#because i swear every time i say anything she has to find an issue with it

[hopepunkhealer]

Hey hey hey!! Ghostflower!!

On the topic of physical media, for that debate, if it ever comes up again, tell your teacher that when they get married (or imagine the wedding they already had). The DJ they hired shows up. Their entire system is built on streaming because it’s accessible and the easiest way to get into DJing anymore.

But uh oh. The service isnt great. Or they forgot to download something to play offline. Or the wifi is being weird. Or they were planning on using spotify and suddenly spotify changed their terms of service and wont function as a third party service for DJ equipment (cause that actually happened). So now the DJ you hired doesnt have access to many songs, let alone the ones that you requested for specific moments. So now what? Without physical media, your wedding is out of luck.

The point is, just because the majority of people dont use it regularly, doesnt mean its not something that other people dont need. DJs *need* to be able to make and use physical media. Im sure there are more professions that need it too. But if you want your wedding to go smoothly (music wise) you should 100% have a DJ that has physical media at least as a back up.

(Using weddings as an example cause that tends to be the end all be all event for a lot of people that they always want to go perfect - same could be applied to any event you hire a dj for)

- @safety-pin-punk

my teacher was on my side of the argument, it was my classmates who were against it.

it started because we brought up music streaming, and I mentioned if you lose the account you bought music through or streamed through, you lose that music, and one particular classmate told me I was wrong (her favourite thing to do, mind you), and that streaming services are a perfectly fine way to do music. and yes, spotify is quick, its convenient, etc. but the example I had was ITunes, specifically the fact that my mum lost hundreds of dollars of music when apple switched from Itunes to apple music, because she doesn't use apple anymore and couldn't sign anything in.

classmate and i then went back and forth for another 10 minutes and classmate finding some kind of counter for every single (what I thought were good) argument I made.

but either way, my general statement in most things, is that physical media is so important, not only because of the "it means you own it" argument, but also for media preservation. so many streaming services just take down shows or movies or music just to clear server space, and it means there is more and more lost media.

like think ahead in your life if you have young kids in your life (be that students, friends kids, family, etc) and you want to show them what you were like as a kid/teenager/young adult/etc, one of the best ways to do that would be pictures in a photo album where yes, something could happen to that photo album, so its a good idea to keep back up copies online anyway, but having that solid tangible picture is so special.

[lilahisntsadanymore]

Growing up with a deatheater father doesn't teach you much about emotions, so when Theo finds himself developing an infatuation with a muggle-born, he thinks she gave him a love potion.

Pairing: Theo Nott x granger!fem!reader

Words count: 1.9k

Warnings: jealous Harry

There is a 2nd part!! <3

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

Unveiled Desires

It was strange to him. So strange how he went from mocking, annoying and occasionally bullying her every step she takes to secretly wanting her. Wanting to have her, or even needing her.

He didn't know how or when it happened, but one day he realized she was constantly in his head. It creeped up on him in small steps and eventually he had developed an infatuation for the girl.

Of course nobody knew about it, Theo wouldn't dare telling anyone. He just kept with his antics, hoping the obsession will somewhat disappear one day. Unfortunately, the more he tried to get rid of this feeling, the more he gave it power, the more it grew.

But he couldn't be with her. He couldn't be with a mudblood.

But he wanted to be with her. The more he thought about it, the less he cared about the blood status. He cursed at himself for these thoughts. Raised by a deatheater father, he would get disowned for dating anyone who wasn't a pureblood.

"Granger, can I talk to you for a second?" A question left his mouth as he approached the Golden Trio. Who was better to talk to about Y/n than her older sister?

The three Gryffindors looked at Theo as if he wasn't good in the head. Just casually wanting to have a chat, a normal chat, with someone outside of his social circle. Pretty unusual for a Slytherin.

"What is it?" Harry asked protectively.

"I was talking to Granger. I need to talk privately."

Hermione looked at Harry and Ron, exchanging suspecting glances. Eventually she spoke, "Alright, but make it quick."

"Great, let's go." Theo started walking, but Hermione stood in her place.

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere they," he gestured to Harry and Ron, "aren't gonna eavesdrop."

Hermione crossed her arms on her chest, a knowing expression on her face.

Theo raised his hands, "It's not a trap again, I swear."

The girl sighed and walked after her rival.

Hermione and Theodore weren't fond of each other not only because of their houses and their blood statuses, but also because they were academic rivals. Both of them were extremely competitive. Since first year they aspired to be better than one another in pretty much everything.

"Can we stop already?" The girl asked. "I'm pretty sure they won't ear us from here."

"Alright, alright." Theo agreed. "But I need you to promise me you won't tell anybody about it."

"Why me? Why would you trust a Gryffindor with keeping a secret for you?"

Theo lowered his voice to a whisper, "Because it's about your sister."

"What?!" Hermione's voice was the opposite of a whisper. "What have you done to her?!"

The boy gestured telling her to lower her voice. "No, I didn't do anything. She has done...something."

"What on Earth could that possibly be?" A little more quiet, but still unpleasantly surprised, she decided to listen to him.

One last time, Theo looked around to make sure there's nobody there who could be a witness to what he was about to say.

"She used some spell on me." He accused. "Or put something in my food, my drink."

Hermione scoffed with laughter. "You must be joking. You bully her for whole five years, but one time she pays you back for it, it's an issue?"

"Not like that." He took a second to gather his thoughts. "Granger, do you remember how we learnt about amortentia few weeks ago? I think Y/n gave it to me."

Hermione started at the boy for a moment and then burst out with laughter. Y/n wasn't the issue, there was no way a fifth year would be able to make amortentia. Not even Y/n Granger.

Theodore felt annoyed and offended by Hermione's reaction. He looked at her with disgust. "What is so funny to you about it, mu-, Granger?"

Noticing how he almost called her a slur, her expression immediately became serious. "Seriously? You know what, deal with it by yourself. I don't even know why you're telling me all of this."

"Why? Because you have to talk to her, tell her to do something about it! Tell her to stop it!"

Hermione got a brilliant idea.

"You know, I've heard professor Slughorn had a remedy for amortentia."

"Yeah, and I'll end up in the hospital wing like Weasley."

"It was poisoned mead, not the amortentia cure itself. You can ask him to make one from the ingredients in the classroom."

"I will," Theo scoffed, "look at you being useful for the first time in your life."

Without another word, Hermione walked away. "Boys..." She muttered to herself.

"Don't tell anyone I told you this!"

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

"What?! He likes me?!" Y/n asked with blush on her face. "Theodore Nott likes me? The boy that has been bullying me for the past five years?"

"And the thinks it's because you gave him amortentia." Hermione giggled.

Y/n wouldn't ever think that he could be into her and the whole story that her sister had told her was simply unbelievable. But Hermione had no business in lying to her very own little sister, especially not about that.

"Does anyone else know about this?"

"Not yet, but I talked him into asking Slughorn for the cure! I suppose he'll do this tomorrow after class, as soon as possible."

"Who are you and what have you done to my sister?"

The girls were sitting alone in the common room and as Y/n laughed, Ron and Harry walked in.

"What are you two laughing about?" Harry asked, ready to hear that story.

"Can I tell them?" Hermione looked at Y/n. The younger Granger nodded. "Nott likes Y/n."

The girls and Ron laughed, meanwhile Harry stood there with his lips in a thin line, far away from laughing.

"The best part is," Hermione continued, "he thinks Y/n gave him amortentia!"

"What?" Harry spoke eventually, his voice a bit more surprised than it should be. "Y/n, did you give amortentia to Nott?"

"No, why would you accuse me of this?!" The youngest girl defended herself. "Is it that unbelievable that he can fancy me?"

"I mean... You're a muggleborn... And-"

"And what?! Does that mean I'm not worthy of that? We don't know him, maybe he doesn't believe in this whole blood purity thing."

"He does. That's why he hasn't asked you out. And he never will. Because they're all the same."

Y/n's eyes became a little glossy, the tears ready to start flowing anytime. "Are they, though? And you're saying this. You, whose godfather was Sirius Black."

"Sirius was different!"

"We don't know because we don't know what Theo is like!"

"Theo? It was Nott for the past few years that he was tormenting you," Harry put an emphasis on the word bullying, "now he fancies you and he becomes Theo?"

"I would actually give him a chance. It's not his fault that he was born into a blood purity obsessed family."

"Don't you think that's a little pathetic? Running into his hands the moment you find out he might fancy you meanwhile you had chances to date...other Gryffindors."

"Pathetic? You call me pathetic?"

"I didn't call you pathetic, I said what you do is-"

A sound of a slap filled the room, but the following silence spoke even louder. Y/n looked Harry in the eyes, a light red mark on his cheek that her hand left.

Harry could see and sense that it was too much, he said unnecessary words. He regretted them, but he just couldn't stop them from coming out.

The Golden Trio watched Y/n run upstairs. She was so glad nobody else was in the bedroom yet.

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

"Excuse me, professor," Theo walked up to Slughorn after the class on the following day.

All the other students were slowly exiting the room, Harry's eyes fixed on the Slytherin standing by the teacher's desk.

"Yes, Theodore?" Slughorn asked. "Do you have some more bright insights you'd like to share with me?" He was clearly happy to have this conversation.

"I actually need help, professor."

The man's expression dropped. "Yes? Do you have a problem?"

"I'm worried that I've been given amortentia."

Slughorn's eyes widened. He was surprised or even shocked. "Are you sure? I remember seeing other people under the influence of several love potions and you don't quite match the criteria."

"There's this girl who I can't stop thinking about... I suspect she has given it to me."

"Who that might be?"

Theo waited until all the other students exit the classroom before he said the name.

"Y/n Granger."

Y/n stopped in her tracks just as he was about to enter the potions classroom. She was about to show the teacher a part of her project, wanting to consult the texts she has written. Instead, she stopped and decided to listen to the conversation.

"Ah, she's one of the best students in her year," Slughorn said proudly, "but I assure you - she wouldn't do that to you."

"How can you be sure, professor?"

"Well, could you describe your symptoms, Theodore?"

"Whatever I do, Y/n is on my mind," the boy admitted, "I can't eat, I can't sleep, I zone out thinking about her. It's not normal, I've never experienced it before."

The teacher gave his student a sympathetic smile. "My dear boy, you might be experiencing the actual feeling of being in love."

"What? And how could it have been caused? Was it a love potion, after all? Maybe a spell?"

"It's a part of muggle science, biology. The chemicals in your brain cause it and it's not something you can control. It happens when it happens. A truly beautiful feeling."

Theo's mouth twisted into a dissatisfied grimace. "Is there anything I can do about it?"

"You can talk to the girl about it, for example," Slughorn looked at the door and shouted, "come in, Y/n!"

Y/n cursed to herself in her thoughts. How could he know she was there?

The girl walked in shyly, holding a paper in her hands. "I wanted to show you my paper, professor," the girl spoke, "if there's anything you think I should change or... anything."

As the girl handed the paper to the teacher, she looked at Theo. They stood dangerously close to each other. The silence between the was so loud, Y/n was praying for the teacher to say something. Anything.

"Amazing, Mrs Granger," he spoke eventually, "although the Draught of Living Dead is an extremely difficult potion to make. I'm glad you're so ambitious, but I'd suggest you get help from someone more experienced."

"I'm pretty sure I can do it on my own." Y/n assured.

"Maybe Mr. Nott here could help you. The sixth year has been just learning about this potion, actually. Theodore, would you be so kind and help Mrs Granger?"

Suddenly, Theo's gaze somewhat softened. There was no more disgust in his eyes. When he stood so close to Y/n, he wondered why did he act the way he did. Why did he do all the mean things to her. Maybe he had always liked her, but didn't want to admit it, even to himself alone.

"Yes, sure," he said, "I can help."

Y/n felt happy. For some reason, she didn't dislike Theo for all the things he did. She secretly always liked him, he was attractive, and she would even sometimes daydream about the day he would finally talk to her like a normal person. Maybe the day has finally come.

[star-girl69]

The Last Time

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!Demigod!Reader

—-

Part One - The Last Time

Part Two - Cowboy Like Me

Part Three - Tomorrow Never Came (coming soon!)

Part Four - Living Legend (coming soon!)

Part Five - Pretty When You Cry (coming soon!)

—-

synopsis: the last night you spend with clarisse before she goes on a quest

a/n: had to put my own take on the clarisse leaving reader behind to go on a quest SORRY Y’ALLLLL this is like devastating fr tho i’m kinda sorry like 😭

The Last Time - Taylor Swift (Feat. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol)

warnings: angst, like so much angst i’m gonna say it 5 times, angst angst angst angst angst, angst, hurt comfort and also hurt NO comfort bc i’m evil, kissing, cutesy until it’s not but it never really is, i felt like choosing pain, y’all should start calling me she-devil this is just so mean and evil, swearing, fighting, allusions to death, daddy issues lol, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

June 4, 12:08 PM

It’s a cold summer night. You sneak out of your bed, sheets slipping off of your shaking body, the same memories playing in your mind. It always comes down to this, the nights.

In the dreams, she doesn’t come back to you, and the nights without her are so cold, so lonely, so horrible you can stand it. They’re only in your mind, but they hurt just as bad. It’s not every night you slip into each others beds, but whenever you have a nightmare, you find your way to hers. Whenever she has a nightmare, she finds her way to yours.

You both have nightmares about the same things.

The usual cryptic prophesies, the various monsters you just can’t seem to kill, and losing each other. Demigods die. They die easily. You both know that.

Some people swear off love.

And Clarisse told you she wishes she could, she wishes she could pretend you aren’t her entire heart, but she never had a choice. You are her Achilles heel, her one weakness.

You couldn’t either. You took one look at the beautiful daughter of Ares and never looked back again.

Still, there’s a certain desperation in every demigod relationship. Touches are just a bit tighter, hugs a bit longer. Because you all have lost so much, and you all feel absence heavily. Every time could be the last time.

Your footsteps creek against the porch of the Ares cabin. You open the door only a crack, slipping in silently the way you always do, avoiding the creaky floorboards.

Clarisse is awake in her bed, the corner of the cabin. She’s staring at the moon fiddling with her fingers. You frown, but Clarisse turns to you.

You’re sure you look as wrecked as you feel.

“Oh, baby,” she murmurs. “C’mere, what happened?”

You always ask each other, but you both know.

You crawl towards her, sitting in between her legs, arms around her neck, head pressed to her chest. She holds you up so you don’t have to. You can’t, not right now.

She kisses your forehead and her hand smooths down your hair.

“You went on a quest,” you whisper. You miss the way she stiffens. “You didn’t come back.”

She doesn’t tell you she’s not going on a quest. She doesn’t tell you she’s going to come back.

“I’m here,” she says. “Do you feel my heart? I’m here, and I feel yours. It’s beating so fast, baby, you have to take a deep breath.”

Tears well in your eyes. You dig your nails into her soldiers.

“Oh, Gods, please don’t leave me,” you cry.

She doesn’t tell you she won’t.

“I’m here, I’m here right now. I’m here right now, listen to my heart, baby, listen to my heart.”

Clarisse swallows back the bile in her throat. She tries not to lie to you, she tries. But sometimes, on cold summer nights when you find your way into her bed, and she doubts you’ll remember this in the morning-

“I’ll always be here, Y/N. I’ll always be here.”

—-

June 11, 5:46 PM

If you thought the nights without Clarisse were bad, then the days are even worse. You miss her. You never realized how much she was there, silently, always watching, not until you told her to stay away from you.

You sit at the dinner table, the sun setting. Most of your siblings have left- but you’re here with May, sitting there as she watches you like a hawk and interrogates you.

“You haven’t been the same. Not since, like, last week. And something happened with Clarisse, it’s obvious. I gave you a few days because I thought you were just having a fight, but you’re not.” She sighs and grabs your hands. “What happened?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” you dismiss. She stares at you with such heartbreak in her eyes.

May is the sibling you’re by far the closest with- you like similar things, and people sometimes think you’re actual full-blooded siblings because you look so alike. She was the first person you ever met at Camp Half Blood, and after Clarisse, she’s the first person you run too. But now that Clarisse is leaving, and she’s already gone, May is all you have left.

You squeeze her hands. Your best friend, you want to tell her, but saying the words aloud makes them real.

She’ll find out tomorrow.

—-

June 8, 10:57 AM

She tells you privately, she smiles softly and leads you into the woods, she holds your hands and touches your face and kisses you like she’s not about to break your heart.

“Why are you bringing me out here?”

You know her like your own mind. You spend so much time with Clarisse, next to her, it’s like you have a window to her heart tattooed on your arm. You know, even when she doesn’t want you to.

“I just have something to tell you. And I wanted privacy.”

She doesn’t tell you it’s not a bad thing.

Your stomach sinks and you hold her hand tighter, and even though she’s about to break your heart she kisses your cheek and squeezes your hand.

“Just you and me, pretty girl. I just wanna talk, okay?”

She leads you to a clearing with a beautiful view of the strawberry fields and you smile, sitting down and letting your face feel the sun. You can feel her looking at you, but the beauty of this place and each other only blinds the two of you temporarily.

“Okay, what do you have to tell me?”

There’s stones in your stomach. Your heart is squeezing, you can physically feel the tension and anticipation in your organs.

You look in her eyes and you pray to every God that it’s nothing.

“I love you, you know that?”

Clarisse never says I love you, and your stomach twists more.

“Of course I know.”

She lays down on her back and opens her arms. She sighs when you lay your arm over her stomach, head on your chest. Her hands grip onto you tight.

She doesn’t speak for another minute, like she’s just soaking you and the sunshine up, like it’s the last she’s ever gonna get.

“Chiron… a week ago, I think, he called me to the Big House.” You hum, staring at the treetops. “Him and Mr. D… they… uh.”

“You can tell me,” you pretend you aren’t scared.

“A quest,” she blurts. “They have a quest for me.”

“Oh,” you mumble, stupidly.

A quest could mean a million different things. It could be an errand for Chiron and Mr. D, or it could be something preordained by the Fates.

She could have a choice or she could not.

“It’s three children of Ares. It’s about some sort of ancient blood feud between my father and- it doesn’t matter. But it- it doesn’t look good-”

You sit up. She follows you, eyes wide, hands splaying around where your body used to be on hers.

“‘It doesn’t look good’? Clarisse, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

She grabs your hands. “It’s dangerous, like any quest-”

“It’s not like any quest though, is it?”

She presses her lips together. “No. No, it’s not.”

“You didn’t accept it, did you?”

She stares into your eyes.

She looks so pretty today, her hair half-up half-down. Her eyes always shine so brightly in the sun- they reflect it. Sunny days with her make your heart squeeze, because it always looks like she’s got suns for eyes.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, I am-”

You tear your hands away from her.

“Why- why would you- Oh, my Gods, Clarisse, why would you do this?”

You cry, and she reaches for you, her face twisting into something painful. But how can she expect you to run to her when she’s the one hurting you?

“Just- just not right now. Not until the 13th, let’s just have this together, okay?”

“How, Clar, how?”

She grabs your hands and doesn’t let you pull away.

“My father asked for me, he asked for me. I have to go. I can’t refuse my father, Y/N-”

You rip your hands away. “He doesn’t care about you, Clarisse. But I do. I care about you.”

She rubs her temples with one hand, the other still reaching for you, eyes screwed shut.

“Please don’t be like this. Don’t be selfish, I have to this. He asked for me, Y/N. This is such a huge step-”

“A huge step to him loving you? He’ll never love you. Our parents will never love us, because they’re incapable of caring about us. But you have me, Clarisse. You have me, and I love you so much-”

“You don’t know that,” she whispers. “You don’t know they can’t love us.”

“And neither do you.”

She reaches out to touch the tears falling down your face.

“Clarisse, please,” you cry. “I’m here. I’m always here, and just- just don’t put your father over me, please don’t, not anymore-”

She grabs your face. “I’m not going to choose between you and him.”

You’re full on sobbing now, and Clarisse never cries, but just the look on her face at seeing you cry makes you cry more.

“But I’m here, Clar, I’m here, I’ve always been here, please-”

She shushes you and tries to hug you, but you can’t, not when your mind is spinning to fast, not when you want nothing more than to be in her arms because you know if she just holds you then you’ll shut up and forget. But you can’t, you can’t, not this time.

Not when all the pieces are sinking together.

The only time you see her is when you sneak into each others beds, dates in the woods, secret looks across the courtyard, pulling each other into the bathrooms or sheds or something to make out.

You needed her so bad you didn’t realize that you were never first. You didn’t care, but at least she was still there.

“Did you even think about me when you said yes?”

She tries to hug you again. You stand on shaky legs.

“Y/N,” she whispers, half-broken, half-disbelief. “Don’t do this.”

“I just need a day,” you say, but you both know what this means.

She laughs, runs her hand through her hair.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. Fuck, I know it’s not perfect, we’ve never been perfect, but I need you right now. Don’t walk away. Don’t be like that.”

“And if I asked you not to walk away? If I asked you not to be like that?”

“I’m not being like anything!” she yells. “You’re the one who’s being a selfish brat.”

You cross your arms and look at her. You want the ground to swallow you whole. You want to jump into her arms and never leave.

“Don’t, okay. Just don’t. Stay, and we’ll talk, I’ll try, you know I’m not good at this but I want to try, we have to try for us.”

“Clarisse, there’s no us anymore. You’re leaving.”

“Not until the 13th, Y/N. We could have something so good if we just… pretend.”

You could play pretend with her for hours. You could be married and you could live in a place where no monsters can touch you, where there’s no one to hide from. Where there’s no memory of her father, no axe hanging over you.

“I don��t want to pretend. I want you.”

But it’s Clarisse. It’s the girl you love, and you’re young so you believe you can fix this.

“Don’t go,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest.

You’re both glaring at each other, stupid teenage girls who fell in love too hard too fast, and now you’re scrambling at the world changes around you. You love her so much, but you finally realized that she doesn’t care about you, you’re her secret, and you haven’t had a backbone for so long but you will have one now.

“He asked for me. I already accepted. I need you right now, so stop being selfish and accept it.”

“How am I being selfish? How am I being selfish for not asking you to kill yourself? For asking you to put me first, for once?! You never put me first. I see that now. You never-”

She scoffs. “We both know that’s not true.”

“But I don’t, Clar. I don’t know that’s not true. So tell me, show me, make me believe it’s not true-”

She crosses the distance between you, even though it feels like a thousand miles, and plants her hands on your face. She kisses you, she kisses you like she loves you but not enough to stay.

But you kiss her back. You kiss her back, because she’s the love of your life. You’ll always come back like a kicked dog, like a ball on a chain. You’ll always come back to her like you go back to your bed each night- mindlessly, wordlessly, because it’s routine. Because you sleep in your bed and you need sleep to live, you need her to live.

She pulls back, breathing heavily against your lips.

“You are the only person who matters to me.”

Your grab her wrists and take her hands off your face. She tries to resist you, keep touching you, but it’s halfhearted because she’ll always end up doing the little things that you want.

“Only because the Gods aren’t people.”

“Y/N, stop.”

“Why do you go back to him? Why? Again and again, you go back even though he feels nothing for you- and you know it-”

She steps back, takes your hands off of her wrists.

“I-I’m sorry,” you breathe, you see the hurt on her face. “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t, it’s just, I love you-”

She blinks and stares at you like you just broke her favorite toy.

“I-I should go.”

You want her to say something, you want her to protest, you want her to kiss you again.

“Maybe you should,” she agrees. “Before we both say more things we’ll regret.”

Her face twists back into what she lets everyone else see, that hard mask of indifference, of cruelty and ruthlessness.

How can she hold you so tenderly and look at you like this? How can you pretend you’re still the girl she loves when the fog clears and you realize what you said?

“Yeah.”

You turn and leave the clearing, you can’t look at her hurt face anymore, tears streaming down your face. Clarisse stays there. You swear you hear the sound of muffled crying.

—-

June 12, 3:46 PM

Chiron announces the quest. It’s dangerous, that’s what he says, and he didn’t want to cause commotion in the camp by letting it come to light.

Are you horrible for wishing you had found out now? You would have had this untainted time with Clarisse. You would have loved her. You wouldn’t have had to pretend, because it would be real.

She’s selfish at every turn. She only tells you when it’s convenient for her to tell you, when she knows it’ll ruin it, ruin you, and lose this time together.

Her and her siblings stand next to Chiron.

She stares at you the entire time, and you don’t look at her once.

May hugs you when she hears, and you don’t speak, because how can you speak when everything is wrong? Everything is broken?

The mirror is broken, and what you thought you saw is no longer there. You only see your shattered self.

—-

June 13, 12:38 PM

You lasted maybe 20 minutes. You went to bed early, slept fitfully for a few hours, and woke up gasping about another nightmare- the same one you had the last time you slipped into Clarisse’s bed. You barely remember the nights you have nightmares, but you always know you go to her bed and she holds you, tells you it’s alright.

The dream, anxiously waiting for her to come back, spending your nights alone but warmed by anticipation and hope- and she just doesn’t. She doesn’t, and it all becomes dark and dull in the dreams and they turn into nightmares.

You cry and you scream and you curse the Gods for not bringing her back to you, but no one can hear you. You’re laying in your bed screaming and your siblings are gone, you know Clarisse is, and you feel so alone.

Feeling so alone it makes your bones shaking is terrifying. And you should be used to it. But you got used to Clarisse and her warm body. You got used to her touches, her words, the way she made you feel even just being in her bed- you could always sleep in her bed because she was there.

After she leaves, would anyone notice if you snuck into her bed? Would anyone notice if you laid your head on her pillow and pretended it was her chest? Would anyone notice if you slept in the shirts she left behind?

You last 20 minutes staring at the ceiling before you’re up.

You don’t care if Chiron will catch you. You don’t care if the entire camp will see you, you never did, but a private relationship was nice. It was yours and hers and no one else’s.

Private is different from secret.

Your feet sink into the soft grass, wrapping your arms around yourself, legs freezing in a cold breeze. You stop, looking at the Ares cabin.

The Ares cabin is just a house full of the best fighters at camp. Everyone looks at it and feels a little safer. You look at it and feel safer.

You’re filled with dread but you don’t care, because you know she’ll let you in, you know she’ll let you into her arms.

The door to the Ares cabin whips open.

Clarisse is there, feet turned left, toward you and your cabin behind you.

She stops and stares.

“Sorry,” you breathe. “It’s your last night, and I…”

“I know,” she says.

You step forward, all you want is to forget, all you want is one more peaceful night. As soon as you step up onto the porch Clarisse grabs you and pulls you in tight for a hug.

Her hands are spread wide across your shoulder blades, her body is pressed to yours, her head hooks over your neck.

“You’re so cold,” she whispers, because that’s all you can say when you don’t want to talk about the things that really matter. Of course she’s warm. She’s like your own personal heater, always warm and always comforting.

She lets go after a moment, hesitantly, but winds your fingers into hers. She leads you to your bed, you avoid the freaky floorboards better than her-

“I never have to be quiet in here,” she whispers. “It’s funny.”

You hum, she urges you onto her bed and climbs in behind you. You face the wall, breathing in heavily, shivering as she wraps herself around you. You didn’t realize how cold you were until she was holding you.

You didn’t realize how damaging this relationship was until you were so wrecked by it.

You didn’t realize how much you loved her until she was leaving.

You can feel her wanting to say something.

“Shut up,” you mumble, holding her hand.

She laughs.

“Okay, whatever you want.”

You remember this might be the last time you’ll ever hear her laugh.

This might be the last time she ever holds you.

“Don’t cry, please,” she begs, kissing the back of your head. “If I can’t talk you can’t cry, I hate when you cry.”

“I can’t,” you breathe, shoving your face into her pillow.

“Hey, hey,” she murmurs, flipping you around so you’re facing each other. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

You don’t think she’s ever apologized this much in her life.

“It hurts me too,” she continues, you press your face into her neck and feel yourself exhale against her warm skin. “If it didn’t have to be like this…”

“It doesn’t,” you mumble. “It doesn’t have to be like this, so don’t let it, Clarisse.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she whispers, her voice cracking just a bit. So quiet only you can hear it because you’re pressed up right against her.

You want to just climb into her, make a home for yourself in between her ribs where you could always feel her heartbeat and always know she’s there.

“Can’t I just come with you?” you cry.

She grabs you a little tighter, like she’s annoyed just by the thought of you being in danger. “No, Y/N. No, you’re going to stay here at camp, and you’ll be safe. I made my siblings promise to look after you, you’ll be okay without me-”

Her siblings are the only ones who know, but that’s only because every once in a while Clarisse won’t let you leave and you’ll oversleep and they’ll see you in her bed.

She swears them all to secrecy and as their cabin leader and their sister, a fellow child of Ares who’s doomed to want someone they can’t have, doomed to hide in the shadows- there’s so many campers who sneak into the Ares cabin at night, and you all ignore it.

There is a certain desperation with demigods and love. Every time could be the last time.

You wish you could swear off love, you wish you could, but Clarisse has you so wrecked you can’t breathe without thinking about her. You run on her, like she’s coffee or sunshine, she’s the IV stuck into your arm, and you don’t want to imagine living without her.

You think of a future without her and it’s just blank.

She holds you tighter and let’s you cry, louder and louder, muffled into her neck. She says she’s sorry but she doesn’t mean it, she can’t, and you don’t care. You can’t care, not right now, not when this is the last time.

“But I’m here right now, okay? I’m here right now, so just listen to my heart.” You grab onto her, trying to keep her here with you- but she won’t. She’ll go. She’ll leave you, and there’s nothing you can do.

You realize with such a startling finality that this is the last time. How deeply you feel it in your heart, not a pain but just an ache, an emptiness- it’s almost beautiful how it washes over you like a wave, like your heart stops and you’re just left a shell.

You breathe in wildly, but you can’t catch your breath, not when she’s half-here, you’re stuck in this hazy reality. Fading in and out. Her heartbeat. Her breath. Her touch. Her voice.

“I’m here right now,” she says. “I’m here right now,” and it’s the last time.

—-

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme @mar2ss @restellsss

—-

DID WE HAVE FUN OR DID WE HAVE FUN?!?!??!??

[temptaetions]

angel eyes 🪽 b.cc (m)

a/n: the photo above is from stray kids' skz magic school shoot. i don’t own the media. i clearly got carried away writing this, because it's so long. however, i hope you guys enjoy it. obviously none of this is real...so does accuracy matter?

✩ spellbound secrets series m.list

✩ synopsis: you’ll think you’re in paradise, and one day you’ll find out he wears a disguise, don’t look too deep…

✩ genre: idiots to lovers | love epiphany au | teacher x student

✩ pairing: ??? b.cc x fem!compassion conjurer!reader

✩ word count: 21.6k | lowercase intended.

✩ rating: 18+. minors do not fucking interact.

✩ warning(s): quite a few time skips. minor character death, mentions of a car accident, semi descriptive. y/n has a scar across her body (not self inflicted, how it was inflicted is not described), both y/n and chan have unresolved issues with love, chan's kind of a dick in the beginning. swearing, mutual pining, alcohol consumption, brief mentions of blood, y/n has a medical episode, once more horribly written smut [between b.cc x reader: unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!!!!), creampie, oral (f. receiving...he starts eating it thru the panties LOL), so much kissing, some (nude) grinding, missionary (because i'm an emotional bitch), light nipple play (clothed), crying during sex, multiple orgasms, reader begs a lot, some biting, light choking (m. receiving), a bit of alluding to sex as 'extra credit' and subtly feeding the professor x student power dynamic]. (more information about y/n: she glows, kind of like a glowstick, and she can float around instead of walking.)

✩ what to listen to: angel eyes - abba | the chain - fleetwood mac | bodyache - purity ache | if it isn't love - new edition | cherish the day - sade

tuesday – november 02.

it's slow, the fall. it feels like liebesträume.

feeling lost is an understatement. 

he's been lost before - in grocery stores, not understanding assignments. shit, he's even been lost in the woods before. he knows what it's like to be lost, physically. he knows what it's like to not know what his emotions mean, either, so that also counts in his book.

but this? this feeling that he's just wandering the world? not knowing where his purpose lies, or what he's meant to be doing with said unrealized purpose? this is a feeling of damn near disorientation, isolation, off fucking course. it's all the same anyway. everything is the same, nearly everyday.

he wakes up, brushes his teeth. greets changbin and hyunjin at the table for breakfast, and gets ready for the day. goes to class, daydreams. he comes home, has lunch with jisung sometimes, and goes to the gym with changbin at seven-thirty. every few fridays, he'll go to one of the university baseball games, cheering on seungmin and jisung while sharing nachos with his ex-fling, sooyoung, and her best friend (who so happened to be seungmin's former girlfriend.) then, he's home again, he showers, he sleeps for a few hours.

every. single. day.

he gets bored, but reminds himself he needs to find peace in the routine. it's all he knows – he doesn't know what's keeping him here, but he's aware it's something. everyone knows it's something, but have no answers for him. he's sought after so many master sorcerers across all dimensions, begging to find an end to his equation, but to no avail.

he has no idea who he is, or what purpose he serves, and he pretends he's okay with it. he soothes by saying that not all can be known.

he pretends it's fine as he goes through his days, as he goes to class, as he talks to girls. he doesn't feel much of anything when he does these things, but the women he speaks to certainly do. they grin from ear to ear, like cheshire cats, when they get a moment to speak to the uncertainty that is bang chan.

but, it's fine. he's fine, it's really not a big deal.

he's in his last year of grad school, hoping to just bury himself in his studies to stop the feeling of impending doom. normally, you open up shop right after undergrad. you offer your services, barter for goods, sometimes get paid in a goat and two chickens instead of money. so many of his friends have already done so, relishing in the satisfaction that is being a sorcerer and mastering their craft. 

what the fuck is he supposed to do? study until his fingers fall off and his brain becomes putty?

"i dunno, man. you could become a genius." jisung spoke around a mouthful of blueberries, and chan grimaced. "what? i'm bulking up!" shaking his head, chan closed his notebook. shoving it into his bookbag, he sighs. "i don't think i want to know everything there is to know, ji."

"doesn't knowing everything you need to know, start with knowing yourself?" minho teases from across the table, winking at jisung over his coffee cup. the younger boy nearly chokes, getting a whack across the back to aid in not seeing god. "don't flirt with him, he'll have an aneurysm." "hey!" jisung sputters, but the three of them know it's true. how jisung was the campus' playboy, no one would ever know. chan didn't even know if jisung could read when they first met. "you know it's true, ji. i gotta head out, i have a night class this semester with professor y/l/n, i finally got my schedule fixed. changbin is going to hate me because i'm going to miss the gym every tuesday and thursday." chan groans as he swings his bag over his shoulder, and the two men watch as he slides his headphones on, walking out of the library.

he's insufferable lately, and they don't know why. they assume he needs to kiss someone, preferably sooner rather than later.

"you think the poor guy knows what he's in for?" minho mumbles, closing his textbook. jisung shakes his head, popping another blueberry in his mouth. "i hear she's ruthless. i mean, if i was an anomalistic prodigy with gorgeous thighs like hers, i would be, too." "shut up, you can't even kill spiders."

your classroom is surprisingly cozy as he strolls in. the lights are dimmed, and there are blankets draped across many chairs. he looks around, spotting a green couch in the back. raising his eyebrows, he makes a beeline for it, hearing other people start to trickle in.

setting up his laptop on the table before him, he lets his eyes wander.

the walls are plastered with entomology posters, and he scrunches his nose as he sees a taxidermied praying mantis on your desk. he remembers what you said in your speech at your commencement ceremony – "the people of ancient greece and egypt saw the praying mantis as a guide. a guide for those who needed direction, and my god, have i needed it. life truly does go on and i am further amazed by how deeply it fills me with joy to stand here before you. the people of ancient greece and egypt saw the praying mantis as a guide, and i am so honored to be the mantis that prays for you."

you were the university's little treat, their trophy to parade. their only compassion conjurer and possessor of the will to practice benevolent magic. you cared of nothing more but to help those around you, you never said no. you never denied yourself to be utilized to find peace. he admired you, but not really. it was twisted, but he thinks you should…help yourself. he believes you should be selfish, at least once in a while.

he didn't really know you, but he hadn't expected to, either. you seemed like you were constantly on the go. you floated about, sort of like a ghost. your hands often clasped behind your back, a warm golden glow surrounding you. he'd heard from some people that they've seen it change color, but he never has.

but again, he didn't know you.

"chan!"

the voice whips him out of his thoughts, and he looks up to see yugyeom. he smiles, reaching his hand out for a dap from his oldest friend. "hey! how have you been? still on the baseball team?" "nah, i quit after i started dating doyeon. apparently, she has quite the track record with the team." he whistles, pulling out his laptop as he slides on the couch. "you quit the team for a girl?" chan questions, and yugyeom gives him a shy smile.

"she's not just any girl, chan. i think…she could be the one." he shrugs, a blush coating his cheeks as chan bumps his shoulder. "aww, that's so gross."

"shut up. what happened with you and sooyoung? did you guys break it off?" yugyeom takes a sip of his water, and chan nods as he sees more people walk in and take their seats. "yeah, we stopped fucking around. i wasn't as emotionally invested as she was, and i felt awful for it but we ended on good terms. i'm just not ready for a relationship and i should have made that clear. that was months ago, though, and we're fine." he shrugs, and feels an odd shiver down his spine. he shakes it off, continuing the casual conversation with yugyeom.

the door opens, and they both stop talking to look up. you're floating in gracefully, dark hair framing your face, a few scattered gold strands sprouting at the crown of your head. a bit like a halo, really. long, wine red nails reach for the light switch, dimming the lights even lower.

"good evening, everyone. eyes up front, please." your voice is softer than at your ceremony, but just as confident. you're looking around, your glow dimming lightly as your eyes stop in his direction. chan's eyes flicker to yugyeom, who is smiling at his phone, thumbs typing rapid fire. shaking his head, he looks up at you, your gaze on yugyeom. chan bumps his foot, and his head shoots up. your eyes are slightly amused, "you're paying for this class. i suggest you pay attention." "sorry." he slides his phone in his jacket, and chan bites back a laugh as he clicks his pen. smiling, you redirect your attention. "welcome to identity theory! i'm professor y/l/n, but you guys can call me y/n. you might already know me, as i'm the university's only compassion conjurer, and that is exactly why i'm teaching this class." you hold up the syllabus, and begin walking around to pass them out.

"this is an extension course to the one you took in undergrad, self-discovery 101. here, we are going to further delve into ourselves, and figure out who we are outside of our powers, or what purpose they serve. i like to focus on eudaimonic theory, but if you guys have any others you want to talk about, i'm open for discussion. i also want to apologize for starting the class so late in the year. i promise the workload isn't much, i was just having a hard time deciding if i wanted to teach this class. i wouldn't be doing much soul searching with you guys, i'm already the trophy wife of the administration."

he likes your voice. it's smooth, unwavering even as you apologize and joke, even as you let your feet touch the ground. he feels his chest grow hot as you graze everyone's table with your fingers, a soft chatter beginning amongst the students. he's not nervous, but you're very commanding. he likes the way you grab attention, despite it now seemingly about to be directed to someone in the room.

"your eyes are very pretty." you stop in front of him, and the class grows quiet. you look down at him, the soft light around you a little brighter. he feels his cheeks flush, as he nods in confusion. "do they glow brighter the more i make you nervous?" you tease, and he looks away.

"cute." you slide his syllabus in front of him, and he takes it with a soft thank you.

his eyes were the only thing that gave him that something that people always mentioned. they swirled, every now and again, the brown glowing slightly violet at their own will. nobody knew what it was, but it seemed to take your interest. you move forward with the lecture, not even attempting to hide the subtle boredom in your voice as you go over the syllabus.

"i will see you all on thursday! have a safe night!" you cheer, and the students seem to bask in your happiness as you let them out of the room. you float about, and catch chan at the tail end of the gaggle of students. "you, pretty eyes."

his headphones are in the way, and you place your hand on his arm. his skin is warm to the touch, and he jumps at the contact before turning around, sliding them off. "oh, i'm sorry. did you need me?" "i just wanted to say, i hope my teasing didn't make you uncomfortable. sometimes it just slips out." you smile, and you notice one..two dimples make their presence on his cheeks. "don't worry, it's alright. is that all?" "no, actually." you hold up his file, and he seems to know exactly what's coming. "i don't know my abilities, if that's what you're going to ask. and i won't answer any questions about my parents, that's also in there."

his eyes hold something heavy, and you notice your glow dim as he speaks. if he does, he doesn't mention it. "alright, then i guess that's it. i'm sorry if i disturbed some emotional blockage." your brows furrow lightly, and he raises his own.

"whatever." he mumbles, and slides his headphones back on. he walks away, and you feel your lips tug into a frown. you wonder what his problem is as you walk back into your classroom, sliding the file into your desk drawer.

"you try and make a classroom a home." 

thursday – november 12.

from: yln.yn@spellbound.edu

hello, chan. this is professor y/l/n. i noticed you didn't show up to class last thursday, tuesday, or tonight.

i took it upon myself to look into your file again, with permission from the administration. i want to apologize for the sudden hot seat on tuesday after class, i was unaware of your situation and just wanted some insight. i can see how this made you uncomfortable, and i am sorry for causing said discomfort. i want you to be able to enjoy my class, and hopefully we can traverse that journey together.

that being said, i have come up with a new assignment for you, for the time being. since you don't really know what your specialties are, i can't grade based on performance or any papers delving into how they affect your life, personality, etc.

below is the rubric designed for this assignment. i spoke to the administration, and they're on board with this approach. if anything is too much, please don't hesitate to send me an email, or a text. my number is also below. have a good weekend!

signed,

y/n y/l/n

identity theory

spellbound institute of magic

psychology department

555-8212

he's been staring at this email for the last half hour. he even let hyunjin read over it, asking if he was seeing shit.

he'd skipped your class on thursday, and today. he didn't want to see you, so he avoided the psych hall altogether. he didn't really know how to feel as he switched tabs to the rubric you'd sent, essentially just saying you wanted an essay on how he's been coping with not being sure of his path in life.

how does he feel about it? does it bother him, and if he could pick, which abilities would he pick? his brain says the ability to never see you again, but his heart pangs as he rereads the postscript at the bottom of your email.

p.s. i am once again very sorry. i hope to see you in class on thursday, channie. - y/n

channie. ugh, his heart ached. he'd been so rude.

"you're thinking too hard." changbin sings from the living room, and chan sighs. "how would you know? you can't read minds." he rolls his eyes, shutting his laptop. changbin walks into the dining room, leaning over the back of a chair. "i know that look. the furrowed brows, the pout. you're thinking way too hard about this, and it was an honest mistake on your professor's part. you need to apologize, you grumpy bitch." "yeah, i don't really think it's a huge deal, either." hyunjin chimes in from the kitchen, and chan frowns. "you guys think i'm being overdramatic?" "i think your emotional repression is getting to you, you've been so insufferable lately. when's the last time you got laid?" hyunjin teases as he slides into a chair, and changbin wiggles his brows in agreement. "ugh, don't even." chan slumps his head against the wall. maybe seven months? he has a lot of pent up frustration. maybe not enough to write about his feelings and how annoyed it made him that you were digging into his life this early into him meeting you. what did you need to know, anyway? "isn't your professor that compassion conjurer paradigm? i heard the speech she gave at the convention last year, and i saw the photos. she's gorgeous, that glow around her all the time?" changbin whistles smoothly, and chan's stomach does a flip. he also saw the photos, but couldn't bring himself to think anything of them. he barely remembers watching your speech, too, but he certainly remembers the way your hips swayed as you walked off the stage.

he grimaces, feeling a bit gross at ogling you.

"she's fine." he shrugs, and changbin gives hyunjin a knowing look. "so, she's hot and you're into her. that's why she has you so worked up."

"i beg your finest fucking pardon, seo?" chan blinks, and hyunjin smirks. "then beg, channie. i'm sure professor y/l/n would like it if you did, she seems like the type. get on some dating apps, man. you need stress relief." chan scoffs, shoving his laptop into his backpack. "i'll be in my room, if you decide to stop talking about romancing my professor."

hyunjin and changbin snicker as chan storms off, his door slamming behind him as he flops onto his bed. sure, you were…okay. okay, you're hot. you're so fucking hot.

but, he doesn't like you. he doesn't like that you put him on the spot, and he doesn't like that you intended to ask so many personal questions right off the bat. he also doesn't like that his roommates are probably right – he probably is angry because he needs to get laid.

he groans into his pillow, fishing his phone out of his pocket. he unlocks it, opening the stupid app. "spellbound soulmates, how dumb." he mutters, unpausing his profile. he goes through it, updating photos and prompts. once he's satisfied, he goes to his deck.

left. left. left. left. right. right. left. left.

y/n, 26

compassion conjurer, benevolence magic

biography: sexy as fuck by day, sexy psych prof by night. everything you've heard is true.

interests: if your ass is phat, swipe right 🥵

his eyes widen, your smiling face staring back at him. scrolling through your profile, he sees mostly modest photos – you holding a tray of shots being the most scandalous. not a sliver of skin showing above your waist, but plenty of short skirts showing off your full thighs. you're smiling in every photo, but he can't think of anything except your lips parted, your thighs around his head. moaning his name.

alright, chris. he thinks. chill the fuck out.

he contemplates it for a bit, scrolling up and down your profile when he just shakes his head, closing the app and tossing his phone to the side. he flips onto his back, letting the pillow close around his ears.

he hates to admit it, because he doesn't know you. he doesn't dislike you, per say. but he's not very fond of your subtle insistence.

it's not necessarily your fault, but he really doesn't like talking about his family, especially his parents. only his friends know, and even then, it took all of four years to even bring it up. the fact that they're humans is a huge deal, and he can't risk their safety like that.

not to mention, admissions begged him to keep it a secret. they were toeing the line, chan being the third person in the university's history to have human parents. they knew about the world of magic, but didn't really have the abilities to take care of chan the way it was necessary.

so they didn't. they sent him to boarding school from a young age, and made it a point to frequently visit him. he sees them at least four times a year, but it's never enough time. he feels like he's missing a place to call home. 

he feels so alone.

it's not your fault. and he knows he needs to apologize. he just has too much pride right now.

he hears a knock, and changbin opens the door. "hey, what are you doing? i'm going to the gym, want to come with?" chan sighs, before forcing himself out of bed.

tuesday – november 17.

he's sitting on your couch today.

legs spread, hair tucked under a cap. black, like the rest of his clothes. he looks relaxed, his fingers dancing across his laptop as yugyeom shows him something on his phone. he just nods, and you can't make out what his lips say. 

you'd been feeling terrible about the events of last week, and hadn't gotten so much as an email from him. not about the assignment, not about how he clearly hates you, or even addressing your apology. you didn't understand him, but you don't know him, either.

the past three classes, you'd gotten to know your students. minnie, soyeon and shuhua were your favorite (and only) group, giggling in the corner over their laptops. they were all herbomancers, and you could tell simply based on how giggly they were. they chatted, and last thursday, shuhua was so high she just sat against her chair and stared into the abyss. you found it a little funny, when soyeon and minnie would have to drag her out of your class.

mingyu was a constant flirt, and you attributed it to his matchmaking expertise. he was one of the few cupidancers on campus, and you'd seen him about before. he had the ability to entrance people, to get them high off his attention, and you often saw girls with hearts in their eyes after speaking to him. it was quite the sight, to see someone emotionally orgasm. the fact that you were his professor didn't stop him from smiling at you, making suggestive comments, overall trying to weasel into your heart. you simply played his game, making him flustered.

yugyeom was too enthralled with his phone, and his girlfriend, to complete the assignments. the fact that minnie had slid eighty dollars his way told you his spirit weaving ways were some for the books – and so did minnie – as she rambled about a party at beta tau that past weekend. "you should come sometime, y/n. you'd get so wasted but it'd be so worth it."

you liked that they felt so at ease with you, speaking to you like you were nothing special. you liked being their age, being able to relate to the crazy parties and not worry about how you'd get home the morning after. you enjoyed the intimacy of the small class, but not the coldness surrounding who you would deem your most intriguing student.

he just sits there and he looks so nice. the slope of his neck, the way his fingers bounce on the keys of his laptop. the sheen of his lips from the cherry lip balm he applies three or four times over the two hours of your class. the way your hue almost changes from gold to pink from staring at him, and you know you catch some of their eyes as it tries.

"why do you glow, y/n?" you can hear minnie's hazy voice from the back of the room, and you feel yourself a bit dimmer than usual as you fight down the feelings of lust. "i actually don't know. the master sorcerers never told me, but i know it can be several different colors. care to ask me what they mean?" you wiggle your brows, and minnie giggles.

"pink means you're turned on, huh?" mingyu calls from his seat between shuhua and soyeon, earning a smack from both of them. you chuckle as he pouts, "what? i hooked up with a compassion conjurer last year in the second dimension, forgive me for assuming." "i thought you were bitchless, gyu? what a nice surprise, loverboy." shuhua teases, and mingyu just rolls his eyes. "well, he's not wrong."

their heads whip back to you, and you're purposely glowing gold. you're glad they don't make it weird, their eyes full of glee. "i know those sex flashbacks gotta be good, y/n." minnie giggles, and sighs dreamily. "i once got one in undergrad during the ochem final. i ran out of time and failed."

you laugh, floating closer to their table. "the colors mean a lot of things. i can also change them at will, if one isn't overpowering the other. the hues and brightness also amplify how i feel, which makes it really hard to hide any of my thoughts. for example," you pause, closing your eyes. you feel the warmth of blue overtake you, and hear a soft ooh. 

opening your eyes, you give a quick spin. "blue means i'm sad, disappointed, or at ease. i rarely get this one, it usually happens when i'm with my closest friends and can act on impulse."

the quartet looks amazed as you continue to change colors, explaining them slowly.

green, for envy, and disgust. you also rarely turn this color, and it is amongst the most dim that you've ever been. pink, for lust. you say it's your favorite color, but not your favorite feeling. orange for anger, and you recall that you only turned this color when in your mother's presence, and that you hated this one. silver, for remembrance and emptiness, and they don't require an explanation as the light grows brighter, your face deepening in sadness before you shake your head.

you exhale, before letting the cold of indigo overtake you. they gasp, and you feel shivers rack your body before you can finally speak.

"this is the only one i don't understand. i can make it seem darker, too." you say calmly, eyeing the dimness of it. it glowed almost like a blacklight, and at your will, it turned a deep violet, lining your extremities in black pixels. "have you ever felt it before?" soyeon pops a piece of gum in her mouth, offering a piece to you. taking one gently, you shrug as you unwrap it.

"nope. this one feels cold, though. the others feel warmer, like a blanket. this is like, sub-zero temperatures." you slide the piece into your mouth, feeling your golden glow return as you speak. "that's so cool, though. thank you for sharing." shuhua is gazing at you, fondness riddled in her eyes. you feel your cheeks heat, as you smile.

"my pleasure. class is over in twenty minutes, so wrap up whatever it is you're doing and i might let you guys dip out early." you nod at them, floating in the direction of yugyeom and chan. looking up from your gum wrapper, you see chan looking at you intently, his eyes slightly swirling with that same violet glow from tuesday.

"hey, pretty eyes. so kind of you to grace us with your presence today." your teasing makes him grimace, a hint of annoyance flashing through his eyes. "paying for the class, might as well pay attention." he mutters, echoing the first words you said to yugyeom.

your brows furrow at his attitude, and you watch yugyeom slip away, beckoned by minnie with a piece of pink paper. chan glances at you, closing his laptop and shoving it in his bag with indignance. "why are you acting like this? i already apologized." you feel your glow flash orange, before feeling the soft tinge of blue creeping up your back. his eyes are still violet, but they've softened. "i'm just trying to help you, chan."

"i don't think you can help, when you're part of the problem." he mumbles, his gaze never moving from your eyes. you sense blue creeping up your neck, and succumb to it, letting it blaze. "how disappointing, for a teacher to try and aid you in finding your path of life." your annoyance is visible as you spin, directing your attention to the gaggle of students watching your interaction. soyeon's eyes are wide as you dismiss them, asking them to please let the door close instead of leaving it propped open.

the words aren't even out of your mouth when you hear the door slam, yugyeom pitiful eyes confirming your thoughts. they begin to stand up, heading for the door when yugyeom splits from them, circling back to you.

"don't worry about chan. he's being a dick, it's not your fault." he places a hand on your shoulder, and you give him a sad smile. "i know, yug. i know."

a soft squeeze to your shoulder and he's gone, you're alone in your room. you sigh deeply, letting the most overwhelming hue of all take over.

the same dark red you felt all those years ago, letting it overwhelm you entirely. you sink into your desk chair, letting the soft burn of grief sink into your skin. you can close your eyes and still see it, the wine color in front of you. the one that matches your nails, and on occasion, your lipstick. the one that makes you ache the most, and yearn for those who are no longer here.

you miss him.

just like you miss chan's wide eyes, not having heard the creak of the wooden door in your turmoil. he slips away.

— ☆ — — ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —

later that night, you're sitting in your bathtub, letting the hot water relax your muscles. you hear your phone ping, and you reach for it.

from: bangchan@spellbound.edu

hello, professor y/l/n. i have read your email a few times since it was sent.

i accept your apology. i also accept this assignment, and will submit it as my final project grade, as per the rubric allows.

that being said, i will not be in class on thursday due to a prior commitment. feel free to email me back with any questions you may have, only those regarding the assignment will be answered.

signed,

bang christopher chan

spellbound institute of magic

general magic

you glare at the email, and let orange flicker like the light of your limoncello candle. you made no effort to question it, simply letting it slide. you send back an automated reply, sounds good! have a good weekend.

thursday – november 19.

chan hated meeting his parents in secret.

like it were a crime, to want to see them. he hated acting like it didn’t bother him that his siblings were growing up and he didn’t know them, he didn’t know what they liked, or what they did for fun. he felt so left out of everything, but still framed the photos they sent him. he still tucked their letters in a box for safe keeping, he still yearned to be loved by them.

not that they didn’t love him, but obviously it’s hard to do so from a distance. so they sit in the middle of the forest that surrounds the university, exactly 50 miles from all civilization. they sit there, for hours, and catch up.

“any luck yet?” his father peers at chan over a steaming plate of food, and he shakes his head. “no answers yet. if i don’t find out before the end of the semester, the master sorcerers said they’d figure something out.”

his mother sighs, her spoon stirring the canteen that held her warm coffee. "it'll be alright soon, channie. have you focused on other things? maybe find a nice girl to settle down with?" his father watches as chan visibly tenses, before pulling his wife close. "jagi, maybe that's for another time." she grimaces.

"i disagree. if he's having issues with other parts of his life, he needs to put it on the back burner for a second and figure out other parts. when you can't find a piece of a puzzle, you pick another part to focus on, do you not? the goal of life is to not let one bad thing, or one disappointing moment deter you from finding the answer to your qualms." she rolls her eyes, earning a smile from her husband.

"okay, she has a point." his father relents, and chan just shakes his head. "i'm not ready for a relationship.' "what about that girl, sooyoung?" his mother won't back down and he knows that. "moving on from my love life, i'm content. i'm fine with things, i have my friends, i have my studies. i'll get an answer eventually." he shrugs, trying not to let it show how much it gets to him.

"chan." she slides her arm across the picnic table, grasping his hand gently. "you're not happy. you can't possibly be, with all the turmoil you feel. you're like an angsty teenager who has never stepped outside his room." "yeah, well. life goes on." he mutters, and she feels her heart sink as he pulls his hand away, checking the time on his watch. "i think i'd better start heading back. i have an early day tomorrow." he's lying. they know it, but they begrudgingly allow him to bid them goodbye. they watch him 

walk to his car, and flash his hi-beams as a final farewell before pulling off.

thursday - november 26.

it's been about a month since chan started taking your class. 

and it's been about a month since he's been able to say a single word to you without the same tone of indignance on the tip of his tongue. seeing him look indifferent in the back of your classroom made it all the better, though, because at least now he was in class. he didn't speak to you unless you spoke to him first, but he was on time and attentive.

you liked something about him, but you didn't really know what. it's quite possible you just have a little lustful wishing for him, but it felt…weird. it felt strange, you could practically feel your skin on fire every time you glanced at him, catching his eyes every once in a while. he never held the gaze for longer than a few seconds. 

as for his violet eyes, you hadn't seen them since. you saw him smile with yugyeom. you've heard him laugh, the sound so sweet to your ears. you hated that your glow was so evident when his giggle resounded in the classroom.

you thought nobody noticed, the students didn't treat you any differently than their own friends. soyeon, minnie and shuhua made it a point to start inviting you out to drinks, and mingyu flirted with you relentlessly. you simply took the interactions in stride, and smiled politely as you kept the lectures going.

but tonight? chan wasn't in class (again) so you didn't have anyone to fawn over. mingyu was front and center, and the girls gathered around him as they conspired amongst themselves. they weren't very secretive, and you could hear them giggling as you floated over.

"what's the joke? i want to laugh, too." you teased with a soft smile, and mingyu flashed you his pearly whites before turning his phone at you.

message from: doyeon

[9:03pm] hey mingyu! tell yug i'm waiting for him at the party, and bring the girls with you!

[9:04pm] see if you can convince your professor to come, too 👀 i've seen her and she's hot! maybe she can take eunwoo off our hands, i'm sick of him moping over jisoo

you chuckle, your glow brightening a bit. "you guys want me to go to a party, at a frat house, on a school night?" shuhua nods her head, a giggle falling from her lips. "c'mon, y/n! live a little, there's going to be so many cute boys there." 

"yeah, y/n! plus, a little bird told me a certain purple eyed boy will be there." minnie wiggles her brows at you, and you smirk. "yeah? chan skipped my class for a party?" you glance at his empty spot on the couch, your glow dimming.

"c'mon, y/n. we all know you have the hots for him." mingyu says matter-of-factly, and you laugh. "i do not! he doesn't even speak in class, i don't know anything about him." you shrug, and mingyu smirks. "i've seen the way you look at him!" minnie chimes in, and you shake your head. "so what if you don't? he's hot and you're into that. he has nice muscles, i've seen him at the gym." mingyu sounds like he's trying to convince you, and you give him a smile before patting his shoulder. his cheeks tinge as you whisper, "are they as nice as yours?" soyeon teases mingyu as you float away, and their words stay with you as the class continues for another forty minutes. you type away at your desk as you bid them goodbye, but don't miss minnie sneaking away from her group to hand you a piece of pink paper.

"the address, in case you do want to see chan tonight." she slides it across the desk, a shy smile playing on her lips as she walks away. you glance at it, grimacing at the beta tau seal.

you sigh, pulling your phone to map the walk there from your apartment, receiving a text from your friend, jihyo.

message from: jihyo <3

[9:55pm] hey, you! come with me to a party, i want to scout for booty tonight 👀 i heard beta tau is having one

message to: jihyo <3

[9:57pm] funnily enough, i was about to text you, i got an invite. captain booty reporting for duty 🫡 wear something hot!

— ☆ — — ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —— ☆ —

the party was already in full swing when you and jihyo arrived, pinkies linked. it was apparently a student's birthday party, a short stop on the baseball team. you didn't keep up with the university's sports, but managed to snag a piece of birthday cake in a cup (meaning you dumped the rest of the pink whitney into your cup, and a splash of lemonade) as you let jihyo roam.

"y/n, you made it! you look so hot." you hear minnie from behind you, and you swirl to see her holding onto mingyu. "hey, guys! sick party, my friend jihyo also wanted to come." you shrug, taking a sip from your cup, and minnie gives you a knowing smile.

"hey, don't worry about it. lover boy hasn't kissed anyone since he's been here." minnie moves her head in the direction behind you, and you twist to see chan holding a red solo cup and talking to another student, short with wire rimmed glasses, and a waist you could only dream of. you turn back to minnie, who just winks at you before pulling mingyu away with her.

your body twists to look at chan, trailing your eyes down his figure. he's got on a white muscle tee, and mingyu had not been lying about his body at all. his chest donned what seems to be a rosary, nestled between his pecs that bounced lightly as he laughed. a sliver of his lower stomach was visible, mostly covered by a jacket he likely took off, but the red on the lapels looked good against his skin. silver hoops looped through his lobes and if you didn't sink your teeth into him soon, you were going to combust.

you don't have a crush on chan. not in the slightest. but, you're not blind.

you decided to worm your way to the bathroom, but you didn't realize his friend had spotted you staring. nor that chan's eyes were on you now, wondering what you were doing at a party on a school night, in that short black skirt and soft, flimsy blouse – with no bra. his eyes roll, asking himself why you manage to torture him this way. your coat is long, and covers most of your thighs as you walk away. he winces at the twitch of his cock against his pants.

"professor! what are you doing here!" you hear yugyeom shout from across the room, eliciting a woo from all the people at the party. you smile, and hold up your cup. "hey, yug!"

he waves you over, and you oblige, downing the rest of your drink. "here, try this! i made it." he holds up a long, brown bottle – and you smirk, letting him pour it into your mouth. a bunch of students are watching you down this burning liquor without a second thought, a low whistle emitting from one in particular.

tall, handsome. nicely chiseled face, hair slicked back. barely dressed. slutty.

not chan.

"who invited the trophy wife of the administration? that was hot as fuck." he leans on soyeon, who huffs and shoves him off. "shut up, san."

minnie screams before you can answer. "i invited her! she's cool as fuck, drinks up and tits out for professor y/l/n! wooo!" the crowd that had formed around you took their drinks, a few girls flashing their breasts at you. you let a laugh rip through you when you spot jihyo smiling at you in the crowd before knocking back the rest of her drink. you point to the hallway, signaling you're going to continue your way to a bathroom, before you suffocate on the smell of buchanan's and cheap beer.

the house gets quieter the deeper you go, aside from soft moans coming from a linen closet, obscene wet noises making you shiver as you turn left, finding a clean bathroom. you leave the door slightly ajar as you splash cool water on your cheeks. you let it drip through your lashes before you grab for the toilet roll, only to see someone slip into the bathroom in the mirror. 

"hey." chan's voice is low as you pat the toilet paper on your face, and you glance at him. "hey. skipped my class for a party, huh?" "what are you doing here?" he doesn't sound upset, moreso amused. his eyes shamelessly rake up your legs, and you give a snort in reply. "minnie invited me, and my friend jihyo wanted to scope out some ass." 

"yeah?" his eyes flicker to yours in the mirror, the violet swirl evident, and you feel your thighs clench in his gaze. your glow starts to change hues, and you roll your eyes as you glow pink instead of your normal yellow. "yeah. why, channie? are you here looking for babes?" you turn, letting the liquor talk as you lean against the sink.

"would it bother you if i was?" he tilts his head, sort of like a lost puppy. you smirk, shaking your head. "why would it bother me if my student wants to get some?" "do you always play this little game with your students, professor?" he takes a step closer, and you curse yourself for glowing a little brighter, but shrug as nonchalantly as you can. "beats being uptight like professor callaghan."

"god, you're so right." he chuckles, before his hands cage you in between his body and the sink. "i bet this glow thing gets really annoying, huh?" "you have no idea." you look up into his eyes, subconsciously tucking your bottom lip under your teeth. you wonder why he’s not questioning the color change, maybe he just knows, maybe he was listening last week. you wonder how many girls he’s gotten with, and how many he’s romanced with those angel eyes of his. "you look good." he says gently, almost as if he's giving you an out. almost as if, he's nervous.

"i taste good, too." you mumble, ghosting your lips over his. you can feel your skin start to singe, but you let him kiss you anyway. you let him lift you onto the sink, parting your legs to stand between them. you let him run his hands up your plush thighs, leaning into the kiss as deep as you can without completely absorbing him.

“can’t you get in trouble for this?” chan doesn’t really care, to be honest. you can tell he doesn’t as he drags his lips down your neck, his fingers tugging your skirt up gently. “hmm, no. not me, anyway. trophy wife of the administration privileges.” 

he laughs against your skin, and you give him a cheeky smile as he kisses your lips again, his thumbs gently working circles into your hips. “i don’t want to do this here. let’s find a room, yeah?” "mmm, i don't think so. students who don't participate in class don't get extra credit." you pout, patting his chest when your phone buzzes in your pocket.

message from: jihyo <3

[11:47pm] saw you dip with cutie, so i cozied up to that mingyu guy

[11:48pm] going back to his, u can get home safe?

[11:49pm] i'll turn around if u can't. bros before hoes 💪🏻

message to: jihyo <3

[11:51pm] go ahead <3 txt me deets l8r he's a massive flirt lol

you slide it back into your pocket, and chan's hands leave your skin. he quietly moves your skirt back into place, and his eyes flicker to meet yours. he doesn't look upset at your rejection, moreso a bit grateful. "you're cute. you ask too many questions, and i'm still upset with you, but you're incredibly cute."

it's just the liquor talking. he won't remember any of this, or change his behavior by tuesday. he seems to hold grudges, but you know it's really just emotional blockage. nothing you can't help with, but everything he won't let you help with.

"maybe come to class and i might let you cum in me. you'd like that, wouldn't you?" you mumble against his lips, a shiver going through his spine. "let me walk you home." he murmurs, nuzzling his nose against yours. you feel your stomach flip, the gesture so cute you just might let him sleep with you. you capture his lips again, sliding your hand up his chest, fingers softly wrapped at the base of his neck. his hand catches your wrist, sliding it higher.

you give it a soft squeeze as you slither your tongue into his mouth, drawing a soft groan from him. he pulls back, your lips chasing after him as he raises an eyebrow. "who's needy now, huh?" "shut up, let's go." you place a peck to his cheek, and you force your glow back to gold, albeit dimmer than normal. he has his hand on the small of your back as you exit the bathroom. he slides it around your waist, his fingers softly digging into your hip before he stops dead in his tracks. "what?"

you're whispering as you follow his eyes, seeing a blond guy in a baseball jersey staring back at him as he sneaks out of the closet you passed. a girl is gripping his hand, floating behind him. the guy turns on his heels, quickly weaving his way through the people crowding the hall, the girl giving a hazy smile as he drags her through.

"in a closet? really?" he shakes his head, and you feel his hand squeeze your waist. "sorry." "no worries. could've been us if you showed up to class." you tease as he guides you through the crowd, and you spot minnie watching you sneak your way through the people. she wiggles her eyebrows, and you just shake your head as chan opens the front door, letting you out first as he grabs his jacket from his friend.

"shit, it's colder than a witch's tits out here." you chatter, and chan quickly joins you on the porch, sliding the jacket over his arms. "it really is. which way do you live?" the walk is quiet, besides the leaves crunching under your shoes. he's close enough that his cologne meets your nose, but not close enough to where you can touch him and not be overdoing it. the taste of his lips was not enough to satiate you.

"why are you so mean to me?" you ask, not daring to look at him. he hums in response, before grabbing your shoulders, swinging his arm over you. you instinctively wrap your own around his waist, your fingers brushing the same sliver of skin you'd eyed earlier that night. you're burning up against him, and he welcomes the heat as your hips bump.

"i'm normally not this uptight." he starts, tongue darting out to wet his lips. "i don't like answering questions about my personal life, much less my abilities. or lack thereof, rather. it was too soon when you asked, i'm still trying to figure myself out. i'm very lost in that area of my life, and if i don't find out soon, i'm not sure how i'll make a living. please don't think i'm only this way with you, i'm just feeling stuck. it's like i'm running out of time." you take in his words, nodding silently. you know your magic is taking over him as he speaks, because you feel your glow dimming more and more as you keep walking. "i don't know what that feels like, chan. i'm sorry, genuinely. i truly do want you to understand that i am here to help as much as i can, not just as a professor but as…a friend, i guess." "mmh, i don't think you can help." he squeezes your arm gently as you make a left turn. "i'm too far gone, i believe. i thought about what you said, the emotional blockage thing. and i know that you're using your fingers to seep your funky little magic into me so i talk about myself and get things moving for your peace of mind." his fingers pat yours lingering on his hip, and you sheepishly go to move them.

he holds them in place, as you guide him to the gate of your complex. "i don't mind talking to you, or answering your questions. i really, really admire you as a person and sorceress. the selflessness, you're one of the kindest people i've ever had the pleasure of meeting. you just have to give me some time to warm up to you."

he stops in front of the gate, letting you punch in the code before sliding his arm off your shoulders. "i want to apologize for my behavior. i know i've been increasingly bitchy and standoffish, i'm just stressed. i'm sorry, and i'm sorry for taking it out on you. i know you're just trying to help."

"won't you come in? it's rather late and i'd hate to have you walk back alone." your eyes are slightly pleading, and he raises a brow. "are you sure?" 

you shrug, holding the gate open. he walks past you, not comfortable enough to slide his arm over you once more. he feels the warmth of you as you float past, and he follows quietly. unlocking the door, his eyes peer into your apartment, and it's just like your classroom. 

the lights are dimmed, and your couch is the same velvety green. it smells like bambinella pear and bergamot, and your walls are littered with photos and articles. many of them penned by you, he notices, as he skims them. "feel at home?" you chuckle, and he hears the rustling of your coat as you slip it off.

"mhm, it smells nice in here." he nods as he continues observing articles, before bumping into your side table. he looks down and sees a newspaper from seven years ago, a smiling face staring back at him.

spellbound prodigy involved in an automobile accident puts the world of wizardry at risk.

he skims the paper, seeing your name repeated over and over again but yet, no mention of the person in the photo. no age, no name.

"oh, you found that?" you're behind him, and you take hold of the paper, letting it droop over your hands. "who is that?" you sigh, your fingernail tracing the man's face. "minhwi. he was my best friend from primary school until the summer of 2017. that's when the accident happened." setting the paper back down, you pat the picture before floating to the kitchen, your golden glow gone as it begins to turn dark red.

"it's grief, the hue." you wave your hand at yourself as chan leans against the island, his eyes softening as you pour water in a glass, sliding it to him. the color dims as you turn to him, sitting on the bar stool. "i know, you're wondering how i'm involved in the accident."

chan looks down, and you let out an airy chuckle. "god, i hate talking about this." you rub your thighs, before looking up. "he told me he was in love with someone, and i encouraged him to make the hour drive to see her. i even offered to tag along, even though it was into the human world."

you're nervous, and chan can feel it. he rounds the island, sliding onto the stool beside you. you twist to face him as he takes your hands in his. how cute, you think.

"there was a really bad thunderstorm, but minhwi literally used to race cars for money. rain or shine, he was an expert behind the wheel. he won so many, and i was there for almost all of them. he called me his biggest cheerleader." chan's thumb wipes at your face, and you hadn't even known you were crying. you feel your chest ache as his hand lingers, before dropping back to your lap. "lightning struck one of the oak trees lining the backway route into town. minhwi tried to swerve out of the way, and we wound up spinning out. the tree landed on the car, and the weight crushed us, and there was glass everywhere. he died on impact."

you sniffle, and chan's eyes are glossy as he clears his throat. "and you blame yourself?" "absolutely." nodding, you interlace your fingers with chan's. "and the fact that i survived and he didn't, it kills me inside. it's not like he would've been able to, he was a…" you trail off, and chan's eyes match yours in size.

"...he was human." he finished, and you can't look at him. "you exposed the world of magic and our practices, to a human." you stay silent, before his arms envelope you in a hug. the burn you feel is almost debilitating, but you feel blue crawling up your neck as he rubs your back softly. "i'm sorry for your loss, y/n."

"that's it?" you blurt, and he laughs against your neck like he did earlier. "yeah, it's not like i can judge you, and it's not like humans don't know we exist. we're just frowned upon, it's not a crime to involve yourself with them. love makes us do crazy things." he pulls back, and you let blue overtake you. "i'm genuinely sorry about your friend. he sounds like he was a great time." "he was. i haven't talked about him since. all i have left is the scars from the accident." you shrug, taking a sip of your water. "scars?"

you flash a smile at him, before shaking your head. "just know, if i ever do let you in my pants, the shirt stays on, not because i'm insecure but because i hate looking at them."

he nods, a shy look crossing his eyes before he closes them. "can i ask you for a favor? before you go to bed, i mean?" "sure, anything." you tuck your hair behind your ears, sitting up. "that emotional blockage you spoke about, you can…remove that, right? i'm not too sure what your powers are." he mumbles as he picks at his nails, and you smile. "i can. would you like me to do that for you?" his eyes look to yours, and you see fear flash through them. "it doesn't hurt, channie. come on, i can do it right now." you slide off the stool, holding your hand out to him. he takes your hand, but instead of following you, he pulls you towards him.

your chest is flush to his, and you see a subtle blush on his cheeks as he dips his head, lips brushing against yours. you relax in his hold, letting your lips mold against his. you can't feel anything but heat and his tongue teasing yours, but it's no big deal (you're trying to convince yourself at this point.) his hands move to hold your face, his fingers burning your skin when he pulls away, pressing his forehead to yours.

"not tonight, i don't think i'm ready." he whispers against your lips, and you open your eyes to look into his hazy ones. nodding, you press another chaste kiss on his mouth. "whenever you're ready, channie. i'll be here."

"i'll take the couch." he plants one last kiss on your forehead, and you nod. "if you insist. goodnight, channie." "goodnight, y/n." he watches your glowing form trail down the hall, likely towards your bedroom.

and he sees a hint of indigo spreading across your back as you shut the door behind you.

tuesday – december 15.

chan is a lot nicer as the next two weeks go by. still shows up to class, even early, since your escapade after the party. he finds himself staring at you more often than not, and you're not the only one who notices.

minnie often slips you knowing looks, and you find yourself growing shy as you look to see chan peeking at you over his laptop, eyes glowing that bright violet you've come to adore.

"alright, everybody. have a good weekend!" you smile cheerfully as they file out, your glow now bright blue. the girls had mentioned you looked much more relaxed these days, and you attributed it to 'more sleep.'

you didn't really know what it was. you'd woken up glowing indigo the day after the party, and almost everyday after that. you flickered indigo when you caught chan in the hallway before class on tuesday, and when he hung back a little too long on thursday. really, if you even glanced at chan, you'd flash the dark color and leave the students rubbing at their eyes.

chan, on the other hand, was constantly looking for ways to talk to you.

he saw the flustered flickering, the confusion of your body as it glitched from hue to hue. at one point you had splotches of indigo, pink and your natural gold all over you. you still flirted back at mingyu's advances, albeit he calmed down noticeably. he observed that mingyu was on his phone more often, and you later found out through minnie that he was utterly romanced by jihyo. you thought it funny, and teased him about it (and jihyo, the next time you saw her for coffee and pastries.)

"hey, can we talk?" chan is standing behind you as you wave off your students, and you jump at the closeness. "sure, channie. what's up? is this about your final project?"

it wasn't an unreasonable question. the semester was coming to an end, the students looked visibly stressed and you hadn't heard of any parties since.

but, you knew it was unreasonable for your situation with chan. you never missed his longing glances at your lips, or the fact that he was early to class. his friends changbin and jisung often trailed behind him as he walked to class, and he only introduced you to them because they wouldn't stop badgering him at the doorway. "she's even prettier up close," jisung had said dreamily, and you just gave him a soft smile as you watched him bump into the doorframe.

"not really? maybe." he rubs his neck, and you tilt your head. "what's going on?" 

"uh, i think i'm ready. for what we talked about…the night of the party." he swallows thickly, and you feel taken aback. "oh? what brought this on?" you float to the back, patting the same couch he sits in during class. you tuck your legs under you, holding your head up with the wall. his knees brush yours as he sits, and you wince at the heat you feel in your chest.

"i started the essay you assigned last night." he can't look at you, and you find your stomach to grow increasingly tight. "yeah?" "i can't write anything. i have six drafts already, and i feel so overwhelmed." he's nibbling on his lip, almost as though not to cry. you lean closer, his eyes glassy as they meet yours. frowning, your hand finds home on his jaw, your thumb wiping a few fallen tears. "i'm here, i can help. we can do it here." 

you get up, moving the tables back towards the walls. he watches you as you move, and your back is splotched with indigo. he still doesn't know what it means, but you shiver as it creeps up your neck. your hand flies to your nape, rubbing your skin. it dissipates, returning to your golden glow.

"need an open space. are you sure?" you motion for him to join you in the center of the room, and he nods. you can already feel the same heat on your skin as he settles in front of you, and the same eerie cold of indigo on your shoulders. you huff, sliding your cardigan onto the floor and rolling up your sleeves. "i have to touch your skin for this, okay? and don't worry about anything else, just keep your eyes on me." he's nervous as he lets you take his shaky hands, a soft pout on your lips as you close your eyes. "i got you, okay? i won't let anything hurt you, you're strong." you're muttering, but he finds comfort in your words. he's sure you say this to everybody.

until you start glowing a blinding blaze of indigo, your face scrunched, wincing as the room cools significantly. you're brighter than he's ever seen, possibly brighter than the fluorescent lights that line the university halls. your grimace grows as you furrow your brows deeply, the glow around you seemingly like a flame. he just watches silently as you drop one of his hands.

"can you lift your shirt for me?" your voice is strangled. your eyes are screwed shut, and he quickly does so, your hand trembling as it makes contact. your skin feels like it's on fire, and you don't know what's happening that you can only hear ringing. you'd never felt anything this intensely, but you persist as your hand palms around his torso, before reaching the center. you splay your fingers, pressing into his skin. 

you flash green for a second, so quick he almost misses it.

sliding your hand up his chest, you find the base of his throat. a sigh slips through your lips, and you pull him closer. placing his hand on your waist before moving yours in his hair. you flash slightly pink as he slips his other hand on your hip, his fingers digging into your skin. 

"this might feel a little cold." you murmur, and you dim entirely. the glow around you is now gone, a soft grey floating off you. it runs to the floor, like sand, and forms different grainy figures. kind of like…sandcastles. you open your eyes, despite the damn near inferno heat where your skin meets his.

"these are all your blockages." you pull his shirt down, and move his hands from your hips. to your right, is a grainy woman that splits into several more women. next to her, are two figures, who seem to disappear into another figure, a forest. you skirt around him, holding him in place with a hand on his hip. behind him, is another figure.

shaped kind of like you. your thighs, your arms, your hair.

"what…do they mean?" you're snapped out of your process by his voice, and you sigh. "this one…channie, you have to find better coping mechanisms. sleeping with women for stress relief is not good for you. i know it feels good, but there are other things you can do. ever tried puzzles?"

you sink to the floor, pulling him with you. you move the figures next to each other in front of you, the sand-like texture sticking to your skin. gesturing to the women, you keep talking.

"casual sex is awful, when you compare it to relationship sex. shit, even hate sex. at least you feel something other than lust for the person you're fucking." you grimace, and he nods. with a wave of your hand, the sand collapses. "these next three…you can pick which you want first." he glances at them, his hand subconsciously searching for yours. you grab it, and he points at the two people. you let your skin burn as you begin to talk, his fingers tightening around your palm. "these…are your parents, and the forest around the university." the room stills, and chan lets go of your hand. "what about them?" "you're afraid they're not proud of you. you feel like you're missing out on your experiences with them, because…" you wince as an aftershock racks your body, making you shiver. you miss chan's nervous glance. "because they're distant. you feel like an outcast from your family, and it affects the way you form bonds here. it's hard for you to build friendships, and it's hard for you to establish relationships because you fear being loved. or maybe loving, and not being loved back"

taking a breath, you pull your knees to your chest.

"the forest is representative of your lost feeling. all the trees look the same, and it makes you feel like you're constantly going in circles. everyone here is identical, we all have something special. you find it hard to relate because although you know there is something that makes you like us, you're unaware of what it is." he nods, and you let the figures drop.

"this one…" you're mumbling, and he leans slightly closer to hear you. sighing, you pull the figure of you closer. raising your arm, the figure raises her arm. "that's me." his head snaps to look at you, your eyes burning holes into the floor. you glance at the figure, collapsing it. all the figures pool together, and you lean forward, blowing it like you would dust off a bookshelf. it disappears, and chan leans back on his hands.

"what about you?" he murmurs, and you shake your head, moving to lie through your teeth. "i don't know." "you're lying." you feel your glow return, flickering gold. "y/n, tell me what it means." "i can't." you shrug, "i don't know what it means. did this help? do you feel better?"

he's peering at you, his eyes swirling violet. you raise a brow as you look at him over your shoulder, and he just shakes his head. getting up, he stalks back to the couch. you watch as he shoves his arms into his hoodie, and you simply get up, floating towards your desk.

he grabs your arm, pulling you closer to him. you sense the frost of indigo across your mid-back. you turn his hold, eyes glued to his fingers wrapped around your arm. "why?"

"hm?" "why can't you tell me?" his eyes are insistent in their violet glory. chills run down your back, indigo spreading over your hips as you run your eyes over him. he's so beautiful. "because…i can't reciprocate."

he doesn't understand, you can tell as he keeps looking at you. kind of like he wants to eat you alive, but also like he wants you to vanish.

"it means you're in love with me, or you will be. you don't like the idea of it, because it means you'll have to open up to me. that kind of…figure doesn't change, even if you want it to. you won't get the option to leave me out of your heart, and it will be unrequited for the rest of our lives. you will love me, forever, and you won't get a say in it." he lets go, brows furrowed, and his face is deep red in embarrassment. you take a step forward, and your hands instinctively reach for his waist. he allows it as he crosses his arms across his chest, his eyes fixated on you, waiting for you to speak.

"i can't love, chan." you whisper, and feel indigo overwhelm you. pursing your lips, you look down so as to not let him see the tears forming. "trust me when i say i wish i could. i wish i could love you, the way you deserve. i could wake up every morning and reach for you, but you would never be there because i can't give you what you need." the tears are dripping off your face now, pattering on the rug beneath your feet. you let go of him, your fingers tugging your shirt up, slipping it over your head. your hair falls to your shoulders, and you push it back, dropping your shirt on your desk. his eyes soften as he looks at the curve of the wide scar – like an insignia, it's carved into your skin. it starts on your shoulder, curving around it the way a fallen bra strap would. it trails down your sternum, before splitting at your diaphragm. a sharp point ends right under your left breast, while the other curves to the right of your belly button, ending on your hip.

"there is nothing i could do in this world that could ever get me in trouble, because i have this." speaking softly, you lift the cup of your bra, showing him where x marks the spot – directly above your heart. "the coven said this was my punishment for minhwi's involvement in this world, and the outrage i sparked. i can't feel love, and i haven't for so long that even if i did, i wouldn't know what it's like. i won't ever feel what it's like to be loved again, because i don't deserve it."

chan's eyes are glossed over as he brings his hand to your skin, the singe making you grimace as his fingers trace the border lightly. he tucks his lip in his teeth as he touches your shoulder, and your glow flickers slightly brighter. he pulls you in, burying his nose in your hair. "everyone deserves love. this is not your fault, i'm sorry things happened this way." you pull back, his eyes glistening with tears as he thumbs the scar on your shoulder. you give him a sad smile, shrugging in his hold. "it's life. life goes on, but for what it's worth…if i could, i'm sure you'd take great care of me."

"i still can." he says, reaching for your shirt. "i'm a pleaser, really. reciprocation has never been an issue." 

"are you seriously making a pass at me? after i just told you all of that? have some shame." you let an airy chuckle slip through your lips as you take your shirt from him, and he just smiles. one, two dimples. "not being able to love doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to cum. just saying." you gasp, landing a gentle smack on his arm before sliding your shirt on. "chan, stop it! what did i say about casual sex, hm?" pointing an accusatory finger in his direction, he cages you between your desk and his firm chest. "didn't we just talk about this? you know it's not casual." you know it's not casual.

"just once, think about yourself, yeah? do yourself a favor." he places a chaste kiss on your nose, and you feel your cheeks heat as he peppers his lips over them. you let a giggle bubble in your throat, his lips stopping over your lips. "just think about it." he gives your lips a quick kiss, before pulling back.

"it's late, let me walk you home?" he offers a gentle look in his eyes. you just nod, grabbing your purse from the back of your desk. you decide you'll move the tables back on thursday, sliding your cardigan up your arms. "aren't you cold?" he asks, sliding his arm over your shoulders like he did the night of the party, as you lock the classroom door.

"no, actually. i don't know if you feel it, but every time you touch me, i feel like i'm on fire." you chuckle lightly as you start walking, and his breath hitches. glancing at him, he just moves the two of you forward. "chan?" "mhm?" he doesn't look at you, and you stop walking. crossing your arms, he sighs. "it's not a big deal." he shrugs, trying to shake the subject by tugging you slightly closer. you frown, wrapping your arms around his waist. your eyes are fixed on him, and he can't help but coo.

"you're so pretty." he squishes your face with his free hand, and continues walking forward. "does it bother you?" you ask, your fingers drumming on his hip. the air is so frigid, and so is indigo as it fights chan's warmth. you just have to let me warm up to you.

he did so awfully fast.

"does what bother me?" he's tracing circles in your shoulder, the movement scorching. he seems so relaxed, so unperturbed by anything. you'd never seen his face so calm, used to the furrow of his brows or the bags under his eyes darker than they should be. "the fact that i won't be able to love you back." he chuckles, fingers squeezing your shoulder. "i'm used to it, as pathetic as it sounds. love is not my forte, or for the people around me. jisung is surprisingly able to get into almost anyone's pants, and can't settle down for shit. changbin is sickeningly in love with his best friend, and do you remember that guy we saw at the party? the one sneaking out of the closet?" 

you nod, and he laughs. "that's seungmin. that girl he was with, they broke up back in august. they've been fucking around ever since. if they're both at a party, they're hooking up. can't seem to stay away from each other, in a desperate attempt to stay on each other's minds, i guess? it's cute, i think." he shrugs. you feel your heart skip a beat, looking  down to see a white glow on your chest. you ignore it, probably glowing silver as you feel the emptiness, the longing to understand what he means.

"so no. it doesn't bother me, it never will. you get used to it."

it pains you a bit, to hear him sound so…well, used to it. so accustomed to settlement, so unbothered by a lack of reciprocation. selfless, really.

wednesday – december 16.

chan wound up spending the night at your apartment. he insisted on taking the couch before you physically pulled him into your room. the moment his back hit the mattress, he ate his words as you tickled him, forcing him to admit that it was more comfortable.

really, you'd just wanted an excuse to wake up next to him. maybe see his bed head, run your fingers through it, exchange a morning kiss. all of that stupid couple shit that you would never fully experience.

because love makes you do stupid things, like spin out on a backroad and die. so you don't deserve to feel it, and really, it keeps you safe. you have no idea what it's like to love anymore and you pretend you're okay with it. you soothe by saying that not all can be felt, not all that can be desired should be had.

but fuck, if you didn't like chan before, you certainly do now.

there's no reason for this. for him standing in your living room, holding a cup of coffee as he reads through the articles you've written and framed. for him to look so cute in your old abba shirt that's too tight on his arms, for his eyes to be swollen with sleep as he blinks over the mug. for him to be so effortlessly unaware of his beauty, of his own effects. on you, on the people in his life.

"you're up." his voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and you feel your cheeks heat as you nod. "your hair is a mess. here, let me fix it." 

he sets down his cup, calmly running his hand through your mussed hair. the curls fight him as he tucks them behind your ears, his fingers lingering on your lobes as you stare at him. your indigo glow reflects on his skin, his head tilted as he speaks. "what? cat got your tongue, professor?"

your mouth opens to retort, but you have nothing to say. nothing comes out. you feel orange flicker through you as you close your mouth, earning a squeaky laugh from the man in front of you. "cute. there's coffee in the kitchen, i just made it." 

he doesn't have morning classes on wednesdays, you figure as he follows you to the kitchen. because it's eleven thirty and he's still in your apartment, in your shirt, with his hands on your waist, and you don't care one bit as you pour yourself a cup of coffee.

"are you upset? you haven't said a word." his thumbs work into the small of your back, and you shudder at his touch, before you shake your head. "i'm not used to having people here so early." "it's nearly noon, y/n." he laughs airily, his breath tickling your neck. "still, so early." 

you try and ignore the heat in your chest, far stronger than it had ever been before as his fingers carefully dip below the waistband of your sweats, coming out just as quickly. "you weren't in bed when i woke up." you're muttering, but his proximity makes him hear you anyway.

"aw, did you want to wake up in my arms like they do in the movies?" he's teasing you. you scoff in embarrassment, eyes not catching the subtle white glow on your chest as you turn in his hold. "no way, pft. i like spreading my limbs like a starfish, you were crowding me all night." "hey, i offered to take the couch." he shrugs, and you just shake your head. "should've insisted a little more, then i wouldn't have felt so cold when i realized you weren't there." you joke as you set down your cup, and he raises a brow. "didn't think it would bother you, but that can be fixed." "chan–" you squeal as he hooks his arms under your thighs, your own flying to his shoulders. your legs wrap around his waist as he marches the both of you to your bedroom. "chan, don't you have classes today?" "don't you?" he kisses your forehead gently as he sets you down on your bed, pushing you back lightly. you roll your eyes, trying to hide your excitement as he slips under your duvet. he tugs you closer, your back to his chest. if he cares about the scorching heat of your skin touching, he doesn't mention it as he settles his head in the crook of your neck, reaching to intertwine your fingers with his. he holds your hand tightly, nestling it between your breasts. "if you wanted to touch my boobs, you could've just asked." "shut up, let me hold you. be selfish, for once." he nips at your earlobe, and you sigh. tender kisses trail your neck, and you can feel pink creeping down your thighs as he gives your hand a squeeze. "is this okay?"

"mhm." you can't speak as he lets go of your hand, fingers dancing across the exposed skin of your hip where your shirt has ridden up. he doesn't go up, but instead softly dips into the waistband of your sweats, snapping your underwear against your skin. a whine slips, and you freeze as he pauses. "should i stop?" his voice is raspy in your ear, and your hand grabs his wrist, bringing it lower. "it's alright. you can keep going. f-further, if you want."

you curse yourself at the stutter, hearing a soft chuckle in his throat as his fingers pad over the fabric of your panties. your breath hitches in your throat as he circles the wet spot you've been presented with, a shaky sigh escaping chan as he rocks against you. you feel pink envelope in its warmth as you turn onto your back, holding his hand in place as you capture his lips. he kisses you back fervently, his fingers never stopping their movements on your clothed heat. 

"c-can you…" you whimper against his lips, his hand never slowing as you move against it, brows furrowed. he watches as you try to form words, your eyes screwed shut as your hand tugs his away. "can you go d-down on me?" barely a whisper as you peel your eyes open, and he swears they hold the stars.

"i'd kill a man if you asked me." he shrugs, and you just roll your eyes. tugging your sweats off, he gets a glimpse of the way your panties stick to your lower lips, his heart racing in his chest knowing he's got you soaking.

he could make you cum with them on. he's positive.

spreading your thighs slowly, he watches as you hook your thumbs into the waistband. he pushes your hands away, not bothering to address your confusion as he holds them in place, sinking between your legs. he can't help but tease, dragging his soft lips up your skin, watching you shudder at the contact. he moves to grip your hips, your shirt rising and the end of your scar becoming visible. his eyes flicker to yours, "shirt stays on, right?"

"y-yeah." you look away, and he rubs your hip reassuringly. "s'alright, baby. i can make you cum just like this, if you want."

it's not a question, you can tell as he kisses the pink cotton of your panties. he has no intention of taking them off, he might not even fuck you, but you don't care. all that matters are his eyes peering into your fucking soul as he dips his head down, a chaste kiss pressed to your hip. he trails down, hands circling your plush thighs as he litters them with kisses. your eyes are watching him nervously, lip tucked under your teeth to stop the soft pants from echoing the room. you feel like you can't breathe as he pulls you closer to his face, pressing that strong nose into you, inhaling deeply. "you smell so fucking good, baby." he's not even doing anything, but the vibrations of his moan against you elicit a whimper from your throat, making you buck your hips forward. his grip tightens as he nuzzles his nose against your clit, placing a soft kiss on it before he speaks against it.

"be nice, or i'll make you scream." he smiles into your underwear, tonguing your clit through the fabric. he watches as your glow grows brighter, pulling you impossibly closer. he's letting you grind on his face, to use him for your pleasure, and you'd be lying if that doesn't make you that much more wet for him. "y-you don't want to take them off?"

your stuttering is adorable to him, and the way your fingers card through his hair and tug adds to his own pleasure. shaking his head, he snaps the waistband against you again, "you're so needy, aren't you? can't get off just like this?" "channie, p-please. please, i want your f-fingers." he hums against your clit, continuing his cruel lapping, the sound of your pussy against his face obscene and sloppy. "you can beg better than that. tell me how bad you want it, baby." "w-want it so bad, channie, please. please, i'll be g-good for you, p-promise. s-so good." you're almost sobbing, and he almost feels bad. a gentle laugh leaves his throat as he thumbs your slit, leaving sticky strings against his skin as he gives in. "so good? so, so good for me? is that right?" he slides the flimsy fabric down your legs, the exposure to the cool air making you shiver. he's watching your face contort as he collects your arousal on his fingers, before slowly teasing your entrance. "i swear to god, chan-" your retort gets cut off by a gasp, his fingers hitting just right, his lips sucking tortuously on your clit. he likes it messy, is all you can think in your fucked out state as you coat his entire hand in your slick, feeling him groan against your pussy.

"look at you, so pretty. you're a good girl for me, right? you're gonna soak the sheets, hm?" he feels you clamp around his fingers, another wave of your arousal glazing his palm as you sob. "fuck, you sound so hot." "c-channie..." you rasp, your voice so low he almost misses it. he peers at you over your soft tummy, your lips swollen and covered in your spit from biting back your moans. you're actively whining, grinding against his hand in a weak attempt at reaching your release. "aw, baby wants to cum? is that it?"

you whimper, making him curl his fingers inside your wet heat. he seemed to have found the perfect spot as you arched your back off the bed, attempting to pull away from him. his left arm holds you tightly in place, your fingers clutching his wrist as your choked moan rings blissfully in his ears. your thighs close around him, his soft shh doing nothing to quiet you down as you let your orgasm wrack your legs. his lips pepper kisses all over your pelvis, mumbles of praises as he works his way up. 

he hovers over your face, pressing his soft lips on your cheek. you wrap your arms around his neck, shivering at the way his fingers pinch your clothed nipple lightly. "you can give me one more, right? just one more, princess." he's murmuring against your skin, and you nod as he reaches your lips. 

"just one more?" you nip at his lower lip, before sinking in to kiss him. "just one. want to feel you around me, want to know how good i'm making you feel." you realize it's important to chan, despite what he said the night before. he wanted to be praised, he wanted to make somebody proud, even if this was the only way he felt he could do it. he could act like he's this statue, this emotionless, needless creature of nature – but he also desired approval, to be needed, to be wanted.

to be loved.

you don't say anything as you let his hands push your knees to your chest, his lips now suckling on your nipple through your shirt. your hands move to his head, pushing it away as you go to slip it off. his hands let go of your legs, entwining your fingers with his brows furrowed. "you don't have to." "i want to." you quip back quickly, tugging your fingers out of his grasp. you hook them at the hem of your shirt, lightly lifting off the bed to slide it off. he hesitates, his eyes tracing the curves of the raised skin. the way it glows lightly, almost as though it's losing its defined edges.

his eyes flicker to yours, your gaze intently scanning his face. did you think he'd be disgusted? maybe even repulsed? lowering his head, he brushed a kiss to your lips, before he allowed himself to sink to your chest. you breathed in nervously, your fingers gripping the sheets next to your body when you felt his mouth planting feather-light touches to your scar.

he can feel your skin heat under his face, the more he travels along the healed welt. the glow is slightly brighter than your overall pink, as you shudder under him, his hands pulling your fingers into his, the crumpled sheets forgotten as he pins your arms above your head.

"you're so beautiful. gorgeous, ethereal. no words could express how lovely you are." he whispers as he presses one final kiss where x marks the spot, and you jolt lightly at the singe you feel. it spreads, the whole insignia across your torso burning deeply as he moves back. his eyes are flashing with something you can't read. "chan…" "sorry." he shakes his head, his thumbs rubbing circles into your hands. you tilt your head at him, before glancing at his body, a smile spreading on your plump lips. "are you going to fuck me with all your clothes on?"

"i can." he smiles, and you raise an eyebrow. "off, all of it." 

standing off the side of your bed, he tugs your old abba shirt off, and you watch with sinful eyes as he flings it away. "stop staring at me." he whispers, and you shake your head playfully. "you said you'd kill a man if i asked, and gave me the best head of my life, but i can't watch you strip?" 

"the best, huh?" he ignores everything else he slips his sweats off, pulling your hips to the edge of the bed. "don't get cocky, or this won't count as extra c-credit." your eyes peer at him, the leaking head of his thick cock already teasing your folds lightly. his hands circle your legs once more, pulling one over his shoulder while folding the other close to your chest. he stares at your soaked cunt, the way it clenches around nothing. so inviting, so wet, so ready for him.

"that's alright, let's count it as the first class i missed. what was it, getting to know me? ask me something." he continues his teasing, watching as you squirm against him. "uhm, o-okay. what's your favorite color?"

"really?" he rubs against you lightly, his tip dragging over your clit so menacingly, you swear you could cum from just that. "hm, i like black." "black is an ab-absence of color, fuck." you dig your nails into your thighs as he shallowly thrusts into you, the lack of warning wracking a shudder up your spine. "mm, if you can't keep talking there's going to be an absence of dick in about two seconds."

"n-no, no please. shit, that feels so good." you can't keep your eyes open as he slowly sinks further into you, stilling his movements as you tuck your lip into your teeth. "ah, ah. eyes open, keep talking to me." his fingers lightly tap your cheek, your skin burning in embarrassment as you peel your eyes open. "next question, baby." "b-biggest accomplishment so f-far?" you swallow thickly as his hips are flush against your ass, allowing you to adjust to the size of him before making any more movements. he leans his head against your ankle, brows furrowed as he speaks. "probably making you cum so hard, you cry." you narrow your eyes as you look at him, "you h-haven't, though?" "but i will." he kisses your shin, giving an experimental thrust of his hips. your eyes flutter shut, a silent gasp from your lips turning to soft mewls as he starts a gentle pace. "next question." "d-do you believe in love at first s-sight?" you feel him hesitate, before he gives you a particularly harsh thrust. "somewhat." he rubs your thigh gently before continuing his brutal ministrations. "harder, please." silently, he obliges, letting your breathy moans fill his ears instead of talking. he hates talking, he hates answering questions, but he can't help and adore the tone of your voice, the softness of your queries, the avoidance in answering his.

"you feel so good, channie, holy shit." he can feel you clenching tightly around him, but lets your praise take precedence. the way you're arching your back off the mattress, hairline lined with beads of sweat as you let him fuck into you, just the way you like. the way you seem to love, as he lowers to whisper in your ear. "next question."

the proximity makes everything feel like it's a thousand degrees, your hands flying to his hair as he sucks on your collarbone lightly. "favorite s-song? ah!' you hiss at his teeth on your skin, feeling his grin against you.

"your voice." his thrusts are slowly becoming less steady, but you don't care. you don't care because his skin is scorching hot, he's holding you to him, you can feel the air of his pants against your neck and he feels so good.

there's no reason for this. for him to be blissfully ruining you while holding you flush to his chest, your nipples touching with every roll of his hips. for him to look so good while he defiles you, the way you're not even speaking coherently in his ear. for your soul to feel like it's aching for more of him, but how much more could you have when you can't love him. for him to be so effortlessly unaware of his beauty, of his own effects, on you, as the white-hot of your orgasm starts approaching fast.

"i…" you feel a sob rip through you, and he instinctively pulls away from you. "hey, hey. it's alright, baby." guilt fills his chest, his hands holding your face as the tears stream down your cheeks. "it's alright, we don't have to–" pushing yourself up on your elbows, you smash your lips to his, feeling yourself glow so hot you're practically on fire. it's all teeth and tongue, and you're wrapping your fingers around his throat before he can react. squeezing gently, he whines into your mouth, his hips snapping erratically against you. you swallow his sounds in your quiet sobs, the tears dripping down your neck doing nothing to cool you down. 

"y/n…" he whines pitifully against your lips, and you can feel his pout emerge as you clench around him. he settles his face in the crook of your neck, cheeks flushed. "p-please don't stop, don't stop, e-ever…" you're just as needy as he is, throwing your head back as he bites at your shoulders, your hand on his throat tightening as he sends you over the edge.

"fuck, baby." the whimper into your shoulder does nothing good for him as you clench around him, milking whatever is left of him, hips driving you both into overstimulation. he slows, his head lifting from your shoulder to peer into your eyes. you avoid them, letting go of his throat and wiping them off with the back of your hand.

the room feels heavy, with guilt. shame. maybe even a bit of hatred, but you’re not entirely sure as he kisses you gently, chastely, before pulling back. his eyes hold the sun, the stars, the moon.

"guess you got your biggest accomplishment, huh?" you chuckle thickly, and he shakes his head, pulling out slowly. his eyes avert to your center, watching his cum drip out of you slowly. he feels weird, it's such a waste. "are you okay? i should've asked sooner, i'm sorry." "no, no. it was…it was really good." you admit, feeling your glow flicker. you close your legs, scooting up on the bed as he reaches for your shirt, you cross your arms over your chest, fingers digging into your sides. "i really liked it, actually." "are you sure?" he's absent, you can tell as he wipes the back of your legs gently, before tossing the shirt over his shoulder. "i'm sorry for crying, i know it was really sudden. i just felt so overwhelmed and you felt so good, and i…" you trail off, and he feels his cheeks heat, shaking his head again. "no, it's fine. that was the goal, after all. i…do you want me to go?" your brows furrow, and you tilt your head. "go? why would i want you to go?" he shrugs, not meeting your eyes as he tugs on his sweatpants. "i don't know, i usually leave after…things like this." "what happened to 'you know it's not casual?'" you use air quotes, and you see his cheeks burn bright red. "i…i don't think i'd be able to do this, especially after what we talked about yesterday."

"do…what? we just had sex, it's not a big deal." you uncross your arms, ignoring your blatant nudity as he slips your abba shirt to you, taking it just to toss it to the side. "...act like i don’t care. i really, really like you, y/n, and i already feel so guilty about this." he can't look at you as he slips his hoodie on, the one you'd thrown over your desk chair last night when he said it was too hot to wear to bed.

you close your mouth, pressing your lips into a firm line as you grab the shirt, tugging it over your head. "i figured this would happen. maybe you should go, chan. clear your head, and we can talk later."

your brows are furrowed as you open your bedroom door, and he swallows thickly. he knew what he was getting himself into, so why does it bother him now? he said he wouldn't care, he said it so confidently.

and yet, he can't bring himself to say a word as he slams out of your apartment, eyes full of tears. leaving you feeling dejected, guilty and alone.

thursday – december 17.

it wasn't until the next day that you noticed it was significantly smaller.

it didn't curve under your breast anymore, the subtle x on your skin gone. it didn't wrap around your shoulder anymore, and it stopped right next to your navel. the scarred skin was now a bit paler, and you'd grimaced as you tugged your shirt on.

you couldn't be arsed with thinking about it, really, because now you had to walk into your classroom and face chan. of course, the chances of him not being there were fifty-fifty.

which inherently, made you feel worse.

you didn't understand why you couldn't stop thinking about his words, and what he said. your voice was his favorite song, he didn't care if you loved him or not, he somewhat believed in love at first sight? he'd met you officially a little over a month ago, no one can fall in love that quickly.

groaning, you felt orange flicker across your body as you let your heels clack against the saltillo tile of the hallway, tossing your half-empty coffee cup in the trash can. upon entering your room, the air feels…cooler.

chan is sitting on the couch, his legs squished together as minnie and shuhua peer at his face. soyeon, mingyu and yugyeom are flipping through various textbooks, each talking about what could have caused a sudden irischroma shift. he probably feels the heat of your stare, his eyes flickering to yours.

they're a deep, deep indigo color. they flash lightly at the sight of you, and minnie looks up to see you standing at your podium. "y/n…you've gotta come see this." "i can…i can see it, minnie." your voice is faint as you feel your chest searing hot, your hand coming to soothe it. clearing your throat, you shake your head as you feel a little weary, shuhua approaching you quickly. "are you okay? y/n?" "yes, i'm okay." your breathing becomes a little labored, soyeon and mingyu rushing to your side as you sink to the floor. "just give me some room." your hands touch the cool floor, and you can feel yourself dimming by the second. 

"gyu, get help." minnie shoves mingyu out the door, and you can hear his footsteps fading as he runs to the infirmary. "chan, help me pick her up." yugyeom urges, and you weakly shake your head.

"i'm fine, i'm okay." you choke out, your hand clutching your chest as you feel chan's warm hands on your arms, circling around to lift you gently. "easy, easy. i got you, baby." he murmurs, and you feel your eyes sting with tears as he lets you slump against him, your glow fading fast.

"stay with me." his fingers dig into your side as he picks you up bridal style, carefully walking you over to the couch. yugyeom pulls their backpacks off, letting him lower you gently. minnie fans you with a stack of papers. chan peers at your face, your brows pinched as you breathe in as deeply as you can, his thumb instinctively padding at the crease. huffing, you tear his hand away, lacing your fingers in his. he acts like his heart doesn’t lurch forward.

"alright, everybody, back up." mingyu's voice rings in the room, and your bleary eyes can barely make out the oxygen mask that nurse taeyeon is slipping over your face. "there, there, professor. we got you."

you're shivering as she instructs chan to lift you onto the gurney on three, and you almost cry at the loss of contact when he sets you down. "chan, chan." your voice is nearly a whisper, and the students watch as you flicker, your glow lost as it glitches between colors. 

"maybe you should go with her." yugyeom nudges him as nurse taeyeon glances at him, and she crosses her arms as chan nods slowly,slipping his bag over his shoulder. he takes nurse taeyeon's place at the end of the gurney, rolling you quietly out of the classroom. you're flickering from color to color as he walks slightly faster at nurse taeyeon's command.

"what happened?" she asks, and chan shakes his head as they take a sharp turn, your groan resounding in the hall. "i'm not sure, she just started clutching her chest and basically fell to the floor." nodding, taeyeon stays quiet the rest of the walk, her eyes only glancing at his worried expression and your hazy one. they're in love, she thinks. this is love.

taeyeon can't really help you. her powers lay in the herbalism field, she has no idea what's wrong, and she can't get a specialist here fast enough. she watches as chan carefully positions you in the empty room, letting his bag slide onto the floor before taking a seat at the foot of the bed. she simply sighs, calling that she'd be back with a rosemary tea and to just sit tight as she calls for the master sorcerers.

his hand gently strokes your ankle, making you flinch. "chan, chan i can't breathe." you tug at your collar, and he quickly reaches to unbutton your top buttons. "it's gonna be okay, angel." he's whispering as your hand grasps his wrist, the oxygen mask doing little to help as you wheeze.

"chan…" his head lifts, and your eyes are teary as you hear footsteps approaching hurriedly. he doesn't acknowledge you as the master sorcerers burst into your room, taeyeon trailing behind them with a steaming cup. "excuse me, coming through." she perches at the edge of the bed, carefully pulling you up. you whimper softly, and chan feels his heart ache at your pain. "drink this, it'll help your stress. that's probably what this is, just some anxiety."

taeyeon's tone is soft as she takes off the oxygen mask, the master sorcerers waiting until they can swoop in. neither of them acknowledge chan, despite getting to know him insanely well over the past few years. he could dare to think that they were afraid of him, of not knowing what he was. master sorcerers my ass, he thinks.

"i can't…" you're breathless, and taeyeon's gaze softens as she lets you slump down on the pillow once more. "it's alright. the master sorcerers are here, okay? they'll take care of you." she pats your shoulder, and you nod wearily as the grandest of all, dr. kang seulgi, takes a step forward.

"bang chan, why are you here?" her sharp voice echoes in the room, and your hand weakly reaches for him as he slides off the bed. "i brought her in, dr. kang."

"i see. you can evacuate the premises." she waves him away nonchalantly, and he frowns deeply as he steps back, your eyes fixed on him. almost like you're begging him to stay.

"i think i'll stay, actually." he blurts, and dr. kang's eyes snapped to him. "i'm not asking you, chan, i'm telling you." "let the boy stay, what's the harm?" dr. min's voice rings from his spot against the door frame, and chan glances up at the nimble man. "c'mon, seulgi."

"yoongi, if you undermine me again, you're sleeping on the couch." she grits, her wedding band to dr. min glinting in the low light as she rubs her temples. your hand reaches for chan once more, a soft groan from your lips catching his attention. he takes it, entwining your fingers quickly, kneeling at your side. "of course, jagi. y/n, what seems to be the problem?" dr. min pushes past, noting the undone buttons of your blouse. your chest is glowing, but the rest of you is the dimmest indigo he'd ever seen. much less, having seen you never glow indigo. your breathing is still labored, chest glowing brighter as chan once more rubs the pinch of your brows away.

"y/n, i'm going to open your shirt, okay?" dr. kang pushes past dr. min, her nimble fingers undoing the rest of the buttons. your scar is illuminated, but…it's not really there. it's faded, and chan can tell this is out of the ordinary as dr. kang's brows raise.

"yoongi." her voice is low, bringing her husband to her side. "oh, my."

their eyes meet, as though they're speaking telepathically. dr. kang's eyes flash gold as she furrows her brows, her husband grimacing as his own flash green. they glance at chan, who is gingerly moving your hair out of your face, his fingers barely ghosting over your sticky skin.

you can barely see him through your foggy eyes, but you're scanning him intently. you can see the glowing indigo of his eyes, that matches yours. you're dimming, but he's brighter than ever and it sends a shiver up your spine. his hand squeezes yours, a wave of heat attacking your chest.

dr. kang looks back, her husband staring intently at her.

"he healed her, it seems." his eyes speak, and she shakes her head. "he's not a healer, remember? we tried that already." yoongi nods, eyes fluttering back to the both of you. chan's now sitting on the edge of the bed, your arm draped over his lap as he speaks to you gently. he can't hear what chan is saying, but the glint of adoration in his eyes tells him all he needs to know.

"chan, can i see you in the hallway?" dr. min speaks, and your head turns to him. you pout, your eyes filling with tears as chan pulls away from you. dr. kang gives him a hard glare as she takes his place, her cool hand placed directly on your hot skin, making you groan.

"yes, dr. min?" chan's eyes are enticing, and dr. min shrugs. "let's try a little something, hm?" chan follows dr. min's line of vision, the door of the bathroom ajar. dr. min makes a gesture for chan to wait, before ducking into the bathroom, shutting the door. chan hears a loud crash, and dr. min appears just as fast, with a bloody fist.

"dr. min, are you alright? i can get nurse taeye-" dr. min places his free hand over chan's mouth, a knowing look in his eyes as he holds up his injured hand. "heal me, chan." "what? sir, i'm not a healer, you know that." chan furrows his brows, and dr. min shakes his head. "channel it." dr. min's eyes are boring into chan's soul as he looks away, shivering as he tries to channel any sort of magical energy for this injury. he's not surprised when nothing happens, and dr. min nods his head.

dr. min simply heals it himself, and chan looks away as the skin closes quickly, the dried blood disappearing before his eyes. vitalis mendacium, he thinks it's called. "chan, i think i may have an idea of what's going on with professor y/n." dr. min clasps his hands together in front of him, and chan tilts his head.

"you're in love with her, aren't you?" dr. kang's voice rings from the doorway of your room, and chan gapes at her. "w-what?" "don't play dumb. she told me she helped you clear some emotional blockage on tuesday, and she showed up in your blockages." dr. kang crosses her arms, and a groan is heard from you, chan flinching at the sound. "chan, this is dangerous territory." his eyes narrow as he shakes his head. "i don't think what you did to her was right. i think we all deserve a chance at love, no matter our mistakes. you're wrong, dr. kang." dr. kang scowls, "you think we did this to her? the old coven did it, we had no say!" she points between herself and her husband, and dr. min places his hand on her shoulder.

"chan, seulgi is right. in this world, there is no amount of study done that could reverse what the old coven has done to y/n. they cursed layers upon layers of punishment on her, this was never intended to be something that could be undone." dr. min speaks slowly, and chan can hear you whining in the room behind the couple. he's antsy, he feels sick to his stomach knowing you're a mere ten feet away and he can't make you feel better. 

"i don't know what to do." dr. kang admits lowly, her hand covering her eyes as she looks away from the men in front of her. "i think…" dr. min trails off as chan pushes past them, sliding next to you. he watches chan fan you with his hand, your own wrapped around his waist as you shiver.

"you trust me, right?" he looks to seulgi, who nods her head. "always." his hands spin her around, making her face the two of you. "i think this is his to heal. look how quiet she is in his presence, she's barely moving. her breathing is more steady." "yoongi, he's not a healer." seulgi groans into her hands, her eyes catching a flash of white protruding from you as chan runs his hand down your back. she watches as he helps you peel your jacket off, your baby pink shirt transparent from the sheen of your sweat soaking through.

"maybe not for us, but for her." yoongi mumbles, seeing chan swipe your hair away from your neck, his lips pursed as he blows cool air against your skin. your groan is one of relief as he rocks you, and seulgi glances at her husband, swallowing thickly. "they're so rare, yoongi. there hasn't been one in this dimension in three hundred and twenty five years."

"i think we may have another on our hands." yoongi smiles widely as you slowly prop yourself up on your elbow, chan's worried eyes scanning your face for distress. you make a noise of disgust, your glow returning green steadily as chan helps you sit up. "what happened? ugh, i'm all sweaty."

glancing at your hands, you see them glowing indigo as it spreads up your body. you turn, seeing the master sorcerers staring at you from the doorway. grimacing, you glimpse at chan, who is looking at you intently. "hey, you alright?" his hand is holding your hip, and your frown falters as you look into his eyes. they're glowing bright as he looks you over. "what happened to your eyes?" your voice is raspy, and he looks away, shrugging.

"i'm not sure. they started changing last night." he swallows, and you shudder as indigo engulfs you entirely. "they look…pretty."

he snorts, shaking his head. "you might want to button up your shirt." feeling your cheeks burn, your fingers fumble with the buttons when you feel seulgi's cool hand on your wrist. "wait."

letting her lay you back, you miss chan's warmth as he slips off the bed, lingering from a few feet away as she opens your shirt. her eyes widen as she quickly beckons her husband over. his eyes snake down your torso, and his eyes glint with green as he meets seulgi's. they're silent, their faces moving as they communicate.

"y/n?" dr. kang's voice is low as she runs her hand through your mussed curls, and you meet her line of vision. her eyes are soft, staring at your torso. "y/n, do you know the history of psychosomatic healers?"

raising a brow, you nod your head. "yeah, they're the rarest of the healing trifecta. there hasn't been one in this dimension since 1699, and even then there's only seven recorded cases because they're so difficult to pinpoint at commencement." dr. min steps forward, noticing chan's eyes glued to the floor as dr. kang examines you further.. "y/n, i'd like to try something, if you don't mind." nodding, you allow dr. kang to take your arm in her hand, pulling your sleeve off your shoulder. 

with a quick swipe of her nails, you're bleeding. you gape at her, a scoff flying from your lips when chan looks up, the sound tearing him from his thoughts. "are you serious, seulgi?" you push her away, flickering orange and dr. min beckons chan forward. "touch her, chan."

taking a deep breath, chan gets closer to you, his nose scrunching at the blood seeping into your shirt. he takes your hand in his, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into your skin. you look away from your shoulder, zeroing in on the subtle touch of affection when a white glow catches everyone's eyes. tugging at your shirt sleeve, seulgi reveals a clean shoulder, no injury visible.

"a psychosomatic healer can only heal those they love." she states, her eyes boring into chan's as he tries to tug his hand away, but you only use it as leverage to sit up. "what the fuck are you guys on about?" "there's no way you're that dumb, y/n." seulgi snorts, her manicured fingernail pointing at your chest. "i don't know how he did it, and i don't think we'll ever know. the curse the coven set upon you has been lifted by him." you look down — the raised welt where your scar once was has dissipated. widening your eyes, you peel the shoulder of your shirt down, the formerly scarred skin now smooth. your fingers tremble as you run them over your soft flesh, feeling the sting of tears forming. you can feel the burn of a sob in your throat as chan releases your hand, stepping back as you process.

the burning of his gaze, of his skin on yours, of your chest in his presence. the ache you felt in your soul yesterday as his lips brushed your neck with every roll of his hips, the way his answers confused you. the anger you felt while walking to class, at not being able to decipher him.

the way his angel eyes held the sun, the moon, and the stars. the way worry creases his brow though relief has washed over his frame, the way you're itching to hold him close, and never, ever let go.

it all makes sense.

"we'll give you both a moment." the master sorcerers bow their heads as they back out of the room, dr. min closing the door behind him. you sit in silence, feeling sticky and gross and overwhelmed.

"you're in love with me?!" you shriek, and chan throws up his hands in defense. "i thought we already knew this, why are we screaming?!" you swat his arm, and a nervous laugh bubbles up his throat. flopping back down onto the gurney, you dramatically cover your eyes with your arm, sighing. "now i have to cherish this, and we're probably going to get married and have kids and all that shit. are you serious? are you serious." "y/n…" you stand up, pacing back and forth in front of him, your hands weaving through your hair to soothe the onsetting migraine at the information. "how are you not freaking out, chan? you just found out you're one of the rarest healers in the trifecta, and not to mention the first in over three centuries! are you shitting me right now?" "y/n?"

you're not listening as you continue to ramble, pacing a hole into the floor when he grabs your shoulder, pulling you to him. taking both your hands in his, he looks you in the eyes. "you're spiraling." 

huffing, you nibble on your lower lip. "what happens now, chan?"

his smile is warm, it's comforting, it's making your stomach flip as he pulls you closer, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. "i don't know. isn't that the beauty of it all, though? not knowing where you end up?"

pouting, you rest your head on his shoulder, allowing his warmth to seep into your skin. "i've never felt this, chan. i don't know what it's like to be lost, i've always had my answers." you can feel the vibrations of his chest as he laughs, his hand coming to stroke your hair gently.

"that's okay, it'll be like the blind leading the blind. for now, we can just focus on…us? maybe go on a date, have dinner…" his voice is soft as you look up to him, his eyes already scanning your face for any hint of rejection. "unless you don't want to." you do, of course you do.

"i'm all sweaty, and gross. we've had a revelation about your purpose in this world, your eyes are a different color, and you want to focus on us?" your voice is laced with incredulity, a hint of amusement peeking through as it tugs at your lips. "i have my whole life to focus on other things. when you can't find a piece of a puzzle, you pick another part to focus on, do you not? i have that answer, that piece now, but i'm already figuring this part out." squeezing your shoulder, he places a chaste kiss on your hairline, your nose scrunching.

"why did you come with me?" you poke his chest, and he smirks. "yesterday or today?"

gaping, you land a soft smack to his chest, his squeaky laughter filling your ears as your cheeks heat. "chan! not funny!" "sorry, i'm sorry! i saw an opportunity, i took it. but, i was worried about you." he starts, taking a piece of your hair between his fingers. "i saw how angry you looked before minnie spoke to you, and before you looked at me. you started looking faint when we met eyes, and i was…i was scared that something might happen to you and that i wouldn't be able to apologize for potentially overstepping boundaries, or ruining whatever little game we have going on."

"you couldn't ruin whatever this is even if you tried." you scoff, your words tumbling out before you can process them. "i've never felt anything this intense before in my entire life. my ears started ringing when i touched your chest on tuesday, here." you splay your fingers on his hoodie, in the same place.

"i couldn't hear a thing. that was me, the blockage, i was basically hearing myself. if we didn't have that moment, if you hadn't let me in, none of this would have happened." you speak softly, taking his hands in yours, his eyes glassy as he looks into yours. your smile is gentle, and he can feel his stomach flutter as you lean closer. "and i'm so glad it did. despite this whole day being so weird, despite the coven probably burning holes into the back of my head right now from hell right now, and despite the tears i can see about to spill out of your eyes, nothing could ruin this. okay?" he looks away, nibbling on his lip. your thumb strokes his cheek, catching a few stray tears as you make him face you. vision blurring, but you can see him clearer than ever.

"okay?" you insist, and he nods. "okay."

"good." pulling him towards you, you crash your lips to his, feeling your heart beating in your ears. your arms cross over his shoulders, his hands finding home on your bare waist, the kiss becoming heated. parting his lips, your tongue snakes its way in, a soft groan from chan as he pushes you back, your knees hitting the gurney. 

"not in here, guys." dr. kang's voice echoes in the room, and you spring apart like teenagers. wiping at your lips, you watch as chan grabs your discarded jacket, and his bag. outstretching his hand to you, you take it, letting him rush the both of you towards the door. quickly bowing to the master sorcerers, you giggle as the cool december air hits your chest.

"yeah, y/n! nice titties, girl!" you hear a holler from down the hall, your eyes catching a glimpse of minnie's teal hair. you smile widely, waving as chan continues, a blush coating his cheeks as you begin to float behind him, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"where are we going?" you mumble in his ear, and he shivers. "to yours. i need to show you how much you mean to me." you let the butterflies bounce around in your stomach, knowing exactly what was coming your way.

friday – january 08.

your relationship with chan had become the talk of the wizard world. several words were thrown your way, many to your detriment – but you chose to focus on 'love epiphany' and 'anomalies made to traverse together.'

he naturally passed your class with flying colors, what more could you do when he literally discovered himself? the students deemed it completely fair, with only yugyeom choosing to retake your course because he felt like he didn't really do what was necessary. mornings were filled with the buzzing of your phone – the students had made a group chat and continuously badgered you with memes, and mingyu with his graduation photos.

whereas, chan's mornings were filled with you, his phone long put on silent. your soft hair tickling his neck, only for your gentle lips to place chaste kisses along his jaw as he awoke. your warm leg draped over his waist, your knee teasing his crotch so early was something he'd never get used to. your arm, propping you up once he lazily peels an eye open, closing it the moment he sees your beaming smile, a blush coating his cheeks.

"do you always stare at me when i sleep?" he mumbles, his fingers dipping under the hem of your sleep shorts. "do birds fly?" "you're a creep, you know that?" laughing, he lets you hold his eyes open with your fingers, the indigo glow of them making you glow brighter in turn. that was what it meant, after all – the subzero color now warm, as you illuminated the room with your love for chan. "yeah? well you're creeping your fingers into my panties, so maybe shut up."

your lips are addicting, he could never get enough of them as you brush them against him. both sets, of course.

kidding. sort of. not at all. he loves you, okay? that's all that matters.

"you should check your email, channie." you murmur against his neck, and he nods his head, watching as you try not to smile. "oh i should, should i?" ignoring the raise of his eyebrow, you reach for chan's phone, plopping it on his bare chest. chan lolls his head back, hands relocating to your hips as he pulls you on top of him. your cheeks heat at the soft love bites on his pec, but shake it away as his voice snakes into your head

"you seem a little too excited, baby." he ruffles your hair as he unlocks his phone, and you just bite your lip as he scans the screen. "tell me, sorcerer, what's the news?" your voice bounces off the walls, with chan just squeezing your hip in response.

from: spellboundnews@spellbound.edu

dearest bang chan,

it is our honor here at the spellbound institute of magic to let you know that you have been chosen to be published in this year's edition of the spellbound sorcerer. such an honor is only awarded to those with extraordinary skill. 

we've also made the unanimous decision for you to speak at this year's annual convention, taking over the healing trifecta's booth. more information will be provided as the date approaches.

we look forward to seeing you and professor y/l/n there.

signed,

dr. kang seulgi

dr. min yoongi

master sorcerers

spellbound institute of magic

his eyes flicker to yours, your grin so wide, it's infectious. "i'm getting published." "you're getting published!" you cheer loudly, and chan feels his cheeks heat as you pepper his face in kisses. "you're getting published, baby! we have to celebrate! let's ask your parents to dinner, yeah? we can get a cabin for the weekend, so they don't have to drive home so late."

he forgets how you pried the truth about his parents out of him, but he's almost sure it was last tuesday when you made him beg for you to sit on his face. almost sure, but he doesn't really care anymore. after all, he'd warmed up to you.

"i'm so proud of you, channie." your voice is gentle as you swipe your thumbs under his eyes, and he nods, burying his face in your chest as embarrassment spreads in his. "hey, you can't hide from me. what happened to the praise kink? don't you want to know how good you're doing?" "i told you that in confidence!" he swats at your leg as he nestles into your laughter. "i know! it's just me and you here, what's the problem?! let me praise you!"

"never. come on, let's read my stupid essay." he throws the comforter off his legs, and you huff as you climb off his lap. sitting up on the edge of the bed, you lean against his back, your arms hooked around his broad shoulders. the same ones full of your nail marks, a few imprints of your teeth scattered around them. "i graded it, i already read it." "well, praise me while i read it." he snorts, and you press a soft kiss to his shoulder. "mm, okay. i'll take what i can get."

bang chan

professor y/l/n

identity theory

if you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. – tony stark, spider-man: homecoming (2017)

the fall was slow, like liebesträume.

feeling lost is an understatement.

i've been lost before – in grocery stores, misunderstanding assignments. i've even been lost in the woods before, riddled with anxiety standing within the trees. so uniform, full of belonging. those trees know where their purpose lies.

me? i've been wandering this world not knowing where my purpose lies, what i'm meant to be doing with said unrealized purpose. this is a feeling of disorientation, isolation, off course. it's all the same anyway, isn't it?

i spent years looking for answers – from the day i was dropped off at the academy to the day i met professor y/l/n. life was well sullied with fear, a feeling of desperation as i felt my time running low. i willingly put myself in danger, hopping from dimension to dimension with the aid of some friends to find something to ease my worries, and came up empty. answers will find you, not you them.

another thing i failed to consider was that i perhaps had my answer all along. from the natural instinct to protect and take care of the people i hold close, to the agony of being away from my family – all i needed was a catalyst. something to throw me even more off course, even more confusing than what life had come to be before her.

professor y/l/n has brought me to life. truly, i could never say enough to express the appreciation i have for her, but i will attempt it any chance i get. an enigma, an anomaly, a paradigm – she is far, far more than these words could begin to define. she's selfless, she's full of light and i could never understand that. my admiration for her goes well beyond this lifetime, and like the praying mantis, she was a beacon of guidance.

her story is full of twists and turns as she allowed me to indulge. from the flickering of the glow around her, to understanding that only the deepest of her indigo hue glows for me, i'm honored to say the least. i will never get enough of her story, of her truths, of her. the idea that love lies in the hands of the beholder is entirely true in this case. to be loved is to be known, and she read me far beyond my wildest dreams the moment her golden cast laid upon me. 

eckhart tolle says that, to love is to recognize yourself in another. i have never experienced something as deep as this, nor have i ever seen myself in y/n – and i'm glad i don't. my insecurities, my flaws, what i dislike about myself, are my own. however, i know she sees something i don't, and i trust that. i trust her, with my entire being. without her, i'd have no clue of my purpose. to younger me, who is still wondering the answer to that, i propose this.

your purpose is to love. love beyond your ways, love selflessly. love selfishly, like it's all you can do. like it's all you're capable of, because the moment you lay eyes on y/n? you will see, it is. loving her is all you can do. life without love is meaningless, life without her is hopeless.

temptaetions © 2024. no translations, reposting or modifications are allowed. do not claim as your own. viewer discretion is advised. your media consumption is your responsibility.

taglist: @cookiesandcreammy | @alician87

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[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Assorted Batkid Headcanons

During the middle days of Damian being Dick’s Robin, he was still figuring out how to show affection in a nonviolent way, so he just kept getting Dick fish. His logic was ‘Grayson has issues taking care of himself, so I will get him a pet that even he will find easy to care for’.

As a result Dick has an entire tank of various fish, all named Jim after Jim Gordon.

Dick finds this hilarious. Babs finds this hilarious. She’ll casually mention something ‘Jim’ did in conversation with her dad and watch as he bluescreens.

Tim has the pallet of a five year old. All he likes are exceedingly sugary sweet foods everyone else wants to puke while eating.

As a result, all he drinks are those stupidly sugary energy drinks that leave you seeing god after a few minutes. Is this unhealthy? No, it’s a liquid, therefor water, therefor good - Tim Drake.

Duke has purposefully broken his wrist to see if he would light up like a glowstick before. It didn’t work.

Cass shows her affection through objects, so a Batkid will often walk into their residence to find something like a metal bottle cap or a feather neatly placed on their table, without any security triggered or any other indication anyone was ever here. They all know to treasure these, no matter what they are.

Jason, given he’s built like a tank, will often hold things out of reach from people just to Be An Asshole. He loves it.

Damian used the same method of affection on Steph when she was his Batgirl, but had a bit more faith in her ability to not let something die, so he kept getting her small rodents, like hamsters and rats. She named them all after characters from Supernatural.

Stephanie had a huge Supernatural phase when she was 13 and never really grew out of it. She’s tried out summoning rituals from the show before.

Every single Batkid had a Warriors phase. Every. Single. One.

Dick was SO FUCKING HAPPY when Duke showed up because he finally had a brother who would happily give him a hug without having a panic attack due to TouchFuckery.

Steph has referred to the Batfam as “Furry Touchfucked McNuggets” before. No one questions it because she’s right.

Babs has designated snacks for every occasion. Program Taking Too Long To Load is Cheetos. Bruce Being a Bitchass On the Comms is popcorn. Done With This Bullshit For Good, I Swear is Twix.

Tim’s Notes app on this phone is entirely filled with sleep deprived 4am rants about why Star Trek is the superior franchise. He’s very passionate about it.

One time Bart was bored so decided to raid the pantry and he found Damian crouched on one of the top shelves, hissing like a cat and clutching a box of Weetabix. He took a picture and now it’s the YJ discord group icon.

Not exactly Batfam but the YJ Core Four + Cissie have a discord group chat and Tim’s the mod.

Damian loves Weetabix. Idk if anyone else knows what that is but that shit was my fucking childhood so he loves it.

Duke has tried and is currently trying to unionize all the kid sidekicks. They’re getting there.

Jason’s favorite authors are Mary Shelley and Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice is his comfort book that he often reads after patrolling as way to wind down. He fucking hates Edgar Allan Poe with a passion for reasons he refuses to explain.

Cass will sometimes teach some dance moves to little kids while on patrol. Sure, she knows it’s not stopping violence, but when she sees another little girl with scars on her palms and wary eyes light up as she twirls in the air and laugh as she leaps, she thinks it’s worth it. More than worth it.

Jason’s found her doing this sometimes. Neither of them say anything.

The Batkids all love Jon. Yeah, move over Damian, don’t keep him all to yourself. They may have their own supers/alien besties, but Jon is just adorable, and they all want to smoosh the cheeks of a kid who won’t attempt to stab them for it. Look, he’s so cute. The day anyone bullies Jon beware, because the entirety of Gotham’s vigilante force will be there to wreak havoc upon you.

[bqstqnbruin]

The Party's Over, Go Home

Hello hello here I am with my fic for @wyattjohnston's winter fic exchange!

I had the pleasure of writing for @sc0tters I hope you like it!

Shoutout to @kat-hearts @matthewtkachuk and @raysofcrosby for reading through this and getting mad at me :)

This is inspired by Intrusive Thoughts by Natalie Jane, Deserve by Jake Clark, and the Gilmore Girl's episode from season 5 called The Party's Over

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, family financial issues, this is angst, the spacebar on my computer is starting to break so typos (I tried)

WC: 11k

__________________________________

“We should do something tonight.”

“I was going to go to bed early, actually.”

“You do that every night.”

“What, are you stalking me now?”

“No,” Kendyl draws out. “You stop texting me by like, 8:30 every night. Your phone is on do not disturb half an hour later. Either you’re asleep early, or you’re ignoring everyone by then.”

Ellie narrows her eyes at her coworker. They still weren’t close enough that she felt she could comfortably hang out with the people she worked with outside of the workday. She had only been at her new job for a month, still getting the hang of things, trying to get to know people and figure everything out. Spending time outside her apartment with people who were practically strangers when she could be in her warm bed with her flannel sheets that she loved more than anything on this planet? “I don’t like that you picked up on that.” 

“Well, too bad,” Kendyl says, sitting down on Ellie’s desk. “A bunch of us are going out tonight, so why not?” Ellie hesitates to answer. “If it sucks, you can go home at ten. You’ll be in bed by 10:30, two hours later than normal. And it’s Friday, we don’t have work tomorrow for you to use that as an excuse as to why you have to get up early, and you already told me that the only thing you planned on doing this weekend was laundry and cleaning.”

Ellie let out a long sigh. Maybe Kendyl did know her well enough to be able to call her out on her shit already. “God.”

“I don’t know if you’re religious or not to know if that’s a yes.”

“Fine,” she says, shuddering at Kendyl’s squeal of excitement. “But you’re buying at least one round and I get to leave at 9:30 if I want to.” 

“Deal.” 

Ellie’s day was full of dread, from spending the rest of work distracted about having to go out with seemingly everyone at her job, so the stress involved with getting ready and trying to look like someone who was actually 24, not the ‘1980’s power boss bitch without the hair and shoulder pads’ as Kendyl had described her multiple times, even down to walking to the bar that Kendyl had picked that felt way too conveniently down the street from her apartment. 

“I’m surprised you even had someone convince you to go out,” her younger brother, Alex, says on the other end of their phone call. As soon as he saw Ellie leaving her apartment on Find My Friends, he called her panicked that something was wrong. “You never went out in college. I had to beg you to go to that one party the time I visited you.”

“That’s because you were still seventeen and Mom would have killed me if she found out you went.”

“She knew I was going to try anyway.”

“I’m going out because I was promised free drinks and the prospect of going home early if I want to. It’s not like I’m being forced to go out against my will.” 

“I promised you free drinks.” 

“Alexander.”

“Eleanor. Just be safe, ok? Let me know when you get home.”

“You sound like Mom.”

“If I were Mom, I would be yelling at you for not wearing a jacket.”

“How do you know I’m not wearing a jacket?”

“You never wear a jacket. Mom has been yelling at you about that since you were five.” 

Ellie lets out a laugh, a sudden chill coursing through her when she realizes she can see her breath. “How is Mom, have you checked in on her?’

“Yes, Ellie.”

“In person?”

“Yes, Ellie. She’s good. At least, she says she is.” 

The two of them stay on the phone in silence for a moment, knowing what he really means. Ellie and Alex hated the topic of how their mom was doing, but if they didn’t talk about it with each other, who else did they have? Their mom and Alex still live in the same area even if Alex was away at college and living in a dorm rather than with her. Ellie was on the other side of the continent now, for a job that she barely had any friends at, in a city she still barely knew, surrounded by things she wasn’t used to. 

“Hey, I’m outside the bar now, I’ll talk to you later?” she ends the call, taking in one last deep breath before heading into what she was sure was going to be 

“You came!” Kendyl yells once Ellie finally manages to get into the bar. “Here’s the first drink.”

Before Ellie could even tell Kendyl she wasn’t ready yet to start drinking, the drink was pressed to her chest and nearly spilled down the front of her. Despite it being early enough in the night that no one should be drunk by now, Kendyl and the rest of her coworkers seemed to be well on their way with Ellie needing more drinks than she could count to catch up. 

The night goes by slowly, the drinks going away fast, and Ellie sitting in the corner while her coworkers, who are obviously close, talk about a bunch of inside jokes from before she was hired that Ellie was unable to participate in.

“Remember when he ordered the wrong cake?” Wesley slurs, punching Doug in the shoulder.

“I swear she told me to say, ‘Happy Retirement,’” Douglas defends himself.

“It was my 28th birthday, not my retirement?” Hazel says, everyone except Ellie bursting into a fit of laughter.

“What about when Sammy dialed 911 during the meeting?” Kendyl adds through wheezes, the remains of her drink nearly spilling on Ellie’s shirt, again.

“It fell out of my pocket and bounced weird!”

“How does a bouncing phone dial 911?”

“That’s the set up to a bad pick up line.”

“More like the setup to a story that makes no sense,” Ellie mutters, thankful that her coworker's howling laughter was too loud to hear her.

She gets up from the table, draining her drink on her way to the bar. It was only 9:15. She promised Kendyl 15 more minutes. The least she could do was down another drink in that time before pulling her classic Irish exit to go home and get in bed. 

“Rum and coke?” she asks once she gets up to the bar, the sticky wooden counter acting as anything but inviting for her to lean on. 

“Me, too, and put it on my tab,” someone says behind her, Ellie’s face immediately turning sour at the thought of some guy buying her a drink to probably get her to hook up with him.

“My friend is paying for it, actually,” she turns to him, surprised to find a seemingly innocent-looking guy around her age and not the middle-aged gross man she thought he would be. Anything was possible, and looks can be deceiving.

“Which friend, the one who almost spilled her drink on you or the one of the ones who have been ignoring you the entire night and letting you sit in silence while they have a good time around you?”

“I already don’t like you.” 

“My friends pointed you out and said you were me when they drag me out to bars.”

“So you’re the friend who they barely know and who they only invited out of pity?”

“That’s dark. But also, kinda hot,” he says, the pink rushing to his cheeks as he turns away out of embarrassment. “Sorry, um. I’m going to go sit down now.”

“You haven’t gotten your drink yet,” Ellie points out, his sudden bashfulness making Ellie soften for him. “I just moved here. I don’t really know any of them too well.”

“I know what that’s like,” he tells her, leaning against the bar. 

“You’re not from here, either?”

He shakes his head. “Born in Orlando, moved to Boston, then moved to Toronto, and kept going from there.” 

“That sounds unstable,” she says, passing one of the newly appeared glasses of alcohol to the guy in front of her.

He shrugs, lifting the drink to his lips. “Well, they say you are a product of your environment.” 

Ellie lets out a laugh, the first one that she had let out all night. “That’s dark. But also, kinda hot,” she repeats, the pink returning to his cheeks again.

“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”

“Depends on how long we keep talking.”

“Hopefully it lasts past tonight.”

“It can’t if you don’t tell me your name. I’m Ellie.”

“I’m Quinn.”

Ellie loses count of how many drinks Quinn gets her, how long they’re talking, and when all of her coworkers leave the bar, not even telling her that they were leaving without her. 

She could feel the warmth of the alcohol coursing through her body, the bar getting busier the longer she and Quinn stood there. Someone shoves in between Ellie and whoever is behind her, pushing her into Quinn’s arms without her being able to catch her balance. His hand falls to the small of her back, spreading out to hold her steady. They stood there in silence, the rest of the bar a world away from them. 

“Are you ok?” Quinn whispers in her ear, his breath tickling her skin. 

Ellie stammers for a second, trying to process what just happened. The alcohol was making everything foggy, and the room starting to spin slightly around her as if Quinn was rocking her back and forth. “Um, I, yes?”

His eyes flickered down to her lips, the distance between them closing with each additional person, he was so close to kissing her. 

“I should go home,” Ellie says before he can, knowing that kissing him now would not be a good idea for either of them. 

His grip on her doesn’t relax, the disappointment Ellie expected to show up on his face not there at all. “I’m walking you home,” he tells her, slipping his hand into hers before she can protest. 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“I want to.” 

The difference in temperature between the bar and outside hit Ellie faster than she could process it, her lack of jacket her brother had scolded her for earlier biting her in the ass harder than the cold was in the moment.

Ellie didn’t even process Quinn taking off his own coat, the one she didn’t even realize he had been wearing the entire time, and putting it around her shoulders before wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close. 

She was on autopilot, unsure how she managed to navigate her way to her apartment when her mind was on Quinn’s body pressed against hers. She just met him. She didn’t know much about him. She didn’t even know what he did for work and only knew that he had two brothers who lived in New Jersey even though that wasn’t one of the places that he mentioned living before. 

“Here,” Ellie barely gets out, surprised with herself for managing to get back to the right place. 

“Do you want me to walk you to your door?” Quinn asks, shoving his hands in his pockets when he finally lets go of her. 

“No, it’s fine.” 

Ellie goes to take off the jacket and give it back to him, the warmth something her drunk self quickly realized she was going to miss. “No, keep it. It looks better on you anyway,” Quinn tells her, pulling his things out of his pockets before turning away to head off.

She stands there for a few seconds, trying to process what had happened that night. 

“Wait, no,” Quinn says, appearing again in front of her. “I can’t leave without getting your number first.” 

“I couldn’t even tell you what my number is right now,” she admits, handing him her phone instead.

Quinn laughs, putting his number in. “I want to see you again, Ellie.”

She smirks at him. “We’ll see, Quinn.” 

___________________

“What do you mean you’re not bringing anyone?”

“No one said I had to bring anyone.” 

“Everyone brings someone. You have to bring a date to the holiday party.”

“Then why was one of the options on the RSVP ‘no’ to the question ‘will a guest be accompanying you?’”

Kendyl whines, earning a cringy look from Ellie. “You have no one you can bring?” 

Ellie rolls her eyes, leaning back in her desk chair. “Let’s see, I’ve been here for like, what, two months? I knew no one when I got here, I hate going out and don’t have anywhere to meet anyone, and somehow none of you here know anyone either. Who would I bring?”

“What about that guy you met at the bar that one time? I see his name popping up on your phone all the time.”

Ellie snatches her phone from her desk and holds it against her chest as Kendyl cranes her neck to see that her statement is actually fact, three messages from Quinn, a fourth appearing while they were talking. “You need to learn what a boundary is.”

“And you need to learn what the Focus feature is on your phone when you’re showing me things because his name always shows up.” 

She couldn’t invite Quinn to the party. She barely knew him, she couldn’t throw him into the party with a bunch of her coworkers who she also barely knew, putting her phone back on the desk without thinking. “He’s probably busy.”

Kendyl rolls her eyes, snatching Ellie’s phone from her desk before she can protest, fiddling with it while Ellie tries to process what could possibly be happening in front of her. “He’s not.”

“What?”

“He’s not busy.” 

“Ken, what did you do?” Kendyl hands Ellie back her phone, a quick conversation with Quinn on her screen, ‘Ellie’ asks him what he was doing the night of the holiday party and he immediately answers that he is free. “Why are you like this?” 

Kendyl shrugs, slowly backing away from Ellie’s desk. “You had fun talking to him at the bar, enough fun that he responded to you within seconds of being asked if he was free.” 

Ellie looks back at her phone as Kendyl finally leaves her alone. The whole idea of having to bring a date seemed archaic in a way that Ellie couldn’t quite put her finger on. Why did she have to bring someone she barely knew to a party with more people she barely knew?

But she really did know Quinn better than she was letting on. She still didn’t know what he did with his life, him weirdly making her promise not to look him up, which made Ellie immediately question if he was a serial killer. He wasn’t, allegedly, but that still didn’t make sense. 

She knew that he was from the States, went to school there until he left early for whatever job he had. He has two younger brothers, and apparently is known amongst his friends for looking like he was having a nonstop existential crisis, while also being nicknamed ‘Huggy Bear.’ She also knew that he was sweet, and listened to her when she went off on a tangent about something, him following right along and matching the energy she had. She knew that she wanted to see him again every night since she had met him that first time, and that he wanted the same thing.

His name came up on her phone, a call from him. “Hi, sorry, it’s easier to talk than text right now.”

“Why are you out of breath?”

“Workout.” Must be nice to have a job where he can just go and work out in the middle of the day, Ellie thinks to herself. “So, the 18th?”

“Yeah,” Ellie lets out, suddenly nervous. It felt like she was asking him for something much more serious than just going with her to an office party. “It’s the holiday party for my company, and apparently everyone needs to bring a date.”

“And you want me to find you one?”

Ellie’s jaw drops at his comment. “No, idiot, I wanted to bring you.” 

“Oh, thank god. I was running through my friends who would go and none of them are good enough for you.”

Ellie could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks at his comment. Did he consider this a date? Was it a date? Was it bad if she considered it a date and he didn’t? What if he didn’t? Why was her mind running at a mile a minute while Quinn was there on the other end of her phone waiting for her to say something else? “So that’s a yes?”

“Of course, it’s a yes. It’s one of the few nights I have off, I want to spend it with you.”

The next days went by in a blur, Ellie freaking out over everything from what she was going to wear, texting and calling Quinn even more, wishing that they could see each other sooner.

“It’s not obsessive, is it?” she asks Kendyl, staring at herself in the mirror. Kendyl insisted on coming over to Ellie’s place to get ready, telling her that her roommate had their partner over that night and the last thing she needed to do was try to use the bathroom to get rid when they had a habit of taking it over for more than a few hours.

“No, El, you just like him. I think it becomes obsessive when you start to stalk him and you show up to where he works unprovoked.” 

“Why do you say that like you’ve either done that or you’ve had that happen to you?”

“I’ll let you decide which one is better. What time is Quinn coming?”

“He’s supposed to get here in ten minutes.” 

“Just breathe, El. You’re going to have fun.” Kendyl left her to finish getting herself ready, her date already waiting outside to take her to the party. They could have all gone together, as pointed out by Kendyl, but it was better to not throw Quinn directly into the fire that was her closest coworker. 

Ellie’s phone starts ringing, not checking but expecting it to be Quinn calling to tell her he was early. She pops out of her seat to head to the door, picking up the phone and answering with an excited “Hi!”

“Eleanor?” 

Ellie stops in her tracks, her mom’s voice coming over her phone speaker. “Mom?”

“Sweetie, can you do me a favor?” 

Ellie felt her heart drop to her stomach, already knowing what her mom was going to ask her. It was the same thing that her mom always asked since she first got a job when she was in high school, every time she answered the phone while she was getting her degree, no matter where Ellie was in her life, it was never a call that a mother should have to make to one of her children this often. “Mom,” she lets out, knowing that she couldn’t say no.

“Please, Eleanor. I need the money. I, I-” 

“Mom, you promised,” Ellie cuts her off, not wanting to hear anymore even though she knew her mom would keep going.

“I thought I would get a raise before they sent the eviction notice this time.”

“Mom,” Ellie says, more exasperated this time. “You have to stop doing this. You do this to me every time.” 

“Alexander can’t help this time.”

Ellie heard a knock at her door, not even processing the fact that she should be looking through the peephole to make sure it wasn’t a murderer, opening it, and letting whoever it was in. Thankfully, it was Quinn, waving him in and motioning to give her a moment.

“Alex is still in college, already struggling because you’re no help. He shouldn’t have to give you anything in the first place.”

Quinn stands there, clearly uneasy at listening to only Ellie’s end of the conversation but following Ellie into her room regardless. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed while he watches Ellie continue to get ready. 

“But you said last time that I couldn’t ask you again.”

“I didn’t mean for you to ask my little brother.”

“Eleanor, please. He’ll have nowhere to come home to. I’ll have nowhere to go home to.”

“What happened to everything you had last time I asked you?”

“It went towards all of the other bills, I promise. I’ll send you every confirmation for every bill I have.” 

“You’re not lying to me this time?”

“I’m not, I swear!”

“How many months did Alex cover?”

“Only half of one month.”

“How many months are you behind?”

“I swear I used everything I had to pay-”

“Mom, how many months are you behind?” Ellie knew she was raising her voice, forgetting that Quinn was even behind her. She stopped putting her makeup on at this point, knowing that the tears that were about to fall were going to ruin what she had already on, anyway. 

“Four.”

“Fuck, Mom.”

“Please?” her mom’s voice comes through, small and on the brink of breaking. “I know I’m still paying you back from last time. But what else am I supposed to do?’

“I’m sending it now,” she tells her, hanging up before her mother could say anything else. Ellie forgot Quinn was standing there in her doorway, putting her phone down on her vanity and putting her face in her hands. This couldn’t be happening again. Not again.

Quinn clears his throat, causing Ellie to jump. “Should I go?” he asks, creeping into her room.

Ellie wipes the tears from her cheeks, cursing herself mentally for now having to redo the makeup she already took too long to do the first time. “Uh,” she stammers, “No, no. I’ll be ready in a second.”

“Ellie,” Quinn kneels on the floor next to her, gently placing his hand on her thigh. “We don’t have to go to this.” 

“No, it’s fine, I’m fine.”

“El.” 

Ellie finally turned to him, the genuine concern on his face causing her to burst into tears. He reached up and pulled her close to him, his one hand on her back, the other holding her head on his shoulder, letting her cry on his white shirt. She hears him let out a quiet shushing noise, trying to comfort her in the way she had needed for so long. She cried for so long that she didn’t know how much time passed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he whispers when she finally stops crying, not moving from their position. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She never told anyone about the stuff with her mom. Ellie had been holding it in for years, going from friend to friend, place to place, never letting this out with anyone who wasn’t her younger brother, the one person who would understand and who she knew also understood what it was like. 

But there was something about Quinn. She thought she could trust him, for whatever reason. She never told her ex-boyfriends in college or high school, despite the fact that this had been going on since then. 

Ellie takes in a deep breath. “The only people who know this are me, my mom, and my brother, do you understand?” she asks him, watching him nod. “It started, I think, when my dad left. I was probably 10? Alex was 6, maybe?  I don’t even remember, honestly. This probably started before Dad left, Alex and I think it’s why he left. But our mother is absolutely shit when it comes to money. Like, put us in debt every few months that then somehow fell to us as her children to bail her out.” 

“God,” Quinn lets out, Ellie continuing over him.

“I think we realized it was getting bad when she told us we were moving somewhere smaller right before I was starting high school, out of the blue, when we had already moved to ‘somewhere smaller’ three times in four years. Normally she said she had been planning it because we, of course, needed somewhere to live, and she didn’t like where we were, but that was weird. I didn’t realize it was because we had been evicted every single time until I found the seven eviction notices my second year of high school from the last three times and a notice that we were getting evicted that year, too.”

“Ellie, I’m so sorry,” he tells her, pulling her back in for a hug. 

She sighed, knowing that there was nothing more he could say. “At this point it’s normal, it’s just still frustrating when she tells me and Alex that she’s fine and that she has the money for everything, and then out of nowhere, tells us she hasn’t paid the rent for her current place in four months. Like, do you know what it’s like to have your mother owe you nearly a hundred thousand dollars because of how much she keeps needing?”

“I can’t even imagine.” The two of them sit in silence for a moment, neither of them sure what to do next. 

“I’m glad you can’t. It fucking sucks,” she says, turning back to her vanity mirror. “God, I don’t even want to go to this stupid party anymore.” 

“Hey, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can stay here, we can go to my place, we can go somewhere else, we can do anything.”

“We?”

“I don’t want to leave you, Ellie. I came tonight because I wanted to spend time with you,” Quinn tells her, taking her hand in his. “If you’ll let me, I’ll take you wherever you want.” 

“You don’t have to.”

“Ellie, I want to be with you.” 

___________________

“Kendyl, I told you, I’m hanging out with Quinn and the rest of the guys tonight.” 

“Can I please come?”

“Absolutely not.” 

“But you’re dating the captain of the fucking Vancouver Canucks. You have to bring your best friend along with you.” 

“Alexander can’t come tonight either.”

“Ok, rude.”

Ellie was already nervous about meeting Quinn's teammates. It had taken a while for her to wrap her head around that he was not only a hockey player, but a professional one, and the actual captain of the team. Honestly, she didn’t see it coming. She had heard so much about Elias and Brock that she felt like she knew them at this point. She hadn’t even met them. As close as she had gotten to Kendyl in the last six months she spent at her job, and as much time as they spent together outside of work when she wasn’t with Quinn, she didn’t need Kendyl mixed into the group. 

“Let me meet them first, then we can talk about you meeting them, ok?” she tries to assure her, hearing a knock at her door. “I’ve gotta go, Quinn is here.”

She hangs up on Kendyl before she can protest, slightly worried that she would use the ‘Find my friends’ feature to just stalk the house they were going to and end up on the doorstep uninvited. 

“Hi,” she opens the door, stopping for a second to take him in. God, she hated how hard she fell for him in a short amount of time. He was perfect to her at that moment. 

He pulled her in for a kiss, one that made her wish they were staying in rather than heading to spend time with his friends. “Hi,” he whispers, kissing her again before pulling away. “You look amazing, as always.”

“I’m wearing jeans and a sweater,” she counters.

“And?” He could say anything to her with that stupid smile on his face and make her swoon. “Ready?”

They head out to his car, Ellie’s heart racing as they get closer and closer to Thatcher’s house. She wasn’t great with meeting large groups of people all at once, despite being in a new school nearly every year of her awkward teenage years and being forced to interact with new people every time. 

“Hey,” Quinn says, resting his hand on her thigh as he drives down the highway, giving her a gentle squeeze to try to calm her down. “You’re going to like the guys. And they’re going to love you.”

“Yeah?” she says, her voice shaking slightly. 

“How could they not?” he asks, taking her hand and bringing to his lips, his eyes glued to the road in front of them so he couldn’t see her melting at his words and his touch. “You’ll get along great with Elias.”

“He’s the one from Sweden?”

“Yeah,” Quinn tells her, pulling into the driveway of a house so massive Ellie wasn’t sure people could actually live in it. It was certainly bigger than anything she could have ever dreamed of being near, let alone being invited to. “He’s got kind of a dry humor. You’ll like him.”

Ellie takes in a deep breath, feeling incredibly inadequate just getting out of his car and standing on the pavement of a place like Thatcher’s house. Maybe she should have invited Kendyl. 

Quinn takes her hand, pulling her along to the door when everything inside her was telling her to turn around and just run. There was no way she was good enough to be in this house, not with everything in her life, not when Quinn and his teammates had everything they could possibly want at the tips of their fingers. 

He stops at the door, pulling her close to him, dropping her hand, and cupping her face to kiss her again, calming her immediately. “Hi,” he breathes when he pulls away.

“Hi again. What was that for?” she asked, his hands slipping down to her waist, sending a shiver through her entire body as he traced her sides. 

“I’m going to want to do that so many times tonight, but I know the guys will tease us for it. I’ve gotta do what I can now.” 

That shouldn’t have made her feel the way it did. He could say or do anything at this point and she would melt. 

They go inside, the house loud and full of people despite Quinn telling her that it was just supposed to be a ‘small get-together.’ Everything in the house looked expensive, Ellie’s anxiety immediately spiking. She followed Quinn blindly through the house, all of his teammates talking to him and him introducing her to all of them while she stood there nearly mute over the sheer stimulus overload that was all around her. She barely noticed the drinks that found their way in hers and Quinn's hands, drinking once she saw Quinn drinking it, as well. 

“Elias is right over here,” he whispers in her ear, his hand still in hers and giving her a reassuring squeeze as he leads her off into one of the side rooms. The room was quieter, the lights dimmer, and had a lot less people than any of the other rooms. 

“You got here half an hour ago and you’re just making it in here?” one of the guys asks as she and Quinn sit next to each other on the couch. “Ellie, you have to get him to go faster through the greetings next time. I cannot be left alone with Brock for this long.”

She looks at Quinn, confused as to how they already know her name. 

“You know I have to say hi to everyone, I’m captain.”

“As captain, you should be able to do one big greeting and let that be it so you can seclude yourself in a separate room where you don’t have to talk to everyone else,” one of the other guys said.

“Every time you talk, Brock, you add more to the long list of why you would make a horrible captain.”

“I would be a great captain.” 

“Elias, Brock, jeez.” 

“You know you can’t leave us alone for too long.” 

Ellie gets lost in their conversation, not even being able to contribute to what they were saying because their verbal sparring is so fast and so specific to their history with each other, she wouldn’t even know where to begin. Quinn puts his arm around her, pulling her closer to him by her waist. He looks at her while Brock and Elias continue bickering, smiling at her and giving her a soft kiss on her forehead. 

The guys interrupt them, jeering and teasing them to the point where Ellie has her face buried in Quinn’s shoulder, trying to hide from the embarrassment. “So, Ellie, what do you see in El Capitan here?” Brock asks, giving the most obnoxious facial expression possible.

“You do not have to answer that,” Elias tells her. “Brock has no idea how to interact with anyone, just ignore him.”

“That’s not true.” 

“You thought a good pick up line to use on a girl was ‘you dropped something, my jaw,’ the other night and then were shocked when she just turned and walked away,” Elias says, earning a laugh from Ellie and Quinn.

“You have definitely taken a girl out on a date and then talked about yourself the entire time,” Quinn adds, Brock shrinking further into his seat. 

“You look like the kind of guy that would go to a bookstore and pretend to look lost to see if a girl would talk to you,” Ellie adds, sending the guys into a frenzy. 

“He wouldn’t have to pretend to be lost,” Elias says, poking a pouting Brock in the leg. “You should come around more, Ellie.”

“She’s spent too much time with Quinn already,” Brock whines, Quinn pulling her so she’s practically in his lap, kissing her cheek.

“I told you,” he whispers, just loud enough for only her to hear. “I need you to come around more, too.” Ellie turns to him, her cheeks burning before they both burst out laughing. “That sounded horrible.”

The four of them fall into an easy conversation, the three boys doing everything they can to make Ellie feel included, not shying away from teasing her like they were each other earlier. She felt comfortable. 

Ellie eventually excused herself to go to the bathroom and get more drinks for her and Quinn, the alcohol finally hitting her. She barely finds her way back to the room the guys were in, Thatcher’s house seeming much bigger now that she wasn’t sober and much harder to navigate without Quinn taking her around.

She didn’t mean to listen to their conversation, standing on other side of the opening without them seeing her.

“Brock, I swear, if brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t be able to blow your fucking nose,” she hears Elias say, stiffling a laugh as Brock mumbles something about not meaning to spill his drink on Elias.

“Anyway,” Quinn grunts, sounding like he was getting off the floor.

“Ellie is awesome, by the way,” Elias says, Ellie sure she missed some sort of segue that could have led the conversation from Brock to Ellie.

“She’s snarky,” Brock adds, Ellie hearing a smack and Brock letting out a cough. “That’s not a bad thing.” 

“I met her by accident but I cannot think about what it would be like without her now,” she hears Quinn say, Ellie trying to figure out if she actually heard him right. That sounded like he was much more serious about her than she thought he was. 

“Woah, Quinn,” Elias says. “You met her a few months ago.”

“God, I know,” she hears Quinn let out. “But you know how you just know sometimes? You run into this person one day and they just make your life better?”

“You guys made my life worse since I met you,” Brock mutters. “I say goodnight to her every night and I can’t wait until I can say good morning to her the next day.” 

“You’re a simp.”

“Can you blame me? She’s perfect.”

Ellie finally enters the room, trying her best to pretend that she didn’t just hear everything Quinn told his friends, the ones he told her he would trust with anything. It had to mean something that they already knew who she was before coming and that he could tell them those things unprovoked.

Quinn lights up at the sight of her, giving her another kiss and wrapping his arms around her when she sits down. “You took a bit,” he comments. 

“This house is confusing,” she lies.

Elias and Brock continue to bicker while ignoring Ellie and Quinn. Ellie eventually finishes her drink, along with the third one that Brock had managed to hand off to her at some point, sinking down so her head was in Quinn’s lap.

“How often do you think about the future?”

“I mean, I’m normally thinking about what I’m making for my next meal once I finish the one I’m eating.”

Ellie groans, their hands intertwined and in constant movement, suddenly regretting how much they had both had to drink. She looks up at him, a smile on her face despite the look on his that told her he had absolutely no thoughts behind those eyes. “Like, us in the future. Our future.”

“Huh,” Quinn starts, “I don’t know. I like us right now where we are.” 

Ellie nods, trying to hide the disappointment that she felt. Why could he tell Elias and Brock what he thought about her, but not tell her? He hadn’t even called her his girlfriend to her face, yet. Were they even boyfriend and girlfriend yet? Was it too early to even ask, or should she even ask at all?

They were staying over at Thatcher’s house at this point, neither of them in the position to drive, Elias and Brock electing to stay on the couches. Quinn pulls her up and kisses her, a yawn escaping her after he pulls away. “Want to head to bed? Thatch said we can snag one of the guest rooms.”

Ellie nodded, Quinns hand in hers as he lead her down the hallway. She should be nervous, the first night they were spending together completely unplanned and in one of his teammates house instead of somewhere special. 

But it was with Quinn.

She was fine.  

___________________

“When are you going to be ready?” 

“When I am.”

“You’re taking way too long.” 

“I am not taking too long, you got ready too quickly.”

“Kendyl, I took an hour to get ready to meet Quinn and his friends, and you started getting ready before I got here,” Ellie groans, lying down on Kendyl’s bed. The group chat Ellie had with Quinn and the guys was blowing up, asking where Ellie and Kendyl were. After meeting Kendyl a while back, Quinn was convinced she would be the person to set Brock straight. Ellie wasn’t convinced, but what was the harm of introducing them?

“I’m meeting a Canuck, tonight, El, I have to look good.”

Ellie sits up, looking at Kendyl in her mirror. She knew her friend was nervous. No matter what she could say, nothing would change. “I promise you, you could wear nothing more than a trash bag and Brock would be drooling over you.” 

Kendyl took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”

“Ken, you’re beautiful. You’re funny. You can verbally spar with anyone to get what you want at any time. If you decide you want something to happen with Brock, there’s no way he wouldn’t agree to it.”

Kendyl nods, finally getting up and grabbing Ellie’s hand and her coat to drag her out the door. 

“Are we sure we’re going to have fun?” Kendyl asks, the shaking in her voice something Ellie had never heard before.

“You sound like me now.” It was still winter in Vancouver, the below freezing temperatures combined with the warmest bar appropriate outfits they had not enough to actually keep them warm as they walked through the city to meet all of the guys. 

“What are they like? I only know Quinn.”

Ellie has to stop and think for a moment. How did she even begin to describe them? “I think you just have to wait and see. Quinn is nothing like them.” 

“Oh, my god, you hate your boyfriend's friends.”

“No, what?” Ellie asks, unable to hide her laughter. “I really like his friends. I’m getting closer with Elias and Brock is definitely good for a laugh when you need it.” 

Kendyl nods, both of them shivering as they walk. Quinn had such a warm jacket, Ellie thought back to the night the two of them met. She wouldn’t have been able to see herlife with Quinn coming. She thought Kendyl was just an annoying coworker, Quinn would be just a hook up, and that she would end up having to move home because of her mom and Alex. She never thought it would be this. 

They get to the bar after feeling like they were walking forever, Quinn making a beeline to Ellie as soon as they made eye contact. “God, I’m happy you’re here,” he slurs, planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

“Wow, you’re already drunk,” she points out, trying to push him away slightly. Quinn had told her they were going into a break in the season, so getting drunk was necessary. She had seen him a little drunk, more tipsy than anything, but never like this, and never in public. “Let’s get you some water, babe.”

Quinn lets out a giggle, slinging his arm around Ellie while she focuses on him instead of getting Kendyl over to Brock. She looks around the bar for her friend, or at least one of the guys to hopefully help her make sure he doesn’t go much farther than he already was with the alcohol. 

“Ellie, right?” she hears from behind her as she sets Quinn down at the booth in the back where the rest of the guys were seated. She turns around, one of the new guys in the office standing behind her, glass of beer in hand. 

“Uh, yeah, hey. Dylan, right?”

“Declan, actually,” he corrects her, a quick apology escaping her lips. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, I just saw Kendyl over by the bar and she mentioned you were here. I wanted to say hi.”

Even though it was darker in the bar, Ellie swears she saw him blushing, fidgeting and acting nervous in front of her. The guys didn’t seem to notice she was even standing there, but Declan seemed to be trying to take in everything about her. 

“Are you here with anyone?” she asks, feeling Quinn pull her into his lap, Ellie falling without an ounce of grace down towards him. “Sorry, this is my boyfriend, Quinn, and some of his friends.”

“Uh, hi,” he says, Ellie feeling Quinns arms wrap tighter around her as Declan talks, “I’m here with my roommate, but I lost him about half an hour ago.” 

“You should join us then,” Quinn says, moving him and Ellie further into the booth to make room for Declan. The tone in his voice told her he really didn’t want to do that. 

Kendyl finally comes back with drinks, Quinn taking the beer that was meant for Ellie and downing it much faster than he should have. Brock was already captivated by Kendyl as soon as she sat down, Elias rolling his eyes as he was making a fool of himself, Kendyl finding it weirdly endearing.

“So, Deacon,” Quinn starts, much louder than he should have been. “How do you know my girlfriend?”

“Uh,” Declan says, as caught off guard by Quinn’s sudden shift in mood as Ellie is, “I work with her. Just started about a month ago.”

Quinn nods. “What did you do before this?”

“I was a nurse in the ICU at Vancouver General.” 

“Couldn’t handle it, Derek?” 

“Quinn, what?” Ellie scoffs. 

Declan coughs, clearly getting uncomfortable fast. “It was a lot, so no. I liked helping people, but seeing traumatic thing after traumatic thing takes a toll on you really fast. So I went back to school and ended up with Ellie and Kendyl.” 

“Ah, a college degree.” 

“Quinn,” Ellie hissed. She didn’t like where this was going, Quinn holding on to Ellie like he was marking his territory. 

“I actually don’t have my degree, yet.”

“Interesting thing to brag about?” Declan says, nervously sipping on his beer. 

“Well, it’s hard to finish when you get called up to play with the Canucks, you know?”

Declan shrugs. “Is that the CFL team? I don’t follow sports.”

Ellie gets off Quinns lap, pushing Declan aside and dragging Quinn along with her. She didn’t need to hear what Quinn was going to say next. He was starting to act like a jackass and she didn’t want to see more. 

The two of them end up outside, the cold hitting Ellie like a slap in face. “What is wrong with you? He wasn’t doing anything for you to act like that to him.”

“I don’t like him,” Quinn pouts.

“You just met him.”

“I don’t like people who are trying to take my girl.”

Ellie can’t help but scoff. “‘Take your girl?’ What, am I your property? Did you get a good dowry? How many sheep did you have to give my family in exchange for your hand?”

Quinn rolls his eyes. “Come on, Ellie.”

“No, Quinn, you come on. He wasn’t hitting on me. He doesn’t even know me to like me.”

“Of course he likes you, Ellie, look at you.” Quinn takes a step closer to her, suddenly getting softer towards her. “You’re so pretty. You’re so smart. You know what to do with everything.” 

“If he likes me, that doesn’t matter,” Ellie snaps, still annoyed with him. “I don’t like him. I like you. I’m dating you. That should be enough for you to not act like an asshole towards him.”

Quinn hangs his head. “I’m sorry.” 

“You should be saying that to him.”

The two of them stand there in the cold in silence, Ellie not wanting to budge and Quinn wanting her to go with him. “Come with me?”

Ellie bites her lip, her mood ruined because of him in just a short amount of time. “I think I’m going to go home. I’m tired, anyway.”

“Let me walk you?” Just like the night they met.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll let you know when I’m back.”

They stand there for another moment, Quinn making the first move to pull Ellie in for a kiss. “I love you, Ellie.”

Ellie hadn’t been thinking about love with him yet. She wasn’t there yet. “Goodnight, Quinn,” she told him, turning and walking away, leaving him there on the sidewalk.

___________________

“Have you ever loved anyone?” 

“Uh, you.”

“Not that kind of love, idiot.”

“Oh, um. I was in love with Tess Virtue for a while there.”

“While I get that, I still don’t mean that kind of love, Alex.” 

Alex laughs on the other end of the call, Ellie getting ready for work while he got ready for class. “El, you’re the older sister here, aren’t I supposed to be asking you this?”

Ellie and Quinn were in a weird place since Ellie left that night. She had hoped that Quinn was too drunk to remember that he had told her loved her and Ellie’s response was just to walk away. She didn’t know if she was in love with him. She knew she wanted to be with him. She didn’t know if she loved him.

“I mean,” Ellie starts, not sure where to go. 

“Are you and Quinn ok?” Ellie tells her brother everything that happened, Alex staying silent for a few seconds after she finished. “Ellie, you did this last time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not to go psychology major on you,” Alex says, earning a groan from his sister, “But I think you’re more messed up from Dad leaving than you like to admit you are. You have what sounds like a solid relationship with this guy but you’re afraid that if you let him love you and you let yourself love him, that he’s going to leave just like Dad did. He left us with Mom and we never got that love back.” 

Ellie takes a deep breath. “Jesus. At least I know your degree is worth it.” 

“I could be wrong. I’m only six semesters into this degree, after all.”

“I hate you.” 

“I love you, too, El.” 

Everything goes back to her parents. There’s no reason she couldn’t love Quinn. 

She was in a daze on her commute to the office. Does she love him? Regardless of Alex’s psychoanalysis, even if their dad leaving them with their mom made her think anyone who would love her would leave, is she able to love him?

She wanted to be with him, but she didn’t know what it was like to love him.

“You look horrible,” Kendyl says, Declan trying not to make eye contact with her at their little desk clump, probably trying to not agree. 

“Thank you, for that,” Ellie huffs, dropping her bag on the floor before she falls into her chair. “I just had a weird morning. Don’t really want to talk about it.” 

The morning passes by in a blur, the menial tasks of her job at least giving Ellie something to take her mind off Quinn. Anytime her mind would start to wander, anytime she thought about him in any way, she would just switch back to work mode and force herself to do whatever it is she needed to do.

“Hey,” Ellie thinks she hears from behind her, someone sounding just like Quinn. She ignored it, figuring it was just her imagination and her officially losing her mind over what was going on in her relationship. “Babe?”

Ellie jumps, thoroughly surprised that Quinn was actually standing behind her. “I thought you were leaving for Florida today.”

Quinn pulls her up, kissing her hello, a soft look on his face that told Ellie that everything was ok. “We leave in a few hours, so I wanted to come by and surprise you. Do you have a minute?”

Ellie nods, following Quinn down to the lobby of the building. She knew that if she went somewhere in the office, Kendyl would probably have her ear glued to the other side of the wall of whatever room they were in to try to listen to their conversation. 

“So, you don’t love me,” Quinn lets out slowly, pausing a little between each word, breaking Ellie’s heart each time.

“God,” she lets out.

“It’s ok.” They stand in silence, what they had with each other when they first met already somehow dying off between them. “I’m ok.”

“I want to love you. You know I have other things going on that are messing with my mind. You know me.” 

Quinn rolls his eyes, Ellie taking a step back. “What, the stuff with your mom?” Ellie gives him a small nod. “You can’t keep using that as an excuse, Ellie,” he snaps.

Ellie recoils at his words, the person in front of her not the same one who told her would always be there for her when she needed him, that he would help if she would let him and that he wanted to be there, for her and with her, for everything. This was someone who wouldn’t do any of that. “It’s not an excuse. It’s my life, Quinn. You grew up never having to worry about coming home from school and learning that the lights were turned off, or getting scared that the heat would get cut off in the middle of the winter, or that you were two days away from living in a car,” she nearly yells at him, catching him off guard. “I’m sorry that it messed me up and I’m trying to fix it and at least be honest with you about it because I want to be with you.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you idiot. I want to be with you. But I don’t know what it’s like to be loved by someone who stays. I don’t know what it’s like to love someone who wants to stay. I think I love you, but I don’t think that my work is the place to figure it out.” 

Quinn smiles at her, hugging her and holding her tight, every part of her relaxing as he does so. “That’s all I need. That’s all I want.” 

___________________

“Ok, if we have to stay all night, then we’re ordering food.” 

“I never agreed to staying all night.” 

“Ellie, we have to get this done before we go home.”

“Yeah, but I have plans tonight. I’m not staying all night, extra pay or not.”

Declan groans, a stupid smile on his face. “Are you driving to these plans tonight?”

Ellie gets a bad feeling in her stomach, one that puts a smile on her face regardless. This project had forced them together much more often than Quinn probably would have liked if he found out. The client was demanding it be done three weeks faster than anticipated,which meant they had to get it done before Monday. “Nope. Why?” Declan gets up from the table the two of them and Kendyl are sitting at in the conference room to give them more space to spread out, running over to his desk and yanking one of the drawers open. “Dex, what are you doing?” Ellie calls.

The three of them had already been in the office much longer than everyone else, the rest of their colleagues having left early for the weekend while the three of them stayed behind.

Ellie had plans with Quinn that night for the first time in a while.

“Getting this,” Declan says, pulling her out of the spiraling thoughts she was having about her relationship.

He holds up three plastic red cups and a bottle of rum, the one alcohol that Ellie could stomach without any mixer, a sociopathic tendency as Kendyl would call it. “Why is that there?” Kendyl asks.

Declan shrugs, popping open the bottle with ease and pouring way more than a single shot into each of the cups. “One of the clients gave it to me as a thank you.”

“We never get alcohol as a thank you,” Ellie scoffs, Kendyl agreeing.

“Men,” Kendyl rolls her eyes.

Declan laughs, raising his cup to Ellie and clinking it against hers, downing it in a few seconds as he watches Ellie do the same. Both of them cough, the liquid burning down their throats much more than they were expecting, neither of them breaking eye contact with each other while forgetting Kendyl was there with them. “Alright, we work until we’re done. We refill when we need to.”

Ellie smiles at him, the warmth of the alcohol already coursing through her. Her phone starts buzzing, a call coming in from someone whose contact she can’t quite make out. “No phones.”

The three of them get to work, the sun setting without them realizing it as their phones keep buzzing over and over again. They weren’t even entirely sure what the project was that their boss was asking of them, but then again, when were they ever?

They had to have been working for at least two hours straight without moving, feeling like they hadn’t even made a dent in the amount of tasks they had for the project. “I need to go home,” Kendyl groans, rubbing her hands over her face.

“We need to finish this,” Ellie points out.

“We need more alcohol.” Declan gets up, already somehow emptying the bottle into their three cups. He winks at Ellie, yet again ignoring Kendyl and sending a chill down Ellie’s spine before heading back out of the conference room without another word. 

Kendyl squeals once he’s out of earshot, shaking Ellie’s arm. “Oh, my god, he is so obsessed with you.”

“He is not,” Ellie insists, the heat running to her cheeks at the thought of her coworker liking her. She’s dating Quinn. Dating a coworker is out of the question. Dating Delcan isn’t even a thought.

“Ellie, I’m not even here when he’s around. You two are flirting so much.”

“I’m not sure you know what flirting is.”

“What about Quinn?”

Ellie’s stomach churned at his name. “Quinn and I are fine,” she tells Kendyl, trying to ignore how high her voice got involuntarily. 

“El.”

“Ken.”

“You’re lying to me.” Ellie bites her lip, hating that Kendyl knew her well enough to tell. “What’s going on with you two? You were off last time I saw you together.”

Ellie sees Declan out of the corner of her eye shifting around the desks outside the conference room. “I have no idea.” Kendyl stays silent, Ellie feeling like she has to fill the space. “We see each other less and less now, part of it because of both our jobs right now.”

“Well, that makes sense, that happens.”

“But when we do spend time together, we don’t say anything. We barely talk anymore at all. It’s like we ran out of things to say.”

“Who has nothing to say?” Declan interrupts, plopping down in his chair with another bottle of rum.

“Ellie and Quinn. Why do you have another bottle?” Kendyl asks.

“I have many bottles. Who’s Quinn?” 

“Ellie’s boyfriend.” 

Declan just nods, giving Ellie an uneasy feeling as they both take a sip of their drinks again, the eye contact between them mixed with the alcohol making her mind spin. “We’re just going through a weird phase right now. We’ll get through it.”

Kendyl recaps what Ellie told her, unprompted, to Declan, who infuriatingly just sits there, the alcohol making him look way too attractive for Ellie’s liking. “You don’t want my opinion, do you?” he asks.

“Kendyl gives me hers all the time when I don’t want it, you might as well give yours.”

“You’re both busy. That happens.”

“See?” Ellie prods Kendyl. 

“But,” Declan starts again, Kendyl sticking her tongue out at Ellie like a child, “Being busy could also mean not being willing to make time for each other.” 

Ellie took in a deep breath, hating what he was saying. It wasn’t like he said that much, but he said enough. The room suddenly felt too small, the work too overwhelming, the alcohol hitting her all at once. “I’m going to go to the bathroom,” she says, practically running out of the room. 

Are she and Quinn not making enough time for each other? Are they just ending their relationship without saying that it’s over? She didn’t think she wanted to break up with him, but at this point, what was staying with him doing for her? 

Ellie looks at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know if it was the alcohol distorting her perception of herself or if it was the mirror that probably hadn’t been cleaned in a while, but she didn’t look like herself. She looked off. She had felt off for a while, but she had no idea why. 

Was it because of Quinn? Ellie had heard that to be loved was to be changed, but what happens when you don’t like how you’ve changed? How much should she fight to get things back to the way there were when they first started seeing each other? What has to happen for her to just give up instead?

“Hey, sorry,” Declan startles Ellie, causing her to lose her balance and stumble against the sink. “I’m sorry that I upset you.”

“No, uh,” Ellie starts, wiping a tear from her cheek she didn’t even know had fallen, “You didn’t upset me.”

“Can I ask you something?” Declan’s voice is gentle as he takes a step closer to you, waiting for her to nod. “If you aren’t happy, why are you still with him?”

Ellie shrugs, not wanting to look at him. If she looks, she’ll fall apart. “I love him. I do. He knows me better than anyone. I’ve told him things I haven’t told anyone outside of my family, not even Kendyl. But sometimes,” she takes in a breath, her voice shaking. “Sometimes I wonder if it was all for nothing. We have no time for each other anymore. I see Kendyl more than I see him.”

“Ellie,” he says, his voice low as he steps closer to her. She was sure he could hear her heart racing. 

She was dating Quinn.

Quinn.

“Oh, fuck,” Ellie practically yells. “What time is it?”

“Uh, 8:30.”

“Quinn was picking me up at 8:15.” Ellie runs from the bathroom, leaving Declan calling after her. She grabs her stuff from the conference room without saying a word to Kendyl. 

She hears Declan in the background, calling after her as she runs down the stairs, dropping things in the stairwell that she doesn’t bother to pick up. She was rattled, Quinn already waiting for what had now become twenty minutes without her so much as texting him back the entire time.

Declan catches up to her, everything she’s dropped in his hands when she bursts through the front door of the building, Quinn’s car at the curb with him leaning against it scrolling on his phone. He looks up, his eyes going between his disheveled girlfriend and the one guy that she talked to that he was worried about, equally out of breath and carrying her things, both of them looking panicked.

He could tell Ellie was drunk. He knew she was drinking with him.

“What is this, Ellie?” he asks, trying to keep a calm tone in his voice as best as he can.

Ellie starts stammering, the alcohol not helping her at all. “We were doing that project I told you about, we lost track of time. I know I’m late but I wasn’t looking at my phone so we could finish as fast as possible.”

Quinn takes in a deep breath, looking up to the sky so he didn’t have to see her reaction to what he was about to say. “Ellie, I know he likes you. I told you likes you the night I met him. And, I know you like him, even if you don’t realize it yet. What am I doing here?”

Ellie steps toward him, her legs starting to shake as she tried to process what he was saying. “Quinn, you’re taking me out. You said we were meeting the guys tonight.”

“No, Ellie. I am. You’re gonna stay here.You’re gonna finish the project. You’re going to spend the night with Declan. You should be with someone who has time for you.”

“Quinn.” 

“We’ve both been busy. We’ve both had way too many things going on to focus on each other. We deserve better. You deserve better.”

“Quinn,” she repeats, standing right in front of him. She reaches up to his cheek, him leaning into her touch as he finally looks at her. “What are you saying?”

“You know, Ellie.” 

They stand there, forgetting Declan behind them and ignoring the world around them. Quinn cups her cheeks, kissing her like he did the very first time. “Bye, Eleanor.”

“Bye, Quinn,” Ellie whispers, not wanting to let go. 

Everything happened so fast. Ellie stood on the curb, wanting to drop her things right on the sidewalk and chase after him as he got in his car and drove away. She didn’t move as Declan came up behind her, gently putting his arm around her to try to comfort her. She didn’t hear him say that he wanted to get her back inside so that Kendyl could be with her, so that she’d have someone she trusted to talk to after what just happened.

She just stood there. 

___________________

Quinn was miserable. The guys were all with their partners, while Quinn sat in the middle with no one by his side. All he had was the beer in front of him that he didn’t even want to drink. 

He should be happy. They were already having a great season. They had already secured a playoff spot. The team was playing to have fun and winning was coming because of it. 

Brock comes up to him with Kendyl, the two of them still going strong. Quinn liked Kendyl, but seeing her still reminded him of Ellie, even if the two of them didn’t work together anymore. 

“Come on, buck up. There are plenty of girls here that you could at least talk to,” Brock tries to encourage him.

Quinn just shrugs him off, slowly turning the glass of beer around on the table. He wasn’t in the mood to be there, but there was no way the guys would let him leave this early. 

Brock leaves to get another round of drinks, Kendyl staying behind. “She’s doing ok, you know,” she says, barely above a whisper. 

Quinn sighs. “I miss her.” 

Kendyl puts her hand on his shoulder, giving him a sympathetic smile. “I know.”

They sit for a moment, both of them unsure what to say next. What do you say to someone who was still broken over something that should have never shattered in the first place?

“Hey, isn’t that that Dexter guy you work with?” Elias comes over and asks, pointing to the other side of the bar. 

Quinn feels the air escape his lungs, Ellie and Declan together, Declan holding on to her as a guy moved past them, pressing their bodies against each other. She didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to drape her arms on his shoulders, getting up on her toes to kiss him, their foreheads pressed together when they pull away while they looked at each other like they were the only people in the world. 

“She’s happy,” Kendyl says. 

“She’s happier,” Quinn corrects her, his heart breaking at the fact that he couldn’t do that for her. 

[reputationmunson]

In This Together | Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Summary: The beginning of your journey through parenthood with Eddie

Content: pregnancy fic (reader finds out she’s pregnant), mentions of nausea and throwing up, fluff, use of y/n

Word Count: 1.9K

a/n: so this is the first part “series” and if you have any requests/things you would like to read for this please let me know and i will be more than happy to oblige!

_

For the past week, life has been throwing you punches left and right. 

On your way home from work one night, your car decided that in the middle of a thunderstorm would be the perfect time to break down. Luckily, your mechanic husband came to the rescue. Unluckily, he ordered chinese takeout for dinner to cheer you up, which led to you getting food poisoning. 

You’ve had to call off of work for the past five days due to being ill. Somehow, Eddie must’ve skipped on the side dish of foodborne illness because he never ended up getting sick. 

Eddie has been picking up a few extra shifts this week because you were so stressed about missing work and the effect that would have on your paycheck. Honestly, money hasn’t been much of an issue lately, but he insisted on working so his chance for a promotion would increase. 

You’ve been an emotional wreck without him lately. Every time he leaves you feel like he’s going off to war and you have no idea when he’ll return. He thinks it’s adorable while you think you’re going insane. Sometimes throughout the day you’ll spray his cologne, even though the scent has been making you a bit queasy for some reason. 

You haven’t been able to keep any food down, so you decided to give your mom a call and ask for her special soup recipe. She always made it when a friend or family member was sick and you swear it has healing powers. 

“Hi, mom. it’s me” you say, voice hoarse from all the throwing up. 

“Hi, sweetie. you sound awful, is everything okay?” 

Tears immediately fill your eyes when she asks. Your period must be coming soon because your emotions have been all over the place.

“Not really. I’ve had food poisoning and I can’t keep anything down, so I just wanted the recipe for your soup” 

“Oh, honey. Is Eddie there to make it for you?”

“N-no. he’s working like all the time recently because he’s up for a promotion and I just miss him so much that I think I'm losing my mind and I'm also starving but the thought of eating anything makes me want to puke '' you sob. 

“y/n, are you pregnant?” 

“what? no i’m not preg-” your voice drifts as realization hits you. You missed your period last month, but chalked it up to stress and this month is halfway over and you still haven’t gotten it. 

“y/n? are you there?” 

“y-yeah i’m here. I just, um, I think I need to sit down.” 

“I’m coming over, honey. don’t worry everything will be okay” 

In shock, you hang up the phone without saying another word. Could you really be pregnant? I mean, let’s be honest you and Eddie go at it like rabbits, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. 

You and Eddie have discussed having kids on many occasions, but you both agreed to wait until the time was right. You wanted to move into a bigger house, nothing too fancy that you’d be paying off for the rest of your lives, but one big enough for your little rascals to run around. All you ever both wanted was a house filled with love and laughter, no matter how big or small. 

_

After anxiously sitting in silence, your mom walks through the door with handfuls of grocery bags and she looks just about as frazzled as you do. 

“yep. you’re pregnant.” is the first thing she says and you groan. “how do you know? Are you secretly psychic or something?” 

“all mothers are psychic, you’ll find that out very soon. So, I bought all the fixins for my soup, three pregnancy tests, and a gallon of water. Drink up, i’ll start cooking”

You pour yourself a glass of water and chug until there isn’t a drop left in the cup. 

“I can’t believe I’m gonna be a grandma! Between Eddie’s hair and your eyes, this baby is going to be beautiful.” 

“Alright, I’ll go take the tests but please don’t get your hopes up” 

In reality, you had your hopes up too. The thought of having a baby that was a mix of you and Eddie was the most amazing thing you could ever think of. You hoped they’d have his eyes, which if your kid is anything like their dad, they will use those big, brown eyes against you.

Maybe this hypothetical baby will even have a passion for music and Eddie can teach them how to play guitar. You can see it now. Your baby wouldn’t even be a year old before Eddie tried to form a family band. 

“Don’t look at the first test until you take the other two!” your mother shouts as you disappear into the bathroom. 

You take a deep breath to calm yourself after you're done and the anticipation is killing you. This plastic stick is holding the answer to your future and you still had two more to take before you could find out. 

_

Almost a gallon of water and three pregnancy tests later, the pink sticks lay face down on the bathroom sink counter. 

“Will you look for me? I can’t do it” 

“Let’s do it together, okay? This is a wonderful experience” your mom squeezes your hand and you try to gather yourself. 

On the count of three, you each pick one up and you gasp when you turn it around. 

Two pink lines

Two. Pink. Lines

“It’s positive!” you shriek, anxiety replaced with glee. “Are they all positive?” you scan over all three and they show the same result.

You start to cry again, but this time it’s happy tears. Like the tears you cried when Eddie told you he loved you for the first time, then again when he got down on one knee, and also when he vowed to love you for the rest of his life no matter what, a promise he’s yet to break and you are confident he never will. 

Your mom also begins to cry tears of joy while giving  a hug. She was right, this is a wonderful experience. 

When the thought crossed your mind during the phone call earlier, you were horrified. Now, you realize there’s nothing to be scared of. You’re having a baby with the man you love more than anything. 

“When are you going to tell him? I don’t know how long I can keep this in!” she exclaims 

“I’m telling him tonight I don’t think I can wait longer than that. But, please don’t say anything to anyone until we’re ready” 

“I won’t. Now, tell me how you’re gonna tell him!” 

_ 

Once your mom left, you decided to make yourself more presentable and set up a nice dinner for when Eddie got home. He would be home any minute and you were oozing with excitement. 

The table was set, soup was on the stove, and you had put the tests in a gift bag with some tissue paper. 

You had no worries about Eddie reacting badly to this news and not only did that soothe your nerves, it also reaffirmed that being with him was the best decision you ever made. 

You hear his vehicle pull into the driveway and you scurry over to the door, ready to greet him the second he walks in. 

“Eddie!” you squeal, throwing your arms around his neck right when he comes inside. “hey, baby” he arms wrap around your waist and pulls you into him. “How are you feeling?” he pulls back slightly to put his hand on your forehead to check if you have a temperature. 

“So much better now that you’re home” you nuzzle into him and bask in the feeling of his presence. “Sweetheart, you didn’t have to make dinner. you’re sick” he pouts and you can’t resist the urge to kiss him. He tastes like spearmint gum with a hint of the chapstick you force him to wear because his lips are too pretty to be chapped. 

“My mom came over and made it, actually. she says hi, by the way” you lead him over to the couch and sit down. “Her special soup? fuck yeah” he says and you giggle at the enthusiasm. 

“So, I was gonna wait until dinner but I have a present for you” you say, giddily. “A present for lil ol’ me? oh you didn’t have to, darlin’” he says in a fake southern accent. “Stay here, you goof” 

You return to the living room, gift bag in hand and a big smile on your face. Eddie hasn’t seen your smile much since you got “food poisoning” and it’s the best present he can think of. For now, at least. 

“Don’t just stare at me! Open it!” you excitedly demand as you stand in front of him where he’s sat on the couch. 

“you’re just so goddamn pretty. i missed that smile” fuck, you love him so much. If you weren’t so nauseous and in anticipation for him to find out you're pregnant you’d take him to the bedroom and show him just how much you appreciate him. 

“Eddie, I love you, but if you don’t open it right now I’ll make sure to never smile again” you threaten and try not to smile, but you can’t help it. After all these years, you still feel the same way you did on your first date with him. Absolutely lovesick. 

“Jeez, no need for threats, Mrs. Munson” he teases and you playfully roll your eyes. 

He tears through the tissue paper like it’s christmas morning and stops in his tracks once he looks in the bag. 

“Is this?” He pulls out each test and stares intently at each one. “Are you?” He looks up at you with wide eyes and apparently he’s lost the ability to form a sentence. “yeah. we’re having a baby” and here come the waterworks again. Damn hormones. 

His hand rests on your stomach and you cover his hand with your own. “Are you okay with that?” you whisper and he stands up, hand still on your belly. “I’m - fuck- I thought I’d be scared shitless when this day came, but I’m not. Are you okay with this?” 

“I’m a little scared when I think of things like how we’re gonna have to move eventually and ya know, the whole childbirth part that’s probably gonna rip me to shreds, but I’m happy. Really happy” 

“Me too and I think I’m gonna get that promotion to manager, which comes with a huge raise. We’ve been saving up for this since we got married, babe. We’re gonna be fine, okay?”

“I’m gonna get huge” you whine and he chuckles then presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I know. think about how big your tits are gonna get” he jokes. “Eddie! this is supposed to be sentimental!” you chide with a laugh. “But, seriously. Are you still gonna love me when I'm all swollen and grumpy? or when I make you get me ice cream at two in the morning?” 

“First of all, you already make me get you ice cream at two in the morning. Second, you’re carrying our baby. If anything, I'm going to love you even more” he promises and pulls you into a loving hug. 

“Is it okay that I’m somewhat terrified?” you ask, words a little muffled from your face being buried in his chest. 

“I am too, but we’re in this together, yeah?” he assures you.

“yeah. together”

_

my baby fever has been through the roof lately i can’t wait to write more of these :)))

_

[oops-all-concrete]

BG3 fandom! I have more headcanons- but first!!

I must issue a very loud

⚠️SPOILER WARNING⚠️

For The Dark Urge playthrough of Baldurs Gate 3! There is no further warning below the cut, so if you care not to be spoiled, do not continue to read!

For those of you interested- ahead lies: Angst, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, blood, mentions of death, no MCD or any perma-death anyway, and lots of love. Greif and pain and emotional hurt are heavy themes as well!

Last warning! ⚠️Spoilers ahead⚠️

I've just gotten to this point in the Dark Urge run (where you reject Bhaal and fucking) DIE, and DUDE- I am stunned companions say NOTHING to your LITERAL DEATH after rejecting Bhaals gift or whatever. (Not in the scenes anyway) So, I'm writing how I think they'd respond cinematically, because your lively Durges deserve to be mourned and loved.

(Of course in-game this would be limited to the dialogue, but I've describes how they would be animated anyhow)

Lae'zel -

She's running to Durge the moment they start lifting from the ground, but pauses once their eyes start rolling back and blackening. There's something beyond her control happening, and she needs it to stop- and it does. With Tav hitting the floor eyes black, soul gone. She's immediately yelling at the others to do something, hand her a scroll, something- but nothing is working. Her shoulder slump after a good few minutes. And finally her voice breaks. She holds a hand to her chest as she wails in agony, holding her Tavs body like it's the last time- because to her- it is. "My angel, my moon. My great protector. I have failed you" She hisses, eyes scrunched shut.

Shadowheart -

She's been afraid her whole life. But even in the face of Bhaal, she will not be afraid if it means Tav will be safer. She immediately casts warding bond, if they're in danger, she'll halve it. If you're going to get hurt, so shall she- and she's okay with that. "Hang on-!" And then it all goes black, she falls without a word or scream, but she's content. If she dies protecting Durge, she cannot ask for better.

(After cutscene convo) Once Durge has been revived by Withers, it's up to them to get a scroll and revive her from the bloodied mess on the floor. She's stunned and confused, but the moment she sees Tav okay she couldn't care less. Why did you do that? "It might sound silly, but I was scared that you would be alone through whatever was about to happen. I don't regret it, if you're wondering"

Wyll -

"Gods- NO!" He shouts, a hand reaching out for them as they hit the ground. He's over them in a flash, holding their head in his arms, trying desperately to wake them, find a pulse, wake up himself and have this all be some sick nightmare. But of course, no such thing happens. The Tav he knows and loves just ceased living before his eyes. There's blood soaking into his every apparel and he's crying his eye out. It crosses his mind. Mizora is powerful- even if she can't fix this, she will know someone or something that can. He'd give anything- his whole life, he'd gladly be a lemure if it gave Tav back. He almost calls for her- until Withers starts his speech. (During the 'your rejection of Bhaal has earned you a place among heroes' section of his dialogue, he'll turn to Wyll and add: 'No devil's, demons or feinds required, I assure you')

Karlach -

If she wasn't raging before, she is now. A tomb-rocking scream echoes around the chamber, eyes wide with horror, body shaking and burning all over, engine out of control but she couldn't care less. One of the others will tell her to calm down. "FUCK THAT! FUCK EVERYTHING! FUCK THE GODS ABOVE AND THE HELLS BELOW." She roars. It goes on, swearing, screaming, swinging- and then, finally- collapse. She drops to her knees and punches the hard ground next to Tavs body, sobbing and exhausted. Withers walks in the the most gut-wrenching agonised scream of why

Gale -

He's frozen as it happens. His hands crackle with weave but he can't move. He needs to do something- anything, but time moves without him. All he knows is he can't breathe, all he can smell is blood and he thinks he's going to be sick. He can hear invisible bones cracking, distant blood dripping and their last choke. The wizard stumbles forward, barely making it to their body before collapsing beside them, on his knees and positively glowing from the mark on his chest. The orb can sense his distress and buzzes within him, as though it can smell the death. He pulls and hand to his mouth, kissing it gently- unable to comprehend a kiss goodbye. "Oh- Gods. Oh my love" he sobs, brows furrowed in what looks like physical pain. "I'm so sorry... I'm so, so sorry..." He wheezes out, scarcely finding breath.

Astarion -

He doesn't let their head hit the ground. He's swift as he catches them, but frantic as he sets their head on his thighs as a pillow. He pulls open their eyelids only to find a blackened core beneath, animalistic and distinctly unfamiliar. "Wake up, damn you...not after all this! You don't get to go!" He yells sounding genuinely furious- like he was going to get violent. If any of the others approach he doesn't notice. "We still have a cult to cull, we have a brain to control- I need you!" He yells, voice raw and eyes wet, the anger melting into greif. He makes a sheild of himself over Durge when Withers walks in, dagger/shortsword in hand, teeth bared, despite his damp face.

(Withers greets Astarion: 'Cry no more Spawn of sanguine- the universe is finally in your favour')

(Only Halsin is romanced for obvious reasons, but closeness is still implied for Minsc and Jaheira)

Halsin -

He catches Durge on the way down, their head on his chest as he lays them down over himself. "My heart? Can you hear me? Please say something" He begs hands glowing with healing magic, eyes aglow as well. He tries for a little, but then his breathing changes entirely, a small hushed gasp sounds from him, his he starts shaking his head, eyes wide. "Oh- oh Gods- Silvannus, please- I cannot bear to lose- oh Gods" He gasps, breath becoming harsher- finally letting tears fall. "Oak Father- please, wherever they go- keep them safe" he prays, teeth gritted in agony.

Jaheira -

She looks away as Tavs life is sapped away, unable to watch another Bhaalspawn friend suffer. When all falls still and silent, she looks among the other companions, shocked and frozen. "They're at peace now. Take comfort in knowing they chose to keep you all safe." She says with a proud nod- but her eyes are wet and her nose scrunched a little with a sniff.

Minsc -

There's small squeaking in the berserkers ear, before he sighs, almost a sob and speaks with a tired voice. "Wise words, Boo. I only wish our friend could hear you" Before he turns away, unable to look at them on the floor. "I am proud to have called them our friend. We should make them proud in return"

Hope you enjoyed! To the lovely people who have made requests, I will get to them as soon as I can!! Thank you for the requests, and please feel free to send me more!

[justminawrites]

None of you understand Amber Bennett: She's just a girl, your honour. A review of the show writers' least favourite love story from Invincible season 1.

Now let me just preface this by saying I have 2 points to make. Just two, very long, super rambly points that does have mild spoilers for Invincible season 2. Read at your own risk.

Point 1: Amber isn't "understanding" enough is utter bullshit.

There’s no indication that civilians outside of the ones associated with the GDA have any idea how brutal fights are for superheroes. Amber quite literally has no idea what the hell Mark is going through, even after the superhero reveal. The only thing she has a smidgeon of understanding of is his dad beating his ass on live TV. And even that is a heavy maybe because we don’t know how much of the fight the cameras could cover and how much was broadcast to the general public. 

Point 2: Amber’s dated Losers before.

This is stated explicitly in canon, she's “been down that road." Furthermore, she’s also the daughter of a single-parent household. She used to hang out a community centre as a kid because her mom did late hours. Daddy Issues anyone? She’s got a lot of her own problems that we never get to unpack or linger on because the writing decided she wasn’t going to end up with Mark. 

What if she’d already dated an absolute bastard before Mark? Someone who seemed sweet and genuine at first, but then he started slacking. He’d be late to dates, stop taking an interest in anything she did, and just never show up for her in any way that mattered. Amber would make up excuses with her friends and family, oh he’s busy, he’s studying; he cares, I swear, he just has a strange way of showing it. 

Her friends and family don’t believe her completely but they humor her because she really seems to like him. And the ex-boyfriend isn’t a douchebag the whole time.. he brings gifts to make up for being late, he plies and pacifies her with honeyed words and promises to be better.

But each time the lies get more and more difficult to believe. Traffic and science projects, traffic and science projects, even when he shows up smelling like weed and alcohol. Her friends and family give her tight-lipped smiles when her ex-boyfriend gives her sloppy kisses and proclaims over and over “She’s too good for me, this one.”

She tries to be empathetic, she tries to be understanding when they’re alone, he can tell her what it is that’s wrong. But every-time she brings up giving them some space, he takes it as an indication of her not believing him and he guilts her with one sob story or another— she knows him, he was so gentle and respectful before they started dating, does she really think he’d do this to her if he didn’t have a good reason? Just a masterclass in gaslighting. So she gives him a second chance, third chance, fourth even. 

But then he begins cheating on her. Whenever she confronts him about it, he plays victim and accuses her of being “crazy” even though the entire school knows otherwise. She catches him one fine day, and dumps him on the spot. For a short while, Amber’s very proud of this but as time passes she starts to feel extremely embarrassed that it took that long for her to catch on. 

No one blames her, of course, but they all say something along the lines of “We never liked him anyway” which makes Amber doubt the perception of him she had. She internalises their support as a failing on her part to be vigilant, she didn’t want to end up making the same mistakes as her mom, after all. 

Amber becomes guarded. She doesn’t entertain male attention (from Todd, for example) but then she finds out resident wimp Mark Grayson takes a beating for her and she feels bad. 

So she gives him a chance. Mark was a nonissue, a nobody with no track record of being amazing or awful, just an in-between, normal guy who was maybe a little soft spoken and needed to stand up for himself more. 

But every time they try to hang out, something comes in between them. The excuses are laughably obvious this time and Amber is caught between trying to understand if Mark Grayson is trying to let her down easy because he’s not interested or if he’s just another douchebag taking her for a ride. 

He leaves her alone during their study date for an hour to do something shady and/or potentially related to Eve (I know she overheard him yelling at Cecil in his bedroom); Mark tells her he’s been to Mount Everest, but can’t tell her How he got there, and leaves on a non-specific trip for two weeks, right after their first date, and can’t even tell her Where he’s going or what he did when he was there?

So she does what she’d wished she’d done in her first relationship, she sets her boundaries. Firmly. She gives Mark multiple chances to come clean when she tells him she’s not riding that wave again. It’s been brought up a few times that Amber has lingering relationship-trauma.

During their study date Amber tells him she’s been in relationships with violent potentially abusive guys (“Met plenty of guys who were willing to throw a punch for me.”); or when he stands her up for the Dinner with her mom she tells him that he needs to make a choice because she’s “Been down this road before, and once was enough.”

But he still keeps at it and she starts getting tired of defending him to her friends and her mom. He’s just busy, he’s just studying; he cares, I swear, he just has a strange way of showing it. And this time they shake their heads and lightly imply that she’s stuck in a pattern. Amber can feel them comparing Mark to her old boyfriend and it all becomes a bit too much. 

Either he’s a no good drug dealing prick or he’s just wasting her time, whatever it is, Amber’s had enough of being left in the dark. 

The soup kitchen is the final straw, but then she finds out that he gets run over by a bus. He actually gets hurt, this is the first time Amber’s seen him hurt, and she feels awful because if she hadn’t pushed him to show up for her again and again maybe he would’ve been more careful. 

He doesn’t let her visit him in the hospital. A hit and run on the wrong side of town was the story this time— he can’t even tell her this, the specifics of his accident! Eve was his first point of contact after his parents?! At this point Amber is convinced that he’s involved in something violent or something to do with Eve, or both and she’s not sure she wants to keep going with this. 

Amber is confused and hurt but she also feels responsible for Mark’s injuries. Maybe she Was too paranoid, maybe she Was projecting all her relationship-trauma on him and he would tell her what happened at his own pace. So she backtracks, gives him another chance.

College is really the best of all worlds, Mark makes her promises that this time will be different, and Amber tentatively agrees to college together. (She’s still stressed out about his injuries and on edge the whole time though and asks if he has a concussion). 

This is really important because Amber ends up at Upstate U later. She decided to go to college with him, basically because of Him. This wasn’t any specific plan she had before, this was her making room in her life for this boy and potentially everything their lives could be together. 

Then the Reanimen Incident happens. And she loses her shit. Mark Grayson is not the flakey but well-intentioned boyfriend she thought he was.. Mark Grayson is not even a good person! He LEFT her and William at the drop of a hat to save his own slimy skin, that bastard! Her intuition was right, she never should’ve given him a chance. 

Amber was no longer going to give Mark Grayson the time of day, much less share a bed with the self-serving jerk; she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of spinning another tall tale. Or seeing her cry. She closes the door to the shower rooms behind her, and overhears Rick leaving to get them all some beer. Dorm room walls are thin, after all.

Then she hears something else.

“You’re Invincible!” William’s voice carries over excitedly, “And you never told me?”

Here goes the "problematic" bit.

I think Amber was lying when she told Mark she knew he was Invincible weeks ago. Amber didn’t even know who Invincible was until a few minutes after the Reanimen attack. She isn’t acting for anyone around her, she’s genuinely confused when the superhero jets off because she’s never seen him in her life. 

I think she overheard William freaking out about it in the dorm room and she pieced together Mark’s absences with his vague excuses and why couldn’t visit him at the hospital. She takes a shower to cool off but sitting and stewing on all of it just makes her angrier and she decides to go to the frat party just to get away from Mark for a while. 

Now why wouldn’t she just tell him she overheard them talking? 

Amber is an assertive independent character with a lot of pride. And that’s not a bad thing. Amber has a lot to be proud of. She has a strong sense of justice, she doesn’t take crap from anyone and she has too much self-worth to put up with liars. 

You can clearly see this in the way she approaches Mark in the beginning. She asks William if he’s dating Eve, and then instead of calling him herself, she gets Todd to give Mark her number so he can call her if he’s interested, despite the fact that she already is. She has too much pride to chase him. It’s one of her fixed flaws, and it’s consistent to her character. 

So finding out that Mark is actually Invincible almost by accident, is kind of embarrassing for Amber. Not only because she yelled at him for disappearing but for all the times he misled her and lied to her only to actually have a good reason for doing it. There’s a lot of mixed emotions there, shame, guilt, concern. Guilt.

Admitting that she overheard he was Invincible would be like admitting she was a stupid, nagging girlfriend who had no right to be a part of his life (the way the fandom perceives her) so she doesn’t. She tries to distract herself with the party, flirts with someone she just met not ten minutes ago, and feels awful because he immediately drops the girlfriend bomb. 

Now she’s forced to confront the fact that she has a boyfriend, and her flakey, well-intentioned superhero boyfriend is sitting and moping in the dorm room because she doesn’t have the guts to tell him she knows. Because telling him she knows would remove the choice he’d need to make when deciding whether or not he was serious about their relationship.

Amber was serious, Amber was going to change her life and potentially open her future to college with him, but was Mark really sure about Them if he couldn’t even tell her of his own accord? 

Telling him would be like giving him another out. And Amber was done giving him an out. 

When he finally confesses he doesn’t see why she’s mad at him, because he doesn’t see her at all. He can’t even begin to imagine what this roller coaster of a weekend has been for her because she’s been serious about him all this time and it took them breaking up completely for Mark to choose her back in the first place and go all in. 

Now it’s true that Mark is entitled to his secrets but Amber is also entitled to being upset that he can’t tell her 1 solid thing about his life. Not one thing does he trust her enough to explain, and at that point why should they even be dating each other? Why should she change the course of her future for a guy who can’t tell her where he was last weekend?

Then Omni-man beats him up on live TV, and now that she knows that he’s Invincible, she finally gets a glimpse into the bloody, gruesome world that is Mark’s. His Dad isn’t a superhero, his Dad is a Monster, and Mark is discovering this the same time as the rest of the world.

So she freaks out because she cares, and she’s so relieved to see him not beat to a bloody pulp like on TV that she kisses him. She likely had no intention of getting back together with him before that, but world-ending fiascos often come with heightened emotions, and they’re just kids at the end of the day. 

She’s not a manipulative, narcissistic villain, she’s just a proud girl, in love with a boy who can’t decided whether or not he loves her back. 

Now do I think Mark is a terrible jerk who doesn’t deserve Amber? No. I watched Invincible the same way it was intended, almost entirely through Mark’s eyes, and it’s hard to assign blame in this case because we see how horrifying and traumatic being a superhero actually is. But that’s the point, we only see one half of the story. 

We see Amber through Mark’s eyes and in his opinion she could afford to be more compassionate to his excuses the moment she finds out he’s a hero, the way Eve can, but that’s not true at all because Amber has no idea what being a hero is like. Eve does, and that’s the difference that Mark is wilfully blind to. 

But Mark also has no idea what Amber’s life is like and it’s easy to get lost in the sea of all the lives lost and villains fought, that he genuinely hasn’t spent any time with his girlfriend as a person beyond his Girlfriend. Amber isn’t a person to him, like William stopped being eventually; they became sort of tethers to Mark’s humanity, a way to distinguish himself from his Dad. A way to ground him. 

Seriously? When was the last time Mark even talked to William, his once Best Friend? They’re not his Mom, they’re concepts to him. They’re civilians, potential victims he could end up losing if he doesn’t police himself and his powers. Mark slowly becomes disillusioned to his own life as a human, the more the leans into the Viltrumite half of his parentage. 

It’s a little tragic but it’s the story we’re seeing. In season 2, when Mark and Amber break up and he gives up his dream for college, these two things are almost explicitly correlated. Mark is coming to terms with the fact that he’s going to outlive everyone he knows, even his new baby brother and that is just the most chaotic example of a slow-burn trauma if I’ve ever seen one. He’s giving up being human, but maybe not giving up his humanity. 

______________________________________________________________

TLDR: None of you understand Amber Bennett because the writers decided that Mark would outlive her before he ever had the chance to see things from her perspective and I am SALTY about it

[goodomensjail]

“Chekhov’s Gun” and Good Omens Episode 1 SPOILERS and speculation

yes i was at the Brooklyn July 18 premiere so these are real spoilers

The “Chekhov’s gun” is a story telling principle that says any detail in a story should serve a purpose in the overall narrative, i.e. if you SHOW a gun to the audience, it SHOULD be fired later in the story. 

Applying this to Heaven’s threat of erasing a name from the “Book of Life” as punishment for anyone hiding or kidnapping or assisting in the missing Gabriel issue: we have never heard the term “Book of Life” in season 1, and why mention it as a threat if it is not to be used in the plot? Why not just say “torture” or “toss into the deepest pit” or anything else that we as the audience would clearly understand as “bad thing”? 

No, it is purposefully stated “erased from the Book of Life” and then we are explicitly told this will mean “they will have never existed”. 

I propose this prediction for the climax of the story, based on my seeing episodes 1 & 2 AND the EVERY SPOILER!!! so STOP HERE if you have avoided and want to continue to avoid “EVERY”. I guess basically here is my current fanfic for the season. 

Fact: we have yet to find out Angel Crowley’s name. He suspiciously doesn't give it to Aziraphale who prompts him for an introduction in the opening pre-fall scene. He changes his name at least once, from Crawley to Crowley, and maybe more times since Hastur and Ligur bemoan “whats he going by these days” in season 1

Fact: The ONLY reason Crowley gets involved in helping hide Gabriel is after hearing that the Book of Life erasure punishment is in play and RUSHES to Aziraphale to protect him while “Good old fashioned lover boy” plays 

THEORY: Crowley will take the blame for hiding Gabriel by handing him into Hell in order to protect Aziraphale. Gabriel will regain his memory and will come to recognize Crowley as either Raphael or Lucifer (more on that theory later)  and Crowley will get Gabriel to swear to secrecy that Aziraphale was involved because hey wouldnt an Archangel want to take out a powerful demon who was once an Archangel or Gods Favorite Light Bringer? So Gabriel allows Crolwey to take the blame and heaven to erase him. 

Crowley will rush back to the bookshop to say goodbye to Aziraphale and EVERY happens. Something like “Well i guess if its my last chance to say it” a la doctor who happens, and smoooooch. and THEN. 

Nothing happens. Crowley cannot be erased because no one in heaven knows his name. They demand Muriel (a scribe angel) look up “the Demon Crowley” and she realizes rather happily there is no such name in the book. They try “the Demon Crawley” and still no luck. 

Gabriel returns to heaven, and he keeps mum on the subject, having gone on an emotional journey with the husbands, he looks at Muriel knowingly and says something like “o well, Muriel keep looking, however long it takes” and he turns on his heel and is off. Muriel smiles and we cut back to our husbands that are really confused, Aziraphale cuz he just got smooched by the love of his life and Crowley cuz apparently he now has to live with his actions....

As for the “Lucifer” theory instead of the Raphale theory: in the HEBREW BIBLE Satan and Lucifer appear to be different angels, Satan a title meaning “the opposer” or “the acuser” and Lucifer “Morning Star” or “Light Bringer” an angel “that fell”. 

Crowley was an angel creating stars including falling stars. 

Crowley appears to be the more powerful miracle maker in season 1, and appears to outrank Aziraphale in the pre fall scene. 

The angels say the miracle to hide Gabriel (which Crowley and Azirpahale performed together) was EXTREMELY powerful, too powerful for Azirpahale.

Crowley was an angel and a demon that did his own thing and didnt listen to authority, either God or Satan. 

Satan, the red horny guy, is clearly called “Satan” in season 1 EXCEPT for the bar scene where Crowley states “i was bored... and then hey its lucifer and the guys!” - what if he is referring to HIMSELF and the guys? it would still work. 

Neil has been pretty against the Raphael theory for some time....

ANYWAY. This is AAALLLL probably way off BUT if i even have a small portion of something right i need it written down to point to after July 28 :)

In ANY case there MUST be some kind of USE of the Book of Life i CANNOT imagine a world where that “gun” doesnt “fire”

EDIT: another story telling principle is called a “Red Herring” and that could also well be in play here, what with all the “Clue” references earlier this month. Lastly, the Archangels all SEE Crowley in the Job story, but he is in his glasses and in his time appropriate clothing....maybe the fact that he is always blending into the fashions of the time is that he is sorta HIDING his status as Raphale or Lucifer and blending in?

[thecuriousquest]

Could u do erasermic? Where the reader screams and stuff but is also scared but doesn’t show it. And Hizashi and aizawa only find out when one night the reader is sleeping and they go to their room and she’s shivering and crying in her sleep and when they wake her up she breaks down (turns out she has trust issues and trauma) but still tries to fight but end up losing and giving in to their comfort.

Butterfly

Yandere EraserMic x Fem!Reader

Tag List: @issamomma

Warnings: Yandere themes, implied kidnapping, threats of punishment, reader has trauma, sad past

Checkout my Master List here.

—————————————————————————

“Fuck you! I’ll never love you!” Screaming bloody murder in Hizashi and Shouta’s faces only fills you with even more rage as they stand there so stoically. They don’t even flinch at your vileness. It’s as if your words have no impact on them.

Deep down, what you don’t realize is that every ounce of defiance that drips into the syllables of your hateful words chips at their hearts little by little. A dull ache throbs in their chests as they watch you having yet another one of your tantrums.

Buried underneath all of that rage is sorrow and fear. Sorrow from having been taken from your life before. You had so much control back then. Fear because you have nothing but your kidnappers and a bed with a chain attached to it. You can’t find a way to express that, however, so anger and frustration come out to play instead.

“This isn’t fucking fair! Aren’t you going to say anything?!”

They’ve never given into your tantrums before. Why would they now?

Shouta walks over to you with his arms crossed. “Are you done with your little fit?” He wants nothing more than to pick you up and hold you until you calm down, but he has to be firm with you.

“My little fit? Is that what you think this is?” Outraged, you clench your fists, your nails digging into the palms of your hands. “Fuck you, Shouta! You kidnapped me! You really think I’m just lashing out for no reason? You think I have nothing to be angry about?! I have every damn right to be angry! I hate you both! I hate how you patronize me and act as if I should be happy with you two! How could I ever be happy with someone who did this to me?!”

Shouta grabs you by the jaw. “Keep swearing at me, and I’ll soak a ball gag in vinegar for you. Is that what you want?”

Of course not! Agitated and a bit embarrassed from being treated like a child, you growl lowly and grit your teeth. “No, sir…”

You can see something flick in Aizawa’s eyes as if he’s thinking, smart girl.

Hizashi steps beside the brunette and places a hand on his shoulder. “I think we should put Butterfly in time out. Give her a chance to calm those sweet cheeks down. You feel me?”

The insomniac tilts his head and smirks at you. “I think she could benefit from some time in her room.”

———

Warm droplets stroll down your cheeks, the taste of salt gathering in your mouth. You can’t help it as you choke on a quiet sob. There’s nothing you can do but lie here with these horrible thoughts going through your mind.

You hear the door click as the knob turns. Light from the hallway pours into the room. Following the light are two sets of feet. Glancing from their shoes up to their faces, you watch as Hizashi turns on the lamp in your room.

You watch their expressions drop immediately as they watch you curled up, shivering, and crying. You try to pull yourself together. You’ve always been able to remain rough and crass in front of them. Your gruff and angry exterior is the only thing that keeps you from being so vulnerable in front of them.

It’s hopeless. The tears won’t stop no matter how many times you wipe at your eyes with your sleeves and take deep breathes. It’s as if your body knows you’re trying to stop crying, but it’s only producing more tears to spite you.

Immediately, both men are at your side. Shouta holds you on his lap with his arms wrapped around you while Hizashi strokes your hair.

“What’s the matter, Butterfly?” Yamada asks. He’s been calling you that for six months now. You usually hate it, but right now, you don’t exactly dislike it.

No! I have to hate it! You think as you struggle against Aizawa’s hold.

He’s not letting you go anywhere. In fact, he only hushes you, trying to calm you. He lets you wear yourself out, hoping that will help the message sink in.

You push, kick, scream through your sobs, and buck on his thighs. Nothing works. Panting heavily, you try to keep your body tense. You will yourself not to relax.

A headache develops with all of this emotion. It hurts just to try to think. It’s as if a fog is beginning to take over your mind, and you hear a calming sea of whispers.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m right here.”

“Nothing can hurt you.”

“I’ve got you, my little butterfly.”

Hearing that last word causes you to burst into a fresh wave of tears. You’re exhausted, and you find your body going limp against Shouta.

“Can you tell us what’s going on?” The Erasure Hero asks.

You tried to hold out, you try to fight them still, but you just want this headache to go away.

“I feel so lost and out of control here. I have no say in anything. It reminds me of how I had to go to an orphanage after my parents died when I was thirteen. I had no control there either. It was like I was just left to rot. Nobody cared about me. I was only taken care of because someone was getting money out of it.”

The two heroes had no idea this happened to you, and their hearts break even more as they listen to you vent your frustrations.

Hizashi places a gentle hand on your cheek, forcing you to look at him. “The difference between then and now is that you have two people who want to take care of you. We love you so much. You’re our Butterfly, and we can’t think of anyone we’d rather spend time with.”

Your eyes are glassy, lashes still wet, cheeks still sticky. It takes a lot for you to simply nod. You don’t know why you’re leaning against Aizawa and actually listening to Yamada, but you feel relief from the tension exiting your body.

They stay with you, holding you, caressing you, loving you until you close your eyes and drift off into a dream. You don’t know if you could ever love them. You don’t even know if you could ever like them. All you know is that fighting them every second of every day is exhausting, and right now, you feel better than you have in the six months that you’ve been here.

[pandenewie]

26 - This wasn’t part of the plan

Prev | Masterlist | Next

Something is wrong…

Now Niki isn’t a genius by any means… Most of the time, his 6 total brain cells are fast asleep or being shared between himself and Shota. That being said, even a rock could tell that the atmosphere at school is tense.

“I’m telling you dude, something must’ve happened on the senior trip.” Niki says, earning yet another eye roll from Jongseob. “You’re just trying to start shit.” Jongseob points out. Niki gets offended at this, placing his hand on his chest as he lets out a loud gasp. “I’m looking out for our friends, asshole.” Niki scoffs. “By trying to cause drama in their relationship?” Niki is silent as Jongseob’s words settle in his brain.

Sure, Jungwon seems really happy. Possibly the happiest he’s ever been - at least since Niki’s known him. But he just can’t shake the feeling that something is going on with Y/n. It doesn’t help that the rest of the group is being weird too. When he tried asking Hikaru if anything happened between Jungwon and Y/n she refused to talk about it. Even Eunchae is refusing to talk about their relationship which is like, one of her favourite things to do.

“I’m not trying to cause drama, I just… I’m scared that Jungwon is going to get hurt.” Niki sighs. “Look… I get it, okay? But it’s not our place to meddle. Jungwon’s a big boy. If there’s an issue, he can sort it himself. And if he can’t, then I’m sure he’ll come to us.” Jongseob reasons. Niki sighs, hating that Jongseob is right, before reluctantly promising to not intervene.

“Look, I know you guys basically hate me right now but can you not make it so obvious?” Y/n asks as they sit down at the cafeteria table. “We don’t hate you, Y/n.” Hiyyih clarifies, nudging Hikaru who only offers a short hum. Sighing, Y/n turns to Eunchae who just sends them an apologetic smile.

The atmosphere is awkward. Y/n knows it’s because of the whole Jungwon situation. It’s been a few days since they promised they’d either tell him the truth or break up with him and well… neither of those things have happened. It’s not like they’re not trying! It’s just that every time they try to start that conversation, Jungwon does something dumb and cute and they think just one more day.

“Look, I’m going to do it, I swear. I’m just trying to find the right time…” Y/n trails off. “There’s no such thing as the right time Y/n. What’s really stopping you?” Hiyyih asks. Y/n hesitates for a moment, knowing the reason why but struggling to find the words to explain it.

“I don’t want things to change. I know that I was just messing around at first but… I think it’s more than that now. And I know that there’s no good end to this so I just… want it to last as long as possible.” Y/n mumbles. Their friends send them sympathetic looks, Eunchae reaching forward to gently squeeze Y/n’s shoulder. 

“Maybe just talk honestly with him? He’s a pretty understanding guy, I’m sure he’d forgive you.” Eunchae suggests, causing Y/n to let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, right. It’ll break him.” Y/n says. “The longer you wait, the more it’ll hurt.” Hiyyih says, causing Y/n to sigh again.

“What day is it today?” Hikaru asks, breaking her silence. “Uh… Wednesday?” Y/n replies, looking at their friend with confusion. “Cool, you have until Friday after school to have talked with Jungwon before I do it for you.” Hikaru says. “And I will tell him everything. He’s my friend, too.” She adds before standing up from the table and grabbing her lunch. “I’m gonna go find Riki and Shota.” She says before walking off - leaving the group stunned. “Well… I guess that works.” Hiyyih mumbles. 

To say that Y/n feels like shit would be an understatement. They know that Hikaru has the right to be upset with them. Like she said, Jungwon is her friend too. And it looks like Y/n is just stringing him along for the sake of it. But that’s really not the case…

Despite Y/n being entirely to blame for this, deep down, they want to find a way to pin it on Jungwon. Maybe if he weren’t so sweet and affectionate, Y/n wouldn’t have fallen for him and then they wouldn’t be in this situation. Dammit Jungwon. Why did you have to be such a good boyfriend?

“Y/n!” A voice calls out before a sudden arm is slung around their shoulder. Y/n knows it’s Jungwon - they don’t even have to look to see that. “What’s up?” He asks, gently cupping Y/n’s jaw and turning their head so they’re looking at him.

As soon as Y/n sees Jungwon’s sparkling eyes, they want to cry. He looks at them like they are everything good in this world - when the reality is far from that. “I’m fine.” Y/n mumbles, trying their best to avoid eye contact. “Just tired.”

It’s not a complete lie. Y/n hasn’t been able to get much sleep over the last couple of days, the thought of what to say to Jungwon looming heavily on their mind. If Jungwon has any thoughts of uncertainty in Y/n’s answer, he certainly doesn’t show them. Pulling them into the side of his body, he presses a quick kiss to Y/n’s temple. “I told you to start going to bed earlier.” He playfully scolds. Y/n doesn’t laugh.

“Okay… something is wrong.” Jungwon concludes. Without another word, he grabs Y/n’s hand and starts dragging them down the hall. Y/n doesn’t have the energy to fight against his hold or even ask where they’re going. They just allow their body to be dragged through the mobs of students.

Once safely in an empty classroom, Jungwon turns to face Y/n with a look of seriousness. “We’re alone now… do you want to tell me what’s going on?” He asks. “What do you mean? Everything’s fine.” Y/n lies through their teeth, trying to put on their most natural expression. “I’m not an idiot Y/n, I know you’ve been trying to avoid me. And even when we are together, you’re completely dismissive. If something’s happened, you need to tell me so we can work on it together.”

Y/n grimaces at his words. Had they really been that obvious? Y/n knows there’s no escaping this conversation - Jungwon is already suspicious of them and putting it off any longer will just lead to more issues. The only problem now is figuring out what exactly to tell him…

Y/n knows that if Jungwon finds out they were using him to get the dress code changed, they would lose his trust completely. He would be out of their life, not only as a boyfriend but as a friend as well.

On the other hand, if they were to just end the relationship there is a possibility the two could stay friends. Sure, Jungwon would be heartbroken for a while but that’s something he could get over - especially if it involved Y/n’s happiness.

Y/n lets out a big sigh, looking at their feet as they fiddle nervously with the end of their shirt. “I’m sorry Jungwon…” They let out, still not knowing exactly where they’re going with the sentence. “I just… I’m not sure if this is right… us.”

Sure, it’s vague. But judging by the way Jungwon’s face falls, Y/n can tell he’s getting the message. “Us as in… our relationship?” He asks, eyes sparkling with hope. Hope that he’s misunderstanding something. Hope that this is all a big prank. He can feel his heart start to shatter as Y/n silently nods, confirming his worst nightmares.

Jungwon can’t believe it. Everything was going so well, wasn’t it? He felt like Y/n was opening up more than they ever had, the two were getting closer, hell, Y/n spent multiple days with two of his best friends. Were there any signs? Was he just too blinded to see that what was likely the happiest moments for him weren’t the same for Y/n?

Noticing the start of his spiral, Y/n immediately starts following up on their statement. “It’s nothing you did Jungwon, trust me. This is all my fault.” Jungwon shakes his head at this, sniffing slightly as tears begin to well up in his eyes. “It’s gotta be me though… you’re perfect.” He mumbles, causing Y/n’s heart to clench.

“So the hot spring and the camp… did you feel like this then, too?” Jungwon is crying now, his teary eyes desperately searching Y/n’s for the answer to his question. “Everything I said and did on the trip was real, Jungwon.” Y/n promises. They want nothing more than to reach out and wipe away the tears that are streaming down his face. Knowing that they are the reason behind the tears causes an ache in their heart. “I just… it’s not working. I’m not right for you.” Y/n whispers, holding back their own tears.

It’s silent between the two for a moment as Y/n’s words lay heavy in the air. Soon, Jungwon begins to speak - his voice nothing above a whisper. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” This causes Y/n to finally break, a single tear rolling down their cheek as they slowly shake their head.

Y/n wants to hug him. Wants to wipe away his tears and take back everything they just said. But they know that this is the best outcome. Everything will hurt for a while, sure. But Jungwon will move on and be happy. That’s all Y/n wants.

“I’ve got to go… class is starting soon.” Y/n mumbles, wiping their eyes before stepping past Jungwon to leave the room. They’ve never wanted to get to class early but anything is better than standing in this suffocating room, watching as Jungwon’s heart slowly breaks.

“Can I kiss you?”

Jungwon’s words come out in a desperate plea. It’s almost embarrassing - the way his voice quivers. Y/n can feel his gaze burning into their back. “Just… one more time. Please?” He doesn’t even need to finish the sentence before Y/n is turning around and pressing their lips against his, knowing that this is probably the last time they’ll get to.

The kiss is bitter - not just from the saltiness of their tears. Y/n goes to pull away but is pulled in by Jungwon’s grip on their waist. He continues to press his lips against theirs, mumbling apologies and pleas to stay. Letting out a shaky breath, Y/n eventually pulls themself away from Jungwon’s grip and turns away from him. They need to leave. Now.

“I’m sorry, Jungwon.” Y/n whispers, not sending him another glance before walking out of the room. They don’t go to class, knowing they look like someone just died and not wanting to cause a scene. Instead, Y/n sends a short text to the group chat, letting the girls know it’s done, before walking to their car and driving home.

Jungwon doesn’t go to class either - the first one he’s missed since skipping class with Y/n just a few months ago. It’s crazy how much has changed in such a short amount of time. How Y/n went from someone who despised him, to someone he had a relationship with, now back to… friends? Acquaintances? He’s not too sure… All he knows is that he hates it and he doesn’t know what went wrong or what to do now.

TAG LIST (closed): @kang-yeosangs-initials @kpopstanmeg @b1ndignity @soobiverse @dudufodd @mikadorbs @pagesofmiracles @tya0 @ilovewonyo @bringer-ofchaos @huening-ly @ifearjwn @callmeblondie @run2min @straykids-riley (can't tag) @rikimylove @chaechae-23 @lacimolela @n1ght-maring (can't tag) @luvvsjungwonn @yenqa @tzuyusluv @viyqe @vocaloshin @deadgirlwalking3 @flamiricky @hanniesss @grayscorner @wonqr @neozon3nha @beomgyusonlywife @ahnneyong @lani-heart @jayujus @str4wb3rizz @yunwonie @jeonncafe @danielleismyname @spilled-coffee-cup @jaylans-stuff @oceanmsxoxo @j-wyoung @mrowwww @lazy-miya @shinsou-rii @minkyungseokie @s7noo @beatr2x @thatoneembarrasingmoment

[star-girl69]

Love Song

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!Demigod!Reader

—-

a/n: just needed to do some general hc’s to get all my thoughts in order i hope you all enjoy!!

Love song - Lana Del Rey

warnings: the formatting is weird idk why i can’t fix it but y’all will live, swearing, a little itty bitty bit of violence, every facet of clarisse finding its way here and i love them all, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

i’m sure we all agree on this

but clarisse is very protective of you

even if you’re a very capable fighter, even if you’re even better than her, clarisse is still so protective of you

i mentioned this in one of my fics (maybe so it goes…????) but like the reason behind this is the fact that clarisse is just SCARED

she is terrified of losing you bc you are the only one she feels like she can be herself with

like clarisse is insane!!!!! in a good way!!!!! but also she’s a 17 year old girl…. she wants TO BE LOVED

she tries to talk to you about how she feels about her dad and about everything else in her life, but even though she doesn’t want to be, she’s locked up like a vault

she knows her emotions are always super intense and she has big reactions

major anger issues but they’ve gotten better with age

the problem is she spent her entire life being told that she needed to calm down, that she couldn’t feel like that all the time, and she just tried to shut down

obviously that did not work

but it still makes it virtually impossible to talk about her feelings

when it comes to you tho she’s an open book

she’s a daughter of ares she’s headstrong she’s proud and her fatal flaw is PRIDE

i mentioned this before but she wants everyone to know that you’re hers and she’s yours

your relationship is partly very public

she’s not afraid to touch you or kiss you

she’s not afraid to show you off and (needs to) show everyone that yes your beautiful self belongs to HER

so naturally she gets very jealous

even when you’re like clarisse you are INSANE

there’s been a few times when you first started dating and you were still getting comfortable and weren’t that public yet so like someone would flirt with you

it went like this

boy: hey what’s up you’re kinda fine

y/n: oh! oh yeah no….. no…..

clarisse: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU—

then she started attacking him

lost dessert privileges for a month, she proudly declared that it was worth it (besides you would sneak her bites of yours like)

now that everyone knows you’re hers her jealousy is rooted a lot more in delusion and insecurity

you’ll be like in a group talking someone and she’ll pull you closer and be like “i think that guys staring at you a little too much.”

“clarisse no the fuck he’s not what”

b/c of the fact that she isn’t a son for her father she gets insanely jealous if specifically a MAN gets even an inch too close however innocently

she doesn’t want to think it but she thinks you’ll eventually realize her father is right and she’s not as useful or good bc she’s a girl

most of the time when she gets jealous bc of her insecurities she just becomes extra clingy

but also any emotion she feels she gets extra clingy to you so sometimes it’s hard to tell LMAO

she isn’t really a big hand holder but that’s only because she’s actually holding you CLOSER to her by your waist

also one more note about your relationship publically

everyone gets whiplash bc like she’s a BULLY fo everyone else and then you walk over and she’s all heart eyes

i hate everyone but you trope save me

save me i hate everyone but you trope

THIS HAPPENED IN IN A GOOD WAY

clarisse: pushes percy over

you: nuh uh clarissseeeeeeee

clarisse: omg hi beautiful gf

you: touches her shoulder, looks at her disapprovingly

clarisse: fine i’ll go, *scares percy*, bye bye beautiful ily

like she’s just being a bitch and then all of a sudden you come around and she’s like hiiiiiii babyyyyy how is my gorgeous gorgeous girl today??

so outwardly clarisse is just very proud and touchy

privately she lets herself be a little more chill

this is where she really touchy you thought before was worse nah

idk if y’all have noticed but in my fics clar’s always holding on y/n’s hips and that’s just me self projecting bc i have the most horrid hip dips but my point still stands

SHE LOVES YOUR HIPS

would totally call them “love handles” IM SORRYY

but she just likes having a place to hold where she can just like kinda actually physically grab you with her hands

like yeah she can wrap her arms around your waist but she likes to GRAB you

cuddling w her is fun bc like this girl cannot get ENOUGH of you there’s only like three ways you cuddle

you on top of her whether just like completely on top of her (one of her favs) or just with your head on her chest

this is what happens whenever you feel scared

like there was a monster attack just near the barrier and you’ve all been feeling uneasy all day

TRUST you are sleeping in her bed tonight

wraps her arms around you so tight it’s like she’s crushing you

also she’s running your back or caressing your head whichever you prefer

she keeps her spear right next to her bed and makes sure you can see it so you know however subconsciously NOTHING can hurt you bc she’s right there (nothings gonna hurt you baby vibes)

or she’s on top of you this one usually happens when she’s feeling a little extra insecure and jealous and it’s like no one can see you if she’s on top of her so then you’re hers

she isn’t the smartest one in the bunch but she has good intentions!!!!

also she lays on top of you if you get hurt

like after so it goes for example when y/n got that little cut on her hand

you’re like “clar pls you’re crushing me”

“um ok you scared the shit out of me today tho you need to LET ME do this fuck”

third option

you’re both laying on your side and facing each other legs tangled together and she’s probably whispering to you

she’s a big whisperer i feel it in my heart

like tracing her hands on your face and saying your so beautiful or telling you how you make her feel

oh lord take me now

also she loves you the way hozier loves

“someone asked me in the end i’d tell them ‘put me back in it’ // darlin’ i would do it again // if i could hold for a minute”

“when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth no grave could hold my body down i’d crawl back to her”

like she BREATHES for you

if she died and then you were like “i miss you” trust she would find a way to come back to life

totally daydreams about going on such a fantastical quest that the gods offer both of you immortality so you can be together forever and ever and ever and ever and ever

like if the world ends y’all would still be there having a little picnic date

devotion is the only word that comes close

anyways

ok nicknames she calls you:

baby, angel, gorgeous, pretty thing/girl, beautiful, lovely, dummy (lovingly)

(recently saw a few posts abt clarisse saying mama/mamas i may be swayed)

dates she takes you on:

forces you to train w her even if you don’t like it but she lets you win OBVIIIII, under the stars in the woods, take your dinners to go and sneak back to either hers or your cabin to eat together, secret makeout sessions in the bathroom her cabin your cabin anywhere she can get her hands on you

this is so random but i get horrible migraines and i am ADDICTED to these like headache relief frequency sounds on youtube i swear they work and i was like omg you can’t have electronics at chb I WOULD NOT SURVIVE

so if you are a real one like me and get horrible migraines but this goes for being sick in general she’s like a little puppy pretending to be a wolf barely holding it together

she’ll be like at the foot of your bed begging you not to go into the light while shouting at someone at the same time to refill your water

you like have a cold

she would rub your temples if you had a headache and she would literally be like a doll for you to move around like oh you wanna lay on her chest? by all means

you wanna lay upside down with your feet in her face? as long as you get better you can do whatever you want!

you don’t wanna touch her at all? that’s where she draws the line

you’ll be like “ugh i’m hot get away from me”

“okay ☹️☹️”

“why are you touching my feet with your feet”

she places you above everyone else

like yeah other people are ok…….

but you 😍😍😍😍😍😍

this is slightly cringe but she would fr burn the whole world down and not let a flame touch you

LIKE HAVE YALL SEEN THE ANONS IVE BEEN POSTING AND THE CAPTURE THE FLAG THINGS 😱😱😱😱 (y’all always check my blog im always posting the funniest shit bc i’m funny)

“you’re one opposite teams blah blah blah you get hurt clarisse drops EVERYTHING to help you even if just a paper cut” (i have no chill fic coming soon)

THEN THEN the other one that was like “ok but what if you ACTUALLY get hurt like broken leg”

clarisse just goes crazy when you’re hurt

in so it goes: “what if that cut gets infected?”

you’re her WORLD she literally can’t stand the thought or something happening to you or else she starts literally shaking in anger and sadness

but when clarisse gets hurt it’s a whole other story

LIKE FUCK YOU JUST WANNA CARE ABOUT HER AND SHES ALL LIKE “it’s chill.”

NO ITS NOT YOURE GONNA BLEED OUT 😭😭

clarisse never let’s anyone but you see her true emotions

like yeah when you’re in public and you’re being cutesy she starts smiling and everyone is SO confused

but still

she never lets anyone see her as WEAK

so she always downplays her injuries in terms of how much they hurt, but flaunts them off proudly at the same time?? yeah that makes sense

after a capture the flag game you march her to the bathroom with a first aid kit “ok baby take off your shirt”

she always makes some flirty comment like SHUSH NOT RN

then she has all these bruises and every once in a while a cut from someone’s sword

you’re like 😔😔💔

you’re the only one she will let clean her up

unless she like breaks a bone or needs stitches (which has never happened) no way in hell she’s going to the healers

if you’re a child of apollo or smth she’s like “i literally have my own person healer right here…..”

anyways i think that’s all but i will probably be updating this when i think of more stuff bc as we know i have no chill

thank you all sm for reading and reblogging and liking and commenting and sending all of your WONDERFUL asks they make me so happy i’m always giggling when i get one

anyways bye bye 😘

—

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme

[yuikomorii]

Ayato used to be special, that’s true but now? He pretty much lost the personality that made him stand out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

No offense here but one thing I hate about dating sims is when the guy starts worshipping the MC to the point that they always do as she says whether if that’s wrong or right.

I can remember the times Ayato got in troubles due to trusting Yui’s words too much or caring too much about her comfort when more serious issues were around and I swear there is even a ‘I will build a castle for you’ scene ??? that made me cringe so bad

I don’t get what this fandom got with simps, it’s none of my business tho but that’s not even funny at this point anymore.

// No because at this point I’m convinced more than half of the fandom mischaracterizes Ayato so bad that I’m genuinely questioning whether you truly played the games/read the translations or you simply couldn’t care less about what you were playing/reading.

First of all, there is a distinction between worshiping and appreciating someone. Ayato treats Yui as an equal; he does not regard her as a goddess or an inferior, which is completely fine because this is the healthiest way for a relationship to function. He trusts her words so much because he loves her and believes in her abilities.

Secondly, Ayato didn’t lose his personality and if you went through his routes, listened to the serious CD dramas, read the official short stories + YB and paid attention to what’s written about him in the books, you would know that.

It was mentioned several times that Ayato’s true face is the one of a sweet and pure-hearted boy. Usually, when people hear the word “pure-hearted” they think of someone kind or innocent, but the term goes beyond that. Everyone can be kind sometimes, everyone was pure at some point and some still continue to be like that if life didn’t hit them hard enough but not everyone can be pure-hearted. Being pure-hearted ( 純情 ) means having a self-sacrificing devotion, helping and forgiving the ones who wronged you and empathizing with them. This perfectly describes Ayato because I swear, this boy is the King of Second Chances.

Even Rejet mentioned in the second picture that by touching the true side of Ayato, who always pretends to be strong, you will fall in love with him.

That’s actually a true statement and I can clearly see why he’s the apple of Yui’s eye because Ayato is by far the most hardworking and ambitious Diaboy and the fact he would do anything to make his girl happy, even starting to study in order to get into college (although part of his trauma has to do with it since Cordelia mercilessly punished him every time he refused to study), adds +100 respect points.

The "I'm gonna build a castle for you!" scene from his MB After Story wasn’t cringe at all; he was just trying to show Yui how grateful he is to have her by his side all the time. He didn't expect her to get a job too; he simply wanted to be the one who worked so as she could live a happy life and fulfill his role as her husband.

In the official after story of the MB After story (translated by Koiiro), Ayato stopped skipping classes at college so as to make Yui proud. He’s trying his best to be a better person just for her and if you still find THIS cringe, then… that’s on you.

Last but not least, it’s true that Yui’s decisions aren’t always the best but instead of blaming her for making dumb choices and Ayato for trusting her, why not blame the person who put them in an uncomfortable situation??

[starsjulia]

honey, i'll always be here, holding your hand

summary ~ y/n has been struggling, and leah's always here to help.

warning ~ disordered eating, angst (do not read if you feel it will trigger you)

a/n ~ i kinda wrote this as a vent and so i could get the end message out, and i'm always here if your struggling just msg me xx

also this is my first lw imagine soooo sorry if it's shit (it's also quite short)

distance. that's what y/n was doing, distancing herself from her wife. y/n and leah had been married for 3 years and one quite large question was bound to come up soon, and the only plan y/n can find to get herself out of it was to distance herself for the moment.

she sees the way leah acts with children, she looks at them with so much love, and so much longing. she's expressed her love for children in the past but the topic of their own hasn't brushed the surface yet. leah wasn't aware of a large part of her wife's life that would impact her want for her own children.

y/n had, and still slightly has an eating disorder, it caused her period to fade, she hadn't got her period in months, and she was sure that she wouldn't be fertile.

of course leah had some idea of y/n's struggle with eating, because she's always sort of had it. y/n was an actress, a oscar winning actress. so the public eye and constant criticism wasn't good for anyone's self esteem, but the constant comments got to y/n's head early on, and no matter what they stayed.

she got very good at hiding it though, she never looked 'anorexic' though no body 'looks anorexic' she was naturally thin, but at times how thin she was exactly scared leah. y/n hid her scale, basically memorised the amount of calories in almost all food, became a borderline mathematician when it came to adding, and she also had a tendency to binge when she was alone. so without being extremely observant you wouldn't of guessed she had disordered eating.

but it did catch up to her slightly, especially the side effects, her hair was thinning, she barley had a period, her nails where brittle, and she was often tired, but she always told her wife it was 'just a cold i've caught' or 'it must be an anemia flare up' and leah believed it, mostly because she communicated almost every other issue but this.

so she distanced.

and then the distance became too much.

"y/n wafts happened, and don't say nothing because i k know it's not, you barley talk to me, barley touch me, we barley have sex and if we do you never let me do anything to you, you're never like that and you know it, and you never eat with me, i can't stand it anymore, just talk to me. is there someone else? because of there is i'd rather know now than later"

leah finally broke the silence.

"no, no there's no one else, swear on nachos life"

nach was their shared dogs name, leah relaxed slight knowing that she weren't ever going to lie on his life.

"okay then what is it? i'm staying here until you tell me. i deserve to know"

leah did deserve to know

y/n just stared at leah for a few seconds to ground herself.

"okay... i will tell you, but you need to understand i didn't know how to tell you until it was too late"

y/n just said blankly, deciding she needed to come clean.

"alright..."

leah replied confused

"i can't have kids leah, well i don't think i can, and i know you can't because of your endo, and i know how badly you want them, but i can't give it to you, so i understand if you want to find someone who can and..."

y/n looked down, eyes welling with tears, but leah used her hand to hold y/n's chin to make her look at her.

"honey, i don't care if you can't have kids, we can always adopt, or foster, you never know! i love you because of who you are, not if you can have kids or not silly! ... but if you don't mind me asking, did something happen so you can't have children or how come it hasn't come up earlier?"

leah asked sympathetically.

"um... leah, i'm still not sure how to say this... but you deserve to know... i um... think i may of maybe, well i'm pretty sure i've got some sort of eating problem lee... and i don't know, i just like can't stop? i've tried everything on my own but, i can't eat without all the numbers and it won't go away, it's consuming me, it's all a think about, and i don't want to think about it, i really really don't, but it won't go away, and it's gotten to the point where i haven't had a period in months, the last one i had was 6 months ago and it barley lasted a day lee... i don't think i can have kids anymore, and i don't even know how to live normally anymore."

y/n vented, but as soon as she stop she tried to take a deep breath in, but she couldn't, her air was stuck, it was like she was so scared and her body was rejecting air, her chest tightened and her vision and hearing faded very quickly.

she was having a panic attack.

"oh shit, honey, please look at me"

leah tried to calm the girl down, still in shock herself, but y/n always came first.

"baby i'm gonna hold you alright, tap me if you don't like it, okay? and just listen to my heart beat and follow my breathing"

it took a while but eventually y/n's breathing steadied and became more normal again, tears still falling, she wasn't sure why, maybe the hunger took over, she didn't even know her self.

"okay it's fine if you don't want to talk today, but i'm so so proud of you for telling me alright? you are so unbelievably strong for being able to tell me, and i'm so sorry for not noticing, and not being able to help you earlier, but i'm going to help you now okay? but can you kinda explain little more how exactly you're struggling with food?"

"well... umm... i guess i've always kinda had struggles with eating? like... you remember when we first stared dating i was like constantly on one diet or another, and then i stoped, and then i gained a bit of weight, and i lost control, like the part of my brain that tells me when i was hungry, or like what j was in the mood for was controlled by someone else, and i think part of it was the media, and i began counting calories, and it's not something i can stop because my brain has too know how many calories are in a meal, or how many grams of carbs or i'll go nuts, i will spiral, and the amount of food i eat like kinda got smaller by the day, and now i can barley eat a meal without wanting to through up. but then other days i eat to much that i'm throwing up so... i don't even know leah... i have no idea what to do anymore"

and the tears came back

"shhh im here baby. right here, and i'm not giving up, ever. im gonna be right by you holding your hand until your where you desire to be, i'll be holding your hand no matter what, because i love you soo incredibly much. i vowed in sickness and health, and your a bit ill now, but i'll help you until your better"

and y/n did get better. in fact she got her life back over the next year. she got freedom, and even got her period back, and was actually able to carry hers and leah's baby together. it got better. and i gets better

[lil-elle]

KIDS WITH XIKERSS🥺🥺🥺 What would it be like to have a family with them?😭😭😭

I'll actually cry thinking about this, I'm not joking

XIKERS as Dads T-T

pairs: bf/hus!xikers (?) x gn!reader

genre: established relationship, parenthood (?), fluff

word count: 1.3k

content: cute fluffy dad behaviour

a/n: daddy issues go so crazy...

Minjae:

Likes to think he'd know what to do but when it actually comes to it, he's a confused mess

At first, if you left him alone with the baby to go grocery shopping or something, he'd be calling you after like 10 minutes like “Um, please come back, she's trying to eat paper towels and I don't know what to do…” in a very panicked voice that you don't usually hear from him

He'd get it eventually, but he'd be such a weak spot for your daughter, always getting her fast food when she wants it, taking her to the park whenever he can, not being able to resist when she points and asks if she can get some ice cream at the grocery store

Would be the softest dad ever, always talking sweetly to her and making time for her

She'd definitely grow up being a dad's girl, listening to music with him, cooking with him, dancing with him

-

Junmin:

Anxious, paranoid dad. Looks up every little thing she does, worried it's a sign of illness or injury

Actually quite a good carer though, insisting that you stay in bed and let him handle it when she starts crying in the middle of the night

Definitely looks at her with the softest eyes, the type to think he wouldn't be all that crazy about having kids but once he has one, he's so so full of love and joy

Would end up being maybe a little strict just because he's over paranoid. Once she's a teen you'd have to convince him to let her do certain things like hang out with her friends because he thinks they'll be drinking and doing drugs (I swear he means well)

The type to have a heart to heart with her because she's mad at him for being so strict, and he'd tear up while telling her that he's just so worried about her

-

Sumin:

The fun one

Shows pictures of you and her to everyone at work, so incredibly proud and happy of his family “Look at her, isn't she cute!!”

Spoils her every Christmas, birthday, any holiday basically. Even not on holidays, comes home with gifts for her and you have to warn him not to spoil her too much in case she becomes a spoilt brat

Would listen to her babble about her cartoons or favourite toys and would definitely actually enjoy watching cartoons and playing with toys with her

-

Jinsik:

The emotional one. Cries with every milestone like first steps, first day of school, every birthday, first play date, anything really

Thought he'd be a bad father but is actually really naturally caring and nurturing

Would sit and help with her homework until she gets to like 10th grade and he's skipping out saying he's “busy” but it's actually because he barely understands it himself

Would let her run and jump into his arms every time he got home from work

You'd catch them napping together on the couch after getting home one day because they both got sleepy watching a movie and cuddling

-

Hyunwoo:

Kinda goofy and also really confused when it comes to caring for her

Would do a ton of research and still be like “is this right?” “Oh god what do I do??”

Would absolutely adore her though, taking pictures whenever she does something cute and geeking out while showing you and obsessing over it for days

You'd walk into her room one day to find him holding her and just looking at her with the softest smile on his face. You'd walk up to him and he'd meet your eyes before smiling super duper wide, just so happy

He doesn't usually cry but he'd tear up seeing her leave for her first day at school and turn away from you like “I'm not crying, don't look!”

-

Junghoon:

Would be super nervous about taking care of her on the inside, even if he didn't show it on the outside

Doesn't seem like the type to be a fan of kids but his is the only exception - he adores her

Would keep a picture of her in his wallet or on his desk at work

Would always prioritise her over anything else. She's sick at school? Immediately leaves work to take her home and take care of her. She's crying over something? Would sit down with her and comfort her

Would sit on the couch with her on his lap watching cartoons and he'd absolutely fall asleep there, knocked out while she's bouncing up and down singing to the theme tune of her favourite show

-

Seeun:

Wide eyed whenever she does something new like giggles or grabs his finger

Would never ever admit how much he adores her but you'd catch him peeking into the crib while she sleeps, just smiling softly and getting jumpscared when he notices you behind him

Would go insane when she has her first steps, jumping up and down and yelling. He'd only calm down once he realises that he might be scaring or upsetting her by being loud

Would take her on little daddy daughter dates after school, scooping her into his arms and carrying her to a nearby cafe while talking cutesy with her and letting her choose whatever she wants from the sweets in the Cafe

Would always fight for her if she got in trouble at school, insisting that there's no way his precious angel started a fight and it was definitely the other kids fault

-

Yujun:

Tears and giggles from him no matter what she does. She'd giggle and the he'd giggle and his giggling would make her giggle harder, just an endless cycle

She'd definitely tale after him, being super super adorable and everyone would be able to tell, commenting on it and making him shy

Would build pillow forts with her and read her stories and she fell asleep, then carry her to bed and kiss her forehead and tucked her in

Many nights of all 3 of you falling asleep in bed together snuggled up, especially if it's cold or she's had a nightmare

Would wear matching Halloween costumes with her every Halloween because she loves it so much

-

Hunter:

Definitely seems like the type to know he wants a family, and once he has it he's just as thrilled as he thought he'd be

Would sing to her to help her sleep while running his finger down the bridge of her nose

Would always carry her from the car to her bed without waking her up if she fell asleep

Would be super prepared with making sure she had everything she needed for school everyday, would always make sure she ate enough and was happy everyday

Just a few months after having the first one he'd already be like “let's have another one”

-

Yechan:

Would be super panicky and confused. She'd start crying and he'd make a silly face to try and cheer her up but she'd just cry harder and he'd be like “HONEY HELP, I MADE IT WORSE.”

Would burst into hysterical laughter at any small thing she did, would somehow always manage to stay positive and find it funny even if she flings food at the wall or draws on everything with permanent marker

You'd have to be the one to discipline her because Yechan would never have the heart to 

He's the type to high five her if she fights someone at school. “Did he start it?” “He called me a butthead >:( so I hit him” “Good job, sweetheart” *high five*

Would work together with her to pull pranks on you and then run away together, “Mommy's so scary isn't she” he'd chuckle

-

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

TAGLIST:

 @hyunromi @chocoeon @hyunukitty @minjaezed