#i would not want to read my copy of red river twice

[lvlyghost]

Salvation

Pairings: John Price x F!Reader

Summary: after a few months since his last visit, john finally gets the chance to see the girl.

Word Count: 1.7k

tw: fluff, angst, allusion to human trafficking, NCA, terrified girls. nothing too descriptive. bad english and poor grammar as usual. if i missed anything just lmk💕

A/N: so this took a little longer since it was supposed to come out during the weekend. i was planning on making it longer but didn't, maybe a second part could happen🐸 anyway, i love price✨🩵!

Masterlist✨ | Part 2

She hears it while cooking her homemade cherry pie. As far as she recalls, no one was supposed to come today. No. Officer Davis came that morning at eight o'clock like he always did. He had handed her some new books she's been wanting to read for a few months now and was kind enough to buy for her.

Since she wasn't allowed to give her address to anyone,and let alone type it on some random website, she was always asking officer Davis for favors. He was truly an amazing man. Although, even if they ever let her do such thing, giver her some freedom, who would want to go to the house in the middle of the forest to drop off a package?

Freedom. She scoffs. Such a strange word.

Making her way out of the room she walks towards the front door, but not before taking the remote that was given to her by the NCA. All it takes is pressing the red button twice and she'll have the whole police in her doorway. She stands behind the white wooden door, hesitating. Her heart begins to race, feeling it beat against her ribcage.

What if someone had finally found her location?

I can't go back there.

Frozen in her place, hand barely touching the doorknob and tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

"It's me, sweetheart." A deep voice comes from the other side. "It's okay. I'm sorry for not coming sooner."

John.

She mumbles his name, like a prayer, and then opens the door.

He stands there, tall and broad. The same baby blues that saved her a year ago looking back at her. The lines on his forehead soften at the mere sight of the girl. He's wearing that black beanie that once sat atop of her head when the winter had begun that first time he visited her here.

The only other one that knew where to find her. Because she knew, they all knew, he'd do anything for her.

-

John can hear the river outside the old house. The rustling of leaves moving against the wind, soon it'll be dark. The humid weather making his green shirt stick to his skin layered with sweat. He inhales deeply. This mission. This fucking mission has been going far too long. But everything they found les the task force to this very place. He goes room by room, entering with his gun aiming ahead and the safety off. Always.

Despite not having execute authority he wanted nothing more than to put several bullets in their bodies. Whomever they were.

A creak echoes on the second floor so he rushes upstairs stealthily. The place above doesn't look much better that the bottom part of the house. There's a weird smell in the air. Like blood and death.

After checking the first room, the bathroom and all the cabinets just in case he sighs.

"Only got one room left to check. Anything out there?" He waits for an answer, in the middle of the bedroom. The mattress was torn and dirty. He thinks of all the atrocities that must've taken place there.

"Negative, Captain. Got you on my sight just in case." Ghost's monotone voice interrupts the eerie silence engulfing his surroundings.

"Copy."

The radio dies and John walks to the next door across the hallway. Except it's locked.

Of course.

"Last door locked. I'm going in. Gaz, Soap you're in position?" He asks

"Aye sir. Both ready."

Next thing that happens is a bullet. He shoots the doorknob and the door bursts open with a loud sound of his firearm.

And screams.

Terrified screams and cries from... girls. At least seven of them. Price swallows hard, his eyes scanning the room when they land on the girl shielding a younger one. She's terrified, shaking, yet still looks him in the eye imploring to be saved.

-

She's hugging him in an instant, almost making him stumble back on his steps, but embraces her body nevertheless.

"What took you so long?" She asks, her face resting on his hard chest. Price can feel the softness of her skin against his calloused hands.

"Special Ops." She smells like strawberry and caramels. Pulling away so he can look her in the eyes. "How're you doin' love?"

Her heart skips a beat. Never gets tired of hearing Price calling her that.

"Come in and I'll tell you."

Taking his hand she guides him to the kitchen where the pie is almost finished. John drops his duffel bag on the wooden floor, contemplating her small form moving around effortlessly.

"I got some new books this morning. Turns out I've been missing a lot. Davis was kind enough to bring them since... you know." She shrugs.

"They're still not letting you out?" He asks with a serious tone.

"Nah. Might be dangerous." Taking out the pie from the oven she places it on the counter between the two. Price doesn't say anything for a moment, merely looking at her, pondering. "The boys are alright?"

"Yeah." He nods,"Had to drag one or two out of a burning building but that's not new."

She laughs softly, taking a seat, motioning for him to do the same. He obliges.

"How long do you think they'll keep me here, John?" It's a genuine question. It's only been a few months. A year, almost.

"Love..." he sighs. "It's complicated. I don't know much."

"Yeah but, but once they're all captured..." she stammered.

Price could never say he understands what she's going through. What she endured was beyond him. Whenever he thought of it it just made him want burn the fucking bastards. All of them.

"I promise you this. Once it's safe for you I'll personally come and give you the news. And we'll go wherever you desire, yeah?" Although it's not entirely what she wanted, she could wait a little bit longer. John had never let her down. He saved her and in all honesty she'd trust him with her life. "I'll tell you what." He stands up, making the small kitchen look even smaller with his tall form. "Have you heard about the town fair?"

Her eyes light up.

"No... is, is that..."

"Let's go." She doesn't move. "Why don't you go get ready."

"John, I'm not supposed to leave the house you know that, I mean I want to, but... you said..." She's mortified, yet excited. A breath of fresh air. That's what that man meant for her. No one ever cared about her like he did.

"I've got contacts, love. I don't need their permission. For all that matters you're safer with me. Come on, out we go." He points to the front door. "I'm a patient man but don't keep me waiting for too long eh."

-

He was right.

It was a sight to behold.

John watches her eating the snack he got for her. She loved sweets so much therefore he couldn't let this opportunity pass. When was the last time she got to experience something like this? Sometimes so simple.

Something so mundane.

Her eyes are glimmering whenever she looks at the different attractions at the fair. John takes a long drink from his beer bottle. Right hand finding her lower back whenever she's about to bump into some other person when she's distracted.

"You like it huh?" She looks at him confused. He points the stuffed otter in her left hand. A smile crossed her features.

"I do. And I still don't know how you did it... I mean, I guess being in the military does help when you try to shoot a moving horse toy at the fair to win something." She laughs, embarrassed about what she just said. She thinks she sounds stupid, almost making her want to hit her head against the nearest tree.

He smiles, the wrinkles on the corner of his eyes more prominent than the last time she'd seen him.

"I guess it does, love." He agrees wholeheartedly.

"How long are you going to stay?"

Price looks down at her when she stops before the ferris wheel. The wind blows her hair swiftly. What was that in the air? Her perfume?

"For as long as I can, dear." He takes a strand of hair in his hand, and gently put it behind her ear.

There she is.

"John..." she breathes. "I feel so lonely when you're gone." The grip on the stuffed animal tightens. "I've no one. If it wasn't for you..."

"No." He gently reprimands her. "Don't say another word. With or without me you'll be fine, love."

"What if I don't want to be fine when you're not around?" He's silent, yet his mind is so loud. "You saved me, John." She states. "Any other person would just continue with their lives. You were just doing your job. Another one in the endless missions you're assigned." Swallowing, she asks: "Why are you still here? Why do you keep coming back?"

He doesn't answer the question right away, instead looks over her head, lost in his own thoughts as he shifts his weight from one foot to another. He then clears his throat and looks back at her, who's waiting with wide eyes and lips slightly parted. She was right. Any other day John would've turned page. He would sure remember, after all these are stories that will stick with him until his last day. What made this mission different?

"I think you know bloody well why."

-

Price helps her sit inside the helicopter to get medical attention. Feeling her weak body trembling even under the black blanket she was tightly wrapped in. He had carried her body all the way outside from that house when she collapsed. The adrenaline running through her system disappearing when she realized they were being rescued at last.

Simon had side eyed his Captain when he didn't let anyone take the girl from him. Why her? He couldn't say. So he went away and led one of the other girls out of there instead with Soap's help.

"There's nothing to be afraid anymore, kid." He reassured her, voice soft trying not to startle her more than she already was. "We got you. All of you."

Her big eyes once terrified and filled with tears of despair finally saw the light at the end. It was him. What she always prayed for. Salvation.

It was staring back at her.

[thoughtsontolkien]

Prologue

Hullo, and welcome to the first post! This one will be my thoughts on the several pages of set-up before we get to the actual book.

Direct quotes from the book will be in italics to differentiate them from my rambling :)

1: Concerning Hobbits

My man Jirt immediately mentions The Hobbit about four lines in

'Many, however, may wish to know more about this remarkable people' - I read somewhere that JRRT wanted to publish The Silmarillion after The Hobbit but his publishers were like 'no. more hobbits' , and if that's true I would like to think that this was JRRT's way of being like 'fine. you want more hobbits? i will give you SO MUCH INFO about hobbits'

I strongly agree with hobbits about shoes being annoying - I myself prefer to not wear them when I can (and since I now live in an area without bindies I can assume that it will be safe to walk barefoot on grass)

Early hobbits were living near the Anduin when Greenwood became Mirkwood

The hobbits renamed the river Baranduin 'Brandywine' - aka 'alcohol 1 alcohol 2' and I love that for them

Bullroarer is mentioned twice within the first 5 pages and both times Jirt is like 'it's an interesting story BUT irrelevant here so I'm not going to bring it up again'

I love that we get a full and detailed description of hobbit architecture for multiple paragraphs

'Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.' - Oh, to be a hobbit and not a historical archaeologist constantly arguing about How Things Were

2: Concerning Pipe-weed

Opinions: is pipeweed tobacco or straight-up weed? I know that since Jirt says it's probably a variety of Nicotiana it's probably tobacco, but also it says 'probably' and it's funnier to imagine that hobbits are just constantly high

The Prancing Pony is apparently the home of smoking

'Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to.'

And from that information I like to imagine that Gandalf stopped in Bree when he first showed up in Middle-earth, was given a pipe, went 'that's the good shit' and immediately spread it to as many people as he could

3: Of the Ordering of the Shire

Jirt: thank you so much for making it 'the Shire' and not 'The Shire'

I love hobbit naming conventions and the fact that they seem to be the only race in Middle-earth with distinct familial surnames

For some reason the name 'Brandybuck' has a Good Ring to it

The Tooks truly are a wild family - the Thain is apparently 'master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms' and now I'm imagining a very angry Took leading a small army of 3-foot-tall hobbits sometime in hobbit ancient history

The head of the Took family is just called 'The Took' like they're some notorious criminal

4: Of the Finding of the Ring

Quick recount of the events of The Hobbit in case you haven't read it

Bilbo gave his mithril coat to the Mathom-house in Michel Delving. This shows how little hobbits care about shiny things, but I do find it funny that he was like 'yeah just send the shirt to the House of Random Things' and it stayed there for years

NOTE ON THE SHIRE RECORDS

Bilbo you absolute legend, thank you for being the preeminent Hobbit Historian

If the story of the copies of the Red Book ain't a good description of what actually happens to many historical records I don't know what is

Merry and Pippin, we love hoarder librarians

Elladan and Elrohir apparently stayed in Middle-earth long after Elrond and Galadriel sailed, and Celeborn stayed with them in Rivendell for a while until he sailed too

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

the only bad thing about being the person in this corner of the spaghetti western fandom who reads all the novelizations and tells you if they're worth it or not, is that they can be very difficult to find and like twenty to twenty-five dollars a pop for sixties-seventies mass market paperbacks that were never intended to be read more than once

[authorashraven]

The Foreman

The Foreman

Story Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Warnings: blow jobs (sloppy, yummy goodness), some fantasizing about monster men, romanticizing the construction industry, porn trope (I mean c’mon this kinda is), pet name (dandelion)

Relationships: Minotaur!Ronan x Male!Reader

Word Count: 1857

Summary: Your morning coffee run just got a whole lot better.

A/N: I’ve really been thinking hard about how cows use their tongues and then I remembered a post about how Minotaurs would have similar musculature and I just…

This work has Adult Content. By clicking “Keep Reading” you have agreed that you are over the age of 18 and are willing to view such content. My work is not to be copied or translated onto any other platform.

The sun erupts over the horizon, streaks of orange and yellow fracturing the calm blues of the dawning sky. It's not like the sunrise in the city, tall buildings to protect and refract the light and haze to swallow up some of the bright light. If anything it's almost too much, at least this early in the morning. Maybe if you are watching the sunrise at nine or noon it would be better.

But there is a reason you've started off on these early morning jaunts, and it's certainly not for your health. Okay, maybe the increased energy has been nice in certain aspects of your life. It definitely starts your day off right when you walk out the door in your exercise gear just as the sun is starting to wake. It also lets you get a good bit of "people watching" in before you have to sit behind your desk the rest of the day. That is the polite word you've been calling it. Really the only reason you've been crawling out of bed at the ass crack of dawn to walk by the construction site.

A new housing development is being put up down the road from your house, and with all the loud construction sounds and strange smells, came an army of big beefy burly men- orcs, minotaurs, dwarves, and humans alike. You spend a good amount of time "people watching" them and a lot less time actually walking. The best part about the route you've set up? It takes you by the front entrance of a construction site twice, once before coffee and the second after you'd gotten your much-needed coffee and danish from the cafe in town. There is something just sinfully delicious about drinking your sugary beverage while catching glimpses of sweaty men at work lifting, drilling, jackhammering.

Maybe you shouldn’t be fantasizing about people you didn’t know, would probably never know, but you couldn’t stop yourself. Not when he is around, the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. The minotaur who runs the site has been the focus of your pining recently. You catch glimpses of him, his tight shirt stretched impossibly tighter around his bulging muscles, shouting and commanding the others. He makes neon yellow look sexy and you aren’t even sure how. You just want him to shout orders at you while you beg him to let you cum.

This morning is no different. Iced pastry in hand, you slow your walk until you are barely moving at all. You watched them work through the chainlink fence, sucking down your iced coffee and completely entranced by the muscles working before your eyes. You should have been paying attention, this is a construction site after all. A hard jostling, your paper straw shoved into the back of your throat, and a set of massive, hot hands on your shoulders lead you to believe for a moment you’ve died and gone to the good place.

“You alright there, dandelion?”

Deep, like a river or an ocean or the pits of your darkest desires, that is the only way to describe his voice. It washes over you with ease, makes goosebumps rise up on your arms despite the heat.

"Ye-" your voice cracks and you take a moment to steady yourself. "Yeah, I'm good…"

Oh god.

It's him, the foreman.

Your eyes travel up his sleek, black fur covered arms. The short hairs shine almost red in the sun, glowing in the early morning light. His eyes are shining too, you realize when you stop getting lost in the expanse of muscle connecting his body together. Are you panting?

“Sorry,” you blurt out, taking a slight step back and gazing up at the foreman.

"You sure you're alright?"

His hands are still on your shoulders. Why hasn't he let go yet? Did you look that unsteady on your feet? You shouldn't be questioning this, not when you plan on both savouring this exact moment for all of eternity and curling up in the fetal position for how absolutely cringe you are being.

"Why don't I walk ya home?"

You are nodding along before you can even stop yourself, forgetting any responsibilities you may have had the moment his hands shift off your shoulder. A slight whine, one that you would blame on the equipment if he heard you, escapes your lips. He waves over at another man in an orange vest and hard hat before he turns back to you.

"Lead the way, dandelion."

There is something about that name that sets you off, it's bright and cheerful and persistent. You aren't sure if that's how you would describe yourself, but honestly, you are at a point where you'd let him call you whatever he wanted just to keep him talking.

The walk back to your house ends up being a bit convoluted, turning every which way rather than taking the straight line back to your house. You are too distracted by the hand that keeps brushing yours and the rolling thunderous voice talking about building things. Your sweating, iced coffee now completely gone and danish forgotten, by the time you step up to your front porch.

"You always get so lost on your way home?" He smiled at you, eyes crinkling a bit in the corner. You only just notice he is still wearing his hard hat, the sweat slowly dripping down his face, contouring his features.

"Sorry," you apologize again, flustered and embarrassed by your lapse in self-control. "Can I get you something to drink, at least, before you head back?"

"And what could I get at most?"

He leans over, forcing you to grip the bannister before you fall over from having to look up at him. His breath is hot as it fans over your already heated cheeks. You stutter out something, you aren't really sure, but you grab his ridiculous hot and stupid orange vest and drag him through your front door. His lips crash into yours, swallow you up by just the sheer size difference. Your hands pull at his face, his ears, knocking his helmet off. He slams you against the nearest wall, it hurts for a moment, but the feeling of his thick thigh spreading your legs open, pushing your cock tighter into your pants has you forgetting all about the sting.

You separate long enough to pull your shirts off, your hands immediately gripping his hard chest, fingers teasing his taut nipples. Oh, this was so better than any dream. He licks the side of your neck, sending a shiver down your spine and straight to your cock. His hands move to squeeze your ass, spreading and massaging as his mouth works some kinda magic against the skin of your neck. You can't decide if you should be pushing your hips forward to give your cock some attention or to push back into those glorious hands.

A moan, loud enough you're sure your neighbours will have heard you, is pulled from your body. His blunt teeth sink into your shoulder before he takes a knee before you. His head is even with your chest, a thought that has you gasping when his tongue lashes against your nipples. Your hand grab for purchase, landing on the base of his horns. He moans against your skin, sucking hard enough you're sure your chest is going to be sore the rest of the day, that when you put your shirt on for work you'll be instantly reminded of him. Your back arches into him desperate for more of his touch.

"Fuck, please," you moan, your hips bucking forward when his finger dip beauty the waistband of your shorts.

"Ronan," he murmurs, before kissing your abused nipple.

"Ronan."

You repeat the word, his name, over and over again in your head and out loud. His name on your tongue tasted like smoke and candy and delirium and you never want to stop saying it. You want it engraved on your skin so you will always carry a piece of him.

He forces you out of your head with a swift pull at your pants, your cock bobbing and throbbing in the cool air of your entryway. Ronan's hands drag up the tender flesh of your thighs before grabbing your cheeks, squeezing and pulling them apart as he kisses your hips. His dark eyes focus on you as his tongue wraps around your cock before he swallows you whole. It leaves you gasping, unable to comprehend exactly what you just witnessed, but gods did you wish you had a picture. You throw your head back, cursing and moaning as he begins to suck. It's never been this good. Ronan’s mouth is just as hot as the rest of his body, but so wet. You can feel the spit leaking from his lips, dripping down your balls even as he slurps around your cock.

Your pull at the short curls on his head, grasping at anything to keep you from collapsing onto the floor. Ronan notices, winks slowly, before throwing both of your legs over his shoulders. You squeal, no one has ever tossed you around so easily, no one has ever made you feel so weightless. Your thoughts swim, you can’t breathe. All you can do is hold on while he devours you, your muscles quaking as you reach higher and higher. You’re burning up, can feel your orgasm building faster than it has before as you lose control.

“Ronan,” you gasp at the pressure of a finger on your hole. “Ronan, fuck, ‘m gonna cum.”

He looks at you, dark eyes somehow darker than ever, and swallows. His cheeks hollow out and he tries to swallow your cock like it will give him life. There is no stopping the feeling that snaps inside you as you cum. Your hips thrust forward, eyes rolling back slightly, jaw falling slack, and you shoot your load down his throat. Ronan doesn’t take his eyes off you, watches the euphoria of your orgasm wash over you. His hands massage your ass, working your body until it slumps against the wall.

All of his movements are gentle now, the urgency of the moment gone, but you can still feel the heat of it. It rolls like waves off of him as he lets go of your sensitive cock, a dribble of spit or cum or both sticking to his lips that he is quick to lick clean. He kisses each of your thighs before he removes them from his shoulder. And he keeps kissing all of you; hips, tummy, chest, shoulders, cheeks, until he finally gets to your lips. You can taste yourself on him and it sends a thrill down your spine, your cock trying to take interest in that.

“Thank you for the drink, dandelion,” he smirks at your fucked out expression, the wall by your front door the only thing keeping from collapsing into a puddle. Ronan dresses quickly, adjusting his heavy trousers to hide his straining cock. A white card is placed in your hand before he kisses you one last time. “Call me.”

[the2headedcalf-archive]

opposite of what you're asking for, but: i genuinely love hozier. i think he's a wonderful lyricist and incredibly well read— my friends say he gives off big 'man written by a woman' vibes. during covid times, he would get on instagram live weekly and read poetry and drink red wine, but i can, maybe, understand how his actions seem contrived. i mean, he's a guy whose irish and also just happens to have been born on st. patrick's day. i've met him twice. after all of his concerts, he showers and takes a minute to unwind before meeting his fans outside, signing whatever they want, taking photos and talking to them. at the last concert i met him at, i said "i'm going to ask you to do one more thing, i hope i'm not stressing you out" to which he laughed and said "you couldn't if you tried" ... at midnight in freezing october air... i asked him to sign a copy of a book for me with whatever quote or lyric that's been floating around his head lately, and he wrote: "Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river" from Heaney's St. Kevin and the Blackbird...

So, fine, you may hate him, but it's because he's the perfect man.

i like hozier as well! i did find the discussion around him irritating but have absolutely no issue with the guy and i adore his songs 😊

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Heya Steph! I was wondering, you have so many fic rec lists and read so many, do you have on or a few johnlock fics you could always reread? Like, they are that good you can read them over and over...

Hi Lovely!!

AHHHHHH ACTUALLY, I’ve made a list for this before, but you know what? IT NEEDS A PART TWO because I actually pulled a lot of fics off of it to keep it shorter, so WHEE THANK YOU for giving me a reason to share even more of the fics I ALWAYS go back and never tire of!!

TOP 30 READ AGAIN FICS Pt 2

See also:

Top 30 Read-Again Fics (March 2019)

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Ten Fave Short Johnlock Fics (Easy Reads April 2018)

25 Fave Johnlock One Shots (April 2018)

Top 10 Fave Fics (September 2018)

Another Top 10 Fave Fics (June 2019)

Two To Tango (The Cold Hands, Warm Heart Remix) by igrockspock (T, 1,207 w., 1 Ch. || Domestics, John Whump, Worried Sherlock) – When John is wounded while pursuing a suspect, Sherlock refuses to leave his side.

Take My Hand, Knot Your Fingers Through Mine by patster223 (K+, 2,003 w., 1 Ch. || H/C & Friendship, Whump) - "I know this is an inconvenience for you, but I would really rather you were awake right now, John." John is unconscious, and Sherlock decides to talk to him anyway. Sherlock/John pre-slash.

Let Go by thisisforyou (G, 2,743 w., 1 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Fluff, Anxious / Worried Sherlock) – In the end, separating John's things from Sherlock's in the chaos of their sitting room is like pulling a limpet from a wet rock. Especially when the rock is clinging on for dear life, because Sherlock doesn't want to let go. Short, fluffy h/c Johnlock oneshot.

And as the seasons change, I love you more by Teatrolley (NR, 3,219 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff and Angst, Est. Rel., Marriage / Proposal) – A year in the lives of John and Sherlock, essentially.

Measuring Damage With the Fujita Scale by teahigh (T, 3,548 w., 1 Ch. || First Kiss / Time, Vacation / Holidays, Friends to Lovers, Bed-Sharing, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Angsty Fluff, Scars, Awkward Talks) – John goes back into town, into the storm, and Sherlock realises he forgot to say, “I just want to be alone with you.”

Last Christmas by Mazarin221b (T, 3,911 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss) – That Earth-shaking revelation, then, leads to a problem, and one that Sherlock realizes should be solved quickly, before John’s dates turn into girlfriends or boyfriends, because sometimes girlfriends or boyfriends can turn into wives or husbands while your back is turned. Every time John hums happily at the mirror as he shaves, splashes on a little gift cologne Mrs. Hudson bought him for Christmas, Sherlock is drawn back to that night by the fire, and the way John’s touch had made the world stand still.

Because Blah Blah Blah Happy by cwb (E, 4,578 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Cuddles, Kissing, First Kiss, Requited Love, Pining Sherlock) – John is entirely done with the milk situation and gives Sherlock a list of shit he's pissed about. Sherlock sets out to make John happy. John is happy. Sherlock makes his own list. They are both very, very happy.

In Which "John" Becomes a Synonym for "Help" by asignoftwo (T, 7,391 w., 1 Ch. || Injured John, Worried Sherlock, Fluff) –  After the fall Sherlock returns to Baker Street and is reunited with John. When John is injured on a case Sherlock is faced with the reality that he could lose John again, and it tears him apart.

I'm Pretty Sure This Changes Shit by cwb (E, 7,672 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Cudding, Doctor/Patient, Accidents, Pining Sherlock, Blow Jobs, Oral / Anal, BAMF John, Minor Injuries, Dev. Rel.) – Sherlock finds increasingly ridiculous ways to get John to patch him up after hurting himself.

I can’t pretend by Salambo06 (E, 7,692 w., 1 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Victor Trevor, Jealous John, Miscommunications, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Anal, BJs) – They had arrived more than a hour ago, and the moment they had walked inside the hotel reception, John had understood why Sherlock hadn’t wanted to come. Two men, posh suits and expensive watches on their wrists, had come to greet them with sharp remarks and badly hidden mockery, and John had seen red. Sherlock hadn’t said anything, mostly ignoring the two men entirely, and without thinking twice about it, John had slid an arm around Sherlock’s waist and introduced himself as his husband.

Sibling Rivalry Or Fighting Over John Watson By Jessa7 (T, 8,085 w., 1 Ch. || Romance / Humour) – Mycroft is just as much of a genius as Sherlock is. He keeps randomly kidnapping John for chats, and the locations get better. Cue Sherlock’s younger sibling complex rearing up and jealousy ensues.

High Tide by stardust_made (T, 8,540 w., 1 Ch. || Jealousy, Angst, First Kiss) – A little favour Sherlock stupidly agrees to do for Mycroft leads to John meeting a handsome, affluent man, who is going out of his way to woo him. Sherlock struggles with the situation and with his own reactions to it. Part 1 of The High Tide Series

The Newlywed Game: Johnlock Edition by patternofdefiance (E, 9,020 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Rel., Friends to Lovers, Humour, Romance, Smut) – What it says on the tin: John and Sherlock pretend to be married in order to be contestants in a Newlywed Game. Of course it's for a case. Of course it doesn't stay that way. Part 8 of I Blame Tumblr

The Devil You Know by PipMer (T, 9,300 w., 1 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Romance, Holmes Brothers, Jealous Sherlock) – The Holmes brothers are behaving oddly. John is dazed and confused. In other words, it's business as usual at 221B Baker Street. Except when it’s not.

Drive by lifeonmars (M, 9,537 w., 1 Ch. || Virginity, Awkward First Times, Minor Injuries) – John and Sherlock are stranded by the roadside, and John is injured. They need to spend the night in the back of a humvee. Sherlock is confused. John is understanding.

Their Great Reward by BeautifulFiction (T, 10,095 w., 1 Ch. || UST, First Kiss, Fluff) – Boxing day, in John's opinions, is the worst day of the year. Christmas is over, the tree is wilting and stripped of gifts, and there's a week of dead-time until the clean slate of the new year. However the combination of a blizzard, a power-cut and Sherlock might just make it a day to remember.

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You by etothepii (T, 11,052 w., 1 Ch. || Winglock || Angels / Demons, Supernatural Elements, Occult) – Where Mycroft is an angel, Sherlock is a demon, and John is still John.

The River Variations by withoutawish (T, 11,619 w., 1 Ch. || Soulmates, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Three Garridebs, Romance, Light Case Fic, Near Death Experience, Angst and Fluff, Dark Humour) – John Watson never knew that he wanted a ‘no toast in the mornings’ normal until he realized what an honor it is to be destroyed by Sherlock Holmes.

Pleasure to Burn by scullyseviltwin (E, 17,863 w., 1 Ch. || Firefighter AU, Firefighter John / Arson Investigator Sherlock, Slow Burn, Pining, Case Fic-ish) – “If you’d kindly stop knocking about in there and destroying all of my evidence, it would be most appreciated!” John groaned and for a moment rested his head against the side of the truck. Of course he was the only captain left on the scene, which meant he would have to be the one to deal with the arson investigator.

Checkmate to a Castled King by LaSuen (T, 18,290 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Hurt / Comfort, Sick Sherlock, Rev. Reich.) - John dies. Or at least everyone thinks he does.

Vena Cava by SilentAuror (E, 27,452 w., 1 Ch. || HLV Fix-It, Romance, H/C, Angst, Infidelity) – Sherlock has been shot in the chest; John has been shot in the heart. Though everything is broken, they do their best to heal the wounds that Mary left on them both.

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (M, 32,961 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Fluff and Angst, H/C, Post-TRF, Case Fic, Mild Gore, Sherlock Whump) – The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.” The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

That Partitioning of the Things of Youth by wearitcounts (E, 35,353 w., 7 Ch. || Humour and Angst, Post-TRF, Fake Relationship, UST / RST, Friends to Lovers, Jealous John) – Victor Trevor is in town, and nobody's happy.

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock (E, 36,157 w., 4 Ch. || Howl’s Moving Castle AU || Witches and Wizards, Slow Burn, Magic, Jealous John, Happy Ending, Bed Sharing) – “I’m looking for a castle,” John informed the scarecrow. “A moving one.”Except that, as it turned out, it was not a moving one at all.

A Week is Just Seven Days Isn't It? by scifigrl47 (T, 39,906 w., 4 Ch. || Humour, Friendship/Bromance, Stroppy/Bored Sherlock, Undercover/Army John, Texting, Pining-ish Sherlock, John Whump) – When John heads overseas for a week, Sherlock's forced to fend for himself. It goes about as well as anyone could have anticipated. Which is to say, very, very poorly. Don't worry, things'll be fine in just seven days.

There's Someone On Your Shoulder by halloa_what_is_this (NR, 41,215 w., 6 Ch. || Pining Sherlock, Introspection, Daydreams, Sherlock Loves John So Much it Hurts) – Sherlock trips and falls head over heels in love, makes a lot of lists and stares, stares, stares.

The Norwood Love Builders by flawedamythyst (T, 47,798 w., 9 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Slow Burn, Post TRF Angst) – Sherlock and John go undercover to solve the murder of Joanna Oldacre, but things are complicated by the many feelings John has been repressing in the wake of Sherlock's faked death and return.

The Green Blade by verityburns (T, 72,929 w., 15 Ch. || Casefic, Bromance) – As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit...

Breakable by MissDavis (E, 117,627 w., 34 Ch. || Established, Fluff/Angst, Depression, Paralysis, Happy-ish Ending) –After John is seriously injured, Sherlock struggles to figure out how to help him, keep himself sane, and maybe, just maybe, get their life back to the way it's supposed to be. Part 1 of Breakable Not Broken

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Facial Shaving, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship's surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there's more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin' the eye, he has to choose... is it a pirate's life for him?

[treasure-my-aurora]

Take my Breath Away

A/n: I’m sorry if this is messy. I tried to copy and paste it as quickly as I could to let people without an account on Ao3 continue to read my fanfics since I’ve locked them all over there.

♥ Pairing: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung

♣ Summary: Drabble-ish time stamps following San and Wooyoung’s relationship

♠ Rated: E

♦ Words: 28,739

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They were just teenagers when they met each other for the first time, at the audition for KQ Entertainment new boy group. Both with black awkwardly chopped hair, uneven teeth, thin and a bit gangly. Disproportionated, like teenagers are. San couldn't dance and Wooyoung’s voice was still shaking when he tried to sing. So young that they were still questioning if this was the path that they really wanted to walk down, when the nights were dark and the anxiety that filled their minds even darker. Fighting every morning they woke up, with willpower alone to fulfil their dream. Wooyoung had the experience, newly exchanged from Big Hit entertainment when their plan for him didn’t match his aspirations, and San had the ambition, the voice, visuals and confidence needed for an idol. Wooyoung’s face flushed when he reached out to shake San’s hand and the smile that the other gave him made butterflies flutter happily in his stomach. There was a four-month age difference between them, but San insisted for Wooyoung to drop the honorifics when it automatically slipped through his lips in a middle of a sentence. Wooyoung’s face flushed again, he looked away with a shy smile on his lips and the days passed swiftly. The group was formed, and they worked even harder. Trained together, sang together, ate together, showered together and more often than not, slept in the same bed together. San quickly became the one that Wooyoung went to when things were bothering him, the one he sought out when he needed someone to laugh with, the only one who could match his intensity and energy. The way only they bounced around each other was incomparable with any other member and in the middle of joking around, playing games, working their asses off at every monthly assessment and training until their feet bruise - they truly found each other. San was the mountain that Wooyoung constantly could lean on, the one he needed to be able to stand upright when the management was pressing them harder. In return, Wooyoung was the streaming river that San could draw energy from, ever flowing around him, strong and quick and everything San wanted to become. They became friends when they realized that they were more alike each other than any other member, and soulmates when they finished off each other’s sentences and did most things in sync after only four months, more or less acting like they’d lived together for twenty years. It was unbelievably amazing to have find someone at that young age. Empowering for the soul and absolutely terrifying for the body, because with that age came hormones and emotions - two things that there was no time to even think about and even though neither of them wanted to, they quickly shut down everything they felt. Only allowed it to slip out when they lost themselves in thought and couldn’t help themselves from drawing closer to the other, like there was a thin invisible string that connected their bodies. ---

17:32

San was resting in his bed, cuddling with his many, many plushies while browsing through a comic book, knew perfectly well that he should probably pick up the textbook on Japanese that rested at his side and study instead. He pouted, sighed deeply, considered the consequences for a few seconds before he decided that the comic book isn’t worth the scolding. He was just about to roll over when a familiar figure rounded the corner to his and Yunho’s bedroom. “San-ah, I’m bored” Wooyoung whined loudly and San sat up enough to lean against his arms instead before he rolled his eyes to the expression on the younger’s face. “I’m studying, go away” He said and stuck out his tongue before laying down again. The lie would’ve worked if it wasn’t for the smile that tugged on his lips, a smile that Wooyoung saw just before his friend laid down. He squinted at said friend and closed the distance between them in a few quick strides before he jumped up with one foot on the ladder at the side as an aid, to join his friend on the bed. “Liar” The younger scolded, hit San’s leg with a soft flick of his wrist to make place and moved a few plushies aside before he lied down next to the older, stealing the place from said plushies as the cuddler with one arm and leg thrown over his friends’ body. Eyes dark and big like a fawn’s and something stirs in San’s stomach when he meets them, barely three decimetres from his face. “Entertain me” The younger said shortly, like he was a prince in the 1st century BC and San existed only to please him. San just scoffed and shook his head, broke their gaze and focused it on the textbook in his hands instead. “Entertain yourself Woo, I still gotta study even if I’ve only procrastinated so far” Wooyoung pouted, San saw it in his peripheral, fluttered his eyelashes and said with his sweetest voice. “Pretty, pretty please hyung, I’m so, so bored that I’d let you do anything with me” Something shifted in San’s body. Something raw and ancient and real and so, so bad, that his body froze, and he could feel how he gripped the book tighter when his friend smiled bright. He suddenly felt trapped underneath the youngers limbs. Shook him off and quickly sat up again. Cleared his throat, a bit more awkward than he liked to admit while putting the book aside. “Sure, let’s play a game” Wooyoung doesn’t seem to notice the awkwardness that San felt and sits up as well just as the older turned around, wet his lips and proceed to start a game of Di Bi Di Bi Dib, calmed his racing, confused heart and smiled softly when Wooyoung threw a small adorable tantrum when he lost at the first turn.

11:25

San was singing in the shower and it echoed through the thin walls of their dorm. It made Wooyoung pause the game he was playing, and he furrowed his brows as he tried to make out the words in the American song. He swallowed, sighed and something about the sadness in San’s voice told him that it was a ballad. Maybe about lost love. Maybe about someone who doesn’t love him back. Wooyoung could only understand snippets of it but he still found himself humming along when San sang the chorus again, earned a surprised look from his long-time friend, who sat across from him on the lower bunk bed. “Shut up” The younger whispered under his breath and Yeosang flicked his head, a teasing smile on his lips but he doesn't say anything. Wooyoung wet his lips while he looked back down on the small screen he was holding. Tried to start up the game again, but it was only a façade, because he was listening, wondered why San never sang like this when they were together. Almost shivered because his friend was so talented is kind of scared him... San stopped a few minutes later after he’d repeated the song a couple of times, exited the shower and Wooyoung just caught his figure as he walked past the bedroom, a towel around his hips and hair still wet. Wooyoung swallowed hard, caught Yeosang’s eyes again and the older of the two just shook his head again, a look of disbelief on his face. But he still doesn’t say anything and Wooyoung was thankful when he got back to the game the two were playing.

19:52

Summer. The evening sun painted the sky in an explosion of pastel colours and San’s cheeks were matching the deep red between the bright yellow and the dark blue above the clouds. His hand were holding a friend. His heart were tugging in confusion. “Why did you invite me to join you?” He asked, scared of the answer. Worried that the question was stupid. That friend of his, just four months younger but with twice as much charisma and personality, according to San himself, giggled and the sound of it made him smile back. As if he couldn’t stop himself. “I just wanted to watch the stars with you, silly” San frowned and looked at the lowering sun, knew with experience from watching countless sunsets, that it would be at least another hour until the sky would be covered in stars. “But…” He started, intended to ask why Wooyoung had stubbornly begged him to join him now and not at a better time but his friend didn’t let him. “Don’t ruin my future memory” He said with a stern voice and hushed him with a finger over his lips. A twinkle in those gorgeous eyes of his.

21:46

“You’re cute, you know, that right?” San's voice was hoarse, almost too honest to be comfortable. Wooyoung stifled a giggle behind his hand. Unsure of the certainty of the other’s words. His heart flipped hard and something unfamiliar boiled in his stomach when San looked at him from his place on floor, propped up against the wall in the middle of the hallway that ran through the whole dorm. One eyebrow raised as he looked at Wooyoung with slightly hooded eyes. Lips tugging up in a lopsided smirk and the sudden feeling of butterflies in the youngers stomach was frightening, strange and he seemed to freeze at the spot while watching the older. Felt how those butterflies flew upwards, clogged his throat and made his breath hitch as a hazy alluring mist of what could only be described as attraction poured over him, like a cold shower. He felt his smile faltered slightly when San stuck his tongue out before he brought the bottle of cheap, light beer that he held in a tight grip, back to his lips. “Why are you drinking?” Wooyoung cleared his throat and tried to shake the uncomfortable distressed feelings that clouded his mind but was only met with a shrug. “Why not? It’s Saturday, we’re nineteen. I should be out there, partying with people our age. But…” He frowned and stood up, slowly and steadily while leaning against the wall. Almost knocking out the three already empty bottles at his side. He cleared his throat and paused, as if he lost the dialogue in a train of thought and Wooyoung reached his hand out for his friend to take. “But you don’t have any friends?” He finished with a grin and San squinted at him, debated in his mind if he wanted to get angry or not, decided that it was too much work and grabbed Wooyoung’s warm hand with a scoff. “I have friends… I have you”

13:26

“Why do you always see the best in me?” It was the middle of September and just weeks until their debut. Wooyoung’s hair was a beautiful violet and now at the moment, when the Moroccan sun was at its highest, he looked just like San had always envisioned an angel to look like. “Of course, I always see the best in you, why wouldn’t I?” Wooyoung asked confused, maybe even a bit hurt. Frowned as he ate his lunch underneath the tenth that protected them from direct sunlight. San felt his cheeks heat up, pursed his lips in thought at where exactly he wanted the sentence that just slipped out of his mouth to go. Sometimes, like now, for instance, he didn’t think before he spoke and at the moment, he didn’t know what to say to his defence. “I mean…” He paused again, drank some water to buy more time and fiddled with the cap while he continued. “I mean… how can you see so much good when there’s so much bad?” He asked and ducked his head to inspect his shoes instead, worried that Wooyoung, his friend, his best friend, would just scoff and walk away. “San-ah… you don’t mean that?” He was pouting and a deep sigh escaped his lips when San nodded, quietly. Happy that the tenth they stood under was empty for the time being or he would’ve died with shame. Without a warning, Wooyoung’s arms were wrapped around his frame. Hugging him tight. Like he never ever planned on letting him go. “You are so good that there isn’t one ounce of bad in you. Don’t say such things about yourself” He sounded so sincere that San could almost believe the words he spoke. That he was good, as a person and at what he was doing. Too bad that familiar voice in the back of head reminded him that it wasn’t the case. It wasn’t the case at all.

16:12

“Have you ever wished that you could rewind something?” Wooyoung asked, resting on his back on the sofa. His head in San’s lap. Both of them watching TV just before going to bed a few days after their debut. San thought back on the past days, the rush that still ran through their veins. The hope and dream they’d been holding on to for so long finally realized. “Yeah…” He said back, thoughtfully, fingers playing with the washed out, now lilac, soft hair of the other and tried to block out how amazingly perfect it sounded when Wooyoung’s breath hitched as he softly pulled on the strands.

11:13

“Does this shirt look ugly on me?” San’s voice was unsure and he clicked his tongue, unsatisfied when he checked his figure from every possible angle in the mirror, tucked it into his pants, untucked it again. His motions quick and frustrated. Wooyoung looked up from the twitter feed on his phone, glanced over at his best friend over the edge of his glasses from his half sitting position on the bed on the opposite side of the room. San met his eyes in the mirror. His jaw was clenched. He expected an answer. But Wooyoung’s mouth went dry when he locks gaze with those intense dark eyes. He bit his cheek, swallowed hard, quickly collect some courage and was just on the verge of answering when San exhaled a sigh, looked away, tucked the shirt into his pants again and exited the bedroom without another word.

18:46

A few days after Christmas and Wooyoung inspected himself in the bathroom mirror, his fingertips pressed hard underneath his chin bones to make the edge of his jawline even more prominent. Did he gain weight again? His thoughts were interrupted. “Youngie?” A happy voice he recognized so well resonated in his being and he quickly let his arms fall back to his sides again. “What are you doing?” The voice was worried, scared of the answer it already knew. Wooyoung looked over at San, the source of said voice. Met his frown, the way his eyebrows wrinkled, the sadness in his smile and wished so hard that he knew what to do to turn that smile into a happy one again. But he didn’t know what to do. Didn't know what to say to defend the dark thoughts that daily echoed inside his head. The ones that flooded his bloodstream like thick black tar. Forced himself not to scratch at his own skin when the feeling spread and walked past his friend, who stood aside, silent but reluctant. Keeping his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt to stop himself from accidentally reaching out.

22:08

Seoul were cold in the winters and that big dorm of theirs heated up slowly on especially cold days. They had good radiators, but the windows were poorly isolated and the chill from a constant breeze of cold wind was just on the edge of being bearable. Wooyoung sat huddled with his members on the sofa, everyone cuddled under two shared duvets, some with a hot mug of tea in hand, and an action movie on the tv. Their leader and youngest were fast asleep already, his long-time friend rested on one shoulder, holding onto the arm that wasn’t occupied with the lifesaving hot beverage. The oldest of the bunch snuggled up on the other side of said long-time friend, holding onto him and salvaging the rare time of not being rejected. A familiar, special other friend leaned against his other side, nestled against his frame, with his head resting on his shoulder so that Wooyoung’s arm was free to occasionally bring the mug to his lips. That black hair with faded red streaks of his tickled against his chin and he would’ve minded, ticklish as he was, if it wasn’t for the fact that he only had to inhale and that wonderful smell that was just him, just San, entered his body. Rushed through him like a drug and he brought the hot mug of tea to his lips again to suppress the deep contented sighs that threatened to escape his lips.

01:00

That same night and San was sitting on the windowsill in the bedroom he shared with Yunho. Watched as the snowflakes covered the landscape outside. Some of them got stuck against the frame of the window and he poked the glass with an almost childlike fascination, like he’d be able to touch the small masterpiece with his fingertip. Yunho muttered, drowsy and half asleep, that he should go to bed since they had to be up early that morning and San knew it was true. Knew that he’d be tired as hell when his alarm would ring in a few hours. But he wasn’t tired. He kept repeating that moment in his head, like a silent movie, as it went faster and faster and made him dizzy. Of Wooyoung’s breathing against his ear. The rise and fall of his chest against his back. The gulping noise he’d made when he swallowed his tea. The way he’d sighed against the back of his neck. The way San had to bite down on his lower lip to stop the nasty, filthy thoughts that entered his mind like a foggy smoke, painting up vivid pictures of that sweet sigh in a different situation. The way that strong chest would rise and fall underneath his fingertips, with the younger placed in his lap. San would try his utmost to be quiet, to not drench out those wonderful noises the other would make with his own moaning.

21:06

Minutes after the concert was over. They were warm, sweaty from dancing and singing their hearts out. Proud to have finished yet another performance. Proud of their fans still screaming their names. Proud of themselves. Proud of each other. “Sannie, you have confetti in your hair” Wooyoung’s voice was light when he spoke, almost like he was still singing. His touch was soft, barely noticeable as he removed the paper from its place between the black and red locks. San wet his lips, mouth dry from singing and the way the younger smiled at him afterward. Placed the paper in a nearby trash bin so that staff doesn’t have to clean up after him. San gulped and murmured a “Thanks” before he looked away again. Scared that his heartbeats are just as loud as he can hear in his own ears. Scared that Wooyoung will notice that the redness that just appeared in his face wasn’t there when they got off the stage. Scared that the feeling of tiny fireworks exploding in the pit of his stomach was going to make him puke.

23:57

“I’m not used to this yet” Wooyoung met the eyes of the other, the small insecure smile on his lips when they folded up the bedsheets and prepared to go to bed. He seemed to regret the words he just said, his lips pursed as he looked away, flustered. “Not used to what?” The younger of the two asked. That too familiar, deep, twisted voice that scratched on the back of his head said that he’d done something wrong and now his friend had changed his mind about being his roommate for the night. Changed his mind about wanting to be close to him. “This hotel life… I’m not used to it” “Oh” He didn’t know what to say. Cringed hard on the inside for the stupid thoughts that’d been planted in his mind. Unsure if San just wanted to vent, if he wanted Wooyoung to agree with him, or if he wanted him to ask some kind of follow up question. “Sorry. I… I really shouldn’t complain, right?” San chuckled. But it sounded forced since the situation wasn’t funny and the blush that followed was even more painful than the sigh he let out when the atmosphere quickly turned awkward. “You can sleep in my bed if you want” Wooyoung wanted to slap himself when San looked up again and met his eyes with a small frown. “I… I mean, we can share… if you want. I really don’t mind. Not with you” He clenched his jaw. Cursed himself with the knowledge that he only dug himself further down into a grave he wouldn’t be able to climb out off. “Sure. I could use the company. But Shiber is joining as well” San said and the smile on his face was as bright as the sun, automatically making the other of the two smiles back. Unable to stop himself from sighing with relief. The older killed the lights, the dog plushie in a tight grip against his chest when he joined his friend underneath the covers. Their legs tangled together, and San lazily placed his arm around Wooyoung, and they quickly fell into a position they knew they both liked. Wooyoung with his head on San’s arm, nuzzling his nose into the swell of his shoulder and San’s hand automatically went up to play with Wooyoung’s hair in the back of his neck. Both acted like sleeping next to each other wasn’t natural to them, except it really was, they had shared bed countless times. With each other, with the other members. They pretended that it wasn’t, because they wanted to be stronger than they were. But they knew that they needed it, knew that they needed each other. Right now, in the dead of the night as much as any other time. When it was cold and when they needed comfort. In the past when the pressure of debuting and hardship of training became too much and the whole world was too dark and the heat from someone else, pressed with their face against soft skin with muscles that was already strong from years of training, was the only thing that could block it all out.

00:19

Wooyoung laid in his bed. Quietly watched the ceiling above him while Yeosang restlessly moved around in the bed underneath his, eventually found a comfortable position and finally fell asleep. But he, himself, couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t find the way to the comforting place he usually went when it was time to rest. His mind repeated the same memory for probably the hundredth time again, even though it was a few hours ago, he still closed his eyes and felt how his heart skipped a beat. They’d celebrated their first comeback with champagne that might have been a bit too strong and tasted nothing like he’d expected champagne to taste. They’d been laughing, dancing, singing along to their own music, played from the speakers of Wooyoung’s phone, until eventually, one member after another had gone to their rooms. Happiness still rushing through them, but their busy schedule in combination of getting slightly tipsy allowed drowsy sleepiness to overtake them quickly. The way San’s eyes were slightly hooded as he embraced him. Wrapping his arms around his body and invited him to dance closer. That certain way that only he could smile and Wooyoung was unsure if it was the dangerous sparkle in the other’s eyes or the fizzing drink that made him feel like he was stumbling on clouds. They held each other close, all alone, while swaying back and forth to the music that was still playing. “I wish I could stay with you like this forever” Something sincere and serious shadowed his face, overtaking the teasing tugging in those devilish lips of the older and Wooyoung giggled, looked away and felt how the tips of his ears heated up, thinking that San was only joking around. “Forever is a long time” He said and closed his eyes to just feel when his favourite part of the song came. Felt how San’s body pressed up against his. Felt how he lightly parted Wooyoung’s thighs with his leg to get even closer. Felt how the alcohol buzzed in his blood, pulsating through his body. Felt how he seemed to move without thinking, to the rhythm of the music and lost himself in the mindless pleasure of just existing without any trouble on his mind. Felt how San arched his body back while he held him in a secure grip, with his arms locked around his waist. Felt how San’s soft lips pressed on that big artery just underneath his ear. Felt how those lips pressed another kiss underneath his jaw, how he breathed out a small gasp of hot air on the same spot. Felt how amazingly good those lips on his skin felt. Shuddered as he remembered how many times, he’d wished those lips to just press onto his. “Sorry” A hushed whisper broke the magic between them, and San gave him a pained expression before he turned on his heel. Wooyoung was left alone on the living room. The last verse of “Light” was playing and he swallowed hard. His heart were rushing, head spinning and the arousal that had started to build up in his body made him breathless. He stroked the small spot on his neck that still seemed to burn. Bit down on his tongue to suppress a choked sigh.

15:36

The end of January and Wooyoung’s hair was blonde. San gulped when he met the other’s eyes as he got back to the dorm, hair still smelling strongly of the floral shampoo used to cover the smell of burning bleach and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and twirl a lock of hair around his finger. Impressed with the softness of it. The hairdressers were some of the best ones. “Do you like it? It’s only temporary” Wooyoung spoke with a pout and San bit his lower lip, stopping the word-vomit of compliments that threatened to escape. “They could literally put any colour on your hair, and you’d look good, Young-ie” San clenched his jaw when the other’s brows furrowed slightly. He got worried for a second, that the small endorsement was too much, until Wooyoung broke out into a big grin, closed the small space between them and hugged his friend hard. A breath hitched in San’s throat from the impact and he wet his lips nervously, the blossoming feeling of the others body against him still made him feel dizzy.

02:09

San had always been a hugger. He craved the attention, the feeling of a warm body against his own. Sometimes, especially on the road while travelling from city to city in their home country, when he couldn’t sleep, he would roll out of bed and crawl under the covers of another member. They usually gave him a disgruntled groan but let join as he held onto their arm to ease the comfort he needed. The only one who didn’t push him away, who just as often sought out the warmth he craved as well, The only one who always turned around to greet him and took a deep content sigh as if he too, could breathe properly again, The only one who placed his arms around him and hugged him just as tight - was Wooyoung. “Sorry” San whispered into the soft hair of the other, apologizing that he woke him up. But his friend only shook his head, stretched his lean body and pressed up against San like a satisfied cat. Pulled him closer with a firm hand on his back. The thin material of his pyjama pants didn’t leave much for imagination and the older of the two clenched his jaw when he felt every outline of the others body against his own. He gulped hard, felt how his breath hitched in his throat but Wooyoung was fast asleep again, his steady breathing, the small puffs of air against the nape of San’s neck left him aching, needy as he laid on his back. Feeling himself growing harder with every passing moment of agonising fantasies that played like a movie on the lens of his eye.

23:04

“I’m so lucky to have you” Wooyoung spoke before he could stop himself. Stopping the other’s movements just before he stuffed his mouth full of food again. He cleared his throat, and San met his eyes where he sat opposite of him. A small table of room service food between them. They’re in a hotel room, exhausted but happy from meeting their fans all day. Sharing a room for the night, both their hearts singing as soon as they got the key cards with matching numbers. “Sorry” Wooyoung said, quietly, embarrassed from speaking his mind so nonchalantly. San wet his lips, swallowed as if he wanted to collect his thoughts before he placed the chopsticks next to his plate. “I’m lucky to have you too” He said and felt how his cheeks flushed red from the confession. “You’re my best friend, Youngie-ah. I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world” San reached for the glass of soda in front of him. Gave him that beautiful smile that reached his eyes and Wooyoung felt his heart pick up in pace. He wanted to say something. Wanted to admit that maybe being friends wasn’t enough anymore. That there’s a part of him that craved more than warm, tight hugs. Needed more of the way that San always nuzzled his nose into his hair when he thought that the younger wouldn’t notice. Wanted to do more than just cuddle each other when the night was quiet, and darkness consumed their bodies. A part of him that he had to push down every breathing moment. A part of him that lusts for the other, for his body, his mind, the way he talked and laughed and made Wooyoung feel like he’s the only one that mattered. A part of him that knew that he needed San so much that it was suffocating him. Because when they were together and the other looked at him like he looked at him right now, Wooyoung’s demons disappeared and he finally found the courage to tell the snarly voice in his mind, the one that keeps telling him that he’ll never be good enough, to shut up.

11:18

Watching Wooyoung through their first world tour quickly turned into a small hobby. The way he moved, talked, laughed. The way he looked when he slept next to San, on stage, in the early morning when they arrived at another hotel. The way San could only imagine he’d look when he was so lost in pleasure that he couldn’t talk... he could never admit just how much he admired him. How badly he wanted to be considered an equal in the younger’s eyes. It was embarrassing. The fact that he could just… lose himself in thought when Wooyoung was around. Lose himself as he stole glances when the other practised dancing. Letting his imagination run free. Fantasising when they’d be alone to just close the distance between them. To hold and take. To claim and please until Wooyoung would be the only thing echoing inside the dark sulphur filled blackness of his mind. He’d excuse himself when it all became too much. Like right now, for instance, when the other warmed up, showing off just how much he could stretch his body, moving and feeling himself to the most shameless playlist San has ever heard. Locking himself into the nearest bathroom, already breathless as he closed his trembling hand around his cock. Grabbing the sink with the other to stabilise himself as he jerk himself off with fast hard movements. Eyes fluttering shut as his head fell back and he’s back in the room a few doors over. He imagines himself kissing those plump lips of the others, nibbling on his lower lip as his hands roam a body he knows almost as well as his own by now. The way Wooyoung would sound when he’d close his hand around his cock, the way he’d be dripping with pre-cum already. San would drop to his knees. Would do anything to just get a taste of him, to just get a chance to satisfy. His best friend’s name is falling off his lips as he came hard into his hand, face contorting and biting down hard on his lip to prevent a loud gasp from slipping out.

19:24

San’s hair in soft between Wooyoung’s fingers as he combed through it. The older sat on the floor underneath the sofa, between Wooyoung’s open legs, watching a rerun of an old series on the hotel room TV. It was in English and Wooyoung pursed his lips in thought when he didn’t understand most things they were saying. There wasn’t a Korean subtitle alternative either but neither of them really minded much. It was late. They had just finished dinner, eating in the solitude of their hotel room, like so many other times and chatted about the American tour so far. Joked around and played games with each other, like they usually did. The black and red of the older’s hair quickly turned more interesting though, when the plot of the series didn’t make any sense. Wooyoung wet his lips when San let out a small gasp of satisfaction as he lightly scratched the scalp, combed the hair back from the top of his forehead to the longer strands at the back. “Am I doing good?” The younger asked, half out of curiosity and half because a dark part of him was getting unbearable turned on, unbelievably fast by the small sharp gasps and groans that continue to slip from San’s lips. “Uhu, so good” San flat out moans, unable to stop himself when his friends skilled hands pulled his hair back again, harder this time, almost snapping his head back before they move down his neck and shoulders. An all too familiar feeling of arousal washed over Wooyoung like a cold shower and he’s already half hard when he stops, just before it gets too much, thankful of the big hoodie he was wearing.

07:52

It was between the America, and Europe tour and they were back in Korea for a few days. To get back at their feet and recap what and what not to do the second time around. Wooyoung sighed loudly and fell face first into the mattress of his bed. He inhaled deeply, appreciate off the smell from their own washing detergent and the familiarity of the walls of their dorm surrounding them. Yeosang immediately went to join Seonghwa at the washer, sorting out his clothes just outside the small room at the end of the corridor. Wooyoung stayed where he was, though, face down until he heard a small gasp and then the sudden clearing of a throat. “Sorry, I…” Wooyoung turned his face to the door, meeting San’s eyes, who’s face flushed and quickly looked broke the gaze between them again, rubbing his neck in a motion that only enlighten his awkward expression before he raised his sight again, as if he couldn’t help himself but to watch. Wooyoung knew that he was in a compromising position, with his arms at his sides and thrown over the edge of his bed, those skinny jeans of his hugged his form perfectly and would it be anyone else at his door, he’d probably stand up and ask them to leave. But San wasn’t anyone and Wooyoung would be lying if he’d say that he didn’t just enjoy, but absolutely revelled in the sweet glance the other gave him. It made his mouth go dry and he suppressed the want to arch his back and make the swell of his ass even more prominent. San clenched his jaw, gulped and bit his lip, loss for words when Wooyoung didn’t move, didn’t even look away from the burning gaze he gave him and most importantly, actually began (unconsciously of course because he wouldn’t be so wicked that he did it with intent?) swinging his hips back and forth, so slightly that it was barely noticeable. But San noticed, and so did the cock in his pants. Wooyoung inhaled deeply, his gaze flicked down to the other’s crotch and he quickly felt how his own pants suddenly got much more uncomfortable when a more and more noticeable bulge started to form in his friend’s tight pants. “Youngie-ah” The older of the two whispered and the pet name made Wooyoung shiver. They were interrupted, of course they were, and Hongjoong’s voice echoed through the dorm, collecting all his members to a family meeting before lunch. “Sorry” Hurried steps, a door slamming shut and the sound of a shower running made Wooyoung sigh and he sank back at the floor, dazed from what had just happened, feeling defeated and so horny he wanted to just crawl under the covers and ignore the whole world for the rest of the day.

22:46

April. Berlin. A city they’d never dreamed of being able to go to just a year ago, just like all the other cities on the European part of the tour. They were in Wooyoung’s hotel room, which he this time, shared with Jongho. They were joking around, playing games with each other, giggling. Still high from the concert a few hours ago. The Vlive was planned since yesterday and San pressed the record button the moment Jongho closed the door to the bathroom. Their energy doesn’t waver as the minutes pass, still dancing around each other with comments, compliments, exchanging looks from underneath their fringes in such rapid movements that it seemed like they were flirting. San had to look away every now and then, feeling how his heart pumped hard in his chest, and how the sharp inhales he took shook slightly when he smelled a whiff of the hotel shampoo mixed with the scent that was just Wooyoung as he leaned forward over the phone they had to be able to read the comments. Wooyoung’s frame against his when the younger hit him with his whole body, jokingly and with a teasing chuckle in his throat as they began playing a word game. Wooyoung’s laughter ringing in his ears and making him gulp down the feelings that blossomed in his chest. Wooyoung’s touch as he held his hand underneath the camera angle. Wooyoung in those gym shorts and that tee. The smell of his cologne when he got too close yet not close enough. Wooyoung. Wooyoung. Wooyoung.

08:09

They were back in Korea. The city had changed. Cherry blossoms adorned the trees and the chill that’d been in the air when they left had disappeared. Wooyoung took a deep breath when they got out of the cars, his luggage heavy and filled with at least 80% dirty clothes that immediately had to be washed. His gaze lingered on San, as it always seemed to do when his thoughts wandered and it’s as the other can feel Wooyoung’s eyes on him because he suddenly looks up, meets his eyes and breaks out in a big smile, the dimples in his cheeks makes the younger of the two choke on his breath slightly as he quickly looks away again. Their dorm is just as they left it, the smell of it more prominent now when they haven’t been there for so long. Wooyoung took in the safe familiarity of it with long inhales through his nose. Of them and their stuff. Of home. It’s like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he suddenly felt how tired he actually was. For a minute Wooyoung doesn’t care about the large bag filled with clothes that had travelled the world with him, he left it in the hallway and threw himself over the backrest of their couch, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, happy but exhausted. A familiar body joins him within seconds, he knows who it is without having to open his eyes and just groans slightly as he props a pillow under his head and lays down more properly on his back to make place. The person on top of him mirrors the way he moves, lined their body up with his and he was just about to complain about the sudden shift in weight when he gets tightly embraced. A comforting nuzzle underneath his jawline shuts him up completely. “You know, it’d be much more comfortable if you’d just separated your legs” San’s voice is low and dangerously husky in his ear and Wooyoung had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep himself from shivering with satisfaction as that tone of that voice made him want to walk down a sweet path he shouldn’t walk on when he was in their living room, surrounded by his members and with the source of the voice on top of him. He scoffed and still refused to open his eyes. He could feel San’s breath on the lower part of his face. Knew how close he was. Knew that he’d do something stupid, like kiss him, if they’d lock gaze. He swallowed hard, sighed and rolled his eyes with an overdramatic flick of his head so that San understood what he was doing even if he couldn’t see his eyes, before he separated his legs and let his best friend sink in between them. … It was more comfortable than he expected it to be. The weight of San against his body, the way he was pressed against his stomach. The way Wooyoung knew, he could nearly sense it, that San watched him, chin rested on his knuckles, hands splayed across Wooyoung’s chest, fingers restlessly drumming. It was sweet though, with the intimate radiation they received from each other as they just lay there, just sharing a moment of tired but content joy. That was until San shifted slightly as he wanted to get even closer when the steps around them died out and the members went into their separate rooms. He jerked his hips forward slightly to edge himself further up. It was an innocent action, it really was. Meant to only ease the weight Wooyoung already had on him but to the younger, the effect was the opposite as a shiver ran down his back, making him involuntarily arch it, just a little and his breath hitched in his throat. He suddenly felt trapped, and more importantly, the sudden new pressure on his crotch didn’t help the arousal that flooded there. He choked down a small groan, tried to think about anything else than the amazing feeling of San’s hips against his inner thighs. The feeling of him pressing down on him just right in those soft pants he wore. “Wooyoungie?” San asked with surprise in his voice and wiggled slightly, very carefully, just to make sure that he didn’t mistake what he felt. Wooyoung pinched the bridge of his nose in shame, felt how his cheeks redden and gulped hard. There wasn’t a point in trying to escape. If he did so, San would see what he already felt anyway. Instead he just sighed and finally opened his eyes. It was his best friend he was talking to; he could at least look him in the eyes when he lied to him. San tilted his head, eyes dark and curious and Wooyoung combed his hair back with a frustrated motion, felt how his heart tick hard in his chest. How it picked up in speed when San licked his lower lip into his mouth, a nervous reaction but still with that look in his eyes that triggered an immediate flight or fight reaction in Wooyoung’s body. He forced himself to stand his ground. Knew that the other could probably feel the heartbeats as well. “It’s been long… you know. Touring and the stress and everything. I just haven’t taken the time to properly…” He drifted off. So embarrassed that he wanted to roll out of the sofa and jump out through the large window at his right. Telling a white lie was bad enough. Telling a white lie to your best friend, who was the reason why you couldn’t speak the truth was ever worse. That he hadn’t masturbated at all on tour was the biggest lie. He had, with said best friend in mind, in more moments than he could remember. Roaming one hand over his chest and closed the other around his cock, wishing, daydreaming to his heart's content, that his hands would be replaced with San’s one day. “Yeah… I know that feeling” San placed his hands on either side of Wooyoung’s face instead, raised himself up and leaned over the other. Tilting his head to the side again, and that long fringe of his shadowed his eyes slightly. Wooyoung could’ve sworn that they looked darker than before. “How?” He forced himself to ask. Heard how his voice sounded weak and pathetic and regretted it the second the question slipped out but knew he had to go through with it when a small wrinkle of confusion appeared between San’s brows. “I… I mean… I know that it’s tough to get in the mood on your own sometimes, but we had a concert every other day. You could’ve picked any of the girls in the crowd. I bet they’d do anything you’d wished for and more” He swallowed hard, praying even harder that San didn’t hear the small break in his voice when he mentioned the fact that he wasn’t the only one racing for his heart. The older of the two chuckled, but it was filled with anything else than joy, before he sat up again, broke their gaze, sighed heavily and shook his head. Wooyoung’s right leg fell off the sofa when there was a shift in weight to lazily rest on the side instead and he felt exposed, with his legs still separated, San in between them, looking perfect as always and not at all like he hadn’t just arrived home after travelling for the past thirty-six hours. “I could’ve. You could’ve as well, you know. Personally…” San flicked his head in a quick tilting motion. Anxiously. Making his hair bounce with the movement and he looked down on his hands, which rested on his folded knees, before he brought them up to cross over his chest. To protect himself from the truth he was just about to spill. “Personally… I’m less of a girl and more of a guy kind of person” He concluded and Wooyoung frowned as a deafening silence fell between them, not realising what San had meant until the older had awkwardly cleared his throat, stood up and left him without another word.

20:50

The beginning of May. The beginning of summer. But while nature started to wake up, San felt like he was still sleeping. He cursed himself. Cursed the stupid feelings that bloomed in his chest, competing with the small pink cosmic flowers in the flowerbed outside their dorm. He scoffed, pouted and wanted to kick them but Wooyoung was tugging on his hand before the thought was put into action. “Sannie-ssi, let’s go” He swallowed hard and met his best friends’ eyes. The laughter in them. The way he combed his long fringe out of his forehead, like he usually did to calm his fidgety hands. The way he tugged on San’s hand again, completely obvious with how hard he tugged on San’s heartstrings as well. The short ride to the amusement park was spent in comfortable silence. Their manager had promised them one hour just after the place had closed down. As a carrot for them to work hard with the new comeback, which were right around the corner. Wooyoung’s hand found his again as soon as they had exited the cars and he dragged the older along to the first ride. San were scared but just as excited when the roller coaster car dropped and he put his hands in the air, the friend he was still holding onto followed and the laughter that bubbled from said friend send San’s mind and heart into a pink endorphin filled frenzy. He couldn’t help but laugh back, holding onto Wooyoung even tighter. The squeeze of his hand that followed squeezed his heart just as much and he was breathless when they ran to the next ride. 45 minutes passed quickly, and San’s hand had been empty for two minutes, one minute each as they had a bathroom break and then had to wash their hands from traces of cotton candy. “Let’s finish off with that one, San-ah” Wooyoung giggled behind his hand and San looked over where the younger was pointing, expecting another crazy roller coaster. But it was anything, but a wild ride and he paused for a second, almost stumbled over his step but didn’t say a word as the park worker made sure that the door was properly closed behind them. The small box they were in had shaded glasses and San quickly put his hands on his knees rather than the fabric of the red, soft sofa he sat on, guessing that more things had happened in the box than just watching the scenery that slowly but steadily opened up before them as the Ferris wheel started spinning. There was music in the background, soft and barely noticeable, with a piano and some strings, probably to set the mood and San wet his lips nervously when he watched his best friend. The way his mouth fell open with wonder as they got higher and higher. The nervous giggle that fell from his lips when he saw how far up, they were. The moment was something special and San leaned back as he watched with a small smile on his lips, the mood between them was as it usually was. Pleasant and simple. Like a lightweight dream. But the silence was suffocating him, and he needed to say something, anything to make sure that his feeling was correct, and nothing had changed over the last few two weeks. “Wooyoungie” San said finally. His friend turned towards him, that bright smile of his faltered slightly when he recognized the seriousness in the tone of the other and he sat back properly against the backrest so that San was straight in front of him. Their knees touched in the tight space. Their hands longed to reach out to each other. “I…” “You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone, your secret is safe with me and I still love you just as much as before... in a… totally, very platonic way of course” Wooyoung interrupted before San could speak another word and he could only nod, dumbfounded by the way the younger smiled afterwards. A bit surprised, but still not really that Wooyoung already knew what was on his mind. The way their hands quickly found each other again. The way he tried to concentrate on the scenery outside, with Seoul in full bloom below, the sun shining through the glass window at the side of them and how lucky they were to be there, all alone in a closed down amusement park. But even though the scenery was nice and how that luck of theirs would shine even brighter on them in the future - Wooyoung was more beautiful than anything San had even seen before and he didn’t just felt luck, he felt thankful as the other squeezed his hand again after changing sofa to sit beside him instead. Leaned up against him as they went around in the Ferris wheel. The smell of Wooyoung’s cologne as San placed his arms around his body, nuzzling his nose in the younger’s hair. Felt how his heart fluttered and throat clog shut when Wooyoung turned his head and he received a look from underneath dark, long eyelashes. San was sure that if heaven would be anything like this, he could’ve died happy in that moment to make it last forever.

12:07

The dorm was quiet for once. Wooyoung was on his phone and the silence between his and the room San shared with Yunho competed with the empty loneliness, the need for his friend that already echoed in his heart, bringing chaos to his mind. He locked the screen of his phone, closed his eyes for a few seconds and sat up, determined to find something to do. Four of the other members were out doing god knows what, which only left Jongho, Mingi, San and himself in the dorm. Or well… scratch that. Jongho was probably out as well. He just had a habit of not saying goodbye before he left. Wooyoung stretched his arms over his head, scrunched his eyes shut when his vision blurred slightly and did a little body shake to shake life in his sleepy limbs before he ventured out of his room, walked down the corridor towards the kitchen and rounds the doorpost of the room that he almost spend more time in than his own. San looks up from his laptop, pulls out his headphones and gave Wooyoung a soft smile from the top bunker. The younger waste no time and immediately climbs the ladder up to join him just as his friend closed down whatever he was doing and set aside the laptop, still with the same comforting smile on his lips. Wooyoung is mindful of the height they were on but still tackled the older as soon as he was in bed and the sound of San’s surprised laughter makes the empty chaos in his head disappear like fine dust in the wind. They settle down comfortable, San on his back with Wooyoung half on top of him, clutching his arm with a leg thrown over his waist. Both hearts were beating in unison, their breath synced up without either of them knowing and they just lay there for a minute or two, with San softly brushing through the younger’s hair and Wooyoung himself nuzzled his nose in the splattered freckles in the nape of San’s neck. He swallowed hard, inhaled even harder and felt how the smell of the other fills his body with butterflies. His heart clutched and it’s like he moved on his own, like he couldn’t stop the side of him that craved more. The press of his lips against those freckles makes him woozy, San’s breath hitched in his throat and Wooyoung does it again, and again, and again. There wasn’t a rush to get on with something else. Even though Wooyoung wanted nothing else than just straddle his best friends hips now and ride him until he forgot his own name. “Youngie-ah” San’s voice was raspy, and he choked on the words slightly. Like he fought to keep his voice as normal as he could. “Stop, please” He begged and Wooyoung separated himself from the older quickly, scared to death that he’d passed a line that shouldn’t have been passed. Scared that San would tell him off and that he’d ruined their friendship completely. He removed his leg from across the others waist, accidently brushed it against a rock-hard cock and it was as if his own brain just shut down completely. He felt how the butterflies that had only simmered in his body up to that point, exploded with the power of fireworks and it was as if his arousal punched him in the stomach. San turned his head towards him, faces just centimetres apart and Wooyoung inhaled sharply from the black wildfire that burned in his eyes. He knew that his friend could feel him, they were still very much pressing up against each other and he gulped when San’s hand brushed against his inner thigh. The latter’s breath hitched again as he felt the hot throbbing bulge there. “Sorry” Wooyoung whispered, shameful that he’d put San in an embarrassing situation, that he’d felt the effect he had on Wooyoung himself. “I’m scared that I’ll do something I regret if you don’t leave” San whispered back, his fingers ghosting over the hair in the back of the others head again and Wooyoung shuddered, involuntary arched his back to the addicting warmth that spread through him. San tensed his jaw from the feeling of his friend’s hard cock pressing on his thigh, contained the need to move his other hand a decimetre to the right and palm the younger through the sweat’s he was wearing. “Do what?” Wooyoung breathed against his face and San closed his eyes, gulped and shook his head, his hand travel over the others stomach before he placed it between them instead, softly pushed on Wooyoung’s chest. “Please, just go” The younger sighed and his heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach, but he didn’t argue. Didn’t want to make the whole situation worse than it already was and sat up, jumped down the bed and gave San one final glance before he walked out the room.

00:05

Kcon, Japan. Midnight and they were finally back at the hotel. San splashed his face with cold water and gasped slightly from the tingling shock of it. He’d just taken a hot shower, completely lost himself in the pleasure of feeling the sweat, the anxious feelings and stress from the show wash off him. Thought back on everything that had gone wrong but also everything that had gone right. Smiled to himself. Thought back on how good he knew he looked, and involuntarily, thought back on how good Wooyoung had looked as well. The black of his hair against the black of his suit. How the red on their accessories mixed in perfectly with the look. The green splotches in the lenses that hid the natural brown in his eyes. The warmth in the way he’d smiled when San complimented his performance after the show. The safe familiarity of his body against his when San placed an arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer. He sighed, moved his hands over his body and turned his face up against the shower head. Remembered how Wooyoung had looked when they started to undress, with his face flushed and red dress shirt unbuttoned, still tucked into his black slacks. The water dribbled on San’s body, through the dark hairs that covered it. Fingertips brushed against the muscles on his stomach, against hard nipples. He felt a sudden shudder of pure enticement and lust running down his spine. Gasped out as he realized what he was doing, turned off the shower immediately and exited the shower before he’d become too lost in himself. Violently shook his head to remove the thought of his best friend. Tried to forget the look in his eyes when they met after removing the first layer of clothes, both gulping at the same time and quickly looked away when they noticed the other staring. Splashed his face again. Removed the last traces of make-up. Dried himself up, did his evening routine before he put out the lights in the bathroom, softly humming to himself. He walked out, mindful of the glass window that still wasn’t covered by a curtain. Rounded the corner to the rest of the room and then almost had a heart attack, stumbled slightly and mentally thanked himself for still wearing the towel when he saw that his bed was already occupied. He took a deep breath, tried to calm his racing heart and asked with a slightly scolding voice, amusement hidden between the layers of the words. “How did you get here?” Wooyoung glanced up from his phone, his chin hidden in the hoodie he was wearing. The tips of his hair still wet from a shower he must have taken recently. He’d thankfully taken off his shoes, feet bare against the white covers on the bed. Mouth falling open slightly as he stared at the drops still running down his friends naked upper body. San stood just as frozen when he noticed the others stare, still holding the towel in a death grip, his phone in his other hand and it was as if time stopped around them in a good 20 seconds before the older of the two spoke up again, cleared his throat rather awkwardly. Wooyoung’s face was covered in a precious pink and he was sure that the other was just as surprised but frustratedly turned on as he was. “Wooyoungie, why are you here?” San rephrased the question and the other seemed to break out of the trance he was in, looked up from his body to meet San’s eyes and opened his mouth to answer. “I uh… I switched with Mingi” He answered and gulped before he teared his eyes of San completely. Mouth dry and body squirming. San considered dropping the towel completely there and then, bit back a small smirk when he thought about the reaction he’d earn, but still decided against it. Even though there clearly was a mutual attraction between them, he didn’t know if it was because Wooyoung enjoyed the other’s company simply because it was San himself or if San was simply the only one that didn’t protest when the younger craved so much attention it was almost unbearable for the other members. Clinging to them, poking their cheeks and annoyed them until they literally shrugged him off their bodies. He didn’t know if he was just the easiest one for Wooyoung to ease his daily burdens on. “Why?” San asked and took a few steps closer. Wooyoung recoiled on himself, just a little, like the sight of his friends naked body coming closer alarmed him and the older stopped and tilted his head, a bit perplexed of the random behaviour. Confused and a bit hurt and his friend wet his lips, combed his fingers through his newly washed hair. “Just put on some clothes please?” Wooyoung begged and met San’s eyes from underneath his lashes, chewed on the inside of his cheek when his friend placed his phone on the desk beside him, took another step forward and Wooyoung shook his head. “What are you afraid of Youngie-ah? It’s just me, who I’ve always been” He took another step, standing just next to his best friend, who looked up at him like he was completely terrified, but the look in his eyes and the small twitching in his fingertips betrayed him. A look that San recognized all too well. The one that he always picked out from the back of his mind when the days were too long and he was too bored to do anything but jerk off to the thought of his best friend going down on him like he never wanted anything else but San’s cock in his mouth and two fingers tickling the bundle of nerves deep, deep inside of him. Fuck. He sat down at the edge of the bed when Wooyoung didn’t answer, reached for his hand and even though his mind basically screamed at him to put that hand on the growing hard on between his thighs and not anywhere else, he placed it over his heart instead. Wooyoung looked away, suddenly shyer than scared and his hand jolted in San’s when he felt the warm, smooth skin of the other. “Look at me, please?” San asked and Wooyoung swallowed, gave him a pained expression and reluctantly met his eyes again. He wanted the younger to explain. Explain why they were both feeling like this. Why San’s mind was screaming ‘no, no, no! You’re my best friend, If I push my feelings on you, I’m going to ruin everything’ and his heart was shouting back ‘yes, yes, yes! I love you so much it physically hurt me and I want nothing else than for you to just tell me that you feel the same way so that I can finally, finally have you, all of you, to myself’ Wooyoung didn’t explain. But he didn’t remove his hand either, a small blush covered his cheeks as he felt San’s hurried heartbeats underneath his ribcage.

03:17

Wooyoung was laying restless in his bed again. Just like he’d done for the past nights. Tossed and turned with no avail. Begged sleep to overcome him so he could put his utmost into the promotion that was going to start in two days. He sat up, rubbed his face with tired hands, threw his legs over the edge of the top bunker bed and paused for a second to make sure that Yeosang didn’t wake up when his feet hit the floor in a soft thump. Months upon months of midnight training had made him stealthy and he walked with quick steps towards the sofa in the living room, avoided the floor planks he knew would creek, hoped that the white light and buzz from the tv would make him sleepy. He paused. Was the tv already on? “Hi” San said as soon as Wooyoung rounded the corner when the corridor became the living room. The upper part of his body was naked, thanks to the humid hot weather outside and Wooyoung was immediately thrown back to the hotel room in Japan a few days earlier. The feeling of San’s skin underneath his fingertips was still stuck in his memory like a sweet sugary syrup. Coated his judgement and made him dizzy. That look San had in his eyes back then. “Wooyoungie? Did I scare you?” The older asked, slightly worried, hesitant and a bit self-conscious as he pulled a soft blanket over his head to cover himself, with only his face poking out. Wooyoung shook his head, hid all his feelings in a locked box at the back of his mind, closed the distance between them with a few quick steps and it was almost as if things were back to how it’d always been when San placed his arm around Wooyoung’s shoulders, pulled him closer with a bright smile. The cute dimples and scrunching nose made the younger’s heart flip and he smiled back, purely as a reflex before he settled underneath the crook of the others neck and focus on the American 80s cowboy movie that San had found on a channel Wooyoung didn’t even know they had. It was almost as if things were back to how it’d always been, except it was nothing like that at all and though both of them were trying to relax, trying to enjoy each other's presence - the fear of a misplaced hand, and the fact that they were so close that they could smell each other’s cologne, the underlying smell that were just them - were excruciatingly painful. The feeling of San’s naked chest against his own was everything Wooyoung wanted to the end of time and everything he had ever feared.

16:22

They received their album the same day it was released, and Hongjoong thanked their manager profusely when he reached out to give it to them. They were in the studio after being called there to listen through their new songs for the first time and see how it visually had turned out before it was released, and the staff had been kind enough to prepare dinner for them while they were there. The managers presence had interrupted that first hot meal of the day, but they all stood up without a question and bowed deeply to show off their gratitude. He left shortly after and all their fingers fiddled nervously when their leader unwrapped the plastic protection. Browsed the photo catalogue in awe. Playfully hitting each other with teasing punches and laughing loudly at the photos that were in it. Placed all the postcards on the table in front of them, the group photo and the individual photocard. San took the very chance he got and snatched it as soon as he saw who it was. No questions were asked. They all could see who was on the photo. Wooyoung blushed slightly and looked up to meet San’s from underneath his fringe. Swallowed hard when San shyly smiled back while he placed the photocard of his best friend in his wallet.

15:36

They were doing a Vlive again. Joked around while eating their food. Unconsciously mirrored each other, laughed between bites of food and proved to the whole fanbase that they truly were soulmates with 3,2,1 questions. Wooyoung watched his best friend from underneath his lashes. Tried not to stare too much but San had made it difficult for him. Looking like an angel sent from heaven to make Wooyoung forget about any problems that has ever troubled his mind with the light red make-up that shadowed his eyes. Wooyoung couldn’t help but to reach out, at times when he knew he doesn't have to. Just to feel the others skin under his touch Found it to be harder and harder to breathe properly when San leaned over his shoulder to read the comments on the phone that rested on the table among the food. They were not alone. A video director was sitting across of them to make sure that the video recorded properly and even though Wooyoung himself considered himself a gentle person, someone who never demanded a thing and was at most times hellbent on making sure that everyone felt seen and included and loved, staff and members alike - but now he wanted nothing else but for that said director to just get the fuck out and leave them alone. The older placed his hand on his back when he leaned over him again and the feeling of San’s breath on his neck made him shudder lightly. San, who pouted when he talked, hummed with satisfaction and slurped on his food when he ate and Wooyoung wanted the earth to swallow him right then and there for all the things it made him feel. His heart flipped again when the other borrowed his glasses, looking at least twice as good as Wooyoung would ever look in glasses himself and he swallowed hard while complimenting his friend. Feeling how he was sweating in the hoodie he wore from the smirk he received back. They talked, joked around a bit more, finished what they were eating and soon enough gave place to their hyung, who came to have a conversation with Atiny as well. Wooyoung placed his hand around his friend when they packed up their stuff. Felt how the muscles on San’s stomach tensed up slightly from the sudden touch and swallowed as the older followed in his footsteps as they walk out the door. Immediately grabbed his hand when they were alone again. Like he had been starving for the younger’s touch the whole 30 minutes they did the Vlive. Wooyoung looked over at his friend, felt how his face flushed when San pulled him closer in a half hug, not caring about the staff around them. Not caring about the curious looks they received. Not caring about the nagging feeling in their hearts. The feeling that told them both that they shouldn’t be this close if they were just friends. That it seemed like it was more than just fanservice or skinship or anything in between. The fact that it could be something more and that Wooyoung felt, when he quickly lock gaze with San as they stumbled to the car that would take them back to their dorm, that maybe… just maybe… San felt so as well - was terrifying and so indescribably amazing that he felt like he was walking on clouds.

10:45

It was minutes before their comeback. San felt how his heart was ticking hard in his chest, reached out to put his hands on his best friend’s shoulders, just to stabilise himself. Pulled his fingers through said friend's hair. Felt how Wooyoung took a sharp breath and he could almost swear that he swallowed hard from the feeling as well. Minutes passed, he leaned forward to read the comments fans left for them. Inhaled deeply and wanted to nuzzle his nose into Wooyoung’s hair but decided against it. Knew that it would look inappropriate on camera. Reached out to massage the youngers shoulders instead, fingers played with the hair in the back of his neck. Like he could relieve some of his own anxiousness, from inflicting the calming pleasure on Wooyoung and it helped him ease the fidgety feeling he already had in his fingertips too. Wooyoung cursed at him softly when the Vlive was over and they said goodbye to Atiny, urging them on to listen to the mini album before they ended the broadcast. “Why did you keep touching me like that, all the time? We were supposed to be professional” Wooyoung blushed, pulled San aside just outside the room they recorded in and the other members just spared them a glance before they kept walking to go get some lunch, knowing that the duo would catch up with them whenever they were finished. “What do you mean?” San asked and felt the tips of his ears flush. Wooyoung paused for a few seconds. Looked like he tried to put his thoughts in order to describe whatever he was thinking, and San swallowed hard, not understanding what he’d done wrong. “I was just… nervous… you ground me. You know that” San tried to explain when the younger doesn’t say anything. His friend looked away, crossed his arms over his chest and puffed it out slightly, pouted and San wanted nothing else than to just embrace him and apologize. “I… I know…” Wooyoung answered finally and San reached out even though his mind was telling him that he probably shouldn’t. He placed his hand on his friend's arm, tugged on it slightly to make them fall against Wooyoung’s side again before he took a step forward and hugged the younger tight. Flushed his body against him with both arms around his midriff. Wooyoung sighed, first it’s more like a sharp annoyed exhale through his nose and San sweep the area swiftly with his sight, noticed that they were completely alone and then nuzzled his nose underneath his friends jaw, pressed a light peck just underneath his ear and Wooyoung melted to putty in his arms. He sighed again, more content this time and San stifles a small heartfelt chuckle under his breath.

22:07

Towards the end of June and the water from the showerhead was cold on Wooyoung’s skin. He shuddered, fringe over his eyes as he watched how the water pooled at his feet before it disappeared down the drain. He thought back on every minute of the past three hours. Went through them over and over in his head. Felt how tears formed in the corners of his eyes. They were supposed to be training, not the dancing he preferred to do, but actually working out, with actual weights and stuff and though it was boring at first (it always was) joking around with his members was somewhat of a hobby of his. He knew that he should take it seriously, exercising was important. Mainly, of course, so that they could stay in good shape. But also, to build up the muscles needed for their choreography. Which was just so… unbelievable… boring. Wooyoung was someone who needed space to move, to dance and dance and dance until he couldn't stand upright anymore. Not sit down and work on a machine that pushed certain muscles to the breaking point. He’d complained, the trainer had rolled his eyes and explained for the hundredth time all those things that Wooyoung already knew. Complained about the trainer to San who then snorted out a laugh in a way that was anything but subtle. His best friend was not short on jumping on the train of shenanigans. They joked around, danced to the music in the background when the trainer had an important speech about how to build muscles in the most effective way. Made funny noises when the other members worked out and bumped into each other as they joked around, never missed a beat as they seemingly danced around each other, unconsciously playing a game of cat and mouse. Their trainer kicked them out, referred them to go to the dance studio to work on their choreo if they couldn’t stand still and they got a scolding look from their leader just before the door slammed shut. They stumbled to the room a few doors down, still roaring with laughter and San hopped down in one of the chairs at the back, the wheels of it made him roll a good three meters until he hit the wall with a small thump. Wooyoung chuckled to himself and put on some music, an American song was the first on the playlist and San shouted an “Eey” while he threw his hands in the air and dropped to the floor instead to make place after he pushed the chair to the other side of the room. The younger of the two closed his eyes, let the beat come to him instead of chasing after it, allowed it fill his body completely before he let it explode inside of him, making him move his arms and legs as the rush of being in his element overcame him. San shouted again, hyped him up and the applause that followed made Wooyoung dance faster, the room was spinning around him, but he was not lost - he was exactly where he was meant to be, as he kept the pace until the song ended. His breathing laboured and he combed back some hair that fell into his eyes before he opened them again. The older of the two was a meter from him, scooted down in a half sitting position at the same place, legs parted, so close that he almost touched Wooyoung. Eyes enticingly dark and tongue between his teeth when his mouth fell open at the way his friend looked back at him. His chest moved up and down in a pace that almost matched Wooyoung’s. Wooyoung wanted to say something. Wanted to defend the way his blood seemed to boil ever harder now than when he was dancing but it was as if all the blood had left his brain to stream down to his cock as San clenched his jaw, looked away, sighed and then motioned for the younger to get closer with a flick of his wrist, and Wooyoung obliged, because why wouldn’t he? It was as if electricity surged through them when their hands found each other, like so many times before. He dropped to his knees before San, moved as if on autopilot, straddled his hips like he’d done it a hundred times before. Except he hadn’t and the certain way that San looked up at him from underneath long lashes, The way his thighs clenched slightly when the younger scooted closer, The way his hands quickly settled on Wooyoung’s hips, pushing him down slightly on his crotch and the way his cheeks flushed... those soft pink lips parted - all of it made scared him out of his mind. But he couldn’t move away, didn’t want to move away as San brought his hand up to comb Wooyoung’s hair back out of his forehead again, the sweat in the roots of his baby hair made it stay like that and he gulped, hard. Felt how his friends cock grew harder under the swell of his ass in the jeans he wore. A gasp escaped his lips at the feeling, and it was as if the sound was painful to San because a small wrinkle appeared between his brows as his eyes became more and more hooded. San’s hand cupped Wooyoung’s face now and he was seconds from pressing his lips against the other when voices outside interrupted them, broke the magic and Wooyoung immediately jumped up after he realised how close he’d been to actually kiss his best friend. Fear overcame him again and he quickly straightened his clothes, gave San an apologizing look and turned on his heel before he rushed out the studio. Didn’t look behind him as he jogged all the way back to the dorm, the warm summer evening sun was just a thin line on the horizon as he unlocked the door to their dorm with shaking hands, slammed it shut behind him, shed his clothes as soon as he entered the bathroom and gasped loudly when the first drops of water hit his back like a whip. He looked down on his cock. Released what he’d been fighting for months upon months, to not cross that physical line that would change them, had happened anyway. The remembrance combined with Wooyoung’s vivid fantasy of what would most likely have happened if they wouldn’t have been interrupted made him squirm. He turned up the heat, when he realized that the cold water didn’t do anything to keep the memories from playing back in his head like a broken record on repeat. The feeling of San’s body underneath him. The way his muscles clenched from the feeling of Wooyoung’s on top of him. The way his cock had felt when it nudged against the younger’s ass. The fact that he’d been seconds away from kissing those perfectly curled lips that he’d dreamed of for so long. He felt the tears that had formed in his eyes fall down his cheeks. From disappointment. From guilt. From being so unbelievably disgusted with himself that he just wanted to hide from the whole world to the end of time. He shuddered as he reluctantly closed his hand around his cock, already leaking from pre-cum and dropped to his knees, face towards the ceiling as his other hand ghosted over his chest. One hand pumping himself as the other continued to travel, over his hip, his ass and he quickly spit in his hand as he choked on a breath when he imagined that the fingers that stroked his hole was San’s. His heart raced in his chest so hard he could hear the beats of it in his ears. He forced himself to relax, before he pushed one finger in, cried out softly as the feeling of being filled up made him shudder again. His breathing were strained, short breathy gasps escaped his throat and it didn’t take long until he fell backwards into the warm dark abyss that embraced him. Ribbons of hot white cum painted his chest and he moaned loudly, thankful that he was the only one at the dorm at the moment.

22:33

San cursed himself. Tears streamed down his face as he quickly followed in the steps of his best friend. A friend he had betrayed by acting upon his own insatiable lust. The shower was running when he entered the dorm and he paused just outside the door to the bathroom, trying to stabilise his hard breathing. He raised his hand and was just about to knock when a sudden noise made him waver. A… gasp? He swallowed and felt how the arousal he’d been pushing down for the last ten minutes came rushing back with the power of a collision. He stabilised himself with one hand on the doorpost, careful not to put any weight on the door itself and blow his cover as he leaned closer. Wooyoung was actually moaning. It was subtle but still clear as day and San cringed before submitting to his own need almost embarrassingly fast. Plunged his hand down his pants and underwear, eyes fluttered shut as he closed his hand around his cock. He imagined how Wooyoung would look, if he was in there with him. The way the water would run over his body, tracing over his nipples, over hard lean muscles and soft dark hair. How amazing he’d look with his cock in his hand, putting on a show for San, meeting his eyes behind wet eyelashes. Mouth open as the short whiny gasps he was hearing escaped his throat. How his own fingers would already pump in and out of him. San would even taste his lips, if his friend would allow him. Would treat him right in every way possible. Wooyoung would lead his hands, because San didn’t want to just take and claim the others lust. He’d love it if he could fuck him though. Real life San choked on his breath as imaginary him trapped Wooyoung against the wall, chest against chest, rose one leg over his hip and carefully, so carefully enter him, bottom out completely before letting his friend get used to the size. In the room behind the door, real life Wooyoung moaned loudly, and the out of breath gasping that followed directly afterwards sounded exactly like he used to sound after they’d been practising a particularly tough choreography. San came in his underwear so hard, his knees threatened to buckle underneath him. He cursed his life harder than he had ever done before.

09:43

Something changed between them after that. They still touched like they always do. Still sought the comfort with one another like always. Still touched and hugged and cuddled and placed small kisses on each other’s knuckles, under the ears and against collarbones when the feelings they have for each other was suffocating them. Still laughed and joked and played games. But something was still different. Something that broke Wooyoung’s heart in two as the days progressed. He watched as his friend danced and felt how his body itched to join him. Watched as he sang and felt how the sound was tugging on his heartstrings. Watched when San was occupied and doesn’t notice him staring. They were on tour from city to city again. Doing fan signs every other day. Participating in promotions, stage performances and radio. Travelled back to the US to open Kcon in New York and soon enough three weeks had passed since that time in the dancing studio and it was San’s birthday. Wooyoung woke up extra early, determined to not let the weird feeling between the two distract him from making the day a memorable experience. He placed out the ingredients on the counter, found the message on the recipe for seaweed soup he received from his mother the day before and got to working just as he hears how Seonghwa started to wake up in the room at the far back. “Good morning” He said, just as his hyung entered the kitchen with sleep drunken eyes, stumbled on his steps slightly as he inhaled the familiar scent with a thoughtful expression on his face. “For Sannie-ah?” Seonghwa asked and started making breakfast for himself and the other members. Wooyoung only nodded, mind focused hard on the recipe to make sure that he doesn’t miss a step. Yeosang joined them just a few minutes later, and then Mingi and Jongho. The soup was done the minute San stumbled out of his room, accompanied by Yunho and Wooyoung’s heart was ticking like a small bomb in his chest. It felt like he’d run a marathon when San looked into the pot with curious eyes before they meet his best friend and the younger swallowed hard. “Happy birthday” He said with a voice that only shook a little. The bright smile, the one with the dimples, scrunching nose and a wrinkle between his brows, made Wooyoung’s heart skip and San placed his arms around him in a heartbeat. Happiness was overflooding the others body and before he could stop himself, his lips were pressed against Wooyoung's cheek. It was just a light peck, done in the trance of excitement but Wooyoung couldn’t help but sigh softly of satisfaction. San, on the other hand, looked absolutely terrified at what he’d done, but his friend just shook his head and held him again, nuzzled his nose into the nape of the other’s neck.

20:21

“Youngie?” The whole day has passed and now they lay together in Wooyoung’s bed, watching a Netflix movie on San’s phone. Preferred the privacy to just be able to hold each other close without the other members in close proximity and if a small screen was what they had to sacrifice, then so be it. Wooyoung hummed lightly to show that he listened, and San took a deep breath, went over in his head how he could phrase what he was about to say in the smoothest way possible. Locked his phone to make Wooyoung look at him. “I know I said that I didn’t want any presents but…” He trailed off and met the youngers eyes from his position, with his head resting on his right arm and their faces barely two decimetres apart. Swallowed hard when Wooyoung looked at him with a distraught face when he mentioned a present. “I just have a favour. You don’t have to because, like I said. I don’t want any presents. I just thought since I literally have no one else to ask and you’re the one I’m closest to in the group so I feel most comfortable with you but like I said you really, really don't have to because it might change our friendship and that is the reason why I haven’t asked you earlier but now it’s my birthday an-” “Just say it” Wooyoung interrupted, a small smile tugged on his lips from the others rambling and San swallowed hard again, felt his heart thump hard in his chest. “Can you… I want you to…” He cleared his throat and closed his eyes for a second to collect some courage. “I… I’d like you to be my first kiss” He cringed at his own words as he stumbled over them. Heard how Wooyoung gasped slightly and his heart clenched at the sound as he opened his eyes again, met the younger’s eyes before he quickly looked away again. Neither of them moved a muscle for a few seconds and the more time that passed, the more anxious San became, the small ball of nervousness grew from a needle head to an overfilled balloon that threatened to explode in his stomach and finally he couldn’t take it anymore and just shook his head before he pulled up his phone and unlocked it with a sigh. “Sorry, I… forget what I said” He apologized and was just about to hit play again when Wooyoung placed his hand over San’s and lowered the phone again. They lock gaze. The younger’s eyes were like two brown tarns in the middle of an untouched forest. So dark that San wanted to drown in them. “I… I’d like that. You’d be my first as well” He finally answered, and San’s heart flipped like a small bird trapped in a cage. He turned his body towards his friend, placed his left arm around him so that his back covered what was about to happen to any unexpected viewers at the door. Fingers combed through Wooyoung’s black hair in the back of his head and they edged closer until their nose’s touches. Two eyes each blended into one because their sight couldn’t focus on such close proximity. They breathe the same air for a few seconds and San could feel how hard his friend’s heart is beating in his chest as they lie pressed from top to bottom. Wooyoung is the one that found the courage to close the last millimetres and their breath hitched when their lips finally, finally meet. A small gasp escaped the younger’s lips as the thing he’d been dreaming about finally happened and the sound of it makes his friend go into overdrive. The soft fingers that played with Wooyoung’s hair grabbed a hold of it instead, yanked on it softly, earning another gasp and San used it to his advantage to deepen the kiss. Cried out slightly from feeling the curve of his friend’s cupid bow against his own, the plumpness of his lips sloppily mirroring his movements. Spreading a wildfire that burned through every nerve in San’s body and he felt like his blood was boiling. His tongue sneaked out as he pressed closer to the other. Wooyoung tasted like chocolate frosting from the birthday cake they had earlier, and San was walking on clouds. Completely and utterly breathless and shuddering as he arched his body slightly to press a weak, uncertain thrust against the other, desperately craving more, more, more. Wooyoung choked on his breath, endorphins swarmed his head and made him dizzy on the high he received. San was warm in his arms as he presses a hand on his back, felt the trapezius muscle clench under the feeling of Wooyoung’s touch. He desperately wanted to throw his leg over the other’s hip. Wanted to press down on the half hard cock he felt was growing there but stopped himself before he did so. Knew that there was a time and place for everything and right now, with the members only a few meters away, his bedroom door open and without any rational thought whatsoever, any other time would be better. He was the one that parted them, and San whined and pouted when he did so, unhappy that the younger pulled away. He swallowed, looked at the other with hooded, drunk eyes and even though all he wanted was to taste those lips again, a rational part of his brain knows that Wooyoung is right to have stopped. Knew that there will be another time for them to give each other their all. San sighed, brushed his hands down his friends back and looked at Wooyoung like he hung his moon and all his stars, and the other looked back at him, a small smile on his lips as he tried to catch his breath. Softly combed back the older’s hair from his forehead with a gentle hand and San closed his eyes. Placed this memory in a box in the furthest part of his mind, knowing that this was the best birthday he has ever had.

17:18

“I love the way your hand fits in mine” San whispered and Wooyoung blushed as he looked down at their intertwined fingers. Felt how his heart fluttered hard in his chest and tried to stifle a big smile so he doesn’t feed the others ego too much. They’re in a hotel name both has forgotten the name off. Separated at first by the management but Wooyoung had begged Mingi to switch rooms with him as soon as they had received the keys. The look he’d given the two spoke of both disbelief and happiness. They laid in bed at the moment, cuddling, while watching a new drama on the tv. Bellies full of the late dinner. Hearts full of being so close to each other. Heads full of pink balls of soft cotton. Up in the clouds with the feelings they had for each other but neither wanted to say out loud, because they were scared that the other would reject them. Scared that they’d lose the friendship they had if they crossed that line. “Sannie-ah” He said, brushed his thumb over his friends knuckles and San hummed a little to show that he listened, while still watching the tv. “I…” He trailed off, knew what he wanted to say but still had to find the courage before he did so. “I don’t ever want you to leave me” They locked gaze. San’s brows were furrowed with confusion from the sudden statement and he shook his head. “I won’t” He promised and Wooyoung wet his lips before he cleared his throat. “Even if Ateez disbands tomorrow… will you stay with me?” The younger knew that it was a big question. Would understand it if San would say no. Except he doesn't. He just chuckled, squeezed Wooyoung’s hands before he planted a sweet kiss on the back of his hand. “My future has you in it, that’s the only thing I know for sure about anything at all. Everything that will follow is just a bonus” He gave his friend another smile and Wooyoung’s stomach did somersaults of happiness. He sighed, content and squeezed San’s hand when the latter places the next kiss on the crown of his head.

09:02

San’s body was on fire. Burned with every kiss Wooyoung placed on it. From his neck, down his shoulders, his collarbones, his naked chest, the clenched-up muscles on his stomach. He gasped out slightly when the youngers fingertips ghosted his sides, the touch tickled him slightly. “Sorry” Wooyoung whispered softly and San choked on his breath. “Don’t be” He pulled his friend up again just as Wooyoung placed the last kiss above the lining of his underwear. There was an insatiable hunger in him that couldn’t be satisfied, and his breath hitched once again as he pressed their lips together. The now familiar feeling of the other’s cupid bow over his own, the unbelievable softness of them - almost made San whimper, even though he’d been kissing those lips for almost a month now. It was addicting. The small noises his best friend did when San placed the next kiss underneath his jaw, trailing his lips over his neck and swallowed hard when the other’s cologne clouded his senses. The way Wooyoung pressed his naked chest against San. The way his breath hitched when San trailed his hands over his body. They’d been doing this for a while now, a few weeks. Just kissing. Indulging in the feeling of skin against skin. Mapping out every freckle on the others body. Every scar. Didn’t want to rush things, but rather just took it slow. In their own pace. Knew that there would be a time when they both felt like they had the time to properly treat each other right. The other members knew. But neither of them minded or seemed bothered at all when San randomly embraced Wooyoung and placed a small peck on his lips just before breakfast in their dorm a week ago. It all seemed like a dream, and San never wanted to wake up.

10:04

Weeks passed. So did the summer. It was still quite hot outside, enough to dress in jeans and a tee but it seemed like autumn was taking its first wobbly steps when the first few leaves started to fade in colour. They worked on their comeback, took one step at a time, just like the scenery outside. Had two weeks free from any sort of travelling at the beginning of September to just focus on the album, the music and choreo and used that time to perfect what they’d created. It was a challenge. This was their first full album and needless to say - the expectations were high. Wooyoung sighed and slumped over in the studio couch with a sullen pout on his lips. Put on his headphones, replayed his part of the song again and closed his eyes for a few seconds to listen without getting distracted by the gorgeous figure sitting on the couch next to him. He became more annoyed, something just didn’t sound right, replayed the same part again and let his gaze linger on his best friend instead. They had switched hair colours for the new concept, completely unintentional and the dark hair that now covered San’s forehead made him look more amazing than Wooyoung had ever seen him before. The long hair in the back of his neck was even more prominent now, and with that dash of blue the hairdressers added… “Do I have something on my face” San interrupted his thoughts and brushed over his lips and cheeks to make sure that it was crumble free of the small lunch they had earlier. “No… I…” Wooyoung removed the headphones and shook his head, a bit embarrassed that he was caught red handed. “You were staring at me” Something provocative shadowed the other’s face as he smirked, one eyebrow raised, and he licked his lower lip into his mouth and gave Wooyoung a look that made the younger’s knees feel weak and his pink blush to get even darker. “Wooyoungie” San purred softly and rose up from the couch to sit next to his friend instead. “No need to be shy” He assured and Wooyoung swallowed hard. Felt how he wanted to defend himself, but his thoughts were interrupted. San’s lips were on his before he even had the time to finish his train of thought and he immediately gasped with surprise to the feeling before he broke the kiss again. “What are you doing?” He whispered angrily. “What? San asked back, a wrinkle of confusion between his brows. “I only wanted to kiss you” He tried to explain, a small smile on his lips. Like he thought the other was just joking but Wooyoung just shook his head violently. “We can’t. Not here” The older of the two recoiled on himself with a surprised expression on his face and Wooyoung could see that he was hurt. “Why not? What difference does it make? People will know about us sooner or later, we will tell. Right?” San smiled softly but it quickly faltered when Wooyoung looked away, wet his lips nervously and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “Right? San pressed on and Wooyoung tilted his head and his mouth fell open to say something, anything, but no words came out. San raised his hands in a ‘what the hell’ motion and the soft smile changed into one of disbelief. “So what? Your plan was to just ignore me and only let me touch you like we’ve always done; the regular small skin ship we usually do? But I won’t be allowed to kiss you? To hold you like I do when we’re alone? You’re just going to just ignore us forever?” “I… I don’t know how to answer that” The younger answered quietly and felt how his heart hammered hard in his chest. It felt like he was going to get sick in his stomach when San quickly rose up from his place beside him as his expression changed from surprise to sorrow. “Have all of this just been a joke to you? Every kiss, every promise? You never wanted us to be real, not officially, did you?” San’s voice was awfully calm when he spoke and it hurt so bad it felt like Wooyoung’s heart split into countless tiny pieces, like glass breaking against a stone floor. The razor-sharp splinters gutted him, and he swallowed hard, barely allowed himself to take a deep breath in the tense air between them. He wanted San to be pissed off, to scream and shout because it would feel better to just get angry than to feel the guilt, he felt in his chest now. Everything they’d been doing so far had been amazing, unreal like a dazed pink dream. But Wooyoung knew that he had to wake up. Knew that even though he had all of these feelings inside of him, none of them could be realized, not in the way they both wanted. He swallowed hard, tried to get a hold of some sort of reason, some sort of explanation to make San feel better. Hated the way his friend looked at him right now. “We… we are real, Sannie. I just… we - we’re idols…” San shook his head in disbelief, tears in his eyes as he gave his friend one last glance before he turned on his heel. The door slammed shut after him and the demon, that voice, that Wooyoung had forced into a corner for the last few months returned with full power. Towered over him with oozing black smoke that entered his bloodstream and poisoned his mind. You’re not good enough. You’ll never be and now you just forced away the only person who could ever love you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

14:09

San was exhausted. He’d been crying for hours. Buried underneath his many plushies while holding onto Shiber. Legs raised up towards his chest as he curled onto himself with his back against the door so that no one could see the horrible state that he was in. Pressed his nose into the comforting fur of the plush dog and shook with quiet choked up sobs. Yunho had carefully asked him why he was crying. If he wanted to talk, ready to close their bedroom door if San wanted the privacy, but he’d just shook his head. He heard how Wooyoung came home, the walls shook when he slammed shut the bedroom door at the other end of the dorm and Seonghwa were quick on his steps after him, probably both to scold him for the door slamming and to ask if his fired up emotions were connected to San’s. He didn’t want to eat dinner - because he didn’t felt hungry at all. Didn’t want to join the other members when they sat down in front of the tv and watched the football game that he’d been looking forward to all week - because Wooyoung wouldn’t be there in his arms, watching it with him. Didn’t want the tea that Seonghwa offered him just before bedtime - because it was Wooyoung’s favourite and the smell of it and the thought of him made San's whole body ache. Didn’t want to sleep when Yunho, tall as he was, properly tucked him in and squeezed his arm with a small sigh before he placed the blanket over San - because he was lonely, without his best friend to hold. Didn’t want to eat breakfast when it was served in the morning - because he felt too sick to eat anything anyway. Didn’t want to join them for dance practise just before lunch but was forced anyway, and Hongjoong just placed a steady warm hand on his shoulder before he pushed him out of the room, he’d been camping in for the last 24 hours. He couldn’t meet Wooyoung’s eyes. He cried in the car as they drove to the company, silent tears wet his clasped hands as he looked out the window. Cried as they trained on their choreo, his breath hitching with every laboured sigh. Cried as his knees finally gave out from pushing himself too far and not breathing properly in the pauses of dancing. Cried when Wooyoung was the first to catch him before he fell to the floor. Cried as he held onto his friend, who smelled of soap and cologne and boy and everything San needed. Choked on his breath when Wooyoung gripped onto the collar of his shirt and pressed his lips upon San’s, mumbling a curse word over his lips at the other’s recklessness.

05:18

San was breathing softly beside him and Wooyoung couldn’t help but watch. They had started to watch a movie way too late yesterday and must’ve accidentally fell asleep on the couch. It was early, the autumn sun barely up and the other members still snored, a mumble in their sleep here and there while completely unconscious to the world. Wooyoung was pressed against the backrest, with his hand on San’s back to keep him from falling down the edge. They lay face to face, legs tangled and Wooyoung sighed deeply and couldn’t help but smile at the vision in front of him. San’s lips were slightly parted and soft snores erupted from his throat but Wooyoung still thought he looked like an angel. The soft glow from the lamp in the window illuminated his features and send a shadow over his eyes that made his eyelashes look longer than they really were. If Wooyoung would be immortal and have all the time in the world, he’d probably watch his friend for hours, but he could already feel his stomach grumble for food. He reached out and moved a lock of hair that had fallen over the other’s eyes with the intent to wake him up. But San just groaned in his sleep, pouted and whispered an incoherent wish that whoever was touching him would stop. The younger smiled and felt how his heart skipped slightly as he edged closer until he pressed their foreheads together and placed a small peck on his friend’s lips. Brushed his nose against San’s in a sweet Inuit kiss. “Sannie-ah” Wooyoung said softly and the older groaned slightly again, pushed the leg that was already between Wooyoung’s, higher and sneaked his arm around him tighter. Flushing their bodies together from head to toe before he stretched out like a cat. “Wooyoungie” He hummed happily and returned the Inuit kiss before he pecked the younger’s lips and inhaled deeply while he indulged in feeling their bodies so close. It took another fifteen minutes before San opened his eyes. Wooyoung had raised himself up slightly and started the tv again, since he’d gotten bored but didn’t want to leave the comfortable place stuck between the backrest and his friend’s sleepy warm body, the hunger in his stomach be damned. “Morning” The older said and squinted slightly from the sudden brightness, burrowed his face in Wooyoung’s chest, rubbed his face there and sighed happily before he looked up again. “Did you really just rub the sleep out of your face on my shirt instead of using your hands?” Wooyoung asked, a smile tugging on his lips. “Maybe I did, whatcha gonna do ‘bout it?” San mumbled and stuck his tongue out. The younger couldn’t help but smile back when the dimples in San’s cheeks made an appearance. A smile that turned into a soft sigh as his friend reached out to comb back the hair that covered the younger's forehead.

12:15

“I’m sorry” It was a whisper, but San still picked up on it. That and the hidden sadness in Wooyoung’s voice as he sat down opposite side of him at the kitchen table. “Why?” The older of the two asked and a puzzled wrinkle appeared between his brows as he shoved another full spoon of food into his mouth. A bit unsure of whatever it was that made Wooyoung squirm uncomfortably in his seat to the question. “The other day. I… I never meant for you to…  I- I mean… I never wanted… “ He cleared his throat and San swallowed and waited, uneasy and hesitant of what Wooyoung wanted to say. “I’ve been thinking and… If you want us to… then I want us to be together in every way possible as well. I want us to be official. The first openly gay relationship in the history of kpop. That would certainly create some headlines, wouldn’t it?” Wooyoung chuckled nervously. Awkwardly scratched the back of his head while he avoided his friends gaze. Drummed his fingers against the table. San cringed slightly and reached out to stop the fidgety hand. Traced the soft lines of veins on the back of it, interlaced their fingers and met his friend’s eyes just as they travelled up from the place where their bodies connected. “No, I’m sorry. I was the one who didn’t think” San sighed heavily and pursed his lips. Tried to place the thoughts running in his mind in order before he let them escape his mouth. “We are idols. Still rookies, but with more eyes on us now than ever before and I understand that you’re afraid. I really am too. It was harsh of me to react the way I did. I just…” He groaned slightly, rubbed the hand that wasn’t occupied, down his face to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to say. “I just… I was so, so afraid that I would lose you” He swallowed hard. Felt how Wooyoung stroked his thumb with a reassuring motion. “I want to scream from the highest mountain top that you belong to me and me alone. I want everyone to know that I…” He paused, looked away and felt how his cheeks flushed red. “And when you said that you wanted to hide our relationship from the world. A sick and twisted part of me was convinced that you never… that you never…” “I do”   Wooyoung smiled softly and squeezed his best friend’s hand. The three burning words left unsaid between them.

23:43

“Hyung?” Wooyoung jumped up on the bed San was resting on, scooted up so that he sat between San’s legs and the older of the two looked up from the book he was reading. They were in a hotel room, sleepy and fatigued after arriving to Thailand just an hour ago. They were lucky. The two of them had gotten a room together since they were going to do an appearance on Twitter blue room the next day. “Hyung?” San asked back and closed the book, suddenly intrigued by the sudden honorific that Wooyoung hadn’t used since… well since they first met. “Why?” San continued and Wooyoung nervously licked his bottom lip into his mouth. “I wanted to ask you something and thought… well… I thought I’d be polite about it” He answered and San curiously flicked his head to the side. A small smile tugged on his lips as he placed the book on the bedside table, sat up more comfortably against the pillows piled up under his shoulders, clasped his hands to rest over his stomach and watched his friend with a look that made Wooyoung breathless. A small pause silenced the two busy minds as the younger of the two just sat there, with his hands resting on his folded knees, still placed between San’s, who leaned back, waiting. “I… I need… you” Wooyoung mumbled under his breath, met his friend’s eyes but quickly looked away again. A precious pink flushed his cheeks and San’s heart flipped hard in his chest. “You…?” He asked, the question trailed off as if he was unsure if he’d heard correctly. “I want you so bad it hurts. I can’t take any more of this… just kissing and holding each other… I…” Wooyoung got quiet again, anxiously chewed on his inner cheek when he realized he’d been rambling and sighed deeply, like he’d held his breath for a long time. “I… uh…” San was completely stumped. How was he supposed to answer that? Should he even say anything at all? Wooyoung sighed heavily, muttered a curse under his breath and closed the distance between them with one sharp movement. San flinched slightly, fully prepared to get bruised but the younger caught himself in the movement, cupped the other’s face softly and when their lips met, time seemed to travel in slow motion. The younger tasted off sweet iced tea and San melted to putty in his arms, sighed as euphoria exploded in his heart before the feeling spread throughout his body. He fell back against the pillows completely and placed his hands on his friend, pulling him down with him. Wooyoung. The weight of his body, strong and lean from years of dancing, felt like heaven upon San’s own and he felt his breath hitch as the younger deepened the kiss, drank the taste of him, the smell, the feeling and San never wanted it to stop. His head was swarming and the white noise that rang in his ears, like the buzz of a whole colony of angry bees, made him deaf to anything else than the sound of moans swallowed by wet sloppy kisses and the sweet gasp of surprise that fell from Wooyoung’s lips when the older pressed his growing boner on his thigh. The way his body screamed for more and more and more and that insatiable hunger that Wooyoung lit in his body made him crazy with overwhelming feelings. The way his arousal hammered hard in his body. The rustling sound of fabric as they quickly shed their clothes. The hushed groan that fell from the youngers lips as San placed his hands on his naked chest. Placed his next kiss on the mole in the corner of Wooyoung’s lips, kissed the one underneath his left eye. Trailed his lips under his jaw, down the side of throat and got drunk on the way the younger moaned when he nibbled on the soft skin over the large carotid artery on the side of his neck. The sharp inhales of breath, as if the two of them forgot that oxygen was needed when they finally lay completely skin to skin. San flipped them over, and gasp escaped his mouth when the dream he’s had for so, so long now finally became realized. His friend was on display for him. Legs parted, so San could sit in between them, fingers combed through the blonde messy hair off his, chest heaving with each shaky breath and San choked on his breath again, it was inevitable, when his eyes stopped at the leaking hard cock, blood red and twitching, turned towards the other’s belly button and Wooyoung almost whimpered as his hands fiddle with the sheets at the sides to stop himself from reaching down. “You’re beautiful” San could feel his heartbeat in his ears and tears in his eyes - from arousal, from the fact that he’s so unbelievable turned on that it was on the verge of being embarrassing… From the sight in front of him. Wooyoung looked away. Nervously bit down on his lip and time pauses between them again, because neither knows what to do now. Doesn’t know how to take the next step, where should they stop? Wait… Did they really want to stop? Was San literally going to have his wettest dream ever turn reality just before midnight in a hotel the day before they’re going to do a big event? Wooyoung beat him to it, like he usually did, and San could only choke on a groan when his friend reached out and closed a secure hand over the length of his cock. “You’re overthinking too much, babe” Wooyoung whispered and placed a warm hand on the back of San’s head to bring him down before their lips met again. San saw stars in the darkness behind closed eyelids.

15:15

They changed after that one time. Like that last paper-thin invisible wall between them was finally torn apart. The comeback rolled around with the new album. Promotions, stages and travelling filled their days, causing sleepless nights and days that never seemed to end. Wooyoung rubbed the bridge of his nose and leaned back against the wall of the waiting room they’d been placed in. They were minutes from entering the small radio studio. One member short, three of them sick with a cold and Wooyoung just wanted to go home. Home to the security and familiarity of their dorm. Home to the place where he didn't have to think about how he looked or how his voice would turn out when he sang. Home where he could catch San in his arms and plant a kiss on his lips as they passed each other in the corridor that connected their rooms. Home where he could kiss those lips as much, and for as long as he wanted. Don’t misunderstand. He loved what he was doing, what they as a unit, had created… but this comeback in particular had been tough on all of them and he longed from a small break when he could do something he wanted to do for a chance. “Everything ok?” He flinched when the deep voice whispered in his ear, the hair on his neck standing when a figure came to stand right next to him. He turned, heart in his throat and immediately reached out to slap the arm of the person who now stood doubled over and laughing so hard Wooyoung thought a lung would burst. “You should’ve seen your face” San’s breath hitched from the lack of breath when he talked and he inhaled deeply, tried to collect himself, even closed his eyes for a few seconds to calm himself down but still only managed to hold the serious face he put on for two seconds until he started laughing again. Wooyoung wasn’t laughing. He just shook his head, like he couldn’t believe his friend and sighed deeply. Knew that he should be angry, because it wasn’t funny - but the dimples in San’s face and the way that he was still laughing at the prank he just pulled, made the corners of his lips twitch slightly as he tried to hold his composed posture. “Sorry darling” San whispered and placed his hand on Wooyoung’s shoulder to hold himself upright. Wooyoung shook his head again, swept the area with his eyes to make sure that they were alone before he cupped his friends face and placed a chaste kiss on his lips, taking away both the other’s laughter and his ability to breathe.

13:19

Fans noticed the change in their relationship as well. The feeds of their ship name exploded with every fan sign and the numbers of photos and videos raised on every possible platform. San didn’t know if he should be happy and proud that they had such talented and bright fans or worried because of that same reason. There hadn’t been any speculations that their relationship was real in any sort of way and management had been quiet so far. San hoped that they didn’t know, or at least that they didn’t care as long as the two of them kept what they did behind closed doors. The sort of industry they were in was a whole can of worms none of them (not San, not Wooyoung and certainly not management) wanted to open. The controversies of openly gay people in Korea was a heated subject and San cringed with uncomfortableness when he thought about it. It wasn’t forbidden, but they were a population driven by tradition and strict unspoken rules and while the “nuclear family” concept was a major part of that, anything that diverted from that perfect ideal was something no one wanted to have anything to deal with. Not San, who couldn’t imagine that he’d ever fit in with that concept. Not Wooyoung, who had way too much on his mind to even consider wanting a family, ever - both of them rather marrying the music, the art of dance, of expression, of freedom and colour and nature. Both of them rather marrying each other. But both of them also knew that it was still a dream to imagine something that big.

21:00

The 24th of October marked their first anniversary and Wooyoung had been fiddly all day. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t focus. Was so nervous he could feel his legs shake when they finally walked up on stage, singing the song that set the mark for them as a group and as a family almost a year and a half ago. They talked, cried, thanked everyone for coming, thanked the people who watched the livestream, performed and laughed and Wooyoung held his members tight when they did a group hug as soon as they had exited the stage. Held onto each other for a bit longer than necessary, breathing as a unit for a minute or two. Thankful that he had the fortune to share everything- this moment, with the people he loved. He looked over at San, his heart aching as the older of the two smiled through the tears that still streamed down his cheeks. Thankful that he found someone he considered his soulmate. Someone he never expected to meet at the age he was, in the industry he was working in, doing what he did for a living. Thankful that he could spend every waking minute watching his friend and every sleeping, being right there next to him. Never too far away and always keeping one eye on each other when they were apart. Never too far away to not be able to close the distance between them again. Thankful for the way that his best friend - his love, embraced him again when they were alone, after staff and the rest of the group made themselves ready to go back to the dorm. Hungry hands grabbing at his clothes, as if the action would force him closer. Thankful for the way that San’s lips moulded upon his own after they locked themselves into a bathroom a few doors down. The way the edge of the sink dug into the small of Wooyoung’s back when he was pressed into it by his friend’s body. The way San’s cock quickly got harder and harder against his thigh as the kisses got more and more urgent, more insistent, more voracious. Wooyoung whimpered against the others collarbone and the deep growl that escaped San’s throat made him weak in the knees. It was sloppy, wet and Wooyoung never wanted the high that flooded through his body and rushing through his bloodstream, to stop. San grabbed his hand, needy and demanding, and placed his open palm between his legs and the younger’s breath hitched when he felt the hardness there. A wave of confidence washed over Wooyoung as he unbuttoned the other’s pants, pulled down the zipper in one fast movement and San shuddered against him as his friend closed his hand around his cock. San wasn’t slow with mirroring the motion and Wooyoung melted to putty as his knees almost went out. Fell forward slightly with a breathless gasp and rested his forehead on San’s shoulder, watching as his best friend jerked him off too. Both thinking the same thing as their other hands sneaked around each other’s waist. San’s lips tasted sugary sweet of the cake they ate earlier, and Wooyoung was in heaven, he was sure of it. The intoxicating feeling of release was upon them faster than they both wanted but neither could hold back, neither wanted to hold back. San was the one that fell first, gasping back a rumbling moan between Wooyoung’s lips, and the younger’s breath hitched as cum splattered over his clasped hands. The older let him go, temporarily, placed his hand over his friend’s and the hand, wet with cum now, that closed around Wooyoung again made him quiver and a small whine slipped between his lips. He leaned back against the mirror, gasped when San placed soft nibbles underneath his collarbone, where a shirt would easily hide the marks later. “Fuck, you’re so amazing Woo, so fucking gorgeous” San’s voice was hushed against his ear and exactly what he needed as he came so hard his knees trembled. Coating his best friend’s hand completely and San’s breath hitched as he did so, almost amazed like he couldn’t believe that this is reality and honestly, neither could Wooyoung himself. So drunk on the high from the orgasm and the love he could feel, radiating from the other that nothing else mattered. Not the fact that they had no idea how to escape the building in the state they were in without causing a scandal or the fact that their leader was angrily knocking on the bathroom door, telling them with an annoyed voice that he would never treat them for dinner ever again if they didn't hurry the fuck up. A threat that Wooyoung took very seriously, but not serious enough that he didn’t take thirty more seconds of placing another sweet kiss on his love’s lips and chuckled slightly at the mess they’d created before he reached for the paper towels behind him.

11:43

“I could stare at your eyes forever” Wooyoung said, clutched at San’s side as they rested on the couch at the dorm. The tv was on, but none of them were really watching. San was studying English, or at least he’d tried to until his best friend laid down next to him, even though it was clearly next to no place left for him and scooted San closer to the backrest before he placed his arm over his friend’s midriff. The older of the two had grumbled slightly since he was put in an uncomfortable position and Seonghwa, who’d been on the other side of the couch sighed deeply as he looked over at the two snuggling men and muttered something incoherent under his breath before he rose up from his place. His steps trailing off to Wooyoung and Yeosang’s shared bedroom instead. “First off, that’s a lie and secondly cheesy as fuck” San answered what Wooyoung just said but didn’t look up from the pages he read as he talked. Glasses adorned his face and Wooyoung pouted slightly as he nuzzled his nose onto the other’s neck and earned a startled gasp when he did so. San gave the younger a look of warning, brows furrowed and eyes into squinting crescents and Wooyoung knew that he tried to look pissed off at his actions but nothing he’d ever done so far had angered the other. “Why is it a lie?” Wooyoung asked instead and puffed out his chest a little. Ready to defend his honour. “Forever is a really long time, Youngie. You can barely sit still for more than two minutes, so you can’t really expect me to believe that you’d spend so much time just staring at my eyes” The younger of the two stuck his tongue out, the desire to defend his honour falling flat as he wasn’t really one willing to fight against a good argument. San chuckled softly under his breath and turned the page to the next lesson. A few minutes passed. San read the words out loud and Wooyoung mimicked the way he spoke silently to himself. Tried to copy the way his friend pronounced the difficult sentences, but without success. A minute more passed and Wooyoung was getting bored. He rubbed his face against the others shoulder. Closed his eyes and inhaled the familiar, safe smell that filled his senses and calmed his busy mind. “Sannie-ah” He said suddenly when San had turned another page. The older hummed in response, still not looking at his friend. “You can either choose to spend time with me, or you can choose to spend time with me. Those are your options” He said in a sugary sweet voice while fluttering his eyelashes and San shook his head in disbelief and tried to hold back a laughter. “What about the third option?” San asked and finally met Wooyoung’s eyes. “What?” The younger asked and looked back at him, puzzled. “You find someone else to bother and I can finish studying. We need someone else than hyung to rely on when we go abroad” Wooyoung pouted. Looked away as he felt his cheeks flush. Knew that it was selfish of him to crave so much attention when his friend was clearly trying to improve the way the group was perceived. “Maybe you need a little break? I can… I can…” Wooyoung started and glanced behind him towards the kitchen. “I can uh, make you something to eat. Bake some cookies or something” San met the other’s eyes. Wooyoung’s face was still slightly flushed a light pink, brown eyes pleading for some sort of attention. San sighed, knew in his heart that maybe he’d been a bit harsh with his words. He knew how his friend worked by now after all. Knew that he only craved that necessary human contact a bit more than your average person. And who was San to reject him that? He placed the book at the floor below them, placed his hand on the youngers thigh to pull it over his waist and met his friend’s surprised eyes again. Those eyes that darkened so incredibly fast San could feel his heart flip hard in his chest. He placed his hands on the others waist and (with some help) hoisted him up so that Wooyoung sat straddled over his waist. “What if I wanted you? You’re sweet enough to eat” San whispered and winked as the colour of Wooyoung’s face got darker. His fingers rid up the younger’s shirt slightly and Wooyoung gasped slightly with surprise as San placed his hands on the naked skin over his hips instead. Wooyoung’s hands splayed over his friend’s chest and he could already feel his arousal rushing through his body like a rapid fire. He was just about to lean down and catch San’s lips when a surprised shriek made them both flinch with surprise. “The living room too? My god, I knew it was a mistake to agree to live like this. What even did I expect with eight horny guys within 200 square meters? My eyes, my virgin eyes” Jongho’s complaining voice trailed off as he quickly fled the scene and locked himself in his room. The couple on the couch locked eyes and busted out in a laughing fit, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they should go into the private of one of their own rooms instead as well before things started to escalate even more.

20:09

Sometimes Wooyoung was unsure if he could trust his heart at all. He knew that he, his heart, soul, mind and body that is, had made a right choice. About the career he’d chosen, about the group he’d been paired up with, about the decisions he made in everyday life. About the fact that he loved Choi San. But that was still something entirely else. Something consuming, suffocating, amazing and enticing. To know that every look, every smile, every laugh, every snap of those hips of his when he danced, were all Wooyoung’s. No one else. They could imagine. Could fantasise. But it was Wooyoung’s bed that San chose to crawl into when he felt lonely. Wooyoung’s body he pressed against the wall of a bathroom stall when they had been without close body contact for too long. Wooyoung’s voice that he silenced with one hand over his mouth as his other closed around the younger’s hard cock. Wooyoung’s cum he smeared over his bottom lip as his friend came down his throat. San was his and he was San’s. That was just the way it was. And it scared him. It scared him that all the love he felt for the other could never be out in the open. That it would only take one photographer in the wrong place for everything to go to hell. That the pure fact that they were both men was the main reason why his heart flipped with anxiousness every time San closed in on the safe distance, they always put between them when they were in public places. That he didn’t know if a magazine would predict his sexuality, or San’s, and put it on the front page before he’d even figured it out himself. It scared him so much that he was unsure if he could trust his heart at all. Because everything else, his mind, the logic part of his brain, told him to quit doing what he was doing. To quit acting like an idiot. To just wake up from the pink coloured shimmer that clouded his senses whenever he was with his best friend. “What are you thinking about?” But then that voice interrupted his anxious mind. “You looked so lost, Woo” Those arms wrapped around his body. “Sorry for bothering your train of thought, I just needed to…” Those lips were upon his. And he was home, wondering why he ever doubted himself.

08:09

Rain was smattering on the windows of their dorm when the question first arose. “Sannie-ah?” Wooyoung asked, just before breakfast and still sleepily cuddling his friend. They had a lazy day, with only dance practise and a meeting later in the afternoon planned. San hummed in response; eyes still closed as he nuzzled his nose into the younger’s pillow. The bottom mattress of the bunk beds were empty. Yeosang had fled the room muttering something about five years of friendship and how he has never felt so betrayed in his entire life when Wooyoung had entered their bedroom with his arm looped with San’s late in the evening yesterday.   Loudly complaining to Yunho when he’d climbed into San’s empty bed a few doors down. “I uh… I was wondering if… if you wanted to… I- I mean… if you think that we are ready… because it’s totally ok if you don’t...” Wooyoung trailed off and San opened his eyes, curious as to why his friend seemed to have such a problem asking whatever it were, he wanted to ask. The younger looked away, blushing and quickly rolled around in the bed, so that his back was turned towards San instead. The older of the two raised himself up on his elbow and scooted closer, so that his frame was pressed onto Wooyoung’s back before he leaned over his friend. “What?” He asked and Wooyoung exhaled sharply, frustratedly at the heavy words he wanted to say. “Nevermind” He muttered and even though San wanted to press on, he decided to just leave it. Guessing that the question would probably rise up again if it was important. The next time it happened, it was the same afternoon. They were the last ones in the dance studio. Goofed around to the music that played loudly. Came up with new twists of their choreography. Set a random list on shuffle and competed who’d remember the dance to it first. Laughed loudly whenever the other messed up. The song switched. San could see how Wooyoung’s face fell in the mirror in front of them when the notorious song “The Eve” started to play. He just gave the other a smirk just as the chorus started and delivered the fatal blow in the choreo that made Wooyoung’s eyes so dark San thought he’d drown in them. The younger’s lips were on his within two seconds and San yelped in surprise when the tackle almost made them both fall over. It was hurried, close to painful as teeth almost clashed and noses brushed, but the older quickly placed his arms around his friend, pulling him in closer with a tilt of his head. A familiar fire lit in his body and he was gasping for air within seconds, feeling like he was drowning but welcomed the feeling - leaned into it and groaned with disappointment when Wooyoung suddenly took a step back, out of San’s arms and broke them apart. “We should fuck” Time seemed to freeze around them as soon as the words fell from Wooyoung’s lips and San had to take a few seconds, still a bit lightheaded from the kiss, while his brain was processing what just happened before he could react. He chuckled slightly, with a voice that seemed to think that his friend was joking. “What, like right here?” He asked, brows raised as he nodded towards the dirty dance floor and Wooyoung inhaled sharply, his chest shaking slightly while he did so. But he didn’t break out in a smile and San’s face fell. He fiddled with his shirt as he realized the situation. Opened his mouth to try and explain himself but Wooyoung interrupted. “I know that you’re just joking but yes, right here, if you want to. I don’t care anymore. I’m so sick and tired of waiting for the perfect time. I just want you to fuck me for so good, for so long that the only thing in my mind will be your hands on my body and the way you’ll sound when you’re inside of me” Wooyoung was breathless, almost gasping for air. The words he’d just said left him shocked and he could feel how his whole body flushed red when San’s mouth fell open. “I…” The older tried his hardest to form a sentence or even just a few words, any sort of words that would make sense. A few seconds passed. Neither of them moved a muscle. “I… won’t fuck you right here and now. I’ll treat you good. On a bed. With candles. All of that good stuff” San finally said and chewed on the inside of his cheek as his heart thumped in his chest and his stomach did somersaults. Wooyoung nodded slowly, knowing that for their own sakes, the floor of the dance studio was probably not the best place to get down on. A chuckle escaped San’s mouth as he pulled in the younger for a soft hug.

16:34

It was fifteen days before Wooyoung’s birthday. They had a fan sign in Suwon that day and nothing planned the day after. It took some negotiation and a few days of consideration and planning, but management finally agreed to let them spend the night alone in a nice hotel, even though the town they were going to be in was only 30 kilometres from Seoul. On two conditions that was - one; they had to pay everything out of their own pockets, food, the room, anything else that they wanted and two; three staff members would come with, to make sure that they weren’t going to get ambushed in case someone would recognise them.   So here they were. After the fan sign was over and the other members gave them all too knowing smirks and did suggestive hand gestures that quickly made their manager close the car door in case a photographer would be within distance. Wooyoung thought his heart would jump out of his chest when their manager held out their room key, gave them a sharp look and for a second they both feared that the furrowed brows was out of disappointment. “Boys. We know. We all know. Some disapprove but most of us are happy. We just want you to be careful” They both nodded, felt how the anxiousness in their bodies eased off and their manager just gave them a swift nod before he turned around to enter a room a few doors down. It was still only afternoon so they both decided to get something to eat. Watched some tv, played some games and tried to act normal. But there was a tense feeling in the air. Something that neither could shake off. They watched the sunset, fingers laced together and it almost felt like they were going to perform a ritual when Wooyoung closed the balcony door after them, moved the curtains to cover the windows and turned around just in time to see how San grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. He wet his lips, feeling nervous all of a sudden and not at all as pushy he’d been when he first requested that they’d sleep together. “We’re really doing this, huh?” He asked as San closed the distance between them with two quick steps. “We’re really doing this” His friend whispered back with a short nod and Wooyoung could see how his Adam’s apple bopped when he swallowed hard. The older looked up, unsure if he should proceed and Wooyoung nodded slightly, closed the last step between their bodies and grabbed the other’s hands before he put them on his hips. Felt how his heart raced in his chest when San’s warm hands sneaked under his shirt, grabbed the hem of it and pulled it over his head as well. Wooyoung bit his lip. He’d seen the other like this so many times, he thought he’d be used to it by now. But it still took his breath away. The way his friend was sculpted. The way those jeans he was wearing hugged his hips and legs. The way he took a shaky inhale of breath when Wooyoung admired his beauty. San blushed, looked away as the younger placed his hands on his thin waist, thumbs rubbing down the v shape of his hip bones. “I still can’t believe it” Wooyoung whispered, the disbelief mirrored in his voice as San locked his arms around his waist. “What?” The older asked, and Wooyoung shuddered slightly from the feeling of his hot breath on his face. “I can’t believe that you want me back. That the dream I’ve had for so long, long before I met you - to feel what I feel right now…” He looked up and met the other’s gaze, breath hitching as brown met brown and that gentle smile San only showed for him tore at the strings of his heart. He swallowed and sighed deeply, returned the smile and fought the emotions that bubbled in his chest and strained at his throat. “I couldn’t have said it better myself” San answered softly. His hands travelled up the younger’s chest and Wooyoung closed his eyes when he felt his friend cup his face. It started off as a gentle peck. Just lips pressed against each other. Over and over as their bodies flushed just as close. Belt buckles clanging against each other. The younger’s hands buried themselves in San’s hair. Tugged on the lighter shade that brushed against his neck while his friend’s hands travelled up his back, fingertips almost harshly caressed over the skin with a silent request, a need for more. San took a step back and Wooyoung followed, until the older’s legs hit the bed and they fell backwards in a surprisingly controlled fashion. San on his back now, with Wooyoung half draped over him. They separated, just for a second to snort out a small laugh at their own clumsiness before the younger moved to straddle his friend’s hips and the funny feeling that had paused their moment was blown away. San swallowed hard and his hands came to rest on the younger’s hips again. “I need you” Wooyoung whispered, out of breath and with a stomach that flipped nervously. Like the tiny butterflies that occupied it was fluttering upwards, making him choke on the feeling of his friend’s hard body between his legs. San gave him an almost pained expression, a wrinkle between his brows as his right hand came to rest on his friend’s cheek. Wooyoung closed his eyes again, inhaled deeply as he leaned into the soft touch. When their lips meet again, it was sweet. Gentle. But with an underlying craving, a greedy need for more. Delicate. But with a sense of immediate warmth as they pressed harder against each other. Like that invisible string that connected their bodies got shorter and shorter. Like the affection, the feeling of furious desire and agony that has been building up for so, so long was finally getting released into the air around them. Capsulated them in a time that seemed to slow down as they moved against each other. Coating their senses and sending the hormones that already covered their every action like a fine dust, into overdrive. The feeling spread through Wooyoung’s entire body and he could feel his heart sing with bliss. He arched his back, pressed down on the other, his appetite, the longing he felt simmering in his stomach grew in size with every short gasp of air he could manage to fit in between their lips. Craved more of the feeling that San painted him with, as he deepened the kiss with a small tilt of his head and coaxed Wooyoung’s lips open with a small push of the tip of his tongue. Craved more as the other tasted his lips with a flick of that wicked tongue and Wooyoung’s breath hitched as the ability to gain oxygen to seemed to disappear. His hands get tangled in San’s hair and he pulls on it hard, earning a low, dangerous groan from the other. San’s hands are on him, brushing down his chest, slipping his fingers under the edge of his pants. Pulling desperately on his belt buckle. Jolting Wooyoung’s entire body in the process as he almost violently unhooks it, barely letting the younger catch his breath before he undoes the button and pulled down the zipper in one swift moment. Wooyoung gasps again, lightheaded from the lack of oxygen and the other’s hands on his naked skin. He breaks away from the kiss quickly and raised himself up slightly to pull down the jeans over his thighs. San’s hands leave him for just a few seconds, to take off his own pants and when they finally just had that one last layer of clothing separating them, their eyes met again, and San watched him with that look. The one that made Wooyoung feel like he wanted to cry. Because everything he ever wanted, except for his dream to sing and dance until people would forget his name, was right here, right now. Breathing just as heavily as he was himself. “Can I…?” San asked, his voice broke slightly in the process as he taps on Wooyoung’s hips. The younger doesn’t answer. He don’t have to. They change position and Wooyoung can feel how nervous he really was when he slowly separate his legs. They had seen each other naked before. When taking a shower or nowadays, when they quickly mutually masturbated or just laid skin to skin because it was what they craved, what they needed, at the moment. He choked on his breath as San hooked his fingertips onto the edge and pulled down that final layer of clothes. Screwed his eyes shut as the other inhaled sharply when his cock sprung free, already rock hard and even though Wooyoung couldn't see, he could feel that the tip pressed onto the skin of his lower stomach. San groaned. Cursed under his breath. The younger carefully opened his eyes. Wet his lips and bit hard onto the lower one to keep a moan from slipping out between his lips as he watched his friend. Met those blown out dark eyes. A strand of hair fell over San’s eyes as he tilted his head to the side, as if he wanted to make sure that the vision in front of him was real by seeing it in another angle. A shaky breath shook his chest. “Come here” Wooyoung whispered and made grabby motions with his hands. He didn’t have to ask twice, and San smiled into the kiss as their lips met again. Smiled as Wooyoung’s breath hitched when he snapped his hips forward and thrusted his still clothed cock against the swell of the younger’s ass. San’s kisses travelled, down from the corner of Wooyoung’s lips, to his jaw. Placed sweet burning nibbles down his throat. Wooyoung’s blood was boiling and every quick heartbeat pumped it through his body until it felt like white hot flames licked at every millimetre of him. He couldn’t help but move, desperately craving some sort of release. Cock twitching against the older one’s lower stomach as they lay flush against each other and San swallowed hard from the feeling. Looked up from his position as his lips hovered over a hard, dark nipple and met the other’s eyes before he pressed a flat tongue over it, played with the bud and revelled in the gasp that fell from Wooyoung’s lips. Turned to the other while his hands stroked down the younger’s sides, hands splayed over the ribcage and another short gasp fell from Wooyoung’s lips as the possessive behaviour the other displayed made him immediately submit to the fire that burned as relentless fingertips bruised the thin skin across the bones that hid his vitals. Scorching kisses continued down his midriff, his belly and he choked on his breath again, hands twisting the sheet underneath him when San looked up at him again. Breath ghosting the tip of his cock and the younger trembled. Tried his hardest not to thrust up against the plump soft lips of the other. “Please, I… I need” Wooyoung could hear his voice break as he plead for the release that pricked his skin and left him breathless. A wrinkle appeared as the older raised his brows and a dangerous smirk took over that sinful mouth and Wooyoung suddenly understood what all the fans were talking about when they said that San looked possessed on stage, because that was exactly what he looked like now. With those eyes hooded into two crescents and it felt like Wooyoung looked directly into a solar eclipse because of how dark they were. He chewed on his cheek when the other opened his mouth, hands locked over Wooyoung’s hip bones to trap him against the bed as his tongue sneaked out to kitten lick at the beads of pre-cum that escaped the tip and stars exploded in the darkness behind the younger’s closed eyelids. A drawn-out curse fell from his mouth and he could almost hear how San chuckled before he repeated the action. Softly caressed the other's hipbones with his thumbs. “Look at me Woo” The older’s voice was so deep, so unlike the one he usually spoke with that Wooyoung wondered for a split second if his lover and best friend actually had been replaced with a demon at some time during their session. He reluctantly opened his eyes again, met the other’s eyes and could only whimper when those soft lips of the other’s closed around the head of his cock. “Hyung” The honorific fell from his lips before he could stop them and he swallowed hard when San met his eyes again, surprised, just as he hollowed his cheeks and took him even deeper. The wildfire, so bright and burning, both in San’s eyes and the feeling that exploded in the pit of his stomach made younger’s breath hitch again, and it felt like he was completely and uncompromising engulfed within the flames. His cock hit the back of other’s throat and San choked around him slightly, not used to the feeling as he focused on taking deep calming breaths through his nose. Wooyoung was moaning mess. Body desperately trashing as the muscles in his stomach constricted from the feeling of the other swallowing him down. The tight space that enveloped his cock made him gasp for air, but San held him still. Kept him from thrusting up in his mouth even further as he bobbed his head in his own pace. Humming to the taste of friend as he lapped the head again. Kept eye contact as he swallowed him down and Wooyoung was cursing, both at the way San was treating him and the fact that he was locked down, unable to move. He let go of the sheets, desperately needing some sort of control, some sort of way to be able to reach the finish line faster. San’s hair rippled between his fingertips as he combed through the strands, tugged on them slightly and watched as the other’s eyes rolled back just before he let his eyelids fall. San let go of the restriction he had on the other, at least a little. Allowed Wooyoung to push down his head further. Moaned with his mouth full when the tip of his nose nuzzled the others dark pubic hair and Wooyoung groaned loudly. Back arching and head thrown back against the pillows. Felt how that blinding release was within reach and he held out his hands, a white flag raised as he completely surrendered to the void, ready to fall backwards into the darkness. “Hyung. I… I’m gonna” And San, that bastard, let him go. A smirk on his lips as he wiped the saliva that had trickled down his chin and Wooyoung’s mouth fell open to protest against the pure audacity of his friend. He would’ve argued, if it wasn’t for the hand that immediately closed around the shaft of his cock again. The lazy strokes that followed made him shut up and San chuckled under his breath. “Be good, Woo and I’ll let you come” His breath hitched and he grinned widely at the words. “And if I’m not?” Wooyoung asked and regret the decision to speak against the other as the warm hand quickly left the snug place around his cock. He whined, with pouting lips and furrowed brows and San just shook his head with an ‘I told you so’ expression on his face. Wooyoung swallowed, eyes moving from the others face to the clear dent in his friend’s underwear and he felt a tinge of regret when he noticed the rather large wet spot on the front of them. “I can make up for the disobedience…” He said in the sweetest voice he could muster, and San met his eyes again just as he placed a cupped hand over the head of his friend’s cock and the older almost doubled over from the sudden jolt that ran through his body from the touch. Wooyoung licked his lower lip into his mouth to bite back a loud moan as San rested his forehead against his collarbone when the younger’s fingertips stroked him through the thin material. “Fuck, Woo” The older cursed and exhaled harshly against his friend’s neck, nibbling at the skin there before he managed a deep breath and raised himself up on one arm, enough to lock lips with Wooyoung again. This time, though, it was anything but gentle and the younger met his lips with his mouth open, tongues meeting before lips did and San whimpered, low and guttural as Wooyoung swallowed the taste of him. The need to control, a need that San would’ve never guessed he’d ever feel with the younger, came over him again like a cold shower again and he welcomed the feeling. Submitted to the darkness, the need to dominate. He grabbed his friend's hand firmly, the one that was currently playing with his cock softly, running his fingertips over the head and tipping his thumb into the slit over and over. “More” San groaned against his lips and Wooyoung obeyed, like he’d promised he would, and didn’t hesitate to close his hand around the other’s cock when San pulled the underwear down his thighs. The gasps that fell from San’s lips made him dizzy. He circled the tip with his thumb again, collected the beads of pre-cum there before he let his hand moves over the shaft, jerking him off hard and fast and San groaned deeply as he shuddered against him. “Sannie-ah… hyung… I-” He choked on his own spit, gasping when the older seemed to have read his thoughts. San leaned back, half sitting up, towering over the younger on his kneecaps with his toes digging into the mattress for support. Quickly glanced down and inhaled sharply as he let his gaze rest on the way Wooyoung tugged on his length. The way his cock flopped back against his belly button with every stroke as the younger loosed his grip slightly at the base. He opened his mouth, allowed some saliva to fall from his bottom lip and watched as the spit spread over his friend clasped hand, mixing with the pre-cum there. He heard how the younger groaned at the action and looked up to meet his eyes, drunk with ecstasy. High from the serotonin jumping through the nerve endings in his brain before sending the feeling of euphoria through his body. He reached out, pressed his fingertips against Wooyoung’s lips and his friend opened his mouth without a question. Closed his eyes as San pushed past his lips, coaxing him to coat the fingers properly with saliva before he removed them again. A warm hand softly separated his legs even further and Wooyoung looked away, his cheeks flushing when San reached for a pillow beside him before he gestured for the younger to raise his lower half so he could place it under his waist. The older flinched slightly when Wooyoung let go of his cock, already missing the feeling but knew that he had to stay focused if this would be comfortable for the both of them. “We’re idiots” San whispered and Wooyoung swallowed when he realised the same mistake. They missed two vital parts, condoms and more importantly, since they both were 100 % sure that they didn’t carry any diseases, lube. “I’ll be patient” The younger promised, heart in his throat as he separated his legs further. He braced himself for pain, even closed his eyes again, but the pain never came and when he opened his eyes again, San looked back at him with a big sigh. “You need to relax” The older said and was immediately met with a roll of the other’s eyes. “Choke on my dick and maybe I will. You’re not the one about the get fucked in the ass” San scoffed but did as the younger said without a heartbeat’s hesitation. The vibrations from the older’s chuckle when a silent scream fell from Wooyoung’s mouth as soon as his friend closes his lips around his cock again, just made everything even more intense. San reached up again, took a moment to his advantage and pressed his index and long fingers so far into the younger’s mouth that he could feel his oesophagus clench around his fingers. He chuckled again but was silenced as Wooyoung thrusted harshly upwards as revenge, and San’s eyes watered as the other’s cock almost painfully hit the back of his throat again. He removed his fingers, and while they were still coated in spit, circled Wooyoung’s hole, opened his eyes when the motion earned him a surprised gasp from the younger and took him so deep into his throat as he could in the same moment as he pushed in his finger. It was beautiful, even through the teasing and fucking around with each other they’d just done, to watch as Wooyoung lost it so… completely. San’s eyes teared up again, but this time it was because of a completely different reason than the pain that tore at his throat. Wooyoung writhed underneath him and San let the other’s cock fall from his mouth. Reached forward to lean over his friend. “San” Wooyoung whined, breathless as he opened his eyes again, fingers quickly entangled in the older’s hair as he pushed him down for another kiss. Lips falling open as San adds another finger, carefully scissoring them while pumping them in and out and Wooyoung choked on his breath every time the older tickled that bundle of nerves inside him with his fingertips that make stars dance in front of his eyes. They make eye contact, and Wooyoung can see his own reflection in the darkness of those eyes, sees the way he looks, all flushed pink with his mouth open, panting with his brows furrowed with concentration. He looks away, embarrassed but San doesn’t let him. He leans back, to keep his balance and place the hand that held him upright, on Wooyoung’s chin and even though the motion is careful he still forced his friend to meet his eyes again. “Look at me… You… You’re so beautiful it hurt and the way-” He paused to look down at the way his fingers are being swallowed by the other’s tight hole, over and over again. “Fuck, I-” “I… I can’t take it anymore, I’m ready” Wooyoung interrupts and San swallows hard, nods and spits in his hand before he gives his cock a few strokes. Makes sure to coat it as properly as he could with the means they had. Wooyoung’s heart thumped so hard he can hear it in his ears. He placed his legs around San hips, pulling him in closer by latching them together behind his back and San locks eyes with him again as he guides the tip of his cock against the other’s entrance. … It doesn’t necessarily hurt. The feeling is just… new… and San cursed loudly under his breath as he pushed in the head of his cock, already breathless as Wooyoung squirms to the uncomfortable feeling. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but you need to relax Woo” San tries to say as he presses his forehead against the younger and Wooyoung gasps loudly when the other tries to move again. San placed a sweet kiss on the other’s lips. Tries to make him think of anything else than the intrusion feeling of the other’s cock pushing deeper and deeper into him. It helps. The feeling of San’s lips moving against his as the older bottoms out inside of him and Wooyoung can only moan out when his fingers close around his cock, pulling at the length while San tries his hardest not to move another muscle until the younger says it’s ok. He blinks away the tears in his eyes as Wooyoung constrict around him, getting more and more used to the feeling of being filled up. “You’re doing so good, baby” San swallows hard and moans as he feel how Wooyoung’s hand brushes against his stomach when he jerk himself off to take his mind off San’s cock twitching inside him. An agonising moment pass and even though it feels like five minutes, no more than thirty seconds has probably passed. “You can move now” He starts out slow, head falling back when the first jolt of his hips rocks the younger’s body. Indulge in the way Wooyoung sound when the tip of his cock nudges against his prostate. Loved the way Wooyoung looks up at him, eyes drunk and hooded as he lazily stroke the underside of his cock to the pace that San has set. Moaned loudly when he picked up the speed and Wooyoung’s eyes fall back as his back arches from the pleasure that shoots up his spine. Cursed even louder when his best friend, his lover, spreads his legs even wider and places them on his shoulders instead and San sinks lower into him than before. The younger is a mess underneath him. Groaning and cursing under his breath with his arms thrown over his head, cock flopping against his lower stomach now with every thrust San moves his body with, too scared that he’ll come too fast if he keeps touching himself. He holds onto the pillow his head in resting on, swallows hard as San grips onto his hips, moving his whole body down to impale him on his cock as he jolted his hips forward to meet them. “Are you close Wooyoungie?” San’s voice is laboured, and he breathes hard with the question and Wooyoung opens his mouth to answer but realise that no words come out, so he settle with just nodding shortly. So close now that he only needs to take a step backwards and he’d fall into the abyss. He reaches out, place his hand in the softness of the others hair in the back of his neck and San’s whimper is muffled by Wooyoung’s lips as they press their lips together. It’s hungry, without control and less of a kiss than just the need to taste each other. Wooyoung clenches around him. It’s totally without his control and only because the sudden closeness between them caused the lower part of their bodies to rub against each other. Stuck between two clenching stomach was the younger’s neglected cock and the pleasure that shot through Wooyoung with the friction caused him to clench. But it was enough to send San toppling over and just like that, he paused, breath hitching as his eyes rolled back and Wooyoung gasped with realisation as the other’s cock twitched inside him, painting his insides with ribbons of warm cum. He shuddered, arching his whole body to the satisfying feeling and San wasted no time, not even down from his high before he started to move again, closed one secure hand over Wooyoung’s cock and locked their lips together again. Taking away his friend’s ability to breathe completely. Wooyoung fell not shortly after, not able to continue holding on as the other squeezed just right around his cock. San gasped at the sight, choking on his breath for probably the hundredth time as Wooyoung flinched when the overstimulation kicked it. The older pulled out slowly and then they lay there, tangled in a sweaty, nasty smelling mess but happier than they have ever been. San held onto him, his Wooyoung and smiled while placing a kiss on his forehead. The younger placed a hand on the other’s cheek and couldn’t help but smile back when his friend leaned into the touch, wondering for a moment, while San’s eyes were closed and Wooyoung’s heart was so full he thought it would burst. What did I ever do to deserve you?

--- San considered himself a free spirit, a traveller in many ways than just going from place to place. Ever since he was just a child, growing up with a dream too big for the small town he was born in. Always willing to risk looking like a fool- for love- for his dreams- for the adventure of being alive. Always with one eye at the stars in the sky, aiming for them- letting them guide him as he got older. Always with a compass in one hand and a microphone in the other, until he met Wooyoung, and everything changed. San considered himself a passenger, an adventurer on the go, but never with a home. He found comfort in the place he was born in. The house he grew up from boy to a teenager with a dream, with his biological family. The dorm he grew up from a teenager to a man with that dream slowly getting realized, with the family he’d earned from the choice he’d made. But he was never content, always on the go, always ready to move on. Time passed and he found himself dropping the tight hold of that compass of his more often. Found himself less keen on picking it up again whenever he met his best friend’s eyes. Found himself not caring if it got lost, until that one day, on the 10th of July, when the compass disappeared completely- the very moment Wooyoung closed that last millimetre of distance between them and pressed his lips against San’s own. San considered himself an explorer, always ready to find the next party, the next place he could wreck with the energy that bounced off him like waves. Always ready to be the life of that next party. The mood maker. Always ready to bend himself backwards for the pleasure to rejoice among people. For everyone else to place a liking in him. Time passed again and he found himself suddenly not caring what anyone else thought, as long as those bleached blonde locks were the only thing that captivated his vision. Those dark eyes. That smile. That laugh. That body. That warmth that embraced him when he woke up crying in the middle of the night. That love that filled him up until he was gasping because everything Wooyoung did made him lose his breath in the best way possible. And then that day happened, on the 26th of November, when everything fell into place. When Wooyoung laced their fingers together as they looked up on the same stars that San used to look up upon when he dreamed of the future outside the house, he grew up in. When Wooyoung met his eyes and San saw stars in them too, mixed with the dark brown, behind even darker lashes. Half covered by the light, soft hair of his. When Wooyoung swallowed hard and squeezed San’s hand. When Wooyoung sighed deeply, smiled with that smile he only saved for his best friend. “I know that you know. But I just need to say it once” And San knew that he could stop traveling. He didn’t need a compass anymore. Didn’t need to use the stars as a guide to find the right path anymore. Didn’t need anyone else than the person in front of him. “I love you” Because his home was right there, holding his hand, promising with those burning words that he’d never let go.

I love you too

[brightbeautifulthings]

MAYHEM BY ESTELLE LAURE BLOG TOUR & CHAPTER EXCERPT

The Lost Boys meets Wilder Girls in this supernatural feminist YA novel.

Available July 14th, 2020

It's 1987 and unfortunately it's not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else.

But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self. There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good.

But when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost.

From the acclaimed author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure offers a riveting and complex story with magical elements about a family of women contending with what appears to be an irreversible destiny, taking control and saying when enough is enough.

About the Author:

Estelle Laure, the author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back believes in love, magic, and the power of facing hard truths. She has a BA in Theatre Arts and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and she lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her family. Her work is translated widely around the world. 

Twitter | Instagram | Get Your Copy

Read on for a special chapter excerpt of Mayhem!

three Santa Maria

“Trouble,” Roxy says. She arches a brow at the kids by the van through the bug-spattered windshield, the ghost of a half-smile rippling across her face.

“You would know,” I shoot.

“So would you,” she snaps.

Maybe we’re a little on edge. We’ve been in the car so long the pattern on the vinyl seats is tattooed on the back of my thighs.

The kids my mother is talking about, the ones sitting on the white picket fence, look like they slithered up the hill out of the ocean, covered in seaweed, like the carnival music we heard coming from the boardwalk as we were driving into town plays in the air around them at all times. Two crows are on the posts beside them like they’re standing guard, and they caw at each other loudly as we come to a stop. I love every- thing about this place immediately and I think, ridiculously, that I am no longer alone.

The older girl, white but tan, curvaceous, and lean, has her arms around the boy and is lovely with her smudged eye makeup and her ripped clothes. The younger one pops some- thing made of bright colors into her mouth and watches us come up the drive. She is in a military-style jacket with a ton of buttons, her frizzy blond hair reaching in all directions, freckles slapped across her cheeks. And the boy? Thin, brown, hungry-looking. Not hungry in his stomach. Hungry with his eyes. He has a green bandana tied across his forehead and holes in the knees of his jeans. There’s an A in a circle drawn in marker across the front of his T-shirt.

Anarchy.

“Look!” Roxy points to the gas gauge. It’s just above the E. “You owe me five bucks, Cookie. I told you to trust we would make it, and see what happened? You should listen to your mama every once in a while.”

“Yeah, well, can I borrow the five bucks to pay you for the bet? I’m fresh out of cash at the moment.”

“Very funny.”

Roxy cranes out the window and wipes the sweat off her upper lip, careful not to smudge her red lipstick. She’s been having real bad aches the last two days, even aside from her bruises, and her appetite’s been worse than ever. The only thing she ever wants is sugar. After having been in the car for so long, you’d think we’d be falling all over each other to get out, but we’re still sitting in the car. In here we’re still us.

She sighs for the thousandth time and clutches at her belly. “I don’t know about this, May.”

California can’t be that different from West Texas.

I watch TV. I know how to say gag me with a spoon and grody to the max.

I fling open the door.

Roxy gathers her cigarettes and lighter, and drops them in- side her purse with a snap.

“Goddammit, Elle,” she mutters to herself, eyes flickering toward the kids again. Roxy looks at me over the rims of her sunglasses before shoving them back on her nose. “Mayhem, I’m counting on you to keep your head together here. Those kids are not the usual—”

“I know! You told me they’re foster kids.” 

“No, not that,” she says, but doesn’t clarify. “Okay, I guess.”

“I mean it. No more of that wild-child business.”

“I will keep my head together!” I’m so tired of her saying this. I never had any friends, never a boyfriend—all I have is what Grandmother calls my nasty mouth and the hair Lyle always said was ugly and whorish. And once or twice I might’ve got drunk on the roof, but it’s not like I ever did anything. Besides, no kid my age has ever liked me even once. I’m not the wild child in the family.

“Well, all right then.” Roxy messes with her hair in the rear- view mirror, then sprays herself with a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and runs her fingers over her gold necklace. It’s of a bird, not unlike the ones making a fuss by the house. She’s had it as long as I can remember, and over time it’s been worn smooth by her worrying fingers. It’s like she uses it to calm herself when she’s upset about something, and she’s been upset the whole way here, practically. Usually, she’d be good and buzzed by this time of day, but since she’s had to drive some, she’s only nipped from the tiny bottle of wine in her purse a few times and only taken a couple pills since we left Taylor. The with- drawal has turned her into a bit of a she-demon.

I try to look through her eyes, to see what she sees. Roxy hasn’t been back here since I was three years old, and in that time, her mother has died, her father has died, and like she said when she got the card with the picture enclosed that her twin sister, Elle, sent last Christmas, Everybody got old. After that, she spent a lot of time staring in the mirror, pinching at her neck skin. When I was younger, she passed long nights telling me about Santa Maria and the Brayburn Farm, about how it was good and evil in equal measure, about how it had desires that had to be satisfied.

Brayburns, she would say. In my town, we were the legends. 

These were the mumbled stories of my childhood, and they made everything about this place loom large. Now that we’re here, I realize I expected the house to have a gaping maw filled with spitty, frothy teeth, as much as I figured there would be fairies flitting around with wands granting wishes. I don’t want to take her vision away from her, but this place looks pretty normal to me, if run-down compared to our new house in Taylor, where there’s no dust anywhere, ever, and Lyle prac- tically keeps the cans of soup in alphabetical order. Maybe what’s not so normal is that this place was built by Brayburns, and here Brayburns matter. I know because the whole road is named after us and because flowers and ribbons and baskets of fruit sat at the entrance, gifts from the people in town, Roxy said. They leave offerings. She said it like it’s normal to be treated like some kind of low-rent goddess.

Other than the van and the kids, there are trees here, rose- bushes, an old black Mercedes, and some bikes leaning against the porch that’s attached to the house. It’s splashed with fresh white paint that doesn’t quite cover up its wrinkles and scars. It’s three stories, so it cuts the sunset when I look up, and plants drape down to touch the dirt.

The front door swings open and a woman in bare feet races past the rosebushes toward us. It is those feet and the reckless way they pound against the earth that tells me this is my aunt Elle before her face does. My stomach gallops and there are bumps all over my arms, and I am more awake than I’ve been since.

I thought Roxy might do a lot of things when she saw her twin sister. Like she might get super quiet or chain-smoke, or maybe even get biting like she can when she’s feeling wrong about something. The last thing I would have ever imagined was them running toward each other and colliding in the driveway, Roxy wrapping her legs around Elle’s waist, and them twirling like that. 

This seems like something I shouldn’t be seeing, some- thing wounded and private that fills up my throat. I flip my- self around in my seat and start picking through the things we brought and chide myself yet again for the miserable packing job I did. Since I was basically out of my mind trying to get out of the house, I took a whole package of toothbrushes, an armful of books, my River Phoenix poster, plus I emptied out my underwear drawer, but totally forgot to pack any shoes, so all I have are some flip-flops I bought at the truck stop outside of Las Cruces after that man came to the window, slurring, You got nice legs. Tap, tap tap. You got such nice legs.

My flip-flops are covered in Cheeto dust from a bag that got upended. I slip them on anyway, watching Roxy take her sunglasses off and prop them on her head.

“Son of a bitch!” my aunt says, her voice tinny as she catches sight of Roxy’s eye. “Oh my God, that’s really bad, Rox. You made it sound like nothing. That’s not nothing.”

“Ellie,” Roxy says, trying to put laughter in her voice. “I’m here now. We’re here now.”

There’s a pause.

“You look the same,” Elle says. “Except the hair. You went full Marilyn Monroe.”

“What about you?” Roxy says, fussing at her platinum waves with her palm. “You go full granola warrior? When’s the last time you ate a burger?”

“You know I don’t do that. It’s no good for us. Definitely no good for the poor cows.”

“It’s fine for me.” Roxy lifts Elle’s arm and puckers her nose. “What’s going on with your armpits? May not eat meat but you got animals under there, looks like.”

“Shaving is subjugation.”

“Shaving is a mercy for all mankind.” 

They erupt into laughter and hug each other again.

“Well, where is she, my little baby niece?” Elle swings the car door open. “Oh, Mayhem.” She scoops me out with two strong arms. Right then I realize just how truly tired I am. She seems to know, squeezes extra hard for a second before letting me go. She smells like the sandalwood soap Roxy buys sometimes. “My baby girl,” Elle says, “you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to see you. How much I’ve missed you.”

Roxy circles her ear with a finger where Elle can’t see her.

Crazy, she mouths. I almost giggle.

[peppymint1986]

Who needs a laugh, or some advice

Source: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

I highly recommend going to the site and checking out the ones that did not make the top 100 list.  

Peter’s Evil Overlord List

My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."

When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.

I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.

I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.

My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.

All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.

I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.

I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.

I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.

I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.

If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.

If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.

If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.

I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.

Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.

When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.

I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.

I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.

I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.

If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.

If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.

I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.

If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.

My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.

I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.

I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.

The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.

My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.

If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.

I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.

Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.

I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.

If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.

No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.

I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.

All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.

If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.

I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.

When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.

I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)

If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.

I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."

If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.

If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.

If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.

I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.

I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."

I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.

My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.

After I captures the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.

I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.

I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)

If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.

When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.

My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.

My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.

My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.

If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.

Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

[starfleet-wannabe]

You’re my Best Friend- Joe Mazzello x Pregnant!Reader

Summary: Pregnant!Reader reflects on her Pregnancy while sharing a lovely moment with Joe in their kitchen.

Word Count: 1739

Warnings: Fluff. Just pure unadulterated fluff

A/N: This story is written and dedicated @elliesmithy3  aka. @rogerina-yee-haw who inspired the idea, without you this wouldn’t have come into fruition. Ellie, you are my muse and you never fail to make my day! I have recently started writing again as a hobby and this is only my second posted piece. It was really fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy, it means a lot to me that you would take the time to read my story.

Parenthood used to scare you. The very idea of a helpless, defenseless creature needing your care and attention to survive used to shake you to the core, as you imagined every little possible scenario that could go wrong. It didn’t help that as a writer your mind was prone to overthinking these horrific scenarios as a single thought would refuse to leave until you focused on every little detail. However, this was all before you met Joe, all before he became the love of your life.

  You had been married for nearly two years before you both decided to try for a family of your own, and with luck on your side, you became pregnant only after a couple of months of trying. To say you were excited would be an understatement. To say Joe was excited would be an insult to the word itself. You practically had to teether Joe to your side as he was bouncing off the walls with his energy, every part of him oozing with excitement as he couldn’t wait to become a dad.

“That’s our baby in there Y/N,” Joe said almost every single time he put his hands on your bump, wanting to feel every movement the baby made. His smile, while bright on its own, appeared to shine at over a million watts since you told him the news, never leaving your side and never taking his hands off of you!

“You are just so beautiful,” Joe said as he watched you in the kitchen, while you were making a small meal you were craving. Your Spotify playlist set to a classic rock station, as you continue to stir your meal.

“I’m glad someone thinks so,” You said, having not felt that well recently about your appearance. You could no longer see your toes when looking down and needed help with getting off the couch. While Joe was more than happy to help with every little thing you needed, you hated feeling like a burden to others and having to be dependent on other people.

“Y/N, I mean it,” Joe said a determined look in his amber eyes. “You are doing something so spectacular right now, you’re creating a baby, our baby, and that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” Joe wrapped his arms from behind you, resting his hands on your bump and if, on cue, your little ball of joy decided to kick back.

“Well dear, she already likes you,” You said turning off the stove and turning to face Joe. “I swear every time you’re near me, even if it just your voice she decides it’s time to play hacky sack with my kidneys.” Joe laughed at your comment before kissing your cheek.

“What can I say Y/N, I guess she just daddy’s little girl,” Joe said his smile growing bigger than before, a feat you were sure had to be impossible at some point, while he continued to run circles on your bump. 

You still remember just how enamored he was when you learned you were having a daughter. When the technical asked if you wanted to know the gender, you both couldn’t say yes fast enough, however, Joe said his at breakneck speed making you wonder when he learned to talk even quicker than he normally did. With the cold gel on your belly, and your right hand holding Joe’s, you looked on screen as the technician moved the wand over your stomach. You have done many ultrasounds before, but each one was more spectacular than the last, as you watched over the months of your baby developing, enjoying watching them hiccup on screen, as you felt their movements within you, fascinated by the sheer fact that this baby was growing inside you.

“Congrats you two,” The technical stated breaking you out of your train of thought. “It’s a girl!”

You felt your heart stop at the news, as you tried to process the information. You were having a daughter and couldn’t help but to start tearing up as you thought about the little girl moving within you, feeling her squirm, and that’s this was a little girl you already loved with your whole heart without ever having held her in your arms. You were already so in love, and you wondered how you were going to have more love to give her. 

When you turned to Joe, with tears in your eyes, the first thing you noticed was the stream of tears running down his face, like a waterfall into a river. Joe looked at you with so much love in his eyes. You couldn't help but fall in love with him all over again. You have always adored how sensitive Joe could be, and this time was no different. He stared at you for a bit, before looking back at the monitor, new tears forming as his eyes lingered on the screen. 

“We’re having a baby girl, Y/N.” He said at a whisper, still processing the news before his grin grew into an even bigger smile. Before you realized it, he started showering you in kisses, starting at your cheeks before finishing with a long tender kiss on the lips, unlike anything you ever felt before. This man never kissed the same way twice.

“I’m glad your happy, dear,” You said letting your fingers trance a few of his tears away.

“Y/N, I’ve been happy since the day you said you would marry me. This is just perfect! Life is just perfect! You are just perfect! And our little girl is going to be just as perfect as her momma!” You could only smile back, as your husband asked for at least ten copies of the ultrasound wanting to have a keepsake of this moment forever, his mouth still moving at nearly a hundred words per second.

It was the next song that came on the station that broke you out of your train of thought and caused you to look into Joe’s brown eyes, the lights of the kitchen showcasing the red hue of his auburn hair. It was the grim on his face that let you know he was thinking the exact same thing. 

“Do you still remember how our dance went to this?” You asked putting your arms on his shoulders as you did nearly three years ago. While he might have had on a nice tux back then and you had on a white dress smaller than your current size, the feeling remained the same; this man was the love of your life. “I might not be able to do all the moves.” You said looking back at your bump, a lovely smile on your face as you watched Joe put his arms around your waist, his fingers lingering on your stomach.

“That’s not a problem at all babe,” Joe said as he started to lead into swaying back and forth in your kitchen. “You’re my Best Friend” becoming white noise as you just looked at him and caressed his cheek, examining all the features you hoped your daughter would process. You wanted her to be a mini copy of Joe with ginger hair and brown eyes running around the house. You found yourself longing for the days when Joe and her would be driving you crazy in the best way possible, as he no doubt would spoil her, giving her every little thing she would ever desire, showering her with so much affection. You looked at Joe and saw all the fears you ever had for the future go away, as you knew he already processed so much love, more than any man should be allowed to. When she started kicking up a storm again, you pulled Joe right hand from your waist and watched as his face lit up with every little kick. He kneeled before you and lifted your shirt to reveal a small sliver of skin, his hands laying on both sides of your stomach, and while there were days you felt as big as a house, you couldn’t help but feel like a goddess right now, as Joe’s attention was to the little life you created within you.

“Hi Baby Girl,” Joe said before placing a kiss above your navel. “We’re very excited to meet you, just a couple more weeks until we get to hold you in our arms.” His right thumb tranced the spot he kissed before your daughter decided to kick again. 

“Until then, please be kind to Mommy, she works so hard to provide so much for you, and you need to treat her with respect.” You could feel your eyes water up as you continued to watch as he bonded with your bump. 

“I love you so much and can’t wait to show you off to the world.” Joe got up from his knees and look at you as if he was looking into your soul. His features soften as his big brown eyes poured with love. Pulling you into a passionate kiss, you felt your breath hitched, as you leaned further into the embrace, closing the space in between as much as you could with your bump in the way.

  “You are going to be the greatest dad ever Joseph Francis Mazzello III.” You said after Joe broke the kiss, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders. 

“Only because I have an amazing wife to share this journey with,” Joe said placing a kiss on your forehead. “I can’t thank you enough for this wonderful gift.” His hands found there way back to your stomach, lingering for a moment before returning to your waist.

“Right back at you darling.”

“Hey babe,” Joe said causing you to look up, as you saw his eyes wide opened, staring at the stove behind you before he started laughing to himself. “I think your food is getting cold.”

“Let it get cold. I have all the warmth I ever need right here.” You said looking at him with a grin on your face. “Plus I found a better craving to satisfy me.” You said as you leaned your head on his shoulder and taking in his scent. You have never been happier. Ever fear, and every anxiety you ever had about becoming a mom failed to exist, as you knew that as long as you had Joe by your side, you would be able to handle anything in your way.

[ask-de-writer]

THE COMING OF TAM O’ CANTER AND HEATHER BLOOM O’ RED HOOF TO PONYVILLE : Chapter 1 : MLP Fan Fiction

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The Coming of Tam O'Canter and

Heather Bloom O'Red Hoof to Ponyville

Chapter 1 of 12

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

28266Words : MLP fan fiction

© 2019 by Glen Ten-Eyck

Cover art by the author.  No references used.

Writing begun 05/28/12

//////////////

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

The names Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash belong to Hasboro, Inc.

////////////// Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged. ///////////////////////

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Chapter 1: An Ancient Map

Twilight Sparkle was laying comfortably on her favorite reading cushion in the Library. Her legs were folded neatly under her. The book that she was reading, held by the gentle grip of her magic, floated a little in front of her nose where she could see it easily.

Spike, the little dragon who assisted Twilight in the Library, curiously looked at the cover of the book. He read aloud, “The Strange Customs and Traditions of the Northern Dales and Glens.” Pausing to smile, he said, “Quite a mouthful. How long has it been since anypony wrote books with titles like that? It sounds antique.”

With a smile, Twilight looked up long enough to say, “A long time, Spike. This book is just over two hundred years old. It was only printed once and there are no newer copies.”

With an expressive shrug, Spike asked, “If nopony has been interested enough to even produce a new edition, then why read it?”

Rainbow Dash looked up from the pages of Daring Do and the Rare Blue Emerald long enough to snort, “You know the answer to that as well as I do, Spike. She’s a nerd. If it is useless, she wants to know it.” Her chuckle took the sting off of her words and she relented enough to add, “Besides, that useless knowledge that Twilight soaks up has turned out to be important all too often.”

Twilight Sparkle gave a small grin at the acknowledgment of learning’s value coming from Rainbow Dash, of all ponies. Instead of saying anything to let Rainbow Dash know how important that simple statement was to her, Twilight responded to Spike’s question.

“We cleaned out the map section a few weeks ago. Do you remember it, Spike? There was one that was so old that I was afraid to unroll it for fear that it would just crumble. I put it in a closed box with some damp cloths near it to help soften it. Last week, I was able to unroll it, so I put it under a sheet of glass on my work table to flatten it out and let me copy it.

“I sent a copy to Princess Celestia because I have never seen a map like it before. It was drawn on the prepared skin of an animal! Maybe it was a sheep or a goat. That was just the beginning. It does not even show Canterlot, though the mountain where Canterlot is shows clearly on the map. It also shows some mountains way to the north that I never even knew about. This one book is the only thing that I could find that even mentions them.”

The door chime interrupted as Applejack entered the usually empty Library. She inquired, “Did my book on the cultivation of Newton Apples come in yet?”

Spike replied, “It sure did, AJ. Here, we didn’t even take the wrapping paper off because there is a letter stuck under the binding string.” The little dragon fished under the counter and gave Applejack string bound package.

As AJ worked the string loose from the book’s wrapper, she commented, “Couldn’t help but overhear part of what you were saying there, Twi. What good is a map that don’t show things that have been there for centuries?”

Excitedly, Twilight replied, “It looks like the map might be a real antique! If my magic is right, that map is so old that Canterlot hadn’t been built yet. Of course Ponyville isn’t there, the town is only about, what, fifty years old? I mean, Granny Smith was one of the original settlers and she is still alive.

“What is most interesting to me are the things that do show. The river is in a different bed from what we know. I checked that. There are records about a big flood in the fifth year of Celestia’s reign. The river changed its course way back then.

“Think of it, Applejack! It shows something that happened at the very beginning of Celestia’s reign, before Canterlot was built. There is more, too. The hill over by the Everfree forest? The one with two peaks? It is shown with some sort of big house between the peaks.

“The words on the map are hard to read because the language has changed so much since the map was made. It looks like the hill is called Red Hoof. I wonder why the ponies that made the map called it that?”

Applejack got the string off and began unwrapping the book. “No clue, Twilight. Say, I just noticed, this letter isn’t for me. It’s for you. The address was facing the book when the letter got stuck under the string, that’s all.”

Twilight reached out with her magic and retrieved the letter, saying, “Thanks, Applejack.” Looking at the envelope, she said, “It’s from Canterlot. I wonder what it’s about?”

She neatly slit the envelope and the letter slid out and unfolded in the air in front of her. Seeing that the others were all looking on in curiosity, Twilight said, “It is from Princess Celestia but it is not personal. It is about the map. Shall I read it to you?”

There was a small chorus of “Sure, Twilight. We’d like to hear what she has to say.”

“Twilight’s voice began confidently, “My Dear Twilight Sparkle: I have seen the copy of the ancient map that you have found. You did an excellent piece of work in managing to unroll and preserve a document as old as this one is. Your magical link to let me examine the original document through the copy was an excellent piece of magic. I am proud of you.

“I believe that this map is the oldest written document in all of Equestria.”

Twilight looked up at her friends with a smile and said, “She said excellent twice.”

Rainbow Dash had quietly marked her place in the Daring Do book and looked up. She observed, “Yes, she did, Twilight. How about reading us the rest of the letter?”

Twilight began again, “I have recently had a pair of visitors who can shed further light on the map for you.

“I wept when I found out what that map means. You do know that Equestria was founded and the Elements of Harmony brought into existence before I and my sister Luna ruled. Had I ruled at the time of the events that lead to what we now celebrate as Hearthwarming Eve, those disharmonious events would never have happened.”

Twilight’s voice faded in shock as she read on, “This map is only slightly younger than I am.  It is older than the nation of Equestria. It documents the ancient atrocity that lead to the founding of our wonderful land.

“My visitors are coming to see you but they are traveling afoot. They have several errands to accomplish before they arrive in Ponyville. They are very different from us and their ways may seem at first glance to be dangerous, but they are good ponies.

“Technically, the mare is not actually a pony at all but you will see what I mean in person soon enough.

“Your Princess, Instructor in Magic, and friend, Celestia.”

Good and honest Applejack sat back in surprise and said, “Hearthwarming Eve is about an atrocity? How? I mean, it is all about finding Equestria and discovering the Elements of Harmony. How could that be bad?”

Rainbow Dash’s brow furrowed in thought as she said, “That’s right. The Hearthwarming Eve stories and the pageant don’t mention Celestia or Luna either. Somehow, I never even thought that there might be a time before the Princesses. That simply blows my mind. I wonder … what else we have never questioned about those times?”

Biting her lip, Twilight shook all over. She asked quietly, “Clestia wept at my map? An ancient atrocity? Is Hearthwarming a lie?”

Spike said thoughtfully, “It takes a week for a letter to come from Canterlot by post. I wonder why Celestia didn’t send it by magic, like she usually does? And what does she mean that one of our visitors isn’t technically a pony?” Sarcastically he added, “What else could she be? A Changeling? After that little fiasco at the royal wedding, I don’t really think so.” He chuckled, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Next==>

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[lady-literature]

Roman’s Daughters

Made for the Sanders Sides Big Bang, @ts-storytime

Summary: Roman has many sons, much too many to count. He only ever has nine daughters.

Pairings: Roman/Patton, Roman/Logan, Roman/Virgil, Roman/other people

Warnings: non-graphic violence, mentions of blood and injury, minor character death, non graphic mentions of sexy times

Apart of the same series: In the Sky We Fall | All Hail the Consort of Darkness | Ease My Pain and Soothe My Worries | The Gods are Dead

Read on Ao3

Roman has many sons. Much too many for anyone to keep track of.

He only ever has nine daughters.

His first is before he understands the love spring brings, the comfort of winter and the laughter of autumn leaves. It’s before he understands new love.

He is young and reckless. Heartbroken for a time he did not exist and a person he did not love, but he searches all the same for someone like him.

Someone like the memories he holds, the future he dreamed of.

He finds a woman with wit like a whip and laughter like the sun. She is the rich earth and the golden sun. Her wrists sparkle with the finer things and she worries not for the simple ones. She is mischievous in all the best ways and Roman falls for her. It’s not the same love as before he doesn’t think, but she makes him happy and that’s all that matters to him right then.

She bites kisses up his neck as he laughs and he leaves bruises on her hips as she plans pranks and jokes in that clever little mind of hers.

All is great. Until it isn’t.

Her father finds out. Locks her in a room to starve for her disobedience. Better her dead than carry a child out of wedlock.

Roman hadn’t known they were a secret. Hadn’t know he was supposed to hide.

When he finds out it’s too late.

He breaks down the doors, her father cooling on the floor behind him and her pale and weak in his arms. Her belly is swollen in a way that means one thing and he doesn’t know what to do. She’s dying in his arms and his child may never seen the light of day and he is sobbing.

His throat feels tight but he calls for Dahlia, for Mother Earth. Thinks that maybe the goddess of life can help him.

She comes in a flurry of spring breezes and sweet smelling things. The moment she rests her eyes on him he knows his precious Nadia won’t make it.

“Please,” he begs. “Save the child.”

It is bloody, and Nadia dies halfway through. Roman kisses her forehead. A final goodbye for his ray of sunshine in the darkness.

Dahlia hands over a screaming babe. She is warm and light and more beautiful than he could have imagined. She has her mother’s rich dark skin and curly hair, her eyes glowing amber in the dimness of the room. He loves her fiercely, and never wants to give her up.

“What is her name?” the Earth Mother asks, her voice quiet in the stillness of the moment.

“I’ll name her Thalia.” Roman looks at the Earth Mother, his voice sure, but his eyes less so.

She smiles at him. “That is a good name.”

Roman looks back at his daughter and can’t help but smile.

Thalia grows with beauty and grace and charm. She’s a handful in the worst way, running off and playing tricks. Her humor is all encompassing and she brings joy wherever she finds herself next. She reminds him so much of Nadia it hurts sometimes. The way she’ll cock her hip after telling a joke, or push her hair behind her ear when feigning innocence is a perfect copy of the mother she never got the chance to know.

He is older, but no less reckless and twice as arrogant.

He dances with the mortals on the night of the Autumnal equinox when he should be at Court greeting the arriving Season. Instead he finds himself on the bank of a river, bedding a wood nymph with hair like fire and a voice like bells.

Months later, when summer begins to set in once more, the fiery haired wood nymph finds him and thrusts a squalling bundle of warmth in his arms.

He stares up at her confused and stricken, cradling the child close to his chest.

“A daughter of fire and heat has no place among the trees. Her name is Euterpe.” And then she is gone.

This one has his light skin and the fiery red of the flames her mother danced with. Freckles dot her cheeks and shoulders and Roman has no idea what to do with this child. Thalia grew to womanhood via trial and error and hope. And Summer is right around the corner, he cannot rear a child right now.

He finds himself at Thalia’s door, her home brightly lit and cheerful. When she opens the door she merely rolls her eyes and opens her arms. Roman practically sags with relief, he kisses her forehead and promises to visit often.

“Of course, Father. You owe me a barrel of honey for this, though.”

“What on earth would you need honey for?”

His eldest daughter grins, wide and mischievous and a tad bit cruel. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Roman leaves before he can become an accomplice to whatever Thalia has planned.

He makes a mistake on the third. The sweetest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

He falls in love with the spartan prince. He falls for his beauty and laughter and wide, pretty eyes. He falls for a heart as full as his own. For a mind that dreams the way he does and understands. For a swordsman who’s skill and grace with the blade rivals his own.

Roman loves him with his whole being for a year. A wonderful year filled with love and light and happiness.

And then Roman loses him. His precious Hyacinth falls to the jealousy of another god, and he is killed in front of his eyes.

Roman remembers little more than fire and screaming before he shows up at his daughter’s house, their faces creased with worry when they look at him. He knows he is a mess, pale and dirty and crying.

Gods, he’s crying so much. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop.

His daughters, his beautiful, wonderful, understanding daughters pull him in without a word.

They sit on the floor for hours, days, weeks. Roman doesn’t know.

He only gets up when there is a knock on the door. Thalia stiffens, and moves to answer it, but he stops her. He knows who is there, but he doesn’t know why.

When he opens the door he finds a woman with golden blonde hair and dark olive skin. The child on her hip is a carbon copy for all except her eyes. Those were Hyacinth’s eyes.

“You’re Roman.” It’s not a question so he doesn’t answer. She continues, “I am- was Hyacinth’s wife.”

Roman flinches minutely at the use of past tense. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“And I, yours.” Her eyes glow bright with unshed tears and she looks less put together than a Princess should be, but her eyes are understanding. She holds no anger or jealousy in their depths and Roman thinks he would’ve liked her very much so in another life.

“This is my daughter, Calliope. I have been ordered to kill her. I cannot-” She swallows. “She is my everything. Please.”

The girl cannot be more than three summers old. But a royal bloodline cannot be muddied with a bastard child.

Roman opens his arms to receive the girl. “She has a home here.”

The woman sags with relief and presses a kiss to Calliope’s forehead for a long moment before handing her over.

He spends as much time as he can with his daughters for the next few years, leaving only for summertime and his godly duties.

He watches Calliope grow and write and learn. She fills her head with too many books and ideas that she must write them down to get them all out. She demands to be left alone for hours on end so she can write without interruption.

When she stops growing, Thalia suggests asking Time to make an exception with this one. Roman runs off the second she’s finished speaking and returns only when he carries the sweetened ambrosia that will make her immortal.

She is not of his blood but she is his all the same. He had been dreading having to watch her age and die. It seems her sisters had been too.

The house becomes filled with singing and laughter and thousands of half written scrolls and books.

Roman doesn’t think there’s a better place in the world.

Patton brings him his fourth. He comes to him covered in dirt and holding a too quiet child in his arms. He’s frantic and tense, his eyes darting around the undergrowth as if waiting for something to jump at him.

Roman goes to him immediately.

“My love, what’s wrong?”

Patton’s eyes meet his and there are so many emotions in those depths but Roman sees anger and worry the most. “I had too. Her name is Terpsichore and they- they were-” Patton stops, his face hardened with an anger Roman had never seen from him before. He looks furious and Roman doesn’t want to know what made him so angry, but with the bruises around the girl’s wrists and the tear tracks down her cheeks, Roman can guess.

His stomach rolls at the thought.

“I took her. Roman, I had too. Her mother, they-” Patton’s voice hitches and he stops talking.

Roman looks at the child. Her skin is darkened gray and her hair pale silver. Sharp teeth fill her mouth and he can’t see her eyes but he can take a guess at the color.

This is not the child of a human union, and he knows how the mortals fear what they do not understand. Knows that the gods may not fear, but they ignore and shun. This child won’t fit in. Won’t have any place were she can be herself.

His gaze returns to Patton’s. “What do you need.”

Patton sags with relief, the bleeding heart. “She is yours.”

Roman’s eyes widen. “I- what?”

“Raise her. Please. I don’t know who else to ask.”

“I am no father.”

Patton gives him a look like he thinks he’s exceedingly dim, and wow, he normally only gets that look from Logan. “Your daughters are wonderful and strong. I know you will raise her with love.” Patton passes Terpsichore into Roman’s arms and she immediately snuggles into his warmth, her face looking less pinched as he holds her close.

“You could raise her with more love than I.” It’s a token protest and they both know it. Roman is staring down at this child who hails from hell but will grow in the heavens and he already adores her.

Patton leaves him and Terpsichore with matching kisses on their foreheads and flowers in their hair.

Despite giving the care of Terpsichore over to Roman, Patton becomes as much of her father as he is,visiting whenever he can. Terpsichore follows in his footsteps as a wonderful dancer and she exudes a certain grace that neither of her fathers poses. Her nimble fingers weave flowers into her hair every day, and her and Patton look nothing alike but it is obvious she is her father’s daughter.

She finds herself at festivals and celebrations, dancing so beautifully that people forget the way her eyes absorb all color and her smile’s a bit too sharp. She prefers dancing to Euterpe’s songs though.

She is strange and bright and wonderful and she grows up in a place of light where people love her with all their hearts.

The fifth daughter is planned rather than chance. But she is not planned by him.

“Your daughter’s are growing into fine young women.”

Magic startles him so badly that he nearly impales himself on his sword. He turns around to face them, eyes wide and confused already.

“Uh… thank you?”

Magic studies him for a moment before their slitted cat-like eyes light up and a smile graces their lips. “You do not know,” The air around her sparks, “Interesting.”

Roman doesn’t know what’s so interesting about his daughters other than they are his whole world, but he doesn’t think Magic means it like that.

“I would like your consent on siring a child of my blood.”

Roman almost chokes. Magic has never been a- He never would have thought… Magic just existed. They had no set gender, no true form even. They were all and everything. To think they’d want to bear a child? It was a thought that had never crossed his mind.

“You want- I don’t- what? You want to- to-” Heavens, he can’t even say it. Magic is a wonderful person, don’t get him wrong. They are shy and timid but snarky and fun. Not the most threatening combination but when you add the power that they have at their beck and call you find they are not someone you’d want to cross.

Roman doesn’t understand how he got to be here, he just wanted to practice his sword skills.

Magic laughs at him. “You misunderstand. I do not wish for a daughter, I wish for a protege. Yours are growing finely and will be important one day. I want to have a daughter of magic among them.”

“But that still means…” Roman waves his hand, his ears pink.

“Roman, I am Magic itself. I can certainly create a child through unique means. I just need your permission for it to work.”

“Oh. Uh, sure. Yeah. Babies, yay!” he says weakly. Magic looks both amused and disinterested at the same time. They place their hand on his chest and yanks. Roman cries out and when he opens his eyes again--when had he closed them?-- he sees Magic holding a flickering, crimson red ball of light no bigger than an acorn.

“What is that?”

“Your essence. But only a part.” Their eyes flick to his. “The girl will be brought to you when she is ready.” And with that, they are gone.

It is a year later when a cradle appears from nowhere in the middle of the living room. His daughters eye it with curiosity but allow him to approach it first.

Inside is a little girl, merely a few weeks old, swaddled in a blanket made from woven wind. The child’s eyes are bright green, the pupils cat-like and all knowing. She stares at him as if she keeps the secrets of the universe safely tucked away inside her head. The fuzz utop her head is brown at first glance, but if she moves it just so it explodes into a million colors that shouldn’t exist.

There is a note placed next to her. Roman tucks the girl into the crook of his arm before reading it.

When she comes of age send her to me. She will have questions I can answer.

Her name is Clio.

When he looks back at his daughters, scattered around the room he finds varying levels of exasperation and curiosity.

“It’s too small,” Thalia pipes up, “Send it back.”

Terpsichore smacks her on the back the head and steps forward to hold her new little sister. His girls fall for her just as he knew they would, just as he knew he would.

Clio grows with her head in stuffed in between the pages of her books, with wit that cracks like a whip and is no less painful. She’s smart, maybe too smart, as she finds herself in the middle of at least five academic debates at any one time. At least three of them are because of Joan.

She learns to wield magic like breathing and Roman wholeheartedly believes that if she had the ambition she could take over the world with it. Instead she creates pocket dimensions to keep her growing collection of books.

Him and Logan are on the beach, enjoying each other’s company in a way they rarely get to. The waves lap at them when they roll to close to the sea. The smell of salt water and sweat filling the air as they scream and moan and touch.

When they finish they fall asleep on the sand, curled into each other and content with the world. The waves lap at their feet until the sunrises.

When Roman opens his eyes he finds himself looking not into the eyes of his lover, but that of a child. Her eyes big and curious and the seafoam green of clear waters. She looks at him with wonder and he stares back in confusion and mild fear.

He hits Logan on the arm to wake him up. He is not handling this alone.

“Uh, hello. Good morning,” he starts. A hello is a good start, he thinks. He doesn’t want to spook this child.

“Good morning!” she says brightly, her smile is wide and she’s missing a few teeth. “I’m Urania!”

“Nice to meet you, Urania. Where’d you come from?” Roman asks because he honestly doesn’t know how she got here. No one lives around here for miles.

“I came from the sea.”

“The sea.” Logan repeats, moving to sit up and yup, Roman glad they redressed before falling asleep. “Where are your parents?” Logan asks.

She looks at him like he said something funny and kinda confusing. “You’re right here, silly.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sea gave me life as a gift to you in exchange for something She took a long time ago.” She speaks as if she’s repeating words someone else said. “Look!” she lunges for Roman’s arm and holds her own up to it. “We’re the same.”

They are indeed matching shades of bronze. And she has Logan’s ears, long, awkward things that stick out from under her short, brown-black hair. She looks like them, a perfect combination filled with childhood wonder and innocence.

Roman looks at Logan over her head and sees him shrug. Roman sighs and begins making plans in his head for a new room in his ever growing home.

Urania is, without a doubt, Logan’s daughter. She adores the stars and spends hours gazing at them with a wonder that never fades from her eyes. Logan patiently teaches her the names of each one, tells her the stories of the constellations and the planets that move around them.

For awhile, the world is quiet. His daughters are all fully grown with their names recognized by many.

And then there is a war.

The Malevolent rise up and try to take the godly realm by force. They beat down their barriers and throw the world into chaos. He tries to shelter his daughters from the battles as best he can, but they are children of the God of War. The fight is in their blood, and they make their way to the frontlines anyway.

The entire time he is tense and worried, trying to keep an eye on all six of them as they make their way through the enemy. Carving a path of death and leaving only destruction is their wake. He is proud of the way they fight as a unit, playing off each others strengths and moving on to the next target before the last one knows they’re dead.

He’s so focused on his daughters and staying alive he almost misses it. The shrill cry of a woman a little ways off the path.

Roman whistles once to let anyone nearby know he’s fine before he rushes into the underbrush towards the sounds of screams.

He stumbles through the bushes a second to late. He sees the blow headed toward the woman’s stomach, watches as the sword slides through her like butter.

The woman falls and Roman charges the Malevolent who would so cruelly take an innocent life.

The second it’s safe he falls to his knees next to the woman. He recognizes her as one of the heavenly attendants. He’s passed by her many times and he remembers how kind she was.

And now, his hands hover over her bloody torso, unsure in what to do or how to help. She’s still breathing but just barely.

Her head lolls to look at him. “My- my daughter,” she forces out through stuttering breaths. “My Mel- Melpomene. She’ll be alone- I- Please- Help her. She is- hiding. Please.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll keep her safe. She’ll be safe.” The mother is gone before he finishes speaking.

He finds the girl hiding in the thicket a few yards outside the clearing. She’s shaking, her eye big and liquid when she looks up at him.

“You’re mother sent me. You’re safe now. It’s okay.” He reaches out his hand slowly, palm up so not to spook her. But it doesn’t seem a problem because she just looks at him, blinks once, and then throws herself sobbing into his arms.

She can’t be any older than two summers but she understands something horrible happened.

Roman carries her back to the safe point, careful to stay well away from the battlefield. She doesn’t ask after her mother and where she is. Roman is glad she doesn’t. He doesn’t know what he’d tell her.

Thalia is the first he finds at the camp. She takes one look at the shaking, little girl in his arms and knows immediately, what has happened.

Thousands of emotions flash across her face in the span of a second before she settles on cheerful. Her go to, to mask the pain.

She scoops the little girl out of his arms and begins talking her ear off. She starts telling stories and tales that are half lie and a quarter exaggeration but just the right amount of ridiculous. In a few minutes she has Melpomene smiling and half the camp laughing so hard they cry. A ray of sunshine in the darkness.

From that day on, Thalia and Melpomene are rarely ever seen apart. They are two halves of a whole. The light and dark sides of the same coin.

She is the quietest of his daughters, the most solemn at times and the harsh realist in a group of dreamers. But he loves her with the simple fierceness he loves all of them with.

The house is filled with art and singing and laughter. It’s rarely quiet, never still and writers and musicians come from all over the world to just speak with his daughters. Roman thinks he understands what Magic was talking about all those years ago when she said his daughters will become something amazing.

He and Valerie are walking through one of the more beautiful mortal gardens when she asks.

He doesn’t understand what she means until she turns bright red and waves her hands in front of her, “Oh just ignore me. I don’t know why I said that it must be the heat getting to me oh dear-”

“You want to be the mother of a daughter of mine?” He and Valerie had been friends for centuries, The Goddess of Love and the God of Romance too similar to be anything else.

“The whole pantheon wants to bear a daughter of yours,” Valerie says it like its common sense. “They’re beloved by all. Everyone wants to call at least one of them their own.”

This is news to Roman. He knew that his daughters were adored and loved but he hadn’t know that many were envious.

“You want to bear my child because… why? Power? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“What? No!” she says appalled. “A child born from the two of us can only have an affinity for love. I think the humans need someone to bring them a little more love right now.” She looks off into the far distance, as if she can see the atrocities being committed right now. Perhaps she can, the humans don’t seem to have much Mercy these days.

He consents, and they lay together.

It’s is awkward, bedding such a treasured friend but the two are close and end up laughing by the end. Their friendship not stronger, but still just as intact as it was before.

He’s by her side for the entirety of the pregnancy, unlike with his other daughters. He gets to feel her kick and move around and he thinks it’s magical.

They name her Erato and Roman knows that when she’s grown she’ll look like exactly like her mother but with broader shoulders and lighter eyes.

She turns out almost exactly like Valerie expected. Her heart is as big as the sun and she loves love. There’s always this faraway look in her eye and she leaves a string of broken hearts behind her. She is beauty and grace and a softness her sisters lack.

She sings about romance and family, writes about epic trials and true love’s kiss. Her poetry never fails to pull heartstrings and Joan finds another daughter of his that they like, though Erato is a stickler for happy endings that Joan will pull their hair out over.

Virgil bursts into the Hall of Seasons, still dressed as the King of Sky. He looks frantic and like he doesn’t know what to do.

In his arms is a child, a little girl who clutches at him like he’s her life line and Roman already knows what’s happening before he speaks.

“She fell from the sky. I- Logan said to come to you.”

The girl is pale, and she is thin, remarkably so. Her hair and eyes are matching shades of silver and she glows faintly. Roman thinks she might be a fallen star.

Before he can say anything, the girl speaks in a voice that echoes as if there is more than one person speaking through her, “You have been given daughters from the earth, sea and sky. Blessed to share a child with each of your dearest lovers. I am the last daughter you will have. I am the last gift to you.”

And okay. That is a mildly terrifying statement coming from a toddler, but that’s fine. He has eight other daughters. He can handle scary children.

Virgil on the other hand looks as pale as the child in his arms. Roman places his hand on his cheek.

“She’s mine too?” he breathes, looking down at the girl. She stares back up at him with curiosity and love. Virgil melts.

“Yeah," Roman kisses both their foreheads. "She is.”

They name her Polyhymnia and she grows with a voice like honey. It’s deeper and calmer than Euterpe’s and when they sing together Roman’s heart fills with joy.

Virgil spends every spare second he has around her, as if expecting her to suddenly disappear. He so obviously loves her with everything he has, Roman wonders how he contains it all in his chest.

Virgil doesn’t sing often, but when he does it’s only because Polyhymnia asked him too. When they sing together it’s like the night, calm and smooth and quiet. They are lullabies and darkness and the sweetest words.

Polyhymnia grows and then stops. Just before womanhood, grows into a not-quite adult and stops.

“Children have more faith and belief,” she tells him one day. Roman nods as if he understands even though he doesn’t quite get what she says. He stopped trying to follow everything his daughters say.

Especially Clio. Almost everything she says goes over his head.

Polyhymnia forever stays the youngest, the child. She doesn't mind though. She just keeps singing and laughing with her sisters.

Roman only ever has nine daughters.

Thalia, Euterpe, Calliope, Terpsichore, Clio, Urania, Melpomene, Erato and Polyhymnia.

They’re purpose, to inspire and create. To reign over the arts and sciences. To protect all knowledge and creativity.

Comedy, song, written epics, dance, history, astronomy, tragedy, love poetry and hymns.

They are known as the Muses.

[rebekahrosecresslia]

Rebekah meets the Sea Cucumber girl

Rebekah: *sitting alone secretly watching Madoka through her crystal ball then she hears a noise and makes the crystal ball vanish into star dust* I can sense your aura, I know you’re back there. Don’t be shy and come out, I would like to speak with you. *She sees the Sea Cucumber girl come out from hiding behind the bush* You’re the one who immobilized Anna, Honey and Libra didn’t you?

Sea Cucumber Girl: ! How did you know that?

Rebekah: I have my ways, I have psychic so I can read minds. I can also read the hearts of others if I wanted to. But I mean no harm, I didn’t come here to fight. I only watching over Madoka and Flare Pearl while watching the events unfold.

Sea Cucumber Girl: You know Ursula’s best friend and she’s alive?

Rebekah: Yes and I don’t just know her, I know the truth about her. A truth she can not yet fully remember.

Sea Cucumber Girl: ? What are you talking about? :3c

Rebekah: I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell Madoka or anyone else especially Ursula because it’s not for me to tell. It’s meant for Flare Pearl to tell the truth before the final events unfold in this whole affair.

Sea Cucumber Girl: *She just stared at Rebekah’s eyes and she could see that she wasn’t lying or even the type of living being to lie* You never told a single lie in all your life have you?

Rebekah: *Chuckles a bit* So you notice, yes that’s true I never told a lie because I don’t know what it’s like to lie.

Sea Cucumber Girl: *Thinks for a minute* Okay, I promise.

Rebekah: Flare Pearl...is a warrior princess and she and Madoka....are blood related. But no one besides me and Gerride knows this.

Sea Cucumber Girl: W....WHAAAAAAAAT!?!? O0O Ursula’s best friend is.....but why didn’t the King didn’t tell us this?

Rebekah: Because the King in the castle on the throne right now is an Abyssal Dweller in disguise, a mere fake copy. And the real king is still alive he’s just trapped in stone and locked in the dungeon, and he’s not alone others who are still loyal to him and the queen and even Flare Pearl and Madoka are trapped in stone with him. The Abyssal Dwellers wanted to erase Flare Pearl’s name and existence so they turn the ones who know to stone so they would keep quiet, I do not know what they are planning to do with Madoka, but I do know they want to destroy this entire world but my granddaughter lives not far from this part of the land and I’m not going to let that happen.

Sea Cucumber Girl: But why keep it a secret? QwQ

Rebekah: Think about it, who else would know the truth and leave the kingdom before being caught and not saying a word?

Sea Cucumber Girl: ....*Begins to think* (Lets see....judging everything she said and looking at her eyes which showed a glimpse of her heart she’s obviously telling the truth. But why would the King get trapped and not the queen? No wait...! The Queen, she knew...! And when Ursula heard her best friend died after sealing the Abyssal Queen in the underwater volcano.But something doesn’t add up...how can Flare Pearl...no...how can our warrior princess still be alive?) Can I ask you something?

Rebekah: You seem to understand and accept the truth, good, I’ll gladly answer any questions you may have.

Sea Cucumber Girl: How is our warrior princess still alive?

Rebekah: That’s simple, I helped the queen to bring her back. Her soul was trapped in the magical royal pendent before she died and I taught the queen how to use imaginite and she made the choice to send the imaginite down the river to Madoka’s house however Flare Pearl’s memories were nearly imprisoned in a cage of amnesia so she did not remember her family or even know that Madoka was her blood related little brother.

Sea Cucumber Girl: *Thinks* (Imaginite? Those colorful crystals that are in different shapes that I keep seeing in the ocean sometimes and they had more than one color on some of them? Then that means...!!)

Rebekah: So now you understand why it’s not safe for Madoka to return to the ocean. But remember you must keep all of this to yourself, if any of the information leeks out than the Abyssal Dwellers will have no choice to slay everyone, including the entire Kingdom and Madoka. There is also a large misunderstanding and innocent life that is still in the risk of death.

Sea Cucumber Girl: W-What? Who’s in the risk of the dying before the entire world does?

Rebekah: That is not for me to say, but Ursula and Kira must find the Queen of the Dark Element Kingdom for the final pieces of the truth.

Sea Cucumber Girl: .....

Rebekah: .... You’re scared aren’t you now you understand what’s going on. It’s okay, Flare Pearl feels the same way.

Sea Cucumber Girl: ...She does?

Rebekah: Yes, plus for the fact it’s a lot to take in. I think a little game will calm ourselves down. Do you know how to play chess?

Sea Cucumber Girl: I haven’t played that game since high school!

Rebekah: Do you know the rules?

Sea Cucumber Girl: I sort of remember, but I would like to play one game now. :3

Rebekah: Okay. *She sets up the game and they played for a few hours before another conversation started* Do you really think Flare Pearl is really just fighting for Madoka’s freedom?

Sea Cucumber Girl: No, I never thought of that or any of this. I thought...I mean we all thought the Abyssal Queen was long gone.

Rebekah: It’s okay, it happens when someone wants to erase those who give from memory because they’re trying to take something that could bring a brighter future away for their on greed or the destruction of worlds which is not exactly a pretty or a very happy sight. I’ve seen and been through things like that similar before.

Sea Cucumber Girl: You have?

Rebekah: *Nods* Watch out.

Sea Cucumber Girl: There goes my bishop.... e.0

Rebekah: Oh I forgot to mention my name is Rebekah.

Sea Cucumber Girl: My name is _________.~ :3

Rebekah: Nice to meet you. So, what if I told you I can predict the future sometimes?

Sea Cucumber Girl: Really?~ :3

Rebekah: Yes, and I predict after all this and after the happy ending she’s going be with Libra from now on and help raise her child.

Sea Cucumber Girl: Her child? What do you mean by that?

Rebekah: Check.

Sea Cucumber Girl: 0_0 How did your queen get there?

Rebekah: I guess that Eel Woman...well your friend or sister, whatever you call her mostly by didn’t tell you that. But she actually got Libra peregrinate with her child by laying one of her eggs in his body.

Sea Cucumber Girl: :3 Really?~

Rebekah: Not sure if it was on purpose or fate, but the baby did get out of his body safely without any damaged to Libra or the baby. Hope for your sake Madoka put the baby in a safe place before you immobilize everyone.

Sea Cucumber Girl: Can you look into crystal balls using your psychic to make it work like uh......what were those box things with the mirrors the surface people called?

Rebekah: A television and yes, and it’s also how I can fully see the future when I’m awake. Only glimpses of it of course.

Sea Cucumber Girl: Judging by your clothes are you a goddess?

Rebekah: Yes and I’m half demon so I’m also a demon that doesn’t lie of course.

Sea Cucumber Girl: Is that how you saw my sister?

Rebekah: *Nods* Checkmate.

Sea Cucumber Girl: You’re good... :3

Rebekah: Well I never lost a chess contest or competition. For nowadays I just play for fun or to test others to see how good they are. I lost to skinny piece of candy that owns a bakery twice but it was still fun nonetheless.

Sea Cucumber Girl: *Looks confused*

Rebekah: You’ll meet him someday, but he’s not a fighter. But my granddaughter visits him once in a while to play chest or spend some time with him. Now I best be going home. *Puts the game away and walks*

Sea Cucumber Girl: Can I ask you one last thing?

Rebekah: Yes?

Sea Cucumber Girl: Why aren’t you fighting to save Madoka and Flare Pearl if you know what’s really going on and where do you live?

Rebekah: Because it is not my fight, and I live in a castle but I’m not from this world either I just help protect it like do with the other worlds. If that’s all you best return to your loved ones. Farewell ______. *Walks a disappears into red rose petals*

Sea Cucumber Girl: Bye Rebekah....(She is one very strong and honest living being...it almost reminds me of someone.)

END

{Don’t take it too seriously you guys, I made this for Aniki because I got bored and Yes Flare Pearl is a Warrior Princess and blood related to Madoka I’m not going to lie on that.}

Libra Belongs to- @askdwayneelliot

The Sea Cucumber Girl, the Eel Woman and Gerride belongs to- @anikithefox​ (I think on the Sea Cucumber girl? I could be wrong. o_oU)

[isabellaflynns]

Liveable | Self Para

“The worst of it is I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be liveable – any life.”

– Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, by Frank Harris

The therapist sits on a chair opposite Isabella, on the other side of the glass wall. She’s wearing a white coat, just like the other doctors, and a name-tag which reads DR. SHORE. She has red hair, just like Kristen Kringle. This is the third time she has come to see Isabella, and Isabella has yet to say a single word to her.

“What are you reading?” she asks. She always tried to engage Isabella with a question, and it’s incredibly irritating.

Isabella silently turns the page of her newspaper. She has read it twice this morning, but she knew that Doctor Shore was coming today, so she times her reread perfectly with the other woman’s arrival. Her eyes scan the lines of text listlessly, not actually taking it in.

“You know,” Doctor Shore says in a thoughtful voice, “I’m sure I could speak to the guards about getting you a book.”

Isabella goes still. This is clearly bribery, but she wants a book so badly that her chest hurts. She wants to touch its cover, to flick the pages and hear the familiar sound of them sliding against one another, to inhale the scent of paper. She misses books so much.

“They told me there were a lot of books in your home,” Doctor Shore says.

She is the first person who called it that. Your home.

Isabella looks up sharply and doesn’t say anything.

“You obviously like to read,” Doctor Shore says. “I’ll see about getting you some books, okay?” She stands up, leaving more than half an hour before the session is supposed to end. “We’re not all bad guys, Isabella,” she says with a small smile.

Sleeping here is almost impossible. The screams and cries of the other inmates go on and on throughout the night, and Isabella puts her head under her pillow. She hates loud noises. But the pillow isn’t thick enough to block out the sounds, and she sings to herself softly.

“Moon river… Wider than a mile… I’m crossing you in style… Someday…”

She pulls her bedsheet tighter around herself and imagines that Edward is right beside her, holding her close the way he used to, stroking her hair.

Christmas Day drags by as any other day does. Isabella only knows it’s Christmas because they serve her a roast for dinner. Pale white chicken and soft potatoes and thick brown gravy, slopped into a plastic prison tray. Isabella looks at it when it slides through the small rectangular hole of her cell, and she wants to vomit.

The dinner of kings, she thinks, and then she walks over to retrieve it. She sits down on her bed with the tray on her lap. “Merry Christmas, Isa,” she says to herself.

She hopes the letters made it to her friends on time.

Every morning a copy of The New York Daily News is delivered through the small letterbox in the wall of her cell. She is usually awake before they deliver it. She reads it as slowly as possible, savouring every article, staring at every photograph, even going as far as to read the job adverts. Anything to make the first reading last as long as possible, she does.

And then she rereads it, this time checking for grammatical errors, and mentally proofreading it. Sometimes, if she’s so bored that she can hardly stand it, then she drags this task out, and pauses with her editing to do something else, only to come back to it in an hour or so. But, usually, combing through the entire paper takes about two hours.

Finally, she tears the words out one by one, carefully, and lays them on the floor of her cell. She rearranges them into stories or poetry. She makes collages from the pictures, carefully tearing figures from adverts and photographs. And, for the rest of the day, she makes new sentences from old ones, and appropriates facts to make stories.

By the time they turn the lights out, that day’s paper has been completely cut up and rearranged. And, the next morning, Isabella sweeps the words into a pile in the corner of her cell to potentially reuse when the next paper arrives.

On her eighth day in Arkham Asylum, Isabella writes to Edward again. She knocks on the glass of her cell until the guard comes over, and then she requests to be taken to the rec room. It’s the only place they’ll let her use pens.

She sits at the metal table and holds the pen to the paper. She writes Dear Edward, and then stops. She has no idea what to write to him. Everything she wants to say has already been said in the previous two letters she has sent. She loves him, she misses him, things are terrible here, she’s sorry. There is nothing left to say. Edward hasn’t been to see her for over a week. He never replied to her last letter.

Her hand shakes a little. I miss you very much, she writes. There is so much white paper left to fill. So, she writes about how her day was, and how the food is here, and how the therapist said she might be getting a book for her cell. As she writes, it gets easier, and she pretends she’s telling him this to his face, sitting right across from him, holding his hand, talking to him.

She signs it, Forever yours, Isabella.

The medication they give her in her food makes her tired and distant. She sleeps a lot. Doing anything is so much effort, and everything feels so far away, separated by a thick glass sheet that she cannot break. Her emotions are so dulled, like she’s living in a fog. When she wakes up, her first thought is I am in an insane asylum.

There are so many sickly colours here. The walls are pale green, and the doctor’s coats are white, and the lights are anaemic yellow. The food is watery and beige. Nothing is bright. When she catches sight of herself in the reflection of her glass cell, she looks washed out and pale. As if she’s fading.

For a long time, Isabella thinks. There are so many hours to kill in here.

She thinks about Harley giving her the friendship bracelet with a small, silver, mouse charm. She thinks about Oswald telling her know thy enemy – the first piece of advice he gave her. She thinks about Edward saying he felt like he’d found his partner for life.

I love you too, obviously, he had said. I love you. Isn’t it strange though?

She remembers the sweet scent of apple pie drifting through the farmhouse, barely masking the unpleasant smell of decay and sickness – the aroma of chemicals and medicine and body odour and closed-off rooms with no air.

And she thinks about everything she’s lost.

“Are you going to talk to me today?” Doctor Shore asks with a smile. Isabella is staring at her paper, so she doesn’t see the smile, but she can hear it in the doctor’s voice. She doesn’t move.

“I’m still working on getting you that book,” she continues. “If it could be any genre, what would you want it to be?”

The question is so tantalising. It’s not about Edward, or the farmhouse, or why she’s there. Isabella opens her mouth before she can stop herself and says, “Classic children’s literature.” She looks up from the photograph she was staring at.

Doctor Shore doesn’t react to her speaking. She just nods understandingly. “Yes, I like children’s literature. I feel it gets a bad rap, because it’s for children, but I love it anyway.”

Isabella closes her newspaper. She’s so bored of reading the news. All she wants is a book to hold, but it will come at a price. It will mean cooperating with this woman. The discussion about children’s literature is a ruse, and she knows it. The real questions will come any moment now, and Isabella wants to control the conversation as much as possible.

“You called the farmhouse my home, in our last session,” she says in a flat voice.

“Well, it was, wasn’t it?” Doctor Shore asks. “You lived there for a week.”

“It wasn’t my home. It was our home.”

She expects Doctor Shore to raise an eyebrow at that, or disagree, or make a note of something, but her expression doesn’t change. She looks calm and politely curious, as if there isn’t a pane of bulletproof glass separating them.

“Yours and Edward Nygma’s,” Doctor Shore says. It is stated as a fact.

Isabella feels a shiver run down her spine at the sound of his full name. She always shivers when she hears his full name. “Yes,” she says softly. “Ours.”

Doctor Shore is quiet for a moment. And then she says, “Do you think he feels the same way?”

Isabella hates that question. She hates that everyone thinks she’s some sort of idiot. Harley and Edward and Oswald and even Iris West all seem to think she doesn’t realise that Ed doesn’t feel the same way. She knows he doesn’t. That’s why she had to drug him and handcuff him.

“That’s a ridiculous question,” she says. “I know he doesn’t feel the same way. But he would have. In time.”

She doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, so she picks up her newspaper and stares at it pointedly, not actually reading a word. And she hears the scrape of metal on the floor as Doctor Shore picks up her chair and leaves.

The worst part isn’t the drugs, which make her groggy and slow, or the food, which is insipid and practically inedible, or even the lack of books. No, the worst part is the loneliness.

There’s a thick pane of glass between herself and everyone who comes to see her. Harley hasn’t come back since Isabella sent her away, and she didn’t reply to her Christmas letter. Daisy visits, but she feels distant and separate. There’s been no word from Edward.

Even when she goes to the rec room, she stays away from the other inmates and doesn’t speak to anyone. She just writes her letters and then returns to her cell.

She hasn’t made physical contact with anyone besides the guards for ten days.

Yes, the worst part is the loneliness.

Isabella wakes up to the sound of something sliding through the small letterbox hole in her the wall of her cell. She sits bolt upright in bed and stares at the book on the floor. It’s very thick – probably around six hundred pages – and paperback. It landed face-down onto the floor, so she can’t see the title or author’s name.

She stands up and walks across the cell, and then bends down beside the book and picks it up. It wasn’t damaged in the fall, thank goodness, and she turns it over. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia. Beneath the title is a picture of a lion’s face, with its mane surrounding its head like fire. It’s beautiful, and clearly been read several times, because the edges of the pages are thin and rough.

She strokes the cover with her fingertips and closes her eyes.

[asfeedin]

How Phil Jackson is influencing today’s NBA coaches

THREE DAYS HAD passed since Doc Rivers watched the first two episodes of “The Last Dance,” and he couldn’t get the predicament former Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson faced during that 1997-98 season out of his head.

“Can you imagine?” Rivers asked on the twice-weekly Zoom call he has been having with his LA Clippers coaching staff since the NBA season was postponed on March 11. “Can you imagine being told before the year that you’re going to get fired?”

As the 10-part docuseries details, the Bulls had just won back-to-back championships, and their fifth championship in seven years, but general manager Jerry Krause had decided that no matter what the team did that season, it was time to rebuild — and Jackson wouldn’t be the head coach.

“Can you imagine having the right mindset to teach?” Rivers lamented. “To get guys to buy into their role and do the right thing? I can’t even imagine the patience and serenity he had to have to be able to do that.”

1 Related

Rivers has been thinking about Jackson a lot in recent days. He watched “The Last Dance.” Then he rewatched the battles his Boston Celtics had with Jackson’s Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 and 2010 NBA Finals, when they re-aired on ESPN last week. And it made him realize he hasn’t connected with the Hall of Fame coach in a while.

“You’re making me want to call him,” Rivers said.

At first glance, Rivers and Jackson would seem to be longtime rivals. But Rivers said they used to talk on the phone and text a fair amount, coach to coach, about all sorts of things. A few years ago, Rivers even invited Jackson to speak at a clinic he was hosting at the Clippers’ practice facility, and Jackson accepted without hesitation.

“We had a good relationship,” Rivers said. “It’s funny, no one has a great one unless you’re in his circle, but we had a good one.”

For a coach of his stature, Jackson’s circle has always seemed relatively small. Only a few of his former players — Steve Kerr and Luke Walton — are current head coaches in the NBA. Most of his coaching contemporaries were too consumed with trying to beat the man who won 11 titles in his 20 years on the bench, to befriend him. Front-office executives were mostly annoyed he thought he would succeed in that type of role, without doing it the way they did.

So when Jackson retired from coaching in 2011, and stepped down after an unsuccessful run as president of the New York Knicks in 2017, there wasn’t a loud chorus singing his praises. If anything, there was a loud chorus airing out three decades of gripes and jealousies.

Those who found him aloof or arrogant while he was on top of the NBA world almost seemed to delight in seeing his triangle offense belittled by analytics wonks and pace-and-space devotees.

Those who ascribed his success to the good fortune of coaching all-time greats like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, loved to point out how poorly squabbles with Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis turned out.

This is a familiar comeuppance for those who have succeeded at the highest level. Those you beat on your way to the top exact their revenge once you’ve been humbled. It was to be expected, and yet Jackson has done little to quiet or combat those who would besmirch his reputation.

He has made few public appearances and given even fewer interviews since he retired to his home in Montana. Even his previously engaging Twitter feed has gone quiet — last posting an article about meditation in June 2018.

And he has politely declined interview requests regarding “The Last Dance,” as he already said quite a bit in a four-hour interview for the project.

But that’s only the public side of things. Because as Rivers and a select group of current NBA coaches have found out, Jackson still has a lot to say about basketball — if the right person is asking the question.

“The man won 11 championships. Do I have that correct?” Rivers said. “Anybody that wins 11 championships should be celebrated every day. But I think because Phil was a loner in a lot of ways, a lot of people felt like he didn’t spend time with other coaches and all that stuff.

“If you asked him, he would, though.”

THERE IS NO secret code word. No special name for the growing group of coaches who have reached out and sought mentoring or advice from Jackson. There’s not even an obvious connection between them.

Rivers knew Jackson from coaching against him and through Tyronn Lue, who’d played for Jackson. Philadelphia 76ers coach Brett Brown was introduced via Luc Longley and Coby Karl, both of whom played for Jackson. Chicago Bulls coach Jim Boylen asked his owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, and Jackson’s former player John Paxson for an introduction. Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse asked Alex McKechnie, his vice president of player health and performance, who’d worked with Jackson in Los Angeles. Lakers coach Frank Vogel got to know him through former Jackson assistant Brian Shaw. Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle just knows everyone as president of the NBA Coaches Association.

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What they all have in common is a desire to learn from the man they consider one of the greatest coaches of all time.

“I’ve always studied and admired his approach,” Vogel said. “I consider him the GOAT of NBA coaches.”

“Phil’s a great example of handling whatever comes his way,” Rivers said. “We all want the calm, and he dealt in the calm very well. But he also dealt with the storms extremely well. He got personalities and people to work together.”

Whatever rivalries Jackson might have had during his coaching career have been quickly cast aside.

“My Spurs world was very competitive with his,” Brown said. “So the opportunity to seek higher counsel was very much appreciated.”

And when coaches get on the phone with Jackson, or go to see him at his home in Montana, he is not always what they pictured.

“There’s this perception of him as the Zen Master,” Boylen said. “No. He’s a basketball junkie. He’s a diehard hooper. That’s what I loved about him.”

There is one thing each coach who has made the effort to get to know Jackson seems to say afterward, however.

The time they spent with him was their time. Whatever they got from that time remains between them.

“I’m not trying to spill the beans on everything we did,” Nurse said. “But it was awesome. It was really awesome.”

NURSE WASN’T SURE what to expect when he reached out to Jackson in the summer of 2018, a few weeks after he was named coach of the Raptors.

He’d studied Jackson for years. As a young coach at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, in the early 1990s, Nurse would often drive to Chicago, buy a standing room-only ticket to watch Jackson’s Bulls, then drive the five hours back to Des Moines after the game. When he coached in England in the late 1990s, Nurse would order Bulls videotapes and study Jackson’s offense — Nurse’s teams ran the triangle then — his rotations, his adjustments, even his sideline demeanor.

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So when McKechnie offered to arrange a meeting with Jackson, Nurse couldn’t resist.

He’d already met with former Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay and Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney to get advice before embarking on his first NBA head-coaching job. But meeting Jackson would be different. The Zen Master invited him to his house in Montana — for three days.

“I didn’t know if I was going to go out there for a cup of coffee with him and that’s it,” Nurse said. “But I figured if that happened, I’d just take a few days [in Montana] to myself, to relax.”

That cup of coffee turned into a three-day coaching retreat. They drove around in Jackson’s truck, watched film together and broke down plays on a whiteboard.

Nurse couldn’t believe what was happening. He was nerding out with the coach he’d studied and admired for years.

“It was fun, because he was testing my knowledge of basketball a bit, too,” Nurse said. “He’d be telling a story and say, ‘That red-headed kid’ and stop and see if I could fill in the blanks.

“Fortunately I’m enough of a historian — or a geek — to know. So I’d say, ‘Yeah, that was Matt Bonner’ or whatever. And I could tell he liked that.”

Boylen said he even studied before he went to visit Jackson in Montana.

“I think he researches people before they come. Because he knew some stuff about me — like, ‘I know you coach guys hard. … You’re a defensive-minded guy,'” Boylen said. “So I was prepared, too. I had notes, copies of rosters, personnel, coaches he’d hired. I read his books.”

Like Nurse, Boylen had no idea how much time Jackson would spend with him. They had plans for lunch at a local cafe and that’s it.

“I think the place closed at 3, and we left at 5,” he said. “Then we had dinner at this place that closed at 9, and we stayed until 10.”

The next morning he stopped by the bakery and had them make a quiche he could bring over to Jackson’s house for lunch.

“It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” Boylen said.

Throughout his two seasons in Chicago, Boylen says he has received frequent texts and emails from Jackson. At one point, Boylen asked him to watch the Bulls and offer critiques and suggestions. Jackson watched a few games, then sent a detailed note breaking down the team’s offense and suggesting some plays from the pinch-post that might unlock things.

“He confirmed some things that I believe in, which made me feel good, because he’s the best coach ever,” Boylen said. “But he also opened my mind up to some things, too.”

Jackson’s not sure what to call the relationships he has built with this group of NBA coaches either. Mentoring isn’t quite the right term. That feels too formal for what’s more like two coaches talking about the game they love.

But the coaches who’ve spent a couple days with Jackson, in Montana or Los Angeles, say it has had a huge effect on them.

“Phil is a longtime trusted friend,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “I talk basketball at length with him two or three times a year. He’s a great resource and has been extremely generous with his time and knowledge to all coaches.”

THE MEETING STARTED at the Ritz-Carlton Marina Del Rey in California, far away from the prying eyes and microphones of the New York City media looking for any sign of whom Jackson was interviewing to be the next Knicks coach.

Vogel had looked up to Jackson for years and had even hired Shaw — one of Jackson’s top assistants with the Lakers — on his staff with the Indiana Pacers.

“Literally, for those two years that I had Brian,” Vogel said, “every decision that came up, I was like, ‘How’d you guys do it in L.A.? What would Phil do here? How did Phil travel with the team? Did he allow people’s guests to come on a plane? What was his morning shootaround routine?'”

But he’d spoken to Jackson only once, for about five minutes when he scouted for the Lakers in 2006, before he flew out to Los Angeles to interview for the Knicks job.

He was nervous but excited.

The interview began at the hotel, then continued to dinner at a small pizza restaurant in Venice that Vogel is still trying to find his way back to. The next morning they had breakfast and spent five to six more hours on a whiteboard.

“We talked about everything,” Vogel said. “From life to our families to coaching, X’s and O’s on the court and offensive systems, whether it’s a triangle or another system, defensive coverages.”

Although he didn’t get the job, it was two days he’ll never forget.

“I was raised in the Bobby Knight era of coaches,” Vogel said. “You know, MF-this. MF-that. And Phil never did that. I just felt like his approach was — and I’m by no means a Zen guy — but the calm mental adjustment is something that I try to always carry with any conflict or any adversity my team faces.

“I always admired that approach, letting guys play in. Not bailing teams with timeouts, letting them play through things, figure things out themselves.”

That calm demeanor under pressure is something that sticks out for Sacramento Kings coach Luke Walton, who played for the Lakers from 2003 to ’11.

“One of the main things that I try to take with me, from what Phil has taught,” Walton said, “is training yourself and your players to always try to be able to stay level-headed throughout and not get too emotionally high or too emotionally low.

“He would talk about The Peaceful Warrior, and say, that’s where you’re at your most dangerous, if you can stay in that area.”

LIKE MOST OF the players on the 1997-98 Bulls who were interviewed for “The Last Dance,” Kerr was sent links to preview the docuseries a few weeks ago.

Thus far, he has resisted the temptation to binge watch. He lived through all the drama, so watching it all again is a bit surreal.

Star forward Scottie Pippen was upset about his contract and missed the first few months of the 1997-98 season to have foot surgery as a sort of protest. Jordan publicly declared he wouldn’t play for any coach but Jackson, who management had already announced wouldn’t be back the following season. Mercurial forward Dennis Rodman wasn’t under contract for the following season either.

At one point, Pippen was so upset with Bulls management, he asked for a trade and vowed not to play for the Bulls again. Somehow Jackson coaxed all of that back together, into another championship run.

“That was my favorite part of the first episodes,” Kerr said. “How Phil connected to Scottie, and made sure Scottie was connected to us as a group by saying, ‘We’re going to sacrifice the early part of the season. But we have to bring him into the fold. He’s one of our guys. We’ve got to back him up on this.’

“No other coach would say what Phil said.”

Jackson often talked to Pippen about his anger during that season. He wanted him to feel safe expressing that to him and hoped the trust he earned would eventually bring Pippen back around to fighting alongside his teammates, rather than against management.

With Rodman, Jackson had to take a different tack.

He brought in Jack Haley to be his de facto handler. He brought in a therapist to talk to him weekly, which often happened at the Taco John’s or some fast food place in the mall. He made a deal with Rodman that he didn’t have to be at the arena an hour and a half before games like the other players — he could show up an hour beforehand — but if he was late he’d be fined. And then he told the rest of the team about the deal he’d made, to make sure they saw it as pragmatism, not favoritism.

“It didn’t bother us,” Kerr said. “It wasn’t like some rookie who thought he was better than everybody else. This was Dennis Rodman. He was a great player but a complex person. And so we understood that Phil had a big job on his hands.”

Kerr also remembers a meeting in which Jackson showed video of Rodman’s acceptance speech when he was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1990 as a member of the Detroit Pistons.

“Dennis was crying during the press conference, talking about how much it meant to him,” Kerr said.

“And the reason Phil showed us that with Dennis sitting there, at least my read, was he wanted us to know even though Dennis was late and then getting kicked out and suspended and whatever. He wanted us to know how much Dennis cared.

“And he wanted Dennis to know that we all cared about him, too.”

KERR HASN’T TALKED to Jackson as much this season as he has in the past. Like Rivers, watching “The Last Dance” has made Kerr want to reach out again.

“I sent him an email this morning,” Kerr said, when reached Saturday afternoon. “I should go check to see if he’s written back yet.”

He doesn’t worry about his old coach’s feelings or whether his reputation has been bruised in recent years.

“I think he’s fine,” Kerr said. “Phil was always so comfortable in his own skin.”

They talked often when Kerr was making the transition from broadcaster to coach in 2014. Over the years, Kerr had kept a book full of his beliefs about basketball and coaching. If he ever led a team, this was the book he wanted to bring to life.

Jackson told him that’s what he had done as a young coach, too: figure out what you believe in, then find a way to translate that to a team.

“We talked a lot about the triangle,” Kerr said. “He had searched for an offense for many years that would tie together with his philosophy.

“I had never heard anybody say something like that before. The triangle was not just an offense to run, it was part of a whole philosophy of teamwork and connectivity. And I totally felt it when I was playing there. I never felt more important as a player than I did in Chicago.”

Kerr wanted to bring that to his team, when he became a head coach. To find a philosophy, a mantra, a system, that made every player on the team feel as important as Jackson had made him feel as a reserve for the Bulls.

“For me,” Kerr said. “That was ‘Strength in Numbers.'”

The night before his first training camp with the Golden State Warriors, he showed his new team a video.

“I had Marv Albert narrate,” Kerr said, laughing at the memory. “I had a lot of movie references, movie clips and humor. All these things that Phil did.”

He wasn’t going to run the triangle, but, “I wanted that same philosophy of everybody being valued, everybody touching the ball. Everybody being empowered. That was so powerful to me as a player. And all that came from Phil.”

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Here’s a look at Checkmate, a story by Marianne Pease from the Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition.

“Well, this is quite nice. Feeling nostalgic for your golden age?” the man asked, picking up one of the pawns from the chess set on the table and twirling it between his fingers.

The little cafe was built into the bottom of an old tenement building, sunlight pouring down on the dusty terrace; soft shadows and the murmur of voices from within making it feel almost as if it were real instead of a construct of the dream. Rashid poured a cup of coffee for himself and slowly looked up at the Huntsman across from him. “The warmth of memory is a respite. It’s been a long time since I last defeated you. It will be a pleasure to do so one more time.”

The Huntsman laughed, sharp canine teeth gleaming when he opened his mouth. “Fleeing halfway around your world was an unexpected move on your part.” He replaced the pawn and moved it forward across the board. When he let go, it was no longer a worn wooden piece but a crystalline blue figure of a young woman. “White to 4e. The game’s already begun again and I will not lose this time.”

“How many times have I defeated you?” Rashid mused, studying the Huntsman’s opening move. “Three times now?”

“Twice. The first time was your mentor’s victory, not yours. I would have had you without his interference. Just as I would have taken you long ago if you hadn’t ?ed. Here you are, though, buried in this frozen waste of a country. Your freehold is dying, a cobbled together mishmash of stories held together by the strength of one woman. How long will it take for the freehold to fall to petty squabbling? How long will the Ruby Court accept the situation without trying to fix it?”

The old man moved forward a pawn to c5. He frowned when its appearance shifted, becoming a black ogre with a crack along the base. “Third time is the charm then.”

“Yes. It is.”

* * *

Blue Sarah sighed in happy relief when the doors of the library closed behind her and the blast of warmth from the heater began to thaw out her fingers, turning them bright ruby red. She dumped the stack of books she was returning onto the desk and headed towards the computer room at the back as usual. It didn’t take long for her to become lost in the Facebook updates and Instagram pictures of her mortal family. She barely paid attention to the footsteps behind her until someone leaned over to look at her screen. She whirled, about to tell him to shove off, and came face to face with the Huntsman’s canine grin. Sarah shrieked and lashed out. She managed to score a line of scratches across the Huntsman’s face before tumbling gracelessly out of her chair and darting to the door in a sheer panic. She looked back as she reached the front desk and didn’t see him coming yet but didn’t slow as she hurtled out into the snow. For one irrational moment, the shock of the freezing cold was almost enough to send her back into the library for the coat she’d left in the computer room.

It was only a kilometer and a half to the Jade Court’s Gerrard Street safehouse, but Sarah didn’t make it. The Huntsman pulled his car over a few yards in front of her on the bridge over the Don River and rolled down the window. “You’ve two choices, girl. Stop and speak with me, or jump off this bridge. It’s not high enough to kill you but you will be injured and I promise that I will be there before any help arrives for you. Then we will have our talk and it will go less well for you.”

She stopped, trying to catch her breath and shivering as the cold air burned through her lungs. “What do you want,” she spat back. The Huntsman’s smile wasn’t comforting, and her stomach twisted into knots. She could tell she was falling into whatever plan he had and she had no idea how to avoid it.

“It’s simple, really.” He leaned out of the car and threw a thumb drive that landed in the snow at her feet. “Plug this into one of the computers at your little freehold’s library and leave it there.”

Sarah blinked in surprise at so simple a request. “That’s… it?”

“That’s it. Of course, if you don’t do it I can always start visiting everyone on that Facebook page you so carelessly left open. I’m not here for you, blue girl, and I would be very aggravated if you forced me to give you any more of my time. Do you understand?”

She paled and quickly picked up the thumb drive, stuffing it into her pocket. “Y-yes.”

“Good. Now, you forgot this. You should be more careful, you could catch a cold.” He held her coat out the window to her. After a moment without her moving close enough to take it, he dropped it on the ground and drove away. Sarah waited until his car was out of sight then gave the coat a wide berth and continued to run.

* * *

The freehold’s library sat hidden above a gym in North York, only a few blocks from the subway. It took Sarah a few hours to get there with TTC running late again. It gave her time to think, and when she slipped into the library later that evening Sarah felt confdent again. She gave the pair of well-armed ogres lurking in the entry playing cards a quick nod and went straight back to the computers.

She downloaded a couple of programs to protect the computer against any viruses or spyware that could be on the USB, then disconnected the computer from the network. Sarah winced when she actually plugged it in but nothing appeared immediately out of order. She ran the virus scanner multiple times but it didn’t detect any problems. Finally, Sarah began digging into the files and the sick feeling in her stomach quickly returned. Many of the files were copies of documents in Arabic: letters and emails that she couldn’t read, but there was also a dozen extreme-range surveillance photos taken from rooftops all showing members of the Ruby Court watching members of the Jade and Ivory Courts. She recognized a few of the locations as Jade safehouses too, certainly not anywhere the Ruby Court or a Huntsman should know about.

“Liu!” she called out to one of the ogres on guard. “We’ve got a little problem.”

The guard grumbled and left the card game. “What is it?” He frowned as Sarah pointed to the first photo in the batch and then leaned in closer over her shoulder. “Where did you get this?”

Sarah shifted uneasily. “I found it. Outside on the ground.” It was technically the truth, and Sarah didn’t want to admit a Huntsman was involved now that she’d seen what was in the pictures. “If these are real it doesn’t matter what the source is, does it?”

Liu clicked through several and his red skin paled when he saw himself in one of the pictures. “Shit. Stay put. Don’t touch anything. I’m calling the Huangdi. Ivory and Silver will want to know about this, which means Scheherazade will be too.” The ogre walked back towards the door, pulling out his cell phone. “Boss, I need to talk to you. Yeah, in person. There’s a problem.”

Find out what happens next in the Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology, available now in advance PDF from DriveThruFiction.

There’s also 12 days left in our Kickstarter for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition! We hit our goal and have hit lots of great stretch goals, adding lots of great content for future Changeling supplements. Join in while you can!