#but idk enough about music to know what the note should be so rip

[boxwinebaddie]

hi nina! do you have any other songs that you think cd would cover? i just really liked new perspective and i think ur music taste is rlly cool :3

d'awww!!! hi there, sweet pea! <3

tysm for your ask but, before you start reading ( because this message got VERY long ), i just want to let everyone know that i used this ask to explain some Very Complex Ravenstan/Callgirl Fake Dating Lore...so if you are interested in that, it starts towards the middle of this ask...it's a lil chaotic, but i tried to make it as interesting and clear as i could! no obligation to read, ofc, as always, but i did want to preface this ask with that info, so you know this one is

*Secretly An Important RM Lore Ask.*

but back to what i was doing ( screaming ):

— because aAAAAAAAAAA!!!! c': <333

i am not even joking, you guys, despite the fact that my fic is based almost entirely around Music, i avoided answering music-related asks for so LONG bc i was legitimately so nervous about it being negatively perceived or read for filth on here, which, i Know, is silly because it's my fanfic and what i say goes, i can't change my music taste anymore than i can change the way my dna loops, but...idk.

like, i feel like A Lot of people are self conscious abt their music taste, but my social anxiety/inferiority complex can get so gnarly that i actually get Nervous when people ask me about what kind of music i like and i never EVER sit shot gun in cars bc i am...scared to aux. :/

iiiiiit's...That Bad. ( nina, please get therapy. )

i also feel like people in this fandom can get Very Intense about what kind of music they associate with the boys/what music the boys listen to and are FRIGHTENINGLY QUICK to rip people to shreds over opinions that don't align with theirs or aren't obscure or 'cool' enough.

bc of that, i try to be Very Lowkey on this blog because the larger part of this fandom and the criminally insane level at which they escalate petty fights over canon/fanon, like to the point that they are frothing at the mouth and start doxing people...gives me Extreme Stress. which, in my line of work, i actually CANNOT have happen.

tldr; i want absolutely NO part of it and like my lil corner.

thank you for keeping it Safe. <3

AND THANK YOU FOR ENJOYING MY MUSIC TASTE!!! EEEE c: <3 THAT IS SO REASURRING AND HEALING FOR ME TO HEAR!!!! MUSIC TO MY EARS, BABY! LITERALLY! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THAAAANK YOU! *holds you* *squishes you* *kisses ur head*

istg, if nothing else the fact that i have a bunch of you rocking out to New Perspective and positively associating it with my fanfic means that i have done my job and that's a legacy i'm willing to die with.

i'm being so serious, i feel like if rm was a tv show, it would play as the outro to every episode...but like a nice, soft, raw version w/ ravenstan on acoustic guitar to contrast the hard ass cd cover of style by tswizz that i think would open every episode...smh, nina, please, pleease stop imagining your unfinished, crack-fanfic as a netflix og series. >.>

BUT!!! okay!!!! in vein of trying not to worry about the perception of my music taste or what other people want from me...tHIS IS A KIND OF CONTREVERSIAL TAKE BUT I TIED IT TO THE PLOT, OKAY?

so, as a little nina lore and for context, when i was in elementary school around like 4th/5th grade, i was listening to like a lot of early y2k bangers, ig. dirty little secret by all american rejects, hey there delilah by the plain white tees, girlfriend by avril lavigne core, etc.

( just to make you giggle, i also had a ps2 and there was a series of video games called singstar that were some off shoot of rockband/gh that had mics you plugged directly into the system...pls note my high score on sk8r boi really should be put in the guinness world records, like if you held a gun to my head and told me to sing that song, i not only would i fuck it up but i would LIVE, baby! better luck next time! )

...it was also around early disney channel times ( the disney channel games with the team colors...that was my OLYMPICS, bitch! ) and i had this Disney Pop Hits Vol...1? i think? cd i used to play on the prehistoric radio thing in my room and my favorite song on it was...

pop princess by the click five.

AND I KNOW!!! I KNOOOOOW!!!! controversial take, but i am sorry, THAT SONG FUCKS!!!! THAT SONG IS SOOOO AWESOME!!!!!

and i feel like when ravenstan was fake dating call girl during the great hate south park embark, cd covered it: i am picturing a less finger-bang, btr, disney channel esqe sound and more of a pop-punk, pedal to the metal, electric guitar type, edgy rockstar boy typa beat.

but Yes, i think ravenstan covered it or idk i really think that it was made FOR call girl. and it was BAD ASF. i also think bc tcf wrote that song about hannah montana ( iconic ), and bc call girl is basically the whole internet's e-girl bubblegum pop princess in my fanfic, it just...

makes...Sense.

am i making sense? do we see the vision? aka rs in his lil pants w/ the ripped red and black flannel tied around his waist, fallin to his knees, singing his heart out, pointing at her, winking? PPL DIIIIIIIIIED.

and by people, i do mean jerseykyle n bebe who were MAD AS HELL,

-- but also tapping their toe...smh.

it was both very cool and very annoying. RIP.

( ...do i have jersey and bebe make out during the pop princess call girl tribute as mlm/wlw solidarity? HEEEELP ICOOONIC *jk vibrating with stress and anger vc* barbara, i need you to do somethin for me don't ask questions, i'll explain later, It's Important sdks MESSY! )

BUT OKAY!!!! SPEAAAAKING OF THEM AND THAT AND CALLGIRL AND RAVEN OF CRIMSON DAWN DATING!!!! i wanted to give you some lore and some spoilery plot about that/them bc it is burning a Hole in my brain...i must discuss r.s. and call girl becaaaause

~Its....Complicated.~

ANYWAYS!!!! IMPORTANT PLOT TIME!!!!

so, for more context: i am currently working on another ask abt how ike found out that jerseykyle/ravenstan used to be dating and during that conversation in kyle's room about three days into the sp trip, CONCURRENTLY somewhere Else, ravenstan and call girl are getting ready to do some flashy PR thing like go on a date/get din, idk.

BUT RIGHT BEFORE IT: ravenstan and call girl are alone together, and ravenstan, who, i am not even kidding you, is sooo fucking Pissed that this is EVEN HAPPENING because kyle is super mad at him, was like you are Actually Dead to me, WILL NOT TALK TO HIM...

( which without spoiling too much -- is actually why ike can tell that somethin Fucked Up is happening because j.k. is super aggressive and loud and is not afraid to Fuck Your Shit Up...but has not laid a FINGER on raven of crimson dawn...and actually, seems to not even want to be Near him, barely acknowledges his existence, leaves rooms that he is in and is Radio Silent around him...WHICH IS TWICE AS SCARY AS J.K. YELLING AND TRYING TO KILL YOU. so, uhh, Not fucking...Good, you guys. ike was like...this is...not fucking normal. )

but again, he cannot tell kyle what is going on bc he might actuuuuallly get MURDERED??? uh???

anyways, in whatever secure, secluded space rae/cg are in ( its somewhere private, i pictured a dressing room of sorts, like a makeup trailer, somewhere they have to take pics ) stan is Extremely Straight Up with her and says something to the effect of:

"i have no idea what you think this is or what you want this to be or what they told you, but we are not dating and this...is NOT. Real."

and call girl ( aka wendy whose identity is a secret to EVERYONE, No One has seen the bottom half of call girl's face...Ever. she changes her wigs everyday, they are Very Elaborate and is always in a very high tech face mask that covers her face from the nose down and uses a voice modulator to mask her speaking voice...a mysterious queen ) oddly enough seems completely relieved by this statement and is like

*squints*

"don't worry, Emo Boy. feeling is mutual. like, no offense, but you are seriously...not my type. Ew. trust me, i don’t want to do this either but,

— I Have To."

wHICHSHDLSKDHLSD SHE GUTTED HIM HELP. he was *gigantic stan slow eye blinks in shock* like "right, okay, Ow. that was...Mean." kshdlksdls but then was "--but i am glad we...agree. i Also HAVE To. not because of publicity, it's...Deeper than that...i can't really ta--"

to which call girl, locking eyes with him, dead seriously, lowering her modulated voice is like...

"it's tenorman, right?

He Threatened You."

and r.s, gagged! Again!!! is like

"holy shit, he THREATENED /YOU/ TOO?!?!"

and call girl nods very slowly and starts to say

"he told me if i didn't do it he would..."

and rs with the same kind of mounting horror whispers

" — Kill Everyone You Love And Care About?"

which, at this point, folks, they are both like...

...WOAH.

bc they realize they are both stuck in the same torture chamber together, they Both got cornered into this really elaborate ruse and have to keep it up in order to keep the people that they love Safe and it's...A Lot. it...really is. but it's also sort of freeing and cathartic to knowing you are not alone going through what is pretty much the worst thing that has ever happened to you in your entire life.

i also feel like...there is this natural bond. this Energy between them. like they understand/see each other and feel...safe with one another.

and call girl, guard still up, dips a toe in uncharted water, and goes:

"well...since were partners in crime now and have to live a lie in public...i think we at least owe it to each other in private...

...to be Real."

she offers this bc they have reached an understanding, an impasse, a standstill, a draw of sorts. and there is a thick tension...as well as this crescendoing vulnerability that hangs the air with her ultimatum as they stare warily at each other, strangers, both wearing still wearing their masks, call girl physically in hers and stan in his metaphorical one doing the dark, raspy smoke and mirrors raven voice bc he is...not sure about her in the same way that she is...

...still not sure abt him.

( they are basically that one spiderman meme where both the spidermans are holding each other at gun point. ) and it's a huge Risk to indulge her request, but again...they both have everything to lose.

and no one...but Eachother.

so he indulges her very tentatively and counters:

"alright...then, tell me something Real, call girl."

to which she nods, closes her eyes and goes. "fine. my real name..."

call girl trails off, reaches up to tap the voice modulator on her mask, turns it off, reaches out her rhine-stoned, sequined, hot pink faux leather gloved hand out to shake his and in her real voice, says,

" — Is Wendy."

and this...is a Very BIG Deal.

again, no one has ever heard call girl's voice before. no one knows what her name is or Anything about her. she doesn't even preform live, she does virtual concerts and is basically this sort of mysterious, ai, vocaloid/miku internet personality that is very Carefully and elaborately Coded and ENCRYPTED to keep her identity Safe.

so her turning off her voice mod and speaking to stan, not as a fictional, larger than life computer-generated celebrity, but as a human being...is massive.

it's also very...Comforting to ravenstan.

who has not been himself...for a very long time. and it's not smart, it's not a good idea, but he decides to trust her and in turn,

in his real voice, says,

"stan. my name...is Stan.

It's Nice To Meet You, Wendy."

he shakes her hand and she shakes his.

she says, "it's nice to meet you too, stan." :)

and it feels...Nice. it should feel wrong, what they're doing, but it feels right, it feels fucking amazing to stop Preforming. she knows his name, she's seen his face...but realizes he still has not seen Hers and running on adrenaline, bolstered by a rare surge of bravery, chinks at her armor, or mask rather, and makes a motion.

literally.

bc he reaches up towards her face and goes, "oof. it's nice to hear your human voice; the dystopian robot voice was lowkey espantoso."

he laughs, it's genuine and super ugly, god bless him. so you Know he's being really real when he asks "but...if it's all the same to you. if were going to speak freely; i'd like to...see Who i am speaking to.

so can i, please, uh...see your Face? your whole face.

your...Real face."

and oof. this...is a little nerve-wracking for wendalends.

she's neeeever taken the mask off. ever. Ever. EVER.

For A-n-y-o-n-e.

but...she might never have the chance again and it is...really stuffy under there. so she Agrees and lets stan remove her face apparatus.

ravenstan does say "Wowza." HDLKSHDSl amazing.

he's also my boyfail king and says something very fucking stupid like

"sorry, you're REALLY Pretty. i was worried might look like deadpool under there." she smiles, it's beautiful. no one has seen her real smile before as call girl and thanks him. she goes on to apologize and is like

"thank you, stan. you're really sweet and i...am sorry i said 'ew'. it's not because you're ugly, you're kind of...Cute for a guy, actually? you have really nice bone structure and very kind eyes. it's just, when i said you weren't my type i meant Boys. in...general."

her voice shakes a little, she's never admitted this out loud before, not even to her girlfriend. but she trusts stan with the nice bone structure and dumb ugly laugh and very kind eyes, so she says

"i'm a...Lesbian.

i'm also Seeing Someone at the moment.

It's Complicated."

and stan is like, skhdlsd way too excited to talk about kyle, and is like

"okay, whew! i'm ALSO seeing someone! or well..." then remembers and is like oooof "well...i Was...seeing someone i guess. it's..."

my man is Depressed and is trying to change the subject because he realizes he actually can't talk about kyle because not only is cartman going to kill him if he does...he is also gonna freakin K!ll Himself because he's actually so sad that kyle currently hates his GUTS.

so he sighs, echoing her and admits "It's...Complicated." :/

he wants to hear something nice though, something real...and nice. because he is a romantico king. who believes more than anything...

in Love.

so he asks her what her girlfriend's name is. <3 :')

annnd i think she is About to say bebe's name...but realizes if she does, it will completely blow her cover.

like her ACTUAL Cover.

because stan knowing her first name and her what she looks like under the mask is one thing...but the second she says bebe's name, it's going to reveal that she is kyle's bebe's wen/wendyl which...is

Meeeeessy.

but she reasons ( as an intelligent, rational queen ) that regardless of how messy things get, her and stan are in this mess together and that the best time to make a mess...is when you are Coming Clean.

still...this is...very sensitive information. she’s not sure how he's gonna take it and needs some sort of collateral.

so she states her terms.

and call girl, who stan now knows is wendy, but not bebe's current girlfriend ( yet ) says "okay. i am going to tell you something, but in order to do it. i have to tell you...Everything. in exchange, i need YOU to tell me Everything. i am going to give you One Chance to do so willingly. if not...i do not care how untraceable you Think you are, i am very familiar with the dark web and i will find out everything i Need to know about you. and do with that information...What. I. Please.

...so /please./ promise me you won't tell anyone about what i am about to tell you...and then, tell me...stan...Something Real."

stan agrees and wendy goes into everything. comes out as trans to him and explains her origin story. ( i started to write everything in this ask but it got too long, i'll tell you all about call girl/wendy in another ask i have a couple in the box i can use, haha. ) she tells him pretty much everything ( it's a big therapy session in there ) up until this point, gaydhd ravenstan...manages to understand

Everything.

and when she finishes, true to the deal, she gently volleys the ball into his court, ( they are friends now, aw <3 ) and softly goes:

"okay...Your Turn."

and so ravenstan...who is Deeply Inspired by wendy...Wowza. he seriously thinks she is so fucking cool and ALSO A TRANS ICON??? HELLO? he feels v seen and heard and safe, so uh...jesus christ, he grabs wendy's hands, takes a veeeeeery deep breath and goes,

"so, i...

— Am DEAD."

LKHDSHSDLKDS HEEELP KSHLKDS

annnnnnd proceeds to tell her everything.

and i do mean...Everything.

they talk for the rest of the night basically, having this heart to heart, at the same time that, unbeknownst to ravenstan, jerseykyle and ike are also having a heart to heart....wendy and stan are platonic besties, they agree to keep each other's secrets as t4t legends stuck in cartman's fucked up marionette hell together, they agree to keep their crazy charade up while they try and find a way out/back to bebe and kyle, take some v convincing publicity pictures together ( i do think jk and bebe see them and want to die So Bad, it's not funny...bebe/jk or wendy/rs...choose your doomed broship. Fml. )

and that's...

Your Crazy Uncle Nina RM Lore Drop For The Night!

i hope you enjoyed it, haha. <3 please feel free to drop me a line in the ole ask box about it and ofc, as always, to ask me anything you would like! if you're still with me...after all this time. thank you so much for supporting me and enjoying my content.

it means...Everything to me.

and in writing something fake...

thank you all:

for being my Something Real. <3 c':

-uncle nina, callgirl/raven superfan

[raitrolling]

No more worlds like this, no more days like that

[Easy reading version on Toyhou.se]

Katrin woke from her ‘nap’ on the couch, one that she thinks was just meant to be a twenty minute thing that turned into sleeping through the entire day. She never intended to make the couch her typical sleeping location when she had a perfectly fine recuperacoon in her respiteblock, but she always just… Ended up staying here. It was her nightly routine by now; leave her hive for either a night working at Barsho’s boutique or wandering around the city with a vague aim to do some pickpocketing, try to sneak her way into a bar, get caught, then go home to finish off whatever drinks that still happened to be lying around. It was genuinely not a way to live, she knew that very well. But, she just felt… Stuck. Certainly getting through each night fine and meeting the minimum requirements for socialising before people started openly worrying about her, but not making any sort of progress. A monotonous loop of drunkenness and misery.

She wasn’t rostered on to work tonight, and she didn’t feel the motivation to leave the hive. The drive to write had been gone for a long time, the tales of Rirsan Katish had become too unbelievably over-the-top in her desperate attempts for escapism that the life of her self-insert character was no longer appealing. There wasn’t much left for her to do, aside from locate the remote and an unopened alcoholic beverage...

However, as she moved to sit up, Katrin caught a glimpse of something she had forgotten that she still owned: An old keyboard propped up against the wall. 

It was a gift from her kismesis, although Katrin couldn’t recall exactly which 12th Perigees it was. Of course Klavir would buy her something related to his own hobbies, it was his way of sharing a part of himself with his quadrant. Katrin had given him some books she’d stolen in return, her way of telling him to get better hobbies than playing piano and being depressed. He retorted that it was better than her hobby of drinking and being depressed, to which she couldn’t argue with. He was right, as much as she hated to admit it. 

She recalled a conversation she had with her neighbour one night. Soroll had invited her over to listen to the latest song he had been practicing on his drum set - which was a homemade mishmash of discarded rubbish bins and some actual drums he had scavenged from the local garbage dump. It sounded horrible, as expected, but whenever he hit the bass drum and crash cymbal (which accounted for half of the proper equipment he owned), she could recognise the alt-rock song he was trying to play. She had asked him why he likes to play, despite not being able to play properly and gain any sort of recognition or money from it. He shrugged. 

“I dunno. Its jus fun.”

He was probably right about that too. Soroll and Klavir spoke of playing music as just something you do whenever you feel troubled. Klavir was never away from the piano for too long, it was equally his career and his down time, and he’d mentioned the therapeutic undercurrent behind each note and key change. The same could be said about Soroll; Katrin didn’t know much about his “job” in the gang as he didn’t like to talk about it, but late into the night after he’d gotten home from whatever he did, she could sometimes hear him practicing his drumming.

Perhaps there is something about hitting things in a non-destructive way that can be beneficial. It’d be healthier than opening another bottle of cheap wine, and safer than breaking into someone’s hive, at the very least. Katrin lazily rolled off the couch, getting to her feet and then wandering over to the keyboard.

Eichio had gifted her a couple books for learning the keyboard after he noticed it when he came over one time: A few simple sheet music collections for beginners that allows one to play classic tunes with just one octave, and one slightly more advanced one to play some famous pop songs. If she put her mind to it, she could probably play the latter ones with ease. Klavir had given her countless lessons, but over time had given up trying to teach her when she either became too discouraged from not being able to keep up with him, or their lessons would devolve into some sort of black-fuelled flirting session. Needless to say, whenever Katrin attempted to recall the times she did play decently, her mind would wander to the way she would slip under Klavir’s arms while he was performing to sit on his lap in an attempt to distract him from his music, only to get flustered herself when he would grab her wrists and guide her to play for him. He was much too good at turning the tables on her.

… Right, the books. Katrin picked up the keyboard and one of the simple sheet music collections, using the weight of the instrument to push numerous empty cans and clutter off the coffee table for it to rest on top. She never bothered to buy a proper stand for it, nor a chair to sit on. Pulling the couch cushions off onto the floor and stacking them on top of one another will have to suffice. It’s not like there’s any foot pedals to worry about. Without any room under the coffee table for her legs, Katrin opted to kneel on the cushions as she flicks through the pages of the piano book. 

She settles on one short song: My Favourite Things. The sheet music only covers two pages and three verses of the song, and the keys don’t go beyond the centre of the keyboard. The book is propped up on the music stand attached to the keyboard. Katrin rests her hands on the keys, right thumb on middle C as she remembers Klavir teaching her, and plays.

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Rain - drops on | rose - es and | whis - kers on | kit - tens

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Bright cop - per | ket - tles and | warm woo - len | mit - tens

E - B - A | E - F - D | D - A - G | C

Brown pa - per | pack - a - ges | tied up with | strings

B - C - D | E - F - G | A - B - A | D#

These are a | few of my | fav - our - ite | things

She plays slow the first time, trying to get a feel for the keys again. There’s no metronome to keep time, but she’s heard the original song enough for her to recall how it should sound. This melody is simple, there’s only one sharp for her to keep track of and only one note is played at a time. There’s a small sense of accomplishment when she completes the first verse without any mistakes, such a thing doesn’t happen often to her. If she hadn’t sat through those lessons with Klavir and was trying solely on her own, she probably would have given up immediately when things didn’t go perfectly. But she at least knows something, and not some fantastic idea straight from her imagination that she could immediately discover that she’s a prodigy who will make millions performing for others. She should probably give her kismesis credit, if it wasn’t for him she wouldn’t be here right now. She begins the second verse.

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Cream co - loured | pon - ies and | crisp ap - ple | stru - dels

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Door - bells and | sleigh - bells and | schitz - el with | noo - dles

E - B - A | E - F - D | D - A - G | C

Wild geese that | fly with the | moon on their | wings

B - C - D | E - F - G | A - B - A | D#

These are a | few of my | fav - our - ite | things

The pace picks up, and rather than singing the lyrics listed in the book, Katrin finds it easier to repeat the name of the note as she plays it. Nothing any of her friends could teach her - Soroll and Eichio don’t know how to read sheet music, and Klavir is such a natural he struggled to dumb anything down to her level. It was her own way of playing, and a way that felt right to her. 

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Girls in white | dress - es with | sat - in white | sa - shes

E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E

Snow - flakes that | stay on my | nose and eye - | las - shes

E - B - A | E - F - D | D - A - G | C

Sil - ver white | win - ters that | melt in - to | spring

B - C - D | E - F - G | A - B - A | D#

These are a | few of my | fav - our - ite | things

If the book of sheet music continued to the next verse, Katrin would have kept playing. It felt good to play, to make the instrument make sounds that were pleasing to the ear, even if they were much simpler to the music other people would make. It even felt a little fun, for reasons she nor her neighbour could elaborate when she first posed that question to him all that time ago. She thinks she understands it now, and plays the song over from the beginning. Her pace continues to quicken, until finally reaching the tempo of which the song is meant to be played. When she vocalises the notes, it stops being a mnemonic tool and turns into an accompanying harmony. E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E. E - B - B | G - E - E | B - E - E | F - E. E - B - A | E - F - D | D - A - G | C. B - C - D | E - F - G | A - B - A | D. 

Again and again she plays, until if anyone could hear the song from outside of her hive they would undoubtedly be sick of it. She could flip the page and try a different song, but something about this one just feels right. There’s a calming rhythm to the repetition of the notes, and a sense of progress as she scales the keys in the final line of each verse. Progression. Another thing that doesn’t happen often to her, but here it feels doable. Maybe tomorrow she’ll try another song in the book, and maybe she’ll keep going until she feels ready to try the more difficult piano book later on. For now, she’s content - perhaps another emotion that feels foreign to her - to play whatever she feels like because to feel something at all is an improvement to her current lifestyle. And unlike everything else, she has no reason to play, there’s no monetary gain from playing alone in her lounge room, no reason to impress anyone, no skills that can be carried on into any career or useful activity. It’s just fun.

[seasonsbloom]

baby, let's play house. rooster (part 1)

part 2

pairing ; bradley bradshaw x female!reader

synopsis ; marriage of convenience. you got yourself in trouble. bradley has a bit of a savior complex. together, you come up with what could potentially be the worst idea in the longstanding and illustrious history of bad ideas.

wc ; 12.5k

warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; angst; explicit language; explicit sexual content in later parts; pregnancy; mentions of infidelity; mentions of vomit; mentions of Tom Cruise; unhealthy family dynamics; one mention of suic*de but it's not a plot point; age gap

note: uhm... i blacked out. idk either. part 2 should be out eventually, which of course means that i haven't even started writing it yet. there will probably be several mistakes in here regarding the navy, etc. so i'm sorry about that i'm just dumb :-(

sol. sunderlust. crab. bestie... i love you forever, what would i ever do without you?

When you’re fourteen, sitting on a floral couch in one of the nondescript, army-commissioned houses you’ve been moving to every few months since you were old enough to remember, your mother turns on Cocktail with Tom Cruise, and you decide that, once you’re grown up, you’re going to be a bartender. You’re going to do just what Tom does - get a job in some dive, work your way up, learn the bottle slinging and the shot pouring and the flirting, and then you’re going to franchise the whole thing and take it national. It’s going to be just like TGI Fridays, except your drinks will actually be good instead of whatever watered-down punch they serve.

Of course, you’re fourteen, and you don’t even know what alcohol tastes like yet. Years later, you’re going to take a shot of Tequila at a bar, you’re going to splutter and cough and think you might choke, and it’ll leave you wondering if maybe you’ve made a mistake. But for now, you’ve got a dream, and you’ve got a plan, and not a smidge of doubt that you’ll make it all come true.

You’re going to do just as Tom Cruise does - minus the best friend’s suicide from the movie and the real-life Scientology thing and all that. But you’re going to be successful. You know it.

So this, then. This is not part of your plan at all.

Behind you, there’s a bang, and then the back door is ripped open. The buttery light of the bar spills in a rectangle across the beaten path, but it doesn’t reach your little corner. You hear the muffled thud of footsteps, a curse, followed by a shout of your name.

“Yeah?” you call back, hope you don’t sound like you’re balancing on the edge of a mental breakdown. Hope you don’t sound like you feel.

“Your shift’s about to start. I really need you in there cutting up some limes, please,” Jerry, your co-worker, says. Thank God he doesn’t walk over to investigate just what you’re doing huddled in the sand behind the bar.

“Okay,” you answer, voice a little wobbly, “I’ll be in in a sec.”

You wait until you hear the door shut behind Jerry, then you unfold yourself, get your shaky legs underneath your weight. You feel like somebody hit you over the head with one of those huge hammers they use to knock down walls. The nausea is back, too, something queasy and watery that shifts through your stomach.

Inside the bar, everything is like it always is. The chatter of the customers, the drawl of the music, the smell of beer, and the Ocean Breeze scented cleaner you use to wipe the floors. Far below it, the scent of the real ocean breeze drifting in through the opened windows. It seems wrong for the Hard Deck to be unchanged, unaltered, untouched when your own life has gone so completely off the rails.

You sneak in a quick, discreet bathroom break to swipe at the mascara smudged beneath your eyes, to dab at it with some damp toilet paper, to hope nobody will notice the obvious signs of tears still clinging to you. To stare at your reflection in the mirror for a moment, try not to think about that stupid test you buried at the bottom of the trashcan. You can taste your heartbeat in your mouth.

You don’t look any different - same nose, same hair, same eyes - but something has irrevocably shifted inside of you.

Behind the counter, you cut up the limes you promised Jerry. The scent clings to your fingers, the juice settles in the calluses. The steady sound as the knife meets the cutting board and the familiar motion of your hands help to ground you a little.

“Could we get a refill?”

You lift your head and then immediately lower it again, shoulders going up, turning to the side in an attempt to hide your face. If there are two people you don’t want to see tonight, then…

“Oh my god.” Natasha’s face pushes into your line of vision, her eyebrows crinkled, her mouth pursed. “Have you been crying?”

Waving her words of concern away with one hand, you grab for their empty glasses with the other.

“Allergies,” you lie. “I’ve got two on tap here, which one did you guys have? The German or the…”

“You don’t have allergies,” Bradley points out. You’d made it a point not to look at him, but now your gaze snaps in his direction. He stands with his eyes narrowed, with his hands on the polished wood of the bar top. Concern flutters across his face.

There’s something about Bradley Bradshaw. You like to think of it as a gravitational pull. Something with force, something that makes people look at him. Something that grounds them, too, though, gives them a tether. 

Ever since he first walked into this bar a little over a year ago, it’s like he’s become a fixture in your life, even if you only see him once or twice a week, even if it’s just a quick exchange of words over a countertop. Bradley Bradshaw makes for a good North Star.

He shrugs, and there’s something almost sheepish to it. “It was part of your list of reasons why you’re better than Hangman last month.”

You pause, still holding the glasses, and stare at him. He looks right back. 

“That’s beside the point,” Natasha pipes up. She’s balancing both her elbows on the bartop, pulling herself closer. “Why were you crying?”

That sort of shifts reality back into focus. What are you supposed to say? I let a guy who isn’t even really my boyfriend but also not really not my boyfriend knock me up, and now I have no idea what the fuck to do? To two people who are little more than glorified acquaintances?

You shrug and decide they look like they’d enjoy the new craft beer Penny got on tap. It has notes of vanilla and apple, and you’re not much of a beer person, but even you like it. Or at least you used to.

“It’s nothing,” you say, drawing the first glass. It ends up perfect - amber liquid topped with just the right amount of foam, the little bobbles popping as you push it across the counter toward Natasha. Your life might be a mess, but at least you still know how to draw a damn good glass of beer from the tap. “Don’t worry about it.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow, but then she lets it go. “You know I’ll beat a guy up for you, right?”

You don’t doubt it. If there’s anybody in this bar you wouldn’t want to cross, it’s Natasha, and not just because of whatever training the Navy put her through. You’re convinced she came into the world knowing how to take a guy out.

“Yeah,” you agree and are surprised to find you mean it. Realistically, you’re not particularly close to any of the pilots. You chit-chat sometimes, have had a few drunken conversations after everybody else has filtered out of the Hard Deck while wiping down tables or collecting shot glasses, but that’s not really enough to support a true friendship. Still. If you asked, you have no doubt Natasha would go to bat for you. “It’s okay, though. I’m fine. I’ll put this on your tab, yeah?”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but then decides to let it go. Sighs, “Okay.”

As Natasha pushes off the bar to rejoin her group of friends toward the back of the bar, Bradley takes a step closer instead. You make it a point not to look at him, but the yellow and white of his Hawaiian shirt flashes in your periphery despite your best efforts.

He places a large hand on the countertop, palm down, and you should be looking busy, but all you can do is stare as his fingers starfish across the wood.

“You can talk to me, yeah?” he asks, and his voice is soft enough that it almost disappears in the din of this Saturday night. “Whatever it is.”

You do look up then. Bradley has brown eyes, round and big and deep. There’s something about them that makes you want to trust him, trust his words, trust the sincerity. It almost makes you start crying again.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

Then somebody’s shouting an order at you, and you’re pushing a coaster under a sweating Cuba Libre, you’re pouring a Tequila shot, you’re looking for the maraschino cherries, you’re passing out salt shakers, and you don’t notice as he disappears and you don’t think about anything for a short, blissful, beautiful time.

+

Two months ago, you met Luke halfway through the door of a bar you’d seen on Instagram, something with low lights and neon signs and booths cushioned in lush, ruby velvet. They had this signature cocktail there, something with rum and gold foil and a lot of smoke that drifted up in sweet-smelling plumes.

Luke was charming and laughed a lot, and when he put his hand on your waist, when he looked at you, your heart skipped a beat or two. And still, the first thing you told Penny about at work the next day was the cocktail and not the guy.

You’re almost entirely sure you’re not in love with him, but you’re excited about the idea that maybe someday you could be. Luke is a nice guy. He works in finance somewhere in San Diego, takes you to expensive seafront restaurants, and once or twice, he even bought you expensive lingerie. Luke likes the same movies as you do, likes putting on Jazz music when you go down on him in his car, and that always manages to make you feel strangely sophisticated even with a dick in your mouth. He’s older, and he has a real, grown-up job, completely unlike you with your singles soaked in beer.

He’s a stead-fast, reliable guy. If you have to be in this situation with anyone, you figure it’s better to be in it with him than some twenty-something surfer dude who couldn’t even find the word responsible in a dictionary.

The anxiety has been gnawing at you since last night, has been chipping away your composure and your calm. Has reduced you into a jittery, terrified, chafing shell of your former self. All day you were fumbling - burning your hand on the heated water kettle in the morning, almost running a red light, cutting your finger deep enough it didn’t stop bleeding for a whole five minutes.

Earlier today, you took a last, desperate stand. Propelled by the sort of hope that exists against all better judgment, you went on a CVS run and returned with three more pregnancy tests. You left them back at your tiny apartment, right on the counter where you put them out in the first place, those three tiny, horrible, life-altering plus signs laughing right in your face.

And that was it then. Your fate decided. Your luck run out.

Since you were fourteen, sitting on that floral couch, the course of your life had seemed so clear to you. You’d been so sure of where you wanted to go, so sure of how to get there. And yeah, okay, maybe you used to think you’d get there sooner, but that’s never deterred you before. Slow and steady wins the race, that’s what you used to think.

Now, ten years later, everything is muddled. You can’t see an inch ahead in the fog of all this.

To add insult to injury, those tests were fucking expensive. The next time you check your bank account, you might start crying.

So you spent a good fifteen minutes curled up on your bathroom tiles, staring at your shower curtain, blinking away tears you never shed. You spent a good fifteen minutes trying to figure it out, trying to untangle it, trying to make sense of how you could fuck up so completely. 

And then you finally picked yourself up, massaged the grid pattern of the tiles off your cheek, and shot Luke a text asking if he was free tonight.

He drops by at the end of your shift.

“Hi, babe.” Luke grins as he slides into one of the bar stools. “You good?”

You nod, then pause. “Not really?”

You’re wiping down the bartop, dumping an ashtray you collected from the smoking zone outside into the trash. The Hard Deck is empty now, even the last stragglers filed out. Bob selected a song on the jukebox before he left, something slow and decidedly country. Your hands shake when you go to wet the rag again.

Luke frowns and leans across the bar to look at you closely. “What happened?”

“I have to tell you something,” you say and run the tap. The water hits the chrome of the sink with a splatter.

Luke raises an eyebrow, grins. “Illicit confession?”

Under any other circumstances, you would have laughed. But your stomach is coiled up in knots so tight you wonder if they’ll ever untangle again. Like the earphones you fish from the bottom of a purse.

You just so manage a half-hearted chuckle, a sad, pathetic little sound that has Luke’s eyebrow climbing even higher.

He pushes a brown paper bag across the counter. “I brought your favorite take-out… Would that cheer you up?”

Almost immediately, your stomach growls in answer. You’ve been so hungry the past few days that you can’t even manage to be embarrassed. “Mexican?” you ask, something like excitement in your voice for the first time in over 24 hours.

“Ah...” Luke bites his lower lip. “No, uhm… I got something from that one place we went to. The fusion kitchen?”

“Oh…” The excitement dampens immediately, and you force a smile. “Yeah, cool. Thanks.”

“Sorry… you did say you liked it when we went.”

He’s right. You did say that.

Luke likes experimental food, things like that cocktail with the gold foil. Things that look much better than they end up tasting. He takes pictures of them and posts them on his Instagram, and he always makes sure not to get your hand in, your purse, your foot. He doesn’t even follow you back, and you want to not care about trivial things like social media so very badly that you never ask him about it.

He looks genuinely apologetic, though, so you resolve to forgive him. You smile and say, “I did! This is great. Thanks, Luke.”

His satisfied smile puts you at ease.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

It’s a bit like a bucket of ice water. The ease slips away as quickly as it came. You start wiping almost furiously at a stain on the bartop, then give up. Stare at your fingers gone wrinkly with the sudsy water. 

You open your mouth, and then you say, “I’m pregnant.”

It’s not what you meant to say. You meant to ease into this, make it sound… less final, somehow. As if that’s at all possible. As if that isn’t exactly what it is. Final.

You’re never going back from this, you realize suddenly. No matter what happens from here on out, there’s never going to be another moment where this hasn’t happened. Where you weren’t pregnant, where you didn’t mess it all up. The plan, the dream, the life.

Tears aren’t enough anymore. You’re going to run headfirst into the ocean and scream until the saltwater fills your lungs.

Luke laughs. You stare at him.

It takes a moment, but slowly he realizes that you’re not joking. That this is serious. The smile slides sideways off his face.

“Oh,” he says, and you can’t look at him anymore. So you let your eyes wander, down towards the lapels of his white dress shirt. He’s still wearing his suit and tie, and the realization that he’s come straight from the office touches you more than it should. At the same time, guilt settles in your stomach. You’re doing this to him, you’re altering his life, you…

The rational part of yourself scoffs, takes over the reins. It takes two to tango, you remind yourself. This is as much his fault as it is yours.

But that doesn’t get rid of the bitter taste in your mouth.

“Why…” Luke pauses. “Why are you telling me this?”

When you look up at his face again, his expression is carefully blank.

“Uh…”

“Shouldn’t you be telling the father?”

You blink. The cogs of your mind turn slowly like somebody slapped gum between them. “I am,” you say, wondering what the hell he’s on about.

“I’m not the father,” Luke says, very matter-of-factly. “You don’t need to lie about it.” 

“I’m not lying.” You’re too stunned to even be insulted by the insinuation.

“It’s alright.” He shrugs his shoulders, his expensive suit in the tacky, glossy fabric catching the light. “It’s not like we’re exclusive. I don’t mind if you slept with somebody else.”

“Not exclusive,” you repeat lamely. Maybe that part shouldn’t catch you as off guard as it does. You’ve never discussed it with him in as many words, never sat down to have the whole boyfriend/girlfriend talk, but you’ve been seeing each other semi-regularly for two months now, and you’d just sort of assumed…

“Sure.” Luke nods. “Don’t blame this one on me, then.”

Oh. Your heart clenches, and suddenly it feels like you can’t breathe.

“I didn’t sleep with anybody else,” you say, but your voice sounds far away.

Luke shrugs. “Well, it can’t be mine.”

You don’t even know what to say to this. You’re in desperate, burning need of a shot, and the realization that you can’t have one zaps through you like a pain.

“We always used a condom,” Luke is saying, and his words drift to you through a fog, through a mist, through a thicket of fear and anxiety and ice-cold panic. “I made damn sure of that.”

“It’s not….” You clear your throat. “They’re only like… 98 percent safe. Condoms, I mean.”

“What, so you’re saying we’re those two percent?”

He looks like he’s about to start laughing again, and suddenly you barely recognize him. You’ve always known that Luke wasn’t the love of your life, but that was fine. Love hadn’t been part of the plan anyway, that was for later, much later, after you’d gone international and gotten rich off Mojitos and Pina Coladas and the occasional Old Fashioned. But Luke had been… well, he’d been nice. Always. He’d been someone to laugh with, had been long walks on the beach, and quick tumbles in his backseat. He’d been fun and nice and…

And you’d been stupid enough to hope. Hope for more, hope for better, hope for something.

“I can’t have a baby with you,” he says. His voice rings with finality.

What are you supposed to say to that? With those three positive pregnancy tests back home on your bathroom counter. With the knowledge that you haven’t slept with anyone else.

“Well,” you whisper, and the words come out softer than you want them to, “you are.”

Luke is very quiet for a moment. He’s looking right at you, the blue eyes you used to think were open, inviting, now slitted and probing. Like a snake. 

“Jesus,” he says finally, draws back to run his fingers through his hair, a gesture of exasperation. His voice has lost some of its calm. “What do you want from me?”

You wonder if you look as dazed as you feel. “I don’t… I don’t want anything from you.”

That’s not true. You’d like him to hug you. You’d like him to tell you it’s going to be okay, even if that might be a lie. You’d like him to be nice to you.

Instead, Luke, who looks increasingly distressed, jerks his head and says, “If it’s a family you’re after… I can’t give you that.”

Everything has happened so quickly - the toppling of your plans, the chaos of your life. You haven’t really had time to think about how you want him to react. Not like this, though.

“Why not?” you ask and regret the question the moment it’s out of your mouth. You sound like a child - lost, confused.

Luke sighs. He rakes a palm over his face and shakes his head. When he finally looks at you again, there’s something almost guilty on his face. You can’t tear your eyes away, can’t help but feel your stomach plummeting down down down toward the ground. It’s like standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, feeling what the fall might be like even with both feet firmly planted.

“I can’t give you that,” he says, “because I already have a family.”

Beneath you, the ground seems to quiver.

“What?”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, then reaches into his pocket and produces a shiny, golden wedding band. When he slips it back onto its original place on his finger, you watch the patch of pale skin, several shades lighter than the rest, disappear.

Your breath gets stuck somewhere in your chest.

“You’re… married?”

“Going on five years,” he says, and you think he sounds sad, but maybe that’s just your hope getting the better of you again.

You don’t know what to say. For a moment, you just stand there with the rag still in your hand, listening to the sad, sad voice of some wanna-be cowboy drawling from the speakers. Hear the phantom thud of the cues hitting pool balls. Turn your head to where the pilots were having fun earlier, back when things weren’t all jumbled up.

The whole world moves far, far away from you. Like something you watch on TV screens, something intangible, something fake. It’s not something that happens to people like you. It’s not something that happens to real people.

“It’s… you didn’t tell me that,” you say, and it’s like your voice echoes through a long, long tunnel, bounces off the walls like a tennis ball. “I didn’t know.”

And then you think back on it. Think of whispered phone calls in the dead of night, think of erratic work schedules, think of his insistence to come here instead of going to San Diego. Think of how little you know of his life, how firmly he kept you locked out of it.

Suddenly you’re not so sure if you didn’t know or if you just didn’t want to know. If you closed your eyes to what was right in front of you.

Guilt and anger and confusion flash through you in rapid succession. You feel sick to your stomach.

“I’ll give you money,” Luke says. It’s a peculiar thing - you see his mouth move before the words ever reach your ears, like a movie that’s gone out of sync with the audio.

“Money,” you repeat, very slowly. Or maybe not slowly at all. You just feel like you got stuck in molasses, like the whole world has been dipped in something sticky.

“Well. You’re getting rid of it.”

It’s not a question. He says it like it’s a fact, like it’s something that’s already been decided. Like it’s something you don’t get a say in.

You stiffen, fingers sinking into the wet rag. Soapy water drips over the lacquered wood of the bartop. 

“No,” you say. “No, I’m not.”

About five minutes ago, you hadn’t even made your mind up about it yet. Hadn’t decided whether to keep it or not. Had still been weighing the pros and cons in your mind, turning them over like a Rosetta Stone that might help you decipher the encrypted, tangled mess of your thoughts.  

And now that he’s said it, now that the option is right there in the open, suddenly you know that’s not the way you want it to happen.

“What,” Luke says, “you wanna have it?”

“Yes,” you answer, and you know it’s the truth.

Maybe it’s stupid. You’re twenty-four. You’re broke. You pick up shifts at a bar to pour tequila shots for other people. You live off the guys you flirt with long enough they decide you’re worth a tip. All those plans of grandeur, of franchises and cocktails and Park Avenue apartments, are dead-ends. You’ve been walking a cul-de-sac your whole life.

And still… something about it feels right to you. 

You’ve been thinking about the whole thing in theory - the theoretical truth of that test, the theoretical reaction of Luke, the theoretical existence of that baby, the theoretical impact on your life. But it’s not a theory. It’s real.

There’s a baby growing in you.

It’s the most terrifying thought of your life. You’ve never experienced something so wonderful. Even as the fear eats away at you, even as your stomach churns and your head spins, some part of you feels illuminated with light.

Luke laughs. “Babe… no offense, but that’s a horrible idea.”

You clench your teeth and grit out, “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

He shrugs. “Well, you’re gonna get it. You really think you could raise a kid?”

“I don’t know,” you say, truthfully, and wonder where all this calm is coming from. “But I want to try.”

Luke stares at you as if you’re growing a spare set of ears right in front of him. Then he laughs again, shakes his head. You can’t see what’s so funny about any of this. 

“Babe,” he says, “this isn’t some new Cocktail recipe. This is an actual child you’re talking about.”

If you weren’t so goddamn tired, it would make you angry. Set fire to you like a fuse. But you’re drained, empty, hollow. You want to go home, want to curl up in bed, want to cry. You want to go back two weeks in time, back when you were still just a failing waitress with a big dream. Back before the responsibility of it all hunched you over.

“I’m doing it,” you say, and hope he understands the decision is final. Hope your voice is firm.

Luke exhales. A muscle in his jaw twitches as he grinds his teeth, as he turns half away from you.

Finally, after an eternity, he says, “I can’t be involved in this.”

For your part, you understand that decision is final too.

You nod, grab onto the bartop to keep yourself from toppling over. The ground beneath you is a gaping, beckoning abyss. It’s going to swallow you whole.

“Fine,” you whisper. “I’ll do it alone then.”

For a moment, Luke looks almost surprised. As if he was sure you’d fold eventually, see reason. Listen to him.

You wonder if that’s how it’s been before - him pushing and you giving in. Rearranging your life to fit his schedule, his plans, his wants. Shrinking yourself to make room for him. And you didn’t even notice.

You straighten your spine.

“For what it’s worth,” Luke says as he slides off his chair, “I’m sorry.”

And then he does what men do best: He leaves. Walks away from you and the baby growing inside of you. Walks away from the mess he made, the dream he shattered, without a care or a thought. Without looking back.

You watch his retreating form, watch the set of his shoulders, the spring in his step, watch as he bounds down the steps onto the gravel of the parking lot, watch as the shadows eventually blot out the sight of him.

Good riddance, you want to say, but you can’t even form words.

With your heart torn to shreds, with your fear clawing a bloody path up your throat, you sink down onto the floor, press a hand to your mouth, and you sob.

+

Twenty minutes later, Bradley Bradshaw finds you in the exact same position.

You know it’s been twenty minutes because you’re staring at the digital clock of the dishwasher, counting down the wash cycle. The neon red of the numbers blurs through the veil of your tears.

It’s like somebody’s cut your chest open. Scooped you clean like taking a spoon to a tub of ice cream. Behind your ribcage, you feel hollow in a way that aches down to your bones. That spiderwebs through your veins.

Bradley pauses in the doorway, silhouetted by the outdoor lighting you still haven’t turned off. Like this, with your vision blurred, he looks like a drawing of the Virgin Mary on one of those cheap, tacky candles. Descending on a flurry of clouds and light and doves. Only this Virgin Mary wears Hawaiian shirts, apparently. It almost makes you laugh.

He casts his eyes over the room, a slight furrow dipping between his brows. It takes you a moment to understand he hasn’t seen you yet, not with how you’re crouching by the crates of Corona.

Part of you wants to hide, wants to crawl under the jutting canopy of the bar. Wants to pretend you’re not here, fold yourself into a tiny pocket square of a person until he leaves again.

“Hello?” Bradley asks, genuine confusion laced with the word, and you know you can’t do that.

“Hi,” you call back, and your voice sounds tiny. Miserable. You push up on your knees to preserve a bit of your dignity. The room goes spinning in a whirlwind, and you catch yourself with both hands on the wood, lifting up to peek at him over the edge of the bar. “I’m down here.”

For a moment, Bradley just stares at you. He takes in the scene, the smeared mascara, the swollen eyes, the fresh tears leaving tracks down your cheeks like you’re drawing rivers on a map.

Then he snaps into action. He’s crossing the room before you can even really come to terms with the fact that he’s here in the first place, pushing through the hip-high swinging door that separates the oval space hugged by the bar from the rest of the room and falling to his knees by your side.

“What happened?” Bradley asks, something hard to his voice. But when he goes to touch the side of your face, carefully as if you’re injured, as if you’re made of porcelain that’ll break at the slightest jostle, his brown eyes show nothing but genuine concern.

It makes you cry harder.

“Nothing,” you say, which is a ridiculous lie, all things considered. You’re crouching on the floor of your workplace, over an hour after your shift has ended, crying your eyes out. Clearly, there’s something wrong. “I’m fine.”

Bradley sits cross-legged on the hardwood floors, his knee close enough to graze against yours. He looks decidedly out of his depth, almost uncomfortable. Helpless. His mustache quivers as he opens his mouth, then closes it again.

But he doesn’t push. Doesn’t try to get you to explain it, doesn’t ask again. He just sits there with you, elbows on his thighs, and lets you cry. 

It’s nice not to be alone. To have somebody with you, even if he doesn’t know you. Even if he has no idea what it is that has you on the brink of a complete crisis.

You do your best not to think about it. Not about the baby, not about the guy who just dumped you. Not about gold foil and Instagram posts and wedding bands. Not about how he’s made you a homewrecker, and you didn’t even know.

Maybe this is karma. The universe punishing you for your sins. Something like that.

Maybe it’s just really, really bad luck.

“What are you doing here?” you ask when you’ve finally calmed yourself enough the sobbing has subsided to sniffles.

Bradley jerks his head noncommittally. “I forgot my wallet.”

“Oh.” You try to get up, but your legs won’t cooperate. “I’ll help you look.”

He shakes his head, pulls you back onto the floor by the elbow. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll look for it later. What happened?”

There’s something about his tone that tells you this time he won’t let you get away with a half-assed lie. Which doesn’t stop you from trying.

“Just… rough day.”

Bradley looks at you, then pulls his knees up, lets his arms dangle between them. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, and his voice is very gentle. “But if you want to… I can listen.”

This is the thing about Bradley Bradshaw. He has the kind of face that makes you want to tell him things. Makes you want to spill your secrets to him, pour them into his space. He’s steady, reliable, calm. It would be so easy to trust him.

That’s dangerous.

But you’re so tired, and you’re so broken, and you’re so terribly, horribly lonely. With Luke gone, with your parents out of the picture, with nobody to help and no one to hold you, the loneliness is like an ache, like a stain, like something that festers and spreads and unfurls inside of you.

You just want to pretend you don’t have to do it alone. Just for a moment.

So you say, “I think I did something stupid.”

Bradley’s eyes are very brown. A soft shade of brown, like milk chocolate. When you look at him, you feel warm all over.

“Alright,” he says, and there isn’t an ounce of judgment in it. It’s just a gentle, careful nudge for you to continue.

“I…” You exhale shakily, look down to the floor, twist the bracelet around your wrist. It’s so much harder to form the words the second time around. “I’m pregnant.”

Saying it to Bradley, who is practically a stranger, saying it to someone outside of whatever little bubble, whatever vacuum two people playing at love built around themselves, makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.

You’re pregnant. In a few months, your belly is going to grow to the size of a watermelon. You’re going to get ultrasounds and wear maternity clothes and buy a crib. You’re going to hold a baby in your arms, a baby that will become a toddler, will become a child, will become a teenager, will become an adult. They’re never going to leave again.

I’m pregnant.

One moment - and in it the rest of your life.

It’s a skyscraper, it’s a monument, it’s a mountain. It dwarves you. How can you ever be enough for the path that lies ahead?

The panic jumps you. It rattles you. Suddenly you’re panting, you’re shaking, you can’t think, your head spinning circles around the enormity of it all.

“Oh,” Bradley says. He sounds like he expected you to say just about anything except that. “Congratulations.”

You stare at him, and he backtracks.

“Unless you don’t want me to congratulate you? Sorry, I shouldn’t just….”

“No,” you stop him, your voice a tiny, trembling thing. “It’s okay. Thank you.”

You wonder what it might be like if you were older, if you were married, if you weren’t such a fuck-up. Would people beam at you, hug you, shake your hand? Would they share the joy they must assume you feel?

Neither one of you says anything for a while. Through the opened windows, the sound of the ocean drifts in, of the waves crashing against the shore. The chrome of the fridge you’re leaning against is cold even through the layers of your shirt. You count the wooden tiles on the floor.

After half an eternity, Bradley says, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

It’s like a knife to the heart, it slices right through you, stabs you between the ribs. And you’re not even angry, don’t even feel betrayed… it just hurts. The kind of pain that stays with you. The kind of pain that leaves phantom traces even after the wounds have healed.

“I don’t,” you say finally.

Beside you, Bradley shifts his weight. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m really putting my foot in it today, aren’t I?”

It’s almost enough to make you laugh. “It’s okay,” you say, even though it isn’t. This whole thing isn’t okay. “I’ll be fine.”

Without hesitating, Bradley says, “I know you will be.”

There’s such conviction in his voice that it baffles you. You stare at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“He’s… have you told him, though? Or are you guys not in contact?”

Still trying to recover, you shrug. “Yeah,” you whisper, drawing your shoulders almost all the way up to your ears, “I told him.”

You can tell he wants to ask more, but he gives you a second before his next question. “And you… you guys are gonna try co-parenting? Or is he… are you going to get married?”

That makes you frown. You say, “What is this, the 1950s?”

“I just think….” Bradley clears his throat. “I just think if you get a girl pregnant, you should step up. Take responsibility.”

Of course he’d think that. You’re not even surprised.

There’s always been something traditional about Bradley Bradshaw, like he’s one of those men written by women people rave about all over TikTok. If he takes a girl out on a date, he probably holds open car doors and pulls out chairs for her, hands her his jacket if she gets cold.

Distantly, you wonder what that would be like.

“I don’t want somebody to marry me out of responsibility,” you say. “I can take care of myself.”

Bradley scrambles. “I know that!” he says quickly, and out of the corner of your eye, you see him shift his weight forward, elbows resting on his thighs. “Of course, I know that. I just thought… I just thought you shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

It’s such a simple thing to say, but it almost bowls you over. You turn your head to the side, press your face into your shirt sleeve and dig your fingernails deep into the skin of your shins.

Bradley watches you, eyes intent, and then he probes carefully, “Are you… are you going to keep it?”

You sink your teeth into your lower lip, blink against the sudden dampness. Keep your face turned away from him. The shame of it all, of the situation you’re in, of him seeing you like this, overwhelms you. Your vision blurs.

“I think…” You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I always used to think if I ever got in this situation, I’d just get an abortion but now… I don’t… I just don’t think it’s the right thing for me.”

Slowly, he nods. “You want to have the baby,” he says, and it’s not really a question, but you answer anyway.

“Yes. I mean… I don’t know, it’s just… I want this. I don’t know why or how, but I… it feels like I have to do this.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says, completely sincere. “Your body, your choice.”

Now you do snort. “What, are we at a rally?”

“I follow a few Instagram accounts,” he admits. His voice has gone almost sheepish. “Abortion rights should be everybody’s concern. Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

It’s endearing in a strange way because there’s nothing performative about it. It’s just bumbling and awkward and peculiarly genuine.

“You sound like you spend too much time on Twitter,” you say softly, and it makes him laugh. Bradley’s got a nice laugh, one that starts in his belly and seems to end at the back of his throat, punches out into the air from back there.

After things have gone quiet again, the anxiety sets back in. Or maybe it’s been there all along, chomping at the bit, and you just didn’t notice.

“You must think I’m crazy,” you say finally, a self-deprecating chuckle loosening from your throat.

But when you glance up at him from beneath lowered lashes, stomach tight with anticipation, Bradley doesn’t look judgmental at all. Instead, his face is wide open, his eyes clear, the corners of his lips still curled upward with the remnants of his smile.

Luke laughed at you, but Bradley is looking at you with something like admiration, and it takes your breath away.

“No,” he says. “I think you’re really, really brave.”

And then you’re crying again.

You’re surprised there are any tears left in you after your earlier session, but they burst forth now, in a sudden eruption of all the fear and all the pain. And Bradley is so nice. So goddamn kind even though he doesn’t know you, not really, even though this isn’t even his problem. Sits there on the floor of the Hard Deck with you at half past one am on a Sunday night, and doesn’t complain, doesn’t sigh. He just listens.

You don’t feel brave. You feel terrified, you feel overwhelmed, you feel… you feel… you feel like the whole world has toppled over. You feel like Atlas crashing down, buried beneath the weight of his burden. You feel tiny. Inadequate. You feel scared, scared, scared.

“I don’t know what to do,” you confess, choke it out between sobs. Wonder why you’re telling him this. When you don’t know him.

Funny how it is so much easier at times to be honest with strangers than it is to be honest with the people we love the most.

“I’m so… I’m so scared, Bradley.”

He moves as if to touch you, then seems to think better of it and slumps back into himself. The expression on his face is unreadable, his eyebrows furrowed, his jaw clenched.

“He’s not gonna… the father isn’t going to help you out?”

It makes you realize you never really answered his earlier question. And you don’t know why, can’t explain it rationally, but for some reason, this, too, makes embarrassment well up at the back of your throat. 

What is Bradley going to think? The poor, little, stupid girl who got herself knocked up by a guy who won’t even stay? Is that what everybody’s going to think now? Is that all you’ll be?

It’s a life sentence, this whole thing.

You shrug, pause. Shake your head. “No,” you say finally. “He’s not going to be involved.”

You know it’s true. Luke won’t come back, not now, not in ten years, not in twenty. There was something final about that exchange, something permanent. Something that can’t be undone.

Suddenly, you think of that tiny, unborn child inside of you. Abandoned before it ever came into the world.

It’s just you and me now, baby, you think to yourself, and it goes through you like a current, sweeps you under like a wave. We’re all alone. All we have is each other.

“What about your parents? Your dad’s in the Navy, too, right?”

If you could, you’d run away. Fold yourself to invisibility. Slip into the pockets between moments and become something other, something that exists out of sight.

You think of your parents. Floral couches and polished hardwood floors. Tom Cruise on the television as your mother scrubbed every part of the house like she was getting rid of an illness, wiping away a disease, perpetually finding another stain or another cobweb or another wrinkle to smooth over. Think of your father, rigid and strict and absent. Always on some mission, always thinking of a greater good that definitely didn’t involve you, always looking through you even as he looked at you. You don’t know if you have a single memory of him smiling.

You haven’t spoken to them once since you gave up a perfectly fine full-ride scholarship to college.

“My parents,” you say, and as the words spill from you, you realize they’re the truth, “would probably kill me if they found out I got pregnant out of wedlock. Maybe if I were married, they’d give me back my trust fund or something, but… No, I don’t think they’d help me out.”

A muscle in Bradley’s jaw jumps, then he’s looking away. Turning to the side so you’re knee to knee again. You stare at his profile, at the curl of his ears, the cut of his jaw. The jagged edges of his scars blur through the fog of your tears.

“So, how are you… do you have a plan?”

You had one. You had Mojitos and Daiquiris and Cosmopolitans. You had a slew of business classes at a community college. You had a dream and a set of tools to achieve it, and when you close your eyes, you can almost see it right there in front of you.

But now it’s been swept up in a hurricane. Swallowed by a tsunami.

“No,” you admit, and your voice trembles. “I have no idea what to do.”

Bradley’s jaw moves as he chews on his lower lip. He swallows, and his throat unudlates with it, and then he’s shifting, shuffling forward a bit.

“I…” He clears his throat. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he looks nervous. “I may have an idea.”

“An idea?” you repeat slowly.

You think he’s going to tell you about some friend who’s looking to hire someone, looking to rent out a very cheap apartment, works at a doctor’s office and is going to treat you for free. Something like that, maybe.

Instead, Bradley takes a deep breath and says, “Marry me.”

It takes a while for the words to register. At first, you think you’ve misheard, then you wonder if maybe the romantic parts of your mind cooked that up. If he even said it at all.

But Bradley is looking at you expectantly, the only indicator of nerves the slightest glimmer in his brown eyes.

And you can’t help yourself. You laugh, even through your tears. It’s a sound that rips from you unconsciously, unstoppably, because surely he’s joking. It’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard.

“Good one,” you say, and wonder just how big of a mess you look like. You wipe at your cheeks, your nose with your sleeves and sniffle once, twice.

Bradley’s lips twitch into the pathetic half of a smile, then he’s serious again, avoiding your eyes.

And that, finally, is when you realize that he isn’t joking at all.

“I…” You pause, mind whirring, head spinning. “What?”

“It’s just….” Bradley shrugs, then explains, “It’s only a suggestion. But you said your family might consider supporting you again if you were married. It might be an option.”

You don’t know what to say. You feel like you’re in a low-budget Hallmark movie.

Bradley pushes on, “It wouldn’t be permanent. We could get a divorce quickie in a year or two, just stay together long enough for you to get settled with the baby and everything. Plus, you’d get free healthcare.” He glances at you, and the blank expression on your face must light a panic in him. Now his words come faster. “I wouldn’t expect anything from you, of course I wouldn’t. It would just be… keeping up appearances. Just for a while….”

Finally, he trails off. The silence stretches between you like a palpable thing, thick and dense like summer heat.

When you were twelve, sitting in the back of the car as your parents argued up front, the woods of Washington flying past in rapid ribbons of black and blue and green, the moon a disk of silver in the sky, a deer ran out into the road. You remember the screeching of the tires as your dad did what you’re not supposed to and brought the car to a sudden, abrupt stillstand. You remember the wide eyes of the animal, the muscles locked in its state of catatonic horror. You remember the flanks rising and falling quickly beneath the matted fur.

For a second, you feel like that deer. Frozen. Caught completely off guard. Vulnerable.

Then you think you might be a little overdramatic. 

You say, “What the fuck, Bradley?”

Part of you expects him to backtrack immediately, laugh, and tell you that he was joking after all. But Bradley stands his ground, even as he still won’t look right at you.

“I probably wouldn’t even be home much anyway. I leave for work all the time,” he says, brows drawn into a straight line above his eyes as he stares intently at his thumb rubbing circles into the skin of his arm. “But I could babysit, and then you could go back to work. I really wouldn’t mind. I’m good with kids, you know?”

You’re not entertaining the whole thing, not really, but you can’t help yourself. Your curiosity takes the upper hand.

“Why would you… why would you ever offer this? You barely know me.”

Bradley seems to think about it for a long moment, his face unreadbale. Then finally, he says, “There’d be something in it for me, too, you know? I’ve been meaning to get assigned to North Island permanently, do a relocation. But those spots tend to go to the guys with family, so…” He shrugs, but the gesture seems forced. “I could help you out, you could help me out. Win-win.”

“That’s all?” you ask, and you don’t know why there’s something like disappointment in your voice.

Bradley looks like he wants to say something else, and for a moment his face is vulnerable. But then it shutters again, and he nods. “That’s all.”

For a second, just a second, you let yourself imagine it: Imagine saying yes to this mad, insane, incredible proposal. Imagine marrying Bradley, someone soft and warm and responsible, someone completely opposite to Luke. Imagine him in a tux and you in a white dress, imagine his mustache tickling against your cheek as he leans in to kiss you. You imagine one of the quaint little houses you grew up in, but one that would belong to you, at least for a while. You imagine a toddler running through it, imagine Bradley bending down to scoop them into his arms. You imagine a life without this aching, shifting loneliness. You imagine a life with Bradley.

When you finally shake your head, when you let go of that ghost, it feels like it takes a piece of you with it.

“No,” you say softly, and it breaks you open in ways you can’t describe. “I can’t let you do that, Bradley.”

It’s just too insane. Too far out there. It wouldn’t be fair to him, when you’d be getting so much more out of that arrangement.

And besides. I don’t want someone to marry me out of responsibility. That’s what you told Bradley earlier, and you meant it.

When you do marry, when you walk down that aisle, you want it to be for love. And people can call you delusional, naive, whatever. You don’t care. You just know you want the big thing, the real thing, True Love, capital t, capital l. You want the hurricane of romance, the monsoon of love. You want to fly into it.

Bradley’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Okay. But if you… change your mind, yeah? I’ll be here.”

And he means it. Bradley carries his heart on his sleeve, you’ve learned this much. He tries to hide it, but he’s no good at it. Eventually, his emotions always get the better of him, burst forth like fountains. It’s part of his charm.

“What,” you say, “right here on the Hard Deck’s floors?”

It’s a sad attempt at a joke, but Bradley is nice enough to laugh anyway. “Sure thing. You guys have the cleanest floors in all of North Island, did you know that?”

You hum. “Sure. I’m the one who cleans them.”

Finally, you get up off the floor, unfold yourself from the bundle of misery you’ve crumbled into. Your legs ache, your back hurts, your chest still feels hollow. All the crying has left a dull pain pulsating behind your left brow.

The two of you look for Bradley’s wallet together, finally find it over by the pool table. You pretend like you’re not still reeling from his proposal, like it’s not suddenly become impossible to do so much as look at him without your heart flopping around like a fish finding its sad end on dry land.

“Can I give you a ride home?” Bradley asks as he watches you lock up. The Hard Deck has an old lock that gets jammed whenever the slightest bit of dampness creeps into the air. You have to hang onto the doorknob with all your weight while simultaneously turning the key to get it to lock.

“I drove here,” you say, casting your eyes about for the tiny tin can you call your car. You can’t even remember where you parked earlier.

“You okay to drive?” Bradley asks.

You glance at him. With the lights off, the parking lot is almost covered in a thick blanket of darkness. The headlights of a few passing cars winding their path along the coastal highway illuminate patches of gravel now and then. Moonlight spills silver and dim across his shoulders, like fingers caressing him. He looks concerned, examining the state of you.

The truth is that you’re tired. Bone tired. Dead tired. So tired you could probably go to sleep where you stand if you put your mind to it. But you don’t want to bother Bradley anymore, have already stolen enough of his time.

So you’re about to decline, but it seems you hesitated too long.

“I’ll take you home,” Bradley says decidedly, “and you can come get your car tomorrow, okay? I don’t think you should be driving like this.”

“You don’t have to do that, you….”

“I know,” he interrupts you, a smile spreading on his face. “But I’ll feel better knowing you got home safe.”

That makes your insides clench in a way they shouldn’t. Your chest feels tight, and you look away just in case you start crying again.

Is it too soon in your pregnancy to start blaming raging hormones?

Wordlessly, you let Bradley lead you across the parking lot toward his monstrosity of a car. His hand hovers at the small of your back, incredibly close yet never touching. He’s big behind you, bulking, and you try not to think about it. When he opens the door for you and waits until you’re buckled in to close it, you feel like your head’s going to explode.

The ride home is quiet, as is the town around you on this Sunday night. An old Killers song plays on the radio, and you think of deer stepping out into streets, then press your eyes closed and will the thought away.

In Bradley’s car, with the windows rolled down, with the Californian night breeze whipping your hair into your eyes and clearing the fog from your head, for a short, blissful while, nothing seems real. It’s one of those liminal moments, a not-time, when reality feels like a dream and even the sharpest knives don’t cut deep enough to hurt.

It ends quicker than expected because time always goes the fastest when you want it to go slow. Then you’re thanking him, saying goodbye, both of you pretending he didn’t just propose some strange, fake marriage to you behind a bar counter not even thirty minutes ago.

Bradley waits until you’re inside the building before he starts the engine again. You hear the roar of it as you climb the stairs up to the second floor.

In your bedroom, you don’t even bother getting undressed. You just slip under the covers, pull them up over your head, bury in the sticky, stale air beneath them, close your eyes, and fall asleep within seconds.

+

The first time you told your parents about your bartending dreams, your father yelled at you for forty-five minutes. He hurled words at you that hurt, that left scars, that made you wonder and kept you second-guessing yourself for years, that stayed with you. Your mother didn’t say anything.

Somehow, that was worse.

You call her on the landline at five pm on a Tuesday, just before your dad gets back home, and she answers after the third ring. You’re so sure she’s going to acknowledge the four-year gap in contact, the crumbling of the relationship, the fall-out of screaming and crying, and your dad kicking you out of the house.

What you get, instead, is a ten-minute spiel about who brought what to last week’s church potluck and which laundry detergent your father’s contact allergies don’t act up with.

You’re sitting cross-legged on your bed, your digital alarm clock counting down the time in radioactive green. Outside, you hear the sounds of jets roaring through the sky. In your tiny kitchen unit, the faucet is leaking.

Finally, five minutes into a lecture on the advantages of pre-chopped garlic, you interrupt, “Mom?”

You wonder if she hears the shift in your voice, the slight tremble of it. Something makes her go very quiet on the other end of the line, no sound but her breath.

Drip-drip-drip goes your faucet.

When she doesn’t acknowledge you, you push on, your heart beating a staccato rhythm against your ribcage, “I might… I think I might need some help.”

She doesn’t answer for so long you think you might have lost connection. Then you hear shuffling, imagine her walking through her empty house the way she sometimes does - like a phantom, like a specter.

“With what?” she asks after an eternity.

It’s all you can do to keep yourself from hyperventilating. Years of pain and fear clog up your chest, settle like goosebumps on your skin. You close your eyes and let your head drop back against your pillow.

“I’m pregnant,” you say.

And then you can feel it through the phone, like something physical. What you’ve always known deep down. The disapproval and the disappointment, and the complete lack of understanding.

You’ve never been who your parents wanted you to be, and they’ve always punished you for it like it was a crime.

When your mother says your name, it’s so plain. That she can’t understand what you’re doing, with your cocktails and your late nights. That she doesn’t see why you’d ever choose something like that over a real education and a real job. That she cannot fathom how it could come to this now - you, broke, young, alone, pregnant.

It’s like being five again, trying to get somebody to look at the picture you drew. It’s like being ten again and being overlooked. It’s like being fifteen again, still vying for the attention you’ll never really get.

Your mother is a stubborn woman, set in her ways. She knows what she wants from people, more specifically, what she wants for them. And you’re no exception. Nobody’s ever asked her a question whose answer she couldn’t find in the bible.

More than wanting you to go to college, wanting you to work in an office, your mother has always wanted you to get married. To fit yourself into the picture-perfect stencil of white picket fence and smiling husband she cut herself. For you to let some guy put a ring on you, put a kid in you, buy you a house and a porch swing and a family van.

It’s pathetic, but it doesn’t matter how much time passes. How much older you get. At the end of the day, you still want her approval, just once, even if you have to lie to get it.

So, like a child, like you’re five again, like you’re ten again, like you’re fifteen again, you say, “I’m getting married.”

“Oh?” your mother asks, and there’s so much hope in the one word it hits you like a ton of bricks.

“Yeah,” you confirm, and then the lies just burst out of you, and you hate yourself, hate yourself so much it’s like bile on your tongue, “yeah, we’ve been engaged for a while, and now with the baby and all… It’s been long overdue.”

Your mother almost sounds excited. Sure, she’d probably prefer for you to have been married before getting knocked up, but all of this must still seem better than the last plan you presented to her four years ago. “What’s his name? What’s he do?”

You squeeze your eyes closed. If your mother knew you at all, if you hadn’t spent the past few years not speaking, you’d like to think she would have heard the shame in your voice when you say, “Bradley. He��s a Naval aviator.”

It might be the worst thing you’ve done in your life: Dragging poor, kind Bradley Bradshaw into the mess you’ve made of your life. Nevermind that he offered. It doesn’t matter.

Your mother starts babbling, the way she only does when she’s actually pleased about something. She’s talking about how happy your dad will be that you’re getting married to a fellow army guy, but you barely hear it. Now that you’ve gotten the approval, it doesn’t feel at all like you thought it would. 

It just hurts. 

For a while, you just let her keep talking as you blink away the tears, as you stare at your bedroom wall, as your mind spins and spins and spins in circles. Then you promise to send her an invite, say your goodbyes, and hang up.

It’s like you’re numb all over. You stay on your bed for another five minutes, and then another, and you feel just as empty as you did after your last conversation with Luke.

What has your life become? How could it crumble as quickly as it did, going from okay to horrible in less than a week?

Even when you weren’t speaking to your parents, you never felt this distant from them, this far removed. A chasm you’ll never be able to breach. An ocean you’re never going to bridge. The only way you’ve ever gotten your mother to be happy with a decision you’ve made is when you lied to her.

The loneliness is everywhere, then. In your chest, in your bed, in your veins. Crawling like a shadow that swallows you whole.

And then the panic sets in, ice cold in your veins, and with it comes the guilt. Your stomach rolls with it. 

What have I done? you wonder. What have I done to myself, to Bradley? How will I ever get out of this?

You scramble. Blindly reach for a dress to slip into, for a pair of flip-flops, for your car keys. It’s a miracle you don’t crash on your way to the Hard Deck. Your heart works itself up into a frenzy, and the guilt gnaws at you, slashes at you, paws at you. All these emotions are tearing you apart.

In the back, Bradley and Bob are playing Pacman on one of the retro machines. They’re pretty loud, too, and from what you gather in your mad dash through your workplace, Bradley seems to be disproportionally competitive about the whole thing.

Figures. Nobody gets into Top Gun without a cutthroat streak and a mean penchant for ambition.

“Bradley,” you say, and when he looks up, his eyes sparkling, the smile slides right off his face. “Can I talk to you?”

He seems stunned for a second, then nods and deposits his beer on a nearby table. “Sure thing.”

You lead him out the back. Out of the corner of your eyes, you spot the exact corner you huddled in a few days back, agonizing over the positive pregnancy test, the decline of your life, the decay of your dreams. Don’t look, you tell yourself, and then do it anyway.

The sun hasn’t set yet, but twilight is descending on the world rapidly. Everything is washed into soft pastels, the sand and the last surfers shaking salt water from their hair. Bradley’s shirt and the honey gold of his skin.

You can’t look at him. It’s a shame that grows in the pit of your stomach, that settles there, heavy like a stone. How can you do this to him? 

You’ve never felt worse about yourself, and still… The fear is too big. 

Since you decided to give up on the scholarship, since you walked out of your parents house four years ago, you’ve been on your own. You’ve been footing your own bills and renting your own apartment and paying for insurance on your car. You were alone the time you got a cold so bad you couldn’t get out of bed for two days. You were alone when your tire popped on the highway and you almost hit another car. You were alone when you got rejection after rejection from the big San Diego bars, the ones that end up featured on TV and in magazines.

And that was fine. You’re strong, you know you are. Any issue that came your way, you managed to figure out eventually. You’ve been doing fine without any help.

But this, here, now. This… You just can’t do it on your own. Not when it’s about a baby. Your baby.

So you take a deep breath and ask, “Is the offer still on the table?”

Bradley exhales. You watch as he takes a step closer to you, as his shoes move in the field of your vision, grains of sand crunching beneath the soles. When he speaks, a cadence of insecurity has snuck into his voice, “The marriage?”

You nod because you can’t say it. Your mouth just won’t form the words.

“If…” Bradley clears his throat. “If you want it… yeah.”

When you look up at him, there’s something strange on his face. Something that looks less like surprise and more like awe.

His eyes are so brown, and your heart beats so fast, and you’re dizzy like you just got off a rollercoaster. 

“I…” You pause to collect your thoughts, and then you rush it all out at once, scared that if you don’t say it now, you never will. “If I were to say yes, like, hypothetically… I’d need to know that you’re not just doing it for me. That there’s something in it for you, too, so….”

He’s nodding before you’ve finished. “I told you. I wanna stay here. I’m sick of getting sent around the country all the time, so… It’s good. It’s an opportunity.”

An opportunity. That sounds like business, sounds like a transaction, sounds rational and level-headed and reasonable, and you latch onto the idea. Maybe if you try to take the emotion out of the equation, it’ll be easier.

Bradley seems relaxed about the whole thing, much more relaxed than he should be given the absurdity of the situation, but you feel like you need to make things clear anyway, if only to put yourself at ease. That’s what people do before singing contracts, right? Put all the cards out on the table?

So you go on, “And I wouldn’t, like… Like you’d still get to do anything you want. I wouldn’t expect you to help with the baby or anything. And you could keep dating, of course, you could, I won’t mind. I promise. It’d just be for show, right?”

Bradley hesitates, and for a second, you think he’s going to say something. But then he just shrugs, nods, says, “That’s fine. Yeah. Whatever you want.”

For a moment, you both just look at each other. 

“This is insane,” you say because it is, and you don’t know what else to say.

And Bradley just chuckles and agrees smoothly, “Yeah, it’s nuts, isn’t it?”

As you look at him, here in this pastel lighting, here on the verge of something monumental, there’s something so reassuring about him. Something so steady and reliable and constant. Something that makes you think, with him, maybe it could be okay, no matter how insane the whole idea is. An opportunity. An investment that just might pay off.

North star, you remind yourself. Bradley Bradshaw is the North Star.

At the very least, you won’t be alone.

“So is that….” Bradley shifts, scratches the back of his neck. “You saying yes, then?”

There’s a lump in your throat like you’ve swallowed a pebble. It almost chokes you.

“Yeah,” you agree finally, and can’t believe you’re saying this, doing this, can’t believe you’re this mad and this selfish and this desperate. “I guess I am.”

It’s awkward after that. You both just stand there, you with your arms around your own ribcage, Bradley with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. Space and silence stretches far and gaping and glaring between you.

Then he says, “Can I hug you?”

That’s sort of the last thing you expected him to say.

You blink at him. “Uhm… sure?”

When Bradley pulls you into his arms, when he holds you against his chest loosely, carefully, giving you room to pull away at any moment, the whole thing almost bowls you over. It’s the first time anybody’s hugged you since you found out you’re pregnant, since your entire world came crashing down, and you can’t help yourself. It’s a visceral reaction. You cling to him, wrap your arms around his neck, press your face into his shoulder and your chest against his and squeeze your eyes shut, and stay there for longer than you planned to, longer than you should. Let him hold you tight enough that for a moment, for a while, it almost feels like you’re whole again. Like you’re not alone.

For the first time in a week, for the first time since that positive test, things feel real. You feel real. Only with his hands on you. The thoughts that have been echoing through your head constantly, loud enough to drown out everything else, quiet.

You could get addicted to it, could get greedy and selfish and never-satisfied. Could eat it raw.

Bradley smells like sunscreen and sandalwood. You try to commit that scent to memory, try to ingrain it into your brain and your body. Something to remember the next time the loneliness sets in.

Finally, he pulls away, and his smile is gentle. You feel every inch of separation like an ache in your bones, like an echo, like a reverberation.

You can’t cry again. You’ve been doing it so much recently that you just won’t allow it again. If you’re going to do this, if you’re going to be a mother and a wife, in whatever capacity, you’ll have to be strong. No matter how hard that will be.

“I don’t even have a ring for you,” Bradley says, a frown etching itself into his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” You’re shaking your head quickly, vehemently. “No, Bradley, that’s fine, you don’t need to….”

“I think you should have something, though. I want to give you something,” he interrupts you. “I just don’t know….”

And then he seems to think of something. The epiphany is practically written all over his face, and for a moment, he looks so much younger. Rosy cheeks and all.

Bradley reaches into his wifebeater and pulls his dog tags from beneath the fabric. Before you know what’s happening, he’s tugging the thin silver chain down over your head, moving your hair out of the way carefully. It settles against the skin of your neck, warmed by his body heat.

You stare down at the metal dangling over your dress, the letters of his name etched into it. Bradley Bradshaw. 

Your heart seizes.

When you were younger, much younger, you used to dream of this. You used to imagine what being proposed to would feel like, what it would be like. A fancy restaurant, an expensive glass of champagne, and a diamond ring at the bottom of the flute. Something flashy, something extravagant, something beautiful. The man in your fantasy was faceless at first, and then he looked like Robert Pattinson, and then he looked like your first crush, and then he went back to being faceless again.

He never had a mustache. He was never a stranger. Your dreams were never this: Rushed and fake and no ring at all. You, pregnant with somebody else’s baby, and Bradley, marrying you to get assigned to a base of his choosing. None of it real. No True Love, no capital t, no capital l. Not even lowercase. Nothing but madness and guilt and business between you.

And still you want it, want it so bad it swells inside you, pushes against your ribcage with enough pressure to crack bones - you want to be wanted.

You wonder what Bradley dreamed of. Not you, probably. So much younger than him, so naive, so gullible, falling for married men and getting yourself into situations you can’t climb out of yourself. Making him do this when he deserves better, more, deserves something true and real.

It makes you sick to your stomach. It makes you want to cry. It makes you want to ask Bradley to hug you again, so you can forget, just for another second, just for another moment.

Instead, you say, voice barely a whisper, “Thank you.”

Bradley shakes his head. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, and he sounds so genuine you have to avert your eyes. “We’re friends, right?”

Friends. This man you barely know. This man who is doing something unfathomable for you.

“Yeah,” you agree softly. “Friends.”

And then later, in the bar, as Bradley’s friends discuss some new Star Wars show you haven’t seen, as they order round after round of beer you can’t drink, as the sky goes from pastels to blues to blacks, you’ll pretend you don’t see Natasha staring at the dog tags around your neck, pretend you don’t wish you could hold Bradley’s hand, pretend you don’t feel like you’re falling apart, like you’re capsizing where you sit, like you're kicking water miles and miles and miles below the surface.

Beneath the table, you put a hand on your stomach, fingers spreading out, close your eyes, and let the current drag you under.

part 2

[soleilnomoon]

Hi hi Kaia! Just wanna say, that soft nsfw Kidd fic you wrote legit just made me want to cry 😭😭 Soft Kidd is something I didn’t know I needed, you wrote him so well tbh! Following that note, if it’s alright could I ask for a nsfw request for Kidd but with a reader smoler than him? In my own headcanon I like he’d def have a size kink and be damn teaser because he’s like 7ft tall👀 lool If not, no worries! Thank you either way!

awww i’m glad you liked it, i had so much fun writing it (who knew i needed soft kid in my life like hello 😭👋🏾). also yes yes yes yes, a billion times yes, i gotchu  ♥️ the way that man lives rent free in my head is unreal 🥵

2.3k words, fem reader, nsfw (it's kid, idk what to tell u), 18+ mdni pls, a little playful banter, some alcohol, other cute stuff includes spitting, size kink (reader is short), clothes ripping (what can i say), kid being a general menace; i tried to keep it short but *washes hands*

you know better than to distract him while he’s in the middle of a project, but you have very little self preservation when it comes to eustass kid. it’s late at night when you find him tinkering away in his workshop; with his music blasting, head bobbing along as he wordlessly mouths the lyrics to the song, you walk in undetected. even as you close the door, he doesn’t turn around — and while, you should make sure to lock it, you don’t bother. everyone for the most part is asleep or far enough away that you’re not worried about being interrupted.

this is your first mistake for the night.

sauntering around like the mischievous cat you are, you loosely hold a bottle of rum in your hand; you picked it up on the last island the ship docked at, someone gifting you the whole thing as thanks for assisting them. you unscrew the cap and take a big swig, the dark liquid flooding your senses as it glides down your throat with ease. one of the smoothest drinks you’ve had in a while, if you do say so yourself. 

the thing is, while you might think you’re being stealthy, kid has been aware of your presence this whole time. he’d be a shit captain, otherwise, right? still, his curiosity rivals yours, and he wants to see what you’re up to. pretending to jam to the music, kid catches you sidling up to him and smirks to himself, but purposely keeps his focus on the wrench in his hand. the smile on your face is evidence enough of your misdeeds — that you truly believe you’ve gotten away with infiltrating kid’s space, but before you can announce yourself, kid bursts your bubble quickly.

“you’re shit at sneaking around, y’know that right?” he turns his head, tilting it a bit, features morphed to denote a faux-bored expression. he leans his elbow on the worktable, and props his head up with his large hand.

mouth open — because, how else are you to react to him saying that? — words jumble around in your mouth, and you start stuttering. before you can make more of a fool of yourself, you jab a finger at him, hitting his chest on your first attempt. amusement blooms onto his face with ease, disrupting the game he wanted to play with you. 

“shut up, you’re the worst,” you say before pouting at him, brows furrowed as a wave of childishness takes over you. “now i don’t even want to share this with you.” he drops his gaze down to the bottle in your hand but grabs it before you can step away.

“rum? really.” he’s a scotch kind of man, with gin and vodka being suitable alternatives. you know that he’s not into rum like that, but you figured you’d ask him to try this brand for fun. now all you feel is residual embarrassment; cheeks burning, you lunge your arm out to grab it, wanting to just go sit somewhere on the deck and drink alone, but kid doesn’t let you. instead, he pops the cap off, tosses it somewhere and drinks from the bottle. 

you blink several times, watching in shock as he drinks for longer than you think he will. “kid!” you yank on the bottle, annoyance building slowly as you struggle to take it back from him. “don’t drink it all,” you whine helplessly, not wanting your big brute of a captain to ruin your night. kid acquiesces, leaning back in his chair, dark orange hair falling messily over his forehead, eyes drifting down your body, drinking in the sight of you. despite the rum being a bit sweeter than he’s used to, the quality of it impresses him, but he won’t say that. not yet.

ignoring the way your body reacts to his heated looks, you pick up where you left off, taking another swig of the rum, swaying to the music that carries around the room — the notes wrapping around you, coasting along your skin as you hum along. he watches you, amusement never dwindling, tongue running along his bottom lip before he decides that enough is enough. 

“c’mere, you’re drinking it wrong,” he says, voice dripping with intent, as he pulls you to him and plucking the bottle away from you again and setting it down. for safekeeping. before you’re even able to protest, before you’re able to fuss at him over pestering you like this, kid’s hand drifts lower and grabs onto your ass playfully. you smack his chest, face burning, thighs pressing closely together, an ache shooting through you faster than you can stop it. 

before you know it, he has you seated on top of the table, whatever he was working on is momentarily forgotten and haphazardly pushed aside. you lean back on your hands, head tilted as kid stands in between your legs, anticipation crawling down your arms, wrapping itself around your chest with familiarity. breathing slowed, long lashes fluttering as you fix your eyes on him, a little tipsy and giggly, but mostly drunk off of him and his presence. “i’m waiting,” you say, voice lilting, words coasting and caressing him softly. he almost asks you what exactly you’re waiting for, the way you inadvertently short-circuited his mind for a brief second made him forget why he took the rum from you in the first place.

he reminds himself to focus, to not lose to you, because losing is absolutely unacceptable, obviously.

“open,” he instructs, and you don’t have to ask him for clarification; on command, your lips part and you leave your mouth open for him. the corners of his lips twitch as he pours more rum into your mouth; some of the tawny liquid spilling down your lips and onto your chin. you don’t mind it though, completely mesmerized by the experience, entirely too giddy over the way he hulks over you like that. his height used to intimidate you, until you wiggled your way into his life and the two of you gradually became closer; now, you can’t get enough of it.

kid places the bottle down again, fully prepared to ignore it as he leans closer and runs his tongue along your skin, lapping up the runaway drops of rum, until your lips meet. when kid kisses you, it’s as if time stops and then speeds up. it starts off short — his lips pecking yours once, twice, tongue swiping against your lips, demanding entrance. on your next exhale, he pushes closer, your breasts pressing against him through your thin shirt, nipples hardening on impact.

if it were up to him, he’d drink the remainder of the rum from your mouth. you taste sweet, forbidden, and hypnotic — plush lips inviting him to nip them needlessly, sparking a small flame deep within your abdomen that slowly spreads to the rest of your body. with shaky hands, you tug on his clothes, wanting to feel his skin on yours sooner rather than later; and kid obliges, also helping you with your own clothes, ripping your shirt accidentally through the haze of lust.

“whoops,” he says, laughing darkly at your annoyed expression. you don’t believe for a second that it was completely accidental, but kid likes pushing your buttons anyway, so did it really matter what the truth was?

sensing a retort building inside of you, he kisses you again, hand roaming along your soft body, liking the way you feel against him; all that softness will be the death of him, he’s sure of it.

likewise, you get lost in his kisses, small hands gliding along the hard planes of his body, the dips, sharp ridges of his muscles, only make your hunger that much more intolerable. you whine against his lips, your pussy wet from the sloppy kisses you exchange, his own cock hardening excitedly, precum spilling down the thick head as it leans against your stomach.

“kid,” you breathe, lips ghosting his, “just fuck me already, damn it.” the need you have for him might actually make you lose your mind at the rate he’s going. normally, you’re the one telling him to slow down — but for some reason, it’s like your body is entirely too eager. maybe it’s the rum, or maybe you’ve just fallen deeper inside whatever trap he’s laid out for you tonight. you’re not sure, and you don’t actually care to know the answer; so you forget about it, focusing on getting kid to move.

it’s laughable, the way you’re begging him, when he knows once he gets started, you’re going to sing an entirely different tune. he runs his finger — thick, rough, impatient — between the folds of your pussy, admiring the way your arousal drips onto his skin, before plunging the finger inside of you without warning. you arch your back, mouth falling open at the intrusion, panting lightly when he inserts another finger shortly after. nails digging into his skin, your hips moving forward, as if his fingers are controlling your movements, a small voice in the back of your head reminding you that you’re playing with a fire that’s much too big for you to handle.

you ignore it; when it comes to eustass kid, your self-preservation goes right out the window.

plunging his fingers in and out of you recklessly, your head spinning from all of the rum, the kissing, and him — you maybe consider that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. “w-wait, kid slow down,” your voice barely audible, drowning behind your moans and the music that’s still blasting through the room. when he finally does manage to pull his fingers out, you only have a brief moment of reprieve before he’s rubbing the tip of his cock against your pussy, positioning it right in front of your entrance, he winks at your wary expression, making you even more suspicious of his motives. another complaint lodges in the back of your throat, stuck when kid pushes his cock inside of you, his girth ripping a loud moan out of you.

kid, meanwhile, is floating above the clouds, thoroughly enjoying your pussy’s feeble attempts at strangling him — those attempts do work, by the way, he’s just prideful and stubborn. snapping his hips against yours, kid pushes his cock into you deeply; the pain is worth it, though. it’s terribly addicting, the way he pulls back and thrusts into you harder, his balls slapping against your skin from the devastating pace he’s set. 

“kid, fuck, wait, wait,” you breath comes out in small pants, eyelids fluttering from the rough way that kid is fucking you. this is what you wanted, though, isn’t it? to tease him and let him have his way? if kid wasn’t so used to your subtle tricks, he’d actually be concerned. but he knows how much you like how rough he is, he knows how you like him to hold you firmly, so you can feel the full brunt of his thrusts, and he knows that no matter what, you’ll still ask him to fuck you like this again, and again, and again.

and he’s right. you can’t deny it; even if you wanted to you wouldn’t. when his hips meet yours, you wrap your legs around his waist, wanting to completely lose yourself in him, sweat already gliding down your neck, onto your clavicle, breasts bouncing against him.

“that’s it,” he coos, none-to-kindly, his tone dark, sinister, mocking, “see how well you’re taking me?” he shifts and pushes you down onto the table, your back arching off of it as he drives into you repeatedly, his thrusts turning your body into something helpless and pitiful, your words unintelligible, voice hoarse as you call his name out. he pulls out of you suddenly, much to your displeasure, folding your legs against your chest and instructing you to hold onto the backs of your thighs.

your pussy is a pretty sight to see, so naturally he slaps it hard before spitting on it. he’s so romantic, isn’t he?

you can barely think as his cock invades your pussy all over again — your warm, plush walls closing in around his length, as he angles his hips in a way that has your toes curling and a bit of drool creeping out of your mouth. it’s so tragically embarrassing, except you can’t be bothered to feel any bit of shame right now. 

with each brutal thrust, you find yourself teetering on the edge, ecstasy coloring any logic you have left in your mind, and when he kisses you again, tongue caressing yours hotly, an orgasm crashes into you. kid groans against your lips, thrusting fervently, strokes sloppier and shorter, wanting to hold out but finding himself unable to. if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that your pussy is absolutely lethal when provoked. it’s not often that you squirt, but when you do it drives him wild. “oh fuck, look at how much of a mess you’ve made.” his laughter should grate your nerves, but it doesn’t, it only makes you want to cover your face, because you hate how good he makes you feel. although, his laughter is short-lived; he powers into you, his own orgasm finding him much quicker than he anticipates, his cum is thick and hot, dripping out of you when he pulls out, spilling down onto the wooden surface of the table.

both of you sort of stay quiet, trying to catch your breaths; he runs a hand through his hair, feeling properly refreshed, almost as if a bit of weight has been lifted from his shoulders. you drop your legs, struggle to sit up, and look at him accusingly. “you’re such a damn beast,” but there isn’t a hint of venom or malice behind your words. if anything, you almost sound impressed. he chuckles at your act and just kisses you to keep you quiet.

[wickedlyqueer]

i've been thinking of starting the wicked novels. have you read all 4 novels? are they worth the read?

I have read all 4 novels, yes. And whether they are worth it or not... heavily depends on what you want to get out of them tbh.

WHAT TO PREPARE FOR:

dense prose that clearly has its roots in post-modernism. If you're not willing to read long sentences that begin with a deep analogy for racism and end with some sort of sexual innuendo or disturbing event, this is going to be a hard read for you.

Just. So much sexual stuff. which ironically enough you can also easily read over. (The second time I picked up on it sooo much more than the first time reading it. but in my asexual defense, how tf should i have known what "dragonsnaked" meant).

Similarly to the bullet point above: you can easily read over incredibly important plot points. This is because Maguire sometimes doesn't bother to elaborate; skips years within a single sentence; and is unforgiving to the mind who wanders while reads. There's a reason my notes look like this:

No consistency in character arcs whatsoever. This isn't your average fanfic or even YA novel. Just to put it into perspective: the book is called "The Life And Times of the Wicked Witch of the West". Which is just "Elphaba's Life". But Elphaba barely focalizes (her point of view), and when she does, it's at a point in the book where she's starting to lose her goddamn mind, so there's always a sense of an "unreliable narrator". So just know going in that the politics of Oz have the center, and especially in the later books all characters start to blend together, with a similar tone of voice and sense of humor.

Maguire—bless him and may god help him—cannot write women. He tries, he really does, but anything about the women anatomy is so unappealingly written and I was not the least bit surprised to learn he's gay lmao. He also has a tendency to turn women (especially when they get older) into "waifs". When in the fourth book he describes Glinda as being sad she never got kids I wanted to scream and rip my fucking hair out. Glinda Upland of the Arduenna Clan would never want to be a mother. She'd fucking hate it. And I'll forever hold it against Maguire for ever having suggested otherwise. (He also did something similar to one of my favorite side characters in the second book; Sister Apothecaire. She gets an absolute character assassination by the fourth book).

The biggest "reveal" in book four was literally spoiled by the family tree in the beginning of the book. 🤦 so there's a built up for like 300 pages and all the while you're like "WE KNOW!! WE ALREADY KNOW!!" which made book 4 a particularly frustrating experience imo.

WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Understanding fanfics and other fan work much better. A lot of fanfic is based on a mix of musical and book ("booksical"). Even minor characters like Pfannee, Shenshen, Milla, Crope & Tibbet, will make an appearance, even when a fic is more musical based. This was the reason I decided to read the books too back in the day.

Also understanding (popular) interpretations in fanfics better. Like. I tend to write Elphaba as intersex, non-binary and bisexual. That looks very out of the blue when you only have the musical's context, where Elphaba is played by mostly feminine women. But once you read the book you look at those same headcanons and go "word".

Delicious gelphie (sub)text is there, if you want to look for it. But you do have to look for it (twas written in the 90s, lads).

Very queer, actually! And not just in the sense of like "there's a lesbian couple" like we see nowadays in media, but it's just... present. This is written by a gay man, and it shows. You can see queerness popping up everywhere. There's a lot of sexuality and gender stuff going on. And even though nobody goes "I am a trans man" or whatever, you sometimes read stuff and go "that's gender dysphoria babe, idk what to tell ya"

Once you get used to Maguire's writing style... he actually can write some pretty gorgeous prose and he writes with a lot of wit. I like his sense of sharp (dark) humor.

WORLD BUILDING! I honestly just read the other three books for world building for my own fics, more than anything.

FINAL VERDICT:

I do generally recommend reading at least the first book. Especially the first half of the book is just so solid. There's a reason why "Shiz Era" is so beloved in this fandom. Easily the best chapters out of the entire series. It gives so much more backstory to the musical (and bigger Oz lore). The latter half drags on imo, but that's also kinda the point?

The other three books..... depends. I read them for my world building in my fanfics. And I honestly found the second book to be rather cathartic, because it really goes through the motions of mourning Elphaba and that's what I kinda needed after the devastating ending of the first book, but I've heard other people say book 2 was their least favorite.

Basically. If Maguire hasn't utterly broken your spirit by the first book, the other three books still have plenty of joys in them. (For instance, I fucking love Nor. and whenever Glinda shows up in the sequels, it's always the biggest joy ever!)

Usually I describe the novels as such: "I didn't enjoy reading them, but I sure am glad I've read them."

[privayuna]

Cock Whore

Pairing: Niragi x Fem Reader

Genre: Smut, fluff in the end

Summary: Niragi has been ignoring you for a few days, you decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. And so you decided to hang out with Chishiya, only to find your pussy aching because of your boyfriend who’s been distant with you.

Warnings: ya’ll already know what you’re getting into when its niragi i dont even have to warn you

Note: gaahhhhh its my first time posting smut on tumblr- hope you liked it! Also sorry for my bad grammar- english aint my first language. ALSO!!!! Niragi has  DICK PIERCING here so uh- enjoy~

You missed your boyfriend. A lot. He’s been gone for 3 days cause millitant business. You missed his warm hugs, his piercings, his face, his playful attitude and how good he touched you.

He came back from his 3-day mission with the millitants, whatever they did, you opened your arms for your boyfriend only to be found hugging the air. You turned around to find him walking by passed you whilst ignoring your presence. You tried calling out his name, but he only ignored you. You’ve had enough, you were touch starved. If he was being an ass then you’ll have to find yourself some other dick.

You went back to your room and changed outfits, you wore the black two-piece swimsuit Niragi got you. You opened your door only to be faced with Chishiya. “come with me, i wanna hang out with you, its been a while” he eyed you head to toe and gave you a smirk. (sheesh ok hoe) 

Both of you reached the pool where it was crowded by peasents, “you look great in that two piece y/n, what’s the occasion?” “oh its nothing, just wanted to try something new~” you teased, “well you look hot” Chishiya licked his lips, you felt something wet down there as a light blush spread threw your face. “you know you should reconsider dating that fool, you deserve someone better. More clever, and better at eating you out” he stared at you with a smirk visible, not until you noticed the music stopping and so were the peasents chatting. He’s here. Niragi wasn’t with Aguni this time, but he was with the rest of the militant buddies 

“awwww you get me Chishiya! Niragi hasn’t been generous and i’m kinda disappointed” you pouted “want me to change that?~” he grabbed your thigh. ohoho, little do you know someone was watching. you bit your lip as Chishiya’s hands moved slowly to your dripping wet core. All thoughts were disturbed when a rough hand grabbed your arm. “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Niragi pushed you back and pointed his hun to Chishiya’s head “calm the fuck down moron, i wish just pleasing your girlfriend, you know, something you should be doing?” he sent death glares to the mischivious man, and scoffed. The grabbed your hand tightly and dragged you to his bedroom.

“what the fuck was that y/n?!” he yelled at you whilst throwing you on his bed. you sat back up “oh idk niragi, maybe the fact that you weren’t with me for 3 whole fucking days?! and maybe the fact that your ignoring me when you arrived at the beach while i called your name?!” you slapped him hard “or maybe it was becauseyou tried flirting with another woman knowing i was waiting for you?” 

He was hurt, at the thought of you, thiking about him cheating, he could ever do that, he loved you so much. And it made him agree just thinking of you cheating on him, with Chsihiya. he pushed you on the wall and kissed you roughly,while he gripped your face quite tightly, he slipped his tongue inside of your mouth, you felt his tongue piercing roam around your mouth as you did the same for his. He wasted no time and ripped both your clothes off. he pushed you down the bed and continued to make out with you roughly, while his hands travelled down thru your sex. he shoved two of his long fingers and moved them roughly, making you choke onto the kiss. you mewled and moaned as his fingers made magic, you felt so close to your limit, only to find him stopping and pulled out his fingers. 

“did i tell you to cum? i didn’t now did i?” “p-please niragi-” “shut up you slut and hold it in” he licked his fingers and swallowed all of your juices coming from his fingers. he grabbed your thighs and pulled you closer, he rubbed his pierced dick up and down, then in he goes. he went fast, god speed, and you weren’t shy at all, you moaned as loud as you could. his piercing hitting your spot makes it even better. he grabbed your face harshly ad kissed you whilst moving fastly. he pulled his face away as a string of saliva connected from your mouths. he went down to your neck and left multiple marks, marks so that everyone knows who you belong to. you drooled all over the feeling of his dick ramming in and out of you and how hard he thrusts. his piercing hittting the right spots makes you wanna cum right there, he felt you tighten up, letting him know you were close he gave you a smirk. you came, you couldn’t hold it in any longer, and creamed all over his cock “does that feel good? does it feel good cumming all over my dick you fucking whore?” you nodded continuously. you felt him twitch and bulge inside of you, his moans and grunts becooming more vocal. he starts to hit deeper than usual, he starts to go rough as he picked up his pace. he gave you one ahrd hit and came inside of you. 

he dropped out of exhaustion, you too, panted, he slowly went beside you and hugged you. “im sorry i haven’t given you much attention.... i promise ill be better” he gave you a sly smile only to find you fast asleep. he sighed and gave you a kiss on your forehead.

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

hope you guys liked the lemon!!!! jfc its even more embarassing knowing your old classmate will most likely see the smut- anyways if you guys have any request, JUST FUCKING TELL ME. thank you!!! love ya’ll

[the-cult-of-russo]

In the Stars (part 2)

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader 

Request: So, first of all, I love your writing so much. I've just finished reading "In the stars" and I've loved it! Idk if you're taking requests but I was wondering if maybe you could do a part 2?

A/N: You guys… I had so many fucking requests for part two of this, I love you. I'm honestly overwhelmed by how much you guys engage with my work on here. 

Side note; I don't actually know much about astrology so take anything I say with a pinch of salt since it's done with surface level research for this. I'm more of a tarot girl myself and originally I was gonna switch the astrology to tarot since I know all about that. But I didn't wanna deviate from the request too much so I stuck with astrology. 

Warnings: cursing, bit of fluff, idk flirting? Talk of sex but no actual sex? 

If you guys want a part three to this which would mostly be smut then hit me up lmaoooo 

-----------

You were lounging on a beat up sofa that was in the greenhouse at the back of the flower shop. The plants were watered and it was a nice day. You were taking a moment to relax and let the sun come through the glass above you like a cat basking in the warm glow. You knew a customer had come in a little bit a go. You'd heard a gruff voice ask Gemma for advice on flowers for his girl. But since you were never needed in the front, you just chilled out for a bit after popping some headphones in and vibing in the sun as you leisurely scrolled on an astrology site you were on. 

Maybe, just maybe, you'd been thinking about Mr Fancy Coffee man in the past three days since you ran right into him. You'd been sure you'd see him again at the time but it hadn't happened so far. Either way, you kept thinking back to his smile and his obsidian eyes and you smirked as you read what you'd already known when you'd called back after him to give him your own sign. 

'Aries and Scorpio Sex:

Aries and Scorpio like to turn the heat up with everything they do! So, you can imagine the bedroom as being one feisty! Aries is a fire sign, and Scorpio is a water sign. Mix fire and water and what do you get? Yes, it is steam! With this duo between the sheets, we pray the wallpaper can withstand the steam-effect! Aries and Scorpio are the same when it comes to an intense libido. They are energetic with enough energy to keep each other up all night long.'

You ripped your headphones out, tossing your phone on the worn out faded pink cushions as you bounded to the door to the main shop.

"Hey, Gem! Did you know that Aries and Scorpio are like hella compatible for sex? I mean we'd just be riding each other all ni-" your words died on your lips as you slipped through the beaded curtain to find the man from earlier who hadn't actually left yet. He was a little rough looking but he wore a look of shock and thorough amusement at your words as you smacked a hand over your mouth with a laugh. It wasn't really appropriate talk in front of a customer but even Gemma bit her lip to stifle her incredulous laughter. 

"I uh… I'm sorry," you murmured, a sly smirk on your face that said you weren't really sorry but said it anyway to be polite. He barked out a laugh and shook his head.

"Don't worry about it. Sounds like a hell of a time," he replied with a chuckle. It put you at ease that he wasn't going to start something about your behaviour, threaten to take his business elsewhere. It wouldn't be the first time you'd done that. 

"Don't mind her. She's the crazy plant lady," Gemma grinned as she continued adding flowers to the bouquet on the counter. Some pretty forget-me-nots. 

"Hey! I'm not crazy just because I talk and sing to them. It's science! If I didn't do that then all these beauties would be withering away in misery," you pouted playfully, earning another laugh from your best friend and chuckle from the man. 

You looked at him then and he was already looking at you. His gaze wandered your face and hair like you held the secrets to the universe and you quirked a brow curiously. Knowing he was caught out, he glanced away and cleared his throat but his eyes flit back to you. It wasn't like you weren't used to looks since you were anything but ordinary, but he looked almost like he knew you or something.

"Sorry… just… thought I recognised you," he muttered apologetically. 

"Oh trust me, you'd know if you'd met her before. She leaves quite the impression," Gemma snorted. 

"I bet she does," the man said with a small smile as he looked at you again like he knew something you didn't. Or maybe you were imagining it.

You grinned as you walked towards the counter, leaning your arms on it as you admired her work. The bouquet was filled with purples and blues and it was breathtaking. 

"Serious relationship?" You asked casually. The man looked slightly taken aback by your bold question and Gemma swatted your arm as you gave her a look.

"What?" You asked with a huff. The man smiled and shook his head.

"Nah, it's fine. It is. Been together for a little over a year now," he had a lovesick look on his face and you found yourself smiling back at him. 

"You love her?" You asked softly. He rubbed the scruff on his chin with a bashful look that looked at odds with the rest of him as he nodded.

"That I do," he murmured fondly. 

You pushed up and leaned your hands on the counter as you glanced from the flowers back to him.

"You should get her a succulent," you declared. Gemma snorted again as she trimmed the ends off some roses and the man quirked his brow.

"You mean like… a cactus or some shit?" He asked, sounding confused and amused. 

You rolled your eyes, whizzing into the back and grabbing a small terracotta pot with a baby succulent in it. It looked almost like a flower with how it's leaves were arranged. You bought it back out to the front and back to him as you set it down on the counter.

"Meet Emily. She's cute and sweet and she says forever," you shot him a cheeky grin and he snorted, eyes darting from the plant to you.

"I'm sorry… Emily?" He asked with a smirk 

"Hey, she's a living thing like you and me, why shouldn't she have a name? And don't tell the others but… she's my favourite," you whispered the last part, eyes darting to the beaded curtain like you didn't want the others to hear and when you looked back at him he was smiling and shaking his head at you. 

"Look… flowers are great and all, a nice gesture and pretty to look at, but they wither and die. They go from pretty to morbid which is why they're great for special occasions but they don't last. But these cuties… they don't take much maintenance, it's hard to kill them and they're more… permanent. Flowers are a great way to say 'I love you' in a shorter sense, but nothing says 'I'll love you forever' more than one of these," you mused with a fond look at the plant. 

The man stared at the plant for a moment appearing deep in thought and when you glanced to Gemma, she was grinning from ear to ear as she wrapped up the arrangement in pretty pale purple paper. A similar shade to your current hair color.

"Fuck it. I'll take… Emily, too," he declared after a moment. You beamed and slid the pot over to Gemma so she could pack her up with the rest of the goods and ring him up. 

"You're good at this," the man said after a moment. You flushed a little at his words and snorted. 

"I just care about the plants," you shrugged with a smile. 

Gemma finished the wrapping and started ringing up the purchases as the man's eyes darted between you both.

"So… you two ladies got any plans later?" He asked casually. He didn't seem the type to make unnecessary small talk but Gemma opened her mouth to indulge him anyway. 

"A few of us are going out later to the bar down the street. The Lizard? It's not been open that long but it's pretty chill. It's nothing fancy though," Gemma smiled softly as she accepted the money from him, opening the register.

"Fancy places wouldn't let us in," you snorted with a smirk, toying with one of the many rings on your fingers.

"They wouldn't let you in. Besides, they have good music there and they don't mind when we let loose and get a little weird," Gemma laughed. The man chuckled with a nod before glancing back at you. He still had that look of recognition in his eyes and you tried to think if you'd ever seen him before. 

"Sounds like my kinda place. I might have to go with Karen and some friends sometime," he mused with a nod.

"You should, if you run into us let me know if she loves Emily. You've basically both adopted a cute earthy child so…" you grinned mischievously. He snorted, seemingly unaffected by you being yourself and you liked it. It wasn't often you got to talk to customers like this which is why you often stayed hidden in the back.

"I will. Have fun ladies and thanks for these," with that he was off and you and Gemma grinned at each other. It was nice to have a customer like that man, even if he did look completely out of place in a flower shop. You had a feeling he'd come back for more things for this Karen woman he was smitten with. 

---------

Billy sipped his beer, dark gaze flitting around the bar before he settled on his best friend. Karen was leaning on his shoulder and the pair had been nauseatingly close since they got here. Curtis and David were also at the table relaxing and talking to one another. 

"Is there a reason we're here?" Billy drawled as he sat back in his chair a little more. This wasn't their usual haunt and they didn't normally deviate from it. It wasn't so much that he didn't like the place. It was relaxed and quite similar to where they usually ended up. But it was a break in routine and he wasn't sure why. 

Frank shot him a sly smirk as he sipped his beer and it made Billy narrow his eyes a little.

"Well… I have it on good authority that little Ms Aries is gonna be here," he said smugly. Billy hated himself the moment he sat up straighter like an eager schoolgirl, especially when his friends all cheered and laughed at the news. He'd only told Frank about her, but Frank being Frank… well he'd told Karen and Karen told Curtis and David and in three short days it had become a running joke that he was hung up on a girl he hadn't even been able to get the name of.

Billy tilted his head, long fingers tapping on the beer bottle as he levelled his gaze at Frank.

"And how would you know that when we don't even know who she is?" He asked with a raised brow. Frank had a shit eating grin on his face as he leaned forward on the table a bit.

"Because I found her at her work earlier," he grinned. Billy blinked at him for a moment, mouth floundering as he tried to absorb that tidbit.

"Okay… so as my best friend and therefore wingman, is there a reason you didn't mention it until now?" He asked dryly. 

"Nah, I thought it would be a nice surprise and I didn't want you to talk yourself outta comin' here. Never seen you hung up on a girl before and I gotta say, she's a fuckin' riot," Frank snorted. Billy felt an unnecessary pang of envy at him then. Envy that his best friend managed to find her, spend some time with her maybe more than he had in the street. He knew it was stupid. His best friend was head over heels for Karen after all, but it was there all the same. 

"She works at the flower shop," Karen supplied with a soft smile as she looped her arms around Frank's larger one. Great, so Frank told her before he told him. Did everyone but him know? Why he was feeling like a petulant child, he didn't know, but before he could open his mouth to no doubt say something ridiculous, Frank's sly grin widened as he inclined his head to the door. 

Billy would lie until the day he took his last breath about how fast his head whipped to the door. He almost broke his damn neck. But there she was in all her purple haired glory and Jesus fuck was she the most beautiful girl he'd ever laid his eyes on. How did she get even more attractive in three days? Shit was ridiculous. But not as ridiculous at the nerves that bloomed in his belly at the sight of her. He was Billy Russo. Ex Spec Ops sniper. Former marine. CEO of Anvil. Serial womaniser. But now he was just Billy. Dumbfounded, actually kind of nervous and moon-eyed Billy. 

He watched as she and another girl she came in with walked over to the table with a few people and hugged them. Her smile was radiant and his eye twitched when she hugged the guys at her table. He kept waiting like she'd lean in and kiss one of them. To feel that crushing blow. But it never happened. In fact, the girl she'd come in with snuggled up to the one of the guys and the other had his arm wrapped around another girl at the table. 

"Well… you gonna go and get her name or what, Bill?" Frank asked with a snort. Billy cleared his throat, rolling his shoulder and glancing back to his beer before he shrugged.

"After my drink," he tried to sound casual but Frank's gaze softened a little and he hated that his best friend knew him better than anyone. He was just thankful Frank didn't call him out for it.

---------

You and Gemma had gotten to the bar a little later than usual because Gemma's cat snuck out the apartment and you'd had to hunt him down. He was cute but a menace but once he was back safe at home you'd both made a beeline for the bar. You had a few shots in quick succession to make up for the lost time and you weren't drunk but you felt the pleasant warmth spreading through you as you laughed and joked with your friends.

"Oh, I love this song, dance with me," you beamed, not giving Gemma a chance to protest as you grabbed her hand and moved a little from the table. It wasn't a club and there wasn't a dance floor but there was adequate space between the tables to dance. No one else was dancing but it was hardly the first time you and Gemma did this. It was always fun and amusing. 

You wrapped your arms around her shoulders and hers went around your waist as the pair of you giggled and swayed your hips. There were a few cat calls but it was all in jest. It was obvious you two were joking around by your over exaggerated movements and Gemma singing loudly and very off key, with your friends joining in the chorus. You loved your group of little weirdos. 

You turned around in her arms, hands still around her neck from behind as you swung your hips, eyes closed and a smile on your face. But when you opened them, they landed right on Mr Handsome himself who was at a table with some others and he was staring at you with wide eyes and a small smile. A grin spread across your face as you continued to dance. You knew you'd see him again. You paid little attention to anyone else as your eyes locked with his and he sat up a little straighter as he noticed he had your attention. 

You smirked, flashing him a cheeky wink as a call back to when you last met before you spun back around to face Gemma.

"So… the super hot guy over there in a maroon sweater? Looks like he's stepped right off of vogue? He's Coffee guy," you murmured giddily. Gemma didn't even hide the look she shot him before she laughed and looked back at you.

"First of all… wow. And second, he's like legit staring at you so hard right now," Gemma smirked.

You bit your lip with a smile as the song ended. Gemma gave you a hug before returning to her seat and then you made your way over to the bar and waited for the bartender so you could grab a beer.

"Can I get you a drink, astrology girl?" His smooth voice sent a shiver down your spine and you glanced over to where he was now standing next to you. 

"Of course. Beer please, Coffee boy," you grinned cheekily at him. He chuckled, ducking his head as he waved over the bartender and asked for two beers. 

"I told you we'd meet again," you murmured with a smirk, sipping the beer once it was placed in front of you. 

"You did. Although I think my friend Frank had somethin' to do with that," he replied with a smile as he glanced over his shoulder. You followed his gaze to his table and saw the man from the flower shop. Your eyes widened as an incredulous laugh left your lips and you gave him a thumbs up. You heard his laugh from across the bar. The woman with him was smiling wide and also watching you both, as were the other two men at his table. You had a feeling if you glanced over at your own friends they'd be doing the same thing. 

"So… do I get your name yet?" He asked, leaning his forearms on the bar. His shoulder brushed yours and it felt like a jolt of electricity shot through you. You glanced at him, a coy smile on your lips as you took another sip of beer. Your tongue darted out and swiped over your lower lip to catch a drop and you didn't miss how his dark eyes were drawn to the motion. It made your stomach clench. 

"Y/N," you smiled softly. You couldn't help it, you'd have given him anything he asked right then with the way he was looking at you. His face brightened when you relinquished your name, his eyes crinkling a little as he grinned. His teeth are perfect. I want him to bite every inch of me with those things.

"Billy," he offered, raising his beer bottle. You grinned as you clinked yours with his and you both took a drink. 

"I read some pretty interesting things about the sexual compatibility of an Aries and Scorpio," you murmured with a wry grin, nibbling your lower lip as you looked at him through your lashes. He was so close to you and you could feel his warmth through the layers of both of your clothes. And he smelt good. It almost made you dizzy.

"Is that so?" He asked, dark eyes intent on you and only you. His voice was lower than before and you fought the urge to jump him right there. You flashed him a toothy grin, a mix of flirtatious and just plain impish that made him smile.

"Apparently we're a match made in sexual heaven," you teased softly. 

You watched as he swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing as he did. His almost black eyes felt like they were setting you on fire from the inside out with how heated his gaze was.

"Well now I gotta problem. Because I wanted to ask you on a date first but you're makin' it really hard for me to have any restraint," he purred. Shiiiiit. That tone alone would have you needing to change your panties when you got home. 

You smirked, all sinful as you leaned into his ear, your hand going to his firm forearm. You heard his breathing hitch before you even said anything as your hot breath landed on his ear.

"I'd really like that date," you whispered with a saccharine smile. Honestly, you weren't known for your patience and you wanted nothing more than to drag him back to your place and fuck him until neither of you could walk again. But the idea of a date, of dragging it out a bit, it intrigued you. The man had lived rent free in your brain since you both collided three days ago and as much as it would kill you, you knew the wait would be worth it and only make it better. 

You moved back a bit, your face still ridiculously close to his and he flashed you a devilish smile all of his own before he leaned down and kissed you. It was an intense kiss. Full of hunger and passion you'd never felt before and you didn't hesitate to kiss him back eagerly. There were some cat calls and you had a feeling a few came from your friends but you were hardly fazed by your brazen kiss with the most handsome man in the world. 

When you broke away, you were both panting and you felt your cheeks flush a little at how he looked at you. There was definitely arousal there but he also looked slightly awestruck. You flashed him another grin before slurping some of your beer and he chuckled as he did the same. 

You spent the next few hours sitting beside Billy at the bar as you got to know one another, all the little mundane details that really made up a person. You felt like you'd never get tired of looking at him, of hearing that smooth as silk voice or watching how expressive his face and eyes could be. And no matter what you said, whether it was embarrassing stories about your friends or about the plants at work, he acted like you'd just told him the best story ever. He was attentive and soaked up all of your words greedily. You couldn't remember the last time someone made you feel like this. 

You left the bar that night after agreeing for him to pick you up at 8 the next night and exchanging numbers. You'd kissed him that time and it was full of as many promises as his kiss had been. And you didn't miss the way Frank clapped his back once he returned to his seat either. The wait would definitely be worth it. 

[local-ground-apple]

Hello! IDK if this has been asked, but... How would the dormitory leaders react when they and s/o got the main roles for the annual theater play? And it's romance with the kissing at the end of the play~ ❤

I can totally see Vil being so into this! Thank you for your request~~! ❤

🥀 for sure Cater will be in the first row filming the whole play and zooming on kissing scene and then sending it to literally everyone (rip Cater Diamond, you will be remembered)

🥀 Riddle simply turns into red, flustered ball on emotions. Which you think it’s kind of cute. It will take a lot of time to convince him to actually agree and prepare for the role, 

🥀 at first he’s completely against whole idea. Sure, he is flattered and proud of himself (and you) for getting a role in the annual theater play, but deep down Riddle is insecure. He’s not sure whether he can portray the character right,

🥀 oh and the mere thought of kissing you in front of whole school makes his already rosy cheeks even redder than usual,

🥀 so you two end up practising mostly the kiss, cause each time your lips linger a bit closer to his, Riddle’s cheeks flush rosy color and his whole form melts,

🥀 which you think it’s cute, but you both know that absolutely cannot happen on the stage

🥀 and yes, Cater coos how cute you both are and offers some acting tips,

🦁 the annual theater play, huh? Certainly not interested, would muttered Leona while turning on his back to continue his nap peacefully,

,,Y’know, it would be a real shame if Malleus got the role of the prince” “yhm, I don’t care” “there’s a kissing scene, y’know?” “WHAT, THIS IS MY ROLE”

🦁 absolutely doesn’t mind kissing scene, instead Leona insists on practicing it few times. To make sure it’s perfect, as he would playfully say, 

,,We can’t practice this one scene all over again. Did you even learn the script?” “We have a script?”

🦁 you and Ruggie has to literally drag his lazy ass to rehearsals, since Leona wouldn’t even bother attending them,

🦁 surprisingly, he’s amazing on the stage (when he actually puts some effort in his acting). Needless to say, he did steal the show,

🦁 how Leona managed to learn his parts and actually steal the whole show is still a mystery to you and Ruggie

🦁  little did you know, that he actually practiced in secret, without telling anyone as if he wanted to keep up his “cool aura”

🐙 wishes you all best, but he politely refuses to take part in the play. Even your pleading, puppy eyes aren’t sufficient to convince him. However, dating Azul taught you one thing – everything is possible if you know person’s deepest secrets

🐙 so you blackmailed him with slight help from Jade (Floyd won’t ever shut up about this),

🐙Azul has never ever in his octopus life felt that stunned. The way his eyes widen when you presented the conditions, was almost hilarious to you,

🐙 you enjoyed this way too much,

🐙probably one of the few who actually learned the whole script and practiced it every evening before going to bed. Once Azul sees that there’s no turning back, he will do everything to thoroughly prepare himself and steal the show,

🐙 insists on you two practicing after lessons and you happily oblige,

🐙 Azul denied the role at first, because he was simply insecure and anxious. The mere thought of kissing you in front of whole school where the eyes of every student will be all over you two, is simply paralyzing to him. Besides, he has a certain image of callous and meticulous businessman to maintain,

🐙 he will definitely get nervous few minutes before the start of the play. Azul’s heart will be racing, while he would be sweating and heavily breathing, but the moment your hands gently cup his face and your sweet words leave your lips, his body slowly begins to relax, 

,,Don’t be so anxious, we had practiced it. It’s gonna be alright” “Y/N, I think we should practice this kissing scene one more time”

🦂 when you two got main roles in the annual school musical, you both were on cloud nine. Literally. Jamil had to listen to you both fangirling over it for almost a whole night, 

🦂 Kalim is extremely, extremely, extremely excited and he’s beaming with happiness. He defintely thinks you’re both are made for the roles and he will put his heart into acting, singing and dancing, 

🦂 well, the preparations may be a tad bit sloppy, yet you both don’t complain. The evenings spent on singing nice tunes, learning lyrics together, practicing choreographies and finally acting out few scenes is very enjoyable to Kalim (and of course you), 

🦂 Kalim is rather giddy about kissing scene. Well, he certainly doesn’t mind it! No, no, he’s actually more than happy to kiss you in front of whole school. This man knows no shame, 

🦂 rehearsals are chaotic. Well, the rehearsals your duo does, at least. During practices with the rest of students and teacher, suddenly you two are dead serious and focused on getting the notes and script right, 

🦂 the duality sometimes scares Jamil, 

💜 did someone say theatre play? Main roles? And on top of it kissing scene? And the male lead is not some sexy vilian? Vil is ceratinly in,

💜 he knows exactly what he’s doing and what you’re supposed to do. After all, his acting skills are simply splendid. Vil is more than eager to help you out, 

💜 you two practice the script a LOT, acting out every single scene multiple times, just so you can ace it. He is rather strict as a partner/acting teacher, but you are aware that Vil just wants to make sure everything will be perfect and you will present yourself as best as you can,

💜 you find Vil’s advices extremely helpful and after a while you begin feel confident in your newly acquired skills, 

💜he is not nervous before kissing scene, bah, he brushes it off as if it was something normal or regular in his life. Meanwhile, you are freaking out and screaming internally, 

💜 which makes Vil amused and he may tease you a LOT, insisting to practice the kissing scene. His lips will playfully brush against yours for a brief second, before he pulls away with a smirk, while you can only pout and die from feels, 

🖤 panic mode 10000000000. Idia is absolutely terrified when you tell him the “good news”,

🖤 give him literally 5 minutes and he will have his suitcase packed, booked flight to “Nope-land” and would be on his merry way. Idia is screaming internally as that’s something definitely out of his comfort zone,

🖤 he absolutely hates speaking before a big public, yet alone acting and the mere thought of having a kissing scene with you is more than enough to give him a heart attack. He certainly doesn’t want to disappoint you, since you’re so excited to take part in school play with him, yet it’s a matter of time before Idia politely refuses,

🖤 you don’t push him though – you do respect his boundaries,

🖤 however, when Idia proposes to either clone or create a hologram of himself for the play, you are just speechless and it’s your turn to politely refuse,

🖤 as much as Idia hates the mere thought of you kissing someone else, he won’t change his mind (he may suggest Vil to play the other main character tho)

🐲 Malleus is stunned and speechless the moment you tell him that you both got the main roles,

🐲 he’s even more stunned and speechless when you shyly mutter that it will involve the kissing scene,

🐲 Malleus has never really taken part in theatre play, yet alone displayed his affection (or more like affection of his character) for you in front of such crowd. Obviously, he hesitates, but your excited tone of voice and eyes filled with pure happiness were enough to convince him,

🐲 Malleus takes his role rather seriously and he prepares himself thoroughly – he knows the whole script by heart and could describe every detail of random scene in the middle of the night,

🐲 you are definitely more nervous than Malleus before kissing scene. He seems as stoic and collected as always, while you may be screaming internally,

,,I think we should practice this scene more” “I have kissed you more than 10 times already, darling. I may start thinking that this is just a mere excuse for you to kiss me, huh?” “That’s…that’s…THAT’S certainly not true Malleus!”

🐲 guaranteed that Lilia will be in the first row with a camera, while Sebek will be taking ton of pictures (and yeah, Silver is asleep per usual). “You’re doing great, sweetie” along with “Waka-sama hype man”  will be a perfect addition to the theatre play,

[shorkbrian]

Prelude - I need to stop catching sight of poetry on my explore page lol. This is entirely self-indulgent and very specific cause I’m rotting thru life rn and so if u dislike I understand lol. When I was in the hospital this last time it sucked rlly bad and like the awful horny degenerate I was I kept thinking abt Kirishima and soft sweet Sugawara idk lol

Pairing - Death god Kirishima x Reader

Warnings - Suicide, suicide attempt, no smut. Death. Drunk Drivers. Yandere but only a little bit and cause I can’t voluntarily accept love it has to be forced bc I cannot handle the thot of someone who is sane loving me bc there is no freaking way lol

Music - https://open.spotify.com/track/5Iy1wdO0tMaHwKnfFYtlel?si=-vqod-W6SHia8ui2Hdl_9g 

Adding this one bc it’s like one of my favorites and I wish god I wish and I hope that this year is better than the last amen lol also there’s nothing more sad to me than someone pleading and begging and crying for the year to treat you nicely like bitch u okay? no. the answer is no.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0xRO7EKgYKVB8zKIoiXMDD?si=HYBaiBzjRGmQwfCHgnTUxA

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

“It hurts.” You had told him, as the entity sat at the end of your hospital bed.

He often sank heavily onto the nearest surface, as if his bones ached with the weight of his body. You saw him often during those first few days in the hospital, days spent puking up pills, every move you made monitored, doctors and nurses scolding you about the severity of your actions.

You didn’t think they could see the hulking figure that comforted you.

“I”ve heard that it’s supposed to.” The red god of death would think aloud.

“I don’t want it then.” Tears upon your cheeks, soft, misty. “Take it.”

“Your life?” A nod would affirm his question, but the red god would shake his head. “I am no thief. Not a hunter, simply a gatherer of souls. I won’t take what doesn’t belong to me.”

“Then it’s yours, have my life. A gift, from me to you. Don’t make me live it any longer…..”

His sadness would show in his eyes.

But the soul-crushing hugs that were provided were admittedly a tiny bit nice.

“You’re far too sweet for your own good. I’ll receive your life when the time is right, not before.”

“But I don’t want it!” You sobbed into his shoulder, the god seeming to be your only friend in the world.

Hands stroked along your back, soft shushing sounds as the god attempted to soothe you in the ways he knew how. Soft touches, kind truths. “Many don’t.  But it happens - life happens anyways. All you can do is find the things that make it less painful.”

“That’s not enough, it still hurts. I can’t stand it.” The sobs wracking your body didn’t stop the entity from holding you.

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

——

He’s patient and kind.

Surprising for a god who’s work involves collecting souls as if they were taxes. A job that should be bitter and tiresome, but the entity has infinite softness resting inside of him.

He walks with you, as you get “better“.

You watch him stop to marvel at flowers, to study the way dew drips from trees in little drops, eyes wide and wondering as crows startle from their perches and take off with noisy weeping.

This courtyard is drab and brown, a prison. Safe.

Yet the god of death treats the space gently, with respect. He thanks the old walls for standing, the worn stones beneath your feet. Their service is noted and appreciated. He’s so tender it almost makes you sick.

But you come to realize that he’s simply allowing himself to be vulnerable, to experience the earth and the beings in it.

For as soon as one recognizes vulnerability, which is so different from weakness or tragedy, one experiences a sense of tenderness. Without tenderness, pleasure means nothing. You need only look at the animals to see the truth of that. It is gentleness that distinguishes their playing from the actions they constantly take to ensure their survival.

You ask why he walks with you, why he is so focused on seeing you get “better“.

A soft smile, a meeting of eyes. “There is an end to your pain, sometime and somewhere. It’s most likely not here, not in this place at least-“ and he looks around, at the cold walls, the other sick patients, the staff. All human.

“-It will come. But for now, it’s enough to try and seek it out ourselves.”

You must look more sick than you really are, talking to thin air like that.

——-

Once you return home, the red god writes you letters.

He’s an old soul, an old god. You’re sure if you asked, he’d be able to recount the very first souls he reaped, a man and a woman, sinful and sweet but in love.

The letters help you get out of bed. What new stories or little quips the god has written pique your curiosity, even when you don’t want to move, don’t want to be awake or alive.

He tells you stories about certain souls, how each one is infinitely interesting, how they all interconnect.  How some of them struggle against him, however fruitlessly. But he’s not the one who brought about their death, he’s there to comfort and guide.

Other souls, (“souls like yours” he writes) welcome him, run to his arms like a long lost lover. Their death was terrifying by their own hand, and it hurt. He can’t take away that pain, those memories. The red god says he wishes those souls find peace wherever he must take them afterwards, or at least, some form of contentment.

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning, at least, that’s what seems to be the consensus.” You rip off that part of the letter, hang it on your wall by your bed.  The other letters you keep in your nightstand, content with the knowledge that there are souls out there like you

It’s hard work, creating meaning for yourself.

The red god takes to visiting you between each letter, says he misses you, the way your soul cries. He tells you that he wishes he could help you quiet it, quiet that raging, terrible storm that hurls you about.

You make him cookies - it’s the only way you know how to say thank you. It’s what your mother taught you, so it may not be right, but the god eats them nonetheless. He likes it when you eat with him, feeding you bites from his cookie, wiping chocolate off of your nose, making you laugh with stupid jokes and a mouth stuffed full of cookies.

Even if some of them are too crunchy, or others too soft, all of them imperfect.

Imperfection is the essence of humanity, he tells you, and it’s more fun eating each cookie with the thought that you’re devouring your imperfections, making yourself whole again, filling up the empty spaces in your soul.

——

Eventually, the crawl back to your feet, rise with the unsteadiness of a toddler. You fall frequently, cry often, but you’re able to get up and try again.

Some days you need to bury yourself in sadness, let yourself feel and feel and hurt. Other days are not so bad, but still tinged  with regret and fear and sadness.

The red god is by your side, gives you something to cling to when you waver.

He is always there.

He will be there when you meet your end.

The god is in no hurry.

You question why he wastes his time on you, hours spent reassuring you, talking to you, tucking you in your bed and leaving glasses of water on your nightstand before taking his leave.

Home is a feeling, not a place. Home is with you - that’s what he tells you. You take his breath away, even though he might not even need to breath because he’s the god of death. HIs thoughts muddle and he trips over his feet and can’t help himself from wanting to hold you.

You learn that even gods yearn for home.

He’s capable of feelings and emotions just like any other human. He may be wiser, and older, able to draw from experience and a deep well of wisdom. But he still feels, and feels deeply.

Just as he gives the earth around him such reverence, he extends that same  attitude when he deals with you.

“Everything I see reminds me of you. When I wake and the sun creeps over the mountains, hesitant, it reminds me of the way that you rise - haltingly, yet it happens nonetheless. The flowers in the field that so steadily grow, you’re like ground they take root in, soft and unstable yet still tenable with the potential for growth. I don’t know, I haven’t exactly held such closeness with a human-“

He trails off, but you think you understand.

Maybe you don’t. It’s hard to relate to a god.

——

A confession occurs, and you’re surprised to learn that the blood-red god of death is in love.

“What did my hands do before they held yours? What did my heart do without all of this love? I can’t hold enough of you, I carry such love for you in my heart.”

With a frail, hopeless human nonetheless.

You don’t know what to tell him, how to explain that you can barely take care of yourself right now, meet your own needs.

But the red god seems to know, seems to understand the way your breath hitches and your eyes widen. One more hug, squeezed tight to his chest while he promises nothing has to change.

Things do change, even if you wish them not to. The world doesn’t bow to your whims, nor the death-god’s.

Innocent touches, his hand on your shoulder, patting your head, offering to rub out the tension in your back after you’ve had a crushing day - they don’t feel so innocent anymore.

The constant survellience still seemed kind, and you knew it was with your best intentions in mind that the god hovered so close, invading every aspect of your life.

But a creeping tendril of unease took hold, and you worried.

Everywhere you turned, he would be there, ready to support you, walk you through anything you wished.

Again, you questioned his commitment. Why? Why you?

“I can’t explain how fond of you I’ve grown. How heat blossomed in my chest as we grew closer. There’s infinite things I wish to say to you, ways for me to express my-my love, but I’ll just let you live.”

He neither killed you nor let you live.

Was it frightening? Maybe. But you had nothing to really live for, lost, searching for your own meaning in a big big world, floundering in an endless sea of sadness and suffering. You weren’t afraid of anything the god could, or would, do to you.

Until you woke up, not knowing where you were, in pitch black.

Arms encircling your shoulders, a soft body beneath your own, holding you tightly, a hand caressing your cheek.

A sun rose, on a strange new land, on the blood-red god gazing at you.

“There seemed to be so much more time for you. But accidents happen, Drivers drink and hearts give out. I was expecting you to grow old, for us to live and love like that, see how you grew through life.”

He looked around this new world, and you vaguely remember what had come before.  A walk along the sidewalk, blaring horns, impact, blood.

“But this will be just as nice. You can stay here with me now. Life can’t cause you anymore pain.”

You don’t feel comforted by those words.  There’s no way for you to know whether this new world would be better than the one you left behind.

[theeeveetamer]

Scarlet Blaze Liveblog: Chapter 7

Spilers under the cut, as per usual!

Explore

Oh right we recruited Ignatz didn’t we

I find it interesting that thus far no one we’ve recruited has been for any ideological reason. Ashe comes because he doesn’t want to kill his dad, Lorenz comes because his family decides to waffle for survival, and Ignatz surrenders and then later comes along because he’s working for Lorenz.

FLIRT WITH MANUELA!!! Too bad she never takes me seriously

I have some controversial opinions on this game’s depiction of Gatekeeper. Like, I feel like they were trying way too hard with him, and in the process somehow made him even more one note while also losing what was initially charming about him. The fact that they cut Gilbert, Cyril, Alois, and Hanneman but added this guy as a playable is a fucking travesty.

I’m sorry, I still can’t take the name Leopold seriously. Is my brain rotted out from too much South Park? Perhaps.

I keep trying to pick answers that everyone will hate but Shez is being quite agreeable despite my best efforts >:(

AW FERDIE AND LORENZ ARE CHATTING!

ThatsMyShip.jpg

Lmao @ the baron insulting me for my “baseborn stench”. Nice ally we got there, huh

Ok I swear to god when I ran up to Hubert he whispered some shit in my ear and I am Concerned

LMAO I SOLD ALL MY WEAPONS THAT WEREN’T RUSTED OR CURRENTLY EQUIPPED SO ASHE GOT A RUSTED AXE BY DEFAULT RIP

Edelgard wants to go on an expedition… Fine.

Forest I guess

Y’know one of these days I’m going to count the number of heart designs on Edelgard’s clothes. I can spot at least five just sitting here

I intentionally picked all the worst options lmao. They still like it tho even when you completely botch it

Supports

Caspar/Bernie C - “That armor isn’t big enough for a person to hide in”

Caspar

Caspar my buddy my pal

Armor is, by definition, exactly big enough for a person to fit in

In fact it’s entire purpose is to contain people for their protection

Caspar should be neither the reasonable nor the intelligent one in any conversation (affectionate)

Linhardt/Constance C - So if Constance’s family has been tricking crest investigators for a literal milenna so no one found out about the crest of Noa… how does Linhardt just know about it..?

Bernie/Petra B - Petra is a sadist got it lmao

I’m here for the Brigid lore tho

Shez/Caspar B - “Show some humility for once�� LMAOOOOOOO ima pick that one

Shez/Caspar is actually kind of charming lmao

Edelgard/Ferdie C - Damn what was that tone to start off with. Some shady tone going on there.

Also the sad music damn

Ferdie: I was expecting a torture dungeon

Edelgard: We have one of those lol

Comforting

This legal system sounds like shit lmao

“Oh we can’t find any evidence that he’s guilty so let’s just assume that he is” um what lmao

There’s a reason justice systems kind of operate on a… y’know, you can’t prove a negative rule?

So Daddy Aegir… cheats on his taxes?

Ferdie is so depressed lmao. Poor kid.

Linhardt/Bernie C - WHY IS SHE ON HER KNEES RIGHT NEXT TO HIS CROTCH

Uh

Sorry

Is Bernie peeping on a sex scene

(they’re literally just standing there becaues this is Fodlan what is an animation lol, but let’s pretend)

“Neither of them seems to be dead yet” Lin. Lin. What kind of sex are you having Lin

Lin continues to be the only self aware mfer in this house. “Aw how sweet that they’re sharing a romantic moment when they’ll probably be dead tomorrow”. Savage.

AND HE DROPS LIKE A ROCK LMAO

Ferdie/Bernie C - Weird this is another support that only goes up to C. I don’t recall the Lions having like… any of these?

They’re eating the weeds lmao

“Such luster! Such size!” size queen Ferdie lmao

Shez/Lorenz C - Idk if I want to include the contents of this since I plan on doing a GW run at some point and I imagine it’ll be like, basically the same, but I did get it.

This conversation makes my head hurt

Side Battles

“Chase the enemy down and annihilate them”

That’s a good guy thing to do!

Oh? Space time dimension Arval convo?

Oh I think this is the same as the other routes. Lame

“The Alliance army is using a stronghold in Gloucester territory to obstruct the Imperial army’s advance. Sack it.”

That’s a good guy thing to do!

OMG I SENT ASHE INTO THE FIGHT WITH THE RUSTED AXE

He still kicked ass tho because I’m like. 20 levels above the recommended level lmao

The alliance Baron is a thief hahahahha nice touch

MOMMY JUDITH IS BACK AGAIN!!!!!!

Hope we don’t have to murder you in cold blood this time

Paralogue Battles

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH I forgot we have paraloooooooogues

I’m guessing this is Bernie’s. The question is, do I care

Oh no Dorothea’s too

This game just loooooves wasting my time, eh.

Alright fine I’ll do it. Starting off with Bernie and Monica.

“We’re rounding up anyone who can help. Which is just the three of us” yeah fuck that generic mage guy lmao

Omg I just realized… I didn’t level up Monica… she’s level 3… RIP…

Omg Bernie’s mom gets a shoutout. Probably not a name tho. This fucking game…

“I’m looking for the lost Fretters of Dromi”

*side eyes my inventory and the Fretters of Dromi Yuri rolled in with”

Yep no idea where that could be

“We needed a bargaining chip to ply the Archbishop with” dude. You like. Used her sibling’s corpse as a bargaining chip to get her to agree with you. That’s so fucked up.

Obligatory Myson paralogue appearance

This actually wasn’t too bad. Monica put in a surprisingly good effort for being level 3 lmao. Maybe because I gave her Thrysus

Honestly I don’t really have much to say about this one. It’s… kind of a wasted paralogue. Monica doesn’t engage meaningfully with TWSITD (even though they literally kidnapped her and locked her up???) and Bernie is just… Bernie. The final dialogue is everyone just teasing/shitting on Bernie. Definitely nothing as meaningful or character development-y as the Dedue/Felix/Ingrid paralogue, or the Ashe/Catherine/Yuri paralogue, or the Sylvain/Dimitri/Rodrigue paralogue… you get the idea. The most we get is some vague info on Bernie’s mom being worried about her.

ON TO DOROTHEA/MANUELA PARALOGUE

Starts off with a random generic soldier guy shouting his love for Manuela. My kind of people

Adrienne??? A girl??? Gets a name???? In this game???

Manuela just casually being like “Yeah we have to thump a few incels” same girl. Same

Also I’m guessing the dialogue changes slightly depending on if you’ve gotten Dorothea’s supports? Cuz Shez says “we’ve been over this, I’m not that into this” which is what their support with Dorothea was all about.

“Thief was revealed to be a MANUELA FANATIC” same bro, same

Oh there’s a Dorothea fan too. JUST a fan tho, not a fanatic

Ok this is kind of amusing

OMG HANNEMAN SHOWED UP

LMAOOOO “Hanneman! You came for me!!! <3 Wait… am I actually into this???”

Yes, yes you are Manuela. I ship it.

Much better than the last paralogue. At least this one provides some interesting backstory for the characters involved. Also Manuela and Hanneman being Mom and Dad lmao.

Kinda disappointed we didn’t get a random Shez fanatic tho lmao. Would have been peak comedy

Main Battle

I just noticed the title of this war map (chapter?) is “The Blitz of Riegan”

Blitz. That’s a good guy word!

Ok, on to the main chapter battle!

If this game had some balls we’d learn about how Bergliez’s men had to engage in cannibalism in order to survive the siege

And now looks like we get Raphael, Lysithea, and Marianne

OH interesting, in order to recruit Raphael you HAVE to have Ignatz with you. Gay.

(Yeah I ship that too, what of it?)

I think that only happened one time in AG, with Mercie?

Also thankfully it warned me lmao because I was not going to bring Ignatz to this party

“I have to knock some sense into you Raphael!” Yeah fuck that guy for defending his homeland

1800 kills for an S rank seems a little excessive

Also it’s ridiculous how much map reuse is going on here

Sothis cheater moment lmao

Post Battle Stuff

“Maybe I should have just let the Empire have their way” ok AG had this issue as well. Why is this game so weirdly insistent on trying to demonize people defending their homes from invaders.

Same cutscenes with Arval and Byleth. Lame.

Oh my god. Arianhrod is a sex joke. AND CASPAR DOESN’T GET IT LMFAO

Oh my god that was a genuine laugh from me that’s wonderful

Shez’s comment about the Ashen demon comes out of nowhere lmao.

Ugh. Dimitri is being such a king I love him. Why are we just the worst in this route

I also find it interesting that they don’t invert the colors of the factions. So we still have the evil villain red lines, and Dimitri still has the Fire Emblem Protag blue lines.

You know how else we could have avoided all these needless battles and saved countless lives, Edelgard? Not starting a war. That avoids a lot of needless battles. That saves a lot of lives.

“Fanatics dying for the central church” or. You know. People from the Kingdom. Not uh, not wanting you to take over their homelands tax them to shit and subjugate their peoples. That’s a motivator as well.

Oh god now we have to have a private conversation with Edelgard

Shez: I don’t know what you’re doing and that’s exactly why I follow you!

Well that’s fucking stupid, Shez. Are you stupid? You appear to have lost quite a few braincells between AG and now

Honestly I’m… not really sure what this conversation was trying to advance? The Kingdom Nobility were “reabsorbed into Faerghus without even a slap on the wrist”? And that’s portrayed as a bad thing that needs to be stopped… even though Edelgard admits two seconds later that she does the EXACT same thing?

And how do we even know they’re getting off without punishment? We can’t see what’s going on in the Kingdom? And if you play AG you know for a fact that they do not get off without punishment because… like half of AG is focused on punishing them.

This really feels like “pull some shit out of our asses to make this conflict look justified” hours.

Which, to be clear. It’s not. It’s not justified at all. I almost wish I could throw this entire war because I feel like a bad person for sitting here watching this game repeatedly shit on completely justifiable resistance to a foreign invasion as if it’s somehow a bad thing. Why the fuck are we even doing this again??? For the lolz???

Also I finally made popcorn after this one. And I discovered Balthus gold grinding soooooo life is pretty good now!

[honeytae]

Bublé would be so offended right now.

hi my loves! so this is a christmas piece since the holiday is only a few days away and, idk, i guess i just felt like doing something christmas-y while i could. it’s basically just some very soft joonie content, wrapping presents and singing and...yeah. a dream. anyways, merry christmas to all of you who celebrate!!

tags: @ahgasearmyfan, @hoseokayy

genre: fluff

word count: 1.8k

“Babe, where’d you put the tape?” You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, sitting up on your knees and placing your hands on the soft carpet, slowly crawling in search of the roll.

“Huh?” Namjoon poked his head out the doorway of the kitchen, a bottle of wine in one hand and a glass clutched in the other. 

You smiled at the man’s appearance, bare skin glowing and comfortably dressed in his favorite pajama set as he lifted his forearm to his forehead to swipe strands of dark hair away from his eyes.

“I can’t find the tape.” You repeated, Namjoon frowning in confusion before trading the glass off to tuck underneath his opposite arm, hand patting his pocket and slipping in to produce the small item with a triumphant smile.

“Why-”

“I don’t even know.” He cut you off with a small grin, both of you giggling as you stood to walk toward his outstretched arm, hand reached toward your approaching frame. 

Slipping the piece of plastic between your fingers, he brushed his appendages against your own, making you smile at the subtle action as your hand went up to cup his face.

His golden skin was glowing underneath the lights from your Christmas tree, his dark eyes sparkling down at you as he shyly watched you fawn over him.

His cheeks were a soft hue of pink, the hot skin evident of the alcohol he’d consumed while sitting by the fire with you for the last few hours. 

“Your cheeks are all flushed. You’re so cute.” You cooed at him, Namjoon’s cheeks darkening even more at your words as a bashful smile curled his lips up, hand coming up to hide it while he tried to recover from your compliment.

“I don’t know how you’re not used to me calling you cute by now. I do it every day, baby.” You chuckled, Namjoon scoffing as he leaned his forehead against yours. 

“You still give me all the butterflies.” He mumbled against your lips with a soft grin, connecting your lips in a swift kiss before wrinkling his nose against the tip of your own.

“Good. That’s my job.” You ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead and smiling at the soft satisfied sigh coming from him at the action. 

“Are we almost done wrapping?” He inquired softly, you humming positively as you slightly turned back to glance at the large stack of wrapped presents for your combined families. 

“We’re getting there. It’s getting late, though, so we can take a break and do the rest tomorrow if you’re getting tired.” You proposed, Namjoon briefly pondering the idea before shaking his head. 

“We only have a couple left, may as well get it done tonight. I was on my way to pour more wine, anyway.” He gestured to the glass he’d shifted back to his hand, you nodding and meeting his plump bottom lip with a soft peck before backing away to return to the work in the living room once again. 

Watching you walk away in an oversized sweatshirt and one of his many pairs of gray sweatpants, the apples of his cheeks strained with his happy smile, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from you to turn back into the kitchen to retrieve the wine glass you'd been sipping from earlier. 

“Do you want more, babe?” He called out, his eyes focused on the ceiling as he waited for an answer from you. 

“Is that even a question?” You responded, smiling at the sound of your boyfriend laughing from behind you as you retreated to the living room.

Noticing that the fire had dimmed, you cursed as you stumbled over the roll of wrapping paper you’d conveniently placed in the middle of the carpet, luckily catching yourself before you fell flat on your face. 

Quickly recovering, you approached the fireplace, grabbing ahold of the iron poker previously leaned against the wall to adjust the burning logs, nodding in satisfaction when you successfully reignited the flame.

“Oh, bub, I could’ve done that.” Namjoon pouted from behind you, already feeling guilty about you taking over the present wrapping duties as he had made all his presents resemble lumpy sacks of coal earlier in the afternoon from his lack of experience. 

“You think I’d trust you with fire?” You asked incredulously, proud of the reaction you got as he let out a “hmph” of disapproval. 

“Ouch.” He put his hand over his heart, a small smirk on his face as he shook his head at your teasing. 

“Only kidding, baby. But, my mission is to keep this house standing.” You shrugged, Namjoon pursing his lips with an eventual nod as he bent his knees to land on the ground, groaning in the process.

“Mission successful, then.” He sat down beside you, crossing his legs underneath him as he handed a glass over to you with a sigh. 

“I like our tree this year.” Namjoon observed as his eyes focused on the garland looped around the tall pine, his eyes sparkling with the reflection of the lights lining the branches.

“Hm. Me, too.” You glanced back over at him, lifting your wine glass to your lips and swallowing the tart liquid as Namjoon hummed in thought. 

“It was so much fun.” He grinned, looking back at you as you scooted closer to him so that your shoulders nudged against each other.

You both smiled at the memory of Namjoon lifting you onto his shoulders so that you could better reach the top of the tree, adamant that you be the one to put the star on despite him having the height to easily do so himself. 

It was the first time in years that both of your lives were slow enough to be together through all the festivities of the holidays, and it felt amazing to finally be able to take in all of the moments of it together instead of only a few before one of you had to take off for a work commitment.

Doing even the simplest things with Namjoon throughout the traditions in the month made your heart happy; something that made you even more aware of just how much the man meant to you.

Spreading your legs out in front of you as you set your wine glass down onto the floor, careful to place it out of the way so that it couldn’t get kicked over onto the rug, you pulled a package between your legs, grabbing a roll of wrapping paper to continue hiding the presents from view.

Tasking your boyfriend with curling the ribbons on the presents you’d successfully wrapped, the two of you worked in silence other than soft humming from your throats and the crackling of the fire; occasional mishaps with one of the name tags making you both giggle.

“We need to get more in the mood.” Namjoon spoke up, discarding the scissors in his hand with a toss to the ground as he reached over for your phone. 

Swiping up to unlock it, he eagerly navigated to your music library, switching onto a holiday playlist and smiling at you as the first notes of “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” began pouring out through your speakers. 

Having figured out that your boyfriend wasn’t too great at wrapping presents earlier in the evening, (for god sake, the man couldn’t stop ripping the paper), he’d happily let you take over, opting to watch as you properly folded the paper over the various packages bought for your family.

That pattern continued now as you sat with him, his long legs spread on either side of your body, arms locked around your torso as his chin rested on your shoulder, lightly swaying you both to the music. 

His eyes peeked over your shoulder, first to watch what your hands were doing, but gradually shifting to watch your face as you bit your lip in concentration. 

You giggled slightly at the tickle of his breaths puffing out from his nose onto your neck, Namjoon chuckling before leaning back a bit to relieve you of the feeling. 

You felt incredibly at peace as the sound of Michael Buble’s honeyed voice came from the speakers, the man behind you quiet as he mindlessly played with your hair before you heard a dramatic inhale from his chest, causing you to raise your eyebrows in curiosity at the sound.

You snorted as Namjoon began singing horribly off-key to the Christmas tune, covering your mouth with your palm as you leaned forward to double over in your laughter. 

“And the thing that'll make 'em ring is the carol that you sing,” His voice cracked on the last word, making you laugh even harder as you clutched your pained stomach. 

“What? What’s so funny?” He asked, feigning confusion as he lightly laughed along with you. 

“Bublé would be so offended right now.” You sighed as you wiped tears from your cheeks, giggles still escaping as they bubbled up in your throat.

Pushing the remaining unwrapped gifts away from your legs in defeat, you stretched your back out to lay your head down on Namjoon’s thighs as he continued to exaggerate his vocals for your benefit. 

You continued giggling as he held notes longer than necessary, his voice wavering and breath running out as he definitely wasn’t using the right placement to do so. 

As the instrumentals faded out and the next song began, he looked down at you, the smile on your face making his heart flutter.

“What is it, hm? You don’t like my holiday spirit?” He asked teasingly, classic dimpled grin beaming down at you as the paths of tears down your cheeks were illuminated by the firelight glowing over you. 

He gently caressed the wetness of your cheeks with his thumbs, pad of his finger swiping the soft skin underneath your eye as you hummed in reply.

“Mm, maybe you should stick to pouring the wine.” You bit back a smile as Namjoon’s smiling face turned into one of offense, scrunching his nose up to further emphasize his dislike of what you’d just said. 

“Wow, someone’s getting a lump of coal.” He muttered, feigned annoyance on his face breaking with the smile your laugh gave him once again. 

“And someone’s getting mintcho in their stocking.” You returned, Namjoon’s face twisting in a disgusted grimace as you smirked at his never-ending hatred of the chocolate.

“Santa would never do that to me. He loves me.” He smiled, you giggling with a nod as you stared up at the man, eyes tracing his features as he did the same to you. 

”You are very lovable, Joon.” You agreed with a poke of your pointer finger to his dimple, features scrunching at the sudden touch as a small smile graced his face. 

“I love you.” He said softly, brushing your hair back with his fingers and making you hum in appreciation. 

“Oh? Am I lovable, too, then?” You teased him, Joon ducking his head in laughter before lifting it to look at you again.

“The most lovable.” He confirmed with a nod, both of you smiling as you leaned into each other, lips joining in a tender kiss as the fire crackled beside you.

[kurohoely]

Hi. Is there any way we could get headcanons/or a story where the s/o that’s from America and her boy (mad dog/kuroo/Suga/daichi/hinata/kags) take her out for karaoke and she sings a country song and surprises them?

hello! thank you so much for requesting this TwT i can only imagine the chaos for these characters kskskss (i’m sorry i didn’t do mad dog idk him too well) i did it this with a twist so i hope you’re okay with this one :’D sorry it took me this long

haikyuu boys karaoke shenanigans with their s/o - kuroo, suga, daichi, hinata, kageyama

genre: crack but i highkey did soft fluff :’))

wc: 1k

a/n: all boys are in time skip hehe no proofread please enjoy!! likes and reblogs are very much appreciated :D

Hinata

After having a long distance relationship with Hinata, you both finally meet each other here in America

Poor baby was so jet lagged the first few days, so both of you just chill at your place before starting the road trip

You both drove to the long, mother road of Route 66

Just the two of you cruising in the sunset

Your shared playlist was on shuffle, then a classic old country song played

Hinata was confused why this song was here inside the playlist

Then he heard your voice

You tapped your fingers on the windowsill, following the rhythm

You sang along, hitting the notes perfectly

Hinata turned his head, looking at you in awe

He always knew the range of genre you listen to but somehow it slipped his mind that country is probably your childhood jam song

His eyes soften seeing you in this state

“If you really liked country songs you should put more into the playlist. I would love to hear it more”

Blushing cheeks, both of you and no it's not because of the sunset

This smooth ass sunshine

Kageyama

You both went out shopping at your favorite thrift store

Need a new spring jacket because why not

He practically followed you around the whole time because he’s afraid of getting lost (cue shiratorizawa bus scene)

Suddenly, a leather jacket caught Kageyama eyes

“This would look good on them”

He brings that leather jacket to you

When he approached you, you were karaokeing softly to the song played in-store

Kageyama has zero idea what song it is since it was the first time he heard it and it had come from you

But he enjoyed it nonetheless

Actually more to liking the part where he discovered something new about you today

You swayed your body left and right and when you turned around

“What the hell Tobio you can at least say hello”

“No it’s okay, I was enjoying the show. Here, thought this might look good on you”

You tried the jacket on and it fits perfectly

“After this, you wanna go to a real karaoke” he smirked

You punched his arms softly and both of you laughed

Suga

It has been so long since both of you went out and spend time together

Since you’re both tired of work, you want to let out some steam, having some random fun

You both went to downtown, seeing all the local trinkets shop that they have

Went to buy coffee, window shopping and tried some random Sephora make-up that you know you can never afford (but lets just imagine that Suga would buy it on your birthday)

While walking, you spot a coin karaoke

Gosh how long has it been that you went to karaoke?

“Hey love, do you wanna go karaoke with me?”

“Sure! I bet I can beat you”

You started off with your inner weeb by singing the classic, the OG - KISS KISS FALL IN LOVE

Suga, lowkey being a Swiftie - sang Love Story

Enough hype song, you both turned down the energy by singing blues and calming ones

You forgot that you put one old country song that your parent/guardian sang to you in the car when you were younger

Suga eyes went wide, confused

You picked up the mic and start singing

“Wow y/n I didn’t know you can SING sing”

We all know he sat and just hyping you up and throwing praises how talented his s/o is

After you finished singing, he pulled you into a hug

“Let’s stay together until we have no more surprises” and he kissed your forehead

i am truly soft for hypeman soft suga :””)

Daichi

It’s Friday night which means soft loving hours are open!

You were preparing some snacks and dinner for your movie marathon tonight

Daichi is gonna be a bit late so you have lots and lots of time to prepare

You put your apron and start cooking and blasted your songs on shuffle

Daichi pushed the door and let himself in

You didn't hear him because the music was too loud

Daichi was taken aback the fact that this is his first time hearing an American country music

And you were bopping to it wholeheartedly

Daichi is shooketh

While you were stirring the pot, he went and hugged you from behind

Almost needed to have a takeout for dinner

“I experience new things every day. How long will it take until I know everything about you?”

Blush, blush, more BLUSH

“Aww it’s okay Dai, we have lots more days to know about each other :)”

“Maybe next time we should actually bring you to karaoke and teach me some more of that genre”

Best. Cuddle. Night. Ever.

Kuroo

Today is game night

Kuroo just got back from celebrating their win for the season

Pretty drunk but sober enough to play some more fun with you

Thought that game would be hard for him to actually focus, you asked how bout a late night karaoke instead

Thank God this apartment is soundproof or else rip neighbors

He knows you’re from America and he wanted to be the coolest boyfriend ever by showing off that he knows his s/o in and out

Cute

He picked Whitney Houston’s song

Idk where he got it but okay

Pretty good pretty fair for some Tokyo city boi

You were fired up, can’t let this rooster head beat you in your own songs pfft

So you skipped to the next country song in queue

You were singing so passionately trying to rile up Kuroo

But he just sat there and was mesmerized by your vocal range

After singing, you turned your head wanting to tease him but met with his adoring face

But of course, knowing Kuroo he won’t tell you what he feels (just yet)

Sober enough to keep his pride

“Babe cut me some slack will ya? That's like me singing any Naruto OP because I’m Japanese!”

He pouts (PLITH SO CUTE)

“Awww bub at least now you know not to mess with me again haha”

He tackled you for cuddles

That day he swore to never gonna mess with you again (sike)

[justanotherlifeff]

Idk if your requests are open or not but hope it is! Can I get a bakugou × reader scenario where the reader breaks up with him. Lots of angst plz hehe. Maybe he looks back on all he could've done better and its tearing him apart??? Sorry if its too much! Thanks in advance!!💞

The man you deserve

[Author's note: Alright, so I HATE sad endings and I DON'T write sad endings. Does that mean I won't write angst? Nope. I definitely will write angst and put fluff at the end cause I can!]

Warning: ANGST (seriously, I'll rip your fucking heart out) and fluff at the end.

"I'm done, Bakugou. Whatever we had, it's affecting my mental health. I'm done. Have a good life." the last text from you glared back at him. It had been 6 months since you sent that text and he still didn't know how to reply. It was all his fault, now that he recalled everything that led to this text.

His insecurities got the best of him. He was so sure that you'd leave him for your boss when you were actually his. You tried your best to make him realise that you loved him. That you weren’t cheating on him. And yet, he always blamed you for his own insecurities. How many times did he blame you of cheating? He can't even count anymore. How many times did he have screaming matches with you? Hell, that's what the two of you literally did on the last days you were together.

He recalled the days when things were better. The days when he'd walk with your hand in his, in a random park as the sun set. The way you smiled on those many dates, the way you'd take random pictures of him on your phone without him knowing. You made him soft, you made him smile.

"I'll never leave you, Katsuki" you told him so many times. Too many times to be honest. He clearly remembers you under him as he pleasured you, telling him that you are his. That you’ll always be his. You promised. Then again, you only broke this promise because of him. It was all his fault.

He could recall ignoring the fact that you were depressed simply because he was jealous. He accused you of pretending to be depressed when he should've supported you. He should've trusted you when all he did was doubt your feelings. He should've let you know how much he loves you instead of telling you that you don't matter and that he doesn’t care if you leave. He knew that he made messed up badly and now, it was too late to fix things.

He tried to move on. He really did. He slept with random women, went on random dates for the first few months. He wanted to prove that he could live happily without you. However, nothing worked. Every single night he spent with someone else, he felt guilt eat him away. Every single date he went on were as bland as hospital meals. They just weren’t enough, they just weren’t you.

He stared at his phone, re-reading the last words you sent him. The billboard chart award ceremony was supposed to take place today and you would be there. With Deku. Your boss. Your boyfriend. The guy he was insecured about in the first place. He already got an email from the billboard award Association that he finally surpassed Deku and took the number one position. Then why did he feel such utter defeat? He had always wanted to be the number one hero but today, it just didn't seem enough. He was just a defeated man.

You blocked him everywhere on social media when you left him, which is why he followed your Instagram through a fake account. He wanted to see you smile. He wanted to make sure that you were happy. He unfollowed you the day he saw a picture of you with Deku. One where Deku was hugging you and you were smiling. Bakugou used to be the one in Deku's place just a few months back. However, at this point, he knew that you deserved better. You deserved someone like Deku who didn't doubt you. Who made you smile. He just wasn’t good enough.

Putting on the suit that his manager got him, Bakugou got ready for the function. He had been preparing this speech for when he became the number one hero ever since he was a kid. However, today, he just didn't know what to say on that stage. 

He didn’t look for you when he reached the building where the ceremony was taking place. He ignored all the journalists who wanted his comments on how he felt about becoming the number one. If the circumstances were different, he'd brag about it but now, it just didn't matter. When he was finally called on the stage, he didn't have that cocky smile on his face. Nor did he have his usual scowl. He just looked indifferent. He just felt empty.  When he was finally asked to give a small speech, he didn’t know what to say.

"I…" he paused. Suddenly, the emptiness in his eyes was replaced by sadness. He saw you for the first time in months, standing in the crowd in front of the stage. You looked beautiful and all dressed up. All for Deku. "I don't deserve to be the number one hero." Bakugou ended his sentence. He wanted to say "I don't deserve you" to you but he knew you didn't want to listen to him. You were Deku's, not his.     

"A hero should care about the people they save. A hero should be doing what they do to save people in general. I had been fighting villains all my life to become the number one hero. To win every fight I get into. It was always about my ego, never about making the world a better place. If there's anyone who deserves this award, it's definitely not me." Bakugou ended his speech. Indirectly, he told you everything he wanted to say for the past months. He gave you the reply to that message you sent him.

Bakugou was hiding from the reporters in his usual spot and waiting for the ceremony to end. The billboard charts award ceremony took place in this specific venue for years and Bakugou already found his own safe spot. Even last year, he was here with you, doing some rather sinful deeds. "And now I'm hiding from the shitty reporters alone after rejecting the position that I've dreamed of getting my entire life. That's just great." Bakugou thought sardonically. "Just where I expected to find you huh…" he suddenly heard a familiar voice. Looking at the source, he found you, standing in front of him, looking like an angel.

"Hey, Bakugou" you broke the silence yet again before sitting beside him. "Why aren't you with shitty Deku? Don't think he'd be okay with you hanging with your ex in random secluded areas." Bakugou grumbled. "Midoriya and I broke up. Besides, I get to choose where I want to be." you answered making Bakugou smile. He always loved the way you were so independent. "I didn’t expect you of all people to be humble about being number one though" you chuckled, the sound being music to Bakugou's ears. "I ain't as bad as you think I am, shitty woman." He answered with a small smile. You hummed sarcastically in answer and this time, there was a comfortable silence between the two of you.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to apologise but you blocked me everywhere." Bakugou muttered, not looking at you. "I'm sorry too… I should've been more patient…" you answered, much to his surprise. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late just yet. Maybe he still had a chance of making things right. Either way, he wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste. "(L/N), you leaving me made me find out how much of a dick I was. It made me realise my mistakes and all. If you want to, give me another chance." Bakugou muttered.

"Yeah I noticed how much you've changed, Bakugou. The old you would never say any of the things you mentioned on that stage. I've realised how important relationships are as well… But I'm not ready to jump into a relationship right now. Can we start over as friends and work our way up there?" you asked him, hoping he'd be okay with it. Infact, Bakugou wasn’t the only one who was saddened by the end of your relationship. As soon as Midoriya left you for Uraraka, you realised the worth of the relationship you had with Bakugou. You wanted it back someday, even if it wasn’t now. When Bakugou gave you his signature smirk and replied with a "whatever, dumbass", you knew that things were gonna be okay. As long as the two of you were together, everything was going to be fine. Bakugou knew that this time, he would be the man you deserve.

[relighthatspark]

it’s brighter now

(title from “daylight” by taylor swift) jatp oneshot, 1x09 stand tall 

author’s note or something i guess lol: hoo boy so like ,, i wrote a jatp thing sldkhgfj idk this was basically bc of my constant need for more reggie and alex friendship content lol but then it became something bigger so yeahhh

warning for description of their deaths (pretty minor like not graphic (but also idk lol)) and one mention of blood also warning for a lot of fucking run on sentences dlkhgsfj and credit to @julies-butterflies for the alex holding reggie’s hand while they die thing (check out her fics if you haven’t, they’re incredible :) !!)

also just overall kinda angsty??? (idk i never know if my “angst” is actually angsty lol anyway)

1116 words :P and i’ve never written for jatp beforeee so yeahhh i tried haha :3

***

Julie launches herself into Luke’s arms and Alex averts his gaze, giving them their moment like Luke and Reggie had done for him earlier in the day. Bitterly, he thinks how impossible it is that the Orpheum, Willie, everything could possibly have been the same day as this moment, right now: the three of them stumbling around with barely enough energy to stand, the air heavy with grief and desperation and hopelessness and Julie’s quiet sobs filling the silence as she grips tightly to Luke. 

Alex has had his moment already, with Willie, knows that they need this, knows how it must feel for them.

Willie. Alex tries to push him from his mind—just something else he’s losing, another possibility and hope, a beautiful hope and dream that he’s being ripped away from—but then gives into the insistence, letting the memory lift his spirits a little… the weight and warmth of Willie lingering on his skin, grounding, burning, but in a good way. The way Willie’s arms tightened around him, and he buried his nose in Willie’s shoulder, and both of them were squeezing like they wouldn’t get to again and they won’t but Alex didn’t think it would end up like this… 

He stops himself, just trying to breathe. Breathe, even though his lungs feel like they don’t work but they don’t need to he’s dead does he even have lungs why does he even need to breathe why can’t he fucking breathe? and he just feels so fucking weak—his father was right, he laughs darkly to himself—

He forces himself not to think about that when he only has who knows how long of this life/afterlife/existence situation remaining. 

He’s aware of Reggie on his left, curled over himself in pain, perched on the arm of a chair. Alex wants to go over to him—had tried to, had only made it to the piano. He’d had his goodbye moment with Willie, Luke’s getting his with Julie… Reggie, even if he’s probably the strongest person Alex has ever met, deserves to have someone hold him, too. Reggie, who would be the most touchy out of all of them if Luke wasn’t Luke, who was the most tactile person Alex knew for a long time before it became the three of them (the four of them), and it was hard sometimes but then he gives the best hugs when Alex is in the mood for it and he became the one Alex went to, the first to hold Alex when his world was crashing around him, when he needed it the most, held on to him tight and strong like there was nothing that could ever stop him. Reggie who is Alex’s oldest friend, closest friend, who he has done almost everything with, who Alex knows better than himself sometimes and who has always always hated the idea of being alone, and he shouldn’t be alone right now but Alex’s useless legs won’t work and can barely even support his own weight like they’re fucking supposed to so most of his weight is being held up by the piano and he just needs to make it over to Reggie but he can’t.

A memory flashes through his mind. Flashing colored lights blinding against the darkness of the night sky above him. Noise, a lot of it. Voices, high and panicked and breathless, for once not his own. He can’t tell what they’re saying. Cold. Pain. Lots of that. His face is wet—tears. And blood. His head turns—falls—to the side to see Reggie looking back at him, crying and his eyes are full of fear and despair and grief because Alex can’t see him but somehow he knows, and he knows that Reggie knows, that Luke is already gone—his endless energy and his melodies and music and his optimism and love and his part of them is gone—and Alex reaches out, somehow, with a hand that doesn’t feel like his own because he’s falling out of existence, but he grabs Reggie’s hand and squeezes as much as he can with fingers that feel like they don’t exist, and they’re dying and he should be panicking but he holds Reggie’s hand and Reggie’s glistening green eyes flood with more tears and also relief before falling closed and Alex’s follow, and they’ll be okay. 

And Alex just hopes Reggie knows he wishes he was able to do the same right now, that they could go together again. If only to be consistent, he would joke, if he could. 

How ironic that only a few hours earlier that he stood and sang at the Orpheum, the presence and energy of his family surrounding him with warmth, supporting him, lifting him as he stood and the words flowed strong and sure through his entire body, and now he can barely stand, can’t find the strength to talk.

Phantom pain courses through his body now, constant and unrelenting. He doesn’t know if it’s from the sudden dying memory or from another jolt, forcing them into yet another plane of non-existence. He leans on the piano, just breathes the air he doesn’t need. Thinks about them. Willie. Reggie. Luke. Julie. 

Julie... who’s hugging Luke. Who’s touching Luke. 

Who beckons him and Reggie over and they oblige, because it’s Julie and they trust her with their entire existence and they’ll listen to her, follow her to the ends of the universe. Who he can touch. 

Who’s saved them—more than once, more than twice. More times than they could ever keep track of.

And they’ll be okay. 

He can feel—he can feel Julie’s hair through the sleeve of his jacket, the heat of her skin, the heat of her soul. She’s solid underneath his arm… or rather, he’s solid to her. 

He doesn’t have the chance to question it, to freak out about it (as he surely will later, and they have later now…). 

Because Luke is solid and there under his left arm, Reggie solid and there under Alex’s hands, Julie solid and there and small but strong under his right arm, all of their heads together and leaning into each other and giving each other strength and he feels impossibly warm and alive again; because the band is back, Alex’s family is back; because they’re glowing—they’re glowing and solid and free from Caleb somehow; because they’re cheering and jumping and laughing and happy and Reggie’s forehead knocks into his a little painfully and Luke jumps right onto his feet more than once and Julie’s hair is in his face and tangled in the chain on his jacket and they’re free.

[lxveille]

another love song

mk x reader

word count: ~ 2080 warnings: references to alcohol a/n: university!au; another ‘trying to get back into the feel of writing’ fic so... idk ?? tbh it’s more of a fic treatment but here’s what i’m posting anyway

Minkyun has gotten inspiration for his songs from you before. This one is different.

You’re nearly always the first person to place money into Minkyun’s open guitar case when he’s busking. 

More often than not, he tries to return your money once he’s packed up for the afternoon - but you refuse, and tell him he earned it. Then he usually spends more on you than you gave by buying you bubble tea or coffee before the two of you trek back to campus.

You’re not sure what you’d do with your Saturday afternoons if not for him.

You’d met Minkyun in a literature class your first year of university. At first it had been easy to write him off as a high school class clown having some difficulty adjusting to university expectations. Except that sometimes, when your professor would really dig into the themes of a text, he’d have something to share that would stick with you. A thought - sometimes chaotically explained - that would rumble around in your brain for a week, even. Eventually, you decided a proper introduction was in order. A fatal mistake, if you’d hoped to keep up some aloof, studious front. He had a way of warming others up, it turned out. You discovered he was friends with a number of people with unfriendly faces who somehow transformed into lighthearted, open books in Minkyun’s presence.  

You feel a little lighter around him, too. 

And on the days you don’t, he invites you to unburden. 

It became a common tableau: you sprawled out, exasperated, on the beanbag chair in his dorm room, ranting about anything that bothered you while he lay on his bed, half-propped up against the wall and strumming occasional notes on his guitar. A last complaint and a final chord, and then Minkyun would be on his feet with an idea of what the two of you should do to shake it out of your system for once and for all. Those plans only sometimes included just enough beer that the both of you were giddy and ready to laugh at anything. 

If Minkyun had to name one good reason to get drunk with you, it was this: it was the only time you’d sing. The very first time you let yourself break into song in front of him had been at a bar. It had been difficult to make out your voice over the speakers, but Minkyun heard. Maybe more important, though, was the way you swayed your shoulders and rocked into each syllable. 

He would tease sometimes that you ought to join him when he busked. He might make more with you joining in. 

“Ah, but then you’d have to split it with me, too,” you’d reply. You assumed, at least, that he must be kidding. 

It was spring the first time Minkyun asked you to listen to something original he’d composed. There was something personal about it that had never occurred to you when listening to a song before. For all the times you had watched him play, it was like looking at him from a new angle. Just as his commentary used to linger on your mind, his songs began to do the same.

 And in the winter of your second year, he asked if it’d be okay to use some of your own rants as inspiration in songs. 

“What?” you asked. 

“Just - the way you talk about the guys you’re getting over, and stuff like that. It could make for good lyrics.” 

“You’re going to quote me?”

“Well,” he lingered on the syllable, then broke into a dimpled smile. “No. But I don’t wanna take inspiration without telling you!”

So it happened that when he performed songs of his own, you sometimes began to recognize bits of your own infatuations and fallings outs weaved into his lyrics. The way he framed it, it usually made it easier to get over whoever had been behind the heartbreak. 

Minkyun isn’t busking today. The drizzle is enough that it wouldn’t be worth it. All the same, he spent the better part of the morning sending you messages asking you to come over. 

When you finally cave, you put on a front of unhappiness at the door, shaking out your umbrella before passing it over to his extended hand.

“I brought some stuff for my class so I can try to get work done like I’d planned,” you told him. 

He pouted for dramatic flair. “So you’re really just gonna act like you’re at your room at mine?”

“That’s what we agreed to! I told you I wanna get this reading done so I can just be hungover tomorrow without having to worry about Monday’s lecture.” 

“Damn, and people try to frame university drinkers as irresponsible.” 

“What can I say? I’m flawless,” you comment dryly as you pass into his room. 

“So you’re still going out even if the rain keeps up?” Minkyun asks. He settles into his usual spot near the foot of his mattress. You rummage through your bag for a textbook and your printed copy of the syllabus before finding a spot somewhere closer to the pillow. 

“Mm,” you affirm, “I think I’m officially entirely over Seungcheol, so it’ll be good for me to go out.” 

“Ahhh.” There’s something guttural and mischievous in the way he makes the sound. It’d be fair to expect some ribbing comment on how transparent you could be with these things. No such remark comes. 

It’s some time later, when you’re nearly done with your assigned reading, that Minkyun announces that he finished a new song recently. 

“Like one of your own?” you ask. 

He nods, and adds how he’d been thinking of playing it out this weekend if it hadn’t been for the poor turn in weather. 

You exaggerate a gasp. “You were going to share a song with a crowd before sharing it just with me?” There’s no real offence. It’s only a pattern that you’d noticed. Sometimes he’d say it felt needed, if only because he based part of the lyrics’ premise on your own experiences instead of his own. 

“I know!” Minkyun laughs airly. “Mother nature said not to, I guess!” 

“Well, are you going to play it now then?” You should tell him to wait until you’ve finished this chapter. That way you won’t entirely lose track of things. But you’re not infallible; and if there’s one thing you’re horrible at resisting it’s the chance to hear Minkyun play. 

He hops up from the bed to fetch his guitar. And he plays. 

It’s a love song, which doesn’t come as a surprise. Minkyun told you from the beginning - or at least when he first asked if he could take inspiration from your own heart’s tribulations - that he liked to write about that feeling. The good, the bad, or at the very least what he imagined of it. 

This song doesn’t feel familiar. Usually you can tell when he’s written indirectly about your own affairs. So these endearing words, these syrupy lines of dedication, of patiently waiting for the other one to notice… They must be from his own experience. 

A corner of your heart goes sour at that thought, and retorts that it might be one of his other friends. Devoted and hoping it won’t go unnoticed would be right up Yuto’s alley, you tell yourself as your search for a likely suspect. You don’t let yourself think too much on why you don’t want it to be Minkyun’s own feelings. 

Except there’s something else that bothers you. The way he keeps his eyes on his strumming fingers, or closes them altogether. 

Normally Minkyun looks at you now and then, and smiles at your reactions to his music. Even with the unhappy songs. 

You squeeze the textbook in your lap. A corner digs into your palm. He’s somewhere in the second chorus and your mind is fogging over with an irritation. It’s not his fault. You’re not mad at him. 

You just wish you had realized you want to fall in love with Minkyun sooner.

The last chord hangs in the air before you can fully process this thought. He looks at you expectantly. 

“What do you think?” Minkyun asks. 

You force a smile. “It’s sweet.” 

He leaves space for you to elaborate. When you don’t, the corners of his lips drag down a bit. “Just sweet?” He repeats. “Is it lame?” 

“No! It’s just - it’s different from some of your other stuff. But it’s sweet. I like it. I think, um… I just was expecting it to be something based on my whole recent back and forth thing. Since you wanted to play it for me,” you try to cover for your lackluster response. 

Minkyun looks you over for a moment, then chuckles. “Not every song can be about your love life.” 

“I know! Of course! Geez, that’s not what I meant,” you rush to say, loudly, as if you needed to cover the sound of some kind of fracture in your heart. 

He leans forward to set his guitar carefully on the tiles, its neck leaning against the bed frame. “I guess that’s not totally accurate to say here though.” He shakes his head to get his hair out of his eyes as he looks your way again. 

“...What?”  

“Ah… You’re pretty clueless, huh?” Minkyun sounds content with himself, and he’s barely holding back a grin. 

“I’ve never gone on like that about someone.” 

“Yeah, I know.”  

You eye him over a few times quickly, trying to reach a conclusion that feels safe. All you can theorize for sure is that he’s practiced this all, and somehow it’s going to plan. Maybe. “What are you on about?” you ask, tone turning suspicious. 

He laughs more fully now, then shifts his position to face you directly from the other end of his duvet. “You.” 

You glance around him like this could be some hidden camera prank. “What?”

“You,” Minkyun repeats, “It’s about you.” 

In the most foolish move of the day, you suddenly felt your throat dry out the same way it does before you cry. It must have been too much at once: to realize a desire and think it ripped away only to have it suddenly offered up so easily, so soon. 

“You’re not serious.” 

“Is it bad if I am?” he asks, leaning to the right a bit as he watches your reaction. You press your palm to your clavicle, trying to get your heart and your mind in sync. “Am serious, I mean.”  

All you can manage is a shake of your head. 

Minkyun grins bright and leans forward to put a hand over the one still at your side. “You really didn’t notice?” He pulls off incredulous and teasing in one go. If you weren’t so off kilter, you might want to scold him for it somehow. 

“What was I supposed to know?” You ask instead.

He shakes his head. For a fleeting instant, you worry he’s about to brush the whole thing aside. That worry is killed pretty quickly when he leans closer instead and delicately presses an experimental kiss against your lips. 

Minkyun is back to his side of the bed in the next moment, nearly like it hadn’t happened at all.  

Your hand lifts from your clavicle to allow your fingers to brush over your own lips, still tingly with the affection. Or maybe just from his lip balm rubbing off on you. 

He gives you a second more before asking, “Still okay?” 

“Um, yeah.” 

His smile returns. “Still going out to find someone new tonight?” 

“Oh my god.” You cover your face with your hands and accuse, “You’re the worst.”

“So… is that a yes, you are?” 

He knows it isn’t. 

He’s spent all this time getting to know you. Now he gets to be the one on the receiving end of that look in your eyes. 

“Would you stop that?” You muster up as much of a snip in your voice as you can. Your gaze gives away that you’re not really annoyed. It would be difficult to be, given the way your head is still spinning from his confession.    

“Stop what?” 

The smile on his face suggests he already knows. Nevertheless, you don’t give Minkyun the satisfaction of admitting he’s teasing you. “Just kiss me again,” you swerve to a demand. Frankly, it’s the main thing you’d been thinking since the first. You’ll figure out the rest of your feelings later. 

For now, Minkyun is hardly going to deny you that.

[cd-head]

As fragile as glass

TW: Blood (its barely mentioned but ts just in case), crying, abuse, beer, scars

Characters: Xisuma, Beef (Minor, mostly just mentioned), Etho, and Stress

This is a AU I made, everyone has superpowers and such, I know typical, suck it (/lh /j), Beef has nature powers, Etho has ice powers, Xisuma has mind power stuff (idk the word and im to tired to look it up), and Stress has healing powers

Etho is six, so is Beef but I dunno if that is really needed to know. Stress is 11 and Xisuma is 23

- Keep warnings in mind - 

----

As fragile as glass he was told he was.

A simple push could cause the whole world to shake as he fell apart. Small pieces laying on the ground remaining of what he used to be. Scars that dared to litter his body and mind deep into itself.

A monster he was called so a monster he shall be, baring his teeth to protect himself and hiding away to keep his memories and peace to himself. As frost covered his body, littering himself in the ice of his own lost mind.

For the silence and loneliness was unbarble but the forgotten boy wouldnt mind. Staying quiet to himself, few to no friends to his name, scars digging deep into his bones and skin reminstic of what he was.

Frosty white hair that fit his face perfectly, as a flower would a stem. Pale white skin that looked like snow that youd see littered out on your lawn, fragile and yet strong and persistent. A thin mask that hid the horrors of the scars of his face, always reminding him of the pain that he had bore once and wished to never live through again.

A small tap would be all it would take to break him, thats what everyone would think of him so they kept his distance from the glass man. The boy did not mind, for even if others would speak to him, his voice was a soft whisper that flooded out and was lost to the sea. Like a soft ticking of a clock that you only will hear if you focus hard enough.

For the boy himself did not mind being ignored, in fact, he found it peaceful.

Least thats what he told himself, but the bruises on his body begged for someone to see them. The bags under his eyes cried out for a rest, that was no closer than he wished. The redness of his eyes and the strikes on his face curled up in a corner, wishing to go unnoticed and yet reaching out a hand to anyone close enough.

He needed help though the boy would never admit it while the fighting at home would ring out like a sirens call, the boy sat quietly on his bed while watching the stars twinkle in the skys as the moon played him a special melody just for him, distracting him from the tears that pooled from his eyes and the pain radiating in his side.

For while those mismatched eyes stared out to the night sky, watching and listening to the night music that blocked out the sound of the horrors around him. 

That night, the frost boy dreamed of a man. A man with kind purple eyes and black hair that would save him from the nightmare he had everyday that was inescapable. For when the boy tugged up his mask, barely paying mind to the broken glass on the floor other than to avoid.

The frost boy tugged on his vest but before he could leave, a rough hand landed on his shoulder. Not caring that the small boy tensed up and snow was now appearing on their fingers, the person leaned down and a gruff unloving voice filled the young boys ears. “Get your fucking shit packed up Etho.”

His hand didnt leave so the masked boy nodded, relishing when the touch left and the boy made their way to their room. Packing what little he had and not bothering to remove the frost from him.

Etho, that was the boys name, the name he heard a teacher say but it was said normally so kindly that the forst boy would not flinch, the name that the other little boy who had kind brown eyes and fluffy brown hair would call him so friendly. He would only flinch at the name when it left that old mans mouth, knowing that no good would come from the man.

He trailed away from his thoughts about his father to his best friend, or well, his only friend. The ice boy was the only one who didnt mind the bloodied apron and never questioned where the blood was from, instead, he choose to look into that boy and they became close friends.

He wondered if the kind boy would be at wherever he was going as he flooded his clothing and closed the bag he had, he carefully reached up and tugged his old ripped up plushie to his chest. Hunger screamed in his stomach and he ignored it as he nuzzled his head into the rough fabric of the toy.

A loud ringing noise rang out through the small apartment and Etho’s hands rushed up to cover his ears. Loud noises never mixed well with the young ice master before he quickly picked up the old toy that he had dropped and pulled on the backpack and shuffled over to where his bed was and lifted himself up onto it. Waiting to be called out.

At the door, stood a man with purple eyes and scars lining his face but unlike the boy, he did not hide the scars that mixed into his gray skin. His black hair pulled back into a small ponytail and a young lady stood at his side with her arms crossed and a small frown framing her normally friendly features, her light brown hair pulled up into a ponytail and her brown eyes held hatred for the old beer smelling man in front of him.

The beer smelling man was going on a rant about how he was so sorry about letting his ‘precious baby boy’ go. 

Xisuma saw through the act, and as he could guess by the bitter glare Stress was giving the horrid man, she did as well.

But he didnt have to make a move as the girl did before he could. “Where is Etho.” She choose to ignore how the man finally lit up a bit at remembering that he was getting rid of the boy at last. She choose to ignore how the fridge was open and there was only beer and food that a six-year-old should not eat.

She ignored it as she walked past the old man and her guardian to move where the man had gestured to a frosted covered door. She carefully wiped off the soft fuzzy ice from the door handle that melted from her body heat almost right away and gently knocked, waiting for a reply.

Stress could just barely make out the sound but she heard a soft - “come in” fill her ears. So the woman turned the handle and walked inside, she paid no mind to how cold it was in the ice covered room and instead focused on the small boy who was swaying his feet.

His strachy white hair no where close to the mans dark gray hair, his eyes were different perfect colors, his right one a light brown color and the left one that had that long scar over it was tinted red, as if it had abrosed blood and took it in to give itself vision once more. He was wearing fingerless gloves and she could see that the tips of his fingers were a light blue.

She kneeled in front of the young boy and gave him a gentle smile, one the boy would remember for years past and forever thankfully of. “Hello there... My names Stress, you must be Etho?” At the small nod that the boy gave her, her smile grew more warm and welcoming that it had the damaged boy shuffling a bit closer to feel the safety she seemed to give off.

“You wanna come with me?” Stress asked gently, holding out her hand but she stayed still other than that. Not forcing Etho to make a action, she was pleasantly surprised when a freezing cold hand rested in hers and clung desperately, as if terrified she’d go if he let go.  “yes please...”

Stress carefully sat up and pulled the boy with her, letting him get used to being on his feet and she led the way out of the frozen room. She took note of how light and underweight the boy was and she pushed past the disgusting man and looked to Xisuma who gave her a short smile and the three left without saying anymore.

But surprisingly enough, a small voice broke the pleasant silence.  “is beef gonna be where im going?”

Xisuma gave him a small smile and Stress came to a stop while X moved around and kneeled down in front of the young boy and he placed his hand ontop of the soft curly white hair. His heart hurt a bit when the boy flinched but it was repaired quickly when Etho leaned into the friendly touch. “Yeah kid... hes waiting for you at the house right now, as well as all of your new family.”

And thats all the boy needed to hear before his dull eyes lit up.

And somehow,

Just somehow.

The boy knew, 

These people were safe.