#currently sick so been mostly resting but I’m getting better

[chloesimaginationthings]

WHAT HAPPENED TO UR JJBA CONTENT 😭😭😭 /NM

Just been into FNAF as of late! I have currently more ideas for it, if the SBR anime is announced at all you can expect me to draw some JJBA again

So I haven’t totally abandoned JJBA! Promise, I’ve mostly been drawing it for my Patreon so head over there if you wanna see it 💗💗

[bratzforchris]

Make It Better

Summary: Matt's home sick and bored. What happens when you walk in on him doing pushups instead of resting?

Pairing: Matt x feminine reader

Warnings: Fluffy smut, making out while sick, vanilla sex, cowgirl, handjob, p in v, needy/pouty bottom!Matt (mostly just a short/sweet/silly smut<3)

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: There's something about Matt in this video that is just so! Fuckable! In all seriousness though, this is fiction. Maybe don't go around fucking people with COVID...Enjoy!!!

You sighed as you stirred the pot of chicken noodle soup that was currently simmering on the stove. Both Matt and Nick were home sick with COVID, and by extension, so were you and Chris. Despite knowing that you should be making Matt quarantine, you hadn’t done very well with being apart from your boy. Not only did your heart long to care for him, but Matt was a bit…whiny when he was sick. You found it rather endearing, the way he would whine and grab for things, and the way he would absolutely beg you to lay with him and cuddle him until he felt better. He claimed that the snuggles and you scratching his scalp softly with your acrylic nails was better than any amount of Dayquil. 

Just because Matt was your boyfriend wouldn’t stop you from caring for the other two triplets, though. You quickly turned off the stove and divided the soup into three bowls, placing them on a tray and starting the trek throughout the house to deliver the food to your boys. Your first stop was Chris’ room in the basement. You felt rather bad for the youngest triplet; he had never liked sleeping or even being alone, and now he was basically holed up in his room all by himself for days. 

“Knock knock!” You said cheerfully, announcing your arrival at his bedroom door. 

Chris opened his door a few moments later, looking bleary-eyed with messy hair. “Y/N?”

“I brought soup!” You explained happily. 

“I’m not the sick one,” Chris chuckled. “But thank you.”

You and Chris continued to chat for a few moments, with you making sure you kept your distance since you had been around Matt, before you spoke. “Well, I guess I should go finish playing DoorDash and make sure the toddler is alright.”

“The toddler?”

“Someone's rather whiny when he’s sick.” You snorted. 

Chris laughed as well, knowing exactly who you were referencing. After bidding the youngest triplet goodbye, you picked up your tray and headed to Nick’s room. Seeing as how the oldest was still contagious, you shot him a quick text to let him know that his food was outside. Finally, you made your way to your and Matt’s shared room with one bowl of soup left. Pushing open the door, you were met with a sight that you were not expecting at all. Matt was on the ground doing push ups, still in pajamas and vlogging the whole thing. 

“Matt!” you exclaimed, setting his bowl down on his desk. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’m bored,” Your boy whined, sitting up and leaning against the wall. “And I need physical activity.”

“Baby, you’re sick. You need to be resting.” You said, rolling your eyes playfully and offering him your hand to stand up. 

“I took less than 100 steps yesterday. That’s sickening–” Matt groaned, being cut off by a barking cough as you helped him lay down once more. 

You pulled your boyfriend into your chest as you laid down beside him, running your nails through his fluffy, brown hair. Matt let out a content little sigh, curling into your chest and sniffling. He was rather feverish, but he was already doing loads better than he had been yesterday. At this point, he was mostly just bored and eager to do something other than watch movies, play Fortnite, and sleep, despite his pounding headache. 

You looked down at the boy resting on your chest as Matt snuck his hand between your thighs. “What are you doing?” You asked, raising a brow. 

“Nothing,” Matt said with faux innocence, blinking his glassy, blue eyes at you. “Jus’ getting comfy.”

“You need your hand between my thighs to be comfortable?”

“Mhm.” 

You rolled your eyes, pressing a kiss to the brunette’s head. “You know you’re not a good liar, sweetheart.”

Matt groaned softly, scooting his hips closer to your own as he began to rub soft circles over the fabric that covered your pussy. “‘M bored and I need that physical activity I mentioned earlier.” 

“You’re also sick. When was the last time you brushed your teeth and showered?”

Matt huffed cutely, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed. “You’re being mean.”

Before he could speak again, you turned and pressed a kiss to Matt’s plump, pink lips. The boy moaned softly into the kiss, allowing you to slip your tongue into his mouth, making out with him as you moved yourself to straddle his waist. 

“You’re gonna get sick.” Matt whined softly, making no move to push you off. 

“I don’t care.” You replied in a cliché manner, a dopey smile on your face as you pulled back to look at him. 

Matt let out a soft grunt, rutting his hips up to meet your own. “I need you,” he whimpered, already arching his back against the pillows even though you hadn’t really done anything. “Gonna make me feel better.”

“You’re so whiny when you’re sick.” You tsked, running your hands along the soft skin of his abdomen to pull his white pajama shirt up and over his head.

“I am not.” he sniffled, voice gravelly from the congestion. 

“Are so.” You hummed back teasingly, leaving soft kisses on his warm tummy. 

You could feel Matt’s cock hardening beneath you, making him blush and whine as he tugged at your leggings.You pressed soft kisses to the brunette’s chest and stomach as you tugged his pajama bottoms off, smirking at the way he was already hard for you, pretty pink tip glistening with precum. Matt moaned softly as he blushed harder, letting out little coughs and sniffles as he futilely attempted to cover himself. 

“Ah ah,” You chuckled, batting his hands away. “What happened to all that ‘I need physical activity’ from earlier?” You said, pulling off your shirt and bra. 

“You’re a bully.” Matt grumbled, hissing from the combination of the way you began to stroke his cock and the sight of your now bare tits bouncing in his face as you got yourself worked up on his thigh.  

You broke the connection for a moment to slide off your leggings and already soaked panties. You continued to palm your boyfriend's cock, leaving him whimpering and moaning as you reached into the nightstand and retrieved a condom. 

“Are you sure you feel okay? We don’t have to.” You assured Matt, brushing some of the messy hair off of his forehead as he sneezed.

“I want to. It’ll make me feel better.” Matt pouted, thrusting his dick into your hand, desperate to chase his orgasm. 

“So needy.” You shook your head with a laugh, ripping open the condom and replacing your hand with the rubber on his throbbing cock. 

Your boyfriend hissed as you slid onto him, the feeling of your cunt clenching against him making him whimper. You began to ride Matt slowly, allowing his aching, feverish joints to get used to the feeling of you being on top. It was clear that illness or not, the brunette was beyond needy. He loved the feeling of you being in charge, telling him what to do and calling him a pretty boy. He was, by definition, your pillow princess, and he wouldn’t want it any other way. 

“I thought this was supposed to be physical activity for you.” You panted with a small giggle as you began to speed up your rhythm. 

Matt had a lazy, sleepy smile on his face as you rode him, every now and then letting out little whimpers and moans. “My heart rate elevates every time I look at you.” he smiled cheesily and then hissed when you hit a particularly good angle, brown, feathery curls fanning out against the silken pillow cases as he arched his back. 

Your lower stomach began to clench with the need to orgasm at your boyfriend's sensual noises. The added gravel to his voice from the sickness was just turning you on more, making you grip Matt’s shoulders shakily. 

“I’m…gonna cum.” You groaned, your pussy clenching as Matt whimpered again. 

Matt nodded, letting out loud, sexual noises as you rode him harder than you had previously. “Want you to cum with me.” he pouted, looking up at you through his lashes. 

You two really didn’t have a chance to say anything else as both of your climaxes overtook you. In spite of his incredibly sore throat, Matt was practically screaming your name as your orgasm clenched against his dick, making him fill the condom quickly. By the time you had regained your senses, your boyfriend had softened inside of you. You slid off of Matt easily, helping him pull the condom off and dispose of it in the trash can beside the bed. 

“Was that enough physical activity for you?” You asked with a sly chuckle, kissing his cheek softly. 

Matt nodded sleepily, coughing into his arm roughly. “I feel so much better now.” he said with a watery grin. 

“Do you?” You asked skeptically. 

“...well no, but now I’m content and no longer bored.” the brunette informed you matter-of-factly, his bratty, subby side still showing despite the fact that you were no longer fucking. 

“So you aren’t going to complain about sleeping and taking medicine, right?” You murmured, grabbing a pack of baby wipes off the nightstand and wiping both yourself and Matt down. 

“Medicine tastes like ass and I’ve slept so much in the past two days.”

You hummed in acknowledgement, pulling the comforter over the both of you until you shot up, just now remembering the bowl on Matt’s desk. “Fuck. Your soup’s gone cold.”

“You bought me soup?” Matt cocked his head and blew his nose, unaware that you had ‘left’ the house. 

“I made it. I made you homemade chicken noodle soup and forgot about it because you jumped my bones.” You joked. 

“You didn’t stop me,” Matt pointed out, another chesty cough escaping his mouth. “But if the soup’s already cold…round two?”

“Matthew.”

tags ♡:  @jake-and-johnnies-slut @chrissfavwh3re @suyqa @chrissturnswife @mbsbaby @herxysc-blog @lovingchrissposts @caffeinatedscorpio @spencereidenthusiast @crazychrisl0v3r @sturnioloxlver @whicked-hazlatwhore @blahbel668 @sturncakez @junnniiieee07 @biggesthat3r @sturniolowhore @patscorner @julesgrl @0strawberrysorbet0 @strombolilovr @matt444nixi @remussbitch @devthepoet1221 @mattyblover07 @loisnotaa @mollyquinnxoxo @graysturns @pepsicolapussy333 @ginswife @emmagirouard @athaliahxoxo @bitchydragonparadise @ilydeaky @soggyslugg169 @m00n-0n-paws @books0fever @stingerayyy2 @sunsetsturniolos @mimi-luvzyu @raysmayhem-72 @faygo-frog @oobleoob @billsslutt @aemrsy

note ♡: if you'd like to be added to my taglist, click here <3

[courtforshort15]

Fever Dream

Pairing: Matt Murdock x GN Reader

Word Count: 3,100

Summary: You feel like utter death. Good thing you have a boyfriend whose mother-hen tendencies mean he’s the best at taking care of you.

Trigger warnings: None. Just my self-indulgent imagination of Matt taking care of me while I’m sick.

Masterlist

The sneeze you let out at seven in the morning is almost embarrassingly loud.

It wracks your entire body, the force of it causing you to jerk in your bed, and you barely have time to cover your nose with a tissue. Cringing, you blow your nose before tossing the tissue into the trashcan you’ve moved next to your bed, no longer having the energy to get up and walk each individual one over. 

The feeling of sick came on so unexpectedly and savagely that you didn’t have time to make a grocery trip to grab any medicine, and you were currently stuck using almost-expired Benadryl for the congestion and a nearly empty bottle of ibuprofen for your headache and sore throat. 

Seriously, you were mostly fine last night. Maybe a little stuffy, but nothing close to this. 

With a loud groan, you call your boss on her cell phone to let her know that you won’t be in today, and the raspy tone in your voice paired with the sound of a stuffy nose was enough for her to tell you to take the rest of the week off. 

“No, really, please don’t come in,” she tells you, and you can practically feel the way she’s shuddering on the other side of the line. You’ve worked with her long enough to know she’s a major germaphobe, and she’d rather miss a soft deadline by a day or two than have you anywhere near her. You’re not above using that to your advantage, and have done so in the past, especially in instances when you need an excuse to stay with Matt when he’s recovering from a night that’s rougher than usual. 

“I am willing to bribe you to make sure you stay home. I will send you all the soup you need if you just stay away.”

“You got it boss lady,” you somehow manage to croak out, cringing at both the pain and the way you sound. “I’ll see you Monday.” With a sigh, you hang up with her, grateful for a large balance of PTO, and fully planning on taking her up on the soup once you have an appetite. She’ll splurge on good stuff, too.

Matt is next. Instead of calling him, you send him a quick text, knowing he’s likely already at the courthouse for the morning, and you’re unwilling to interrupt him at work. He’s less likely to check a message than take a phone call, for obvious reasons, so it's easier to escape the laser focus of his concern for just a few extra hours. Typing out the message, you let him know you’re not feeling well and unable to meet him for lunch, as you usually do on Wednesdays. Knowing him, he’ll call you the second he’s on recess, and will likely end up swinging by this evening anyway.

With a loud exhale that causes your throat to burn and offers an abrupt coughing fit, you lay back down against the pillows, and pass out.

---------

You wake up to the sound of someone pounding on your door, and it startles you enough that you nearly roll out of bed. 

It takes you a few moments to get your bearings, grimacing at the way your body feels worse than when you’d fallen asleep, and you mentally curse the person interrupting your rest. It’s probably your obnoxious landlord who finds random excuses to check-in on you, much to your annoyance and Matt’s suspicion, but the man is harmless, guilty of nothing other than using far too much cologne to cover up the stale smell of body odor and of cigarettes. 

You’d roll your eyes if the idea of the simple motion didn’t sound so painful. 

If you weren’t already certain about having been knocked on your ass by the flu, specifically, there’s no doubt in your mind now. A throbbing headache. A throat that feels like it was being torn apart with glass. Congestion. It was all there, and all you want to do is pass out until you feel better.

The pounding on the door continues, combined with an extremely muffled voice, and deciding your body is too sore and too sick to get up, you roll back over in bed, burying your face under a pillow to drown out the noise. Another coughing fit hits you unexpectedly, and your body spasms with the force of your lungs revolting against you. When you’re done, you vaguely pick up on the silence when the pounding abruptly stops, and you sigh, grateful for the quiet once more.

Neil has given up, it seems, but you’re still bitter that your sleep has been interrupted, and the idea of sending the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen to rattle his fire escape at 1am has never felt so appealing.

You’re just about to drift off into sleep again when, not even five minutes later, the sound of your window being opened from the outside shatters the blessed silence once more.

…oh. 

Guess that answers the question of who had been pounding on your door. You mentally apologize to Neil.

“Sweetheart?” His voice is quiet as he steps into your room, and you don’t need eyes to know the way he’s probably wrinkling his nose at the smell of sickness that’s wafting inside the cramped space. His sense of smell is so sensitive, and you definitely don’t envy him for it. You can only imagine how your sweat-damp skin smells, or the mouth that had only experienced half of the recommended amount of teeth brushing this morning, too weak to remain standing for long.

Nose wrinkling, you cringe on his behalf.

You feel him settle on the edge of your bed behind you, hand immediately reaching out to rub your back, and your body can’t help but instinctively arch into his touch, despite the fact that you feel like death. He trails his fingers up to the back of your neck, the touch soothing and offering comfort in a way only he can. His skin on yours is the most natural feeling in the world. 

“Not feeling well, sweetheart?”

You shake your head miserably, a full body shiver shaking you all the way down to your toes, before coughing into your pillow, too sick to bother covering your mouth and trusting the pillowcase to stop the spray.

Gross.

Matt’s hand gently pulls you over with a light hand on your shoulder until you’re laying on your back, and he makes sure to adjust the blankets around you so that no warmth seeps out from underneath the covers. Your eyes remain tightly shut, unwilling to subject yourself to the bright light of your bedroom. Your head is pounding, borderline migraine material, and even the thought of sunshine makes it throb. “Just a cold?”

Shaking your head again, you open your mouth to answer. “I think it’s the flu.” Your voice is barely more than a whisper, your throat too sore to get much else out. He makes a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. If there’s anyone who understands the feeling of your entire body being sore and in pain, it’s him.

The man, even while he runs himself ragged, hardly ever gets sick. He averages four hours of sleep a night, ends his evenings with grazes and cuts that are likely full of all the various types of bacteria known to man, drinks way less water than he should, and he still remains relatively healthy.

Maybe it’s a good thing, though, you think wryly. He’d either be the worst case of man-flu you’ve ever seen, or he would end up in a ditch somewhere, out patrolling while delirious with a fever. Your man is a hot mess on a good day, and you can’t imagine adding sickness to the foray.

You feel him lay his hand softly on your forehead, and you shudder at how cold it feels in comparison to your warm skin. Your fever must have returned with a vengeance, and you acknowledge it with a barely restrained groan. 

“You feel pretty warm,” he tells you, his voice quiet and one of concern. You appreciate that he’s using a gentle tone that is kind on your ears, not wanting to add anything loud and overwhelming less it makes the headache worse. “Have you taken anything?”

“Ibuprofen when I woke up.” Finally opening your eyes, you blearily watch as he frowns, red lips tilted down at the corners. His hand is still on your forehead, but he moves it to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear.

“When did you wake up?”

“Seven, I think.”

He sighs, moving his hand so that it rests on your cheek. “Sweetheart, that was almost six hours ago. Have you been asleep this whole time?”

“I think so,” you whisper, watching as he shrugs his suit jacket off. He tosses it on the chair that’s in the corner of the room, face still tilted towards yours. You always seem to be his sole focus when he’s around you, and it never fails to make your heart stutter. “I fell asleep after I texted you.”

Matt leans over to place his glasses on your bedside table before he returns back to you, his face one of confusion, and his eyes looking more hazel than normal in the sunlight as they roam blindly over your form. “You didn’t text me.”

Your own eyes briefly flutter close again, even as hard as you try to keep them open. You reach up and pull his hand away from your face so that you can lace your fingers with his. His hand squeezes yours gently. “Yeah I did. I told you I wasn’t going to make lunch today.”

“I didn’t get a text from you,” he reiterates with a calm shake of his head. “I’ve been calling you for the past hour when you didn’t show up.”

“But I–” Eyes opening again, you move to sit up, but he pushes you gently back down. Your neck and shoulders immediately relax back into your pillow with a sigh. “Can you hand me my phone?”

Matt grabs your phone from where it had apparently been resting by your knee and places it into your outstretched hand without a word. His hand goes back to your cheek so that can resume rubbing his thumb over your cheekbone, and it takes great effort to not fall back to sleep and close your eyes again. Fingers weak with sickness, you press in your fingerprint to unlock your phone, noticing immediately the several calls, texts and voicemails, most of them from him but a few from Karen, too. You grimace at the obvious display of his concern, knowing the level of anxiety that had likely popped up when you didn't answer any of the calls.

No wonder he had been pounding on your door. 

You open up your chat with him, wincing when you see what had happened. “I never hit send,” you tell him with a whisper, throat still rebelling against the words forcing themselves out of your throat. “I’m sorry, Matt. I really did mean to text you. I was pretty out of it.”

He leans down and presses a kiss into your forehead. His stubble briefly rasps against your skin, and you can’t help but want to lean into it, even while the texture feels scratchy on skin that seems to be more sensitive than usual. “It’s alright, sweetheart. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

You snort softly, unable to help yourself. “If you call feeling like I’m dying okay, then sure. I’m okay.”

Matt makes another sympathetic sound in the back of his throat, hand still softly rubbing your cheek. You shift in your bed, trying to burrow yourself further into the covers. He pulls the blankets tighter around you, helping them settle up around your neck. “I’m going to grab Tylenol to help bring your fever down.”

You cringe, and Matt’s brow furrows, indicating he’s caught onto the brief twitch of your face. “I don’t have any.”

“You don’t have any Tylenol?”

You cough again, this time covering your mouth to avoid coughing in his face. He doesn’t shift away from you as you do, just continues to keep his face near yours so that you don’t have to strain your voice to speak to him. “No,” you manage to rasp out when you’re done. “I’m out.”

He groans suddenly. “I depleted your stash last week, didn’t I?”

The same memory that had apparently hit him hits you a second later, the image of him holding a bloody rag to his shoulder that had taken a heavy hit flitting through your head briefly. You’d given him the last two tablets in the bottle as his lips twisted into a wry grin, promising to buy you a new bottle. You’d asked him to promise to avoid getting hit so frequently instead, the grin on your face just as dry and fond.  “I– yeah, I think so.”

“I’m sorry, love. I meant to grab more for you.”

You twist your head to cover another cough. “It’s fine, I forgot about grabbing some, too.”

“Do you have Ibuprofen?” he asks as he runs a hand through his hair, still looking somewhat frustrated at himself as he shifts slightly on your bed.

“Not much, but yeah,” you say with a wince. “That bottle’s almost empty, too.”

“How about any cold medicine? Decongestants? Something for your cough?”

“No,” you reply with another grimace. To his credit, he doesn’t twist his face into the disbelief he’s surely feeling, both at himself and at you. His eye twitches, though.

“How are you out of that, too?”

“Judgmental, much?” you ask with a grin that’s far too humorous for the situation and the way everything seems to hurt, including the muscles in your face. “I wasn’t exactly planning to get this sick.”

“You should have–”

“Don’t be such a hypocrite, Matthew.”

He sighs, hand darting up to run a quick hand down his face, attempting to hide a smile that relays a level of exasperation. “What do you have, then?”

“Just Benadryl…that’s almost expired.”

Matt lets loose another loud exhale and slowly lifts his head to face the ceiling as if sarcastically thanking the universe for letting him fall for someone who seems to be so bad at taking care of themselves. You’d laugh if it wouldn’t lead to a loud coughing fit. 

Pot. Kettle.

“Okay, I’m going to call Karen to see if she can bring some stuff by.”

“I don't–”

He's shaking his head before you even finish your objection. “Sweetheart, you’re so congested you can’t breathe out of your nose, and you've got a 101 degree fever. You need to take something," he tells you, and you know there’s no arguing against this man once he’s set his mind to something.

“How would you know my fever is that high?” Matt gives you the flattest look you’ve ever seen. “Okay, stupid question.”

“Just close your eyes,” he says, leaning down to kiss your forehead again. “I’m going to bring you a glass of water and some Ibuprofen, and call Karen to see if she can bring anything over.”

You nod miserably, energy suddenly draining and turning you back into a whimpering mess. He leaves the room, kicking his shoes off in the process, and you pick up your phone again once he’s out of sight, a wince twitching on your face at the notification of thirty emails that have popped up in your inbox. You open the app, scrolling down through the messages with a sigh.

“You better not be checking your email right now,” Matt’s voice calls out to you from the kitchen suddenly, and you almost drop your phone onto your face in surprise.

He knows you too well.

“I’m not,” you say as loudly as you can, which is still minimal, but you know he can hear you regardless, so you’re not too concerned. You roll over to place your phone back onto your bedside table with a loud sigh, wrist and arm feeling entirely too weak as it reaches out.

“Liar," is all he responds with, before his voice quiets down again. There’s a brief moment of silence before you pick up on the soft murmur of his voice, no doubt on the phone with Karen. The sound of your cabinet being opened and the faucet being turned on hits your ears, and you sigh at the domesticity of it all. Things of yours have been slowly migrating to his apartment in preparation of the move that’s happening in a month’s time, but there’s just something about him knowing your apartment like the back of his hand and feeling comfortable in a space that’s been solely yours for the past two years.

A few minutes later, he’s walking back into your bedroom, a glass of water in one hand, your dwindling bottle of painkillers in the other, mouth turned up in a soft, soothing smile. He helps you sit up, his arm gently snaking around your shoulders to support you, and encourages you to drink the water and toss back the pills as lips ghost across your forehead.

Even swallowing something cold makes your throat burn on the way down, and you groan in pain. 

He helps you lay back down, easing you backwards and holding your weight so that you don’t just flop back onto the pillows. He pulls his arm out from underneath you and reaches out to set the glass onto your night table as he moves to stand up. You close your eyes again against the light of your room, and you hear the subtle sound of a belt being unbuckled and fabric hitting the chair in the corner. 

Matt lifts up the covers and slides in beside you, his bare skin pressing up against yours as he nudges you onto your side so that he can cradle you from behind. Despite the brief chill, he quickly becomes a furnace pressed against you, and you can’t help the quiet moan that sneaks past chapped lips at the heat you hadn’t known you’d been needing.

“You’ll get sick,” you protest weakly as you settle into his chest, almost immediately soothed by the feeling of his arm wrapping around your waist.

“Don’t worry about me,” he whispers into your ear before leaning over you to kiss your cheek, settling back down behind you when he’s done, the warmth of his kiss still lingering. “Just go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Despite the sickness ravaging your body, or maybe because of it, you slip back into an easy sleep, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest behind you settling you the way it always does. Your head is pounding, your whole body aches, and you can’t breathe through your nose, but everything feels better when he’s holding you.

[lilyrizzy]

For the prompt thingy - daniel taking care of max when he was sick in jeddah please? 🤲

I know this is a prompt thingy from ages ago, but I hope you like it anyway anon!

Cw: descriptions of throwing up

There’s a horrible retching noise coming through the bathroom door, followed by the telltale sound of liquid hitting liquid. Daniel rattles the knob again, already having found it locked the first time he tried.

“Maxy,” he calls again, voice a sing-song, “Maxy, open the door.”

For a moment, Daniel thinks Max is ignoring him, then-

More sounds of him violently throwing up.

“I think I am dying, Daniel,” he eventually manages to catch, a muffled whimper, “and I cannot of course take you down with me.”

There is something echoey in Max’s voice, probably because it’s bouncing off the ceramic of the toilet that his head is currently stuck in. Resting his forehead against the door, Daniel can’t help but smile at his flare for the dramatic, though maybe that isn’t totally fair. He probably does feel like he’s dying.

“Life isn’t worth living without you, baby,” he answers, a joke, but- Well. “Don’t you want me to rub your back, or, uh-“ He tries to remember what his mum would do for him the days he’d stay home from school, wagging or not, “-put a cold flannel on your forehead?”

Really, that could go either way. Max is picky with when he wants to be touched and when he wants to be left alone, and Daniel is mostly good these days at reading that. Cuddles after sex are a must, but to sleep? No way. Some things though, he’s still learning.

There’s no answer, and with Max sometimes that is the answer, so Daniel is getting ready to walk away, go back to the UFC match they were watching before Max bolted from the sofa back to the toilet, and add does not like to be held when sick to the growing list of ways he knows Max like nobody else, except-

The lock snicks, and when Daniel tries the door again it opens.

Max is already retreating to his position, praying to the porcelain god, by the time Daniel gets through the door. The room smells disgusting, but Daniel doesn’t dare say that in case it gets him stuck on the other side again, helpless. He can’t do much in here either, but if Max let him in it’s because he wants him.

It’s only seconds before Max is gagging again, not throwing up exactly but giving it a bloody good go.

“Oh sweetheart," Daniel says, and the sudden rush of tenderness both surprises him and has him crouching down beside Max, hand moving in circles over his shoulder blades like promised.

His offers of support hadn’t exactly been disingenuous, but Daniel hasn’t exactly won any medals for boyfriend of the year before, so it’s a shock how quickly the actions change from feeling like an obligation, to those born from the need to see Max better, to see him smile.

Which is maybe a little much to ask for. Instead, Max coughs, then spits, then groans miserably. Standing again, Daniel fills up the glass he usually uses for mouthwash with cold water and offers it to him, but Max pitifully shakes his head.

“It will only come back up again, I think,” he grimaces, and yeah. He’s probably right. “I think this is your fault.”

“My fault?” Daniel questions with a laugh, a little affronted. Squeezing Max’s shoulder he adds, “I’m not that desperate for your seat, mate.”

It gets him that smile he was after from Max, which feels like a small victory.

“You made me eat that spicy chicken,” he insists, resting his forehead against their toilet seat. “From the Indian restaurant last week. I told you it makes my tummy bad.”

Tummy. Something that feels a lot like love twists itself around Daniel’s heart.

“I don’t think some chicken you ate over a week ago is making you sick, babe,” Daniel can’t help but point out, even though Max is right, he did make him try some of his Chicken Jalfrezi. “Maybe it was the pizza.”

Later, after, naked in bed, Daniel went for his classic while Max insisted on one with all kinds of weird and wonderful deli meats slapped on top, so it’s not exactly rocket science.

Daniel is one hundred percent sure it’s the pizza.

An impulse order last night after getting a little too wine drunk and giggly in the apartment together, a rare evening of quiet fun between Max’s hectic race schedule. Daniel promising that Max would like the next glass of red just so he could watch the alcohol stain his lips darker and darker, to kiss the taste of it out of his mouth.

Max is shaking his head though, his hair especially blonde in the almost fluorescent light of the bathroom. His eyes are shut.

“Pizza would not betray me like this, I think.”

This time, Daniel doesn’t argue, just leans to press a kiss to the sweaty back of Max’s neck. Max makes a soft humming noise, not exactly happy but- Almost.

“Sorry I am so gross,” he croaks out after a few beats more of silence, and he is but he’s also Daniel’s to take care of.

“Hey,” he tries, rubbing the shell of Max’s ear now, “I’m the one who was about the bust down the door to get in.” Then because it doesn’t feel quite enough, he adds, “gross or not gross, sickness and in health, baby.”

Max laughs, eyes still closed. There’s too much stubble on his jaw, too much breadth to his shoulders for Daniel to think he looks anything like he did in the Red Bull briefings, eighteen with his head on the table like he was sleeping, and yet his mind pulls him back to that Max anyway.

How far he’s come, how far they both have.

“That is for if you are married,” Max says, as though he is reminding Daniel. Like he thinks maybe Daniel is a little crazy for bringing it up, and maybe he is, but it doesn’t feel like that.

When you know, you know, his mum had always told him and for almost two decades of dating he would roll his eyes at her and bite down how not everyone could have the perfect love story she and his dad did. These days, he thinks she’s onto something.

“Yeah Maxy, you’re right,” he says, instead of the words he wants to. Let’s fucking do it then. Nobody wants to get proposed two between rounds of vomit after only eight months.

[something-bout-the-weather]

Nurse Matty / Matty Healy x Reader

Thank you so much to the anon that inspired this one with their request! Hope you enjoy it. ❤️

It is 3 am and you’ve been lying on the bathroom floor for the past 20 minutes. The entire room is spinning, you feel incredibly nauseous and your head is pounding. You have no idea what has made you feel like this but the only thing that springs to mind is the stomach bug which has been working its way around your work.

Suddenly the wave of nausea is too much for you and you quickly pull yourself up so that your head is over the toilet bowl. You’ve been trying to keep quiet as you don’t want to wake up Matty, who is currently fast asleep in your bedroom next door. But, you can’t help the noise that resonates around the room when the nausea takes over.

You hear Matty move restlessly around in your bed but you’re hoping you haven’t woken him up.

That hope is broken when you hear a sleepy Matty’s concerned voice ask “Baby, are you okay?”

“Not really, I think I’ve got a stomach bug,” You groggily reply, “Go back to sleep though Matty, I’ll be back in bed soon.”

Seconds later, you hear Matty walk into the bathroom and straight towards you. You should have known his protective side would kick in.

“I got you, love,” He says gently moving your hair out of the way for you. “How long have you been up?”

“The last hour or so. I can’t stop being sick,” You admit.

“Is there anything I can get you?” Matty asks.

“I don’t think so, I think I’m just going to have to ride this one out,” You explain, “Thank you though. You don’t have to wait up with me love, I could be all night.”

“I’m not leaving you on your own when you are feeling like this. I’ll be right here for as long as you need” He insists.

20 minutes and lots of comforting back rubs later, the nausea has mostly passed and Matty is helping you back into bed.

“I’ll be back in a second baby,” He says before heading out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

When he returns, his hands are full. In one, is a cold glass of water and some medicine and in the other is your favourite hot water bottle. You don’t quite know how he knew you needed something warm for your stomach, but he clearly knows you more than you think.

“I’ve brought you some water, medicine and your favourite hot water bottle,” Matty says placing the glass and medicine next to the bed and handing you the hot water bottle.

You immediately place it on your stomach before asking “How did you know I needed that?”

“Because baby, I know you well enough to know your hot water bottle is your lifeline when you’re ill,” He explains before asking, “Please will you take some of this medicine for me?”

You gently sit up before taking the medicine off Matty and washing it down with the water he brought you.

“Thank you.” You say before lying back down in bed.

Matty tucks you in before walking around to the other side and getting in beside you. You feel his warmth as he wraps himself around you and places a kiss on the back of your head.

“Get some sleep love. I’m here if you need me during the night,” He whispers softly, “Whatever you need tomorrow, I will sort it. Nurse Matty is on the case.”

You let out a giggle before saying, “Thank you, Matty, I’m hoping a good sleep will help me a lot. I love you more than anything.”

“I love you too baby, now get some rest,” Matty replies before pulling you into him just a little bit more.

You hope you are feeling better in the morning but you can’t lie, being looked after by Nurse Matty doesn’t sound like a bad thing at all.

[oskea93]

hi love <3 can you write some fluff about doctor or nurse jamie? i just know that he would be so sweet and gentle about everything and i need to read something like that 😩

In Sickness and in Health - JCB x Reader

Warning: Pure fluff (Requested by: Anonymous ♥︎ ) I hope this was the idea you wanted. If not, I can write something else!  Song: Bring it on Home to Me by Sam Cooke

You were a nervous wreck.

The symptoms had been getting worse and the need to put off actually being seen was drawing closer. You tried to push it off as the seasonal cold, a thing you seemed to deal with every year. The days turned into weeks and the symptoms were only getting worse. Your fevers were getting higher, the Tylenol no longer helping. Your oxygen levels were going below what was considered normal and the blue tint of your lips was not helping your case.

Jamie, your boyfriend, was currently on rotation at the local hospital, dealing with others that were sick and injured. You didn’t want him to get sick as well, choosing to isolate yourself in your apartment for the past week or so. He tried so hard to see you, but you denied him entry every time. The day you decided to go to the emergency room was during his off day – mostly spent sleeping after dealing with 24+ hour shifts. You didn’t want to alert him in anyway but that didn’t stop him from speeding down to where you lived, basically barging through the door.

“Why did you let it get this bad?” His voice edgy as he drove towards the hospital.

You stayed silent, wrapped tightly in his jacket and a blanket. “I’ve told you how bad things have gotten, y/n.” You knew he was concerned. “You could have been better weeks ago if you would have let me take care of you.”

“I didn’t want you to get sick.” Your voice shaking. “You have patients to take care of and they need you more than I do.” You wiped away the stray tear that fell.

His grip on the steering wheel turning his knuckles a shade of white, “You’re my priority, y/n.” His eyes connecting with yours. “So what if I get sick-“He paused. “As long as you’re taken care of, I could care less about me. You’re my world, y/n. I don’t know what I would fucking do if something bad happened to you.”

His fingers laced with yours, pressing his lips against you hand. That was the comfort you needed as he drove the rest of the way to the hospital. By this point, you were almost too weak to walk, his arms hooking under your legs, holding you close to his body. He sat you down in one of the available seats before walking to the registration desk to check in. He wanted to use his power of being a physician to get you in sooner, but you refused, not wanting to take anyone else’s spot due to your special circumstance.

“Shouldn’t be long.” He smiled, taking the seat next to mine. 

You laid your head against his shoulder, curling into the warmth of his body. His arm instantly wrapped around your freezing body, the sound of his heartbeat soothing you. You were able to rest a little, given the fact that you were in a packed emergency room. The minutes turned to hours, Jamie never leaving your side. When you were finally called back for a room, he hoisted you back into his arms, carrying you into the isolated room. All the nurses and the other doctors knew who he was, but all that mattered was your health. He helped you out of your street clothes and into the gown that was provided, making sure to bundle you in every blanket and sheet he could find. Your fever was once again high – your body aching and feeling like you were in the artic ocean.

“I’m freezing.” Your teeth chattered as he pulled off his jacket, placing it over the linens. “When is the medication going to kick in?”

“Soon, darling.” He kicked off his shoes, joining you in the hospital bed, wrapping his arms around your middle. His body warmth once again giving you the needed comfort and warmth that you were missing. “I know you're hurting but just try to close your eyes and get some rest.” His mask covered lips pressing against my head.

The dark room silent for a moment, “If you ever change your mind about leaving, leaving me behind-“Jamie’s soft singing catching your attention. “Baby bring it to me. Bring your sweet loving, bring it on home to me.” You smiled as he sang the song, memories of your first date coming back.

“I love you.” You whispered between lyrics.

He stopped for a moment, “I love you too, sweetheart.” His fingers once again lacing with your own under then blankets.

You could feel the medication finally kicking in as he sang the rest of the song – your eyes turning heavy with the much-needed sleep that you had been missing. Even though you ended up in the place you dreaded the most, your body was starting to heel just by having Jamie near. He was the medication you needed all along.

[robo-cryptid]

Do you consider yourself a Yeehan shipper? And if so, why? I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, I’m a relatively new shipper (started playing this year, and other Yeehan shippers directed me to your work), but I’ve seen some of your tweets and in many of them you seem to have more negative things to say about how they make you feel than positive. So I was curious to know your stance on them, and why you keep writing for them. (If this is too invasive, you don’t have to reply)

Also, I really enjoyed Ricochet. It sold the ship to me, basically (but now I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing)..

First off, I'm really glad you liked Ricochet! It's one of the fics I'm still really proud of, and I'm currently in a project with fanartist @showerwhoops and a friend who makes fandom light novels to make it printable with lots of gorgeous art. I mean, mostly I just love collabs and wanna support G's light novel-making hobby, but hopefully other people will find that exciting to know.

With regard to Yeehan, lol, I'm struggling to figure out how to answer this, especially without context for which tweets in particular. The simple answer is yeah, I'm a Yeehan shipper. I love them. I've said it before, but I basically trauma-bonded to them and can't let go. But also I love the themes of redemption and the various forms that can take, and people finding love not when they're young and fresh-faced but when they're jaded and have been through some shit, and seeing two people fight not only to make the world better but to make themselves better people together. I love all of that. It's delicious. I also love writing them as dumb himbos because why the heck not.

I've been in this fandom since 2018. I've written 70+ fics just for Yeehan (plus a few dozen others for the rest of Overwatch), and I'm still writing it. Of my last three art commissions, one was Hanzo and one was Yeehan. I started Yeehan Fic Rec Friday (@yeehanfrf) to help new people find good Yeehan recs sourced from the community, not just one person, and to lift up my fellow writers. All of this is on my twitter, and that's not even getting into all the fan events I've participated in, etc., before this year. So yeah, I'd say I'm a fan, lol.

Unless you're mistaking my shitposting and lovingly mocking the characters for meanness, maybe the negativity you're seeing is when I'm being critical of the fandom itself? In which case... you know, I'm going to take this as an opportunity. And it's gonna get kind of long, so let's go behind a cut.

I can only reiterate that I've been here since 2018. I've seen so much shit, and while some of it has come from "outsiders" (other shippers, people who are sick of Overwatch, etc.), plenty of it has come from my fellow Yeehans too. And while most of my frustration with the Yeehan fandom is on the level of, you know, family that you love but would like to shake some sense into, that doesn't change that it can be frustrating.

Here, an assuredly incomplete list of all the things I've experienced from other Yeehan fans:

I've seen people harassed outright for drawing/writing the "wrong" character bottoming. I've seen literally dozens of nonbinary and transmasc people misgendered and harassed for being "fujoshi" "fetishizinig mlm," because nothing says great justice like blending transphobia and misogyny to attack real people over fictional characters. I've been here for at least 10 different rounds of witch hunts for various fandom "crimes" like people shipping characters with a bad-idea-in-real-life age gap or power imbalance, or even just shipping the same character with multiple people.

I was here when Cassidy's animated short dropped and it took less than an hour to see hate posts about Ashe. And I was also here when fandom retconned the tale of those events to claim Yeehan fans only hate her because some of her fans are shitty, and it can't possibly under any circumstances be misogyny ever. (Which is not saying that some of her fans aren't shitty. It's just that some Yeehan fans are also shitty and in denial about it.)

I've been outright harassed for talking about fandom misogyny, no matter how kitten gentle and "Let's Have a Teaching Moment" I've been about it. I've been harassed for pointing out fandom racism. I've seen a friend get ostracized and harassed much worse for pointing out the same fandom racism and misogyny. And this is, of course, on top of actually seeing and reading racist portrayals of Hanzo and occasionally Cassidy, and seeing and reading constant misogyny (mostly over Ashe, but not exclusive to her) to remind me that men get to have greater interiority and receive more sympathy and get their flaws smoothed over in ways women never do, in fiction and in reality. But hey, don't point any of that out, because fandom is supposed to be a place for escapism, even if those things are making it difficult to escape, yourself! (And then of course I've seen people attacked really harshly over the kind of "they probably genuinely did not know better and it would have been an easy fix if someone just very kindly explained it to them instead of needing to publicly punish them" racism or misogyny.)

I've had someone hold a sustained, months-long campaign of just constantly shit-talking me and low-grade harassing me across multiple Discord servers, and recruiting their friends to do the same, all because I said, "Hey, you've been consistently rude and also triggered me this one time."

I've had anons in my inbox doing everything from demanding I write more to accusing me of pedophilia (or supporting it) for... I don't even know at this point, lol. Because that's a thing people do in fandoms, I guess.

Maybe because I'm prolific or maybe because I actually talk to anons or maybe because I have a follower count above the triple digits, a lot of people have treated me like I'm nothing but a content machine, not a person, which is something I've seen plenty of people do to other artists and writers across fandom. It's crummy. It makes me feel like I don't belong here if I'm not "producing," and even then I'm only tolerated for that, not for, like, my basic humanity (or being funny as hell imho). I've had people attack me over dumb jokes or act like I'm not a "real fan" for them (despite the aforementioned 70+ fics, like I guess those don't count if I make a joke about Cassidy being kind of a douche one time in his animated short).

And anything that's happened to me, I've seen happen to other people. Often worse, actually, because I get far fewer rude comments on my fanfic than several of my friends do, and nobody's misgendering me when they imply I'm a woman, even if they do sometimes erase my queerness.

On the scale of things that are mostly just annoying/stressful and not so much acts of aggression, fandom does this thing where it just freaks out (positive or negative) about something instantly, so I get spoiled on stuff if I don't see it within 15 minutes after it dropped? That's frustrating, especially if the reaction is largely negative, so I'm just, like, absorbing all these bad vibes before I ever get to see the thing for myself.

And then, you know, shipwars. Shipwars are obnoxious. They are exhausting. I do not have time for them. They are also unavoidable these days. Any time I go searching for content, there's someone shitting on Yeehan and someone else stirring the pot by replying to them, and frankly it's just tiresome from all sides. (Besides, I think if you're a fan of the juggernaut ship in a fandom, you've gotta chill and recognize people will find you annoying, then go comfort yourself with your near-daily fanarts and over 6,000 fics. This doesn't mean they're allowed to be absolutely garbage monsters and harass people. Like I'm not pretending Yeehan fans are the only people capable of sucking, lol. They aren't! Online harassment is shitty at all times! But if all they're saying is, "Why does Yeehan get so much attention? I hate it," you can just ignore them, mute them, block them, whatever you gotta do.)

In general, I'm often critical of fandom, especially my corner of it, mostly because I'm a social scientist by training so observing groups of people is what I do. Like genuinely, I enjoy holding the world around me under a microscope. But also in terms of reach and efficacy, I'm more interested in "cleaning up my own backyard," so to speak, than arguing with people who wouldn't listen to me anyway (Yeehan antis in this case, I guess). So when I turn the "negative" lens on, it's of course going to be aimed at the community I'm most embedded in. It doesn't mean people outside of Yeehan are better or worse people; they're just not the ones I'm exposed to constantly, lol.

But also, as many bad things as this sounds like, I've actually mostly enjoyed my time in this fandom. I've made a ton of friends here, people I adore and respect and am so, so grateful to have in my life. I've gotten to be part of some really cool projects. I've been lucky enough to experience the absolute joy of knowing people like something that I've made, of getting to make stuff for people, of people telling me I inspired them to make things. All of those are really special, wonderful things that places like fandom cultivate, and I love that part so much that it makes me feel gooey and self-conscious about trying to articulate it.

Anyway. I'm sure the actual question you asked got answered in the paragraphs above the cut, but just in case it didn't, it was nice to be able to just say all the things anyway. You're new here. I hope you enjoy all the fun parts and don't get bogged down by the crummy ones. Also you should definitely check out the @yeehanfrf rec lists if you haven't.

[deusexmachinawitch]

This is the post post for days 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. I was going to do 21 days of subliminals but because I’ve been sick and people have been asking me to extend this to a month or even 3 months, I might give a try on at least covering a whole month then I’ll see if I’ll extend it even more.

I’ve been mostly sick since there was a heatwave in my city and next week there’s going to be a severe weather change of cold and strong rain and storms. I’m chronically ill and while my health isn’t usually an issue, severe weather changes affect it. My defenses are really low and when someone arounds me carries something even as dumb as a cold, I get sick immediately. I feel much better but it has been hard juggling illness and work deadlines.

That being said, things haven’t been that bad. People close to me has brought me food and even my cousin came to take care of me and even did housework for me so I could rest. While this may sound like the most normal thing to anyone, in my case, this wouldn’t have been the case for me a year ago and even months ago. In my wildest dreams, I would have never imagined myself being this cared and treasured by so many people except for my SP. And when SP wasn’t around, I would be alone and miserable at bed whenever I was sick and that was very frequent.

With the discovery of the law, improving my self concept and the helpful subliminals… I don’t get as sick as often and when I do, I’m pretty much cared by others.

During this time, also people whom I thought cared about me showed their true colors and I decided to just think about myself. I was hurt on purpose and then gaslit, so I just wasn’t going to put up with that anymore. Especially because the same people have been gaslighting me for several months and disregarding my feelings towards matters that were really important to me. I decided to openly open up about this to a close circle of friends of mine and while people got really protective towards me, I told them that I could stand up for myself but I was really grateful that people finally understood my feelings and point of view when it came to things important to me such as my career path and my feelings towards SP.

While this isn’t a “cool manifestation” such as my phone and computer to possibly many people, this is a very valuable thing to me since my feelings tended to be dismissed a lot and there were a lot of people accepting me wanting SP for example but were really against him. But they finally understood that I’m aware of SP’s actions, I am not justifying the bad behavior and I can still love him while acknowledging that. Fear is one of the most scary feelings someone can have and it makes you do things that hurt you and others, he is now facing his demons and I know he’ll be back. But waiting doesn’t mean my life stops and that I’ll put up with hurtful behavior from him again if he cannot control his negative feelings. I’m in love but not pathetic.

Plus, what people doesn’t know is that I’m manifesting the best version of him. People currently think I’m lucky or that I do witchcraft and it works, it’s difficult for everyone to understand the law because of the fear of cults, the toxic positivity and wellness industry and that a lot of people are quite young in the community so they think it might be a fad. It doesn’t help that subliminals hav become famous due to the wrong reasons.

Still, it was shocking for people to hear my have an outburst and being strongly serious because I’m either too carefree or too controlled when it came to my feelings. But now, I know who’s a true friend and who’s not besides seeing who came to visit me when sick and whatnot. I don’t count the people who’re too busy with their own stuff though, I’m not that selfish.

As for my career path, somehow as soon as I voiced what I wanted to do, I am coming across tools and things that make my desires for my career path be either more easy or possible. So that’s another point for LoAss there lol.

About material things, I got many things for my new computer for free and it feels amazing. I have a new keyboard, small things to raise my screens, etc…

Still, one of the best things I’ve done with LoAss was to ask this to the law:

-I know what I feel about my SP, I’m totally sure about him. Still, I know that maybe I haven’t been as specific when it came to many things about what I want in this relationship to visualize this better. Because of my old story with parental abuse and even abuse by partners, it’s difficult to define what I would like because in the past I felt I wasn’t even given options. So, law, as a God… Show me what lies in my heart and how good in can get, turn SP into what I really want and need once you help me see better.

As soon as I did this, I came across romantic material and such that resonated with me. Also LoAss content that actually resonated with me and now I feel much calm and better. I really can feel I really shouldn’t worry. He really is with me because I’m the best.

I see the signs more intense than ever too… So I’m ready.

Still LOL how the hell am I going to explain many of the things in my life to him when we are together? I guess I’ll shroud myself in mystery, poor him.

[slayonehundredninetytwo]

Triple Threat (Part 2)

if you haven’t read the first part go read it first here

<3

(mostly fluff☁️☁️)

The next morning, none of the boys felt much better. They had all forgotten that it was Han’s birthday and Felix’s the next day, due to all the chaos of the night prior.  But the rest of the group was determined to make it special, even if both birthday boys were under the weather. A cake was out of the picture, seeing as it would definitely not be good for the boys to eat right now, especially Han. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t celebrate. They thought it would be best to do a joint party for both Han and Felix, so they didn’t have to disrupt their rest two days in a row. So, Changbin and Hyunjin went to buy some simple decorations (and some more medicine since they were low), and while the sick boys were all sleeping they hang them up. Nothing too extravagant, but there were some streamers and a couple balloons. When they were just about done, Jisung woke up to urgently bend over his bucket, but only dry heaving without bringing anything up. When he finished, he was about to go right back to sleep, but then he looked around to see that the living room was decorated, and remembered that it was his birthday.

“Woah.”, 

“Drink some water Ji. You need to stay hydrated.” Chan said, holding a bottle of water out to his dongsaeng.

“When did you do all this?” Han said, ignoring Chan.

“Earlier when you guys were sleeping. it’s already 1:00 pm. Now drink your water. I’m not kidding around with dehydration.Happy Birthday.”

The birthday boy took the bottle from his hyung and took a few careful sips before returning it to the older, before it dawned on him that it was 1:00.

“Oh shit. I was supposed to do my birthday live at noon. I should get on for a little, I don’t want to disappoint Stay.”

“Hang on there Hannie. We called the managers already, and they put out a statement about the 3 of you guy’s health. Stay isn’t disappointed they just want you to get better. You can go on bubble and say something if you’re feeling up to it.”

Han reluctantly agreed and settled back down into his place on the couch. He went to bubble and apologized to Stay for missing the stream, but was bombarded with replies from Stay telling him not to be sorry, and that his health was more important. That truly warmed his heart, he even felt a bit better because of it

Gradually, the rest of the September line woke up, and saw the decorations. All of their fevers had gone down at least a bit which was good. Han and Seungmin barely had fevers at all at that point. Felix however, still had a fever of 38.8. When he saw the decorations, he was honestly confused, having forgotten about both his and Han’s birthday entirely. When they told him they were for him (and Han of course) he was legitimately shocked. 

They decided that it was a good time to open presents since everyone was awake. Jisung was most happy to get a brand new pair of headphones since his current ones weren’t in the best condition. Felix decided his favorite gift was not one from his members, but instead the plushie his little sister Olivia had sent him from Australia. He immediately cuddled up with the animal. His sister’s timing could not have been any better, he really had needed something like that when he felt so bleh.

Lee Know made them some chicken noodle soup that was delicious, even if you weren’t sick. Seungmin took a bite of the soup, but then felt the urge to sneeze. He tried to hold it back, but he ended up spraying the small bite of soup into his elbow. Luckily, everyone had recovered enough that they could just laugh about it and wipe it up, if that had happened yesterday, that would have been a different story. 

As mentioned earlier, cake was a no go for the night. So instead, when they sang happy birthday, (as non-obnoxious as they could, seeing that Felix still had a headache, which is harder than it seems- especially since most of the time when singing happy birthday your as obnoxious as possible) they brought out some popsicles, the best sweet treat for when you’re sick. Seungmin was especially grateful as it soothed the ache in his throat at least a bit. 

They all had a fun night. Even if 3 out of the 8 of them were sick, they still managed to make the most of it.

Of course, they were still sick. Han didn’t keep down a single thing he ate that night, Felix’s fever somehow spiked, and Seungmin was so congested he could only breathe through his mouth, but they were taken care of by their best friends, and after a couple more days of puking, coughing, and headaches, they were almost entirely recovered and ready to go back to their normal routine. They eventually ended up having a combined birthday live between the three of them and had a lot of fun together. They were glad to have a community like stay, who care so much for their health and well being.

———-

Hope you enjoyed part 2! It was on the shorter side because it’s a part two but i liked it. The part with the gift from Felix’s sister was my favorite, it was so heartwarming and fluffy 🥹 requests are open!!

🫶

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

So, I finally watched Velma.

Before I go any further I just want to make something clear, no I’m not defending this show against criticism, nor am I trying to convince you that it’s some sort of hidden gem. I’ve watched all the episodes that have been released at the time of writing, and in all honesty, I think Velma is pretty mediocre. 

Not good, but nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be. So, if you just wanted my honest thoughts about Velma, there you go, you can stop reading now, go back to whatever it is you’re currently doing. As for everyone else, get comfy, because this is gonna be a long post.

I wanna get the positives out of the way first, I genuinely like the show’s artstyle, in an era where every single “adult” cartoon has to look like Rick & Morty, this show stands out from the rest by having its own unique artstyle, that being said, Norville does look weird whenever he’s facing forward. But that’s a minor nitpick. 

Kinda wish the quality of the animation was a bit better though, but it’s an animated show made specifically for streaming, so the animation quality was always gonna be so-so.

As for the characters, I didn’t find them as unlikable or annoying as other people did - mostly because I never really had that much of a personal attachment to the Scooby gang to begin with - though if I had to pick a favorite I’d have to go with Norville, I find that his optimism and general good nature is a breath of fresh air, as I’m so sick of every modern adult animated series having every character be an unlikable asshole or a complete dumbass.  

Nevertheless I do agree that the “Look at how much of a loser Fred is!” jokes got old real quick, and I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t even like Fred. But those jokes weren’t bad enough to make me want to quit watching. 

As for the other jokes, they’re super hit and miss, I do feel like if the first two episodes just toned down the raunchy/”meta” jokes then the backlash wouldn’t have been so bad, because there were some jokes that made me chuckle, like Brenda’s funeral, Norville’s hair brained schemes to win Velma over, the school fighting tournament name being too long etc. But sadly, those types of jokes are few and far between. 

Oh, and the hallucination sequences are pretty cool. 

Now that we got the positives out the way, let’s talk about the negatives. I really don’t understand why this show needs a recap at the start of each episode. Did the showrunners think people were gonna watch the show out of order? Or did they do that because they were planning on airing the show on Adult Swim in the near future? Either way, it’s super annoying.

Also, I really hate how the show just awkwardly cuts to the end credits. I know Harley Quinn also did this, but it’s way more noticeable here. Almost like the end credits are trying to jump scare you to death. 

But I think my biggest issue with the series as a whole is its obsession with trying to be as “meta” as possible, it really got on my nerves, to the point where I legit wanted to yell out “I get it! You’re self aware.” 

Thing is, I don’t mind meta humor. Archer and American Dad are two great examples of how to properly implement meta humor into a sitcom narrative, but what makes those two shows work is that they’re not trying to impress the audience by showing how smart they are. 

Simply having the characters point out tired old cliches and tropes isn’t clever, it’s taking the easy way out. I honestly wouldn’t have minded this as much if Velma was the only character who was making “meta” references, but every single character does this. To the point where I was expecting someone to look directly at the camera and say “Are these self aware meta jokes doing anything for you?” 

Look, I get it, the reason why they’re doing this is because of Rick and Morty, a network executive most likely looked at the meta humor from that show and said “Do that for a Scooby Doo spin off aimed at adults.” 

If the show would just tone down the “We’re so meta” gimmick and put more effort into fleshing its characters and story out, then I honestly think it could be pretty decent. But as of this writing, it just feels like it’s struggling to find its own identity. 

Who knows, maybe the writing will get better down the line, but as of right now it’s a mess. 

Alright, time to talk about the “controversy” surrounding this show - because that’s all anyone wants to talk about - so here goes……

I don’t give a shit about any of this culture war nonsense, nor do I give a shit about these Twitter threads over analyzing every single joke, and I certainly don’t give a shit about Mindy Kaling or her political views, so why am I bringing any of this up? Because the discourse is annoying. 

It’s okay to just admit that you don’t like the show, or that you think it’s “cringe” or whatever, but all this discourse has become unbearable. You cannot go anywhere online without running into someone complaining about the show. It’s Ghostbusters 2016 all over again, and I’m just so tired. 

I’m tired of the internet latching onto a piece of media and creating never ending discourse about said media, I’m tired of seeing people who genuinely liked working on shows/movies get bullied and harassed. And I’m just tired of people being unwilling to say “Wow, this looks like shit” and moving on with their lives. 

Yes, no media should be immune to criticism, but going out of your way to ruin someone’s livelihood because they created or worked on something you hated just makes you an asshole who deserves no sympathy.

[llanekee]

In order to write something really good that you’re truly proud of, you need to feel a certain way when you’re writing it. I don’t really know how to describe what it feels like, exactly, but as a writer, I suppose I’ve got to try. First of all, I guess you have to make sure you don’t feel ashamed. If it’s a feeling you’ll hate in future or a feeling you can’t stand in the moment, then it’ll probably result in you deleting all your hard work when you finally catch on to how much you actually hate it. This is a pretty common thing I do, getting rid of my old writing due to the feel of it being horribly off. This isn’t a good practice, according to the numerous professors and government approved ‘smart’ people (specifically adults) that I know. Another thing that sucks about writing is that there’s guidelines to it, and when you’re trying really hard to abide by the rules, it gets boring real quick. For example, I’m already getting kind of bored while writing this, because I’m technically lecturing you about stuff that you could be doing instead of reading about. Anyways, I always veer off topic as well, which is why writing can be so difficult at times. It’s why I’ve made about seventy drafts for this one paragraph, to introduce the rest of a novel I haven’t even drafted yet. It’s frankly ridiculous. Then again, so is writing being classed as a hobby of mine. Because it’s hardly a hobby, it’s more like a mental burden or momentary delusionment, and I don’t know why I do it or like it or even care, but I certainly do, in some conceited way.

See, the chances are, I’ll read over this in a few days, and reading it will make me sick. I’ll nearly barf, or at least gag overdramatically, then I’ll make sure to delete it or banish it where I’ll never think about it again. But here’s a message to my future self saying don’t. This is about half of my heart and mind at the current moment, which may not matter to whoever’s reading this in the future, whether it be me, myself or you, but it matters to me. So, keep it alive, even if it seems like dirt or rubbish or dog shit scraped beneath a shoe, because I think it matters, perhaps in some stupidly childish way. After all, I’m at the age where I want everything to matter, but it doesn’t really. I kind of think I have nostalgia sometimes, despite being young and inexperienced and naive, as all the ‘wiser’ people (mostly adults, of course) say I am. When you’re not really a kid and not really old enough to be in a functioning romantic relationship, the older people around you often belittle you, even if they want to pretend they don’t. It’s quite frustrating, if I’m being honest, but you begrudgingly get used to it after a while. That’s the frustrating thing about life and writing, I guess. Anything that happens, happens, and you’re just expected to get used to it after a while or come to terms with it after it occurs. Irritatingly, this applies to practically everything. If you really don’t want to do something but you have to do it, people will just expect you to ‘get over yourself’ and go do it. If you feel extremely sad all the time or angry all the time or just plain terrible all the time, people will offer you a small insignificant sort of help and be on their way, expecting you to mirror them and go on doing things while feeling like absolute crap. If your dog dies and it makes you really upset, people will say it’s ‘to be expected’ and therefore, you should just get accustomed to it. I don’t know if I’m being too harsh about this stuff, but sometimes it pisses me off really bad. Like sometimes, people just tell me to get better and be better and feel better and get a better mindset and do that and do this, but I just really can’t or really won’t or really don’t want to. I don’t know though. It’s one of those things that only gets to me when I think too much about it, or if it happens (which is basically every day).

Since I started this, I’ve been incessantly complaining, and that’s probably what my teachers would call a lazy (bad) writing technique. Plus, I’ve only been descriptive in a purely abstract way, which is probably the sort of thing that irks the scholars I’m supposed to idolise so dearly. I also sound really bitter. It’s not so big an issue though, since it adds to the tone quality, I think. However, me reusing a ton of words is probably grating on someone’s nerves, and that someone is probably just future me again. In other words, someone I couldn’t care any less about as of right now. I’m pretty spiteful for a person my age, after all, especially towards myself, for some reason. I haven’t even done anything yet. But maybe that’s why I’m so damn annoyed at myself on a constant basis. I assume I’m just really self aware. So, self aware, in fact, that I often get annoyed at how annoyed I am for my self awareness causing annoyances that aren’t there. It’s a very cyclical thing.

Anyways, you’re probably wondering why the hell I’m writing something if I’m so bent on seething hatred. The simple answer is, I guess I’m in the feel of it. A mood, one might say, though, every time someone uses it for a stupid reason, the less I feel inclined to use the word, in case the meaning is mistakenly interpreted. Otherwise, sometimes it’s just good to do something, if it just feels a little bit productive. At this point, I don’t think I’ve produced much, certainly not anything special at least. I don’t know though. I’ve kind of been all over the place in a way I don’t usually let myself go, except for in those god awful poems I’m always scrambling to make. That’s its own torturous form of writing I’ve decided to undertake for reasons utterly mystifying to me. Anyways, I covered quite a few qualms I wanted to hit. Stuff I dislike, mostly. I guess that’s everything, but at the same time, it’s also nothing. I’m not sure what I’m going to do once I finish writing this, and that scares me. I said it would be a novel too, which is ridiculous, and just me kidding myself. I already kind of know that I don’t have it in me to commit and write and do something that matters that much. I guess I’ll just do some homework, or something meaningless, to make me feel productive. It makes me really sad to think about, but as all the ‘wise’ men and ‘smart’ people say, it’s to be expected for someone my age; for someone like me (and after a while, I’ll probably get used to it).

-by Lane Key :]

[squeakysleeper]

11/29/2022

so i did not get to all the things on yesterdays list, however, there was definitely a push to do most of the things, so I’m going to give the method for today an 8/10 in effectiveness. i’m also sick, which sucks. and so tired a nap took up the rest of my time, but that’s okay. there is still tomorrow.

being sick is terrible, luckily it’s not covid it’s just your standard nasty cold but i forgot just how gross these are. thought it was from brandon’s niece at thanksgiving but that seemed really fast but then rosa mentioned she was sick two weeks ago and we all hung out anyway, so it makes more sense for it to knock us both out like this. plus rosa and i definitely smooched a couple times so i mean, absolutely did this to myself, haha. but it shouldn’t last more than a couple days.

i’m refusing to move any more boxes tomorrow, goals or otherwise that’ll have to wait until i get back but i’m proud that i managed some of those things. also skipping a big big to-do until i’m better mostly because of the idea of moving boxes? big oof.

hold on congress is yelling about his meds.

~

okay he has received meds, snacks and food. need to buy cat food. need to buy cat food. need to buy cat food. hopefully I remember to add that to tomorrow’s list.

drinking more water, theraflu i learned is awful hot but sent by the devil cold, shotgunned it anyway telling myself I’d chugged worse but honestly i might have been lying. it also made me think about the other night at the bar when wendy almost left a full glass of wine and rosa was like ‘girl nah’ and tried to get her to chug it which she couldn’t do because it was strong.

next thing i knew rosa thumped the glass down in front of me and told me to down it and maintain eye contact, which i did, ending it on a wink and wendy was like 😳 jsyk if we weren’t at this bar i’d be eating you out right now.

no one has ever said anything like that to me, and i’m still chuckling days later. this is all to say it’s nice to have good friends who make you feel good about yourself AND apparently sexy over silly things. it’s a nice, fun vibe. and new to me. i like it, and these people, very much. i hope i make them feel good too!

also put the battery from the dying carbon monoxide detector in the stud finder i got so hopefully it’ll help me get over the current executive dysfunction hump that has been around for three weeks of not hanging up the deer head and we’ll see where things go from there.

LIST FOR TOMORROW TO BE COMPLETED BY 5PM:

buy cat food

buy cat litter

shower

put away laundry

drink at least three glasses of water

take some B-12 vitamins

put jewelry box away

start rock tumbler

remove cans and dishes from room

pack luggage (don’t forget contacts and extra switch controller that brandon offered)

BIG TO-DO:

hang up deer head

[amorgansgal]

Teeny Tiny Arthur Headcanon

For everyone (especially @farbenfux) who just suddenly came to my blog with height discourse, here's a headcanon where Arthur's being shrunk down to the size of a match box! I bashed this out in an hour and it's mostly for shits and giggles!

Warnings: None, except for a jokey little comment from Abigail!

Arthur woke up in the morning with a low groan. He rubbed his eyes and gazed up at the trees overhead. Even the swaying motion of the leaves was making him feel a bit sick.

It had been a hell of a party the previous night. They had brought in a lot of money and Dutch had encouraged them to have a party. It had been a great night, plenty of music, singing, laughter and lots of drinking, including a strange whiskey that Uncle had found.

Only he had taken a swig of it, being too drunk to care while everyone else seemed wary about it. But though it smelt strange, it didn’t really taste of anything once they drank it.

Arthur got up off the blanket he was lying on, but as he opened his eyes he realised something… something that was a little horrifying! He was the same height as the grass!

‘What the-?’

Someone nearby him screamed and Arthur looked up. Tilly was staring down at him, she was as tall as a house!

‘ARTHUR! WHY ARE YOU SO SMALL?!’

Arthur winced at her loud voice. ‘I don’t know!’

She carefully picked him up in her hand, but the sudden lurch Arthur made him cling onto her thumb from sheer fear.

‘CAREFUL! Don’t dop me!’

‘Tilly, what’s goin’ on?’ Abigail’s voice drifted over.

‘I found Arthur and he’s tiny!’ Tilly showed Arthur to Abigail, who just stared at him.

‘Oh my god, what are we going to do?’

‘Take me to Dutch and Hosea!’ Arthur demanded. ‘They’ll think of something. Bet it was that damn whiskey Uncle brought with him!’

Tilly began to hurry over, it was like being on the biggest, thunderous horse Arthur had ever ridden. ‘Easy, Tilly!’

‘Oops, sorry!’

‘Hey, Tilly. You seen Arthur, we’ve got a job we’re meant to-?’ John asked as he walked over. Arthur closed his eyes in pain, as if this day couldn’t get any worse!

‘He’s here,’ Tilly said, pointing at her hand where Arthur was sitting.

‘What the-?’ John looked confused, then began laughing. Arthur glowered at him. John saw his expression and laughed harder. ‘Guess you can’t be calling me little Johnny Marston anymore!’

‘You shut yer goddamn mouth, Marston!’

John walked off, laughing hysterically, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘Bastard!’ Arthur thought.

Finally, Tilly reached Dutch’s tent. Arthur gazed back at where he had been sleeping. That trip probably would’ve taken him all day in his current form and he’d probably have to get a sewing needle from the ladies to defend himself from bugs!

‘Dutch! Dutch, we got an emergency!’ Tilly shouted.

Dutch came out of his tent, he looked sore too and was rubbing his forehead. ‘What is it, Tilly? Better be something important.’

‘It’s Arthur! Look at him! He’s tiny! He can’t go out on jobs like this!’

Dutch finally saw Arthur in Tilly’s palm. His eyes widened and for a moment he was absolutely dumbstruck.

‘Sorry, Dutch. Think it was that whiskey Uncle brought back.’

Dutch rubbed his jaw and shook his head slightly, as though he couldn’t quite believe it, but he then pushed back his shoulders and stood up straighter.

‘Arthur, my boy, I’m sorry but that ain’t good enough as an excuse.’

‘What?’

‘I expect you on your horse within the hour. I’ll be joining you and John, and when we’re ready we’ll ride out. We still ain’t got enough money and I need you working!’

‘Dutch, I won’t be able to reach the stirrups! How am I even meant to hold a gun? It’ll send me flying off the horse if I can even fire it! My bag is small too, it ain’t even goin’ to fit a dollar in it!’

‘Now, Arthur, I expect you to be an example to the rest of ‘em. I need you strong, son.’ Dutch looked up at Tilly. ‘Miss Tilly, find Arthur a squirrel to ride. We’ll figure out the rest on the ride over.’

‘Of course, Dutch,’ Tilly said. She dropped Arthur down on a barrel.

Arthur rested by a bar of soap. Well if Dutch needed him to ride out, then he would. He got to his feet and was about to walk over to the edge of the barrel, when he suddenly slipped on a soapy suds and found himself falling off the barrel. Arthur yelled out, but his voice was so small no one could hear him!

~~~

‘Arthur! Arthur! Wake up!’

‘What?’ Arthur mumbled and blinked his eyes opened. Abigail was looking at him with some worry in her eyes.

‘You were screaming and hollering in your sleep. You kept yelling ‘I ain’t 5ft8! I ain’t 5ft8!’ You’ve woken up most of the camp.’

‘Oh!’ Arthur said, raising from the bed and being glad to see that he was back to his normal height. The grass was well below the wheels of his wagon. ‘Sorry about that, had a real strange dream.’

‘Sounds like it!’ Abigail muttered.

‘Yeah, I was tiny!’

Abigail snorted. ‘Not sure if you should tell me that, Mr Morgan!’

‘No, not like that!’ He grumbled and got up out of bed.

‘Anyway, you seen Uncle? Last time we saw him he had fallen asleep underneath the tree, after drinking that strange bottle of whiskey he brought back? But he ain’t there anymore.’

Arthur froze and looked at the tree… Could it be? How much had Uncle drank? Perhaps if he had finished the whole bottle, he was now the size of a button and would never be found again!

‘I’ll look for him,’ Arthur said. Oh god! What if someone had accidentally trod on him?

About an hour later Arthur found Uncle asleep, cuddling up to a hay bale! He was regular sized and Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it had just been a weird, terrible dream! He chuckled at the notion of himself riding a squirrel!

‘Good morning, Arthur,’ Dutch greeted him, as he walked by back to his tent.

‘Morning, Dutch. Say, if I ever shrunk down to the size of a match box, would you still expect me to bring back money?’

Dutch laughed. ‘Course, I would, Arthur! We can put you through the keyholes of lockboxes and the like!’

[mongooseblues]

The Final Final — Part I: Exam

Finals week during a particularly difficult semester of your Ph.D program is not a very convenient time to get very sick. This is the first of three parts. The first part of this was inspired by this post by Myles. A bit of forewarning, this part also involves some mess, more implied than described. I’ve been working on this for the past few months and it has become incredibly important to me and incredibly important in Cal’s story, and I’m super excited to finally be able to share it :) Part II here.

— - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - —

It was only a matter of time.

He hasn’t been sleeping well for a while now, really the entire semester. On the rare nights he’s able to get in a good six or seven hours he often wakes up to find he’s cooked something in a bout of somnambulance. This week has been particularly bad, he’s awoken to unfamiliar aloo gobi three separate times. It’s a wonder he hasn’t burned down the apartment. His roommate found him on Tuesday, apparently, peeling potatoes at three in the morning. Said it seemed like he knew what he was doing.

Some months ago a psychiatrist prescribed him a sleep aid, and he tried it for a couple of weeks but during the following days he was always so groggy he may as well have been sleepwalking through his waking life as well. His latest research paper was taking so long he was forced to table it entirely, and what’s more he’d started to wonder why the hell he thought it even mattered what John Locke did or didn’t mean in the first place. Academic burnout looms like a dwindling flame waiting to be extinguished, so vulnerable it may truly be snuffed out by the lukewarm reception of an essay.

He knows it’s good for him, healthy even, to question whether this really is what he wants to do for the rest of his life, to stand in classrooms and lecture halls and pretend he has any idea how to better interpret life’s moral quandaries than anyone else. But things were certainly much easier when his questions weren’t all so inward facing, and he’s about to have to answer fifty multiple choice questions, plus three (or god was it five?) in short essay form, so this in particular is not the best time for existentialism.

“Cal you look awful,” says Malik, as he and Saanvi walk up to where he’s leaning against a wall in the corridor outside the lecture hall.

He zones back in from the coffee he’s been staring at, which he almost never drinks but felt like he could really use today, and he’s glad he got it but mostly because it gave him a chance to grab a greedy fistful of coffee shop napkins. He’d put tissues in his jacket pocket but changed into a warmer coat last minute and thus forgot them, so he’s now using his limited number of napkins as sparingly as he possibly can to deal with the current state of his nose, which is not good.

“I know,” he responds finally. “I’m at peak head cold right now.”

“Oh no!” Saanvi says.

“It’s okay,” he insists with a sniffle. “It’s my last final, so just need to get through it and I’m done.”

“Right,” Malik says, “well it seems like you’re not going as mental about this as I am, so can anybody quiz me? Swear I only remember half of this.”

“Absoh-solutely—” Cal attempts, betrayed by his own wavering breath, eyebrows coming together in shared anguish as he sucks in a needy inhale and uses his free hand to tug at the collar of his sweater, bury his face in it, and wince against sneezes that echo through the hallway.

Thank god for the lid on this coffee.

“Hhuh-USSHHue! UHHH-shue!”

“Bless you!”

Cal pulls his face out of his sweater only for his mouth to immediately fall agape, so he just nods, eyes struggling to stay open through a breathless, “Sorryonemore—” as he again covers his face and stumbles sideways into a third sneeze that’s even more emphatic from his attempt to delay it.

“HRRUSSHHsyue!”

The bless yous are also more emphatic this time, and he coughs through his “Excuse me, thank you.”

“I take it you’re not feeling much better,” Josephine says from behind him.

He turns around, nose still buried in a napkin. “No not really, snffh!” But then he grins. “Also hi Josephine.”

“Hi Rudolph, I see you did not heed my advice about not using napkins.”

“I know, snfff! I am suffering the consequences.”

“This is what happens when you don’t listen to Mum, Cal,” Malik says, and they laugh. An ongoing joke, that one. Josephine and Cal have been dubbed Mum and Dad and are addressed as such whenever either of them fits the stereotype, which, to be fair, is kind of often.

Josephine exchanges greetings and how are yous and mutual casual panic about what promises to be a very difficult exam, but her attention doesn’t stray from Cal for long, which probably has something to do with all the pitiful snuffling.

“Your cheeks are all red too,” she says, and it’s not until she puts a hand on his shoulder that he realizes she’s addressing him, coming to and blinking at her dumbly as if her sentence came at the end of a different paragraph he had to read first.

“Are you running a fever, can I check?”

“Uh yeah, sure,” he sniffles, realizing that perhaps that’s why his usually warm coat feels so insufficient today.

She reaches up to lay a gentle hand to his forehead and frowns and under any other circumstance this would be a little thrilling, to have her touch his face like this, but now he’s distracted because he really would like not to have a fever right now as he takes an exam he was already anxious about, and so Josephine’s diagnosis feels unreasonably like a death sentence. “Yeah, you do feel hot.”

Malik checks to confirm, says, “Oh yeah bruv, that’s definitely a fever.”

Makes sense, checks out. Suddenly he recognizes symptoms he’d been sort of ignoring. “Yeah I tend towards fevers when I’m sick.”

“Aww Caliph, are you going to make it through this?” asks Saanvi.

“I’m gonna do my best,” he laughs, sounding quiet and exhausted and not at all humorous.

Here is the problem with HIST 401: It is all rote memorization of dates and facts, there is no real holistic throughline — no overarching themes to tie all these separate facts into something meaningful, much less something memorable, at least not beyond the information regurgitation that this exam unfortunately encourages. The only not-Philosophy courses they have to take in their doctoral program are three history classes, and they’ve all proven themselves unjustly difficult. Frankly this course has no right to be as hard as PHIL 551.

Courses really should not be purposely hard, there is no reason that should be some academic goal, especially not for a class that satisfies a general education requirement. Not the way to foster passion in history, and in fact Cal didn’t think it unreasonable to consider such a class capable of actively fostering dispassion in the subject for the incoming cohort of history doctoral candidates who have to start with one of the HIST 401 courses their first year.

“That’s because history professors are the most boring people who exist,” Malik had said, and though perhaps judgmental in a reactionary way, it wasn’t an entirely unfair judgment, though Cal’s personal take on the subject is that history professors just often seem to have a hard time translating their passion into their syllabi. Maybe because there’s just a lot of history one needs to cover. Or maybe, he thinks, with uncharacteristic bitterness as he stares at a multiple choice question involving two options of date that differ by a mere 30 years, maybe Dr. Nguyen in particular really is passionate about disparate dates and facts.

Studying for this test has felt a bit like pouring water into a cracked vessel he simply does not have time to fix — every sleepless night steadily leaking some of the course content as he tries to memorize it, demanding the sacrifice of more sleep to replace what he keeps losing, relying on quantity of hours and sheer repetition as a desperate means to hold himself together just long enough to make it through the semester.

Unfortunately Cal's body hadn’t gotten the memo, and started in on the coming apart a couple of days early. He’s sniffling more or less every time he inhales, and his nose feels as if it’s ceaselessly sort of buzzing. And if he pays it a single iota of attention it’s very bothersome, so he tries not to. 

He’s only a few questions in, the first time the feeling comes over him, urgent and inexorable. Drawing a shaky inhale, he puts down his pencil, presses a napkin tight to his face, tries and immediately fails to hold his breath. The initial aim is to keep his mouth closed when it happens, but that proves only to give him less control over it, leading to something like a delayed explosion of an “mmMFFSHHUE!” that ends wildly from his attempts to suppress it.

Instead he allows his mouth to open but tries to muffle as best he can — harsh, strangled vowel sounds smothered into submission and followed by shaky little exhaled ‘shyoo!’s as quiet as he can make them, his entire upper body shuddering and trembling with each expulsion, huddling into himself as he weathers fits of two to four that beg to be more resounding than he’d prefer. It reminds him of screaming and/or sobbing into a pillow. Both of which are things he’d kind of love to do right now.

He hadn’t adequately prepared for how effusive this runny nose would be, and soon enough Cal finds his nose never not needing the attention of a napkin. He absolutely did not grab enough of them from that coffee shop, he probably could have taken the entire dispenser and used every one.

His usual please-god-no-don’t-sneeze tactic is also proving even less effective than usual — squishing the back of his hand against his nose does nothing but make him drippier, and it produces a sort of squelching noise he’s not fond of when every sound is acoustically amplified and obvious. He resorts to keeping a napkin constantly pressed very firmly to his nostrils, occasionally placating himself with a wince and a hard back-and-forth rub. But it’s harder to tell whether he’s actually going to sneeze when his nose’s baseline state of being is very tingly, when he’s fending off close calls too many times to count, when it could apparently be brought to fruition just by sniffling a little too hard.

Sometimes when he’s sick like this the urge to sneeze becomes an insatiable thing, an itch only barely scratched no matter how many times his body tries. All Cal wants to do right now is just let the feeling have its way with him; to sneeze, and sneeze, and sneeze, however many times it takes to not feel quite so damn ticklish.

All Cal can do, in this moment, is steadfastly sniffle and continue muffling sneezes that leave him quaking like they're seismic events, blearily blinking himself back into focus as he stares at a scantron that’s lost his attention because the main thing on his mind is the Sisyphean management of overwhelming cold symptoms and trying to make them as unobtrusive as overwhelming cold symptoms can possibly be.

God, why can’t he remember who Mazares is? He’s definitely one of those expendable Median generals but which one? It doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things or even in the scheme of his understanding of ancient Persia but which one??

He will never do this to his students, he will never ask them stray, irrelevant trivia questions on an exam, he will…

Try his best not to let this get too loud—

“uhUHHH!..shyue…” He’ll… “HRRUSH!” -Damnit. He will never ask them— “hh?” any… “HRUHHoo-!” He will never ask his students any question on any test that doesn’t tie into the core concepts of the course as a whole. Everything will have meaning, everything he teaches will be meaningful or at least objectively interesting. He will make an effort to figure out what is and isn’t objectively interesting in case his idea of that is as skewed as Dr. Nguyen’s seems to be.

This is exactly the kind of class Cal wants to teach—an intro course that doubles as a GE credit, something that allows the instructor to take their niche interests and turn them into something less pedantic, more practical, more universal—seen here done exactly the wrong way, the clear picture of a professor who resents having to deal with any student not pursuing his own field. And the confusing language of these questions… or to be fair it’s possible they’re not objectively that confusing and it’s just that he’s foggy from fever, that does seem like a possibility, he is feeling a little addled. For several stupid minutes he tries to calculate how many of these answers he can miss exactly and reconcile that with the number of them he’s confident about, because he needs an overall grade of at least a B in this class for it to count and that is not something he usually needs to worry about.

An hour into the exam his nose is still running terribly, and eventually it gets to the point where there needs to be a place for it to… go. Because he’s not about to blow his nose in here, he's kind of already exceeded the capacity of every last napkin, and in all honesty it is why he went with the turtleneck this morning. It was a worst case scenario plan, and this is a substantially worse case than he thought it would be. A particularly productive sneeze has him pulling the neck of the sweater over his nose and slipping the final sodden napkin into his pocket for good.

He tries not to think about how thoroughly gross he feels as he attempts to exhale lightly through his nose into the fabric on the inside collar, aiming for a silent version of a nose blow that he instantly realizes he cannot actually make silent, so instead he goes with another sadly adapted strategy that involves more pinching and squishing than blowing. He tries not to think about the fact that he can feel the warmth of his own wetness on his neck, and he tries especially hard not to picture what this poor sweater would look like turned inside out.

While for the purposes of this exam they’re staggered out to every other seat, Cal is sure he’s disturbing a fair few stressed classmates with his ongoing little symphony of echoing symptoms, because there is nothing about this cold he’s managing to keep quiet here, and when an especially unquiet series of sneezes jolt him forward enough to jostle the #2 pencil on his desk and send it rolling off, he finds his suspicions confirmed in the incredibly unamused look from the person to his right as he leans over to retrieve his pencil from the nearby vicinity of their shoe. His quiet apology is sharply shushed by one of the TAs in the aisles, and the shush’s subtext is As if you in particular were not making noise enough. 

He’s gonna go home and, god willing, sleep for a hundred years. 

Cal is one of the last ten students to finish. Finally he hands his scantron and blue book to the proctor with a dejected, pathetic sounding, “Thank you, snff! sorry, umh… wash your hands, probably,” and then walks off to try to never again think about the fact that he just spoke that sentence aloud. By the time he exits the lecture hall, struggling to simultaneously slip his bag back over his shoulder and keep the neck of his sweater held to his nose, Malik, Saanvi and Josephine are waiting for him.

He says, “Sorry, give me a minute,” and hastens to the nearby restroom to sneeze with abandon and blow his nose into toilet paper over and over, for what feels like five minutes and triggers more stray sneezes, and extends over the course of a good third of the roll, because he’s waited an interminable test period worth of time to experience anything like relief so he’s allowing himself this as an indulgence.

Upon leaving the bathroom he sees first Josephine, who puts a hand on his arm and whispers “Sweetheart,” and then Malik and Saanvi who say “Aww buddy,” and a gentle “Hey,” respectively.

As soon as he opens his mouth to respond his breath gets away from him, and he quickly fishes out the rolled up length of toilet paper he just stuffed into his coat pocket and brings it to his face with both hands, the unused portion unrolling almost to the floor and dangling pitifully as he does.

Two frantic, frustrated sneezes, the second of which is essentially just the first elongated and reiterated with more conviction, issued at a volume that suggests his lungs feel the need to make up for lost time, and a correspondingly harsh, strangled quality.

“hh’URRSHHue! h!-HURRRSHHshyiuu!”

It must sound truly miserable because their blessings feel like condolences and Josephine’s hand finds its way to his shoulder and remains there when he makes no attempt to initiate a divorce between his face and this sad mess of toilet paper, because he suspects he will not be capable of doing so with much dignity.

He intends to mutter some mix of ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Excuse me,’ and perhaps something like an apologetic ‘Jeez,’ but only manages as much as “Thay-h-EHHG’KSSHHHYOO!” A display so obviously productive he doubts they’re surprised when he follows it up with a stuffily mumbled, “Uhm, m’gonna try this again,” pushes the bathroom door back open with a shoulder and spends another minute or so blowing his nose until he’s mitigated a couple catastrophic seconds’ worth of damage.

When he again re-emerges, Cal finds himself meeting the sympathetic faces of his friends with a half smirk and a single request. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

[orokay]

Miss Joa, one of my bnha girls~

more bg info under the cut!

Name: Kumagai Joa

Age: 26

Birthday: January 5th

Height: 5′5 (165 cm)

Family: Kumagai Mugi (milf)

Gender: Female (she/her)

Sexuality: Lesbian

Quirk: Magnet

Right side of her body attracts and left repels. Her quirk is constantly active but it’s spread throughout her body, making the resting effect extremely weak. She can concentrate it in certain parts of her body to amplify the effect. The maximum force she can exert directly correlates with her physical strength, so Joa works out often to build up muscle strength and endurance. Because her quirk is always active, she’s always at least a little fatigued. Using her quirk frequently and powerfully can cause muscle pain, fatigue and in more extreme cases, tears. 

Background:

Born and raised by her mother in America, primarily the east coast. Because her mother was a notorious villain, known as Fatal Attraction*, they rarely stayed in one place for long. Despite her mother’s villainy, she did her best to give Joa the best life she could provide and supported her wholeheartedly when Jo decided she wanted to go to a hero school.** Jo was accepted into hero courses, but dropped out when it came time for her to do hero agency internships. She’d struggled throughout the school year when it was leaked that her mother was a villain, but it came to a head when the time to do internships came around and she realized she’d been largely blackballed for refusing to at least denounce her mother. Desperate to get out of the shadow of her mother’s reputation, Joa saved up and moved to Japan for a fresh start once she turned 18. Still, she felt the call to be a hero stronger than ever, and after a chance encounter that ended with her saving a civilian from a minor villain, Joa realized that she didn’t need a license to help people, as long as she was careful. She became a vigilante and employed many of the tricks her mother taught her to evade capture and the skills she learned during her hero training to fight villains. During her period as a vigilante, Joa met and ended up in a tumultuous relationship with a petty criminal, Takara Higa (belongs to @gembroni). Neither of them were good at relationships since they were each others first serious relationships, but it ended surprisingly peacefully after mutually agreeing to go their separate ways. We’ll come back to this lol. Jo’s career as a vigilante lasted from the age of 19 to 23, when she was caught and arrested. She spent two years in prison and was given a reform opportunity to try for a position as a dorm supervisor at UA, on the condition that she could pass a hero license exam on the first try and get a provisional license. She succeeded and was given responsibility over class 1-A’s dorm. In a sick and twisted turn of events, Takara was given a similar deal, and she’s currently reigning over class 1-B. Due to awkwardness over being forced to see the one person who knew them at their lowest point, the two who’d ended their relationship amicably immediately became bitter rivals. Not wanting to lose their chance at a better life, they keep their history with each other a secret and play nice in front of the kids and teachers. However, they’re constantly trying to one up each other by competitively taking care of their charges and (not so) subtly trying to make one another miserable.

* Her mom has a big reputation, but compared to other villains she’s not really malicious, mostly just a chaos causer and an extremely flashy bank robber. Most of her fame comes from the fact that she’s a showman and very good at not getting caught, and not from being an exceptionally dangerous or evil villain. Unlike Joa, Mugi is extremely charismatic and LOVES the limelight, and that charisma has gained her a bit of a fanbase even among civilians. ** Since I haven’t been able to find any info on American hero schools for BnHA, I’m making my own rules dkfjds. Jo’s school was more of a technical school which she started during her junior year of high school, and her internship would have taken place during the summer of that first year. Tidbits:

Had the WORST, most stiff sense of style when she was younger and mostly dressed like a target employee

Jo's vigilante costume is so different from what her style was at the time because she’d taken one of her mom's old villain costumes w her after a visit when she was 20. Joa knew she wouldn't be able to afford any decent black market support equipment and her mom's old stuff was made of expensive, sturdy and high quality material. The 'downside' however was that her mom had always been very showy

Jo’s resting magnetism is just strong enough for light things such as paper to stick to her. This is a source of agony for her when Taka wants to show off that 1b got a better test score and sticks it to her like she’s a human refrigerator.

Jo doesn’t currently have a hero outfit as her license is EXTREMELY provisional and she’s only really allowed to use her quirk on school grounds and/or to defend her students. She plans to try to finish her education and try for a real hero license once they get out of the major historical event that’s going on right now.

She has mandatory community service on top of her UA job and often has to sneak out to do it since she doesn’t want her history to get out to the students.

She’s currently dating Riho Fujioka, another Gem masterpiece, who is a receptionist at UA.

Mugi ‘retires’ from villainy after Jo gets out of jail and moves back to Japan to be close to her daughter and Jo ages 20 years every time her mom shows up at the dorm to dote on the kids and Midoriya starts thinking too hard about where he might’ve seen her before

Both of Joa’s parents are Japanese citizens but Mugi moved to America so she wouldn’t have to worry about potentially being caught by All Might.

[writertitan]

Sunsets

pairing: levi x f!reader (she/her pronouns used)

word count: 3.3k

themes: a little angsty at first but trust the process, fluffy ending, canonverse, levi is nervous

requested by anon

The first time you felt something was amiss was when you caught Levi scrambling to hide something in his desk drawer as you walked into his office. 

“What’s that?” you asked, more out of slight curiosity than anything else, as you closed the door behind you. 

“Nothing,” Levi responded curtly, and that was the end of it. 

For a moment, you wondered about pressing it, mostly just to tease, but it was forgotten the moment Levi got up and walked towards you to hand you a cup of tea. 

You stole a quick peck from him in the process, his sneaky little moment now completely wiped from your head, and you launched into a summary of your day with your squad. 

Levi listened as attentively as he always did. As you spoke, the two of you ended up leaving his office to take a stroll outside, sipping your teas as you chatted. 

It was no surprise that you ended up where you always did outside. A private spot - the one you’d dubbed your spot with Levi - in a quiet part of base, aware from prying eyes and the constant noise and running around. 

You looked towards the sunset that bled across the wall and sighed in content, clutching your teacup close to your chest as you took in the sight. You could feel Levi’s eyes on you but you didn’t turn to him right away, choosing to admire the warm colors before the sky turned inky. Still, that didn’t stop you from being cheeky. 

“What are you staring at?” you asked with a small smile tugging at your lips. Finally, your gaze flickered to Levi, catching his silvery eyes. 

He grunted a noncommittal response and looked towards the sunset as well, but you saw the faint pink dusting his ears. It made you smile wider, and you hid it behind your teacup before taking one last sip of tea. 

“We should go back inside soon, it’s getting chilly,” you said, and Levi nodded once, his eyes on you yet again when he noticed that you were getting closer to him instead of heading back inside. 

The evening was settling into a cool spring night, and you couldn’t help your desire to snuggle closer into Levi. There was no one around - you could hear the ruckus of dinnertime in the mess hall - which made it the perfect opportunity to find comfort in his sturdy, warm chest. 

Over the years, you’d noticed that your more unexpected advances, like this one, made Levi tense up less and less. The very first time you’d gotten cuddly with him, even in the privacy of his room, he’d frozen up and couldn’t respond. An entirely different Levi from this current one, who easily looped an arm around your middle and nuzzled his nose into your hairline when you rested your head against his shoulder.

“Let’s go back in now,” he murmured against your forehead, and you hummed in both agreement and disagreement. 

It was nice to be like this with him. It felt normal, weightless. You wanted to soak up in this moment forever. 

When Levi pulled away, you whined a little and leaned towards him again, seeking his warmth, but you stopped when Levi set his cup down gently on the grass to shrug out of his jacket and drape it over your shoulders. His warmth and his scent enveloped your senses and you smiled shyly at him, using your free hand to tug his jacket closer around you. 

He took your cup from you and then grabbed his cup from the grass, allowing you a few moments to snuggle up in his jacket and stick your arms through the sleeves. The two of you were settled in a comfortable silence as you walked back inside, straight towards your shared room. 

On the way back you passed by Levi’s office, door still ajar, and Levi asked you to stop so he could finish up a few things and lock it up for the night. 

“Mind taking these back to the kitchen?” he asked you as he gently handed you the empty teacups. 

“Don’t mind at all, I’ll just meet you in our room,” you said, turning back around to leave. 

You turned to look at him over your shoulder before closing the door behind you, and stopped when you saw him briefly peek into the same drawer he’d been so sneaky about earlier, the memory popping back up in your brain. 

Whatever he was hiding, he didn’t take it out, and you didn’t wait around to see if he would. It was probably nothing. 

By the time you got to your shared room, Levi was already there, and the memory was almost to the back of your mind again, to be completely forgotten the moment his lips touched yours. It wasn’t until you were drifting off to sleep, Levi’s hand stroking along your spine, that your mind conjured it up again in a dream. 

----

The second time you felt something was up was when Hange and Levi shut up the moment you stepped into the room. 

Hushed whispers cut off short the moment you walked in, and it was a little irritating. Whatever urgent matter you’d needed Levi for was wiped from your head for the moment, replaced with unease. 

“What?” you pressed, eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Am I interrupting something?” 

“No,” Levi said, a little too quickly for your liking, and you gave him a frown. 

“Then what were you talking about?” 

“Can’t tell you yet,” Hange piped up, which in turn made Levi glare at them. 

You pressed your lips together, trying to decide if it was worth asking for more information, but before you could make up your mind, Hange jumped up from their chair and gave you a bright smile, glasses flashing in the afternoon light streaming through the window of their lab. 

“Well, I’m off! Got lots of things to tend to this afternoon. See you for supper?” They didn’t want for an answer as they hurried past you, leaving you alone with a very on edge Levi. 

You hadn’t seen him this tensed up since you’d first gotten together. It was startling. 

It was scary. 

“Levi…,” you began, but couldn’t find the words. Finally, you decided on, “Is everything okay?” 

He softened at your question, which had come out quiet and clearly laced with worry, and in no time he was in front of you and smoothing some hair from your face. 

“Stop worrying so much,” he answered; his eyes were sincere and calming, and your heartbeat slowly went back to normal when he let you lean into his touch. 

You didn’t dawdle too much and eventually you pulled away from him, giving him a stern look when you remembered what you’d come to find him for. 

“One of the cadets tracked in...horse shit. And he doesn’t know how to clean it up. Honestly, he’s just spreading it around even more. We need you,” you explained, just about gagging even at the very recent memory of the poor boy trying his best to clean before his captain could find out. 

Levi’s eyes had widened the moment you’d mentioned anything about horse dung being anywhere other than in the stables, and then darkened as he processed the situation at hand. 

“This batch has got to be the worst we’ve ever had,” he muttered, referring to your newest recruits. “I think I’m gonna be fucking sick. Let’s go.” 

It wasn’t until you both heard Hange’s bloodcurdling scream that you sprung into action. Because for Hange of all people to get worked up about a mess, it had to be bad. And Levi knew that better than anyone. 

He had never left you behind as fast as he did right then. 

---

Though the sneakiness persisted over the next couple of weeks, what you couldn’t let go of was the way Levi was slowly tensing up again. 

What had you done? Had you done something that had set him off and made him uncomfortable?

Every time you tried to broach the subject with him, Levi was quick to change the subject. Then, for a while, he’d be sort of back to normal with you. He’d sneak a few affectionate touches in private, he’d take an evening stroll outside only for you to end up at your favorite spot, and then you’d feel your worries slip away. 

Only for those same worries to come crashing back when he’d tense up again. 

The final straw was after training, when you’d walked into his office to give him some paperwork, and had caught him pacing back and forth. He looked stressed out and it made your heart hurt for him. 

Apparently, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t hear you come in. As he turned his head towards the window, back to you, you walked over to place a hand on his shoulder, ready to comfort him. 

The way he cringed away made you stumble back as if you’d been slapped. The pain of rejection spread from your heart to your entire body as Levi whipped around to face you, grey eyes filled with surprise when he saw it was you. 

And then you just couldn’t help it. The tears that filled your eyes couldn’t be stopped, and Levi looked horrified at the sight. 

“I’m sorry-” he started, but you interrupted him with a whispered, “Stop.” 

It was then that the most horrible thought came to you, a thought that suddenly made the most sense. 

“Do you not want to be with me anymore?” you asked him, voice cracking at the end. 

The sneakiness, the tension he radiated, it all pointed to one thing: He was done with you. That had to be it. Just the idea of it made your heart simultaneously sink and beat hard in denial. Your body was just as tense as Levi’s. 

Somehow, somewhere along the way, maybe Levi had decided that a relationship really was too hard. Maybe you’d forced him to be too open. Maybe he was uncomfortable with you. It had taken a long time for him to come out of his shell and truly open up to you, but maybe he regretted it. 

Levi, for the first time ever since you’d known him, looked dumbfounded. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked, but your heart sank at that. 

Answering a question with another question. A telltale sign that he was avoiding the answer. 

“All of your sneaking around, Levi! You’ve been acting so different lately and I guess I get it now,” you said, voice still wobbly as the tears threatened to fall. 

Realization dawned on Levi’s face then, but you didn’t wait around for whatever he was about to say. You’d thought that maybe Levi had just needed some space before. Now it was you who needed space. If he was going to call things off, you needed a bit more time to prepare yourself. 

You left despite Levi calling out for you, tears finally trickling down your cheeks as you desperately tried to hurry off and find somewhere to calm down. 

You pushed yourself into the first supply closet you could find and locked it after you, settling down in the darkness as you wiped at your continuously falling tears. 

Maybe you were jumping to conclusions, but something was just different about Levi lately. And to have him tense up like that, when he hadn’t done so in such a long time...it hurt more than anything else. Even the thought of him not being in your life sent shots of panic through you. 

But you couldn’t face him just yet. You’d have to sort it out soon with him, whether you were right or not, but the fear and insecurity ate away at you in that supply closet. 

One thing stood out though, as your tears subsided. 

Levi would never intentionally hurt you. He wanted you to be safe, to feel safe, like you made him feel safe. 

And, the most important thing you had to remember, was that you loved him. And you weren’t willing to throw it all away without doing all you could to repair whatever needed fixing. 

You had to be brave. You owed it to Levi to be brave, even if you were about to hear something you didn’t want to hear. 

So, after a deep breath, you dusted yourself off and slowly left the closet, quiet and a little anxious as you headed back to his office. 

Your footsteps were the only sound as you made your way down the hall. Nobody was around and, as you got closer to Levi’s office, you couldn’t hear him inside. 

Peeking your head in, your suspicions were confirmed when you were met with an empty space. You quietly shut the door behind you and looked around, as if Levi would randomly appear. 

The silence was uncomfortable. Though much of your time spent alone with Levi was in silence, it was comfortable and perfect, and made you feel as if you could continue on that way forever. But just you here in his office with Levi nowhere in sight, with only silence to accompany you, made you feel cold. 

You sat at his desk and sighed, rubbing at your face for a moment before leaning back in his chair and contemplating what to do next. Should you just wait for him here? 

But when your eyes flickered to the desk drawer that had started the first bouts of unease in you, your mind blanked. 

It was unlike you to invade Levi’s privacy. And truly, whatever he’d pushed into that drawer must have been taken out by now, right? 

But you were acting so unlike you today. 

Part of you felt bad to be opening up the drawer to peek inside, but the other part of you just needed to know, and needed to find answers. 

There were a few documents in there that looked standard, but the folded up piece of parchment at the back caught your attention immediately. 

You carefully pulled it out and shut the drawer, heart thumping as you unfolded it to look at the contents. 

Ring? 

At morning? At night?   at sunset, our spot

Write a speech

Memorize the speech? 

Or maybe just ask her Too aggressive. Say something romantic first asshole

Ask Hange for help on what to say even if it makes you want to die 

Be confident

Would she even want to marry you? 

Be confident

Where at first your heart had been pounding, it had suddenly skipped a few beats when you realized what you were reading. 

Levi’s normally neat and beautiful handwriting was more erratic here, with ink blotting through and so many things scratched out.

But even so, your eyes fell back to the word you couldn’t believe you were reading. 

Marry.

He wanted to marry you? 

And he was actually questioning if you’d want to marry him? 

All of your previous worries suddenly seemed so stupid. You felt so stupid. You’d jumped to conclusions, and your conclusion had been the complete opposite of what was going on. 

And now you had to find Levi. 

---

The best part about being with Levi for so long was gradually figuring out his thought process. And you knew, judging from how you’d taken off earlier, that Levi would try to think like you and run off to find you in the places where you’d most likely go to calm down and seek comfort. 

Definitely not a supply closet. 

Your feet guided you outside and you felt like you were on autopilot as you strolled the grounds, slowly making your way to yours and Levi’s spot. 

When the sight of him came into view, him sitting on the ground and leaning against the wall of the building, your heart fluttered and you breathed out in relief. 

He whipped his head in your direction once your footsteps could be heard coming towards him, and the conflicted expression on his face melted away at the sight of you. But at the sight of his little secret clutched in one of your hands, his eyes widened and a faint blush spread over his face. He got up quickly, hesitating for a moment before stepping towards you. 

“I’m sorry for going through your things-” you started, but were cut off by Levi pulling you into a tight embrace. 

“I do want to be with you,” he whispered in your ear, pulling away after a moment to look at your face with the most gentle gaze. He briefly nodded toward the parchment in your hand, looking even a little shy as he met your eyes again. “I want to be with you for as long as I’m allowed to be. But I was so busy being nervous about asking you that I didn’t realize I was acting like an asshole. I’m sorry. You deserve bett-” 

Your lips were on his before he could finish. 

Levi had the annoying habit of thinking you were too good for him. But now, it looked like you could spend the rest of your life proving to him that he was exactly what you deserved. 

When you pulled away, you beamed at him, tears sprouting in your eyes again. This time, of pure happiness. 

You turned to look at the slowly disappearing sunset and laughed a little; it was just how Levi had tried to plan it. 

Still, he looked flustered as he pulled you closer. 

“This wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to go, I don’t even have a ring yet,” he whispered, but you shook your head and cupped his face, pressing your forehead to his. 

You just wanted to hear the words. 

“This is perfect,” you assured him, and it really was. He could have asked you at any moment, ever, and you would have thought it was perfect. “Just ask me. I just want you to ask me.” 

Levi cleared his throat awkwardly, which made you giggle, but it died down when his thumb danced over your jaw sweetly, and you felt his words ghost over your lips when he finally spoke. 

“Will you marry me?”