick in YOUR hands right now"

Trent:"Dude! Not cool. I meant more stuff like shitting etc. But yeah, this too."

Brett:"I gotta say Trent. You have a very nice dick"

Trent:"I'll comment on your size when I find it in the bushes I guess. Have you never heard of trimming?"

Brett:"Keeping it natural, baby face"

Trent:"Fine, let's see each other tonight at 8, ok?"

Brett:"Enjoyyy" Hangs up

Trent:"Jesus, this guy. I hope he doesn't fuck up something or someone"

Starts observing himself. "I must say, It feels good to look like a mature man and not a teenager. All of this hair. And the moustache is hot too. I could never grow this thing"

Trent looked down and had a mischievous thought. "Well, Brett. Since you have already held my dick, I think it's time to step it up. Gonna see if you can last longer than I do" Trent said with a smile and whipped out his new hard hairy dick

Saturday August the 3rd, bar, 8:04 PM

Brett is sitting amused in the bar, eating chips on the table and drinking beer. Winking at the ladies looking at his direction.

A waitress came by his table:"Want another?"

Brett noticed his old incoming body:"Sure, and another one for my friend who just arrived. Thank you, sweetheart" he said as his flirtatious look almost seduced the local waitress

Trent:"You need to stop!"

Brett:"What? I was just flirting"

Trent:"Not that. Stop eating those chips. God knows how many calories you ate already"

Brett:"So you don't mind that I was flirting with her?"

Trent:"Nah, I don't care. I jerked off your dick for like the fifth time half an hour ago"

Brett:"What? You beast. I would have never expected that. Cool. You have a really good dick to jerk off too. I didn't expect to shoot so far tho. Made a bit of a mess"

A couple off bikers started eavesdropping to their conversation and turning heads

Trent:"You might want to quiet down, or we're gonna get beaten up for mistakenly speaking like gay guys"

Brett:"But you gotta admit that my body is not so bad, right? All the hair and everything. You like it"

Trent:"It's not bad, but I prefer being in my own body. I'm used to it."

Brett:"Ok, I'll pretend I didn't hear the part before about masturbation. But what do you say? We didn't even have enough time to see what the life is like in our new bodies. It's only been a day"

Trent:"And your point is?"

Brett:"Let's stay swapped for a while. We can swap back anytime we want. It's reversible. We know almost everything about each other, so pretending to be the other one will be easy. You'll just teach me your workout routine, I'll show you... what games to play and how to set up a livestream and we'll figure it out"

Trent:"Livestream? That's all you got?"

Brett:"Come on, man. We got nothing to loose"

Trent:"I don't know man. It's gonna be complicated. I agreed to leave for a few weeks to work at one of our gym branches in another city. And now you'll be the one that has to go. I think now is not the best time"

Brett:"So? I can update you about everything. We can chat all the time. We can call. And I got nothing to do. Actually, you might need to find some job for those few weeks. And there's never gonna be a better time then now. We're single, ready to mingle. So let's enjoy that month"

Trent:"You wanna stay swapped the whole tíme I'm gone?"

Brett:"Yeah, I'll be a fitness instructor/viral star and you'll ne enjoying my chill life"

Trent:"Chill life. Man, you won't even recognise your life when we'll swap back"

Brett:"So you agree?"

Trent:"Yeah, what the hell. I'll be a gorilla for a month"

Brett:"Deal. Now, let's see if you'll have a better game in finding a hookup then me"

Sunday, August 4th

Brett sends a text to Trent:"Why do I feel like my body still hasn't gone through puberty?"

Trent:"Piss off. Yours looks like it went trough yours several times."

Brett:"Nah, gotta be honest. I'm really enjoying this lean figure and hairless body"

Trent:"And my dick..."

Brett:"Haha, yeah and your dick. How are you doing in my body?"

Trent:"Feels pretty weird to be so hairy, but gotta admit it's a nice change. Like... feeling so manly"

Brett:"Yeah, but tip for that hairy stomach. Don't cum on it. It's really irritating to get cum from it"

Trent:"Never had the issue in my body, so yeah. Thanks for the tip"

Brett:"No problem. I had to try it out in yours haha"

Trent:"Doesn't this feel kinda gay to you? All the dick and jerk off talk. Appreciating each other's bodies"

Brett:"Nah. We're exploring, man. Who knows if we ever get that chance. Gotta enjoy it"

Wednesday August 7th

Trent:"How are you settling in?"

Brett:"Yeah. Pretty great. I just jerked off to some porn"

Trent:"Ew. I mean the appartement"

Brett:"Whooops. Sorry. Right. Yeah it's nice. Very clean. Very modern"

Trent:"It's yours only for a month so don't destroy anything there"

Brett:"It's kinda poetic right. New appartement, new body, new job"

Trent:"I don't see anything poetic about me playing games in front of a camera"

Brett;"Dude you have to. My fans are gonna wonder what happened to me"

Trent:"Fine. I'll log in tonight. By the way. Dude your feet smell so much when you work out."

Brett:"Work out? You took my body to the gym?

Trent:"Yeah. I had to show off these bushes somewhere, right?"

Brett:"Ahhh thanks man. Looking good"

Trent:"And I think oke girl was checking you... me out"

Brett:"If you can score than go for it. I'm actually late for a date. Or... how do you call it if you're just gonna have dinner and fuck?"

Trent:"Standard hook up man. Please be safe. Wear a condom. And watch our foe those carbs, man."

Brett:"Sure thing, bye"

Monday, August 12 th

Brett:"Dude do you like ever have to shave your face?"

Trent:"Sure I do. I just don't have to do it so often as you. Btw can I please shave off this moustache?"

Brett:"Absolutely not. You'll learn to love it and appreciate it. Just like I will your baby face"

Saturday, August 17th

Brett:"I have to admit I really love showing off your muscles man. I have been doing it constantly at every occassion. So many people turn their heads to take a peak"

Trent:"Yeah I get it. It helps with the confidence a bit"

Brett:"A bit? I feel like I can beat any fucker whk crosses me"

Trent:"Brett, please don't beat anyone in my body"

Brett:"Just kidding, man. How have you been"

Trent:"Well I tried being consistent with the gym. I think your body is doing pretty well"

Brett:"Daaaamn bro. I look good. You really do take care of my body really well"

Trent:"I was actually thinking I could offer this for money. Swapping with people, doing their routines and then swap back. But that's a talk for another time after we swap back"

Brett:"Yeha, sure. Cool idea. Anyway... how was the streaming?"

Trent:"I don't know, man. I think they are desperste for me to say your catchphrases, but they are so cringe."

Brett:"Nah, you have to do that. That's how you get into Tiktoks and become viral"

Trent:"Honestly. I can't wait to get back to my body and to my life back. So we will swap on September 2nd?

Brett:"Yeah. I suppose. Depends how the work will be etc. Anyway I gotta go man. Talk soon"

Trent to himself:"It feels like he's avoiding me with amswering more and more. Trent rubbed his hairy chest, recalling his sweet soft pecs that he missed.

Thursday, August 22nd

Trent:"Hey, man. How is it going?"

Friday, August 23rd

Trent:"Hey. I just wanna know if you're ok. I just wanna talk about the reversal."

Saturday:"please call me back as soon as possible"

Sunday, August 25th

Brett:"I'm ok"

Trent:"What the hell happened?"

Brett:"Nothing I just felt like I needed a break from phone and that stuff"

Trent:"Brett you didn't answer the phone for 4 days"

Brett:"Ok, I was avoiding you, cause I kinda fucked up and was afraid to tell you"

Trent:'What did you do? Is my body ok?"

Brett:"Yeah your body is unharmed. Nothing that bad. We just had a party in the appartement. Broke the TV and... I had unprotected sex with one girl. She didn't know if she was pregnant or not. So I was waiting. And congrats. You're not gonna be a dad"

Trent:"Brett..."

Brett:"I know. I'm so sorry. Won't happen again. Promise. I just got drunk once and it led to this. I'll be good now"

Trent:"Please, don't do anything anymore. I want to switch back"

Brett:"Nah man. We still gotta week to finish. You said until September 2nd."

Trent:"I didn't know you'd do something like this"

Brett:"Please Trent. I'm begging you. Just that one week"

Trent:"Fine. But don't do anything else!"

Sunday, September 1st

Brett:"Hey. Are you packed yet?"

Trent:"Hey. Not really. I planned on packing tommorow. You can come and help if you got time"

Brett:"Sure. I'll come by"

Monday, September 2nd

Trent arrives to the appartement. Brett is on the couch playing video games

The TV is new and there is a PlayStation on the table

Trent:"You didn't tell me you got back into gaming and that you bought all this."

Brett:"Yeha, I missed it. I thought to myself that you'd like it too. So I bought it. By the way. You should see how the fans dig it"

Trent:"Fans? You're live streaming in my body?"

Brett:"Yeah. The gamers are so into it when I'm flexing in the spare time. I even got a viral Tiktok already!"

Trent:"I think we should swap back, Brett. My life is out of your control now."

Brett:"I'm just using all the goods, man. You don't like my body anymore?"

Trent:"Stop changing the subject. I want to swap back"

Brett:"Ok... but on one condition"

Trent:"You want money?"

Brett;"Nah I want to have sex with my body. I want to have sex with you."

Trent:"You have lost your mind"

Brett:"Oh come on. Admit it, that you thought about it. Who gets the chance to fuck their body? To watch their body in the most animalistic moments from somebody else eyes?" Brett flexes his biceps to let Brett watch

Trent:"Brett..."

Brett stands up and goes towards Trent

Brett:"You know you want to kids thus face. To suck this hard dick" he says holding tightly his hardening bulge

Trent:"I... I do. I want to suck my dick"

Brett:"Atta boy"

They begin making out. The fast movements heading towards the bedroom could be described as chaotic, but for them it was a dance of passion. Brett was ripping his old clothes from his old body was all over his body, kissing his neck. Sucking each part of his skin

The kissed even more

Brett began to be more dominant. He gripped Trent's now receding hairline and pushed him down to suck his dick. Trent was choking. But did his best to swallow most of the shaft he now had. He had his dick in his mouth. He couldn't believe it. He is straight and he is sure of that. But this is absolutely different

Brett took his old body by the neck, choking him. "Say you love being in my body"

Trent:"Brett I can't breathe"

Brett:"Fine, let's do this the hard way"

He turned him around. Trent now on all fours. He knew what was coming, but he wasn't ready

Brett spit in his hand and spread it all over the head od his dick. Ready to penetrate his old hairy hole

Trent:"Brett wait... I... Ahhhhhhhh". Trent screamed in pain

Brett:"Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm just so horny. I love your body, Trent. I love every inch od it. Admit you like mine"

Trent:"Brett, please slow down"

Brett:"Naaah, you'll get used to it in a sex"

Trent:"Please, get lube or something"

Brett spit again to where his dick was penetrating Trent's ass. Brett:"Should do it"

Trent was still in pain, but now a new feeling was making him feel better. The pain was now... pleasant? He wanted to feel more. With every thrust from Brett. He felt like shitting himself and cumming at the same time

Brett:"Admit it. Admit you love being in my body" he sped up. Thrusting painfully.

Trent:"Yeah.... yes..."

Brett:"Louder"

Trent:"I do... I love your body. I love being you"

Brett:"Ahhhh. I'm gonna cum. Turn around. I want to cum on your chest"

Trent turned around. He could feel cum leaking from his dick. And now he saw his old face like he never did before. Brett was so into it. His face was full of lust, rage and mischief.

Brett:"Ahhhh. I'm cumming!"

The cum shot all over Trent. Not only on his chest, but also on his mouth and face

Trent watched in awe what just happened.

Brett:"Whew. That was a ride wasn't it? First gay sex. Am I right?"

Trent:"Brett... I?"

Brett:"Oh sorry. I have to catch my breath. You look so funny with my cum all over you. Haha. By the way. I'm glad you love your new body. You get to keep it"

Trent:"Brett, you said we would swap"

Brett:"Yeah I did. That's true. But after this little 'cum over your face' and 'dick in your ass' we made it permanent"

Trent watched in shock as his old body was still standing on top of him. Breathing rapidly and laughing.

Several months later

Hi my name is Brett. Welcome to my only fans channel. If you got any hairy request, hit me up

Brett in Trent's body:"Well this is just pathetic. Man, I knew you'd crumble. But this just seems you lost your mind"

Trent's massive colleague came next to him:"Hey, bro. What are you looking at?"

Brett:"Just looking how one of my friends threw away their life, kinda sad. But whatever. Their life, not mine"

Friend:"Hey, wanna grab a beer later this evening?"

Brett scanned his friend from top to bottom and smiled:"Sure thing. Be there at eight"

Brett thought about switching it up a little. That body would be amazing. But then he turned around and looked at himself in the mirror. And flexed

Brett:"Nah. I'm Trent. And I'm keeping this body"

A request from messages (another one who waited for a LONG time, sorry guys) for @swappwas

Hope you like it :)

P.S. written late at night on a phone with a very irritating autocorrect, so please excuse the mistakes

[yutaholic]

the show must go on (M)

PAIRING: Haechan (NCT) + reader (female)

SUMMARY: Your best friend, your ride or die, Haechan has never once left your side, but all good things must come to an end.

WARNINGS: strong language; brief mentions of alcohol and drug abuse; explicit sexual content

NOTES: 7.9k words; this is part three of a rose and her thorns, but can be read as a standalone one-shot

Seattle, 1991

We met in detention. Eighth grade. Not to be cliché, but I knew Lee Haechan was trouble when he walked in.

Takes one to know one.

What I didn’t know was the role he would come to play in my life. I doubt many people meet their soulmate in middle school. I was pretty lucky in that.

The two of us practically lived in detention that entire year. Ninth grade was a little better; we just hung out behind the school instead of inside it. A silly pair of dumb kids wearing matching leather jackets and passing a cigarette back and forth, coughing up smoke and thinking it made us cool.

We thought we had it all figured out. But only Haechan turned out to be right.

He was the one that started the band. Haechan threw us all together and made music out of our chaos and trauma. He was the glue and without him, we would fall apart.

You clambered quietly into the passenger seat and whispered, “They’re asleep.”

Haechan was behind the wheel, but the van was parked on a grassy knoll just off the main highway. “Finally, some fucking peace and quiet,” he mumbled, sitting in a cloud of smoke that poured from his lips. The thick scent of marijuana filled the van from stem to stern.

You followed your best friend’s gaze. His eyes were firmly planted out the window at the black curtain of nightfall painted with billions of little lights. “The sky looks so pretty,” you said in awe.

“I know. It’s crazy seeing stars this bright.”

There was a tiny lull of silence. You were thinking. It wasn’t often you got to be alone with Haechan lately and it was making you crazy - not getting to confide in your best friend.

“I let Mark raw me,” you blurted out.

Haechan snorted. “I heard, but clearly your birth control did its job.”

“I snorted cocaine with Jeno… and fucked him in a dressing room.”

Your best friend looked at you, arching a brow. “So?” Doing crazy shit with Jeno wasn’t new, to be fair.

“What the hell am I doing?”

“What you do best - loving everyone except yourself.”

You frowned. Nail hitting the head every time, but you quickly realized you didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t do that,” you said in a small voice.

Haechan smirked and put the joint to his lips, taking another long drag. “You know me better than to think I’m going to be your conscience and scold you,” he said a moment later. “It makes sense you’re trying to get in as many rounds of fun before the summer ends.”

The summer was winding down. August was half over.

I didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t. Because I knew in my heart when we went home, we would go our separate ways. Forever.

There would be nothing holding us together anymore.

“Haechan?”

“Yes, my love?”

You fought back tears as you asked, “What are we going to do when it’s all over?”

Haechan slapped on a playful grin for your sake and said, “We’re going to get scouted at a concert and get a huge record deal and I’ll eat you out over a bed of hundred dollar bills.”

You snorted. “God, that would be a dream.” You quickly sobered. “What’s the reality?”

Your best friend’s grin melted away and his voice turned to frost. “Go home. Find a minimum wage job. And try not to turn into raging alcoholics like our parents.”

“I thought so,” you sighed, hanging your head.

Haechan reached over and rubbed your arm. “Save the major depressive episode for back home. Let’s just enjoy these last few days.”

“I don’t want to give up,” you said, meeting his eyes again. The fire inside you lit itself with resolve. No matter how small it was. “I want something more for us in life.”

“I know you do, baby,” Haechan crooned, touching your cheek affectionately. “But some things are just out of our control.”

You blinked with the urge to cry. You couldn’t fight it anymore. Regardless of his gentle tone, Haechan’s words sounded final. You slipped out of the seat and to the floor to lay your head on Haechan’s thigh, closing your eyes as he stroked your hair.

After a moment, Haechan whispered, “I’ll never forget you for as long as I live. No matter what happens. I hope you know that.”

The tears slipped down your face as you smiled and said, “I love you too.”

Haechan’s lips twitched. He wanted so badly to not let it bother him, but he couldn’t. He knew damn well when the summer ended and the band came up empty, there would be a permanent wedge of broken hearts and crushed dreams between you.

So, so lonely. That was Haechan’s biggest fear. Losing his best friends would destroy him beyond repair. He would go through life jaded and bitter, like his parents.

Maybe it really was unavoidable. Fighting fate sounded great in songs, but reality wasn’t kind. He knew that better than anyone.

The next morning, you woke in the bed with Jeno’s arm tucked around your waist, his body molded to yours keeping you warm. There was no telling which boy scooped you off the floor and put you in bed, but your money was on Mark. He was having a hard time looking at you and Haechan was mysteriously quiet.

But you knew why.

Tension had settled over the van, the worst of the worst. After the show in Seattle, there were no more gigs to be played. Now, the long drive home would begin, shadowed by defeat and failure.

You resorted to doing what you always did; trying to alleviate the pressure and raise everyone’s spirits. Once the boys were up and actually keeping their eyes open, you had Jeno drive to the nearby state park.

As he did, you drifted between them. They were like strangers, devoid of energy and hope. Mark hadn’t touched his guitar since the final gig. The gentle strumming of his acoustic and the beauty of his softly whispered singing didn’t fill the van anymore, to your dismay.

Haechan curled up in the bed and didn’t say a word. Jeno drove silently, smoking one cigarette after another and blowing the smoke out the window. You started with him, running your hand over his shoulder as he held the wheel. Jeno glanced at you briefly, offering a weak smile that even he couldn’t keep. You leaned in and pressed a kiss to his temple.

You went to Mark next and curled up next to him, hiding your face in the crook of his neck and holding him tightly. Mark was a little surprised, seeing as how the two of you had been working hard to keep your hands off each other, but was over the moon to have you in his arms again. He kissed the top of your head and ran his hands up and down your back.

“Won’t you play a little something?” you asked gently.

Mark shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you assured him, closing your eyes to fight the tears.

Finally, you went to Haechan and sat on the mattress next to him. He just looked at you, his stare vacant and blank. You brushed his long hair from his face and leaned in to trace a few kisses from his cheek to the corner of his mouth, just to see if you could spark a reaction.

Haechan pushed you ever so slightly and said, “That’s not going to work this time.”

You frowned. And gave up. The three were inconsolable and it broke your heart.

Sidling over to the cabinet, you found your notebook and began flipping pages, going to where you’d left off. Your brows stitched when you didn’t find it and that was when you noticed the torn remains of paper in the metal spiral.

“Okay. Which one of you ripped the page out?”

Mark met your eyes and said, “Don’t look at me.”

You called, “Jeno?”

“You know I wouldn’t touch your shit,” he replied calmly.

Leaving you to turn to Haechan, his eyes closed. “Haechan?”

“I don’t give a fuck about your memoir,” he said, hissing your name.

That made you flinch. You understood his anger, but not the vitriol toward your story. Your eyes fell to the notebook and the missing page, and your hands began to shake.

You threw the notebook at the cabinet and it landed in a pitiful heap. Tensing with frustration, you bent your legs, wrapped your arms around your knees, and hid your face, crying as quietly as you could.

Mark moved slowly, grazing against you to pick up the notebook and tuck it back into its place neatly, but he didn’t have the courage to comfort you. Too scared he would make it worse.

It was Haechan that slipped to the floor and enveloped you in his arms, cradling your head to his chest and dabbing at your cheeks with his sleeve.

When Jeno pulled into the park, you breathed in relief. The van was too stifling, suffocating you in all its misery. You hopped out of the van without a word and started marching for the scenic overlook advertised on a giant sign like you couldn’t get away fast enough.

One-by-one, your bandmates whined and huffed, but inevitably followed. They could wallow in their own disappointment, but they couldn’t stand seeing it hit you.

That’s how the four of you came to sit at a lone picnic table, silently staring at the Pacific Ocean, watching the waves ebb and flow in all its unwavering glory.

The tears had dried on your face. Breathing in the sweet, salty air grounded you again, clearing your lungs and your head.

You were the one to finally break the silence. “I need to come clean about something.”

“Go ahead,” Jeno replied, yawning as he still struggled to shake off sleep.

Wringing your hands in your lap, you began, “I’ve been mailing pieces of the memoir to Cassie.”

“That explains the trips to the post office,” Mark said offhandedly. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be glib or not.

“And?” Jeno pressed.

You took a breath. “She submitted it to a publisher for their… consideration, I guess it’s called.”

Well, that woke everyone up.

“Are you serious?” Haechan asked, his eyes wide.

“Yeah?” You were befuddled by the reaction, glancing around at them. All three of your boys were sporting similar looks of shock. “You knew I was writing a memoir.”

“We knew you were scribbling in a notebook to toss in a bin and find it again twenty years later and laugh at all the dumb shit we did…” Haechan’s tone of disdain was not lost on you.

Jeno’s gawking increased. “Babe, are you insane?”

You felt small on that picnic table between them, utterly confused, and snapped, “No. I’m trying to get us out of this hell!”

Grimacing, Mark asked pointedly, “You wrote about all the very illegal shit you’ve been doing?”

Oh. That’s why they were freaked out. Underage drinking. Marijuana. Cocaine. All very punishable offenses. You shrugged and plastered on your cutest, most innocent smile. “A little?”

“Fuck,” Jeno swore, sliding off the bench to his feet and running a hand through his hair.

Haechan shook his head and chuckled. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

You rubbed your arms awkwardly.

I was so determined to make it work. It was tunnel vision, so intense I could see nothing else.

“What did the publisher say?” Mark asked, touching your shoulder in comfort. The awkwardness was killing him too.

“I don’t know,” you said, leaning into him a little, desperate for warmth. “I call Cassie at every stop to check on the dogs and she promised to update me on any replies from the publisher.”

Jeno looked to Haechan. “Can they report us to the cops?”

Haechan waved him away, looking more amused the longer he thought about it. “No. She can just say it’s all fiction. Very embellished fiction.”

Mark bobbed his head. “Good thinking.”

You almost laughed. Haechan could lie his way out of almost anything. In this case, it would be in your favor. You glanced around at your boys again. “So…, is everyone mad at me or are we good?”

“We’re good,” Haechan said, patting your head. “For now.”

“Fuck.” Mark sounded exhausted. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know if I could handle losing our music career, but being notorious in a fucking book.”

It was your turn to comfort him, running your hand across his shoulders, feeling the tense muscles under your fingers.

Jeno kicked at a pinecone, watching it skitter across the rocks. “We’d be the fucking losers just known for banging bitches at every stop,” he sneered. Then, the drummer had a thought and raised his brows. “Actually, whatever gets us paid, I don’t really care.”

“Yeah, how does that work?” Mark asked curiously. “You technically wrote the book, but it’s about all of us.”

You made a face. “It’s our story. Of course I’d split everything fairly with you guys.”

Haechan smiled at you ever so faintly.

“I can’t believe our story’s almost over,” Jeno mumbled bitterly.

You perked up. This was as good a time as any. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“What do you mean?”

You got up and spun on your heels, so you could face them all at once. “I was thinking…,” you said, shifting your weight. “We could get a place together and we’d work odd jobs to pay the bills, but we would play gigs here and there. Whatever we could get.”

Jeno simpered. You weren’t clinging to the band. You just didn’t want to let go of them.

“We’d be scraping by a living forever,” Mark pointed out.

“But we’d be doing what we love,” you argued.

“Try loving something that never loves you back,” Haechan said harshly. “You become bitter and miserable. Just like my parents. And yours.”

You scanned their faces. Each had the tiniest bit of hope in their eyes, but their expressions were firmly rooted in defeat. “You guys just want to go home after everything we did this summer and…,” you trailed, a tremble creeping into your voice. “Pretend like it never happened?”

Jeno softened. “Of course it happened. We’ll always look back and remember this as the best days of our lives.” He talked to you like he was soothing a fussy baby. “But best days don’t last. That’s why you look back on them.”

Your eyes burned. More tears would come any moment now and you weren’t ashamed of them. “I just don’t understand why you’re all giving up. Why am I the only one trying to keep us together?”

“Because you’re the dreamer,” Mark sighed.

Haechan snapped, “Stop being so gentle with her,” and Jeno was quick to warn, “Don’t be a dick.”

Your best friend jumped down from the picnic table and approached you. You knew by his tone and his gait that he was about to dress you down and you readied yourself for the blow.

“This is how it’s going to go,” Haechan started, pointing at the guitarist. “Mark’s parents will blow their entire retirement savings to send him to a good college to recover their reputation. And they will never let him date someone like you.”

You flinched.

“Fuck you,” Mark hissed, every muscle in his body tensing for a fight.

Haechan continued, “Jeno won’t be able to hold down a job. He’ll be a regular customer in rehab, then jail.”

Jeno held up his middle finger. “Go to hell.”

Haechan set his eyes on you and a chill ran down your spine. “And you,” Haechan said through clenched jaws. “You’ll meet some guy you can barely stand, but he’ll keep a nice roof over your head. He’ll put a couple babies in you after some miserable missionary and your entire personality will center around the screaming kids you never wanted. Just like your mom.”

Your blood turned to ice in your veins. Planting both hands on Haechan’s chest, you shoved him back and screamed, “You son of a bitch, I hate you!”

Jeno was suddenly caught in a very precarious position. As you stomped off, his first instinct was to go after you, but in the next second, Mark was off the table and charging toward Haechan. So, Jeno had to decide whose life was in the most imminent danger.

And he correctly chose Haechan.

Mark grabbed Haechan by the collar with both hands and crowded into his face. “I’m gonna fuck you up,” he roared, but Haechan didn’t fight back.

He was numb. His face was blank, his eyes cold.

Jeno did his best to wedge himself between them, but he was too defeated. All the thunder was gone from him. “Why did you do that to her?” he asked sadly.

“She has to let go of us,” Haechan replied, looking from Jeno to Mark. “Make her hate you. It’s the only way.”

Mark shook his head in dissent, clenching his fists even tighter in Haechan’s shirt.

You put plenty of distance between yourself and the boys, and the moment you found a solitary bench between trees, you collapsed onto it, buried your face in your hands, and wept.

We have no secrets, Haechan and I. He knows the darkest depths of my soul, and I know his.

I never thought he’d use that as a weapon, but I should have known.

He was the only one that dreamed bigger and harder than me. With it all ending, his heart was dying and pain makes us do horrible things. Especially to the ones we love most.

Because he knew I would still love him anyway. No matter how much he broke me.

Time lost all meaning as you cried on that bench. It wasn’t just Haechan’s words that crushed you, it was the cruel reality of life. You didn’t want to live without your boys. The four of you were too interwoven and connected. Being parted from them would be like tearing at the fabric of who you were.

You were expected to walk around with a gaping hole in your chest forever?

Sure. Most people did. It would account for all the hate and anger in the world.

“My love?”

You lifted your head at the sound of his voice, roughly wiped your wet cheeks, and growled, “Go away, Haechan. I swear to god, I will slap the shit out of you.”

Haechan dragged his feet over to you and said, “Go ahead. I deserve it.”

You refused to look at him as he sat beside you. Your eyes focused on the ocean.

We had the same biggest fear. Becoming our parents. As time went on, the more it seemed inevitable. A cycle that couldn’t be broken. We were fools to think we could be different.

That’s what I was hanging onto. I had to avoid that fate at all costs. Part of me thought that as long as I had my boys, they could save me from it.

“How could you say my worst nightmare so casually like that?” You were still shaking.

Haechan hung his head. “I was trying to hurt you.”

You scoffed, deadpanning, “At least you’re honest.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, like all the air was sapped from his lungs. When you didn’t respond, Haechan said, “Look at me. Please.”

“No.”

Your best friend sighed loudly and slouched into the bench, resting his head on the back. The two of you sat there for what felt like hours, watching the world pass you by.

“You’ll prove me wrong,” Haechan said tenderly. “You will be the one that breaks the cycle. The rest of us will just watch.”

Still, you said nothing. You hated him.

Because Haechan always ended up being right. It was a gift and a curse.

Mark and Jeno came looking. The latter was the only one brave enough to approach you, holding out his hand without a word. You peered up at him and let your hand slip into his, and Jeno led you away.

Haechan blinked and the tears escaped. He held them back until you left, refusing to cry in front of you. Keeping his hands in his lap, Haechan didn’t bother to dry his cheeks.

Mark blew out a pained breath. “What do we do?”

“You know what you have to do,” Haechan said, cutting his eyes at Mark. “If you don’t stand up to your parents, they’ll make you give her up.”

“I won’t,” Mark started.

“They will wear you down. You know they will. She’s not who they have in mind for their perfect boy. They hate her.”

Mark nodded.

“If you grow a spine, the two of you can at least live happily ever after,” Haechan joked, but there was a bitter edge to his voice.

“What about you and Jeno?”

Haechan stood. “It is what it is.”

The cloud in the van darkened. Jeno and Mark were miserable, and predictably stoic about it. Neither knew what to do with you. As it turned out, you were the rock, not Jeno.

Curled up in the bed with your back to them, you closed your eyes, but had no intention of sleeping. You would just lay there and wait for something to break or change. You’d done the heavy lifting so far. Now it was their turn.

Haechan couldn’t take the silence anymore. He trudged out of the van and slammed the door behind him.

You didn’t bat an eye. At this point, you didn’t have the energy to ask or care.

That wasn’t true. I always cared. Nothing could ever make me stop caring. We are all cursed and that was mine.

When the doors wheeled open, Haechan was sweaty and disheveled. You wondered how much time had passed as he sat on the mattress beside you. “Come with me,” your best friend said, holding out his hand.

You smarted, “Or what?”

“Or I’ll drag you.”

You looked over your shoulder and gave him an obstinate glare, but your curiosity was piqued. The hell had he been doing that got him so shiny with sweat? It didn’t take him that long to jerk off.

A defeated sigh left your lips. He was still your best friend, even if you hated his guts at the moment.

After batting his hand away, you got up and followed Haechan outside, rolling your eyes at the looks Mark and Jeno were sporting.

Gravel crunched beneath your shoes as Haechan led you into the trees, not too far from the van. When you saw what he was bringing you to, you couldn’t help but smile a little.

A camping tent was set up; the one Haechan had insisted on strapping on top of the van in case he found a nice spot. And it seemed he found one.

This was a habit of ours. When the yelling at my house got to be too much, when I couldn’t block it with my locked door or the blankets over my head, I would sneak out the window.

My parents didn’t notice. Hard to notice if you don’t care. Haechan would always be waiting to run off with me to the park. There were safe, secluded areas to set the tent up without fear of being interrupted.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten laid in that pathetic little tent. I’d probably mourn the damn thing when it finally fell apart.

Just as I mourned my relationships.

“How about a night not sleeping in the van?” Haechan asked, unzipping the front flap and holding it open for you.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” you barked, narrowing your eyes at him and crawling inside.

Haechan bit his tongue. Any witty remarks would not be appreciated at the moment.

But given Haechan was allergic to quiet, he wasn’t going to keep enabling your cold shoulder for much longer. Watching you lay on your back and make yourself comfortable over the sleeping bags, Haechan sidled up next to you as close as humanly possible.

“I’m still mad,” you huffed.

“I know.”

Well, with that out of the way, you relaxed. He knew you were upset. Now the groveling could begin.

Haechan rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand, staring at you and how intensely you were ignoring him. He reached over and stroked your cheek tenderly, and said, “I love you. It’s gonna hurt so much when you leave me.”

You closed your eyes, your heart clenching in your chest. “Then why are you trying to make me leave?”

“To give myself some control over the pain. Maybe.”

You turned your head and looked at him. His hair had grown longer over the summer, its natural jet black. It was cute; falling into his eyes, hiding them behind fluffy strands. You brushed some back with your fingertips so he couldn’t hide. Then you reached for his hand and laced your fingers through his.

Haechan smiled softly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you told him. “You’re my best friend. I’ll be next to you in a nursing home.”

“Will you still kiss me if I have no teeth?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Heck yes. That would be hilarious.”

Both of you laughed at the sudden mental image of you and Haechan as two little old people sucking each other’s faces.

The rest of the world melted away. Your summer wasn’t coming to an end. It was just another night spent from home inside Haechan’s tent. If you didn’t think too hard, you could convince yourself nothing had changed.

Nothing was over.

You talked for ages, about everything. Like always. The light beyond the tent died and everything went dark, prompting Haechan to light a familiar lantern beside the sleeping bags. Soon, the ambience shifted from birds chirping to crickets singing.

When the atmosphere changed, so did the gravity inside the tent.

He was good at talking you away from the edge. Haechan made you laugh hard enough you forgot your anger and sadness, and he started stealing kisses between words. His hand occasionally traced patterns on the bit of your exposed stomach until it slipped under your shirt and got comfortable palming your breast. That’s when you began initiating kisses and running your fingers through his hair.

Kissing overtook conversation. You were immune to all the pain when his lips were on yours and you wanted more, wanted to overdose on the feeling until your heart was made of stone.

Haechan was my family. He was the only home I’d ever known, the only person who loved me unconditionally like my parents were supposed to. Soul mates aren’t always romantic. Maybe they’re just the person that loves you despite everything.

There was a little hitch in his breath as Haechan deepened the kiss, his arms heavy around you. He needed it too, needed to feel loved again before it was all over.

Your lashes fluttered as Haechan settled on top of you, abandoning your lips to suck and nibble at your neck. Your hands were on his shoulders, having been pulling him to you impatiently. His leg wedged between your thighs, pressing against your sex.

Haechan tugged at your clothes, undressing you while he bruised the base of your neck with his lips and teeth. When you yanked off his clothes and finally felt his naked body against yours, you moaned into his mouth and tangled your fingers in his long hair.

It was so familiar and comforting. With Haechan, everything was okay. Nothing could hurt me here.

He seemed in no rush to touch you where you really wanted him to. Typical. Haechan always dragged things out and made it last. He knew you had all the time in the world and was in no hurry to plow through it. Pun intended.

Haechan sucked your nipple into his mouth and pinched the other with his fingers. You bit your lip and squirmed under him, feeling his hard cock against your thigh. You hooked your legs on his hips and flexed, bringing him flush against you for good measure.

You flipped your positions and Haechan let you, holding your waist as you rolled onto him, straddling his lap. He kissed you even deeper, running his hands up and down your back while you cradled his face and tried to snatch all the air from his lungs.

Haechan broke from the kiss to ask playfully, “Have you been writing about sex in the book?”

You were breathing heavily, flushed and dazed from his kisses. “Yeah,” you rasped, running your hand through your hair to get it out of your face.

Haechan tugged you back down and trailed kisses over your jaw before whispering in your ear, “I need to give you some new material.”

“As if you haven’t given me plenty already.”

“I have competition,” he retorted, brushing his hands to your breasts. “Jeno is a slut with a dragon dick. You have a fat crush on Mark and he railed the shit out of you.”

You snickered. “Who are you then?”

Haechan steered you up and shuffled down until his arms were around your thighs and his mouth was inches from your sex, and purred, “I’ll always be the one that gave you your first nut.”

Though you were about to laugh at that, the next sound out of your mouth was a whimper as Haechan tongued at your folds. You were mindful not to put too much of your weight on him, but his hands on your hips said otherwise, bringing you down to meet his lips.

The sight of his face buried in your pussy, between your thighs, was so arousing you felt your walls clench on nothing.

“Fuck.” You let your head fall back and closed your eyes. Reaching for his hands on your hips, you held on tight and joked breathlessly, “The book will give us more groupies than the band ever did.”

Haechan stopped sucking on your clit long enough to retort, “God, I hope so.”

An involuntary shudder shot through you when he latched back onto your bundle of nerves. You squeezed his hands even tighter, eyes winching closed. Another moan tumbled off your tongue. Haechan didn’t play when he was sucking you dry.

It was probably one of the few things in life he took seriously.

“Mm,” you hummed, trembling when his tongue swirled around your entrance before returning to your clit. “So good, baby.”

Haechan made a noise against your cunt. “You know, you only call me baby when I’m getting you off.”

“Do I?”

“I like it.”

“I like when you touch me,” you said in barely a whisper, biting your lip lest you go into juicy detail.

Haechan would have loved that.

You were so far gone already. Your hands found his hair, your hips bucking against his face. Little nothings mingled with your moans. Haechan kneaded your hips, but as you got closer, he reached up to grab and squeeze your breasts instead.

It felt so good you felt guilty that you weren’t touching him. Releasing his hair, you lilted back and wrapped your hand around his hard cock, feeling it twitch the moment your fingers made contact.

Haechan broke away from your pussy and scolded, “Don’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

“Only think about yourself right now. Be selfish. You’ve earned it.”

You swallowed and let Haechan guide your hands back into his hair, and he bit the inside of your thigh as a warning to do as he said. Your body tensed when he lapped at your clit again and you decided to obey. You would be selfish.

Haechan smirked when you arched away from him, propping yourself over him on your arms and riding his face. He reeled a hand back and slapped your ass, the best way he knew how to convey to you that you were giving him exactly what he wanted.

He lapped at the arousal between your folds, his tongue teasing your bundle of nerves again. Haechan knew that was your weak spot, where you were most sensitive. If he played his cards right, he could have you screaming for mercy from the overstimulation.

“Right there,” you panted, voice pitching higher. "I'm close."

For once in his life, Haechan said nothing. He ate you out like a man starved, suddenly grabbing your waist to keep you in place. He sucked on you until your legs shook and you whimpered his name.

And when orgasm hit, you went higher than where the cocaine took you. Your eyes rolled back in your head and your body shuddered, and you chanted, “Fuck,” like a mantra.

Haechan kept going until you pushed frantically at his head.

“Stop. Stop. Stop,” you begged, fisting his hair and finally earning yourself a reprieve.

Haechan chuckled, slipping his arms under your legs and tossing you to the side. You gladly rolled to your back, staring up at the ceiling of the tent, waiting to come back to your senses.

You felt his hand smoothing its way up your thigh before cupping your sex, feeling all the slick he’d gotten out of you and muttering, “Fuck,” under his breath. His fingers prodded into your pulsing pussy, hooking at your sweet spot, and you writhed, sensitive.

“Put a condom on,” you told him hurriedly, still trying to catch your breath.

As you came down from the high, Haechan crawled over to the other side of the tent and returned with a packet, tearing it open with his teeth. You watched him fit the condom on his hard cock and you spread your legs invitingly when he moved between your legs, grasping your knees and pushing them toward your chest, bending you in half.

You rested your hands on his hips and drew him toward you when he slipped his cock into your entrance and stroked in slow. “Mm, baby, you’re so good,” you mewled dramatically. “The biggest ever.”

Haechan, whose eyes had been on his cock sinking into your tight cunt, tossed his long hair out of his eyes and said, “Fuck you,” with a tiny snort.

You grinned and sank your fingers deeper into the flesh of his hips, tugging him toward you in tandem with his movements. He loved when you left scratches and bruises in his skin. A reminder of you he got to carry around with him for days after.

“Kiss me,” Haechan whispered, rocking into you harder.

Without missing a beat, you lifted your head to meet his lips, but his hands wrapped around your wrists and pinned them to the ground. A noise of frustration left you, because you couldn’t close the rest of the distance with him holding you down.

Nipping at your lips, he taunted, “What’s the matter?”

Rather than answer, you moaned as his cock bottomed out in you again. Your face tensed with pleasure, every thrust making your toes curl. You were still raw from orgasm and his cock hitting you right made a shudder race through you.

Haechan went still. When you peered up at him in confusion, he smirked and said, “Fuck me.”

You hooked your thighs higher up his hips and started grinding into him. Haechan looked down to watch you bouncing on his dick, sucking in a breath when your pace grew more hurried and desperate.

“Please move,” you whined, eyes closed. Sweat formed at your back with the effort, your body burning.

“You’re doing fine without me.”

“I’m never okay without you,” you said breathlessly, out of your mind with lust and emotions. The two were colliding.

Haechan draped over you, slipping his fingers into your hair, and fucked into you at a ruthless pace for that, making you slap a hand over your mouth to keep from crying out.

The last thing you wanted was his name echoing through the woods. You would never live it down.

“Oh god. Oh fuck.” You clawed at his back, trying to find purchase.

Haechan gathered you in his arms and you sat up face-to-face, straddling his lap. Haechan kissed at your neck, crushing you in his arms. You rode him, his hips matching your rhythm.

“Come for me,” Haechan purred in your ear, saying your name silkily. “Again.”

It wasn’t fair that he could snap his fingers and your body would answer. You were so close and had been together for so long, your skin knew his touch. Your heart gave in to his every desire and whim.

Ecstasy spilled over and a moan caught in your throat.

Haechan held you even tighter as you came, biting his lip as he felt you clamp down on his cock, holding his breath to stave off his own orgasm until you sighed his name and slumped against him.

You buried your face in his shoulder and whimpered as his thrusts turned ragged, his groans pitching higher until he released into the condom. You rubbed his back and kissed his neck while he came down, lowering you to the floor gently and landing at your side.

The two of you breathed heavily. Sex broke something in you both that you needed. It felt final.

Like it was the last time.

Haechan discarded the condom and crawled back to you, getting a blanket out from one of the sleeping bags to drape over your bodies. You nestled closer to him, ready to doze off in his arms. Haechan settled a hand on your thigh, the other behind his head. Your eyes fluttered closed as his chest rose and fell with his breaths.

“I’ll never stop fighting,” you whispered with resolve. “And you shouldn’t either.”

He said nothing, but pressed a kiss to your temple.

The next day, the van was on its way home. You sat in the passenger seat as Jeno drove, just as you had when summer - and the trip - started.

When Jeno parked at a rest area, you ventured inside to look for a payphone.

Haechan leaned back against the van, arms folded.

Mark wandered over to him, asking in a soft voice, “How is she?”

“Ask her yourself,” Haechan retorted.

Mark frowned. “You know her better than anyone.”

Haechan’s eyes darkened as he said, “You hurt her and I’ll kill you.”

Mark opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Jeno, who had been hovering close by, smirked at the exchange and murmured, “Says the one person actually capable of hurting her.”

Haechan shot him a glare. “She loves Mark more than she ever loved us,” he started.

Jeno was quick to cut him off, “You know damn well that’s not true.”

“Maybe she’s right about us,” Mark spoke up, glancing between them. “Maybe we should stay together and try to make it work.”

Haechan let his head fall back and groaned. “Pussy power strikes again.”

“Are you done?” Mark snapped. “You are the biggest hypocrite, you know. You’re hoping and praying she’s right. That she makes something happen. You’re trying so hard to look like you don’t care, but you don’t want to lose us.”

Tears filled Haechan’s eyes. His lips pursed.

Jeno cocked his head. “We know that, Mark,” he crooned cutely. “Our Donghyuck cares the most. That’s why he tries so hard to hide it.”

Haechan quickly wiped his cheeks. The tears had escaped too fast. After a pause, getting himself together, Haechan said, “I’m sorry for yesterday. I didn’t mean it.”

“We know that too.” Jeno reached over and squeezed his shoulder.

The two looked at Mark expectantly. His anger faded and he huffed a sigh.

Your voice broke the moment. “Guys!”

“What?” Jeno barked, turning to see you racing across the parking lot toward them.

You could hardly breathe, panting like you’d run a marathon. “They want to publish the book!”

All three of them gaped in perfect sync.

“Are you fucking serious?” Haechan wheezed.

“Yeah,” you said in disbelief, chuckling to yourself. “They want me to keep sending in chapters and they’ll assign me an editor to help organize everything. And then I’ll have to fill in the gaps, but… it’s gonna be a book. An actual book!”

In the next second, you were the meat in a boy sandwich and you couldn't have been happier about it.

Once everything calmed down, Mark shook his head and exclaimed, “This is insane!”

Haechan took your face in his hands and planted a big kiss on your lips with a loud, “Mwah!” Which made Jeno whine, “I was gonna kiss her and I can’t now!”

“I’ll kiss you too,” Haechan taunted, wagging his tongue and reaching for Jeno, making the drummer turn on his heels and run for his life.

You giggled as Haechan chased after him and Mark took the opportunity to wrap you in his arms and bury his face in your neck, enveloping you in a hug. You held him tightly and closed your eyes, breathing him in.

“You did it,” Mark whispered, saying your name in reverence. “You made this summer count for something.”

Tears pricked your eyes.

Haechan and Jeno traipsed back over, pushing and shoving each other with big grins on their faces.

With the celebration winding down, you looked at your boys one-by-one and said, “There’s a couple of conditions.”

Jeno grumbled. Haechan arched a brow.

“I won’t write the last chapters and send them in until you get clean,” you said, pointing at Jeno.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious.” You planted your feet and stared him down. “You think I’m going to risk this book being a hit and us getting a huge payday just for you to blow it all on blow?”

Jeno sulked.

“It’s a fair condition,” Haechan said lightly.

“I know it is!”

You waited patiently.

“I’m not an addict,” Jeno insisted. “I am a casual user.”

“Then you can casually stop,” you smarted.

He made a face. After a tiny lull, Jeno handed you the bag from his back pocket and you didn’t hesitate to cram it into your own. Its next destination was the nearest toilet.

You turned to Mark. “There’s a condition for you too.”

Mark grimaced nervously. “I’m listening.”

“You have to do what you want with your own life. Not what your parents want.”

Mark visibly relaxed. His eyes went soft. Something happy and content washed over him. “But I don’t know what I want.”

You shrugged. “You have time to figure it out. Change your mind as many times as it takes until you find what makes you happy.”

“Okay,” said Mark, smiling.

Finally, you turned to Haechan. “And you.”

He tilted his head and puckered up his lips.

“You’re not your father, Haechan.”

“You sure? I was pretty quick to cut you down.”

You scoffed. “Last I checked, I’m still standing. Bitch.”

Haechan chuckled.

“She’s right,” Jeno said, draping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you close to press a kiss to your cheek. “We shouldn’t give up on the band already.”

“The book could make some people check us out,” Mark added, optimistic again.

All eyes were on Haechan. He smiled bashfully and said, “And if it doesn’t - if it all fails - at least we’ll know we tried.”

“No regrets,” you finished with a nod.

Haechan suddenly reached into his pocket and handed you a balled-up page.

The missing chapter of your memoir.

You gaped when you realized what it was. “I should have known you took it.”

“I couldn’t handle someone talking so highly about me,” he said under his breath.

“Oh. Only you’re allowed to speak highly of yourself?”

Mark and Jeno laughed.

Haechan did too. Then he sobered and tucked some of your hair behind your ear. “Thank you for believing in me.”

You gave him a puzzled look. “Haechan, you started the band. Don’t you remember?”

“No?”

“We met in detention in eighth grade,” you reminded him, to which Haechan bobbed his head. “You noticed Jeno drumming his hands. You said you saw Mark playing acoustic by himself during lunch. And you heard me singing under the bleachers when I skipped gym.”

“I forgot all that,” Haechan mumbled, his eyes twinkling like they shone with stars. “Damn, I really gotta quit drinking.”

Mark moved to your free side and said, “Yeah, dude. We’re all here because of you.”

Haechan looked at his three best friends, his family, smiling at him, and it almost broke him on the spot. He slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

Jeno laughed loudly. “I’ll be damned. All you’ve ever wanted is to be the center of attention and now that you’ve got it, you don’t know what the fuck to do.”

“Yep,” Haechan said with a sheepish grin.

You closed the distance and hugged him, patting the back of his head. “It ain’t over till it’s over,” you whispered for his ears alone and Haechan let go the breath he’d been holding, releasing all the tension and pain in his chest.

Once you parted, Mark reached for your hand and gave it a squeeze. You melted into his familiar arms and flushed when he said, “You are, by far, the greatest person I have ever met.”

“Stop it.”

“Okay.”

“Wait.” You wrapped your arms around his neck and lifted to your toes. “Maybe a little more.”

Mark smiled as his lips met yours in a chaste kiss that he poured his all into.

A kiss that was dramatically interrupted by Jeno, knocking into Mark enough to jostle you both. “It’s not your job to save us, you know,” he chided sweetly.

Yes, it was and it always would be. Because they saved me first.

“Hey, I’m just an instrument of the power of rock and roll,” you said, putting a hand on Jeno’s chest and giving him a playful shove.

“I take back every compliment I’ve ever said to you,” he joked, tickling your sides.

You laughed.

The four of you gabbed and teased each other for what felt like an eternity. The air was lighter. The sun a was a little brighter. Your boys were smiling again and you felt the pieces of your heart snapping back into place.

Hope is a powerful thing. A gentle promise that maybe - just maybe - we could all be happy and whole.

“We’re burning daylight,” Jeno eventually said.

You exclaimed, “Let’s hit the road,” and it was the first time you said it without dread.

Hopping into the van after you, Mark stuck his head out and called, “Don’t forget the trash.”

Jeno proceeded to scoop Haechan up in his burly arms and carried him to the van.

“Very funny,” Haechan deadpanned, but he couldn’t help but grin.

Smiling till your cheeks hurt, you got in the driver’s seat and fired up the engine, pulling out of the rest area and onto the highway, toward the new life awaiting you and your boys.

Everything would change for us. The drive home wasn’t some miserable journey we’d been fearing. It was the final chapter of our summer, but only the beginning of our story.

Copyright 2020-2024 © yutaholic (formerly zenyukhei) All rights reserved do not copy or translate without my permission!

[ch0k3herwithaseaview]

@jegulus-microfic | may 3 rush | words: 1365

hiii! the idea for this one comes from @bey0nd-1he-stars and i really hope she likes it <3 anyway, enjoy;3

tw: implied child abuse in the past

“James, we’re already late, c’mon,” Regulus managed to say between heated kisses. In response, his boyfriend mumbled something he assumed was ‘just one more’.

It started innocently enough—when Regulus and Sirius ran from Grimmauld and came to live with the Potters, James spent most of the nights sleeping in one bed with the two of them. And since sleep always came easier to Sirius than to Regulus, at least half of those nights James and the younger brother spent talking—sometimes about what they were doing that day, sometimes planning a night out with their friends, and sometimes, on worse days, about how Regulus wishes he could still live with his parents, because no matter how badly they hurt him and his brother, they still were their parents, and he still loved them.

On those bad days, James always held the other boy close to his chest, letting him cry and spit out all the pain he had in himself, all while stroking his back in a soothing gesture.

As the time passed and the brothers started attending therapy, James stopped sleeping with them. Instead, every night Regulus sneaked out of his room, going straight to James’ bed. The talks about their friends turned into ones about their feelings. Sleepless nights filled with guilt and fear turned into nights filled with tenderness and small, sweet gestures. And with the end of August, those small, sweet gestures turned into dancing tongues and hands all over each other.

Not much has changed since then—they were still sneaking around to meet at night, coming up with excuses to their friends and professors when asked about why they were so tired or where they were in between classes. There was one new thing, though: before every Quidditch game, they left earlier than the rest of their teams, saying they had to discuss something with Madame Hooch. In fact, the one who had a match that day went to the equipment shed and waited for the other one to show up to give him a kiss for good luck.

Today, even though they both played, was no exception. They met 20 minutes before the teams were scheduled to arrive on the field, locked themselves in a shed, and kissed senselessly.

From behind the closed door, Regulus could hear voices getting closer and closer to them.

“James, I can hear Sirius,” the younger boy gasped, tugging at the other’s hair to pull him away. It worked, if James’ terrified face was anything to go by.

“Shit, we’ve got to go,” James mumbled, putting Regulus back down.

“You don’t say,” replied Regulus, arching one of his brows.

They left the shed together, carrying the big chest with balls inside it as a disguise. After putting it in the middle of the pitch, both of them went to their respective locker rooms, wishing each other luck teasingly.

“Where have you been?” Dorcas asked Regulus as soon as he entered the room. Giving her a questioning look, he went to his locker, taking out his gloves, the rest of his uniform already on him. “I went to Hooch looking for you—she said she hasn’t seen you today, so where have you been?”

“None of your business,” he grumbled in response.

“Oh, so you were with—“

“Shut up.” He practically ran to her, putting his hands over her mouth. “I don’t know how you know, but act as if you don’t know, okay?”

“What will I get in exchange?” She mumbled from behind his hands.

“If you don’t tell about mine, I won’t tell about yours, deal?” Now Dorcas’ eyes went wide, but she nodded in agreement.

***

An hour and a half after the match started, Gryffindor was leading by 50 points, and normally Regulus would be livid because of that, but seeing James smile every time he or one of his teammates scored was enough to soothe him.

The game wasn’t really violent—the buldgers were flying around as always trying to get to one of the players before beaters from their team sent the ball frying to the opposite team’s players, but nothing more dangerous than any other time.

Regulus was lingering over the pitch, looking for the snitch. Gryffindor’s seeker, a third-year girl named Abby Baker, was following his every move, so every now and then he took off, trying to lead her in the wrong direction.

He teased her like this for most of the game until he finally noticed a small golden ball flying just above the girl's head. He took a wide turn in her direction, lying almost flat on his broom and speeding as much as it allowed him. Abby didn’t get what was happening until Regulus passed her by. She was fast, at his tail at all times, yet still too slow to reach the snitch before him.

Regulus was so close to it that he could practically feel the ball’s little wings in his hand when his brother’s voice came to his ears.

“Prongs, watch out!” and then there was a loud thud and terrified screams from the stands. And if Regulus didn't know who 'Prongs' was, he probably wouldn't even bother checking what’s going on.

But it was James.

His James.

As soon as he turned his head to take a look at what was happening, he could feel all the blood rush out of his face. The familiar silhouette of the boy who showed him what a real family looks like and what love really is—the boy who saved him—was falling down at lightning speed, his broom nowhere to be seen.

Regulus didn’t think even for a second that his team would lose or that the whole school would find out about them—he just took another turn, going as fast as he could to not let his boyfriend crush into the dirt below them. It felt like chasing the snitch, only this one was much bigger and still harder to put your hands on.

“James, give me your hand!” He yelled, flying a bit lower and reaching his own hand out for the other boy to catch.

Regulus almost had him, but their palms were too sweaty, and James slipped out, flying down at breakneck speed again.

“Fuck!” the younger boy exclaimed, making a risky decision and flying straight down. This time he caught James hand; he held on to it, but they were too close to the ground to come out of this situation in one piece.

Until they weren’t.

Regulus doesn’t know what happened, but one second he was in the air, hoping for the best, and the next he stood steady on the pitch’s grass.

“What the fuck, guys?!” Regulus could hear Sirius shouting from behind him, but he didn’t care about his brother right now—all he cared about was James.

“Are you okay? Where does it hurt? What even happened?” he was asking, checking every part of his boyfriend’s body to make sure he wasn’t hurt too badly. “Who sent the buldger? I swear I’m going to—“

“Reg, I’m fine. Look,” James said, shaking each one of his limbs and turning his head in different directions. “See? Nothing happened; I just need a new broom.”

“Nothing happened? Nothing happened?! James, you could’ve broken every bone in your body; hell, you could’ve died! Imagine it was you and not your broom, your parents—Sirius—and me! We would all die just from—“

“Hey, hey, hey,” suddenly James’ hands were on his cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears. When have I even started to cry? “I know you were scared; I was scared, too. But you caught me; nothing really bad happened; we’re both okay.” He pulled Regulus closer, putting him in a warm embrace. “It’s okay, love; we’re okay.”

They stood there, hugging for Merlin knows how long before Regulus realized what they were doing. He didn’t pull away when he said, “You know we’re in the middle of the pitch and everyone can see us, don’t you?”

“Yeah, baby, I know,” James whispered into his hair, still caressing his back gently.

And so they stood there, not caring about the world around them or Sirius screaming about incest—they just hugged, glad they were both okay.

[lollytea]

Love Lies Bleeding, Lies Love Breeding

(From that poll from yesterday. Something I wrote back in August from last year. Set during the Summer in Gravesfield. Some of Hunter's thoughts on falling in love, looking out for Gus and nursing a doozy's worth of guilt at the same time. Not gonna put this under any tags so it's a blog exclusive I think. If you somehow manage to see this, hello!)

Hunter isn't stupid.

Well, okay, maybe he's a little stupid.

Nobody ever says so. Nobody ever implies it. They wouldn't. They're too nice to him in this house.

But he sometimes wonders if they ever think it.

Sixteen years of being strung along on the trail of a genocide plot and smiling brainlessly the whole time was not very 'Genius Teen Prodigy' of him.

Belos was his blindspot, he can recognize that. He won’t let it obscure his perception of his own intelligence.

Or at least, he’ll try.

He can't afford not to try. His perception means everything right now.

Hunter isn't stupid, he knows this.

He's not unobservant.

He's not even allowing his own insecurities to fog up his lens of what's directly in front of him.

There is a girl in this house. A special kind of girl.

She's disarming. Perilously so.

Too disarming for her own good.

It's a girl who has miraculously mutated sunburns into a contagious disease.

There's this thing she does. A seemingly harmless thing. She asks if Hunter would like to garden with her on sun baked days.

He needs to study this recurring phenomenon. He needs to study her. Because Camila's garden is nothing but a compact patch of land. And yet, here's Hunter, getting hopelessly lost in it.

The hours split between his fingers. He loses time.

It's her. It's always her.

Because there's sunlight catching in the twists of inkblot braids and leaving white-gold nicks in glossy green irises.

Because there's frilly little blouses with not a sleeve in sight to sheathe an emphatic set of biceps.

Because there's shorts with cinched waist bands to better accentuate the bold flare of hips and the prominent bump of a stomach. Shorts with a very high cutoff hem, thus introducing him to the concept of thighs and calves in a way that he wasn't emotionally prepared for, but it really adds to the ensnaring madness of the whole situation.

Because there's her, in all her enthusiastic babbling glory.

Because she elaborates on every plant they tend to, with that soft, slightly raspy edged voice. Occasionally, the voice squeaks on its vowels when her cultivated descriptions grow a little too passionate.

She tells him that she used to get teased for it, and he bites his tongue and doesn't say that those ridiculous little vocal cracks have got the big stupid rock in his chest tightening.

And before he knows it, there's a fried scarlet stain on the back of his neck.

Camila specifically instructs them to re-apply sun lotion every few hours, and Hunter initially had every intention of taking her advice.

He forgets.

He gets lost in the garden, and he gets lost with the girl, and he forgets.

And now the back of his neck matches her seething shoulders.

She forgets, too.

He doesn't overlook that detail.

Hunter isn't stupid.

The reality of this girl's existence has teeth. He knows this because those teeth have been gradually sinking into him since the day he met her, one sweet penstagram message at a time.

There are wild, writhing, squirming jungles erupting in his stomach.

He's pretty sure if you cracked open his skull, it'd be filled to the brim with flower petals.

She's got those prickly vines coiling around the galdorstone inside of him as if she owns the damn thing.

(She very well might own the damn thing. Or, well, she'd be entitled to at least a chunk of it in a custody battle if he's being perfectly honest.)

She has well and truly captured him.

And he's pretty sure she's done it on purpose.

If you're going to melt solid gold down to a puddle, at least consider the consequences. That puddle is going to spend his post-liquidized days mooning over memories of the melting process and wonder how the hell you're still not done with him.

She isn't done with him. She makes that perfectly clear every time she catches him alone and flirts him into a quiet corner.

Yeah. That's a thing that's currently happening in this house. For some reason.

He doesn't know how, he doesn't know why, but Hunter of all people, has managed to pique Captain Willow Park's interest.

In a less than platonic way, he means. He feels the need to clarify because it's that specific aspect that has wrung his nerves tight.

She never says it. Not explicitly. It's not exactly overt.

He notices how she always reels herself back whenever the playful ambiguity begins eroding. It's almost like she's fiddling with him, but unsure of how to get a good grip.

Either that or she's deliberately building anticipation.

Obviously, if she's going to go and make a botanical disaster out of his brain, he's going to end up paying a lot of attention to her and how she carries herself when he's around.

However...it could all be a joke.

It could be some confusing teenager thing that he's not yet educated on.

It could be that she's just overwhelmingly nice, and this is all in his head.

But Hunter does not think that's the case.

Hunter isn't stupid.

So, the tentative assumption that there's something about his colorless disposition that she finds attractive is the reason gross, sticky sweat soaks his underarms whenever he interacts with her.

He's learning a lot about emotions that he previously believed himself to be well acquainted with, only to discover that they operate far differently under foreign circumstances.

For example, nobody knows fear like Hunter. The feeling is second nature to him.

And he can confidently proclaim that whatever is swelling between him and Willow has him scared witless.

But if that's the case, why do his facial muscles ache from grinning?

When Hunter gets excited, the words tend to bubble out of him at a breakneck pace.

But, as Willow casually traces the tip of her index finger down his inner forearm while crooning so maddeningly close to his ear, why can he not manage to choke out a single word?

That's what Willow does. That's what she does to him.

She rearranges things that should be straightforward. She shoots all those thoughts and feelings ten feet under, and before he can figure out what’s become of him, they're erupting from the ground, fluorescent and wholly unfamiliar.

The sturdy floors beneath him become tiles made of leaves fluttering over a depth of nothingness. It's unknown terrain. He doesn't know where to step, and it leaves him terrorstruck.

What now?

He thought he had adjusted to how it felt to free fall, plunging through the sky, slicing through the icy air.

Falling, falling...

His internal organs are in a jumble from the sudden rush of turbulence.

Falling, falling...

The sensation is unpleasant but temporary. Within seconds, Flapjack has steered his staff-form to swoop directly under Hunter's plummeting body and the two latch on to each other.

He supposes this feeling is a little like that. Or at least how it was in the early days of his and Flapjack's delicate partnership, before the contents of his stomach learned to strap themselves down.

But the biggest difference is that there's no near immediate release from how it feels to fall.

Falling, falling…

When does the falling stop?

Obviously he's heard the phrase. It's common. Almost overrated. Most recently, it was heard rolling off Amity's tongue as she churned out a thorough and sentimental report on why she fell victim to the falling and to the thing she fell into.

Falling, falling…

It makes him feel off balance.

He’s defenseless.

And, for reasons unbeknownst to himself, he likes it.

He likes this. Whatever it is.

She makes him like it. Which is so typical of her.

He likes being scared out of his skull. He likes her attention, no matter how startling the blaze of heat is.

It's exhilarating in a way. Like back in his castle days when he felt the jittery elation of reading books he wasn't allowed to

But it never lasts. Sooner or later, the guilt begins oozing until all of his childish joy is polluted.

Deception is deception, no matter how innocent the intentions are. Ultimately, Hunter is always left with a horrible sinking feeling for lying to his uncle.

Well...

Deception continues.

Even in this new life.

Even for this new Hunter.

Even if he tries to ignore it.

He likes seeing traces of his reflection in Willow's gold framed eyes, knowing the boy she's looking at has a red, bloody, gooey heart between his ribs.

That boy's expression is stitched together from a totally random assortment of genetic features.

That boy looks like that by pure coincidence.

That boy's body is his own.

He likes pretending to be the boy in Willow’s eyes.

'We'll tell them,' Luz had said on the night they were forced through the portal. 'When we're ready.'

When will he be ready?

The truth is molding away inside of him.

He hasn't drummed up the courage to tell Luz yet because he's not prepared for her potential disapproval, but...

It's been an ongoing litigation in his brain court.

What if he never tells them? Would that be so bad?

Who does it hurt?

If anything, telling them would gut them clean through.

Telling them would lead to pain that's irreversible for everyone involved.

Do they really need that?

Sometimes Gus jolts awake at night, suffocating on his own serrated screams, but Hunter has figured out the trick of calming him down.

It involves being Hunter.

He's not good with finding the words and clicking them together in a way that subsides a riotous mind. The kind of magic Gus effortlessly works on Hunter every now and again.

But he knows two words, and they're just as effective.

'I'm here,'

The basement couch should be too narrow for both Gus and Hunter to comfortably sleep on.

And yet Hunter always ends up laying there after one of these episodes. And something about his awkwardly elongated body with all its jagged corners is as good as any comfort blanket for Gus.

It's only after Hunter hears the slow even breathing against his chest that he closes his eyes, wondering how he got here. Why is he one of the first people Gus seeks out in the dark?

Maybe because of that thing he said a while back.

I promise. I wouldn't mess with you.

Gus has spent a lifetime being deceived by liars, and this simple fact is restless in Hunter's stone heart.

If Hunter tells them, he's exposed as one of those liars.

And he doesn't know how much more shattered trust Gus can take.

It's one of those nights as he's being beckoned to sleep by the steady rhythm of Gus’ quiet snores when Hunter’s mind, left unattended, goes wandering into the bleakest depths.

What would happen if he told Gus?

This friendship would be done. He knows that much.

But severed ties wouldn't be where the hurt ends, would it?

What if it takes months, no years, before Gus’ night terrors ease up?

What if time passes, tides change, moons molt into new moons, and in that hazy future, Gus is sleeping somewhere far away from here?

What if, when he wakes up screaming, it’s because of those nights spent in Camila Noceda’s basement, and that thing he had allowed himself to sleep next to?

What if Gus spends the rest of his life rattled by how close the two of them had once been? Just how easily he could have had the breath wrung out of his throat by Hunter’s witch slaughtering hands.

In this future that Hunter imagines, there is no solution for Gus’ hurt. And he’s unable to wrap him up tight in his arms and tell him he’s here because he's not here anymore.

He’s somewhere far away from Gus.

Or he’s dead. Which is basically the same thing.

Not like it would matter anyway. Even if he was close enough to hold him, it would just make everything worse. Hunter having been in close proximity a time ago would be the whole reason for the hurt. The most considerate thing he could do is stay far away or be dead and rotting or whatever it is that keeps him out of sight and out of mind.

He notices that whenever Gus calls out to him in the dark, he barely sounds like himself. It’s like this iron spined thirteen year old has regressed eight years and he's nothing but a frightened preschooler begging to be held by someone safe.

Hunter is not someone safe.

But maybe, for Gus' sake, he can pretend to be.

If the truth never leaves Hunter's tongue, then he will never be the monster in Gus' bad dreams.

So, he's protecting him, right? If Hunter just keeps his huge mouth shut for once in his life, Gus won't have to carve another painful tally mark into his already worn down heart.

There doesn't have to be another liar in Gus' life.

Not if he never finds out.

Hunter can pretend.

He can bury himself into this game of make-believe until the lie and the truth become in the same.

Wouldn't that be better for everyone?

He knows it's dishonest, but he can make up for it with his life. He'll make them happy, he promises.

[cottonlemonade]

How You Met (Falling in Love)

word count: 2145 || avg. reading time: 9 mins.

pairing: post-time skip Bokuto x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff, tiny smidgen of angst mayhaps

warnings: spoilers, having dropped out of university(?)

August

> you currently live in Kyoto

> you dropped out of university (Japanese major, history minor) because the academic setting is just not for you

> you still love the subjects, just not under academic pressure

> in Kyoto you worked as a guide for a while, leading tourists through all the ruins and historical places you love

> eventually you settle in working at a café, quickly being promoted to manager and (no small thanks to you) it‘s one of the most popular cafés in Kyoto now

> one day you get a call from a friend you went to uni with and she has a big favour to ask

> she works as a manager for a prestigious volleyball team and they are gonna head overseas soon for two weeks for a big tournament and their translator had to cancel last minute

> after talking it through with your boss (whom you are on most excellent terms with) he lets you take the time off to go help your friend (asking you to bring him back an autographed poster of the team)

> and so you pack your bags and take the 3h train ride to Tokyo

> until the plane leaves in a few days you will stay with your friend

> you asked if you could meet the team beforehand in case one of them has a dialect you need to get used to first (*cough* Atsumu)

> you‘re in the gym hanging out with your friend waiting for the team to arrive

> (during Uni time you two had been on the varsity women‘s Volleyball team)

> you‘re quite nervous but also a bit excited at the opportunity

> to give yourself something to do you wanna go grab a drink from the vending machine

> you head towards the doors just when they fly open

> „HEY HEY H-hey?“

> a tall, broad guy with grey-black spiky hair and golden eyes stands in front of you looking curious

> „And hey to you.“, you say brightly, giving a soft laugh, turning to your friend, „I‘ll be right back.“

> you duck under the guy‘s arm and make your way down the corridor as he stares after you

> „Pretty“, he mutters before getting pushed through the door by Sakusa

> during the overseas trip you get of course much closer with the whole team and you end up having a really fun time with them

> you even exchange numbers with them (Sakusa being so happy to have found someone who treats disinfectant like holy water just like him)

> that day, the Jackals had only won by a hair-width in the semi-final

> however, that didn‘t stop Bokuto from spiralling

> for the most part his mood swings had calmed down significantly since his teenage years but whenever a truly crushing match came his way he couldn‘t stop the dark thoughts

> his spikes had mostly been blocked and he wanted to figure out what went wrong but was so embarrassed that he, the team‘s ace, had let his team down (none of the team had given him any crap about it (except Sakusa a little))

> It was late, he was alone in the gym and buried his face in his arms, making himself as small as possible under a table in the corner

> „Bokuto-Kun?“

> he heard your voice softly, a little confused, then saw your sneakers as you knelt down in front of the table

> “Are you alright? Are you hurt?“

> he felt childish for not saying anything but he couldn‘t bring himself to, not right now

> he heard the soft thump of your bag as you set it down and a moment later he felt you scooting in next to him

> “Do you want to talk about it?“

> ever so slightly he shook his head

> “Hm.“, you made, quietly, then „Okay. Do not be alarmed.“

> And you hugged him

> you just

> hugged him

> tightly.

> You smelled like lavender, your body just so so soft and cozy and when he felt your hand rubbing soothing circles on his back he broke and started crying

> you only held him tighter

> „Are you upset about the game?“, you asked, gently after a minute or two

> when he didn‘t say anything you figured you were dead-on

> „I actually had to leave the court during my first varsity match because I couldn‘t handle the pressure and had a panic attack.“

> He pulled out of your embrace to look at you

> you smiled, kind of sadly, then focused on your shoes as you continued, „I get very uncomfortable being in front of a lot of people and letting the team down was something I was really struggling with, too. It might have been alright during training but when it was an official match - well, you could knock me over with a feather. Every mistake I made seemed a hundred times worse.“

> he just stared at you because he knew that feeling you described so so well

> The hand you kept on his back was warm and reassuring

> „This wasn‘t meant to make you feel worse.“, you said quickly, „I just wanted to tell you that I get it. And I know that no one in the team is blaming you for anything. This was a really tough match and without your points you guys wouldn‘t have won. Blocking you took their defence everything they had and it still wasn‘t enough. You did a whole lot more than you think you did.“

> and then, right there, when you smiled at him, that‘s when he knew he was in trouble because his little crush was suddenly not so little anymore

> you stayed with him under the table for probably another twenty minutes

> you were quiet, just sat with him, listening to the rain softly drumming on the large dark windows

> after a while when you felt him relax a bit more you pulled out your phone to scroll through Instagram // your page consisting mostly of food and cute dogs, which you figured would cheer him up, and he enjoyed just watching yummy recipes and puppies while being so close to you (that’s how he learned of your love of food, cooking and baking and fell even harder)

> eventually hunger won you over when both your stomachs growled at the same time for a video of a particularly cheesy pizza

> „One more hug before we leave the table territory?“, you offered, your genuine smile now completely chasing any dark thought away

> This time he hugged you back (and man, does he give good hugs)

> After a few moments you felt his tension finally fall and he let out a long breath, making you smile knowing you succeeded in making him feel better

> You went to grab some pizza together, talking about this, that and everything

> once y’all returned to Japan you went back to your actual job in Kyoto and the Jackals back to training, but Bokuto (and Hinata) stayed in close contact sending you messages every day

___________

September

> one day, maybe two weeks after coming back from overseas you suddenly look up from some paperwork you were mulling over at a table in the café when an empty chair is pulled up and a tall broad figure with grey-black hair is plopping down across from you with a big grin

> (Dude, you missed the weekend training. We thought you were dead. Where were you? - Kyoto. - Ky-what???)

________

October

> after maybe another month where you head to Tokyo on your days off and Bokuto comes to visit Kyoto whenever he has the time, you start to think about what would happen if you’d confess your feelings to him

> long distance relationships were an absolute pain and he was busy being a volleyball star, he couldn’t keep this up forever

> but were you really about to move back to Tokyo for a guy who wasn’t even your boyfriend?

> and what about your job?

> your friend of course had her antennas up about you two from the start so she listened patiently when you called her for advice one night

> your boss, who had also caught on to your blossoming love, took you aside one day and casually mentioned that he had been thinking of opening another branch in Tokyo and would need a capable manager to oversee it

__________

December

> so you move back to Tokyo

> you had brought up the move to Bokuto before and he had been practically bouncing off the walls at training ever since

> he even offers to help you move

> as a Thank You you cook dinner for him and if it hadn’t been super obvious to him before, it’s official now that he is most definitely absolutely irrevocably gone for you

> Bokuto is just so so happy that he can see you basically every day after practice now

> (as soon as Meian calls for the end, Bokuto is first out the door, quickly showers and then jogs (at full speed) the 17.5mins to the café to walk you home)

> he has been trying to talk about it with Hinata, Atsumu and (because he was in the general vicinity) Sakusa but none of them were exactly experts when it came to love and confessions

> he was worried that if he would confess to you and you rejected him he’d make you uncomfortable and you’d regret moving to Tokyo

> he didn’t even want to think about you avoiding him

> so he just kind of decided to pine. A lot.

> Like. A lot.

> Atsumu and Sakusa were so done with him during that time because if Bokuto talked often about you before, it was nothing compared to now

> Hinata didn’t mind. He just listened while they were out jogging in the mornings

> meanwhile you yourself were overthinking

> seeing Bokuto every night, slowing your steps to make the walk home longer and hanging out with him on his days off was wonderful and you could only imagine how much better it would be if you could hold his hand and kiss him

> there definitely had been moments when you were sure he felt the same about you but then he would be sweet and kind to a stranger and you just kind of shrugged it off

> that was just Bokuto, genuine and warm to everyone

> you were no exception

> that did not stop you from daydreaming when you were baking at the café or cleaning the coffee maker in the evening (or in the shower or your bed)

> with winter came the first soft snow and both hands tightly wrapped around a hot chocolate from your cafè, you and Bokuto walked home one night in the swirling flakes

> he was losing his mind because you looked so gosh darn pretty and cute and gorgeous with snow in your hair, your cheeks a little red from the cold, enjoying your chocolate

> not so casually he asked to take a picture of you

> confused but game you posed in front of snow covered bushes

> (Bokuto’s mind turning into a full-on keysmash when you made a peace sign and smiled brightly with closed eyes // he took like ten pictures in a row)

> “Well, that’s a new screensaver.”, he announced without thinking and you were just like 🧍‍♀️

> “Uhm, Bo?”

> he melted like the snow around the hot chocolate he had sat down to take the picture

> the soft nickname was still somewhat new and sent a pleasant shiver through his body

> you took a deep breath and decided to just go for it

> “Do you … like me?”

> “Of course I like you.”, he said with no hesitation

> you nervously played with the sleeves of your jumper sticking out from your coat, not looking at him

> “No… I mean like-“

> “I know what you mean.”, he said with a huge smile but when you just looked at him in shock his confidence wavered, “Wait. Is- is that bad?”

> “God I hope not, because I like you, too.”

> his chest felt like a balloon inflating as his smile returned bigger than ever

> “Can I be your boyfriend then? Please?”, he added and his ears were burning so much he was glad you nodded cause he wasn’t sure if he would have heard your answer

> he stepped forward, closing the distance between you two and looked down with the dreamy expression of someone who had just been handed a puppy

> ever so gently holding your chin between his strong calloused fingers he bent down to kiss you

> slowly and sweetly at first

> you shifted a bit and he grinned a moment later when he felt you standing on your tiptoes

> he deepened the kiss, his other hand now on your hips and you sighed when his tongue slipped playfully between your lips

> you were about to pull away to catch your breath but he pulled you in again, cupping your cheek, muttering against your lips “Not yet. A little more.” and you chuckled into the kiss

[youkissedareaderinthedark]

Do it All

Synopsis: You are a Formula 1 driver trying to graduate from college. It’s hard to do it all, but the grid helps you do some of it

young female mercedes driver reader x 2033 F1 grid

(george is at williams with alex, logan is the reserve)

Education has always been something important to you. Your parents raised you to be a good student and that’s what you turned out to be. You were always one of the “smart kids” and didn’t mind going to school day after day, year after year. People usually get confused when you tell them this because you don’t meet many scholarly Formula 1 drivers, but here you are.

Your life was always split between racing and school; You remember doing homework sheets at karting tracks, writing essays between media duties in F2, and rushing through assigned readings in airports. It was stressful, but the work for each always paid off.

You’ve made your way through the Mercedes Junior Program, Formula 3, Formula 2, and was recruited in 2022 by Toto Wolff to race in Formula 1. You were 18 at the time, but too good an opportunity to pass up, so he offered you a three-year racing contract at Mercedes, starting in the 2023 season. You were over-the-moon excited about the opportunity, but it didn’t stop you from wondering about college.

You knew it wasn’t necessary, very few drivers went to university, but that didn’t stop you from wanting to attend. College had been in your vision for ages, you couldn’t just not go. The real problem was that Toto had approached you in August to race for Mercedes, and you had already gotten into your first-choice school and was days away from traveling there to set up your dorm.

You thought about your options. There was no way you could turn down Toto’s offer to join his F1 team, but there was also no way you go away to college and drive for Mercedes. One of your passions had to be pushed aside, and it wasn’t going to be racing.

So instead of traveling to your chosen college to settle into your dorm, you were traveling there to have various meetings about your future at that school.

After talking with the head of the university and a few professors, you compromised with the idea of online education. You would use online textbooks and the resources your professors posted onto the class’s website to complete all your assignments and participate in the lessons. You would be held to all the same expectations as the other students and would get your degree and diploma at the end of all of it, just not traditionally.

You agree that your schedule will be asynchronous (completely independent, you’ll make up your own schedule and do the work on your own time) to match your incoming lifestyle and discuss some other minor details. You leave what would’ve been your campus saddened and already a bit stressed, but nonetheless prepared.

You spent the rest of 2022 getting used to online school again and training on the sim to prepare for the day you leave for England. Because the Mercedes headquarters was in the UK, you were renting an apartment to call “home base” there with one of your friends that was attending a university in England.

You probably should’ve been more nervous on your first day at the office, but you weren’t. You’ve been in the junior program since you were 13, you’ve met Toto multiple times, and Lewis had been named your mentor long ago. Whenever you two were in the same country, he always made an effort to watch your races and help you improve in whatever ways he could.

You also were familiar with a couple of the drivers on the grid already. Despite the age gap, you had raced alongside Lando, George, Alex for years and had encountered Charles, Pierre, and Esteban a few times as well. You were in F2 with Oscar and Logan for a bit and formed a quick friendship with both of them. Because of these connections, by the Spanish Grand Prix, you were quite friendly with almost all 19 drivers.

And by the Spanish Grand Prix, almost all 19 drivers also knew that you were completely stressed about your schoolwork. They all knew you were a college student and had a lot of respect for you for it, especially during exam season. Even though you were majoring in mechanical engineering and were around cars almost every day, you were overwhelmed with anxiety.

It was impossible to ignore; if you walked into the Mercedes hospitality or garage, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see you sitting at a table, on a couch, or sitting in an empty hallway with your laptop in front of you and your focus captured. Your state of mind didn’t majorly affect your racing, you made sure of it, but it did affect your personality, and because they were your friends, the drivers decided to help you as much as possible.

Because Lewis is around you the most, he makes sure you’re taking proper care of yourself. When he finds you studying in your driver’s room or working in the hospitalty in between duties, he makes sure you’ve eaten and have a water bottle by your side. If you haven’t, he’ll run to buy your favorite snack and beverage for you and drop them off with a few words of encouragement.

Lando, George, and Alex make sure you don’t drown yourself with work. If everyone’s at home and they’re aware you’ve been working for a few hours, they’ll text you asking to join them in a video game as a stress reliever. They keep you occupied for a few hours and fill the time with updates about their own lives and their own friendly banter.

They worry about you when they have breaks from racing and don’t hear from you for days at a time, then return with tired eyes and a quiet persona. Sometimes they’ll facetime you and don’t hang up for hours to make sure you cook yourself a fresh meal and fall asleep at a decent time.

Oscar and Logan are the most common visitors to your driver’s room and hotel rooms, and they make sure you actually see the countries you travel to. They’ve showed up to your hotel room randomly a few times and just told you to hurry up and get ready.

These visits always end up with the three of you in a cool, new place where you’re free to talk as much as you want and laugh as loudly as you’d like. They don’t live in the UK with you but the three of you are together so often you barely even notice.

Charles, Pierre, and Esteban make sure you enjoy everything you’re doing. They know how stressful being a young rookie can be, and they can only imagine what you’re going through as a university student, and the three of them don’t want your young adult years to be filled with just work and stress.

They try to help you study; Charles quizzes you on different subjects, if you chose French as your language, Esteban would give you answers, and if you need a distraction, Pierre is by your side trying to make you laugh.

You’re a little more laid-back when you finally submit your exams, but you don’t completely relax until you know your scores. You get good marks on all of your tests and are relieved when you discover all your hard work has pulled off.

Lewis is the first person you tell, and he matches your excitement completely. When you burst into his driver’s room and tell him your results, he brings you into a hug and leaves a kiss on the top of your head. “I knew you could do it, Y/n, I’m so proud of you” Lewis is one of the few Formula 1 drivers that did attend college so he knows first-hand how difficult it can be.

George, Alex, and Lando are almost as relieved as you are when you tell them your grades. The three of them are glad to have their friend back and hope the year until your next final exams comes slowly.

Oscar and Logan take you out to celebrate the night you tell them. You guys walk around town with ice cream as a reward and go to an amusement park with the bright idea for you to “scream out your frustrations from the last few weeks” Surprisingly, it works and by the end of the night, you feel lighter than you have all semester.

The bottom-line is, the drivers care about you and can’t wait to see your smile again after every exam season.

a short little student reader fic because I love the concept, I’m just not too sure how to write it

hope you love it tho 🫶

[becasworldsstuff]

Can i please request a romantic Simon Basset x OC/reader fic? Simon being completely in love with her since they were young, but since his father told him to go away, they separated. They met again.

-> Pairings: Simon basset x reader

-> warnings: none

Simon basset and miss l/n had always been friends, thing caused by her bubbly nature that could outshine the sun even in an August day. She was the only one with whom he could talk without stuttering, he felt at ease and nothing could really make him sad if she was near him. Her presence as a reminder that not all in life was sad and angry at him, that not everyone was disappointed in him, on the contrary she never made him feel bad about himself.

When the old duke of Hastings sent his son away due to the problems he was causing to his own mental health, the two were separated, nothing in means of letters or visits between the two for years if not the memories captured together and the burning sensations in the part of their body that the other touched, or the single pink flower dried out inside Skmon's favorite book that she gifted him as a reminder of the beauty hidden behind fragilness. Both the young hearts were left shattered thinking they would never see each other ever again.

But in his drawer were piled up letters written in his best calligraphy and on the best paper money could buy, for his best friend and little piece of heaven, who had been his own safe place in the mess his childhood had been.

It was her who motivated him enough to return to his old house when the man died, and he found her on the steps of his big place, with glimmering eyes and the brightest smile that ever existed. He stopped in front of her with his mouth that had gone dry, she had grown into the most exquisite young lady he had ever seen or imagined to lay eyes on, his eyes widened and his hands were begging for something to grasp onto to not loose balance while she watched him, she took one step forward and his heart skipped a beat. Even if he only realized now he could pinpoint her as the only woman in his life to which he could ever truly love, but he stayed silent, catching up with her like old times, not stuttering like when they were just little kids playing in the garden not caring about duties.

The days passed and the season started, now miss l/n obviously came from a very wealthy family and her kindness and beauty were known upon the society, but this was her first season, and her older brother and father refused to give away such a perfect girl to anyone so, when they catched up with the Duke longing stares they decided to talk to him, a man of honor, well bred, wealthy. Simon never in his life thought that he deserved for his dreams to become reality but he knew he was a duke and her best solution to this world of strange couples, so he was the one to go talk to her father, asking him her hand in marriage and bowing down on one knee with watering eyes as he proclaimed his love to her:

" never had I ever experienced such strong emotions nor strange feelings, my stomach flutters and my troath goes dry as if I was denying myself with water for you, you make my heart stop and the dream of seeing you walk down the aisle to me has been my favorite image for my life. So please accept my undying love for you because I cannot breathe if I'm not near you, neither I can eat or drink or sleep away from you, you are my sun and my moon and every single star in the sky, my whole body was created to match yours and my core only exists to love you and adore you, you make me burn like I was in a fire that cannot die. So please do me the honor and let me make you the duchess of Hastings "

Her response was awaited from the ball room that had just seen him pacing in front of the doors before barging in and stopping the dance that was occurring at the time, she held her breath and nodded slowly while forcing herself to blink as I'd to make herself realize that that moment was true.

[m00nlight-ramblings]

BG3 Companion Modern AU Headcanons

These random thoughts popped into my mind and I had to write them down. I love these little weirdos, and some of them probably don't make sense but OH WELL.

Should I do a Part 2 with more companions?? Let me know - my inbox and requests are open!

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Astarion

This dude's got iPad kid energy - he loves to scroll Tiktok for hours.

He gets bi-weekly pedicures. And not the basic kind - the full on 1.5 hour long with the massage and the mask and the exfoliation.

His favorite holiday is Halloween. He plans his costume starting in August.

He'd be the type of person to be walking through a mall, see a Claire's, and spontaneously decide to get his ears pierced idk.

Is really into metal. Like, you'll come home and Metallica will be blasting and you walk into the bedroom and he's folding laundry and just like, "Oh, HELLO, Darling!" but will have to scream it over the volume in which he's listening to music

Will truly take an hour picking out the perfect wine to pair with your dinner...he's definitely a wine snob.

The cheapest article of clothing Astarion owns is from Banana Republic and it's an undershirt...everything else is ~*very fancy*~

Loves watching all types of vampire movies/TV shows. He can often be heard saying, "Oh no, they got that all wrong" under his breath.

He definitely reads like 1-2 books a week. He's recently really gotten in spicy smut books (he definitely got recommendations from BookTok).

For sure falls asleep to ASMR videos.

Gale

This man loves HGTV *queue Home Depot commercial music*

Has the most absolutely beautiful, clean home you've ever seen with about 30 bookcases CRAMMED with books. The books are the only disorganized thing in his home because he constantly is reading them, so alphabetizing them is useless.

Pinterest is his most used phone app. His boards are carefully curated. That man has a recipe/inspiration pic/quote for EVERYTHING.

Definitely volunteers at the animal shelter once a month. Often times has to talk himself out of bringing a cat home.

LUSH is his favorite store at the mall. He loves them bath bombs.

He THROWS DOWN at holiday parties...Christmas? Thanksgiving? The table is SET. The decorations are UP. He's wearing an APRON because he's been cooking ALL day. The playlist is PERFECT.

Speaking of holidays, he has matching pajama sets for everyone in the household. For every. Holiday.

Fall is absolutely his favorite season. "Sweetheart...have you ever watched 'When Harry Met Sally'? Perfect autumn movie...also I bought a new scarf today to go with my new peacoat. And mittens. And a new hat...it's getting cold outside."

He definitely has a Live. Laugh. Love. adjacent sign somewhere in his home

He definitely needs glasses to read. And he for sure has those librarian chains so that he can just take them off and they hang, instead of losing them.

Karlach

Absolutely loves to eat meals watching Youtube videos.

Imagine her in Times Square? She tears the M&M's store UP.

Is obsessed with documentaries. She often says things like "I can't believe there's so much stuff to LEARN out there!"

Definitely has a Squishmallow collection. And she rotates which one she sleeps with every night so they all get a chance.

Is absolutely the worst cook of all time but tries really really hard...however, she can make a mean boxed mac n' cheese.

Has an obsession with sugary cereal. There's always Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Fruity Pebbles in her cabinets.

Certified Switie for SURE.

Is really into astrology. Definitely has said, "Oh, you're just saying that because you're a SCORPIO" or the like many, many times.

Absolute Starbucks addiction (venti iced caramel macchiato, extra caramel).

Has monthly "girl's nights" (but everyone is invited) at her place. The rules are: pajamas only, junk food, romcoms, and a playlist of the best pop songs in the past 20 years.

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How'd y'all like it...should I make a part two with other companions?! Remember my inbox is open and I'm accepting requests!! I'd love to write some stuff so send it in!

[blurredcolour]

In My Blood | Part One

In My Blood Masterlist

Curtis "Curt" Biddick x SOE!Female Reader

The aftermath of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission floods the Belgian countryside with American fliers, including one very injured Curtis Biddick. On a regular supply run to a Resistance contact, you suddenly find him sharing your regular place of shelter for the night, a simple coincidence that very well may change the course of the rest of your life.

Warnings: MAJOR canon divergence, Language, Violence, Weapons, Spy Craft, Death, Injuries, Angst, Suffering, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This story contains revisionist history, read at your own risk. Reader is half-Belgian, half-English and has been given an extensive backstory and family tree. While they have been given the codename of "Marie," no physical descriptions or Y/N are used.

Italics used for non-English words and to indicate dialogue spoken in a language other than English.

This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 4200

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

August 17, 1943

Pouring from the sky like a summer rain…you had never seen so many downed airmen in one day. It seemed the American Air Force had mounted some great attack. An attack that was met with what must have been every single Luftwaffe fighter plane that now infected your native Belgian soil. The majority were captured by Nazi soldiers, Gestapo, or collaborators the moment their boots hit the ground, keen eyes following the tracks of parachutes as they floated to the ground. But the lucky ones got away, stayed hidden, or were greeted by more friendly faces.

The efforts you had been putting in over the past three months on the exfiltration routes for downed airmen in Western Europe – helping to rebuild and reshape the Pat O’Leary Line into the Françoise Line after the arrest of its former chief, connecting the Belgian-run Comet Line with monetary and equipment-based support from MI9’s agent Jerome in Paris – the timing could not have been better for the sheer demand that the events of the day would put upon them. They were as strong as they could be and yet undoubtedly these numbers would overwhelm them.

Born the only child of a Belgian Jonkheer and the second daughter of the Marquess of Abergavenny, that you would end up as an agent of the Special Operations Executive had been as foreseeable as the Nazi invasion of Belgium. Unexpected and yet altogether unsurprising given circumstance and history.

Entirely too fond of fast cars, cigarettes, gin, and learning the fascinating operations of your father’s iron factories in Wallonia for your mother’s taste, you had been forced off to England in the spring of 1939 to support your cousin Philomena Nevill during her debut. It had been hoped, you supposed, that under the watchful eye of your grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness, that your ‘good breeding’ might suddenly become apparent. That the tomboy whom her father adoringly called mon petit monstre might be transformed into a lady under the onslaught of balls, polo matches, regattas, and horse races all whilst trussed up like some prized pony at a meat market. Never mind that you were three years older than the fresh flesh of the debutantes on display.

All that had been achieved was to put you in the same rooms as the likes of Lord Halifax, Prime Minister Chamberlain, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. The only topic of discussion you had been interested in was the growing threat posed by Hitler with his growing Nazi empire and the fact that your parents remained in your home country right on his doorstep had weighed heavily upon you. There had been a tremendous argument in September, following the invasion of Poland and declaration of war by Britain and her allies. Your father had insisted he must remain to care for his business, his workers, his property. Your mother had insisted that she would remain to care for him. As one united front, all your relatives, including your uncle, the current Marquess, had insisted you remain in England where it was safe.

And so you had found yourself marooned on that unfamiliar island through the fall and winter of the phony war, dread heavy and sour in your stomach as military preparation took precedence over everything. With naught much else to do, you had volunteered with the Red Cross, fundraising as a member of the upper class, outspoken in your distaste for fascism. The watchful waiting came to an abrupt end on May 10, 1940, when the world awoke to the news that the Nazis had invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and Belgium in one fell swoop.

Within eighteen days, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium had surrendered, France was on the verge, and you were orphaned. The hollow, inherited title of Jonkvrouw was all that remained of your parents after an unfortunate run in with a Stuka dive bomber on a bridge out of Brussels, so the letter from your father’s personal secretary read. The post-mark was from Marseilles, confirming that your father had sent everyone else to safety before trying to obtain the very same for himself. It had simply been too late.

Lest you fall to pieces over the loss of your home and family in such quick succession, to be caught grieving in unfamiliar formal homes amongst people you barely knew, you had sought refuge in purpose. Volunteering for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, you put your skills as a motorist to good use. Yet it never felt like enough. Driving lorries full of supplies across the English countryside while sailors and airmen risked their lives made you feel utterly impotent, particularly as the horrific bombing campaigns wore on. Mercifully, more meaningful opportunities found their way to you in the form of Vera Atkins and the SOE. Your social circles overlapped, on occasion, and she had proposed an altogether different use of your unique upbringing, for the four languages you spoke simply by virtue of traipsing across Belgium on your father’s coattails – for the country consisted of French, Dutch, and German speaking peoples and he had insisted you learn them all. While your mother had insisted you spoke only the King’s English with her.

The preliminary school had been difficult, filled with unexpected challenges and daring tasks such as crossing a rope strung between two trees high above the ground. Pure fury at the invasion of your homeland and murder of your parents had carried you through onto the paramilitary school, where you had learned how to master weapons, and hand-to-hand combat. It was then onto parachuting school, as the only way to return to now fully occupied Europe was by low-flying aircraft in the dead of night, and finally finishing school to hone your spy craft.

It was early 1943 by the time you were ready to be dropped into occupied territory, all under the auspices of a deployment to Scotland with the ATS, your extended family none the wiser as you plummeted into an empty field in Northern France to begin your work. By the time the heat of August came around you were proficient at cycling long distances with burdens of weapons and cash, sneaking across the border, making connections on both the French and Belgian side. Making one such delivery of fresh funds for the Françoise line contact brought you to the Flanders village of Beverst that warm summer day.

The small clinic of Doctor Legot, with his flat above, boasted a sizeable cellar, perfect for hosting resistance meetings or the occasional guest such as yourself. He was also a natural community figure for those from all walks of life to visit, obtaining more than just medical advice, though thus far the Gestapo had not caught wise. Letting yourself through the gate into the back garden, you concealed your bicycle amidst some conveniently overgrown shrubbery and slung your handbag over your shoulder before carrying your worn suitcase into the clinic which seemed rather empty for a Tuesday afternoon.

Greeting his receptionist Edda in Dutch, she gestured you down the hall to Dr. Legot’s office. Proceeding with a nod of thanks, you knocked on the door, quietly stepping in as he called out casually in Dutch.

 “Enter!”

As you swung the door open, his head, covered in the thin remainder of caramel hair, shorn close to control its obvious curl, lifted to regard you warmly before falling serious.

“You could not have come on a better day, Marie.” He spoke solemnly, addressing you by the cover name bestowed upon you by the SOE, snapping the patient file he had been reviewing shut.

Stepping fully into the office, you quietly shut the door behind you, setting the suitcase on his desk to deliver the promised funds.

“Indeed, it seems you have been blessed with quite a few visitors today, Doctor.”

You watched silently as he carefully took stack after stack of Belgian francs, tucking them into his safe under his desk.

“More than we have places for, honestly. If you are looking for a place for the night you will have to share accommodations.”

Tight as your grip was on your facial expressions, you still felt your eyebrows twitch in surprise as Dr. Legot rarely housed downed airmen as he himself was not able to speak English and found their behaviour wildly unpredictable, at best. He was a man who preferred things neat and orderly. It was only by respecting his preferences that you had earned repeated shelter under his roof.

“I know, Marie,” he continued, obviously having caught your micro expression, “but the man is in a bad way. Brought his plane down in Maes’ orchard – a feat the boys could not stop commenting upon as they carried him in, even as the pilot was bleeding all over my floor. No one has even asked him if he wants to surrender or explained what trying to evade capture entails.”

“Hm.” You intoned thoughtfully. “Does he need a hospital?”

The middle-aged man settled his broad frame into his worn wooden desk chair with a pronounced ‘creak,’ exhaling heavily in contemplation. “Not need, no. If he chooses to run, he will need maybe two months recovery, but I can manage I suppose.”

The furrow of his brow and the pinched lines around his mouth spoke to his distinct lack of enthusiasm at the prospect, but like so many involved in resistance, his hatred for the Nazis greatly outweighed any other personal preferences after three years of occupation.

“I will give him the speech then, he ought to make an informed decision. Would you mind covering his eyes for me in case his choice is surrender?”

Relief washed across the man’s features, and he nodded quickly, grabbing a roll of bandages.

“Come down in five minutes.”

You nodded in agreement, allowing yourself those five minutes of rest in the safety of Legot’s office, a place you could let your guard down for a little while, until the minute hand of your watch completed its fifth trip around the face. Making your way to the back of the clinic, you stepped into the storage room to the open trap door leading down to the cellar, descending the worn ladder carefully.

Turning in the space lit only by candles, you frowned slightly to see the wounded man, one leg protruding from beneath the sheets swathed in bandages – most likely covered in burns. Stepping closer to the cot that you realized had been carried down especially for this patient, your small twin bed untouched in its usual corner, you swallowed tightly to see more bandages wrapped around the man’s neck, his right arm in a plaster cast and sling. That truly must have been some landing.

“You are certain he does not need a hospital?” You were not usually one to question a doctor’s opinion, but the look of this man left you full of doubt.

Would you not be risking his life hiding him in this cellar in this condition?

You watched a smile tug at his chapped, pink lips.

“You brought a dame, doc?”

Despite the fact that his eyes were covered in bandages, for the sake of protecting your identity, you could definitely read the mischief in his expression.

“Quite certain.” Doctor Legot bristled and gestured sharply for you to get on with it.

Clearing your throat, you summoned all the authority of your grandmother, as well as her haughty vowels, as you spoke. “Airman, listen carefully.”

The pilot’s head snapped slightly in your direction. “Hey there, gorgeous.” He grinned broadly.

The unexpected statement stole the wind from your sails, drawing an incredulous laugh from your throat. “You cannot even see me.”

“Can hear it in your voice.” He insisted smugly and you shook your head sharply – in part to clear it.

“Regardless, I am here you to offer you a choice. We can take you now to the local authorities for surrender, you will become a prisoner of war under the protection of the Geneva Convention and receive further medical care in a hospital. You will remain a prisoner for the rest of the war in relative safety. Or, you can remain here, rest and heal, and when you are ready, we will try and get you back to England. You would be dressed as a civilian and if caught, treated as a spy and shot without trial. Knowing all this, what is your choice? Turn yourself in or try and escape?”

“I will never turn myself into those Nazi fucks…pardon my French ma’am.” He smirked and you bit back another laugh at the preposterous expression.

“Very well. You will stay here and do everything Doctor Legot says. No argument, no trouble.”

“Whatever you say, gorgeous.”

Sighing at his incorrigible nature, you turned to the doctor and nodded.

“He will stay and try to escape.”

“Very well, I have one more appointment today and then I will bring you both some dinner later. Thank you, Marie.” He made his way up the ladder stiffly before securing the trapdoor shut, closing you both into your hiding place.

Reaching forward you gently began to unwind the bandages from his eyes, breath hitching in your throat at the brilliant blue that squinted back up at you.

“Knew you were gorgeous. Marie? I’m Curt.”

“Pleased to meet you.” You replied, doing your best to maintain some professional sense of formality. “You should rest.” Moving to the opposite side of the cellar, you sat onto the mattress that was about as exhausted as you, the springs groaning in protest.

“Yeah, probably right…hey did, did the Doc say if they pulled anyone else from the plane?” His expression was filled with a boyish hopefulness that made you long for a better answer.

“He didn’t, no, but I will ask around tomorrow.”

A soft smile graced his features. “Thanks gorgeous, you’re a gem.” He sighed drowsily and you watched as he was quickly pulled into sleep, so very fragile draped across the cot, swaddled in all those bandages.

In just eight weeks would he truly be ready to face tense train rides and a hike across the Pyrenees?

Your doubts were greatly eased the next time you laid your eyes upon him five weeks later, returning from a guiding run to Toulouse with several airmen who had been downed that day in August including a man named Claytor with a rather remarkable twang to his speech. You bore candles, medical supplies, and extra rations for Doctor Legot, knowing he was undoubtedly going through all at a prodigious rate with his unexpected long-term guest in the cellar. Your trusty suitcase also held an Agatha Christie murder mystery, an English book procured at great difficulty, and a selection of French comic books – while he may not speak the language, you were hoping the pictures would be sufficient entertainment in his subterranean dwelling.

As you climbed down the familiar ladder in the candlelit cellar, handbag swinging on your shoulder, you were startled to find Curt on his feet, looking prepared to try and catch you if you should fall, even with one arm still in a cast. Reaching for your suitcase as the doctor lowered it down for you, he cried your name in greeting.

“Marie! Thought you got lost or something up there.” His grin could only be described as cheeky, his charmingly blunt features only growing more handsome under the display of his playful side. He was dressed in clothes that had no doubt been obtained from a sympathetic local; brown woollen trousers held up by suspenders over a blue flannel shirt, a pair of worn leather boots on his feet.

“Curt.” You nodded politely, setting your case on the foot of your bed. “You are looking well.”

“Doc has performed a miracle, just waiting on this bone to finish healing, then I’ll be right as rain.” He nodded firmly, bandages replaced by a network of fresh red scars creeping up the left side of his neck into his dark brown hair.

Unlocking the latches on your luggage, you opened it carefully, retrieving the assortment of reading material you had collected. “Well, I thought since you might no longer be sleeping so much you might…appreciate something to read.”

Curt’s eyes, clearer than your last encounter, dropped to the comic books and novel you held out to him, eyes widening before he took them with a slow grin. “Been thinking about me out there on your travels?”

“Ensuring your stay with the good doctor remains without incident.” You replied nonchalantly, turning back to organizing your belongings before tucking the suitcase beneath the bed.

When you turned back to him, sinking down onto the mattress to rest your sore legs after your long cycle from Antwerp, he was watching you with a bemused expression.

“Appreciated all the same, Marie. Maybe I’ll learn a little French or something.”

“I thought…maybe the pictures?” You tilted your head and he nodded quickly.

“Definitely.” His grin was all too warm, showing his perfect American teeth and made you turn your attention to the small date book you kept in your shoulder bag, quickly looking over your coded appointments for the next few days.

There were several drops arranged for the area – weapons and radios directly flown from England, set to arrive over the next few nights. Most for the Belgian resistance, though two radios were earmarked for the Comet Line. Night drops were some of the most dangerous things you attempted, but when they were successful, the supplies, otherwise impossible to obtain under Nazi occupation, were invaluable.

“Sure look serious over there, gorgeous. Furrow those brows any harder and they’ll get stuck like that.” Curt’s voice cut through your concentration, your head jerking up to blink up at him as though you were startled he was still there.

The sound of the trap door scraping open saved you from trying to produce some reply. “That’ll be dinner.” You murmured, walking to the bottom of the ladder to accept one bowl and then another of thin vegetable soup followed by half a loaf of bread.

You nodded gratefully to Curt as he stepped forward to take one of the bowls with his good hand.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“See you in a few hours, Marie.”

Carefully setting your bowl on dusty brick floor, you tore the bread roughly in half, offering him the larger portion before retrieving your soup and retreating to your bed.

“He doesn’t cook too bad for a doctor.” Curt commented after swallowing a large sip of soup, taking from the rim of his bowl, and you could not help your small smile.

“I think he enjoys it? Talks about ingredients a lot – how hard some of them are to come by lately.” You shrugged and ate more slowly, savouring every bite as it had been a few days since you had been able to enjoy a warm meal, and Legot was indeed a skilled cook.

“How ‘bout you? You cook?”

You barely contained your wry laugh, shaking your head. Even if you’d had access to a kitchen these days, you certainly had not been raised anywhere near a stove. “My lifestyle isn’t really conducive to cooking, unfortunately.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “My Ma would probably skin me alive if I tried to get in her way in the kitchen. Sisters, too. My Pa and I knew better than to get involved in things we’re hopeless at.”

Licking your spoon clean of every last morsel of soup before moving to swipe a piece of bread through the bowl, you could not help your curiosity. “How many sisters do you have?”

“Two. The apartment back home isn’t big, but the five of us got along alright.” His smile was broad as he leaned back against the cinderblock wall, food long ingested. “What about you? Your family? Where are you from?”

His questions were numerous, bubbling out of him rapidly and making you swallow the half-chewed chunk of bread in your mouth roughly. “Belgium. Do not have one.” You replied evasively before taking another rough bite.

“Just fell out of the sky then? Like some kind of angel?” He teased and you choked a little on your next swallow before managing to get it down.

It would not do for him to know how oddly accurate his jest had been.

“I have to run an errand later tonight, so I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep.” You stood to dust the crumbs from your skirt, setting your empty bowl on the floor.

“An errand in the middle of the night…?”

“Mn.” You grunted in agreement as you toed off your shoes, pulling back the covers before sliding in between the sheets, laying with your back to him.

“Say, Marie?” He asked quietly and you slid your eyes back open.

“Yes?”

“Did you manage to ask around ‘bout…my crew?” There was a soft vulnerability to his tone, his playful bravado seeming to melt away, that made your heart drop.

You honestly had not been sure if he would have remembered that conversation weeks ago, barely conscious and in so much pain. You had of course done as promised, swinging by the Maes farm only to be told that he had was the sole survivor, the rest of the crew set to be buried in the local cemetery by the Nazis – with military honours. What an oddly cruel irony that seemed, to only afford your enemy honour in death.

“I’m sorry, Curt.” You shifted onto your side to face him. “There was no one else who survived.”

An impassive mask fell over his face, his animated expression going blank as he nodded before shifting to lay back on his cot, tucking his hands behind his head. “Thanks for checking.” He mumbled quietly.

“Of course.” You replied softly watching him turn his back to you before doing the same with a soft sigh, duty reminding you that you needed to sleep while you could, a long night ahead of you.

It felt as though you had barely fallen asleep when the scraping of the trap door woke you abruptly. Tossing the covers from your body, you grabbed your handbag, feeling the reassuring weight of your .25 calibre Wembley semi-automatic pistol and F-S knife contained within. Curt glanced back over his shoulder as you slid into your shoes, and you nodded to him.

“Go back to sleep, errand time.” You whispered, collecting both of your supper dishes to pass up to Doctor Legot before ascending the ladder yourself.

Cycling out to the appointed field, you waited hidden amongst the trees with several members of the resistance, the silence of the night unsettling. You knew the plane would fly in low to avoid radar, would cut the engine close to the target to throw off nearby soldiers, but it was a long way from the coast to here. The distant drone of a plane engine reaching your ears made your pulse jump and you forced your breathing to remain even and quiet, every muscle tensing as even the sound of the plane fell silent. Squinting through the trees into the night sky, you licked your lips in anticipation as you spotted the first of several crates falling towards the ground, suspended below parachutes to slow their descent.

Clutching your small spade tightly, you waited until the supplies began landing on the ground before the entire group emerged from the foliage to begin disconnecting the parachutes. Working in concert with others you dug a hole and quickly tossed the telltale silk in before covering it up with earth and tamping it down. Securing the two radios for the Comet Line, cleverly disguised as suitcases, you helped load the rest of the crates and spades into the waiting truck before everyone quickly dispersed into the night.

While your inclination was the cycle headlong towards the safety of the clinic, you forced yourself to maintain a reasonable speed, one that would not attract attention, while taking a rather circuitous route. The eastern horizon was just beginning to lighten as you returned to your hiding place, using the spare key to sneak in the back. Taking a moment to wash your hands in the small washroom for patients, you then carefully descended with the radios and closed the trapdoor. It made quite a racket as it slid home when pulled from the inside, startling Curt from his rest and you frowned apologetically.

“Sorry, everything is fine, go back to sleep.” You murmured, setting the newly procured radios off to the side.

“You’re just getting back now?” He scrubbed a hand down his face tiredly, glancing at his watching blearily.

“Don’t fret about me, rest up, regain your strength.” You smiled wearily and slid back into your bed gratefully.

“There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye, Marie…” A jaw-cracking yawn overtook his statement before he shimmied down beneath his blankets and succumb to sleep once more.

“You have no idea.” You whispered under your breath, settling in for a few hours more sleep before you had to begin your journey to deliver the newly acquired radios to the Comet Line before moving onto the next drop destination.

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

Read Part Two

In My Blood Masterlist

Tag list: @precious-little-scoundrel, @luminouslywriting, @polikabra

[book--brackets]

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (1950)

The hands of all thirteen clocks stand still in the gloomy castle on a lonely hill where a wicked Duke lives with his niece, the beautiful Princess Saralinda. The Duke fancies he has frozen time, for he is afraid that one day a Prince may come and win away the hand of the Princess—the only warm hand in the castle. To thwart that fate, he sets impossible tasks for Saralinda’s suitors. But when the bold Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives, disguised as a wandering minstrel, and helped by the enigmatic Golux, the cold Duke may at last have met his match.

The Edge Chronicles by John Stewart and Chris Riddell (1998-2019)

Fourteen-year-old Quint Verginix is the only remaining son of famous sky-pirate Wind Jackal. He and his father have journeyed to the city of Sanctaphrax – a great floating rock, bound to the ground below by a chain, its inhabitants living with their heads literally in the clouds.

But the city hides a dangerous secret: deep inside the great rock, something horrible lurks. With his father away, Quint may be the only one who can save Sanctaphrax from the dreaded curse of the gloamglozer . . .

The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba (2018-present)

“No killing Goblins.”

So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.

It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

In a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn.

She’s an [Innkeeper].

The Moorchild by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (1996)

Half moorfolk and half human, and unable to shape-shift or disappear at will, Moql threatens the safety of the Band. So the Folk banish her and send her to live among humans as a changeling. Named Saaski by the couple for whose real baby she was swapped, she grows up taunted and feared by the villagers for being different, and is comfortable only on the moor, playing strange music on her bagpipes.

As Saaski grows up, memories from her forgotten past with the Folks slowly emerge. But so do emotions from her human side, and she begins to realizethe terrible wrong the Folk have done to the humans she calls Da and Mumma. She is determined to restore their child to them, even if it means a dangerous return to the world that has already rejected her once.

Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean (2006)

In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V. (2022)

Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past?

Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton (1937-2000)

Once Mollie and Peter have discovered the Wishing-Chair, their lives are full of adventure. It takes them to all sorts of magical places, from the giant's castle where they rescue Chinky the Pixie, to the amazing party at Magician Greatheart's castle.

Die by Kieron Gillan (2018-2020)

DIE is a pitch-black fantasy where a group of forty-something adults have to deal with the returning unearthly horror they barely survived as teenage role-players.

Poison by Chris Wooding (2003)

Poison has always been a willful, contrary girl, prone to being argumentative and stubborn. So when she discovers that her younger sister has been abducted by the phaeries, she decides to seek out the Phaerie Lord to get her back.

But finding the Phaerie Lord is just the start of it. By leaving home, Poison steps into a murderous world of intrigue and danger, where the Lords of the Realm, a sinister pantheon of demigods, are conspiring to overthrow the Hierophant- the most powerful lord of all. For the Hierophant is writing again, and his pen will decide all their fates... including Poison's.

With only her wits and her friends to aid her, Poison must survive the lethal attentions of the Phaerie Lord, rescue her sister, and thwart a plot that could mean the end of her people. What awaits her is beyond anything she can imagine.

Deeplight by Francis Hardinge (2019)

The gods are dead. Decades ago, they turned on one another and tore each other apart. Nobody knows why. But are they really gone forever?

When 15-year-old Hark finds the still-beating heart of a terrifying deity, he risks everything to keep it out of the hands of smugglers, military scientists, and a secret fanatical cult so that he can use it to save the life of his best friend, Jelt. But with the heart, Jelt gradually and eerily transforms. How long should Hark stay loyal to his friend when he’s becoming a monster—and what is Hark willing to sacrifice to save him?

[myosotisa]

Old Heart - Part 1 - Barely

‖ chapter summary: Faced with tragedy, you are forced to travel across the country with a series of people you barely know in order to reunite with your only remaining family. The second leg of your journey, and your traveling companion for it, promises to be way more than you bargained for.

‖ tags: enemies to lovers, age gap (41 and 25), forced proximity, slow burn, angst, hurt/comfort, HEA, "zombie" apocalypse, reader uses she/her pronouns, no y/n, no physical description given, minors dni

‖ chapter warnings: death of a parent, gun violence, grief, existential dread

‖ word count: 8.3k

‖ ao3 ‖ masterlist ‖ tag list request ‖ next ‖

Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 – Quantico, Virginia - 13 years Post-Outbreak

Out of everything you’ve learned in life, you know without a doubt that it really only takes one moment to change everything.

One moment, you’re walking through a safe zone you’ve lived in for the last 10 years with your dad. It’s a normal Tuesday morning and the two of you are on your way to the mess hall for breakfast. It’s the only time you have to see him because he normally works late on the base. So, despite your hate for mornings, you got up, met your dad in the hallway of your tiny apartment, he’d hold out his arm and you’d loop yours through it before going on your way together. It’s a routine, same time everyday. Has been for years. And today is no different. It’s raining lightly but the sun still shines. You wonder if you might catch a rainbow after you’ve had your eggs.

The next, you’re on your knees in the mud. There’s blood on your hands. There are people scattering, ducking for cover, running and crying out in fear. Your whole body trembles as you reach out toward the prone form in front of you. The familiar tan of his sunkissed skin. The smattering of freckles across his collarbone and up his neck. Your eyes, the ones everyone said matched perfectly, staring straight up into the sky. Unseeing. A bullet hole completes a 3 point triangle with them as they dull.

The one after, there are hands dragging you away from him, through the mud, through the crowd. You’re kicking and you’re screaming but you can’t even hear it past the shot still ringing in your ears. Armed guards descend, reaching to check for a pulse. As if someone could survive a shot like that. They circle like vultures to a carcass.

You lose sight of the gathering crowd as you’re dragged around a corner and pushed up against a wall. Every instinct in your body screams run, fight, lunge, survive but there’s a forearm to your throat and a single finger on your lips. When you blink away the tears, Helen is there. She works with your dad, you’ve had dinner with her more than a few times. Her eyes are bloodshot, her breathing heavy as she presses you to the wall with her entire body. The pressure and the brick digging into your back ground you for the moment.

“We need to get out of here, now.” Her voice is a soft hiss, her eyes darting toward corners and through alleyways. She’s anxious for sure, maybe even afraid. “You’re not safe here.”

There are a million questions you want to ask. What happened, how did someone get past the defenses, what are they going to do with him, how is she here, how did she know, what is she so afraid of. They all get lodged in your throat in a chokehold worse than the one she’s applying, the only sound that comes through is a broken sob.

Her posture folds then, taking an inch back and moving both hands to cradle your jaw. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I know. But we need to go. There’s no time.” Her thumbs wipe across the tears on your cheeks as she holds you just a bit tighter. Like that’s the only way to keep you together. “Do you understand?”

You don’t understand. Not at all. There is not a single thing that you currently understand. But you nod and let her hold your hand anyway. You follow her through side streets away from the mess hall. Away from your life as you know it.

Here one moment – gone the next.

Saturday, August 13th, 2016 – Louisville, Kentucky

“I really think you’ll like him, he’s still the coolest guy I know. Always has been.”

This is your 3rd time meeting Dustin Henderson. You’d been deposited into his care (mostly against your will) 3 days ago. The only thing he had going for him as a traveling companion is his bright smile and infectious enthusiasm. He’d accepted your silence with the ease of someone who was used to running their own conversations, even seemed excited just to have a new audience, no matter how little you participated. If you were being honest, you were grateful for the noise.

“I think this is the 7th time today you’ve said that I’ll like him.” You hear what you think is him huffing, but you’re too focused on tossing a stress ball into the air above you to bother looking over. You’re laying on a brick wall outside of St. John’s United Church of Christ, a few miles from where you and Dustin had slept for the night. “Why a church, anyway? There must be a million other potential drop off points in this place.”

“Dunno, Eddie always wants to meet at churches. Maybe because they’re normally pretty big and recognizable.”

The ball drops into your hand and you lower your elbows to rest, turning your head toward him with a small frown. “He a man of God or something?”

Dustin lets out a snort of amusement, his curls wobbling from where they stick out underneath his hat. “Definitely not.” He offers you another bright smile before he returns to scanning your surroundings. You would assume from his demeanor that he’s goofy – well intentioned, undisciplined. But you’ve seen how he wields the shotgun slung across his torso, how he seems to be able to hear things you’d think impossible, how he navigates through the ruined cityscapes of his domain with ease. He’s sharp as a whip and not afraid to get his hands dirty. A clever disguise of prey to lure in predators. He’s a part of this team for a reason after all.

Struggling to sit up with a groan, you lean forward to drape your forearms over your knees. “So, how much does he know?”

“About?” Dustin pauses, then shifts toward you when you don’t reply. All you offer is a loaded look, waiting for him to catch on to what you’re really asking. His eyebrows draw together in confusion before it appears to hit him. “Oh. Well. He knows you’re Robin’s sister.”

“Half-sister,” you correct easily.

“Whatever,” he rolls his eyes. “He knows you’re Robin’s half-sister and he’s tasked with getting you from point A to point B.”

“So nothing, is what he knows. Absolutely nothing.”

Dustin’s arms, brushed with dirt and a subtle sheen of sweat, cross over his chest as he leans further back against the wall you’re sitting on. “Yeah, I guess.” It’s your turn to roll your eyes as you pull your pack into your lap, digging through for your water bottle. “Listen,” you make a noise to let him know you’re paying attention, “you know it’s not my call who knows. Nancy decides when to bring people in.”

Immediately, you dig your palms into your eyes in frustration, rubbing in tight circles and unable to keep the tension from leaking out into your tone. “Why does everyone just do whatever Nancy says? Who the fuck even put Nancy Wheeler in charge?”

“Your dad did,” he replies, as if it isn’t an absolute punch to the gut. As if it doesn’t make fire burn up your throat and beg to burst from between your lips in a scream. He seems to recognize it soon after he says it, and decides the best way to move on is to sit in an awkward and tense silence for the next 30 minutes. Which is fine. Whatever. Works for me.

In fact, the next time he makes any sound or movement at all, he’s shifting forward, primary hand gripping his shotgun. “Dustin?” He holds out a hand for you to stop as his head tilts a bit down, his eyes closing to focus. You search the area visually and listen hard to see if you can get even an inkling of what he’s hearing. Coming up short, you simply watch as he trots down the small set of stairs between you and the street, directing his weapon west. You flounder, trying to decide if you should hide or pull your own pistol.

Just as you’re about to roll off the wall to duck behind it, a long whistle rings out. 4 distinct tones that echo past the debris of nearby fallen buildings and through the gothic architecture of the church behind you. Dustin’s posture immediately softens, his gun lowering slowly as he repeats the whistle back, adding an extra note at the end. He turns back, taking the steps two at a time as he returns to where you're sitting. “Your new babysitter is here.”

“Dustin, I swear to God, that’s not funny, and I will break your fingers.”

He barks a small laugh until he catches sight of your glare, then quickly raises his hands in surrender with a muttered apology. You’re about ready to continue to tear into him when you see a figure in black appear in the corner of your eye.

You’ve heard a lot of stories about Eddie Munson over the years, most you doubt are true, but have never actually met the guy. You know he's a little bit older than Steve, putting him in his early 40s. He’s been running the smuggling train through Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas for close to 10 years. He’d been part of Hopper’s original team, loosely connected via radio and scattered across North America. While you’d heard more about him in the last 2 days from Dustin than you had the entire rest of your life, you know he worked with Robin, Steve, Nancy, and your dad already. While you couldn’t say you’d ever stopped to wonder what he looked like, it definitely was not this.

But walking out from behind a solitary pillar, it couldn’t have been anyone else. A pair of dusty blue jeans and black boots, a red flannel tied around his hips, a white t-shirt that almost shines from how bright the sun beats down, a black biker jacket layered over it. His near-black hair is pulled back behind his head and, despite having a pair of aviators on, he still raises a hand to block the sun from his eyes as he surveys the area. When he catches sight of the two of you, his arm swings down to his side and he begins his approach. You watch carefully – studying his gait, the length of his legs, the broadness of his shoulders, the narrow waist tucked beneath leather. He’s tall, lean, strong. Intimidating, even without any weapons visible on his person. While Dustin is a predator disguised as prey, Eddie is a wolf, plain and simple.

Your sweaty palms press to the dusty, sun bleached concrete on either side of your knees as you face him. Dustin meets him halfway, arms wrapping around torsos to clap on backs as they exchange a happy greeting. While you had become very aware of Dustin’s fondness for Eddie over the last few days, you’re still surprised to see the affection returned in almost equal measure. By all appearances, the older is gruff, unapproachable, untouchable. But he still hits the underside of Dustin’s cap to knock it off, and, when the younger dips to reach for it, loops an arm around his neck to ruffle his unruly hair. They start elbowing each other and pushing lightly, messing around like brothers and acting half their age. Acting like there isn’t an apocalypse, isn’t a war, isn’t death all around them.

It’s hard to believe something like that is still possible. Relationships like that still exist.

Dustin is pulling Eddie back toward you before you’re ready for it.

“And this is your package to deliver,” Dustin offers with a grin, ignoring the hard glare you send him once again. Eddie raises the sunglasses from his eyes and it takes everything in you to stay firm as he studies you just as you had studied him. This close, you can see a bit more – the bits of gray woven into the dark waves of his hair, the sun-creased laugh lines that remain despite his neutral expression, a scar that arches down the corner of his lower lip and chin, disappearing into the subtle fuzz of a salt and pepper shadow across his jaw. But you mostly get caught on his eyes. They’re youthful in appearance: wide, bright, and a rich, beautiful shade of warm umber. Despite the crow’s feet that arch out beside them, if you’d looked at his eyes alone, you’d assume he was your age and no older.

“Hey,” he seems to finish his study of you first, offering nothing more than a slight head tilt of acknowledgement before his aviators hit the bridge of his nose again and he redirects back to Dustin. “So I get her from here to Three Corners, right? When are they expecting us?”

Doesn’t even ask your name or anything. Like you weren’t even there. Like you weren’t even a person, just a package to be delivered. Dustin doesn’t seem to notice as he whips out his map and they discuss the route the two of you will be taking so the younger can report it back to Colorado when he gets home. The frustration boils in the base of your gut again, a bubbling pool of lava that is desperate to erupt.

“We’re gonna have to stop in Memphis for a day or two,” Eddie explains, rubbing the back of his sweaty neck with his palm as they look over the map.

“And why’s that?” You cut in, some of the heat invading. Both men look toward you, as if just realizing you’re still there, before Dustin finally acknowledges your question.

“Memphis is Eddie’s base of operations. The two of you can get some actual sleep, bathe, and stock up for the rest of the trip there.” Eddie grunts an affirmative, back to facing away from you and leaning over the map Dustin has spread over a concrete pillar.

Your tongue presses against your cheek in annoyance, staring hard at the sun-faded leather that drapes over his back. “So how long until the next hand off?”

This seems to humor him, a small laugh huffing out of his nose as he shifts back toward you and lowers his sunglasses. “Desperate to get rid of me already?” There’s a bit of a tease in his tone that makes the boil bubble faster, the tension in your jaw getting tighter. Without waiting for an answer, he grabs the map and slaps it down next to you. “4 days to Memphis,” his finger tip touches the paper map, dirt under his nails, and drags from Louisville to the southwest corner of Tennessee. “2 or 3 days in Memphis to stock up. Then another 4 or 5 days to Three Corners.” Before you can really see where Three Corners is, he’s folding the map back up into its usual rectangles and holding it toward Dustin. “So I’ll be outta your hair and you’ll be outta mine in 14 days max.”

Your former partner gapes at him, taking the map and slowly drawing it back towards his chest with a dropped jaw. “Eddie, come on-”

“Jeez Henderson,” you interrupt with full disdain, hopping off your perch and wiping the dust off your clammy hands, “this is the guy you were so excited for me to meet? Whatta riot.”

This, finally, gets a reaction out of Eddie. Strong eyebrows raise as his head tilts, gaze hard on you as you turn away toward your backpack. “Listen, I don’t know what you think this is supposed to be, but it’s not a fucking field trip. I don’t care who you are or who you’re related to. We’re not going to be friends. I’m going to get your privileged ass from here to where it needs to go, alive mind you, and you’re going to shut up and do what I say.”

Steam billows out of your nose as you whirl back toward him, hands clenching into fists at your sides. “Privileged? Field trip? Look man, I get you’re old, but this complex that’s radiating off of you is really a bit delusional. We get it, you’re so seasoned and experienced and that makes you so much better than everyone else. I feel like I’m about five seconds away from getting ‘y’know back in my day’d.”

His own jaw sets tight as his neutral expression falls into a sharp glare. “You fucking brat, I should just-”

“HEY.”

Dustin’s voice isn’t loud – not when anything or anyone could be nearby and hear, but the volatile nature makes it feel as though it should be a scream. Both your and Eddie’s mouths snap shut as you face him, his cheeks flushed with something that looks like embarrassment. “Is this going to be a problem? I thought you were both adults.”

A scoff. “I dunno, is she actually legal?”

A glare. “Does a senior citizen count as an adult?”

“Guys.” Dustin looks furious. You aren’t sure if you’ve ever actually seen him mad. “I don’t need a guarantee that you two are going to be friends. I don’t care, actually. You can both be stubborn idiots if you want to be. But I do need a guarantee that you won’t get each other killed.”

A harsh silence falls over you all like a blanket of fresh snow. You’re fully capable of putting your sudden negative feelings toward your new escort aside to get through the next 2 weeks. Making a fast enemy out of anyone you meet isn’t the best way to go about life in this world, but making friends isn’t exactly a great idea either. If he can keep his ego in check, you can easily make it through 2 weeks of silence and then forget about each other at the end of it.

The two of you make eye contact again, the shape of his eyes barely showing through the tint of the lenses. A silent appraisal. Can I trust you? And the answer looks to be a resounding: When pigs fly.

“We’ll be fine.” Eddie answers first, breaking away from your gaze to look over at Dustin again. “Haven’t died yet, have we?”

The younger looks at you, like he also wants your word on if this will work out. As if you have a choice in the matter.

“All good, boss,” you offer with a half-assed salute and smile before shouldering your pack with a huff. “On the road we go.”

Eddie gives a stiff nod then claps Dustin on the back once more as he passes. “I mean it, you guys,” Dustin continues as he holds out a hand to you. “If she ends up dead, Steve and Robin will kill you. And if you get him killed, Max will hunt you down.”

“Not going down without a fight, Henderson,” Eddie’s cocky grin is back, the tension that built quickly between the two of you immediately pushed to the side. “Don’t worry about us.”

He begins to walk back the way he came, motioning over his shoulder for you to follow, while you give Dustin one last pleading look. “And get home safe to Sally, okay?”

Dustin nods, hitting the brim of his hat with a finger. “Will do. Check in when you get to Memphis.”

All you do is wave back at him as you scamper to catch up with Eddie before he disappears back into the debris he emerged from. You keep your eyes on the wiry bun of hair at the base of his skull as you follow in his footsteps, leading you in the direction the sun will inevitably set at day’s end.

Very little is exchanged between you and Eddie over the next 3 days. As soon as you’re out of Louisville city limits, he leads you to where he stashed an old pickup truck. It won’t have gas to last even a few hours, but with some luck, there will be enough to scavenge along the way. You offer to trade off driving, explaining you’d learned on the base, but he says it won’t be needed.

Luckily, there’s a CD player in the car. You don’t recognize any of the songs, but the music helps fill the silence. It doesn’t help with your boredom however. After spending way too much time trying not to notice Eddie’s mannerisms – like how he bounces the leg that isn’t on the gas pedal almost all the time, how he taps one finger to the beat of whatever song is playing, how he mostly drives with his right hand and his left elbow propped up on the door – you start digging through the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?” His voice makes you jump, having not heard it in hours.

“Snooping,” you answer plainly, not even bothering to look at him as you dig through the mess of papers and trash in the small space. He lets out a long suffering exhale but makes no move to stop you. Eventually you find a paper map, slightly stained and a bit tattered, but it will do the job for a little while.

You unfold it over your lap and find Louisville. It becomes a challenge to see if you can figure out which way Eddie took you out of the city, but you find your sense of direction in a moving vehicle a bit lacking. South and west, that’s for sure, but you’d made more than a couple turns before getting onto this long, clear stretch of road and you’re not even sure where you started beyond the city. There had been a few hazards along the way, mostly broken down cars, but they were easy to maneuver around and Eddie had seemed entirely prepared for them. It made you wonder how often he made this same trip back and forth.

The next 15 minutes are spent looking out the window waiting for a road sign to fly by. With that info, you should be able to get a better idea of what highway you’re on and maybe even where on the highway based on the exit. Your patience rewards you with a faded green sign in the distance – a shield symbol with the number 62 in the center and says the upcoming exit is for ‘Central City’. Really? Couldn't it be something more unique?

Regardless, you bend back over the map and use your finger to trace across the weave of roads and cities, trying to find where you might be. You’re able to find US Highway 62 stretching west across the northside of Kentucky, but nothing that says Central City. The tension builds between your eyebrows as you pull the map a bit closer to your face, thinking maybe you’re just missing it.

“Look at Nashville,” you whip toward Eddie, who is looking between the paper in your hands and the road. He sounds wholly bored, but tilts his chin to direct your attention back to the map. “From Nashville, trace your finger straight north until it hits 62. We’re a little bit west of that.”

There’s still no ‘Central City’, but you figure it’s probably just too small to show up on a map this size. “Why didn’t we drive down through Nashville?” You find yourself asking, eyes scanning the wrinkled paper. “It seems more direct than this.”

“Roads into and out of Nashville might as well be graveyards.” He goes back to leaning his cheek on his left fist. “Nashville itself is totally wiped out. Well, not wiped out, but you get what I mean. All that's left is clickers and corpses.”

“Oh, okay.” 

Having completed your goal, you carefully fold the map back up and set it on the dashboard. The gravity of his statement hits you hard despite the casual nature he shares it with. You remember reading in a book a couple years ago the population of Nashville had been over half a million people. Half a million. There’s no guarantee they’re all mindless Infected now, some probably got out, but statistically speaking…

Better not to think about it.

The rest of the days are spent listening to the same 14 songs on repeat, stopping along the way to siphon gas and hit supply caches he has set up across the state, breaking to eat or go to the bathroom, and sleeping. You take turns keeping watch while the other sleeps in the bed of the pickup. He explained he didn’t want to drive at night and risk trying to siphon gas in a dangerous area while it’s dark, so when the sun starts to set, he pulls the truck off the highway and into the closest tree line to hide away.

During the first night, you find another reason to resent Eddie. When he lays down on top of his sleeping bag, it only takes moments for him to lose consciousness. The second his eyes close, his breathing slowly gets deeper and the tension in his face falls slack. He wakes just as easily, but the rate at which he’s able to fall asleep is more than enough to keep the heat in your veins from fading. When he does wake up and gruffly order you to get some sleep, you lay down and stare at the stars overhead. Sometimes you actually manage to drift off.

Sleeping in the car is easier. Especially because it keeps you from more awkward silences with Eddie.

The third night is colder than before. You’re at a higher elevation than home and edging closer to winter every day. In the woods at night, the wind kicks up and sends shivers down your spine no matter how tightly you pull your jacket around you. While Eddie softly snores in the truck bed, you sit on the running board below the passenger seat, your sleeping bag wrapped around your shoulders to combat the cold, in silence.

You’ve come to learn that silence is your worst enemy. Infected have patterns, ways to outsmart them. People have weaknesses, morals, and desires. Hunger, thirst, FEDRA – they all have motivations for why they exist and ways to beat them or get around them. Silence, on the other hand, is overbearing, all encompassing. The quiet settles into your bones, leaks into the marrow, infects the white blood cells that are born there, uses them as weapons to subdue the boiling in your blood. Silence lays across you like a heavy, fiberglass blanket suffocating all of the air out of a fire.

It's a fertile breeding ground for thoughts better left alone.

One thing about living most of your life on the base at Quantico is you never saw too much of what the rest of the country looked like. The tall walls of concrete kept your community mostly secluded from the rest of the world and people like you had very little reason to venture outside those walls. You knew how to use a gun, how to drive, how to fight. For emergencies, your dad had insisted. Because you never wanted to catch yourself wishing you could when you really needed to know. Now, after days of driving past dilapidated towns, broken down cars, cracked streets, and the odd infected, it’s a harsh dose of reality. One you had thought you were prepared for, but evidently not. So you sit in your sleeping bag and remember the quilt from your bed, the one your mom had given you, with its faded pastels and fraying edges. The random poster of some boy band on the wall after you’d found it in an attic and put it up just to have something to look at. You miss the Christmas lights you’d hung along the ceiling after convincing your dad they used less electricity than a normal lamp. The walk to the mess hall in the morning when the world was just waking up and most people around didn’t have reason to be in a bad mood yet. The Carolina Wrens that rested along power lines and sang their high pitched songs. The guarantee of scrambled eggs and oatmeal for breakfast, and maybe some jam and toast if you were lucky.

You miss your dad.

Mistakenly acknowledging the grief you’ve been avoiding – just forcing yourself to keep moving, to keep fighting, to keep going – feels like releasing something long kept captive. It claws its way up your throat, starts to buzz in your ears, presses hard against the backs of your eyes. You try to scare it back down into the pit it came from, but you realize too late the path you’ve gone down and don’t have enough fire left to keep it at bay. It roars and howls, tears and bites, grows and climbs until it overtakes you completely.

You press your face into the polyester around your shoulders to muffle the first sob as it rips out of you. Let it soak up the tears that pour out as your back bends, drawing you in towards your knees, instinctually trying to make yourself feel smaller. Like maybe if you curl in tight enough, you can compress the waves that start to batter you so forcefully that they won't have room to move. Make it so the churning in your gut can’t erode at the concrete you’ve poured down your spine to keep yourself upright. This can just be a small release to take the pressure off the top. This won’t be the breakdown. The breakdown will never come.

If you’d been lucky, Eddie wouldn’t have heard your muffled cries. Would’ve slept right through your unwilling moment of weakness. But he wakes just as easily as he goes down to rest and has ears like a bat even in REM sleep. He sits up in the truck bed and leans over the side toward where you’re sitting in what you assume is panic, but you don’t dare to look. Instead, you just beg your body to stop sobbing, to stop trembling, to hold it together in front of him.

It doesn’t listen.

Dead leaves muffle the steps of his boots as he hops down to the ground and approaches slowly, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Your choked cries and gasps are still muffled by the fabric pressed to your face – but it’s not exactly hard to guess what’s going on.

Eddie kneels a respectful distance away, his voice soft as the night itself. “Are you hurt?”

The gentle tone, the concern he shows in something so small almost destroys you. Almost tears you right in two. Almost makes the breakdown happen right here and now. But remembering how he’s acted since the two of you met – how this is the first time he’s asked you anything at all – has enough heat roaring to life to stifle your sobs and stop the tears. It takes a few moments of harsh swallowing and rubbing at your damp skin before you straighten up, blinking the last tears away to face him head on. “I’m fine.”

He huffs through his nose, his head tilting a bit to the side like a curious dog. “Yeah, you look real fine.” And if he hadn’t said it so sarcastically, with such disdain…

Better not to think about it.

Pushing off his own knee, he rises to his feet with a groan, arms stretching skyward. “You should try to get some sleep. I’ll watch for a while.”

Running the backs of your hands under your eyes, you shake your head harshly and focus your gaze back out into the woods. “My shift isn’t over yet.”

“No offense, sweetheart, but you’re not exactly keeping a good watch like this.”

Your eyes roll and you pull the sleeping bag tighter when another shiver rolls down your spine. “Oh yeah, none taken. Asshole.”

Leather ladened arms cross over his chest as he cocks one hip back and looks you over. “You’re cold, you’re tired, and you’re crying. Use my sleeping bag to warm up and get some rest. I’ll wake you up a few hours before sunrise so I can get another nap in before we hit the road.”

You want to fight him. You want to tell him to fuck off and go back to sleep, let you keep doing your job. But the small amount of kindness he’s shown, added to the way you’ve lost all the heat and steam that kept your engine running, makes it near impossible to argue. So instead you stand and shuffle toward the back of the truck, brushing past him without a word. You’re about to lift your shoe up onto the back bumper when a soft call of your name has your attention drifting toward him.

Eddie is barely illuminated in the moonlight. A shadow of himself in the dark. You can’t read his expression, can barely see the vague outline that implies he’s looking in your direction. “I’m sorry, y’know. About your dad.”

“Yeah,” you lift yourself up onto the truck bed with the very last bit of energy you have left. “Yeah, me too.”

Neither of you say another word as you shuffle down into his sleeping bag and layer yours on top. It’s still heated from his time spent in it and it smells of pine, whiskey, and something human. With the warmth surrounding you and the stars above, you find just enough comfort to allow you to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2016 – 10 miles outside Memphis, Tennessee

The pickup rumbles to a stop, waking you from your nap. Your head tilts up from leaning hard against the window in shock. After wiping some drying drool from your chin and stretching your shoulders in the limited space, you look to the shadows out the windshield in confusion. Eddie flips the engine off and pulls the emergency break from beside his seat. “How long was I out? Do we need more gas already?”

“No, Sleeping Beauty, you were only out for an hour.” It really is comical how easy it is for him to take you from half asleep to wanting to snap his head off. “I know you need your beauty rest, but we gotta walk the rest of the way.” His door swings open with a creak, echoing in the concrete room you’ve parked in. Choosing to keep your mouth shut and just follow his lead instead, you open your door and slide out of the seat, your legs already protesting from how they were contorted while you slept.

“Is this a garage?”

“Yup.” Walking around the front toward him, he already grabbed his backpack and has it laid out on a table littered with gear. Pistols, rifles, ammo, machetes, metal pipes, baseball bats, knives, canned food, batteries – a spread perfect for any survivalist. It must’ve taken ages to collect it all, and even more work to keep it stocked this well.

Your curiosity gets the better of you. “Is this all your stuff? Or do you work with other people?” Eddie throws an annoyed look over his shoulder, like you should know better than to ask him anything. Embers fire to life as you walk up right next to him, looking directly into the side of his face while he keeps his eyes on cleaning his pistol on the tabletop. “Is it so horrible just to make conversation? Would it really kill you to be a normal person and talk to someone?”

“Maybe it would. Why the fuck do you even care?” The retort is cold but provides you with a bit of clarity. The chill isn’t directed toward you, but at the idea in general. The issue isn’t just you. The issue is someone caring. You just happen to be the one doing it.

“I don’t care,” you assure him as you swing your own pack onto the table next to his, opening it a little too aggressively and pulling out your own pistol. “Just bored.” The magazine clicks out of the grip at your request, falling into your opposite hand. You silently count through the remaining bullets and reach for the box of 9mms on the table. Your skin tingles with the heat of his glare but he doesn’t make any move to interrupt. You take enough to fill the empty space and let the rest clatter back into the box.

“I share the garage with someone else.”

The admittance falls as he rocks the slide back up the frame and clicks the parts back into place. He doesn’t look away from his work so you don’t either, trying not to react too much to him answering a question. The last thing you want to do is say something wrong and make him clam up again. Would probably be safer to talk about the plan than potentially ask anything else about him as a person. At least, if you wanted to avoid the silence. “How far out of Memphis are we?”

“Couple hours walk,” he’s much quicker to answer as he slots his pistol into a holster near his waistband and goes digging through a box full of what looks like rocks. “Too many patrols and blocked roads to bring the truck further without getting caught.”

“Why are we worried about getting caught? By FEDRA?”

He glances over at you, eyebrows drawn together tight like he’s confused. “Civ’s aren’t supposed to leave the QZ. If I got caught and they recognized me, we’d be fucked.”

Nodding once in understanding, you started putting your things back together with a bit more care than you’d ripped them open. “So we’re sneaking in.”

“We have a few routes in and out of the zone that we rotate through for safety. The closest one had some Infected lurking around last time I was there, but they might have cleared out by now, so we’ll try there first.”

You shoulder your pack again and spend the rest of your time waiting by snooping more. The garage is small and pretty dark, the only light coming from the open door to the outside. Just big enough to fit the truck, the work table, and room to stand between them. There’s nothing personal that could be traced back to anyone and most of the weapons are in locked containers. Nothing a pair of bolt cutters couldn’t get through with a little bit of elbow grease but still better than nothing.

Eddie claps his hands together in what seems like an attempt just to startle you – and it succeeds in making you jump as it echoes against the walls. When you turn on him, steam rushing up from below, his shit eating grin is the happiest you’ve seen him since you left Louisville. “Ready?”

Choosing (again) to exhale the heat instead, continue to avoid the animosity for as long as you can, you tuck your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “When you are.”

The sun is absolutely blazing when you both step out of the shadowed garage and into the bright heat of the morning. You’re surrounded by light gray concrete on all sides, the sun’s rays ricocheting off of every surface until the light is hitting you from all directions. Even squinting hard with your hand over your brow does little to assist your eyes in adjusting to the new normal. When Eddie steps back up, garage door lowered and locked behind you, he has his aviators back on and looks perfectly content.

Prick.

“Must be shit around here in the summer.” You’ve only just made it outside and you’re already tempted to take off your jacket despite the subtle breeze.

“It’s shit everywhere in the summer,” Eddie’s grumbled reply is almost quiet enough for you not to hear, but offers another piece of information. He hates the heat. “Come on, ‘s this way.”

Outer Memphis is utterly deserted. Both by humans and infected. Hell, even seeing an animal at this point would be shocking. But that doesn’t mean it’s missing life, not at all. Greenery stretches all around you as you walk through the suburbs and toward the city center. Vines climbing up walls and poles, grass and weeds pushing out from between sidewalk cracks, bushes weaving their way into chain link fences. Trees left to go wild grow towards each other, making canopies of shade here and there as you walk down the empty streets. The leaves have just started to turn into yellows and oranges, some falling and scattering in muddy piles across the pavement. If you hadn’t known any better, it would’ve looked like humanity just disappeared one day and left the Earth to reclaim what was hers. But you do know better. And the signs of what actually happened are everywhere if you know how to look.

Shattered shop windows of every pharmacy, liquor store, gun shop, and grocery. A rusted and warped metal sign calling the area a FEDRA quarantine zone, matched with another that tells you to look out for signs of cordyceps infection. An apartment building with a yellow ‘X’ spray painted across the door and dried fungus peeking out through the cracks in the frame. Lines of cars in off street parking with the wheels stripped, hoods open to scavenge for parts, gas caps hanging from tanks siphoned. Deep brown streaks of long-dried blood arching across the pavement towards alleys and behind buildings. 

While it can be easy to look at the plant life thriving and feel serene, really focusing on the details produces a sulfuric taste in your mouth. One that can only be washed away with liquor or enough time to forget.

You’ve been walking for close to two hours when a wide palm suddenly lands on your chest, halting you in place. It mostly freezes you in shock and disbelief at the touch, but when you look up and see Eddie staring at you with a single finger pressed to his lips, it’s enough to make your heart rate kick up in your chest and a cold sweat break out across the back of your neck. Neither of you move for a few moments. You try to focus your ears in to listen, wanting to try to understand these stimuli Dustin and Eddie seem to instinctually respond to. At first, all you can hear is the brush of leaves across concrete. Attempting to push past that, squeezing your eyes shut as if that will help you extend your senses further, you pick up on the edge of something deep. It’s a rumble in the distance, pitched low and long as it rolls through the air. Almost like a groan.

Brown eyes pitched black by tinted lenses meet your own as soon as you look for them. Wordlessly, Eddie directs you towards the sidewalk where a car sits with its wheel wells flat to the ground. He follows close behind as you cross over and duck behind it, shuffling towards the back bumper to try and peek around the other side. You’re looking out over a 4 way intersection and you spot the source of the noise towards the northern end.

Three infected stand in the street, deep moans pouring from their throats as their heads twitch erratically. One’s arm is broken, bent unnaturally backward, and all three have torn clothes and are covered in dirt. There’s visible fungal growth along their skin, indicating they have been this way for some time, but their eyes remain uncovered. Runners.

Shifting back to being fully behind the car, you hold up 3 fingers to Eddie. His expression is stone as he circles his finger in the air before him. Confused for a moment, you realize he’s probably asking you to check the perimeter and make sure there aren’t more. A careful glance around yields nothing. You return to him with a shake of your head. His middle finger and thumb pinch together 3 times in quick succession, his eyebrows raising in a question. It takes you another pause to consider what the motion means, what exactly he’s trying to ask you. It’s not like the two of you had considered beforehand how to communicate in case danger arose. But some part of your brain nags at you: He’s asking if they’re Clickers.

Going with your gut, you give another small shake of your head and mimic a person running with your own pointer and middle finger. He exhales through his nose in what seems like both relief and amusement before motioning for you to get behind him and reaching for something in a side pocket of his bag. By the time you’ve inched your way around so he can look out beyond the car, he’s produced an intense looking slingshot and a small tan pellet. Unable to ask what the hell he’s doing, you can only watch as he places the pellet into the sling and begins to pull it back hard, his bicep straining against leather with the movement. The tip of his tongue peeks out the corner of his mouth as he takes aim.

It goes sailing – your eyes can barely track it as it arcs high and sails directly over the heads of the infected. You think maybe he missed trying to hit one of them, but his true intention becomes clear when it makes contact with the ground. There’s a small flash of white accompanied by a sharp crack that echoes between the buildings on either side of the intersection. All 3 heads immediately turn on the noise, one so forcefully it almost knocks itself off its feet, before they take off running. Eddie counts to 3 under his breath and then grabs your bicep, pulling you along with him as he jogs across the intersection and a couple blocks further. You rip your arm from his hold but continue to follow close behind as he ducks around a corner and into an overgrown city park.

Once you deem you’re a safe distance away, you chance talking again. “That was a pretty neat trick. What are those things?”

His long legs don’t stop moving so you try to keep the pace as he continues to hurry away from the scene. “Little mix of gunpowder and a couple other things. Some brainiac made the recipe as an alternative to fireworks or sparklers for the kids, which then turned into kids throwing them everywhere and pissing off the guards, which got them banned and confiscated. And, well…” The corner of his mouth pulls toward his ear, dry lips spreading in a sly smile. “FEDRA contraband is fair game if you know where they keep it.”

For the first time in what feels like weeks, you laugh. It bubbles up unexpectedly, the feeling foreign by now, and bursts from between your lips in a bark, one you’re quick to stifle with your hand as it trails off. “Y’know, I thought people were supposed to grow out of their rebellious phase by your age.”

His smile disappears just as fast as it occurred, a flat look directed your way. “Very funny,” is his grumbled reply, huffing as he adjusts his pack. “Come on, we’re not too far.”

You perk up at the idea of this hike finally being done, especially with the promise of a bath on the other side. Jogging up to his side from where he’s walked away, you ask for confirmation with a little bit too much enthusiasm. “Really?”

“QZ was set up in the Medical District, just east of the Mississippi,” he explains without looking your way, his head swiveling on an axis. Ever vigilant, circling his surroundings like a hawk. The two of you approach a small, wrought iron arch, bracketed on either side by hedges that have to be 9 feet tall. You assume it leads out of the park but Eddie stops you before you can cross through. “Wait here a second.”

Eddie leans his head through, looking both ways like he’s about to cross the street before disappearing to the right. Unease prickles up your spine as you hear the shift of greenery ahead, your lower lip drawing in between your teeth in a nervous habit. The silence builds, starting as a pressure at the base of your skull and growing into a ringing in your ears. It spreads down through your nerves like radio static as you shift uneasily, anxiety setting in quickly the moment you’re left alone. Adrenaline drumming up, you’re close to either yelling for him or bolting when he finally calls out:

“Okay, we’re clear, come on out.”

You pass through the archway and into a tunnel of vines. The sun filters through as the leaves shift, projecting dancing shadows on the packed dirt floor. You turn right and push ahead, using your arms to part a curtain of hanging vines. There’s a concrete staircase on the other side leading up. Halfway to the top, you look ahead and see Eddie.

His back is to you as he stands tall and proud. His silhouette is surrounded by bright blue sky on all sides. The red flannel around his hips and loose bits of his hair sway in the breeze as the sun beats down on the cracked leather of his jacket. His hair is frizzy, his jeans dusted and worn, his boots spread wide as he raises a hand to his brow to look out. A few steps further and you see he’s standing on a sort of balcony over a decorative town square, a murky fountain in the middle and dilapidated statues lining the walkways. It’s situated on a hill, well above the city center that stretches beyond. You can see straight over the buildings of downtown, to the barbed wire-lined walls of the Quarantine Zone, and beyond to the Mississippi River as it rolls.

Eddie turns to you, slowly walking backward toward the stairway down into the square, hands in his pockets with the thumbs sticking out. “You coming or what?”

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thanks for reading!! if you liked it, please consider reblogging and leaving a comment, they make my day 💜

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this article has been run thru mtl and edited. if there are any discrepancies please lmk and I’ll edit it asap. thanks everyone for your continued help and patience

Segye Ilbo Exclusive: "No Sexual Crime Charge Despite 'Humiliation Request'… The Perpetrator Aspires to Become a Teacher" By Jeong Ji-hye Published on September 8, 2024, 10:14 AM

"They posted my name, resident registration number, and address in a photo, asking, 'Please humiliate her,' and threatened to 'enslave me.' But since they didn’t explicitly ask for sexual harassment, it’s not considered a sexual crime."

A (18), a high school student from Seoul, met with Segye Ilbo on August 30 to discuss her experience of catching a perpetrator who attempted to commit a Deepfake sexual crime against her via Telegram last May. Although she was able to quickly identify the perpetrator and prevent further damage, the emotional aftermath continues to trouble her.

The incident began in mid-May when A received a message from someone claiming to be preparing to join the police force. The message said she was involved in a digital sex crime. At first, A thought it was a spam message, but after hearing from a friend about the rise of Deepfake crimes, she decided to follow up with the informant.

The materials A received were shocking. The captured conversations included her name, phone number, Instagram ID, home address, a photo of her ID, and various other documents like her USB contents, resume, and family relationship certificate. In a group chat, the perpetrator sought someone to "humiliate" A, and upon finding someone, they would move to a private chat to share more detailed information about her.

A, who described herself as generally quiet at school, was terrified to learn that someone held such deep animosity toward her. She suspected the perpetrator was a fellow student but couldn’t pinpoint who it might be. Eventually, the informant advised her to check her Instagram followers, as the perpetrator had just sent her a follow request on her private account.

It turned out to be someone she knew—a male student from her class, B. Shocked, A realized that the seemingly "normal" B was the one behind the crime. She matched his Telegram profile with the perpetrator’s and reported him to the police, who confirmed that they could identify the perpetrator. Within a week of receiving the first message, B was caught.

Because A was able to identify the perpetrator quickly, she avoided being victimized by Deepfake content. The perpetrator hadn’t yet obtained photos beyond her ID photo to create a Deepfake image. A expressed relief, saying, "I post a selfie on my public Instagram account about once a month, and it seems like the perpetrator couldn’t find any images after deciding to commit the crime. If I had posted a photo just a week later, the situation might have been different."

"I wasn't the only one affected. So many others have suffered. It made me realize we need to root this out completely."

A few months later, A learned that what she experienced was part of a much larger issue involving nationwide Deepfake pornography production. She realized this was a continuation of the infamous 2019 Telegram Nth Room sexual exploitation case. A suspected there could be overlap between the perpetrators, and since they hadn’t all been caught, they might continue committing similar crimes.

A decided to come forward for this interview, hoping to raise awareness of the need for appropriate punishment, even for attempted Deepfake production and "humiliation" requests. Although B specifically targeted A and made degrading comments about turning her into a slave, no charges were applied. Even posting her ID and personal information couldn’t be punished under current laws. In the end, B was only charged with theft for stealing her USB, avoiding criminal punishment and facing only juvenile court.

A representative from Nowon Police Station commented, "The case was processed under theft and the Personal Information Protection Act, and we referred the theft charge to the prosecutor's office." However, they explained that since B did not use A’s resident registration number for identity verification, it wasn’t punishable under the Resident Registration Act. The police also noted that since no digital manipulation occurred, they couldn’t classify it as a digital sex crime. There was no clear regulation for the "humiliation" request either.

While four individuals, including the informant, are suspected of discussing A’s "humiliation" with B in private chats, forensic analysis of B’s phone was not conducted. The police explained, "At the time, we determined that there was no one else holding A’s data."

The Nowon Police official further noted, "With the rise of new crimes like Deepfake, there is momentum for new laws to address even attempted crimes. Once laws are in place, we will be able to apply appropriate penalties."

"I'm a senior in high school, and going through this makes it hard to even dream about college life. As for the perpetrator? He wants to become a math teacher."

B, who was sent to juvenile court, faced a forced transfer under the School Violence Countermeasures Committee. Unlike expulsion, which leaves a permanent record, forced transfers are erased after four years. By the time B graduates from university and seeks employment, no trace of the incident will remain. The education office cited that "it was a one-time offense, and he showed signs of remorse," as the reason for the lenient punishment.

A said, "I never received an apology from B, and even though he was supposed to submit a handwritten apology to the school, nothing was delivered." She expressed frustration, believing that B was merely pretending to be remorseful during the committee hearing to avoid harsher consequences.

The aftermath of the incident severely impacted A’s academic performance and mental health. She couldn’t concentrate on her studies due to depression and panic attacks. Though B is no longer at the school, some of his friends remain, leaving A in constant fear of illegal filming or further harm. She is currently on medication and has taken academic leave, virtually giving up on this year’s college entrance exam.

Meanwhile, B is reportedly preparing for university entrance exams at his new school, aiming to become a math teacher. A noted that the fact that her daily life remains disrupted while B's proceeds almost unaffected is what infuriates her the most.

When asked if she had someone to confide in, A said, "Not really. Everyone wants to move on, so I don’t talk about it. I also don’t want to burden my family or friends with my emotions." She added, "It's hard to approach people now, and I fear that expressing my anxiety will make me seem weak. I constantly worry about being targeted again if I upset someone."

Jeong Ji-hye, Reporter wisdom@segye.com

[biblio-smia]

halloween horrors [ethan landry x reader]

pairing: ethan landry x gender neutral reader

summary: celebrating halloween with ethan <3

masterlist | requests are open!

Ethan wasn't much of a partier.

You found this out when you'd met him, ironically, at a party. It had been late August then, the first party of the semester to celebrate the end of the first week.

You remember being reluctant to go. Now you were grateful you bit your tongue and went — going to that party was the catalyst in your relationship with Ethan.

You learned, very early on, that Ethan being at that party was a once-in-a-blue-moon spectacle, one that Chad was fully at fault for. Ethan had been shy even with a shot of alcohol in him, but was even worse without. This fact didn't bother you too much; less nights out meant more nights in, where you and Ethan could savor each other's presence in private.

This, however, led to a little hiccup when considering how you would celebrate Halloween.

It was your first big holiday as a couple and you were already going crazy with potential game plans. A party was a no-go, no matter how your friends begged. They tried to hold the idea of a matching couple costume over your heads, but you turned them down. Ethan even tried to offer a 30-minute-max appearance, but you assured him he didn't have to. You wanted this night for yourselves.

Ethan was an angel in letting you plan, offering you ideas here and there. You'd ask him for feedback from time to time, but he was no real help; he nodded at any idea you had with a grin.

"Okay, okay. How about a night in, with a movie marathon, and snacks—"

"Matching pajamas?" Ethan offered. "You know, instead of a couple costume—"

You laughed at the suggestion. Not in a mean way, but in a you're-absolutely-adorable way, making sure to express this sentiment with a kiss to Ethan's cheek.

"Matching pajamas it is."

"I think you just planned my perfect night," Ethan mumbles against your skin, soft touches sweet like candy.

Ethan probably would have called any night spent with you a perfect night, even if it included a party. But you didn't fight the compliment, letting Ethan press kisses of gratitude against your lips for the time being.

「 … 」

Halloween was here. Your heart beat rapidly throughout your morning class, fingers tapping as you waited impatiently for noon to come. Elation propelled you through setting up your apartment for Ethan's arrival at 6 (though Ethan was always early, especially when it was a date).

Snacks were set up in Halloween-themed bowls and plates, decorations strung up in every corner.

You went all out. Ethan arrived with a bright smile, bringing more food although you’d told him not to worry. Though you couldn’t help your smile as you saw the themed food that fit right in.

Ethan greeted you with a kiss first and foremost, before even setting his things down. The kiss he gave you was his way inside your apartment, rocking you back without you realizing. Ethan shut the door behind him and made his way to your living room to set everything down.

“Woah,” he breathed out, taking his first good look around. He’d helped you put a few things here and there up, but you’d worked hard since he’d last seen your place. Ethan grinned at your effort. “Everything looks amazing. This better stay up until at least December.”

You laughed at that, helping Ethan set up the food alongside all the other snacks and treats you’d decorated.

“Next time I’m helping,” Ethan said sternly, admiring all the work you put into some ghost-shaped cookies.

“Not with any of the food,” you teased.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Okay, it was not my fault you don’t label your measuring spoons.”

“Baby, it has labels engraved on them.”

“Well, I couldn’t read them.”

You laughed and shook your head.

“Hey, no more making fun of me or I won’t show you what I got,” Ethan threatened, motioning towards the bags.

“Okay, fine,” you grinned, watching Ethan squint his eyes at you. “I’m not laughing! Show me.”

“I think I need to be bribed.”

“Oh, my god,” you sighed in fake annoyance before leaning in to kiss Ethan. He separated with a satisfied smile you tried not to mirror.

“I guess I can show you now,” Ethan grinned, pulling out his things excitedly.

“Okay, first I got these ghost napkins,” Ethan paused which each item, making sure to show them off properly. “And then I got our pajamas…”

You smiled giddily as Ethan pulled them out, already ecstatic to cuddle up and eat while watching horror movies.

“And I saw this and thought it’d be perfect,” Ethan began suspensefully, reaching into the biggest bag and pulling out a cartoon throw blanket.

“Oh my god, that is perfect.”

“Well, I didn’t want you getting cold.”

You laughed and got up to get changed, leaving Ethan to set up the food he’d brought. You came back to a slightly disheveled Ethan.

“I think I bought too much.”

You laughed. “Well, everyone else went out to that party tonight, and you know how Chad gets when he’s drunk. We’ll just give them our leftovers.”

Ethan laughed before picking up his set of pajamas to get dressed.

You waited patiently but Ethan was out in no time, smiling at the sight of your matching outfits.

“You’re a genius for this,” Ethan insisted as he sat down next to you, waiting to see what options you two had for tonight.

“I know,” you smiled proudly, watching as Ethan pulled out his phone to take a picture of you. Well, pictures.

“Ethan!” You laughed when he wouldn’t stop clicking the shutter button.

“Wait, wait, one more,” Ethan insisted, turning his head to kiss your cheek as you laughed.

“You’re crooked,” you laughed, straightening Ethan’s phone.

Ethan didn’t stop pressing kisses against your cheek or clicking the camera button, capturing dozens of photos of you laughing.

Finally, you gave in to Ethan’s lips and met him in a kiss, leaving Ethan with the best photo of the night (which would quickly become his lock screen).

That satisfied Ethan, a stupid grin on his face (and yours) as the two of you turned your attention back to the TV, quickly settling on Halloween to watch first, duh.

After a few slashers and a lot of snacks, Ethan was tucked into the corner of the couch, propped up on a pillow with an arm around you laying against his chest.

“Top 10 final girls,” Ethan declared as the credits of Ready or Not began to play.

“Top 5,” you corrected, picking up the remote to search for your next movie. “Ooh, how about The Conjuring?”

Ethan stiffened under you and you were momentarily worried you’d tired his arm out until you glanced at his face - pale and rigid.

You tried not to smile as you continued scrolling over titles. “The Exorcist? Paranormal Activity? The Grudge?”

“Could we just stick to slashers?” Ethan asked weakly and you couldn’t help but laugh. You could feel his heart beating quicker in his chest. You turned a little to face him with a smile.

“There’s no way you’re willing to sit through hours of slashers but you can’t watch ghost movies.”

“Hey, I’m not afraid of what I can see,” Ethan defended.

“I’ll cover your eyes at the scary parts.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll probably scare me more than the movie.”

You laughed again, running a hand through Ethan’s hair. “Okay, okay. How about Paranormal Activity? Nothing happens for like, the first hour.”

Ethan reluctantly agreed, but only as long as you cuddled him. It was a pretty fair trade-off.

The two of you sat up, Ethan nervously snacking as the movie tensed.

You really resisted from scaring him.

Instead you held his hand and let him hide his face in your shoulder once it got scary towards the end.

“See? Not that bad, right?” You asked gently as the credits started to roll.

“Horrible,” Ethan disagreed, keeping his head on you shoulder even though the movie ended.

“I think you just pretended for the cuddles.”

“Maybe,” Ethan mused. “Okay, it wasn’t that bad,” he admitted.

You grinned at your accomplishment, playfully pushing Ethan’s head off and back towards the couch.

“You made me move from my very comfortable position,” you complained as you settled on top of Ethan, back in his arms.

“Well, it was my turn.”

You leaned down for a kiss, smiling as you received it.

Your hand came up to Ethan’s chest, just above his heart. “Was it really that scary?”

“No, that’s just because of you,” Ethan said smoothly.

You snorted. “Cornball.”

“You like it.”

“I guess.”

Ethan kissed you again, wrapping his strong arms around you.

“You should sleep over tonight,” you whispered against Ethan’s lips.

“You don’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I did.”

Ethan smiled. “Okay.”

He had class tomorrow, but he didn’t care. Being with you was worth it.

“We should clean up,” Ethan mumbled softly. “Drop by my room and get clothes. And give Chad that food. He should be back by now.”

“You want me in bed that bad?”

“Well, I need your cuddles or I’m going to get nightmares and it’ll be your fault.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you rolled your eyes, carefully getting off Ethan and letting him get up after you. Even as the night dwindled down, the two of you smiled so much your cheeks hurt. Between the shared kisses, warm hugs and the smell of pumpkin in the air, this Halloween was the most perfect one you’d experienced — until next year, probably.

[3minsover]

AUgust Day 28:

loose 27 dresses au - perpetually single steve has been a groomsman more times than he can remember. school friends, college pals, colleagues, family members, they all want him. after having attended 3 weddings in a day, watching couple after couple profess their everlasting love for each other, steve decides to head to a bar, and get DRUNK.

there, he meets eddie: charming, sexy, quick-witted and more than a match as a drinking companion. the night passes in shades of beer, whisky and tequila, and as they talk, steve shares his honestly ridiculous wedding stats. eddie is fascinated, encourages steve to talk more, to send him photos of each wedding he’s been part of this year; steve thinks he’s met the One.

over the next few weeks, they date, and steve feels himself falling, finally. until an article pops up in his favorite magazine, written by a columnist that had usually, until now, remained anonymous. it’s simply titled:

Always the Groomsman, Never the Groom: Are Some People Just Not Meant For a Happy Ending?

written by eddie munson.

steve manages to read the first paragraph before he starts feeling sick. he can’t believe that eddie, sweet, lovely, kind eddie, could have used him like this, could have published it. steve feels himself blushing furiously as he stashes the magazine in his bag and heads straight for eddie’s apartment. he paces outside for a full minute before knocking, and then holds up the page in the magazine accusatorially. eddie greets him with a broad smile at first, which dissolves when he spots steve’s tear stained cheeks and distraught expression.

“why would you write this?” steve demands, failing to keep his voice from shaking. eddie’s brow furrows.

“what- what do you mean?”

“not meant for a happy ending?” steve quotes, throat thick. it’s embarrassing to even say the words aloud, let alone to the person who wrote them, about him. steve’s grip on the magazine trembles as he clutches at his nerve.

“steve,” eddie starts slowly. he swallows hard. “steve, did you read the whole thing?”

“don’t think i needed to, did i? i think it was perfectly clear what you were getting at.” steve stares at the floor between their feet, betrayed, heartbroken, lost.

eddie carefully takes the magazine from him and begins to speak, eyes flicking up nervously every couple seconds.

“so no, i don’t think everyone is meant to have a happy ending. but i do think everyone deserves one. and no one as much as steve. i just hope, and maybe it’s a wild dream to have, but i hope i can be the one to give him that.” eddie winces a little as he looks up once more, meeting steve’s watery gaze. “i should have told you i was writing that story. i’m sorry.”

steve snatches the magazine back, hardly daring to believe eddie’s words unless he sees them printed in black and white.

and there they are.

“i thought you were- i thought i- oh my god.” steve tips forward, gripping the magazine in one hand and the front of eddie’s shirt in the other. “did you mean it?” eddie smiles softly, cupping steve’s cheeks in both palms.

“course i did, stevie. you deserve it. and i wanna be the one to give it to you, if you’ll have me.”

steve can’t prevent the giddy chuckle that escapes his throat. all the heartbreak is but a memory, fading into insignificance against the brilliant light of his happy ending, growing brighter by the second.

“promise you won’t write anything else about me without my knowledge?” he asks, arching one brow. eddie guides steve’s face closer to his own, until their lips are almost brushing.

“i promise. with one exception, yknow, once we’re at that point. i’m gonna keep my vows a secret.”

and that’s an exception steve is more than happy to make.

[footballandfics]

driving license.

Gavi never believed in love from the first sight, well that was the case until he met you.

Since the first glance, he fell in love with, hard.

Your first meeting was all coincidence, you were at the parking lot for la masia waiting for your brother so you could take him home.

Sent you a message that five minutes and he’s out, however it’s been fifteen minutes and he still hasn’t come, so you get out of the care to see what taking him too long.

 You enter the academy and then you see him talking excitedly with someone, the stranger has his back to you.

Waving to your brother to get his attention, he does not notice you because of the conversation he was having .

You decided not to waste anymore time, you go to him

“are you ready to go?” you cut him off, finally having his and the stranger attention, both of them looking at you.

Your brother seems boomed that he can’t continue his conversation, “can you wait five minutes more please.”

“Fine but hurry please” you tell him still not looking at the stranger, feeling really awkward not knowing anyone and what to say.

“Can I take a picture with you?” your brother asks the stranger, so he’s famous, now you look towards and to your surprise he was looking at you, you shared an eye contact and you break it very fast.

“sure” his voice matches his cute look  

“give me your phone, I’ll take the photo” you tell your brother wanting to get out of here as fast as possible feeling shy and a cute guy made you blush.

He hands you his phone, you hurry to the camera, now your brother and the cute famous guy standing next to each other.

“Ok. Smile” you tell your brother but both of them do, you take multiple photos, he looks so handsome.

You put down the phone “thank you” you tell the stranger and he nods .

“let’s go” you turn towards the exist, not bothering to see if your brother behind you.

Not realizing that not only your brother behind also the stranger, they still talk to each other.

When you get to your car, “my sister can drive you, it’s on our way”, he laughs “what if she minds?”.

You look back at them, they’re looking at you “y/n it’s fine right, gavi doesn’t have a ride and he’s on our way we can drop him off” so he’s called gavi.

Hating the fact that your brother can talk to anybody and anyone also hating that you can’t say no, “sure”

“I don’t want to be a bother, I was going to call a taxi” smiling at him “it’s fine, we’re going in the same direction” you all ride the car, your brother in the back.

Gavi in the passenger seat, while you’re in the driver seat.

“you don’t have a car?” your brother said to gavi.

Making face palming yourself mentally “b/n it’s none of your business, sorry about him, he just says whatever on his mind”

Gavi laughs “it’s okay don’t worry, I still don’t have my license too lazy to get it, but after what he said I will start”

Then there it is the awkward silence.

“so how many months have you had your license?” He asks you.

“oh it’s actually been two years now”, he thinks for a minutes and says “that means you’re twenty years old?”

You look at him quickly “yeah” .

“no way you look younger, I thought you’re my age” younger , my age , he’s younger than you, damn here goes your chance.

“how old are you?” asking just to make sure .

“Eighteen, in august I’ll turn nineteen” he answers you.

You nod, wanting to end this conversation, it wasn’t like you really had any chance with him, he’s just another cute guy that you’ll never meet him again.

You drop him off where he tells you, he turns to you smiling before he gets out of the car “thank you for the ride”.

“you’re welcome” smiling back at him.

You thought this is the last time you’ll meet him, you were wrong every now and then, your brother will call asking for a ride.

And somehow gavi’s always with your brother, talking about football and your brother ends up asking you to drive his idol too.

You don’t say no, with the time you spend together you feel closer to each other.

Having each other numbers and chatting a lot, he’s following you on his private Instagram.

Not one day is over without both of you talking to each other, now you get to know him you like him a lot, but you’re not sure if it’s possible to be together.

One day, you drop your brother at la masia, you see gavi getting out of a car, the driver side.

He sees you and hurries to you “guess what?”.

“you get your driving license?” laughing thinking how obvious it was.

“yeah, this is my first car” nice car you think to yourself.

“will now I don’t have to drive you around anymore”.

“that’s true, now it’s my turn to drive you around” he says wiggling his car keys.

“why? I already have my car” you felt kind of sad, now the time you spend together will be less.

“because on our date, I want to be the one who driving” you nod your head but stops when you realized what he actually said.

You look at him to see that he wasn’t joking, “if this is a joke it’s a bad one”.

“it’s not, I really like you and wanted to ask you out on a date for a long time but I didn’t want you to drive me, I know it’s whatever but I want to show you that I can be your man and take care of you”.

Now you’re blushing from his words “so when is our first date?”

He smiles “tomorrow at 6 p.m.”