#blithely oblivious | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cattolino · 1 year ago

Text

little bit of advice, take the dare.

pairing: bang chan x f!reader. warnings: profanities, implied exhibitionism, dirty truth or dare (more like dare or dare...), stripping, mild grinding, dirty talks. genre: implied rivals to lovers. rating: mature. word count: 2.1k

(this fic has been crossposted on my insta @cattoleeno)

“Let Chan strip two pieces of your clothing.”

These little bitches.

The innocence in Seungmin’s broad grin as he delivered aloud and clear what Minho had earlier whispered in his ear couldn’t deceit Chan in the slightest, in spite of it combined with that sparkly, attentive puppy stare.A foul scheme had been arranged in those two cunning heads of theirs even before they instigated this cursed truth or dare game. Chan wasn’t oblivious of what he was going to get himself into the moment Minho escorted him from the drinking game in the back patio, to a coffee table in the living room, and begged him to join in in the fun. Especially when you were one of the people centering around the table.

And so Chan was down for whatever challenges thrown his way no matter which of truth or dare he ended up choosing. Wouldn’t really matter. Except now it was your turn, and somehow he happened to be involved in such a risque dare so early in the game.

Seungmin’s index finger pointed around the room twice, attracting the attention of the few people close enough to the table to see what he was up to, and he added, “or let anyone in the room. Your choice.”

As if you would actually pick one of the sweaty and tipsy shitheads you barely knew of instead of Chan who you were certainly more familiar with, Seungmin’s suggestion was absurd. When, seriously, it was clear to Chan that both Seungmin and Minho wanted to prove him wrong; that the possibility of you both romantically attracted to one another is not even close to impossible despite the inevitable banter that often gets out of hand.

The banter, Seungmin and Minho insisted, was a flirting attempt.

You leaned back onto the sofa behind you, crossing your arms with a stare of haughty disdain piercing through Seungmin and Minho’s who both seemed to be just as imperious.

“I was expecting a more daring one from you horny freaks,” your eyes then landed on Chan who was sitting across from you. Not looking away, your proud smile widened into a blithe grin, “this isn’t even his dare, I don’t see why I have to back down.”

Chan stretched his arms and arched his back as a dramatic warmup before downing the remaining liquor in his red cup, earning supportive laughs from excessively excited spectators. “As long as you don’t back down if they involve you in my dares later.”

Getting up from the floor, you rounded the table and stood before him. You mirrored the smug grin that stretched across his face as he peered up at you, “pants and sweater then, gentleman.”

Despite the profuse tease that gleamed in your irises, Chan didn’t entertain you with even a slight wavering in the way he looked back up at you. Instead, taunting you with a faux innocent tilt of his head as his firm yet tender fingers began to toy with the button of your jeans.

The waistband of your black panties as if emerged once he slid down the zipper. He wasn’t sure if your hand placement on the crown of his head was unintended, but then your lips tilted up into a smile and your brow arched challengingly as your fingers ran through the soft tresses of his brown curls.

Encouraged, he lifted the hem of your sweater, exposing just enough of your bare stomach. His other palm smothered around your waist and landed on the small of your back, drawing you closer until his lips accidentally brushed against the bare skin of your abdomen.

Chan’s hearts didn’t leap at his own sly, dirty initiation.

It didn’t. Definitely not.

Perhaps one could cut the air with a knife as the tension between you two was thickening the longer he took his time sliding the pants off your waist and the tighter you had his hair gripped in your palm. But everyone else was too preoccupied with keeping track of his veiny hands lingering around the waistband of your jeans, tugging down the denims at an intentionally slow pace.

In one glance, nothing of your true emotions was shown through your perfunctory facade. But Chan was practically on his knees, hands on you, and there was less than two inches gap between his lips and your stomach. Anything changed from your stance, he could easily catch it.

So when he felt you tensed up when he skimmed his palm down the side of your thigh as the other pulled the jeans down to pool around your ankles, he had to fight back the triumphant grin that was close to spread on his face.

Once the pants were tossed somewhere on the floor, Chan got on his feet as you held your arms up for him to take your knitted sweater off over your head.

His eyes peered down at where the bare skin of your stomach was supposed to be on full display as he pulled the hem of your sweater up. The underband of your bralette was slowly showing the higher the hem of your sweater was lifted.

He drew closer, lips lingered on your ear, chuckling and murmuring out of everyone’s earshot, “should’ve made you rid of three garments instead of two. What a shame.”

You ran your palms down along his torso as soon as your sweater was off your upper half, and you leaned in to whisper in his ear where nobody else could hear, too. “Next time it’s your turn, I’ll make you stand on the porch naked.”

As you casually sat down with only high-cut panties and black bralette, shameless gasps of “oh fuck” was heard from around you—it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen anything worse than a human in underwear, you were sure most of these people had watched porn, accidentally or not, once in their lives. Chan could relate, however. He found himself checking you out when you weren’t looking.

He was grateful of the sudden rough smack on his thigh that brought him back to his senses. He looked to his left where the hand was from and Minho shot him a knowing look, muttering, “you fuckin’ pervert.”

He chuckled. Perhaps he was.

“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!” Felix chirped lovely squeaks and giggles as he bounced up and down on the carpeted floor in anticipation, more because the game had progressed into all the more obscene earlier than he had expected. And he wanted to see more. Don’t be fooled by such an irradiant, angelic face.

Chan just had to dissolve into laughter and squeaks and giggles when the bottle cap once again pointed in your direction. Twice in a row, it was. He threw his head back laughing when your jaw took a plunge into the ground in disbelief and eyes narrowed into slits in spite, feeling betrayed by the bottle.

“Sit on Chan’s lap.” Jeongin smugly declared before anyone could even think of something potent to embarrass you, effectively shutting down the jeers and laughter as they contemplated the weight of yet another risque dare.

You shrugged, once again rounding the table to where Chan was perched on the floor and nonchalantly settled your ass on his lap before he could protest.

Chan, on the other hand, grasped either side of your waist tightly and tried to prevent you from dwelling on that particular spot. But you persisted on reclining your back onto his chest, shoving your ass further down to where Chan could feel himself twitch.

“Fuck you.” He cursed against your neck when you slightly wiggled your lower half.

“Quit being a jerk,” you whispered back with a chuckle, tone laced with mischief, “or I’ll make you wet your pants. Literally.”

Not even thirty minutes into the game when everyone around the table was beginning to be a little tipsy, some were with signs of misery on their faces, the other half with happiness.

With five people being out of the circle and off to the back patio for a much more lame drinking game with other football players, the remaining nine still held out in place to seek revenge.

Minho had tasted his own medicine as he was left with only briefs around his waist but not that he was unhappy about it as he’d gotten to proudly present his hard-earned toned physique when you had Jisung leave three hickeys on his shoulders and two on his inner thigh.

Jisung had solid yellow face paint all over his face, exactly resembling Looney Tunes’ Tweety with his puffy cheeks.

Hyunjin was sprawled on the floor with occasional dramatic huffs and groans after he was told to call his problematic ex and told him he’d been missing him.

Changbin and Felix were disgustingly glued to one another after Changbin prolonged the kiss that was supposed to only last for five seconds.

Seungmin had collected lipstick marks around his neck from ten people (maybe more since Seungmin is definitely the type to ask for more just for the giggles).

Jeongin almost passed out from seven slices of pizza he’d had to finish before Seungmin returned.

And Chan was about to get his second turn after the top of the bottle pointed at him and you, who was still very much comfortably perched on his lap.

“Dare.” He didn’t even hesitate, calm and confident.

Not even when Minho slightly shoved himself forward to gain everyone’s attention. A little lift at the corner of his lips didn’t go unnoticed and for some reason, Chan was even anticipating what the little son of a bitch had to say now.

“Are people still doing seven minutes in heaven?” Minho blurted, making Felix perk up instantly.

Hyunjin abruptly ended his dramatic disintegration and sat down with a gasp. “Oh. My. Fucking. God,” he started, emphasising every word, “I did it a year ago at a frat party with a guy except we weren’t allowed to say anything. Not a single fucking sound ‘cause one of them was sitting in the front of the door and if they heard even a small bit of me moaning, we’d have to walk to class the next day with extremely short fucking miniskirt,” he sighed dreamily, “imagine such suffering I had to bear while a hot guy was blowing me. He was fucking amazing.”

Wonder-stricken looks were instead what the taller got from everyone in the room. Minho was especially beaming at the deliberate suggestion, and his eyes landed on Chan whose chin rested on your shoulder. The older raised a brow in amusement when catching Minho staring, already seeing through the younger’s impish smirk.

Seungmin turned towards Minho, “I vote for what exactly Hyunjin did.”

Minho chuckled, “slow down, my guy. Our Channie doesn’t have to get someone suck him off. He can do whatever he pleases behind the door. But not. A single. Fucking. Sound.” He suggested, imitating Hyunjin’s tone as he looked Chan dead in the eye, “or Changbin would love to lend his sister’s pink tutu.”

While Chan’s expression was hard to read, the rest seemed to be pleased. Excited, even.

You straightforwardly approved of Minho’s suggestion, ripping through the sound of supportive cheers from the others with an excited squeal after taking a sip of cheap beer in your cup, “I volunteer to sit at the door!”

Chan snorted behind you, “who says you’re not coming with me?”

A noisy commotion of “ooooohhh” and dramatic “aaaaahhh” immediately collided with the blaring EDM played in the background. Ironically the one thing that reminded Chan there were still people around although the majority of them had gone home over two hours prior. Maybe it was because the game was fun, or he was too preoccupied with the pleasure of having you on his lap, that for a moment he had forgotten the world.

Chan thought you would never run out of snide remarks to shoot back at him at a time like this. So when you choked on your drink at his candidness, he couldn’t hold back a snicker.

“Kinda wanna see Chan in a cute pink skirt.” Felix unattached himself from Changbin’s arm, hands flailing before his own face with a grin so bright he looked exactly like the sun in the dim room. Once again, don’t be fooled by such an irradiant, angelic face. “Okay, look. You get seven minutes. Choose your person. No sounds allowed. We’ll set the timer once the door’s shut.”

“That room’s empty,” Changbin added, nodding at the door to his roommate’s room, “he’s gone for two weeks. Just don’t make a mess.”

If Chan was surprised at how he managed to manhandle you and somehow scoop you up as he got on his feet, it didn’t show on his face.

You securely wrapped yourself around his upper half, filthiest curses was at the tip of your tongue at the sudden, unannounced move.

Chan blinked. Not breaking eye contact, his tongue brushed over the upper row of his pearly teeth before they sank in his lower lip. There might be a lack of reaction shown on your face as you seemed to be still as annoyed, but the faint pinkish tint that stained your cheeks said so much already.

He glanced at Changbin, nodding, “worry not. I’ll swallow everything y/n has to give me.”

“You better,” your irritated stare tapered off into that of a challenging glare injecting venom straight into his dimpled grin, “or I’ll make you wear the tutu.”

#skz fictions #stray kids imagines #skz imagines #skz smut #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz bang chan #bang chan smut #chan smut #chan imagines

2K notes · View notes

chimielie · 1 month ago

Text

“You have crazy eyes,” Oikawa says offhandedly, setting a glass down and leaning hard on a wooden table, long legs crossing over each other elegantly.

“I do not,” Iwaizumi retorts. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Mhm,” Oikawa pushes his head into the other man’s line of vision, dodging as Iwaizumi unfolds his arms to make an attempt at pushing him away, his gaze locked on the other side of the deck all the while. “Nothing’s happening, that’s why the vein in your forehead is about to pop. You’d think he’d notice the big dumb guy staring at him this whole time.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” says Iwaizumi, casually posing his arm to rest on the table, open palm up.

“Maybe he has noticed and he’s just ignoring it?” Oikawa squints, dropping his (prescription, but don’t you dare tell anyone) sunglasses down his nose for dramatic effect. “A braver man than me, then.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Iwaizumi says, but his fingers twitch, not quite a fist and not far from being one. His eyes are an olive orchard burning. As Oikawa said: crazy.

You are: oblivious, blithe, gorgeous. The tops of your shoulders are sun-warmed and you’re swirling a glass of red in your hand, the contented lilt of your smile familiar to him after many nights watching your favorite wine stain your lips. He sees you sway a little, your eyes popping wide as you realize all too quickly that you might be a little further past tipsy then you’d thought, and the bastard you’re talking to puts his hands on you. One on your shoulder, one on your waist to steady you.

Hajime’s always had a penchant for parkour when he’s drunk, and you and he have been taking sips of each other for days now. He slams a palm down on the hard wood, momentarily airborne as he jumps over the table and cuts through the other people standing around to get to you.

“Hey,” he says, grin looking a little feral as he watches the hands on your waist come off. The guy’s movements are jerky, looking at him like what the hell, man? Iwaizumi has no idea why.

“Hi, Haji,” you say, your lips curling into a warm smile. “This is Naoto. He’s from the same place I am, actually.”

“Cool,” Hajime says, extending a hand to shake like he learned at networking mixers at UCI. Naoto stares at him for a second and then takes it cautiously, wincing as Hajime crushes his fingers in his best arm-wrestling champ grip. “Good to meet you.”

Naoto clearly does not think it is good to meet him. He steps back upon release and makes a rushed goodbye to you, citing a group of friends he suddenly needs to find urgently. You smile and wiggle your fingers at him vaguely, already far more focused on the sun setting over the waves past the terrace than you are on whatever is happening between the two of them. Hajime steps up behind you, sliding a hand over your waist, his palm covering the surface area touched by Naoto. You put a soft hand over his, stroking slowly over his calloused knuckles, and hook your other arm back to tug him forward so he’s pressed against your back, bending so he’s cheek-to-cheek with you, watching the water undulate.

“You havin’ a good time?” His voice is a little rough from the clear liquor he and Oikawa were drinking paired with the effort of keeping his voice quiet, his concern just for you.

“Yes, sir,” you say, taking another sip from your glass. You hold it across your chest and he wraps his fingers around the delicate stem, putting his mouth right over the print yours left. “You?”

“Of course,” he says. “It’s beautiful out here. I think Shittykawa got sunburnt on the beach, though.”

“His fault for being pale,” you wave your left hand dismissively. He wants to pin you like a butterfly, your wrist arched gracefully against the darkening sky. “He has all those fancy skin creams to stop it from flaking, too.”

He feels a little bad for abandoning his best friend, but when he turns his head to check on him, the other man has reunited with Makki and Mattsun, who are all clustered together while taking photos of the two of you. Oikawa’s features specifically are spelling out something very smug and that will be very annoying for Hajime later. Iwaizumi concludes that he will probably survive thirty seconds without direct entertainment from him.

“He gets bad flush, too,” he thinks aloud. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“See?” He hums and rubs his thumb over your top where he’s holding you with the right hand, soothing circular patterns. He can almost feel you purring. “I can always tell when you’ve started drinking for the night because Kawa gets red and you start running around and climbing things.”

“I don’t,” he protests, but it dies in his throat. You shake in his arms as you laugh.

“You always do. You tried to climb up my balcony once, remember? You said you could beat the elevator up.”

“I would’ve done it if security hadn’t come out,” he grumbles. You take your glass back and put it on the railing. It’s perilous, but Hajime doesn’t say anything. If it spills over your outfit, he’ll follow you back to the room and help you change.

“When I met you, I didn’t expect you to be the crazy type,” you say, turning so your lips brush his skin as you speak. “You seemed so steady compared to Kawa.”

“Only crazy about you,” he says. You sigh happily and melt back into him. He exhales slowly, a controlled breath, and wonders how a bastard like him got so lucky.

#shorts!#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq!! x reader #hq!! fluff #haikyuu!! fluff #hq fluff #haikyuu fluff #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi haijime x reader #iwaizumi x reader fluff #hajime x reader #iwaizumi hajime x reader fluff #iwaizumi my beloved my husband loml etc etc #a break from the angst drabbles #imagine u r on vacation with seijoh

396 notes · View notes

fir-fireweed · 2 months ago

Note

This is so incredibly cringy but I need more of the boys. This is also a classic ask, I never thought I’d be the one to ask it: if MC leaned in to grab something and the RO thought they were going for a kiss, how would they act if they pulled back with the thing they were grabbing with a cheekily little smile, cause they're a menace of course

I like this one! I tend to play oblivious MCs myself so it’s fun to put the power in the MC’s hands. 😈

—

You grab the first circular gear you see, no clue what it does, just to watch the expression on Calliope’s face. Her eyes are bright, her lips open in an eager grin.

When you pull back with a cheeky smile, her own dips for a moment. “Oh. Oh, you were just… okay. Oh, wait! That’s a center wheel! You’ll need a center wheel pinion, too!”

She hurriedly scrambles through the gears on her desk, then sets a small piece down in the exact spot where you grabbed the wheel. “There!” she says happily. She bounces on her toes, practically vibrating with anticipation. “You’ll need that, too!”

—

Corinne watches you steadily, her eyes on yours. Her gaze drops to your lips, her breath catching when you smile cheekily.

When you pull back she blinks. She breathes out, the sound rolling into a blithe, husky chuckle. She smiles—the carefree, delighted smile you so rarely see on her face.

“You’re a menace,” she chuckles. From her lips, it sounds like praise.

—

Vicente watches you, his cool gaze indecipherable. You’re certain he knows what you’re doing but his expression betrays nothing.

You step forward but he doesn’t move, not even when you brush against him. You reach forward to grab the object beside him and he swallows, the knot breaking the smooth line of his neck.

You start to pull back and he grabs your arm. He holds you there, the heat between you ebbing and pulsing.

“You forgot something,” he murmurs.

—

Bayram watches you, a smirk teasing the corners of his lips. You lean forward and he leans back, the curve of your bodies aligned.

You grab the object beside him and pull back. You smile at him—slowly, teasingly.

He throws his head back and laughs. “Oh ho, is that how it is?” he asks, his honey eyes gleaming. “Game on, love.”

—

These asks are fun! There is a good possibility some version of them is popping up in later chapters! 😂

#interactive fiction #writing #if wip #cantata #romance #romance options #ask me anything #ro scenario ask

129 notes · View notes

awwmona · 8 months ago

Text

₊˚⊹ ᰔ 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚...𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡

.☘︎ ݁˖ 𝐬𝐲𝐧. 𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘧𝘦'𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘴 ᥫ᭡. 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭. 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧, 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 ༯ 𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑶𝑹𝑺 𝑫𝑵𝑰

...word count: 1.1k

...note from irene: don't ask.

nanami kento rests languidly on the edge of the bed, your back in his view as he graciously takes the mantle of an attentive husband.

“i literally can’t with you. you’re a natural at this stuff,” you huff, somewhere between a vent and a bout of praise that he found endearing nonetheless. he raises an eyebrow, albeit dazed by the hypnotic show of you being able to reach your own zipper - who’s a natural at what? you, who resumes your tirade with an obliviousness towards his wandering eyes, is a natural at enchanting him. your hair was blown out, almost reaching your shoulders in cloudy tufts - that had been the last mission of tonight, a hairstyle more laborious than the act of lifting weights. “you can easily get away with being stand-offish, which…i’m not saying you are but…”

he releases a soft chuckle, adjusting his cufflinks, “now, humor me for a second, my love. when have you ever seen me get defensive?”

“huh?” you tilt your head in confusion eyeing him expectantly through your reflection as you secure your earring.

“you don’t need to worry about insulting me, darling. i can take it. if you think i’m stand-offish, just say it.”

you briefly turn to face him, bestowing a histrionic look of indignation. “i wasn’t saying that! okay—” you raise your hands in surrender, “you are quite stoic. does that do you justice?”

he offers a hum, one of satisfaction, an invitation for you to continue to the point you had intended to make. and you do just that, bending over the vanity to apply your lip gloss as kento’s attention blithely averts to the curve of your ass. “so, yes. you could get away with what will earn me, at best, some auntie in the corner asking me if i’m okay like…please! i’m fine! i just wanna be left alone!”

he chuckles along with you again, silently basking in your mirthful exchange… until he notices it. within seconds. the brief drag of hesitation as you began working on your hair. your makeshift puff remains put, arms raised for your hands to take the temporary role of a hair tie and…

…oh dear.

you were staring at your underarms again. in acute disdain.

he needn’t say a word - this conundrum was as foreign to him as a blue sky. but you’ve only complained about it once, a main focus on the fruitlessness of your spending. all these regimens, remedies and receipts the length of the great wall of china for them to still be there - sizable splotches of pigmentation that you just can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how hard you try.

once, you’ve verbally lamented.

but more than once, you’d been reluctant to don anything without sleeves, participate in anything remotely related to summer - and if you did, not lifting your arms was the war you were prepared to die in. and tonight, well, you’d had the misfortune of learning life’s indifference. the thin straps of your silky, cream white dress were well in torturing you with a reminder.

a click of the tongue bounces off the walls of your bedroom, and kento tries to think less about how your beauty terrifies him, opting to soothe you with his adeptness in subtlety.

“darling,” he begins, standing to walk towards you, “i think you should wear your hair down.”

“hm, i think so too,” you smile warmly at him through your reflection, conducting his suggestion by letting go of your hair and instead opting to comb it out, “let’s just hope it doesn’t rain tonight. i honestly don’t get the appeal of outdoor parties.”

all that follows is a soft hum, one of admiration. truly, you are an angel sent from heaven. more than just the angelic glow of your skin under the vanity light, your smile - your soul - can account for that. he watches you, deftly pulling at your coils to maintain the perfect shape - watching you fruitlessly strive to perfect the one thing that has always been just that. you. perfect.

“what?” you meekly acknowledge his stare with a shy smile, halting your movements.

“my love,” he drags, moving close enough for his hands to reach your hips. your attention moves away from your hair, prompting you to put your comb down and heed the sensation of his chest meeting your back. kento’s hands are calculated, a dexterous trace of your curves striving for a different kind of tenor - a lead from one thing to a delectable other. he moves his lips towards your ear, hazel eyes meeting yours through the mirror in a wordless declaration of unabashed desire. “you know that every inch of you is perfect, right?”

you shiver, at your best to conceal your want to reciprocate by scoffing playfully, “fancy, i’ve never pegged you for the corny type.”

“i mean it,” he rejoins, ignoring your jest, softly kissing the shell of your ear before he performs the unexpected, a hand moving to gently grab your wrist, lifting your arm up above your head. “every…inch.”

oh.

he really means it.

heat rises to your cheeks, noting how observant he had been towards your behavior earlier - this wasn’t new to you. you could stain a white shirt with pasta sauce and he’d counter your dismay by saying that it should’ve been there when you first bought it. he’d praise any part of you from head to toe. that realization had been made many moons ago. now, as all attention falls upon your exposed underarm, you forgo the need to protest, keeping your arm raised and resting your hand on the back of your husband’s head, fingertips blissfully pricked by the sharpness of his undercut.

“mmm…every inch, you say?” you murmur with feigned cynicism, a grin rising as Kento’s hand gently slides down the tricep of your raised arm.

“mhm…every…inch” your heartbeat is the toms of an acoustic drum set, as he reaches your underarm, lightly grazing the skin with his fingertips, prompting you to shiver at the ticklish sensation. “god, you’re breathtaking…”

he breathes it out like it’s the first time, and the sight before you is…sinful? a burlesque plays out in your reflection, a hand sensually caressing your hip whilst the other continues to draw reverent patterns on the area you’ve detested for eons. your husband, so fucking handsome, buries his face in crook of your neck, inspiring every last bit of your scent, and you still can’t help but huff in amusement, “hm, my black armpits were the ones to bring you to that revelation?”

“you amuse me, my love,” is the muffled, half dismissal towards your counter, followed by a kiss on your neck, “now, let me enjoy you.”

you giggle softly, meek at how your husband's brief praise towards your underarm has ever so slightly titillated you, “we’re gonna be late, you know…”

he perks up, privy to the suggestion you so dared to make, “if memory serves me correctly, it’s you who fails to see the appeal in these outdoor parties.”

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu nanami #nanami x reader #nanami kento #jjk nanami #nanami x you #nanami smut #nanami fluff #nanami x y/n #nanami x black!reader #nanami x black y/n #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jjk smut #jjk scenarios #jjk x black reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n

251 notes · View notes

neversetyoufree · 10 months ago

Text

Since we'll hopefully be getting out of the VnC hiatus soon, and this new arc seems to finally be turning the spotlight back to Noé and calling out some of his more troubling traits for the first time, I've been thinking a lot about him recently.

I've talked before on this blog about Noé's inability to recognize or process bad things when they happen to him alone. He bounces back from and idealizes almost any experience as soon as it's over, even when he absolutely shouldn't. It's one of my favorite traits of his, and it's been lampshaded a couple of times in-manga. Louis calls out how weird his attitude toward his kidnapping is during the mémoire 9 flashback, and the "be a little bothered" from Vanitas and co in mémoire 57 has the same effect.

We also recently got a whole extended sequence of Vanitas and Domi complaining about how Noé also never anticipates harm before it might come to him. He waltzes into dangerous situations like it's nothing, almost as if he thinks he's unkillable. Combined with the above, this is just more of his strange brand of optimistic denial. Everything is fine in Noéland! It can't possibly not be fine! He always trusts and thinks the best of people and situations by default, never wanting to expect they may do wrong, and so long as a given event doesn't involve harm to external innocents and/or Noé's loved ones that he can't rationalize away, he compartmentalizes and denies harm once it's done. Thus he carries on in blissful ignorance, his past suffering having no effect on the blithe trust with which he treats the world.

But in addition to all that, Noé is also very notably divorced from the consequences of his own actions. It's not that he's *incapable* of considering his own effect on people, and he certainly tries to be kind and decent, but much of the time, it just doesn't seem to occur to him that people will have reactions to the things he does. He does as he sees fit, and when his deeds impact the people around him, especially if they produce a reaction that could upset him, it bounces off his mind in the same way that potential traumas do.

On the more lighthearted end of the spectrum, this leads to things like Noé never noticing when people are attracted to him. It may also have something to do with his airheaded messiness—the way he's always thoughtlessly making a mess of the hotel room and incurring Vanitas's wrath in bonus materials. On the heavier end of the spectrum, this causes a lot of genuine problems for the people around him. He's largely oblivious to the depth of Dominique's mental health problems until she's pushed to her breaking point at the amusement park, despite the fact that he's inextricably entangled in the cause of them. He also completely loses sight of Vanitas's reactions to him when he gets caught up in his protective rage at the start of the vanoé fight, and it takes an outside reminder from Jeanne and a literal mirror to make him realize that his own actions are part of why Vanitas has devolved to such a state.

This lack of self-perception on Noé's part feeds back into the other problems I laid out at the top of this post, his obliviousness toward his interactions with the rest of the world helping to facilitate his denial. It's part of the happy little insulating bubble that he interacts with the world through. And as the other side of that coin, his automatic, unthinking denial of things that could hurt him is part of what enables him to ignore his own impacts on the people around him. You can't reckon with or worry about harming other people when you live in Noéland where everything must be fine. I think the fact that he wants to be a good person that doesn't harm others actually makes it harder for him to confront the truth of how he impacts the world, because him hurting others is a Bad Thing that would cause him mental harm.

We've seen Noé mess up, understand his mistake, and apologize for it before. He apologizes to Vanitas for making assumptions about him after the bal masqué, he apologizes to Vanitas again at the end of the amusement park fight, and he apologizes to Riche for speaking with ignorance about dhampirs. However, I think the bigger a mistake of his is, the more harm it causes other people (and the more understanding would hurt him as a result), the harder it is for Noé to comprehend his wrongs. He's clearly trying to make things right with Domi, and he's told her that he values her, but I don't know if it's yet occurred to him to conceive of their mess as a situation where he's done her active wrong. He also literally passes out on her mid-conversation, leaving Domi and Vanitas to carry him back to bed when he was supposed to be comforting her.

But I think the most fascinating example, the moment where all this comes together into Noé's most feeble and blatant act of denial yet, is the first time he sees Misha after clawing up his face. The anime actually changes this detail, which is its own can of worms to get into, but in the manga, when Noé sees Misha's injuries in the light of day after attacking him, he immediately fucking turns around.

At the end of his wits at the amusement park, Noé claws a child across the face in a fit of anger and protectiveness. I'm not interested in condemning Noé for this, especially given that the child in question was actively trying to stab Vanitas at the time, but I will say that his actions are quite extreme. Given Vanitas's response and the way Misha's injuries are portrayed, I think it's clear that the manga wants us to see how Noé hurts Mikhail as something troubling and extreme. He gives that kid a pretty horrible injury, and Misha will likely have scars on his face for the rest of his life.

And regardless of how justified he may or may not have been in hurting Misha in defense of Vanitas, it's clear that Noé himself is upset by the true extent of what he does to Mikhail's face. When he looks at him in the light of day, when he sees a numb-looking child with his face wrapped in still-bloody bandages, though we only get to see a small segment of his face in that moment, he looks sick. He knows that he's done something troubling, and I'm sure he feels all kinds of heavy and unpleasant emotions.

This is one genuinely bad thing he's done that Noé cannot deny. He can't rationalize this one away and make it all copacetic. He can't conveniently forget the emotional reality of suffering and harm, because that reality is standing ten yards away from him. And he can't just apologize for things either, because apologies cannot undo physical harm, and frankly, I'm not sure he'd be able to give an honest apology for his one. Sickness at the results of his actions doesn't mean he fully regrets hurting Misha, at least not at this moment when emotions are still raw.

But Noé, confronted with this undeniable source of guilt and pain, is still ultimately unable to look the pain he's caused in the eye. A problem piercing through the happy veil of Noéland and forcing him to acknowledge it doesn't mean he's capable of reckoning with that problem. Instead he just. turns away from it.

Noé, forced to acknowledge a harm he's done and unable to employ all the many layers of automatic insulation that usually protect him, physically turns around because he cannot bear to look at the person, the child, that he's hurt. He employs the very last possible form of avoidance available to him, even though it's useless in the ways that matter. Not looking at Misha doesn't mean he gets to un-know the fact that he maimed him, but he simply cannot bring himself to look.

Noé is extremely good at playing "I do not see it" with things that hurt him. He's good enough that I think he has genuinely no idea he's doing it a vast majority of the time. Whatever mental shield he has that's protecting him is automatic enough that the badness that could hurt him doesn't ever even seem to cross his conscious mind. But no matter how automatic and subconscious, this tendency of his is still, and the end of the day, nothing more than an unhealthy coping mechanism, and this moment helps to put that to our attention.

What's the difference, really, between him cheerfully acting like Jean-Jacques and Chloé's assaults never upset him and him turning around so he doesn't have to look at the wounds he gave Mikhail? Noé can't look at pain, can't acknowledge the things he finds upsetting (at least not things that cause him alone pain, as others' pain often triggers his savior complex and spurs action). This scene with Misha throws that into the light, forcing Noé to desperately cling to his avoidance in an obvious and physical way.

Even when there's no way to deny the harsh reality of having done something he finds horrific, Noé Archiviste cannot make himself look directly at a painful truth, be it others wronging him or his own wrongdoing. It takes an external hand to step in and force him to turn his head and acknowledge/reckon with a problem. And even then, who knows if intervention can always be successful.

The start of the dham arc so far has drawn a lot of attention to this pattern of behavior, with Vanitas having to sit Noé down and explain to him in detail why his words said in well-meaning ignorance make Dante so upset. This is Noé being forced to look at a harm he caused because he couldn't or wouldn't look at and comprehend the problem (his fellow vampires' racism) in the situation he was in. But upsetting Dante is ultimately a low stakes problem for Noé. He put his foot in his mouth and offended a peer; he didn't shred Vanitas's little brother. He's able to accept his wrongs and feel his discomfort without resorting to physically turning around and avoiding the issue.

I want to know what Noé will do if/when this arc forces him to confront a source of pain he can't handle in a context that's more high stakes than a social faux pas. I want to see what he'll do when something really forces him beyond his ability to believe that everything is fine. How badly would he have to be hurt to lose his ability to filter an event/events through rose colored glasses? How badly would he have to hurt someone else? Or is his instinctive shield good enough that he'll never get out of it on his own? And if so, who else might step in to make Noé own up to reality?

Teacher and the Archivistes are becoming plot-relevant now, and our attention is being drawn to Noé's issues. I think there might be something coming soon that even Noé can't turn away from and cheerfully pretend isn't hurting him. Teacher even ends his appearance at the amusement park with a little speech about having to "wake and face reality," which makes me even more certain that a wake-up call for Noé is imminent.

Either that, or Noé's going to mess up and hurt somebody even worse than he hurt Misha later this arc, and in that case, we might get to see a feat of denial even worse than him literally turning around to avoid looking at the wounds he caused.

#this whole issue also ties into the broader ways in which Noé is divorced from self-understanding #like not recognizing his own feelings of attraction #but that's a whole separate essay. or at least not something I felt was necessary to add to this already very long post #I love Noé so much I am so deeply deeply fascinated to see where his arc goes #I'm hoping he gets better and learns to face reality #but I don't know if that's guaranteed to happen #vnc #vanitas no carte #the case study of vanitas #Noé Archiviste #noé archiviste my beloved #english major hours #vnc spoilers #manga

307 notes · View notes

coffeeailee · 4 months ago

Note

HIII HEY HELLOOOO!!!!

Subspace x reader, sub is pinning on reader but he's terrible at it+ reader is oblivious. They're also neutral (but leaning more onto the negative side) to Subspace bc of his reputation n all.

Also unrelated but I love ur blog theme

———﹒♡﹒ Aim for the heart!

characters﹒ Subspace T. Mine

fandom﹒ PHIGHTING!

genre﹒ romantic, a lil comedy(?)

This post might contain incorrect grammar/spelling and out of character, it also might be a little bit too cringe, proceed at your own risk.

— ﹒﹒ Subspace ☆

— Subspace wasn't used to having his plans thrown off balance. He prided himself on his reputation...mysterious, formidable, someone people kept at arm's length. That suited him just fine. That is, until you showed up. There was just something about you that, from the instant you crossed paths, got under his skin, something that left him feeling off-kilter in ways he wasn't used to. Maybe it was because you never looked impressed with his bravado, or perhaps it was how you always challenged his ideas without batting an eyelash.

— He couldn't quite place his finger on when it happened, but before he knew it, you were all he could think about.

— Unfortunately for Subspace, his attempts to get closer to you were nothing short of disastrous. Subtlety wasn't exactly his strong suit, and every time he tried to approach you, it ended up either awkward or over-the-top. He couldn't figure out how to navigate the delicate balance between showing interest and not coming off as desperate, which, to his horror, he absolutely was.

— "[Name]! You!! let me do that! I have already calculated the best result!!!", he would tell you as you just return him your skepticism. You instantly refuse him and just brush right past him with no regard whatsoever.

— Subspace would just let himself get deflated by that. That happened many times; he just seemed to have never had enough of such occurrences.

— The problem was... you didn't trust him!! While you didn't overtly hate him, you couldn't help but keep your distance. He was unpredictable, erratic, and seemed like the kind of person who caused more problems than he solved.

— Still, he tried. Subspace wasn't the kind of person to go down without a fight, and as time went by, his feelings for you only grew stronger. He started looking for any excuse to be near you, whether it was volunteering for the same missions or conveniently...bumping into you in the hall.

— [Name], I made something for you!!!" he said one day, shoving some strange device into your hands with excitement as you examined it cautiously.

— "It's a personalized defense mechanism! I designed it specifically for your combat style! …Well, theoretically," he added, scratching the back of his neck. "I haven't tested it yet, but I'm ninety eight percent sure it'll work!!!"

— Your first instinct had been to give it back and walk away, but there was something about the expression on his face. Genuinely enthusiastic, he had seemed, and almost hopeful, as though, somehow, the outcome depended on your liking it.

— “Thanks, Subspace. I’ll… give it a try,” you said finally. The way his face lit up was almost endearing...almost.

— You blithely remained oblivious to the fact, even with the best, and rather clumsy, attempts at impressing you. To you, Subspace was just some other weird guy, no more, no less. Every time friends told you his crush was evident, you told them that was utter crap and ridiculous.

— Meanwhile, Subspace was only frustrated. In his head, he'd been clear: he'd dropped hints, gone out of his way to help you, even outright complimented you. And yet, you just didn't seem to get it.

— "Do you really not see it? " he muttered to himself one day, watching as you walked away after another casual dismissal.

— But when you were in danger, all of Subspace's awkwardness disappeared; on missions, he was the first to jump in and defend you, even if it put him in harm's way.

— Later, he'd make light of his actions, brushing off your gratitude with a wave of his hand. "Don't mention it at all!! I have already predicted the outcome!!"

— But it wasn't that at all, and you knew it. Finally, the dogged loyalty of Subspace began to chip its way into your guarded exterior, which had slowly worn you down. You still didn't quite trust him, but couldn't ignore how he always seemed to put your safety over his time and time again.

— One night, following the discharge of a particularly arduous mission, Subspace sat beside you, for once his bravado softened.

— "You know," he began, and his voice was softer than you'd ever heard it. "I might not always get things right, but… you mean a lot to me, [Name]. More than I probably let on."

— You turned to him, taken aback by the sudden softness in his voice. "What are you trying to say?"

— He cast a nervous laugh then hesitated. "Never mind! Forget I said anything! It's not even that important!!!"

— Even if you didn't quite grasp his emotions, Subspace was never waning in his resolve to be there with you, even over the frustration, rejection, and waiting that each minor instant of your time was worth to him. He knew that you would need some time before he's appeared in front of you with his real face, but he was not going to betray that, even at any amount of time. After all, when it came to matters concerning the heart.

Subspace wasn't about to give up without a fight.

— Author's note

﹒﹀﹒ TYSM!!!!! <333 I was thinking of doing stargazer rocket themed cuz he's so pretty but I ended up going with subspace.. also I am so sorry for the delay 😭.. I actually forgot how to write subspace, ALSO I AM SUPER SORRY IF THIS ISN'T WHAT YOU WANTED..

#phighting x reader #Subspace x reader #Phighting Subspace #tbh idk what to put help #Subspace x gn reader

100 notes · View notes

blueskrugs · 10 months ago

Text

I Love You (It's Ruining My Life) | Nick Blankenburg

this is a christmas fic. in july. for demi @wyattjohnston's birthday. which was in june. does the earliness of one make up for the lateness of the other? uh. happy birthday/happy holidays, I guess? fear of commitment / secret admirer / stranded / high school sweethearts / exes to lovers length: 6.4k words

Nick Blankenburg is the boy Olivia will never get over.

There’s a framed photo in her mother’s living room from seven years ago of Nick and Olivia at senior prom. Nick’s tie and boutonniere matched Olivia’s red Sherri Hill dress and corsage. In her heels, she was a couple of inches taller than him. Olivia sees it, sees them nestled in between the rest of their family photos, every time she’s home. She loved that photo; Nick is smiling softly at her, hand on her hip as she laughs at something one of her friends was doing off-camera. There’s a blooper of that photo, of Nick making faces to keep Olivia laughing, because “her smile is better that way.” That was her phone lock screen for months after that day.

Sometimes she wishes she could hide that picture frame now, or throw it into the fireplace and watch it burn.

But that would be dramatic.

Dramatic like Nick breaking up with her two months after high school graduation, saying he needed time to “figure some things out.” Dramatic like Nick hardly talking to her for weeks before he dumped her, after they’d been dating for three years.

Olivia had cried for weeks. Nick had been her first boyfriend, her first love. Washington was a small town, and almost everyone Olivia knew had married their high school sweetheart and settled down. She’d thought that would be her and Nick, too, until Nick decided to set his sights on bigger things.

Olivia pretended to get over it and moved to Ann Arbor in the fall. Nick seemed like he was always over it, and he moved to Detroit to join Victory Honda.

Olivia threw everything she had into school. She joined a sorority, joined clubs, started coaching a local girls’ soccer team. She was doing well.

By the time she was in her third year and one of her sorority sisters was telling her about the cute overage freshman named Nick who had joined the Michigan hockey team, Olivia is doing her best impersonation of a girl who finally got over her high school boyfriend.

It doesn’t stop her from dropping her phone on her face when her friend Paige leans over from her perch on the end of Olivia’s bed to show her the newest member of the hockey team. Nick Blankenburg’s smiling face stares back at Olivia from Paige’s phone screen.

“It says he’s from Washington, d’you know him?” Paige asks, oblivious. She’s already resumed scrolling.

“Yeah, uh,” Olivia says. “I think we went to high school together.”

“Oh, cool,” Paige says, continuing her blithe scrolling again.

Olivia thinks that’s the end of it. Hopes it’s the end of it. She doesn’t frequent hockey games these days, and since Nick spent two years in juniors instead of heading straight to Michigan, it’s unlikely they’ll be crossing paths on campus any time soon.

Then the football game against Ohio State rolls around. Olivia’s boyfriend Austin had traveled from Ohio to Michigan for Thanksgiving with Olivia’s family, and he stuck around through the weekend to go to the game at The Big House. Austin sticks out like a sore thumb, decked in all red, in a sea of maize and blue, but he good naturedly kisses Olivia at kickoff, ignoring the jeers of the crowd around them.

Michigan loses. It’s a bit of a blowout.

Someone from the next section over shouts something at Austin. He turns to shout back, tightening his arm around Olivia’s waist as they try to make their way out of the stadium with the rest of the crowd. Olivia’s not sure who starts it, but someone starts shoving. Olivia gets caught in the middle of it, jostled to the side as a fight starts. There’s more yelling. Someone pushes Olivia from behind, then from the side, and she falls.

Or, starts to fall, until someone catches her. It’s oddly reminiscent of the time Olivia met Austin, at another Ohio State versus Michigan football game her freshman year, and someone had bumped into him, causing him to spill a soda on Olivia.

She looks up into the face of the hands that caught her. “Nick?” she blurts. Nick’s grip on her elbows gets tighter, before he realizes he’s squeezing and lets go. He helps Olivia to her feet again. The crush of the crowd shoves them together, and Nick’s hands slide to Olivia’s hips to steady her. She’s still staring at him in awe, as if she’s never seen him before.

Nick still hasn’t said anything. Through the crowd, someone takes Olivia’s hand. Austin. She turns to find him, following as he tugs her away from Nick.

“Who was that?” Austin asks, leaning in close to speak in Olivia’s ear. Olivia cranes her neck around, but Nick’s lost to the crowd again.

“No one,” Olivia says. “It was no one.” She’s not sure if she’s trying to convince herself or Austin.

It seems impossible to continue to avoid Nick around Ann Arbor after that. Michigan’s campus has never felt so small. She sees him in the library, studying intently with his headphones on. She sees him walking across campus, always with a few other rowdy hockey players. She sees him waiting in line for coffee at Sweetwaters in the student union. Nick tries to talk to her, once.

They were crossing paths on campus, and Nick reached out a hand. He was alone, for once.

“Liv, hey,” he’d started. Olivia takes a second to look at him properly for the first time. He’s grown up a little since they left high school, but he still looks like the same sweet Nick she used to know. She pulls her arm away from him.

“I’m late for a class, sorry,” she said. She was heading in the opposite direction of the Education building, and she thought Nick might know that. She walked away before Nick could get another word in. He never tried to talk to her again after that. They share smiles every once in a while; Olivia’s always feel fake.

The years pass. Olivia graduates, gets a job as a fourth grade teacher in Detroit. Austin moves in with her. She finally stops thinking about Nick.

When Nick signs with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Paige takes the liberty of forwarding every single Instagram post about him to Olivia. Olivia FaceTimes Paige just so she can flip her off. Paige spends the next year and a half making it her personal responsibility to keep Olivia updated on her ex-boyfriend—every injury, every goal, every time he’s sent back down to the AHL.

Olivia tries not to pay any attention to it. Keyword: tries.

Austin and Olivia drive back down to Ohio a few days before Christmas to visit his family in Columbus. Olivia very carefully doesn’t mention that Nick had been called up a few weeks back the entire drive. It had caused a fight, once, when she mindlessly dropped into a conversation about the Blue Jackets that she knew Nick. She’s never talked about him around Austin again.

Later that night, when Olivia is standing on the curb outside of Austin’s parents’, her bag by her feet, tears drying on her cheeks in the freezing air, she’s briefly grateful for Paige’s incessant updates on Nick. At least she knows that the only person she knows in this awful city isn’t actually two hours away in Cleveland. She pulls out her phone with shaky hands.

God, she hopes Nick hasn’t changed his phone number.

The phone rings for so long that Olivia thinks Nick won’t answer. She swears under her breath and starts to pull her phone away from her ear to call an Uber instead when she hears a muffled, “Hello?” on the other end of the line. It sounds like she woke him.

“Nick?” Olivia asks. A car drives by, kicking up dirty slush, and Olivia flinches. There’s a moment of silence. “You know what, never mind, I’ll just—” Olivia goes to hang up the phone again, but Nick cuts her off.

“Liv? Hang on, what’s wrong?” There’s shuffling on Nick’s end of the call. He sounds wide awake now. “Where are you, are you in trouble?”

“Can you come pick me up?” Olivia whispers.

“Text me your address, I’ll be right there.” Nick hangs up.

Olivia’s numb by the time a car pulls up to the curb in front of her. A familiar figure jumps out of the driver’s seat and runs around the front of the car to pull Olivia into a tight hug. Olivia lets herself hug Nick back for a brief second, before he’s pulling away again and reaching for her suitcase.

“Liv, it’s freezing, what the hell are you doing standing out here?” he asks. He ushers her to the passenger seat and throws her suitcase in the back of the car. The heat’s blasting, and Olivia thinks Nick turned on the seat warmer for her. Her teeth are chattering.

Nick pulls away from the curb. Olivia settles back and lets the suburbs of Columbus turn into a blur outside the windows. Nick allows her to wallow in silence for a few minutes before he turns to Olivia at a red light.

“You didn’t tell me what happened, or why you needed me to pick you up in the middle of the night from the fucking Columbus suburbs,” Nick says. He doesn’t sound angry, just worried. Washed in the red glow of the stoplight, Olivia can see the way his eyebrows crease.

“Never gave me a chance,” Olivia manages. Nick shoots her an unimpressed look, but the light turns green again, saving Olivia from Nick’s gaze.

Nick’s CarPlay is softly playing Taylor Swift on shuffle. Olivia lets it cycle through a few songs before she speaks again.

“Austin and I broke up,” Olivia says.

Nick, to his credit, doesn’t ask who Austin is. Olivia’s pretty sure he never unfollowed her on Instagram. He’s probably seen all of her sappy posts from the last six years.

Nick just clicks his tongue and says, “Sorry, Liv, that’s shitty.”

Neither of them say anything else for the rest of the drive to Nick’s apartment. Olivia gawks out the window as they approach what is, apparently, Nick’s building.

“What?” Nick asks, pulling carefully into a spot in the parking garage.

“Nick, this is bougie as hell.” Olivia has never felt so far from Washington, Michigan in her life.

Nick shrugs as he puts his car in park and climbs out. He pulls Olivia’s suitcase out before opening her door for her. “It’s not that fancy.”

Olivia smacks him on the chest. She’s struck, suddenly, at how solid Nick’s become now that they’ve grown up. Now that they don’t know each other. The reminder of how different they are, how far they’ve come since high school, shocks Olivia into silence as she follows Nick up the elevator and to his apartment door.

He shoots her another worried look over his shoulder as he unlocks the door. “Are you sure you’re okay? Are you still cold?” He pulls Olivia by the wrist across the threshold and over to his couch. He turns on the gas fireplace, which Olivia raises her eyebrows at.

“Not that fancy,” she murmurs. Nick’s still bustling around, turning his heat up, disappearing into his bedroom and re-emerging with an armful of blankets, dressed in sweats and a ratty Michigan T-shirt. He throws a blanket at Olivia’s face. She rips it off, sputtering, before she realizes what it is. “You still have this?” she asks, incredulous.

The blanket in question is a T-shirt blanket, emblazoned all over with Romeo High School—dozens of Nick’s high school T-shirts, cut up and quilted together by Olivia’s mom after they had graduated. Olivia has a matching one, laid across the foot of her bed back in Detroit.

Nick looks sheepish for the first time since he picked up Olivia. “My mom, uh, helped me move in here, and she wanted to make sure I was never cold, I guess.”

The blanket looks worn, like it’s been used and washed dozens of times since they were eighteen. Olivia doesn’t call Nick out on it.

Nick settles on his couch next to Olivia. “I’m, uh, driving home first thing in the morning if you want to come with,” he says awkwardly.

Olivia chuckles wryly. “Not like I’ve got anywhere else to go,” she says. Her mother is going to be so shocked when Olivia shows up on the doorstep in the morning. Olivia was supposed to come back from Ohio with a ring on her finger, not lugging back a broken heart.

“Oh. Right,” Nick says. They lapse into stiff silence, until Nick yawns.

“You don’t have to stay up on my behalf,” Olivia says.

Nick looks over at her. “Nah, I’m fine.”

He pulls out his phone, so Olivia does the same, content to scroll in silence for a while. Until Nick starts laughing quietly at something on his phone. Olivia stretches out and pokes him in the thigh with her toes.

“What’s so funny?”

Nick locks his phone sheepishly. “Nothing.” When Olivia raises her eyebrows at him, he relents. “Kent keeps sending me these tweets about me, they’re kinda funny, I guess.”

Olivia feels her heart skip a beat, but she tries to mask it. She nudges Nick with her foot again. “Tweets about you? I need to see these.”

Nick blushes and tries to hold his phone farther out of Olivia’s reach. Her eyes narrow. That’s as good as a challenge, in her mind. Before she can think better of it, Olivia lunges across the couch for Nick’s phone. Nick jerks back, laughing, but Olivia manages to grab ahold of his wrist.

“Liv,” Nick says, but then they’re wrestling for the phone. Nick’s still laughing. Olivia’s struck, again, at how much bigger Nick is than when they were still in high school. In the scuffle, Olivia ends up halfway in Nick’s lap, but she’s also successfully clutching Nick’s phone in her hand.

Olivia says a quick prayer that Nick is too sentimental to change his phone passcode. (It’s his mom’s birthday.) Nick half-heartedly swipes at the phone as it clicks unlocked.

God bless Karin Blankenburg.

“Liv, c’mon, you don’t—”

Olivia isn’t sure what the next words out of Nick’s mouth are going to be, because she cuts him off by bursting into laughter. She’s swiping quickly through the photo gallery in Nick’s message thread with Kent Johnson. Tweet screenshot, tweet screenshot, random golf photo, another tweet screenshot. They’re mostly innocuous, or vaguely thirsty, or rants about how Nick is underrated by the Blue Jackets organization and how he should get more playing time.

“Liv, what’s so funny?” Nick complains. He sounds put-out, and Olivia glances up from his phone to look at his face. He’s blushing again.

“Nick, like half of these tweets are mine.” From an anonymous Twitter account no one in her life knows about. Nick gapes at her. “I thought I had it locked down, but I guess some have slipped through.” She should check to make sure that account is still private, actually. Nick gapes at her. “What?” Olivia asks. Satisfied, she locks Nick’s phone and hands it back.

“I didn’t know you still paid any attention to me,” Nick says. Olivia hasn’t moved from her position in Nick’s lap.

“A lot of it has been against my will,” Olivia admits. A lot of her tweets were posted under the influence, as well. Nick raises an eyebrow in question. “My friend, Paige, has made it her personal mission to give me a play-by-play of your entire career. Guess I was more invested than I thought.”

Nick’s gaping at Olivia again. She wishes he wouldn’t look at her like that. She shifts uncomfortably back to her end of the couch.

Nick doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, uh, do you mind if I use your shower?” Olivia asks, trying desperately to break the awkward silence she has created. “I’m still a little cold.” In truth, she’s warmed up a bit, but she doesn’t think she could bear to sit in the same room as Nick for another moment.

Nick seems to shake himself. “Oh, yeah, of course.” He points towards his bedroom. “The, uh, bathroom’s through there. There should be a couple extra clean towels and stuff in the closet. Use whatever.”

As Olivia stands to root through her luggage for a change of clothes and her toiletry bag, Nick does the same but slips into the kitchen. Olivia feels a tightness in her chest she didn’t realize was there ease. She sighs.

When Olivia emerges from the shower twenty minutes later, smelling of Nick’s soap and only feeling marginally more like herself, Nick’s still hiding in the kitchen. He’s eating Christmas cookies, and he looks sheepish when he sees Olivia, like he’s a little kid caught sneaking into the cookie jar.

“Are those your mom’s cookies?” Olivia asks. Karin’s Christmas cookies were practically legendary back home in Washington. Olivia has missed them every year since Nick broke up with her.

Nick smiles. “Yeah, she sent me some a few days ago.” Olivia doesn’t bother pointing out that he’ll be home the next day. He holds the Tupperware out to Olivia. “D’you want one?”

“Is that even a question?” Olivia says, snatching the Tupperware. She slides onto the stool next to Nick at the counter, digging for a gingerbread cookie. Nick’s knee nudges hers. “These are the best cookies I’ve ever had. I thought I would die without ever having them again.”

Nick chuckles and gently slides the Tupperware away from Olivia. “That’s a little dramatic.” At Olivia’s skeptical look, he continues, “My mom loves you. She would make you cookies if you asked.”

Olivia takes another bite of her cookie instead of responding. Olivia’s on her fourth cookie when Nick yawns.

“Dude, go to bed,” Olivia tells him. Nick opens his mouth to protest again. “You’re the one driving back to Michigan tomorrow, and I’m obviously keeping you up. Go to bed.”

Nick rolls his eyes but gives in. “Fine, I’ll see you in the morning.”

The door to his bedroom is shut before Olivia can figure out what happened.

Later, Olivia’s most of the way to sleep when Nick’s door creaks open again. Olivia hears Nick’s quiet footsteps as he creeps over to the couch Olivia’s laying on. She cracks her eyes open.

“Sorry,” Nick whispers. “I just wanted an extra blanket.”

There’s four blankets Olivia isn’t using piled at the end of the couch. Nick carefully pulls one off. In the dim light, Olivia watches as he wraps it around his shoulders like a cape. She shuts her eyes again as Nick’s footsteps recede.

“Liv?” Nick whispers. Olivia can barely hear him.

“What, Nick?”

“I thought you hated me,” he says.

“I could never hate you,” Olivia murmurs sleepily. She’s asleep before Nick's door even shuts again.

The next morning, Nick’s up early. Olivia groans and rolls over, burying her face in one of Nick’s throw pillows. She rolls back over when the scent of fresh eggs and toast reaches her nose.

“You made breakfast?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Nick replies, the duh implied. “Come over here, and eat while it’s still hot.”

Olivia reluctantly drags herself off the couch and takes her place at the counter next to Nick. Nick’s knee bumps hers again as he slides a plate towards her.

“No coffee?” Olivia jokes.

“We can stop for Starbucks before we hit the road.”

For some reason, Olivia wasn’t expecting that answer. She can’t come up with a witty response, so she eats her breakfast in silence.

Nick clears both of their plates when they’ve finished, starts the dishwasher, wipes nonexistent crumbs off the countertop. Olivia looks around Nick’s apartment. It’s pretty much spotless, except for the nest of blankets Olivia left on the couch. Nick’s bags are packed and stacked next to Olivia’s by the front door. The apartment’s nice, but it doesn’t feel lived in. Olivia guesses it really isn’t much, since Nick’s been grinding down in Cleveland most of the season.

“Ready?” Nick asks, jolting Olivia out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, sure, just lemme—” grab my bags, is what she was going to say, but Nick’s already hefting his duffel bag over his shoulder and grabbing the handle of Olivia’s suitcase. “Uh, yeah, let’s go.”

Nick leads the way back down to his car. Olivia watches as he tosses their bags in the trunk, then steps over to the passenger door to open it for Olivia. When he slides into the driver’s seat, he tosses his phone to Olivia.

“Order yourself some Starbucks,” he says. “My order’s marked as a favorite, add that in, too.”

Olivia sticks her tongue out at Nick as she unlocks his phone. “Like I would not order you something.”

She taps in her order while Nick drives to the nearest Starbucks. He makes a face when he hands Olivia her drink.

“How do you even drink that? Is there any coffee in there? Also, it’s iced, and it’s December.” Nick takes an appalled drink of his own hot coffee as Olivia sips her own very light, very sweet, and very iced coffee.

“Maybe you’re the one with shitty taste in coffee,” Olivia retorts, zero heat behind her words. When they were still in high school, neither of them drank coffee. Just another thing about Nick that changed without Olivia knowing.

Coffees in hand, they finally get on the road towards Michigan for real. Olivia had slept poorly on Nick’s couch, so she’s looking forward to dozing for a little while. Except, Nick chatters nervously for the first forty-five minutes of the drive. He even drowns out the Christmas playlist (her own) that Olivia cued up on his CarPlay.

Olivia fights off a yawn. “Nick, you can just ask.”

Nick cuts himself off mid-sentence. “I don’t know what you mean.” Olivia gives him a flat look. Nick blushes and stares out the windshield instead of glancing over again. He sighs. “Why’d you and what’s-his-face break up?”

“Austin,” Olivia replies automatically. She notices Nick shake his head at her. She hesitates. “I thought he was going to propose this week,” she admits.

There’s a pause. “I don’t get it.”

“Austin told me that if I wanted a ring, I’d have to move to Ohio,” Olivia says.

“What?” Nick asks. His immediate outrage is a little funny. “Liv, I’m sorry, that’s so shitty.”

Olivia shrugs. “There was a fight about me wanting to stay in Michigan when I graduated a few years ago,” she says. “He never wanted to live in Detroit. I guess I sorta always knew this would happen, and I was just delaying the inevitable.”

Nick clicks his tongue at her. “You love Michigan. Even in high school, you always talked about how you never wanted to leave.”

Olivia can’t believe Nick remembers those conversations they had about the future. “I can’t believe you remember that,” she says.

Nick looks away from the highway for a moment to give Olivia a disbelieving look. “Why wouldn’t I remember that?” he asks.

Olivia doesn’t have a good response to that.

They’re both quiet for another few miles.

“My turn,” Olivia asks, over the sound of The Carpenters playing on the car’s speakers. Nick makes a face, but doesn’t protest. “Why’d you break up with me?”

The question had been plaguing Olivia for years. She had thought she’d finally outrun it, but it followed her all the way to Nick’s car, all the way down I-75 towards Michigan. Maybe if she could get Nick to answer her now, she could finally truly move on. As soon as she could get out of this fucking car, that is.

Nick sighs. “Liv, that’s not fair.”

“How is that ‘not fair’?” Olivia snaps. “You got to ask me a question, now I’m asking you.”

“Because I never liked that asshole you were dating, and I wanted to know what he did to break your heart.”

“You never even met Austin!” Olivia says.

“I didn’t need to,” Nick says. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. “He got in that fight at the football game, and let you get pushed around.” “Nick, oh my god,” Olivia laughs. “It was a game against Ohio, all kinds of shit gets started at them.”

“He never should have let you fall,” Nick argues.

“Dude, that was like four years ago, how are you still upset about this?”

“He never deserved you,” Nick says.

“You never even met him!” Olivia says again. “And why do you even care so much? You dumped me after graduation.” Nick winces. “Why’d you break up with me, Nick?” she asks again.

“I didn’t want to hold you back,” Nick says,

“Hold me back? From what?” Olivia asks, but Nick talks over her.

“You were going off to Ann Arbor, I wasn’t even going to college.”

Olivia scoffs. “Nick, you moved to Detroit. That’s, like, 45 minutes from Ann Arbor.” Nick shakes his head. “And you ended up at Michigan a few years later, anyway. And you’re literally in the NHL now!”

Nick sighs again. “You’re not getting it, Liv. I worked my ass off to get where I am. I walked on to the team at Michigan. I never should have made it all the way to the NHL, but people took chances on me. I didn’t want you waiting around on some kid who wasn’t even good enough to get a second look from anyone for years. Would you have really wanted to be a senior, dating some stupid sophomore?”

“I don’t know! You never gave me the chance to decide that for myself. I never cared about the hockey, Nick. I just really loved you,” Olivia says quietly. “Wait, we’re literally the same age. Just because you were a sophomore by credits doesn’t somehow make you two years younger than me.” “That’s what you focused on?” Nick asks, but he’s laughing. His face becomes serious again. “I wasn’t ready to start thinking about the future. I was just trying to hold onto hockey for as long as I could back then. I knew everyone expected us to settle down like everyone else in town does, but I couldn’t do that.”

“I did think we would get married one day,” Olivia admits.

“See!” Nick says. “I felt like everyone had this idea, this plan for us, but I wanted to make my own plans. I don’t know, I guess I got scared of the idea of my future being written by someone who wasn’t me.”

Olivia looks out the window, at the dirty snow along the highway. She thinks she gets it. She had this idea of what a perfect life with Nick would have looked like, and when she didn’t get it, she tried to mold Austin into all the gaps in her life that Nick had left behind.

“We were just kids, Nick,” she says softly.

Nick chuckles wryly. “And when have you ever known kids to be good at talking about big things?” he asks.

Olivia has lost track of how long they’ve been driving. She’s not even really sure how far of a drive it is back to home, but Nick seems to know the way. His GPS isn’t even on. They lapse into silence for the duration of another song, then two.

Finally, Nick breaks the silence. “So, now what?”

Olivia huffs out a laugh and scrubs at her face. “Cry. Delete the Pinterest board I had for wedding planning.”

Nick shoots her a sideways look. “People actually do that?”

Olivia laughs again. This time it’s more real. “Dude, I’ve been working on this board since we were in high school.”

Nick doesn’t respond to that, though his cheeks look a little pink. Olivia wonders if she went too far. Nick had just admitted he had been scared off by everyone basically planning their wedding when they were eighteen. She’s about to open her mouth to apologize, to take it back somehow, when Nick speaks again instead.

“We’ve still got a ways ahead of us, I can shut up so you can get some rest if you want.”

Although Olivia had been planning on napping in the car when this little road trip started, Nick’s sentence makes her sit up straighter.

“Nicholas, why would I want you to shut up?”

“I don’t know how you don’t hate me, Liv.”

Olivia could smack him. “Would you stop that? I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to hate you, dumbass.”

“But I broke your heart—”

“When we were eighteen! I was never angry at you, Nick, just confused, really.”

Nick falls silent. He’s quiet for long enough that Olivia does start to doze off.

“I missed you more than I hated you,” she whispers before she falls asleep.

It takes Olivia a moment to reorient herself when she wakes up again. The car has stopped. Nick’s still sitting beside her in the driver’s seat, Christmas playlist still playing over the car’s speakers. Olivia looks blearily out the passenger window.

“This isn’t my house, Nick,” she says warily.

Nick gives her a sheepish look as he pushes open his car door, at the same time the Blankenburgs’ front door opens, and Karin appears.

“My mom wanted to see you,” he says.

Olivia huffs and pushes her car door open, too. Karin is still standing on the front porch. Nick makes his way up the stairs, but his mom is focused on Olivia as she trails after him.

She reaches to pull Olivia into a hug. “Oh, Livvy, it’s so good to see you.”

Olivia stiffens, but hugs Karin back after a moment. “You too, Mrs. B.” She probably hasn’t seen Nick’s mom since before they broke up. “Merry Christmas.”

“Olivia, you know you can call me Karin.”

Olivia is physically incapable of that, actually, but she grins at Karin, anyway.

Nick reappears on the front porch. Olivia hadn’t realized he’d stepped inside, but the door wafts all kinds of delicious smells from inside the Blankenburgs’ house as it swings shut. Olivia’s stomach grumbles. They must have driven through lunch.

“Okay, Mom, you got to say hi,” Nick says, stepping to Olivia’s side. “We should let Liv go, I’m sure she wants to see her own family.”

“Oh, they’re already all inside! So are your brother and sister, we’ve just been waiting on you two!”

“What?” Nick and Olivia ask in unison. They share a bewildered look.

“Well, when you told me you were bringing Livvy home, I just invited her family over for brunch.” Nick and Olivia must still look confused, because she continues, “You know I always make too much food. And right now it’s all getting cold, so c’mon!”

Karin leaves Nick and Olivia on the porch.

Olivia looks sideways at Nick. “D’you think she made cinnamon rolls?” Olivia used to love it when she was allowed to sleep over on Saturday nights (in Katrina’s old room, while Nick slept in his own) and Karin made them fresh cinnamon rolls Sunday morning.

Nick rolls his eyes, but he grins at Olivia. “All you care about is my mother’s cooking, huh?”

He pulls open the door for Olivia, still grinning. Olivia elbows him as she slips through the front door. She follows the smell of food and sound of laughter down the hall to the Blankenburgs’ formal dining room, Nick trailing after her. Every inch of the house is decked out in Karin’s Christmas decorations, and the dining room is no exception. The only thing Olivia is really focused on, though, is the table, piled high with food, and the two empty chairs at one end that are clearly meant for Nick and Olivia. They share another look, but everyone is waiting for them, so they take their seats.

Brunch is great, if a little awkward. Nick’s brother and his girlfriend are home, so are Katrina and her husband. It’s nice to catch up with them, in between Karin grilling Olivia on her life over the last seven years. Karin’s cooking is as good as Olivia remembers it. She eats two cinnamon rolls.

Olivia is in the middle of cuddling Katrina’s little boy when Karin says, “Oh, Livvy, it was such a surprise when Nick told me he was bringing you home. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me you two got back together!”

Nick and Olivia say, “Oh, we’re not—” at the same time Olivia’s mom says, “No, Olivia’s been with Austin, oh, what, six years now?”

An awkward silence falls over the table. Olivia realizes she probably should have told her mom the real reason she was coming home early from Ohio. Nick clears his throat as Olivia pushes her chair back from the table. She hands Katrina her squirming toddler back.

“Mom,” Nick starts, but Olivia cuts him off.

“You know, Mrs. B, thank you so much for having us all over, but I’m pretty tired. Nick’s couch isn’t the most comfortable to sleep on.”

Nick shoves his chair back, too. “I’ll take you back home, Liv. I’ve still got your bags in my car, anyway.”

Karin stands, too. The dining room suddenly feels too small. She gently takes Olivia by the elbow. “Here, Livvy, let me pack up some leftovers for you.” Olivia follows her to the kitchen.

She overhears Katrina hiss, “You made her sleep on the couch?” as they head into the kitchen. Olivia waits obediently while Karin plies her with Tupperwares of leftovers and Christmas cookies.

“It really was nice to see you, Livvy,” Karin whispers. “You know you’re always welcome here, remember.” She looks like she wants to say something else, or maybe hug Olivia, but Olivia’s too busy trying not to drop anything.

“Thanks, Mrs. B,” Olivia whispers back.

Arms full of food, Olivia bypasses the still-awkwardly silent dining room and sneaks down the hallway to where Nick is waiting for her by the front door. He looks upset, still, but his face relaxes when he sees Olivia.

“Geez, did my mom give you enough leftovers?” he asks. He takes a few of the Tupperware containers off the top of the stack. When Olivia doesn’t crack a smile at his teasing, his face morphs back into something like concern. “Liv, you okay?” he asks.

Olivia forces a smile. “Yeah, just ready to go home.”

It starts to snow again on the way back to Olivia’s childhood home. Nick doesn’t need a GPS to get there. He pulls into the driveway and puts his car in park. Neither of them make any move to get out of the car. Nick turns the radio off and turns to face Olivia.

“Liv, you okay?” Nicks asks again.

For the first time since she stood on the freezing curb the night before, Olivia starts to cry.

“No, I don’t know—” She takes a shaky breath. “When we were together, I used to think I had my whole life figured out, then we broke up, and I was so lost. I started dating Austin, and I could finally see a plan for the future again, and I clung to that idea of a perfect happily ever after with him for so long, but it was all just a lie, and now I’m 26 and single again—”

“Hold on,” Nick interrupts, “26 is not that old, Liv, oh my God.” He sounds like he’s about to laugh, which makes Olivia giggle, too.

“I thought I was going to be married to you by now!” she protests.

To her surprise, Nick doesn’t shut down. Instead, he laughs for real. “Liv, if you’d married me, you’d still end up living in Ohio, babe.”

Olivia makes a face. Nick laughs harder. “Okay, but, like—” She doesn’t have a good ending to that sentence. In a desperate attempt to avoid Nick’s knowing gaze, she flings open the passenger door and dashes up the front steps to the door.

She distantly hears Nick swear and throw his car door open as well. He runs up the stairs after her, putting himself between Olivia and the door.

“But what, Liv?” he asks, breathless.

“Nick, I don’t know.” She does know. “I think a part of me always knew Austin wasn’t the right person. I guess, maybe, Ohio wouldn’t be too bad with the right person.”

It’s freezing outside. Nick’s warm breath fans across Olivia’s chilled cheeks.

“And who’s the right person, Liv?” Olivia doesn’t answer, refuses to meet Nick’s eyes. Nick huffs. He captures Olivia’s chin gently between his finger and thumb and tilts her chin up until she has no choice but to look him in the face. “How ‘bout this: do you think we could try again, Olivia?” he asks.

Olivia swallows hard. “I don’t know, Nick—”

Olivia thinks about desperately calling Nick the night before when she needed help. Thinks about the blanket her mom made him years ago still laying on his bed every night. Thinks about brunch at the Blankenburgs’, the inexplicable feeling of home, there with her family and Nick’s.

Thinks about Nick, standing in front of her now.

“They say long-distance can be pretty hard, Blankenburg,” Olivia says.

Nick scoffs, eyes warm. “Who cares what they say?” Nick’s leaning in now. “Please tell me I can kiss you.”

Olivia laughs and winds her arms around Nick’s neck. “I guess I’ll allow it,” she teases.

“Fuck’s sake,” Nick says under his breath. “You guess.” Then he’s kissing Olivia, both hands tight on her hips, fierce and sweet at the same time, years of unspoken words passing between them.

Olivia makes herself pull away. Nick pouts at her. “Knowing our parents when they get together, we probably have a few hours until Mom and Dad come home.” Nick grins, already knowing what Olivia’s going to say next. “Would you like to come inside?”

Nick kisses Olivia again, quick, before dashing off the front porch to his car. Olivia watches as he hurriedly pulls her bags out of the trunk.

“Liv, I thought you’d never ask.”

Olivia watches, a smile on her face, as Nick excitedly makes his way back to her. Long-distance may be hard, but with Nick, Olivia thinks it’ll be worth it. Besides, everyone always says that “home is where the heart is,” right? Olivia thinks home is wherever Nick Blankenburg is. And maybe one day, he’ll sign a contract with Detroit, and they’ll both get to come back home to Michigan.

#cait writes things #nick blankenburg fic #nick blankenburg imagine #columbus blue jackets fic #columbus blue jackets imagine #nhl fic #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #hockey fic #hockey imagine #hockey fanfiction

112 notes · View notes

cosmogyros · 26 days ago

Text

Ummmmm I couldn't restrain myself, I spent all of yesterday afternoon spontaneously writing a thing (a continuation of "Some Like It Hot", immediately subsequent to the famous last scene of that movie)

(if you haven't seen it, you really should)

(this is not edited or researched or anything, it's just impulsive, I can't even believe I'm posting it omg)

(the prologue is the verbatim ending of the actual film script; everything after that is mine)

(spoilers for the ending of Some Like It Hot, obviously)

The Woman in My Life

PROLOGUE

Swooping down from the beach on a bicycle comes Sugar, pumping like mad. The bicycle bounces down the steps, and Sugar pedals across the planking, sounding her HORN.

Osgood and Jerry have settled themselves in the front seat of the motorboat, and Joe is getting into the rear seat when he hears the SOUND of the bicycle HORN. He looks back.

Osgood starts the motor. Sugar comes racing up the stairs to the pier, leans over the railing.

SUGAR (calling down)

Wait for Sugar!

She hurries toward the other staircase.

In the motorboat, Osgood turns to Jerry.

OSGOOD

Another bridesmaid?

JERRY

Flower girl.

Sugar comes charging down the stairs, starts to get into the rear seat beside Joe.

JOE

Sugar! What do you think you're doing?

SUGAR

I told you, I’m not very bright.

JERRY (clapping Osgood on the back)

Let's go!

The motorboat takes off with a ROAR.

EXT. MOTORBOAT - NIGHT

In the back seat, Joe is removing his wig and coat.

JOE

You don't want me, Sugar. I’m a liar and a phony—a saxophone player— one of those no-goodniks you've been running away from…

SUGAR

I know. (hitting her head) Every time!

JOE

Do yourself a favor. Go back where the millionaires are. The sweet end of the lollipop—not the coleslaw in the face and the old socks and the squeezed-out tube of toothpaste—

SUGAR

That's right, pour it on. (twines her arms around his neck) Talk me out of it.

She kisses him resoundingly, bending him over backwards till they are both practically out of sight.

Up front, Osgood is blithely steering the boat, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Jerry is looking over his shoulder at the activities in the back seat.

OSGOOD

I called Mama—she was so happy she cried! She wants you to have her wedding gown. It’s white lace.

JERRY (steeling himself)

Osgood, I can't get married in your mother's dress. She and I— we’re not built the same way.

OSGOOD

We can have it altered.

JERRY (firmly)

Oh, no you don't! Look, Osgood— I'm going to level with you. We can't get married at all.

OSGOOD

Why not?

JERRY

Well, to begin with, I'm not a natural blonde.

OSGOOD (tolerantly)

It doesn't matter.

JERRY

And I smoke. I smoke all the time.

OSGOOD

I don't care.

JERRY

And I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.

OSGOOD

I forgive you.

JERRY (with growing desperation)

And I can never have children.

OSGOOD

We'll adopt some.

JERRY

But you don't understand!

(he rips off his wig; in a male voice)

I'm a MAN!

OSGOOD (oblivious)

Well, nobody's perfect.

Jerry looks at Osgood, who is grinning from ear to ear, claps his hand to his forehead. How is he going to get himself out of this?

But that's another story—and we're not quite sure the public is ready for it.

~~~

ANOTHER STORY

When they reached the yacht, the crew were all present at their stations, of course—it wasn’t Thursday night any more, and their shore leave was over. But none of them blinked an eye when their employer arrived with his unexpected retinue. Money can buy a lot of good manners. Osgood had commanded them to be ready to weigh anchor at a moment’s notice, because he intended to elope with his beautiful bride that very night. And indeed there was a very attractive woman with him… but there were also two other people. Apparently men. Although it wasn’t quite clear.

Joe had roughly wiped off his makeup and was still in the suit he’d swiped from the old man in the wheelchair, covered up by Josephine’s coat (he’d tossed his wig from the motorboat in a moment of being otherwise occupied with Sugar). Jerry, meanwhile, was wearing the bell boy’s too-small uniform with Daphne’s coat over it, and seemed too dazed to be aware of the fact that he was holding his wig in his hand. Both of them were in high heels. Earlier, in the hotel elevator, they’d had to hurriedly remove their trousers, which would have looked suspiciously incongruous under their feminine overcoats.

As if this wasn’t odd enough, the first officer of the New Caledonia thought, while dashing around giving orders and preparing their immediate departure, it wasn’t actually the beautiful woman who was on Osgood’s arm, but one of the men. But he was paid far too well to express any concerns about this state of affairs, and he turned his mind decorously to his duties.

As Osgood, not quite preening like a peacock anymore but still determinedly upbeat, led his three guests to the salon, Joe was blissfully unaware that Jerry was trying very hard to get his attention. Sugar was Joe’s whole world at that moment. She wanted him? Despite his lies and tricks, despite him being poor as a church mouse, despite him being… just another saxophone player? She still wanted him? He was walking on clouds. She stayed cuddled up to him, gazing at him worshipfully as if she couldn’t believe he was real.

“Do put that wig back on,” Osgood suggested to Jerry, holding the door for him like a gentleman. “It suits you.”

Jerry was too stunned to do anything but obey as he stepped into the interior of the boat. He automatically fixed his curls around his ears. He had not expected this turn of events. From the very start, he’d believed he held a trump card. He’d been certain that he could simply reveal his true gender whenever he wanted, and instantly be freed from this farce. Sure, Osgood treated him well (even if the old man was a bit saucy at times), and could dance divinely, and the prospect of marrying into wealth was a very tempting one to a chronically broke musician. But… but it had never been REAL, of course. At some point, he’d been telling himself all along, he was going to play that trump card, and then, poof! The castles built on clouds would come tumbling down, he and Joe would catch the next train back to Chicago, and they’d simply go on with their lives.

But the card had turned out to be a dud. Like a firecracker that didn’t go off when you were counting on a big explosion.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” Jerry chanted under his breath, through gritted teeth, as he chose a luxurious armchair and settled himself in it, knees together like a proper lady (because he had nothing but underwear on his lower half, beneath the overcoat.)

As Osgood busied himself getting drinks for everyone—he did indeed have multiple stewards, but he had also been raised right, and it was a matter of course for him to prepare drinks for his guests personally—Joe and Sugar took seats very close together on the same sofa where they’d had such a diverting time last night.

“Sugar, listen,” Joe started in a low tone, still ignorant of Jerry’s subtle attempts to catch his eye. “You know I’ve got nothing, right?”

“I know. You’re a saxophone player,” she breathed, as if teasingly reprimanding herself.

“Not just a saxophone player.” Joe steeled himself. “A broke saxophone player. I haven’t got a penny to my name. I—” He bit his tongue, but then plunged onward. Might as well lay it all out there. “I gambled away my last paycheck. Betting on dog races.”

“No!” she gasped.

“Afraid so.”

“Well, but that doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “Daphne’s going to marry Osgood, and he’s rich. That means she’ll be rich soon, too. She can help us out.”

“She’s a he!” Joe reminded her, irritated. “They can’t get married.”

“Oh, right.” She was dismayed, but put on a charming smile as Osgood brought her a glass, having naturally served his fiancée first.

~~~

Joe and Jerry didn’t get a chance to speak in private until a few hours later. Despite having suffered rather a shock in the motorboat, Osgood seemed to be handling it with remarkable aplomb. He was an exquisite host and insisted on providing his guests with every comfort they could desire, despite the fact that he barely knew most of their names and genders. As the yacht headed away from the hotel and down the coast at high speed, the four of them sat down to an elegant dinner, and the delectable food went a long way towards settling various tumultuous emotions.

Each individual received their own private bedroom suite—after all, the yacht could sleep twelve, and an unmarried couple sharing a bedroom was not the done thing. After everyone had bid everyone else good night, Jerry waited long enough for the boat to grow quiet around him, and then dashed down the passageway to Joe’s room and hammered on the door until his friend opened up.

“Will you cut it out?” Joe hissed. “You’re gonna wake up the whole place.”

“Listen, Joe, we gotta talk!”

“Fine. Get in here.”

Inside the suite, Jerry—who hadn’t even thought to de-Daphne himself yet—turned pleading eyes on his buddy. “What am I gonna do? I’m doomed! I told him I’m a man and he didn’t even blink.”

“Calm down, will you?” Joe sat slowly down on the bed, his mind racing. He was still thinking about what Sugar had said earlier. It was too darn bad Daphne wasn’t real, because her marrying Osgood and then giving Joe and Sugar a nice little something to get started with… boy, that idea was appealing. Jerry had always been a soft touch—Joe knew how to sweet-talk it out of him. But you couldn’t talk nothing out of an empty pocket. He gave Jerry a considering glance.

“Say something!” Jerry pleaded.

“Okay, look.” Joe stood up. “No need to panic. You’re not about to get married tomorrow. We’ve got plenty of time to get you untangled. And in the meantime, you said he treats you good, right?”

“Very good,” Jerry admitted, wretchedly. “But what if—”

“Shut up, I’m thinking.” Joe jammed his hands into his pockets and paced up and down in the small amount of space available for pacing. Finally, he stopped, and tapped his friend on the chest. “I’ve got it. It’s easy. It’s straight-forward. Remember what you said back in our hotel room? Alimony!”

“Ali—what?” Jerry was at a loss. “But that’s when he still thought I was—”

“No, no, stay with me. He still wants to marry you, right?”

“But you said yourself,” Jerry protested, “There are laws and all that sort of thing! We can’t get married!”

“But he wants to. And from what I’ve seen so far of Osgood Fielding the Third, what he wants, he gets. There’s nothing money can’t buy, right? This guy is rolling in the stuff. And he wants to spend it on you!”

Jerry couldn’t stop himself from simpering like Daphne for a moment. “That’s true.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “And you don’t even seem to mind that much.”

“I certainly do!” Jerry glared at his friend. “I don’t want to marry a guy. Who do you think I am?”

“Easy, easy,” Joe soothed him. “Who do I think you are? A flat broke musician who needs dough. Just like me. We’re in this together, okay? This is what I’m thinking.” He began pacing again, gesturing with excitement. “You stay Daphne. For now,” he added quickly, to stem the argument before it started. “Only for now. You play along, you live it up, you get showered with expensive gifts, yadda yadda yadda. The good life.”

Jerry’s eyes were increasingly large and anxious and he seemed about to speak again, so Joe took his friend by the shoulders and employed his most persuasive tone, a few shades off from the one he typically used with Nellie.

“You don’t have to do anything. Just let yourself be pampered. Meanwhile, Sugar and I will stick to you like glue—she’s gonna be, what, the flower girl, was it?—and we try to get in good with your fiancé. You know, butter him up, help with wedding prep, make ourselves useful.”

He stood back and threw his arms wide. “And the rest is simple. Get married. Demand a divorce. He’ll have to agree to your terms, because if he doesn’t, you can expose him to the whole world as having married a man! His family are big names in business, I’ve been doing some asking around. They wouldn’t want that kind of scandal, believe you me.”

“Expose them?!” Jerry seethed. “How about exposing me, huh? I don’t want that kind of scandal for myself, either!”

“Don’t be silly, no one knows who you are. You’re nobody. He’s somebody. That’s how scandal works, it only hurts you if you’re somebody. You’ll basically be able to blackmail him at that point.” Joe’s eyes were glittering, reflecting imaginary dollar signs. “Tell him you’ll leave without making a ruckus only if you get an immediate divorce and a nice fat alimony package. He’ll have no choice.”

Triumphantly, he sat back down on the bed. “And then we’ve got it made. You get the money, split it with me, I can marry Sugar and we’ll be set for life.”

“Yeah, you get the girl and the money,” Jerry grumbled. “I get to BE the girl and STEAL the money.”

“It’s not stealing!” Joe sprang up again to give his pal a rallying slap on the back. “Think of it as… redistribution.”

~~~

Mama Fielding gazed at her prodigal son and his latest acquisition with a combination of relief and concern. Relief because at last he’d found what seemed by all accounts to be a truly decent young woman, not one of these showgirl floozies. Concern because the girl in question was both taller and broader than Osgood himself. And her facial features were a bit… well… angular.

Still, it was long past time for the aging playboy to settle down, and Mrs. Fielding was thanking her lucky stars that this one had a reputable pedigree. A graduate of the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music (perhaps a pianist?), if she was correctly recalling what Osgood had told her on the telephone; and apparently quite a lady—the kind who wouldn’t put up with freshness in a fellow. She’ll have her hands full with Ozzie, then, Mrs. Fielding thought with a sigh, and stepped forward to greet her future daughter-in-law.

“Dear Daphne. Such a pleasure to welcome you to the family.” My goodness, but the girl had large hands. Pianist hands, no doubt. She also seemed exceedingly nervous, but managed to bob a curtsey and offer a strained smile.

“The pleasure’s all mine.”

“I hear you’re a talented musician? Come, join me in the parlor. I am so looking forward to getting to know you, my dear.”

This sounded almost more like a threat than anything else, and with a gulp, Daphne walked bravely into the lion’s den.

~~~

Sugar and Joe had made themselves so useful, indeed, that they had been granted the dreaded and respected honor of writing the invitation cards for the wedding. Mama Fielding had not yet discovered that the sum total of the bride’s guests was two, neither one related to her, but that bridge would be crossed when they came to it.

“What’s Daphne’s surname?” Sugar asked, folding an invitation carefully.

Joe looked up and rubbed his eyes, already tired of this monotonous task. “She—she doesn’t have one. You keep forgetting, that’s not her real name, she just made it up! I mean, he!”

He found this happening more and more often these days. It was as if Jerry and Daphne were two different people in his mind, each one as real as the other, and it was with increasing effort that he kept reminding himself Daphne was a fictional character, an invention, a figment.

“But what are we gonna put on the invitations?” Sugar’s eyes were wide.

“Nothing, because she’s not sending any,” Joe replied. “The only people sh—HE is inviting are you and me, and we don’t need to send invitations to ourselves.”

“Might look better if we did,” she pointed out.

“Who cares how it looks?” Joe argued, automatically lowering his voice although he was almost certain no one could hear them in this distant drawing room in the Fieldings’ sprawling upstate countryside manor. “This marriage is gonna last about two and a half days, if all goes as planned.”

“I know.” Sugar sighed. “It’s just too bad. They seem so happy together.”

“Happy?!” Joe scoffed. “Baby, come on. How could they be happy with the situation? They’re both men.”

She shrugged, pouting a little at his tone, and Joe noticed and immediately changed gears.

“Aw, don’t gimme that,” he teased, sliding up next to her. “You want something to think about that’ll cheer you up? Just imagine, when we get our hands on that money, everything we’re gonna do with it. I’ll buy you a Rolls-Royce… a yacht of your own… you ever been up in an airplane?”

“No,” she admitted with a giggle. “What are you—”

But Joe was on a roll and couldn’t be stopped, finding new areas of her hair and cheek and neck to whisper his big plans into. “Champagne and caviar for dinner… champagne and… eggs… for breakfast… and for lunch… uh… champagne and champagne?”

Not many more invitations were finished for a little while, and one of them whose ink hadn’t dried yet even got smudged and needed to be re-written later.

~~~

Osgood stepped into Daphne’s room the next morning to find her still wigless and in the process of applying her make-up. As any proper gentleman would, he promptly turned around and faced the wall to give her some privacy.

“What do you want?” came a tired masculine voice behind him, from the vicinity of the vanity table.

Osgood clucked his tongue in displeasure. “Now, now. If you talk to me like that, I’m walking right out of here.”

“Good. Walk out, then.” But this time, despite the words, the voice sounded more convincingly feminine, and Osgood smiled in satisfaction at the wallpaper in front of him.

“That’s more like it. You know, my dear, I can buy you as many wigs as you want. Have you ever tried being a redhead? I think it might suit your complexion.”

Suspended halfway to becoming Daphne, Jerry gazed in bewilderment at his reflection, wondering not for the first time how exactly his life had turned into… this. After a minute, he sighed. “Sure. Why not.” It wasn’t for long, anyhow. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

“Splendid!” Osgood sounded genuinely thrilled. “Now, what I came to tell you was, a few of my friends have invited us to lunch. They’re simply dying to meet you. How does one o’clock sound?”

~~~

As long as they were staying with the Fieldings, Jerry had to stay in character as Daphne from sunup till sundown, but he seemed to take it in stride and rose to the challenge without too much whining and moaning. But when Joe tried to take his choker, Jerry put his foot down.

He’d returned in high spirits from yet another dinner at which he’d been introduced to innumerable friends of Osgood’s, and Joe, who’d been offering Mrs. Fielding his expert advice on hiring musicians for the wedding, had immediately spotted that Daphne was sporting an enchanting new bejeweled choker. It looked very fetching—and also very valuable.

Having made his excuses as politely and rapidly as possible, Joe stalked after Daphne to her room, and caught her there before she’d even started the laborious evening process of transforming back into Jerry. She was unashamedly admiring herself in the mirror, and when Joe slipped into the room, he was met with a cry of “Look, Joe! He gave me this tonight. Isn’t it just darling!”

“Yeah, very nice.” He stepped closer. “Listen. The way I figure is, that alimony isn’t gonna come through right away—”

“Oh, do you have to talk about alimony right now?” Jerry was still doing the Daphne voice, and now pouting in a girlish way that Joe couldn’t recall ever seeing before when it was just the two of them in private.

“Hey.” He snapped his fingers, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the door was firmly closed. “Get with the program. We’re alone.”

“Ugh.” Dropping the feminine voice, Jerry tore off his wig and frowned miserably at his own reflection for another long moment before turning his glare on his friend. “Well, what is it?”

“What it is is that I got nothing but moths in my wallet, you get me?” Joe stepped closer. “You’re living the life of luxury here, and Sugar and I, well… it’s fine for us as long as we’re Mrs. Fielding’s guests, but she’ll boot us out sooner or later, and then we’ve got nowhere to go.” His eyes zeroed in on the sparkling choker. “I need a little… collateral.”

Jerry snorted. “What are you giving me with ‘collateral’? You don’t—” Then he saw where Joe was looking, and cut himself off, one hand flying to his throat. “Oh no you don’t! This is a gift! Why don’t you get your own rich man, and quit mooching off of mine?”

“Come on, stop acting like you really care about him—”

“Well, why shouldn’t I care about him? He’s a good guy! And he’s been disappointed so many times—you don’t understand. He gets strung along by some cute young thing, but then it turns out she doesn’t have any substance. He needs a real woman, a woman who will treat him right.”

Joe raised his eyes to the ceiling. “In case you’ve forgotten, pal, that’s not you. You’re not a woman.”

“I know!” Jerry sounded half-indignant, half-hopeless. “But I… I’ve been doing a pretty decent job of it so far.” Turning back to the mirror, he snatched up a facecloth, and then paused, looking at his reflection in a different way than he had a moment earlier. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t find me attractive. But… it’s not my opinion that matters, is it?”

“You’re getting off track,” Joe told him. “Let me hock that thing—just for now.” He kept stubbornly speaking over Jerry’s agitation. “Just so we’ve got a little cash in hand until you’ve tied the knot and untied it again, all right? Then we can get it back.”

Jerry’s eyes narrowed to slits and his hand was protectively at his neck again. “You’re not taking it.”

Realizing that threats and force weren’t going to work, Joe sighed and plopped himself down in a chair. “Jerry, buddy, come on. If Mama Fielding kicked us out tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t even be able to buy Sugar dinner tomorrow night. I’m in a tight spot. I know you’re living the rich-lady life now, but surely you haven’t already forgotten what that’s like?”

Jerry visibly softened. “No, I know, I…” He collapsed into his seat at the vanity table, but buried his head in his hands instead of meeting the eyes of his reflection. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll bet I can get some money from him.”

“Now you’re talking!” Joe enthused. “Where does he keep his wallet at night?”

Jerry jerked his head up, eyes blazing with rage. “We are NOT going to steal from my fiancé, you bum! I meant I’ll ask him! Straight-up and honest. Now scram.”

Grinning, Joe threw up both hands in defeat. “All right, fair enough. You win. By the way, you smudged your mascara.”

After he’d left, Jerry sat staring at his strange, mixed-up appearance in the mirror for a solid minute or two before he slowly started to clean off the smeared make-up. Returning to his normal, boring face. Putting Daphne to bed for the night. He remembered words that seemed to come from half a lifetime ago, and spoke them under his breath: “I’m a boy… I’m a boy… I wish I were dead… I’m a boy…”

~~~

The generous Osgood agreed to help support his fiancée’s dear friends with a little something now, and maybe a little something later… but Daphne didn’t feel comfortable coming to him with the same request again and again, and meanwhile the wedding was approaching at top speed. It wasn’t a traditional elopement, because there would be guests and a “proper do”, as Mrs. Fielding called it, but it wasn’t exactly a traditional wedding either, for reasons known only to the bride and the groom and two other members of the wedding party.

Jerry got cold feet two nights before the big day and came skittering to Joe’s room in the middle of the night. “What if they find out?”

“Who?” Joe was half asleep and confused.

“I don’t know! The cops! The department of public morality! Anyone!”

“I don’t think that’s a department.” Joe yawned. “Anyway, how could they find out? It’s not like somebody’s gonna run up the aisle in the middle of you saying your vows and pull up your skirt and check.”

Jerry, in full Daphne mode despite it being the middle of the night and his appearance being fully masculine at the moment, almost swooned with horror at this mental image and had to be helped back to his room. All the while, Joe was on edge at the thought that a member of the household might choose this moment to step out of their room and discover him guiding what appeared to be a strange man down the hallway to Daphne’s bedroom.

But not only did their deception go undetected that night, it did two days later, as well, at a ceremony that was charming if modest (by the Fieldings’ standards; Sugar was starry-eyed over all the glamor) and attended by “just a few” (forty or fifty) close friends.

The diminutive size of the bride’s party had been explained away successfully. Daphne, who had started to develop a real friendship with her future mother-in-law, had found herself with no choice but to admit that she played the double bass, not the piano, and she skillfully wove this into a sob story about being disowned by her family for her unconventional choice of instrument. It was a risky move, but it turned out that Mrs. Fielding considered jazz music to be just bordering on acceptable, and she was very sympathetic to this poor girl, all alone in the world.

The bride was perhaps not exactly blushing and blossoming, but cut an impressive figure in Mrs. Fielding’s artfully expanded white lace gown, and the groom was radiant with pride.

Joe couldn’t quite figure that part out. He leaned over to Sugar and whispered, “He looks like he’s actually happy about it.”

“Who?” she whispered back.

“Who d’ya think I mean by ‘he’? The groom, of cou—” He stopped himself. He’d done it again.

Sugar’s eyes were sparkling mischievously at him.

“Not a word,” Joe grumbled. “Not a single word.”

She demurely took his arm, but out of the corner of his eye, Joe could see her stifling a giggle.

~~~

The happy couple were whisked off on their honeymoon immediately following the ceremony, meaning that Joe didn’t get a chance to palaver with Jerry about their scheme. He wouldn’t even have bothered—nothing had changed, so there was really nothing to discuss—but he was starting to get worried. The bride and the groom had actually kissed, in front of everybody, at the ceremony. And the bride hadn’t even slapped the groom afterward. Daphne’d had a sort of resolute, shy smile on her face throughout the entire ordeal. Either she was a damn good actress or—he, damn it! Either Jerry was a damn good actor or something fishy was going on here.

After five days, they received the first letter. “Daphne says Niagara Falls is simply too beautiful for words,” Sugar reported, her eyes racing over the hotel letterhead.

“Well, doesn’t that just beat the band,” Joe said sourly. “Anything in there about champagne breakfasts and dinners like the ones I oughta be giving you right now, if I had a few more bucks in my pocket?”

Sugar twinkled fondly at him over the top of the letter before continuing to read. “She says she’s always wanted to try ballooning, and Osgood has promised to take her up in one tomorrow!”

“Going up in a balloon? Gee whiz. Too bad we haven’t got time to write back and tell her to leave everything to me in her will.”

After ten days, the second letter came. “We’ve been discussing our shared future,” Sugar read aloud. “I’ve told Osgood in no uncertain terms that I refuse to be a kept woman. He has agreed to split everything with me outright. He says he loves a strong-minded girl. Actually, what he said was ‘Zowee!’ but I took it to mean the above.”

Joe furrowed his brow. “What the heck is she up to? Why bother with all that? The plan goes: honeymoon, divorce, alimony.”

Sugar clutched the letter to her bosom in a sudden transport of rapture as a thought struck her. “Maybe she’s falling in love with him! For real this time, not just pretend!”

Joe scoffed, but his scoff was a little on the weak side.

~~~

“No. Absolutely not.”

Joe gaped. “No? What—but—”

“There’s no need. I’ve got money coming out my ears now, which means you and Sugar are taken care of as well. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Daphne and Osgood were back from their honeymoon, and this was the first chance Joe had gotten to talk to his pal in private. To his astonishment, Daphne had returned home coy and contented, and hadn’t stopped smiling until now, alone with Joe and addressing the unwelcome topic of alimony. Daphne shook her head emphatically, her freshly-curled wig and expensive new dress indicating some of the cosseting she’d received over the past few weeks.

“Listen, Joe.” Her voice dropped a bit, and suddenly she was Jerry again. “I’ve got a good thing going here. I don’t want to spoil it. He’s rich, he’s generous, and he thinks I hung the moon.”

“And he knows you’re a man!” Joe hissed.

“And doesn’t seem to care,” Jerry shot back, eyes gleaming triumphantly. “He just wants me to be Daphne for him. He doesn’t care how real it is.”

“What about women? Don’t you want a woman in your life?”

“I don’t know,” Jerry mused, stripping off his white mesh gloves. “Dames have brought me nothing but heartbreak in the past. Never worked out, somehow. I guess I’m the woman in my life, now.” He chuckled. “And you know what? It’s not half bad.”

“You don’t say.” Joe snorted. “What about your wedding night, what did you do for that, huh? Tell him you had a headache?”

Daphne was suddenly wholly Daphne again, very prim and proper. “A lady never tells.”

Joe stared for a long, disbelieving moment before shaking his head. “It’s not gonna last.”

But what do you know? Somehow, it did.

#some like it hot #fanfiction #i guess???#this literally all just poured out of me in ONE go. please do not expect too much :')#i tried to make it as 1920s/1950s-compliant as possible in terms of attitudes towards homosexuality/transgenderism #while simultaneously maintaining the wholesomely open-minded (for the time) attitude the movie takes toward such things #cosmo gyres #my writing #i hope i don't get self-conscious and end up deleting this haha

21 notes · View notes

chaifootsteps · 11 months ago

Note

As a prominent stolas hater, what do you think is the right way to write a sympathetic rich guy who’s oblivious to how his actions hurt everyone around him? Have you ever seen it done right? What examples are there if you have?

1. Instagram Stolas. "Hurt everyone around him" is a stretch, but even though he was gentle and sweet and generous as the day is long, he still had a tendency to be bad at boundaries or forget how much privilege he wielded. He was still cheating on his wife.

2. Mr. Peanutbutter. Very sweet guy, goodest boy, not the greatest husband. Causes a whirlwind of damage to the people around him that he never seems to register as he yellow labs his way through life.

It's entirely possible to make a rich, oblivious guy who blithely carries through life hurting everyone around him, but he absolutely cannot be sinister or predatory in any way. He's got to be kind, got to show it, and has to have at least some iota of awareness that he's the problem, and if he doesn't, then the narrative needs to do it. If I wanted to be shown a predatory rich man and told how much I'm supposed to love him, I'd turn on the news.

Stolas doesn't work because Viv genuinely loves him and thinks he can do little to no wrong, and that all the people he's hurt are actually the problem. He's her precious self-insert, not an actual character that makes a statement.

#Anonymous #stolas critical #viv stuff #image reply #vivziepop critical #actual blog post

66 notes · View notes

lucagray813 · 3 months ago

Text

The Tang Chronicles - Chapter 3

Rating: T

Word Count: ~2,613

Characters: Tang, Pigsy, MK, Pigsy's Grandmother

Summary: Raising a kid isn't easy even when they were planned. Pigsy's just holding out hope that this is only a temporary situation.

Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Pre-Canon, Pigsy's Grandmother is called Xiùyīng

CW: brief mention of ACEs, fantasy racism, internalised racism, swearing, implied difficult childhood, poor mental health

Link to AO3 Version

Chapter Navigation: First | Prev | Next

----

Today it felt like Pigsy's name was on everybody's lips - regular customers, delivery drivers, neighbours, Xiùyīng and, of course-

"Pigsy, look at this!"

"Pigsy, can I have this?"

"Pigsy, I'm hungry!"

Pigsy, Pigsy, Pigsy.

And the man in question looked like he was ready to snap. His head was in his hands as he leaned on the opposite side of the counter to where Tang was sitting.

It had been a busy lunch rush but, for whatever reason, the restaurant was still empty half an hour after it had opened for dinner and Pigsy seemed to be making the most of the lull to try and pull himself back from the brink of a mental breakdown.

Cautiously, he cleared his throat, "You doing ok there...?"

Taking a ragged breath in, Pigsy looked up, "I am going to kill the next person that says my name."

"Pigsy!"

MK's timing would have been comical, if Pigsy hadn't looked like he was genuinely going to burst into tears. As MK made his way over from the staff door, he made an effort to get a hold of himself, looking to the world like he was praying for a half a second, before turning around to greet MK with a mask of patience that was already splintering.

"What is it, kid?"

MK, completely oblivious to Pigsy's distress, held up the toy in his hand, "Mr. Hotman got stuck in his house again."

By the look on Pigsy's face, he was guessing this wasn't just the second or third time this had happened and his voice was strained as he asked, "And grandma couldn't get him out?"

Tang cringed as MK just held up the toy blithely, "I like when you do it."

Pigsy breathed slowly, in through his nose and out through his mouth, before doing his best to gently lecture, "MK, we talked about this. You need to ask grandma first when I'm working, even if the restaurant isn't busy, you can't distract me while I'm in the kitchen, it's dangerous."

MK held the toy close to his chest, despite looking upset at being chided he still argued, "But grandma's too rough! She almost took his head off last time!"

Pigsy sighed and knelt down, holding a hand for the toy, and once he had it he bargained, "I'll get him out this time but this is the last time. You either have to ask grandma or stop putting him in here, ok?"

MK frowned, "But that's his home."

Pigsy held up the toy as if to demonstrate, "It's too small for him, kid. Don't you think he would like a home that he doesn't get stuck in every day?"

MK fiddled with the bottom of his shirt as he looked away, "Maybe..."

Sighing again, Pigsy heroically freed Mr. Hotman from his home, and as he offered them back to MK he suggested, "How about you try and find a new home for him and you can show it to me tonight? Hell, I bet you could even make him a house with all that cardboard upstairs. What do you think?"

MK's eyes lit up at the possibility as he asked excitedly, "Can I use all the cardboard?"

Pigsy shrugged, "Knock yourself out. If you ask grandma you can even get your paints out to decorate it."

MK held up his toy, "You hear that, Mr. Hotman? We're going to build you a mansion!"

Pigsy looked like he was already dreading the mess that he was going to deal with after work but he clasped MK's shoulder before standing up, "Better get to it then. Make sure to tell grandma before you start pulling out all the cardboard, ok?"

MK was already halfway to the staff door, "I will!"

A pointed cough had him hastily adding, "Thank you, Pigsy! Mr. Hotman says thank you too!"

As the staff door swung shut behind him, he heard the thundering sound of him running up the stairs, and an excited shout of "Grandma!" before blessed silence reigned again.

Somewhat impressed, he couldn't help but comment, "Way to keep your cool, Pigsy! I think I would have flipped out if that had been me! How many times has he got that thing stuck?"

He was met with Pigsy's silent back, "Er, Pigsy...?"

He took another one of those slow breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth, before turning and grabbing a piece of paper from under the till. As he wrote on it, he explained, "I need a minute. If anyone asks, I had to go to the shop. Tell them I needed more garlic or something."

"O-oh. Yeah, of course. You ok...?"

He didn't know if the grunt he got in response was an affirmative or a negative but he watched worriedly as Pigsy walked towards the door and stuck the makeshift sign on the glass, before he offered a gruff thanks and walked out.

Feeling uncomfortable, he drummed his fingers on the counter.

Casting a glance up towards the ceiling he worried about the stress Pigsy was under - did he even have days off anymore? Sure, the restaurant was still shut twice a week but did Pigsy actually get to take a break?

He wondered how much Xiùyīng was doing.

Sure, she watched MK while Pigsy worked but Pigsy seemed to be doing a lot of the actual labour and she still seemed to have a lot going on during those days off - meeting up with friends and going out, and getting a break from babysitting.

Did Pigsy get that chance?

He had a terrible feeling that he didn't.

Pigsy returned about twenty minutes later, looking a little calmer and smelling suspiciously like mint.

He had half a mind to raise his concerns but by the time he'd worked up the nerve, business had started picking back up and he never got the chance.

----

Tang was aware that he hadn't been a great friend recently, willingly spending much more time away from Pigsy's Noodles than he usually did. And though his excuses of looming deadlines weren't untrue, the truth of the matter was that Pigsy was just hard to be around at the moment.

He was exceedingly grumpy and short-tempered, and if there was any conversation between them it was often awkward and one-sided. He really felt like he needed to say something but a little shamefully, his cowardice was apparently stronger than his concern.

Well, today might be the day that the scales tipped however because Pigsy had been staring eerily at the flame on the hob for an uncomfortable amount of time and he startled terribly when Tang had called his name.

Pigsy had apologised and, full of jittery energy, told him he'd be over after he finished the order he was working on. He watched him for a moment before glancing down at his bag.

Fāng's number felt like it was burning a hole through it.

He wasn't worried about MK yet.

But Pigsy...

Pigsy seemed to sense that the conversation they'd apparently both been dreading was upon them, and he walked over to him looking defeated and ashamed.

He didn't even know where to start, "Pigsy..."

Pigsy leaned heavily on the counter, "I know."

And yet, he had to say it, "You can't keep this up."

He slumped forward as he rubbed at his face, "I know. Look, I'm sorry for how shitty I've been acting lately. It just these fucking foster parent assessments. They're keeping me up at night. If I could just get a decent night's sleep..."

He frowned, "You're that stressed out over passing some tests?"

As far as he knew, he hadn't had this problem when he was studying before but he supposed the stakes were much higher than a qualification.

Pigsy shook his head, "I can pass the tests, they're not hard but the stuff you need to learn about... Tang, it's grim. It's real fucking grim. They call them ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and it's honestly giving me nightmares."

He didn't want to know and he was sure his face was all but screaming at Pigsy to spare him the details.

Which thankfully he did, as he added, "Doesn't help that I'm sleeping on the couch."

Shocked, he responded, "You're sleeping on the couch? Why? For how long?"

Tiredly, he answered, "Only got two bedrooms. The kid needed somewhere to sleep and I can't exactly kick my grandma out of her bed, can I? We do have a spare futon but that ratty, old thing is worse than the couch."

Horrified, he exclaimed, "So you've been on the couch since MK got here? Pigsy, why didn't you say something! Mǐnyǒng's parent have a spare futon! I'll get him to bring it over as soon as he's out of class!"

Pigsy put up a token protest, "No, don't bother his folks over it. I'll be fine, it won't be for that much longer. They'll find a better place for the kid any day now."

He resisted the urge to cringe.

Is that what Pigsy had been telling himself?

There was no part of him that believed MK was going anywhere, anytime soon. And while that was mostly just his gut talking, he couldn't help but feel that if MK's family was really out there looking for him then they would have heard something by now.

He decided that wasn't what Pigsy needed to hear right now though and picked up his phone to message Mǐnyǒng, "It doesn't matter if you get news tomorrow. You're not spending another night on the couch when there's a perfectly good futon available just gathering dust."

Mǐnyǒng was, of course, up to date on the MK situation and within seconds had promised to deliver the futon to Pigsy's ASAP.

"Ok, he's on it. It'll be here tonight. Is there anything else we can do to help? You know he's good for any DIY - any leaky pipes or broken furniture?"

Pigsy huffed, a hint of fondness in his eyes, "Good of you to offer his services. You know I'm not shy about asking for his help with repairs. The futon is more than enough." His expression softened, "Thanks, Tang."

With no small amount of guilt, he responded, "What are friends for?"

----

It was a couple days later that he got a chance to talk to Xiùyīng about it, while she was waiting for Pigsy to put together some snacks for her to take up for her and MK.

Curious, he'd asked her if she was also having to study and do any assessments as part of the process of fostering MK. Completely missing Pigsy's panicked gesturing to stop until it was far too late but, as ever, she was very forthcoming.

The conversation had started fairly normally as she explained that she was indeed having to put in a bit of work but he quickly realised why Pigsy's face had been full of apprehension.

"Oh, it's terrible, Mr. Tang. I never realised before just how fragile humans really are!"

He laughed a little awkwardly, not quite sure what she meant, "Uh, yeah, I suppose we are?"

Oblivious to his discomfort, she continued, "All of these "mental health" conditions! It's a wonder your kind can get anything done!"

He cast a glance towards Pigsy, who unfortunately had his back to them as he cooked, but he was definitely listening and given the tension in his shoulders he didn't like what he was hearing.

Tang couldn't help but frown as he responded, "Mental health isn't just a human thing, demons can suffer from all the same conditions we can."

And he knew that for a fact, the demon population in the city wasn't huge but it was big enough that he'd seen plenty of posters around his university advertising counselling specifically targeted at demons.

Also, could she not see how stressed her grandson was twenty-four/seven?

Actually, now that he thought about it, maybe he should try and get some of those counselling details for Pigsy? He could probably do with at least having someone to properly vent to.

He made a mental note to check it out later.

She tutted, "Don't buy into that nonsense. That's just what lazy, young demons are trying to convince people of because they're afraid of a little hard work. It's shameful."

Oh.

Oh no.

As if Pigsy wasn't under enough stress! This was the sort of support he had at home?

Getting a little worked up, he felt compelled to make her see reason, "It's not nonsense. There's plenty of evidence that demons suffer from mental health conditions, and at a higher rate than humans in some areas. You've been learning about ACEs, right? Well, demons have them too, don't they?"

She waved her hand dismissively, "Those are just childhood experiences for a demon, dear. They toughen us up, not make us "mentally ill"."

For a moment, he could only stare at her.

Did she even comprehend how unbelievably fucking sad what she'd just said was?

Before he could respond however, he was startled by a tray of food being all but slammed down beside him.

Pigsy's fury was palpable and, in what he assumed was Megopolis's city language, snapped at his grandmother as he pushed the tray towards her.

Clearly displeased with his tone, she responded back in the same language.

It was a short exchange that ended with Xiùyīng huffing angrily as she swiped the tray from the counter. Standing tall and prim, she switched back to Mandarin and addressed him, "Apologies, Mr. Tang. My grandson apparently doesn't think this discussion is "appropriate" so I will be heading back up stairs. Please forgive such rude behaviour."

Her tone suggested it was Pigsy's "rude behaviour", not hers.

She bowed shortly and didn't wait for a response before heading for the staff door and disappearing.

Pigsy glared after her before turning away to angrily tidy up after himself, "Don't fucking listen to anything she has to say about humans and demons. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

Admittedly, he was still a little annoyed about the whole exchange but it was driven by the fact that he was angry and upset on Pigsy's behalf, "I don't understand how she could possibly believe that mental health is just a human thing! Just look at all the evidence!"

Pigsy huffed, "For MK's sake, just be glad that she knows it is a thing, at least. I couldn't have let him stay here otherwise."

"Yeah, no kidding... But what about you?"

Pigsy turned around and raised an eyebrow, "What about me?"

He faltered slightly, "Er, y'know, what if one day you're not doing too good? Mentally, that is?"

Very clearly being sarcastic, Pigsy responded, "Me? I'm the picture of good mental health. What are you talking about?"

He couldn't help but frown, "Not funny."

Pigsy sighed, "No, it's not. But don't let yourself get bent out of shape about it. I can handle her."

He could hear the unspoken, "Don't get involved." and begrudgingly he would have to accept it for now. It's not like he was well qualified enough to really weigh in anyway.

"Fine. But if you ever need to get any frustrations off your chest about you know who then I'm all ears."

Pigsy managed a smile, "Why else do you think I keep you around?"

The conversation moved on.

But the interaction weighed on him.

Xiùyīng said ACEs were a part of every demon's life and as he watched Pigsy get ready for the dinner rush, he couldn't help but frown as he wondered what that had meant for Pigsy.

--Chapter End--

Chapter Navigation: First | Prev | Next

LMK Fanfic Masterlist

#lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk fanfiction #my fanfiction #originally posted on ao3 #tumblr fic #lmk tang #lmk pigsy #lmk mk #lmk pigsy's grandmother #lmk dadsy #au: dadsy #pre relationship #lmk freenoodles

23 notes · View notes