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nanaminokanojo · 3 years

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BLOOM | Sukuna X You | Part 2/3

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You got up really early despite staying up late and only getting five hours of sleep max, but once you woke up, you knew you wouldn’t be able to get back to bed so you prepared for the day, waiting for Sukuna’s call. You went to the patio which faced the backyard, carried a small blanket and brought your battered copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s prose collection with you.

A few hour later, you heard stirring in the house and it wasn’t long before Satoru found you. He sat on the lounge chair opposite yours and just stared at you through sleepy eyes. He looked all disheveled, eyes bloodshot and yawning several times. He really couldn’t handle his alcohol and when he wakes up after drinking more than he could take, he always ends up befuddled and unable to make sense of his surroundings, not to mention irritable.

When he just sat there without saying anything and staring at you, you snapped your book close. “What is it?”

He snapped out of a seeming trance. “Oh. You have a guest.”

“Huh?”

“Ieiri said it’s Howard.” He yawned again, stretching his arms.

“Sukuna?”

“Yes, him.”

You scrambled off the lounge chair, nearly knocking it to the side with your weight as you half crawled, half-ran towards the door, suddenly remembering your agreement the previous night. You were mentally slapping yourself as you made your way into the hallway, planning to go up to your room to have a change of clothes. You weren’t sure what he wanted to do because he did not exactly specify that bit.

However, your plans did not come into fruition when you passed by the lattice wood and glass partition between the kitchen and the hallway and saw him.

“Y/N!” Ieiri pretty much yelled your name out, calling your attention and making you jump, startled. “Howard’s here.”

Sukuna glanced at her momentarily, probably catching the name she referred to him with.

The protest died in your throat when you saw Sukuna standing by the counter, looking so out of place in such a domestic setting although he was dressed casually in a black tee with a wide collar that exposed his collarbones for the world to see and faded jeans, similar to the one he wore that time he came to your school.

You grimaced at the realization that you were just standing there like an oaf, checking him out. It was evident in the way his smile morphed into a shy one as he bit his lower lip while Ieiri and Suguru grinned evilly at you. Feigning ignorance to their reactions, you entered the kitchen, brows knit together, shooting Ieiri an inquisitorial look after nodding at Sukuna’s direction. It was a dumb way of greeting people, but that was about what you could manage with the way your brain was being fried at the mere sight of him.

“I didn’t know we received guests in the kitchen now,” you commented, noticing the number of grocery bags on the counter. “You did the shopping?”

“I did,” Sukuna answered you. “I told you I was going to do something for you.”

“'You' being the technical term,” you said with a smirk when you realized what he was planning. “So you’re gonna cook for me?”

“Yes.”

You eyed your two friends who were eyeing Sukuna in anticipation. “Just me?”

“Stingy,” Ieiri commented, pouting.

Woman, you thought, eyeing her sternly in case she had plans to say something embarrassing. You spoke before she could say more, approaching Sukuna who was suddenly just looking at you, your eyes in particular. Out of a sudden, he reached out and touched the spot just under your left eye, making you step back at the sudden contact. He was touchy, you knew that, but you weren’t expecting him to be so candid in front of your friends on such a setting.

“Your eyes are swollen. Is something the matter?”

You smiled at him then, shaking your head. “I didn’t sleep enough last night.” You busied yourself by checking the things he bought. “So…” You looked at his pretty hands then at him. “The Spring God can cook?”

He gave you a funny look at the nickname you gave him. “Watch the Kitchen God work!” He chuckled then turned his attention to Ieiri. “I was just asking Ieiri if I could borrow the kitchen.”

“It’s more Suguru’s kitchen than hers,” you sniped at her who was now sitting on the counter, chin on the heel of her palm as she looked at the pair of you as if she was watching a really cheesy romance drama.

“Then it’s settled. I have to cook for them, too.” He ruffled your hair then. “Mind helping me?”

“I’ll leave you kids then,” she said sounding like a mom, leaving the kitchen and blocking Satoru’s progress when he was about to enter, leading him out into the living room much to the latter’s annoyance.

You shook your head, snickering. You really couldn’t wrap yourself around the fact that Sukuna could cook. “Should I get you an apron, chef?” you asked, meaning to taunt him, but then he took out a rolled-out piece of black cloth from a black case he brought along with the groceries and said, “I brought my own.”

Knowing that you can’t say anything else to annoy him about cooking, you started sorting out the things he brought, taking them out of the bags and fixing them in an organized way on the counter while he proceeded to take the foodstuff to the sink. All the while, you were watching him as he cleaned everything, his dexterous hands moving with precision and unmistakable expertise.

After fixing everything and putting away the bags, you stood beside him on the sink. “You do this a lot?”

“Pretty much.”

It was fascinating to watch him work so you didn’t say anything else until he took the case again and produced a professional-looking set of knives with customized handles. “Okay, now I’m scared.” You arched a brow at him. “Why the hell do you have a knife set?”

“I love to cook,” he answered, laughing slightly without taking his eyes from what he was doing.

“I figured, but I thought, you know just cooking at home, following online recipes and stuff like that.”

At that, he laughed. “Those recipes don’t work half the time.”

“Oh, okay,” you said sarcastically, rolling your eyes at his sentiment but then you saw how he was cutting the ingredients on the chopping board like a pro. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“Now I mind assisting you. I refuse.” You felt a bit miffed about his mad skills in the kitchen, and you knew it would be foolish to even question how his dish, or dishes rather, was going to turn out. It got you thinking about every other thing he can possibly do, and you found yourself falling deeper. “I’m shit in the kitchen. You can have Suguru to help you.”

“But I already asked him for help yesterday to plan all this.”

“Did you now?” Your eyes flicked over to the counter that divided the kitchen and the living room and glared at your friend, remembering your conversation with him. He threw you a rueful smile.

Sukuna pouted. “You can’t take it back. Surely, you can chop onions.”

“I guess.” You took out a knife from the rack and grabbed an onion. “How do you like it?”

“Minced.”

“Okay.” You started chopping the thing rather slowly, trying to be precise, but since you were taking too long, your eyes started watering before you could even get it halfway done. “Ah, shit!” you grumbled, putting the knife down rather harshly.

Sukuna laughed, turning you around so you were facing him. “Are you okay?” he asked in between laughter, wiping your tears away with some paper towels. “You were too slow.”

You screwed your eyes shut, still feeling the sting behind your eyelids. “Well, I don’t cook.” When you opened your eyes, you almost stopped breathing when you saw those dark orbs of his directly in front of you.

“Oh no, sweetheart, you’re crying,” he cooed.

“Onion…” You took the paper towel from him and started wiping your eyes yourself, turning away from him when you saw the teasing beam on his face. “Shut up.”

“You’re cute.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “You’re so annoying.”

“I’m cooking for you, and I’m annoying? Let’s see how that opinion changes once you taste this masterpiece.”

You did not say anything about the matter anymore and instead watched him work, handing him this and that and doing as he tells you. Sukuna was kinda scary to work with since he obviously had a fixed process about how things should be done, but at the same time, you found yourself mesmerized by his fluidity as he moved around as if he had been in the kitchen his whole life.

“What are you making anyway?” you asked as you were putting away the things he didn’t need anymore.

He looked over his shoulder as he stirred whatever he was making. “That’s a secret.”

You shrugged, looking into the pot. “Just tell me already.”

He placed his free arm around your waist, pulling you to his side, seemingly oblivious to the three pairs of eyes which looked towards the direction of the kitchen every so often, spying on the two of you. “Patience, sweetheart. You’re gonna spoil the surprise.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you whined.

He planted a quick kiss on your forehead. “You’ll see.”

By the time Sukuna was done, your dining room looked more like a five-star restaurant than that of one owned by four university students. Well, the table did. You weren’t really familiar with the dishes he prepared since he won’t tell you what they were. You only recognized the lobster thermidor, but all the others were a mystery.

Your friends were thrilled when they saw the table and you were just stunned. You pretty much just watched Sukuna, but he didn’t let you see what he was doing in the dining room, making you promise to sit down in the pantry while he prepared. He went overboard, but you loved it, too.

“I feel like I’m going to pay with all the contents of my bank account after this meal,” Suguru said as he sat down at the edge of the table, making Sukuna laugh.

You sat to his left while the chef sat beside you, explaining the dishes to you and the three other people with you with such technical terms, half of which you didn’t really understand. Suguru did though. Sukuna plated the first dish and offered it to them.

“I hope you would find them to your liking,” he said.

“Y/N’s grandpa would be super impressed if he was here to see this,” Ieiri asked.

You snorted. “Oh my god, Ieri, what are you being such a pain for?” You turned to Sukuna then who looked at you questioningly, but you pretended not to notice. “And you, chill and eat. They can get their own food.” He grinned at you but instead of serving food for himself, he started putting food on your plate. You watched him pointedly. “I can do that myself. Eat!”

“In a bit.” He finished by placing sauce on the lobster then smiled your way before getting food for himself.

“This is phenomenal cooking, man,” Satoru commented delightedly at the first bite, seemingly forgetting about his headache, and Suguru made a sound of approval, eating with gusto. “Will you cook for us every day?”

“Suguru!” you protested.

Sukuna laughed at that. “Maybe not every day.”

You shot him an annoyed look but ate as well. They were right. His cooking was beyond good. “On second thoughts, I don’t mind you cooking for us every day, too. This is totally great!”

“Told you.”

The meal was rather pleasant with your pals engaging Sukuna, obviously taken by him. The deal was sealed where he was concerned. You knew it had nothing to do with the food. They just liked him. He mostly conversed with them while you just pitched in once in a while, too busy eating. Besides, you wanted them to get to know him, too, and you were more than glad that Sukuna was making the effort to be acquainted to them.

After lunch, Suguru and Satoru volunteered to do the dishes, in a very good mood after the magical meal while Ieiri tidied up, leaving you and Sukuna alone. You decided to tour him around the house although there was nothing much to see, leading him into the upstairs hallways. Your house was quite big for only the four of you, but not stately or anything. It was just a normal house with too few inhabitants and too many rooms.

You walked towards the west hall. “Those are all guest rooms and those at the end of the hallway are Satoru and Suguru’s rooms.”

“Where’s yours?” he asked.

You cocked your head towards the east hallway, beckoning him to follow you as you led the way to said room, pointing out the other rooms you passed by, just three of them until you reached the last door. You pushed the door open and gestured for him to enter.

“Huge space,” he commented as he looked appraisingly around, his feet leading him to the large, framed posters of your favorite book-based films and games. “You are a nerd.”

You just watched him, leaning against one of your bookshelves as he ran a finger over your "Harry Potter" movie poster. “Guilty.”

Sukuna then went look at your book collection. “It’s not bad.”

“I’m a literature major. I think it makes sense.”

“Books and more books. How many of these have you actually read?” he asked, taking your volume of "Twelfth Night."

“All of them.”

He eyed you, evidently impressed. “Shakespeare?”

“Yeah. That’s basic in my field.”

“You’re amazing, Y/N.” He reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. “Beautiful, cultured and smart. I like it.”

You snorted, shaking your head. “Shut up.”

“It’s true.” He returned the book on its place. “So, apart from literature, what else are you interested in?” He glanced at the glass case at the opposite end of the room where your scale-model figures and rows upon rows of console games were. “Well, apart from action figures and video games.”

“Hmm.” You pretended to be brooding over it. “Well, recently, I’ve just been interested in one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You.”

He chuckled, pulling you towards him, the warmth of his hands burning through the fabric of your shirt, making you all giddy. “Alright, sweetheart. Your brutal frankness is really scaring me.”

“Door’s wide open. You can run.”

“You won’t chase after me?” he asked.

“You’re gonna wanna see me after anyway, so no.”

“Hey, that’s mean!” But then, he seemed to have thought of something. “Why does Ieiri call me ‘Howard’?”

You retreated from him and slumped down one of the beanbags while he sat on your swivel chair, turning it a hundred and eighty degrees repeatedly. “You caught that, huh?” You couldn’t suppress the laughter that bubbled from your throat at his question. “I didn’t know your name the night we met but Satoru told them about you and I kinda just used the name to refer to you. You know, from the book I was reading at Maki’s.”

“The architect.”

“That one.”

“I see. I don’t mind then since you told me you’re in love with the character.” He winked at you. “But yeah, I was wondering if you enjoyed the meal at all. You haven’t said anything.”

“That speaks volumes of how much I enjoyed it.”

“I’m not really good at this whole impressing anybody thing, but I wanted to make the effort for you and your friends.” Sukuna sighed in relief. “I’ve only ever had one girlfriend after all, and I didn’t really do much in the relationship. And I never really went out with other women after that either save for some casual dates.” He smiled sheepishly at you, but he was confused at your reaction.

You just stared at him quizzically and in disbelief. There was no way you will ever believe that he only dated steadily once and didn’t go out that much to paint the town red. It was inconceivable for the obvious fact that he was so beautiful it was inhuman along with that great personality he has. Women will be lining up for him for sure.

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.”

You shook your head, looking dubiously at him. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Nope.” He shook his head as if to punctuate his statement.

“Everywhere we go, girls look at you and you expect me to believe that crap?” Hell, you wanted to pounce on him more often than not.

His expressions turned smug. “You care enough to notice, I see.”

It was unbelievable but you had to take his word for it. “You don’t sleep around either?”

“No. It just isn’t my thing.”

You just stared at him, your lower lip jutting out, not in disbelief anymore but in wonder. He’s a sensitive soul, you’ve figured that out, but you didn’t know it ran deeper than what you’ve seen so far.

“Don’t look so sad there.”

“I’m not. I really just don’t see it happening.”

“Should I be flattered?” he asked, but before you could answer, he said, “How about you?”

You swallowed hard, suddenly thinking hard about what you’re going to say to him. You didn’t really have a good track record where dating seriously was concerned. It was just not your cup of tea. “I’ve never had an exclusive relationship...” you began, eyeing him cautiously, “…ever.”

“Never?” He seemed to be having difficulty processing that.

You shook your head, your gaze guarded as you tried to gauge his reaction to your revelation. Somehow, you did not expect him to ask about the matter, and when he did, you didn’t really have a clue as to how you would address it. You realized just how different you were from him on that department. He seemed to value the emotions that come with engaging in physical intimacy while you just didn’t care enough for anyone to notice it.

“Now you’re shitting me.”

“I’m telling you the truth.” You frowned. “I think I mentioned this to you in passing the second time we met. I don’t date, at least not steadily.”

Sukuna obviously couldn’t wrap his head around the thought. “So you haven’t had a steady commitment with anyone?”

Again with the negative response. “Uh-uh.”

“Is it a matter of choice or is it a matter incapability, this I-don’t-date thing?”

“Both?” You shrugged, trying to think of a way to explain it to him. “I don’t for the reason that I don’t want to make a steady commitment. I just don’t see myself being invested with such intensity in anyone in a romantic way.”

“And why can’t you?”

“I get sick of people I’m involved with. In that manner, at least.” You chuckled humorlessly. “So…yeah.”

“But you’ve dated, right?”

You nodded. “Openly, yes, but I don’t stay long enough to really get into the whole relationship thing.” Talking about it was excruciating. It wasn’t something you discussed even with your friends. Suguru thought of it as you playing the field, but really, you had issues with the prospect of staying in an established bond with one person for a long period of time. You didn’t really know what to do with the information although you understood the mechanics.

He frowned then, looking deeply troubled. “So, you don’t date?”

“I did not date.” You made sure to emphasize on the past tense, knowing well what he would be assuming. “'Did not' being the operative term.”

“And now?” he asked, standing up when you did, too.

You stepped towards him. “What do you want it to be? It doesn’t just depend on me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said patiently, coming to meet you halfway and cupping your face as he tilted his head down to look at you squarely in the eyes. “But I do want you for the long run.”

“For now, it’s just that you’re slowly changing my views about it,” you returned. “But I like you, Sukuna. And I care about you. A hell lot. Does that answer your question?”

He nodded.

You reached up, touching his face, running your finger over his jawline. “Can we work with that?”

He pressed his lips onto your forehead, wrapping his arms around you. “Count on it.”

***

"How do I look?" you asked as you walked into the living room in the black, long-sleeved, backless, lace mini cocktail dress that Ieiri chose for you, your pencil heels of the same color clacking on the tiled flooring. You found your three friends lined up on the couch like expectant parents who were sending off their daughter to her first dance, making you laugh.

"Stunning!" Satoru complimented without hesitation, jumping up the couch to make his way to you. "Our daughter's grown up, Suguru."

"Last time I checked, I'm the only one who was raising her," the other male replied.

"You did a good job."

"I did a good job," Ieiri chimed in.

You shook your head, checking the contents of your clutch. It was hopeless trying to get a proper answer from them, but you needed their output since you were new to the whole dressing-up for dinner thing because you never really allowed anyone to wine-and-dine you; never wasted time and resources on anybody you knew you weren’t exactly interested in for the long run. Still, you were more than happy to say yes to Sukuna when he said he'll be taking you to dinner after your exams.

He's been hanging around you almost every day since he cooked lunch at your place, making good on his words to you where the status of your relationship was involved. He would either come see you in the morning before he went to work or meet you at night for a quick drink at Maki's pub. At times, he'd be dropping by at your school during his breaks. And on the previous weekend, he came over, satisfying himself by sitting quietly on the couch with you leaning against his chest while you studied, even going through lengths of helping you out. At some point, you gave up cause he was distracting you, telling you about his plans while playing with your hair.

"You're gonna cook for me," you assumed.

"No. I'm taking you to that fancy restaurant in town."

You agreed without protests even when he refused after you suggested to split the bill knowing how expensive the place could be. You didn’t want him to think you were mooching off him just because he was older and you’re a broke university student. He seemed excited about the whole thing, so you didn't argue further.

Just then, you heard the sound of a car stopping in front of the house, and you made your way to the door despite Ieiri's tirade about you supposedly making the man walk to your door and ringing the bell, probably make him wait, too. Knowing Sukuna, he'll do just that but you didn't want them to pull their antics while that cliché scene by the doorstep unfolded. But she beat you to it, running a lot faster than you to open the door when you were halfway through the short hallway. Just as you were afraid of, Satoru and Suguru were also standing at the other end of the hallway.

"Guys!" you growled.

"We just wanna see you off," Suguru whined just as Ieiri said, "Hi, Howard."

"Hi," Sukuna returned the greeting, even waving at the boys behind you, looking debonair in a smart-casual charcoal grey ensemble over black, collarless button-downs.

Your annoyance died down at the sight of him and you felt yourself melting when your eyes finally met and he beamed brightly as he took in your appearance, looking like he was seeing color for the first time.

"Ready?" he asked and you nodded, stepping around Ieiri. "We're going" you told your friends, shooting them all warning looks before breaking into a nervous smile anyway as Sukuna led you away.

He opened the door to the passenger side of his... "Where's your Jeep?" you asked him, noticing the matte black sports car for the first time.

"At home," he told you. "I thought I'd switch it up for the occasion."

You shook your head as you climbed in, not really expecting him to go to that extent. You appreciated it but you weren't really high maintenance nor did you want the finer things. "So you just happened to have a Porsche 911 lying around?" you asked him when he finally made it to the driver's seat.

He nodded innocently. "I got it on a whim last year, but I decided it's too flashy so I had it stored at an exclusive garage and only took it out whenever I felt like it. I think this is a good time to take it for a spin."

"You didn't have to."

"I wanted to." He reached out to caress your cheek. "You're a vision, by the way."

You felt heat suffuse your cheeks at his gentle touch, but you held his hand in place as you faced him. "I could say the same for you."

"I always wear suits though," he said.

"Well, you're much too impatient with your blazers and you get rid of them when we meet," you began, "And you don't wear those for me."

He flashed you a cheeky grin. "Oh, so you want your men to dress for you?"

"Man, Sukuna. Singular."

It was his turn to blush. "I'm the only one, huh?"

You tilted your head to the side, smirking. "You wanna add someone else into the mix? I didn’t know you were into that."

He was flustered. "No?"

"If you have an exact replica, I wouldn't mind."

Sukuna burst out laughing. "You're crazy."

"It's your fault for hijacking my brain all the time."

Dinner had been great with the both of you pretty much making fun of the numerous silverware before you and making up stories of the haughty guests who came into the same fancy restaurant, some of whom were looking towards your direction.

"That one's a trophy wife," you told him, furtively glancing at the couple that entered. "She's all iced up but look at how her husband is interacting with the waitress."

"You can tell just by that?" he asked.

"I'm guessing they're regulars here and the waitress is one of those he is having an extramarital affair with just judging by the way she looked at him and how she's being all cozy with him." You chuckled. "Ah, now Mrs. X is unhappy. Pretty and bejeweled but very unhappy."

"What about that man there?" He mimicked the way you looked at the couple earlier, this time referring to that one by the glass walls at the corner.

"Oh that one? He's that demanding type who only wants to sit on his usual spot. He's hypochondriac. He's been wiping all the silverware."

Sukuna was obviously amused. "You observe people like this all the time?"

"I aspire to be a novelist if not a literature professor. I watch people to come up with stories, so it doesn't always mean what I'm saying about them is true. I just make it up as I go." You laughed. "But Suguru is a better writer than I am."

"Is he now?"

You nodded, eyes scanning the area. "That old lady is a rich widow who is keeping tradition alive."

He followed your line of vision. "Because she's wearing traditional garb?"

You shook your head. "Because she is alone with that sorrowful look on her face, and she has an extra serving of a meal across her which had been untouched since she ordered in. She's on a date with her dead husband. The empty seat is for him. It's their anniversary." You cocked your head towards the empty chair. "She placed that blazer on the backrest which is obviously not hers, and she just opened a wrapped-up present and made a show of presenting it to whoever should be seated there. Looked like men’s watch to me."

That same old woman stood by your table later in the evening to say, "You are a lovely couple. Cherish each other." And she also paid for a bottle of expensive wine which Sukuna asked to be wrapped for the two of you to take home.

"Looks like you're right about that one," he said as he drove you back to his place.

You nodded, smiling to yourself. "She was right, too," you murmured.

He blinked then looked at you. "Did you say something?"

"Nope."

If you were impressed with the Porsche, his place was even more amazing. The whole place was in scales of black, white and gray but nothing was monotonous about the space. He toured you around the house and it looked uninhabited if it weren't for the signs of life around. But what caught your eye was the shelf full of music, all in vinyl with his gramophone plugged in to a modern sound system. He liked old stuff, his collection ranging from 1903s music to more modern ones here and there.

His living room was strategically placed by the glass walls, providing a view of the cityscape where you found yourself standing, in awe of the sights before you. Just then, the familiar bars of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" started playing in the background.

You were about to whirl around, but you felt him behind you, wrapping his arm around you as he made you face him. He extended a hand towards you then. You took it without hesitation although you didn't know what he was up to, surprised when he placed your arms on his shoulder while he held onto your waist.

"Dance with me," he said in a low tone as he pulled you closer.

You giggled at that, letting him slowly sway you to the beat while you just looked up at him, drowning in his eyes, his warmth and everything that was him. "I love this song."

He arched a brow at you. "You know Ben E. King?"

"I grew up listening to old music," you told him, nodding as you smiled fondly. "The perks of being a grandpa's girl. You get exposed to great music."

"The movie is my favorite, too."

Your eyes widened. "Really?"

He threw his head back in mock annoyance. "Let me guess. It's your favorite, too?"

"Yes!" you squealed excitedly.

Sukuna clucked his tongue. "You make it hard for me to resist you when you have great music and movie tastes, too."

You looked away, swearing you were beet red now. You playfully smacked him on the chest. "Don't say things like that with a straight face."

His laughter reverberated on his chest when you leaned your forehead against it, hiding your face from him. "Now, you're getting all shy around me?" he teased.

"Shut up," you mumbled, pouting at him but having a hard time as you fought the smile that played at the corners of your mouth.

"Seriously though, Y/N, you don't run out of surprises for me." He leaned his forehead against yours. "Every time, you put something new on the list of things I like about you."

"You have a list?"

He nodded. "It's getting hard to keep up with how long it has become."

"Where does it begin?" you asked out of curiosity.

He raised a hand, his finger tracing the point between your eyebrows. "Your brows furrow just around here when you're concentrating. Just like that time I met you at Maki's."

"Yeah?"

He nodded. "It's impressive how you're caught in a world of your own even in such a busy, crowded place."

"I’m just good at ignoring people. But stopped reading the moment you sat beside me." You snickered. "You make it hard to focus, it's an insult to the author when her characters are all beyond just interesting."

"How was I even distracting you? You weren’t even looking at me."

"That's what you thought." You shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "It's your hair at first, but then you also smelled too good to be true. That did it for me. And before I knew it, every word on the page I was reading became Cyrillic or something."

You didn't even realize that you've both come to a standstill, chuckling as you met his gaze again, only to feel his hand sliding behind your head, his fingers tangling with your hair as he dipped down and seized your lips, tilting his head slightly. It was a gentle kiss, his skilled lips light on yours, introducing his rhythm and flavor of mint mixed with the faint flavor of the wine you've both been drinking as you moved in sync with him.

It drove you crazy how his scent and taste filled every crevice of your being, desensitizing you while also pushing your senses on overdrive at the same time. The feel of his large hands as they secured you to him while his mouth did all the magic made your blood grow hot, the rush you felt inside consuming you. You visibly wobbled when he let go of you, making him look at you in amusement.

"Stay the night?" he asked, breaking into a grin. "I have a copy of our favorite movie. We can finish the wine that kind old lady gave us, and I'll make you pizza."

"You had me at our favorite movie," you said, still a bit dazed and drunk from the taste of him. "I'll stay."

Sukuna stood at the foot of his bed as he neatly placed everything you might need on it, running out of his unit to get stuff for you at the nearby convenience store. He glanced over at the door of the adjoining shower, smiling when he heard you humming. Well, he couldn't stop smiling all night seeing how beautiful you were in that black dress. He marveled at how you managed to be even more gorgeous when you were already driving him insane even when you wore sweats to school.

He found beauty in every little thing you did, feeling himself being overwhelmed with amazement even when you were just sitting there reading to how you spoke eloquently about things you were passionate about, the way you told the stories you made up despite how they leaned towards sad things. He found it attractive how you lacked complications and always gave him your honest opinions, how you tell him what was going on inside your mind without bars held.

He loved how kind and loving you are to your friends. It wasn't outward affection but he did notice the small things you did. How one word – "breathe" – would calm Satoru down, how one reassuring squeeze of the hand would pacify Ieiri and how a single look would convey your thoughts to Suguru. He would be jealous of it given any other circumstances, but you did so much more for him by just smiling and cheering him up when you sensed how tired he was from work which was often.

You were sensitive like that, appeared stronger and more resilient than you looked, but he and your friends couldn't help it but dote on you. It was kinda funny how they all referred to you as their daughter at first but when he found out they were doing that because they're the only family you had, he understood why. He understood why you tended to look at things the way you did. It only strengthened his urge to take care of you and protect you at all costs.

“Don’t give me that look,” you’ve told him then when he found out your grandfather, your only guardian and family, passed away three years ago, and you’ve only been living on the small fortune he bequeathed to you upon his death. Your parents were long dead, too, and you were basically alone in life.

He found it amazing that you could talk about the matter without being uncomfortable when he couldn’t even imagine how his life would be if he lost his mother at his age. He understood your independent nature, how you would give him funny looks whenever he volunteered to do something for you and why you were always so insistent on splitting the bill when you went out.

Still, when you said you didn't date steadily, it got him worried. Apart from the possibility that you might not stay with him for as long as he imagined – which made him afraid to breathe at times – he thought you might have issues from being alone too much; that maybe, the reason why you didn’t want to commit was because you didn’t want to open up only to be left alone again when things don’t work out. The way you spoke about the old woman at the restaurant and the way sadness crossed your features as you told him the story you’ve just made up sort of solidified his notions.

That’s exactly the reason why he was happy you weren’t pushing him away or refusing to stay with him. When you said you’ll stay the night, although he found joy in all the times you’ve been around him, he still felt unbelievably happy. Perhaps you were giving him a chance, giving whatever it is that’s between you the opportunity to blossom and just going with wherever and whatever it brings you. He liked that thought.

You came out of his room just as he was taking out the pizza he made, dressed in that oversized, white shirt he brought out for you, the collar askew on your shoulders. You walked into the kitchen running a towel on your hair, leaning on the counter. He almost dropped the pizza when he saw that you’ve forgone the sweats he’d given you, your legs bare from halfway down your thighs.

“I gave you pants, you know.”

You laughed at his words. “They’re too big for me. I returned them in your closet.”

He rolled his eyes playfully. “Go wait in the living room. I’ll be finished here in a bit.”

You did as you were told, much to his relief but still went to the extent of getting you a blanket in case you wanted to cover up, not that he minded looking at your legs. Nevertheless, he preferred not to with all the thoughts running amok in his head. He wanted to take things slow with you even if you were proving to be his kryptonite. You thanked him for it, happily munching on the pizza he made as the movie started.

“I can’t believe that woman gave us this expensive wine,” you said as you took a sip from your glass.

“I can’t believe we’re having pizza with it,” he said as he sat at the other end of the couch. The two of you laughed at that, but then he stopped when you did, noticing how you were looking at him with a confused look on your face. “What is it?”

“Why are sitting so far away from me?” you demanded, but instead of him moving towards you, you crawled on the sofa closer to him.

Sukuna reveled in how naturally you took his arm and placed it on your shoulder, leaning against him before adjusting your position and covering the two of you with the blanket. He was glad your guard was down where he was concerned, the fact that you smelled like his shampoo and were wearing his clothes making him all warm and fuzzy inside. He pulled you closer to him, eyes trained on his massive flat screen.

“Sukuna…” you said a few moments later.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“You’re too stiff.” You looked up at him, snickering. “I won’t steal your virtue if that’s what you’re scared of.”

He just laughed but it was taking everything he had in him not to do anything when you were tempting him in the most sinful ways, but he forgot all about that when your head lolled against his chest and found you sound asleep. You looked so serene that instead of taking you to bed, he sat there, cradling your form until the movie finished, his fingers playing with your hair.

Sukuna looked down at you, feeling like his chest was about to explode as he breathed in, realizing the depth of how much he felt for you, and although you couldn’t hear it, he said, “I’m in love with you, Y/N.”

***

The crisp morning air blew past the open balcony doors, into the bedroom, rustling the white sheets on his bed that momentarily served as the sanctuary of a tangle of limbs and blankets, cradled by the softness of the mattress and feather-filled pillows. Even breaths rose and fell in sync, filling the wide room. Languid fingers twined with the silkiness of long locks of hair and smooth, bare skin. The bed creaks and Sukuna’s eyes open to the brightness of daylight.

He took in his surroundings, and the first thing he noticed was the pressure on his leg, his left arm just by his shoulder and his chest along with the warmth that was coming from his side. His eyes wandered down to his body to the sheets barely reaching his waist, until finally he found the source of it all.

On his left side was none other than you, pressed to his side with no quantifiable distance separating your bodies but the measly fabric of the shirt you wore. Your hair fell on the pillows and his shoulder which was cushioning your head, your leg crooked across his thighs while your hand lay on his chest in a stagnant caress that suddenly made his whole body burn from the inside. Peering down, he noticed how your brows knit together in an unconscious frown while your thick lashes cast shadows below your closed eyes. Your long, lean legs were exposed to him up to your milky thighs as his shirt which you were wearing rode up, and he could only pray that you won’t move that limb any further or else…

Cursing at himself, he diverted his gaze and realized how his left hand had been running up and down your back. The feel of your warmth against the pads of his fingers sent him to the edge while your scent intoxicated him until he felt sweat beading on his forehead. He knew he was being shallow, but he couldn’t help it either. He was still human. Still, a smile made its way across his mouth. He was only able to think of the moment and how he wished to wake up to it every single morning of his existence. He decided to stay still and hold onto it while it lasted.

“Why are you so pretty?” he whispered, then pulled you closer while he closed his eyes, meaning to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t long before he felt you stir against him, your leg moving upwards. In the process, said limb swept higher, touching that particular spot between his legs. The weight of your leg didn’t help with the carnal thoughts that were already running amok in his mind.

You suddenly moved, groaning as you shifted, the drawn-out sound doing things to him.

Sukuna’s eyes remained shut, fearing what might come next after you discover the compromising position you were in, but it didn’t come. Instead, you just very slightly distanced yourself from him, remaining within reach, but he was startled when he suddenly felt cold fingers brush across the skin just below his lower lip.

“If I were an artists, I would have painted you,” you said quietly while your fingers travelled lower. “Just look at that jaw line.”

Sukuna felt himself shiver when your other hand began working its way from his collarbones, going all the way down to where his chiseled stomach was. The titillating sensation filled his brain and before he knew it, his eyes were half open while his hand had already grabbed you by the wrist. His other arm worked to topple you over, back to the comfort of the pillows, while he rolled on top of you, staying still while completely rendering you motionless by pinning your arm down.

The reverberation of your chest against his whilst you chuckled albeit his weight sent him to the edge, almost falling off, but he held still and stopped himself from doing anything.

“Ryomen Sukuna,” you whispered, tapping his back slightly.

He wondered whether you liked being there with him, too, or what. “L/N Y/N…What’s with the formality?” What, indeed? The two of you were in a very intimate position and yet he addressed you that way, sounding agonized even to himself. “Don’t do that.”

You scoffed good-naturedly. “Am I giving you strange feelings?” you questioned, ridiculing him early in the morning. “I knew you were pretending to be asleep. Men just can’t say no to a woman’s touch, huh?”

He supported his weight with his arm and drew himself up, the rest of his weight pushing down lower against you. He smirked then. “So you were also awake.”

“Yeah.”

“And you let me hold you anyway?” he murmured, his face almost closing in on yours.

You ignored the tone in which he spoke and its implications. “I was just too lazy to move. Besides, I thought you were a pillow. You’re so warm.”

“That sounds fishy, Y/N.”

“And what’s fishy about that?”

He broke into that crooked grin, feeling his evil streak resurfacing. “Hmm. The fact that you’re liking this as much as I am.”

You removed your hand from his grip and lightly slid it down his inked rib, going lower as you traced the patterns of his tattoo, your eyes remaining on him, a sultry smile swathed across your lips.

A moan nearly escaped his parted mouth, but he wasn’t able to hold back the sudden closing of his eyes and slight parting of his mouth as your hand reached halfway down. “S-stop…”

Your hand stopped where his pelvis was, but your fingers continued to draw circles on his skin. “Are you sure you want me to stop?”

Sukuna panted and nodded at you feeling his hot blood rushing southward.

“Yeah?” You laughed softly, your eyes widening a bit in amusement while your leg kicked faintly underneath him, feeling something stiffen against your thigh. “Something else tells me you don’t,” you purred into his ear.

Sukuna bit his lower lip, peeking at you through half-lidded eyes. He knew you felt that and he was getting embarrassed with every second he stayed there. He knew your effect on him and you were more than just aware of it. You were even going to the extent of toying with him, making him feel like a goddamn teenager with raging hormones.

“You’re baiting me,” he played along, brushing your hair off of your neck and twirling the strands with his finger.

You smirked. “Am I?” you said slowly, hand sliding on the garter of his sweats. You withdrew your hand and rolled the two of you over despite his weight, turning tables on him. You touched the tip of his nose, taking in the disappointed look on his face all to your amusement before getting off.

“You’re funny, Sukuna.”

Your leg wasn’t even halfway off of him from where you were sitting astride his torso when Sukuna decided he was going to take his chances with making you succumb to him somehow and he finalized that by stopping you. Grabbing your waist, he rolled you over once more and without second thoughts, dipped his mouth against your, just pecking you on the mouth at first to see what you would do.

Too stunned to react, you were only able to stare at him, but Sukuna didn’t just stop there. He pressed his mouth against your sensuous lips in numerous fleeting touches until he felt you respond to it in the same gentle manner. Those small gestures, along with the closing of your eyes, ignited the fire that had been coursing through him until he thought he would explode if he didn’t comfort himself with the feel of you against him.

Unable to hold back anymore, he crashed your lips together in an urgent, scorching and passionate kiss, nibbling on your lower lip. You responded in kind, possessively holding onto his taut shoulders as he lifted you both in a sitting position so you were kneeling astride his lap. Sukuna pushed his fingers into your hair, holding you against him while his mouth moved downwards to your neck, seductively biting on your collarbone, marking his trail of fire up the columns of your throat before returning to your mouth.

Opposite to his aim to escalate the heat and passion, you placed both of your hands on either side of his head, cupping his cheeks with gentle hands and pulled away slightly, still with your foreheads against each other, hands intact on his shoulders and your waist, both panting for air.

You flashed him an apologetic smile, swallowing hard as you pulled back and sat down on the bed, looking down at your hands which you were wringing. Silence fell over the room and when you came to your senses again, you met his gaze.

His eyes rounded at the realization of what he just did. “I’m sorry, I don’t what came over me.”

“It’s fine. Don’t apologize.” You shook your head. “Sukuna, I…I shouldn’t have…”

He smiled at you then and pulled you close, giving you a soft peck on the forehead, eventually taking you into his arms, soothing your back as he embraced you. “That’s not it, sweetheart. I can’t keep my hands to myself even when you’re not doing anything.”

“I’m sorry…”

He looked at you at arm’s length. “Don’t be.” You diverted your gaze, but Sukuna lifted your head with a finger, making you look at him, holding you in his gaze “I’m willing to take it slow if that’s what makes you comfortable.”

“Look, I just want to be sure about how I feel. I don’t want to be doing this half-baked because I don’t want to hurt you –”

He placed a finger against your lips, still raw from his kisses. He didn’t want to hear what you had to say just yet but he smiled slowly at you. “I’m willing to give you time, and for now, I just want us to stay like this. Is that okay?”

You nodded, swallowing hard.

You found yourselves lying in bed until the sun was high in the sky and it was just too warm to stay there. Endless talks led to teasing which eventually led to laughter. He was glad that you were back to your carefree self again, even happier that you were considering his feelings.

“Should we get something to eat?” you suggested to him.

“Are you hungry?” Sukuna asked.

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

Sukuna chuckled. “Starving.” He stood up first and pulled you with him, leading you out of the room with a happy grin on his face. “Let’s make breakfast together?”

“Sure…” You beamed at him. “I’d like that.”

-end of part 2-

Additional notes are available in the masterlist, particularly on the reasons why I wrote some things the way I did.

Thank you so much for reading. Likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed it.

PHOTO/IMAGE/GIF/FANART SOURCES FULLY CREDITED TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

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shimmer-shadow · 3 years

Text

Nina Sundén & Sebastian Siemiatkowski (Klarna Billionaire)

This is Nina Sundén (40), the wife of the Swedish-Polish Klarna co-founder & CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski (40) who has a 10% stake in a $46 billion start-up. Euro ladies likely have used his service online-shopping. So how did they meet?

Quite traditionally: They went to the same prestigious business school in Stockholm, Sweden, he first saw her there and considered her an “extremely good-looking, super-smart girl, and I felt like the biggest nerd in history, so I would never dare talk to her.” (https://www.wsj.com/articles/klarna-ceo-sebastian-siemiatkowski-home-11632400195) As the story goes, they reconnected a few years later at a costume party and started dating. Taking their presented story with a grain of salt (she’s a marketer, lol), these things remain:

1. Nina is good-looking, tall, thin, fit not skinny, with a natural, outdoors-y, unassuming look: A quintessential girl-next-door. Not a bombshell or baddie. Interestingly, a brunette in a country known for its (light) blondes, though this probably doesn’t mean anything.

2. Nina is an interesting personality. She is passionate about photography, including wildlife photography and has charitable interests e.g. creating a lion wildlife photography book, selling it and donating its $200,000 profits to conservation efforts in the region. That’s impressive. She also enjoys travel and likes architecture and interior design (their house is decorated by her.) Little more is known about her because she is quite private with no public social media and I couldn’t find English profiles written about her. Maybe there is more in the Swedish news.

3. Nina is a highly-skilled professional. After graduating from a top-ranked business school (Stockholm School of Economics), she worked as a head of marketing at a smokeless tabacco company for five years. Sebastian respected her skills so much he asked her for help: She ran Klarna’s marketing for a time and is credited with making it more attractive to it’s millenial customer base.

4. Nina is a family person but doesn’t seem overly traditional. They have three children. Interestingly, by the time they married they’d already had a toddler. This indicates flexibility. Since start-up founders are notorious for over-work, she (and possibly familial or hired support) will have had and continue to have the lion’s share (ha!) of the child-rearing. We don’t know if she currently works or if she actually kept her name or took his.

______________________________________________________________

There is little information about her to come by. These are my conclusions:

1. Looks are not everything. You just need to be good-looking “enough”, as a wise tumblr-user once put it. Then your character becomes a priority.

2. This is NOT a case of hypergamy, as technically/arguably he was a lower social class than her during their courtship (child of poor, Polish immigrants who did menial work). Presumably, Nina is at least middle-class or very good at faking it because her hobbies are unrealistically expensive. It likely took time till he outearned her.

3. I need to get in the room where it happens! Access trumps all else. After all, they just went to the same school, no great maneuvering required. How can I shape my daily life to put me in the same spaces?

4. I need make sure to have actual, useful skills to benefit my partner (in addition to beauty, eroticism and my natural interests). I’ll get back to you on what they will be.

Questions I have:

Sebastian is a Polish refugee. Going by her classically Swedish last name, one might assume Nina’s family and history is anchored in Sweden. Was part of her allure the social recognition he’d receive being with an All-Swedish girl?

Did her network matter? Raising start-up funds includes a round for investments from friends and family. Did she have pull in that area? Was there financial benefit to associating/being with her?

Was there a time during which Sebastian lacked funds and she supported both of them with her corporate salary? How flexible are the gender roles, especially since Sweden is touted as the most enlightened and progressive country on the continent?

Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts, please! :)

#hypergamy #hypergamous #future trophy wife #girlfriend experience #leveling up #trophy girlfriend

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mtsm · 4 years

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𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Blurred Lines

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Iwaizumi Hajime × F!Reader

𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬: 1.5k+ words | slight angst, some fluff | lots of time skip

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Your relationship with Iwaizumi Hajime is quite blurry. You've never broken up before he left to study overseas, but you weren't in a long distance relationship either. Then, he decided to return to Japan.

𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: Hi, @sckyie! I’m your Secret Santa! (✿◕‿◕✿) I hope that you’ll like this one. I know this is far from the one you asked for, but I still hope that you’ll like it! Enjoy!

Special note: Thank you for beta reading this one, @writeiolite!!! It really made this one better. ✪ ω ✪

“I won’t apologize for making you stay behind today,” Iwaizumi began while the two of you were walking towards the main gate of Aoba Johsai. “Honestly, I wasn’t planning to stay behind either, but. . .” he sighs while scratching the back of his head. “. . . there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

The two of you stood next to each other while waiting for the traffic lights to turn red. There was a comforting silence between the two of you. Neither of you dared to say a word—more like you’d rather keep your lips sealed as you wait for him to say what he’s been keeping for so long.

For almost two minutes of silence, you suddenly felt his warm hand holding yours. His hands were bigger than yours, but as you properly intertwined your fingers with each other. You know that your relationship with Aoba Johsai’s ace is about to change.

At least, that’s what you both thought until he received the acceptance letter from California. It turned out that a long distance relationship is harder than you two had expected.

Iwaizumi was hesitant when you two were discussing whether you should stay in a relationship or if you should take some time off. But a few months later, you two just lost that spark.

That was years ago.

And this is now.

❧

“Technically speaking, you two are still in a relationship, right?” Oikawa began while looking at his best friend who’s busy rummaging the contents of his drawers. “I mean, neither of you deleted the photos you’ve shared online nor removed that in a relationship status. So, I assume that you’re still together.”

“Maybe? Maybe not?” he briefly replied. Iwaizumi sighs heavily before turning to his small table where he left his phone. “Fuck. I don’t think I have the right clothes to wear tomorrow. What should I wear?”

“You should wear the jeans you bought before coming home.” Oikawa cheekily raised his eyebrows while grinning. “Y/N-chan would definitely love to see you in those jeans.”

Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrowed as he glared at his best friend. “Y/N’s not like you, Shittykawa.”

“I’m hurt,” Oikawa replied. “I’m pretty sure she’ll like to see you wear anything. . . but she’ll probably love it if you’re not wearing anything.”

“That’s it!” Iwaizumi’s voice rose before reaching for his phone to end the phone call. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow,” he added in a threatening way.

“Iwa-chan, wait! You’ll pick up Makki tomorrow, okay?” Oikawa reminded him. “Y/N’s still trying to get her driver’s license.”

“Okay. Later.”

Iwaizumi threw his phone on his bed before rubbing his face with his hands in frustration. “What should I wear?”

❧

“Hi.”

One word and a charming smile.

It’s been five years since he moved to California to study and yet Iwaizumi Hajime still has that same effect on you. You were hoping that you’d be able to get over him, but to no avail, your feelings towards him still lingered over the years.

How would you be able to get over him when he’s still the same gentle person you met in high school? How could you possibly erase all of the memories you shared with him before he left?

“H-Hi,” you stuttered as you stood a few feet away from him, wearing the clothes you’ve chosen from last night. Choosing the best clothes to wear for that day wasn’t an easy feat. Not when you’re going to be inside the same car with the man who owned your heart for years. “It’s been a while.”

Hajime nodded his head in agreement. “I know,” he says before looking into your eyes. For a moment, you noticed how his eyes soften. Then, he cleared his throat. “Uh. . . Shall we. . .” he pursed his lips. “. . .shall we go?” he asked after composing himself.

“O-Oh. . . Yeah. . . Sure.”

He suddenly offered you his hand. You stare at it in confusion. Are you supposed to hold his hand? What if that’s not what he meant? Will you take the risk of embarrassing yourself in front of your crush? Probably.

“Uh. . .”

“L-Let me carry your bag.”

Oh.

“Thank you,” you said as you forced a smile. You took the backpack strap off of your shoulders before handing it to him. Iwaizumi opened the car’s door for you to climb into the passenger seat.

Too afraid that you’d end up squeaking your response, you chose to purse your lips before smiling at him. Your blood rushed to your face as soon as he shut the door. You discreetly fan your face with your hand in an attempt to cool down your face.

(While he walked towards the driver’s seat, Iwaizumi rubbed his neck. Uncertain of how to react once the two of you are inside the car.)

You immediately composed yourself as soon as he opened the door and settled in the driver’s seat. As much as you wanted to appreciate the physical changes in his body, you chose not to.

“All set?” he asked. You nodded your head as you squeak a ‘yes’ before covering your lips. Iwaizumi chuckled before driving away from your place.

❧

After three and a half hours of listening to an old playlist that you two had created years ago, you’ve arrived at the rest stop near Miyagi. It was nostalgic, but, at the same time, it was also heartbreaking.

You leaned against the window and tried to keep yourself distracted by the cars passing next to you, but it wasn’t working.

Not when it’s quite a challenge to not look at him. The black sweater he wore accentuated his well-built body. Especially his biceps.

Oh, his biceps. His delectable biceps.

“So. . . how have you been?”

Your gaze shifted from his arms to his face. You immediately noticed the playful smile on his lips as if he knew what you were doing moments ago.

“I’m fine. . . uh. . . I recently joined the Schweiden Adlers’ team and met Tobio there. Oh, Toshi’s there too.” Then you giggled. “I remember telling Oikawa about it, but instead of congratulating me for getting that job, he told me that I was betraying him.”

“That’s Shittykawa for you,” he replied.

“How about you? I-uh. . . haven’t heard much about you since. . . then.”

Iwaizumi pursed his lips before sighing. “I’m still me,” he briefly said before clearing his throat. “I’m back for good.”

You glanced his way and caught him looking at you. “T-That’s. . . That’s amazing. . . great.”

You look away from him before wiping the tears from your eyes. It was difficult to put your feelings into words after hearing that news from him.

You were happy to know that he’ll be back for good. But. . . there was also that fear of the unknown. You couldn’t help but wonder where you’ll be in his life from then on.

You’ve never broken up.

At least, that’s what you believe in for years. The two of you became too busy building your personal lives and careers that you two lost contact with each other. But now that he’s back. . . would he formally end what you two have? Had?

“Y/N. . .” he sighed. “. . . there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

The moment has come. The moment you’ve been dreading to come.

“Are we still together?”

“I’m not sure.” You faced him with glassy eyes. “Are we?”

Iwaizumi remained silent as he parked the car in an empty space. You wiped the tears from your eyes and unfastened your seatbelt.

You stormed out of the car and made your way towards the establishment. You couldn’t stand the silence between the two of you. You couldn’t accept the possibility of him formally ending what you have. . . had.

“Y/N.”

“Give me some space.”

“Listen to me!” Iwaizumi grabbed you by your wrist, forcing you to stop in your tracks. You looked at him with your bloodshot eyes. “Listen to me,” he repeated softly.

His hand cupped your cheeks. “For years, it’s always been you. It will always be you.” He gently rests his forehead against yours. “And I chose to come back here because of you.”

“What?” you asked with a shaky voice.

He pressed his lips against your forehead before pulling away. “I love you, Y/N. Always.”

At that moment, the tears you’ve been trying to hold back began to cascade your cheeks. “Why didn’t you say so immediately?” you asked while nuzzling your face against his chest.

Iwaizumi chuckled as he pulled you closer to him. “I’m sorry,” he said before kissing your forehead.

The warmth he gave you on that cold winter day remains up until today—years after that cringe-y stunt you two had pulled off in front of a souvenir shop.

❧

Extra:

“Oi, Oikawa. Are you sure he’ll pick me up here? I’ve been waiting for hours, you know?” Hiro asked while sitting on the bench near the spot where they’d agreed to pick him up.

“I don’t—Oh.” Oikawa clears his throat before chuckling nervously. “They just arrived here.”

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allthingsfern · 3 years

Text

In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

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master-sass-blast · 4 years

Text

Winter Stay-cation.

*insert pithy quip here*

Summary: A massive squall hits New York City. The snow, combined with a deep freeze, brings the city that never sleeps to a standstill once the police issue travel bans. Fortunately, you and Piotr know how to keep yourselves entertained during your impromptu stay-cation.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, and Ellie Phimister x Yukio.

Rating: G for fluff.

Word Count: 3.4k.

Set after “It’s Truly Magical.”

A/N: The movie quote from Day Five is from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @super-darkcloudstudent, @dandyqueen, @leo-writer

“—continuing into the middle of next week, if not longer. Expect heavy snowfall and temperatures below freezing, with windchill taking things below zero over the weekend.”

“Good grief.” You shake your head as you watch the weather report on the morning news. “It doesn’t get that cold when I fly full speed.”

Piotr, your husband, hands you a cup of coffee and shrugs. “January is ugly month.”

You smirk into your mug. “Bet this doesn’t compare to Siberian winters.”

“Not really,” he admits with a chuckle.

“The Chief of New York City’s Fire Department has issued a statement reminding residents to be careful when using their fireplaces and to monitor children and pets.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you quip, “Don’t use fireworks as kindling, we got it.”

Piotr snorts.

“In addition, the Police Department has issued a travel advisory in light of the predicted precipitation and sub-zero temperatures. All none-essential travel is restricted until the cold snap passes.”

“Groovy. Tell that to half the city.”

Piotr grins, shakes his head again, then turns the TV off. “Looks like we will have to keep ourselves occupied here this week.”

You cast a disparaging glance outside –where the snow is already up to Piotr’s knees—then say, “Like we were going anywhere else.”

***

Day One

There’s an upside to when the “deep freeze” hits. It’s already winter break, meaning there’s no coordinating classes, figuring out how to pick up students that don’t live at the mansion, or having to get up at the balls-ugly hours of the early morning in the stupid, frigid cold.

The two of you wake up at your leisure, around nine o’clock. You laze around in bed for a bit, snuggling and chatting and smooching, then head downstairs for breakfast. You wind up setting up shop at the dining room table, catching up on grading and filling out end of the semester report cards.

“Can you check these for me?” Piotr asks, handing you a stack of essays from his art classes. “I already made content-based marks; I am just not sure about English grammar.”

“Fun fact: most native English speakers aren’t sure about their grammar, either,” you joke with a smirk.

Piotr snorts, then checks his computer clock before standing. “Is about lunchtime. I was thinking soup and sandwiches?”

You nod. “Sounds tasty.”

“Would you like anything in particular?”

“Surprise me.” You make a contented hum when Piotr leans over the table to kiss you, then smile as you watch him head to the kitchen.

You really are the world’s luckiest woman (a sentiment you feel even more keenly when he comes back with a fresh cup of hot cider for you).

***

Day Two

“We should clean.”

The two of you are sitting on the couch. Your laptops sit on the coffee table, displaying the completed efforts of uploading grades to the online gradebook that the school uses. Two mugs that once contained coffee sit next to either laptop.

You look up at Piotr. You’re tucked against his side, head leaning on his shoulder while his fingers trace designs on the sleeve of your sweater (which is technically his sweater, but that’s neither here nor there). “Huh?”

“We should clean,” he repeats as he scrubs at his face with his free hand. “House could use it.”

You crane your neck to look over his shoulder. “We don’t really have that many dirty dishes.”

Piotr snorts, then raises an eyebrow at you. “When was last time we vacuumed? Or deep cleaned bathrooms? Or washed windows?”

“We can see out the windows just fine!”

Piotr grins and shakes his head. He stands, holding his hand out to you. “Come on, myshka. Clean home, clean mind.”

“I’ll have you know that my mind is nothing but dirty, and I’m offended that you would dare insinuate otherwise.”

Piotr laughs and helps you up. “We can start upstairs and work our way down.”

***

Cleaning with Piotr isn’t so bad. He carries his fair share of the workload, does things to their proper doneness, and is a firm supporter of blasting tunes while cleaning.

“Take! Me! On!” You bounce up and down in time with the beat while you clean the sliding glass doors in your bedroom that lead out to the balcony. “I’ll… be… gone! In a day or two!”

Behind you, Piotr laughs. He’s hauling out a trashbag from the bathroom –no doubt filled with the sheer amount of crumpled paper towels it takes to get the place sanitary again. “I see you are enjoying yourself.”

“Absolutely not. I’m suffering endlessly. I’m going to die any minute now.” And then, to prove you point, you flop to the floor dramatically (taking care to use your powers to cushion your landing).

Piotr lets out a choked gasp, then clutches at his chest. “You keep scared me!”

You look up at him and laugh. “You know I can catch myself! You’ve seen me do that before!”

“Changes nothing!” He lets out a ragged breath, hand still pressed over his heart. “I could have heart attack.”

You giggle, then lift yourself off the floor with a swirl of wind. You land nimbly on your toes before him and wrap your arms around his waist. “Aw, now who’s being dramatic?”

“I fail to see how concern for your well-being is dramatic!”

You suppress a grin, opting to pop up on the balls of your feet and kiss him instead. “I’m very sorry I scared you, baby.”

“Is okay.” He kisses you gently, then gazes down at you with a rueful smile on his lips. “What am I going to do with you, myshka?”

“Dance with me?” You flash him an impish smile, then start bouncing in time to the music again.

Piotr chuckles, then takes your hands in his and bops along with you.

The two of you dance around the room –well, as much as what you’re doing can be called dancing. You sing the lyrics of the song to each other, not sticking to any particular key or tempo.

You laugh when Piotr lifts you into his arms, bridal style, then squeal in delight when he spins the two of you around.

It’s perfect.

***

Day Three

You wake up to the sound of Piotr’s phone chirping –because, even on vacation, he still keeps a daily morning alarm.

He groans as he comes to, then laughs when you roll over him and shut off his alarm for him. “Well, good morning to you, too.”

You set his phone back on his nightstand, then straddle his hips and plant your hands against his brawny chest. “You’re not making me clean today.”

Piotr smirks up at you, bushy eyebrow raising in challenge. “Oh?”

“We’re spending today in this bed,” you continue. “Just you” –you tap his chest—“and me, and as few clothes as possible. Sound good?”

He pretends to mull it over, even has he takes off the shirt he’d been sleeping in. “Are we allowed bathroom and meal breaks?”

“I’ll allow it.”

“Ah, very generous. Thank you, benevolent myshka.”

“You’re very welcome.” You giggle when he grins –then let out a delighted yelp when he rolls suddenly, pinning you between him and the bed. You sigh as he kisses you, eyes fluttering shut. You arms wind around his neck, holding him against you while his hands smooth down your body.

***

Day Four

Cabin fever starts setting in between the third and fourth day. There’s only so many chores you can do, only so many papers you can grade (and you’re out of papers to grade, which doesn’t help your case), only so much sex you can have before you’re gonna start losing your mind.

Fortunately, Piotr is well-attuned to you and your mental states –meaning he notices that you’re getting twitchy before you dip into pyromania to keep yourself entertained.

“We should do something fun today,” he says during breakfast. He spreads some sour cream over his plate of blinis, then adds cottage cheese and sausage meat. “Perhaps play some video games. Ellie has been pestering me to play some multi-people games with her and Yukio.”

“Could be fun,” you say before stuffing your mouth full with Nutella-covered blini. You swallow, then ask, “What did she want to play?”

“Ah… she had two. I think… Falling Guys and Among Us?”

A slow, wicked grin stretches across your place. Fuck yeah. “Let her know we’re in.”

***

Piotr, unfortunately, turns out to be none too good at Fall Guys.

“No!” He wails, then flops back against the couch when he gets thrown off a platform and into the slime. “I could not run away!”

“You have to anticipate the enemy’s movements,” Ellie says over Discord. She’s already qualified and is spectating you and Yukio. “Predict their strategy, then counter.”

“I think it is less strategy and more ‘giant hands do not play nice with tiny controller,’” Piotr grumbles good-naturedly.

“Or maybe you got your butt kicked like a scrub,” Ellie fires back.

“I never contested that,” Piotr chuckles.

“Alright,” you say, eyes glued on your pink and yellow striped player. “I’m almost there, there’s plenty of slots left –no, you fucking pigeon! Let me go!”

“Language,” Piotr murmurs between bouts of laughter.

“It’s always a pigeon!” Ellie groans. “Fucking skyrats.”

“Language, NTW.”

You qualify for the next round (no thanks to the damn pigeon, who qualifies, too). Egg Scramble is next, and you wind up facing off against Ellie and Yukio for the win.

“Damn it!” There’s the sound of something hitting the floor –most likely Ellie throwing her controller—when she and Yukio get booted out. “Yellow always loses!”

“Is that it?” you ask while the loading screen plays. “Are we at the final round yet?”

“There’ll be one more,” Yukio says. “To finish whittling down the competitors.”

Sure enough, there’s a round of Tip-Toe –which you get through by the skin of your teeth—and then you and eight other players are sent to the finale.

“Okay, Hex-A-Gone. You’ll want to just hop from tile to tile,” Ellie advises you while the level loads. “It makes the tiles last longer.”

“Don’t be afraid to drop a couple levels at first,” Yukio adds. “You can carve out one of the lower levels, meaning anyone that falls above you will have further to go and will be more likely to get out.”

“I appreciate it, but don’t expect any miracles,” you say, laughing self-deprecatingly.

Piotr kisses the top of your head. “You can do this, myshka.”

You follow the girls’ advice; you let yourself drop down two levels, then start hopping from tile to tile to start carving out the platform.

“One guy’s already out!” Ellie announces. “You’ve got this!”

“Shit! I fell!”

“That’s okay,” Yukio reassures you. “Find a decent mass of tiles and hop, don’t run. Make them last.”

“The pigeon grabbed another player,” Piotr marvels, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, they both died, so fat lot of good it did them,” Ellie mutters.

You keep going, bounce from brightly colored hexagon to brightly colored hexagon.

“Only four left!” Ellie lets out a whoop. “Holy shit, you’re gonna make it!”

“Don’t jinx me!” you laugh as you dodge another player’s attempt to grab you. “Don’t jinx me!”

“Three left –two! It’s just you and one other guy!”

“You’ve got this, Y/N!” Yukio cheers.

You dive for a clump of tiles –and miss. “No!” You groan, then laugh as your character plummets into the pink slime. “Damn. I’m never going to do that good ever again.”

Piotr wraps an arm around your shoulders in a conciliatory hug. “You did wonderful job, myshka.”

“He’s right. That was really good. The winner fell a few seconds after you, so it was basically a coin toss as to who was gonna get the crown,” Ellie says while the winner’s animation plays on screen.

“Yeah! Great job!” Yukio congratulates you.

“Wanna do another round?” Ellie asks as she flicks between skins and accessories for her avatar.

Yukio laughs lightly. “Baby, we were going to get lunch.”

“Oh, right.”

“Perhaps we can try other game after lunch,” Piotr suggests. “‘Fall Guys’ is okay, but makes me too dizzy.”

“Yeah, sure. Text me when you guys are done eating.”

***

Among Us doesn’t go much better for Piotr, if only because he doesn’t adhere to the strategy of the game. He does his tasks without fail –which usually leaves him alone, and thus a prime target for killing or pinning a murder on. He’s also a terrible liar, which makes it easy to tell when he is the impostor.

You laugh as Piotr’s little red spaceman goes floating into space. “I honestly feel bad.”

“I don’t,” Wade says (he and Nate hopped on the Discord call when Yukio sent them an invite). “Pay for some acting classes, Chrome Dome! Give us a challenge, at least.”

Piotr starts grumbling in Russian, but it gets cut off when the round starts up again.

(You all still wind up losing because Nate’s the other impostor and racks up bodies like nobody’s business.)

“I’m still waiting for when Ellie and Dad get the impostor role together,” you comment as the defeat screen flashes on your laptop screen.

“What, so we all die in five minutes?” Wade grumbles. “So we can suffer the agony of betrayal and not honoring trust again?”

“It’s just a game, Wade,” Nate sighs. “And I apologized already.”

“Is our relationship ‘just a game’ to you, Natey? I gave you an alibi –and then you shanked me in the shower like rejected prison bitch!”

“Language, Wade,” your husband pipes up, voice world-weary. “Please.”

You all start another round once Wade calms down –which, admittedly, takes a while and a great deal of coaxing from Nathan. You grin when you see that you’re an impostor alongside Yukio –then giggle to yourself when a plan pops into your mind.

You start stalking Piotr around the map. You fake doing tasks alongside him, acting as his shadow as he treks around the map. On the corner of your screen, you watch your kill timer wind down, then wait for the right moment once it runs out, and—

Downstairs, in his art studio, your husband lets out an indignant scream when your character murders his.

You fall back onto the bed and cackle.

***

Day Five

The squall rages on outside. The world is practically buried in snow. It’s a sea of white outside your bedroom windows, blinding and sterile.

You peer at the swaths of snow blanketing every inch of ground, every tree branch, and every shrub, then nestle further under the blankets. “Ugh. I don’t even want to get out of bed today.”

Piotr chuckles, then wraps an arm around your waist. “How come?”

“Have you seen what it’s like outside? It’s disgusting!”

“I thought you liked snow.”

“I do. That’s how you know it’s bad.” You sigh as you eye the fat, fluffy flakes falling from the sky. “I wish I could, like, go outside. Go to a store or something. Leave the house.”

“Is not safe to drive yet.”

“I know, I know.” You sigh. “Is it bad that I miss the color green?”

“Nyet. Is normal.”

You smile, just a little, when Piotr kisses the back of your head. You roll over to face him. “Can we build a blanket fort today?”

He raises an eyebrow. “What… here? In bedroom?”

“Yeah. We can make it look all pretty, and snuggle in bed, and watch movies, and have sex…”

“Bozhe ty moi.” Piotr snorts, then takes a moment to study your face, your eyes. “You really want blanket fort?”

“Kind of, yeah. I just… I want something new to look at.”

The corner of his mouth turns up in a soft smile. He presses his lips against your forehead. “Alright, myshka. Let’s make fort.”

***

“When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they ought to come together. Wham. Like a couple of taxis on Broadway.”

You let out a content, relaxed sigh, then wriggle closer to Piotr.

The fort, admittedly, is simple –but you don’t mind. While you were taking a shower, Piotr assembled the whole thing, just to give you a little surprise.

He’d brought up a couple floor lamps from the main floor, then clipped some fairy lights to them before draping the largest quilt in the house over top to make the room. He’d pinned some throw blankets to either side of the quilt to make the sides, then made the bed and assembled the pillows so the two of you could have a nice, cozy, comfy den to watch movies in.

The recurring, delighted thought of ‘he made it for me; he made it for me because he knew I wanted one’ loops around in your brain like a bumblebee drunk on fermented crab apples. You grin, then loop your arms around Piotr’s neck and kiss his cheek.

He grins, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “What was that for?”

“You made me a blanket fort.”

“You asked for one.”

“Yeah, but you made it for me. You could’ve just waited until we could both work on it.”

He shrugs, lips curving into a soft, pleased smile. “I wanted to see look on face. You were very happy.”

“Correction: I am very happy.” You kiss the tip of his nose, then his lips. “I love you, Piotr.”

“And I love you, Y/N.”

***

Day Six

You know it’s bad when you wake up before Piotr.

You look over at your husband, who’s still slumbering away next to you –and sawing some logs, no less—then out at the winter hellscape outside, and decide there’s only one thing for it.

You’re channeling your inner Great British Bake Off contestant and demolishing the kitchen.

***

Piotr comes downstairs around ten in the morning –which is a miraculous amount of sleep in time for him—but by then, the damage has already been done.

There’s a cake cooling on the counter (you’d found a box of cake mix in the back of the pantry and decided to use it as a warm-up. The mixer is working overtime on a double batch of sugar cookies –plus there’s already chocolate chip cookie dough chilling in the fridge.

You look up from the cookbook you’d been perusing –you were thinking pie next—and flash your husband a slightly sheepish grin as he gapes at the kitchen. “Uh… good morning?”

“Myshka…”

“I made cake.”

“I can see that.” Piotr drops his heads into his hands and makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “Why?”

“Because being trapped inside is stressing me out and I want to cope by eating my weight in desserts.”

Piotr sighs, then lifts his head. He eyes the mixer, then the increasingly sheepish expression on your face. “How much is that?”

“In the bowl or in the fridge?”

“Bozhe ty moi.”

“Look, the way I see it, we can share—”

“You have that much correct. We do not need five million cookies.”

“Excuse you, I’m only making three million. Also, do you know where the lard is?”

Piotr’s face scrunches up. “Lard? Why—”

“I wanna make pie.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We already have cake. And goodness knows how many kinds of cookies.”

“But those aren’t pie.” You smile impishly at him. “Plus, like, pie has fruit, so it’s good for you. You like fruit. Think about how good it’ll be to eat something with fruit after all the cake, and the cookies…”

“Or I could just eat fruit.” He sighs, resigned and slightly frustrated, when you bat your eyelashes at him. “I will check pantry.”

***

Day Seven

“—as of today, authorities are lifting the ban on nonessential travel—”

“Yes!” You launch yourself into the air, twirling around and pumping your fists before landing lightly on the couch once more. “Finally!”

Piotr laughs and shakes his head. “What, is staying inside with me so terrible?”

“Absolutely not.” You crawl across the couch and into his lap, then give him a loud smooch. “I have enjoyed every single day of your company. However, you’ve got about fifteen minutes before I start repainting the walls out of sheer boredom.”

Piotr bursts into raucous guffaws. He puts a hand over his eyes, shoulders and stomach shaking with each laugh. He sighs, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes as minute giggles slip past his lips. “Well, we do need to restock on food. And flour and butter, since someone decided to open bakery yesterday.”

You pointedly ignore the pies and full cookie jar sitting on the kitchen counter. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He snorts, then pats your thigh. “Get dressed, myshka. We will go shopping.”

“Fuck yeah!” You zip up the stairs.

Downstairs, you can hear Piotr start laughing again.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #negasonic teenage warhead x yukio #heavy on the fluff #because this year has been a shitload of angst #and quite frankly im done with it #deadpool fanfiction #x men fanfiction

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regrettablewritings · 4 years

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How They Spend the Quarantine (Tadashi Hamada, Lucifer Morningstar, Dewey Finn, Wade Wilson, Harley Quinn, & Benoit Blanc)

Just a fun (?? is that even responsible to say?) little thing I’ve been thinking about while slogging through this neverending hellscape of an extended lockdown.

Tadashi Hamada

When San Fransokyo was ordered to go into a lockdown, there were mixed feelings.

At first, Tadashi had a hint of optimism that this would mean more time to work on his prospective projects . . . But then he quickly realized that his projects mostly required tools and space offered by the campus. He could technically make do at home, but it wouldn’t quite be the same considering the garage was considered Hiro’s space.

Somberly had to clean out his lab and take whatever he could home.

Cue the rest of the group (sans Fred and Hiro) griping that at least his style of science could travel well enough to be somewhat continued off of university grounds.

Helps do delivery for The Lucky Cat. It helps him get out the house, and it’s simply helpful altogether.

Uses Baymax frequently to make sure everyone down to Mochi is sanitized, and nobody’s running a fever.

Nearly as frequent a sanitizer as Aunt Cass.

He starts most days prepared to be productive, only to stop and poke fun at Hiro, who’s almost always got his eyes trained on a video game.

Tadashi realizes three hours later that he, too, has been playing the game as Player 2.

Learned how to make facial masks with Aunt Cass. He already knew how to sew a little but frankly, making the masks made him realize he could have a new hobby on his hands. He’s currently trying to figure out how to make Mochi a little vest . . .

Lucifer Morningstar

B o r e d. A s. F u c k.

At first, he thinks everyone being forced to go home would work in his favor -- surely some rule-breakers would sneak out and try to bunk up with the Devil, right?

Well . . . Kinda? Once Chloe found out and scolded him about it, the idea died real fast. Plus, he realized he wasn’t quite fond of the possibility of being around someone who could pop up with a disgusting human sickness at any point during their time with him. Smearing their snot all over, coughing into his Egyptian cotton sheets . . . Nope, never mind, he is perfectly content having the penthouse to himself, thank you very much!

Except he’s not.

The poor bastard is going crazy by himself -- he’s just not used to being without some kind of company!

“At least in Hell, you could tell there were people around you based on the screaming!” he’d whine at his phone during his hourly video chat with Chloe.

Oh yes: The video chats. He tries to make them hourly with anyone he can get a hold of (namely, his long-suffering detective) but this clearly never plays out as he would like for it to: If he had it his way, everyone would respond in an instant and let him bounce mainly one-sided conversations off of them -- basically, what he did before all this went down.

What usually winds up happening is he gets hung up on or nobody answers him at all out of sheer annoyance over his clinginess.

Ironically, he’s not exactly crazy about when Amenadiel initiates those “family calls”. He insists it’s healthy and normal for them to do this and even calls Luci out on the hypocrisy, but let’s face it: Lucifer finds it obnoxiously gushy and weird.

He works his way into Linda’s video appointment books to help him cope with his boredom and admitted need for interactions. She doesn’t mind offering him counsel, but once Lucifer starts attempting to butt in during others’ appointment calls, it becomes an issue.

Has, at some point, gotten buzzed down in Lux and streamed himself attempting to pole dance. It drew quite a bit of attention.

He’s managed to gain a bit of a following and some companionship by streaming himself playing piano and singing. It’s not the same thing as having an actual audience, in his opinion, but it will have to do for now.

He’s never been one to binge with regards to TV shows or movies, but after the first week, he decided to binge watch every work action star Wesley Cabot was ever in.

Makes sure his staff still gets paid well. After all, he’s pretty well-off; there’s no need to make an innocent bartender’s life a living hell just because some other rich bastard fucked up, yeah?

Going off this, should he need to order to-go or anything, we already know he tends to tip as handsomely as he looks.

Dewey Finn

Kids were being sent to Horace Green on tuitions worth more than what some people saw in half a year -- of course the school was going to continue classes online!

While technically an afterschool instructor, the program is popular enough for parents to expect it to continue, and for Dewey to be kept on payroll.

Initially, he was pretty smug: He’s one if, if not, the youngest teacher-figure at Horace Green, so surely that means he’s more tech savvy than his older, stiffer coworkers, right? For once, he’s ahead of the curve!

Wrong: Figuring out Zoom was a headache, and then there was the realization of just how dependent his classes were on actual physical presence.

Plus, let’s be real: Dewey’s Internet connection was decent on its own, but craptastic when compared to those of his wealthier students. The lag is strong with this one.

Has definitely accidentally messed up the background on his screen. Somehow wound up with the Beetlejuice background and got so frustrated, he wound up keeping it there for two whole sessions.

In spite of the slight issues regarding lag, they pull through and try to resume lessons as best they can.

Tries to keep optimism by pointing out how this is a new form of entertainment they could be pioneers in.

Some days, it’s just going so wack or everyone’s so bleh that Dewey just assigns for them to watch a music documentary or something.

“Okay, kids, Mr. Finn’s hungover and clearly Summer is the only one who went to bed before 3am. So what I’m gonna have you do is watch . . . Prrrbbbb . . . Amadeus.” “How is Amadeus rock-related?” “It had a rock single, shut up. Anyway, we meet back next class and talk about what we saw, m’kay? M’kay. Over and out.”

Next class, he’s filled with dread as Summer produces an in-depth analysis of the relationship or lack thereof between character and the presence of talent as evidenced by Mozart’s abilities juxtaposed with his immature presentation and -- Dewey just can’t keep up. Sure, Summer, why not?

When he’s not busy teaching, however, he’s using the lockdown to work on some new material. Or just screwing around.

Otherwise, let’s be real, Big Boy’s living the high life in a place of his own: Playing video games (Animal Crossing, recently got back into Team Fortress 2, is trying to finally finish Ocarina of Time); eating a not very great diet; staying up late, napping at weird times; all in the name of quarantine.

If he orders delivery or to-go, he tips the best he can.

Wade Wilson

On one hand, murking never goes on lockdown. But on the other . . . He’s already technically not well, why risk that even with his mutation?

Oh, fuck I just remembered he lives at the X Mansion, never mind turn back turn back oh god give us free --

The situation is tense to say the least. There’s Wade, who’s sensible enough to know why the quarantine is in place . . . and then there’s everyone else, who knows Wade’s full of shit.

And by everyone, I “coincidentally” mean Colossus, Nega Sonic, Yukio, Domino, Cable, and Russ because the already small world of the sequel just got smaller by the fact that everyone is bound to a large but nonetheless single estate whose size has probably decreased from that of the First Class timeline.

You know those videos of the usual Quarantine Characters? Wade is somehow yet still unsurprisingly all of them, save for the frequent sanitizer. He raids the pantry frequently, sleeps at all hours, considers scooting a swivel chair down the halls exercise for the thighs, blasts video games, and so on.

Going back to the sanitizer thing, it’s not that he’s just not exactly known for being tidy. Colossus occasionally does drag him out of bed at a decidedly decent time (read: any time before 11am) to try and get him excited about cleaning up around the mansion, but it rarely ends well. At this point, the safest option is to just remind Wade to wash his hands for 20 seconds as necessary.

Has acquired a Switch and visits everyone’s island, often to bonk them on the head with a net or gift them with weird crap they don’t necessarily want. For the “friends” from Sister Margaret’s, he has somehow acquired their Dodo Codes. Nobody knows how he did this.

Facetimes Dopinder frequently.

“Precious, you’re the beacon of light in this cold, cruel world.” “I miss you, too, DP --” “Sshshsh! I’m having a moment . . .” *weeps*

On the many occasions he orders delivery, he tips by giving the delivery person something expensive from the mansion that they can sell. Prof. X is loaded, after all. Plus, he more or less isn’t even present in this universe, it’s not like he’s gonna miss anything he can’t see/probably doesn’t even know exists in his house. The problem is, Colossus does exist and does notice and does care when things go missing. Leading to many a delivery person getting caught up in shenanigans at that weird school in the boonies that they either don’t get paid enough to deal with or couldn’t pay to make up.

“Oh, pawn shops are closed?” asks the man who looks like a skinned avocado if avocados had human skin. “Don’t worry, lemme hook you up -- I know some guys --” “DEADPOOOOOLLL!!” roars a Russian accent from inside the house. “WHERE IS THE BRONZE BUST OF THE PROFESSOR!?” The poor delivery person’s eyes widen as they realize that the odd cargo they’ve been presented with apparently holds some value of some kind. But before they can flee, the avocado man blurts, “Shit! Leave the pizza in the bushes, look me up on my Youtube page, byyyeeee!!”

In his defense, Wade does hold up his end of the deal. Much like the Dodo Codes, nobody knows what strings he pulled. They just accept it and move on.

Harley Quinn

Surprisingly compliant.

She’s crazy, not stupid: Staying at home may suck, but what sucks more is making things harder on people who may not fair so well. Besides, she’s spent time in a maximum security prison -- she can handle staying cooped up in her own home. At least home has TV, books, and snacks.

When she hears people are still going out without masks or plotting to have a protest, she strongly considers firing up the old Fun Gun and popping the next sign-carrying Karen she sees with a tit full of cadmium yellow powder.

Seriously, stay the fuck home and fuck up your own hair; this is the perfect time to make mistakes with your looks, it ain’t like you got anywhere to be or anyone to impress.

“STAY THE FUCK HOME, BITCH!” P O W!!! “JUST GO GREY ALREADY, WE ALL KNOW YOUR HAIR AIN’T THAT COLOR ANYMORE, YOU’RE THREE YEARS FROM BEING IN THE GODDAMN AGE-BRACKET!!!” P O W!!!!

Only leaves her new apartment to grab groceries and to take Bruce on a walk. She actually refuses to steal or cause a scene during this shitshow because she may be a bad guy, but she sure ain’t evil.

So far, there haven’t been complaints about the fact that she’s walking a hyena down a public street. Maybe it’s because there’s hardly anyone out? Maybe it’s because Gothamites just can’t be bothered to be fazed by it . . . Or maybe it’s because she made him a little mask for his snout.

“In this house, we wash our hands for at least 20 seconds, kid.”

Lets the forest reclaim the earth, so to speak. She was never really shaving anything for anyone but herself before, but now it just seems especially pointless.

Spends almost every day in a kigurumi. To give her a semblance of routine, she has a pink bear one she calls her “Sunday Suit.” She doesn’t know it’s not Sunday because the days just blur but Cass just doesn’t have the heart to tell her; she seemed so proud of herself . . .

Like everyone else, she’s gotten Animal Crossing. She’s trying to create an all-preppy island with a few exceptions (Astrid = Aesthetic, m’kay?)

Tips nicely when ordering delivery.

Benoit Blanc

As young and spry in nature as the gentleman sleuth would like to think of himself, he would really rather not test the dangers of the situation and go about all foolhardy -- he’s staying home!

In theory, it’s only logical and therefore perfectly fine. But in practice . . . God, he wishes he’d invested more in things to occupy himself with when home.

It wasn’t that Benoit was never home, he just never felt too much of a need to invest in a fancy entertainment center -- the fanciest he ever got was an iHome.

The beginning of the quarantine served as the perfect time for him to read over case files, catch up on paperwork, even catch up on some reading he’d been putting on hold since God knows when due to cases popping up left and right. But that dried up quicker than he’d assumed, and that’s when he was faced with what a man of his mind dreads the most: Boredom.

Finally caved and decided to hook up Amazon Fire.

Expected to use the one-month free trial on Netflix and be just fine but once the lockdown in his area got extended and he realized he wasn’t going to be able to catch up with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend at this rate, he caves even further and buys a subscription.

Fully delights at the influx of platforms uploading Broadway recordings; when The Show Must Go On put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, followed by The Phantom of The Opera, it was a treat, I tell you!

Sanitizes often, despite hardly ever leaving his house besides to have a smoke or to go grab groceries. Honestly, it’s less about cleaning at this point so much as it is finding something to occupy his focus when he feels there’s nothing else to so.

Takes zinc after every meal to help lessen the intensity of any ailment that might hit him.

Definitely owns a facemask. There’s a good chance it’s from Marta or one of his relatives, and there’s another good chance the pattern is as flamboyant as his clothing. He’s delighted.

Benoit tries not to rely too much on delivery, as he’d much rather just cook. On the rare occasion where tipping comes up, however, he gives as generously as he can.

Bonus: There’s a slight chance he might have acquired a companion to foster early on in the quarantine. Benoit hadn’t had a pet since childhood, a crime of which he was admittedly melancholic of his own involvement. However, his surprisingly busy lifestyle just wouldn’t suit a four-legged friend, now could it?

Well, now there’s time to. Besides, it would certainly ease the potential feeling of loneliness to have someone or something with whom he could interact with.

Admittedly, when shelters began encouraging people to invest time in taking home a companion, he’d been looking more for a comrade on the canine side of the spectrum -- but darn, if Duke wasn’t a handsome cat.

A lovely grey-and-white cat with eyes that matched his own, Duke has become the one Benoit monologues to (because in all honesty, the man is a performer at heart, in need of an audience to speak his mind to and portray a thought before). Plus, he doesn’t appear to mind it when Benoit finds himself belting out in tone-deaf notes to showtunes while washing the dishes: The mark of a true companion.

At this rate, he’s probably not going to keep fostering Duke when things calm down -- he’s probably going to just straight up adopt him.

Stay safe & healthy!

#just a dumb little thing #anyway stay safe and healthy #regrettablewritings #tadashi hamada imagine #lucifer morningstar imagine #dewey finn imagine #wade wilson imagine #harley quinn imagine #tadashi hamada #lucifer morning star #dewey finn #benoit blanc imagine #benoit blanc

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angryschnauzer · 4 years

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I’ve seen lots of posts about adults dealing with Autism or mental health issues, and lots of posts about how to work with Children that have the same. But in all my time here i have never seen anything on what its like to be a parent with them whilst also having a child with them.

Its exhausting.

I have Aspergers. When i go out i hate crowds, noise, bright lights or enclosed spaces, which means i try to head out first thing in the morning before it gets busy.

My Son hasn’t had his full diagnosis (gee thanks 2020 shitshow), but he’s leaning between ADHD or Aspergers too.

I really can’t express how stressful it is to go out shopping or even just ‘in public’, especially in the current climate of mask wearing, social distancing, and hand sanitising.

When we go i we wear masks. Yes i know we are technically ‘exempt’, but i feel safer wearing one, and so does my son. But they come with downsides obviously; my glasses tend to fog up if i go from a hot to cold atmosphere (i wash then coat the lenses with shaving foam each morning and it really helps keep the fog mostly at bay), but can you imagine stepping into a shop with a child that seems like they have had a tonne of sugar or an amphetamine or something because they are SO FUCKING EXCITED, but then there’s one way systems and people trying to social distance and your kid is running off because he loves seeing and doing things but you can’t see what’s going on and the shop has music playing so you’ve now lost sight and sound senses.., so i yell, i yell for him to come back to me. Sometimes he comes back, sometimes he doesn’t. You panic, but people don’t realise you can’t find your child as you are rushing around the shop...panic sets in. Then he appears around a corner “Mummy i want this, lets go pay”. You haven’t even found what YOU were looking for, but he’s found something and you then have to tell him to put it back or hand it to a member of staff to sanitise because he’s touched it. He’s touched every door, rail, shop fitting, button, scrap of fluff on the floor, piece of litter hanging out of the garbage, the packets of sugar at a coffee shop, the lump of gum stuck to the sign... He’s touched everything and no amount of hand sanitiser is going to get rid of those germs, hell, a pressure washer and a bottle of bleach would have a hard time. You’ve been in the shop three minutes and you lost all of your senses, been close to a panic attack because you can’t find your child, and possibly been responsible for the store having to scrap an item of stock which the staff aren’t going to be happy about because there are big signs everywhere that say ‘please don’t touch things if you aren’t intending on buying them’.

Thats one shop.

Imagine a mall. Imagine having to do the start of term school shopping trip for clothes and supplies. Multiple shops. Things that you can’t order online. Multiple instances of the above happening. And throughout it all your mental health is getting closer and closer to breaking.

So when you see that parent yelling across the mall, shop, or cafe, don’t curse under your breath or say they are a bad parent, you don’t know what people are dealing with, you don’t know how that parent is going to have to use their last scrap of mental energy to drive themselves and their child home, only to have to shut themselves in a quiet dark room to decompress whilst their child raids the snack cupboard and binge watches Fireman Sam on Netflix.

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djchika · 4 years

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Alex Appreciation Week Day 5: wanna go for a ride (smut/fluff) | music

(aka a snipper from what appears to be a Pretty Woman AU)

When Alex left Roswell for the last time, he’d prepared for a life destitute. Possibly a hand to mouth existence, but one that wasn’t bound by his dad’s rules. Surrounded by found family and good friends.

What happened was the opposite. Bank was all Alex had. No one he called family, barely any friends. Just a shit load of money from a dead father who forgot to remove his estranged son from his will.

Funny how life worked out.

Manes security was the crown of the Manes empire. It had been built on his father’s unwavering, paranoid insistence that the human race needed to defend themselves. Against what exactly? Alex was never sure. No one else knew either, but they still bought into the belief.

The company started with simple security solutions that branched out to tech which led to multibillion-dollar government contracts. His brothers were all happily ensconced in the family business while Alex had jumped ship the moment he could.

Or so he thought.

“What the fuck do you mean he left it to me?”

“Technically he left it to his sons, but Flint signed away everything to do with the company when he started his own business, Gregory insists he’s retired, and after his breakdown Clay gave Gregory special power attorney and Gregory’s saying Clay doesn’t want it either.”

“Well, I don’t want it! Jim, are you hearing yourself? I can’t take over my father’s company.”

“Your father had the entire board of trustees under his thumb and he kept a lot of secrets. Without one of you to figure things out they’re going to strip it for parts and sell to the highest bidder. You might not care for your father’s legacy, but the Manes Group cuts a hundred thousand paychecks across several businesses. That’s a lot of jobs on the line.”

Fuck.

That had been five years ago. Five long fucking years of going from a quiet life running a small music shop near the home town to living full time in New York city.

Nothing about his new life vaguely resembled his life in Roswell.

Well, except for Kyle Valenti.

“It’s two in the fucking morning. Go home,” Kyle ordered from where he was leaning against Alex’s office door.

“Should I even point out how hypocritical that is considering you’re here too?”

“That’s because you’re a slave driver.”

Kyle was lying through his stupid perfect teeth. Alex worked hard to make sure they were one of the best employers in the country thankyouverymuch.

Besides, Kyle wasn’t even technically his employee. Their firm, Valenti, Valenti and Son had been the company’s firm even before Alex took over.

“I’m going home after this. Leave me alone.”

“As your legal counsel I highly recommend sleep before signing any of those.” Kyle said, nodding at the stack of papers on Alex’s desk. “I’ll be back Wednesday. I already had Jill pencil me in to your afternoon so we can start discussion on the Long deal.”

Alex clicked opened his calendar. “My Monday’s surprisingly free we can do it then.”

Kyle walked over to Alex’s desk, leaning down just so he could point at Alex’s laptop monitor obnoxiously. “That’s because Monday is the day before Christmas Eve and you declared it a company holiday.”

“Right,” Alex said, pushing Kyle away. “See you Wednesday, then.”

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, I’m sure I don’t want to go home with you for Christmas. Yes, I will be fine spending Christmas by myself. Asking me a dozen times isn’t going to change my answer.”

Alex appreciated Kyle’s concern, but going back home provided complications he didn’t want to deal with at the moment.

With a sigh, Kyle straightened and started towards the door. “Fine. I’ll see you in four days. You also have four days to get me the present you forgot to buy me so you won’t feel bad that I already left your present at your place.”

Presents. Shit. He remembered signing off a list from Jill, but Kyle always insisted that didn’t count. Maybe he could get him something online.

Seeming to read his mind, Kyle turned and pointed a finger at him. “You better make an effort of going to a store for me, jerk.”

That was how Alex ended up asking the driver to see if there was a shop anywhere that was still open.

That was also how Alex literally fell into Michael Guerin.

“You looking for something? Wanna go for a ride?”

The familiar low drawl had Alex’s heart beating wildly in his chest. He turned quickly, misjudged his center of gravity and only avoided a complete pratfall because Michael’s arms were suddenly around him keeping him steady.

The shock he was feeling was clearly mirrored in Michael’s face.

“Alex?”

The last time he’d seen Guerin was the last of summer after high school. He was being shipped off to West Point, while Michael was supposed to be on going to UNM on a scholarship.

They’d been friends in the way that two queer kids in a small dessert town naturally gravitated towards each other. Something had bubbled beneath the surface but they’d left it to simmer. Neither wanting to risk the tentative solace they found in each other.

A long series of almosts that never culminated to anything.

Alex had graduated, gone on a couple of tours, got blown up and opted for an honorable discharge.

Michael had apparently graduated, found out working with any sort of system didn’t fit him, and chose to travel the country in his truck, picking up odd jobs where he could.

When he meant pick up. He meant pick up.

Michael gave a low whistle when they entered Alex’s apartment. It was disproportionally huge for someone living alone, but it had come with the inheritance and he’d never gotten around to looking for a new place.

"Always knew you were loaded. I didn’t think you were ‘bring out the guillotines’ rich.”

“I’m not. Or I wasn’t. This was all my dad’s. I’m always afraid I’m going to find a room I didn’t know existed and find out someone’s been living there the whole time,” Alex admitted.

Michael smirked as he made himself comfortable on the leather couch. “Still not a fan of horror movies?”

“I learn from them. There’s a difference,” Alex corrected as he slipped off his tie, coat and shoes already discarded. “Drink?”

“Yeah, why not.”

Alex poured them each a glass, watching as Michael surreptitiously took in the rest of the room. He wondered what Michael assumed of him based on it. He’d never gotten around to looking for a new place and he’d definitely never gotten around to redecorating. Nothing outside of the bedroom was his aside from the baby grand he’d gotten himself as a gift a couple of years ago.

“I see your horror movie education never taught you not to let strangers into your home,” Michael said when Alex handed him a glass of whisky, neat.

“You’ve always been strange. Hardly a stranger.”

He sat down next to Michael, taking a long drink from his glass as Michael did the same. The liquid flowed smoothly down his throat, warming his body quickly. It also served to quiet the butterflies that were fluttering oddly in his chest.

“You never know what’s going on in people’s heads.” Michael smirked, eyes roving over Alex’s body.

Back in high school, with his bad boy reputation, the almost trademark smirk had been charming and innocently dangerous. Now, the slow smirk was backed with a confidence in his sexuality that was outright devastating.

Or it would have been if Alex didn’t see right through him.

“Are the lines part of the package?”

“Depends, is it working for you?

Alex raised an eyebrow before downing the rest of his drink. Michael seemed to take that as an invitation, moving both their glasses to the coffee table before straddling Alex smoothly.

It was his teenage fantasy come true. Michael was different, the cut of his jaw sharper, a dark beard where there used to be smooth skin, but the warmth of his eyes was still the same. The pull that tugged at Alex’s chest just as strong.

“Do you have rules against kissing?”

Michael shook his head with a laugh. “That’s not a thing.”

The kiss Michael gave Alex was surprisingly soft. A tentative press of lips on lips that belied Michael’s previous confidence. Alex tongue darted out, licking against the seam of Michael’s lips until they opened up for him. He tasted like whisky, like the first burst of summer rain.

It barely lasted a minute before Michael pulled back a little, eyes searching Alex’s as if to make sure he was okay.

Unwilling to examine the sudden knot behind his ribcage at that look, Alex surged against him kissing Michael slow and deep until they were both gasping for air.

“Sure this is a good idea?” Michael asked breathily even as his hands roamed, touching Alex’s chest, his neck, his hair.

“Nothing but a business deal, right?”

“Hmmm,” Michael’s hands moved to the buttons of Alex’s shirt, undoing them one by one. “Preferences? Hard nos?” He leaned in, sucking kisses into Alex’s jaw and down his neck.

Alex groaned when Michael’s mouth latched on to his pulse point, sucking gently. He could feel himself getting harder, Michael’s own erection pressed up again him. The sweet friction was making it hard to concentrate on what Michael was saying.

“You’re not going to make me sign a release are you?” he managed to ask finally. For all he knew there might be paperwork involved. He’d never actually slept with a hooker before.

The laugh that rumbled out of Michael’s chest, drew a smile on Alex’s face. “No, but it’s gonna cost depending on what you want.”’

“Consider me your booking for the night then double it.”

He didn’t even care what that amount was. Michael was worth it. Using his father’s money to pay for him was just a fuck you cherry on top.

Michael smiled, slow and filthy. “Works for me.”

(to be continued....)

#malex #michael guerin #alex manes #alexweek2020 #roswell nm #deej writes #deej writes fic #tv: rnm

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carriagelamp · 4 years

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~ Queer Lit 30 Day Book Challenge ~

I decided to do this challenge I came across for June! Originally it was designed as a “day-by-day” thing, but my June was way too hectic to do a write up every single day… so I decided to make a nice compilation for the end of the month instead!

This is perhaps not the “purest” form of the challenge but I wanted it to be personal for me. Growing up when I did and where I did, I had very little exposure to queer books, especially age-appropriate queer books. That being said, there’s some books on this list that are really only “queer” by technically, or through a secondary character rather than the main character. I debated whether to include these but finally decided that, yes, I would. I owe it to myself. Even though some of these books that aren’t “as queer” as other, they were (or are) really important to me as a queer person and my journey is understanding that, so I wanted to acknowledge them!

More info about the books and the challenge under the cut!

Day One: First Queer Book You Remember Reading

Color by Taishi Zaou and Eiki Eiki

Remember how I mentioned a lack of available, age-appropriate queer books? I was one of those kids who was definitely exposed (probably too young) to queer manga/yaoi. It wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, especially as a wee ace teen, but it was the best I had at the time and it meant the world to me at the time, to see same-sex relationships even if looking back on them is very “YIKES”.

I’m sure I read others before this, but Color is one of the first that I really remember and which I a) actually owned and which b) wasn’t completely repellent in hindsight! I haven’t reread it in probably over a decade so I have no idea how it stands up, but at the time it read like a much more “realistic” account of two teenagers developing a crush and starting a relationship and as a questioning teenager it really helped me realize that this was a real, viable option.

Day Two: Queer Book That Reminds You Of Home

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

I hummed and hawed about this one for a long time because honestly I tend to read books that make me feel far from home. I decided to go with The Witch Boy though because it’s a story that challenges gender norms and stars a large family out in the woods, running wild and exploring magic, and honestly it gives me vibes that remind me of vacationing with my extended family. We’re also partially ginger and inclined to run wild in the woods. If we knew magic we’d have used it for sure.

This book is about 13 year old Aster, who lives in a family where the women all become witches and the men all become shifters. Aster, however, has no interest in shapeshifting and instead finds ways to study magic and learn the arts of witchcraft while constantly being pushed out by his female relatives… though everything might change when a new danger, that may or may not be connected to Aster studying magic, begins to appear.

Day Three: Queer Book That Has Been On Your TBR Too Long

Beneath The Citadel by Destiny Soria

That was an easy choice, this has been sitting on my bookshelf for months, staring at me accusingly every time I enter my room. I’m really excited to read it (Magical heist? Rebellion? With an asexual protagonist? Yes please) but for some reason I have not gotten around to it. Some day, baby, some day.

Day Four: Queer Book With A Name Or Number In The Title

George by Alex Gino

George is an absolutely charming middle grade novel about a child named George who the world perceives as male… but who knows she’s definitely a girl. The novel begins when her class decided to put on a play about the novel they had just read: Charlotte’s Web. George is desperate to play Charlotte, her favourite character, but isn’t even allowed to try out because it’s a “girl’s role”. George and her best friend struggle with how to handle this problem and manage George’s secret amid elementary school and home drama.

This book is really adorable – it was a nice, easy, cozy read for an adult, and would also make a great read aloud to elementary-age children if you want to introduce them to transgender characters.

Day Five: Queer Book Where The Protag Has A Fun Job

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris

Not actually a queer protagnoist, but a queer side character who plays a major role in the series. Mister Vernon, one of Leila’s fathers, has arguable the coolest job: he’s a retired stage magician turn magic shop owner, which is complete with large rabbit, hidden room, and tons of fascinating gadgets to help a young practical magician learn their trade. He is hands down one of the neatest character in the series and is a major catalyst throughout the series.

The first book follows Carter, a runaway orphan who practices street magic to get by, as he runs away from his horrible uncle and winds up meeting a gang of magic-loving friends in a small town. Hiding from his uncle is only the beginning though, and the mysteries surrounding the town and Mister Vernon become thicker and thicker as the series goes on.

Day Six: Favourite Queer Graphic Novel

Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu

There’s lots of fantastic queer graphic novels out there, but I have to name Check, Please! as my favourite (and not just because I’m Canadian and am legally obligated to at least show interest in a hockey story). Check, Please! is the friggin cutest story about Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater and avid baker, who joins the Samwell University hockey team. The story is told in the form of Bitty’s vlog as he recounts the bizarre quirks of the Samwell hockey team, his struggle to overcome his fear of checking, and his growing crush on the team captain, Jack. Seriously guys, this is cavity-inducing sweetness and you can read it all online for free, here on tumblr @omgcheckplease or at its own website, checkpleasecomic.

Day Seven: Queer Book You Often Reread

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Another book I haven’t reread in years, but this was the first queer novel I ever read (and owned!) so I read it obsessively, first the copy from the high school library and then my own copy (which is, let us say, well-thumbed by this point). It was pure fluff, in an aggressively diverse, relentlessly accepting, rainbow-coloured high school and it was exactly what I wanted in high school, and it still makes me happy whenever I remember it. It’s a straight-up high school romance, pretty traditional to the genre, but it has the most delightful supporting cast you could ever ask for. Maybe I should reread it again this summer…

Day Eight: Queer Book With A Happy Ending

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

This was a bit more of a “yeah it was fine” book for me, but honestly… queer people deserve some average, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies. As far as my normal reading preferences go, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies are my bread and butter. And this one has a cute sapphic romance to go with it. It’s about Denna, a princess with a dangerous secret: she has a magical Affinity for fire, despite being betrothed to the prince of a kingdom that aggressively prosecutes and fears magic-users. So now Denna is in a strange land, trying to hide her increasingly volatile magic, solve an assassination that rocked the kingdom, and deal with the growing connection between her and the prince’s wild sister, Mare. It has court intrigue, a murder mystery, horses, and lots of confused sapphic pining so it’s totally worth picking up if you want a light summer fantasy adventure.

Day Nine: Queer Book With (Over) 100 Pages

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

I decided to try to get as close to 100 pages as possible! River of Teeth is a 114-page novella that I haven’t quite finished (work and covid stress happened) but which I am fucking losing my mind for. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s peak alternative history, about queer hippopotamus-riding cowboys in Louisiana during the early 20th (late 19th?) century. Like… I don’t know how to emphasize how unbelievably cool this book is. Genderqueer demolition expert with a giant crush and a penance for making things blow up and attempting to poison guests when they’re bored?? Check. Gay gunslinging hippo-riding cowboy with an angsty backstory (and also a giant crush)? Check. Sexy, fat, badass lady con artist with an albino hippo that she spoils? Check. Like damn guys. I’m not done the book and I’ve already bought the sequel because I know the second I pick it back up I’m not gonna stop until I’ve ploughed through it all. This book is the epitome of “refuge in audacity” and “rule of cool”. Is it over the fucking top? Absolutely but that’s the point.

Day Ten: Favourite Queer Genre Novel

The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare

I’ll be honest, I’m a little shaky on what counts as a genre novel (isn’t… everything… a genre??) so I decided to interpret it as “slightly trashy YA supernatural fantasy” because that sure is a hella specific genre I’m weak for.

I really thought I was done with the Shadowhunter novels, I thought they were a goofy series I left behind in teenagerhood that I could look back on with amused indulgence. And then I found out that there was a novel specifically about Alec and Magnus and! Oh no! Ding dong I was wrong. I fell back in hard because listen… I love them. They were one of the first canonical same-sex relationships I ever read about in an actual novel, they meant a lot to me then and still mean a lot to me now. I have nothing to say to defend myself here except that this book wrecked me and I can’t wait for the sequel.

Day Eleven: Queer Book You Love In A Genre You Don’t Read

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connel

I am very rarely a slice-of-life / romance genre sort of person. I like my stories cut with a heavy dose of fantasy, scifi, action-adventure… something. So a graphic novel that’s not only a romance, but one about an unhealthy relationship and infidelity is like… super outside my usual range of reading material. But it was very much worth the read! The art was stunning, and the complicated emotions it tapped into really touched me. I’m very happy to have read it, and was so damn satisfied by the end.

Day Twelve: Queer Book With A Strong Sense Of Place

Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller

Linsey Miller is one author I very actively follow, I love her works and they always have very distinct, complicated worlds with unique societies and magic systems. Belle Révolte was her latest book and followed a prince-and-the-pauper type of story, in which wealthy Emilie des Marais is determined to learn noonday (magical) arts in order to become a physician, someone who can actually work to make her home a better place… but this is not something a proper lady would ever be allowed to do. So she flees her finishing school and meets poor, but magically gifted, Annette Boucher and offers her the chance to switch places. Annette goes back to school as “Emilie” and gets to hone her skills at the midnight arts while Emilie will use her name to sneak into medical school and fight her way up the ranks to physician. This is a challenging enough task, with rebellion roiling just beneath the surface and the country about to slip into a arrogant war that threatens the lives of hundreds…

Day Thirteen: Queer Book That Really Made You Think

Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

This is a four book manga series that is completely breath-taking. It’s touched by magical-realism and completely drowned in visually stunning metaphors and symbolism. Seriously, I’ve reread these books multiples times trying to digest how the wide variety of symbols overlap and contradict and compliment and challenge each other. I still haven’t really gotten a solid handle on it, it’s very fluid, so yeah… definitely makes me think.

The story starts with Tasuku Kaname who believes he may have just been outed as gay by a high school friend, and feels like he’s watching his entire world crumble around him. He is seriously considering taking his own life, when he runs into the mysterious woman “Someone-san” and winds up leading him to a drop-in center that’s run by a local non-profit, and is also a hub for a number of queer people in the community. The books follow Tasuku as he grows, learns, makes mistakes, and confronts his feelings, along with a number of other members at the drop-in center. It is completely beautiful, optimistic, but also quite stark and harsh at its look at homophobia and transphobia in modern Japanese society and how it can effect people in different ways. I just bought book four and can’t wait to read it and see how everything ends.

Day Fourteen: Queer Book That Made You Cry

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Holy shit guys. Listen. Listen. If you don’t read any other book on this list, please consider reading The Marrow Thieves. It is hands down the best book I’ve read so far this year. Another book that doesn’t have a queer character as the protag, but as one of the main supporting characters and listen, his story fucking destroyed me as a person. That romance just… aaaaaaah. AAAAAAAAH.

Anyway. The Marrow Thieves is a Canadian dystopian novel. It takes place in a post-climate change world in which society has been ravaged – partially due to the wildly different and extreme weather patterns, but also through a strange disease that has spread through the population that has left people completely incapable of dreaming. Now unable to rest, process their lives, and dream of a future, people are being driven insane and only one group appears to be immune: North America’s First Nations people appear to be unaffected. And so they begin to be harvested, rounded up and collected in “school” in order for people to suck the marrow out of them to give to white people afflicted by this disease. The Marrow Thieves follows a First Nations boy named Frenchie as he flees the recruiters and tries his best to survive in this post-apocalyptic like wilderness, banding together with other First Nations people who are heading north, where they hope to find communities of their own people with whom they can shelter and start to rebuild their lives.

It’s a YA level novel, not very long, and such an insanely good read. I cannot emphasize enough PLEASE GO READ THIS BOOK.

Day Fifteen: Queer Book That Made You LOL

Mostly Void, Partially Stars by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Nightvale always makes me laugh and it was a lot of fun to get to read the transcripts of the episodes. I’m a sucker for novelizations/transcripts of shows. It was a nice nostalgia trip and gave me an excuse to go back and relisten to some of my favourite episodes too! If you’ve never gotten into Nightvale… hey, it’s a classic! Podcast is fucking stunning if you’re into podcasts, and if you’re not but would enjoy a weird, queer, eldritch horror comedy then try the book! It’s the first “season” compiled in text form, exactly how it’s heard in the show.

Day Sixteen: Queer Book That Is Really Personal To You

Jughead volume 1 by Chip Zdarsky et al

Including this one because gee golly it sure did make me want to fight a lot of people for quite a while. It was one of the first stories I ever found/read that had an explicitly asexual main character… (and a character I already really loved! Which I now got to feel an even stronger connection to! It was so fun and validating!) so it was super awesome how like half of tumblr decided for a year there that this was apparently a cardinal sin. Imagine… one single version of old, long standing comic series deciding to retcon a character to represent a heavily under-represented community… imagine being so fucking angry about that that you decide to start a hate campaign on the internet. So much fun to live through that as an ace person. Anyway, these comics were nothing amazing but I sure do love them aggressively out of pure spite, even now that the aphobia on tumblr has died back down I will hold this to my chest and adore it.

Day Seventeen: Favourite Queer Book Sequel or Spin Off

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Honestly do I even need to say anything here? Is there any queer person who hasn’t read Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue series? If you are someone who hasn’t read it yet… go do that?? Absolutely stunning, one of my all-time favourite book series. It’s the perfect combination of hilarious and goofy, intense action, heartfelt character development, and a dash of “wait was that supernatural or??” This sequel was fantastic, this time focusing on Felicity, Monty’s sister, and her quest to become a physician despite being a woman in the 18th century. Awesome look at femininity, feminism, asexuality, and race. (Also… OT3? OT3.)

Day Eighteen: Favourite Queer Book By A Favourite Author

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

One of those “ehh is this technically queer? Not really but close enough, it is in my heart” books. It was one of the books I read as a teenager when I was still beginning to seek out and try to explore queer lit in so much as I could.

Terry Pratchett is, hands down, my favourite author, and though he doesn’t tend to write explicitly queer literature, his exploration of gender through allegory is top fucking tier. Everything to do with the dwarves in his series is fascinating, and a really great challenge/critique/exploration of gender, and this is the book that takes it to the next level (and brings in at least implicitly queer characters). It’s about Polly Perks, who lives in a small, war torn nation, choosing to join the army in order to find out what happened to her brother. However, as tradition dictates, she can’t join as a girl… so she disguises herself as Ozzer, a young man. There’s a lot of twists and turns, and as always Pratchett delivers fantastic humour and just absolutely delicious satire.

Day Nineteen: Queer Book That Changed Your Life

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

This was the book that made me realize that I, as a queer teacher, could have queer kid lit in my future classroom. Maybe a comparatively small revelation, but a really important one to me. It made me realize that this didn’t need to be something I kept a secret in my professional life and which could really positively influence children, especially queer children. It was the first queer children’s book I ever bought.

Day Twenty: Favourite Queer Book Series

Candy Color Paradox by Isaku Natsume

Alright… I’ll admit it, this isn’t actually my favourite series, but I’ve used my favourites in other spots. And this is a good one! Definitely more of an actual “yaoi” than the other manga I’ve included (here there be sex) but it has a very different vibe that what I’m used to from that type of manga. The main pair are actually both capable, mature adults, with careers they actively care about, and who get together in the first volume!

The rest of the series is less about them angst-ily toeing around their relationship, and much more about them learning to grow as a couple and balance their work and relationship and society. It’s funny and sweet, and I really enjoy these two losers. It’s a very low-stakes enemy-to-friends-to-lovers story, in which Onoe (a reporter) and Kaburagi (a photographer) are paired up on a news story they’re supposed to dig into together. What starts as a bickering rivalry gradually becomes respect, friendship, and love~ Onoe is a gremlin of a protag, so he’s a treat to follow.

Day Twenty-One: Queer Book That You Recommend A Lot

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

To repeat myself: Linsey Miller is awesome! This is my favourite book of hers, the first of a duology. It’s kind of like an intense, edgy Tamora Pierce novel with murder. In this world, the Queen has a team of assassins known as the Left Hand. They’re an elite group that keeps the Queen safe and does the dirty work that needs to be done to protect the kingdom and keep the encroaching nations at bay. When the assassin Opal is killed, a contest is announced to find the new Opal. People from all over come to complete for the honour of being one of the Queen’s royal assassins, including gender-fluid thief Sallot Leon. Sal has some deep motivations to become Opal that go beyond a loyalty to their kingdom, but they’re going to have to survive their competitors if they even wants a chance at it… (Sal generally goes by either she or he in the books, but I’m using they in this instance since it’s in a more general sense.)

Day Twenty-Two: Queer Book That Made You Take Action

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Uhh, I don’t really have any books that made me take action per se, but this one sure gave me a lot to think about. It’s about deep sea mermaids who originated from the pregnant slave women tossed into the ocean to drown during passage to North America. From those dying women, this race was born and were taken in by whales, raised and protected until they could descend into the deep ocean waters, to form their own safe society. Their collective past is so painful though that as a species they’ve developed a very short term memory. But a people can’t live without any ties to their roots and so one of them, the Historian, holds all the memories for their entire species and shares it with everyone once a year so that the community can be connected to their ancestors before once again returning the memories to the Historian for safe keeping. Yetu, the current Historian, is so overwhelmed by these memories, that she can no longer take it – she flees her people, her responsibilities, and her pain and escapes to the surface instead...

Day Twenty-Three: Queer Book By An Author Who I Killed Is Dead

Cybersix by Carlos Trillo

I cannot emphasize enough, this is not actually a queer comic, it is in fact a very homophobic, transphobic and sexist comic written by a horrible person.

That being said, he’s dead and I own it now the TV series was essentially about a genderqueer superhero and a very confused bi biology professor who has a crush on both personas. I had a passionate crush on both personas as a child, and I will cherrypick this comic until I die in order to enjoy the only kickass genderqueer/genderfluid noir antihero I’ve come across. I am valid and I am not open to debate or discussion. Do not read this comic it’s horrible (but consider watching the show).

Day Twenty-Four: Queer Book You Wish You’d Read When Younger

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

This is such an incredibly soft story with the nicest art. There’s so much understanding and compassion in it and its exploration of gender and self-confidence and being true to yourself would have been very reassuring to me as a child, especially by late elementary/middle school.

Day Twenty-Five: Queer Book In A Historical Setting

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

A retelling of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship from childhood to the Trojan war. So yeah, you can imagine that this was also a candidate for Day 14 :’) I haven’t read this one in years but god it was lovely and emotionally destroyed me as a person.

Day Twenty-Six: Queer Superhero Book or Comic

Overwatch: Reflections by Michael Chu and Miki Montillo

I don’t really read superhero stories very often (the comics have always driven me a little bonkers, trying to find a way to enter the totally unapproachable Marvel/DC canons, and the MCU burnt me out years ago for every other sort of superhero story) so this is the closest I can get. Tracer’s a superhero yeah? Anyway, I, like every other queer person in the Overwatch fandom, lost my fucking mind when this dropped for Christmas a few years back and officially declared Lena Oxton not only the face of the entire franchise but also a lesbian. It’s an adorable little comic and Tracer’s girlfriend is a sweetheart.

Day Twenty-Seven: Favourite Queer Children’s Picture Book

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack

There’s a number of sweet queer children’s books that are popping up these days, but this is my favourite just because it’s less about “explaining the gays to children” (though those books also have their place) and more of a cute little fantasy adventure in which the actual protagonist is gay. It’s about a prince who sets out to find himself a bride who can help rule by his side, but it quickly becomes clear that he isn’t interested in any of the girls. Instead, when a fire breathing dragon threatens his kingdom, he meets a brave knight who fights along side him. It’s very supportive and the art is lovely.

Day Twenty-Eight: Queer Book That Made You Feel Uncomfortable

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

This is a book with an asexual protagonist that I was originally really excited for. I know there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy this book and connected with it, but it didn’t do it for me. Maybe because my expectations were too high, but the protagonist’s experience with asexuality was vastly different than my own and the narrative voice ended up rubbing me wrong (and let’s be honest, slice-of-life romance is NOT my usual genre at all). So it’s not “made me uncomfortable because it’s Bad And Wrong” more just… totally vibed wrong with me. Maybe the perfect book for other people but definitely not for me, I had to return this one unfinished because it’s portrayal of asexuality just made me so deeply uncomfortable.

Day Twenty-Nine: Queer Book That Made You Want To Fall In Love

The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

This book had to make it on here somewhere, and honestly it could have gone in a lot of different spots, but I chose to put it here because the relationship between Monty and Percy is so incredibly sweet and authentic it really does make you want something like that. TGGTVAV (for anyone who has somehow not heard of it) takes place in the 18th century, and is about Monty, his best friend (and crush) Percy, and his sister Felicity going on a final “hurrah” tour of Europe before Monty's father finally tries to pin him down in England and force every part of Monty that’s deemed “unacceptable” out of him. So Monty intends to live this summer up… until everything goes off the rail and the three of them are suddenly fleeing across the continent with assassins at their heels and a strange, stolen artifact in their possession.

Monty has a lot of growing to do in this novel, and that’s one of my favourite things about it. For his and Percy’s relationship to ever have a chance, Monty needs to learn and change and actually communicate with other people, and it makes the relationship feel strong. Not a fluffy, surface level romance that often happens in YA but something built from the ground up by two friends who really want to make it work. Ahh, it’s lovely. One of my favourite novels.

Day Thirty: Queer Book With Your Favourite Ending

My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame

A two-book manga series that was completely stunning. It deals with queer relationships and homophobia in a very stark, real-world manner that you don’t often get in manga, while still being incredibly loving and sympathetic. The book is about Yaichi, a single father whose estranged brother (Ryoji) recently died. One day, a Canadian named Mike arrives, introducing himself as Ryoji’s widower. Mike had come hoping to visit his late husband’s homeland to try to get some closure, and Yaichi ends up inviting Mike to stay. The whole story looks Japan’s societal biases, through Mike’s experiences, Yaichi’s thoughts, feelings and prejudices, and those of his daughter who adores Mike.

Seriously, this is one of the kindest, most earnest looks I’ve ever seen to internal prejudices that critiques them without demonizing the person who feels them. Instead it lovingly embraces grief, growth, and love. This series made me cry multiple times, was good enough that even my straight brother practically ordered me to go out and buy the second book when he finished the first, and the ending was just *chef’s kiss*

Honourable Mentions

A few books I really wanted to fit on my list somehow but couldn’t quite manage it, so here: All Out an anthology of historical fiction short stories about queer teens. The Tea Dragon Society series and Princess Princess Ever After, graphic novels by the amazingly talented Katie O’Neill. Heartstopper a webcomic turn graphic novel by Alice Oseman about a pair of rugby players. The Different Dragon a cute picture book in which the boy has two moms and which is about accepting different ways of being. And Lady Knight a part of Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series because because Kel is word-of-god aro(and/or ace) and I’ve adored that series and Kel since I was about thirteen so by god I’ll take it.

Now for those that wanted to do their own challenge, I found it on @gailcarriger’s blog.

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etraytin · 4 years

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Quarantine, Day 183

September 10

Today is Day 183, which officially means it has been more than half a year since lockdown started and the whole world twisted on its axis. I read something from somebody today talking about how they were dealing with feelings of frustration towards their kid. It was something like "I try to remember how one day in March, I picked him up from school like normal, and then with no warning he never saw his friends again. Even an adult doesn't really have tools to process that." I feel like I'm treading a fine line with the kiddo sometimes, between being sensitive to the pain and confusion he's feeling and letting him act out in ways that are inappropriate and hard to live with. When none of us can leave the house and my husband has to work from home, the kiddo cannot be slamming around and yelling (especially since we also have upstairs and downstairs neighbors), but I could probably be more tolerant of the simple whining. There's just so much to whine about, for all of us!

There were no technical problems with school today, so that was a relief, but they still really aren't learning anything except how to do online classes and remote learning. It's important, I know, but the kiddo has done virtual learning since he learned to read and he is bored, bored, bored. He was also really keyed up today for some reason and threw an absolute fit when he couldn't get his favorite Minecraft server working, and then another one when he wasn't doing very well on the alternative server he tried. Before he went back for his afternoon class time I had him cuddle one of the kittens to calm down, which helped. Later on while I was cooking supper and Husband was stuck in a stupidly late faculty meeting, the kiddo was looking for a snack and whining about his options, and I crabbed at him about it. He brought me a kitten to cuddle. It helped.

I had my yearly CPAP checkup today, took in my machine and had a short little conference with the near-doctor who handles such things at the sleep clinic. She says that I probably ought to get more sleep, since my days-used compliance is 100%, but my Days Used >4hrs is only 83% for the past month. I told her yeah, that is because of the kittens, but they are weaned now so I do plan on getting some sleep. She remembered that I also had kittens last year when I had my appointment and I said that there are a lot of kittens out there, but I do plan on taking a break soon. She was glad to hear that my CPAP is improving my life, even if it is less making me more alert and more curing the frequent sinus infections that come from open-mouth sleeping in dry air. I tell you what, if you are an open-mouth sleeper and you wake up every morning feeling like your entire head is full of dry sand, a CPAP that blows warm, moist air down your throat all night is a true game changer. I don't think I had half as many colds in 2019 as the year before.

On my way back from the doctor I stopped by Kroger and picked up onions, grapes, and bread. I've needed onions for days, but the frozen chopped onions in my grocery order were out of stock. I actually bought fresh whole onions today, like a peasant! But I really needed them for several recipes, and then the grapes were 77 cents a pound so of course I stocked up. I also stopped by the Starbucks kiosk in the store because I was very sleepy and I also wanted to commemorate the start of Pumpkin Spice season. It was definitely not the same not being able to drink coffee while shopping, but it was still good. My Starbucks gift card is about to run out, so it's good that I got my latte while the getting was good. Kroger was busy but everyone was wearing masks and standing pretty far apart.

My big project for the afternoon was the sock basket, with the kiddo's help. I do my laundry in the laziest way possible, which is to say that any sock without a match in immediate view gets thrown into the sock basket to languish. When the basket is completely full or we are totally out of socks, the basket must be dealt with. After the massive laundry project of last week, the sock basket had overspilled its bounds and filled most of a second clothes basket as well. (We have a surprising number of socks for three people because we are always losing them. Or they are in the sock basket.) We sat down in front of the TV and watched The Good Place while sorting and matching socks. I did white socks and black socks, while the kiddo did color and pattern socks. It took more than an hour to do all the socks, but we are down to about a third of a basket of unsorted socks now, which is much better. Some people say you should throw away your unmatched socks after you sort them, but that is dumb because single socks are useful for all kinds of things, and you never know when you'll need one until they are all gone.

Oh, and the Minecraft saga had a happy ending, at least. We were able to figure out the problem with his preferred server and get it working again, so peace once again reigns in our fair apartment. Someday he's going to get very into a complex videogame that I know nothing about and we will be screwed as far as troubleshooting, but today is not that day!

#quarantine #cpap #minecraft #foster kittens

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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1137

created by: allwrongx - Bzoink

Do you have a bookshelf? If so, just one or how many? I don’t, actually. I have the most books out of everyone in the family, but they’re all either lined up or stacked in random points in my room because of said lack of shelves. Currently, I have three groups of books strategically placed around my room.

If you answered yes to the above, are your books ordered in a special way? Just by height since I have a lot of tall books like encyclopedias as well as smaller-sized novels and pocketbooks.

Have you ever owned action figures? I have a couple of wrestling action figures and I want to keep collecting more if my financial situation ever permits it in the future.

Why did you last smile? Andrew Ilnyckyj finally has a new cooking videoooooooo, which is the main BuzzFeed content I watch these days. I think his last one had been posted in January, so I’ve been feeling pretty starved for some new Andrew content.

Do you have a close relationship with your immediate family? I’m not close with them in that I don’t feel shy about kissing/hugging them or confiding in them; my family are not those people for me. But like we don’t fight (anymore) and we’re able to have pleasant talks over dinner, which is as close as I’d possibly ever get with them.

Idk, we were ultimately never able to cultivate an emotionally strong relationship with one another, which I’ll always feel bittersweet about; but at least I now have a blueprint of how I’d want to build my relationships within my family, should I ever have one of my own.

If I gave you twenty bucks what would you do with it? Use it to pay my sister for the drawing commission I asked her to make. My total bill comes up to around that amount, anyway.

If dinosaurs could be tamed, would you want one as a pet? Nope, they can stay in the wild.

Do you crack your knuckles, neck or toes constantly? I crack my knuckles the most and my ankles as well. Never my neck and toes.

Are you constantly catching colds or other sicknesses? No, I rarely get sick.

Is there a movie from your childhood that you still watch today? I do an annual Toy Story rewatch because it’s my absoluete favorite kid’s movie. I will also always be in the mood to watch The Game Plan, which I watched every single weekday after coming home from school in like the 3rd grade.

Have you ever seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Nope but this has been on my list for years. Just never gotten around to downloading it and finally seeing it for myself.

Where do you do most of your shopping? I usually go to small, independent businesses that sell trendy pieces for a lot less, but I also drop by H&M from time to time. Once I feel secure enough with my savings I also wanna be able to start shopping from Zalora because they have really nice brands over there as well, haha.

Are you afraid of mice? I don’t imagine I would be since they’re tiny and cute. I’m afraid of house rats, though, especially considering how big they can get D:

What type of souvenir do you usually purchase when on vacation? I typically don’t get souvenirs for myself, but this is also because I’ve never traveled solo. My family collects magnets from all the different places we’ve been to though (and also from my dad’s work travels), so our fridge doors are filled with them.

Do you vacation often? Yeah, my family would usually take 3-5 trips a year, usually around the country and sometimes out of; but of course we’ve had to put a stop to it since the pandemic blew up.

Are you comfortable wearing your pajamas in public places? The only place I’d be comfortable doing so is at the nearby McDonald’s, since I’ve seen residents from my village come in there wearing their PJs or housewear. Otherwise no, I’d rather dress up.

What's your favorite candy bar? Twix!!!!!!!! And while they’re not technically bar-shaped, I love Reese’s Cups too.

Do you own more than one copy or edition of a book? Hahaha yeah. I have two copies of Twilight (one is from my boxed set, another was given to me by a childhood friend, Maryrose) and Breaking Dawn (one is also from my boxed set, while the other one is the special white cover edition given to me by Angela).

If you could see any musical on Broadway right now, what would it be? Miss Saigon. That’s the only musical I’m into.

If you could put any person or characters face on money, whose would it be? I definitely want to see a woman’s face on a dollar bill or coin sometime in the future. < Oh man, this is a pretty good answer. We do already have women in our P500 and P1000 bills, but they’re accompanied by men :/ It’d be neat to see a woman take over a bill/coin all on her own, like Gabriela Silang.

The place that you'd most like to be right now is where? God I really wish I were out in a coffee shop right now but I have to saveeeeee. I’ve been meaning to check out this nearby cafe that also doubles as a co-working space (which means I can do work there without feeling guilty or anxious that I’m taking too much time there, yay), and I might visit next week.

Do large crowds make you anxious? Depends on what the context is. If I find myself in the middle of a stampede that’s quickly going ugly then I will definitely start to panic; but if I’m at, say, a concert, then personally a bigger crowd means a better experience for me.

Do you own a helmet of any sorts? None of my own, but we do have a helmet for our bike.

Will you willingly sing in front of other people besides your family? No unless a huge sum of money is up for grabs, lmao. I’ve only sang in public once, when my mom made me do a solo number on my 7th birthday.

What's in the box? Yeah, I’m not feeling creative enough for this question...

Does your family generally decorate for most holidays? No, only for Christmas.

Would you take the chance to be Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys for a day? Eh, I’d pass up on the offer. Mystery isn’t my thing.

Do you eat soup when you're sick? No. I prefer to drink lots of water as I usually lose my appetite when I’m sick anyway.

Is there a specific mug or coffee cup that you have to use all of the time? I don’t have to use it, but I’m in love with the mug Angela gave me just this past Christmas. I use it all the time now.

Have you ever watched Doctor Who? No, but I don’t think it’s my kind of genre or show.

If so, what do you think is the scariest creature yet?

Do you prefer to do your shopping online or in person? If I already have an idea of what I want to get, I prefer to get it in person. But if I need something oddly specific and have no idea where to start, that’s when I start to look for online shops or go to Shopee or Lazada altogether.

If you read, which book or series did you enjoy most as a child? Angie Sage, with her Septimus Heap series.

Do you read tour guide type books before you visit places? It’s been a while since I’ve traveled extensively, and when I was younger I didn’t really read into tourist guides. Now that I’m older, I do want to start reading up before visiting a different country – not necessarily about the best places to visit, but more about the culture and practices I have to observe. I remember being reprimanded by a Korean when I tried to snap a photo of something I saw while out in public in Jeju, and I don’t want to do something like that again.

Would you please belt out a few song lyrics here? AND IF YOU TRY TO FIND ME NOOOOW I’M IN ALL THE ECHOES THAT HAVE FAAAADED OUT soooo!!! I’M MOVING ON CAUSE I JUST WANT TO FEEL FOR ONCE THAT I BELONG, THAT’S WHAT GOING ON

How do you get rid of your hiccups? I hold my breath, which is a trick taught to me by my mom. Not always effective, but it does work sometimes.

Is there one saying that you've adopted from someone/somewhere else? I’ve picked up “Awesome!” which was Gabie’s catchphrase. My former director also liked saying “Anywhoooooo” when she wants to digress, and I’ve since adopted that into my vocabulary and mannerisms as well.

Can you lie effectively and smoothly? Yes, but I feel like shit every time I have to.

Do you buy Halloween candy when it's on sale after the holiday? No, I don’t enjoy candy anyway.

Why is your favorite teacher your favorite? She taught beyond her curriculum - music, which isn’t even part of my top 30 favorite subjects - and always made sure to inject a little bit of useful life advice in all her lessons.

Who can never fail to make you laugh? Hans.

Do you agree with the "they're just being kids" excuse? No, especially if the kids in question are already 16/17 year olds.

How many pets have you had in your lifetime? Countless goldfish, one chick, one rabbit, one cat, two birds, and two dogs.

Were you ever afraid of monsters under your bed? Sure. Still am occasionally, heh.

Would you kindly recommend your favorite movie to me? Two for the Road shows a realistic take on love told through cars and a non-linear tour around Southern Europe. If you’re into that and Audrey Hepburn’s pretty outfits in each scene, definitely check it out.

#survey #surveys

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shesawriter39049 · 4 years

Text

|ROLL DEEP|M| P.1

*Yoongi centered fic with a shared OT7 plot*

CH.1.1 CH. 1.2

**Operation: What’s eating blue!?***

_________________________________________________________

“Stop, this stopped being a you, thing and became a us thing the minute we chose to show up here tonight! You gave us an out and we stayed...we will always stay...”

1.2 K Sneak Peek

Pairing: Yoongi x OC

Genre: Sugar baby AU/Suspense/Smut/Angst/Roomate AU/FWB AU

WC: 7K

Nonsexual Warnings: Mentions of drug use (Molly/weed/)Strong language/ Alcohol addictions/ brief mentions/ speculations of domestic violence/abuse

Sexual Warnings: Oral (M & F receiving) power bottom Min Yoongi, cum play, breath play, spanking, dirty talk, Slight overestimation, sex toys (Cock rings....) Semi-public sex (A chill little blow job in the car) The sexual warnings are for both parts of CH.1 so the smut is split in half!

NOTE: Just to clarify the dynamic Yoongi and the OC are roommates who hookup on the side, they are BOTH sugar babies to two separate people! So yes, that would imply that Yoongi and some of the other boys who are also sugar babies are Bi. There is no MxM but there is mentions of it occasionally….as well as some harmless ot7 flirting! Also all of the boys are introed, Tae and Joon just play a lager part here!

_______________________________________________

I guess, fuck where do we even start? Maybe, will go back to where it all technically started, which was the last time things felt...somewhat normal yeah?

So, that would be...hmm...about 2 weeks shy of you heading into Junior year at USC right? The day your boys picked you up at the airport, and the three of your treated Blue, aka TaeTae to brunch!?

Well, wait let’s back track a little it all started much eariler than that, because you weren’t even aware of your brunch plans until later in the day. So Initially the day in question kicks of with you, in oversized blacked out CHLOE shades, hungover as fuck, sat in at the airport one Sunday afternoon. Smack dab in the middle of Terminal 6, in a bar called Blu2o sipping on a Bloody Mary, scrolling aimlessly through Snapchat. While simotaniously being told for the very first time ...that you’ll be attending a “Haute Couture” themed charity auction...on Tuesday! Yup, the day after tomorrow! Thank god he can’t see your damn face right now, biting down on your straw to muzzle yourself!

“No, babe it’s fine, I’ll just hit Rodeo tomorrow morning, and I’m sure my nail and lash girl can fit me-Oh you...haven’t gotten... what ...your wearing either?” Parroting the words back In slow motion as if it would make the words sound better or something!

Oh for fucks sake! Bringing your forehead flush to the marble bartop already feeling a full blown migraine brewing at the nape of your neck. Giving yourself a couple moments to self compose, this man is so damn unorganized it’s unfucking real. His personal assistant better be the 2nd highest paid person within his entire company because…..This is far from new, I don’t even know why your suprised and I’d say you don’t get paid enough for this....but ya do! So you suck it up, lose the attitude and slip right into your “Yes sir” or maybe I should say ‘Yes daddy” voice.

“Don’t worry about it, I know your busy. I totally get it, your a 28 waist right? Of course, I remember...I remember everything you tell me….Ohhh your gonna let me put you in color too???” Eyes flickering up to the notification from your bank, noting a cute little 12k wire pending.

“Yeah, no, I see it, that should be good. I was thinking Versace or Cavili for you anyway...they have good prints to fit the theme, and if all else fails I have my card too…yup..just landed about..hmm... 30 minutes ago actually. Of course, stop apologizing, Sunday's are always your golf days, I get it, hey, tell the guys I said hi and enjoy your day. Text me later if you feel up to it..k....bye..”

Were you actually getting a little flustered there towards the end? It's the slight accent, isn't it? Honestly, it didn't take much for you to slip into “character” with him, even after barely being together a full month. For one he wasn’t an asshole, had a decent sense of humor, and he’s really fuckin hot...however there was one, little, well shit, not so little issue...you noticed while with him recently. Which, then sparked quite a few questions while also answering some that had been rattling through your head since the day you met. But will circle back to the fact that you spent a week on vacation with a man, while dressed in some of the sexiest pieces of 2019 couture! Yet..you barely got touched once outside of a couple chaste kisses and hand-holding while at the two fashion shows you attended together… so, yeah, yeah!

A low groan in frustration rattled from your throat as you continued scrolling through Snapchat, trying to come up with some possible outfit scenarios in your head! It’s kinda funny, how mynute all of that seems now though, how your definition of “Stress” that day was you trying to decide if your sugar daddy was gay, while also finding time to fit in a self-care day, shopping, and getting your books for school!! The fact that, that was what you considered migraine worthy, fuck, what you wouldn’t give to consider multitasking your only maltitude of “stress” again …..

Just in your own little world, mind swirling with a couple of stylists you’ve met along the way, considering the idea of them pulling some vintage pieces for you instead! What you should be doing, is scrolling through your contact list and texting said stylists, instead you find yourself more and more distracted. Getting lost in the mounds of snap updates from Jimin as he “modestly” sunbathed in a private villa in Italy. Then later sharing a glimpse into his shopping spree from Versace, no doubt a good 20k worth of Italian luxury spread out along the plush white sheets. Sending him a cheeky little “That’s my boy” with a couple of smug winky faces in response!

It’s still kinda crazy to think, things like that are considered normal within your world now, the fact that you aren’t even surprised at the number of gifts. Or, simply the fact that your barley 21-year-old best friend is sunbathing in Italy on someone else’s dime. Then again, you just got sent 12 thousand dollars to spend on an event that would last maybe all of 5 hours, while sitting next to a stack of Louis Vuittion luggage from your first class flight in from Vegas, technically. Opting to land there first after a long 15-hour flight, checking in at The Four Seasons for not even a solid 24 hours before coming home! Honestly?There was no real reason for the pit stop except it gave you an excuse to see a friend while also allowing you to unwind in one of your favorite hotels!

That sentence alone is actually absurd when you really think about it, the idea of you casually booking flights and suites in 5-star hotels as if you’re ordering off the damn dollar menu at Mcdonalds! You, the girl that was working two jobs at the Groove and mourning a piece of shit cheating ex boyfriend her freshman year of college.....is now reminiscing about catching flights to chill with friends and last minute finding dresses for Couture themed galas.Like, what the actual fuck is life.... Oh my bad, life at the moment is constantly being paranoid that you and your friends will get arrested! Life in this moment however...was a fucking perfect!

The friend you where meeting in Vegas was Hoseok by the way, the redhead was currently vacationing in Sin City for the next couple of days, typically residing in LA as well. Just Chillin’ before the semester starts, living his best life, which revolves around “OFF-WHITE'' shopping sprees, private dance lessons, and constantly taking thirst trap pics for his 10’s of thousands of followers online. He randomly texts you saying “I miss your face” you text him saying “I land at 8 tonight bring a bottle and sushi to room 605 at The Four Seasons hotel '' Simple!

Your initial flight, the one that was 15 hours, was originally from Paris, where you spent the last week or so with Jeong-su, being arm candy, sipping wine, sightseeing and of course shopping!. Barley 32 hours ago your Snapchat looked pretty damn similar, if not worse in comparison to Jimin’s but what can I say, you can’t be in the home of Givenchy and Gaulthier and not go to Givenchy and Gaultier!

What your life is, what you and your friends do, I mean, I think it’s safe to say it’s pretty self-explanatory yeah? The average 20 something-year-old in college isn't flying themselves out of the country or going luxury shopping without a little help. In your case, it’s typically thanks to a person you commonly refer to as “Daddy” now, the context behind the word however….is where you and your friends may differ from others…..

But that’s your business, your concern and more importantly your choice, and honestly for a while life seemed too damn good to be true...I guess looking back on it now, I guess that’s because it kinda was!

Sat at the predominantly empty bar alone, more than content by the silence, twirling your straw between your lips, as you scanned back over the shit show that was your schedule for the semester! Getting more of a migraine from that, then shopping or even the fact that you're still hungover and drinking on an empty stomach at half-past 12. Shooting a quick text to your redheaded best friend cursing him out for getting you drunk off your ass on a bottle of Yamazaki 12.

“Can I get anything else for you beautiful? Another drink or maybe an appetizer? We have damn good loaded queso fries if I do say so myself!” Waving the menu in your face playfully, the warm, inviting voice in front of you was the bartender, who’s had his eye on you since you swayed in. Even if you looked like crap for your standards you knew to most you were the farthest thing from it as you swayed into the bar like you owned the place. In your heels, and tiny little black dress, while an airport assistant trolied in your luggage behind you! Ohhh Blair Waldorf would without a doubt be proud!

“Mmmm…” Lips pursed in a slight pout as you raked over the menu, honestly, you were hungry and they have bomb ass fried pickles…..”Actually, yeah, I’ll get-”

“ 3 tall shots of whatever top-shelf Tequila you have, also add whatever she’s been drinking to my tab, along with an order of fried pickles with extra ranch…please and thank you!” Smoothly sliding his black card, and ID across the marble bartop for review.

Oh.

The look on the bartender’s face was fucking priceless, torn between shitting himself and maybe….nah, just straight shitting himself! Skin flushed, the sense of panic was clear as day, wondering if he’d overstepped that fine line between customer service and filtration. Considering whoever the person behind you is, clearly knows you well enough to know your food order. A forced bashful smile playing along his lips as he bowed out in acknowledgment, sliding the gentelmen back is ID and whispering out a faint “Yes sir, coming right up…”

The base vibrating through your ears instantly had you readjusting your posture, a strong tingle running down your spine, back arching ever so slightly. A playful smirk playing along your lips as you slowly laced your tongue back around your staw, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“You sure you wanna do that? My tastes are pretty expensive..” Tone blatantly flirtatious, yet you still hadn’t bothered to even turn around, that’s when suddenly you hear a deep arrogant chuckle rumbling low in his chest. Only...this sounds a little brighter? And like it’s coming from your left instead of behind you…

“Mmm, I’m sure we can handle it baby….”

You could feel the air shift behind you, it felt warmer, and there was a strong mix of scents flooding through your nose. Leaning back in your seat, pleasantly finding your shoulders, the back of your neck, and your head, cradled against a lean wall of silk. Sighing contently, naturally letting your body melt into his frame, nose running into your face as you smiled so hard your cheeks hurt. That’s when a gangle of veiny, porcelain limbs wrapped around your shoulders pulling you even tighter against him, only to find brown, sharp, cat-like eyes staring down at you, though a pair of translucent designer shades. Seemingly a little bit amused at how excited you are to see him. Long dark wavy locks falling messily into his face, a tiny silver hoop dawning his button nose. Tongue playing at the corner of his mouth, letting the tiny silver ball slip between his lips. This angle lets you really appreciate how sharp, yet soft his features were, an oxymoron that honestly makes no damn sense unless you see him in person….jawline sharp enough to cut glass yet he has the cutest cheeks ever when he smiles. It honestly makes no sense whatsoever and he’s one of the many reasons you have trust issues. Well, that and your line of work, considering the number of men you find out are married and still try and sneak around with you.

Then, as if to just make his presence known, there’s another pair of hands making their home along your body, gently squeezing your thigh. Except, he’s polar opposite to the person I just described, the man behind you is your roommate Yoongi, the man who just took a seat to your left, is your other roommate Namjoon! First off, he’s tall as all hell, and an offensively perfect shade of brown, he can’t even go into the burbs without being asked what self-tanner he uses. In which he smugly replies “Genetics” letting them sit there and try and google said company that makes that brand of self-tan. Streams of meticulously placed colored neo-traditional tattoos paint his skin, accompanied by deep dimples, and bleach blonde hair styled into an undercut, sides buzzed into the perfect fade.

“So you gonna get up and give me a real hug or what???” Placing a kiss in your hair as he pulled back, giving you room to hop out of your seat and right into his arms.

The Full thing is coming soon, this is from summer 2019, I just have to edit, and reread the full thing again! I also wrote the first 3 parts all at once..sooo if your exicted show this some love anddddddddd come let me know!

Love you as always,

Rocki

#Yoongi #yoongi smut #yoongi au #yoongi x reader #namjoon #namjoon au #taehyung #taehyung au #bts au fic #bts au #bts smut #kpop smut kpop au #kpop au #min yoongi

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shochmonster · 4 years

Text

84 Questions

original: https://fuckyeahsurveys.tumblr.com/post/61049002526/84-questions

Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first 10 songs Guns of Brixton - The Clash Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys Chainsaw - Nick Jonas California - Joni Mitchell Make It Wit Chu - Queens of the Stone Age This Woman’s Work - Kate Bush The Bad Thing - Arctic Monkeys Between the Bars - Eliot Smith Drown - The Smashing Pumpkins Different People - No Doubt

If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you? I’d take @duoloopo to the UK. I’d like to see places other than London.

What is your preferred writing implement? (eg. Blue pen, pencil, green pen) I use my iPad stylus the most, but I have this heavy mechanical pencil I really like for drawing.

Favourite month and why? October. I just love the fall vibe.

Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them. I went to undergraduate school with Rebecca Sugar. We used to ride the bus between NYC and DC together on holidays.

Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are. Can of seltzer, pencil case, stack of bills

What brand logo is closest to you currently? REAL Skateboards

Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favourites? I love Small World and Munchkin.

A musical artist you love that isn’t well known Laura Stevenson and the Cans

A musical artist you love that is well known Red Hot Chili Peppers

What is your desktop background currently? Thomas Barrow on the beach in the Season 4 Christmas Special

Last person you talked to, and through what you talked to them @duomaxwell02 with my face :O

First colour name you can think of that isn’t in the rainbow White

What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in? Two wall clocks, though one is very old and doesn’t wind anymore. I also have a clock @duoloopo ‘s dad made for me. It’s on the piano.

What kind of headphones do you use? JBL Bluetooth, noise canceling

What musical artists have you seen perform live? Foo Fighters (3x), Incubus (3x), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Audioslave, Justin Timberlake, Troy Sivan, Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Queen (but with Roger Daughtry, not Freddy... for obvious reasons.). Probably a whole bunch of others I’m blanking on.

Does virginity matter to you? Not really.

What gaming consoles do you or your family own? PS4, PS2, PS1, XBox 360, N64, Gamecube, Wii, NES, SNES, various Gameboys, Nintendo DS, PSP

What pets do you have? What are their names? Two cats, Hemingway and Renji

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? I like freelance art gigs the best. As for ‘normal people jobs’, I once was a sign painter for Whole Foods. That was pretty fun, minus the work drama.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Food service.

What magazines do you read, if any? I’ll pick up Time once in a while

Inspiration behind your URL? My classic original URL was LinkWorshiper and had been since AIM first existed. I picked it because Zelda was the first fandom I ever joined. Now I’ve changed all my handles (except on AO3) to reflect my actual name, as my literary agent thinks it’s more professional.

Inspiration behind your blog title? Mean Girls. I always chuckle imagining Thomas and Jimmy as some Edwardian version of the Plastics.

Favourite item of clothing? My Downton livery waistcoat. And the stiff bosomed shirt and collars I have to go with it.

Are you friends with any exes? Nah. By the time I felt comfortable enough to possibly try, I also didn’t care enough to.

Name at least one book you loved as a child. His Dark Materials (the trilogy by Philip Pullman). I still love them and am jazzed that he’s writing more these days.

What’s your native language? If that language has distinct regional variations, which variation? (eg. AU English, US English) US English, mostly a northeastern dialect/accent

What email service do you use? Gmail

Is there anything hanging on the walls of the room you are currently in? So much stuff. I have a mood board full of Downtons stuff over my desk, various DA posters and memorabilia, plus some artwork I’ve done, and some of my JC Leyendecker collection. The aforementioned wall clocks, a San Francisco cable car bell, Sailor Moon and a few other little knickknacks, like my hamsa. To name a few lol.

What’s your favourite number, and why? 212 because it’s Manhattan’s area code and also because it used to be the notation for one of my favorite ships in an old fandom.

Earliest moment in your life you can remember? Sitting under the table and looking at my grandma, who was wearing a Cruella Deville dress she’d knit herself. Like, it had the actual Disney character on it. Pretty cool to a little guy, I guess!

What did you have for dinner yesterday? Quesadilla

How often do you brush your teeth? Whenever they feel gross

What’s your favourite candy/chocolate? Lately, I’ve been into Junior Mints.

Have you had other blogs on Tumblr? Do you have any other blogs currently? This blog used to have my old handle, linkworshiper. I did a small Whole Foods blog when I worked with them, but it never went anywhere.

If you were suddenly really hungry, what would you choose to eat? Sushi

What fandoms would you consider yourself a part of? Downton Abbey, though lately I’ve been crazy busy and not as active as I once was. Casually still poking at old fandoms like Zelda and Gundam Wing to name a few.

If you could study anything, what would it be? More art education can’t hurt. Maybe some formal history education.

Do you use anything on your lips? (eg. Chapstick, gloss, balm, lipstick) Chapstick

How would you describe your sense of humour? Seinfeld

What things annoy you more than anything else? Mouth noises

What kind of position are you in at the moment? Sitting

Do you wear much jewellery? Nope

Who is the leader of your country, currently? Any other levels of government with leaders? (State, region, province, county, district, municipality, etc) Three supposedly equal branches of government, currently being run into the ground by a clown

Last 3 blogs on your dashboard, not including any of your own @halcyondaze @mab1905 @lavender-hued-melancholy

What do you carry your money in? I try to never carry cash, but I carry a small wallet

Do you enjoy driving? Why or why not? I like it but sometimes it feels like a chore, especially during a commute. @duoloopo thinks I’m a shit driver so she tries to drive whenever she can, which has pluses and minuses.

Longest drive you have ever been on? Savannah GA to San Francisco, CA in a UHaul

Furthest away from home you have ever been? Germany

How many times have you moved house? God, I don’t even know. More than ten.

What is on the floor of the room you’re currently in, not including furniture? Cat toys, unused canvases

How many devices do you own which can access the internet? Phone, computer, iPad, various game consoles

Is there is anything that is guaranteed to always make you happy? Thomas and Jimmy <3 <3

Is there anything that always makes you sad? Thinking too hard about being a failure

What programs do you currently have open? I just rebooted, so only Chrome, Spotify and Photoshop

What do you associate the colour red with? This line in the Kate Bush Song Blue Symphony, which goes, ‘I associate love with red, the color of my heart when she’s dead.’

Last strong smell you can remember smelling? The Greek food I ordered in for dinner

Last healthy thing you ate? Roasted veggies

Do you drink tea or coffee, and how much per day? I prefer tea, and I drink coffee for energy, though sometimes I think it just makes me crash harder.

What do you associate the colour blue with? The sky

How long is the closest ruler you can find? 12 inches

What colour pants/skirt/etc are you currently wearing? Dark blue

When was the last time you drank water? About a minute ago

How often do you clear your browser history? Rarely

Do you believe nude photos can be artistic, rather than erotic? Yes

Ever written fanfiction for anything? Oh God, yes. You can still find it under Link Worshiper on AO3, though some of my ‘classics’ have been removed since I turned them into original manuscripts

Last formal event you attended My cousin’s wedding

If you had to move your birthday to another date, which one would you choose and why? Maybe inch my birth year up just by two so that I’d stop being called a damn millennial. At my age, I really just don’t relate to the generation even though technicalities make me a part of it.

Would you prefer to be at a beach or in the countryside? Beach

Roughly how many people live in your town? 52,000

Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? Leonard Nimoy :D

Favourite place to shop? Can be a certain store or a place where there are multiple stores I haven’t really gone shopping since the pandemic. Right now, it feels like the only place to buy anything is Amazon XD

Do you have a smartphone? What kind? If you don’t, do you want one? Samsung. It’s not a Galaxy but is a new model and a fraction of the price.

What is your least favourite colour, and why? I don’t think I dislike any colors honestly.

How do you spell grey/gray? Grey. I’ve got too many British online associates to ever go back.

Go to your dashboard and describe the image shown in the radar section (below the “Find blogs” link) It’s Umbrella Academy fanart of Klaus. He’s in black and white with this hands over his eyes and the background is red. It’s very graphic.

What difference is there between how many followers you have, and the number of blogs you follow? 736

How many posts do you have? 8,859

How many posts have you liked? I can’t find the stat D:

Do you post mainly reblogs, or your own content? Mainly reblogs but I pepper in my own content when I can. Lately, I haven’t had time to do as much fanart though, and I kind of feel like it’s not worth bothering to post my original stuff. Nobody follows my blog for that.

Do you track any tags? No.

What time is it currently? 7:33 PM CMT

Is there anything you should be doing right now? Waking up @duoloopo. TIME TO JUMP ON THE BED.

tagging, if they feel like it: @abbys-little-whippersnapper @bumblebarrow @irrationalgame @downtoncat @mab1905 @duoloopo

and everyone who I’ve forgotten

#personal #about me #questions

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jungcupid-archive · 5 years

Text

i dare you (to never let me go)

pairing: jungkook x jimin

summary: and after all that had passed, jungkook would always be pulled back to jimin. he didn’t know why, maybe it was fate (or maybe it was his 9-year-old daughter).

chapter: 5/?

a/n: a little late, sorry! also i wont be including taekook as a pairing anymore bc they’re no longer as important

“Finally!” Mina spun around in Jungkook’s desk chair, sliding over to the table quickly. Hyejung lifted her up and sat down in her place, putting Mina on her lap instead. They opened up the computer Hyejung had brought this morning and Mina cracked her knuckles.

“Okay, let’s find Park Jimin.”

It took a little longer than expected, but Hyejung expected as much. Throughout Jungkook’s high school years she’d heard more than enough of Park Jimin for a lifetime, and likewise for the first year of University. After Jimin left out of the blue, though, she hadn’t heard Jungkook so much as say his name.

It had been heartbreaking seeing how utterly torn up Jungkook had been about the whole ordeal. He had spent days trying to reach Jimin’s cell, hoping to hear promises of a speedy return. He’d even tried searching for Jimin online to see if he could find out where he lived but, much like her own relationship with the boy, Jimin had never really talked about home with Jungkook, leaving him with practically nothing to hint at his life.

When Jimin had first come to Busan to attend the same high school as her son, she’d just about coddled him to the point of no return. She’d never let him go hungry, encouraged him to stay over every night and gave him as much love as she possibly could. She couldn’t bring herself not to, seeing as he was all alone. His host family had done a good job of providing the basic necessities for him but Hyejung had always gone above and beyond. She’d brought warmth into Jimin’s life, and the kind of love that can only be felt from family. Jungkook often complained lightheartedly about Hyejung loving Jimin more than she loved her own son, and she understood where he was coming from.

A naturally serious and dry-humoured person such as herself made for a completely different parenting style than the one Jungkook saw her use with Jimin. But there was something about him that made her want to be more openly loving, something that told her he needed it far more than other boys his age.

Because of this, Jimin often came to Hyejung if he felt upset or homesick or if he just wanted to chat with someone who wasn’t Jungkook, for a change. He’d often tell her about how beautiful it was back home and the difference in the air and special places he’d visit to feel more at peace. If asked too many questions, he’d divert the topic. Hyejung never asked why, and she never pried any further when he very clearly didn’t want to talk about certain topics anymore. It wasn’t her place, and she knew that.

When Jimin had left so suddenly, Hyejung had felt like a little piece of her walked away with him. Although he and Jungkook had only known each other some odd 5 years, she’d loved him like a son and had cherished him as a conversationalist. She’d also noticed Jimin’s affection for Jungkook. They hadn’t gotten the chance to meet up after the boys left for University in Seoul and as soon as she’d heard he had left, she’d tried reaching him. He’d picked up his phone and had said “thank you” in a small, heartbroken voice before hanging up. She hadn’t gotten the chance to say anything, and he’d turned off his phone when she tried calling again.

The next time she called, he’d changed his number.

If there was one thing Hyejung had learned while knowing Jimin, it was to never pry. So she spared moments in her day to think of where he was occasionally, but for the most part, she went on with life. She met Taehyung and watched Jungkook fall in love. Although it always felt too familiar, like she was watching the same movie with different actors. Different, but the same story, nonetheless.

Finding Jimin after all these years seemed like a violation, if she were to be completely honest. But in her heart, she knew it would be good for Jungkook. Privately, Hyejung knew it would be good for herself too. It had silently affected her all these years, not knowing where he was, what he was doing, if he was happy. Now she had the chance to bring him back into their lives, and she was planning on following through.

Jung Hoseok was a name that was often mentioned in their conversations. Jimin had sung high praises of the boy who taught him to dance and Hyejung had learned to file the words Hope World into her mental catalogue of all things Park Jimin. A little dance studio where I learned to be free, he’d said to her.

That’s why, currently, she was scanning the screen for any mention of “hope world jung hoseok dance”.

“No, grandma, try typing dance studio. You said that’s what it was, right?” Mina peered at the screen even more intensely than Hyejung despite not really knowing what she was looking for. Hyejung sighed and backspaced her search, trying Mina’s variation.

In truth, it was frustrating. Hyejung had tried a variety of different searches already and had gone though god knows how many pages of search results. She adjusted her glasses as the results loaded.

“Let’s see…” Hyejung scrolled down and clicked a link that seemed similar to what she was searching for. Her last shred of hope sputtered weakly inside of her. Twitter finished loading and Hyejung saw a post. Mina read it out loud, “A but happy day for us all! Congratulations Jung Hoseok! We’ll miss you!”

The picture was of a small cabin-like house with mountains visible in the distance. Green shrubbery surrounded the structure and a group of people were posing happily on the steps. There was a boy with a bright smile sitting at the very front, everyone seemed to be grinning at him or clapping him on the back but he was staring straight at the lens. If Hyejung was to really squint, it even seemed like he might be looking past the lens. In his hands was a small piece of paper that had the words BIGHIT ENT. Written in bold letters with smaller writing underneath.

Hyejung was ready to move on, disappointment already festering in her stomach until she noticed two details. The first being that the boy sitting at the front was wearing a shirt that was half-hidden by his sweater but had font that peeked through. She could roughly make out an “OPE” and below it, a “RLD”. Hope World. With the confirmation that this was, in fact, the Jung Hoseok, the second detail nearly had her let out a squeak of excitement. In the window of the cabin, Hyejung could see the reflection of the person holding the phone.

Hyejung didn’t need to squint to know who it was. He had an all too familiar smile on his face.

They had just found Park Jimin.

Jungkook was walking slow. Like, sloth that just got woken up slow. His heart really, really wasn’t into this date but he didn’t want to be rude so he was going anyways. Technically, he should’ve been at the coffee shop by now, it was only a 20-minute walk, and Jungkook hated being late. Instead, he stopped every so often just to admire some flowers or check his phone or sit down because he was “winded”. It was almost 10, and Jungkook could see the coffee shop come into view but he didn’t want to go in until he absolutely had to.

The streets weren’t exactly busy, but there were smatterings of people walking around. Some looked like they had important places to be, some just seemed to be enjoying the beautiful weather, and some, like Jungkook, looked like they’d been forced outside. Of course, the last category was mostly full of children but, semantics.

Jungkook fished his phone out of his pocket and walked close to the side of the street so he wouldn’t block anyone by moving so slowly. He was just about to open his email when he felt an arm smack into his stomach, knocking all the wind out of him. Jungkook doubled over, about to curse out the person who’d decided to sock him on a (admittedly, not so fine) Sunday morning when he heard a rather loud voice rambling somewhere to his right.

A man was standing there, about his own height with bright red hair and matching earphones. One of the buds was hanging around his chest, the other still in his ear.

“..and I really didn’t mean to! I’m so, so sorry I just get kind of dance-y when I – you know what? Never mind. Listening to music on the streets was never a good idea to begin with and hitting random people - not to say that you’re just a random person! Well, you are, but that’s besides the point. I’m just really, really sorry. Are you okay?” Jungkook felt out of breath just listening to this person talk.

He nodded and straightened up, rubbing his stomach with a grimace on his face before he replied, “Don’t worry about it. We’re cool, really.”

“You sure? I don’t work too far away from here. Well, it’s a 15-minute walk, but that isn’t bad! I could run back and get you some ice, if you liked?” The redhead suggested. His eyes said he was concerned, but his face was too bright for Jungkook to really take him seriously. He seemed like the kind of guy you could never stay mad at for too long.

Jungkook gave the man a small smile and shook his head, “Really, I’m fine. You don’t have to go through that kind of trouble. What were you listening to anyways, to get you all riled up like that?”

The man laughed brightly and took out his other earbud, shoving the wires into his pocket. “The sound of music. I was re-enacting Julie Andrews’ iconic hill scene.”

“Well, except for the smacking someone in the stomach part, I’m sure you had it down to a tee.” Jungkook’s eyes flicked above the other man’s shoulder to make sure Jisung’s mother hadn’t gotten to the shop yet. Once he saw that he still had time, he extended his hand out towards the other man.

“Um, I’m Jeon Jungkook. I feel obligated to introduce myself after we just had a mini-conversation here,” Jungkook shook the other man’s hand, whose eyes seemed to spark in some sort of recognition for a brief moment before he blinked and the spark was gone. He introduced himself to Jungkook with a smile on his face.

Jungkook gave him a friendly smile back and tried not to shiver as an unusually cool wind blew past him. “Nice to meet you, Jung Hoseok.”

No location stamps. No mentions of bases. No tweets about hometowns. Sometimes, Hyejung really hated the internet.

The twitter page hadn’t helped with much other than finding Jimin’s face. Then, Mina told Hyejung to search for BigHit Ent. That’s how they’d ended up in their current situation.

“Call him! Come one!” Mina urged.

They had spent 10 minutes looking through BigHit’s website for any mention of a ‘Jung Hoseok’. Finally, after what seemed like forever, they’d found a profile page for an idol group and under the title of main choreographer, there was a picture of Hoseok. After navigating the site for his number, they’d found his work cell.

“I don’t even know if he’ll have it on him,” Hyejung muttered absentmindedly as her fingers danced above the numbers on her phone. It was more an excuse than anything. She was so close to finding Jimin, she didn’t know if she could handle failing so far in.

“You have to try! Come on, grandma. If he doesn’t pick up, we’ll just try later.” Mina grabbed the phone and punched in the number before Hyejung could even ask for her phone back.

Mina suddenly brightened and Hyejung held her breath as her granddaughter chirped a cheery, “Hello, Mr. Jung!”

Not but a second after Jeon Jungkook had exchanged pleasantries with Hoseok, a phone began to ring. Hoseok, not realizing it was his phone, just stared at Jungkook dumbly before he came to his senses and frantically shoved his hand into his pocket to reach for the device.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” Hoseok apologized with a sheepish look on his face. He didn’t want to ditch this fellow right after he practically punched him in the gut, but duty called. On a pretty shitty phone, but it called, nonetheless.

It’s cool,” Jungkook said easily, his eyes focusing onto a point beyond Hoseok’s shoulder. “I’ve got to run anyways.”

He flashed Hoseok a quick smile and gave him a little wave before walking away. Hoseok sat down on a bench and watched Jungkook approach a coffee shop as he flipped open his phone (yeah, that shitty) and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello Mr. Jung!” A bright voice greeted him back. Hoseok nearly let out a laugh, the person on the other end sounded like a child. He didn’t want to be rude, people sounded different sometimes, but it was funny imagining someone with a voice like that calling him for something work-related.

Hoseok thought back to a phone-call he’d had with a supervisor once who he’d continuously referred to as ‘Ma’am’ until, towards the end of the call, he’d heard someone in the distance refer to them as ‘Sir’. He winced, he didn’t want a repeat of that episode.

“Hello,” Hoseok felt obligated to repeat, “Anything new for me?”

He was 90% sure this wasn’t a staff member but just in case, Hoseok prompted the caller in generic work-related-business fashion.

“Well, no. Did you want a fun fact? Chemistry is a branch – no, apparently that’s misleading – a part of Science you learn in high school. What? He’s the one who asked for something new-,“ there was some sort of disturbance on the phone and suddenly, someone else was speaking to him.

“I apologize for that. That was my granddaughter,” this voice sounded a lot more mature. Hoseok stifled a fond laugh from spilling out of his mouth. A fun fact from the granddaughter of a lady who had probably dialled the wrong number, that was definitely new.

“That’s more than okay, although I believe you’ve reached the wrong number-”

“No! We haven’t. Please, don’t hang up. Do you have some time? I’ve got something to discuss with you. My name is Jeon Hyejung, and I used to know Park Jimin.” Hoseok’s smile fell off his face. He wondered if he’d heard her wrong. Once he’d decided that he definitely hadn’t, he spoke.

“I have time. Please, tell me everything.”

An hour or so later, Hoseok was back in BigHit, sitting in the practice room with his phone held up to his ear. He stared at his reflection in the mirror with his back pressed firmly against the wall. He’d never felt so out of his element in a place he frequented more than his own home.

“Ma’am, I just don’t know if I can. Jimin wasn’t fine when he came back home. To be frank, he never really learned how to be fine. Things just got worse when his mother passed away. Eventually, after a year or so, he got better. Not quite the same, but better. I don’t want to ruin this for him.”

“Hoseok, Park Jimin was many things to me but first and foremost, he was family. I would never attempt to approach him and pry my way back into his life if I thought it would hurt him.”

Hoseok threw his head back against the padded wall and searched the ceiling for a reasonable answer. When he couldn’t find one, he pursed his lips in defeat and mentally apologized to Jimin.

“Okay, I’ll tell you where to find him. If there’s a chance that Jimin will be happy again, like you said, I think you should go for it. He deserves that. Just promise me you’ll make sure he won’t have any reason to break again. I’ve handled that once already, and I don’t know if either of us can survive it again.”

“Of course. Thank you so much, I really appreciate this.”

Hoseok thought back to his meeting with Jeon Jungkook this morning and wondered if it was possible that was the Jungkook. Of course he’d been a little taken aback when he’d heard the name, but with only Jimin’s endless gushing over the phone about Jungkook to go off of, Hoseok couldn’t be too sure. Jimin never had the time to show him a picture, not that he would’ve anyways. If he’d done that, it would’ve seemed too much like Jimin had a crush on Jungkook, and of course Jimin couldn’t have admitted that.

Seoul was a big place, and there were a lot of Jeon Jungkooks in the world. But something was nagging at Hoseok, telling him that he’d definitely met Jimin’s Jungkook.

“Summer camp. Jimin runs a summer camp for kids who like to dance. It’s in Daegu, a little remote area surrounded by nature. Only a couple kilometres from his house. I’ll be there, too. I’ll find the exact address and send it to you along with some other details.”

“You have a big heart, Hoseok. Thank you.”

“When it comes to Jimin, I think everyone’s heart learns to grow a few sizes bigger. I’ll be in touch. Goodbye. Bye little Jimin!”

“Bye now,” then, faintly, “bye-bye!”

Hoseok cut the call and rubbed his eyes. He’d stayed up all night to finish a new choreo and hadn’t even slept before deciding to go for a walk and get some fresh air. He thought about what he’s just done and after feeling guilty for a minute or so, Hoseok dialed Jimin’s number to ask about the camp. He held the phone up to his ear, waiting. With every passing ring, Hoseok felt a little more uncertain about giving out Jimin’s whereabouts to the people he’d been avoiding for the last 10 years.

He’d just invited Jeon Jungkook right back into Jimin’s life, and he was hoping it wouldn’t be a mistake.

Jisung’s mother, Yina, was far more energetic than Jungkook remembered her to be. Usually, their conversations would consist of polite greetings and quick stories about their kids before they parted ways. These exchanges usually happened at the doorstep of either his or Yina’s house since both parents trusted the other enough to watch over their children during playdates or such. Jungkook hated playdates. Not only was it a stupid word, but it was yet another day where Mina would leave him on his own.

It was embarrassing to admit but, Jungkook didn’t have much of a social life. His company consisted of Mina and his mother, no one else. He liked it that way.

That’s why now, confronted with Yina – bright, energetic Yina – Jungkook felt a little out of place. He felt awkward trying to banter with her and didn’t know how to keep the conversation going. It was too unnatural, too non-flirtatious to be called a date.

Jungkook anxiously picked at the napkins in front of him, waiting with a polite smile until Yina finished her story about saying something wildly inappropriate in front of her boss when she was young to tell her what he needed to. When she’d come to a stop, gently laughing at herself, Jungkook cleared his throat.

“Yina, you’re a really great person, but I don’t think I can do this.” Jungkook wanted to sink underneath the table and hide there for the next 24 hours when he saw Yina’s expression dim.

“I’m really sorry. You’re wonderful and I thought it was sweet of the kids to do this for us but I – I’m not ready for this. A new relationship. It’s just not what I need or want right now.”

The coffee shop was buzzing with a comfortable warmth, but Jungkook felt his skin prickle with heat. He felt the blood rush up his neck, embarrassment, discomfort and guilt all manifesting to colour his skin red. His throat was dry and he reached for his iced coffee, taking a long sip to delay the possibility of further conversation. God, he felt like he was 15 all over again.

“Of course, I understand,” Yina smiled in a surprisingly understanding manner. Jungkook wanted to him himself over the head for being such an idiot. He tried to voice how he knew it was strange, still not being ready after so many years, but his brain didn’t want him to. He didn’t want to further exploit that excuse because in his heart, he knew it wasn’t as true as he tried to make it out to be.

Taehyung was gone, he understood this very well. Jungkook had spent a lot of time getting over Taehyung’s death, but he’d gone through it. He wasn’t as heavily attached to the memory of Taehyung as before, not so much that it was holding him back from dating.

The simple truth was this, Jeon Jungkook didn’t want to fall in love again.

“I appreciated you coming anyways,” Yina told him kindly. “I’m still your friend, Jungkook. If you need to talk about it, I know how it is.”

Jungkook nodded as Yina briefly put her hand over his and then got up, exiting the shop. Jungkook sighed, a mixture of disappointment and relief. He watched Yina turn right and disappear behind a convenience store. Jungkook finished the rest of his drink and mopped the ring of water left under the cup with his napkin, throwing everything out in a trash can as he walked out of the shop and into the sun. Jungkook took a deep breath and turned left to head home.

Since Jungkook hadn’t checked his emails earlier, he decided to look through them on his way home. Just as he crossed the park, he noticed he had an email from work. Upon opening it, Jungkook groaned.

“Shit,” he breathed, eyes refocusing on the words to read them again impatiently.

A trip abroad on such short notice was going to be hell, not to mention he’d been absent enough from home this past month. He’d had to rely too heavily on his mother and Jungkook hated feeling incapable of taking care of his own daughter. The trip was 1 night, 2 days – a pitch the firm had been working on for a long time. He’d played an important role in the design but Jungkook hadn’t expected to be present during the actual meeting. He wasn’t even head architect!

Jungkook wanted to spend time with Mina. School would officially finish tomorrow for her and he just wanted to pick her up and celebrate, was that too much to ask? For the most part, Jungkook’s job didn’t get too demanding. It was just this last month that they’d really had to hustle and refine the pitch until it was polished. He’d been coming home much, much later than usual because of all the work he was responsible for.

Jungkook ran his fingers through his hair and then rested his palm on his forehead, coming to a stop. He closed his eyes and tried bringing himself back into the present. Okay, first things first. He would request to be taken off the presentation team and hope that his hard work would finally earn him some time off. He’d been hearing rumours around the firm anyways that everyone who had worked on the project would be getting both summer months off instead of just the one.

As he turned into his street, Jungkook dialled his boss’ number (saved respectfully as Mr. Monkey, all credits to Mina) and waited for him to pick up. He rehearsed what he would say in his mind so that he wouldn’t mess up.

“Im Sungmin.”

“Sir, hello! It’s Jeon Jungkook speaking.”

“Ah, yes! Our prized architect! Packing for the trip, I hope?”

“Well, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about,” Jungkook ventured cautiously. “Is it possible for me to be taken off the presentation team?”

“Why would you want that, my boy? You’ve worked hard for this, you should be at the front lines, don’t you think?” Jungkook tried not to groan into the speaker.

“Unfortunately, I have some prior commitments. I really don’t mind being pulled off the team. In fact, I’d prefer it that way.” Jungkook hung onto his last shred of professionalism despite his brain telling him to win sympathy points by talking about his daughter.

His boss cleared his throat and the other line and spoke, “Very well, if that’s what you’d like. If you miss out on the presentation, there will be some drawbacks. I’m sure you’ve heard about the extended month of vacation the firm was going to offer to everyone on this project. Despite not being officially released, word travels fast. Unfortunately, the offer only extends to those on the presentation team. If you’re okay with missing that, my boy, then by all means I will take you off the team.”

Jungkook came to a halt. He had never so badly wanted to revert back to his 5-year-old self just so that it would be socially acceptable for him to scream “BUT THAT’S UNFAIR!” into the phone. So many people he knew had slaved over this project for the last month, and now only a small group of 5 would reap the benefits? There had been at least 20 active employees on this project, and for a firm of about 50, that was saying a lot. He drew in a breath and knew that not going on the trip would be a bad move. Jungkook needed that extra month too badly to refuse.

“No, sir,” Jungkook practically sighed into the phone, “I’ll work around my commitments and come. Thank you for your time.”

“Perfect! I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” And just like that, the call was cut. Jungkook stared at his phone screen in defeat and held back from throwing it to the ground. He didn’t know why but he felt like crying. Jungkook squared his shoulders and faced straight ahead, trying to get himself together. When he thought he was ready to face his family, he resumed walking.

Mina and Hyejung were sitting on the front steps when Jungkook reached home. He walked up the driveway, throwing them curious looks. Mina jumped up and slipped her hand into Jungkook’s, pulling him into the house before he could inquire about their time together.

“Daddy, you know that I love you, right?” Mina crooned, glancing quickly at Hyejung before returning her attention to Jungkook. Jungkook looked back to his mother and was greeted with indifference. He wrinkled his nose.

“There’s that familiar smell of emotional blackmail again, or is it extortion?” Jungkook raised an eyebrow at Mina. He wasn’t sure what she wanted but he was 99% sure he wouldn’t like it. Call it Father’s Intuition, if you will.

“No comment,” his mother voiced as she walked past him and into the living room. Mina led Jungkook there as well and waited until everyone was seated before she began.

“You’re a great dad,” Mina sounded like she was a trained mediator. “And I know that you won’t let me down when I ask you to prove how great you are once again by letting me go on a… trip!”

Jungkook was completely lost. A trip? Did Mina want to travel somewhere? She’d never brought this up before. He could probably scrape together some money to take a trip but something told him this wouldn’t necessarily be a family thing.

“I want to go to a summer camp! In Daegu!”

Father’s Intuition. Both a blessing, and a curse.

“Where did you even hear about this?” Jungkook questioned, leaning forward on his knees to look straight at Mina. He wondered if he was really going to have to choose between being the bad guy and keeping Mina home for selfish reasons or being the absolute angel of a father and letting Mina be that far from him for 2 entire months.

“Just from my friends,” Mina’s face split into a wide smile, “It’s a dance camp! Isn’t that just perfect! And I’ve never been out of Seoul before! Can I please, please, please, please go?”

Jungkook didn’t know what to do. On one hand, he was going to have to be out of town for a while so it wouldn’t seem fair if he said no to her, regardless of whether or not he had good reasons to go. On the other hand, he really wanted to spend his vacation with his daughter, the way they’d always spent it.

Maybe he was too caught up on the idea of tradition but ever since Mina was little, they’d spent summer in Seoul. They’d go to amusement parks and the beach and it would always be on the same day every year. Jungkook even bought Mina a special Cheesy Cheesecake on the last day of every summer vacation so that she could eat it all by herself and celebrate a new school year. He didn’t want to part with that so soon.

Jungkook flicked his eyes to his mother, “You’ve been awfully silent. Thoughts?”

Hyejung stuck her hands in the air, “Hey, don’t look at me. This is between you two.”

Jungkook sighed and then looked at Mina, bracing himself for the argument that was about to come.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to go,” Jungkook said slowly, already regretting the words as soon as they had come out of his mouth. Hyejung shared a look he didn’t quite understand with Mina.

“Fine.” Mina’s voice was somber. She didn’t look up from her lap. “I won’t ask again.”

That was it? Jungkook didn’t want to jinx it or anything, but wasn’t there going to be a fight? Mina always made sure she understood why she wasn’t allowed to do certain things and if she thought Jungkook was being unreasonable, she would tell him. This time, she didn’t even try asking him why.

“Okay?” Jungkook couldn’t help but phrase it as a question. “It’s settled then.”

He got off the couch and right before he left the room, he remembered he still had to tell his family about the trip. That’s what he’d forgotten. Mina surely wouldn’t back down once he’d announced that.

“Oh, yeah, I… need to go away for work. It just happened and I can’t help it, it’s the only way I’ll be guaranteed a 2-month vacation. I’ll only be gone for 2 days. Mom, can you take care of Mina?”

Jungkook braced himself for an argument to erupt out of his daughter but she didn’t say anything, just snuggled up next to his mother as Hyejung nodded in affirmation.

If one looked up the definition of guilty in the dictionary right about now, they’d find Jungkook’s picture under it. He felt awful about refusing Mina, but he didn’t want to say yes. He couldn’t bring himself to say yes. He nodded and headed to his room to start packing.

Mina sat on her bed and surveyed the bag she’d already packed, after ensuring once more that there was nothing missing, she slid it under her bed and set her alarm clock to 12:00 AM. Hyejung entered the room with her phone to her ear, murmuring a “thank you” before cutting the call.

“Alright, sweetheart. It’s set. Hoseok told Jimin about one more camper and got you registered last minute. Did you pack already?” Hyejung bent at the waist to peer under the bed when Mina pointed there. She nodded affirmatively. “Looks good.”

“Grandma, he’s not going to get really mad, is he?” Mina asked hesitantly. Her lips jutted out. “I don’t want him to hate me.”

Hyejung shook her head ‘no’ and sat down beside Mina, combing her hair with her fingers. “Oh please, he could never hate you. You know, when you were young, maybe 6 or 7 months old, your daddy was watching soccer and he got so excited at one point that he started yelling excitedly. Now, you were this tiny thing that got startled very easily, so of course, you started crying. Your father immediately turned off the TV and held you for hours – and I mean hours. He was crying along with you and apologizing because he absolutely hated being the reason you were upset. I think I finally understood then that he was definitely ready to be a father.

“He could never in a million years hate you, Mina. That’s just not how love works,” Hyejung tickled Mina and after her giggling fit passed, decided to ask her one last thing.

“Now, we’re sneaking out and that’s settled but, how are you going to get Jungkook there?”

At this, Mina grinned wickedly, “Remember that time he was away and I got really sick?”

Hyejung smiled in realization and tweaked Mina’s nose, “You’re a schemer through and through.”

With that, they got ready for bed and Mina fell asleep watching the seconds pass on her clock.

The next morning, Jungkook woke up to no Mina. It wasn’t particularly surprising, he’d gotten up earlier than usual to catch the train and Mina wasn’t used to that. So he quickly got ready and scrawled a note about how he’d miss her and would be back soon so they could have tons of fun together. Somehow, in his haste to leave, Jungkook completely missed the other piece of paper scrawled with writing lying on the kitchen counter.

#jikook #kookmin #jikook fanfiction #kookmin fanfiction #jikook fanfics #kookmin fanfics #jikook fics #kookmin fics #jungkook x jimin #jimin x jungkook #jungkook fics #jimin fics #bts ships #bts fic recs #bts fanfics #bts fanfiction

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54fangirl · 6 years

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Can’t Wait (Pt. 2)

Requested: [Y]/N - “Can I get a FP Jones imagine ... and if you want add a part where they’re both raising their kid? Please” + 6 requests for Part 2.

Summary: She’s been pregnant, her boyfriend has been in prison, her family was on the outs, what was she supposed to do? Have her baby and make the family she wants to be in, that’s what.

Pairings: FP Jones x Andrews!Reader

Words: 2751

Warnings: Swearing, pregnancy (ADULT PREGNANCY. NONE OF YOU TEENAGE HOOLIGANS), I feel like children aren’t a warning but warning there’s a kid in this one (and I think she’s fucking cute)

A/N: This took so much longer than I thought it would, again. And of course, it wound up being a lot longer than I originally intended. And, super lowkey, if anyone wants, I’d be interested in writing a blurb or two with the kid being a teenager or something, but y’all gotta show interest (sorry, not sorry)

Disclaimer: I do not own Riverdale (CW) or any of its characters.

Part 1 => Part 2

“Well,” Y/N looked down and rubbed the small bump of her protruding stomach, “looks like daddy is coming home. I know he’s just gonna flip when he hears the news. But it’s okay, baby girl, he’s not going anywhere, soon we’ll all be together and I can’t wait.”

***

Jughead and Betty were working on the bar being set up for FP’s retirement party. Y/N doubted with her whole heart that he was giving this up. The serpents? They were his family, his legacy.

Y/N was sat in her trailer, not really wanting to get up and do anything. It was the first time she’d really been on her own. When there was no brother running around for her to keep her eye on and no dad to worry about, she found she really had a lot of free time.

Free time gave her a lot of time to think.

She was pregnant with FP’s kid, yes. But she hadn’t really thought past that. As of last night, he was going to be in jail, for a while to say the least. But now he was coming home.

Where was home exactly?

Originally it had been her dad’s house, with her brother and her dad and Vegas. Then it was FP’s trailer with him on the occasions she was able to sneak away for hours at a time so she could just lie around with him. Now it appeared to be her practically empty trailer with her unborn daughter.

How was she supposed to split a kid between three different homes?

Well, two now I guess… she thought back to how her dad hadn’t fought her once on moving out. How he hadn’t even been home when she was packing all of her stuff.

Regardless, she didn’t think about the living situation.

It’s why she’d gotten her own trailer, it wasn’t fair to just assume that once her dad kicked her out that she could just immediately move in where she felt at home.

Jughead still lived in his dad’s trailer, and as far as Y/N knew he was going to continue to do so, even with FP coming back.

I can’t just expect him to move in here either, that’s his trailer originally.

Having all these thoughts attack her reminded her why she never let herself have free time before.

She called Toni.

“What’s up girl?”

“I need help decorating my place…” Y/N whined.

Toni laughed, “Alright, I’ll be over soon and we can do some stuff.”

“My Savior.”

Y/N loved Toni like the little sister she never had. The pink haired girl was the first person Y/N told about her love affair with FP last year.

***

“C’mon, Y/N, you’re here all the time. You have to be coming here for someone.”

“How do you know I’m not here for you?” Y/N smirked and winked.

Toni laughed, “Well for one, I’m underage and I know that isn’t your type.”

The two laughed. There was an eight year age difference between you and your brother’s age group, but Y/N always felt like Toni was mature enough to handle being actual friends with a 24-year-old.

“But seriously- you come in for one beer, wait like ten minutes, then disappear into the back…” Toni trailed off, but you didn’t dare fill in those blanks for her.

It wasn’t illegal by any means, but both Y/N and FP had understood how wrong the relationship would look in the eyes of the public. A 48-year-old man and a girl half his age, not exactly front page news, but in a small town like Riverdale they might as well be mass murders.

“What’s your point, Topaz?”

“I’m just trying to say if you’re...I don’t know, hooking up with someone, maybe you shed a little light on the scenario for you’re good friend Toni Topaz.”

Just as she finished speaking, you saw FP descend the stairs, scanning the room, and wander into the back. But not before making eye contact with you first and nodding his head to follow him.

“Maybe someday, Topaz,” She rose from her bar stool and handed her empty beer glass to her friend with a smirk, “but not today..”

She followed FP to the backroom where they had originally found the shred of privacy that began their relationship.

Toni didn’t find out that night but she did find out a few weeks later when Y/N was panicking about it all.

She’d come directly as Toni’s shift started, knowing FP wouldn’t be there for at least a couple hours.

“Hey, Y/N, I never see you here this early.”

“Yeah, well, I’m in the mood to drink and possibly ‘shed a little light’?” She mocked her friend’s comment from before.

Toni threw the rag down on the bar, served the girl a beer and positioned herself to listen.

Y/N went into detail about how she had known this guy basically her entire life, he always took care of her, and never questioned why she got into the shit she got into.

“It’s like growing up with the person who does everything for you and when you grow up you just kind of...idolize them, unintentionally.” She explained. “Idolize is the wrong word- no, I guess it’s not. I saw him as this super-person who just knew everything I needed and took care of it without hesitation.”

“Sounds like a keeper. Why haven’t I met him?”

Y/N scratched the back of her neck and dodged the question.

“The problem is, now that we’re together...we’re not really together.”

“I….don't get it. Like friends with benefits?”

“Kinda, but with more feelings. It’s more like we’re in a whole relationship, we just weren’t meant to be together so we can’t actually have the whole shebang.”

“Shebang?”

“I stand by what I said.” Y/N took a sip of her beer.

“Okay, so you’re together- but it’s like a forbidden romance sort of thing so while you’re together you can never truly be fully together.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, Y/N/N. Can I ask who it is?” She hesitated, now getting the full sense of the relationship’s vibe.

Y/N pounded down the rest of her beer and passed the glass back to Toni.

“It’s FP,” She muttered.

Toni dropped that glass, shattered it.

***

Y/N was web browsing baby furniture while waiting for Toni.

Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad like she thought. Maybe there’d be some good times.

No. There will be some good times, she asserted.

She’s having a baby, regardless of her relationship with FP, she’s still having his baby. And having a baby brings so many good things, that she’s only mildly panicking about the bad ones.

Before she can go into a full on panic that her baby has the mild chance of being born with some incurable disease, there’s a knock on her door.

“Alright, so I know it’s kind of old fashioned but what if we just went to a baby store in Greendale or something and looked around,” Toni suggested as she walked through the door.

Y/N let out a watery laugh, screw pregnancy hormones.

Toni noticed and saw the tears forming in her friend’s eyes, “Or not, we can online shop from the comfort of your trailer too.”

Y/N laughed again before sniffling, “No, we should go to some baby store, I like that idea.”

“Then why are you crying?” Toni tried to joke.

“Because I was sending myself into a panic and then you showed up and saved me and I’m just remembering how often you do that for me. I appreciate you so much,” Tears were freely flowing down her face now and Toni walked over to hug her.

“Okay, I appreciate you too, hon. Now let’s get to baby shoppin’.”

***

The whole day was eaten up by Y/N and Toni just window shopping through the baby sections of so many different stores they lost count.

“We should probably head back soon, the party at the Wyrm…”

“Oh shit! FP!” Y/N made a mad dash for the car, Toni chasing after her.

“What? That’s where we’re going, right?”

“Yeah, but when we were talking on the phone he said he’d come to my trailer as soon as he got to the Southside, and it’s not like I could’ve texted him that I was going out baby shopping with you, so…” Y/N panted as they came to a stop, a little out of breath from running to the car.

“So he might be wondering where you are?”

“Yeah, and I think we both know how fun a worried FP is.”

Toni laughed, “Yeah, that’s fair, I’ll text Jughead just in case they already got them.”

They drove back to town, the radio humming along.

“Okay, Jughead said don’t worry... Alice Cooper took them to lunch?” Toni said, questioning it already.

“Alice Cooper. Like Southside enemy number one Alice Cooper? FP’s old flame, that Alice Cooper?”

“Old flame?” Toni tried to stifle a giggle.

“Yes, I’m old people, I use old-timey lingo.”

“You’re 25,” her friend reasoned.

“Okay, but that’s still older than you.”

“Sure, but to answer your question: yes. That Alice Cooper.”

“K.” Y/N tried not to hold any hard feelings, but it was hard when she knew what the two used to be to each other.

***

Y/N drove the two straight to the Wyrm, Toni letting Jughead know they went there instead of the trailer.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Toni said.

“Me too, why would it be something? Just because they were in love in high school and still constantly flirt to this day even though they were both married and had kids, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Y/N didn’t like to acknowledge FP’s marriage considering it was technically still in place.

“Well, as long as you’re not hyper-focusing on it or anything…” Toni said sarcastically, earning herself a punch in the arm.

Walking into the bar it was mostly all decorated but to her surprise, Archie was there with Veronica setting up the remaining decorations.

“Archie?” He flipped around.

“Y/N!”

Dropping down off the ladder, he ran over to his sister and engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug.

“I was hoping you’d show up here.”

“Yeah? Is that how you got roped into decorating?” She laughed.

“Nah, while I don’t completely get you and FP, he’s still Jug’s dad and- y’know, he’s been around our entire lives. I figured I could at least help set up his retirement party.”

The two talked while Archie hung streamers, Veronica popping over.

“I know it’s kind of rude, but can I ask how far along you are?” She wondered hesitantly.

“Uh, yeah, I’m just about 4 months along.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting! Are you having a shower?”

Y/N knew Veronica helped Betty set up Polly’s baby shower, but she didn’t want her brother’s girlfriend’s pity.

“Yeah, I might with some of the serpent girls…”

“Oh yay!”

They talked for a bit while the teens continued to decorate, but soon enough people were showing up for the party.

***

The moment she’d been waiting for.

Y/N was sitting at the bar, talking to Toni when the bar erupted in cheers. Tall Boy’s voice carrying the farthest.

“The man of the hour, ladies and gents, FP Jones!”

Everything seemed to slow down. She turned on her stool and found his face in the crowd.

She’d seen him regularly throughout his time, keeping him updated on the appointments, but he still seemed older and more worn down. She expected nothing less though, he went to prison. It wasn’t like he was going to come out the other side unscathed. But it was still hard to know the man she loved went through this suffering relatively alone.

He was smiling at the crowd surrounding him, talking to his friends when he spotted her. The grin he had on grew into a genuine smile that looked it might just break his face.

Tears sprung out of her eyes as she hopped off the bar stool and ran towards him.

Arms thrown around each other, they clung to each other. As if the other would disappear if they let go for even a second. She felt alone in that moment; as if everyone in the bar ceased to exist beyond her and FP.

Archie watched his sister erupt into tears and launch herself at the man she loved. He knew his dad would never see them like this, clinging to each other, the love they have pulling them together. He still can’t say he understands it, but seeing how happy his sister was and how right she felt in this life, he knew he didn’t have to understand it. Because it wasn’t for him, it was for them.

***

“FP’s been arrested,” Y/N told Jughead at the front door.

Laughter could be heard from within the trailer.

“No! Daddy, you can’t leave, you’re in jail!” A small voice whined from down the hall.

Jughead laughed as he followed her inside. FP wandered down the hall.

“Jug, my boy!”

Little footsteps thundered down the hall, “Juggy!”

“Hey, Barbie!” Jughead kneeled to embrace his 5-year-old half-sister, wrapping his arms around her and swinging her up into the air.

The little girl’s laughter filled the room, bringing smiles to the three adults faces.

It took a while for Jughead to come around to the idea of Y/N and his dad, simply because, like Fred, it was two people he’d known his entire life and it felt like a sort of betrayal. But, like Archie, Jughead saw how happy the two were together and how right they felt together, and he couldn’t be the one to break it up. Despite Archie’s best efforts, Fred still can’t accept the couple, but he doesn’t voice his thoughts in exchange for getting to watch his granddaughter grow up. It’s not exactly where Y/N thought she’d be at 30, but she’s pretty happy with what she’s got.

“As I was saying before, it appears FP can’t go with you on your trip because he’s been arrested.”

“Oh yeah?” Jughead looked to his right to face the girl on his hip who was now pointedly looking away from him.

“Now he can’t go and you can’t too because daddy’s not going so you can’t go either,” the young girl announced, positive she’d found a solution.

Jughead looked back to the couple with a mischevious look on his face, then said in all seriousness, “Well it looks like we’re gonna have to have a prison break then.”

“I’ll call Toni and the other Serpents,” Y/N played along, running off to pretend to find her phone.

“Alright, dad, you should probably hit the road, the cops are gonna be looking all over for you.”

“On it.” FP dashed to the back of the trailer, following Y/N and leaving his kids alone.

Jughead set his sister down, “Alright, Dahlia, you get the most important job, you need to run into your room and pack a bunch of your clothes.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well obviously if dad and I are going on the run we have to bring you and your mom.”

“Really?!”

“Of course! We’re Jones’! We’ve got to stick together, otherwise, who would we have?”

Dahlia ran back to her room in the trailer and found her backpack already packed, a card that said surprise on it was sitting on her bed next to the luggage.

FP and Jughead had a tradition of driving up the coast each year. After they did it the day after FP was released from prison, they just kept doing it, using it as a time for them to reconnect.

Considering Dahlia wasn’t born yet for the first trip, and she was just a baby for the others, it didn’t really affect the plans. She was confused as to why dad was gone, but he was back before she knew it and she never remembered, so it wasn’t a problem. But this year when the father and son started making plans, the younger girl was having none of it. Since then the three adults have been secretly planning the trip, this year including plans for the mother and daughter to come along.

Running back out to the front room of the trailer, Dahlia found her family with their light luggage for the small trip.

“C’mon baby girl, you know I’m not going anywhere without you,” FP stuck his hand out for his daughter to grab on to, ready to lead her to the car. “Are you ready?”

She gripped his fingers in hers and beamed at her father, “I can’t wait.”

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