#i was SUPPOSED to be working today instead i spent the whole day fucking losing it about blockmen

[praublem-child]

Fuck my body. I want a different one. Idec what it looks like, but I hate this sack of meat that barely gets pushed into functioning on a good day.

(This was in my drafts from August? Idk why I didn’t post it but here ig)

I had a college event today that was mandatory for freshman, and I went despite my nonexistent ability to function. I felt like I was dying the whole time, and the scary fucking thing is that idk if I could have actually died or not. My next cardiology appointment isn't until Friday and idk what's safe to do and what's not. Keeping up with the group had my heartrate hitting 188bpm, and it didn't go below 115 a single time during the whole thing.

The "meet your success coordinator" section was right after it hit 188 and I was so nauseous and close to passing out that I don't even remember anything beyond being asked my name and giving it. The next thing I remember after that was me almost falling getting out of my seat and losing the teacher in the halls when I went looking. I was supposed to work out my plan with her for the coming semester today.

Everything after that is kinda a blur. I know I spent it with my best friend and that I lost my phone at some point, but I don't even know when I lost it. I didn't make it to the class picture because I had to stop before I puked and my vision was so blurry and spotty that I couldn't see the ground in front of me. I sent him ahead of me and I don't remember anything again until he was handing me my phone and sitting with me. Then I called my ride to pick me up instead of even attempting to walk back to the parking garage across campus. I laid down once I could move again and managed to get my hr down to 123 before my ride showed up, and the trip home was slightly more coherent.

I threw up once we parked at home, and idfk what came up. I can't remember if I even ate anything other than breakfast and the smarties I was basically forced to eat on the trip home. I know I didn't eat dinner because I remember being nauseous and when my friend went through line for me anyway my hands were shaking too much to hold the fork. I had a few sips of water at some point that made me gag, and I think he might've gotten a few bites of a cupcake into me? That was just after we sat down though and I wasn't thinking clearly enough to remember it.

I got almost shoved into the shower after I got sick, and I passed out on the couch with everything feeling like hell and a migraine that was keeping me from focusing on anything else. I was put for almost four hours, and while I'm feeling a lot better, there's a strong chance that's because my heartrate finally got back down below 100 while I slept and I just finished a sandwich and took some meds. My whole body is still shaking, I still have a mild headache, and everything is still sore, but I'm coherent and not about to collapse. I'm also still jumping between 95-110bpm, and I really hope that that gets back into the 80s range by tommorow, otherwise I'm in for a miserable rest of the week.

Also, fuck anyone who ignored me stumbling and shaking. My friend said I looked like I was dying the entire time and only one person even gave me a second glance, and apparently it was someone he asked about my phone that I almost collapsed in front of. He said he also had to pull me out of the way of others like three times because I couldn't think fast enough to move and they were walking directly toward me without giving enough space to not hit me, let alone my crutch that was keeping me upright.

I doubt he's ever going to see this because he doesn't have tumblr and doesn't even know this blog exists, but like, I'm so fucking sorry. Neither of us wanted to be there and you spent the whole thing babysitting me which probably made it even more miserable for you. Ily, and you're my best friend. Thank you for keeping me alive today.

[dzpenumbra]

4/1/23

It fucking snowed most of the day. Yep. But it's cool, it was a nice chill don't-give-a-fuck-sit-around-and-do-fuck-all kinda day.

At least it was supposed to be...

I caught up on sleep. At least, I think I did. Mostly. I did that yoga routine I've been liking again, that was nice. Ate cereal on the floor again. I'm trying to like... sit cross-legged more often to try to fix my hips. But then I went and spent the rest of the day working on my desire path project, and I'm looking back at it like... "well, I sat there for like 20 minutes eating cereal... then I sat in my work chair for like... 4 hours straight. At least. Does that even out?"

My hips started going to shit like... a few months after I quit smoking. Part getting older, but mostly because I'm not getting up and going outside to smoke every 2 hours. I'm just sitting still for hours at a time, tunnel-visioning and losing track of time, shifting around into different positions. I get what I like to call "one-more-turn syndrome", referencing the Civilization series, where I'm like... "I can just do a little bit more before I take a break..." And that turns into another hour. And then I look at a clock and it's 10PM and I'm squirming around because I haven't peed all day and I still haven't prepped dinner!

The flip side? I crossed the finish line. I got 100 runs done. And I recorded a few runs too, so if I choose to make a video out of this project, I have some first person footage of a few runs to use. By the end of the night (i.e. about an hour ago...) I got everything exported (all 101 layers as separate .png's) and tossed it in Blender. I think the grease pencil idea will be very doable and work pretty much how I'm expecting... I'm just a bit rusty with Blender... and... I'm going to have to trace all 100 paths one-by-one.

Instead of pulling an all-nighter and doing it tonight, which I will tell you I was very tempted to do... I am planning on doing that tomorrow.

Another cool accomplishment? I don't remember if I added it on here yesterday, but I made a supersaturated salt solution yesterday that I filtered and let settle and everything. I actually found a container sitting around that might actually work for growing seed crystals in. It was a plastic container that was made to store electrical tape. It's a bit scratched up and it was pretty dusty, but I cleaned it and... hopefully... it will do the trick. We'll have to see in a few days, I guess. The reference material I'm using for this is saying 1-2 days is a good amount of time for growing starter seed crystals... then you want to put the seed crystals in a smaller container... which I... don't have... XD But... I need to go to the pharmacy to get the meds I was prescribed anyway, so I was figuring I can check there for like... any kind of small flat-bottomed container to grow crystals in. I was hoping to go today, but I was just... not really feeling walking like 2+ miles in the snow today.

So yeah, honestly... I'm pretty sure that was my whole day.

Oh... there was... yeah...

This morning, I was updating my dating profile on Hinge on my phone and opened up my photo gallery. I haven't looked through my phone's pictures in... a long fucking time. A long time. And those pictures are archived like... back to like 2013 at least. And it was... bittersweet, honestly. There were a lot of pictures of my girls, my dog and my cat, Cerry and Maxine. They both passed within the last year, Cerry in early June, Max in early February. So, that was really nice to see them again, and relive my memories with them, and also really hard. Really hard. And I saw pictures from when I was like... way more confident. And when I had friends. Pictures with my goddaughter, when I used to babysit her. Pictures from lots of different stages of my life. When I had a pink mohawk, when I had long hair, when I was trying to be a tattooist and no one would help me finish my hours because they didn't want to train their competition, when I was all scrambled and fucked up on meds. Pictures from the retreat my counseling service sent me to because I had a weed freakout and apparently that means you send them to a 2-week program at a mental institution... And timid, wanna-please-everyone abuse-victim Me goes, "yeah, they probably know what's right for me..."

Floods of memories. 10 years in a slideshow. But what was cool... I saw very clearly an explosion of creative expression. A giant boom of art that burst out of me right after I broke up with my ex. It's like the people that have been around me just... suck up all my resources... and cut me off from my creativity. Rather than... I don't know... nurture it and amplify it. And a big example of this, that I came across?

I found a picture of one of my biggest pieces I had ever made. I still don't even know what the deal with this piece was, I was just... really drawn towards this concept and I made it. The concept was taking a big piece of particle board, probably 4'x5', and simulating a brick wall. I took that popcorn ceiling stuff and coated it for a base texture, then added textured spraypaint to it in layers of red, brown, white and black... to make what ended up being a pretty fucking believable simulation of a brick wall. Then I made a paint pen out of a shoe-polish applicator, filled it with black acrylic paint and painted a silhouette of Johnny Depp as Sweeny Todd. The movie had just come out, my bandmate was a theatre nerd so he had me watch it, and the image just... called me, I guess. I still don't really get the piece, or why I made it. It just called me, who am I to question?

So, as far as substance and meaning? Fuck if I know... As far as executing what my vision was? I fucking knocked that out of the park. It was one of my greatest successes. I mean that. It's not very often that you take on a multi-media project having never worked with several of the mediums before, and the end product comes out very true to your mind's-eye vision. That shit's pretty rare, in my experience.

And the picture I found in my phone, was that piece tucked away rotting in my parents' barn with all the rest of the scrap wood that was left over when they gutted and remodeled their sunroom.

And it reminded me of when I gave my "friend" a piece that she really wanted - a piece that she still has, as far as I know - around college graduation. It was a piece I made on an oddly shaped piece of scrap wood that had a perimeter of large circular holes drilled into it. I made it into a simulated sewer drain grate, painted all the metallic textures and rust and shit, and then painted one of my graffiti designs on top of that. So it had the effect of the graffiti design, broken up by a simulated grate with black voids between the slats, and then actual voids with the holes in the wood itself. (I did a lot of graffiti-themed work at the time.) That piece? I found it sitting on the floor in the storage pile corner of her house, behind the ladder that went up to the loft where I would sleep when I stayed over. It was sitting right next to the cat's litter box.

Would you consider those... people who nurture my creativity? Would you consider those... people who support a professional artist? A friend? A family member?

I don't. I call those people who want to appear supportive, take credit for being supportive, but not actually act supportive.

And it's taken me a very, very long time to even realize that I deserve better than this. That it's not normal, it's not healthy, and I deserve better. And I'm really, really proud to finally be able to see that clearly.

I think a problem I have in those moments is like... I know what they are doing is shitty, I know it's hurtful. I feel it viscerally. But I know I can't confront them, because they are volatile and will lash out or retaliate or make me the "aggressor" or make me "wrong" or something... And rather than seeing this as a gigantic blazing neon red flag... I convince myself that I must be misreading the situation, or that I'm setting unreasonable expectations, or treat it like it's normal for them to do this, or find some way, any way, to blame myself. I've noticed that creative people tend to be pretty skilled at creative self-sabotage... go figure, right?

But lately, I've been thinking... "why don't I see others in situations like this?" I'm sure there are plenty, truly, don't get me wrong. But like... I think the majority aren't. I don't know. Anyway, I was trying to transition to a thought, let's just fast-forward there because it's getting late. XD I think most people that are self-aware and don't have self-esteem issues, or a history of systemic abuse, or a history of being frequently manipulated and pressured and bullied and blamed/punished for shit that isn't their fault... People who don't have that history... just like... walk the fuck away and go "wow, what an asshole." They take the painting back and fucking leave. They don't even call them out on it, they don't even need to. They just go "me and my art deserve better than this," and they fucking walk.

I've gotten to a place in my life where I admire the fuck out of that.

I'd like to think that talking it out is a good way of navigating things like this. I mean that. I have tried for decades to do it. But I just have to say... when you're dealing with someone has no desire to look at the situation from both perspectives? That's honestly a waste of fucking time. At a statistical level. It's praying for a nat 20 on two consecutive rolls. It is fucking rare. It's just going to be them lashing out at you until they've dug such a deep hole that they finally storm off or give up... or them finding some way to make you the bad guy... or like literally anything but see your side. And you can't make people see your side, that's changing people. They have to want to.

So yeah, kind of a tangent there I guess... but the thoughts came up and I felt it worth bringing the perspective back on the table for my own reference and for whoever else may be interested. My loyalty, forgiveness, kindness and ability to see the good in literally everyone - this year I managed to see the good in a homeless shell of a highschool "best friend" who was smoking some kind of hard drug by a river while "in rehab", who was selling her Suboxone to her ex boyfriend for money, who lost custody of her 5 kids because of her drug problems, and who was facing felony charges for fentanyl trafficking. I saw the good in her. That ability is such a rare and incredible gift. It's a beautiful thing, and it should be cherished. But it often comes at a terribly difficult cost.

But here's the good news, if you can relate to this and you're anything like me. If you're humble and open-minded and honest, getting with a good therapist that actually understands what kind of person you are, that you click with? They can teach you some very useful shit. Skills, habits, perspective, shit like that. And... it starts with loving yourself.

It starts with loving yourself.

Because if you love yourself, you won't let others be that cruel to you; and you can find skills to ethically navigate that. Because you wouldn't let others be that cruel to your partner, or your pet, or your friends. And you set boundaries. And if people cross your boundaries or aggressively negotiate to pressure down your boundaries? That's a sign to leave.

And I'm still working on that, honestly. I really am. It's shockingly difficult, after a lifetime of... not being "allowed" to have boundaries.

So yeah, I guess I just needed to get that out.

Vibe check is in full-effect, time to reset and get some good stuff out there! XD I made potato skins with a mix of pepper jack and habanero pepper jack tonight and this habanero cheese... good lord... I am falling more and more in love with habaneros with every meal I make. I'm tempted to try to grow hot peppers indoors, if that's at all feasible without like... a crazy grow rig or some shit. I'm gonna look into it. I'd like to grow jalapenos, habaneros and ghost peppers.

Crap it got late again! XD Goodnight!

[blitzgamev]

Happy four hundred and sixty months in limbo ghostbur :D

[gumilac]

"I just ate dinner with her, you're getting all worked up for nothing."

This is getting old.

You and Tsukishima have been at it ever since he came home, and you're tired, you both are. You let yourself fall down on the chair in the kitchen area, your two hands rubbing at your face. Taking a deep breath you move your hand to cover your mouth, before letting it rest on the table. You spare a glance at Kei who was fuming and refuses to meet your eyes.

"On our anniversary date? Dinner on our supposed to be special fucking day? We were supposed to go out but you spent it with her instead."

He finally looks at you and rolls his eyes, his voice slowly rising.

"It doesn't mean anything!! We always go out together anyways."

You sigh, "I know we're always together and it would've been fine with any other day. But on our anniversary?? Where it was supposed to be us two getting dinner, you ditched me for her."

Tsukishima scoffs and shakes his head, poking his tongue in his cheek. You bite back tears that are threatening to fall down your face. Why can't he just apologize? You hung your head low and you begin again, slowly. Get some answers from him at least.

"You told me it was for your company, but is it really? Do you do that to your other co-workers? Get dinner with only the two of you?"

"God, why can't you just let it go? I just ate dinner with her"

"I know," you pause and look at him, your voice gentle. "I know, okay? But, you knew we had plans for tonight and you disregarded them."

You laugh softly, finding this whole scenario stupid and it slowly makes you go crazy. "Again, I just want to know why it had to be today for you to get dinner with her when you knew it was our anniversary."

If looks could kill, his glare would've already burned two holes in your face. Your eyes pleading, searching his for an answer so you can stop overthinking. You want to give him the benefit of the doubt because you know he wouldn't cheat on you. Or is that the case?

"I just want an answer, Kei."

He rubs his temples and mumbles something under his breath, but unfortunately, you heard it.

"You're so clingy and insecure it pisses me off."

You were taken aback, and you rise up from your seat, "Excuse me?"

"Don't play dumb, you know it's true."

Tsukishima's sarcastic smile is now present on his face. It's not the same one he uses when he playfully teases you. But, this? This one seems more sinister, and it seems like his words hold the truth to it. Your voice begins to shake and you bite down on your bottom lip to stop it from trembling.

"I try... so hard not to overthink, Tsukishima. I don't get jealous easily because I trust you and you know that!!"

"THEN WHY IS IT SO EASY FOR ME TO MAKE YOU FEEL REPLACED?"

You physically flinch, from the volume and his words. It was like getting stab in the heart multiple times with how your heartaches. Tears start rolling down your cheeks and immediately after he says that, the way his face turns into panic in a snap of a finger, like a switch that's been clicked. Regret and guilt slowly coming up to eat him.

"...fuck, I'm sorry.."

Yeah, right.

"I-I'm sorry. I-"

That's it. You've had enough.

"Another word and I'm leaving you."

You make your way over to your shared bedroom, slamming the door harshly making him flinch. Tsukishima has never felt this much fear in his life. The thought of him losing you made him shut up quicker than a glass falling from the table. He just hopes, god he prays, that there's a way to fix this. A petty argument that turned into something more, just because he couldn't answer you and he hates himself for that.

© akithesimp. please do not plagiarize, claim, modify, or repost as your own│reblogs will help a lot, and it'll be much appreciated ღ

[finelinevogue]

he’s so vogue

Description - you are the journalist for the new Harry Styles December Vogue Issue

A/N - how is everyone doing? hope you enjoy! if you have any requests please feel free to ask. love you all and have a lovely rest of the week!

warnings: swearing

[masterlist]

Being a journalist for Vogue was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

After 3 years of studying English Literature at Surrey University, you never thought, only a year after, you'd be working as an apprentice at Vogue UK. If it weren't for your Aunty, who worked in the fashion design section at Vogue HQ, then you'd no doubt still be a broke-ass, single, lonely student. Ok, lonely you still were but your job was so full-on that you didn't have time for a relationship.

Two years into your apprenticeship you were promoted to an official member of the team, and then another two years later you got promoted to team leader in your department of journalism, and editing; The Media - or as you like to call it - "The Celeb Goss". You were beyond happy with your job and found such passion in every article your wrote. Whether it be about a new celebrity romance or the collapse of one, you found a way to story-tell in such a meditated way that everyone loved your pieces.

That's why the Harry Styles had requested you to be the one to interview him.

Of course you'd written about A-list celebrities in the past, producing articles on pregnancy rumours, or engagements, or breakups, but you'd never met them before authoring an article. You'd met plenty of D-list celebrities who thought they were mega famous, but if you mentioned their names people would turn around and ask "who?".

This is why interviewing Harry Styles was a massive thing for you.

Not very often did you get to do work out in the field, especially in these covid infested days, but nevertheless it was your favourite part of the job. Getting to meet the people you were writing about was completely refreshing, allowing you to obtain a clearer outlook on which direction to take on your journal piece.

You were asked to go to Stonehenge, where the photoshoot was being filmed, as your office of interview. Even though you'd lived in the UK all your life, you'd never actually been to Stonehenge. It wasn't really on your bucket-list, but it was a pleasure to get to see it all the same.

Being the prepared interviewer you were, you'd prepared an array of questions that you were set on asking Harry. You'd never met him before, but after much googling and youtubing of him prior to meeting him today you would already be confident in saying he's the most brilliant man to ever exist. You were really nervous that you were going to screw this interview up and make a terrible mess in front of Harry Styles.

"Lisa! What if I accidentally say something I shouldn't?" You ran your stressed hands through your hair.

This whole morning had been frantic. It had started off by you waking up late, no thanks to Lisa, your best-friend and co-worker, pressing snooze on the alarm. You wanted to look professional today so you'd put on your best shirt - only to spill coffee down it ten minutes later. So now, you smelt of coffee and were wearing what was left in your wardrobe - and it wasn't much. The only things left clean were a pair of pink corduroy flares and some, pastel coloured, graphic t-shirt to go with it.    

"You won't. Stop being so negative." Lisa rolled her eyes, probably fed up with the amount of winging she'd heard from you this morning - and you'd only been awake an hour.

"My outfit is hardly professional either." You huffed, pouring the rest of your, second, coffee down the drain.

"Well I think you look gorgeous." Lisa stated, whilst putting her breakfast bar wrapper in the bin.

You and Lisa were back and forth about you stressing, and such, for about half an hour before you had to leave. You had a great panic about losing your glasses too. You could see without them up close, but for long distance viewing and reading you were practically blind. You were taking Lisa's car, since she didn't think you were emotionally stable enough to drive. Lisa was the creative director on the set, and thank goodness she was so you could at least ramble to someone.

After a two hour drive up from London, you arrived at Stonehenge and it was freezing. Although the sun was out, it did nothing to keep your body heated. The journey up had been nice because you sat in your nicely heated car, chatting away with Lisa and blasting some Harry Styles out of the speaker. You'd made it through the first album, and the second one up to Canyon Moon before reaching your destination.

Upon arriving you could just about, without glasses, make out about 15 other cars, arranged at the bottom of a hill. There was an array of Audis and BMWs, a few Range Rovers, which you placed your bets on one was Harrys, and a green, vintage, Jaguar which was most likely belonging to the fashion editor or something. There was also a modern barn, perched at the foot of the hill, which was where Harry would be getting changed in to his various different outfits.

It took you a moment to register that Lisa had parked and was already clambering out of the car, making you look a little idiotic still blankly staring at the beautiful scenes in front, and around, of you.

But it was still bloody freezing.

You jogged a little to the boot and whipped out your white cardigan. Originally you'd thought that this would've been enough to keep you warm, but now you were starting to think otherwise.

The atmosphere here was amazing. People were rushing around left, right and centre loading, and unloading, various pieces of equipment and clothes. You caught sight of brightly coloured fabrics being carried to and from various places. There were the camera crew, and presumably director, all chatting amongst themselves. The smell of the very fresh air was so lush that you'd forgotten what it smelt like - especially after years in London.

You grabbed your bag from the boot, which had your notes, recording kit and laptop stuffed inside, before locking the car and following Lisa in to the barn.

It was lovely and warm inside - a completely different climate to than the outside. It was as if it was Bali inside and Antarctica outside. Better Bali than Antarctica though.

"Ok. Let's put our stuff down over here and then go find people we need to meet and such." Lisa instructed, you still too in awe of the place to fully comprehend what was going on.

You followed Lisa and you two ended up dropping off your stuff next to some other bags. You took a liking to the purse next to your stuff. Next to your bag, it made yours seem ancient - like it was worth nothing more than a penny. It was luscious and a beautiful baby blue colour. You softly ran your hands over it, finding satisfaction in how smooth and subtle it was.

"Hope you're not planning on stealing that, love." A manly voice appeared from behind you. You whipped around to see who's bag you'd been messing with, and it was just your luck that it was to be Harry Styles'. Of all the people's it could've been it had to be his. 

Perfect.

He looked dashing. He was in black flares and his iconic 'But daddy i love him', t-shirt, along with a huge green anorak. His hair was prettily clipped back with a pink clip, presumably placed there to gave his curls greater volume. In his hand he had a pink toothbrush and you guessed he'd come back over to put it away in his bag - only to find you caressing it instead.

"Oh - no, no. Not at all. I - uh - I just thought it was beautiful." You stammered over your words, choosing them carefully to try and make you look less like an active criminal.

"Mhm." Harry nodded whilst looking you up and down, most likely judging why a peasant like you, in comparison to him, was touching his expensive property. "Well, I love your flares darlin'." Harry looked down at your trousers, his compliment making you blush a little.

"Thank you. That wasn't professional, and neither is my outfit, I know, and I apologise." You added, because you knew that if your boss knew you turned up today the way you did she would give you a right bollocking - and potentially even fire you.

"Never apologise for flares. You look amazing." Gemma perked up, making you feel more self conscious surrounded by all these other beautiful women. Gemma was in a slouchy, knitted, jumper and basic jeans - no doubt all from shops beyond your budget - and yet she looked like a model fit for the runway for Vogue.

"Okay, sorry." You apologised again, to which you, creepily, got the exact same, stern, look from the Styles siblings at the same time.

"My stylist, Harry, introduced me to big pants. He offered whether I wanted to try a pair of flares, and I was like, 'Flares? That's fucking crazy'!" Harry laughed as he told his story, earning a laugh out of you too. "Now they're my favourite item of clothing. Have a whole wardrobe dedicated to them."

"I wish he was joking." Gemma laughed at her brother and his flare obsession.

"Well you do look handsome in them, so I understand why." Your words rolls off your tongue before you could even comprehend what you were saying. Only after you finished your sentence did you completely intake what you'd just said.

"Good start." Lisa giggled to you, before turning to walk over to the coffee station. It was a help-yourself coffee bar and you knew that you were going to bed at least five cups to get over the last five minutes alone. You'd probably drain the station before letting anyone else have any.

"Oh god." You awkwardly mumbled, not daring to see how weirdly Harry would be looking at you, before walking off outside.

You had spent less than 10 minutes here and yet you'd never felt like a bigger clown. Joining the circus had never been so easy.

The outside wind hit you like a powerful leaf blower, and your hair blew around like crazy - most likely compiling into a birds nest on the top of your head.

Today was supposed to be the start of something great. Your hopes were set on a promotion from your written masterpiece, whilst enjoying the company of one of the most handsome, most lovely, most talented men of this century. Those hopes seemed a little too distant now. They seemed to mock you, as if to laugh at how you ever thought you were going to be any more successful. You'd completely, in more ways than one, made a fool of yourself in front of your interviewee, you were so underdressed, you were caught fondling his Gucci purse and you were still bloody cold.

It all felt too unprofessional for a job where professional was practically the driving force of the company.

You leaned against the barn, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself. You were a master in over-thinking, but unfortunately that wasn't something you could add to your resumé. You let your eyes close and the other senses come alive for a few moments. The sounds of distant sheep and the smell of the cold wind were just two of the senses that allowed you to take a step back for a minute, and breathe.

"Thank you." A voice interrupted you from your attempt of quick meditation. You looked to your left and noticed Harry standing there, still in the same outfit as before.

"I'm sorry?" You asked confused, taking a step away from the barn to considerately pay more attention to him.

"Thank you - for saying I look handsome in flares." He repeated, smirking when he added the second part.

"Oh." Was all you could respond, feeling too embarrassed to take the conversation any further. "I should—" You pointed back to the barn, using it as an excuse to leave before yet screwed up anymore.

"Lisa told me you're the interviewer." Harry added, and it only occurred to you that you'd never actually introduced yourself. "So it's lovely to finally meet you Y/N." He stuck out his hand for your to shake, which you did willingly. His hands were a lot softer than you'd expected.

"Ho... You know my name?" You asked surprised.

"Of course. I also know you're the best writer in Vogue right now." He flattered you, which made you blush. You had a feeling he'd make you do that a lot today.

"Sure." You rolled your eyes as you spoke sarcastically.

"Well I chose you for a reason, didn't I?" He rhetorically asked.

"I mean.. I, well.. I don't know?" You stumbled over your words, making yourself look like a larger fool than you did already. Today was just turning out to be exactly what you didn't want it to be. "Sorry."

"Stop apologising. You do it too often." He told you, nearly making you apologise again but he gave you a jokingly stern look, as if he knew what you were going to say, and so you decided otherwise.

"Harry!" You both turned to see there was a man waving towards you both, but specifically to Harry. "Come get changed!" The same man shouted. Harry lifted his thumbs up, as if to signal he'd be there shortly.

Harry turned back to you and noticed you shiver a little.

"I'll start the interview after I come back from the dressing rooms, yeah?" Harry asked, taking off his, khaki green, trench-coat in the process. He handed it to you before you could oblige against it.

"Wait what?" You confusedly looked down at the coat and back up to Harry.

"Gives me a piece of mind knowing my interviewer isn't going to die of hypothermia before actually interviewing me." He smiled, obviously attempting to crack a joke and you have to admit you did laugh.

"Thank you." You say, before he runs off to where he's being called to.

                                                            ••••

You'd been sat inside for a little while, waiting for Harry to come back. It gave you time to perfect your questions though.

Thinking up questions to ask Harry had been a challenging task, but one that you'd been fully invested in. You loved creating questions to ask him that were going to get to understand him on a deeper level. He was a very private man, and you completely respected that. If you crossed any boundaries, with the questions you'd ask, you would write them out of the interview. You liked to think you hadn't thought up a question that would make him feel uncomfortable though.

Pissing off Harry would be on another level of shame.

"Coat kept you warm?" Harrys voice disengaged you from your notebook.

"Hm?" You asked then replayed what he'd just asked in your mind. "Oh, yes. Thank you very much." You stood up, from where you'd been perched on the floor, picking up your nearly finished green tea as you did so.

Only when you stood up did it come to your realisation that Harry was now in costume. He was dressed in luxury. Each item looked like it cost more than your rent, and that was saddening. He looked rich and luxurious. To be quite honest, you were finding it rather difficult to take your eyes off him.

"You think the outfit is Vogue enough?" Harry asked, striking a few poses, which made you laugh. It was refreshing to see him act so relaxed and carefree, rather than a stuck-up-prick you knew some celebrities to be.

"Completely. I love it!" You exclaimed, appreciating the twirl he did for you.

He was wearing a kilt-like skirt and he looked beyond beautiful in it. Fuck toxic masculinity. Fuck being a manly man - like what does that even mean? Harry was embracing gender fluidity and experimenting the ways in which there was no definitive line between men and women's clothes anymore, and you thought it was marvellous. Revolutionary, for times as politically and socially troubled as these.

You started removing the coat in attempt to give it back to him, but he refrained you from doing so by holding on to your forearm.

"Keep it. I thought we could go outside to start the interview, so you'll be needing that." Harry told you, and you agreed - however reluctantly that was. You couldn't really complain though, because the coat did kept you warm and, what's better, it smelt divine - just like you'd imagine Harry to smell.

"Okay. Thank you. Do you want to go now?" You asked hesitantly, not knowing whether he was busy for someone else right now.

"Whenever you're ready, love." He answered, making you feel more relaxed. He was going at your pace and was making you feel settled - he was even more of a gentleman than people described him to be.

The two of you had walked around the backside of the barn in silence, enjoying the comfort of each other's presence. Well, at least you were. It was a blessing no one was back here. It was just you, Harry and the scenery that surrounded Stonehenge.

You approached a bench and you plopped yourself down on one end, whilst Harry sat on the other. He respected the fact that there was a pandemic going on, and didn't want to make you uncomfortable in any way. You still had your mask on, so Harry had taken that as you were very conscious about the virus - which he admired.

You pulled out your glasses, from the depths of one of the coat pockets, and placed them on your face, probably making yourself look even geekier than you already felt. Today was just one of those days you wished you had good eyes...

You opened your spent notebook, musty pages practically falling apart, and turned to the section of questions you needed for that interview. You were so nervous already and you hadn't even asked anything yet, all because of the previous interactions with Harry today. Your shaky hands shuffled through the pages and you cursed under your breath when you struggled to find what you needed.

"Shoot. Come on." You mumbled quietly under your breath, hoping it would make this terrible situation end faster. You mustn't have been as quiet as you thought though.

"Y/N." Harry's name broke through your clouded mind of self-disappointment.

You looked up at him to see him softly smiling at you, blowing all worries away from you away with the wind. "Yes?" You timidly asked, pushing your wind-swept hair out of glasses - where it'd gotten caught.

"You’re alright, love. You don't have to be professional around me, alright? We're just two strangers having a conversation, to get to know each other, okay?" If his words didn't calm you enough, the soothing sound of his husky voice certainly did.

"But that would mean you asking me stuff too?" You replied, confused at his implications of the phrasing 'getting to know each other'.

"Mhm." Harry nodded his head.

"Oh I don't know Mr Styles, i'm not a very interesting person." You answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, pushing your glasses back up the bridge of your nose from where they'd fallen.

"I refuse to believe that." Harry chuckled, making a quick smile appear on your face. "And please call me Harry. Just Harry." He begged, obviously finding it weird you calling him by his professional title. All you wanted, ever, was for your interviewee's to feel comfortable and safe, so if Harry wanted you to call him Harry then so be it.

"Ok, Harry," you sarcastically said, earning a shake of the head on his behalf, "you can ask me a few questions throughout the day." You told him, but you knew he'd struggle to find even two questions when he realises how bland you are.

"Does that mean you only get to ask me a few as well?" Harry smirked, already knowing the answer to that question. Unlike Harry, you had to write an article about today when you got home and so he knew that you'd have to dig as much dirt as possible from him.

"No, sorry. I don't particularly want to lose my job." You paused to look down at your notes, squinting a little as you did to see better. "Okay. Tell me your experience with corona virus."

"Sorry I didn't quite catch that, love." Harry apologised, leaning in slightly to see if he could hear you a second time around.

"Sorry." You looked down to fiddle with your fingers - a habit you'd undertaken when you're embarrassed. "Um..," you cleared your throat, "would you mind if I took off my mask?"

Your timid voice sent tingle down Harrys spine. He didn't think anyone could ever be this sweet. "Not at all, ‘course you can." He replied, again, wanting to make you feel as comfortable as possible.

You hesitantly took off your face mask, feeling like you were in some dramatic movie where they face revealed someone. You kind of liked having the mask on, because, for one, it kept you warm, and for two, you were a little self conscious with how you looked compared to all the other women here today. You shoved the mask in your pocket, with trembling fingers, before looking back down to your notes.

"Woah." You heard Harrys voice being mumbled under the wind. You eyes shot up to his and you noticed him staring right back at you.

"W-what? Is my acne playing up? I knew I should've—" You self-consciously run your hands over the areas you know you got acne. The masks really didn't help when it came to skin care.

"Hey, stop. No. You just... You look beautiful." Harry complimented you, and a roaring blush arose on to your cheeks. You'd never been called beautiful before, and so you were taking the compliment like such a 13-year old.

"Oh, uh, thank you." You awkwardly answered, not really having any other words come to mind in that moment. Harry chuckled under his breath, still keeping eyes on you for some reason.

"Would you mind repeating your last question, I didn't quite catch it?" Harry asked politely.

"Sure. Um, tell me how you've experienced corona virus." You repeated for him, gripping ahold of your pen to start copying what he says and pressing start on your recording device in case you needed it later.

"Well, it's been tedious that's for sure. However, I just want people to be safe and for life to return back to normal, so therefore i've been very MIA for a lot of the time. Keeping to myself mostly. I only went out for hikes or bike rides. All my meetings were online, so it's been very lonely." Harry kept eye contact with your figure the entire time, and if it weren't for you concentrating on writing what he was saying then you'd probably melt away under his gaze.

For such soft eyes he sure was intimidating.

"I presume the loneliness sent you crazy at times." You laughed, because you sure felt that way through lockdown. Curse being single.

"You have no idea." Harry laughed along with you, making you, slowly, feel more at ease.

"Actually, you'd be surprised." You looked at him unsure, before returning down to your notebook.

"Okay then, first question from me," Harrys words made your head shoot up, "How can someone as amazing as yourself be lonely?" He asked and you made a mental tally of how many questions he'd asked.

"Could ask you the very same question, Harry." You slyly replied, avoiding the question by answering with another question. It was a tactic you'd learnt, throughout your years of journalism, when you wanted to dismiss something .

"That's cheating." Harry pointed at you and raised his eyebrows, but you couldn't take your eyes off the big, cheeky, smile perched on his face. You shrugged you're shoulders in defence and returned to your questions. "But you did just call me amazing, so I think i'll let it slide this one time." You blushed, again, when you understood what he meant.

He was amazing though - that was the truth.

"You were in L.A. for the majority of quarantine, am I right to say?" You already knew the answer but your manager had just wanted confirmation.

"Yeah, but L.A. feels like holiday, whereas London feels like home." He answered, which you appreciated. He hasn't got lost in the way that Hollywood could let people. He'd stayed grounded.

"So what did you entertain yourself with during quarantine?" You asked curiously, slightly side-tracking from your pre-written questions - just because you were intrigued (nosey).

"Not much, not to be boring. I ate a lot of bread. I worked out pretty much every day. I wrote quite a bit actually." He used his fingers to pinch his bottom lip, something you'd noticed he did in interviews.

"Does that mean a new album on the way?" Your inner fangirl was screaming at the thought of HS3.

"Can neither confirm nor deny." Harry smirked to himself, like the cheeky bugger he is.

"That's a yes then." You joked, pretending to write it down in your notes.

"You're impossible, you." Harry laughed and shook his head. It made you feel all funny the way you could make him smile like that. You were the source of his happiness for just that moment, and that was enough to make you feel happy for a lifetime - not that he felt the same.

"Next question," you stated, moving swiftly on because you knew you had limited time, "How's your experience with Vogue been so far?"

"Wonderful. Everyone has been so welcoming and that makes it so much easier for me to have fun. It's daunting going at things alone, but i'm getting slowly used to it now." Harry sniffled a little, probably due to the freezing cold weather here.

"Must be strange, not having four best friends around you, all the time, anymore." You stated rather than asked him, sure that he was missing his bandmates. I mean, you were - so he definitely would be.

"Brothers." Harry replied, making you look up at him confused.

"I'm sorry?" You asked, giving him your full attention.

"You said four best friends. Well, actually they're my brothers." His words actually caused a rift in your heart. You could feel it being pulled apart and torn in to two. If you wrote this in to the magazine the fans would have a worldwide passing-away-party.

"Harry." You said softly, slightly tearing up at his words. "God, I swear i'm not normally this emotional." You chest your throat and try to establish your dignity - however there wasn't that much left anymore.

"Oh shut up." Harry looked away obviously trying to hide the fact that he was tearing up too. You laughed at him but didn't draw any more attention to it than you guessed he would've wanted.

"They mean a lot to you then?" You asked, hopefully not treading on any unwanted territories.

"Much more than a lot, yeah." Harry nodded his head, turning it back to face you. He could tell this conversation was now off-the-record because of your closed notebook, your undivided attention towards him and the fact you’d turned off the recording device. He liked being able to look at you, rather than the top of your head. He swore you were the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

"You still see them often?" 

"Not as often as i'd like. Niall did come around the other week to drop off some old guitars he didn't want anymore, and then we ended up playing around with some music for a bit." He admitted, which stitched your heart back together.

"So does that mean a Narry collab?" You teased, biting your bottom lip in anticipation.

"Narry? You so are a directioner." He laughed along with you.

"And you just avoided my question, therefore there is a song out there written only by you and Niall." You concluded, which shut him up.

This conversation was going a lot better than expected. Certainly a lot better than earlier. You will be permanently scarred by the way you spoke to him and handled his belongings. It was going to haunt you forever - and yet he'd forget about it by tomorrow. Or maybe he wouldn't, which is why you felt the need to apologise.

"Harry?" You asked, clearly indicating this was still a conversation away from the interview.

"Yes Y/N?" He watched you intently, listening to your every word.

"I, um, just wanted to apologise for my behaviour earlier. I was just really nervous to meet you, and to be honest still am. I didn't mean to touch your stuff without your consent and I certainly didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with any of my comments. So, i'm sorry. I can only imagine the awful, yet true, things you must think of me." You rambled really quickly, that you were uncertain whether Harry even caught one word of what you'd says.

"Do you know why I asked for you to interview me Y/N?" Harry asked, which wasn't the first thing you expected him to say after your apology.

"No. I...well Lisa told me it was because I can write well or something." You suggested, not wanting to sound egotistical.

"I mean you do write perfectly, but no." You were intrigued now. "I asked for you because I, and this is not for your magazine, have a secret - but not-so-secret - crush on you." This time it was Harrys turn to blush.

"Harry... you don't have to say that to—"

"I'm not saying it for anything. I sincerely think you are the most delightful, most prettiest, most fucking sweetest person i've ever met." Harry exclaimed, which you were taken aback by. Never, ever, did you think that Harry Styles would proclaim his likeness towards you. Ever.

"Harry don't mess with me, please." You shyly spoke, tilting your head down in disbelief that the Harry Styles was smitten about you.

He shuffled along the bench, stopping a little way from you but close enough to reach out for you. Your heartbeat increased when you noticed his hand move closer towards you. It didn't stop till he reached your face. He took his time, courteously, pushing your hair behind your ear before removing you of your glasses. He held the right-eye frame and slowly pulled the glasses off your face.

Once he'd successfully taken them off he folded them up and placed them alongside your closed notebook.

"Can see those pretty eyes now." He whispered quietly, but loud enough for you to hear.

"Don't lie. They're so dull." You mumbled, lifting your head up slightly. His face was still away from you.

"Not to me they're not." He retaliated, looking deep into your eyes as you did his. "I hate this corona virus."

"Why?" His words were so out of the blue sometimes, it gave you whiplash.

"Because I can't be as near to you as I want to be." Harry told you. And yeah, you hated corona too. It was getting a little laborious now.

"Smooth, Styles." You chuckled. You wondered how many new and weird pick-up lines could be made from covid. 

"I know." He winked, which honestly would have made you throw up if it were any other man on the planet. Somehow, though, Harry just made it seem attractive - along with every other thing that man ever did. "After this, would you like to come back to my house for a cuppa tea?" He asked sweetly, like a five year old asking whether you wanted to play together.

"Okay. Lisa was my ride though." You said more to yourself than anything else, debating on how you'd even get to Harrys. Uber? Taxi? Lisa? Walk?

"I'll drive us, it's fine. I have to drop Gem off, but i'd be more than happy to chauffeur you." Harry kindly offered, to which you were internally screaming about. You were literally, and metaphorically, having a field-day with all this Harry content and interview.

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a burden." You question politely, not wanting to overstep any boundaries - especially in these covid infested times.

"Of course. I wouldn't have offered otherwise." He protested, waving his hand at if to say it was no bother. You were already trying to work out, in your head, how much petrol money you were going to owe him.

"Then i'd be honoured to have a brew with you Harry." You giggled at how cringe you were being, even if this was just your normal self speaking.

"Great." Harry genuinely smiled, teeth and all. "My shoot should take a couple of hours, but feel free to continue to write and journal. I'm looking forward to reading this particular article." He winked at you before standing up.

"Wonder why?" You sarcastically asked, knowing full-well it was due to his exposure of his own feelings towards you. Even though you'd never says anything back you were quite in agreement on how you felt about him, like he did you. He would be a narcissist to say he knew you liked him the same, out loud, but he knew. And you knew that he knew.

"Wonder why indeed." He gave you one last smile before he'd disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, leaving you to digest and relive the past half an hour or so.

Being Harry Styles' crush was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

                                                          ••••

After Harry had finished up his shoot he was quick to come find you again.

You'd watched parts of his shoot and he looked magnificent. There wasn't a good enough word to describe how amazing he looked. Harry, his stylist, was probably the best stylist out there. His fashion choices were unmatched and you wanted him to be yours. You were not rich enough nor fashionable enough, ironic for working in a a fashion company, to hire a stylist, but you would if you could.

You were so proud to see what he was achieving now as the person that he was. Harry was just being Harry, without the devilish control of shitty managements or ridiculous amounts of PR stunts. Harry was more free than ever, and it definitely showed just how much he was enjoying it.

You were certain that this Vogue magazine would break the internet - his fans were good at doing that. This could be a turning point for many people, with their outdated and ignorant views. There was no room for people with racist or homophobic or transphobic or xenophobic - and the list does go on - views anymore.

You were waiting by the front door of the barn, to catch Harry as he walked past. You caught sight of him in a white robe, presumably to get changed back into his everyday clothes. He looked really pretty in the robe - very domestic actually.

Today had been a good day.

Harry asked you to send over the more specific Vogue questions to him via email, so he could devote more time in to answering them in a lot more depth. You thought he meant you'd be sending them to some PA in his team, but you were shocked to understand he'd given you his personal email.

People were walking back to their cars and packing away the filming kit. You saw Lisa and the director talking to one another, no doubt discussing some in-work gossip.

"You ready?" Harrys voice reminded you that you'd been waiting for him. You looked to see he was back in the same clothes as this morning, only this time without his coat.

"Here?" You offered, having him over the coat once again but he declined.

"Looks better on you anyways." He winked at you, before walking through the car park and to his car. You were very surprised when you found out Harry was the one to own the green Jaguar. You assumed all celebrities drove the Range Rover, but no. The vintage car added to Harrys immaculate vibe and just made him that little bit more hot.

Harry properly introduced you to Gemma, who was equally as lovely as Harry. They were both amazing people and they were crazily alike. From the way they looked, down to the way they phrased their words, they were mistakingly twins. Gemma explained how Anne, their mum, didn't know they were doing this photoshoot and that it was going to be a surprise, which you thought was so cute.

Gemma spilt a lot of gossip on Harry, to which he got very embarrassed over. You learnt that Harrys first word was Cat. You learnt that Harry is godfather to multiple children, which you found heartwarming. You learnt Harry used to be a baker - which was something he elaborated on for a good half an hour. Harry was just a fountain of memories and Gemma was the one sharing them all with you.

The drive back to London was relaxed. You sat in the back, listening to Harry and Gemma pointlessly argue whilst an Arctic Monkeys album played in the background. You forgot that people like Harry drove, and listened to music, just like other regular people. You often misplaced celebrities in society, thinking they had everything done for them but in reality that (often) wasn't the case - at least not for Harry.

Gemma was dropped off quickly before Harry drove to his. It was no surprise that the Styles siblings didn't live too far away from each other. Harrys house was beautiful. Bigger than anything you could ever dream of buying. It was a palace compared to your cupboard-sized house. You were unbelievably jealous. He gave you the tour of the house, showing you where the toilets were, and even his panic room if necessary.

You migrated to the kitchen for a bit, talking about anything and everything. Getting to know the minuscule pieces of information that no-one else was trusted with, made you feel special. Harry made you feel special - even if he weren't meaning to.

Every moment held a spark. Every touch set off a firework. Every laugh was an electric burst. He made you feel so alive.

"We can go to the living room after this has boiled." Harry said, pointing towards the streaming kettle. He wanted to show off his fancy tea collection he had, and let you have a try if you wanted to. Harry was boring and chose the basic green tea, but, after much deliberation, you chose the cranberry green tea. It intrigued you and it sounded delicious.

"Why the extensive tea collection?" Not even you, a certified caffeine addict, had this much tea in your house. Coffee was a different story and one in which you didn't want to talk about.

"They help me with my meditation." He took the teabags and placed them in his glass mugs. They had a delicate Gucci stamp on them, and you just imagined that they probably worth the same amount as your daily salary.

"You meditate?" You were slightly surprised that he did.

"I try to yeah." Harry nodded, focusing on pouring in the boiling water into the mugs. "I've got very tight hamstrings and so it helps if I meditate twice a day."

Harry finished making the tea, in the light-filled kitchen, before showing you around to the open-lounge area. Everything was modern and chic. It was exactly how you imagined it, but better. The open, red-brick, wall was a beautiful feature and one that you were a whore for! It reminded you of New York and the memories you'd made there one summer.

The sofa was a beautiful velvet, green, sofa. It was soft and gentle, a lot like Harry when you thought about it. The whole house was an architectural masterpiece and you'd be lying if you said you weren't jealous. You sat on one end and Harry went to go and sit on the other end.

"I don't bite you know?" You joked, self-consciously wondering whether he didn't want to be sat near you.

"I know, I just don't want to step on any of your covid boundaries - which is perfectly fine by the way." He added, apprehensively taking the spot next to you.

"No, not at all." You ushered him to sit next to you, as you took a sip from your steaming hot cup of fruity tea. "If I smell though, do tell me!"

"Yeah, you smell bloody awful!" Harry sarcastically remarked, but laughing afterwards to assure you he was joking. The atmosphere went quiet for a minute, only the sounds of passing cars and deep breaths being heard.

"Y/N can I ask you something?" Harry turned the tone of the conversation. It sounded like he wanted to be more serious than you two were being beforehand.

"Anything." You encouraged him to continue. You placed the cup of tea down on the table, deciding it was too hot to drink right now, and gave him your full attention.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" Harry questioned. You didn't think you'd be having a conversation this intense - especially if you had different opinions - on your first day of knowing each other, but here you were.

"I believe you can love someone at first sight. I don't believe you can be in love with someone at first sight. Why?" You were curious as to how his brain had journeyed to this particular topic. You'd never really had this conversation with anyone before, mainly because you were unaware of the true power, and meaning, of love.

"It uh... It doesn't matter." Harry shook his head and you could tell by his body language that he was shutting you out. Maybe you'd made him uncomfortable.

"Sorry I didn't mean to—"

"No, no. Please don't apologise. It's just - I like you a lot more than you may think." Harry shyly told you, which made you all soft inside. He was being vulnerable and that was something you admired in a partner. You didn't just need love, affection and trust in a relationship. No. You needed vulnerability and heartbreak too, and Harry was revealing that part of him to you.

"I like you a lot more than you think too." You repeated, not because you felt bad for him but because you truly did like him a whole lot. Love was a weird yet wonderful thing, and if you were to hazard a guess you'd say you loved Harry. 

You couldn't wait to be in love with him.

"Does that mean I get to crown you my girlfriend?" Harry excitedly asked. Harry happy was something that should be made a constant, and you were more than happy to be in control of that.

"At least take me out first." You bargained, wishing for nothing more than to go on a date with Harry. Where you'd go, you had no idea. Everything was closed right now and there was still the chance of becoming sick with corona, but no doubt Harry would think of something not only clever, but special.

Of course you'd love to be Harrys girlfriend. However, you wanted one more, official, opportunity to really get to know him - unprofessionally. You wanted to make sure that you knew, and he knew, that you wanted to be with him because he was the charming Harry you've come to love, not because he was Harry Styles.

"So you're allowing me to take you on a date?" Harry smirked like a little child, your heart fluttering at how excited he was to be able to treat you to dinner.

"Yes, Harry. Yes I am." You answered sweetly, offering him the cutest smile you could.

You can't believe what a turn of events today has been. You've gone from nearly writing yourself on Harrys enemy list to writing yourself on to his 'people he's dated' list. Who knows what the future would offer you. At the start of the day you had wished this whole day to end and for the ground to just swallow you up, now you never wanted it to end. It was too perfect to be true and yet it was.

Harry was the most wonderful human to exist and you were beyond surprised to be the one to catch his attention. You didn't understand why you were so special, but it was nice to feel like this for a change. It was nice to feel wanted.

                                                             ••••

A few months later and you were officially Harrys girlfriend.

It had been such a crazy few months. Harry religiously took you out on dates every week. Whether it be to grab a hotdog at a local diner, a coffee from a quaint cafe, a walk in Hyde Park or a late-night drive around London - which normally ended up with you falling asleep before you could make it back to yours. On sleepless jet-lagged nights he'll still drive through London's quiet streets, seeing neighborhoods in a new way, just as an excuse to spend time with you.

Harry often stayed over at yours. Even though you looked like you lived in a shoebox compared to Harry, he liked it. He liked the subtly and normality of it all. He wanted your life to remain as normal as possible and, apart from the occasional paparazzi incident, it did. You never had anything to complain about. Of course the online bullying created emotional wounds, at the start of your relationship, but it was nothing that Harry couldn't repair with a bit of love.

Lisa has nominated herself to be maid-of-honour when the day comes - if the day comes. Harry has already pinky sworn that you are it for him. The one, as some may say. You were utterly flattered, but you certainly unsure of what the future help for you both.

You loved Harry, you do love Harry and you will forever always love Harry.

It was ridiculous to think that all this stemmed from you working at Vogue. From you studying English Literature in a city away from London. From you dedicating you extra hours gaining work experience and money to be able get in and afford university. So many moments in life have you stopped and said 'i wish i hadn't have done that', but now you were convinced that they were the best things to have happened to you - because they lead you, all, to Harry.

And, being Harry Styles girlfriend was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

[handsomelyhiddleston]

Smitten - Tom Hiddleston x Curvy Reader

Filming sex scenes wasn’t the easiest task. There are weird nude undergarments or socks or tape or sometimes just a nude co-star…With Tom, though? There were nerves and feelings and a deep down hope that he couldn’t tell that you were incredibly turned on as he mimed fucking you twelve ways to Sunday.

“Cut! That’s a wrap on today. Great work guys!” the director called.

Tom collapsed onto your chest, laughing as the tension left his body. “These never get easier.”

“I don’t know” you teased, playing with his hair as everyone left the set so you two could leave the bed with some of your dignity. “It’s a lot easier with you.”

Tom held himself up on his elbows. “Don’t tell me your past romantic co-stars have been less than gentlemanly.”

“Not all of them.” You shrugged. Being a ‘larger than the Hollywood standard’ actress had put you in some…not very flattering roles in the start of your career. Sure, now you were the romantic lead with a conventionally attractive male actor, but lets just say you’ve dealt with a lot to get here.

“Well, I hope you know you deserved better.” Tom kissed the back of one of your hands, rolling off of you.

“Coming from you, I may actually believe it.” You laughed, gathering the sheet around you as you left the bed, grabbed your robe, and started walking towards your trailer.

The two of you filmed the movie…Where you’d usually fall asleep in one of your two trailers watching other movies…

The two of you attended interviews…Where Tom would almost always defer to you and even stuck up for you when a few interviewers were borderline sexist or would comment on your appearance…

The two of you even walked a few red carpets together…Tom’s hand always placed at your middle or  on your hip or in one of your hands...

He invited you out to eat with him before or after any shindig the two of you went to…

He’d walk you to your hotel rooms with kisses left on your cheeks…

He’d even tried to convince you to spend the week before the premiere in London with him…

In your mind, Tom was just too nice. He was nice to everybody. It all seemed very friendly…Until…

You hadn’t been watching the interviews as they’d been posted. Some interviews you did together with Tom and others you’d been split up and put with other actors from the movie.

Your phone pinged…

*best friend* - HAVE YOU SEEN TOM ON FALLON?!?

Before you could reply, your phone started blowing up.

You scrolled through the texts until you saw Tom’s

Tom – Darling, I hope you know how much you mean to me. Regardless of what your answer is, I’d never want to lose your friendship. It’s not every day you get to work with one so incredibly kind and thoughtful and talented and beautiful and…every moment I’ve spent with you has been a privilege. Please put me out of my misery and let me know you’ll at least let me see you again.

“What the fuck?” you asked yourself, opening your laptop and googling “Tom Hiddleston and Jimmy Fallon”

You saw that the Fallon YouTube channel had just posted Tom’s segment of tonight’s episode…

“How are you doing, buddy?” Fallon asked, pulling Tom into a tight hug.

“I’m doing incredibly well at the moment, actually.” Tom answered, sharing that the movie you two had filmed together had done extremely well on its opening weekend just a few days earlier.

“I know! It was amazing. I’ve seen it twice!” Fallon replied, always enthusiastic.

“I’m so glad you liked it. Y/n is incredible, right?” Tom turned to the audience, loving that they cheered when he brought you up.

“Oh my god, you two are so good together. I kind of thought maybe you two were…you know…” Fallon waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Tom threw his head back laughing, fidgeting with his tie and avoiding looking into the audience.

“Come on, you can’t tell me you two don’t have SOME sort of real chemistry. I saw the movie.” Fallon gave Tom a look like *Don’t lie*

“Well, perhaps we’re just incredible actors and you’re simply complimenting our craft.” Tom shrugged, trying to look anywhere but at Jimmy.

“Well, yes. The acting in the movie is amazing, but I don’t think that accounts for this.” Jimmy turned and pointed to the screen. It was a series of clips pulled from Tom’s interviews where all he did was gush about you.

“I missed being home, but it’s hard for anyone to stay upset when they’re around Y/n. She just lifts the mood in any room she’s in. You could say she makes anywhere feel a bit like home.” Tom had answered when a woman asked him if it was hard being on site away from home for 5 months.

When another interviewer asked Tom what his favorite line in the movie was, he answered, quoting one of your lines. “When she delivered it for the first time, it kind of took my breath away. I felt very unprofessional. I had to apologize and ask to start over. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say next. She tends to have that effect on me.” Tom laughed, a slight blush on his cheeks.

The final clip was one of an interviewer simply asking Tom how his day had gone. “I feel all out of sorts, if I’m being honest. Y/n isn’t here today because she woke up not feeling the best and with Covid still being an issue, she didn’t want to risk getting anyone else sick.” Tom answered with a sad smile on his face. When the interviewer shared that they hoped you would be okay and feel better soon, Tom answered with “I’ll make sure to pass on your sentiments when I bring her food later on.”

“COME ON!” Fallon laughed, throwing his arms up.

“I know, I know. I’m not very good at hiding how I feel, I guess.” Tom admitted, leaning back against the couch and laying his arm across the top. The crowd went wild.

“So, you admit it! Are you two together?!” Fallon asked, sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Unfortunately, not.” Tom answered, ducking his head as his cheeks flushed.

“Why?!” Jimmy asked. “You’re clearly smitten!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Tom rebutted, looking to the audience for support. “I’ve tried!”

“Aww, now I feel bad for bringing it up.” Fallon chuckled and looked at the audience as they collectively ‘aww’ed. “How could anyone turn down this?!” He gestured towards Tom as the audience cheered.

“Well, if I’m to be completely honest I guess I haven’t actually TOLD her how I feel.” Tom confessed.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Jimmy paused.

“Well, I thought she’d catch on. I assume she has.” Tom laughed, fidgeting in his seat. “I’m pretty sure everyone else that knows the two of us can tell I’ve fallen completely head over heels for her.”

“Tom, Tom, Tom.” Jimmy shook his head.

“What?” Tom asked, nervous about what the answer would be.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I think you may just be horrible at flirting.” Fallon said with a straight face, the audience busting up laughing after.

“Do you think?” Tom replied, eyes gone wide in exaggerated surprise.

“I mean, I think you’re just so nice.” Jimmy laughed, trying to stay serious…“that everyone thinks you’re flirting with them…Which means, when you’re trying to flirt it just blends in.”  

“Well, how would you suggest I stand out then?” Tom asked, putting his elbow on his knee and leaning his chin on his fist like he was really paying attention.

“I mean…” Fallon slowly pointed towards the camera. “You gotta shoot your shot, right?”

The audience went wild at the suggestion. “Oh, dear.”

“I can scrap this and we can just talk about the movie.” Jimmy offered, making sure Tom knew that none of this had to go on the air.

“I mean, if it’s truly that obvious to everyone what have I got to lose, right?” Tom answered.

“That’s what we like to hear!” Jimmy cheered with the audience.

“Well…Y/n.” Tom paused, a soft smile on his face. “I don’t quite know where to start. I feel as though I may have been remiss by not just telling you how I feel. The consequence of such is that now I’m doing it in front of all of these people *gestures to the audience*…and I’m sure you’re laughing at how red I’ve gone and how flustered I am so I’m going to get to the point. Darling, you’re an incredible woman. I could list a million reasons why, but hopefully later you’ll give me the time to tell you them in person. What I really want to tell you now is that you make me happy. You inspire me. You make me want to be the best version of myself and you even make me believe I can achieve it. I’d be honored if you’d give me a chance.”

Fallon had tears in his eyes and most of the audience did, as well. “I…That was so beautiful. I think we need to go to a commercial break.” He was all choked up and stood to give Tom a hug.

You pulled up Tom’s text, your fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Are you still in New York?” you text him. The two of you were there for interviews. You were even staying in the same hotel.

“I am.” He text back, but the ‘typing’ bubble stayed. “Did you watch it?”

“I did.” You answered. “Come over?”

You saw the ‘typing’ bubble pop up and then disappear a few times. Instead of a text, you heard a knock at your hotel door.

“So?” Tom asked when you opened the door. He looked nervous, a look you didn’t often see from him. He had his glasses on and his hair was an adorable mess. He was even already dressed in his night clothes.

You didn’t answer. Instead, you stepped forward and placed your hands on each side of his face, pulling his lips gently to yours. He quickly reciprocated, his hands finding your hips as he walked you backwards into your hotel room.

“And to think, I could have been doing that for a whole year already.” You teased him, connecting your lips again.

“Don’t worry, my sweet.” Tom answered, pressing kisses across your cheek and down your neck. His lips paused at the shell of your ear and his voice dropped. “It just means we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

[hermannsthumb]

I have a fun prompt I've been thinking about I hope you have time for one day! When Newt and Hermann meet actually things go really really well and they even get together. It's just they bicker so much and have huge science-based arguments that everyone assumed they must have hated each other on sight.

sure thing! i had fun with this one

----

"So," Newt says. "I was talking to Tendo today."

Across the mess table, Hermann hums in feigned interest. Newt knows it's feigned 'cause Hermann doesn't stop either thing he's doing: using his left hand to wind noodles around a fork, and using his right hand to scribble away a series of lengthy equations on the back of a paper napkin. His full attention has been hopping between both for about ten minutes now—no room for Newt to slip in there. He's testing his limits enough as it. Half of the last equation ended up scratched into the tabletop, and the last time he lifted his fork to his mouth, it was empty. And then he swallowed anyway. Newt kinda loves the guy.

"Yeah," Newt says, deciding to continue like Hermann responded the way he was actually supposed to respond, which would've been something along the lines of what an utterly fascinating story, Newton, do tell me more. I love hearing you talk, Newton. How marvelously smart you are, Newton, and how melodic and breathtaking your voice is. Now watch me bite down on an empty fork again. "Kinda funny. He was asking how we met."

Hermann finally looks up at Newt suspiciously over the rims of his glasses, which are slipping slowly down his nose. He stills them with the tip of his index finger before they land in his dinner. "Why?"

"I don't know, man," Newt says. "He just was. It was like, small talk, you wouldn't get it. He dropped by the lab when you were out this morning to let me know that there was extra space if we wanted it. Like, lab space." Hermann resumes scratching an equation into the table absently. Newt rolls his eyes. "As in, we could have separate labs if we wanted now."

Hermann knits his eyebrows together. "Separate laboratories?"

When Newt and Hermann first started at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, the k-scientist team was pre-existing and significantly bigger, and anyone who joined on later—like, you know, them—basically got shoved in wherever they fit. For Newt and Hermann, that happened to be Laboratory Space D, Basement Level 1 (the only basement level), along with a former marine biologist who was killed on a research excursion a month later when a kaiju made unexpected landfall, like, right on top of their chosen shelter. Bad luck. Anyway, Newt's known about the existence of other Hong Kong Shatterdome lab spaces in the vague and absent sort of way that you would an urban legend, but (similarly so) he never thought he and Hermann would actually ever lay eyes on one. And then Tendo stopped by to dangle it in front of Newt on a stick.

"The other labs were being used as storage for ages after everyone else—" Newt searches for a word tasteful enough to encapsulate got stomped by a kaiju and wised up and decided to live out what are probably our last few days before the world ends with their families instead of alone in a military bunker. "—left. Anyway, Tendo told me they've been going through shit like crazy this month, I think to see if they can salvage any old tech, and that the other labs are basically totally emptied out now. We just have to ask and they're ours."

Hermann sets down both his pen and fork, twisting his mouth contemplatively. He finally loses the battle against gravity with his glasses, and they miss his plate by an inch, swinging back on their chain and bouncing harmlessly against his chest instead. Newt briefly wonders if getting a chain for his own glasses would save them from their frequent fatal falls into kaiju organ cavities and buckets of non-neutralized kaiju blood, but decides not even the money he'd save on replacement pairs would make a fashion faux pas like that worth it. "You know I don't much fancy the basement," Hermann says.

"Your joints," Newt agrees. The damp of the basement sets Hermann's joint pain off frequently, something Hermann talks about just as frequently. Newt's not really a fan of the basement either, though for different reasons—he would kill to get some windows and natural, non-fluorescent light in there. Sun lamps can only do so much. He's pretty sure he'd fucking glow if he stepped outside right now. Also, it's cold down here.

"And it might be nice to be closer to LOCCENT, in case of an emergency," Hermann continues. "And closer to—oh, hang on. What has this got to do with us?"

"Huh?"

"How we met," Hermann says. "You said, that Tendo asked—"

"Oh," Newt says. It's his turn to play coy. He stirs his chopsticks through his own dinner, accidentally flicking a piece of tofu to the table. It lands on top of Hermann's etched equations. Hermann scowls, because that's how their routine goes: Newt gets Hermann's stuff dirty, and Hermann gets mad. "Well. It was just that Tendo was like you can finally be out of each other's hair, how the hell did you guys get stuck together anyway when you obviously can't stand each other, that kind of stuff."

"Ah," Hermann says.

"And I said that it was because we knew each other before," Newt says, "and that we transferred here together. And that's when he asked."

"And what did you say?" Hermann says.

"That we used to correspond professionally," Newt says, "and met at a conference way back in 2017." He adds, with a grin, "Also professionally."

This was technically true. Newt and Hermann did write to each other, professionally, and they did meet at a conference, professionally, but what went down after a long and public shouting match in the events hall of a very nice hotel—in Hermann's room, five floors up in that very nice hotel—was not very professional. The events of the week that followed—spent, intermittently, between Hermann's hotel room, several coffee shops, a bench under a tree in Newt's favorite park, a rotation sushi restaurant, brushing knees shyly on the tram, and, finally, clasping hands on the staircase of Newt's apartment and gazing deeply into each other's eyes—weren't very professional, either, but Newt likes to think that they were very romantic. Rom-com level shit. Newt revealed none of this to Tendo, who referred to the 2017 conference as that Infamous Day for the rest of their conversation. "Well, it was professional," Hermann sniffs.

But he reaches across the table, and, very timidly, crosses his pinkie over top of Newt's. It's the most blatant form of PDA Hermann ever willingly engages Newt in. Newt thinks if he ever tried to touch two fingers at once in anywhere but the lab, or God forbid, hold his whole hand, Hermann's ears might start emitting steam like something out of a cartoon. "It might be nice," he says again.

Laboratory Space D, Basement Level 1, is unique—Newt knows—in that Newt and Hermann's quarters are connected to it directly. None of the other labs have that luxury (and Newt has a feeling it's because Lab Space D wasn't actually intended as a lab space). He remembers being told that when they were shoved into it. Yeah, you have the darkest and tiniest lab space on base, but your rooms are right there! When Newt wants to go to Hermann's room, or if he's in Hermann's room and needs a sweatshirt or something from his own, he just has to step the three feet between their two doors. Moving labs could throw a wrench in that—they might be asked to move quarters, too, and might be shuttled to opposite sides of the Shatterdome, and though they could just bite the bullet and request couple's quarters already, it's nice to have their own spaces when they need it. That would never work. And, well, besides—the lab, their lab, feels like home to them at this point. Newt shrugs.

"On the other hand," Hermann says, and he taps Newt's pinkie lightly, "I quite like how things are. I can live with the damp, really."

"We can get a dehumidifier," Newt offers.

Hermann nods, and he gives Newt the barest hint of a smile.

Their monthly delivery of lab supplies—whatever they can afford with their shoestring budget, which, these days, mostly means chalk, rubber gloves, and nice instant ramen—comes three weeks later. Newt wouldn't exactly call the Shatterdome delivery guy a friend, seeing as he has yet to divulge his name to Newt (and also Newt's pretty sure he has a thing for Hermann, since he always seems to wait until Hermann is in the lab to stroll by with his package trolley and always calls him Dr. Gottlieb with big stupid heart eyes, oh, Dr. Gottlieb, that new sweater looks soooo nice on you!, so anyway, that makes him Newt's rival by default), but he, at least, recognizes and acknowledges Newt at this point. That's more than Newt can say for most people on the base. After his usual greeting to the two of them (hey, Newt, oh, hellllooo, Dr. Gottlieb, did you do something new with your hair?), he starts to unload their packages, also like usual.

"I was surprised to see that you guys are still down here," he tells Newt, not like usual. "Tendo mentioned something about you getting your own labs."

"He did?" Newt says, meaning to frown, but grinning instead. It's kind of fun to be the subject of gossip. He pulls off his gloves and tosses them in the trash to help with their supplies—the dehumidifier he requested should be in there, and it's fancy and definitely on the bigger side.

"Yeah," their delivery guy continues. He hands Newt a fuckin' massive brick of a package. Hermann's stupid chalk. The amount that Hermann tears through in a month really is astounding: Newt has a private theory that Hermann is an undercover space alien from a planet where chalk constitutes all of the primary food groups, and he secretly sneaks out here and eats it in the dead of night when Newt is asleep. "Anyway, sorry I'm late," the delivery guy says, as Newt imagines Hermann crunching on a piece of chalk like a carrot stick, "I went to all the other labs first."

"No worries, dude," Newt says. "Sorry for the confusion."

He lugs the package over to Hermann's desk, and drops it down on the only spot not over-cluttered with papers and books. Hermann complains about Newt's messiness a lot for a guy who is just as bad, if not worse. "Need any now?" Newt asks Hermann.

Hermann, scribbling away at his chalkboard, grunts. Newt decides that's a no.

"Hard at work, Dr. Gottlieb?" the delivery guy says, practically fluttering his eyelashes.

Another grunt. Newt snorts.

"I thought you guys would've moved right away," the delivery guy (obviously disappointed at Hermann's lack of attention) tells Newt. "Tendo mentioned you've been stuck together for a while, ever since some sort of dramatic confrontation at a conference ten years ago." he adds eagerly, "Did you really get thrown out? I don't know how you haven't killed each other yet."

"It's taken a lot of hard work," Newt says. Yeah, the whole being-ejected-from-the-conference-and-barred-from-all-future-ones-forever thing is technically true too, but everyone there was too stuffy and serious for Newt's fun vibes anyway, so he thinks it's their loss. The most important part of the scientific breakthrough process, Newt frequently thinks, was having someone there to challenge you and push back at you. Sometimes loudly. And in public. In the conference hall of a very expensive hotel, in front of all of your scientific peers, some hotel security guards, and a poor graduate student who made the mistake of asking you and your penpal-colleague for your joint opinion on something and got caught in the crosshairs. Besides—out of everyone at that stupid conference, Newt and Hermann were the only ones snapped up by the PPDC, so it's doubly their loss. "And, yeah, we got thrown out. Me and Hermann fight a lot, but we always make up eventually. It's no big deal. It's, like, our thing."

"Make up?"

Newt waggles his eyebrows and doesn't elaborate. The making up part is the best part of arguing with Hermann, honestly, but he's not about to go giving private details about stuff like that to his rival.

By the time Hermann finally descends his ladder, three hours have passed, and Newt is frowning over an email he's just gotten from Shatterdome HR. Hermann will probably see it in a second when he checks his own email—it was sent to both of them, after all—but Newt waves him over to his desk anyway. "Look," he says.

He draws out the spare chair he keeps by his desk (for Hermann), and Hermann drops into it gratefully, propping his cane up against the arm. Then Hermann pushes his glasses up onto his nose and scans the email with a frown of his own. Newt reads it aloud for him anyway. "'Subject: Quarters Reassignment,'" he says. "Dear Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb: It has recently come to our attention that you will be transferring to Laboratories A&B. Should you wish to transfer quarters as well, you will find the necessary paperwork..."

"By Jove," Hermann groans, and pulls his glasses off again, smudging a bit of chalk on his cheek, "can't they just leave us alone?"

Newt laughs. "I'll tell them we're not interested. Wait, listen to this bit at the end: Congratulations—this must be a relief! Guess they were getting your complaint forms after all, Hermann." Both Newt and Hermann had long-since assumed that any and all official complaint forms stamped with a k-sci lab return address are filed right into the garbage. It's never deterred Hermann from sending them in, though.

"Hmph," Hermann says.

Newt carefully rolls his shirtcuff back down to his wrist and uses it to rub off Hermann's chalk smudge. When it's gone, or at least, mostly gone, he brushes his fingers back through Hermann's short hair. Hermann's eyelids flutter shut, and as he leans into Newt's touch, his creased forehead smooths just a little. "Mm. You're lovely," he murmurs. "We really ought to tell them we're married. It's gone on long enough."

"I guess," Newt says. "But it's kind of funny, isn't it?"

[the-lonelybarricade]

I totally stole this from one of those writing prompt blogs, but can you do Rhys and Feyre going to couples therapy together as a joke when they only just met?

Okay my love, I literally just finished writing this and haven't actually proofread it. It was meant to be silly and jokey but ended up being a bit more serious than I intended, but I'm a sucker for fake dating tropes so maybe I'll continue their story at some point. Anyway here's a modern Feyre and Rhys going to couples thereapy together (whilst not actually being a couple):

Feyre was absolutely determined to prove Nesta wrong. Usually her sister’s grating comments didn’t penetrate Feyre’s hardened demeanor at home, but something about their stint yesterday had thoroughly gotten under her skin. Nesta had a talent when it came to barbed words, so it was the casualness with which she’d said Feyre was boring and predictable that had kept the words ringing between Feyre’s ears. They lacked the usual bite and venom that was characteristic of Nesta, and somehow that made them impossibly worse.

Was Feyre a creature of habit? Sure. But she had always been content with her quiet, unassuming life. They’d grown up poor, with little luxury, and as a little girl Feyre had always believed all she’d need to be happy was paint supplies and enough time to get lost in a blank canvas. Feyre had that now, and she was happy. She spent almost every day in her studio, a paintbrush in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. And that was fine. She may not spend a lot of time with other people, but that was fine.

Routine is fine. Being focused on your career is fine. So why did the implication that her life is stagnant rile her up so much?

Feyre couldn’t articulate what, exactly, had bothered her so much, since she was perfectly happy with the current state of her life. Yet the next morning she’d woken up, vowing to take a day off and spend the whole day being entirely unpredictable.

She was going to pull a Jim Carrey in Yes Man. She was going to seize this damn day. And any voice in her mind that pleaded her to stick to her comfort zone was going to be diligently ignored.

When she set out to get her morning coffee, she ducked into the first cafe she came across without checking the reviews. And instead of ordering her usual chai latte, she asked the cashier to make her their favorite drink. She sat at a booth and sipped it experimentally. It was sweet and tasted of caramel; she decided she quite liked it. So far so good.

She sat wondering what brave venture she should do next, something that would be worthy of telling people about. Something so brash and crazy and unexpected Nesta would eat her stupid, truthful words.

“Mind if I take this seat?”

The voice was like smooth velvet. Feyre glanced up to meet a pair of eyes that were such a deep, peculiar shade of blue they almost looked violet. She was momentarily stunned speechless, which caused the impossibly handsome stranger to lift one of his perfectly groomed brows in question.

“Of course,” Feyre answered, her mouth feeling a bit dry. She quickly took a sip of her coffee to quell this strong reaction her body was having to this man.

She’d been expecting him to take the chair to sit elsewhere, but he slid into the chair at her table, directly across from her. Feyre spared a cursory glance around the cafe. Customers milled about, but there were plenty of empty seats strewn here and there. It was far from necessary to share a table with a stranger.

Her interest piqued, Feyre turned her attention back to this strange, alluring man.

“I’m Feyre,” she said, sounding much more confident than she felt. But today was about branching out of her comfort zone. Making the first move with an attractive man certainly qualified.

“Rhysand,” he answered with a charming grin, extending his hand into the space between them. Feyre accepted it with a mirrored smile, for a moment marvelling at the way his hand completely enveloped hers.

Feyre cleared her throat. “So tell me, Rhysand, what brings you to this table in particular?”

The way he wrinkled his nose was unfairly endearing. “Call me Rhys,” he said. “I only really use Rhysand in a business setting. And I chose this table in particular, because I saw a beautiful woman sitting here and was feeling especially forward.”

Feyre laughed in surprise. “Forward, indeed. Well, Rhys, I have spectacular news for you.”

“And what’s that, Feyre darling?” the suggestive tone to his voice sent shivers down her spine and instantly those warning bells in her mind were blaring. This man was too handsome and he was a complete stranger.

“I’ve decided to do something completely stupid and spontaneous today, and you’re officially invited to join me.”

Rhysand grinned, his eyes flickering with mischief at her proposal. She supposed that should be concerning, too, but she felt her pulse quicken. “And what stupid, spontaenous thing will we be doing, darling?”

Feyre leaned back, trying to regain composure by taking a too casual sip of her coffee. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m open to ideas.”

Across the cafe, a man stood up so quickly his chair tipped over with a loud thunk. Rhys and Feyre both whirled their heads at the commotion.

“This is why we need to go to therapy together!” the woman across from him screeched. “You can’t control your stupid temper!”

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he growled. “I’m not going to sit there for an hour so you can manipulate some dumb bitch into agreeing with you!”

“It’s not about sides,” she groaned. “I want to work through this with you!”

Feyre felt a tug of sympathy at the desperation in the woman’s voice. She could feel her pain and frustration second-hand, having been in similar shoes herself.

“Fuck this,” the man grumbled, storming for the door.

The woman followed after him. “Our appointment is in 10 minutes! Please, let’s just try it.”

The door swung shut behind them. Feyre watched the couple continue their walking argument down the city pavement, gesturing wildly with their hands.

Feyre sighed. “Man, that poor woman. It sounded like she really wanted to work things out.”

“That guy sounded like an absolute ass, maybe it’s for the best,” Rhys said. Then, his eyes lit up and he turned to Feyre with a slow, conspiring grin. “It does give me an idea, though.”

“What’s that?” Feyre felt a bit intimidated by the roguish expression on his face, even if it did make her feel breathless.

“Well, I do happen to know there’s a psychiatrist's office right above this cafe. If I had to guess, that’s where our friends were going to have their first session. And from the looks of it,” he nodded towards the couple, who were now striding in opposite directions through the city, faces flushed with anger, “they won’t be attending.”

“And your point is…?”

“Let’s go in their stead. Make a game of it. First person to break character loses.”

“And what does the winner get?”

“Well, if I win, then I get to take you to dinner.”

Feyre considered for a moment. Dinner with a handsome man certainly didn’t sound like losing to her. “If I win, then I get to use you as a model.”

“You’re a photographer?” His brows rose in interest and Feyre summoned all her will power not to blush. Since when was she bashful about her career?

“Painter.”

Rhysand grinned. “If you win, you can use my body anyway you wish, Feyre darling. Nude would be best.”

And that was how Feyre had ended up in Dr. Suriel’s office, Rhys by her side on the sofa. It was perhaps the most adventurous thing she’d ever agreed to.

“So, Mr and Mrs Mandray. Apologies, I didn’t get your names on the forms.”

“I’m Feyre, this is my husband Rhys,” Feyre answered, thinking it lucky they didn’t have to guess at the mysterious couple’s forenames.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Feyre and Rhys. What brings you to my office today?”

Rhys immediately slipped into his role of the concerned husband. He placed his arm around Feyre’s shoulders and tugged her close. Rhys opened his mouth, then shut it, glancing at Feyre hesitantly.

“My wife and I have been getting into a lot of… disagreement lately,” Rhys answered carefully, and already Feyre thought this was going much better than it would have if the actual Mr Mandray had turned up.

“My husband,” Feyre said flatly, channeling her inner Nesta to put venom into the word. “Is insisting on painting our house purple.”

“I see,” Dr. Suriel says, assessing the displeasure on Feyre’s face. “And I’m assuming you want to paint the house a different color.”

Feyre pressed her lips into a thin line. “See, that’s just the problem,” she said, crossing her arms. “That’s exactly the color I would want to paint our house.”

Dr. Suriel frowned. “So you do want the house to be painted purple, as does your husband. Am I understanding that correctly?”

“No,” Feyre sighed. “He wants to paint the house blue, but is insisting we paint it purple, because he knows it’s what I want. This bastard refuses to be anything but accommodating.”

“We’re going to try to refrain from name-calling in my office,” Dr Suriel said calmly. “So, Feyre, you are clearly unhappy that Rhys wants to paint the house purple. What color would you paint it?”

“Blue,” she answered. “I know it’s what he secretly wants to paint it.”

“She doesn’t see the hypocrisy in what she's saying!” Rhys complained. Then, he turned to Feyre, looking impossibly serious. “Darling, I know you want to paint the house purple, and I already told you I’m fine with it.”

Feyre groaned. “I don’t want to paint the house purple! I want to paint it blue.”

“You’re only saying that because you think I want to paint the house blue.”

“Do you?”

Rhys hesitated. “No.”

“Don’t lie in front of our therapist,” Feyre said with narrowed eyes. “We promised to tell the truth while we’re here.”

“Then you tell me the truth, Feyre. Do you genuinely want the house to be painted blue?”

Now it was Feyre’s turn to hesitate. She could see the corner of Rhysand’s mouth twitch as she did so. “No. I mean yes! I do!”

“It sounds like at the heart of this argument, you are both ultimately concerned in pleasing the other person, is that fair to say?”

Feyre and Rhys glanced at each other, then nodded in agreement.

“Do you think there’s a color you could both compromise on, so that you don’t feel as if your partner is the only one making a sacrifice in this decision?”

Feyre met Rhysand’s brilliant violet eyes. In truth, she’d blurted the color purple because she’d been thinking about the color of his eyes. She'd never seen eyes that color, and they were wonderfully vivid. Feyre was lost thinking of painting a world in a monocrhome of violet, like a city that lived within his gaze.

Feyre realized she’d been momentarily swept away, snapped out of it by the humor that washed behind those starry irises. She blinked back the haze and tried to think of an answer to the question.

“Mustard yellow?” she proposed.

Rhys pursed his lips in mock consideration. “Mustard yellow,” he agreed with an emphatic nod of approval.

Dr. Suriel blinked in surprise. “All right, well I’m pleased we could solve that issue. Is there anything else you’ve been arguing about?”

“Yeah, actually. My wife,” Rhys gave Feyre a pointed glance. Somehow, despite being strangers, hearing Rhys refer to her as his wife sent waves of pleasure jolting through her. She felt her stomach flip on itself. “Isn’t satisfied with our sex life.”

Feyre instantly flushed at such an accusation, however fabricated.

“Is this true, Feyre?” Dr. Suriel turned her eyes towards Feyre and she shifted uncomfortably at having to make up stories about her sex life with Rhys. Making Feyre imagine rolling in a bed with him was certainly his goal, and she’d lie to say it wasn’t affecting her. Rhysand looked absolutely delighted to have made her squirm. Fine. Two could play at his game.

“Y-yes, well,” Feyre stuttered, the burning in her cheeks condemning. “I keep telling Rhys that 16 orgasms in a session is excessive. He’s much too generous a lover and he never lets me give as good as I get.”

Feyre felt satisfied with the way Rhysand’s face went crimson.

Dr. Suriel’s brows rose. “This seems to be a common theme in your marriage. Rhysand, would you say that you’re often prioritising Feyre’s desires over your own?”

“I think Feyre sorely underestimates how much pleasure I take from satisfying her desires,” he answered, his eyes flicking to Feyre with enough of a sensual promise that her heartbeat turned staccato.

“Rhys, it sounds as though your generosity is part of the way you express your love, is that safe to say?” Rhys nodded. “And Feyre, it seems as if you have trouble accepting your husband's generosity, both in and outside the bedroom. Do you feel that’s a fair statement?”

“I-I suppose so.”

“Sometimes people have trouble accepting their loved one’s generosity when they feel like they aren’t giving something in exchange. It can be hard to accept that kind of love when we don’t feel like we deserve it. Do you feel like this could apply to your situation?”

Feyre blinked. This was meant to be a gag, something daring and experimental. She hadn’t expected to be psychoanalyzed by Dr. Suriel, or at least for her analysis to hit so close to home.

Rhysand shifted forward on the sofa. “Is this true, darling?” he asked, sounding concerned. He took Feyre’s hands in his own, brushing his thumb along her skin as he met her gaze. “I think you deserve the world.”

She would almost think he was being genuine if she hadn’t met him only an hour ago. Feyre marked the conviction on his face, those burning pools of earnesty in his eyes, and marveled at what an incredible actor he was.

Somehow she ended up blurting part of the truth. “My family life growing up was kind of tough and I’ve never really known what unconditional love was like. I think a part of me still believes it's something I have to earn.”

“That sounds like it must have been very hard, Feyre. But it sounds like Rhys loves you very much, and that this is an issue the two of you can overcome together. When you feel the instinct to reject his generosity, try to remember where that message is coming from. And Rhysand, try to keep in mind that this is something your wife is still working through, and be patient if she feels more comfortable giving you something in exchange. This is her way of expressing love, too. At the core of your issues is both of you thinking about the other person, try to remember this when a breakdown in communication occurs.”

Somehow they’d lost control of their therapy session and were receiving actual therapy, which wasn’t part of the plan at all. But somehow, despite not actually being married to Rhysand, what Dr. Suriel said was reassuring.

Feyre turned to Rhys and smiled. “I think I understand better, now. You’re free to give me as many orgasms as you want, honey.”

Rhys grinned fiendishly. “And I’ll let you reciprocate in whatever way you feel comfortable, darling.”

Dr. Suriel clasped her hands together in approval. “Excellent. I think so long as the two of you take measures to accurately communicate your needs, you’ll find these breakdowns will occur less frequently. And that’s it for our time today, but I am happy to have the two of you back any time.”

Feyre walked out of the session hand-in-hand with Rhys, feeling a bit dazed. It had certainly gotten more serious than she’d expected, but perhaps her judgement had been misplaced in thinking therapy could be anything other than serious, no matter how joking the complaints.

“Well, that was certainly stimulating,” Rhys quipped once they’d left the office.

“And it seems we’re at a draw, considering neither of us broke character.”

“You do play my wife convincingly well,” Rhys practically purred, “perhaps I’ll let you take up the real role, if you feel so inclined.”

Feyre laughed. “I’m expecting a few other offers to come through. Give me a few days to look over the applicants, then I’ll get back to you.”

“Okay, well how’s this. I’ll give you my number, you can wait until all those applicants come back to you, and once you’ve decided that I’m clearly the obvious choice, you can call me.”

Feyre smiled as she pulled out her phone and handed it to him to insert his number. “You do make a very convincing husband. Perhaps I can hire you for weddings and Thanksgiving dinners?”

“Real husband, fake husband, a partner to do spontaneous, outrageous things with. You call me, and I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Feyre.”

It was perhaps the strangest and most generous offer she’d ever been given. When they parted ways, Feyre thought that she’d certainly filled her quota for an interesting story to tell. And maybe, most likely, she’d be calling that number very soon.

[theotheroccassionalfanficwriter]

Heyy can I request a 3rd part for Zhong x mage reader where they hopefully realize their feelings for each other? Feel free to end it off & add as much fluff & smut if you wish (*^ω^*)

Thanks for waiting anon, lol I just realize that this was almost the same as the previous ask so I decided to do a reader's POV continuing from where we left off last time.

So please enjoy the fourth part in the In Pursuit of Series: 1,2,3

In Pursuit of Love

Summary: You fell in love slowly, unknowingly, and when you had realized it, your love for him had already sunk into the marrow of your bones.

--

1.

Falling back together was easier than the time the two of you spent weeks apart from each other. You found it easier to fall back to your morning routine with Zhongli around than it was to relearn how you lived before. And somehow the two of you had grown closer, more attuned to each other’s thoughts that sometimes there was no need to talk further. It was the intimacy of being known, and by the archons you were drunk on it.

You lived freely and happily, as if all the burdens you had were gone. With Zhongli by your side, it felt like the world had become brighter. Spending time with him, starting and ending the days with him became so natural that you didn’t notice what was already there from the start.

It stood to reason that you didn’t put much thought when Zhongli woke you up with his tongue down your throat or his hands groping your now exposed chest. It meant that when Zhongli took off your clothes in the morning, placing kisses on your neck and leaving visible marks on your skin, you merely thought he was just getting things started to transfer his energy for your continued survival.

It meant that you didn’t think much when you found yourself returning the favor, opening your legs for him, riding his cock early in the morning and not bothering to stifle your moans because Zhongli told you he liked hearing how much you wanted his cock, how slutty you acted when he thrusted his cock in your pussy until it was raw.

You had thought all of his words as dirty talk, not actually carrying any meaning beyond making the sex pleasurable for both of you. And today was no exception, you woke up with Zhongli’s mouth sucking on your nipples, leaving new bruises on top of last night’s marks.

Your pussy was filled with fresh cum and you could taste his cum on the back of your throat. You idly wondered how long had Zhongli been fucking you before you woke up, but such thoughts were thrown in the back burner when you felt his fingers tease your clit and toy with your cum-filled pussy.

“Nnnn!”

With a pop, Zhongli stops sucking your nipples and kisses you on your mouth, tongue entangling with yours.

--

“Good morning” He greeted you with a soft and gentle smile that was at odds with his lewd acts.

“Good morning” You greeted him shyly as you spread your legs wide, and silently asked for his cock. You wanted to be awake this time when he filled you up.

For someone who was fucking you for an indeterminate length of time, Zhongli had a lot of stamina. His cock easily penetrated you again, geo cuffs forming like an absent thought on your wrists as he went in and out of you. His cum acted as a lubricant to ease his cock as it filled you to the brim, stretching your walls and giving you a pleasant burn.

Your ample breasts jiggled from the force of being fucked over and over. Your pussy felt raw but even so you couldn’t help but want more, Zhongli’s dick had ruined you for everyone else. You were quite sure that no one would be able to bring you over the edge the way Zhongli did.

Your entire body felt warm from the lust and the odd feeling that came from Zhongli’s archon energy. Before you could even ask him about it, your thoughts were interrupted by the hard thrust of his cock that had your body arching and feeling the warmth of his thick cum.

Zhongli pulled out and let the rest of his cum shoot on your body, some landing on your face and open mouth.

“Good girl.”

You smiled at him sweetly.

2.

For some reason, it became a common occurrence for you to head to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor with a homemade lunch for Zhongli, on days when you had no case to solve or you had reached a dead end. Today was a latter kind of day, there were no breakthroughs on the Chasm case which Qixing was gracious enough to not hasten you.

Especially since they were aware that you had landed a life threatening curse on yourself.

So now that you had gotten used to spending your lunch time with him, it made you realize that everyone in the Parlor was already familiar with you. You no longer limited yourself to chatting with Hu Tao or the Ferry Lady when Zhongli was busy with his job. Which was odd, now that you’ve thought about it. For all of the claims of your genius and the surprising amount of time you spent with children, you were never good at people.

Or to be more precise, good at keeping people. Your relationships with everyone you’ve met had always been so-so, you could rely on them for information you need, or calling in for a favor but if you could never truly trust yourself with them. You don't know when to call people friends or how to keep the ones you make, you suck at maintaining relationships and the only ones you’ve been able to maintain are from people who are surprisingly stubborn or sticky.

Ones who didn’t mind that you never wrote regularly or you came and went through their life like a breeze of wind. They were people who didn’t mind rebuilding friendship again and again, assuring you in their own silent way that you were wanted and welcome.

Which meant that the present relationship you had with the employees of Wangsheng was an odd change, a welcome one, but odd nonetheless. This was how Zhongli found you, contemplating in silence, in his office.

“Are you alright, dear?” He asked, worry marring his beautiful features.

“Hmmm...yeah, just thinking” You answered with an awkward smile and a heavy feeling in your heart that you can’t quite explain.

“You don’t have to, you know” Zhongli said, reassuring you.

“I really don’t know” You joked with him.

“Talk to the others if you aren’t up to it” He explained and to anyone else it would felt like a slight, a terrible jab at your inadequacy that you never quite got the hang of.

But it was Zhongli.

Zhongli who willingly shoulders the gossip about your relationship with him, who cares for you so deeply that he can give you himself for an indefinite period of time, Zhongli who simply wants to stay by your side and thinks the world of you, who believes that you are good.

And that’s enough to take off the sting from the reminder of your flawed humanity, makes your body relax and you find yourself leaning into his hand that somehow made its way to your face.

You nuzzle into it, a show of affection that makes you feel embarrassed but the weight of Zhongli’s affection, this intimacy from whole acceptance and being known, was an addictive warmth that you feared losing.

“Thank you.”

You hope that Zhongli can hear everything those two words encompass.

3.

The changes stemming from your relationship with Zhongli, mainly this odd but welcome change of being connected to people, and staying in a place for a long while meant that inevitably you end up having a permanent address people can find you.

It was novel to you, the idea of a place being stuck to your name. You said as much to Zhongli, during one of those rare times he had no work and decided to be with you for an entire day.

“How do your friends write to you then?”

“They don’t or well they post a commission to the guild and I pay for the reward” You told him truthfully before recounting the first time one of your friends had done so and it had involved a high ranking adventurer, the guild master of the adventurer’s guild and ending with an entire map of Mare Jivari.

“What were you doing there?!” Zhongli had asked scandalized.

“I was curious and there was no known map of it, so I thought ‘huh? Guess this would give me a whole lot of mora if I did this!’ how was I supposed to know one of my friends would end up pregnant during that time and wanted me to be a godmother?” You replied, slightly offended and amused at the look on his face.

Which naturally resulted in Zhongli extracting a promise from you to never go to dangerous places without him, ever again. And he was so earnest and so seriously worried about it that your grin slid off your face and you gave him your word.

Which then resulted in you feeling slightly off kilter about it. The thing is you never thought that Zhongli would care for you this much, for all of the fucking and the tender moments between you two, you’ve always believed that there was a line somewhere.

A line that dictated the end of his care for you and the beginning of his indifference. It wasn’t that you didn’t believe he wanted to stay by your side, it was just that you’ve always thought he meant it figuratively like he wanted to be kept up-to-date with you when your curse is finally lifted.

Because the thought of Zhongli, coming along with your adventures, travelling with you leaves you just slightly, very slightly, perplexingly happy. It makes you grab his hand and intertwine it together, and Zhongli doesn’t mind, doesn’t care for this display of affection and instead encourages it.

He squeezes your hand twice, and gives you a smile that assures you that you are wanted. A part of you dares to hope that you’d find your home in this place, here with Zhongli and if not, you’re content with him being a place you can return to, a place of reprieve from the life of a traveler.

And this leads to your few friends addressing letters to Zhongli’s place, adventurers from around the world used as glorified messengers for your equally eccentric friends, sending packages or cases in your way. Sometimes, asking for advice or a consultation but more often than not, a mere teasing letter inquiring about your daily life and the new found changes they’ve seen.

“It’s nice,” You told Zhongli, in the middle of reading one of your letters, “having this regular contact with them.”

You don’t notice the way Zhongli pauses in his cooking, just to look at you and your soft fragile smile.

“You can tell them to send their letters here, and I can always go deliver them to you” He offered.

You laughed, thinking that he didn’t mean it but nonetheless happy with his kindness, “If you keep doing stuff like that, you might just make an honest woman out of me!”

And Zhongli says nothing beyond a smile, and you let the moment pass. Willing your heart to calm down and not letting yourself hope for too much, you continued to read your letters even though your mind often drifts off to Zhongli’s “offer”.

Later that night, as you laid in his arms, you began to wonder if the two of you had blurred the lines of friendship and something more.

4.

Sex with Zhongli was always fun and just as exciting as the first time you did it with him. As you haven’t found a cure to your curse yet nor an alternative that didn’t involve an adepti, you felt indebted to Zhongli’s generosity on being your life support for an indefinite period of time.

It meant that sometimes when Zhongli did something that only lovers would, you were content to let it pass. Considering how much of his essence you needed, you were willing to let him enjoy you however he wanted.

It meant that on certain occasions where Zhongli’s libido was unbelievably high, you’d let yourself be led to a secluded to corner of a mountain, a road, or even Liyue’s backstreets to have your panties pushed to the side and be fucked by his thick cock.

You’ve learned how to muffle your moans as his cock relentlessly thrusted into your pussy, hands deftly freeing your breasts from its confines and playing with it. Squeezing and pulling and pushing it until it felt overly stimulated from the attention. Your body learned how to arch itself in the right way, ensuring that his cock repeatedly slammed its head into your g-spot.

The only change between then and now was that Zhongli had gained a preference on muffling your moans with his mouth, kissing you fervently as you milked his cock with your pussy. His kisses was intense, it made your knees weak and felt too intimate between two people fucking for necessity. Which often led to the two of you kissing for a long period of time, even when Zhongli rubs your pussy through the fabric of your panties or simply because he felt like it.

Zhongli was an excellent kisser, that much you could tell from the steadily growing frequency of him simply kissing you, without it leading to sex or having your pussy eaten out. And maybe you were biased with your opinion considering you’ve never kissed anyone other than Zhongli but you were quite sure that he gave the best kisses.

This thought only became more prevalent with each lingering kiss he gave you, the warmth that left your lips tingling. It made you want for something you don’t quite understand or dare to understand. Zhongli made your knees weak, he made you want things you’ve previously given up on, he made you want for a home you could return to.

Zhongli was changing you into someone you weren’t quite sure you truly welcomed and yet you couldn’t help but want and want. Selfishly wanting to tie him to you, to tie yourself to him.

“Zhongli?” Your voice trembled, soft and scared.

Even so in your eyes, he remained smiling, calm and patient as he gently took strands of your hair and kissed its tip.

“It’s fine, I can wait.”

You closed your eyes and bowed your head. The sound of his footsteps gently fading away as he walked away made you feel relieved and aching at the same time.

5.

Despite sleeping separately for the first time since you were cursed, Zhongli’s affection for you didn’t change. Except that he no longer gave you kisses outside of foreplay or sex even still his affectionate looks and smile remained.

It left you disappointed and yet a clarity of mind and heart.

Ultimately, you understood that Zhongli was doing this to give you space, a breather to allow you to make your decision without any bias or undue influence. This allowed you to realize that you had been deceiving yourself for a while now.

Even so you still didn’t want to voice it. You couldn’t even dare to speak of it in the privacy of your mind. So you did what you always did when everything felt constricting. You ran away.

The benefits from being a mage was that you could use the teleportation devices scattered throughout Teyvat. Which meant that it was quite easy for you to slip in and out of 7 nations without anyone knowing. So it was really quite easy for you to get out of Liyue Harbor, use the device in Mt. Tianheng and go to Snezhnaya.

The surprise and alarmed look of Tartaglia was enough to quell your nerves.

--

You raise a bottle of your finest fire water and said, “Let’s drink!”

2 bottles later and you’ve unloaded everything between you and Zhongli to Tartaglia. You sat across from him, legs spread and stretched out while his fireplace blazes on the side and engulfing both of you in warm orange light.

“So you’re in love” He smirks, amused and equally drunk, comfortably leaning in the plush seat of his tufted back armchair.

“I am not” You denied, sinking further into your seat and ignoring Tartaglia’s loud and uninhibited laughter.

“I just like the no strings attached sex and affection” You clarified, “You’ve known about me for a long time, I don’t do well in long relationships.”

Tartaglia takes a swig of his own bottle of firewater, “You do, we’ve been friends for a long time” He smiles at you “you’re just afraid of commitment.”

You look at him, face blank but eyes showing your reluctant agreement and Tartaglia leans towards you, “You’re afraid aren’t you, of what Zhongli would do in the future, about you, me, the Abyss and everything it entails, and Celestia.”

“Maybe.”

“You were never one to let your fears rule you” His voice becomes soft, the unspoken affection bleeding through his words, “so what exactly are you afraid of losing once you acknowledge it?”

“I hate it when you aren’t sticking to your ‘only cares about a good fight’ persona” You groaned out, sitting up straight “you’re lucky I see you as family or I’d curse you right now.”

Tartaglia laughs and ruffles your hair, “Go to sleep and then return to him tomorrow.”

He gets up and makes his way to his bedroom, before he could leave the room you spoke, “Thank you.”

From behind you, Tartaglia smiled and said nothing as he continued on his way. There were some things that no longer needed to be said between two friends.

--

You sat on the edge of the cliff in Mt. Tianheng, watching the sunrise as Liyue Harbor slowly comes to life. You weren’t quite ready to face Zhongli yet.

You wanted to steel your nerves, calm your heart and properly arrange your words. Despite the carefree nature you showed, when it came to the matters of the heart, you always treaded carefully. Gone were the days you fell in love recklessly, accidentally and unknowingly hurting others and being hurt in return.

You wanted to face Zhongli, sincerely, to give him the utmost consideration for all that he had done for your sake. You wanted to make sure, to truly ascertain that what you felt was real and not a mere byproduct of the curse you had been saddled with. Zhongli deserved to be loved for who he was, as he is, and not what he gave up for you. To love him out of gratitude was to trample upon his sincerity, and you didn’t want that.

So you stalled, you waited, you didn’t rush. You simply and slowly worked out what you truly thought, what you felt. By the time the sun was high up in the sky, you stood up and patted your clothes. You slowly made your way down, entering Liyue Harbor, greeting the merchants and the townsfolk that knew you.

Each step that you took made you nervous, despite that you continued to make preparations, you pre-ordered a take out from Wanmin Restaurant, buying Zhongli’s favorite dish, Crystal Shrimp, and Universal Peace.

“I guess, Mr. Zhongli isn’t going to be Liyue’s most desired bachelor anymore?” Chef Mao joked.

You blinked and then laugh softly, “Was it that obvious?”

Chef Mao smiled, fatherly and nostalgic, and then he spoke to you with a wiseness that only came from suffering the vicissitudes of life, “There are things that can’t be concealed easily, one is indifference and the other love.”

Surprised, you stared at Chef Mao who only laughed boisterously, and with his fatherly tone added, “I’m not blind, and I was young once! I can tell if a man is interested or not.”

With a wink, Chef Mao waved you away and you shook your head in amusement as you walked away after paying in full. You slowly made your way to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, taking in the sight of Liyue Harbor in its busiest time of the day.

And as you neared the bridge in front of the parlor, you saw him. Walking slowly over the bridge, a rain of red maple leaves fell as he passed, you slowly halted and stared at him.

Thump thump

Your eyes met his and your heart that was moved by him, began to beat just a little bit faster. You smiled, gentle and soft, filled with unabashed adoration for him and slightly ran towards him. Zhongli smiled at you, eyes reflecting the deep emotions that he had for you.

Time slowed down and ran fast.

“I’m home” You told him as you hugged him and buried your face to his chest.

His arms gently and tightly wrapped around you, “Welcome back”.

There were still things that needed to be said, confessions to be made but for now the two of you didn’t need to do that yet. Not when both of you had finally reached the same place, hearts beating in sync.

+1

“Hey,” You called out to Zhongli “Do you remember the temple that got me cursed?”

“Of course” Zhongli replied, face stern and serious as he remembered that disastrous day.

“Well, I finally found out the story behind it” You revealed as you comforted him, hand gently patting his.

Zhongli relaxed, tense frame slumping a bit in the privacy of his shared home with you. He pulled you into his lap, embracing you and softly asked, “tell me?”

You hummed and began your tale,

“There used to be an immortal, a scrap collector, who was Heaven’s beloved official, and” You paused dramatically “there was a ghost king, a great calamity that the heavenly officials feared. The scrap immortal had the world’s terrible luck, he would experience all sorts of misfortune and tragedy while the ghost king had the world’s best luck, he would never lose a gamble nor a bet.”

You looked at Zhongli, teasing and eyes twinkling, “And these two unlikely beings were each other’s dao partner.”

Zhongli choked, “My dear…”

You laughed and laughed, “surprised? I was too! Ah~ Zhongli that temple was the one the ghost king, Hua Cheng, the Xuè Yǔ Tàn Huā built for his beloved, his highness Xiè Lián. It was the only surviving relic of the place where the infamous Ghost City was located.”

Zhongli blinked, “Then we entered the Ghost Realm?”

You nodded, “Yeah, we ended up triggering an old protection array. I ended up being the receiver of the curse since I was careless when I was fighting, I damaged the statue of his highness and the ghost king punished me for it.”

Seeing Zhongli frowning, you hurriedly appeased him, “Don’t worry! Those two have been gone for a long time now! What was left in there was just a particularly powerful emotion powered curse! So don’t go fighting with them!”

Zhongli sighed, but the frown on his face didn’t go away, “Then your curse?”

“With or without your cum, The curse would have eventually faded away.”

You laughed at his blushing face and decided to reveal one more thing, “Zhongli~ Did you know that when gambling with the ghost king, the only way to get what you want was to pass a test?”

Forehead to forehead, you stared into his eyes, through his heart and to his soul, voice filled with wonder and love, “If you can move his highness, Xiè Lián’s heart with pity, the Ghost King would give you what you want even if you had lost the debt.”

“I-”

You cut Zhongli off with a gentle kiss, and then said, “That day, I heard your prayers, and begged them to let you go. To let me suffer the curse alone, to let me suffer the unbearable pain. Because I couldn’t bear to have you suffer the consequences of my actions.”

“I can suffer any humiliation but my heart can’t bear the thought of you being humiliated” You told him, this secret of yours, the one you kept close to your heart.

--

You didn’t know when you began to fall for him, maybe it was when you had brazenly teased him, “Osmanthus wine, I’ll give this to you so don’t be a stick in the mud!”

Or maybe it was when he had asked, visibly worried, “Are you not afraid of being struck down like the sinners of Khaenri’ah?”

Or maybe it was when he had lowered himself to the ground and cried, “I just want to save her alone.”

There were so many moments that could have started it all but you knew when he had completely taken grasp of your heart.

“Please, let me walk by your side, protecting you and your belief.”

His words that day, fell into your heart like a rock that fell into a pond, creating ripples as it sank down on the bottom and stayed. He had, without you noticing, walked step by step into your heart, and made himself at home in there.

You would forever answer the calls of adventure, the never ending stories the world was waiting to tell you, but you also knew that you would always, without fail, return to Zhongli. To your home and one day you would settle your old bones with him, weathered hands holding each other, and greet each day side by side.

[comfy-whumpee]

Lali

CN: discussion of death, terminal cancer, cult recruitment.

@bloodybrambles, @wildfaewhump, @lektric-whump, @that-one-thespian, @raigash, @paingineering, @whumpywhumper

-

They serve little cardboard cups of milky tea, and Lali dumps two sugars in hers, because she’s given up on cutting down now that everything’s gone to shit. The cook has made lemon cake again, and she plucks a square of it from the tray to add an extra burst of sweetness, because she fucking deserves it.

Then she sits down on one of the foldable plastic chairs and crosses her arms over her chest and exhales slowly, feeling the hardness of her ribs under her shirt.

The patients are supposed to socialise together in this room, but on good days, Lali just sits on her chair and stares at the television. She tried, at first, but almost everyone here is older than her, and most of them have family that come visit. Plus, a lot of them die. This being a hospice.

Nurse Daniel is playing bridge with two of the old guys. She doesn’t know how he stands it. Mrs Galloway is asleep on the sofa, and Nurse Brigit is trying to get her up and to her bed. Nobody bothers with Lali. She still has enough good days that she doesn’t need constant vigilance. She’s allowed to just come out and sit, and as long as she doesn’t try to do anything taxing, she’s part of the furniture.

Today, though, someone does sit down opposite her. It’s Nurse Fatima, one of the good ones. She’s one of the sweetest people Lali has ever met, she always goes the extra mile, and she’s great to vent to. Lali has spent so much time at the hospice with her, it makes her feel better just to be near.

There are rumours about Nurse Fatima as well. One or two patients swear that her favourites get better care. That once, there was a miraculous recovery that nobody could explain.

People spend a lot of time trying to win over Nurse Fatima. The dying believe all kinds of bullshit. But Fatima seems interested in Lali and nobody else, and it makes Lali feel pretty damn special after it all.

“How are you feeling today, Lali?”

Lali realises she’s been staring at Nurse Fatima this whole time, and looks down at her teacup instead. “Fine. Everything hurts but nothing more than usual.”

Fatima nods. She has round glasses and her caring frown appears just above their bridge. “Have you eaten much today?”

“What’s the point?” Lali shrugs. “I ate what they gave me. And I’ve got cake.”

“But if you’re not in a social mood—”

“When the fuck am I, Fatima?”

The corner of her mouth lifts in sympathetic humour. “I was going to say, if you don’t want to be around the others—”

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have complained. Nothing against the others, honestly, I just…” She sighs, and though she trailed off, Fatima doesn’t speak. Lali takes a breath, and the ache spreads through her whole body like a burn. “I’m meant to be accepting. Everyone else is. But I’m not.”

Fatima seems unsurprised and understanding. “I noticed that. I actually wanted to talk to you about it.” She leans back, and for a moment, her eyes flicker across the room. Nobody is near Lali’s usual corner. “I’m not supposed to be telling you about this. But there’s actually an experimental treatment for your condition that’s being practised in the south. I know because I’ve got a friend who works at the clinic, but… I can’t take you there as a hospice nurse. I’m not allowed.”

For a moment, all Lali can do is blink. “Wait. You mean there’s – there’s another treatment I could get?”

Again, Fatima’s eyes scan the room from behind her glasses. Her voice lowers. “You could. But you’d have to discharge yourself from here. I can take you down, get you there, but… I can’t do that for everyone. I could lose my job. I’m offering it to you because – I think you want it.”

“I want it,” Lali breaks in immediately. “I definitely want it. God, Fatima, to have hope again… I’d do anything.”

Fatima’s smile is warm and proud. “I thought you would. But, listen. It’s a private clinic, non-profit. They have rules about who they’ll treat.”

“Anything,” Lali repeats, her pulse quickening. “This is my life. I have to.”

-

Lali comes to the clinic in Fatima’s car. She doesn’t expect Fatima to have such a nice car, and it makes for a comfortable journey, even with all of Lali’s medical equipment. The building is neat and modern, and as they step inside, it greets them with the sharp, clean scent of lime and sterility.

Lali arrives without any of her worldly belongings. She arrives without telling anybody where she is going. She arrives with her eyes downcast, her hands folded, shepherded in by Nurse Fatima like a supplicant. She initially balked at not bringing anything with her, but Fatima explained: this place is exclusive, a closely guarded secret, and they have to be careful. They have been threatened, even attacked, after people broke confidentiality agreements. The founder gave everything to keep it alive after that, and still works tirelessly to keep the clinics open. Her sacrifice saves lives every day. Lali found it inspiring to hear about, especially coming from Fatima, who never spoke in such admiring tones about anyone.

Lali’s heart is heavy with gratitude. Being received as a patient is a literal fucking lifeline. When Fatima introduces her at the desk, she almost cries to see the welcoming smile from the receptionist. The person who takes her to a treatment room smiles in the same way. Everyone seems so genuinely happy that she is here, that they can help her.

“We can begin immediately,” the doctor says. His smile is so kind. “We can help you, Ms Ahmed. By joining us, you’ll always have access to the care you need.”

He presents her with forms to sign. She puts her name on them all. She would pay for any health insurance, any private fee. She has nothing left to lose and everything to gain.

The contracts are taken back. She is instructed to change. She surrenders her clothes, her jewellery, even her hair tie. “You’re really strict on security,” she observes.

The doctor accosts her with a disapproving frown. “We have to be, Ms Ahmed. Was that not already explained to you?”

She flushes. She shouldn’t be stupid now, when she’s so close. “Yes. It was, I’m sorry.”

He nods. He puts her old clothes into a plastic bin and leads her to the next room, deeper into the building. They do not pass any other patients on the way. Lali was the only one in the waiting room who wasn’t already wearing the plain cotton clothing, loose and comfortable, almost like scrubs.

Fatima is in the next room already, with Lali’s forms and a smile.

“First round, then you’ll be with others in patient accommodation. There’ll be orderlies there to make sure you’re doing well. You’ll also have the chance to learn more about what we do.” Fatima explains this while the doctor reads her medical history, and Lali sits on a padded table and shivers in her new clothes. “And this is a lifetime commitment to treatment, so you’ll always have a place to stay if you need to, even after this bit where we keep you for observation.”

Lali nods. It sounds reasonable enough. Cancer doesn’t just go away forever when you fix it.

“It will be good to meet people like you,” Fatima adds. “People who didn’t give up, who wanted more and fought for it. You’ll understand each other and support each other. Most of them will have been here longer too, so they’ll help you find your way around.”

“Okay.” It feels like so much. Lali keeps her eyes on the doctor. He’s extracting something from a vial, mixing something…

“I’m so glad you came, Lali,” Fatima tells her. “I’m so, so glad you joined. It’s the start of your new life.”

Life, Lali thinks. What she’s been missing all this time.

The doctor turns with a small plastic cup in his hand. Lali accepts it from him and looks down, but it just seems like slightly cloudy water.

“You won’t see a difference straight away,” Fatima explains. She sounds so excited for Lali’s sake. “But over time, you’ll heal. You’ll recover, Lali, we can help you recover. All you need to do is drink.”

It feels so easy. She feels so damn lucky. She raises her cup. “Here’s to life.”

To that, she drinks. It tastes of nothing, but a metal aftertaste lingers on her tongue when she puts the cup down.

“Welcome,” Fatima says, her eyes shining. Her smile borders on exultant. “You are now one of the Panacea Alliance.”

[dizzydancingdreamer]

Ignorant | Steve Rogers

Wow I was really going through it with this one, huh? I think I listened to Bring Me To Life by Evanescence for the entire two hours it took to write this. I never write this fast-- I'm really going through it LOL! I hope you enjoy lovelies! It's the first Steve fic for Dinner at DIzzy's!

Appetizers (Tags): Angst

Entres (Pairing): Nomad!Steve Rogers x F!Reader (Third Person)

Sides (Prompts): 3: “Apparently I’m volatile, self-obsessed, and don’t play well with others.”

Notes: This has a ton of swearing, Requested by Anon

Word Count: 1.8k

Dinner at Dizzy’s Master List

“Just because you’re the leader here doesn’t mean you have the right to be an asshole, Steve!” Y/n hisses at the man, fists balled at her side.

She’s not going to swing. She would never swing on him— at least she doesn’t think she would— but right now she’s so damn close. All day he’s been pushing her around, yelling at her for the slightest trip ups. Yelling at all of them. She understands that being fugitives isn’t easy but holy shit can the man chill out for five minutes? She fell asleep in the backseat of the car for five fucking minutes! Certainly that doesn’t warrant the hour tongue lashing she just got. It does, however, warrant her retaliation.

He takes a step towards her, face twisted in a snarl unlike anything she’s ever seen before. “Watch your language!”

She doesn’t back down— she’s not scared of him. “Don’t fucking yell at me then! Stop being a dick!”

She doesn’t feel bad for the insult or the way he flinches, his eyes darkening immensely. She had tried to politely ask him for space thirty minutes ago and he didn’t give her any. If he gets to blow off steam or whatever the fuck he’s doing than so will she.

“I’ll stop being a dick when you get some common sense!”

Steve’s raising his own voice now, getting right in her face, and she only pushes forward, her cheeks filling with heat and her stomach clenching painfully. The audacity of this man is incredible. His usual light eyes are a deep navy color now, almost black from his blown pupils. He looks crazy— she doesn’t doubt that she does as well. She would bet money that she looks insane.

“I fell asleep for five fucking minutes and Sam was right fucking next to me! What the fuck is your problem?” She’s doing it on purpose now— if he doesn’t want her to swear then that’s all she’s going to do.

Maybe it’s the triple F-bomb that has the sound of feet pounding against concrete echoing through their shoddy apartment. Maybe it’s just the yelling in general. Either way it’s a good thing that Natsaha and Sam come sprinting in from the other room of the two room complex because if they hadn’t then she’s sure her fist would be cracking against the jaw of Captain Douchebag right now.

“Woah, woah, woah— what the hell’s going on in here?” Sam is quick to get in the middle of them, pushing the super soldier to one end of the room while Nat yanks on y/n’s hoodie. “We could hear you idiots from the stairwell.”

Y/n struggles against Nat for a moment, vision tinted red at the edges. From across the room Steve glares at her, seething. She can practically feel the hatred pouring off of him. It stings at her chest, biting into her veins. He would have kept yelling at her if they hadn’t stopped him, she just knows it. She wishes he would so she could scream back— her stomach and muscles are still tight and she’s aching to lay into him some more. She barely even started and now she feels like she’s about to bubble over.

“Seriously—” Nat tugs again and y/n stops fighting, opting instead to glower at the blonde from across the room— “What’s gotten into you two? You’re supposed to be the responsible ones!”

Steve tears his arm from Sam’s hold but doesn’t clear the space between them. “Why don’t you ask y/n—” he tilts his head, sneering again— “What was it you said ten minutes ago? Oh yeah— apparently I’m volatile, self-obsessed, and don’t play well with others.”

Why that little fucking— “Don’t put fucking words in my mouth!”

She storms past Natasha, dodging her arm as it flies out— you’re not the only trained markswoman here Nat. Steve does the same, bowling past Sam easily to meet her in the middle of the room.

“Why not? It’s what you meant right?” He’s in her face again, breath hot on her face, and she only retaliates by fuming right back.

She feels like a dragon facing down her enemy— she’s ready to burn the entire building down if it means lowering him a peg or five.

“Actually it wasn’t but now it is you narcissistic dick.”

She can feel Natasha start to pull on her hoodie again but she’s not done— not now. Not when she’s just gotten started.

“You just can’t handle hearing the truth y/n— you can’t handle it when I tell you what you did was wrong. That you could have gotten us fucking killed with your ignorance—”

Her veins flood with fire, her lips curling into a painful scowl. In that moment everything turns slow, her heartbeat a dull thump, thump, thump in her ears, drowning out the rest of his sentence. The only thing that gives away that he’s still speaking is his mouth moving, his teeth bared and ready to be knocked out.

Oh so she’s ignorant now is she? Yeah well fuck you Rogers!

This time the only thing that stops her fist from slamming into Steve’s jaw is Sam catching it mid air, her knuckles slapping off his palm and bringing the sounds in the room rushing back to her at full force. She stumbles back with the impact but the soldier catches her, steadying her on her feet with a worried look in his soft brown eyes. It feels like she’s been underwater for days, her ears popping painfully as she gasps for breath.

“—s enough Steve!” When y/n blinks Nat is shoving her palm against the super soldier’s chest. “You need to back the hell off!”

She doesn’t realize until her eyelashes stick to her cheeks that they’re wet. That she’s crying. The sobs catch up to her when it registers, wracking through her with a force strong enough to have her whole body shaking. Sam is the first to notice, reaching out for her but she backs away, shaking her head. The room falls silent, three pairs of eyes now trained on her but she’s only looking at one pair of wide blue ones. Steve’s chest is heaving up and down, a cross between a feral and a confused look slathered across his features.

The look ignites the last of the dying spark inside her, her hand landing against her chest, wrapping around the dog tags hanging off her neck and yanking until she hears a snap. She waits for the chain to pool in her hands before she whips the metal across the room, hitting him square in the chest with a roar that’s more animal than human tearing from her throat— you wanted flames and now you’re going to get them.

“I’m ignorant? Me? Did you ever stop to ask yourself why the fuck I fell asleep today?” She slips her hands into her hair, tugging so hard on the roots that her scalp feels like it’s burning. “How about because last night you came back from scouting three hours late and looking like you got mauled by a fucking bear? And I asked you what happened and you wouldn't tell me a goddamn thing! You— Mister fucking super serum whatever the fuck! You just went to bed and I spent the rest of the night listening to you gasp for air! Not knowing if the shit was even working or if I was going to wake up to you gone! I—”

Her voice cracks and she curses, scraping her wrist across her face to wipe away some of the hot tears pooling down her cheeks. They feel like trails of lava melting her skin as they rush over her jaw and drip onto the floor. Steve’s face has morphed completely during the span of her rant, his mouth falling open, lips no longer busted open like they had been last night but still horrifying to look at right now. She knows he wants to say something— maybe he even wants to apologize— but there’s no fucking way she’s letting him. She’s not finished yet.

“I spent all night wondering if I was going to lose you! That I would wake up and have nothing! You’re my everything and I thought you were going to die and you wouldn’t tell me anything. So yeah, I guess I’m ignorant! Fuck you too.”

Her throat is raw by the time she’s done spitting the words at him, her head fuzzy from a lack of oxygen and her waning rage. It’s giving way too quickly to sadness— to the agonizing kind of heartbreak that has all her organs seemingly shutting down. Her face is sticky and itchy and she needs to get away from him right now.

She turns to meet the stunned faces of Sam and Nat, swallowing hard and wincing at the way her esophagus stings. She’s not going to have a voice at all tomorrow— or for the next week at this rate. Sam’s eyes look like they’re going to pop out of his head from how wide they are, his mouth open but— like Steve— no words are coming out. She flicks her eyes to Nat who, thankfully, springs into action, nodding her head to the door, the question clear in her eyes— want to get the fuck out of here? Y/n doesn’t answer, she just starts walking.

It’s in that moment that Steve snaps out of his stupor, racing to catch her at the door, warm hand curling gently around her wrist. She doesn’t even give herself a second to enjoy it— to fall into his touch and forget the agony in her chest— before she’s ripping her arm away from him, cradling it against her chest and backing away from him.

“Baby I—” His face is tight, his light brows creasing the middle of his forehead.

She can see it— the regret. It carves across his face, tugging his lips into a frown and making his eyes glass over. Her chest squeezes at the sight, her own eyes coating with a fresh sheen of tears. She wants to wrap her arms around him— to tell him that she forgives him and that she loves him and that she’s scared— but he did this not her and before she knows it she’s taking another step back, shoulder bumping into Nat’s as she shakes her head.

“I’m sleeping with Nat tonight. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Night, Steve.”

Steve’s face falls, the first of his tears pooling down his now angelic face, and as she hesitates. Maybe she should— she feels a tug on her hand, glancing down to where Natasha’s slender fingers wrap around her forearm. She doesn’t have the strength to fight her comrade as she pulls her past the door frame.

As the super soldier falls from her line of sight all she can hear is Sam’s exhausted voice—

“Let her go, man.”

—and she breaks.

[wavesmp3]

you jump; i jump

sunwoo x reader 

requested from sensory prompts #46: the waver in someone’s voice when they’re stressed genre: spy au, exes (ish) to lovers wc: 5.6k  warnings: cursing, tiny bit of gore/blood

Sunwoo used to pride himself for being able to keep his cool, in even the most unimaginable situations. He kept his exterior when Haknyeon turned out to be double crossing their agency, Creker, and secretly sending information to a rivaling one the whole time. Sunwoo didn’t crack when his entire mission in Sydney blew up right in his fucking face, never even flinched when his gear malfunctioned dumping him in a hospital for a week. But all those instances seem to fall flat now. All the times where Sunwoo stayed strong seem to disappear the moment he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around only to come face to face with you. “What are you-“ he falters, grasping at the last bits of crumbling pride and hanging on to the dip in his voice. “What are you doing here?” 

“You forgot this,” you continue, ignoring him entirely, “forgot it in Vienna specifically.” You dangle a watch in front of his face. The same watch he lost somewhere in Austria three months ago, at the same time that he was in the middle of the most intense and longest mission the agency had ever given him, and more notably, around the same time he met you. “Don’t look so shocked.” You scoff when he fails to respond. “You told me you were gonna be here.” 

Sunwoo laughs, except it’s less of a laugh and more of an exhale of pure disbelief. “I know what I said, but you’re…” his voice trails off, some part of him unable to finish the sentence and another part of him still too disturbed to believe it. 

You tilt your head with faux confusion. “I’m what?”

Sunwoo gulps. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

VIENNA, AUSTRIA  THREE MONTHS AGO 

Sunwoo remembers, with a starling amount of clarity, all that happened three months ago. He can recall every day he spent roaming the streets of Vienna with you despite the way he’s been trying to drown out the memories and douse his lingering feelings. 

When he met you at a pub on one of his first nights there, he told himself he entertained your conversation because, well, to put it bluntly, he thought you were cute. Although the small tug in his gut doesn’t help justify why he found himself stumbling back to his hotel room with you by his side. And there’s really no good excuse for the tiny sting of disappointment Sunwoo feels when he wakes up alone the next morning. 

It’s two days after that night when Sunwoo sees you again, sitting on a bench with a book in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other. It’s an odd coincidence that he should see you in Vienna again, but the small pang of doubt is quickly replaced with a more promising burst of elation. Sunwoo can’t tell if it’s exhilarating or terrifying.

“Ah,” you mutter when you notice him approaching, “Sunwoo right?” It’s a facade, Sunwoo thinks to himself, he knows you remember his name, knows you only pretend to forget. But he doesn’t mention that, instead he nods rather lamely, shoving his fists into his pockets and burying away the voice of reason in the back of his head telling him this is a mistake. “Sit.” You say, moving your things to the other side of the bench and patting the now empty spot next to you. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

And in retrospect, it’s quite obvious that Sunwoo should have found the words alarming. Really, he should have begun to put his guard up the second he spotted you in Vienna again. But at that moment in time, the only thing Sunwoo can think to ask is if he was worth the wait. 

Your tongue darts out, swiping at your bottom lip in thought for the smallest of seconds, before disappearing into your mouth again. “Yeah,” you say, lips turning up into an intrigued smile, “you were.” 

—

Sunwoo doesn’t think much of the way he comes to trust you so easily, telling you the truth about his job in the darkness of the hotel room. He doesn’t think anything of the way you hang onto his every word without ever sharing much about yourself. And when one day, you sit down at the cafe booth across from him and ask, “what’s your current mission,” Sunwoo doesn’t think twice before telling you everything about his objective to infiltrate Pegasus. He also doesn’t notice the phone call you make soon after. 

—

When the truth does come out, it comes fast, like water rushing off a cliff and crashing into Sunwoo sitting unsuspecting at the bottom. It comes in the form of a charity event that he only attends as part of the mission which sent him to Vienna to begin with. The truth arrives, like a rock in his gut, at the same second that Sunwoo sees you across the hall. You, who he last saw at the hotel, and you, who’s supposed to be on a train to Paris right now. And when your eyes finally catch his, there’s something unmistakable swimming in them. You’ve been caught, Sunwoo thinks, finally placing a name to the familiar way you swallow and dart your eyes around the room. Sunwoo recognizes the feeling, vaguely remembers the rush he felt once in Santiago and again in New York. 

“I can explain,” you hiss, quiet and breathless, finding him outside the hall after a few minutes. 

And Sunwoo knows he should be dying for an explanation of what you’re doing here or who you’re really working with. Some small part of Sunwoo knows that he should already be replaying every conversation and trying to determine how much information he’s given you to use against him. But another, larger part of him, that’s poking at his heart and prodding at his brain, chooses to stare at your lying eyes, study the face he’s come to memorize, and lamely ask, “how much of…” his voice tapers off, gesturing to the empty space in between you two, “of this was a lie?”

You don’t respond, but in the silence Sunwoo finds the answer anyways. 

All of it.

—

It’s not long after that night that a new message from the case officer shows up for him.  

You’re on thin ice. New mission: get rid of that Pegasus agent. 

PRESENT TIME  THREE MONTHS AFTER VIENNA

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here?” Sunwoo asks you again, shifting in his plastic red chair and keeping his gaze focused on the street you’re both seated beside. He hadn’t planned on hanging out after crossing paths with you earlier today. In fact, the only thing he wanted to do was put as much distance between the two of you as possible, but when you offer him a meal in exchange for a conversation, his rumbling stomach agrees before he can even consider the offer. The scene you lead him to is a busy one, filled with people rushing down the road and bustling behind each of the food stalls. It’s a mosh-posh of neon signs, kicked up dust, and the aroma of food being fried. More importantly, it’s a loud area, one where you and Sunwoo can talk freely without the worry of being heard by someone seated nearby. He takes a bite into his skewer, waiting for your response. 

“And you still haven’t told me why you didn’t follow through with the mission,” you counter, twirling your lime green straw with the tip of your finger. “The one where you were supposed to kill me.” 

You say it plainly, but something in Sunwoo’s stomach turns hard at the reminder anyways. “We’re spies,” he mutters behind clenched teeth, “not assassins.” 

“I don’t know,” you shrug, taking a sip from your coke, “the job description is pretty vague.” 

The words are met with a taut silence, a snap of Sunwoo’s eyes towards yours, and a search for any implication of murder behind the sentence. 

“It’s a joke,” you choke, wiping the coke that slips from your mouth and quickly shaking your head, “I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Well anyways,” Sunwoo continues, “I tried to finish the mission. Even hired someone to find you.” And as soon as the words leave his mouth, Sunwoo realizes he’s told you too much, realizes he’s let the truth slip too easily--again. Biting his lip, he thinks this must be what people mean when they say ‘old habits die hard’. 

“He didn’t follow through.” You tell him as if to fill him in on how exactly you’re still alive and sitting across from him right here, right now, miles away from Vienna and months after Sunwoo’s hire took his money and ran. “But you knew he wouldn’t, didn’t you?”

And this you say with a taunting smile, catching his eyes like there’s a private joke concealed behind them. Sunwoo only gulps and pulls his focus back to the busy street.

“So what do you want with me?”

“I left Pegasus.” You answer, clearing your throat.

Sunwoo waits. He waits for you to take it back, for you to laugh at his widened eyes and say it’s a joke. The punchline never comes. “You’re an idiot.” He settles on.

“And I’ve got two agencies who’d prefer me to be dead right about now.” You grimace. “But despite the bounty on my head, I’m still here which means you’re probably not on great terms with Creker either.”

“Get to the point.”

“We both have people who want us dead. We both have next to nothing to lose at this point. So let’s team up.” You pause, checking Sunwoo’s reaction. He watches you intently, body pushing against the creaking plastic table in an attempt to hear you better. With an almost mischievous glint in your eyes and a satisfied quirk, you continue: “Let’s take back what we stole for them.”

There’s a long moment where Sunwoo just stares at you, deciphering what to make of the proposition. You appear genuine, Sunwoo decides leaning away from the table until his back hits the chair, but Sunwoo isn’t exactly sure how much he trusts his own judgement considering the last time he decided you were sincere you had been lying to him left and right.

Sunwoo lifts his hand to the vendor of the food stall you’re sitting by. The previous glint in your eyes is gone, overshadowed by a darker shade of doubt. “What are you doing?” you finally ask, voice lower and less excited than it had been a second ago.

With a tired sigh, he replies, “I’m gonna need more food while you explain your plan.”

Sunwoo has to swallow back the smile that nearly emerges at how happy you get.

--

It’s a simple enough idea. Clear our names, you had explained, wipe ourselves entirely from both agencies. And it’ll work too, Sunwoo realizes when you begin the second explanation on the logistics of the whole operation. The only downside to your plan is you. Because the last person Sunwoo wants to start a new mission with is the same person who broke his heart three months ago. And it’s bothersome, almost, how calm you are and how collected you appear, especially compared to how scattered Sunwoo feels just to be around you again.

“What do you think?” You ask once you’ve explained your plan completely, tapping anxiously on the table.

“I think,” Sunwoo starts, inhaling deeply, “you’ve thought about this way too much.”

“Well, yeah,” you scoff, gulping down some more coke, “three months is kind of a long time.”

And yeah, he thinks, it is. But despite the time that’s passed since you’ve last seen each other and despite the way Sunwoo thought he was over you, his stomach still flips each time you look his way. He just prays that the past three months have at least somewhat watered down how he used to feel about you.

“How do I know you won’t ditch me after we clear you?” Sunwoo asks, pushing away the thoughts of lingering heartache to a corner of his mind.

“We’ll do you first.” You state simply. “Steal your file off Creker and get the bounty off your head first. Then we’ll do me.”

“And then how do you know that I won’t ditch you?”

You falter at that, frowning for the smallest of seconds, then say, “I don’t.”

Sunwoo nods, pretending to contemplate your offer. But in all transparency, Sunwoo knew he’d agree to your plan despite the bile that turns up at your name because with the way he’s been hiding in a crappy motel and eating instant ramen every night, it’s kind of hard to refuse any proposition that gives him the slightest chance at an out from Creker. 

“Okay,” he finally utters, wiping the crumbs of his second skewer off his hands, “let’s do it.” You meet his eyes expectantly. Nodding, he says,

“Let’s team up.”

//

You and Sunwoo clash more than anything else on the first day of prepping for the mission, crammed in a corner of Sunwoo’s dingy motel with two half finished cans of red bull sitting forgotten on the table, fighting about even the smallest details.

“I know the building,” Sunwoo argues, pointing to the floor plan you have pulled up on your laptop, “and this is the entrance we should use.”

“But using this entrance,” you refute, dragging your finger across the screen to show him exactly what you mean, “will give us better access to security and admin. And trust me, I know the building better than you do.”

“How do you—” Sunwoo stills. Something seems to register in your eyes at that moment as well, a small recognition of the tiny slip up, a barely audible acknowledgement that comes in the form of a cough. And all at once, Sunwoo’s reminded of the time he spent spilling his heart to you in Vienna under more covers than he was aware of. Sunwoo’s harshly thrown against the realization that you must’ve been watching him, surveying him long before you ever found him in that Austrian pub.

“See, I knew this wouldn’t work.” He grumbles, shaking his head. “You know too much about me. No, actually, you know everything about me. And I--” there’s a dip in his tone, “I know nothing about you.”

“Fine then, ask.”

“What?”

“Whatever it is you think will even the playing field between us. Whatever it is you want to know about me,” you shut the laptop and turn your body to face him completely, an action that exudes largely frustration but more faintly, guilt, “just ask.”

--

Sunwoo learns more about you than he had intended to. He learns about the origin of the scar that runs along your spine. A fucked up operation in Shanghai, you tell him, writing over the lie you told him three months ago about it being from your childhood. He learns about your old partner Younghoon and about the shadow falling over your forehead at the sound of his name. He’s told about how you got involved with Pegasus to begin with, a similar story to Sunwoo’s beginning with Creker: an unlucky concoction of desperation and coincidence. You tell him, with reluctance, your most embarrassing story, followed by a long list of firsts and favorites. So by the time night falls, with two empty red bulls at the foot of the bed and the building’s floor plan now forgotten behind the black screen of your laptop, Sunwoo learns enough to rebuild a fraction of the trust he lost.

//

Everything goes smoother after that. You and Sunwoo seem to fall into a rhythm, meeting at a café in the morning and at the motel in the afternoon, planning out the missions with far less difficulty than before. A rather quick adjustment, from both of your ends, and an even faster allocation of responsibilities. He finds himself looking forward to sitting in front of your open laptop each day and conjuring new ways to distract you every hour. 

And it’s after meeting up with you one night, not as partners but—perhaps more cruelly—as friends, that a dangerously familiar warmth blooms in his chest and refuses to wilt away when he sees you again the next day. Sunwoo knows that he should be doing something, anything to blow out the flame, but instead he feeds the fire and prays that this time it spreads from his heart to yours.

//

“Where’d you get all of this?” Sunwoo questions one day when you show up at the motel with a suitcase full of equipment. An assortment of laptops, earpieces, weapons, and randomly picked gadgets.

“Took it from Pegasus before I left,” you smirk, pulling out an earpiece and holding it out in front of his ear. “You’re usually on the field, right? The one in action?” He nods. “Good, you can be the agent for this mission then,” you mumble, setting down the earpiece and holding up another. “I’m usually the person behind the computer anyways. Was even a handler for a mission in Seoul once.” You place the earpiece in his palm and begin to pull out the other pieces of equipment from the suitcase.

“What about Vienna?” Sunwoo says, inspecting a certain gadget from the case. “You were on the field then.” And it’s a question that would’ve been asked with malice if it had come up a couple weeks ago, but right now, there’s nothing but curiosity behind Sunwoo’s words.

“Oh,” you hesitate, a small smile appearing briefly, “I guess I do both.”

Sunwoo doesn’t ponder over your answer for long.

It’s later that day, right as you’re about to leave, that you frown at Sunwoo’s head, matter-of-factly saying, “you should change your hair before the mission.” Then, with a laugh bubbling behind your teeth, you add, “again.”

(Sunwoo changed his appearance a lot. One of the tactics that had stuck from his training days. Never really in big ways, but small changes here and there every couple of months. Sometimes it was a new piercing that he’d wear for a year and let close up in the next, and other times the change came in the form of a temporary tattoo imprinted on his neck whilst in Vancouver with Kevin. When Sunwoo met you in Vienna his hair was a light brown that he had gotten done in Tokyo and hadn’t bothered to touch up since. So when the time had come to change something again, he headed to the hair salon.

“When’d you do this?” you asked him that night, running a hand through the new red hair. 

“Just today.” He answered, hoping you wouldn’t ask for a reason. 

“I like it.” 

“More than the brown?”

“Way more.” You whispered, leaning in until he felt the breath of your words on his lips. 

And in the moment before you closed the distance, Sunwoo had made a silent vow to never change his hair again.)

Sunwoo gets his hair done the day after you suggest it, and when he returns to the motel from the salon, he finds you already there.

“Oh good, you’re back.” You mumble, arms full and an extra key card to his room that he had given you out of convenience a while back held between your teeth. “I just came to drop these off because I have to go to—" you stop, straightening yourself and eyes fixated on him. “You got your hair done.”

It’s an observation, a small, stupid thing really. A comment made in passing that should feel routine with as much time as you and Sunwoo spend together and one that should feel even more mundane considering you were the one to suggest it. But there’s something about the way you say the words that makes Sunwoo feel slightly breathless anyways. “Yeah,” he finally affirms, running a hand through his now black hair, “I did.”

You nod in acknowledgement, setting the things in your hands down, then turn to leave. 

“Wait,” he calls out. You do, pausing three paces away from the door and give a long look to the hand he’s placed on your arm to stop you before turning around to face him. And the next words seem to fall off the edge of Sunwoo’s mouth at that moment, tumbling back down his throat and landing heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Do you still…” he hesitates, attempting to smooth over the nervousness folding up in the corners of his mind. 

“What?” 

“Do you still like my hair?”

You consider it for a moment, bringing a hand up to tug at the new black fringe. And there’s something unmistakably domestic about the way you tilt your head in concentration, eyes fixed on Sunwoo’s hair as if there’s nothing more important for you to be doing in this moment. He watches you evaluate his hair closely. 

“Yeah,” you finally say, eyes meeting his and something like a double meaning swimming in them, “I still like it.”

//

The first mission goes smoothly thanks to you sitting back at the motel instructing Sunwoo which turns to take and what files to download. So with a flash drive containing all the information he needs to free himself from the agency stuffed in his pocket, he turns to leave, whispering into his earpiece, “is the exit path clear?”

“Shit.”

He stops walking. “What?”

“It’s blocked. I think I can get you out another way, but you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay, go one story below. Take two rights and then a left.” He does as you say, feet hitting the ground as quietly and as quickly as possible. The less time he spends in the building the better. “At the end of the hall, there’s a window.” You say once he’s near the place you directed him too. His stomach drops. “Jump from it.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He breathes, studying the drop with grimace. “I really hate heights.”

“I know.” And there’s a misplaced softness when Sunwoo hears you mutter, “I remember.” You wait a beat. “Do you trust me?” 

“Do I trust you?” He echoes, dread and disbelief coating his words. “I don’t even—”

“Just answer the question, Sunwoo. Do you?”

“I—” he studies the drop again, thinks and overthinks the newfound steadiness in your voice. Quietly, he mumbles, “yeah.”

“Then jump.” You tell him how exactly to do it as well, where to find the rope you packed and which hook is best to use. He does as you say, preparing for a jump he hasn’t decided to take yet. And once everything is prepared, the only thing that passes between you and Sunwoo on the intercom is silence. “Hey,” you mutter after a long while, something like a joke audible in your voice, “you jump; I jump, jack.”

“Except you aren’t jumping.”

“Technically, yes, that’s true but—”

“Okay, okay, okay. Shut up.” Sunwoo inhales deeply, closing his eyes and letting silence fill the intercom again. The silence, however, is interrupted the second he hears a group of voices travelling from somewhere down the hall. His eyes snap open.

“Sunwoo—”

“Fuck it.”

He jumps.

�� 

“You’re bleeding.” Is the first thing Sunwoo hears when he walks through the motel room’s door, quickly followed by you rushing to him, tilting his head with a finger against his chin, and inspecting the cut above his eyebrow. 

“Yeah well your little jump stunt didn’t make for the smoothest of landings.” 

He means it as a joke. A bad one he realizes when you pull your hand away, eyes dropping from his face and guilt hanging over your head. “Sorry about that.” 

He shrugs. “It didn’t kill me.” 

“Come on,” you beckon, grabbing the first aid kit and heading to the bathroom, “I’ll help you bandage them.” 

Sunwoo sits on top of the closed toilet lid, folding up his pant leg to examine the gash running across his shin. The cut, he realizes, isn’t nearly as bad as it feels, but you make a small face at the sight of it anyways. It doesn’t take you very long to clean the cut on his leg, quickly finishing it while kneeling on the cold bathroom tile and asking him questions about the mission.

“No stitches?” He wonders when you pat a bandage in place.

You shake your head. “You should be fine. Nothing more than a gloried scrape really.” You add teasingly while rearranging the objects in the first aid kit. And when you laugh at the look he gives you for the comment, Sunwoo does his best to ignore the fluttering that appears in his gut at the sound. 

You move on from the cut on his leg, placing the first aid kid on top of the counter and poking the bruise that’s forming above his knee before getting up yourself. He smacks your hand away.

“How’d you know about my fear of heights by the way?”

“You told me one night in Vienna.” You answer, tearing open an alcohol wipe packet. “Do you not remember?”

He shakes his head.

Frowning, you let out a small, “oh.”

Neither of you say anything after that. And Sunwoo’s so focused on the frown that’s yet to leave your face that he barely registers the way you lean towards him for better access, propping your knee on top of the toilet and between his legs for balance. Although he does notice the warmth that radiates off your body. And a minute after that, he notices how much longer it takes you to clean this, smaller cut than it took to clean the one on his leg.

“Sorry.” You quickly apologize when you press against the cut too harshly. Sunwoo waves you off. “I am sorry though.” You repeat, seriously, lips still turned down in a frown and brows knit together.

“It’s really fine.” He chuckles, amused by the amount of gravity in the apology. 

“No. For Vienna.” The amusement dies in the back of his throat. “I never apologized for…” you falter there, fingers paused against his forehead, “for that. But I am sorry.”

“It was your mission.” Sunwoo gulps. “You were being a good agent.”

“And a shitty person.” You say, no hint of a joke laced in the statement. “In fact, the mission was just to observe you. Make sure you didn’t find out anything too important about Pegasus. Meeting you was mostly on accident. And everything that followed,” you bite your lip, and Sunwoo can’t tell if you’re biting back a smile or a frown, “all those other parts just sort of came naturally.”

The flame in his chest from before bursts into a bonfire, filling his lungs with a hopeful smoke. “Naturally?” He echoes.

“Yeah,” you repeat, tongue darting out in concentration while you complete the last step of smoothing out the bandage. You don’t lean away when you finish. You don’t remove your knee from between his legs. Don’t pull away the hand you have holding back his hair or the one resting against the side of his face. Nothing but your eyes move, trailing down until they find his, visibly gulping, then wandering further below. “Naturally.”

And the word is like a spell, lifting his chin and drawing him towards you until his lips are brushing against yours. It’s barely a kiss, a small hesitant press of lips that lasts no longer than a second, but one that has Sunwoo’s heart pounding wildly in a way it never did three months ago. He pauses there, lips unmoving and hovering just below yours, waiting for you.

You don’t move. Neither leaning in nor away. His gaze flickers up to your eyes, finds them half open, focused on the upper curve of his lip. He captures your lips between his again, a second attempt that is met with response when you lean into it, inhaling him in for a tiny blissful moment and exhaling him out in the next, pushing him back by the shoulders and stepping away yourself.

“I should…”

“Fuck.”

“I should go.”

And you’re gone before he can say anything else. 

// 

The kiss is ignored by both of you while prepping for the second half of the mission. A silent agreement to act like it never even happened and another one to not discuss whatever misplaced feelings led to it. It’s almost sickening how easily you and Sunwoo fall back into being just partners. Especially considering the fact that Sunwoo’s feelings haven’t faded, the bonfire in his chest still burning with the same brightness. So Sunwoo spends his days with you, attempting to put out the fire between his lungs, and he spends his nights alone, replaying the kiss you both pretend to ignore.

“Tomorrow’s the big day.” You mutter on the last night, a trail of anxiousness slipping off your tongue. “And then we’ll be done.” 

Sunwoo only nods, watching how your tongue pokes the inside of your cheek and mulling over whether you mean done with the mission or done with him.

--

The Pegasus mission doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as the Creker one, complications toppling around Sunwoo from the moment he begins. They start small first: a locked door resulting in a change of entry and a janitor straggling in a hallway that should have been clear. He makes it to his first destination eventually, quickly shuffling through the room of file cabinets until he finds your physical files, slipping them into his bag, and heading to the next room with you whispering directions into his ear. The next room is empty when Sunwoo arrives. He works quick, bypassing the security system and fingers flying across to find your information.

“Faster.” He hears you mutter over the earpiece. A hasty reminder of what you had told him earlier that week: the room never stays empty for long.

“Got it.” He exhales, finally pinpointing your files and beginning the process of downloading and deleting them.

“Sunwoo,” he hears an elevator ding from somewhere outside the room at the same time he hears you, “someone’s coming.”

He doesn’t move. Keeping one eye on the closed door and the other on the still-pending status of your files. “I’m almost done.”

“If you leave now, they won’t see you.” Voices fill the hall. “But you have to leave now.”

“I’m not done yet.”

The voices move closer, louder. “It’s not worth it. Please, just go!”

He hears them behind the door. “It’s you.”

There’s a jingle of keys. “How will you—”

“Hey,” the door unlocks with a click, “you jump; I jump, right?”

“Sunwoo—”

He pulls the earpiece out at the exact moment that the door swings open.

-- 

The rooftop is obscenely pretty at this hour, with the golden sun partly hidden by a high-rise building but still growing in the distance, scattering its light across the sky, and casting a golden shadow on everything it touches. It’s a gorgeous sight, and yet, there’s no one but Sunwoo here to appreciate it.

“You’re okay.”

He whips around only to find you standing on the rooftop with him, body trembling and hands clasped over your mouth. Behind you, the door to the roof is still falling closed. Your eyes are red, dark circles hanging under them that make it look as if you haven’t slept days. Silently, Sunwoo wonders how he’s just now noticing your sudden restlessness, and a small part of him hopes—no prays that whatever’s chasing your sleep away is the same thing chasing his.

“I got it.” He says, pulling out the flash drive he stayed to retrieve. Your eyes never flicker off his. “How’d you find me?”

“How’d you get out?”

Neither of you answer. Instead, you begin to walk towards him, asking if he’s hurt with a voice that’s too soft and too concerned for Sunwoo to make out an answer. You ask it again.

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

You stop in front of him. Close enough for Sunwoo to see the tears welled up in your eyes. “You’re okay.” You repeat, voice wavering with a sudden gust of wind.

“I am, but I—” he hesitates; you take a step towards him, “I miss you.” He succumbs to the fire in his chest; lets it fill his lungs, burn up his throat, and throw the sentence, “I just miss you so much,” out of his mouth without bothering to hide the crack in it.

He meets your eyes and finds a starling amount of clarity in them. “I missed you too.”

“Really?”

You laugh at that, nodding your head and stepping closer to him again. “I missed you before we ever met.”

He stares at you. For too long probably. Watches a smile grace your features, spreading like a fire. The flame feels familiar. And for the first time since seeing you after Vienna, Sunwoo doesn’t have to hold back the urge to ask, “Can I kiss you now?”

“Please.”

He does. Lips crashing into yours, and you meeting the motion halfway, leaning into his lips, his body, him. A fervent want present in the way you pull at his neck and grab onto the collar of his shirt that would’ve probably been surprising if it wasn’t matched completely by him. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling your body flush against his and deepening the kiss for a second more.

You both pull away, just barely, faces still close and bodies pressed against each other.

“Hey,” you begin, breath hot against his lips and a knowing smirk appearing briefly, “was I worth the wait?”

And suddenly Sunwoo’s in Vienna again, sitting on a bench, and asking you the same question.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, smiling, “you were.”

//

a/n: i apologize this request took me forever to get around too. and if the actual spy aspects to this fic make zero sense then my bad i was spit balling here. brownie points if u can find the scene inspired by queens gambit and the other scene inspired by the office lmao

[fleetwood-mac-andcheese]

My thoughts while watching Holes for the billionth time

It’s fucked up that the movie starts with all the supporting characters watching their friend attempt suicide

How long was Stanley’s trial and how short was Zero’s trial? Because we know that Zero got arrested the day after Stanley did, but he arrived at Camp Greenlake significantly earlier. Like, he knew Barfbag, he already had a nickname, people knew he liked to dig. How long was he there before Stanley showed up?

In the book when they sing the song, they howl on the word moon (it’s written “moo-oo-oon”) and I wish they did that in the movie

The Yelnatses screwed Stanley over by not getting him a lawyer. The little bits we see of his case prove they had no clue what they were doing. And when they eventually do get a lawyer, he’s let out almost immediately.

I love how Dr. Pendanski is written. He’s such a terrible person who has convinced himself and is trying to convince those around him that he is the nicest guy around. He fucking sucks and I love how he’s written and how Tim Blake Nelson plays him.

“Today’s menu: Chili, string beans, re-fried beans, garbanzo beans, green beans, and banana jello” — aren’t green beans and string beans the same thing?

The cinematic choices made in this movie are just *chef’s kiss*. The way they jump from timeline to timeline without ever losing pace is masterful

Eartha Kitt is flawless.

While Eartha Kitt is flawless, I want it noted that in the book, Madame Zeroni is described as a one legged Romani person (Sachar actually used the G slur) and Eartha Kitt is neither one-legged nor Romani.

Zero is the fastest digger in the camp, but they never really explain how big the camp is. Like, is he the fastest out of 25 people? 60 people, 140 people?

Just to revisit point 8, I fucking love Eartha Kitt

The yellow spotted lizards are such an excellent plot device

All the inmates are either A) mentally ill B) people of color or C) severely traumatized. But most of them are D) all of the above

When Squid throws out Stanley’s letter, catch Zero in the background with a pool cue ready to beat the shit out of that motherfucker

It’s weird that they show Sam as some kind of snake oil salesman when we know that his product actually works. The yellow spotted lizards won’t bite you if you’ve eaten his onions. Why claim they cure baldness or that Mary Lou is over 100 years old?

Zero back at it again ready to throw hands for Stanley, this time with a billiards ball

The fact that magnet got locked up for stealing a thousand dollar puppy

“You are here on account of one person. You know who that person is?” “Yeah, my no good, dirty rotten, pig-stealing, great great grandfather. That’s who it is”

Henry Winker provides such comedic levity

When Zero asks Stanley to teach him how to read and it’s such a nice moment of vulnerability, only to be shot down by Stanley. I just want to cry

What happens if someone actually dies at Camp Greenlake? Like, Zero and Stanley ran away and Barfbag got sent to the hospital, but they all survived. What would the protocol be if someone just dies while digging? Clearly there’s not a lot of oversight because Stanley can get away with Zero digging his hole, so what happens when one of those kids get overheated working all day in the Texas sun and just collapses in their hole one day and nobody thinks to check on them until the next day when the buzzards are all gathered around their corpse?

I’ve waited long enough to say this. Sigourney Weaver in this movie is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. I fucking love her

Sam and Katherine. nuff said

“Well then I guess you’d be in a lot of trouble if your boat leaked.” *sobs*

Just casually reciting Edgar Allen Poe from memory as a way of professing my love to a woman I legally cannot be with due to racist laws forbidding interracial relationships.

I can’t help but remember that Scott Plank died during the post production of this movie. Respect to him and his ability to play such a good villain as Trout Walker

“No one ever says no to Trout Walker.” “I believe I just did.” SAY IT LOUDER, KATE!

Sam

I love that Kate’s MO came from a racist sheriff sexually harassing her

The sunflower seed thing reminds me of something that happened to me at RTC and it’s just a really nice moment for me

Stanley acting so casual by not doing the one thing he’s supposed to be doing

The look on Magnet’s face right before Stanley covers for him

I really want to know more about the Warden and Mr. Sir’s relationship

I also really want a bottle of that rattlesnake nail polish, but maybe that’s just me

I also really like that Sachar didn’t shy away from the racial implications of a white guy having a black guy do his labor for him. Then again, the whole story is an indictment of racism and the American prison system, so it makes sense he wouldn’t ignore that

The way Stanley gets so excited when Zero mentions that park. Like ‘oh, we have something in common. We used to go to the same park!’ and Zero just shuts it down with “I used to sleep in the tunnel next to the swing and bridge” Stanley may have been cursed, but he still had a home

Zero finally gets to throw hands on Stanley’s behalf. He’s been waiting to do that since point 14

Pendanski really is the shittiest

“No one cares about Hector Zeroni” “I do”

I love that Twitch was just instantly ready to help Stanley steal Mr. Sir’s car

What are the chances of Kate, Zero, and Stanley all finding Sam’s boat in the middle of the desert? And I know Kate probably spent years looking for it after the lake dried up and for Zero and Stanley it was destiny, but still

Zero, you gotta ration that sploosh

One more time for emphasis: I love Eartha Kitt

Kate dying and she hallucinates Sam, only to be snapped out of it by Trout Walker. Just Trout stopping them from being together one last time

“It hasn’t rained here since the day they killed Sam” and you think whatever deity made that happen is gonna let anyone in the Walker family end up with Kate Barlow’s fortune?

“I can’t leave without Hector.”

“Call my mom. Tell her I said I was sorry. Tell her Theodore said he was sorry” cue Small Steps

Justice reigns over the Walker family and rain falls over the Walker estate

I would love for someone to find out just how much that treasure chest was really worth. Can one of those theorist channels get on that, please?

Hector finding his mom is nothing short of heart-melting. I’m not crying, you’re crying

“Camp Greenlake was closed and the boys were released on time served and sent to real counselors” Wait, are you implying that forced labor is an unjust prison sentence? Someone better tell the prison industrial complex!

So what happened with Sweet Feet? Did they sit him down and explain the misunderstanding before or after signing him as the spokesperson for their product? He was the prosecution’s lead witness at Stanley’s trial, but nope! All is forgiven!

The soundtrack slaps

Point 53, however you have Shia Labeouf and Eartha Kitt in the same movie and you put which one of them on the soundtrack? Just wondering who made that call. Like, you layer ‘I Want To Be Evil’ or ‘Burned As A Witch’ over any of Kissing Kate Barlow’s scenes, it’d be perfect. But no, instead we get the dude from Even Stevens trying to rap.

[shroomcult]

@soulxmakaweek

Day 4: Apologize

I fell way behind with Soma week because I got slammed with work and this monster of a fic took me too long to write.

Summary: 

Maka comes to realize that Soul had never felt fully comfortable around Crona, and in ignoring this entirely - she unknowingly hurt her closest friend.

Special thanks to Tori @chichirichick (she betas all of my dumpster fires, bless her) for proofreading this mess of emotions and also to Zi @azroazizah for coming up with the concept for this fic. 

**Disclaimer** This story is not about putting blame on Crona, but instead about acknowledging the fact that Soul went through trauma due to their actions and it was never taken into consideration by Maka before inviting them into their friend group. I'm not saying Crona didn't deserve support, but it's also completely valid for Soul - a victim of Crona - to not feel entirely safe around them regardless of their tragic background and circumstances. If Crona is a big comfort character for you and you feel you would likely be upset by this concept, then I recommend not reading it altogether. We all interpret things different and we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I'm not going to get in arguments with people over this.

It’d been a while since the Spartoi team was all together again.

After the fall of Asura, they really had no purpose to join forces as a team. No big baddie to unite them in ass-kickery. 

The skies were blue again. There were still Kishin eggs to take down, and a shaky new diplomatic relationship with the witches to maintain as well. 

Things were more or less … normal. Boring, even.

The only big difference Blackstar could discern was that nobody seemed to have time to just hang out and be friends anymore.

Kid was over his head with his new responsibilities, and while he was doing an admirable job filling his father’s shoes; there was a steep learning curve and his perfectionist tendencies only made it more challenging to overcome. He upheld a calm and collected demeanor in the public’s eyes, but Liz and Patty spent most of their time holding him together behind the scenes. 

Soul and Maka were a different situation entirely.

It was odd enough to adjust to the recent change in the nature of their relationship. They claimed to be the same as they’ve always been - just Soul & Maka. Only, they grew much closer after the hardships they had endured both in the book of Eibon and on the moon.

They had been close to begin with, but this was a different kind of close. Stolen glances, hands reaching for each other when they thought nobody was looking. Blushing for almost no damn reason. 

Something was going on between them - he could be sure of that.

More recently, however, Maka had been particularly obsessive about solving the dilemma of Crona’s entrapment on the moon. She was driving herself to a slow-burning insanity, considering every moment that she hadn’t rescued them yet to be a personal failure.

She’d been spending much of her time in the restricted section of the library, consuming every piece of relevant research for hours on end. Soul often stayed up there with her doing the same, or at the very least keeping her silent company when he was too burnt out to read anymore.

He’d also spent much of his extra time with Stein, training to perfect his sound-wave abilities into his own form of wavelength attack.

He’d been giving his all ever since making deathscythe status to hone his strength and better serve Maka. He’d even been able to hold his own for a surprising amount of time in the sparring ring against Blackstar, and that was a feat in and of itself.

All of the focus on Crona’s rescue had appeared to be wearing on him, though. 

Soul may have accepted Crona into his friend group for Maka’s sake, even empathized with them - but he had never fully trusted the demon sword meister. Although Soul was outwardly friendly towards them, Blackstar noticed the way his friend had watched them like a hawk before they turned back to Medusa. He was always ready for a scenario like that because he had never felt entirely safe around them to begin with.

Not that Maka had bothered to even take Soul’s feelings into consideration before forgiving Crona on his behalf.

She couldn’t have possibly been that dense. She had to have been actively ignoring the signs of Soul’s discomfort because she couldn’t handle acknowledging them.

And now she was doing the same thing all over again even with Crona as far away as the moon. It was obvious that Soul was doing what he always did - shoving his own feelings aside in favor of Maka’s. The loyal mutt of a boy valued her wellbeing far above his own, that was for certain.

He just seemed so exhausted of it all now. Searching tirelessly with Maka for a solution that may not even exist took up much of his time and energy.  

He never had the time to shoot hoops or play video games like he used to, and Blackstar was far above begging for his attention. He stopped even bothering to ask him.

Just for one night though, by some divine luck - everybody was willing to clear their schedule to have a late night dinner at the most beloved and heart-attack inducing burger joint in town. 

Every member of Spartoi was crammed into the largest booth in the restaurant and their chatter was loud enough to fill the whole section. 

There were multiple conversations happening at a time, but Blackstar was zeroing in on Soul who had his chin resting on his palm and that stupid, dopey look he got on his face when he was proud of Maka. Yuck. Keep it in your pants, loverboy.

Maka was next to Soul, his arm stretched out behind her on the booth, while Ox engaged her in a fiery debate over god knows what across the table from her. Judging by the redness in baldy’s face - Maka was on the winning side. He really couldn’t understand Soul’s hard-on for a bossy know-it-all personality, but whatever floats his boat he supposed.  

He decided he’d seen enough of that look on his best friend’s face and crumpled up a straw wrapper, dipping it in his soda and sticking it at the end of his straw.

He blew on the other end, sending the sticky wad of paper flying across the table. The projectile hit its target directly on the cheek.

“Fuck’s sake dude, how old are you?” he grumbled, reaching over the table to grab a handful of napkins to clean his face off with.

Maka snatched some of his napkins for herself, rubbing it vigorously into the flecks of cola that stained her uniform. “You got my shirt all wet, idiot.”

Blackstar simply threw his head back to cackle obnoxiously. “I just thought I should break up your lame little debate team fight before Ox over here pops a blood vessel. You know he can’t handle losing well.”

“I wasn’t losing!” Ox hissed under his breath.

Maka only met her opponent’s glare with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, Maka! What had you stopped to talk with Professor Stein about earlier today?” Tsubaki cut in, obviously attempting to diffuse another argument between the two competitive brainiacs.

Maka’s expression relaxed into something a little more neutral, seemingly caught off guard by the question. Debate-mode successfully disarmed.

“Oh. Well… I just had some questions about my black blood research for him.” 

Blackstar didn’t miss the way Soul tensed up beside her at the mention of black blood. His face was void of any distinct emotion, but something was off in his body language. The way his shoulders squared as if he were instinctively bristling.

Anyone with a shred of social awareness could have deduced that black blood, Medusa, and Crona were not Soul’s favorite topics. It wasn’t unusual for him to shut down and discontinue any contributions to a conversation when any of these things were brought up. 

Unfortunately for Soul, all of those subjects were constantly on Maka’s mind since she began her obsessive pursuit for a solution to Crona’s ordeal.

“Oh? And what did he have to say?” Tsubaki pressed, completely oblivious to the tense situation she was potentially triggering.

“As you’re already aware, there’s not really any official research on the black blood that exists. We’ve been digging through countless books - gathering as much information about madness and Kishins as we can, but it can only get us so far. It would be so much more useful if we could get our hands on a physical sample of the substance itself.”

Soul’s eyes widened in concern, but only for a second before he slipped his usual poker face back on. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously despite the veneer of calm he displayed.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning to look at Soul, “I was going to talk to you about this later, but maybe some of the black blood still remains in your system? I know we believed it was all gone, but surely there’s some residual amount of it lingering behind? Something we could maybe isolate, extract and create a concentrate of? Stein said it was unlikely, but technically possible. We have to try for Crona, right, Soul?”

He was no longer wearing his mask of apathy. Unmistakeable, visible discomfort was etched into his facial features and he was clenching his hands, knuckles whitening from the pressure. Everyone at the table was hushed and the tension was palpable.

“He doesn’t have to try anything,” Kid’s voice cut sharply through the silence, golden eyes flashing sternly at her.

A soft gasp escaped her and her eyebrows shot up, clearly taken-aback by the sudden burst of hostility from her boss and close friend. Her eyes darkened seconds later, determination setting in.

 “I think that’s his decision to make, and I’d like to hear what he has to say,” she turned her attention back to Soul, hope still shining in her eyes.

He fidgeted with his necktie, loosening it and clearing his throat. “Yeah, s’fine. Whatever you need, I guess.”

Maka’s face lit up into a bright smile that turned Blackstar’s stomach and she pulled Soul into a brief hug. “I knew we could count on you, Soul! You’re the best partner ever.”

“Whatever, it’s no problem. Just try not to drain me of all my blood, alright?” he chuckled weakly, avoiding her eyes in favor of staring a hole in the middle of the table.

She gave an easygoing laugh in response, and went back to conversing with Tsubaki as if she hadn’t just pressured her partner into volunteering himself as a guinea pig for the sake of someone who had literally sliced him open from shoulder to hip and infected him with black blood to begin with.

Is she fucking serious?

Blackstar was practically vibrating with fury from the interaction he’d just watched, and Tsubaki’s normally soothing hand on his shoulder did little to calm him down. When he glanced at Kid, he instantly knew the death god had shared his frustration with Maka’s obliviousness. 

It wasn’t long before Soul abruptly stood from his place at the end of the booth, pulling a twenty out of his wallet and placing it on the table in front of him.

“Soul? What are you doing? The food hasn’t even gotten here yet,” Maka blinked at him in confusion.

“I’m not feelin’ too great - gonna head out, sorry guys. Could you just bring my food back in a to-go box?” he said with an apologetic quirk of his lips. He squeezed her shoulder gently before turning on his heels and making his way out of the diner in long strides.

Why does she look so shocked? Does she really not understand that she’s been hurting him?

After that, the night passed by in a haze for Blackstar. He hardly spoke for the rest of the meal due to the fact that he was using all of his mental capacity to keep his impulse to stand up and loudly call his friend out in front of everybody in check. 

The only thing truly stopping him was the knowledge that Soul would likely be embarrassed and more than a little pissed off if he’d made a big scene over something that he wasn’t even willing to talk about.  

So he waited - held his tongue until he could lash out in private.

As everyone was saying their goodbyes, Blackstar watched her rise from her seat gathering her to-go boxes carefully and giving him a nod of acknowledgement before she headed out.

His eyes bore into the back of her head as she left, and Tsubaki’s hand clamped gently on him for the second time that night. Her eyes were crinkled with a gentle concern.

“I think you should leave this between them. If Soul wanted all of this out in the open, he would have had that conversation with her himself.”

A heavy sigh settled in his chest, “You know how he is. He’s the suffer in silence type and he always does her bidding. If nobody says anything, then nothing’ll change. I just want to talk to her - not like I’m gonna beat her ass or anything … unless she gives me a reason to.” 

“Blackstar,” she chided, fully aware that he would make good on that threat.

“I know, I know. I won’t be long, see ya at home,” he said, throwing up placating hands before stuffing them in his pockets and striding in the direction Maka had gone. 

            _______________________________________________

Maka set her walk home at a leisurely pace, dragging her feet slightly as she watched the sunset bleed into the sky above.

It wasn’t that she was trying to prolong seeing Soul, or that she wasn’t worried about the way he’d acted back in the diner - like something was eating at him. 

She was pretty positive that he wasn’t physically ill, which only left the option of it being an emotional issue. 

And getting Soul to talk about emotional issues was like trying to pull teeth from a temperamental bear. 

She had to figure out a way to go about this delicately, and she had to figure it out soon because their apartment block was fast approaching.

She stopped in her tracks when she felt the presence of a familiar soul behind her. His steps had been so quiet, she wouldn’t have even been aware he was stalking her from behind if it weren’t for her exceptional soul perception abilities.

“I know you’re following me, Blackstar.”

In moments, he was stepping out in front of her. “Wasn’t trying to hide. I need to talk to you,” his voice was uncharacteristically stern.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew Blackstar had some kind of problem with her since dinner. He was deathly quiet and glowering at her for most of the night; very unusual behavior from someone who never shuts up or hesitates to start a fight. 

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said, already preparing to defend herself against whatever absurd argument he wanted to pull her into.

“The whole situation with Crona - have you ever once thought about how Soul feels about it?”

Whatever she had been expecting to come out of his mouth - that wasn’t it.

“What? I mean, I know how Soul feels. He wants Crona to be safe, just like I do. What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m not talking about what he thinks about Crona being stuck in the deathdamned moon, Maka! I mean have you ever thought about how he felt when you forced Crona into his life to begin with? After being sliced open?” 

Maka’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth opened and closed a few times, baffled by the question. 

“Soul understands why I welcomed Crona as a friend. He trusts me,” she answered, hoping her voice conveyed the confidence that she couldn’t find in this moment.

This entire conversation was throwing her off.

“Yeah, okay. He accepted your decision because he trusts you, or loves you or whatever the fuck. We all know that - but that doesn’t mean he was comfortable with it. It doesn’t mean he felt safe. He just stuffed his own feelings down, because he knew it made it easier for you.”

Her throat tightened as her own conflicting emotions overcame her. He had no idea what he was talking about. Soul was fine. He’s always been fine. 

“Did he say that to you? That he didn’t feel safe?” she choked out. 

“Soul? You think he tells people things? About his feelings?” he snorted. “No, he doesn’t have to tell me shit. It’s clear on his face every time you mention Crona, or Medusa, or that fucking blood.”

“Maybe you’re just making assumptions about how he feels!” she shouted back, gripping handfuls of the front of his shirt.

He leaned in, completely unfazed by the rage burning in her eyes. “You ever noticed how when Crona was around, he was always watching them out of the corner of his eye - twitching every time they made some sudden move. You ever noticed how quiet and withdrawn he’d get around them? Or any time they were brought up? You didn’t - because you didn’t want to.” 

“Shut up! Y-you’re making something out of nothing. Are you trying to tell me that I should just give up and forget about Crona? That they don’t deserve to have a friend?” 

Some of his aggression was fizzling out as he released a heavy sigh, placing his hands calmly over hers, still clenching in his shirt. “I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t have helped Crona, or that you shouldn’t keep trying to help them now. I’m only telling you that even if Soul has forgiven and moved on - he’s still a victim of Crona’s actions. He suffered trauma from that, even if he’s too fucking stubborn to admit it. Just acknowledge that maybe he needs a break from thinking about them - all of that shit that happened - every now and then. Get your head out of Crona’s ass long enough to check if he’s okay too.”

She stumbled over wordless sounds as her hands went limp and released their vice-grip on his clothing. She was trying desperately to think of a way to refute the awful things he was saying, but Blackstar wouldn’t give her the chance. 

“If you gave him even half the thought you gave to Crona - maybe you would have noticed it like everybody else has. I just want you to think about it for a bit, that’s all,” his voice softened towards the end, shoulders sagging slightly as he turned away, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his confrontation.

The heat of tears prickled behind her eyelids and she clenched her fists tightly to her sides. 

She wanted so badly to swing around and scream at Blackstar’s retreating figure that he was wrong, that he had no idea what he was talking about and of course she thinks about her weapon.

But the longer she allowed his harsh words to sink in; the more she could feel the sting of truth settling into her heart.

Had she really been so blind? 

             _______________________________________________

Soul had been laying on his back in bed, hands resting on his stomach and eyes pointed at the ceiling, unmoving for some time. He wasn’t entirely sure how many hours, but he knew his playlist had ended long ago - no music played from the earbuds that were still jammed in his ears.

He couldn’t explain the heaviness in his heart. The anxiety that often set in whenever Maka mentioned Crona or the black blood. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it? There was no point in allowing himself to wallow in all the negative emotions that punched him in the gut at the mention of their name. It was selfish to feel those things - it was his job to give Maka his full support. His own feelings were irrelevant.

It was just harder on this particular night. Sure, she droned on about those sore subjects often. Their research revolved around it anyways. He’d just hoped that it could have been different just for one night.

He’d secretly been ecstatic when Maka begrudgingly agreed to shelve her research just long enough to get a late dinner with all of their friends. A break had been long overdue. 

Things had been different between them, after all. They’d been sharing a bed, and they’d even shared a few kisses in the small, rare moments that they’d spent alone together - focused only on each other. They were chaste kisses, but he’d greedily take whatever he could get. 

As she became more frantic about her lack of results in helping Crona, he may as well have not even existed to her. 

He’d just needed that one dinner to pretend things were normal, to pretend as though he was on a date with her and she was willing to spend time with him and think about literally anything aside from her latest fixations. Instead, she’d asked him to play part in some unsound experiment - to prod for things that he hadn’t wanted to find again. It had only been made more uncomfortable by the scrutinizing presence of all of their friends. 

He’d felt used.

Soul perked up at the familiar sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut. He was immediately ashamed of the pavlovian response he had to the sound of his meister returning - the little flip in his heart that made him feel like a stupid dog wagging its tail at the sound of its master.

Just keep to yourself. She doesn’t need to interact with you in this useless state of self pity. You don’t deserve her comfort.

Self-loathing curled in his gut and he kept his eyes stubbornly trained on a water stain in the ceiling.

Suddenly, light flooded into his dark room as his door was hesitantly opened. He reflexively brought himself to sit up on his elbows only to meet a teary-eyed Maka.

All self-indulgent angsty thoughts instantly evaporated from his head, and he was ripping his earbuds out and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to get up.

She made purposeful steps across his room, throwing her arms around his neck and forcing him back onto the bed with the motion.

“I’m so sorry, Soul,” she warbled mournfully into his sweater. 

“Huh? Sorry ‘bout what? What’s going on, Maka?” he tried to nudge her into looking up at him, but she adamantly refused.

She took a few shallow breaths before rubbing her wet cheek against the quickly-dampening fabric and looking up at him with dewy eyes.

“I haven’t been a good friend to you - have I? 

Was that a trick question?

“I-I don’t get what we’re talkin’ about here,” he stuttered uselessly, attempting to compensate for his lack of eloquence by brushing his fingers comfortingly through her soft hair.

“I never asked if you felt okay with Crona being around you. I never asked you if you forgave them at all - I just brought them into your space, your home. I just wanted them to have a chance at a normal life so badly - I ignored your pain, and I’m so sorry,” she rushed her confession out like it had been a breath she was holding in.

He had to fight the urge to bark out a laugh. It wasn’t that he found anything that she said humorous - it was just so strange that she was addressing this out of the blue. She’d seemed completely unaware as usual back at the diner, where had this even come from?

He was so lost in thought, he’d almost forgotten to respond and instantly regretted the prolonged silence he’d left her in. “Maka, it’s fine,” he insisted, “I get why you forgave Crona. I admire you for it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you were okay. I should have at least checked on you, or asked you about how you felt - or literally anything,’ she mumbled numbly from his chest.

“Hey. Look at me,” he said, lifting her cheek from its resting place against his sweater, “Sure, I didn’t feel the most comfortable around Crona. I think it was pretty awkward for both of us to be near each other. That doesn’t mean I dislike them, or didn’t want you to be their friend. You can’t beat yourself up over something I hadn’t bothered to tell you.”

His words hadn’t brought the comfort that he’d hoped they would, and her brows remained stubbornly crinkled. “If it had been me - if I was the one who’d been cut by that sword, would you still say that you don’t dislike them? That you’re okay with us being friends?”

It was a question that he instantly knew the answer to, but he was reluctant to say it out loud. He finally caved, bringing his eyes back to hers, “No. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them if it was you.”

She closed her eyes tightly, nodding her head in grim acceptance of that truth. She had likely known that would be his answer already, but hearing it must have been difficult.

“But I love that about you. You have so much compassion. I only care for the few people that I’ve decided I love - I don’t have room in my heart for others like you do. I’d like to be more like you,” he whispered reverently, taking her cheeks in both of his hands and briskly wiping away all of the moisture he could reach with his thumbs.

“I should’ve had more compassion for you,” she lamented softly under her breath, eyes downcast.

“You’re not a fuckin’ mind reader, Maks. It was my choice not to bring anything up.”

She nodded slowly, but the way her grip tightened on him only confirmed his suspicion that she wasn’t going to forgive herself for it.

Minutes passed before a word was spoken, but Soul eventually cleared his throat. “You know, I don’t expect you to ever stop being friends with Crona, or to give up on rescuing them. I don’t want that. I don’t mind helping you like you’d asked earlier tonight, too. If that’s what you need from me, then I’m here.”

She brought herself to her elbows on top of him to get a better view of his face.

“I know. I’m not going to give up on them. But It matters to me that you’re happy too, and if that means you need a break from all that, then I want you to know that it’s okay to ask for that.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a hushed tone, distracting himself with a piece of her hair twirled between his fingers.

“And I don’t want to use your blood for research. It was wrong of me to even think of asking you that. We’ll find another way,” she assured him, voice tightening with emotion, “I definitely got carried away with all of this. It wasn’t healthy, and I really am sorry I’ve pushed you away in the process. We can’t solve this thing if we don’t have time to properly take care of ourselves. You’ve been working so hard with me, and I think we need more actual quality time together.”

“Yeah, I could get on board with that. I kinda walked out on dinner tonight, so how about we do something - just you and me tomorrow? Movies sound good?”

“Movies sounds great,” she hummed in agreement, hands idly playing with his hair.

As much as he would have preferred for her to continue her ministrations, he stopped her movements to grasp her hand, bringing it to his chest to rest above where she knew his scar was. He pressed down on her hand lightly.

“I’m glad it happened. I’m glad they gutted me, ‘cause I hadn’t understood what you meant to me till that moment,” he muttered, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head.

She only exhaled shakily, hand tightening against the evidence of his devotion.

“I just hate that it took a lecture from Blackstar of all people for me to realize that I’d been hurting you.”

His eyes widened a little at that new piece of information. Blackstar was the one that brought all of this on her mind? He could’ve sworn it would have been Kid if anyone. He couldn’t help but feel a little touched that Blackstar had been so concerned about him, but he was also somewhat irritated that his friend had distressed Maka as much as he had.

“Blackstar, huh? Remind me to have a conversation with him about mindin’ his own business,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“No, don’t. I’m glad that he said what he did - I needed to hear it,” she urged him.

“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to make my girlfriend cry from guilt over bein’ friends with someone,” he muttered, but his face immediately burned a bright red as soon as he’d caught what he’d called her.

She was a similar shade, holding her breath as well as his gaze with a tortuously difficult to decipher expression on her face.

“That is, uh- I mean… fuck.”  

Very articulate. Great job, Soul.

He hadn’t needed to agonize over whether or not he’d just fucked everything between them for long because her face soon melted into a warm, genuine smile.

“Girlfriend, huh?” she said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye.

“I’d like that. If that’s w-what you want,” he wanted to kick himself for the voice crack he just experienced. Not cool in the slightest. 

At least she got a good giggle out of it. The melodic sound squeezed something in his chest and he swallowed nervously as a response.

She brushed back his bangs, leaning in to place a soft kiss to his forehead. She peppered a trail of kisses down his cheek until she reached his lips. 

This kiss was far from chaste. She cradled his cheek and jaw as she slanted her mouth sweetly over his, pressing fervently, constantly moving against him and eliciting a breathy moan from him that he would never admit to making. 

When she tried to separate, he followed her, bumping noses for a moment and giving the corner of her mouth a few more enthusiastic pecks before backing up and allowing her room to look at his face. 

“Girlfriend sounds nice, actually,” she smiled broadly, letting her fingers brush against the back of his neck.

“Glad that’s settled, then,” he laughed easily, not even bothering to feel any embarrassment over the flush of his skin or the lightness of his breath.

He crushed her to his chest, and they stayed like that for a while, just listening to the other’s loudly beating hearts until they were lulled to sleep. 

He’d have to thank Blackstar with a game of basketball later.

[tempestsreach-blog]

Fuck Diet Culture

This is going to be long.  It’s going to be rambly.  It’s going to be sad.  It’s going to be angry.  There’s going to be language some people don’t like. I can’t NOT talk about it though. 

Fuck diet culture.  Let me say that again.  Fuck. Diet. Culture. It has taken such a huge chunk out of my life.  I have lost pieces of myself I’m not sure I’ll ever get back.  The only way to heal is to go through.  I can’t go back.  I have to move forward.  But I can’t do it quietly.  I can’t hide.  I can’t live in the same shame I’ve spent the last 40 years in.  Literally.  40 years of my life wasted to this.  I can’t bear to live the back half of my life in the same way.  What the hell is the point? I’m not going to write this in any particular order because all of the thoughts and feelings swimming around are snapshots of things in my life that diet culture has broken in me or stolen from me. A lot of you aren’t going to agree with me.  That’s okay.  Truly.  This is about ME.  This is to help ME heal.  You can talk to me about your struggles, your diets, your ups and downs, your successes and whatnot.  I am here for you in all of it. But I won’t diet with you anymore.  Never again.

Currently I am having severe knee pain.  One knee is worse than the other, but both are bad.  I should go to the doctor.  I should have gone to the doctor years ago for it.  Want to know why I didn’t?  My weight.  I have injuries from overuse and over exercise and I am terrified that I am going to go to the doctor and the first words they’re going to say are “Well, if you lost 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, it probably wouldn’t hurt so much.” instead of listening to me, examining me, scanning my knees and HELPING me.  I don’t feel this way irrationally.  This shit happens.  I am in pain.  I don’t know how to get help without being told to go on another diet that will not work.

Because diets don’t work.  Not long term.  I am excellent at losing weight!  I’ve done it over and over and over.  Then I stop restricting, counting, starving, and pushing myself.  Then my body says “What the fuck were you doing?” and puts it back. I lost the ability years ago to know whether I’m actually hungry or not.  I eat too fast when I do eat because if I snarf it down super fast I can get it in before my brain says “You’ve had too much.  Did you count those calories?  How many miles on a treadmill will you do to make up for that?  Did you actually earn this meal?”

Every time.  Every meal.  Every morsel.

I have never been officially diagnosed with an eating disorder.  Only been told by therapists and psychiatrists that I definitely engage in disordered eating.

No shit.

Every diet under the sun.  Cabbage soup.  Phen Fen.  Weight watchers (MULTIPLE TIMES), TOPS, Noom, My Fitness Pal calorie counting, intermittent fasting,  and every whacky bullshit thing in between promising results.  I’ve purchased fancy scales.  I’ve even tried one that wouldn’t show you your weight, but the color of your progress in the app.  Here’s a hint… if you gain, your color is black like death.  I’ve failed a million times and I’ve blamed myself.  I am the failure.  So I hate my body a little more every day and I stress about how I’m going to NOT pass my disordered eating and my food issues onto my kids.  My stress levels are through the roof and 98% of it is diet culture related. What the fuck is that about? Every time I start a program I hit it hard.  Last time I tried anything involving tracking or counting I was so starving by the time I got home from work that I almost ripped a child’s head off (not literally OBVIOUSLY) but I screamed at her at the top of my lungs because she hurt my feelings.  It wasn’t until after finally allowing myself to eat another morsel of food that I realized I was hangry.

Why is living in a larger body not acceptable?  We all talk about diversity and equality as though we believe it with our whole hearts, but that doesn’t cross over to fat.  Or skinny if we’re really being honest.  How many times have you heard or seen online “Oh my god, she’s so skinny.  Feed her a damn cheeseburger!  She looks anorexic.”  I know I have.  I know I’ve said those words.  I will punch myself in the gut if I ever say them again.  

Every body is different.  We are supposed to be.  Let’s not BLAME genetics like it’s a bad thing.  Let’s realize that it’s what nature has intended.  My father is over 6 feet tall and a large man.  He’s just a big man.  He went on Nutri System when I was young, lost a ton of weight, and put a bunch back on over the years because he is a big man.  My mother was not tall, but was always large.  I hated her body because HER PARENTS told her all the time she was fat and unworthy and cautioned me not to grow up to be like her in any way.  Even when she was poor and homeless she was still large.  That was the way her body was.  I wonder how different her life might have been if the size of her body hadn’t been a factor in the way she was raised or treated.  How might that have made my life different?

I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes at me right now about being vocal about another health plan or saying to yourself “just because you have trouble with diets doesn’t mean they don’t work”  I know there are people close to me thinking “She just always gets excited when she discovers a new diet, that’s probably what this is.”  NO.  

This is me finally realizing that I can heal and healing doesn’t mean I need to weigh 157 pounds. (That’s the weight limit for women my height to enter the air force when I did in 1992) This is me finally realizing that I’ve been lying about the weight on my drivers license for 30 years because gods forbid anyone saw my real weight on that document. This is me realizing that I’ve spent my life trying to live up to other people’s ideals of what I should look like because I assumed they wouldn’t like me otherwise. This is me realizing how much unintentional harm I could have been doing when sharing another diet, another idea, another bout of “well this is working really well for me!” with people I care about. This is me realizing how much damage I’ve been doing to myself living with this level of shame for 40 years. Hiding what I’m doing.  Suffering in silence.  Hiding food. Restricting.  Binging.  Over exercising to compensate.  Spending money on one last diet.  Spending emotional energy on one last hope. We were in Las Vegas for what was supposed to be a fun vacation last week and I was so hot and miserable and so steeped in hating my body because my painful knees were betraying me that my internal monologue was a never ending loop of “I’ll hit weight watchers REALLY HARD when we get home and get rid of this weight, then I’ll figure out my knees and work on maintenance” Let me say that again, clearly.  I struggled to enjoy my vacation because I was obsessing about restricting food AFTER my vacation. One last time.  One last meal.

BULLSHIT.

We walked by shops with weird and pretty fashion dresses. (I freely admit I don’t understand fashion) the husband and I would both point out ones we thought were pretty.  My brain would get stuck on “Yeah, but they don’t make them in my size” or “Yeah, that would NOT look good on me.  It looks fine on that size 0 mannequin”  Pretty on other people.  Other people are pretty.  Not me. Diet culture is pervasive and all consuming.  In big ways and little ways.  I’m 5 ft 9.  I’m not a tiny person at any weight.  I’ve always been told I’m too big.  Even when I sit, I slouch a little and/or tuck my legs and feet up under me to try to make myself appear smaller and less invasive.  This is subconscious.  I don’t always realize I’m doing it until my knees remind me. Most of my life has been things that get in the way of my diets.  “I should start the diet today, but it’ll have to wait until next week because so and so’s birthday is this week and I want to be able to enjoy that.”  or “It’s late fall, I should just start now but first there’s my birthday, and then Thanksgiving, and December happens and there’s all kinds of treats then.  Better wait until January, but not the first because that’s new year’s...maybe the following Monday.” or the ever popular “I already had a bad eating day today, I’m a failure.  Why bother?  Fuck it.  I’ll try again tomorrow.”  That one was always followed by binging because of the last supper mentality.  If I’m starting a diet tomorrow I better eat EVERYTHING NOW. This is how I’ve lived my whole life.  The time not spent dieting was just the time in between diets where I was planning my next diet.  So much life wasted.  The only time I was not actively dieting or planning the next diet or suffering from “I’m just too exhausting to put effort into food right now” was during my 4 pregnancies.  I let myself eat whatever and whenever because I was nauseous all the time anyway and something in my brain made me fuel my body for the babies. When the youngest was born and the on call doctor who delivered her told me I was too fat to have my tubes tied I definitely started planning diets again in that moment.  I believe now, years later, that my diet and diet culture ruined mind and body is part of what kept me from being as successful at nursing the kids as I wished I had been.  I assumed my body was broken and not good enough for my babies.  The last time I lost a LOT of weight it was because I didn’t want to ruin someone’s wedding pictures.  True story.  This was nothing that person felt or anything they told me.  IT’s what my brain said to me.  It’s how I de-valued myself.  There are very few current pictures of me now because I’ve been stuck in a place where I feel shame when I see them. When I’m dead, memories and pictures are all my kids and grandkids will have, and I hate myself too much to let anyone take them. That’s not okay.

I dream about food.  I daydream about food.  Food I “shouldn’t” eat.  Food I “should” eat.  When to eat.  When not to eat.  Every spare ounce of energy is spent thinking about food or hating myself which leads to more thinking about food. I am not in a place where I can prepare dinner for my family right now because it’s too hard to put that much energy into food.  I force myself to pick the recipes from the app and get the shopping done via instacart so all anyone else has to do is pull up the recipe and make the food.  If I’m looking at the ingredients or trying to prep anything I stare at every individual thing debating whether or not I “should” eat it.  This is going to take me a long time to break free from.  Today I finally feel like I CAN break free. There is nothing wrong with being in a large body or a small body.  Food is not good or bad.  Food is food.  I have to say these things.  I have to repeat them to myself or I fall down the rabbit hole again.  None of this is work anyone can do for me.  I have to live it.  I have to work through it.  I have to figure it out. If you read this far, my statement stands.  If you’re on a diet, I will listen to your woes and hold your hand and I will not judge you for it.  This was very hard to write because I am certain some of you who believe in diets, ways of life, and wellness eating may block me now because I spoke my mind.  I’ve clung so tight to the people I love and refrained from being honest and speaking my mind for fear of abandonment.  I’ll have to live with it if that’s the case here, because people sometimes need to do what’s best for them.  Airing this out is one of those things for me.  It’s a scary thing for sure. I also want to say that I’m happy for this to lead to discussion.  I’m not going to shut anyone down for wanting to talk to me about this.  I am always open to learn new information and see different perspectives.  Just know that if I’m emotional and feeling a lot of strong things about how my life has been up to this point, and I am entitled to believe what I believe just as you all are.  I’m happy to share sources and books I’ve been reading on the subject.  They are not diet books.

Here’s to doing better from here on out.

Here’s to finally being free.

[kgyeomiex]

Just For A Little Bit (M)

“It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives”

Summary: That night was just suppose to be nothing but careless fun, but after drinking shot after shot that night was your first time having a one-night stand. What did you have to worry about? 99% of the time you never see the person you sleep with again… right? WRONG. What will happen when your past comes back to life to haunt you again?

Previous Parts:

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 // Part 9 // Part 10

Part 11 is here~

Masterlist

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Right about now you were regretting ever opening your mouth. Maybe you should have waited to see why Mino was mad at you in the first place… Looks like it’s way too late for that.

To be honest you didn’t feel regretful to let Mino know about Bobby and you, however, you did feel bad for Bobby. He probably wanted to tell Mino in his way and instead, you just put him on blast.

“What did you just say?” Mino asks not breaking eye contact with you at all…

Well, the damage is done. Instead of finding out why the hell he was acting petty in the first place, you now have to explain yourself.

“Was that not it?” you were debating what to tell Mino exactly.

“Are you telling me that you are cheating on me with someone I consider my best friend?” You wanted to admit to the truth and say yes but you didn’t want to stoop at his level.

“No… Well…” you were trying to think of a way to give Mino the bad news.

Originally you came here hoping to fix what this was but after seeing the way Mino has been acting like he’s hiding something you suddenly didn’t care. You felt angrier than upset.

“You know what yeah I did,”

Mino looked speechless.

“Bobby and I hooked up before you and I met. If I am being honest, I never expected to see him again because it was just a one-night stand, but little did we know we came across one another because of you. I had no intentions of cheating on you but if I am being honest, we did share a kiss eventually while we were dating,” you said looking Mino right into his eyes.

You have no idea how you suddenly were gaining the courage to say such things. You did not break eye contact once.

You were waiting for Mino to say something or even react but all he did was stare at you.

“Are you going to say anything? I just gave you a reason to be mad,” Mino began to look around and then back at you.

“You know what, I have every right to be mad. The reason I didn’t want you around in the first place is because you changed Y/N. You’re not the person I used to know… And now I know why,” you were suddenly feeling guilty for cheating on Mino, but it was too late to take anything back now.

“Changed? What do you mean?” You were beyond confused about where this was all of a sudden coming from.

“When we first started to go out you and I was happy. We actually spent time together regardless of my busy schedule. You put the effort into our relationship and wanted to do activities together. We had a conversation with one another and enjoyed one another's company… But the moment you started to become friends with Bobby that all changed and now I know why. Everything makes sense yet again,” Mino looked beyond angry.

His eyes were watery, but he was preventing himself from crying. You would be lying if you were to say that you didn’t feel like a shit human being of a person.

You were in love with Mino… At least you thought you were but if you were in love with Mino you wouldn’t have hurt him the way you did,

“Mino…” He backed up and looked at you.

“You know what… I was starting to feel bad for mistreating you because I thought I was just being a jealous fucking boyfriend but now I don’t regret what I did. I could have slept with someone behind your back if I fucking wanted to but instead, I decided to distance myself a little until you were ready to talk,” Mino continued to talk as he continued to make you feel worse than you were already feeling…

“But after all this time I should have given the girls in my DM attention. Instead, I wasted every second being with you for no reason… Not because I’m stupid. I wish you cared enough about me like you said you would. The efforts I put to make you happy, the sacrifices I made, the things I did for you, I had never done for anyone else, and I’d probably never do them again. Yet, I wasn’t good enough for you. You found flaws even in good things. I tried.” You couldn’t say much back because Mino had every right to be mad at you…

“I’m sorry I couldn’t you as much as you loved me… Maybe it’s for the best that we each other go because you’re worth so much more than a girl who could only you with a half a heart…” You said and Mino looks at you and nods.

“I want you to know that after today I want nothing to do with you… I will go to the apartment and pack up my thing now and find somewhere else to be… Because being around you is the last place I want to be,” Mino says looking directly into your eyes and before you could say anything else, he turned around and began to walk off…

To be honest you were expecting this to go down this way… You felt like a shitty human being.

I’m sorry….

~

Bobby’s Point of View

I was feeling uneasy about the whole situation… I don’t know how Mino is going to react when he finds out that Y/N and I have a past… I wonder if he will want anything to do with me after this, after all, we are best friends…

But I have a feeling that we are not going to do much talking after this…

I noticed my phone lighting up. I reached for it and I was expecting to see Y/N’s name show up but instead, I see Mino’s name show up… To be honest I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or bad. I just knew that I had to talk to Mino.

I answered the call and brought the phone to my ear.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Can we meet up right now?” I already didn’t have a good feeling about this phone call. But I was expecting it.

Honestly, even though this situation was bound to get messy I was happy to address the situation rather than act as nothing happened.

‘Yeah sure,” before that we both hung up and I was out of the door to meet Mino.

~

I looked around and noticed Mino approaching. We both agreed to meet near my apartment. I got up from the bench and walked over to Mino.

As soon as we both were in front of one another, that’s when everything happened quickly… I instantly felt Mino’s fist connect to my cheek and before I knew it, I was on the ground confused about how to react right now.

I looked at Mino and he looked upset… Y/N has finally told him the truth about us two…. More than I expected her to tell.

“So, you heard...” I blurted out reaching out to my cheek making sure it wasn’t going to be bruised up.

“What the fuck Bobby? I thought we were best friends. How dare you fucking go behind my back trying to get with my girl,” I know I was guilty of this. And right now, I could easily make Y/N seem like the bad guy because I am guilty of having other's intentions with the girl.

“It’s nothing personal… It’s not like I was going after her because she was your girl. I did meet her before you...” I said and that’s when I realized what I am saying was not saving me in any way shape or form.

“So just because you met her first makes it okay for you to make moves on her?”

If I was Mino to at least be cordial with me I knew I had to find a way to explain myself in this situation.

I got myself off the group and looked at Mino.

He’s probably going to want to punch me again, but I was ready to deal with the consequences of my action.

“Listen I had no intentions of catching feelings for her in the first place. When Y/N and I first met it was supposed to be just a one-night stand. You act as you have never experienced that before,” Mino stood quiet and continued to look right at me.

“I wasn’t planning to see her again, she left my place anyways before her, and I could ever say another word to one another. The next thing I know you introduced her as your girlfriend, and I was more attracted to her than I thought. I wasn’t planning to make any moves on her but as we began to hang around one another and next thing I knew things happened... Honestly, the most we did was share a kiss. She had the chance to break up with you and come to me if she wanted but instead, she decided to stop talking to me and tried to work out the relationship with you,” I looked at Mino and instead of showing any facial expression he just looked at me and then looked at the ground.

I have no idea what’s going through his head right now…

“You know what… I want to believe that Y/N has some kind of feeling for me but that’s a lie… Whenever the two of you were in a room together, I saw the way she would look at you it was different compared to the way she looked at me… Sure she might have cared about me but not the way she does about you,” now I was confused.

Mino comes here angry looking for me but now he seems calmer than before. Just as I was about to say something, he cuts me off.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore me and her aren’t together anyways. At the end of the day, I am not going to fight you over some girl… Everything happens for a reason and that’s that,”

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to stop being friends with him or we came to some understanding?

“So, are we cool?”

“I guess we are,”

~

Your Point of View

At this point, you had mixed feelings about the whole situation. Oddly, you felt relieved that you were no longer hiding a secret… Even though Bobby and you stopped talking, you still felt guilty that you were even entertaining another person while being with Mino.

But now what? Now that you’re completely single it’s not like you can run up to Bobby and hope you two can pick up where you left off...

If anything, there is this possibility that Bobby will choose his friends over you and there is nothing wrong with that… But you had to be okay with the fact that this was probably going to be the last time Bobby and you will have any encounter after this…

As you got closer to your apartment you suddenly felt confused about what to do.

Just looking at this place already gives you the feeling that you are going to have to look for a new place to live in… The good memories you did have with Mino here are going to consistently give you flashbacks if you stay here any longer…

There were so many thoughts running in your head… But right now, the only thing you had to do first talked to Bobby before you decide to make any sudden moves…

You pulled out your phone from your pocket and instantly called Bobby…

Here goes nothing…

~

As you stood in front of Bobby, you felt suddenly speechless. How the hell are you supposed to approach this situation. Bobby was standing a couple of feet away looking right at you waiting for you to say something.

“So….” Bobby blurts out and you look at him.

“So….”

“I spoke to Mino…” The moment Bobby mentioned Mino's name for some reason you felt uneasy… You have no idea what the two could have talked about… Do they hate each other because of you?

“Oh…. And what happened?” You knew based on what happened it was going to give you the answers you need.

“He punched me,” shit... This is your fault.

“Bobby I’m so-”

“I deserved it,” you weren’t expecting to hear that come out of his mouth.

“What?”

“I mean what kind of friend falls for this girlfriend?” Did he just say he was falling for you?

“Bobby…” Now that the two of you were sparking up the topic you suddenly felt ready to tell Bobby how you were feeling about everything, but he suddenly cut you off.

“After everything that happened today by itself it had me thinking… One side of me was happy at the fact that you were no longer with Mino… I wanted to go up to you and tell you how I’ve been feeling about you… How I want to spend every minute of every second with you. How I want to be the reason for that smile, and I want to be able to be the one to protect you from anything that comes in sight to hurt you. When we met again after the one-night stand I thought it was fate… I thought there must be a reason why you and I came across one another once again. But today after talking to Mino I realized that although I have these feelings for you…. There must be a reason why you and I didn't work out in the first place,” once Bobby said that you were taken back.

What did you do to suddenly make him change his mind?

“And what reason is that?” You asked, waiting for his response.

“Well, when you and I shared a kiss. I did give you the chance to choose between Mino and I and you chose Mino…. In the beginning, I kept telling myself the reason you didn’t choose me was because you didn’t want to make Mino feel bad that you were going to leave him for me… But now that I think about it maybe I liked you more than you liked me.” Hearing those words came rougher than you were expecting.

How are you supposed to respond to that…?

It wasn’t true. You had feelings for Bobby but feelings for Mino… You were in a sticky situation and didn’t know what to do and what to say without hurting someone.

“Bobby,”

Again, he cuts you off.

“I was planning to come here and maybe see if you and I could maybe start something between us… But now I think it… I think it’s best if we no longer see each other.”

So that’s it? That’s the decision he decided to make on his own.

You were getting ready to tell him how you felt and tell him everything you wanted him to hear but something stopped you… If Bobby wants nothing to do with you then what’s the point? You are just wasting your time.

“So that’s it?” Bobby nodded his head, and you felt the urge to cry but you contained yourself.

“Okay,” you didn’t bother saying anything else.

You just took one look at Bobby and without saying another word you walked off.

Like he says everything happens for a reason…

You didn’t end up with either Bobby or Mino… Instead, you ended up with a broken heart and completely alone.

(Sequel? Maybe? What do you guys think?)