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drariellevalentine · 4 years

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Medically Inevitable

Chapter 9- Mischievous Mishaps

Warnings:- Alcohol, slight cursing, a bunch of fluff and cuteness overload

Characters:- Arielle Valentine, Alyssa Raines, Ethan Ramsey, Arabelle Raines, Naveen Banerji, Kyra Santana, Sienna Trinh, Jackie Varma, Ines Delarosa

Pairing:- Ethan Ramsey x Arielle Valentine

Author’s Note:- Guess what! I finally figured out how to add a ‘keep reading’!

Ethan’s PoV:-

You never thought babysitting a 5 year old would be this tough. But this girl is starting to prove you wrong. Arabelle has a level of curiosity that cannot be matched by many 5 year olds. She has questions about everything she notices. You usually approve of this inquisitive nature (as long as you don't need to deal with it) but this kid just loves to ask you personal questions. And this isn't the only hard part, the hardest thing is how stubborn she is. But yet she managed to somehow get into your life. Just like Arielle, your subconscious reminds you but you shake it off as soon as the thought crosses your mind.

Grabbing the strawberry milkshake you just made, you make your way to the living room. Handing the glass to Arabelle you take a seat in the sofa and go through Naveen's recent test reports.

“Thank you! Mm, this is yummy!”, she says as she listens to the story.

You keep looking at the pages but can barely focus, your mind wanders to Naveen and Arabelle. You try to understand what the story is about. After minutes of listening. you understand that Naveen is reading some Disney story to Arabelle from her e-book reader, guessing that because Naveen is mentioning of a prince and princess quite often along with some utensils which can talk. You scoff at the childishness of the story.

You switch your attention back to the medical reports rather than listening to that unreal and childish love story.

Half an hour after, a whiny Arabelle grabs your attention. Sighing you place the file on the coffee table and try to listen to her.

"But I want to hear more of it!" She pouts and Naveen smiles.

"I know, Belle," He starts, "But your e-book reader is out of battery and I can promise you that Uncle Naveen just has boring books in his phone, nothing as interesting and lovable as the stories you read."

You see Naveen smirking at you as you groan. "What do you want?" You ask.

"Belle here wants to read more but her e-book reader is out of charge," Naveen sighs.

"I'll find something for her to read," you say and move towards your bookshelf to find something that a child can read.

Naveen fakes a cough and when he understands he got your attention, he proceeds with a smirk,"Just like I said, my friend, you don't have anything that a child can read and I can assure you that."

You pretend to get annoyed and go back to your seat. All this time Arabelle looks at you with puppy eyes and a cute pout on her face, again reminding you of a certain intern. This face is going to be the death of me one day! You sigh, pinching the bridge if your nose, “Fine! There's a library in this building. Let's go there."

As soon as the words leaves your mouth, Arabelle smiles at you brightly, running towards you and engulfs you in a hug, or at least tries to. “Thank you!”

Shocked from the sudden action, you sit there still for a moment before awkwardly reciprocating it. Though you act like you’re not comfortable, deep inside, this small act of affection warms your heart up.

Soon after you enter the library, Naveen leaves you to read the rest of the story to Belle because he found some books he was looking forward to read. "She'll guide you up to the part I read her," He waves before moving.

Sighing, you take Arabelle to the kids area, she runs off. After finding the book, she runs over and hands it to you. You have to crouch down to grab the book. With one last sigh, you guide her towards the sitting area. On your way, she clasps your hand, sticking to your side. Another affectionate act that warms up your heart and this time you can't help but smile.

"You know her and mine name is the same!" She says pointing towards the picture on the book.

"Really?" You ask and she nods enthusiastically.

"Her name is Belle and so is mine!" She smiles broadly.

"Isn't your name Arabelle?"

"Yes, but everyone calls me Belle," she beams at you and you smile back at her.

As you start reading she's doing everything but listen. She just won’t sit straight. She's jumping around, lying on the rug or sitting. Lastly, she plops herself into the center of your lap, bending over your knee. You look up to see Naveen laughing as he snaps a picture. “What are you doing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”, he replies when clearly you can see he’s texting someone. You’re about to ask when Belle interrupts you. You look down to see her head on one side of your leg, feet on another.

“What happens next?!”, she asks. You continue reading the story, and end up reading several more.

Arielle’s PoV:-

After dropping off Belle, you drive back to Flair and pick everyone up. “Hey guys! Are you all ready?” You look up to see everyone dressed and styled perfectly. “Looking good, ladies! Now come on!” You lead everyone to your car and drive to ‘Glamour’, the new club that opened downtown a few months back.

“Arielle, I got you a jacket! Here.” She spins me around and slips it on as the rest of the girls get down. You lock the car and head to the very, very, very, very long queue.

“Follow me, girls!”, Alyssa saunters to the front of the queue, flashing her ID at the bouncer. You notice a few paparazzi flashing pics, something the both of you are very accustomed to.

“Please, come in mam. Who else is with you, you mentioned 5 other people?” Alyssa points to the group and another bouncer leads us through the heavy crowd to the secluded VIP lounge.

"Oof! I need a drink after getting through this crowd," you sigh and take a seat.

“Well I need at least ten!", Jackie says and then places your order.

A few minutes later the bartender places a tray of shots in front of your group.

"We're going to start with tequila?" Alyssa asks slightly shocked.

"Start, finish and everything in between," Sienna giggles."That's Jackie's life quote!" She hi-fives you and all of you laugh. Jackie scoffs from beside you.

After four more round of shots, your now sultry voice says,"I wanna hit the dance floor now!"

You drag everyone along with you to the crowded dance floor. You couldn't help but move along with the sultry bass beats, swinging your hips with Aly. Both of you mirror each other’s moves, earning whistles from the girls. After a while, Sienna, Ines, Kyra and even Jackie joins you two. All six of you dance away into the night, letting all your troubles float away.

Ethan’s PoV:-

After you come back from the library, you notice Belle with a sad look on her face. “What happened?”, you ask.

“I miss mommy! When are they coming back?”, she asks.

“They’ll be back a bit late, my dear. Meanwhile, we can do something fun, don’t you think? Your aunt always does fun things with you when she babysits you.”, Naveen replies.

“Okay...what can we do?” You rack your mind for ideas. What do 5 year olds like to do? You notice the time and it’s already 7, and you haven’t made anything for dinner.

“Do you want to help me make a pizza?”

“Yes!!”, she shouts grabbing Jenner’s attention. He bounds towards her and the two play with each other. “Uncle Ethan, can you take a picture pwease? I want to send it to Aunt Arielle!”, she pleads.

“Alright. Stay still.” The pair pose quite adorably as you whip out your phone and click a picture. You show it to her. She tells you to send it. Opening your messages, you tap on her contact and shoot a few texts and the picture.

“Now! What’s this about a pizza?”, Naveen asks. You lead them to the kitchen island, Naveen sits on a bar stool as you lift Belle and let her sit on your island.

“Eeek!! That was fun!”

“Now, don’t move around.” You turn towards your fridge and grab the pizza dough you made earlier. Placing it on the marble top, you grab a packet of flour and a rolling pin.

“Do you know what’s the first step of making a pizza, Belle?”, Naveen asks.

“Mhm! First we roll out the dough! Aunt Arielle always spreads flour on the top!” Naveen nods as you peel off the cling wrap and knead the cold dough in your hands until it becomes soft. You divide it into three, two medium and one small.

You scoop a generous amount of flour and place it on the marble top. “Can I spread it?”, you turn to see her with pleading eyes.

“Alright. Like this.” You take her hand and help her to spread the flour all over the counter. You quickly roll out all three balls of dough, then picking out toppings like different cheeses, vegetables and sauces.

“What do you want me to do?, Belle asks.

You have the most important part, Belle. You get to spread cheese and sauce, placing all your favourite veggies on it!”

“Okay! Can you help me?”, she turns to you.

“...What do you want on your pizza?” She pulls a bottle of sauce the you made and mozzarella towards her.

“Okay, first scoop as much of the sauce as you want on your pizza.” She scoops a quite generous amount and turns to you, waiting for your instructions. You carefully take her small hand in yours and slowly help her spread the sauce, noticing Naveen smiling in the corner of your eye.

“Ooh! This looks good! What now?”, you grab the packet of shredded mozzarella and hand it to her. “I love cheese!”, she quickly dumps and obscene amount of cheese on her pizza and spreads it all over, causing Naveen to laugh.

“You really are like your aunt! You know Ethan, Arielle would do the same thing whenever we made pizzas....and I’m quite sure she still does it now!”

“She does! She said that cheese makes everything better!!...done!”, she says.

“Okay...do you want any veggies and meat on your pizza?”, you ask as she thinks quite furtively. It’s quite amusing seeing the serious face of a 5 year old.

“...I want mushrooms and sausage please!” You take a cutting board and knife, slicing the toppings that she asked for and handing the board to her. She places all her toppings and then suddenly she tries to get down. You quickly scoop her into your arms, causing her to giggle and shout, “Again! Again!”

“Belle! Don’t do that, you’ll get hurt! Do you want me to tell your aunt?”, Naveen lightly scolds. Her face falls.

“No...” She turns to you with big blue eyes, quite similar to yours. “Sorry...”

“It’s alright. Now, don’t do that again!” You place her on the floor, before you can steady her, she quickly runs to Jenner, the pair running around your apartment.

“You know...I don’t think I’ve ever seen you happy with a child. That too babysitting because someone asked you. You’re quite good at it.”

You scoff, “I’m simply doing what others would do. Now, what do you want on your pizza?” Both of you finish your pizzas and place all three of them into the oven. After setting a timer, you head to the living room and discuss the diagnostics team’s cases as you keep an eye on the notorious pair.

Arielle’s PoV:-

You barely notice the time you spent on the dance floor. But then Kyra, who left the dance floor for a breather, signals for you from the bar.

"I'll be back!" You scream to the gang but you aren’t sure if they heard you.

"Wait, I'll come along. I need a drink," Sienna says and follows you.

"You have a lot of texts!" Kyra says as soon as you reach her. You take the phone from her and thank her.

You unlock your phone to find texts from Ethan and Naveen. Naveen texted you some "Have fun" and "Enjoy the night!" along with a few pictures of Arabelle, some her solo and some her playing with Ethan.

While Ethan only sent you a couple of pictures, some of Naveen and Arabelle and the other of Arabelle playing with Jenner.

You smile seeing those pictures. Sienna to takes a peek at those from behind you and then says, “Look! They’re so cute!!” You both hush over the adorable photos of Belle and Jenner, quickly responding to both of the texts.

Si nudges you after a moment. "Hey! I have an idea. Let's play truth or dare?" She asks you both.

"Yes, please!" You say and at the same time Kyra says,"Oh hell yes!"

"I'll call the others over." You say and make your way towards the rest of the gang. Borrowing an empty bottle from the bartender you make your way to the VIP lounge.

You take a corner sit with Kyra besides you, Alyssa beside her. On the opposite side Sienna, Jackie and Ines sit.

Kyra spins the bottle once you all are seated. The empty wine bottle spins for a few seconds before stopping at Jackie and the group cheers.

Kyra gives Jackie a dare of collecting number of some random guy by flirting with him.

Jackie goes with a smirk and returns after ten minutes. She hands Kyra a tissue. Opening which you guys find a number written in there, the number is not quite understable at first glance but then you can make out the number eventually. Kyra whistles lightly noting the number more clearly.

The game goes on like this and after a few rounds, it's your turn and Sienna is to give you a task.

I'll go with dare," You say and Sienna smirks. You’re regretting this already.

“Do a striptease," she grins.

“Sorry, what?!" You ask shocked.

“Do a striptease. You know strip, take a picture and send it to the contact on the top of the list."

You swear that you saw her smirk again but then again you aren’t sure as she hides it.

"Fine!" You grab your phone and make your way towards the restroom to click the picture.

“I'll come to make sure of it!" Sienna screams from behind.

“Me too! Someone needs to make sure Arielle clicks the hottest pictures," Kyra too joins you.

You enter the restroom to find it empty and a content sigh falls off your lip.

“Get to work now!" Sienna chimes.

You strip off the upper part of your dress, Kyra grabs your phone and clicks a few pictures. Then you slip on your dress again as Kyra hands you over your phone.

The three of you return to the table.

"Who's the lucky one who got the pictures?" Alyssa grins as you take your sit and you roll your eyes.

"She is going to send it now," Kyra too grins.

“Hah! Too bad, it’s only Aly!”

You unlock your phone and open the log to find Ethan's number on top of the list. Your mouth drops, so wide. You are doomed. In midst of all the excitement and tipsiness you completely forgot, that the last person who called you is Ethan.

"Can I send it to someone else than the first person in my list?" You ask nervously.

"Nope," Sienna answers and you sigh. “Wait!...who is it?!”

“Omg! Ari, who is it?!”, Aly shrieks. She snatches the phone from you and shrieks.

“Oh my god...Is this?...”, she turns to you. You nod, wincing.

“Who is it? You guys are freaking out so much!”, Jackie asks.

“None other than her boss.”, Aly says. All of them are confused until Si blurts out that it’s Ethan.

“Oh dear...”, Ines’s face goes white.

“You’re kidding!...right?”, Jackie says.

“You’re doomed!”, Kyra says. You glare at all of them.

“How do you even have his number?”, Jackie asks. You rack your mind for an excuse, Aly jumps in.

“Naveen is an old family friend of ours, so he babysits Belle a lot. Turns out, he was staying at Ethan’s apartment so they’re both babysitting her.”

“I’m not doing this.”, you declare. “There’s absolutely no way I’m sending this picture.”

“Oh yes you are!”, Kyra grabs your phone and sends it to him, leaving you to gape in horror. “Don’t worry, I’ve sent a message that says that it was a dare and you’re very sorry.”

“Why did I ever agree to this?!”, you facepalm yourself.

“Cause you love us! Now, it’s Jackie’s turn to spin the bottle.”, Aly says.

Ethan’s PoV:-

As the timer for the pizza rings, Belle rushes towards the kitchen. “Don’t go near the oven!”, you shout as you walk towards the kitchen. A few minutes later, you’re carefully placing three steaming pizzas on the kitchen island, oven mitts in hand.

“Mmmmmmmm!! It smells sooooo good!”, she yells.

“Well that’s because you made it!”, Naveen says as he takes out the plates. Grabbing the pizza cutter, you quickly slice the pizzas and bring them to the table as Naveen sets the table. You bring a bottle of wine and lemonade along with some glasses. All three of you eat as soon as you feed Jenner, Belle’s stories entertaining you.

“-So Uncle Mark asked for the bag of flour and Aunt Arielle said she would get it, so she went and climbed a stool to grab the bag. But she spilled all the flour on herself! It went poof!”, she laughs while mimicking an explosion.

“Okay, that’s enough storytime for now. Eat your food before it gets cold.” Naveen says. Belle ends up finishing first and running towards Jenner, the two playing in the living room. You and Naveen discuss a new medical documentary that he watched the other day. After a while, Naveen sits the the living room watching tv while you finish up the dishes. The apartment is quiet, devoid of any laughter, shrieks or giggles. Washing your soapy hands, you quickly rush to your room to find Belle fallen asleep on your bed, Jenner beside her.

“It’s adorable, isn’t it. I think you like having her around.” You turn to see Naveen adoring the pair.

“Maybe.” You lift Belle up, placing a lean pillow underneath her head and cover her with one of your comforters as Jenner loyally stays by her side.

“I’m starting to think your dog likes my granddaughter more than you!”, he laughs. A small smile perks up on your face as you watch the pair. “I’m heading to bed, my boy. Tell Sunshine I asked for her, hmm.”, he says as he walks toward your guest bedroom, the one that she was staying in. You go back to the kitchen when your phone chimes with a message. You see it’s a photo from Arielle. Unlocking your phone you click on her contact only to see a half naked picture and a text. “What the hell!...Dear god!”, you almost drop your phone on seeing the scandalous photo.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”, you’re about to call and confront her when you decide not to, telling yourself it’s because she’s had an eventful week and deserves to blow off steam when really you don’t want to upset her. Deleting the text, you go back to the sink. You’re finishing up the dishes as you hear the doorbell ring, this time no singing.

Arielle’s PoV:-

Jackie spins the bottle, slowly stopping on Aly. “Dare.”

She grins wickedly, “Oh, I’m going to have fun with this! Hmm...let me think.” She puts a lot of thought into it before exclaiming, “Okay, see Mr. Moneybags over there?” Jackie points to a guy wearing an Armani suit, Aly nods. “I want to go over there, flirt and lead him on...and then tell him that his invited to your wedding as that he can come as your sister’s date.”, she finishes with a wicked grin.

“Oh my god Jackie! She’s married!”, Si shouts.

“It’s alright. I’m sure Adrian won’t mind!”, she says with a wink. “Although it has been a long time since I’ve played this game.” She sashays over to the guy and starts flirting with him, at the same time giving us a clear view of his face. After a few minutes, the smirk on the guy’s face gets replaced with a embarrassed shock.

“Damn Jackie! You’re cruel, just look at that guy’s face!”, you reply.

You all laugh as Aly says, “I’m definitely getting you back for this! Now it’s Sienna’s turn.” Si spins the bottle, which slowly lands on Ines.

“I’ll go with truth.”, Ines says.

“Okay! So...what’s going on with you and Zaid?”, Sienna asks without skipping a beat. Clearly alcohol has given her a major confidence boost.

Ines gets flustered, “What! Nothing’s going on! We’re just friends!”

“Right....my turn!”, Kyra spins the bottle landing on you. “Aw! I wanted to give a dare, but she’s obvi not going too!”

“Who said?! Dare!”, you reply. Si’s definitely not the only one who got a confidence boost from the alcohol.

“I dare you to slam 5 shots of tequila, continuously. No limes, no salt.” Clearly, you made a bad choice.

“Ooooh! Savage!”, Jackie says.

“Ugh fine! But don’t blame me if I throw up on you!” Kyra happily lines up five shot glasses, pouring tequila in each.

“Wait! I’m recording this!” Aly whips out her phone as you get up from your plush seat and ready yourself. “3...2......1!” You slam one shot after another, the tequila burning your throat. By the time you’re on your 5th shot, you can’t stand.

“Ugh, I think that was too much...” You sit down as Ines hands you a water bottle with lemon.

“Wow! That was impressive!! Okay, now Ines has to spin!”, Kyra says. Ines spins the bottle, landing on Kyra.

“I’m not making the same mistake you dummies made, truth.”, Kyra replies.

“Hey!”, you yell playfully.

“Okay, what was your most embarrassing moment in high school?”, Ines asks.

Kyra winces, “I take that back, karma’s a bitch! Okay, so in high school, we had a really pretty, young geography teacher. One day she brought in a guest for a lecture. The guy looked pretty old so I thought he was her dad because he called her a pet name, so I went and asked.......turns out he was her fiancé.” You burst out laughing as do all the others, “Oh dear!”

After the laughter dies down, Aly spins the bottle, landing on Jackie. “What the hell, dare!”

“I want you to....steal that bottle of Don Pérignon.”, Aly says pointing to the champagne bar.

“Oooh! Someone’s getting in trouble!”, you sing.

Jackie rolls her eyes, “Whatever!” She walks to bar and slowly swipes the bottle, all while flirting with the cute bartender. Several minutes later, she walks back to the lounge and slams the bottle on the table.

“Colour me impressed!”, Aly says while pouring everyone a flute.

“My turn!”, you spin the bottle, only to land on Sienna. “Ooh! Karma’s definitely being a bitch today! What will it be, dear bestie?”

“...truth.” She says carefully. Luckily, you know just what to ask.

“So...remember the housewarming party a few weeks ago? Well, look what I stumbled across in the morning!” She scroll through your camera roll until you find the picture you took of Sienna and Danny and show it to everyone, as Sienna’s cheeks turn red. “Mind explaining this?”, you ask with a smirk.

“What?! That was nothing! We were just talking and ended up falling asleep! I have a boyfriend, remember!!”, Sienn tries to defend herself.

“Mhm...” The game finally winds down after all of you are completely and utterly drunk...except for Ines.

“How are you still so sober?”, you ask.

“Cause I have an early shift tomorrow. Plus, who’s going to drive?”

“Ah. Good point!”, Jackie says.

“I think we should head home.”, Aly says. We all agree and enter my car, giving Ines the keys.

“Wait, go to this address first. We need to pick up Belle.” You hand out water and sticks of gum to everyone as Ines drives to Ethan’s apartment. You pop a berry flavoured stick for yourself, as everyone has a competition to see who can blow the biggest bubble. Kyra ends up winning, by the time she pulls up, you’re quite sober. Reluctantly heading up, you ring the bell. The door is opened to find Ethan at the door, giving you a look.

You don’t know what to say and start rambling, “I’m sorry! It wasn’t my fault! The thing is, I didn’t know that you were on the top of my contact list! I tried to”-

He cuts you off. “It’s fine. Belle is sleeping and Naveen went to bed just now.” You sigh with relief. “Was she too much trouble?”

“Not much more than you.”, you laugh as he leads to you to Belle. You find her and Jenner snuggled up together, the sight is an explosion of cuteness. You snap a quick pic. Carefully lifting up the covers, you pick her up and place her on the side of your hip, making sure not to wake her up. Ethan hands you a small file as you exit the apartment. “I managed to run a few more tests, here’s a copy of them. See if you can find anything.” You nod and carefully go back to the car, concealing the file and slide in, handing Belle to Aly and slipping the folder in your bag. You show the photo you took as you post it, leaving everyone to gush.

You manage to reach your apartment in 30 minutes.

Everyone slumps on the couch as you tell them to wait. You go inside and get a few extra pairs of pajamas, so do Si and Jackie.

“Here, change and get ready for bed. You guys can sleep wherever you want.” Ines bunks with Si, Kyra bunks with Jackie and Aly comes with you. Way too exhausted to follow through your night routine, you quickly strip and slip on a pair of pajamas. Cleansing your face, you throw your hair into a braid and flop into bed beside Belle, after pulling out a few extra blankets for them. “Night Aly.”, you say with a yawn but she’s already fallen asleep.

“I’ve danced and drunk all my troubles away for tonight, but I’ll have to face them...someday.”, you think as you fall into a deep slumber.

Taglist:- @mysticaurathings @caseyvalentineramsey @kaavyaethanramsey @ohramsey @ohvamsey @coastalengineer @openheartincorrect @incorrectopenheart @openheart12 @monsoonblooms12 @realmrsramsey @jamespotterthefirst @hopelessromantics4life @starrystarrytrouble @rookie-ramsey @mrandmrsramsey @semanticsandsea-lemons @ethansrookie02 @archxxronrookie @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @sad-satan-herself @mary-c92 @arcticlumineer @princessfuzzy12 @alina-yol-ramsey @maurine07 @binny1985 @aarisa-frost @nikki-2406 @akshara16 @drethanramslay @mayatrueman @mvalentine @theroyalrookie @siaramsey @stateofgracious @schnitzelbutterfingers @drstellavalentine @drethanramsey @drethanfreakingramsey @openheartthot @openheartfanfics @playchoices @literaryexpress @ethandaddyramseyx @custaroonie @lillyvalentine11 @in-love-with-a-trans-girl @xpandabeardontcarex @lilyvalentine

#open heart #playchoices #ethanjonahramsey #collab #ohsy #ethan x mc #modern au #open heart fanfic #from the bottom of my heart #thank you for never getting tired of them #fluff #babysitting

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nayutai · 4 years

Text

⇢ Pairing Nakamoto Yuta x Female OC

⇢ Genre fluff, smut

⇢ Word Count 18.210

⇢ Warnings cursing, name calling, OC is a bitch, mutual pining, they are both dumb, semipublic sex, oral sex (female receiving), protected sex, yuta

Yasirah hums along to the Khalid song playing in her headphones as she leisurely makes her way to the student center. She makes a pit stop in the coffee shop on the first floor for a smoothie before finally stepping into the elevator. A wicked grin crosses her lips when she glances at her watch for the time. It’s 3:15 which means she’s officially fifteen minutes late for the SGA meeting which is a direct violation of the president’s rules.

Her steps are light as she dances towards the meeting room reserved for the meeting. The thought of pissing off the seemingly unflappable SGA president Yuta has her buzzing with joy. No matter what goes wrong or how badly someone fucks up the man always takes it with a smile and comes up with a solution. It irritates her to no end so she’s made it the focus of her SGA career to shake him up. So far, she’s been unsuccessful but Yasirah has a good feeling about today. As Secretary, the meeting cannot start without her lest someone else pull out their laptops to keep minutes, but considering the rest of the governing body are either lazy as fuck or not allowed to take minutes because of their position; that will never happen.

She swings the conference room door open with a flourish to make her grand entrance, but she’s greatly disappointed to discover that the room is empty save for Yuta who is writing something on the whiteboard. Her watch says it’s now 3:17 which means everyone should be impatiently waiting for her arrival so that the meeting can start. There should be political unrest. There should be yelling. But no, it’s just Yuta with that insufferable smile on his face.

“Where the hell is everyone?” She grumbles, tapping on one of her wireless headphones to turn her music off and narrowing her eyes at her fellow executive board member. Even Seokjin, the university staff member tasked with babysitting them, is absent. The man hardly ever gives them a second glance but he’s annoyingly punctual.

“I can see someone hasn’t checked the group chat.” Yuta sing songs, his trademark wide smile firmly in place. Yasirah is a flurry of movement as she struggles to dig her phone out of her bra. The rubbery material of her phone case decides that now is a great time to stick to her skin and she nearly drops her smoothie in the process.

Much to her dismay, she sees a message from Yuta from nearly an hour ago saying that today's meeting had been pushed back to 3:30 to ensure quorum due to several of the members being roped in last minute to speak at an admissions event. Yasirah wants to scream. Once again her efforts to piss off the smiling bitch in front of her have been foiled and it’s her own fault. She wants to launch herself right of one of the bay windows that line one wall of the conference room.

“Have you been having a good day so far, Yasirah?” Yuta asks in an effort to strike up a conversation. He hates the way the silence in the room feels like it’s sucking all of the oxygen out of the air or maybe that’s just the results of his secretary brooding in the corner. Even when she’s sulking, she still looks beautiful and he’s irritated by the fact that he’s so aware of it.

“Talking to me before this meeting starts is in fact a hate crime. Make it stop.” She responds without even looking up from her cellphone. Yuta rolls his eyes because really he should’ve expected such a response from her, but he’s nothing if not persistent.

“Did you hear that Coach K is leaving at the end of the season? Apparently he’s going to State which is-” His second attempt at conversation is interrupted by Yasirah dramatically dropping her head onto the table. He winces at the noise. No way that one didn’t hurt.

“You can stop pretending to be nice, Yuta. There’s no one here to praise you for being the golden boy.” She’s glaring at him like he’s a professor that just issued a ten page paper due in the middle of spring break. For the life of him, he can’t figure out why she hates him so much when he’s been nothing but nice to her. He sighs deeply and resigns himself to sitting in silence until the rest of the board shows up.

Yuta nearly collapses with relief when the treasurer Khushi drags himself into the conference room. He always looks like he’s tired, high, or a combination of both, but he can do math problems in his head that it would take most people three years to figure out with a calculator without batting an eyelash. He offers him a nonchalant head nod as a greeting as he rests his longboard against the wall by the door before taking his unassigned assigned seat at the seat closest to the door.

“Kush, you look more tired than normal. You good?” Yuta questions with genuine concern for his friend.

“Life is tiring, my dude.” Khushi responds in that slow, deliberate cadence that he’s known for. He reaches behind him as he leans back as far as the chair will allow to stretch his back. “Rah, you got any snacks? I’m hungry.”

A small smile crosses Yuta’s face at the tinkling bell sound of Yasirah giggling as she digs around in her backpack for a snack to give Khushi. She makes a comment about how she packs extra snacks on meeting days just for him as she tosses him a pack of animal crackers. Yuta can’t help the pang of jealousy that he’s plagued with at that comment. To anyone else, Yasirah is the best friend someone could ask for. She may be snarky and dismissed but for those lucky enough to be in her good graces she’s unerringly loyal and caring. Yuta on the other hand doesn’t get to see that side of her at all. He may as well be public enemy number one. He’s never understood why but he’s not crazy enough to outright ask her and risk the full force of her wrath.

The rest of the executive board slowly filter in as it gets closer to 3:30. Yuta’s stomach turns as Yasirah and one of the senators Jaehyun make eyes at each other across the room when he walks in. It’s no secret that they hook up from time to time but God he wishes they could at least attempt to be more discreet about it.

“Roll call!” He yells to get everyone’s attention. He starts running through the roster to mark everyone as present on his spreadsheet. Everyone is present and accounted for with the exception of the senior class senator Taeyong who is at an RA training.

Everything is going smoothly until they get to the last funding request in the pile that they need to get through before next week’s general body meeting. It’s incomplete. The responses are incredibly vague. The paperwork even has suspicious stains on it. Anybody can tell that the fraternity who submitted the application just wants to try and cash in on the generous reputation that SGA has developed since Yuta became president. It’s irritating to say the least that organizations are trying to advantage of his desire to help as many students as possible. SGA is loaded and yet previous presidents before him had always been very tight fisted with giving out funds and now he’s starting to see why.

“I don’t even think this one needs much discussion. On principle it’s eligible for nothing but rejection.” He passes the paperwork to Mark send around the table with a look of disdain on his face. Ever observant, Yasirah zones in on his visible irritation like a heat-seeking missile. This is her chance to prove that the man who never utters a cross word at anyone isn’t as nice as he would like everyone to believe.

“Aw, are you upset Mr. President? Did those naughty frat boys hurt your feelings?” She asks mockingly. Yuta can tell by the look on her face that she’s looking for a reaction and he’s trying his hardest not to give her one but it seems like every day she comes closer and closer to pushing him too far.

“Yasirah, stop being a bitch for two seconds.” Normani speaks up from her spot next to Yuta’s antagonizer. As her best friend, Normani can get away with talking to her like that and he’s never been more thankful for the fact that she takes full advantage of that ability.

The half assed proposal is swiftly rejected just as Yuta had said it should be a few minutes later with a promise from resident frat boys Jaehyun and Johnny to antagonize the offending fraternity for wasting their time. With nothing else on the agenda for the board meeting, Yuta calls it to a close.

“Yuta, are you going to the Sigma party?” He looks over at Normani as he stuffs his laptop back into his bag. He’d heard that they’d be having a party tonight but he really hadn’t put much thought into whether or not he would go. Partying really isn’t his thing but he liked to show his face at one from time to time just to say he did.

“Mr. Goody Two Shoes? Going to a Sigma function? Yeah I’ll believe that when I see it.” Yasirah pipes up as she waits for Normani by the door. She’s smirking devilishly and not for the first time Yuta gets the urge to tell her to fuck off but that’s not how he does things. He grits his teeth and turns back to face Normani.

“Text me the address. I’ll be there.”

Yuta drops his bag onto his bedroom floor, face planting onto his mattress the second he’s in range. He can’t believe that he let Yasirah get under his skin enough that he’s actually committed to going to frat party on a Thursday night. He has an eight am math class tomorrow which is already hell to wake up for with a full night’s sleep. He kicks his legs like a child as he thinks about the hell he’s going to go through tomorrow.

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Yuta sits up to face his roommate. Johnny is leaned against the door frame stuffing his mouth full of the cereal that Taeyong, who also lives with them, has specifically said is off limits.

“I’m going to the Sigma party tonight.” Yuta cringes at the sound of the words as they leave his mouth. Part of him wants to play sick and tell Normani he can’t go but he’s nothing if not a man of his word. Plus he really doesn’t need her ragging him about this for the rest of the semester because that is exactly what she’ll do.

“Why the hell would you do that?” Johnny stops stuffing cereal in his mouth, deciding that his do no evil roommate going to a fraternity rager is infinitely more interesting. “You hate parties.” Yuta groans in response.

“I still hate parties, but Yasirah-” Johnny cuts him off by nearly choking to death on his own spit. Yuta firmly claps his friend on the back until his breathing returns to normal.

“Are you telling me that you let Yasirah bully you into going to a party?” Ashamed, Yuta simply nods. He picks at a stray strand on his comforter as the room falls silent. The sound of Johnny tapping away at his phone is deafening.

“You know what this means right?” Johnny shoves his phone back into his pocket and goes back to his cereal. He looks like he knows something that Yuta doesn’t and it’s unsettling Yuta’s spirit.

“That I’m probably gonna be late to Stats in the morning? That I’m going to hate my life just as much as Yasirah hates me.” Yuta is confused at the way Johnny rolls his eyes. What conclusion is he drawing that Yuta missed? He can’t think of anything else that he could possibly be getting at.

“Yasirah hates a lot people but you are definitely not one of them.” Johnny goes on a rant about women being complex creatures with simple desires and misplaced sexual tension. None of it means anything to Yuta. All he knows is that he can feel the barbs digging into his skin every time she speaks to him. Sure, he’s a mostly heterosexual man with eyes and isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s thought about what it would be like to sleep with Yasirah. She’s a bombshell in every sense of the work and fantastic in bed if Jaehyun is to be believed, but degradation is not and never has been something that got him off.

“I don’t believe that but I need to take a nap before this party so I don’t have time to argue with you on why you’re wrong.”

“You’d lose anyway. I told Andre that I’d help buy alcohol so I’ll see you at the party later.”

Johnny leaves with very little fanfare but his words are still ringing in Yuta’s head long after he’s gone. His dick hopes that Johnny knows what he’s talking about but the logical side of him knows that testing his theory won’t lead to anything good. Yasirah Coleman might tick off all of the boxes he looks for in a partner, but the headache just isn’t worth it.

The modest brick house is practically vibrating as Normani all but drags Yuta towards the front door. She exchanges a few pleasantries with the twins Andre and Dante who have been tasked with manning the door while Yuta pays his door fee.

“Aight y’all have fun and remember Hennything goes tonight.”

The only lights on in the whole house appear to be the ones in the kitchen and a few random strobe lights in the otherwise dark living room. Normani resumes her dragging as she pulls Yuta along to the kitchen. Neither one of them is surprised to find Jaehyun and Taeil setting up a game of beer pong on the spacious kitchen island. A chorus of yells erupts from the two SGA members when they spot Yuta and Normani. She lets him go in favor of pouring them both healthy servings of the seemingly unlimited Hennessy.

“I thought Rah was just bullshitting when she said you were coming tonight.” Taeil giggles as he finishes the rest of what is obviously not his first drink. His eyes are glassy and dancing with inebriated joy. Normani disappears when she spots a few of her sorority sisters, leaving Yuta to watch the beer pong game progress as he slowly sips on his drink.

“Dude, you know this means we both owe her $30 right?” Jaehyun reminds him right before he sinks a ping pong ball into one of Taeil’s cups. Yuta can’t believe that his friends actually made bets against him, but then again he can’t really blame them either. “And you know Rah doesn’t fuck around when it comes to her money. She’s worse than Kush.”

“Fucking hell.” Taeil grumbles at the thought of having to actually give up his money. He quickly chugs the alcohol in and tosses the empty cup over his shoulder. Despite his intoxication, he easily returns the favor, sinking the ball into a cup on Jaehyun’s side of the island.

Despite his drunkenness, Taeil makes quick work of Jaehyun who, true to his competitive nature, demands a rematch. Khushi seemingly appears out of nowhere and before Yuta can talk himself out of it he finds himself teamed up with Khushi against Taeil and Jaehyun. He’s definitely going to need more alcohol.

“Whee! Come on it’s time to go.” Yasirah types out a text to Normani as she waits for their other roommate Wheein to hurry up with whatever the hell it is she’s doing. She can hear her moving around in the kitchen followed by the sound of her gagging. Concerned, Yasirah runs to check on her friend. She finds her holding on to the refrigerator door handle for dear life with one hand while a fifth of vodka is clutched in the other. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened here.

“For fucks sake Wheein we are literally going to a frat party called Hennything Goes. There no reason to pregame this hard.” Yasirah complains as she snatches the bottle away from the tiny sorority girl that she’s feeling the urge to throttle right about now.

“I hate Hennessy.”

With a dramatic roll of her eyes, Yasirah drags Wheein out of the apartment so they can start walking towards the Sigma house. Their apartment is almost half a mile away from the party and yet they can still hear the faint thumping from the bass of whatever song is currently playing. She readjusts her bralette, giving herself a final once over in the reflection of a car parked near the house. They breeze inside and immediately join Normani on the dance floor and get sucked into the mass of bodies twerking to Big Ole Freak.

A bead of sweat runs down her temple when Yasirah extricates herself from the random dude she’d decided to dance with. Being packed in that tightly is only fun when you’re drunk and the vodka shots she’d done earlier are long gone. She navigates the through the crowd to what she’s guessing is the kitchen in search of the Hennessy that tonight’s function is based on.

The familiar sound of Jaehyun yelling rises above the music. Sure enough, she finds him in the kitchen playing beer pong with Taeil and Khushi. There’s a fourth person at the table but he’s got his back to her. Her stomach sinks to her ankles when the mystery man turns to face his opponents, allowing her to get a look at his side profile. He’s cackling maniacally and, judging from Taeil and Jaehyun’s sour expressions, his laughter is at their expense. He’s wearing a basic pair of black jeans that hug his legs just right and a matching black t-shirt. His hair looks like he’s run his fingers through it one too many times but for whatever satanic reason it looks great on him. In short, he looks hot as hell, but that’s not something Yasirah would like to dwell on right now or ever for that matter.

“You bitches are cheating.” Taeil points a finger at Khushi and Yuta. He barely spares Yasirah a glance when she sidles up to the kitchen island after pouring herself a drink to watch this all go down. Khushi launches into an impassioned speech on angles and velocity and a whole host of other math bullshit that flies way over everyone’s head.

“Aht aht!” Jaehyun waves his arms around dramatically in his bid to make the math talk stop. “We get it, Kush. You’re stupid smart and we’re cavemen, but what’s your excuse?” His eyes are narrowed as he stares Yuta down. The man in question picks up a red solo cup to his left, swirling the alcohol around as he peers over the rim of the cup with a devilish look on his face. He downs the dark liquor without so much as a grimace.

“I’m just better than you.” He emphasizes his statement by sinking the ball in the last remaining cup in their court. Taeil looks like he’s on the verge of having a meltdown while Jaehyun is already firmly in meltdown territory.

Everyone is so focused on the children throwing tantrums that no one notices the fact that Yasirah’s eyes have yet to leave Yuta’s face. Something about the cocky way that he’d declared his superiority had sparked something in her. Then there was the way he’d teasingly poked his tongue out as he’d lined up his game winning shot. She’s never seen this side of him and to say she’s intrigued by it would be a gross understatement. A ball of warmth is stirring violently in her lower abdomen but it’s not from the alcohol. Yasirah is turned on in the worst way possible.

“I hate it here!” Taeil screams. Yasirah is in agreement with him on that one. She needs to get out of here and fast before she does something stupid like beg Yuta to bend her over the granite countertop.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” She whispers suggestively in Jaehyun’s ear. A loaded look at his crotch when she pulls back from him sends her intended message loud and clear. His childish anguish is replaced almost instantly with a look that promises a night of mind-numbing pleasure which is exactly what she needs.

“Let’s go.” They both chug the last of their drinks before Jaehyun leads her out of the kitchen. If she’d given into the urge to turn around she’d have seen the curious look on Yuta’s face as he watched her leave with his friend.

Yuta’s alarm goes off promptly at 7:15 am and the mellow bells tone may as well be jackhammer going full throttle on his temples. He fervently wishes for death but somehow manages to drag himself out of bed. The night before is a blur. His gut is tossing wildly so breakfast is out of the question. The coffeepot is churning out liquid gold while he rests his head against the kitchen counter. He curses himself for allowing himself to be so weak as to give into Yasirah’s manipulative ways. Every day he tells himself that today is the day he grows a spine and tells her to fuck off but he just can’t do it. No matter how evil and conniving she is, he can’t bring himself to defend himself for her. Who knows maybe he’s a glutton for punishment with an overzealous dealer. Either way, he feels stuck.

Math is even more of a soul sucker than normal and, contrary to his normal pattern, Yuta is the first student to book it out of the classroom. God smiled down on him and gave his religious theory professor some weird stomach bug so he’s officially done for the day, leaving him free to sleep off the hangover that plagues him. Sunglasses in place, hood pulled low on his head, he starts the walk across campus to wait on the shuttle that’ll take him back to his apartment complex.

“Yuta!” Any other day and he would’ve stopped to converse with whoever is yelling after him, but today is not any other day. He is in no mood to socialize today. In fact, he would rather walk off the roof of the student union. He keeps forging ahead as if he hadn’t heard them. Unfortunately for him, his stroke of good luck ended with his last class getting cancelled.

“Dammit Yuta didn’t you hear me calling you?” His eyes go wide when Yasirah yanks him around by the wrist to face. The shock quickly wears off as his expression sours. What could she possibly want with him.

“Yes, I heard you.” He shrugs her hand off of him but he doesn’t get much further down the sidewalk before she’s grabbing at him again. Yuta wants to scream, but that would only make the pounding in his head worse than it already is.

“If you heard me, why didn’t you answer me?”

“Because I didn’t want to now if you’ll excuse me I have a bus to catch.” He walks away from her for the second and hopefully the last time. Hot, roiling anger blooms in his chest when she grabs his wrist again. This time, she doesn’t let go as she drags him along with her in the opposite direction of the bus stop.

“If you’re taking me somewhere to kill me just make it swift.” He pleads. His will to fight is long gone as he allows Yasirah to drag him behind her like a wagon.

“I’m not going to kill you, stupid. I’m taking you home. You look like shit on a stick.” Yuta nearly leaps out of his skin. The she-devil with an iron grip on his arm has never gone out of her to do anything for him that didn’t involve public humiliation and a heap of insults. She’s definitely going to kill him. Oh well, he’s lived a good life until now.

She all but forces him into the passenger seat when they finally reach her car. He knew that she drove a BMW, a gift from her parents according to Normani, but he’d never seen it for himself. The bucket seat hugs him like an old friend when he settles into it. If he had to stay in this spot for the rest of his life, he definitely wouldn’t complain.

His eyes drift closed in an effort to compartmentalize the subtle throbbing that still plagues his temples. He’s doing his best not to fall asleep but apparently he fails because he’s awakened by Yasirah poking at his face. His hands move on their own accord in an attempt to make it stop so that he can settle back into his peaceful slumber.

“Oh thank God you’re not dead.” Yasirah continues her pestering until Yuta finally opens his eyes, turning his head to glare at her though the fact that his dark shades totally obscure his eyes makes it a lot less threatening than he probably intended. “Now get out of my car.”

He nearly trips to his death, but Yuta is out of her car faster than he thought was possible in his current state once he realizes they’re parked in front of his building. Moving that fast was a horrible idea as the headache he’s been nursing is now accompanied by dizziness. Her eyes follow him down the sidewalk a ways, watching him for a minute as he struggles to deal with the stairs. She has a small meltdown before yanking her keys from her ignition. Yuta protests her help at first but ultimately gives in to the steadying grip she has on his waist as she assists him to the door of his apartment.

Yasirah is praying that his apartment is empty when they reach it, but when Yuta hands her his key to unlock the door it’s clear that her prayers have gone unanswered. Three pairs of eyes turn to face the awkward pair as they stumble through the front door.

“Are you useless twats just going to stare or are you going to help me?” She snaps as the three men on the couch simply continue watching some random hockey game.

“At your service, Your Highness.” Yasirah chooses to ignore Johnny’s sarcasm in favor of making a run for it while he and Taeyong take care of Yuta. Jaehyun has other plans. She stops with her hand on the door knob when she feels his hand on her forearm much like she’d done to Yuta earlier.

“What made you decide to bring Yuta home?” This is exactly what she was hoping to avoid. Jaehyun has a one track mind and once he’s got his mind on something he puts his all into it. Yasirah’s convinced that’s why he’s so good in bed.

“You saw him. I’m surprised he was even upright.” She attempts to draw on his human sensibilities, but she knew it wouldn’t work before the words even left her mouth. Jaehyun was one of her close friends before he ever stuck his dick in her. He knows her entirely too well to be fooled by some bullshit like that. He knows that she doesn’t give a

“And? Since when do you help people you don’t like?” Jaehyun questions in a tone that makes Yasirah nervous. It’s the same tone he uses when he knows something she doesn’t and it never ends well for her. They both know that the answer to his question is never but something tells her that he knows something else that he’s not saying.

“Bye, Jaehyun.”

Yasirah hardly ever looks forward to SGA General Body meetings, but today seems to be an exception. She’s actually looking forward to listening to people begging for money to go to random conferences and trainings to get out of going to their classes. She blames her excitement on the fact that this is the only organization she’s involved in that Wheein and Normani are also apart of which means she might actually get to see them since they’ve both been busy with preparing for new members to join their respective sororities. However, if she’s really honest with herself, a certain president with impressive beer pong skills is the actual source of her anticipation. Yasirah hasn’t seen or spoken to him since she dropped him off at his apartment on Friday which isn’t out of the ordinary, but now it makes her feel weird.

She fiddles with one of the buttons on the SGA polo shirt they have to wear for meetings as she waits for her ham and swiss sandwich and chai tea at Starbucks. It’s taking a lot longer than she was expecting and part of her wants to leave to keep from being late for the meeting, but this is her only chance to get food until after the meeting. The general body meetings can last two hours depending on how many people show up and Yasirah knows that there’s no way she’ll last the whole meeting without snapping at someone in a hunger-driven rage. So she waits and waits some more. By the time she gets her food and sprints up the stairs, she’s on the cusp of being late. Normally she eats her food before going upstairs to the meeting but there just simply isn’t time for that today. She manages to slide into the room just as Seokjin is closing the door to start the meeting. The only available seat at the exec board table is right next to Yuta. Fantastic.

He looks up at her from his seat when she approaches, nodding his head in acknowledgment. A snarky comment threatens to fly out of her mouth but she tamps it down at the last second, choosing to mumble hello instead. Yasirah hurriedly pulls her laptop out of her bag. They jump straight into the presentations with little preamble. She’s polishing off half of her sandwich in between presenters and reaches for the other half when the sound of a stomach growling on her left catches her attention. Yasirah side eyes Yuta who is acting like it wasn’t him but she knows better. Though she definitely wants it, Yasirah finds herself sliding the rest of her sandwich in Yuta’s direction. He attempts to push it back but she blocks him.

“Just eat it, Yuta.” She mumbles under her breath as she starts typing again. A strange sense of satisfaction flutters in her chest when she sees him take a bite out of the sandwich. Normani bumps Yasirah’s right knee with her own to get attention, pointedly looking between the sandwich in Yuta’s hands and her best friend. Yasirah waves her off but she knows that Normani isn’t going to let it go.

It’s a struggle for Yasirah to keep her facial expression in check as the two students currently speaking struggle through their funding request. It’s clear that they’re winging it and she makes a note of that in her minutes to bring up at next week’s board meeting. Thankfully, they’re able to cut the slackers short as the even they need the money for is at the end of the week and therefore ineligible for SGA funding since the executive board won’t be able to meet to vote on their funding request before said event. The students protest loudly but rules are rules as Yuta firmly reminds them.

A couple more funding requests and a complaint about the snack selections in the on-campus convenience stores and Yasirah is booking it downstairs with Normani and Wheein. This is the one night that they’re able to get dinner together like normal and they plan to take full advantage.

“So,” Normani starts, dragging the word out suspiciously. Yasirah was millimeters away from dunking her chicken nugget in her barbecue sauce but ceases all movement. “What’s going between you and Yuta?”

And there it is. Yasirah knew this was coming eventually and apparently so did Wheein who has pushed her french fries to the side as well. They’re both staring at her expectantly as if they’re waiting for her to spill her guts on something.

“Why would something be going on between me and Yuta?” Yasirah’s gazes flits between her friends as if she’s watching a tennis match. Wheein giggles like a cat that caught the canary while Normani still has that same smug look on her face. “Why are y’all staring at me?”

Wheein reveals that Taeyong told her about her dropping Yuta off at their apartment last Friday which they had deemed incredibly suspicious. Normani adds on the fact that Yasirah gave her sworn enemy half of her sandwich when previously the only people she’s shared food with is them and Khushi. Yasirah tries to argue her defense but gets shut down quickly.

“The math is just not mathing, my love.” Wheein taunts. She steals one of Yasirah’s chicken nuggets after realizing that she’s eaten all of hers. “I think you wanna ride him off into the sunset.”

“Oop! Can’t say I disagree with that one.” Normani chimes in.

“I don’t want to have sex with him. I have just come to realize that I may have been wrong about him and have decided that I don’t have to antagonize him.” Yasirah expects her declaration to end this conversation so they can move on to something else, but she should’ve known that wouldn’t be the case. Not with her messy ass friends.

“Yeah you totally wanna smash.” Normani and Wheein giggle incessantly at Normani’s crass deduction. Yasirah hates the both of them wholeheartedly and briefly contemplates leaving them in this McDonalds to find their own way back to their apartment. She won’t say it out loud but they’re dead on the mark with her wanting to ride Yuta like a mechanical bull. Damn their intuition.

If anyone were to be standing outside Yuta’s apartment, they would think someone was being brutally murdered inside. Johnny had decided that everyone needed “bro time” that didn’t involve the letters S, G, or A which someone how resulted in their living room becoming the venue for a Smash Bros showdown. Beer is flowing and the pizza is abundant as they all scream at the tv screen like banshees. Even Khushi, who is normally the calm before the storm that is everyone else, is hurling curse words left and right. Mark leaps from his spot on the couch to loudly proclaim his victory when he ultimately wins the match much to everyone’s dismay. This is his fourth win in a row.

“I hate you.” Yuta mumbles glaring in Mark’s direction but the younger boy is much too high off his win streak to care. He blows kisses at Yuta who flips him off in response.

“Somebody call Yasirah to put this little shit in his place. I need her to avenge me.” Taeil demands. Yasirah is widely known as the best Smash player on campus. She would absolutely throttle Mark and send his streak crashing and burning to the pits of hell.

Yuta doubts that Yasirah even remembers but the first time they met was at a Smash tournament their dorm was having freshman year. He was in awe of her then and despite the years that have gone by that hasn’t changed a bit. She gives him hell every chance she gets and yet he can’t find it in himself to hate her despite numerous attempts to do exactly that.

“Speaking of Yasirah,” Taeyong starts, taking a pause to polish off the last of his beer. “has anyone noticed that she’s actually being nice to, Nakamoto?”

His question is met with a chorus of confused agreement as people start realizing that the normal barbs that Yasirah liked to hurl Yuta’s way are all but nonexistent these days. Jaehyun brings up the sandwich she’d shared with him at the last general body SGA meeting which leads to the rest of the guys pointing out things they’d noticed as well. Yuta sits in silence as he takes it all in. He’d noticed that she wasn’t as much of a bitch as she’s known to be, but her niceness still held a hard edge to it so he’d just assumed Normani’s threats had finally gotten through to Yasirah.

“I even called my mom to see if her and the WhatsApp aunties had seen any signs of the apocalypse starting.” Khushi mentions as he munches on the chips he snatched from Haechan a few minutes ago.

“You all know why she’s doing this right?” Johnny questions with that same mischievous look he’d had on his face right before the Sigma party. Yuta automatically knows what he’s going to say and he’s already dreading the words about to come out of Johnny’s mouth.

“She wants that Japanese monster cock.” Everyone with something in their mouths collectively chokes when Taeil steals Johnny’s thunder with his own assumptions. Johnny high fives him while the whole room except Yuta and Khushi dissolve into maniacal laughter.

“You’re all a bunch of lying bastards.” Yuta mutters as he reaches to pull another beer from the yeti cooler by Mark’s feet.

“And you,” Yuta pins Jaehyun down with what he hopes is a very menacing stare, but he’s four beers deep and not sure of its effectiveness at this point, “how can you be so cool with them thinking your girl wants to fuck me?”

“Yasirah is not my girl. We both just like to fuck.” Jaehyun responds casually. “And she definitely wants to fuck you.”

Yuta vehemently disagrees with him which leads to another debate amongst the small crowd of horn dogs stuffed into the small apartment living room. Haechan points out that Khushi, who has been noticeably detached from the conversation, has known Yasirah the longest out of all of them and is therefore an expert on interpreting her actions. A point that Yuta decides that he can concede to. Everyone waits with bated breath as Khushi considers his words carefully.

“Whether or not Yasirah wants to have sex with Yuta is a moot point. She’s entirely too prideful and stubborn to ever initiate anything.” Khushi explains much. His attentive audience is more than disappointed and they make sure he knows it.

“Fuck all that, am I right or not?” Johnny demands. The aquarius in him refusing to back down from the topic until he hears what he wants to hear. The room falls into silence once more as they all wait for Khushi to answer his question.

“You’re right but like I said she’ll never act on it unless Yuta makes the first move.” Yuta launches one of the many empty beer cans at Johnny’s head when the gloating giant throws Khushi’s confirmation back in his face. He should sleep with one eye open tonight.

“All of you are lying sacks of shit and I’m going to prove it.” The gears in Yuta’s brain are already spinning as he comes up with a plan to confront Yasirah with this new information. Khushi may know her well but no one knows Ms. Yasirah Coleman better than the woman herself.

Yasirah nearly jumps out of her skin when her phone suddenly vibrates against her chest and brings her back to reality. It’s not the special vibration pattern she’d set for her parents so she hits ignore on the call and refocuses on the episode of Bones that has a strangle hold on her attention. Special Agent Seeley Booth leaps through a glass window at the Jeffersonian just as Yasirah’s phone vibrates once more. To say she’s irritated at this point would be an understatement. She pauses her tv show with a huff and answers the phone call without even glancing at the caller id to see who it is.

“Someone better be dying.” She mutters into the mouth piece. If the person on the other end has any sense then they will hang up and leave her be. Unfortunately for the both of them, said person is five vodka shots deep and all sense of self-preservation left on shot number three.

“Do you want to fuck me? All the guys say you do.”

What the fuck?

Yasirah pulls her phone away from her ear and nearly chokes on her own spit when she sees Yuta’s name on the screen. There’s just no way in hell that he called her to ask her that. This is either one of Johnny and Jaehyun’s sick games or Yuta has stuck his head in a microwave. Either way someone will have to catch a fade for this.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Yasirah questions incredulously. Her tv show is all but forgotten as she struggles to maintain her composure.

“No, it’s not. I’m just tired of them talking about it and I want to prove them wrong.” Yuta replies. Ice floods her veins at the fact that other people have actually noticed her subtly pining after her sworn enemy. Apparently, discretion isn’t one of her strong suits after all. She doesn’t realize that she’s fallen silent until Yuta calls her name to get her attention.

“So just tell me I’m right and they’re wrong because I’m drunk and I want to sleep now.”

“I can’t do that.” Yasirah whispers after a beat. She doesn’t know why she’s decided that now of all times to be completely honest with Yuta but the bell has been rung and there’s no going back now.

The line falls silent once more as she waits for Yuta’s response. He’s quiet so long that she begins to think that he’s fallen asleep like he mentioned he wanted to do. Just as she about to hang up a bomb goes off in her ear. To say that Yuta is pissed off would be a gross understatement. Yasirah is so stunned by the sudden change in his demeanor that her brain seems to be short circuiting.

“You’ve made my life a living hell for two years and this whole time you just wanted some dick? Are you insane?” The anger in his voice is nearly palpable. She knows that he has every right to be angry with her so she simply lets him vent until he gets it all out.

“In my defense,” Yasirah starts, “fucking you genuinely never crossed my mind until that night at the Sigma party. I realized that you’re not one of those boring Mary Jane try hards that’s overly nice to everyone.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I was so nice to you because I liked you?” Yuta sounds incredibly frustrated at the fact that he’s apparently been pining after her the entire time they’ve known each other despite the fact that she’s evil incarnate. Yasirah didn’t think it was possible to feel any lower than she already did but she was incorrect.

“Yuta…” Yasirah trails off. She wants to apologize for being so blind and bitchy but he doesn’t give her the chance to get her thoughts together. The beep of her phone notifying her that the call has been connected feels much too final.

Days pass and Yuta’s phone call is still weighing heavily on Yasirah’s mind. She’s tried to talk to him about it but each of her attempts have been shot down. He doesn’t want to talk to her any more than he has to and she’s not about to continue to push the issue. The stress of her caseload in conjunction with this boy drama is stressing her out in a major way. Normally, she’d call Jaehyun and blow off some steam with him but he has apparently decided to grow a moral compass at the absolutely worst time possible.

I don’t care what Yuta says. He’s still head over heels for you and now that I know that it would be against the bro code to fuck you.

Yasirah scoffs at the memory of how Jaehyun had rejected her “you up?” text. She got less than three hours of sleep that night and it’s clearly evident when she stalks into the SGA meeting room the next afternoon like a storm cloud in Nike running shorts. A scheduling mishap with the meeting space meant that this week’s general body meeting had to be pushed to Friday as opposed to it’s normal Tuesday. Since she only has one class on Friday mornings, the idea of spending her coveted free time listening to people bitch instead of catching on all of the hours of sleep she’s missed out on this week has Yasirah on edge.

She’s a full thirty minutes early for the meeting but taking up residence in Starbucks had quickly become boring since she had somehow managed to forget her headphones at home this morning. The sound of coffee machine whirring and students conversating was grating on her nerves, forcing her to retreat to the political science building. She’d been pleased to realize that not even Yuta had shown up yet; therefore, allowing her to finally have peace and quiet. It doesn’t last though.

Her quiet sanctuary is soon breached by no one than Mr. Nakamoto himself. He strolls in looking like freshly printed money and Yasirah finds herself wanting to slam his well-rested face into a wall. Yuta looks surprised to see her already in her seat but chooses to start preparing for the meeting as opposed to acknowledging her presence verbally. Or so she thought.

“Where’s your shirt?” He asks out of the blue. She looks up at him and stares blankly as her brain tries to comprehend what he just said to her. Yuta helps her out by gesturing to the SGA insignia embroidered on his polo that matches the one that Yasirah would be wearing as well if she hadn’t forgotten all about it until this very moment. She groans deeply at the thought of the shirt buried somewhere in the pile of laundry that Wheein had finally forced her to do yesterday. It’s a fifteen dollar fine and a “stern talking to” from Seokjin every time they forget to wear it to general body meetings and official school events. A novel punishment but one that she hasn’t been subjected to all school year.

Yasirah has resigned herself to having to pay the fine when something soft collides with her forehead and falls into her lap. It’s an SGA polo. Her head whips to look at Yuta who is writing on the white board as if he hasn’t just saved her twenty dollars. Not one to waste time, Yasirah snatches her own shirt over her head despite her present company and quickly replaces it with the shirt she’s been given. It’s a little big on her but it doesn’t matter. Yuta just saved her ass because she really didn’t want to hear Seokjin’s mouth today.

“Why?” She asks. The word hangs in the air more like an olive branch than a question of clarification.

“I always keep an extra in my bag in case I forget.” Yuta mentions, still facing away from her. “I know a twenty dollar fine probably means nothing to you, but despite everything I don’t like the idea of you suffering and Seokjin is a stickler for rules no matter how laid back he seems.”

“Thank you.” Yasirah contemplates her next words carefully. “I’m sorry too…for everything.”

Yuta shrugs as he takes a seat in one of the chairs meant for the students who decide to show up tonight.

“Water under the bridge but, if you’re still interested, I would be honored to have sex with you.” He grins devilishly at her shocked expression. Her mouth opens and shuts numerous times as she tries to come up with a response. Thankfully, Khushi walks in and saves her from her own hormones.

Yasirah curses up a storm the entire way to Yuta’s off campus apartment. She curses Normani. She curses Yuta. She curses every decision she’s made in her life that’s led her to this moment. She curses it all. Jaehyun had hosted a party at their place the night before and of course Normani just had to make the bright ass decision to mix her light and dark liquor. It’s a wonder the girl even made it home in one piece. She has been avoiding everything Yuta-related like the plague since the SGA meeting on Friday, but she’s nothing if she’s not a great friend so here she is staring at the front door of his apartment to get her best friend’s wallet. Yasirah’s fist meets his door a lot more aggressively than is necessary for a Sunday morning, but she doesn’t have it in her to care. She knocks again when she doesn’t hear any movement on the other side of the door.

Her patience is running incredibly thin and she contemplates leaving, but she told Normani that she would pick up her wallet so she knocks a third time. This time she finally hears what sounds like someone yelling from somewhere inside the apartment. The door swings open a second later to reveal Yuta in all his shirtless glory. A pair of gray sweatpants hang dangerously low on his trim hips. A reflective glint near his navel draws her attention away from his crotch long enough to register the fact that Yuta apparently has a belly button piercing. No shirt. Belly ring. Messy bed head. He looks like sex on legs and while Yasirah has never denied that Yuta is handsome being fully confronted with that fact when she hasn’t had sex in weeks is torture.

“Yasirah?” Yuta vigorously rubs at his tired eyes. There’s no way that she’s standing at his front door right now in the tiniest pair of shorts he’s ever seen. Alas, the scene in front of him remains the same when he drops his hands. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, trust me I’d rather be anywhere but here.” She somehow manages to clear the unsavory thoughts from her brain enough to muster up some of her usual sass. Yasirah can’t let him see how he affects her. It’s bad enough that he already knows that she wants him. “Normani left her wallet here so if you could give it to me so I can go that would be great.”

Yasirah knows she’s doing too much. She’s very aware of that fact, but now that everything is out in the open she doesn’t know how to act around Yuta so she’s defaulted to what she knows best. He narrows his eyes at her but says nothing. She takes a few deep breaths to compose herself when he disappears back into his apartment without a word. He thrusts the wallet into Yasirah’s outstretched hand when he returns. She grabs hold of it expecting for this to be the end of this unwanted interaction but the of course men ruin everything. Yuta yanks on the wallet, wrapping his free arm around Yasirah’s waist to keep her steady when she comes tumbling at him.

“What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your fucking mind?” Yasirah is incredulous and yet even to her own ears her words have no bite. She’s motionless in her arms, staring up at his unfairly beautiful face.

“You talk too much.” His lips cover hers in a searing kiss that makes her lightheaded. Nobody has ever kissed her with this much emotion and Yasirah can already see herself becoming addicted to that feeling.

She moves along with him when he steps backwards into his apartment until he’s able to close the door and press her against it. Normani’s wallet hits the ground but neither one of them can find it in them to care. Too wrapped up in each other to worry about whether or not anything falls out of it. A groan vibrates deep in Yuta’s chest when he grips her ass in both of his hands, using his hold on her to grind himself against her center. She gasps at the pressure on her engorged clit. It feels so good but it’s not enough. His now unoccupied lips busy themselves with mapping out the sensitive spots along her neck while her fingers tug on his hair with every successful find.

If she had the presence of mind, Yasirah would be embarrassed at the way she whimpers when Yuta completely separates himself from her. She reaches for him but he keeps moving further and further away. Her feet start moving, seemingly on their own accord, to follow him.

The play follow the leader all the way to his bedroom where he stops to stand next to his bed. Yasirah stands in the open door way suddenly unsure of herself. She’s trying to think with her brain and not her clit but they both seem to be in very horny agreement. It’s her heart that’s holding out. She’s got this weird feeling in her chest that this is going to be monumental in some way. Two against one are damning odds and she seals her fate with the soft click of the lock on his bedroom door.

“Where are your roommates?” Yasirah questions hesitantly.

“Not here.” That’s all she needs to know.

Yuta’s hands are all over her the second she’s back within arm’s reach of him. He eases her down onto his bed, pushing the mess of blankets out of the way the best that he can without detaching his lips from hers. He’s spent his entire college career thus far fantasizing what it would be like to have her beneath him like this and Yuta plans to savor every moment.

He memorizes every whimper and satisfied sigh as he maps out her sweet spots with his wandering hands. It’s when he flicks at her clit with his thumb that he discovers his true weakness. His name falls from Yasirah’s lips on the heels of a moan as she reaches down to grab a fistful of his hair. He nearly loses it then and there.

“Say it again.” Yuta demands. He sucks her clit into his mouth and laves the sensitive bud with his tongue in earnest. His efforts are greatly rewarded as his name echoes off of the walls of his room like a desperate plea for mercy.

Yasirah lifts her hips in an attempt to roll them against his face, but Yuta is having none of that. He uses one arm to anchor her hips to the bed with strength that she would’ve never guessed that he possessed. Yasirah had always thought that he was weak almost dainty even. Being proved wrong pushes her that much closer to the precipice. Yasirah is forced to take what he gives her, nothing more and nothing less. Thankfully, Yuta is a generous lover. Her back arches when he slides two of his elegant fingers knuckle deep into her gushing cunt. He watches her intently from his spot between her legs as he slowly drags his fingers out of her until he finds what he’s looking for.

Stars dance behind Yasirah’s eye lids as Yuta’s assault on her clit is amplified by him constantly prodding at her g spot. It’s taking all of her mental fortitude to keep from accidentally crushing his skull between her thighs but she’s quickly losing herself to the pleasure. The whole time he’s watching her. He doesn’t want to miss a thing. Yasirah blinks her eyes open long enough to make eye contact with him between her legs and it’s more than she can take. She shoves her fist in her mouth at the last second to muffle her screams as her orgasm hits her with the force of a speeding bullet train. Yuta works her through it until the oversensitivity becomes too much and she pushes him away.

Tremors wrack her body as Yuta shifts back onto his haunches. He fiddles with the waistband of his sweatpants nervously. Insecure thoughts about what Yasirah might think of him cloud his mind but he shoves them away along with his sweatpants. He’s focused on getting his pants off his legs without toppling off of the bed like a fool and misses the way Yasirah’s mouth drops open at the sight of him hard and ready to ruin her. He’s slightly above average in length and thicker than a beer can. Her eyes nearly roll back in her head at the mere thought of how well he’s going to stretch her out.

Yuta is taken by surprise when he finally gets his pants off only to be forced onto his back. He doesn’t take long to catch on though. His hands knead at her ass as Yasirah grinds along his rigid length, coating him in her arousal. He watches her in amazement. His eyes dart from her face contorted in pleasure to the tantalizing way her breast sway with every rock of her hips to the mess of their combined excitement pooling on his abdomen. He wants this image, this moment permanently burned into the back of his eyelids for all eternity.

“Condom.” Yuta is so focused on making her feel good that he doesn’t comprehend what she’s saying to him. Yasirah ignores the way her heart melts at Yuta cutely blinking up at her in confusion and repeats herself. “Condom, Yuta. We need a condom.”

He finally catches up to the moment, rolling them over so that he can dig around in his nightstand for a condom. His breath catches in his throat when Yasirah snatches the foil packet from him to roll the latex on him herself. She strokes him a few times before urging Yuta onto his back once again. The time for teasing is long gone. Her nails dig into the bare skin of his chest when she lines him up with her entrance, taking all of him in a single plunge. Yuta bares his throat at the feeling of being inside her. He swears that he hear angels singing whatever song it is that they sing in times of immense joy. Yasirah is just as affected above him as she adjusts to the stretch. She feels like she’s being split in half in the best way possible.

Yuta sings her praises endlessly as Yasirah sets a steady rhythm that has the both of them flying high. He meets every downward motion of her hips with an upward thrust of his own. Every ounce of his concentration is focused on finding that elusive spot that he knows will make her scream his name like he wants. Yasirah’s hips stutter suddenly as a garbled mess of curse half words falls from her lips.

“There it is.” He grunts. The gravelly sound sends a thrill down her spine as she gushes around him.

Yuta is merciless as he makes sure to batter the spot he’s mapped out. Yasirah does her best to keep up but she’s quickly overwhelmed. Seeing her plight, Yuta urges her down to him until they’re chest to chest, wrapping his arms around her. He slows his pace to a gentle rocking of his body in and out of hers as he kisses her lips tenderly. But she’s craving more. The desire to be aching from him for days drives her pleas for Yuta to fuck her harder, faster, and he is only too happy to obliger her demands.

Yasirah’s nails are beginning to draw blood where they’re digging into his shoulder blades but Yuta couldn’t care less. He’s dancing on the edge of something monumental and he fully intends to take her with him. A flash of white hot heat shoots down his spine and he’s coming. Yasirah tumbles over the edge right behind him, twitching in his hold from the force of her orgasm.

Normally, she’d be damn near comatose after coming that hard but Yuta’s dick is more than just big; it’s magical as well. Yasirah feels like invigorated and tingly. She can feel the soreness starting to set in as the two of them try to catch their breath but she’s feeling the urge to go do volunteer work and bake cookies.

“Wanna go again?” Yuta asks once his heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to beat out of his chest. He grins devilishly when Yasirah moves to position herself between his outstretched legs. He sends a silent prayer up to God to keep his roommates away as long as possible.

Yuta drums on the top of Mark’s head playfully as he joins him, Khushi, and Jaehyun at the table they’ve staked out in the library. Midterms are coming up so they’re all supposed to be studying but it’s clear from the sheer amount of snacks piled in the center of the table that there won’t be much learning going on tonight.

“Yo, where are all the other areas?” Jaehyun asks Yuta the second he sits down. Mark and Khushi groan out, clearly already having been tortured by whatever weed-induced epiphany that Jaehyun has had.

“Other areas?”

“Yeah, like the government tried to hide Area 51 but we found out. So where are areas 1 through 50?” Jaehyun slams his hand down onto his closed textbook authoritatively. “I’m telling you man something hinky is going on here.”

“It’s the American government, Jae. Something hinky is always going on.” Khushi deadpans. That only triggers another realization for Jaehyun as forces them to listen to another one of his theories about the government. Mark drags him to go buy more snacks since they apparently don’t have enough, leaving Khushi and Yuta to enjoy a few moments of peace.

Yuta checks his phone for the millionth time in the past hour. All that’s waiting for him is a few emails from professors, a shipping notification from Amazon, and a calendar notification reminding him to pay his rent. He opens his text messages to make sure his phone isn’t just playing him for a fool, but Yasirah has in fact not texted him back. They’d been spamming each other with spongebob memes, a personal favorite of hers he’s discovered, but she had yet to reply to the one he’d sent her nearly an hour ago.

“Why are you staring at your phone like it ruined your life?” Yuta waves Khushi off, tensing up when the slim device vibrates in his hand. He doesn’t even get a chance to read the message before his phone is snatched from him.

“Yaya?” Khushi questions with a suspicious look on his face. “That better not be who I think it is.”

“Thinking is bad, Kush. Now give me my phone back, please.” Yuta reaches across the table to try and take his phone back, but Khushi uses his long arms to his advantage to keep it out of his reach. Yuta’s anxiety is shooting through the room as he scrambles up to get his phone back when he see Khushi’s fingers sliding around the screen.

“You filthy liar!” Khushi doesn’t resist when Yuta snatches his phone from him. To in shock by whatever it was he saw. Yuta is relieved to see that he didn’t go through their messages, but he knows there’s no use in lying about who the message is from anymore when he sees Yasirah’s contact screen open on his phone.

“You can’t tell anyone about this, Khushi. I’m so deadass. She might actually kill me.” Yuta does his best to convey the seriousness of this situation. Khushi makes a grand gesture of pretending to lock his lips and toss away the key.

“Your secret is safe with me, but how long has this been going on? If you don’t me asking that is.” Khushi is the picture of bewilderment as he tries to process the fact the secret he just uncovered.

“A few weeks.” Yuta’s responds absentmindedly as he goes back to his texts to see what Yasirah said. His eyes nearly bug out of his head at what he sees.

YaYa: TL 1022 🏇🏽

YaYa: door code is 0956

“I gotta go.” He rushes out while shoving his stuff back into his bag. Khushi shakes his head as he watches Yuta bold for the exit like his ass is on fire. He’d always known that the two of them had the potential to go down this path but never in a million years did he actually think it would happen.

If someone had told Yuta a month ago that he would be balls deep in Yasirah Coleman several times a week, he would’ve had them committed. Now here he is not even thinking twice about abandoning his studies when his phone buzzes with messages that are obviously an invitation to a booty call. As a business law major, she shouldn’t have access to the practice rooms that are strictly for instrumental music majors but it seems that she has once again defied all of the odds. Probably one of the many perks of being related to the university’s most favored donors. It’s a ten minute walk from the library to the TL building but he plans to do it in five. He’s already at half mast at the thought of bending her over to have his way with her.

The sight that greets Yuta when he enters the practice room nearly sends him to an early grave. Yasirah sits atop the baby grand piano in the corner just as naked as the day she was born. The lighting is shitty but that doesn’t stop her soaked folds from glistening tantalizingly. Yuta’s mouth is watering as he approaches the siren that summons him in her neediest times, dropping to his knees without a word. Not like they need to speak anyway. They’ve become masters at reading each other’s bodies like the backs of their hands. He works hard to get her off quickly as he strums her body into a fever pitch. Yasirah’s still coming down from her high when Yuta slides in deep.

All traces of the sun have disappeared when they finally emerge from their temporary paradise. Yasirah whines at the way her legs protest her every move until Yuta eventually takes pity on her and hoists her into his arms. She directs him to her car in near empty parking lot, surprising him by hopping into the passenger seat once he’s set her down.

“How in the world are you going to drive from over there?”

“I’m not. You are now get in.” Yuta gags on his own spit. No way in hell she expects him to drive her very expensive car, but from her rapidly souring expression that is exactly what she means for him to do and she’s getting agitated with him not following directions.

He drops his bag onto the backseat before carefully getting behind the wheel. The engine roars to life with a push of a button. Yuta begs God not to let anything happen to this car while he’s responsible for it before hesitantly easing out of the space. They both yelp when he accidentally gives it too much gas as he pull out of the parking lot. The drive is uneventful after that but he’s never been more thankful to see an apartment complex come into view in all of his days.

“So,” Yuta holds her door open as Yasirah stretches her stiff limbs next to the car, “I guess this is good night?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Good night, Yuta.” She presses her lips to his in farewell. Yuta’s blushes at the way he chases her for more when she pulls away.

“Good night, Yasirah.” He whispers into the void between them. She pecks his lips once more before locking her car and making her way to her apartment. Yuta stands watch to make sure she makes it inside safely, turning to walk down the street to his own apartment. His phone buzzes in his pocket.

YaYa: text me when you get home so I know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere

To most people, Yasirah’s message might be off putting considering that he was literally inside her twenty minutes ago, but Yuta knows better. He sees right through her like a freshly cleaned window. Yasirah might talk a big game but she cares or she wouldn’t have even thought about bothering to make sure he got home okay. Yuta contemplates calling Khushi, his only confidant in all of this, to once again get his advice on how to lure Yasirah into his romantic trap, but decides that he’s probably bothered him enough about his troubles for the week.

Yuta: made it home without a scratch

YaYa: good and I want you to know I saw your little “gift” on my ass when I got out of the shower

He chuckles at the thought of the mark he’d left square in the middle of her right ass cheek as something to remember him by. He can only imagine how she plans to get back at him for that one. No matter what her twisted little brain comes up with, he’s sure that he’ll love it.

“Reality is a cruel bitch.” Yasirah mumbles as she scrolls through the bath & body works website. The semiannual sale is in full swing which means it’s time to stock up on candles and shower gels but unfortunately for her and everyone around her she hasn’t had an opportunity to go to the local store to sniff everything and make her decision on which ones to buy. Her victim of the hour is Yuta who has dutifully listened to her complaints as he rubs down her muscles after a particularly active rendezvous at the beach house Yasirah’s parents own not far from the university. Their favorite place to hook up whenever they’ve got the time.

“Don’t they do this sale twice a year? Is it really going to kill you to miss it this time?” He asks. To him it’s just overpriced candles and lotions, but Yasirah obviously holds them in much higher regard.

“I will in fact keel over and die if I don’t get new candles. I’m on my last one. I can’t live like this.” She whines thought it morphes into a moan when Yuta works out a knot in between her shoulder blades. His cock twitches against her ass at the sound and soon enough she’s much too distracted by the carnal desire to be one with him to worry about the plight of her candle collection.

A few days later and Yasirah is on the verge of madness. It seems like the harder she tries to make her way across town to the mall, the more stuff she has to do. She’s starting to think that some divine force doesn’t want her to go spend a small fortune on candles at this point. Her friend Madison who works in the office of student engagement texts her saying that someone just left a package for her in the SGA mailbox. More than a little intrigued, Yasirah books it over to the student center to see what it is before her next class. Her legs are going to hate for this unscheduled jog later but she’s pressed for time.

She’s thoroughly out of breath when she waves to Madison on her way to the small room that holds the mailboxes for the various organizations across campus. If she wasn’t already gasping for breath, Yasirah would definitely be in desperate need of oxygen when she spots the trademark red and yellow bag indicative of the semiannual sale. Yasirah rips it out of the cubby hole its stuffed in, nearly crying when she realizes that it’s full of candles in various scents. She notices that one of them has a note taped to it.

I bought you a few of this one since it smelled so good. I even bought one for myself because it reminds me of you. Hope you enjoy them beautiful!

Yuta

The ethics class she’d been pressed to get back to is quickly pushed to the back burner. Her heart melts at the thought of Yuta sniffing all of the candles in bath & body words just to make sure she didn’t miss out. She unscrews the lid on the candle that bears his note, golden hibiscus, and it smells almost exactly like the new leave in conditioner that she’s grown fond of. Yasirah thinks back on all of the post-sex cuddles that have all included a remark on how good her hair smelled. It’s in that moment that Yasirah realizes that she’s a lot more attached to Yuta than she had originally she thought. This is new territory for her as she’s never felt attraction for men beyond the physical pleasure they can bring her. An intense fear grips her as she leaves the student center to go to her ethics class. She shoots off a quick text to Yuta thanking him for the candles out of obligation and respect but she fully intends for that to be the last time she speaks to him. He wields more power over her than he probably realizes and she’ll be damned if she’ll give him the opportunity to use it against her.

Yuta is on the verge of madness. He’s called. He’s texted. He’s even emailed. But Yasirah has gone totally off the grid. Nothing he tries illicit a response from her and for a minute he was starting to think that something may have happened to her, but what he saw earlier made him realize that something much deeper is going on with her. He’d watched the woman in question receive a text from only to purposefully ignore it. For the life of him, Yuta can’t think what it is that he could’ve done to deserve this which is why he’s knocking on Khushi’s door looking for guidance.

“This better be real fucking important for you to be interrupting my nap.” Khushi grumbles. Yuta knew that he was risking his life by interrupting his friend’s daily scheduled nap, but it just couldn’t be help.

“If it’s any consolation,” Yuta produces a Chick-fil-a bag from behind his back, “I brought you nuggets. I drank the tea though. It’s hot as balls outside.”

“Polynesian sauce?” Khushi narrows his eyes at the man currently trying to bribe his way into his apartment. His hand grips the door tightly, ready to slam it shut at any given moment should the bribe fall short.

“A whole handful of them.” Relief washes over Yuta when Khushi steps to the side to allow him entrance. Khushi can already feel the regret setting in but he’s weak for chicken nuggets especially when they’re free and come with an assload of polynesian sauce.

Yuta collapses onto the couch in the living room and proceeds to spill his guts as if Khushi is a licensed therapist. Khushi chimes in here and there to get clarification but primarily just lets Yuta talk while he focuses on his nuggets and fries. It quickly becomes clear to him exactly what has happened. These two fuck wits have fallen head over heels for each other but in typical Yasirah fashion she has run for the hills to avoid succumbing to her own feelings. Nothing Yuta could have said or done would’ve stopped this from happening despite him thinking the opposite.

“Listen man, you just need to talk to her. Pull her to the side after the meeting on Thursday and clear the air then.” Khushi’s suggestion is based in sound logic and a working knowledge on how Yasirah generally reacts to confrontation. The look on Yuta’s face; however, says that he has absolutely wasted his breath even mentioning his idea. He can practically see the gears turning behind his friend’s eyes. Nothing good is bound to come from that.

“Jaehyun says that she’s super jealous and possessive so what if I use that to my advantage?”

Khushi can tell that Yuta believes this to be a top tier plan as he goes on to describe exactly how he intends to do that. He was right to believe that nothing good would come from this love sick man’s thought processes. Yuta is so hell bent on getting Yasirah back that his judgement is clouded in a major way. Khushi prepares himself for another barrage of texts and calls when this inevitably goes south. He really should start charging these two numb nuts for all the stress they’re putting him through.

Taco Tuesday, otherwise known as the most sacred day of the week, is one of the few things about college that Yasirah is very heavily attached to. Every Tuesday afternoon between the hours of three and five pm she can be found holding down the fort in the dining hall gorging herself on tacos while she studies. It’s become such a consistent ritual that by the time she’s swiped into the dining hall four starter tacos are already waiting for her at her usual table just the way she likes them. Chorizo, cotija cheese, and salsa verde with three lime wedges.

She’s halfway through an assignment for her business law class when movement at one of the other tables in her section catches her attention. A small smile graces Yasirah’s face before she can stop it when she realizes that it’s Yuta. He’s got his headphones in and he’s typing away at his phone so he’s blissfully unaware of her presence. In spite of her earlier decision to avoid him, Yasirah is halfway out of her chair to go get his attention when some random girl she’s never seen before plucks one of his headphones out of his ear before plopping down in his lap. Instead of pushing her off like Yasirah expects him too, Yuta seems only too happy to let her remain perched in his lap.

Yasirah’s fist clench up at her sides. It’s been a long time since she’s been this enraged. She takes deep, calming breaths as she reminds herself that Yuta is not her boyfriend and she has no romantic claim to him. She repeats that to herself and it works for a while. A girlish giggle interrupts her concentration, making her eye twitch. Yasirah’s stomach turns when she looks up to see Yuta whispering in her ear which is the apparent source of the god awful noice that’s coming out of her mouth. They look every bit like a happy couple content with each other’s presence as they eat tacos. It’s sickening.

“Am I the only one here that respects the sanctity of Taco Tuesday?” Yasirah demands, slamming her fist down on the table hard enough to nearly knock her drink over. Yuta and his companion have the audacity to look sheepish as she stares the both of them down.

“Hey, Yasirah. I didn’t see you over there.” Yuta says.

“How could you with Ms. Anime Titties here blocking your view? Don’t worry about it though. This sickening display has ruined my appetite so I’m leaving.” Yasirah shoves her MacBook into her backpack unceremoniously and makes a hasty exit. She can hear Yuta calling after her but she’d rather chew through a brick wall than look at him for even one more second. Her BMW is peeling out of the parking lot by the time he reaches it. Yuta curses the heavens. This isn’t how he thought this would go. He pulls his phone out to call Khushi and hopes that his friend knows how to fix the giant mess he just made.

“If you called me to talk about Yuta, I’m hanging up on your ass.” Khushi had contemplated sending the call to voicemail, but he’s nothing if he’s not a sucker for his friends. He always answers the call when they need him but it’s days like today that he wishes he wasn’t so damn reliable. First Yuta and now Yasirah. The day these two dumbasses figure out how to communicate with each other without using him as a middle man is the day he will finally know peace. Unfortunately, that day has yet to come.

“Khushi, please!” Yasirah pleads with him. She knows he’s tired of hearing her rant about Yuta, but Jaehyun is the only other person that knows about their arrangement and she’s definitely not about to ask him for advice. “I’ll buy you milkshakes for a month just help me.”

Silence rings loudly in her ear.

“A month you say?” Khushi acquiesces much to her joy. She really doesn’t know what she would’ve done if he hadn’t given in. Probably something stupid like go see Yuta and yell at him for having some whore sitting in his lap.

After agreeing to Khushi’s terms about his milkshake payment, Yasirah launches into the latest Yuta news. Khushi rolls his eyes dramatically when he realizes that today’s enemies with benefits crisis is the exact scenario that he had guessed that it would be. Yuta’s plan to make Yasirah jealous in an attempt to win her back — the very plan that Khushi had told him to abort immediately — was apparently wildly successful, but without the outcome that Yuta had been expecting. Yasirah is pissed off and jealous out of her mind just as they’d both predicted they would be. However, the fairytale outcome Yuta had dreamed up of her finally admitting her feelings and running right into his arms is nowhere close to coming to fruition. Instead, she’s doing exactly what Khushi had theorized and that’s working herself into a frenzy while she plans her revenge.

“What the hell am I supposed to do about this, Kush?” Yasirah is all but screaming in his ear and Khushi won’t be all that surprised if he’s unable to hear out of his right ear in the morning. “That stupid boy is playing in my face and he can’t get away with it. I know I kinda put things on pause but this is a matter of respect.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that he did that to make you jealous enough to confess your feelings for him?” Khushi asks, hoping that the truth will quell Yasirah’s anger enough for her to calm down and consider a plan of action that won’t end in hurt feelings.

“Yuta is too smart to do some dumb shit like that.” Yasirah exclaims. If she only knew just how wrong she actually is.

Khushi does his best to talk some sense into Yasirah but his efforts are in vain. No matter what he says she finds some convoluted way to refute it. He’s convinced that she doesn’t realize how crazed she sounds, but at this point there’s nothing he can do but let her put her own foolish plan into action. Part of him feels like he should warn Yuta of the hurricane headed his way, but ultimately decides that it’s useless. Neither one of them have listened to him so far, why would they suddenly start now?

Yasirah strides into the next exec board meeting nearly twenty minutes after it’s set start time just as nonchalant as if she walking through the park. She’s carrying two milkshakes, one of which she sets down in front of Khushi on her way to her seat. Taeil nearly falls out of his chair from the relief of not having to continue to take minutes for the meeting like he’d been forced to do.

“How wonderful of you to join us, Ms. Coleman.” Seokjin says from his spot in the back of the room.

“We’ll see how wonderful it is in a minute.” Yasirah replies though her hardened gaze is fixed on Yuta. He swallows roughly out of nervousness but maintains eye contact with her nonetheless. You never take your eyes off a tigress when she’s poised to strike.

The meeting continues once Yasirah situates herself and picks up on the minutes where Taeil left off. The energy in the room is tense as she redefines the term, raging bitch. Everything out of Yuta’s mouth gets insulted until even Seokjin, who is normally silent, speaks up to defend him. Knowing that he’s the reason for the anger radiating off of Yasirah in waves, Yuta waves the advisor off.

“Anybody that can handle a little criticism shouldn’t be president of SGA, but then again this country has a history of putting incompetent men in charge just because they look nice and sound smarter than the average bear.” Yuta winces at her scathing remark as does everyone else in the room. It’s so silent that you could hear a pin drop. Deciding that she’s done what she came to do, Yasirah stands from her seat to leave before Seokjin can kick her out. She doesn’t feel nearly as good about how this went down as she thought she would.

Seokjin’s email the next morning summoning her to a meeting with both him and Yuta is not surprising in the slightest. Yasirah knows full well that her behavior in the meeting was excessive even by her own usual snarky standards. She’d picked up her phone countless times to call Yuta and apologize but her pride stopped her every time. She desperately wishes that she could erase the memory of how hurt he’d looked, but it’s burned into her brain. It kept her awake all night, taunting her whenever she closed her eyes until she’d abandoned the thought of sleep altogether.

The day passes by in a blur of classes and forgotten conversations. Not even Khushi can break Yasirah out of her funk during their daily Chick-fil-a outing which normally consists of her choking on her sweet tea at least once.

“Rah?” Khushi waves his hand in front of her face in an effort to get her attention. She hums in acknowledgment thought she continues to pick apart the waffle fries Khushi has been trying to force her to eat. He sighs at her overcast attitude. It’s clear that he’s going to get nowhere with her.

Normani had said she was in bad shape when she’d texted him earlier, but he didn’t realize it was this bad. She’s but a mere shadow of her normal, vivacious self and he can’t help but think about Yuta who is in the exact same boat. Khushi has never met two people who deserved each other more. Both of them are so stubborn and prideful that it’s sickening to even think about. They’ve spent months waxing poetic about each other to him instead of just taking his advice and actually telling the other one how they feel. Now they might lose it all before they even have a chance to really get started. Khushi walks with her to the door of Seokjin’s office on the third floor of the student union, giving her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. Hopefully the two idiots finally come to their senses and realize that they’re head over heels for each other.

Yasirah schools her face into a mask of indifference as she takes a seat in the empty seat next to Yuta. She can feel his eyes on her but she keeps her own gaze trained on Seokjin who is leaning against his desk in front of them. Though she refuses to acknowledge his presence in the slightest, Yasirah can feel some of the tension melt out of her shoulders just from being in the same room as Yuta and she can’t stand it.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush here with you, Ms. Coleman.” Seokjin’s voice is stern as he stares her down. Yasirah winces at the sound of him addressing her so formally. He’s always treated the executive board more like his colleagues than students he’s been charged with babysitting. Apparently, she’s in more trouble than she’d realized.

“Your behavior last night was absolutely unacceptable. I know you like to think that you can just talk to people any way you want to because your last name is on a few buildings at this university, but you crossed a line.” Seokjin barrels ahead, holding up a hand when he notices that Yasirah is about to interrupt. “Yuta, do you have anything you’d like to say?”

Yasirah squares her shoulders, bracing for whatever it is that Yuta is about to unleash on her. If she’s learned anything about him in the time that they’ve known each other, she’s learned that Yuta never attacks his opponents head on. He finds weak points and carefully chips away at them until his opponent brings about their own destruction. She expects thinly veiled insults. She expects subtle attacks at her character. She doesn’t expect for him to go straight for the jugular by suggesting that her “gross lack of self-control and empathy” makes her unfit to hold a position in student government.

“You fucking cock sucker, how dare you?” Yasirah explodes before she can stop herself which, in hind sight, was exactly what he wanted from her. He was fishing for a reaction and he got exactly what he bargained for.

Seokjin steps in to intervene when the two students devolve into a screaming match. They continue to hurl insults and scathing remarks back and forth as if he hadn’t opened his mouth. His office has been the venue for more than one fight in his time at the university, but Seokjin quickly clues into the fact that there is more than petty disagreements coming to a head right now. He’s the holder of many degrees but it’s the gold band on his left hand that gave him the expertise to see through the curse words flying through the air. He grabs at the emergency air horn next to his laptop and gives it a few quick taps.

“Either one of you want to tell me what’s really going on here? I’m getting the feeling it’s about more than what happened last night during the meeting.” Seokjin looks from Yuta to Yasirah and back again but neither one of them seems to be too interested in speaking anymore. “I’ve got all night to sit here and stare and we’re not leaving this room until we get to the bottom of this.”

Yasirah becomes very fascinated by her own nail beds as the three of them sit and stew in the silence. Seokjin might think that he has enough time to wait her out but he is sadly mistaken. She is fully prepared to play his game. Yuta, on the other hand, is not. Fifteen minutes into their little game and he breaks. He spills his guts all over the linoleum in Seokjin’s office. Thankfully he leaves out the more sordid details but it’s enough to get his point across.

“Kids, as someone who has been happily married for the past four years, let me give you a tip.” Seokjin starts, mindlessly clicking a pen that he picked up at some point. “Talking to each other openly and honestly is the key to any successful relationship.”

“We aren’t in a relationship though.” Yasirah points out quickly. Labels have always weirded her out and sent her running for the hills.

“On the contrary, Yasirah. The second you decided you wanted him around for more than just sex, you were in a relationship whether you meant to be or not. Just because a jar of pickles doesn’t have a label on it saying pickles doesn’t mean that there isn’t still pickles in the jar.”

As stupid as that analogy is, it makes something click in Yasirah’s brain. She looks over at Yuta, but he seems to have taken a page out of her book and refuses to make eye contact. It’s clear as day that the imbalance in power she thought had existed before was much more balanced than she’d thought. Yuta was just as enthralled with her as he was with him, but her own fear wouldn’t let her see it. Now, it might be too late and that scares her ever more. Seokjin urges her to say the words that she’s been holding back, but she can’t seem to bring herself to let them come out of her mouth.

“Fuck this. Nobody has to resign. I can finish out the year, but I’m done with the rest of this bullshit.” Yuta is out the door so fast Yasirah swears she can physically the air filling in the empty space where he’d once sat. She’s itching to follow after him but she can’t move. Her limbs feel like they’re being weighed down by cement blocks.

“Yasirah, I can see how scared you are,” Seokjin crouches down in front of her so that they’re eye to eye before he continues, “but I can also see that you care for him more than you even realize right now. If you don’t go after him now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” Another beat of silence passes before Yasirah is up and out of her chair, racing down the stairs.

That familiar head of platinum blonde hair is nowhere to be found when she reaches the first floor. She looks around frantically but there is still no sign of him. Yuta normally rides the free shuttle bus to and from campus but her feet carry her in the opposite direction towards the parking lot instead. Her shoulders sag in relief when she spots him tossing his bag into the back seat of his car.

“Yuta, wait!” He looks absolutely bewildered to see her running at him full speed like a bullet train.

“Jesus Christ I need to work out.” Yasirah pants when she finally reaches him, tightly wrapping her arms around his waist while she hides her face in the crook of his neck.. The adrenaline rush that had fueled her mad dash to the parking lot is quickly wearing off. Yuta gently tries to extricate himself from her hold but she simply holds on tighter.

“I’m sorry that I’m an insufferable bitch. I like that you buy me candles because they remind you of me. I like that you appreciate my stupid memes. I like that you’re you and I hope you still like me too.” She blubbers out in a rush. Yuta’s chest feels like it’s going to burst at any given moment. He imagines that this has got to be what it feels like to win the lottery.

“I like that you’re you too.” He whispers. The halo of curls tickling his nose draws him in with the intoxicating hibiscus scent that he’s missed so much. It’s so inherently her and he can feel the tension melt from his body with every deep inhale.

“Is this the part where I ask to be your girlfriend?” Yuta shivers at the words that Yasirah whispers against his neck. “I’ve never done this before and I’m tired of fucking it up so just tell me what to do.”

“Well first,” Yuta escorts Yasirah around the front of his car and opens the passenger door, “I’m going to take my girlfriend to get ice cream.”

“Fuck yes! Can we go to Boombalattis?” She pleads once he’s behind the wheel, turning up the charm just in case he’d entertained the thought of saying no.

“Anything for you.”

Yuta hums a made up tune as he softly trails his fingers up and down Yasirah’s bare back. Goosebumps follow his fingers as they glide across her skin. He knows she’s awake yet neither one is too keen on breaking the silence that’s wrapped around them like a warm blanket. The hand that had rested against his rib cage abandons it’s post as Yasirah reaches up to fiddle with the simple silver chain around Yuta’s neck. A glance at the digital clock on her desk across the room dumps a bucket of ice on his joyous mood. He has to leave soon if he wants to avoid her roommates. He’s surprised that she even let him spend the night to begin with. As if she can sense the change in the air, Yasirah clings to him.

“Babe, I have to go.” He doesn’t want to leave just as much as she wants him to stay. She fits so perfectly in his arms and he wants to keep her there forever, but she doesn’t want anyone to know about their relationship yet so he has to leave. The now familiar bitterness threatens to twist his face into a scowl at all of the time they have to sacrifice just for her to save face in front of their friends.

“No.” Yasirah shifts until she’s on top of Yuta with all of her limbs wrapped around him. “I want you to stay.”

His heart flutters at what that could mean. He wants nothing more than to hold her hand in the broad daylight. To proudly show the world just how much he cares for her. Yuta has learned not to get his hopes up too high though. This isn’t the first time he’s thought that she would give up this secrecy bullshit only to get let down. He allows her to stay there for a while. Too weak to lift her off of him so he can get dressed. Unfortunately, time waits for no one and he’s dangerously close to getting caught here if he doesn’t get moving. As tough as she claims to be, Yasirah isn’t strong enough to withstand Yuta digging his fingers into her sides playfully. The high pitched squeal she lets out brings a smile to his own face as he successfully tickles her to the other side of the bed. He leaps into action before she can gather her wits and is already half dressed by the time she catches her breath.

“I should beat your ass for that, Nakamoto.” She threatens as she glares at him. The thin sheet that had been covering her falls away when she crawls towards the edge of the bed. He curses the way his cock hardens at the sight of her on her hands and knees before him. She’s not playing fair.

It takes an act of God, but he manages to leave without giving into her siren call. His phone pings with a text message just as he about to pull out of his parking space. After seeing it’s from Yasirah, he puts his car back in park and opens it. Spit flies from his mouth as he chokes violently. He’s not sure what he expected but an aerial shot of her naked body spread out for him wasn’t on the list. The picture doesn’t show her face so he doesn’t feel bad about saving it to his phone before shooting off a reply and dropping his phone in the cup holder. She’s going to be the death of him one of these days.

Yasirah stretches like a cat in the sun. She imagines Yuta is somewhere in the parking lot choking on his own spit over the picture she’d sent him on a whim. The only thing that could make this sweeter is being able to see it first hand, but her imagination will have to suffice for now.

She’s just laid down after showering and changing her bed sheets when Yasirah hears the front door open and close. She quickly jumps up to go see her friends, but stops short when she sees Wheein sniffing at the air like a bloodhound that just caught the scent of a fresh kill. The girl has the strongest olfactory senses she’s ever seen in a human which is why she’d made sure to open some windows and spray down the entire apartment with Febreze. Apparently, her efforts were in vain.

“There was a penis in this apartment.” Wheein says with conviction, staring Yasirah down where she stands in the hallway.

“Man, Wheein. Just say there was a man in here.” Normani sounds exhausted and Yasirah is sure that between the long weekend training they’d had to attend and the energy drink that Wheein is clutching in one hand, she’s beyond tired.

“That lacks pizazz.” Wheein replies, hopping up on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs like a toddler. “So, who was it? Was he hot? Was his dick as big as Jaehyun’s?”

“What are you talking about, Whee? It was Jaehyun.”

“No, it wasn’t. Jaehyun smells like weed and cologne with a hint of sweaty balls. That is not what I’m smelling right now.” Yasirah should’ve known that she couldn’t fool Wheein. “So, who was it? Do I know him?”

Yasirah takes a second to figure out how to respond. She decides to play it safe. “No, I don’t think you know him. He doesn’t go to school with us.”

Her heart nearly beats out of her chest in the three seconds it takes Wheein to process and respond to her answer. She seems to take it as the truth, wishing her luck in her new dick endeavors before heading off to her own bedroom. Yasirah lets out a deep sigh of relief. She knows that everyone will find out eventually, but she wants to be the one to tell them and she wants to do it when she’s ready.

Car sex is absolutely abhorrent and Yuta is willing to die on that hill. His legs are bent at the most awkward angle. He’s hit his head on the door a concerning amount of times. He’s also quite certain that they’ve sucked all of the oxygen out of the vehicle with all of their panting. If it wasn’t for the fact that he is absolutely whipped for Yasirah, he’d have never agreed to putting himself through this type of torture after discovering just how awful it was the first time they’d tried it.

“Don’t you think this would be more comfortable in one of the beds that we get extorted to sleep in?” Yuta asks once they’re done. Yasirah rolls her eyes, knowing exactly where he’s going with this.

“We’ve gone over this already, Yuta.” The look in her eye is frosty when she finally looks up at him, but her glares have long since lost their effect on him. Even if they hadn’t, he is entirely too frustrated to care about if she’s mad at him or not.

“No, you’ve gone over this already and I just went along with it but I’m tired of that. What’s the point of dating if I can’t date you in public?” His mind calls up the memory of the day they went to go get ice cream after the cluster fuck of a meeting they’d had with Seokjin. That had been the first and last time they’d gone out together as a couple.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Yasirah’s chest feels tight with fear at the possibility that she could have pushed Yuta away with her selfish desire to live in this secret bliss. Every memory is their own. Untainted by the presence of others and she wants to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“No, I’m in this with you for as long as you’ll have me. I just wish everyone else knew that too.”

Yuta’s words play over and over in Yasirah’s head all through the night. What she wants and what she knows is right are at odds right now. She can’t continue to avoid the issue anymore because Yuta isn’t going to tolerate her hesitance forever. He deserves someone who loves him loudly and dammit she is going to be that someone.

Yuta rocks back and forth on his heels as he patiently waits his turn to place his order at Starbucks. Yasirah had texted him earlier about meeting up here before the exec board meeting so he figured he may as well grab a couple chai teas. Only one more person stands between him and the overpriced iced deliciousness he craves when he feels a pair of arms wrap around him from behind. The scent of hibiscus and honey teases his senses, striking him with both fear and joy.

“Hey, pretty.” The whispered compliment is followed by a chaste kiss to his temple.

“Hey, pretty.” He playfully repeats. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into her today, but he doesn’t question it in fear that she’ll stop and go back to pretending like she doesn’t beg him for kisses in private.

Yasirah rests her head on his shoulder, arms still tightly wrapped around his middle, as she waits with him line only letting go so that she can take her drink from the barista once it’s ready. She surprises Yuta yet again when she grabs his free hand in hers. This time he’s not successful at keeping his questions at bay.

“Who are you and what have you done to my girlfriend?” His heart drops when she slips her hand out of his grip. He knew he should’ve kept his mouth closed.

“Did you or did you not say you wanted everyone to know we’re dating?” She stops walking to stare him down in the middle of the busy sidewalk much to the annoyance of the people now forced to walk around them.

“I do but you said-” Yuta doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence.

“Fuck what I said. Now are you going to hold my hand or not?” Yasirah smiles victoriously when Yuta slots his fingers between hers. There’s still an uneasy feeling in her chest as they resume their journey to the political science building, but she pushes it down for his sake. No matter how much he wants this he’ll give it all up if he sees her panicking and she wants to do this for him.

Yasirah’s mind is racing with how their friends will react. Will they be happy? Upset? Various scenarios fill her brain to the point that she doesn’t even notice they’ve reached their destination until Yuta gently turns her head to face him.

“I know you’re doing this for me, but we don’t have to.” God, this man. She really doesn’t know what country she saved in a past life to deserve him. Yasirah leans in to press her lips against his.

“No, we’ve waited long enough.”

They step through the door hand in hand to a chorus of gasps. Yuta seems to believe it but Yasirah’s keen senses pick up on the scent of bullshit in the air. Something is not right here. One look at Wheein and she knows the truth. This is why she sucks at poker. She wears her thoughts on her plain as day.

“Spill.” Wheein gulps when all of the attention is turned on her. She avoids eye contact with Yasirah, knowing full well that her best friend and roommate is incredibly aware of all her trigger points to break her. Deciding to avoid the misery of drawing this out, she caves.

“I told them.” Wheein whines. Yasirah loves her to pieces but she couldn’t keep a secret even if you paid her so she’s not surprised that it got now that she knows that Wheein was in on it. The only question at this point is how she knew.

“Wheein, how did you even figure it out?” Yuta asks, beating Yasirah to the punch.

“I smelled you. You smelled just like the guy you had in the apartment that day.” Yasirah rolls her eyes skywards. Leave it to Wheein’s supersonic olfactory senses to expose the truth behind her lies. She thought she had dodged a bullet by telling her she didn’t know who it was only to realize now that she’d stepped right into the line of fire.

Wheein’s confession leads to even more shocking revelations as the rest of the exec board starts detailing little things they’d noticed but hadn’t given much thought to. An Iron Maidens t-shirt that Yuta had mentioned missing turning up in Yasirah’s laundry. The lingering floral scent of leave-in conditioner that an apartment of smelly men wouldn’t have any use for. To think that they’d thought they had everyone fooled with all of their sneaking around when actually everyone had been betting to see how long it would take for them to realize that they all knew.

“Well since the cat’s out of the bag now, let’s get this show on the road.” Seokjin prompts from his seat off to the side. This wasn’t one of the outcomes that Yasirah had envisioned but she’s happy about it nonetheless. She squeezes Yuta’s hand one final time under the table once they’ve taken their seats, hoping that it conveys everything she wants to say but can’t. He nudges her knee with his with a wink in her direction. If perfect was an achievable goal, Yasirah would definitely say that she’s reached it.

#ksmutclub #nakamoto yuta #nct yuta #yuta smut #nct smut #jaehyun #nct jaehyun #yuta fanfic #yuta scenarios

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villainousshakespeare · 4 years

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Offerings

Loki/OFC one shot

Rated M: Angst, tooth rotting fluff, love, some light smut,

Summary: Laek is a healer from Alfheim sent to Asgard to train under Eir. She is lonely on so alien a world, with no one to talk to and all her dreams of adventure on hold. When she begins to receive gifts from a secret source, she cannot begin to imagine who has left them, or why.

**Set before the events of Thor I, when Loki was still a sweet (if mischievous) untraumatized soul.

I have been feeling a bit blue this weekend, and wanted to write something angsty and tooth-achingly sweet. This was the result. I hope you like it!!!

@arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @ciaodarknessmyheart @devilish--doll @hiddlesholic @hopelessromanticspoonie @izhunny @just-the-hiddles @kellatron55 @myoxisbroken @nonsensicalobsessions @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @yespolkadotkitty

*If I ever tag you and you want off a tag list, please let me know!

OFFERINGS

She did not belong here. The thought echoed like a silent scream through Laek's mind, try as she might to suppress it. Looking around her, at this strange world she'd been thrust into, it was all she could do not to weep. Laek knew she was being self indulgent and melodramatic, but she could not seem to help herself. What, after all, was a young woman like herself, born and raised to heal the injuries of men and gods, doing in a realm that celebrated war?

All around her, men and women dressed in armor, encased in and carrying the steel that was designed to do harm to one another. The air filled with the clang of weapons on a constant basis, accompanied by cries as blade edges found their homes in flesh. Even wielded as they were here in practice, mistakes were bound to be made, injuries acquired. They celebrated scars here, badges of honor for the noble race that elevated all that she had been raised to strive against.

It was not that she was a pacifist. Laek knew that there were things worth fighting for, causes that she would die to defend. It was just that the level of worship here accorded brute strength, the ability to maim and kill, was out of all proportion to her mind. Surely, surely, she thought, there were other skills of equal value.

She had been brought here to train in her arts, for it was on Asgard that the Goddess Eir, worshiped above all by healers such as herself, resided. It made sense, in its way. Where else would she be more needed than on this barbaric world. And Laek was learning much and more from the blessed Goddess. Her own powers and knowledge were still green, if great in latent strength. Laek was the strongest natural healer to be born to her people in generations, but at just 700 years old she had much still to learn. It was thought that 100 years under the watchful eye of Eir would be exactly what was needed to nurture her gift. 100 years. She had been here for one month, and already she wanted to throw herself off the much vaunted rainbow bridge to escape.

It would be easier, she often thought, if she didn't look so different on top of all else. She was smaller than most of these Asgardians, both in height and body mass, and her clothing was soft and flowing rather than hard and protective. Her pale gold hair she kept long, after the fashion of her Alfar people, braided across her temples and tied with ribbon woven through. Under a high brow, her wide, tilted eyes shaded different colors, from gold to green to crystal, depending on her mood, an embarrassment to her now that she found them so often a cloudy grey that gave away her discontent.

Laek was not mistreated, of course. Eir and her acolytes were kind to her, in their fashion. But the Goddess was old, dry, and set in her ways. The All Mother, Frigga, had pulled her aside upon her arrival in a most kindly manner, telling Laek that her door was always open, should the young healer need to talk. Occasionally she had thought of taking her up on that offer, but in truth she was more than a little intimidated by the regal Goddess that ruled Asgard at her husband's side, and her courage had failed her every time. Odin himself flat out terrified her, as did their two sons, the golden Thor and the sleek, dark but pale Loki. She watched them, but never dared approach.

And so Laek spent her time in a somber routine. In the mornings she would rise, bathe, dress, and report to the infirmary. Once there, she would spend the early half of the day tending to the sick and injured, attending on Eir and absorbing as much knowledge as she could at the healer's side. In the afternoon, she would head to the library, where all of the written knowledge of all 9 realms was stored in the pages of books and scrolls, a collection that had no rival in any universe. She would loose herself there for hours in reading, studying healing or simply learning about the customs and practices of other places, places she longed in her secret, adventurer's heart to see for herself one day.

She ate her meals at the end of a table in the great feast hall, alone amidst a sea of strangers. At night, she retired to her chambers to an early rest, often walking in the moonlit garden beneath her rooms, where she could pretend for a moment that she were home and at peace.

It was in the library one afternoon, in the beginning of her second month, that the first token appeared. She had found her eyes glazing over as she studied a text on blood transfusions, and in an attempt to rouse her mind had gotten up and wandered to the section that contained dwarfish riddles, pulling a book at random to bring back to her seat.

When she returned to her bench, her breath caught in her chest. There, lying atop the open tome that had so sedated her, was a pale blue crystal. The stone, smooth to the touch and oval in shape, had a pure clarity that made the sparkling fire at its depth shine so brightly it looked like the evening star. Laek had seen many such stones in her time, for they came from her home, from Alfheim, but never one so perfect, so incandescent.

Dropping the riddle book, she had picked it up with trembling hands, and then, unable to do anything else, had run to her rooms, thrown herself on her bed and wept, clutching it to her breast. It was home, a talisman of all that she missed in this strange land.

She had asked the next day, in a shy, anxious voice, if the librarian on duty had seen where it had come from, who had left it. In response, she had gotten a terse "no" and a lecture on leaving her books unshelved when she was finished with them.

Eight days later, she had been walking in the garden as the first stars rose, blue stone secreted into her pocket so she could feel it cool against her hand. When she reached her favorite bench where she always stopped to gaze up at an unobstructed view of the heavens through a circle of elder trees, she found a flower. Placed carefully in the exact center of the bench, it was a perfect red rose, a flower that she had only read of until then. It grew on neither Asgard nor Alfheim, but was prized on Midgard for its beauty. She raised it to her nose and inhaled the lovely aroma, a soft smile coming to her lips.

After the rose, it had been a snowflake, perfectly preserved between two pieces of glass found in her cubby in the healer's quarters. Larger than any she had ever seen, she knew it could only come from Jotunheim, home of the fearsome Frost Giant. How anyone could have gotten it, let alone why they would have left it for her was a mystery she couldn't begin to explain. Still, the gesture touched her deeply. Someone had noticed her, other than to sneer or pity. Someone was being kind. She only wished she knew who it was.

Laek began to hope for the small tokens, to take greater note of her surroundings in case some small item were to be slipped in. It was a good thing, too, as she could easily have injured herself had she accidentally sat on the twisted puzzle box made of small metal daggers that had obviously come from Nidavellir. She spent all that night unlocking it, to find a bright green gem set on a silver chain within.

The tokens made Laek's life exciting again. Oh, she knew how pathetic that sounded, but she didn't care. She had a friend, even if they didn't make themselves known to her. Every time she searched the area where a gift was deposited, there was the same result. No one had seen anything. No trace was to be found of the person who had left them.

When they stopped, she was devastated. Three weeks went by, and there was nothing. Not in any of the places she frequented. As time went on and no further offerings of friendship appeared, Laek grew despondent. Perhaps whoever it was had found a new game, a new way to pass the time that did not involve the strange Liosalfar who was all alone on Asgard. On the day that marked a month passing with no new token, Laek begged off early from the infirmary, pleading fatigue of her own, and returned to her quarters. She knew it was silly to feel so bereft, but she could not help it.

She was aware something was wrong the moment she opened the door to her outer chamber and her eyes shifted to amber. She had magic deep within her, at her very core. A warding over her rooms, her sanctuary, was a automatic outcrop of that magic. She could tell beyond a shadow of doubt when someone had breached that warding, no matter how subtle the magic the intruder had used. Tiptoeing silently, she made her way towards her bedroom, where a quiet rustling could be heard. Opening the door, her eyes went to a figure standing over her bed.

"Frjosa!" she said, arm twisting out towards the intruder, who instantly froze in place.

With a pounding heart, Laek pushed door the rest of the way open and gaped in stunned disbelief. There, next to her bed, was the frozen form of Loki, Prince of Asgard, Odinson. She had caught him just raising his head, his green eyes wide with surprise as the spell hit him. His hair, dark and straight, brushed against the collar of his green tunic ornamented with gold. One elegant, long fingered hand was extended towards her pillow, and in it was grasped a rolled up piece of parchment tied with a green ribbon.

"What in all the Nine?" Laek said allowed, staring at the frozen prince.

Why would he be in her room? It made sense in one way, only a strong sorcerer would have been able to break her wards and enter. She knew he was known for his mischief, had he had some prank in mind to play on the unsuspecting foreigner thrust into their midst? With his mastery of magic, he could pull any number of tricks on her.

Shaking her head in confusion, Laek made a small motion with her fingers, and unfroze his body, still, however, containing him within a parameter of limited space.

"My Lady," he gasped, a flush of red suffusing his cheeks. "I pray, forgive me my intrusion."

"You," she said, stupidly.

"I am Loki," he told her, sketching a courtly bow.

"Yes, I know," she replied with a little laugh, feeling her eyes shade to blue as she blushed. He was royalty and handsome as sin, she could hardly not know who he was. "I am Laek of Alfheim. But I suppose you know that, since you are in my room."

"I do," he admitted with a small nod of his head. "Again, a thousand apologies for my trespass."

"But why are you trespassing?" she asked, tilting her head as she stared at his handsome frame. She could feel his magic pulsing from him, attempting to find a chink in the stasis field she had him trapped in. Only in her own chambers would she be able to confine one as strong as he she knew.

"I don't suppose you would believe this is a shortcut to the armory?" he asked with a devastating smile.

"Through my bedroom? I think not."

"Ah, well then."

"What is that you have in your hand?" she demanded, noticing how he was attempting to hide it behind his back.

"Nothing," he said shortly, blushing again.

"It is not nothing!" she approached him warily, as one would a cornered animal. She knew he could do no magic, not bound as she had him, but that did not mean he could not use physical strength should she come too close. Against that, she had no defense unless she chose to freeze him again, and such a course would not yield the answers she sought.

"Your magic work is commendable," he praised her, sending a spark of something warm shooting through her. "Normally I could break a spell such as this in a matter of seconds, but your construction is seamless."

"You are in my nest," she shrugged, inching closer. "It is the way of our kind to protect our homes."

"Perhaps you could teach me," he smiled again, unleashing a lethal charm for one so young. She felt her own lips begin to tilt up, struggled to get them under control.

"Perhaps," she said non-committaly. "Once I know your intentions."

With speed that she knew surprised others not of her race, Laek's hand shot out and snatched the scroll from his hand. He made an unconscious noise of protest, but she had it out of his reach before he could grab it back. Was it a spell, she wondered? Some joke he sought to play on her? Biting her lower lip, she untied the ribbon and unscrolled the crackly parchment.

Her eyes widened with shock as she read the words written in an ornate, ancient hand. It was Vanir in origin and dialect, but the words were not a sorcerous incantation, but rather a poem; a rather romantic, lyrical poem set in a forest by night.

"I meant to be gone before you found that," he stammered. "I had no wish to embarrass you."

"You!" she breathed, realization hitting her. "You are the one who left all the tokens for me!"

Her left hand dipped into her pocket to grasp the blue stone, while her right flew to the green gem around her neck. Her eyes flicked to her bedside table, where the rose stood in a crystal bud vase next to the pressed snow.

"I did," he admitted, not meeting her eyes. "I ran out of locations to leave them for you. You go so few places. It took me weeks to breach your warding and make my way in here. I never expected you to return so soon. It is not your normal habbit."

He was babbling, she realized. As though he were the nervous one.

"Why?" she asked, at last. "Why leave them for me?"

"You seemed so lonely," he said, arms coming across his chest and head ducking down defensively. "Always by yourself, not really fitting in here. It caught my attention."

"It did?"

"Yes," he said softly. "I know a bit what that is like. Let us say, it piqued my curiosity. An easy thing to do, in truth. I watched you often in the library. I spend a portion of most days there. Tracked what you read. It seemed you had a desire to see the worlds."

"I do," she admitted. "I always have."

"I know a bit about that too. I know of course that you are here for study, and what a demanding teacher Eir can be. I trained under her for a century or so myself you see. I thought, if you could not go to the world, perhaps the world, or a small representation of it, could come to you."

"A stone from Alfheim, a snowflake from Jotunheim, a puzzle and gem from Nidavellir, a rose from Midgard, and a poem from Vaniheim. You went to all of those places? Found these things?"

"I did," he said, as though it were nothing. "It is easy enough if you know how. I admit, I was stumped as to what I would do when I reached Helheim on my list. Even I might have difficulty breaking in and out of there."

"Again, why?" she asked, staring at him with wonder. "It must have been so difficult. Why go to all that trouble? You might have just talked to me."

"I like a challenge," he said proudly, lifting his chin. After a moment though, his eyes dropped. "And I did not know if such an overture would be accepted. I am not... well liked or understood on Asgard."

"That makes two of us," she laughed, a bit breathlessly.

"I suppose it does," he replied, chuckling himself. "My dear Laek, do you think you might undo the stasis barrier? While it is causing me no physical distress, the wound to my pride is nigh on unbearable."

"Of course!" she said at once, moving her hand in a lateral swipe that dissolved magic.

"Thank you," he said with a deep breath of relief.

"I liked the gifts," she told him quietly, suddenly feeling shy now that he was free.

"Did you?" he asked, stepping towards her.

"They are all that has made these past months bearable on this planet."

"You are all that has made the past months bearable," he said, gazing into her eyes in a way that made her breath catch. "Before you arrived, I was miserable. Nothing changed, everyone was the same. Then you appeared, and I couldn't breath. I wanted... needed to know you."

"Me?" she she breathed in awe.

"You. Have you no idea how beautiful you are? And then to discover you were smart as well, gifted in magic, and curious to boot? For the first time in centuries there was someone in this accursed realm besides my mother who I thought I might understand. Who I wanted to know. To know in so many ways."

"You could have said hello," she said, feeling far out of her depth as he stood so near to her, took her hand in his.

"I could have," he said. "I chose not to. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes," she said simply, willing in that moment to forgive him any sin.

"Will you let me kiss you?" it was the uncertainty in his voice that touched her the most. He honestly didn't know if she would allow it.

"Yes," she said again, transfixed.

He was slow, gentle. His lips touched hers softly at first, brushing against her like silk. When she tilted her head towards him, he sighed into the kiss and gently lapped against her lips with his tongue. Laek opened her mouth willingly to him, inviting him to explore, to taste her. His arm came around her waist and pulled her flush against him as her fingers fanned out over his chest. He at last pulled away from her, leaving little nipping kisses on her lower lip as he did.

"Minn svass," he murmured as he gazed at her. "Your eyes are crystal."

Laek blushed crimson. She could tell from his smug voice that he knew what crystal meant. Her truest color. She wanted him. Wanted him desperately.

"Do not be embarrassed, sweetheart," he smiled. "Mine would be too."

As he took a step away from her, her eyes drifted downward and she saw the proof of his words, tenting his trousers.

"I would not disrespect you," he told her in a rough voice. "Would court you as your station deserves."

Laek bit her lower lip, struggling for words, always a problem for her when her emotions ran high.

"Could you not disrespect me just for one day?" she asked at last, flashing him a nervous smile.

A slow, wide grin spread over Loki's face as he stepped back towards her, pulled her into his embrace.

"I can do that," he practically growled at her.

He was kissing her then with a newfound ferocity, claiming her mouth, her neck, anywhere he could find flesh. Her hands fumbled at the hem of his tunic, and he raised his arms to help her pull it off. Her dress quickly followed, and he tumbled her down onto the obliging mattress just inches away.

"So beautiful," he groaned, eyes wandering her body where she lay naked before him. "Delicate as a flower and all for me."

"Loki," she panted as he devested himself of his trousers and stood before her in all his glorious nakedness.

She guided him into her, sweet and wet and open to his invasion. Her slim legs rose to wrap themselves around his hips as he buried himself within her walls. He had wanted her for so long, the beautiful, alien woman who had captured his interest from first glance. The reality was even more perfect than he had imagined. She was soft yet supple, molding around him as he thrust within her. He could feel the magic that was part of her very being, and it mingled with his own in a way that made their coupling more intimate than he had ever known it could be. When he felt her walls clamp down around him, felt his own release pump warm and strong inside her, filling her, it was with an intensity he had never experienced before. He cried out her name, almost as though in prayer, heard his own name called back with equal urgency and bliss.

When at last they could breath again without panting, Laek lay cradled in Loki's arms, head resting on his slim, muscular chest. One of his hands toyed lightly with the stone around her neck, and she smiled at the thought of him finding it for her.

"Promise me," he said to her, "that you will wear this always."

"I promise," she told him without hesitation.

"Tomorrow I begin to court you officially," he reminded her.

"I look forward to it," she smiled at him with a dreamy smile. The smile faded after a moment as her crystal eyes sought his green. "Loki, I have been so lonely."

"Think not on that, love," he told her, covering her with his body. "I am with you now, and you will never have to be alone again."

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voidstilesplease · 4 years

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By the Angel, TALK

Warning: THIS IS AN ANTI-CLARY AND JACE SPOILER RANT because I need an avenue to let out some of the steam I've been holding off since starting City of Fallen Angels. So PLEASE SKIP AHEAD because I don't want to burden you all with my reading woes.

This thing centers on the beginning of Chapter 9: From Fire Unto Fire and a little bit of Chapter 8. About eight pages of bad, bad romance set me off.

To start,

The rest is under the cut, so you can go away now.

So, what's been happening to Clary and Jace thus far?

This book introduced them now as an official couple, picking up from the end of TMI Book 3: City of Glass. I don't remember their every scene since then to the point in Chapter 9 where I stopped, but basically, they're having relationship issues early on. They're less than two months into their relationship, and the drama is too frickin much.

Jace has these weird dreams about murdering Clary and waking up guilty about his subconscious thoughts, so he goes angsting about it and avoiding her, snapping at her, being a total dick, and still question why people think they are on the brink of a break-up.

So, Jace goes with Simon in the next few scenes, in his plight to get away from her as far as possible, yet still be somehow close by being around Clary's best friend to "protect" him, so his distant behavior will be reasonable and forgivable. Yeah, make that make sense. 🙄 But of course, one way or another, they're going to have to get to the confrontation part (that I still wish had been equivalent to an actual break-up), and so that's when Chapter 8 & 9 enters.

Chapter 8: Walk in Darkness pp. 185-186

Almost instantly, the light went out of them, and the remaining color drained out of his face. "I thought --- Simon said you weren't coming." ¹

[...] "So you only came because you thought I wouldn't be here? [...] Were you ever planning on talking to me again? [...] If you're going to break it off, the least you could do is tell me, not just stop talking to me and leave me to figure it out on my own."

"Why does everyone keep goddamn asking me if I'm going to break up with you? [...]²

First, what an asshole?!

[1] So Jace finally in-your-face's Clary and confirms that he has been keeping his distance like Clary has the plague. He then has the audacity to [2] be annoyed for being questioned on his intentions of keeping the relationship that he has been actively evading for days!

I get that Jace sucks in romantic relationships and has been fucked up by his daddy-issues, but he has the Lightwoods. Heck, Alec is his parabatai. He sees working relationships, so he has to have known that you don't just stop talking to people close to you and have them not question the behavior, whether you're trying to pull away from them or not. Otherwise, then Jace is dumb for all that he's marketed as the "best" Shadowhunter in his age. Screw that.

---

“You talked to Simon about us?" Clary shook her head. "Why? Why aren't you talking to me?"

"Because I can't talk to you," Jace said. "I can't talk to you, I can't be with you, I can't even look at you."³

[3] Way to make a girl feel special, Jace. Oh, no, yeah. He's trying to do the opposite and push her away with some teenage boy angst that doesn't make any sense. Like, who says that, though, aside from dramatic love interests that can't make a better excuse for going emo?

That line IS TOO DRAMATIC that it hurts, ugh. 🤮

Anyway, so Clary walks out after that. I don't sympathize with her, but I'd do the same. Who wouldn't? Unless you freeze in the ridiculousness of the situation, that is, which is also likely.

Chapter 9: From Fire Unto Fire pp. 190-195

Now, here's the real shit. I want to quote this entire six-page scene back to Cassie and scream at her.

Clary reached the door and burst out into the rain-drenched evening air. [...] and was about to race across the street against the light when a hand caught her arm and spun her around.

It was Jace. [...] "Clary, didn't you hear me calling you?"

"Let go of me." Her voice shook.

"No. Not until you talk to me."⁴

[4] DUDE, what even happened to your I CAN'T TALK TO YOU, I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT YOU speech, huh? Be consistent for once, apart from your douchebag routine. Make up your mind, Jace.

---

Still holding her by the arm, he half-dragged her around the van and into a narrow alley that bordered the Alto Bar. ⁵

[5] Man, I love a bit of rough loving in my literature, but I'm so pissed at you, Jace, don't even. Lay the hell off.

---

"I was going to tell you that I was trying to help out Simon. [...]

"And you couldn't tell me? Couldn't text me a single line letting me know where you were?"⁶ [...]

[...]

"I think," he said slowly, "that I thought that the closest thing to being with you was being with Simon. Watching out for him. I had some stupid idea that you'd realize I was doing it for you and forgive me---"⁷

[6] Addressing the lack of communication, that's a great path to follow. These two need to talk so bad. [7] But this line? Sucks Balls. You could be with her, Jacey, and save all the readers your drama if you only pull your head out of your ass and try to communicate. It's like you're allergic to it.

---

She took a step back, blindly, and nearly tripped over an abandoned speaker. Her bag slid to the ground as she put her hand out to right herself, but Jace was already there. He moved forward to catch her, and kept moving until her back hit the alley wall, and his arms were around her, and he was kissing her frantically.⁸

[8] Not only is this achingly cheesy, but it's also totally not the way they should be going off about their situation. They were already talking -arguing, yes, but they're still using words to reach out, and their relationship absolutely cannot be healthy without them. Thus far, they have spoken so less in comparison with the times they've spent canoodling. They're not solving anything by having drama on one second and getting it on with dramatic kissing on the next.

I don't care what Clary says about being so lost in love with Jace. He's treating her like shit. The least he can do is give her answers that she has the right to demand from him. Kissing is not an answer. But, well, maybe to Clary, it is because the next parts from page 192 to 194 are spent on softcore porn in a dark alley under the frickin rain. I bet that's a very romantic setting in their minds, huh.

---

And now this part:

It was nerve-wracking. She could feel the feverish heat that came off him; her hands were still on his shoulders, but it wasn't enough. She wanted him wrapped around her, holding her tight. "W-why," she breathed. "can't you talk to me? Why can't you look at me?"

He ducked his head down to look into her face. His eyes, surrounded by lashes darkened with rainwater, were impossibly gold.

"Because I love you."⁹

[9] Is that supposed to make me tingle? SET ME ON FIRE, but that is the lousiest I love you in books that I have ever read. AND IT'S THE ONLY ONE THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, at all!

Shut up with this, can you please. It's not romantic at all. It's a dumb excuse and an even dumber love from the two dumbest people in this whole frickin series. Oh my god.

Clary, realistically, will frown at this answer. She will pull the hell away and spat him in the face with how demeaning his love is if it can make her sick to the stomach with thinking he has already gone bored and is only cooking the perfect way to cut off their connection. He hasn't given her a sound reason, only desperate declarations of love like he's trying to convince them both that it's true. And it doesn't make sense how she's still plastered around him in the cold, trying to convince the readers that every word from Jace has deeper meanings that she understands no matter how gibberish they are. I'm not buying that, okay? Stop selling your larger-than-life connection bullshit because that isn't real.

You've only been together for two months, okay? The strongest you can feel for each other is lust. And it's showing.

---

His hands slid down to her waist and he kissed her, long and lingering, making her shudder.

She pulled away, "That doesn't make any sense."

"Neither does this," he said, "but I don't care. I'm sick of trying to pretend I can live without you. Don't you understand that? Can't you see it's killing me?"¹⁰

She stared at him. She could see that he meant what he said [...] Her desire for answers battled the more primal part of her brain, and lost. "Kiss me then,"¹¹

[10] NOBODY THREATENED YOU UNDER BLADE TO DO THAT BULLSHIT, so shut the hell up with the whining. [11] and Clary, I am so disappointed. You've both just drained me, and I'm dry inside like a raisin.

The next paragraphs describe their very erotic kissing against the wall. Jace, propping her up and her legs around his waist bull crap. Seriously? Am I supposed to believe these two are, what sixteen?- up until Isabelle thankfully ruins their moment by kicking a garbage can that would look better with Jace and Clary in it tbh.

---

And the nastiest horseshit of all:

Clary looked at Jace. At any other time, they would have laughed together at Isabelle's moodiness, but there was no humor in his expression, and she knew immediately that whatever they had had between them ---whatever had blossomed out of his momentary lack of control--- it was gone now. [...]

"Jace---" she took a step toward him.

"Don't," he said, his voice very rough. "I can't."¹²

And then he was gone [...]

[12] No, I frickin CANNOT. His actions keep on contradicting his words, and he's fickle and can't decide which mood to settle, and it's so exhausting, honestly. He wasted a few pages for a cosmic, meaningless declaration of feelings. They're empty words. At this point, I believe the writing only strives to convince the readers that these characters care for each other but is shitty at showing it.

It's not love, because they say it is love.

---

I was already gaining hope for this book, and then one simple few-pages scene with clace squishes it, smearing the innards on my face.

Honestly, TALK OR TAKE A BREAK. This back and forth can't continue throughout the rest of the book or -heaven forbid- the rest of the series. Or at least, put these characters in the background if they really must drag on this problem, because I care not a lick.

Bye.

#📖: city of fallen angels #current read #anti clace #anti clary fray #anti jace wayland #city of fallen angels #mid-read rant #I'm just so triggered #books #bookish #bookblr #book quotes #book lines #shadowhunters #late to the party woes #cassandra clare #what are you doing with these characters #did you forget this wasn't a twilight fanfiction or something

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jokertrap-ran · 3 years

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(未定事件簿) 莫弈 [剧情: 第2章] [Tears of Themis] Mo Yi Private Story Translations (Chapter 2-7)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist / Mo Yi’s Masterlist / Mobile Masterlist *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Mo Yi’s Private Story tag is #Tears of a Personal Psychiatrist. *Chapter 1 can be viewed here!

Location: Mo's Mental Health Research Center

After confirming Li Yu's identity, Mo Yi rejected my request to continue taking part in the investigation.

MC: Why!?

MC: It wasn't easy for us to get this far, Dr. Mo! There's no way I can just give up on this so easily!

Mo Yi: …...

But Mo Yi only continued staring at me in silence, a thoughtful look on his face.

Mo Yi: ...Before we put this discussion on the table, please answer me this honestly: Have the PUAs come to you for revenge?

MC: Oh...No… They haven't; why do you ask…?

His sudden question caught me by surprise. I hurriedly avoided his eyes, pretending not to understand his question.

Mo Yi: I'm supposing that the "spam message" you received the other day was actually an SMS they'd sent as harassment.

Mo Yi: And recently, the actions that these people have been taking have been getting more and more aggressive; essentially having even affected your daily life to a certain extent.

Mo Yi: That's why you said they were "arrogant"; am I right?

MC: !!!

MC: ...Nothing gets past you after all.

I couldn’t help but to sigh, deciding to come clean about everything that I’d been hiding from him recently.

MC: Yeah. Some PUAs have been verbally harassing me with threats lately.

Mo Yi: When did this start?

MC: Probably not long after the “Anti-PUA” Club turned into a mutual aid group. Someone had suddenly added me as a friend one day.

MC: They asked if I was the Lawyer who’d helped Lin Yunyun, and I thought that they were also a fellow victim, so I replied in the affirmative; but in the end...

I couldn’t stop all the many different sorts of harassment messages that I’d received recently from popping back up in my mind at the thought of it.

Those messages, not fit to be shown to anyone at all, were always sent to my phone at fixed timings. There were countless, so many that I could never delete them all even if I tried. It gradually became a personal living hell of nightmares.

MC: There were only a few people who did it sporadically at first, so blacklisting and blocking them worked like a charm; but then the number of people doing it increased...

MC: Why do they always choose to bombard people during sleeping hours!? Don’t these people need sleep too!?

However, I’d failed to notice how Mo Yi’s face was twisting itself into an increasingly unsightly look at this moment in time.

Mo Yi: ...Why didn’t you tell me? How were you planning to put up with this alone, if I hadn’t asked today?

MC: Well… It wasn’t anything big at all. They only sent me a couple of unpleasant texts, and it didn’t really cause a big impact on me or anything like that.

MC: Anyway, let’s not talk about this anymore and get back on the topic of how to continue our investigation. I—

Mo Yi: I apologize, but my stand is still the same; it’ll be for the best if you don’t take part in the upcoming course of action.

MC: ……

Mo Yi: ……

That was how Mo Yi and I faced each other in a stand-off; neither of us saying anything, neither of us willing to back down.

The air came to a stand-still, the damning silence that would make anyone hold their breaths accompanied by the faint scent of “gunpowder”, as figurative sparks filled the air.

MC: Then, could you tell me a reason why I should not? I can’t give up on this just because you tell me to, Dr. Mo.

Mo Yi: ……

Mo Yi: I have three reasons for this.

Mo Yi: Firstly, although Li Yu’s story was created from one big patchwork, Wang Chen is still an experienced PUA, from what we can glimpse from the credible parts of her story.

Mo Yi: I cannot allow you to interact with him alone, considering how you’ve not received the relevant training.

Mo Yi: Secondly, although our actions have not been fully exposed yet, the fact that the other party retaliated against you means that they’ve already got their eye on you.

Mo Yi: If this goes any further, it will only escalate; and when the time comes, it won’t just be merely verbal words of threat.

Mo Yi: They will attempt to break through your psychological defenses from all angles, thus, endangering your very life itself.

Mo Yi: And lastly…

He placed the teacup in his hands down, his gaze dropping to my face, an inexplicable emotion within his golden orbs.

Mo Yi: Just what’s in your mind, as you do these things?

Mo Yi: Is it to uphold justice? To deter the other members of the PUA Group? Or is it to save all of the girls who’ve been harmed by it?

Mo Yi: Can you really do all of this?

Mo Yi: Even if we did settle this matter with Li Yu along with all the other people backing her, there’ll still be other PUA Groups in this world who lurk in the dark.

Mo Yi: They’ll continue hunting girls, and even go so far as to treat you as a right thorn in their side, using various methods to retaliate against you to no ends.

Mo Yi: And at the very end of it all, not only will you fail to protect others; You might also very well be unable to protect yourself.

Mo Yi: This fairness and justice you seek might not be able to see the light at all.

Mo Yi: Now, with all that considered; are you still willing to continue on?

He waited quietly for my answer after finishing.

He had a look of utter seriousness on his face, so focused he was. However, the corners of his eyes and his eyebrows still presented the same calm he’d always displayed. Hence, I couldn’t tell just what exactly was going through his head.

But none of these mattered anymore. I don’t even need to think to answer this question of his.

MC: Of course. Even so, I still wish to continue as usual.

Mo Yi: Why?

MC: You just asked me what’s in my mind as I do this, right? I’m actually not thinking of anything at all; no thoughts, head empty.

MC: I’ve never held onto any pipedreams, nor have I ever thought of using this PUA Group to go fight against the other PUAs.

MC: Granted, trying to rescue all the girls who’ve been victimized is an even bigger delusion.

MC: I’m only trying to do what I can as one, ordinary, Lawyer.

MC: That being said, there’s one thing that I know for certain. And that is that I cannot ignore the crimes that appear before me.

MC: I cannot allow the group that’s backing Li Yu to go scot-free, let alone allow them to challenge law and threaten justice as they so wish to.

Mo Yi: You...

MC: Secondly, you said that I “cannot protect others”; but there isn’t only just one fixed way of protection.

MC: Don't all the girls in Lin Yunyun's mutual aid group learn a lot about all sorts of things pertaining to PUA?

MC: All that's requires is for one of those girls to understand these through what I've done; so that they'll keep their guards up and watch out for these things.

MC: If so, then everything I've done up till today have already served some sort of purpose in protecting them.

MC: And lastly, about their cars if revenge…

I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes at the mere thought of those less than savory messages I'd received.

MC: I've already been prepared to face all sorts of people, who come up with all sorts of retaliation methods, since day one of being a Lawyer.

MC: But if really does come down to the point where it gets as serious as you've described, then that's when I'll wield the Law as my weapon and protect my own rights.

MC: The road to justice will always be a rocky one, but no one can stop me so long as I refuse to give up.

Mo Yi: ……

I blurted out everything that I had in my mind, even forgetting to check just what sort of expression Mo Yi currently wore.

It was only until I had regained my bearings that I looked back up at him. He was still looking at me with a serious look on his face, yet his eyes were like that of stormy seas.

Mo Yi: You… You’re really different from everyone else.

He suddenly laughed.

MC: What are you laughing about, Dr. Mo?

Mo Yi: Nothing. I’m just feeling slightly fortunate, and a little happy.

MC: Fortunate? Happy?

Mo Yi: Yes. Fortunate, that I chose to stay back then; and happy, because… I met you.

Mo Yi: You always never fail to surprise me.

MC: ……

He spoke slowly, but that didn't fail to impede the strength and impact that each word brought.

It was almost as if he had just conveyed some sort of inexplicable feeling to me through mere words. It was hot, yet full of possessiveness, almost engulfing me whole.

MC: Does this mean that… I can take part in the continuing investigations?

I hurriedly changed the subject upon seeing how the air around us was starting to turn increasingly warmer.

Mo Yi: Do I have any other reason to be denying you?

MC: Great! Then let’s hurry and get started!

MC: Do you need me to contact Wang Chen? Are we still going to be using our previous tactic?

Mo Yi: Don’t rush, for starters. I’ve got even better ideas.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Previous Part: (Chapter 2-6) | Next Part: (Chapter 2-8)

#Tears of Themis #Mo Yi #Translations #Otome #Mihoyo #未定事件簿 #莫弈 #Private Story #Tears of a Personal Psychiatrist

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florenceandthemachine · 4 years

Note

talk stackson to me about stiles getting a piercing (or piercings) of your choice while they’re in college and them driving jackson out of his fucking mind. bonus points if jackson goes with him to get his next one and they end up getting matching tattoos instead.

So, here's the thing. Jackson doesn’t even notice the first piercing that Stiles gets for like, a week.

After suffering through what feels like a month of insomnia and developing what feels like a crippling tolerance of NyQuil, Stiles finally breaks down and looks to alternative sources of sleep aids. He tries acupuncture, he tries massage, he tries aromatherapy. Nothing works.

He reads about the benefits of a daith piercing online, and while he has learned to take everything on the internet with a grain of salt, he’s beyond the point of desperate. He googles the nearest tattoo and piercing shop, grabs his keys, and walks in about twenty minutes before there set to close.

He looks a mess. He has rings under his eyes, his clothes are crumpled, but the artist in the shop doesn’t even bat an eye when he says he needs a “daith piercing, like, yesterday.”

He’s in and out in less than ten minutes. Apparently, after a few days without sleep, Stiles no longer has an aversion to needles. Not when the needles come with the sweet promise of getting knocked the fuck out.

He gets home after grabbing one of Kira’s cards (because she seems like a cool person in general), takes off his pants, flops onto the couch...

...and sleeps for thirty nine hours.

(Jackson, bless him, comes home from work, sees Stiles sleeping, and silently cheers. He’s two years into his pre-med program at this point, so he knows how dangerous insomnia can be—he just takes Stiles vitals every six hours and lets him sleep.)

So, no. Jackson doesn’t notice Stiles first piercing right away, and when he does, it’s with hardly a second thought (if it helps Stiles sleep, why would he be mad about it?). It’s a tiny, barely there hoop of surgical steel, almost buried in his ear—why the hell would he notice it immediately?

Stiles second piercing, though, that Jackson notices. Partially because Stiles calls Jackson drunk and crying about it.

Stiles has just finished one of the most grueling midterm seasons of his life, and he demands a party. Scott, the eternal bro that he is, agrees immediately. Stiles sends out a mass text to everyone in his phone, kisses Jackson good luck on his last midterm, and immediately heads to the liquor store.

Jackson finishes his anatomy and physiology midterm (at seven PM on a Friday, because his instructor is a sadist) in less than two hours, and takes no small comfort in the warmth radiating through his body when he turns on his phone and sees supportive text message pouring in from Stiles, even as they progressively get less coherent as Stiles undoubtedly gets more imbibed.

He’s about to call the idiot love of his life when his phone goes off, Stiles having beat him to the punch. He’s still grinning as he puts the phone to his ear.

“Hey baby, I just finished up. I can be there in fifteen—”

“JACKSON! I LOVE YOU.”

Jackson beams.

“JACKSON KIRA BROKE MY FACE.”

Jackson... beams significantly less. He has to tell himself that of course it isn’t anything even remotely close to real danger, but he has never quite been okay with the idea of any part of Stiles being remotely hurt, or as drunk Stiles would call it, “broken”.

“Stilinski, I’ll be there in ten minutes. You’d better be with all of your pieces or I’m going to kill Scott.”

Stiles gasps and must drop his phone, because his voice is higher pitched but further away as he wails.

“OH NO HE CALLED ME STILINSKI I’M GONNA BE IN TROUBLEEEEE—”

The line cuts off, and Jackson makes it to Scotts apartment in eight minutes.

When he gets there, the party is in full swing; apparently the mass text that Stiles sent out included Kira, his one-time piercing compatriot, who now had a line of people wrapped around the hallway to get a needle stuck through some part of their body. Kira was taking payment in shots. This did not bode well.

Stiles found him before he could even make sense of the situation—seriously, how did Scott and Stiles even know this many people?—and their earlier phone call must have been forgotten, because Stiles all but jumped into Jackson’s arms, somehow stumbling over himself while managing to avoid spilling a drop of his drink (which honestly smelled like gasoline. Stiles never was one to waste time mixing drinks).

“Hi baby! You look so good in your scrubs! How was your exam! Did you dish—dith—disvvhh... take apart any bodies?” he fires, speech slurred, but Jackson is too busy making sure that he’s okay to take stock of Stiles mental state. He... appears fine, which is all the more concerning.

“Stiles.”

“You’re so smart, you know that? I can’t wait for you to be some big shot doctor—”

“Stiles.”

“—and you’ll have an office! And you’ll help so many people! And—”

“Stiles, what the fuck happened with Kira?”

Jackson gets all the answer he needs as Stiles mouth snaps shut, his eyes wide and fearful, and Jackson has to bite down on his own tongue to curb his temper as he reaches to hold Stiles’ face.

“You promise you won’t be mad?”

Jackson absolutely cannot fucking promise that, not if Kira hurt Stiles, not if—

“Kira is a kitsune.”

Jackson’s mind stumbled, doing mental gymnastics trying to catch up with the turn that the conversation had taken.

“And she has magic powers. And I think Scott likes her. And she knows I love you. And... she gave me a present."

Jackson is more lost than ever before, and he pretends not to be shocked stiff when Stiles tilts his head, pulling Jackson’s thumb between his lips, lavishing the digit with his tongue, and—

and Jackson feels something... new, something that definitely wasn’t there before, and any anger, irritation, or doubt he felt in his stomach was banished when Stiles released the digit. His tongue followed soon after, and sure enough, there was a smooth, narrow bar placed dead center in Stiles pretty pink tongue.

Jackson is stunned silent, his eyes following the metal as it retreated behind Stiles’ teeth.

Stiles, who seemed a whole lot more sober as he smirked, licking his lips, giving Jackson just the slightest flash of the bar once more.

“She even healed it up for me, right away, once she replied I knew about her being... you know. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. But really, this is a gift for you.” he murmurs, and Jackson’s belly pools with lust. He was going to have to thank Kira later—but for now, he just slung Stiles over his shoulder, caveman style, and hauls him home.

—

When they first started dating, Stiles spent... a painful amount of time discovering Jackson’s erogenous zones, and repeats the process with the bar in his tongue over the next year. Jackson loves it, of course, but what he really loves it he look on Stiles face when they discover something new together—Stiles lights up like a kid on Christmas morning.

Kira becomes a staple in their friend group, inevitable once she and Scott start dating, so it becomes a regular thing that they hang out at her shop.

Which, Stiles is impressed to learn, is her shop—as in she owns it, not just works there.

They swing by late one evening, after a wonderful anniversary dinner, and really, where had five years gone? Stiles insists that he has something for Kira before they go home, and Jackson is in no hurry—they had started talking serious things over the past few months, and Stiles had left no doubt to be found about the fact that he intended to spend the rest of his life with Jackson.

He was loved, he was happy, and he would do anything for Stiles. Even if it meant waiting for what he knew would be some mind-blowing, commitment laced, anniversary sex.

Scott is there, surprising no one, and Stiles hovers around, watching in morbid curiosity as Malia, one of the artists, wipes clean the last in a series of corset piercings on one of their female customers, her hands fast but gentle as she laces the last piercing up.

Jackson, on the other hand, is drawn almost immediately to Kira. Or, more precisely, what Kira is sketching. She had a set of designs open on her tablet, two nearly identical looking rectangles detailing some of the most ornate scenes he had ever seen. He often found himself entranced in what Kira drew, on skin or on screen, and this was no exception.

They’re both monochromatic, and they look like they belong together—one with a wide forestscape, trees and earth and ark sky blending together, the other with a wolf, tall and proud. They could be standalone pieces, Jackson thought, but they looked almost cyclical, like they could be arm bands.

Well, no, not arm bands—they were too small for that, they were more like—

“Rings.” Stiles says, behind him, a small smile on his face as Kira hits Print. “They’re going to be rings, Jackson.”

Jackson turns back and tilts his head as Kira shows them the transposed stencil printouts—he can kind of see it, they’re definitely small enough to wrap around a finger, and Kira is amazing enough with her detail work that she can probably make it fit, impeccably, to fit halfway between someones hand and their first knuckle.

“I know you’re not really into the material things, and lets be honest, I would lose a ring.” Stiles starts, and Jackson turns, still clueless, but definitely picking up on Stiles nerves, picking up that there’s something that he’s missing. “But, I figured that this was a good compromise... I mean, I know I want to have something that reminds me of you always, so... what do you say, Jacks?”

He takes one of the stencils—the one of the forest—and peels it from the paper gently, getting down on one knee as he takes Jackson’s left hand, wrapping the stencil around the lowest portion of his ring finger. It’s almost a perfect fit.

“Will you marry me?”

—

By the time they tie the knot, they both have several more additions to their body. Stiles has a pair of studs in each of his ears and a second hole in his tongue, placed near the tip, so he can fit a ring through it.

Jackson had quickly discovered a love of ink—he had a thin snake, coiled around his neck, low enough to be covered by his scrub top at work (Stiles had called him macabre), a Rod of Asclepius over his heart (he was so tired of explaining the difference between it and the Staff of Caduceus), and a triskele on his shoulder blade (Derek had cried, literally cried, when Jackson showed him, their pack bond thrumming stronger than ever).

(He also might have had a wedding present for Stiles done that morning, a shining Prince Albert, courtesy of Malia [who blessedly didn’t ask questions while stabbing Jackson’s junk with a needle] and an instant heal courtesy of Kira [who really, really didn’t want to know].)

His favorite, though, by far, was the band on his finger—and as the Justice of the Peace declared them married and he dipped his husband into a filthy kiss, cheered on by all of their friends and family, he couldn’t help but admire the two bands together. They were different, but they still fit together. Beautiful. Complimentary. Permanent.

And Jackson wouldn’t have had it any other way.

#stiles stilinski #jackson whittemore #teen wolf #tattoo #piercing #stackson #I don't know why but I'm really vibing with pre med / dr jackson #prepare for a lot of that in the future #here you to bb #flospeaks #mutually assured devotion

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angelsfalling16 · 5 years

Text

The Thin Line Between Pretending and Actually Loving You

Read on ao3

Summary: Baz needs a fake date so that Dev and Niall will stop setting him up, and who better to be that date the guy he hasn't seen since they graduated college several years ago?

Simon and Baz struggle to fool Dev and Niall, but it seems like they're great at fooling themselves. Will they be able to work through whatever this is between them before their planned "break up"? Or are they destined to be separated again?

Word Count: 1230

A/N: Once again, I have decided to write a last minute Christmas fake dating fic. At least it isn't three days before Christmas this year. The plan is for there to be 7 or 8 chapters and to post a new one every day. I'm hoping not to have to post on Christmas day this year, but at this point, I'm not sure I will actually finish by Christmas. Also, the title is not great, and I might end up changing it, but I needed something so that I could start posting.

I think a new fake dating fic every Christmas could be fun, and I really hope you all like this one!

***

Baz

I meet with Dev and Niall every Friday afternoon for coffee. It isn’t my favorite coffee shop. That one is closer to my house, and I prefer to go there alone anyway. It’s a great place to visit when I just need some time to think.

This one is closer to the center of town and it’s not as quiet and writer-filled as the other. This one is geared more towards half-asleep college students.

Glancing around, I remember when I was one of them, just a few years ago. At once, it seems like a lifetime ago and just yesterday when I was pulling an all-nighter to cram for a test or write an essay that I had failed to complete on time because I was worrying about a hundred other things. Mainly my roommate at the time.

Before my thoughts can spiral down that path, I shake myself and tune back into whatever Dev is talking about.

“We’re engaged now.”

“I know,” I say, frowning. I mean, I practically planned their entire engagement party on my own, which is in just a couple of weeks. If I had forgotten, I wouldn’t be a very good best man.

“No, I meant that we’re going to be doing a lot of married people things now, and we don’t want you to feel left out.” He’s using his carefully sincere voice, the one that means he is being careful not to say the wrong thing.

I hate when people do that. I wish that he would just say what he means. I value honesty over spared feelings.

“What the hell are ‘married people things’? Just because you have this big celebration, it doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly going to become different people and do different things.”

“We just don’t want you to feel weird since you’re still, uh, single.” Niall speaks this time, his tone even more carefully crafted than Dev’s. I have to fight not to roll my eyes at the pair of them.

“You two have been dating for years, and I’ve never felt weird around you.” Well, except that one night. But we don’t talk about that. “That isn’t going to change just because you sign a piece of paper.”

“Yes, but don’t you think you’d be happier if you had someone else in your life?”

“I don’t need a man to make me happy.”

“Yes, we know. We just think—.”

“And therein lies your problem. You two were thinking. It’s never a good sign, especially when it comes to my dating life.”

I’m kidding of course. Not about them meddling in my dating life, but about them thinking. They’re both quite intelligent. They would have to be for me to want to spend any kind of time in their presence. I have a hard time sitting for long with people who aren’t intelligent.

Dev sighs. “Why are you being so difficult?”

“Why are you pushing this so hard?”

“Well…” Niall says quietly, no longer able to meet my eyes. That is never a good sign.

“Niall, what did you do?”

“We got you a date for our engagement party.”

“You what?” I just barely manage not to shout, but still, a few heads turn in our direction.

I glare at them until they look away before turning my attention back to Niall.

“He’s a friend of mine,” he says. “He’s a really nice guy, smart. And I think you’ll like him.”

I glare at the two of them. They know that I hate when they set me up. Every blind date that they have ever set me up on has always gone horribly, horribly wrong. One nearly ended in someone’s death and the burning down of one my least favorite restaurants.

Some may say I’m picky about guys, but I prefer to say that I have a very specific type. And that type boils down to one person. One person who Dev and Niall know almost nothing about.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I tell them, my tone only a little threatening.

“We know you didn’t want us to do this again, but we think he’d be a great fit for you.”

“No. I mean, you shouldn’t have gotten that guy’s hopes up. Because I’m already seeing someone.”

“You’re kidding, right? For how long?” Of course, Dev doesn’t believe me.

“Almost a month. And no, I’m not kidding. I’ve known this guy for a while, and it feels pretty serious. Like we should have started dating a long time ago. I’m just glad we finally found our way to each other.”

I’m laying it on a little thick, but it is best to ensure that Dev and Niall know that I am being serious.

“I suppose I’ll have to call my friend back,” Niall says.

“Yes, you will. I’m quite happy with the person I’m dating.”

“Tell us more about him, won’t you?” Dev asks, resting his elbow on the table and setting his chin in his hand. He is obviously feigning interest, looking for a way to figure out whether I am lying. “Why have you been keeping him a secret? Is it someone we know?”

“It is not someone you know. Not well, anyway. And we wanted to keep our relationship a secret until we figured out whether it was serious.”

“And is it? Serious?”

“I’m not really sure yet. It’s still new.”

“Fine. Bring him to the engagement party, and we’ll tell Niall’s friend that you’re taken.”

“Alright. I’ll see if he can make it.”

It might be too soon to invite a new boyfriend to an engagement party that isn’t until after the new year, so maybe I will manage to find a way out of this. I would much rather go alone to the party.

At that, I stand up, drinking the last of my coffee, which has grown cold now. I bid them a good afternoon before turning away, hoping to avoid any more questions about the mysterious boy.

On my way to the door, I hear Dev say, “I wouldn’t call him back quite yet. I want to make sure this boyfriend of his is real.”

Later that day, I’m not surprised when I receive a text from Dev:

Niall and I want to meet your new beau. Can’t have a complete stranger at our engagement party. Dinner on Friday? 5 o’clock?

He states it as a question, but I know that I don’t really have a choice. They aren’t going to leave this alone until they meet my new boyfriend. I quickly type out a reply.

Sounds good, I reply.

But it is not good at all. I am not really seeing anyone. I had to make that up to get out of another blind date.

But now, I have to come up with a boyfriend fast before I am forced to go on a date with some total stranger.

Sighing, I set my phone beside me on my couch, trying to think of someone who would be willing to pretend to be my boyfriend. It would have to be someone who Dev and Niall don’t know. Otherwise, they would know instantly that it is not real.

One person keeps coming to mind. One person who I absolutely cannot call.

Of course, that is the only person I would want to show up as my boyfriend, fake or not.

#snowbaz #snowbaz fanfiction #simon snow #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #carry on #wayward son #rainbow rowell #my writing #christmas fic #fake dating fic

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toast-the-unknowing · 5 years

Note

What are the #thots on CDTH?

This is begging for one of those “edgy/depressed/dumbass bitch/thot/bastard” memes, but sadly you sent it to someone with no patience for slapping together graphics, so you get a lot of words instead. Behind a cut, for length and SPOILERS.

I really enjoyed this book, my reactions to most of the additions to canon were positive, it felt a wide range of emotions while reading it and upon finishing I found that it had knocked me sort of off center in that way where I don’t want to write anything ever again, or read anything, or really do much but stare out of windows. I know that feeling will pass, but I’m soaking in it for now. I haven’t yet discerned if there are going to be any substantial changes to the ways that I write these characters, when I write these characters again.

I loved Ronan in this book, which was a relief. I had been a bit worried that Maggie intended for him to end up as Lonely God Ronan, isolated and just too damn special for the rest of humanity, but it now appears that is very much not the plan. It hurt watching him be trapped at the Barns, wanting something different from life and not knowing how to get it, and it was amazing to watch him forge a connection with someone new and find the capability that he has to help other people, instead of just kind of thinking of himself as the fuck-up.

Holy Shit I felt emotions about Matthew, that was unexpected and unprecedented. Fuck did that boy make me sad. I am greatly looking forward to seeing where his story goes, now that he actually has one. I want some quality Matthew & Jordan dream duo bonding time.

I want, just, quality Jordan content in general, I love Jordan, I need more of her, she was wonderful.

Hennessy leaves me cold, but I had a very similar reaction to Ronan until most of the way through The Dream Thieves, so I am giving her the benefit of the doubt and waiting to see what happens in the future.

HOLY SHIT I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT DECLAN.

It did crack me up that it literally took one page for the book to start talking shit about him, but I also found the whole “Declan is deliberately, crushingly boring” idea interesting. It surprised me but still makes sense in retrospect, which is the best kind of surprise. I hadn’t pictured him as the kind of guy who would go to work and let people snap at him and call him by the wrong name, but I think my understanding might have been a little closer to the version of Declan that still thought he could have Senator or Congressman in front of his name. I think Declan might be the character I most have to reconsider, but I’m happy with how he was portrayed here and I’m looking forward to doing that reconsideration, and to seeing what happens to him next in canon.

God but he just continues to be the hardest working brother, and he still fucks it up, but he doesn’t want to fuck up, but he just shouldn’t have to deal with all of this shit, and ow, ow, my heart.

I adored Declan/Jordan and every moment where she delights in surprising an honest reaction out of him. “I see the real you when no one else does” is EXACTLY my kind of ship.

I had really wanted this trilogy to force Ronan to reexamine his understanding of his father, but getting to see Declan do some actual work on processing his pain is fantastic too. I love all of the moments where he admits that he hates Niall. It fucked me up so bad, because it’s like he doesn’t want to be thinking or saying it but he just cannot keep it in. It’s like his emotional nightwash, but he doesn’t get to dream it away.

@comicsohwhyohwhy and I once discussed the problem of Ashley, and we JOKINGLY suggested that maybe the Ashley from TRB and the Ashley mentioned in TRK are two different Ashleys, that maybe Declan has just dated a string of women named Ashley, and then we had a good laugh about how absurd that would be, and I cannot fucking believe that that has turned out to be canon. I am oddly delighted with this development.

I am happy with the Adam content that we got and with the size of his role. I felt like the book did a good job of honoring his importance in Ronan’s life, letting him be present and matter and affect Ronan (and disagree with him in productive ways where they didn’t just argue and where he wasn’t just Declan 2.0), while still keeping him in a support role, since that was apparently the goal. I’m unclear on what kind of role he’s going to have going forward, but it looks like he’s being set up to have some kind of character arc, with the “Adam is lying to everyone who knows him” situation, so I really do want that to pay out and go somewhere, even if he does continue to be a supporting rather than featured character.

That whole Harvard situation breaks my heart: Adam’s friends think that his family is wonderful and that his boyfriend is a violent drunk. I can’t imagine any interactions around that that aren’t fucked up. Adam having to defend Ronan to his friends any time he comes up, but not being able to tell the truth, so he just sounds like he’s making empty excuses for someone that’s bad for him…which is something that he has in fact had to do, but not about Ronan, about the parents that all of his friends are “jealous” of him for having. Fuck. FUCK.

I loved every mention of Gansey and Blue. I can understand why Maggie doesn’t want to include them as characters, but that could have easily ended in a situation where they’re just…noticeably absent, and instead we got this, confirmation that they still talk to their friends and love them and are involved in their lives, plus we got A+ Gansey-texts-like-an-old-man content.

I enjoyed Farooq-Lane a lot just from a standpoint of being an ordinary normal person who gets put into a weird as shit situation and then…continues to be an ordinary normal person who has ordinary normal reactions to things. I find that kind of shit fascinating – it’s the kind of thing that makes for great comedy and improv, but it can also be very effective in drama, and we really got to see a wide range here.

What. the actual. fuck. is up with the New Fenian and Mor O Corra. Like I mean okay the Lynches have to live through all their parent trauma again, yeah I get that, okay Niall apparently made a dream double of an actual woman he’d slept with which like, wow I didn’t think Aurora could be retroactively creepier but damn if Niall didn’t find a way, blah blah I get all that. But like. What is – what is that relationship, exactly? Between them? Niall’s ex made a dream copy of him, too, but like…as a kid? Or one that doesn’t age? Has Mor O Corra out-creepered Niall Lynch? What the actual fuck is up with those two. I almost don’t want to know. I kind of love being this weirded out.

Bryde is really goddamn tiresome. I am expecting he’s going to turn out to be a villain and honestly that can’t happen fast enough for me. Although I anticipate that we’ll see Ronan buying into his crap more before that happens, so, it looks like we get to look forward to a lot more overblown insufferable monologues about how “special” we are and how we’re better than those gross boring mundane people. Blah.

I’m kind of disappointed that this is apparently a series where the stakes are THE END OF THE WORLD and where the protagonists have to fight a SHADOWY INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION that can send ARMIES of WELL-ARMED HIGHLY TRAINED OPERATIVES to HUNT DOWN THE PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS – this is 90% of all fantasy stories, and it’s boring, and I’m tired of it. I like that the stakes in The Raven Cycle are small but still immensely meaningful. What happens in The Raven Cycle if the characters don’t succeed? Gansey dies. Ronan dies and Matthew falls asleep. Adam doesn’t go to college. Blue doesn’t get to travel the world. The world doesn’t explode, but we still care so so much about seeing them succeed, because we care so much about those characters living and getting to build the future they want. That’s a thousand times more interesting to me than “we have to…[dramatic music, put on sunglasses] SAVE THE WORLD.” Spare me.

I’m still going to read the other two, obviously, and I’m not even really mad about this, mostly just rolling my eyes. But I expect that Maggie is going to use this plot device I don’t care about to do things emotionally and character-wise that I do care about, and that’s the important part.

There is one actual thing that pisses me off with this book, that I actively hate and wish was not a part of canon, that I will probably just ignore and pretend isn’t canon, at least once I have wrapped my head around the fact that it even happened in the first place: why the fuck does Ronan go to confession.

I was willing to accept in The Raven Cycle that Maggie had no interest in doing anything with the fact that she had made the Catholic character and the gay character the same character, because Ronan is actively figuring himself out in the course of that series, because there’s so much else going on in his head and his life that I can buy that religion isn’t his top priority, because hey, I kind of liked that the series wasn’t one more Sad Story About A Sad Gay Who Is Sad Because Homophobia. I can accept a Ronan who goes to mass every week because that’s family time, because that’s tradition, because that’s what Lynches do.

But going to confession – with some degree of regularity! – is not going through the motions. When I was a Catholic school girl and an ALTAR SERVER who went to mass twice a week, confession was still a “maybe once during Lent, if we get around to it” kind of deal. What the hell does Ronan say in confession, exactly? He’s not confessing to the shit that he actually feels guilty about, playing god and creating life, because that’s a secret. He’s not confessing to the thing that he’s getting told every week is going to send him to hell. So what is he doing there?

This ceases to be “skipping past homophobia so we can just have a nice happy gay story for once (or at least a story that’s unhappy for other reasons)”. This is firmly into “deliberately and cruelly ignoring the real pain and suffering that the Catholic Church inflicts on oppressed people every single day” and I think it was a grave, grave misstep.

So my super general #thots: loved it, largely positive, some things I’m iffy on but excited to see where they go, a couple of plot elements/characters I don’t care for but can put up with for the sake of all of the good, one big negative that will probably feature only very very sparingly in canon.

#cdth spoilers #call down the hawk #the raven cycle #catholicism I guess #Anonymous #the dreamer trilogy #trc meta

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christophe-delorne · 5 years

Text

Good Dog

Chapter 8

Warnings: Excessive swearing

Pairings: Gregory x Christophe

AU: Adulthood

The bar was noises and crowded, far more than Christophe would ever feel comfortable in but his paranoia was drowned in alcohol. It wasn't unusual for him to get drunk but to do so in a public place was out of the ordinary and only because he had been coerced into it by one Kenny McCormick. The guy was convincing as hell and likely the only other person Christophe moderately tolerated. Other than Gregory. Though right now Gregory had been the deciding factor in why Christophe had ever agreed to go out and drink with Kenny in the first place, he needed to do something that he would consider a bit reckless for him to do. Kenny though, seemed all too entertained by Christophe's crass nature, maybe because the Frenchman was bluntly honest, unlike the blond's childhood friends. Both had shared the experience of death, Kenny seemed more used to that kind of thing that Christophe, not that Christophe was frightened of death by any means but or was heyo willing to dive right into it either.

"Glad to finally run off and have some fun, huh?" Kenny's voice broke through Christophe's haze, making the Frenchman turn to glare sourly at him. Kenny looked different from earlier today, looking less like a bum and more like a nine to five business man. It was not surprise, Kenny was a man who could easily blend in and that was something he used to his advantage.

"Fuck off, you just caught me at a bad time. Or a good one considering how you are." Christophe tapped the bar counter to gain the bar tender's attention and give him a refill on his drink. "And since you invited me, you're paying the bill."

Kenny placed a hand over his chest as if wounded by Christophe's words. "You expect poor lil' ol' me to pay? You're the hot shot merc with loads of cash you probably store under your mattress."

"That would require me to have a mattress in the first place."

"Right, right, I bet Gregory doesn't let his favorite lil' pet up on the furniture now does he?"

"Shut up." Christophe downed the shot, needed that burn to make him forget everything else that bothered him in his life. Like how right Kenny actually was.

Kenny laughed and clapped Christophe on the shoulder, obviously being able to read the mood the statement had put the Frenchman in, that was enough of an answer for him. "You know, you could always ditch the pompous dick and work for me. You know I treat my friends right even if they're idiots."

Christophe knew that Kenny was an honest man, far more generous and kind than he lead others to believe. A man of justice, even since he was a kid he hadn't hesitated to give his own life to bring peace to a world that didn't deserve it. Christophe couldn't share that sentiment, if anything, he needed Gregory to keep him going. No matter how much he hated the man, Christophe needed Gregory and while Gregory would never admit it, he needed Christophe as well. They were fit for each other, no matter how many girlfriends Gregory had, they were replaceable, Christophe was the one thing in Gregory's life that the seemingly impenetrable Brit that was ever stable in his life. Christophe stared down at the worn wood of the bar table, knowing that he would eventually need to go find where Gregory was staying which would likely lead to some sort of bitchfest.

"You already know that I can't fuckin' do that." Christophe pushed the tumbler away from himself, done drinking for the night. He was buzzed enough and didn't want to be completely impaired, even if he did trust Kenny, he didn't trust anyone else in this bar, or so he thought.

Just as he was about to stand up off the barstool, a hand fell on his shoulder. Instinctively he grabbed it and yanked, planning to throw the perpetrator over the bar for making the mistake of touching him, especially from behind. However, the owner of the hand seemed to have expected the motion and grabbed at the back of Christophe's hair with his free hand and giving a violent yank back, causing a hoarse cry of anger and foreign swear words to come spilling out of his mouth. His head was forced to tip back, green eyes locking onto smug, pale blue ones. It appeared Gregory had lost his patience in waiting for Christophe to return to him.

"You kept me waiting long enough, Christophe." The polite tone was deceptive as Gregory turned his head to look over at Kenny who was doing his damnedest to innocently drink the beer he ordered, pretending he wasn't there and failing. "I should have known you'd be the cause, Mr. McCormick. Though I should have guessed you'd come snooping around, I was hoping you would but not so soon." Gregory pulled upwards on Christophe's hair, making the Frenchmen swear as he was pulled to his feet.

"Well, you know me, I always do enjoy getting into the center of mischief." Kenny downed the rest of his beer before standing up, giving Christophe a look, not out of pity but almost out of understanding. "Anyways, just thought I'd show the old dirt dog some fun while he was off the leash."

"While I am thankful that he hasn't gone off and done something regrettable, I still prefer that Christophe not go off while we are in the middle of work."

"Ohoho, work you say? And what interesting things could possibly require the insistence of British upper crust and a mysterious Frenchman in Denver?"

"Likely the same reason why you're here, Mr. McCormick."

"Jeeze, Mr. McCormick, really? You make me sound like a honest, hard working man. Work is hard, but definitely not honest." He pulled out his wallet, placing down money for the bill, paying for Christophe's as well.

"I do enjoy formalities. However, I must excuse myself and Christophe, we have things to attend to and this little adventure has put us behind schedule. If we need your assistance, I will be certain to contact you." Gregory nodded briskly as if his words were the final say in the conversation. Kenny took the hint and waved them off with a sigh.

"Yeah, whatever, but just so you know, my services ain't free."

"Duly noted."

Gregory turned, still holding Christophe by his hair as he dragged the stumbling, disoriented Frenchman out of the bar. Already there was a taxi there waiting, not one of the public transports either. It appeared Gregory had hired a chauffeur to drive them around during their stay in Denver. Figures, Gregory wasn't the type to bother with a vehicle that wasn't exactly the cleanest or the nicest. That and having one or two designated drivers were preferable in this sort of mission, dedicated to serving them without being distracted by other customers. Gregory opened the back door, shoving Christophe into the backseat. It was unusual for Gregory to enter after Christophe, a sign of how upset the man was.

"You simply cannot leave like that in the middle of a mission."

"Shove it up your ass, prick." That got him a brisk slap upside his head, making Christophe turn his challenging glare at Gregory. He wasn't going to regret his decision and if anyone should apologize, it should be Gregory.

"You were rude to our host and you didn't answer my texts."

"First of all, fuck you and that cunt. Secondly... Fuck you." Maybe he had drank more than he thought, trying to remember his line of thinking was difficult, especially when he felt so pissed off with the man beside him.

"Wendyl had inside information on our target, so we need them to carry this mission out."

"What the hell even is this mission, you've told me fuck all and it's starting to get on my fuckin' nerves. Tell me what the shit is goin' on, Greg." He was used to just doing as he's told, but this, being back here so close to the worst time in his life. He wanted answers, he deserved some sort of explanation that would give him a good enough reason to stay near that he'll hole of a place. Not to mention deal with the people who were a part of it. A part of a war that he had no real stake in. A war that had changed both him and Gregory for the worst. He couldn't care less about what had happened to him, but...

Gregory sighed, running a gloved hand over his jaw, a sign of him thinking, choosing his words carefully. Which meant the blond wasn't ready to give Christophe the full details on this mission, which made him listen to Gregory's words with a grain of salt. "There have been reports of a new addictive drug on the market, one that is spreading far too quickly to be created by just some small timers." Gregory looked out the window, mulling over his thoughts and seemingly his anger had lessened. "It started showing up in Europe recently, the supply is thin, so people have begun killing each other over it. I managed to trace it back to Hall as the supplier, but I know a man like that wouldn't dirty his hands too much in drug trade, so someone must have offered him something too irresistible to pass up."

Christophe rubbed the back of his head, his scalp still sore from where Gregory had yanked on it. "So you were pulling all the information he had on the one who bought him?"

"Correct. I found out that he'd been promised a good deal of power and control in Europe in the coming years once whatever plan this organization was brewing up came to fruition. Such a promise means that the current powers would have to be cleaned out and replaced. Something that can only be done if something drastic happens. Something I intend to stop."

"Fuckin' hell. You know I hate missions that force me to do heroic things. I'm not doing it, not again."

"You don't have much of a choice in the matter, or have you forgotten you place once again?"

Christophe turned his head, avoiding Gregory's dangerous look, instead preferring to look out the window at the buildings moving past at a slow rate, it appeared they'd managed to get into afternoon rush hour. He hated being in the car, much less in traffic with a man who oozed anger while having the damnedest calm expression on his face. Even with the distraction of the conversation, Gregory hadn't forgotten Christophe's transgressions as expected. However, Christophe didn't know what to expect from the Brit, while everyone around Gregory thought of him as harmless, Gregory didn't hold back when it came to the Frenchman.

"I won't sacrifice my life again, Greg." Christophe stated firmly. "Never again. Nothing about this shitty world is worth my life for."

"Oh? Not even me?"

It was a trap question, one Christophe wouldn't fall for. He would never admit how much he cared for Gregory, though at this point he wondered if it wasn't even out of care for the man. Did he truly care about Gregory? Or was he just following routine, following the only thing he ever knew because it was familiar and safe. His entire life was chaotic and dangerous, ever changing except for one person. Once upon a time, when they were kids, he might've fancied such a notion, he had envied Gregory then. He had wanted to gain Gregory's attention, to cur favor in order to gain a reward. Eventually, that had stopped, there were no rewards, no more kindness left between them. Whatever youth that they had left had been ruined I that little mountain town in Colorado. They were adults, able to see the reality of their situation and yet unable to fix it, some wounds never did heal, on,y festered and grew into something more dangerous.

Christophe didn't respond, knowing he was only tempting Gregory's anger later. He wanted it, craved it almost, it had been so long that he wanted any kind of attention Gregory could give him. He knew it was wrong, he hated, loathed that part about him and yet he didn't want to change it. What sort of better world would be out there for him anyways? Did he even deserve anything better than this? He had done terrible things, had cursed God himself more times than he could count. So no, he deserved Gregory, deserved that sort of punishment. Christophe glanced back over to Gregory, the temptation was there, could he piss Gregory off enough to make the man forget everything else and focus on him? He would likely regret it, but the alcohol in his system had loosened his caution around the Brit.

"What makes you different from all the rest of the pieces of shit?"

Gregory seemed slightly taken aback by Christophe's statement, staring at the Frenchman as if hurt by it. Christophe hoped so, sure it was petty of him but he wasn't really in the right mindset to be reasonable and rational. It took a moment for Gregory to recover, but when he did, he moved closer, pressing close to Christophe's side. Instantly, he became aware of the touch, the subtle but elegant cologne wafting up, bringing back memories that made him feel mixed emotions. His eyelids lowered, regretting drinking, lowering his guard around Gregory was the worst mistake he could make. However he wanted to finally let his guard down, wanted to feel something that he scorned and locked away to keep himself safe. He felt warm breath on his ear, damning him to lifetime of torture that he'd reluctantly savor as his eyes closed. Words, soft softly whispered, sounding almost deceptively affection teased him for the rest of his days.

"Because I'm the only one you care about."

#gregstophe #gregory #christophe #south park #fanfic #fanfiction #au #alternate universe #good dog #gregory of yardale #the mole #ze mole #sp #rp

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

Text

Chapter 16: the nigh-inevitable prosecutorial existential crisis, now with more bullshit fae magic

I wrote this and 17 all as one chapter, which means that 17 will go up tomorrow, or maybe even tonight if I get impatient. It’ll be a surprise, like every update.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

It occurs to Apollo, over halfway to the Prosecutors Office, that even going in armed with some probable truth, Klavier probably will not want to talk to him about it.

Which -- fair enough. There’s a huge chunk of Apollo’s own life that he does not want to talk about with anyone, ever, and he can remember talking to Klavier in that cafe and no matter how suspicious it obviously was, rather than explain how he could See, clear that suspicion, all he could do was just ask Apollo to trust him. That seems certain. A dead end. Conversation cut off before it begins.

But Apollo is already over halfway to the Prosecutors Office when he considers this, and he has the feeling that if he just turns around and goes back, Phoenix will laugh at him. Or worse, Phoenix will be disappointed, and Apollo doesn’t think he could physically handle a man so disappointing as Phoenix Wright thinking that Apollo is the disappointing one.

As much as he tried to brush it off with that last blithe, uncaring comment – as much as Apollo let him bait him to it – Phoenix did really seem to mean it when he mentioned being concerned about Klavier, more than he seems to mean most things. And the magatama – what else does it do? More than looking through the center, he had said something about glamours. Glamour and glimmer. Apollo could laugh.

He can pretend he’s supposed to be here when he walks into the lobby, even though today he doesn’t even have a handful of documents to flash and a name to drop, but he makes it into the elevator without any question of what exactly he is here for. The doors close on his shoulder when he is too slow to get out, questioning again this course of action, sure that he should have at least waited another hour or so until Trucy came back from school to bring her with him. They could pretend she was the concerned one.

(Like Apollo hasn’t sent five texts in three days that are each more clearly, desperately, grasping at an excuse to talk.)

But he manages to force himself to knock on the door. “Prosecutor Gavin?”

He waits, watching beneath the door for any sign of movement and straining to hear anything. He could press his ear up against the door and look like an idiot and a weirdo when someone else comes down the hall or when the door opens; or he could be an idiot and try to explain himself through the door to either an empty room or a prosecutor who obviously does not want to talk to him.

(Fine, fine, so their courtroom rivalry was a summer fling that burnt itself out. Whatever. See what Apollo cares.)

He probably shouldn’t try to talk, not without Clay over his shoulder dictating and debating every turn of phrase.

(Okay, Apollo might care a little. If nothing else, he owes him for that initial, albeit misplaced, concern.)

The little demon on his shoulder with Clay’s voice tells him to go for it, say anything, it can’t be stupider than anything he’s said in court. Which, you have not watched any of my trials, Clay, you cannot know if I sounded stupid in court. He would just feel stupidest if Klavier wandered down the hallway while Apollo was having a one-sided conversation with his door.

But he has to do something. He knocks again. “Um, if you’re in there and don’t want to see me, I get it, I guess. I just, um, I think I’ve figured out what you are – that sounds weirdly dehumanizing when I phrase it like that – and I… kind of hoped I would figure out the end of this sentence on the fly.” He smacks his head into the wall next to the door. God, he’s no good at this. They didn’t teach him this in his rhetoric classes. “Yeah. I’m going now.”

He walks down a few more doors, stops, turns around, and waits. He’ll go in another minute or too, just long enough to see if Klavier comes down the hall, or out of his office. It wasn’t a lie – he’ll go. Just, not quite. Just to see.

He presses the button to call the elevator, decides he really will bring Trucy next time and have her batter down the door, and hears the creak of a door. Behind him, back down the hall, he sees Klavier’s door crack open enough to show a flash of blue eyes that meet his.

And then the slam shut seems to ring out forever after.

“Hey!”

The elevator beeps in vain behind him. Apollo scrambles back to Klavier’s office. “Prosecutor Gavin, wait—”

“A magatama – figures.” Even with his voice muffled by the door between them, the sneer is obvious. Like Kristoph’s.

“Because you’ve completely disappeared!”

He sounds like Kristoph, and his bare attempts at his accent don’t change that. “Did Herr Wright put you up to this?”

“No,” Apollo says, truthfully, because he’s pretty sure he didn’t. Phoenix just – wanted him to, and gave him advice for it. But Apollo made the decision without him. Right? He never knows. “You think Mr Wright has ever told me to just plainly do something in his life?”

Silence. “Look,” Apollo says. “You can tell me to fuck off forever and I will, but I figured at least I’d – attempt. Because I owe you for all your concern about me getting tangled with the fae, back when we first met.”

Something mumbled, something Apollo can’t catch. “What?”

“I said” – the door opens about three inches – “you don’t owe me anything.” Apollo could probably throw his shoulder into the door and barge in, now, but that’s not the point of what he’s trying to do. “And even if you did, I’m quite human. No reason to worry about how I would collect on any debts.”

The magatama spins easily between Apollo’s fingers. “Human. What was it you said, ‘human and not like you’? I think I know what you mean.”

“Do you.” Again, he sounds like Kristoph, the dry not-a-question that he’s not commenting on until Apollo lays out for him what he knows of the case.

“You were stolen by the fae,” Apollo says. “As a kid. They left a changeling behind and took you away and now you’re – like this, Sight and glamours and…” His last words are a presumption, a bold one, but it fits with all the facts, of Klavier’s behavior. “And terrified of them.”

The door moves, starts to push close, and then it stops, swings wide, an invitation. “I wouldn’t personally say ‘terrified’,” Klavier says.

Apollo thought his office was a mess before, with its haphazard pilings of books and scattered papers, but clearly the day that Lamiroir accused Klavier’s best friend of murder was a good day. The blinds are drawn over the huge window, only a few strips of sun making their way inside, and the overhead light and computer screens give the entire room a sickly glow. On the floor, balanced on a stack of books, sits a laptop, surrounded by a half-circle of more books, papers, and pens. It looks like he has been doing his work sitting on the floor.

Vongole lays sprawled in the fancy chair, her head draped over the arm, only her ears twitching on seeing Apollo -- the only chair in the room, Apollo now realizes. Apparently Klavier doesn’t get many visitors for very long.

And Klavier – Klavier behind Apollo now, pushing the door shut, looks terrible. He isn’t unattractive, by any means, but clearly unkempt, probably unhealthy. His eyes are bloodshot, puffy, and so hollow beneath that Apollo could assume he hasn’t slept in days. All the apparent life and warmth has faded from his brown skin, like he is in desperate need of fresh air and sunshine (he probably is); his hair too (especially) has lost its glow, like the golden light shining out from it has been shut off, leaving behind something faded, blond just shy of gray.

“How’s the view with the magatama?” Klavier asks dryly. The words seem typical to him, one hand propped on his hip, but the other is toying with his hair in a way that Apollo has come to recognize as nervousness or uncertainty, and the cocky smile he attempts falls off halfway through the question.

“You look awful,” Apollo blurts. He winces. Great. Nailed it, again.

“That huge forehead, and yet no room for a filter between your brain and your mouth.” Klavier at least doesn’t look offended. He seems to have realized that this, or something like it, would happen with the magatama – enough to be resistant to it at the start. Enough to know that whatever glamour he has is the thing most holding him together. “But I did assume as much.”

“About me, or about the fact that you look like a hot mess?”

“I appreciate the ‘hot’ part, at any rate.” He tosses his head back, but the loose strands of his bangs fall right back into place, and he huffs and combs his fingers back through them. “Glamours, ja, you see? Good for a celebrity.” He offers a smile that doesn’t collapse quite so quickly. “No messing around with makeup unless I really want to, but never a bad paparazzi shot. Perfect all the time.”

“Do you have to think about it?” Apollo asks. He casts around for a place to sit, remembers again that there’s nothing. “Or does it just unconsciously happen?”

The tabletop next to him is almost clear, but there’s still a few scraps of paper and a small journal open to some scrawl in purple ink. Klavier snatches it out of the way and then gives a feigned-casual wave. “Sit down, if you like – I would offer a chair, but I’ve been working from the floor.” He pulls open a desk drawer with his foot and drops the journal inside. “As for your answer, it is both – always on, but I can turn up the charm if I so choose, if I want more of the spotlight and adoration.” He leans back against his desk, not even offering a smile at that. “Or down, if I want to disappear.”

“Huh?” Apollo hoists himself up on the table.

“Put the magatama down for a moment.” Klavier gestures toward the stone in Apollo’s hand. Apollo sets it on the table and blinks – like a cloud moving out from in front of the sun, an immediate brightness returns to Klavier’s face, the lines around his eyes vanishing. He places his hand on the magatama and raises it again, watching the sharp shift, the fog clear and then settle. This time, Klavier’s smile holds steady, smaller than usual, but apparently entertained by Apollo making this discovery. “Or do that some more.”

“You have no idea how bizarre this is,” Apollo says.

“I can imagine,” Klavier says. His smile turns down at the corners, sad, wistful, and independent of the magatama, his eyes flicker to their different blue shade. Did he do something like this with Kristoph, watch his brother turn from someone so similar to something so different?

“Anyway.” Apollo sets his palm back flat on the desk. Klavier seems even worse now, even more exhausted, now that Apollo has the sharper, fresher image of what he looks like otherwise in his mind. “You said…?”

He tries to just keep looking at Klavier, but there is something in the other corner of the room, past Vongole, near the covered window, drawing his eyes. It feels like Trucy’s wisp, the few times she has absently set it loose around the office, distracting Apollo from being able to do anything but watch it until he can shake himself long enough to tell her to stop. And then he tries to look back to Klavier, to the desk, but his eyes keep shifting either way past it, past where Klavier apparently should be. After a few dizzying moments, the sensation clears, but when he fixes his gaze, Klavier is no longer standing there.

Maybe this was a ploy to get away from Apollo – maybe he left the office. Apollo still feels like he’s seeing spots, trying to look over his shoulder, around the rest of the office, find the spot that he can’t look at—

“Herr Forehead.”

—is right next to him.

Apollo nearly falls off the desk. A few papers and the magatama slide to the floor when he tries to scrabble away. “What the hell—”

Klavier grins, stage-bright, dragging his hand through his hair and down from the bun. “Sorry,” he says, still grinning unapologetically, so surely that Apollo doubts there is any glamour involved in that. “The prospect was far too tempting.”

“Explain that one to me.”

Apollo has never seen him with his hair down, and apparently won’t get the opportunity, because Klavier is already tying it back up, a little more neatly. “It’s all manipulating appearances. If I can make myself – hm, how would I describe it? – dazzling” – he gestures vaguely with his hand, and the hairband around his fingers springs loose and shoots across the room – “dammit – to others, make myself loved, then there is the other direction, ja? To make myself unnoticed, inconsequential. Overlooked.”

Vongole unfolds herself from the chair. She looks like nothing more than pure white fog with long, gangly limbs, a snout, and red ears protruding from the cloud. The approximation of where her shoulders probably would be doesn’t rise much higher than Klavier’s desk. She’s shrunk, she has to have, because Apollo remembers something wolflike, towering, in court, not their weird unimposing dog that has wafted over to Klavier with his hair band in its mouth.

“So that’s why no one’s seen you around,” Apollo says. “Because you’ve made everyone overlook you.”

Klavier nods. When he takes the band from Vongole, she flashes her teeth, and those still look too big to fit into her mouth, too blinding white to be real. “Even Herr Prosecutor Witch and his Sight can’t find me. The subtler glamours can’t really be Seen through – hence, why your boss needs that magatama.” Klavier points to it with his foot.

“Mr Edgeworth did mention there’s a prosecutor here who’s a witch, when we talked,” Apollo says.

Klavier nods. “We went to school together. He wasn’t a witch then. We also hated each other, so, times change, ja?” He shakes his head, already shaking a few hairs newly loose. “So he’s made a nuisance of himself trying to act supportive, and since he can’t find me, he has set Fraülein Crow after me. Hence—” He points to the window.

Apollo tries and fails to take all of that in. “Like, there’s just a flock of crows harassing you if you open the blinds?”

“Probably still out there now.”

Apollo hops down from the desk and crosses the room to pull the blinds away at the side and peer through. There are indeed at least five crows perched along the side of the building, all now staring directly at Apollo. All begin squawking loudly through the window and two immediately take to wing, swooping off between the buildings. “Yeah. They are.” He lets the blinds fall back into place. He’s heard a little of witches’ familiars – this is probably something like that. “Two of them just left.”

“Off to report signs of life, surely.”

“For all you talked about how weird my office was, I expected the Prosecutors Office to, y’know, not be.” Apollo scoops the magatama off the floor as he returns to the table. He doesn’t look at Klavier right away. “But you can See through fae glamours? Like Vera, and—”

“Yes,” Klavier says quickly, forestalling the name if Apollo hadn’t already been cutting himself off. “They can’t really do the most subtle shifts – too much energy diverted plainly into looking human.” He drums his fingers on the edge of the table. “It’s more like an enchantment, what I’m doing, except enchantments are harder to break than just with a magatama.” He pulls his legs up to sit cross-legged on the table, not looking back at Apollo, almost an attempt at hiding from him. “I don’t exactly have the words to describe any of this. I’ve only met one other person like me.”

“I’m surprised there’s anyone,” Apollo says. “People don’t usually come back from the Twilight Realm, do they?”

(Tell him about Dhurke, whispers a little voice in Apollo’s head. Tell him you don’t know what you are, either. Ask him if you’re like him. But he hasn’t told Clay about Dhurke, hasn’t told Trucy, and the words refuse to entertain themselves on his tongue.)

Klavier tilts his head, looks back at Apollo. It is difficult to meet his eyes and gaze on the evidence that he has probably spent at least one long night, recently, crying. “No,” he says. “They don’t.”

And he’s going to leave it like that, like he and Phoenix always leave things like that hanging, no explanation, no elaboration, because why should they let Apollo in on this secret knowledge? Why should he be allowed to know anything that could help him make sense of the world and people around him?

(Never mind that he’s learned more in this past week, about Mia, about Phoenix’s history with the fae, about Klavier and glamours, than he has before.)

“I have some work I need to finish,” Klavier says, uncurling himself and sliding down to the floor and settling again in the midst of some papers. “You are welcome to stay. I…” His voice breaks.

(Like bringing all of Kristoph’s machinations to light unlocked something within both of them, too.)

“What?” Apollo asks.

Klavier’s shoulders hunch but he doesn’t respond.

Well, Apollo’s not going to leave it like that, no matter how awkward it is going to be to hang around in this office for any unknown amount of time. He slides the magatama back into his pocket, hoping that will be contact enough for its effect to keep working, and hauls himself around over the table to look at the guitars on the wall.

Investigating each of them in depth – not touching, because they might be worth more than his life – reminds Apollo that he knows absolutely jackshit about music in general and guitars specifically. His phone buzzes with a text from Clay saying that he’s going home now, early, because half of the Space Center was evacuated when one of the engineers blew up a robot and the zero-G training room is at this point still filled with smoke. An hour ticks by in slow chunks. Trucy texts that she earned the role of lead in her school play, which is the most normal thing he’s ever heard her be involved in, and he doesn’t have to feign enthusiasm for a response with several exclamation marks. He starts reading an article about the anatomy of a guitar.

“Herr Forehead?”

“Yeah?” Oh, god, he responds to it automatically now. Does Klavier look as smug as Apollo imagines him to be?

“Can I ask a favor of you?”

“You can ask,” Apollo says, “but it depends on what.”

“Of course; I would not ask more of you than that.” Klavier stands, laptop in hand, and pushes it haphazardly in between the other junk on his desk. He hooks his thumbs into his pockets and stares Apollo down straight, the most unwavering eye contact they have had all day, like he knew that Apollo was going to be watching him for any tells and decided to make it easy for him. “Since I came back, there is something I’ve been wanting to do – needing to do, I suppose – but I have obviously been dreading going alone for half a year, and have no one to ask.”

“You aren’t friends with your bandmates?” Apollo asks. Of them, he only met Daryan, and certainly wasn’t impressed with him as a person even before it became clear he was a murderer, and maybe if the rest of them are like him, he understands.

Klavier twitches his head, trying to flick aside some bangs that aren’t hanging loose. “I am, but I just broke up the band, ja? And then to ask…” He shrugs. The motion doesn’t come off as light or dismissive. “I was steeling myself to tell Daryan,” he adds, his voice softer now. “About me, and my brother, and everything. I put it off after every practice leading up to the concert, and then – ach, better that I didn’t tell him then. My cowardice worked out well for me.” Cutting through the glamours to see the man breaking apart below doesn’t work on his voice; he still tosses out his last statements with airy carelessness, the dismissiveness that his body language doesn’t manage.

“Daryan is the only one who knew my brother personally, anyway. No one else would quite understand the same.” He’s starting to get restless, finally breaks and starts playing with his hair. “How long did you work for him?”

“Over a year,” Apollo says. “I started there before I took the Bar.”

Klavier raises his eyebrows. He lets his hand fall back to his side. “Really? That long?” Apollo nods. “I had assumed it must have been shorter, that you would turn on him so at behest of a disbarred man again accused of murder.”

“I didn’t turn on anyone!” Apollo snaps. Vongole lifts her head at the noise. “I was interested in the truth!”

“I apologize.” Klavier looks away. “I did not mean to imply that you didn’t, nor that you were wrong. It was not what I thought, but I suppose most things involving my brother are not.” He sighs. “And those which involved your new boss.”

He has stopped using Phoenix’s name.

Apollo has thought about that often enough, that going on a year and a half working at the Gavin Law Offices, when the accusation came, he didn’t falter and just kept pushing forward for the truth. Of course it mystifies Klavier – it mystified Apollo. “Mr Wright was my idol, though,” Apollo admits. “He was a legend. And I was a kid when he got big, and seeing what he did kinda solidified that I wanted to do the same.” Not because of Dhurke, but not really despite him either. In absence of. “So even meeting him being accused of murder, being – how he is – I still did trust and respect him. And then I found out he’s a disappointment in most regards.”

Klavier laughs bitterly and it sends a sharp chill down Apollo’s spine. “Ach, doesn’t that so often seem to happen? Find someone to look up to and respect, and if you don’t disappoint them, they will fail you.”

(“Phoenix Wright and Zak Gramarye both deserve their fates!”)

The silence, too, feels cold.

(“Didn't you notice in today's trial? There was a single piece of forged evidence.”)

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “I’ve come to notice that.”

(“I’ll come pick you up as soon as things settle down here. Promise.”)

“So...” Apollo flails quickly for where this conversation started, desperate to stop that last train of thought because Klavier doesn’t need him having a breakdown here, too. “What is it that you want to do that you don’t have anyone to ask?”

Klavier looks back at him with icy eyes. “I need to go burn a faery ring.”

“Is that a joke, or do you want me dead?” Apollo asks. “Like, do you actually wish that I had left or you had thrown me out and slammed the door in my face again, and you’ve secretly wanted me dead this entire conversation?”

“No! Herr Forehead, I would never.” He actually looks genuinely offended, his hands up and splayed wide, half surrender and half pleading. “No, it is inactive and has been for years. A residual marker that once there opened a one-way, one-use door from them to us.”

“Then why bother with it?” Apollo folds his arms across his chest. He should have expected them to hit the cliff sooner rather than later: Klavier, once he opened the door, has been entirely too reasonable. “I think we’re both probably cursed enough to not want to risk it, don’t you?”

Klavier freezes with his hand in his hair. “All considered,” he says after a few seconds, “this might be the least dangerous thing either of us have done for a while, ja?”

His weak grin isn’t very good at persuasion. “Seriously,” Apollo asks. “If it’s not dangerous, why burn it at all? Why not just leave it?”

“Ah, the dramatic symbolism, of course,” Klavier says – lies, obviously, his eyes darting away from Apollo’s, marked red just as his hand and his hair are. “You know very little about being a performer, do you, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo gives him his best look of unamusement, the one that he uses with Clay or Trucy to shut down puns, and he slowly raises one eyebrow – or tries too, but they both go up anyway. Is it too much to ask that he gets to look cool for once. “Prosecutor Gavin,” he says. He waits for Klavier to meet his eyes again. “I’m not going anywhere with you unless you can be honest with me about it.”

“After all our time in court together, I should know better than to try and hide information from you, ja?” He leans back against his desk, drumming his fingers on the edge, the soft sound interspersed with the clack of his rings against the wood. “That ring – that spot, marks where I came back through, years ago. I want it gone in a sad childish dream of closure; like I keep thinking if I get rid of it I can stop feeling like I am living in two worlds and belong in neither of them.” He presses his hands against the side of his head, trying to block out some sound that only he hears. “And I am still too afraid of looking myself in the eye to do it!”

Vongole, smog, unfurls around his legs. “Congratulations, Herr Forehead.” He folds his arms tightly across his chest, his last attempt at hiding himself. “Your magatama is a backstage pass to the fuckin’ shitshow” – his accent vanishes but he doesn’t sound like Kristoph because these are words that Kristoph would not say – “and grants you the privilege” – an accentless sneer, much more like Kristoph – “of learning more about me than anyone.” He looks over Apollo’s head, still unable to hold eye contact for more than a few seconds. “And there is the answer to your question and more you didn’t ask.”

“It’s not like you’re unloading on me entirely without prompting,” Apollo says. “I did push.”

“And rightfully so, for the depth of what I ask of you.” Tap tap tap go his rings on the desk. “You found the igniter to set it off, after all I’ve tried to spare witches and crows and foreheads that much.”

“You think you’re doing us a favor by turning yourself into a grungy shut-in?”

Klavier doesn’t respond, not even to object to the “grungy” part. Spiral off a cliff, Phoenix had said he was worried about. Klavier seems to have some amount of self-awareness, in this moment; maybe he opened the door because he knew if he didn’t then, he was going over and down, in flames, alone. “Closure, huh,” Apollo says.

He went looking for it with Trucy – maybe just found her more pain, but he hopes the daughter of a lawyer, even one as dubious as Phoenix, can appreciate that knowing the truth is better than to live ignorant forever. That maybe someday, it will be better closure. And Apollo’s never going to find his own – he gave up waiting five years ago, and only held on that long with denial, not hope – but if Phoenix pulled him into all of this, Apollo can at least try and help his friends find their answers.

(Feeling like I am living in two world and belong in neither seems familiar, even if one of the worlds is to Apollo no more substantial than a long-ago dream.)

“You didn’t ride your motorbike in today, right?” Apollo asks.

Klavier laughs, a sudden bright burst, doubling over and then flipping his head up like he expects to toss his hair out of his eyes. “Herr Forehead is not the adventurous type?” he asks, his grin balanced between amusement and pleasant disbelief. “But fortunately for you, no, I did not.”

“You’re going to have to tell me where exactly we’re going.” How in six months has he come to willingly throw himself into these sorts of situations, when he began so wary of everyone he is now spending time with? “I need to let my roommate know who to blame and where he should send the police to look for my body if this ends bad.” Clay calls that the First-Date Protocol, but Klavier doesn’t need to know that, and no valid first or any date involves faery rings anyway.

“Of course. I have a few papers to drop with the Chief Prosecutor” – Klavier scoops them off the floor and waves them –“and then I think I should be able to get away. Haven’t used any sick days since I got back – unless you’re needed at your office until the evening?”

“Yeah, I ran out after having a revelation and Mr Wright didn’t try and stop me, so I think I’m good.” Actually, that makes him feel bad, in a mostly-inadequate partially-guilty way, like he needs to be doing more when Klavier so obviously is. “Not that I make a habit of it!”

Klavier chuckles. “Never said you did, Herr Forehead.” He hooks the toe of his boot under handle of the bottom desk drawer. “Meet you down in the parking lot?”

#fic: the seelie of kurain #this whole chapter feels like it took me years but 15 only went up a week ago so that's cool how time is fake

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jenanigans1207 · 6 years

Text

The Memories We Shared (Now Hurt More Than Ever) |Klance| [5]

Be prepared for this one to hurt, guys! @winter-and-little-brunettes can confirm that I went hard on this chapter and it’s absolutely packed with a lot of feels.

——————————————————————

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Lance stirred in bed rubbing at his eyes. He pressed up into a sitting position, groaning. His entire body ached and his head was pounding— a sure sign that he had spent the evening before crying. Blearily he looked around, only to remember what had happened the last night. He pulled his hand away from his face and looked down at the red sleeve— he was still wearing Keith’s jacket. A feeling of dread rose up his throat.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Lance jolted, standing from the bed. He slid Keith’s jacket off quickly and tossed it gently towards the closet before heading towards the door to his apartment. He could faintly hear voices on the other side of the door, murmuring back and forth to each other. He reached the door and took a deep breath before opening it. One of the only things he didn’t like about the apartment was that there was no way for him to see who was on the other side of the door before opening it. Because of this, Keith typically was in charge of that.

“Hey!” Pidge cried as soon as Lance opened the door, pushing into the apartment, a box of donuts in her hands. “Did we wake you?”

Hunk trailed after her, a tray of coffee cups in his hands and a smile on his face. Lance stepped aside and let them in, shutting the door behind them. Just the smell of the coffee alone made Lance feel like his headache was decreasing.

“Uh, yeah, actually.” Lance replied as he trailed them into the kitchen. Hunk shot him a worried look, opening his mouth to say something but Lance cut him off. “No, no, it’s totally okay. I needed to be up. Plus, it looks like you came prepared!”

Hunk was Lance’s best friend and Pidge was Keith’s. Shiro was more of a brother to Keith than anything else, so Lance felt comfortable designating Pidge as his best friend. Once the two of them had started dating, Pidge and Hunk had become an inseparable part of their relationship and Lance wouldn’t have it any other way. The two had accepted each other without any sort of hesitation and they were both there unfailingly. There were no favorites between them— Lance could feel just as comfortable going to Pidge for something as he felt going to Hunk and he knew she would always support him. It was like his heart had grown when he met Keith, but it grew even further when Pidge opened her arms to him and never let go. Lance knew Keith felt the same about Hunk and the ease they all had with each other was something Lance had always dreamed of having.

“Well, after your text last night, I figured you could use a bit of a pick-me-up.” Hunk shrugged, trying to look casual. Lance knew Hunk was just trying to judge his mental state and he couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of gratefulness that he was surrounded by such kind and caring people. “Do you want to talk about it?”

And for the first time since the accident, Lance found that he did want to talk about it. He had been trying to keep it in, trying to present a strong face, trying so hard to act like he could get through it. It was exhausting. And the truth was, he wasn’t completely sure that he could get through it. The thought of Keith never remembering him— never giving him a second chance— terrified him beyond words. If there was one thing Lance had been sure of since the day they met, it was that he needed Keith in his life. Once they had met, Lance had never considered a possibility that they would ever be separated. When you know, you know, as they say.

—

Lance was a mixture of nervousness and excitement. He and Keith had been talking for a few months and were incredibly close friends. They had hit it off instantaneously the day they had bumped into each other at the coffee shop on campus, both wanting the final muffin. They had agreed to split it and by the time they were done sipping their drinks and eating their half of the muffin, crowded around one of the tiny tables in the shop, they were already friends. They had switched numbers then and there and were already hanging out the next day. From there, they had essentially been inseparable.

“I want to ruin our friendship!” Lance finally blurted.

Keith looked up from his textbook at Lance, an eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I want to ruin our friendship,” Lance repeated slower, enunciating each word a little more clearly. His nerves were buzzing and his pulse was thundering in his ears. He could barely even register the way Keith was looking back at him, hurt.

Slowly, Keith lowered his pencil, tucking it into the crease in the center of his textbook and levelling Lance with a look. “Did I do something to upset you…? Why don’t you want to be friends anymore?”

“What?” This time Lance raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying— I- I think we should just be lovers instead.”

“Are you—” A smile was spreading across Keith’s lips. He bit his bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from forming. “Are you asking me out?”

The smile on Keith’s face finally took over and he ducked his head, letting his bangs cover his eyes. Lance could feel a sort of relief washing over him at that smile. “Yes,” He said, breathless, nearly laughing at himself. “That’s exactly what I’m going for.”

He could see Keith’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter but he wasn’t offended. A moment passed and Keith composed himself, finally lifting his gaze back up to meet Lance’s, “Yes,” He reached across the table and grabbed Lance’s free hand, “I will go out with you.”

Lance could feel his own face break out into a large grin. “You will?”

“Yeah,” Keith repeated, giving his head a squeeze. “But not until after this big test that I need to study for. Fair?”

“Isn’t your test in, like, three hours?” Lance asked.

“Sure is.” Keith pulled his hand back, picking up his pencil again. “So you have to wait until tonight. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Lance laughed, turning back to his own textbook, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to focus anytime soon.

—

Hunk cleared his throat, drawing Lance out of his memory. Lance shook his head before reaching for the coffee cup that Hunk was offering. Pidge was on the other side of the counter opening the box of donuts and pushing it so it was in between all of them. Lance took a sip of his coffee and launched into a recap of the night before. Pidge and Hunk listened attentively the whole time, only speaking when he finally finished and took a bite of a donut.

“Well, I mean, Shiro knows him best.” Pidge said, looking at Lance with her head tilted a little to the side. “If he says Keith would be open to seeing you, I trust him.”

“He said he thinks Keith might be open to it.” Lance emphasized, swinging his donut around for punctuation, “That’s not exactly a confidence builder.”

“What’s the harm in calling him?” Hunk reached for a donut of his own, settling finally onto the barstool next to Lance. “I mean the worst he can do is say no.”

“He’s already said no, like, five times.” Lance replied bitterly, “The worst he can do now is request that I never speak to him ever again. And I’m pretty sure we’re headed that way if I keep annoying him.”

“Lance,” Pidge was looking at him with an uncharacteristically serious expression. It wasn’t that Pidge wasn’t normally serious— she always had a serious edge to the things she did— but it was usually lighthearted. This felt heavy. Just the look she was giving him told Lance that whatever she was going to say would be important. “I’ve known Keith a long time, so I think I have the right to say this. No matter what happens, he will always find his way back to you. I’ve never seen him connect with someone like he has with you. I literally cannot imagine him not making his way back to you.”

“Yeah, well, I thought that too,” Lance replied, setting his coffee cup down. “But clearly I was wrong.”

“Lance,” Pidge’s voice was sharper. Lance glanced away from her strong gaze. “I’m not wrong. Do you know how many nights I had to stay up listening to him gush about you? Yes, Keith used to gush about you. Hard to believe, right? That shows you how much he loves you. He will find his way back to you, but you can’t give up on him.”

Lance could feel his resolve deteriorating further. He could feel the weak grip he had on his emotions failing. “I would never give up on him, Pidge. You know I wouldn’t. If I walk away, it’s because I think that’s what’s right for him. I am only doing what I think is best for him!”

“You’re what’s best for him!” Pidge cried loudly. She took a breath and repeated herself more quietly. “You’re what’s best for him. You’ve always brought out the best in him. You’ve always been there to get him through his worst times, even when he didn’t want you there. Why is this any different?”

“He doesn’t remember any of that,” Lance stands abruptly from the barstool, the words rushing out of him before he can think it through. He feels like he’s deflating. He feels like these thoughts and feelings have been the only thing keeping him going for days now and letting them out successfully renders him incapable of continuing. “He doesn’t know that I’d never walk out on him. He doesn’t know that my leaving is because I love him. You know that, Hunk knows that, I know that, sure. But that means nothing to him, Pidge. I mean nothing to him.”

Silence filled the apartment after his words and it was deafening. On one hand, Lance wished someone would say something just so he could breathe again, but on the other hand, he didn’t want either of them to acknowledge what he said. Maybe, if nobody addressed it, he could pretend it wasn’t true. Maybe he could go back to believing there was a slim chance of things turning out okay.

“That’s it,” It was Hunk who spoke this time. Both Pidge and Lance looked at him, surprised. “You’re calling him.”

“Hunk—” Lance started

Hunk raised a hand, cutting him off. “I will not listen to you talk like that, Lance. I won’t. I can’t. You are not allowed to give up on Keith until you talk to him again.”

“I don’t want to.” His voice was weak, quiet. Lance sighed. Pidge and Hunk were both staring at him in disbelief and he knew he deserved it. Ever since the day Keith had kicked him out of the hospital room for good, Lance had wanted nothing more than to talk to Keith. He was used to coming home each night and talking to Keith about his day. He was used to texting him about funny things he saw during the day. He was used to Keith being there— being everywhere— whenever he wanted or needed him. He was just used to Keith. He amended, “I want to talk to him.”

“Call him,” Hunk urged, gentler than Pidge. “Just try talking to him, that’s it. You can do that.”

“Call him,” Pidge echoes.

Sighing, Lance walked back into his room where he had, miraculously, managed to plug his phone in before falling asleep the night before. He purposely didn’t look towards the closet where he knew Keith’s jacket was a heap on the floor as he walked out. He trained his eyes on the ground, hustling out of the room as quickly as possible. He could feel the weight of his phone in his hand— the weight of what he was about to do and the fear that came with it.

Pidge had finally moved around the counter and took a seat on one of the barstools. Lance slid back into his original spot, now situated between both Hunk and Pidge. He placed his phone on the counter in front of him and the three of them stared at it for a long, silent, few seconds.

“You know,” Pidge said after a moment, shifting her gaze to Lance, “It won’t call him on it’s own. You have to actually dial.”

Lance swiped the phone indignantly off the counter, “I know that!” He cried, instinctively typing Keith’s number into his phone. He hesitated for the length of one breath before forcing himself to press the call button before he could back out. “It’s ringing.”

“That tends to happen.” Pidge whispered in response.

Lance swatted at her, pressing the phone to his ear. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, making him feel like he was going to choke on every shaky breath he took. The line rang one, twice, three times and then—

“Hello?”

Out of sheer fear, Lance nearly slammed the phone down. He looked at Hunk with wide eyes who gestured kindly for him to actually speak. “Uh, Keith, hey. It-It’s Lance.”

“Yeah, I know.” Keith’s voice came through the speaker loud and clear.

Lance was immediately awash with a bunch of conflicting emotions. On one hand he was relieved to hear Keith’s voice— to feel, for the first time in over a week, like Keith was still around and accessible to him. On the other hand, he was completely and utterly terrified which was something he wasn’t used to feeling around Keith. On top of that, he could hear an underlying tone in Keith’s voice that made him hesitant.

“I was, uh— I was hoping we could, you know, talk? Or something?” Lance closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in and holding it in an attempt to get his nerves under control. He certainly wasn’t going to win Keith over with half coherent sentences.

He could hear Keith breathing on the other end, jagged. “Why?”

“Why?” Lance repeated, dumbfounded. He looked between Hunk and Pidge before finally putting the phone down on the counter and turning it on speaker phone. He couldn’t face this situation entirely alone, he needed them to witness. “Because, well, there’s a lot to say. And I just want to be sure you’re okay. Are you okay? I’m just worried, you know?”

“And you’re actually going to show up this time?” Keith’s voice was sharp, an edge that Lance wasn’t used to accompanied his words. Keith had always had a bit of a temper but it had never— never— been directly harshly at Lance. Even when they fought, Keith never spoke down to him, never spoke cruelly to him.

“Keith,” His name tumbled out of Lance’s mouth on instinct alone and Lance nearly winced at how it sounded on his lips. Despite it all, he could hear the affection in his voice and he was sure that Keith heard it too. “I told you, I had a reason for missing. And I did show up to our second date. Just let me explain—”

“I don’t believe you.” There was a moment of static and Lance could tell that Keith was shifting positions. “I don’t believe I would’ve given you another chance. If you know me so well, you know that I don’t like wasting my time.”

A hand appeared on Lance’s shoulder. Hunk was gripping it tightly in response to Keith’s words. Lance was staring steadfastly at Keith’s name printed on the screen of his phone, trying desperately to picture Keith, to imagine what he was feeling, to regain their connection. “I was mugged! I don’t know what you expect of me! Was I supposed to stop the mugger really quick and explain that I had to call my date before he continued? I mean, come on, be reasonable.”

Keith didn’t respond. The silence filled the apartment again and Lance wondered how many times he would feel like he was suffocating before he finally would— he nearly wished for it at this point. The tension in the room was high and he was certain Pidge and Hunk were both holding their breath. Still, Lance couldn’t bring himself to look at them. He couldn’t bring himself to break the silence. He felt paralyzed, sitting at the counter with no control over his future. He felt like everything he had planned for his life was slipping through his fingers like smoke. As the silence stretched on, Lance felt as if he were being pulled apart bone-by-bone, his heart crumbling agonizingly slowly.

Finally, finally Keith spoke, but it wasn’t what Lance wanted to hear. “It doesn’t matter. I would never give you another chance.”

“You did, though. You did.” Lance’s voice was barely a whisper and he could hear the thickness of tears in his voice. He could feel the disappointment welling up in his chest, pressing his rib cage open and shredding him from the inside out.

“Lance,” Keith’s voice is raw and Lance recognizes it. He recognizes all the emotions reflected there. He can hear the pain— the agony— in Keith’s words as he talks. He can hear Keith’s regret as he shatters the already small pieces of Lance’s heart one more time. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know a lot right now, but I do know myself and I know that I never would’ve given you a second chance. And I never would have fallen in love with you.”

His words are punctuated by the distinct click of the phone line going dead and Lance is left staring at his reflection— at the reflection of a man who has nothing left to fight for,

—

The teardrops fell onto his phone and Keith wasn’t even surprised to find that he was crying. He clutched the phone tightly between his hands, staring at the screen that had said Lance’s name only moments before. His heart hurt— worse than his head has been hurting, in fact. Suddenly the injuries from his accident were the least of his worries and all he could think about was Lance.

He may not remember the past two years as clearly as he would like to— a few blurry memories had come up here or there but that didn’t help much— but he could still hear the honesty in Lance’s voice. He could hear what little hope Lance had left slowly fade out with each word he spoke. He was certain that Lance was telling the truth about everything— the mugging, the second date, the two years they had spent together, all of it. Keith could feel it deep in his bones.

Lifting the phone up and pressing it to his heart, Keith fought to stifle a sob. Lance had always been a good guy, and that remained true. After everything Keith had put him through he was still fighting for him. It was more than Keith deserved. And Keith was no longer the kind of man Lance deserved— or maybe he never was? He didn’t know much about how he’d been the last two years, but he hadn’t exactly felt like he deserved Lance before that, either.

“Keith?’ The door cracked open and he could just make out a sliver of Adam’s face on the other side. “What’s going on?”

Swiping at the tears on his cheeks, Keith replied, “Nothing.”

The door opened all the way then and Adam leaned against the door frame, looking at Keith from behind his glasses. “I heard what you just said to Lance, so don’t even try pulling that.”

“Eavesdropping is—” Keith began.

Adam cut him off sharply. “Keith.”

A beat passed and Keith sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

It was deeper than that, though. He didn’t want to talk about it, that was true, but he wasn’t sure how to talk about it either. How was he supposed to express that he was intentionally pushing away the one person who was approaching him with even more unconditional love than Shiro? How was he supposed to tell Adam that he didn’t think Lance would love him anymore? He didn’t know much about the man he had been the past two years, but he knew the man he was since the accident. That man was angry most of the time, constantly lashing out and pushing people away. That man wasn’t worthy of love from someone like Lance— someone who was sunshine personified. Even if Keith didn’t remember their two years together, he remembered their months of friendship before their first date.

He could still hear Lance’s laugh as he leaned across their favorite table in the coffee shop, doodling something upside down on the top of Keith’s notes. He could remember Lance pressing against him on the park bench where they often ate their lunch. He could remember everything from those months— the texting from morning until night, spending every day together… falling for each other. He took a shaky breath, facing the lie he had just told Lance. Of course he knew he had been in love with Lance for the last two years— he’d been in love with him practically from the day they met. He had been in love with him long before they had even talked about going out on a date. His heart still ached for Lance.

But he didn’t think he was the man Lance used to love and his biggest fear— bigger than never getting his memories back— was finding out that the accident had turned him into a man that Lance could no longer love. It was painful to cut him off like this, but it had to be less painful than finding out that he was right; that he was no longer good enough.

Adam pressed off the door frame and came fully into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Keith knew Adam could see his red eyes but he didn’t care. He met Adam’s gaze head on, hoping to look more pulled together than he felt. “Well, too bad. Because I want to know why you said those things to him.”

“Because they’re true?” He ventured cautiously.

Unsurprisingly, Adam didn’t buy it. “No, they’re not. Try again.”

The good thing about Adam was that he was unfailingly patient. He had never rushed Keith to speak, never tried to finish his thoughts for him. It was one of the reasons he was perfect for Shiro. Sometimes Shiro got jumbled up in his head or stumbled over too many ideas at once but Adam was always willing to wait for him to straighten it out and he never made anyone feel like a burden because of it. It was typically a good thing— unless Keith was trying to get out of talking about something. There was no getting Adam to give up.

“I don’t know what to say, Adam. I just— I needed to do that.”

Adam settled his gaze on Keith, “Fine, don’t talk.” He sighed. “Just listen, okay?” Keith nodded, not meeting Adam’s eyes. “Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop. You may think you’re doing Lance some sort of favor, but you’re not. Trust me, you’re only making it worse for him. Lance is capable of making his own decisions and you don’t have the right to take that away from him.”

“I’m not—” Keith wasn’t really even sure what to say.

“You are, though.” Adam cut in smoothly, placing his hands on Keith’s shoulders. “By refusing to see him, you’re taking away his choice. He gets to decide if he wants to keep fighting for you. And I’ll tell you this— he’s already chosen.”

Keith looked up then, finally meeting Adam’s eyes. He was surprised to see that Adam looked both stern and sad. “What?”

“Those movies you’ve been watching and loving? Lance suggested them for you. Your clothes? Lance brought them over. He was the one who told us that you’d eat the chinese food. Everything that’s happened to make you feel more comfortable or at home has been Lance’s idea. I’d like to say that we thought of it, but we didn’t. He is the one who knows you inside and out, he is the one who has been working behind the scenes this entire time to help you recover.” Adam’s gaze was unwavering. “If he wanted to walk away, he would’ve done it by now. He doesn’t want to leave, Keith, he just wants you.”

The lump was back in his throat and he could feel the tears in the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t accustomed to crying, it wasn’t something he normally did. The doctor had warned him that the head trauma could affect his emotions but, as much as he would like to blame it on that, he knew it was just straight heartbreak. Swallowing thickly, Keith thought back to Lance. He knew Lance and he could only imagine how many tears he had cried in the last week. The thought made the hole in his chest open up wider.

“He deserves better than me,” Keith choked out.

Adam squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, “Love isn’t about that, Keith. Love is about choosing someone over and over, every day, despite their shortcomings. Love is fighting for someone even on their bad days. If you can’t see that Lance loves you—”

“I know he does,” The words are raw, scratching his throat as he says them, leaving him feeling like he’s now empty. “I’m just afraid.”

With the words now out in the open, Keith feels like he’s a house of cards collapsing in on itself. There’s nothing left to support him. The tears fall from his eyes again and he ducks his head. Adam’s hand moves to rub small circles on his shoulder.

“I understand that. And Keith?” Adam leaned down to try and catch his eye. “Lance will understand that, too.” Adam took his other hand and placed it over Keith’s hand— and over the phone he was still holding. A clear message. “I have never seen two people more perfect for each other. Don’t throw it away because you’re afraid. Everyone gets scared sometimes. I’m sure Lance has been scared every day since— “ He paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sure Lance has been scared, but he hasn’t given up. You shouldn’t either.”

“You know,” Keith replied shakily, the tears still on his cheeks. “When I introduced you to Shiro, I didn’t realize I was just getting a second person to lecture me.”

Adam huffed out a laugh, withdrawing his hands from Keith. “Maybe if you listened to my advice, I could cut the number of lectures I give you in half.”

This time it was Keith who let out a shaky laugh as Adam rose from the bed. He didn’t say anything else as he exited the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Keith knew Adam was right— Adam was always right. Adam was one of those people who didn’t speak on a topic unless he was thoroughly educated on it. Keith sighed.

He had assumed that Lance was the reason for his clothes, but hearing that he was the reason behind all the other things that had brought him so much comfort in the past week made something in his chest stir. It was incredible, how well Lance knew him. More incredible was the way that Lance was able to apply that knowledge to this new situation. He knew Keith so thoroughly that he could predict how Keith was feeling when faced with a situation for the first time— that was love.

Keith pulled the phone away from his chest and looked down at it.

—

“Well, that’s that, I guess.” Lance’s voice is calm, too calm. It’s eerie, even to his own ears.

Pidge starts to speak but clearly isn’t sure what to say. She gives up. Hunk steps up instead, “I’m sure he didn’t mean that. He’s just confused or—”

“There’s no other possibility!” Lance cried, shoving his phone across the counter. “There’s no other way he could have meant that and we all know it. There’s no point denying it.”

“This is just one of your fights,” Hunk tried.

Lance wasn’t hearing it. He wasn’t going to be talked down. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up again. They had been shot down too many times. “This is not one of our fights. Our fights never get this cruel. And they always end happily.”

—

The bedroom door slammed as Keith stormed out. Lance trailed after him, throwing the door open and yelling at his retreating back. “That’s great! Just run away from our problems, that’s healthy.”

Keith’s figure didn’t stop. “It’s not running away when you’re shoved out the door!”

“You’re right, I shoved you out the door.” Lance exited the bedroom, taking the hallway in large, quick steps. “It’s always my fault, isn’t it? Everything you do is because I made you do it.”

“That’s not what I said.” Keith whirled around to face him and Lance stopped abruptly, barely managing to avoid crashing directly into Keith. “Though there’s no denying some of this is your fault.”

Lance looks at Keith— really looks at him. He notes the angry red flush to his face and the way his hair is disheveled from Keith running his hands through it angrily. He notices the way Keith’s bottom lip is swollen slightly from him biting it in frustration. Briefly he thinks that he’d like that lip to be swollen from kisses instead, but he banishes that thought. He had sworn a long time ago not to solve arguments that way. Their argument could only end when they had talked it out and actually solved the issue.

“Also,” Keith drew him out of his thoughts, his tone softer, almost defensive. “I got the day off.”

“What?” Lance’s eyes shot up to meet Keith’s. Their entire argument had been because Keith had forgotten to ask the day off so he could attend a big work event with Lance. “When?”

“Today. I explained it to Coran and he understood.” Keith was focusing his gaze just over Lance’s shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve avoided all of this!” All of Lance’s anger rushed out of him.

Keith’s tone was level but Lance could detect the slight annoyance still in it. “Well you jumped down my throat the moment I walked in the door. You didn’t really give me a chance to tell you.”

All the anger that had just rushed out of Lance was replaced with guilt. “Babe, I’m sorry. I— “ Lance swallowed and reached for Keith. “I’m sorry.”

A half hearted shrug was all Keith offered as a response.

Lance wanted to say something more, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. It wasn’t uncommon that his big mouth got him in trouble like this. Before he could figure out exactly what else to say, Keith turned around and continued into their living room, pulling his blanket off the back of the couch and rearranging the pillows. Lance’s heart sunk.

“Please don’t sleep on the couch tonight.” He trailed Keith into the living room.

It was too late, Keith was already climbing onto the couch and tucking himself in under his red blanket. “Just for tonight, okay? Just so we can calm down.”

“I am calm.” Lance tried, but it did no good.

Keith bid him goodnight and Lance slowly walked back into their room, partially closing the door behind him. He laid down in their bed and tried to sleep, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep without Keith next to him. He couldn’t sleep without Keith if Keith were near him. He managed if for some reason they were completely separated but if they were in the same building, there was no way Lance would be able to calm down enough to get any amount of worthwhile sleep.

Sighing, he climbed back out of bed and padded back into the hallway. As he approached the living room, he could hear the soft, even breathing that meant Keith had fallen asleep. Lance approached with no hesitation, pulling his blanket back enough so that he could slide underneath it too, pillowing his head on Keith’s chest and falling asleep almost instantly.

Keith stirred the next morning, the action waking Lance. He blinked up at his boyfriend, smiling. “Good morning.”

The look Keith shot him in response was exasperated, but fond. “Good morning. Why are we crammed onto one tiny couch together?”

“This time it really is your fault,” Lance said lightheartedly and Keith rolled his eyes in response, leaning down to capture Lance’s lips in a soft, forgiving kiss.

—

Lance stands up abruptly and begins walking around the kitchen. Pidge and Hunk glance at each other with a worried expression but neither says anything. At this point it’s obvious to Lance that nobody knows what to think or feel. The realization that they are as lost as he is pushes him over the edge and his emotions rise up in a tidal wave, sweeping him out to sea.

“I guess I’m really going to give up. I know I said that before but we all knew that I couldn’t let him go. But now? I mean… now I have no choice.” The words sting, but he presses on. “Why would I fight for someone who has outright said they could never fall in love with me?”

For once, he hoped Pidge or Hunk had something to say. He hoped they could offer him words of comfort but wasn’t surprised to find that they couldn’t. Because nothing could be said to repair his heart. The damage was done and all Lance could do was hope that it wasn’t permanent.

The sharp ringtone of Lance’s phone startled all of them and Lance actually jumped. He crossed the kitchen back to his phone and picked it up, shocked to see the name Keith scrawled across the screen. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to ignore the call, placing his phone back on the counter. A few seconds later, it rang again. He silenced it a second time. He could feel Pidge and Hunk both looking at it, reading the name on the screen.

When it rang the third time, Pidge cleared her throat. “Why don’t you answer it?”

“I don’t really feel up for a round two,” Lance replied tersely.

He ignored the call again and then unlocked his phone, turning the volume off completely. Lance made sure to put the phone face down on the counter so that way he wouldn’t see if Keith called again. His mind was running a mile a minute trying to figure out why Keith could be calling. Would he really call back to say more hurtful things? Sure the accident had affected him, but Lance was sure it hadn’t changed him that much.

Hunk stood from his barstool and moved around the counter. “Lance…”

“No,” Lance took a step back, leaving his phone where it was on the counter. “I just got done saying I’m giving up and I mean it. I can’t imagine any reason he’d call besides to yell at me more and I don’t think I can handle that. I’m already—” Lance shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m already hurt enough, I don’t need anything else added to it.”

This time it was Hunk’s ringtone that broke the silence. Hunk reached into his pocket, fishing his phone out. He looked down at the screen and then back at Lance, his eyebrows drawn together. “It’s Keith.”

Lance felt his heart skip a beat. He replied as steadily as he could. “Go ahead and answer it if you want, he’s your friend, too. There’s no reason for you to ignore him.”

Hunk lifts the phone to his ear, answering as he walks into the other room. Lance is grateful for the distance because he’s not sure he even wants to know what the phone call is about. Faintly he can hear Hunk responding in the other room but it’s mostly just “yeah’s” and “okay’s”.

“What do you think he wants?” Pidge asks, glancing at Lance.

Lance looks back at her, his tone coming out sharper than he intended. “How should I know?”

“You do know him best.” She replied.

Lance countered. “No, I used to know him best.”

Luckily, Pidge didn’t argue. The look on her face made it clear that she disagreed, but she could at least understand that he didn’t want to talk about it right now. He didn’t want to talk about anything, really. He wanted to curl into a ball on the couch and never get off of it.

A few moments passed by and Hunk reappeared, his phone safely back in his pocket. “He wants to meet.”

“Are you going to meet him?” Lance could hear the slight edge of bitterness in his voice and he frowned at himself. Hunk and Pidge didn’t deserve his sharp edges— they had done nothing but try to comfort him.

“He wants to meet you.” Hunk amended.

Lance felt his head snap around as he read Hunk’s expression for any sign of a lie. There were none. “What?”

“Yeah, he said that he does want to talk. He was going to go by Shelly’s later this afternoon and wanted me to tell you so you could join him if you want.” Hunk’s shrug was a failed attempt at casual.

Shelly’s was their favorite bar, just around the corner from the apartment. Neither one of them drank, really, but it had the best mozzarella sticks and those were Keith’s favorite appetizer. It was another go to meal for him on a bad day. They had been there so much that Shelly knew who they were and knew their orders by heart.

“And if I don’t want to meet him?” Lance ventured. He could already feel the hope rising back up inside of him and he hated it.

“He said he’d understand.” Hunk looked like he wanted to cross over to Lance but was restraining himself.

Lance wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Of course his heart was screaming for him to take the opportunity to see Keith again, but his mind was replaying Keith’s words. Normally when conflicted like this, he would listen to his gut. But since his entire soul was intertwined with Keith, he couldn’t trust his gut. Of course it was screaming for him to go.

Pidge sipped her now cold coffee and set the cup loudly on the counter. “You said yourself you wouldn’t give up on him. Clearly he doesn’t want you to give up.”

“I don’t think that’s very clear at all,” Lance bit out, “You did hear everything he said earlier.”

“He had a change of heart!” She replied.

Lance barked out a dry laugh. “Keith doesn’t change his mind, he’s too stubborn.”

Pidge groaned, resting her elbows on the counter. “We could argue this all day. You know you’ll kick yourself if you don’t go and find out what he wants. You know you have to go.”

It was true. Despite everything, he had to go. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t hear Keith out. He tried to reign his hopes in, telling himself that he had to use this opportunity as a chance to say his final goodbye.

“What time is he going there?” Lance asked, frowning.

Hunk was quick to answer. “He said he’d be there in about three hours. So why don’t we watch a movie to distract you until it’s time to go?”

Lance agreed and together they piled into the living room, all squishing onto one couch. Pidge flipped through channels, looking for what they wanted to watch as Lance and Hunk settled in. Lance leaned his head back on the couch, wishing with all his might that the next few hours would fly by.

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