#i wrote a little missing scene fic in like an hour read it if u wanna!!!

[si1verghosts]

Hi!

3. A kiss on the forehead😌

helloooo dear anon!! i am sorry this took so long i could not for the life of me figure out to write but then ! i wrote this on the 4th and i realized it could work... maybe... sorta. this may not be what you were expecting/wanting but there's forehead kisses in there.... somewhere 🫡 also, if u are not american i apologize for giving you a july 4th fic 😭 but the holiday is relatively inconsequential here like theres no patriotism it's just a backdrop if u know what i mean.... anyway, i hope u enjoy <33

you taste like the 4th of july

di leon s. kennedy x fem reader (no use of y/n)

wc: 3.5k

18+ | cw: mentions of drinking | tw: thoughts about death and dying

tags: established relationship; fluff (i guess??); slight changes to canon to suit author's headcanons

read on ao3

a/n: for the past few months i've been working on this very insane multi-chap post di leon fic 😵‍💫 this was written with that in mind But does not have a place in that story... probably.... idk!!! either way, i think it can be read as a standalone just fine

additionally, there is a scene in here where leon picks the reader up. i would just like to say like... he gets thrown into concrete walls on a biweekly basis and gets up and walks it off without issue so i think he can lift anyone no matter their size or shape!!

not beta read or proofread - sorry if any of it is gibberish i've had a wicked migraine the past few days... will maybe attempt to proofread once i can see correctly again 🚬🧍‍♀️regardless, all mistakes are my own

i do not own leon or any other resi character mentioned, etc etc, please don't sue me <3

please do not use my work to train any sort of AI chatbot and/or writing generator.

-----

"It was a good day, wasn't it?" Leon asks, wrapping his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder as you stand over the patio table, cleaning up the abandoned plates and platters.

You hum. It was; a beautiful, cloudless July 4th, spent with Leon's friends in the backyard of your home. The only ones missing were Ashley and Ingrid; the former having a standing family commitment and the latter planning to spend her holiday on the beach, away from the country and your fiancé.

Typically, Chris hosted the Independence Day cookout, but Leon offered up your new home as this year's venue, citing your in-ground pool and the plenty of extra space you have for guests to stay. In reality, he just wanted the chance to out-grill Chris - he'd been preparing since Memorial Day; testing different spice and sauce combinations as well as stocking your freezer full of large cuts of meat.

He'd started before you were even awake, chopping and seasoning in the kitchen, slowly loading up the smoker. You'd joined him on the patio a few hours later, watching from your pool floaty as he poked and prodded at various things.

You don't even eat meat, didn't know the whole thing was so involved, but you did enjoy the view; worn blue jeans hugging his frame as he crouched to check a thermometer.

You had taken a short break from the water, tying up lights and setting a few little decorations around before your guests arrived. Rebecca was the first, tucking her jugs of pre-made cocktail and platter of deviled eggs into your fridge before joining you on the patio.

Chris wasn't far behind, unloading two coolers filled with beer and containers of homemade potato and pasta salads. He'd handed one off to you, grinning, "Claire made one just for you this year."

You'd thanked him, making another attempt to get him to share his family's recipes with you. It was futile, you probably couldn't even waterboard it out of either of them.

Claire had arrived on her motorcycle shortly after, pulling a bundle of fireworks out of her saddlebags. "Sorry I'm late," she said - even though she wasn't - dumping the pile on the ground, thankfully far away from the grill. "Had to stop for these."

Leon had crouched down to inspect them, listening intently as Claire told him about all the different varieties she'd purchased while you relaxed back into the pool.

Sherry arrived next, Jake trailing behind her. She'd left both him and her bags of chips at the table, giving Leon and Claire quick hugs before immediately joining you in the water.

She'd slipped in right beside your floaty, grabbing your hand to get a look at your engagement ring - she'd yet to see it, having been so busy with work. Her eyes widened at the ring as she pushed her sunglasses up to rest on top of her head, "Leon picked this out? Our Leon? Leon Kennedy? Are you sure?"

You'd giggled at her astonishment, "Ashley helped him out; took him to one of her favorite jewelers."

"I should've guessed," She nods. "For my 20th Birthday, he bought me this crazy cute pink tennis bracelet and I was like, 'no way you picked this out alone.' He fessed up that he got a little help from a friend named Ashley.

"At the time, I thought it was just some girlfriend - or hoped, I guess. Back then, I spent a lot of time hoping that Claire and Leon weren't just… working; I liked to think they were taking time for themselves, that they were happy," she had trailed off then, looking off to the tree line behind your house for a minute. Blinking the mist from her eyes, she shrugged, continuing on, "Anyways, I'm thankful to Ash for that bracelet, it was there with me though… a lot. And I'm thankful to you for making him happy, like I always wanted him to be."

With that, you slid off the float to give her a hug, holding her tight as you whispered your thanks. You had worked to bite back your tears - if she didn't cry, neither would you.

Luckily, Jill had walked in a few seconds later, providing a distraction in the form of the most ridiculously large watermelon. "Hey, Kennedy," she shouted, pulling Leon out of his conversation with Claire as she gestured to the melon tucked under her arm. "Can't burn this, can I?"

Leon had thrown his head back with a laugh - in previous years, Jill had always brought boxed brownies with extra crispy edges and Leon invariably had to make a comment about them. "I don't know," he had shrugged, "When it comes to you, Valentine, I'll never say never."

Jill had reared the watermelon back, acting as if she was going to throw it at him. Leon had thrown his arms up, shielding his face, causing everyone to crumble into laughter at the scene.

"It was nice," you agree, reaching to pick up the barong machete he had given Jill when she asked for a knife to cut the melon. "We do have kitchen knives, you know," you scold mockingly, gently waving the blade around.

"I know," he says, releasing you to reach around and pluck the machete out of your hand. "It's good to exercise these every once in a while, though."

You roll your eyes at him, "It's a machete, Leon, not a horse."

He waves you off, slipping through the patio door to wash the blade in the kitchen sink. You take the opportunity to speed clean, knowing it'll be a much harder task once he returns and wraps his arms back around you.

Thankfully everyone had taken care of their own plates and cups - they'd tried to stay and do more but you had ushered them out of the backyard, wanting Chris, Sherry and Jake to depart before the traffic picked up with the crowds leaving the city following the fireworks shows. Jill, Claire and Rebecca had taken up on your offer to stay, at least, piling into your guest rooms. You were glad to have them, secretly plotting to drag them to brunch once you all woke.

You finish piling the platters as Leon makes his way back outside. Before he can get his hands on you and derail your progress, you point to the stack, "Take those inside."

He frowns, "Can't it just wait until tomorrow?"

"We'll get ants; come on, five minutes and it'll be done."

He sighs, but doesn't protest further, carrying the heavy plates inside as you follow him with the utensils. You stack everything by the sink before turning to him, "Is there any of Becca's cocktail left?"

He cocks his brow, tilting his head, "You really want to try that again?"

It's a valid question - you had given it a go earlier and despite everyone's warnings to take it easy, you had thrown back a large mouthful right off the bat. You ended up wincing in pain, "Fuck, that burns. What'd you put in there, Becca?"

She'd shrugged, "Oh, you know, a splash of this, a splash of that. And," she teased, drawing out the vowel, "A bit of my own creation."

"Your own creation…" You had muttered, trailing off before it hit you, "Test tube alcohol?"

She had giggled, grinning, "Takes some getting used to."

You had tried another, much tinier sip. You were able to enjoy the sweetness of the juice for a moment before the burn kicked in again, causing you to curse once more, louder.

Leon had shifted his attention from Chris to you at your exclamation. Seeing the jug of Rebecca's cocktail in front of you on the table, he quickly pieced together what was happening, calling over to Rebecca from his place by the grill, "You trying to kill my fiancé, Becks?"

"Absolutely not; that'd be a stupid thing for me to do," she'd shot back. "She's the only one who can keep you in line, and we kind of like you like that."

"Well," you start, rolling the word around your mouth, "No. But yes - there's gotta be some sort of trick to it, right? Everyone else drank it just fine."

"The trick is," he starts, voice low, reaching out to grab ahold of your hips, "To not drink it. Let me make you some tea instead."

"Fine," you pout, relaxing into his grip, not bothering to argue - tea won't make you hate yourself in the morning.

He moves his hands from your hips, sliding his fingertips along your spine. "Go wait outside," he says, releasing you with a featherlight kiss to your forehead, "I'll bring it out."

With a brush of your lips against his cheek in thanks, you slip away from him, heading back out to the backyard and pulling off your shorts, settling onto the ledge of the shallow end of the pool. The air has cooled with the setting of the sun, becoming a comforting warmth instead of an overbearing heat. You dip your legs into the water, thankful you insisted on having a pool when you and Leon were house hunting.

Someone is still setting off fireworks; they're a few miles away, though - you can hear them more than you can see them. Resting back on your palms, you close your eyes, imagining what bursts of color may be accompanying each sound.

Leon joins you a few minutes later - just after the fireworks had died down - sporting his swim shorts and carrying your tea. He bends, setting the mug next to you with a kiss to your temple, nosing at your hair. "Earl Grey," he reports before drawling, "How terribly unpatriotic of you."

"You going to arrest me for treason, Agent Kennedy?" You laugh, reaching up to squeeze his thigh below the hem of his shorts. "You're the one who made it; they'd nail you as an accomplice."

He falls into a crouch, leg muscles bunching under the pads of your fingertips as he shifts closer to touch his lips on your cheek. "They can hang us together, then," he remarks, voice a bit too serious for it to be just a joke. "Side by side, off the same branch."

You sit back just enough to get your eyes focused on him, reaching your other hand out to thumb at his bottom lip. "Dulce et decorum est pro cor mori," you whisper, tacking on a hum in question.

He cocks his head at the unfamiliar words, nipping at your nail playfully, "English please, baby."

You consider him for a moment, the translation of the true phrase running through your mind; how sweet and honorable it is to die for one's country. The old lie, it's come to be known as - fittingly.

It's a similar sentiment to one that's grown to become your fear; that he'll die for the sake of the country, under orders from the government, believing it was his duty.

But you think your spin on it may be true; would be willing to find out.

You don't want to weigh him down with the thought, though, choosing to reel him in for a kiss instead. "I love you," is the answer you settle on, laying the words down right on his tongue.

He seems content with your translation - the method of delivery likely having something to do with it - humming into your mouth. He kisses you back lazily for a long, languid moment before he pulls away, "As much as I'm enjoying this, I've been wanting to get in there all day," he says, nodding his head towards the water.

"Go," you chuckle, giving him a gentle push away from you with the hand still resting along his face.

He lays another quick peck against your lips before standing, padding around the edge to the steps. He pauses for a moment to pull his shirt over his head, skin honeyed under the soft glow of the lights you'd hung around the patio.

A second later, he slips under the surface without hesitation; kicking off the steps, moving quickly to the deep end. He almost shimmers as he glides along the floor of the pool, the rippling of the gentle waves he'd created making him seem like some sort of mirage as he passes by you.

He comes up for air once he hits the far wall, tossing his hair back, smoothing the water from his eyes. He doesn't rest long, though, beginning to swim short laps across the width of the deep end.

You observe him, sipping your tea slowly, appreciating the way his back and arms work with each stroke. He continues long enough for you to nearly drain your cup, stopping short when another trio of fireworks set off in the distance.

Setting your mug down, you eye him, preparing to slip into the pool to soothe him if you have to, but he relaxes once he connects the sound to the flashes in the sky. The tension that had flooded the line of his shoulders drains into the water as he shifts to wade backward, moving closer to where you sit.

You finish off your drink as he starfishes out across the surface of the water, floating just a few feet in front of you. You wonder if you could use him as a floaty, pinning up a note in your brain to try it out sometime.

"I'm glad you insisted on a pool, sweetheart," he sighs, breaking your companionable silence.

You hum, pleased, kicking your legs out gently and causing the water to lap against his skin. More fireworks sound out; he doesn't tense this time, but he does get his feet back under himself, moving to where you sit along the ledge.

Sliding his hands up your legs, he pillows his head in your lap, wet hair fanning out across your thighs. You shift your weight back onto your right hand, laying the other along his jaw. His eyes flutter closed as you brush your thumb along his cheekbone and the scar that runs beneath it.

He picks at the tie of your bathing suit absentmindedly, tugging at the strings when you slide your hand into his hair, scratching at his scalp. "Sherry said something to me earlier."

He makes a noise urging you to elaborate, not bothering to open his eyes.

"She told me that when she was younger, she hoped that you and Claire were living your lives; that you were doing more than just working, you know? She said she wanted you guys to be happy," you explain, working to keep your voice even.

He cracks his eyes open, picking his head up to watch you as you continue. "She thanked me," you swallow thickly, "for making you happy, like she always wanted you to be."

He smiles at your words, and it's a beautiful thing. You still get all twisted up inside with how gorgeous he is; neurons overclocking themselves with the thrill of being the subject of his attention.

"I owe you a thank you, too, baby," he starts, pausing to nose at your wrist.

"You don't owe me anything, Leon," you tug at his damp strands still between your fingers, highlights catching the yellow glow from the lights around the patio.

"I do," he says, the words sending a jolt through you. You never intended on getting married, yet here you are now, eager to hear the phrase on the altar.

He kisses the thin skin of your wrist, lips lingering as if he can feel the thrum of your heartbeat; knows that the pace has picked up under his affection. "All this," he pulls back, taking a hand off you to gesture to the pool; the backyard; the house; to you. "It's something I never thought I'd get.

"Sherry's right - you're behind basically every bit of happiness I have now, sweetheart; I owe it all to you." He reaches up, untangling your grip from his hair, thumbing gently at the ring he put there, "Thank you."

You can't respond verbally, will burst into tears if you do. In lieu of speech, you lean forward, pressing your lips against his insistently.

He seems to get the message; understands that the pleasure is all yours, that you'd give him anything and everything you can - knowing he'd do the same for you.

He gets his arms back around you, continuing your kiss as he lifts you from the edge of the pool and into the water with him. You wrap your legs around his waist, safe and secure in his hold.

His teeth catch along your bottom lip and the neighbors down the street set off fireworks, the bright bursts of color painting your backyard in reds and blues and greens and oranges. The sparks reflect off the surface of the water as he slides his nose against yours and not for the first time, you think this may all be a dream. Maybe you died four years ago and this whole thing has been some sort of afterlife; you aren't sure you'd done anything worth this treatment, though.

Maybe it's more supernatural in origin; an intricate hallucination weaved by a Djinn that's got you chained up in some dark, damp basement as it feeds off your blood. Or maybe you just went crazy and the pool is actually a padded room, Leon's mouth against yours a product of your mind working to distract itself from your reality.

Whatever the case may be, it certainly feels real when he shifts his hold on you, hoists you up higher to get at your neck, laying kisses up and down the column of your throat, nipping at your jaw.

But before he can venture much further, the neighbor's fireworks show grows into an extravaganza, the relentless popping and bursting becoming a nuisance, shattering the illusion of your teeny-boppy movie moment.

"Jeez," Leon mutters, breath hot against the saliva cooling on your skin, causing you to shudder. "Did they buy out a whole tent?"

"Did you check that Claire actually went to bed?" You ask, shaking yourself free of his hold. "She could've joined them; brought everything I wouldn't let her set off here."

He hums, letting you down into the water, considering your words - even though you said it as a joke, it certainly is a possibility. You seem to come to this realization at the same time, eyes narrowing at each other as the spray of fireworks continues overhead. "We should…" He starts, nodding towards the stairs.

"Yeah," you agree, already beginning to move.

You pause to grab your towels, wrapping your own around yourself, throwing the other over Leon's shoulders when you catch up to him at the patio door. Stepping inside, you hear someone knocking around your kitchen.

Luckily, it's Claire. She steps back from the cabinet she'd been rifling through to face you and Leon with a frown. "Isn't this shit ridiculous?" She remarks, pointing to the ceiling in reference to the fireworks.

"You're one to talk, Claire," Leon shoots back. "Didn't you just set off about five hundred dollars worth of them in my backyard a few hours ago?"

"Yes, a few hours ago," she reiterates. "Nothing should be set off after the show at the Capitol is finished - after that, you're done; you missed your shot; better luck next year."

"Exactly," you nod in agreement at her reasoning, "They should put you in charge."

She grins at your words, moving to continue on, but Leon cuts in before she can start; "What is it that you were clawing through my cabinets for?"

She sighs, displeased with his interruption, setting her hands on her hips. "Where do you keep the ibuprofen?"

Leon shoos her out of the way, padding across the kitchen to get the medicine himself. Claire relents without argument, attention immediately shifting back to you as she leans over the counter. "So," she wiggles her eyebrows, "It seems like that pool was a good investment, huh?"

You bite at your lip, ears burning with embarrassment that she'd seen you and Leon necking in the water like teenagers - even though you shouldn't be flustered; it is your house, after all.

Leon sets the bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water down in front of Claire, annoyance evident with the way he uses a bit more force than really necessary, causing the items to clack against the marble.

"What?" Claire questions, glaring at him. "It was cute."

Leon huffs in response, unable to hide the flush that crawls up his neck at her words. You can't help the giggle that bubbles out of you, enjoying the way they bicker like siblings.

Claire leaves Leon to stew, tossing you a grin as she collects the bottle and glass, bidding you goodnight once more before she leaves the kitchen.

You move around the counter to Leon, steps careful in an effort not to slip on the water that has dripped off him and onto the tile. The neighbors must've ran out of fireworks while you were distracted by Claire as it's silent when you wrap your arms around him, tucking your face into his neck. "Still a good day?" You ask, voice muffled against his skin.

He slings an arm around you, fingers fanning out along the small of your back, "Still a good day."

[parkitaco]

Umm 51. Kissing each finger + byler???? (If you want 👀)

hi toy tysm!!! i decided to make this one into a lil extra/missing scene set in the gaps and the silence universe - the original fic is not required reading but like. u should read it. bc i wrote it and it's cool. anyway~ fic below the cut <33

Will wakes up feeling, in a word, optimistic.

He usually feels that way, these days - optimistic for his future, his relationships, basically every aspect of his life. He hadn’t really realized how much he’d missed the feeling, these past few years, or how drastically it would affect everything. It’s happiness plus something, happiness that isn’t tainted by the worry of everything being snatched away from him. Happiness that promises to last.

He rolls over onto his back, opening his eyes and releasing a contented breath as he stares up at the ceiling, smiling to himself. It’s Tuesday today. He used to hate Tuesdays. Now, though, it’s sort of hard to hate anything for any extended amount of time.

The primary reason for his optimism is still sleeping, chest rising and falling gently on the other side of the bed, and Will chances a glance at him, the smile on his face growing tenfold. Mike’s hair spills out over the pillows, one arm thrown over his stomach and the other brushing Will’s. He’s a pretty sight, even in the weak sort of sunlight that January offers through the half-closed curtains. But then again, Will’s a little biased.

Everything is so good, lately. Even this morning, a Tuesday, where he’s doomed to spend the unfortunate majority of his day helping ungrateful customers at the convenience store where he works and then come home to a darkened apartment and be forced to throw something together for dinner- it’s good. It can’t be anything other than good, when he gets to wake up next to his boyfriend.

Said boyfriend stirs, rolling over onto his side and shoving his face into Will’s neck, tossing an arm over Will. “Hi,” he mumbles, lips pressed against Will’s skin, and Will grins.

“Hi,” he whispers back, quiet in the delicacy of the morning, and presses a kiss to the top of Mike’s head. “Sleep okay?”

“Mhm,” Mike hums, still half-asleep as he wriggles closer to Will, chasing his warmth. “Your bed is so much more comfortable than the one at the motel.”

Will huffs a soft laugh, reaching up with one hand to trail his fingertips through Mike’s hair. “I would certainly hope so.” Not that Mike even sleeps at the motel that often anymore, only occasionally going back to get clothes or prove to the staff that he does, in fact, still need the room, but still. Will likes to think he has a little more to offer than a dingy motel room.

Mike hums, and Will can feel the vibration of it from where Mike is pressed up against him, warm and sleepy, and for a second Will is tempted to quit his job just so that he can stay here with Mike for the rest of time rather than standing behind a checkout counter all day trying to stay awake. He’d go broke, probably, and stop being able to afford this apartment, and then he wouldn't even have a place to hide away from his responsibilities anyway, but- it might just be worth it, for a couple extra hours curled up beside Mike. 

He glances at the clock, one hand resting gently against Mike’s bare shoulder blades as he shifts, and winces when he sees the time. “Shit, I have to start getting ready.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mike says immediately, tightening his hold on Will’s waist and pressing his nose firmly into Will’s shoulder. “Stay.”

Will smiles, settling into Mike’s grip if just for a moment and pressing another kiss to the crown of his skull. “Tempting,” he murmurs, as Mike trails a gentle hand over his ribcage, “But I can’t. Sorry.”

Mike whines in protest, flopping back over to his side of the bed and throwing a dramatic arm over his eyes. “Fine. Go, see if I care.”

Will smirks, leaning over and gently nudging at the arm blocking Mike’s eyes. “You can stay here if you want,” he offers, as if it’s not obvious, as if Mike has not spent the majority of the month since they reconnected hanging out in his apartment, “I’ll be back by five.”

“That’s forever from now,” Mike huffs, breath fanning across Will’s face as he leans in to press a kiss to the sliver of jaw not obstructed by Mike’s arm. “I’ll die of loneliness.”

Will laughs. “I’ll be sure to write a heartfelt eulogy for your funeral. ‘Mike Wheeler died as he lived; being a dramatic loser.’”

Mike lifts his arm in order to glare at him, lips twisting into an exaggerated pout. “Mean.”

“You love me,” Will replies, kissing his forehead one, two, three times before slipping out of bed and heading in the direction of his dresser. The sentiment still sends a little thrill through his ribcage, a confirmation and a confession at once, slipping more easily off his tongue every time he utters it. It feels true, these days, something he’s gradually learning how to let himself believe. 

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, already back to burying his face in his pillow, arm tugging the covers further over himself, “That’s kinda my point.”

Will grins, pulling a t-shirt out of his drawer and pulling it on. “Bowie will keep you company,” he says, nodding to the cat curled at the foot of his bed, sleeping in a patch of sunlight. 

“I can’t believe you named your cat Bowie,” Mike huffs, as Will zips up his jeans and leans over to grab the cat off the floor. “You are so pretentious.”

Will feigns a scowl, cradling a squirming Bowie in his arms and pressing a kiss to the top of his furry head. “You love me,” he repeats, and Mike opens one eye as he smirks up at him, “And you love Bowie.”

To prove his point, he dumps Bowie onto the bed, earning a scathing glare from both his boyfriend and the cat. Bowie swishes his tail, giving Mike an appraising sort of look, and Mike frowns. “I don’t think he loves me,” he points out, as Bowie turns his little head firmly in the other direction. “He bites me every time I try to pet him.”

“Yeah, well, he has trust issues,” Will says dismissively, grabbing his bag off the floor and leaning over to kiss Mike’s temple. “He’ll warm up to you eventually. Especially if you feed him.”

Mike doesn’t look convinced, but he sends Will a soft smile anyway, relaxing back into the pillows. “If you say so,” he says warmly, and Will swoops in to kiss his cheek one more time.

“I’ll see you later,” he murmurs, lips still pressed against Mike’s skin, and Mike reaches up to tap a finger against the tip of Will’s nose as he pulls away. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Mike murmurs, already fading back into sleep, and Will can feel his ridiculous, ballooning optimism exponentially increase as he ruffles Mike’s hair and slips out of the bedroom, leaving the door ajar behind him. 

He grabs an apple off the counter on his way out of the apartment, keys clutched in one hand and jacket thrown over his arm as he takes a bite. In the back of his mind, he can already hear Mike’s lecture later about taking care of himself and getting enough protein, because he takes the being-back-in-Will’s-life more seriously than he’s ever taken anything else in his life. It’s an entirely hypocritical lecture, considering Mike is deficient in maybe every vitamin in existence, but it’s endearing anyway. Mike cares so much, all the time and about everything, but especially Will. He’d forgotten that, in the time they’d been apart. It’s nice to be reminded.

Will does a final scan of the apartment, making sure he has everything he needs, before steeling himself for the bleak world outside his warm, cozy apartment and opening the door. He takes another bite of apple as he fumbles with his keys, part of him still wondering if it’s really too late to call in sick to work, really. His meager salary of seven dollars an hour, times the eight hours he’d be working, so he’d be missing out on- oh, forget it. Will’s never excelled at math, but he knows skipping out on that paycheck would be a missed opportunity.

“I knew Will first, you know,” he hears Mike say to Bowie from the bedroom, in the split second before the front door swings shut, “You’re not special.”

Will grins.

---

Will gets home at five-thirteen p.m., lugging a back of groceries over one arm and swinging his keys in the other. The day had been long, in standard Tuesday fashion - an eight hour shift under fluorescent lighting followed by him scouring the aisles of the grocery store for the cheapest items his meager income can allow, and he’s exhausted, hair limp and floppy against his face and feet heavy.

He kicks the door closed behind him, muttering to himself about stupid minimum wage jobs and college schedules, and glances up to find Mike sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal and reading a book. It’s the last of the cereal, probably, because he’d been down to the end of the box and had forgotten to buy more, but it’s cool, Will would give everything he has to Mike Wheeler and cereal is probably the least of it.

He stops short, grocery bag slipping off of one shoulder as he takes in the sight. “Hi.”

Mike glances up, smiling and setting down his spoon. “Hey. How was work?”

“Um- good,” Will says, even though it wasn't, really, although at least this time he didn’t have to deal with old Mr. Becker and his millions of discount codes and gift cards that he can’t ever manage to use in a timely fashion. “You’re still here,” he says observantly, noting that the oversized t-shirt he’s wearing is, in fact, Will’s, as are the sweatpants he’s wearing, too short in the cuffs. 

Mike smiles a little confusedly, sliding off the stool he’d been sitting on and walking over to Will, gently taking the bag of groceries out of his hands. “Yeah,” he says slowly, setting the bag down on the table and taking Will’s keys as well, “Was I not supposed to be?”

“No, it’s- good,” Will says, feeling a little dazed. His brain is overtired from the day, and he’s having some trouble processing information. “I’m glad you’re here, I was just surprised.”

Mike huffs a wry little laugh. “You told me to stay, remember?” he asks, and now that he mentions it, Will does vaguely remember telling him he could hang out at the apartment for the day. He just hadn’t expected Mike to, you know. Actually do it.

“Yeah,” he says, still reeling a little, and that strange optimism strikes up in his chest again. It shouldn't be a big deal. It’s not a big deal, because Mike comes over all the time, and spends four to six nights a week sleeping beside Will in his bed, but something about Mike staying here, sitting at the counter eating food from the fridge and reading one of Will’s books off his shelf, waiting for him to come home after a long day - there’s intimacy there. That’s seven-year-old Mike, sharing half his sandwich with Will during lunch without even thinking twice about it. That’s twelve-year-old Mike, wrapping an arm around Will on Halloween night and telling him he was taking him home, only to end up in the Wheeler’s basement instead of Will’s own house like it meant the same thing, which to Will it truly did. It’s twenty-year-old Mike, traveling halfway across the country on the off chance of seeing Will and twenty-year-old Mike standing in front of him now, here in Will’s apartment with a bemused little smile on his face like it didn’t occur to him to be anywhere else.

Will’s brain kicks back into gear, and pulls Mike into a kiss.

Mike makes a pleased, surprised sound against Will’s lips, hand flitting up to press against Will’s arm like an instinct, and Will shivers as he reaches up to cup Mike’s jaw. He can get used to this, he thinks incredulously, just like he has every day for the past month - he can get used to the feeling of Mike’s lips against his own, his arms wrapped around him when he wakes up in the morning, the soft lilt of his voice when he talks to Will. It’s not getting taken away this time, as Mike makes a point to remind him of at every possible opportunity. Mike is Will’s, for as long as he wants him.

Will presses in closer, kissing Mike firm and slow, tongue tracing gently over his lip. Mike holds him close, protective and solid and just as awed as Will feels, and it’s a few long moments before Will pulls back, breathless and dizzy as a wide smile splits across his face. 

Now Mike is the one who looks dazed, eyes hazy as he presses his forehead against Will’s. “What’s that for?” he asks softly, leaning in to kiss him again quickly, soft and gentle and lips disconnecting with a soft click when he pulls back. 

Will drags his thumb over Mike’s jawline, eyes tracing over his face. He feels like he’s overflowing, a little, his optimism spilling out over everything he touches, and it should be embarrassing, but Will can’t remember ever being this happy before. He couldn’t begin to figure out how to apologize for it even if he wanted to, and for once in his sorry excuse of a life, he doesn’t want to.

“I think,” he says, fingers trailing over Mike’s flushed cheeks, tracing over his freckles, “You should let the motel have their room back.”

Mike’s eyebrows draw together, lips twisting contemplatively. “What, like, find somewhere else to live? I guess, but that might take a while-”

“Mike,” Will interrupts, laughing, hand pausing where it caresses Mike’s cheek, “I meant- you should live here. With me.” He pauses, flushing, and is a little shyer when he adds, “I mean, if you want.”

Mike’s eyes widen almost comically, and he releases a soft breath against Will’s hand. “Oh,” he breathes, sounding a little awed, a little like how Will feels every time he looks at him. “Oh, I- yes, of course I want, are- are you sure?”

And- it’s only been a few weeks. There’s still so much to work out, so many conversations to be had, so many broken things to be mended. They’re still getting used to this new, wonderful thing between them, and there’s still five years of silence to make up for, and even in terms of normal standards it’s moving pretty fast, and-

And yet. 

He thinks of Mike, stepping into Will’s apartment on the third day after they reconnected, looking around with that reverent look on his face and whispering I feel like I’m home, and all the excuses, all the protests the practical part of his brain tries to make, all the worries that the part of him that still wants to doubt insists on, fade away like melting snow.

“I’m sure,” Will says, giggling a little and kissing Mike’s forehead quickly, “I’m definitely sure.”

“Okay,” Mike agrees breathlessly, sounding as giddy as Will feels, “I- shit, okay, yeah.”

Will loves him. He loves him so much. “Even though you’ll have to deal with Bowie?” he teases, as the cat in question appears from the direction of the hall, swishing his tail and looking expectantly at his empty food dish. 

“Me and Bowie are gonna be best friends,” Mike declares, grinning as he wraps his arms around Will’s waist and hitches him closer, “I fed him today and now he doesn’t try to bite me.”

Something warm and light settles in Will’s chest, and he blinks up at him. “You fed him?”

“You said he’d like me if I did!”

Which, again, Will remembers saying, but again hadn’t expected Mike to pay all that much attention to. He presses his thumb over Mike’s cheek, right at the corner of his mouth, feels the dimple in his cheek when Mike smiles at him. “I love you,” he murmurs, the only way left to describe the way he’s feeling right now, that invincible, warm, giddy feeling. He, for the first time in a long time, feels like everything might turn out okay. Better than okay, even.

He goes back to tracing Mike’s freckles, but Mike catches his wrist, bringing Will’s hand around to his lips and kissing the pad of his thumb before trailing to his other fingers. Will laughs softly, Mike’s thumb brushing over his knuckles as he kisses Will’s index, middle, ring fingers, hooks his own pinky through Will’s and kisses the knuckles there like a promise. “I love you too,” he murmurs, flipping Will’s hand around and pressing a firm kiss right to the center of his palm. “So much.” His lips trail back over Will’s fingertips, feather-light and almost ticklish, and Will feels- rosy, bathed in warmth and light and love even in the dead of winter. “Do you want help with the groceries?” Mike offers, lips still pressed against Will’s hand, and Will had almost forgotten about the bag of food abandoned on the kitchen counter, lost in Mike’s touch. 

It’s all so domestic. Will could fucking cry. “Yeah,” he whispers, as Mike presses a firm and final kiss to his knuckles and pulls away, sending Will a soft, pleased smile as he steps over to the counter and reaches into the bag. I love you, Will thinks again, balling his fingers up against his palm like he can hold the ghosts of Mike’s kisses there forever. 

From his spot on the ground, Bowie twitches his tail in warning, needing attention and probably food. Outside, rain falls softly on the concrete of Will’s - Will and Mike’s - apartment building. Mike hands Will a carton of eggs, smiling as Will brushes past him to put them away. 

All is well.

[freeuselandonorris]

hello freeuselandonorris! i’ve asked you for writing advice/ideas a couple of times (POV decisions and something in Nov, can’t remember exactly what it was), and i find your advice so helpful (/srs) so i hope it’s not annoying i’m asking again lol.

i find i can only write when i have extreme motivation, like an idea literally possesses my brain and the words almost write themselves - gonna out myself here, the last thing i wrote was the water inflation fic i appropriated from you; it just took over my mind and i wrote/edited it in like two days (though the speed is for sure because the entire plot was essentially your idea lol).

basically, i have lots of ideas but it’s hard for me to actually think of scenes in specific, and then i just end up not writing at all. do you have a method for coming up with a progression of a specific scene?

i am doing a horrible job of explaining my q lol so for example, my current wip involves interview panels/youtube collabs etc, but i’m finding it hard to write those because it’s so different from anything i’ve tried writing before. what do you do in those kinds of cases?

sorry for the ramble and if this makes no sense, love u 😭

hiiii lovely anon (or semi-anon lmao) you are not annoying in the SLIGHTEST, i love talking about stuff like this and it makes me really fucking happy to know that my self-indulgent rambling about writing is occasionally helpful to read ❤️

SO. i have two pieces of advice on this one, speaking from my own experience because for a very long time i was also like this and would write in fits and starts and felt very like i had to ~wait for the muses to bless me~. it’s actually something i was taught at a writing course i took years ago now and it sounds so blah and obvious when you first read it but if you stick with it, it works. BRIEF DAILY SESSIONS.

aka, you write a tiny little bit every day. if you can’t commit to every day, say five days a week (but every day is better). i do NOT mean write 1000 words a day or spend three hours doing it or freak yourself out or beat yourself up or abandon your social life or your responsibilities! the idea is you just pick a time that feels feasible (i started off with 15 minutes a day and i think this works well) and you commit to doing that every day. it doesn’t have to be anything good. it can be 15 minutes of you describing lando’s eyelashes in minute detail. it can be 15 minutes of notes for a plotline. it can be 15 minutes of dialogue you KNOW is shit and wooden and will be getting deleted the minute you get to the edit stage. doesn’t matter. just do your 15 minutes.

what this does is it breaks the hold your brain has on this idea of “oh no i have to be INSPIRED before i can possibly think of writing”. at my course they compared it to musicians practising scales, or athletes doing training. we could think of it like drivers doing their sim runs. they don’t just turn up on a race weekend and expect to be great, they have to keep their eye in.

side note: it’ll feel horrible at first, you’ll hate it and resent it and everything you write will feel awful. stick with it. if you miss a day, it doesn’t matter, you haven’t failed, just start again tomorrow. if you miss a week, you haven’t failed, start again tomorrow.

this is more of a long-term thing, so for your specific piece and the issue you mention about progressing a scene, the way i get around this is to start by writing the bit(s) i CAN imagine. so for instance here, you’d write one interview scene, or one youtube collab scene. even if it’s just a little bit of dialogue, or a couple of paragraphs of like, oh i can see oscar rolling his eyes and lando sees it and gets annoyed but he can’t say anything because there are cameras on them… or whatever. just write that bit. then leave a blank space in the gdoc and write the next bit. don’t worry about the order or anything.

once you’ve written all the little bits you can think of, read them through and you might be able to see links between them, like — oh that bit could follow on from this bit up here, or these two bits could kind of go together. reorganise stuff a bit, chop it up, get rid of anything that doesn’t work (copy it into another document called ‘cutting room floor’ if you don’t want to fully get rid).

THEN write yourself some notes. go through your bits and bobs and in between them, just write stuff like [SOMEHOW THEY GET FROM THE FILMING TO THE HOTEL ROOM???]. don’t just write [SOMETHING HAPPENS HERE], you need to give yourself little breadcrumbs to follow. so like there you go, okay, so they need to be in a car or a lift or some sort of transitional space (you see these crop up a lot in my fics — lifts, hallways in hotels, the backs of taxis). or if they’ve started off talking about one thing and you want them talking about this other thing by the end of the scene, write [THEY CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT LUNCH UNTIL IT GETS AWKWARD AND THEN THEY SOMEHOW END UP TALKING ABOUT OSCAR’S CHILDHOOD]. okay, so it got awkward. how did it get awkward? write that bit. what happens after it’s awkward? does lando double down or try to gloss over it? write that bit. how does oscar react to that? write that bit. etc.

in essence, don’t try to see the entire thing at once because you’ll paralyse yourself. give yourself a direction to aim in, and a place to start, and then just focus on the next bit until you get from A to B.

and if all else fails, find a nice pithy line to end the scene on, use an asterisk scene break and start again somewhere else 🤷

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG i really hope i didn’t bore the hell out of everyone afkjeskfjkldsj but yes THANK YOU AGAIN and i hope this is useful in some way!! you can do it i know ittttt

[messessentialist]

I ve been reading your steddie fic and I love it so much!!! Wayne munson my beloved!!!!!! If u dont mind me asking, how did you come up with wayne’s characterisation?

AHHH I'm so glad you're enjoying it!! This fic has literally been my whole year so getting to see people engage with it and fall in love with Wayne and Eddie has been so so fun for me.

I think I felt very connected to Wayne from jump street, eve based on the little snippets we got in canon. The things I took away from those scenes were:

1. This is a man who has seen some adversity in his life and has dealt with it by keeping his head down and doing the work put in front of him.

2. We know he's working nights circa s4, which is a tough thing to do. It isolates you from normal social life. Maybe it's for the extra money, or maybe it's because he's a little bit of a liner himself. Maybe he and Eddie work because they're both on the fringes in their own ways.

3. He loves Eddie unconditionally. This is clear from the wonderful performance Joel Stoffer gave. But a part that stuck out to me in particular was the way he's coming into the high school at the end, as far as we know, just to replace the vandalized missing flyer with a new one. There's a quiet sort of dignity to the way he's doing it. It's probably not the first time, and he knows it'll happen again. But he knows who Eddie was. He will keep honoring that kid he knew, no matter what the rest of Hawkins thinks.

Which kind of brings us back to 1: Wayne Munson will take what is thrown at him in stride. He doesn't rage against the injustice. He just does what he can with what is put in front of him. So what would that have looked like when the thing put in front of him was a scared kid who needed his help? What does putting your head down and doing the work mean when the work is loving someone who desperately needs to be loved? Even if you feel ill-prepared for that responsibility?

I imagine it looks like giving the kid safety and protection and softness. Letting him talk your ear off for hours. Standing up for him when no one else ever has. So to me it followed that those are things Wayne would do. Identify the issue, execute the solution. Ask for help when you need it. Prioritize joy when you can afford to. Etc.

And at the end of the day, I just wanted Eddie to have someone in his corner. I think Wayne is that person. So I wrote him as a person who loves Eddie, and let the rest stem from that.

Thanks so much for asking, this was fun to dig into and think about!

[adhdxion]

Repose

Summary: Aqua regains what’s hers.

Read on Ao3

__

The walk was long, and rather boring; Through some hallways, down a spiral staircase, and through another hallway, this one lined with rooms that she wasn't sure whether to describe as cells or cages. They were empty, but Aqua couldn't help herself from glancing into them, and she felt a chill go down her spine with each one.

"You're sure it's down here?" She asked the young man in front of her. He was walking with his head down, as though avoiding looking at the cages.

"No, but it's likely," the man, Ienzo, answered without looking up. He was clearly uncomfortable, and Aqua made a note to herself that she must think of a way to thank him for bringing her here despite that. "Xehanort spent quite a bit of time down here, and Xemnas later banned anyone but himself from entering. Assuming he even kept your keyblade, it's likely to be in the Chamber."

"Do you think he would have gotten rid of it?" She wasn't sure what she'd do if her blade was lost or destroyed. Even after all this time, Master's Defender never sat quite right in her hands, always felt a bit too heavy.

"...I can't say," he responded, then stopped walking. Aqua only then noticed they'd reached the end of the hall. "But we're here, so you may as well check before worrying about that."

The door had no handle. Aqua stepped forward to look closer, then jumped back in surprise when it opens on its own. Within sat a throne, much like the one in Castle Oblivion, and beyond that…

She felt it before she saw it. A tug at her heart, a feeling like she's just remembered something long forgotten, and before she could think she was running across the room, falling to her knees at the other end. Her armor was there, broken and dilapidated and probably beyond repair, but none of that mattered, because Stormfall is there and it's in her hands and it's hers.

Memories flowed through her in waves - the day she was bequeathed, the first time she summoned her blade, the first fight she won, the first spell she cast. The day she left a part of herself in her best friend's hands, and left herself to fall. Aqua doesn't realize she's crying until a tear falls on the hilt.

Ienzo came up behind her, holding out a hand. "Are you all right?"

"Y-yes, I'm fine," she said, taking his hand and letting him help her up. Aqua wiped at her face, embarrassed at breaking down in front of a relative stranger. She's cried far too often, lately. "I was worried, I suppose. I thought, after so long without it, it might not feel like mine anymore.

She held out her hand and dispelled her keyblade before summoning it back, the most natural thing she's ever done. Any dust or grime that coated the blade was gone, leaving it shining like new, and Aqua struggled to keep the tears from starting again. "But it's the opposite," she continued, "I feel like I've regained a piece of myself that I didn't even realize was missing."  

Ienzo smiled. "I know that feeling well." He didn't elaborate, and Aqua decided it was best not to ask. Instead, she leaned down to her armor, willing it to dissipate at her touch. She could already tell it was too damaged to be repaired by its innate magic, the same way Terra's was after a decade in the badlands, held together by willpower alone. They'd both have to figure out what to do with them later. For now, she was ready to leave this dungeon.

"May I ask you something?" she says to Ienzo once they reach the spiral stairs.

"Of course."

"The man you knew as Xehanort… do you think any part of Terra was still within him?"

Ienzo paused on the steps to consider the question - or perhaps to catch his breath. "You would be better off asking Terra. I don't know him personally, nor did I know Xehanort before he came to be with us."

"Terra… I can't bring myself to ask him," she said, frowning. "I can tell he isn't ready to talk about that time. But I guess it's been on my mind."

They walked for a while without speaking. At the top of the stairs was a ledge that overlooked the facility, and Ienzo took a seat on it. He nodded his head at Aqua, and she takes that as a cue to sit beside him. After another moment, he spoke:

"I was very young when I first met Xehanort, and my life since then has been unconventional. My memories of his time as an apprentice are clouded at best, and he was a fairly different person as Xemnas." Ienzo drummed his fingers on his leg as he talked. Aqua wasn't sure she fully understood the idea of Nobodies, how Xemnas was different from Xehanort, but she knew the gist, and let him continue.

"I remember being distrustful of him at first. Perhaps I sensed the darkness in him, or perhaps I was simply an antisocial child. But either way, I warmed up to him over the course of a year. He was… kind, perhaps, or at least not cruel, and he didn't talk down to me like the others often did." He sighed. "I trusted him, by the end, and I trusted Xemnas as well. But Xehanort's past was always vague, and his actions inscrutable. I don't know if his kindness was due to Terra's influence, or his memory loss, or an intentional act of manipulation. Perhaps it was some combination of the three. But make of that what you will."

None of that helped, but it didn't matter. It was something to put on her mind, something new to think about. She hoped she was wrong, hoped Terra hadn't been aware, didn't have to feel even more guilt for things over which he had no control. She knew, even for a short time, how it felt for control of yourself to slip through the cracks, how helpless lucidity felt as she watched the darkness control her. But Terra was himself now, and so was she, and as Aqua held her keyblade to her chest, she knew they would never give that up again.

She stood. "Thank you, Ienzo. For everything. I should get home before Terra and Ven start to worry."

"Do you have a way to get home?" He asked, standing as well.

She shook her head. "Don't worry, I've got everything I need."

In the courtyard, Aqua raised her keyblade to the sky, then flung it into the air, both surprised and not surprised at all that she remembered how. With her mind full and her heart fuller, she boarded her glider and took to the realm between, and for the first time in a decade, Aqua felt whole.

[ubemango]

Year after year (after tear after tear)

note 1: I wrote this last semester after watching deathly hallows for the one hundredth time... I got mad that Ron/Hermione were a thing instead of Harry/Hermione ANYWAY that’s not the point of the fic but U know that feel when Ron/Lavender were together and Hermione was crying the whole time??? Yeah that’s the point of this fic. Also based off a drabble I didn’t reupload; this is the revamped version ig

+ thank you Luna and Miss Minnie for helping me out and reading through this <3

note 2: “Ella will u ever write anything other than college au” Nope die mad about it

PAIRING. jeongguk/being in love, reader/crying, taehyung/being a good friend:( GENRE. sad romance. it’s college angst RATED. T WORD COUNT. 3.4k WARNINGS. I don’t mean it. SUMMARY. Taehyung just wants you to have a good birthday.

let me go, let me stay, let me live in oblivion...

cehryl, sway

(1) 

He doesn’t even need to say she’s there. It’s the same succession of movement every time: his spine will go rigid, then his eyes will light up. Maybe he’ll twiddle his thumbs under the table too. He fidgets like he is.

“I really like her,” Jeongguk sighs.

“That’s good,” you answer.

You stab at the margins of your notebook with your pen. Taehyung doesn’t say anything. He sits across you, unwounded and wholly unbothered, taking another bite of his messy sandwich. At least he cares enough to send you a look that says he understands your vexation.

“Why don’t you go talk to her then?” Taehyung says.

Jeongguk fidgets a little more. He sends another forlorn look past Taehyung’s shoulders. “She hasn’t texted me back.”

“When’d you text her?”

“Like two hours ago.”

“Hmph,” Taehyung grumbles. Instantly you think of Jeongguk waking up with the urgent need to text Jieun. You resist making the disturbed noise that itches at your throat.

“Maybe she’s just too busy,” Jeongguk argues.

“Well she is carrying a billion textbooks,” you chime in. And you’re not wrong. Jieun stands near the pizza station, contemplating lunch choices with the burdens of fourth-year organic chemistry and animal physiology in her tiny hands. She’s dainty in that pretty way. If you had the gall, you’d be green with jealousy, but even you can’t deny her charm.

“Maybe I’ll go help her—“

Taehyung slams his hands across the table on his arm. “Do not.”

“She’s so cute.” Jeongguk resigns, sitting back down.

If you were kinder to yourself, you’d excuse your presence for the sake of finding solace in your homework elsewhere. There’s a weird mixture of pity and rapture that keeps you glued to your seat though; while you loathe to sit out one more second of Jeongguk foaming at the mouth for annoyingly-pretty-Jieun, there’s also the anchor in your heart that weighs you right back down to him. 

In a less metaphoric translation: he cut his hair and he looks really good.

“So are you… talking talking?” Taehyung asks through mushy bread.

“Sorta,” Jeongguk says. “I mean—she and I talk through Snap.”

“Does she save your messages?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus,” Taehyung says again.

“I do,” Jeongguk interjects.

“Christ.” Taehyung snorts. “Do you guys have any classes together?”

“A-level anthropology. She needed it for her degree requirement.”

It makes sense. “So she was the fourth year you had to talk to for group discussion,” you recall.

“Yeah.”

“And now you’re in love with her.” (Taehyung gives you a sharp stare.)

“Well—sure,” Jeongguk replies. “I don’t know. She’s cool. The other day she was watching a stream of someone playing Resident Evil and my heart was so—big for her.”

You scrunch your nose. He says this like you didn’t come over the second it came out and took turns playing it with him but you won’t bring it up. “Cute,” you say instead.

“Oh.” You watch his phone light up on the table. “It’s—she messaged me back.”

Jeongguk stays preoccupied tapping furiously on his screen. Taehyung finishes his sandwich with a gulp, offering you one more glance of understanding. Your chest hurts.

(2)

There’s a movie playing in the student lounge tonight. Some high-definition, revolutionary take on pop culture you haven’t watched the trailer for yet. It’s Jeongguk who invites you.  

He’s saved you a seat next to him on the couch, buttered popcorn hot on his lap. “You’re late,” Jeongguk complains when you fall into the cushion next to him.

“I don’t like movies.”

“But you like me.”

You know it’s a joke. But offence comes in the form of a shiver that runs right down your back, and if he was any closer he probably would have felt it. “Sure,” you answer instead. “Taehyung not here yet?”

“Nah.” He tips the bucket in your direction in offering, and you scoop a handful of kernels. “He had some band rehearsal or something. He’ll probably come later.”

The opening scenes drone into a buzz you pay half-attention to. A lot of people are here tonight, and the convention of silence isn’t something they really care about because you can barely hear what you’re not even trying to listen to. Jeongguk groans. “So loud,” he says.

You shrug. “Are you sad about that?”

“Shut up.” He clicks his tongue. Spreads his legs and leans back attractively, and you cross your legs to distract yourself from the sudden track of desire that makes a course through your head. Literally any boy could do the same douchey thing and you’d find it gross, but Jeongguk was never any boy. Jeongguk is clumsy and knocks his knees against yours and apologizes quick under his breath, and you notice he hasn’t looked at you once.

You don’t put it past him. You probably shouldn’t be so preoccupied with your messy love life when the one it concerns is right next to you. But it’s easy to get lost in the lull of the movie you’re not here for, seeking out Jeongguk’s presence, because it’s what you do when you don’t care about the consequences.

You turn to him when he nudges your shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispers. 

“Yeah?”

“I see Jieun.”

Of course he sees Jieun. You know how it works. The signal that blares the second you notice something’s right about the room, your periphery shrinking into the one thing, and it was Jeongguk sitting on this couch. You didn’t even need to search for him because he was just there. Now Jieun is just there and and you’re here but not to Jeongguk. 

Never for Jeongguk.

You nod in agreement. “Yeah. Up front?”

“Mhm.”

The glow of the screen surrounds her, almost like she’s some holy deity. Trust Jieun to make the back of her head just as pretty as her face. There’s bitterness, but there’s also acceptance, and that’s what’s mashing at your insides. “She’s alone,” you remark.

“She says she likes going to the movies here,” Jeongguk says, and it clicks.

“So you’re here for her.”

He scratches his chin, frowning. “I—maybe. Yeah,” he flounders.

You're quiet for the sake of being polite, but a million derisive words jumble quiet in your head. Like you’d said earlier, you don’t even like movies. But it meant an hour and a half of wondering if his thigh would touch yours. An amalgamation of all the sweetest things you could imagine happening in this two-seater, and he won’t spare you one glance. 

You find your words before you start floundering, too. “So are you gonna talk to her?”

“I want to.”

“You should if you want to.”

“I just—“ he pauses when the dialogue continues loudly on-screen— “I… have a question.”

“Sure.”

“Friend to friend.” Your insides freeze up. For a strange couple seconds, you contemplate laughing. “I just—I feel so clueless. I like her a lot but it feels like it’s going nowhere. One second I’m texting her and it really seems like it’s going somewhere and then she doesn’t talk to me for two days.”

“Sounds rough,” you offer. 

“It’s annoying. I don’t know. I mean we’re nowhere near exclusive but I’m still sorta hurt, y’know? Is it—is it wrong for me to feel like that? Am I allowed to feel this sad?”

Jeongguk takes the pause for your initial thoughts to dump a handful of popcorn in his mouth. You both stare forward, and you know who he’s looking at. “Is that your question?” You mumble.

“Yeah.”

You stick your hand in the bucket. Jeongguk takes his hand out. “You’re allowed to be sad.”

“Hm,” he huffs.

“It’s a bad feeling—like you’re going somewhere with someone when you really aren’t,” you continue. You bring your knees up to your chest, and if your shoes scuff the couch you don’t really care. “It’s not your fault. I get it. You get the—the hope that she’ll keep talking to you, because if she’s not then it feels like she doesn’t care, right? And it all just blows up in your face when you don’t talk but when you do it feels good again. You know. Like a cycle.”

Jeongguk nods fast. “A dumb cycle,” he snorts, and you can’t help but agree.

“You’ll be fine,” you say.

“Thanks.” He bumps his elbow against yours in an effort to lighten up the mood. “You know. Whoever you end up with? They’re really lucky.”

Ouch. That’s literally the last thing you’d planned on hearing tonight, but you’ll take it anyway. “You’re too nice to me.”

“I mean it!”

“Thanks.” You’ve never doubted his sincerity—never will. But when it works against your favour, it’s hard to hide being terse. Especially when you have nothing left to say. 

On-screen, a couple shares a passionate kiss.

“I don’t like this movie,” you decide.

Jeongguk hums. “Sorry.”

The moment is done. You had come for loveless possibilities; watched them disintegrate with every word Jeongguk spoke. The rational part of your brain reminds you it isn’t his fault. 

It’s always yours.

“You should go sit with her,” you encourage.

“Really?”

If Jeongguk’s trying to hide his excitement, it’s not working. He sucks in his bottom lip. Something he does when he’s contemplating anything nerve-wracking, and with the awful feeling stabbing your stomach, you remember how hard it is to forget the small things about him. “Go. I’ll save this seat for Taehyung.”

“Alright,” he resolves. He hands you the popcorn bucket. Gives you one last hopeful look and bounds off to the front without warning. 

You watch him whisper to get Jieun's attention. She adjusts fast, it seems—he slides in the couch right next to her in an instant. When his shoulder touches hers, your heart shatters.

Taehyung doesn’t show up. When the movie’s done, Jeongguk and Jieun are nowhere to be seen. 

At least you got the popcorn to yourself.

(3)

“You’re such a masochist,” Taehyung declares.

“Maybe.”

"Stop talking to him."

"Stop talking to our best friend?" No one really comes to the library on weekends. It's a void you signed up to volunteer in, shelving books in peace. But this time Taehyung insisted he come by to help you out. Really he'd just felt bad that he couldn't make it to movie night last week, and he'd listened to the failed outcome with kind ears—and unkind advice. "I can't just—do that."

"I mean like taking a friendship break," he suggests. You hand him the generous weight of a British literature anthology to slot in. "What the fuck. This is so heavy. Anyway go join a club or something. Distract yourself."

"So much work."

"Yeah but would you rather die every time J-word comes around?" Taehyung frowns when you push the trolley ahead without him. "Priorities. Priorities!"

His volume is a touch higher than the acceptable whisper, and you make sure his foot falls victim to the sudden stop of the wheels. He grumbles when it scuffs his shoe. "It's not easy!" You scold tightly.

"Neither is sticking around him all the time! It's been three years. We graduate soon. And I don't want to sound mean, but you need to deal with all of this better."

What he means? An honest effort. What you take from it? Nothing, because dealing with it means confronting your feelings with a rationality you don't have. You'll never be poised enough for that. 

"It's not easy," you repeat.

You're getting restive, rifling through the spines of books with unsteady hands. You want to blame the coffee you had before coming in, but the more you succumb to Taehyung's comfort, the more you unravel. He does nothing but watch now. "Are you okay?" He asks. "Like really?"

Easy question. You still hesitate. "Nope."

He sighs like he didn't want that answer. "It's been a long time, huh."

Of what, he doesn't say. He doesn't need to. You know what the context is—Jeongguk became a constant the minute you'd exchanged hellos in first year. Your friendship was never an extravagant affair: just something you'd pursued with no romantic prompt whatsoever, because statistics isn't the easiest for people who are only doing it for the credit. He's always been good at easy things.

It's all about happenstance. How saying hi to a kind face in a cold classroom means unfolding three years worth of tumult. You think of all the fairytales you’ve lived: fifth-grade harbingers of cheek kisses, high school promises that would bring you to the ends of the Earth. Now, a lost cause, because college isn’t grounds for fair endings, and the authors of your fate are not kind. How easy it would be to just pick it up and shove it along with the other books you push into the shelf.

You can't help but mirror Jeongguk's anguish. "I'm stupid," you confess, rounding the next aisle to crouch and stock the bottom of the bookcase. 

Taehyung hums. "You're not."

"It's my fault."

"It's not your fault," he argues. "You're just good at loving someone. But that doesn't mean it feels good. Don't be mad when I say what I'm about to say."

"Okay," you caution.

"Sometimes I want to punch your head," Taehyung explains. He tuts when you make a target of his ankle with the hardcover in your hand. "You know? Pinch the I love Jeongguk nerves till they go away."

"You're very nice.”

He runs a hand along the spines of the history of the Middle Ages. "I just don't like seeing you so hurt all the time,” he says. He walks on ahead wordlessly. You stare at the boring carpet of the floor, and think of how nice it is to have Taehyung as a friend.

(3.9)

There’s something particularly amazing about the drive to do well in school: the hyper-sensitive awareness of your dwindling sense of self, because late nights and dehydration have pretty much become personal traits at this point. You’ll look online for ways to do self-care later. It’s a fatalistic time of year, studying for exams. Maybe you should straighten your back, but no one’s in your room to scold you this late at night.

It takes two seconds past midnight for Taehyung to bulldoze through your text notifications.

[12:00:02 AM] taehyubg: HAPPY

[12:00:04 AM] taehyubg: BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [12:00:09 AM] taehyubg: Sorry u have to study about profit margins or whatever [12:00:15 AM] taehyubg: Take it easy 👌🏼

[12:00:30 AM] You: thank you :)

[12:00:38 AM] You: fhdfkjhsfkjf i’m tired!!!!! buy me coffee tomorrow as ur gift

[12:01:09 AM] taehyubg: Yeah

[12:01:13 AM] taehyubg: Maybe

[12:01:15 AM] taehyubg: :P

[12:01:29 AM] taehyubg: Ok I’ll let u study. Seriously though. good luck!

[12:01:40 AM] You: thank u:) again lol

You lay your phone down flat. Too many temptations to consider if you keep the screen within your periphery, but that doesn't stop you from leaving the ringer on.

In the thoughtless state of staring at your loopy handwriting, you think of Jeongguk.

Maybe he’s hunched over his desk, too. Contemplating his own writing, because they’re incomprehensible and he’s too proud to give up the faux-cursive he’s learned for fast lecturers. 

Or maybe he’s lying down in bed, considering sleep with tired eyes. Maybe he listens to the ticking of his clock. The seconds trailing past midnight, and maybe, you hope, maybe it’s still too early, because he's never forgotten your birthday before.

The shrieks of your phone scratching the wood on your desk ring loud. You try not to sink into sad possibilities. So you grab for it, and the split second before you swipe, you see Jeongguk’s face, and you sigh in relief. 

“Hi,” his voice filters through the line. "Is it—am I too late? Is it late?"

"No. Not at all," you answer a little more breathlessly than you want to let on.

"Oh. Cool. Ha. How—how are you?"

Not an uncommon greeting but you thought—”I’m good."

"Good. You're studying too right? You have your exam tomorrow?"

"So you just called to check on me?"

"Sure."

"Ah. Okay," you whisper. 

"Actually, no—I. I called because I just wanted someone to talk to. If that's okay."

The screen is strikingly cold on your hot cheek. If you focus hard enough, the atoms inside you might collide faster and burst into complete hysterics. You think the drama is warranted. 

Of course he forgot your birthday. 

"It's fine,” you mumble. “Are you okay?"

"I just—ahhh… Just nervous is all. Jieun, she—we’re seeing another movie tomorrow night, so."

"Well you're just watching a movie."

"Yeah but. I don't know. I don't have you, this time."

You could analyze the irony of that sentence but then you'd really explode. The softness of his words are stifling. "Sorry."

"I just want it to be perfect," he says.

"That's good."

Jeongguk makes a rough noise. Stretching, probably. "Are you sure I'm not calling too late?"

"Positive," you answer. Rigid in your posture, like how he changes his stance when he sees Jieun. Now, you don't really see anything. Just the blur of the oddities of your messy notes and the very real truth of the boy who knows nothing, sitting in his room, oblivious to the pounding of your heart. Your head. It hurts to keep your eyes open.

"Cool. Thanks," he sighs. "Thanks for—uh. Listening. I keep talking about... her. Don't I?"

"Yeah, but. We can't help who we like, can we."

"Right."

Tonight he talks about her pretty fingernails, and her shiny hair. The buzzing in your ears cuts him off thirty minutes into the phone call. You think you might convince yourself to spew the polemic sitting ugly under your tongue, so you bid him a hasty goodbye with the excuse of covering content you haven't gotten to yet. 

He hangs up first. You feel much, much older. 

(4)

There’s a bench on the east side of campus, across the iron statue of a revered professor. It’s decorated with a dandelion flower crown. A bird alights on its head. Taehyung meets you with a medium coffee, and a muted smile. 

"You did good," he says. 

You give him an attempt at a grateful look. Today, nothing sits right: the exam was hellish, and the skin of your ring finger throbs red from writing too hard. The loom of your headache threatens a siege but you sip at the heat of your coffee before you can think about it. “Thanks.”

Taehyung sighs into his seat. “Nice weather,” he jokes. He points at the chubby swallow currently chirping high noises of delight. “It’s saying happy birthday.”

“That’s cute.”

“Speaking of a little birdie,” he clears his throat, “heard our little fledgling was psyched for another date soon.”

You are very aware. And it’s not like he had to be cautious about bringing the subject up—Taehyung’s as much of an insider about Jeongguk’s love life as much as you are victim. Friendship codes are complicated. Taehyung knows how much you hurt. “He called me last night.”

“He did?”

“Oh yeah. Told me all about how he wanted everything to be perfect,” you recall. You feel the daggers of Taehyung’s gaze on your face. “I—I don’t know anything anymore.”

He shrugs. “You’re smart.”

“He didn’t remember it was my birthday.”

“So did you remind him?”

“No,” you admit.

“You’re smart,” Taehyung repeats. “Letting him get all in his head. Makes his downfall that much better.”

You take refuge in his aggressive comfort, the dying warmth of the cup in your hands. The grip you have, tightens. “So what I’m hearing is that you’re on my side.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Jieun this, Jieun that.” He clicks his teeth. “Maybe I do. I don’t know. But if all that it does is make you so small like this…”

The swallow has been pecking at the professor’s glasses. It takes a moment to reflect, twisting its neck in a robotic staccato. Then it flies off. Up, up—flapping and struggling, and it soars right past the windows of the student lounge.

Jeongguk and Jieun make a very pretty pair waiting in line for free popcorn. Taehyung lets you squeeze his arm.

“Is it supposed to feel like this?” You falter in the question. 

“No,” he says. He accepts your tears with his hard shoulder. “It shouldn’t. But happy birthday anyway.”

[dovechim]

a remedy for mondays 02 (m)

➾ 12.6k

➾ please read part 01 first!! 

➾ summary: all you wanted was just one day off work. but for that to happen, you need to invent a plausible reason. and then somehow, somewhere along the way, things get out of hand, and now people think you’re having a baby with your co-worker Park Jimin after a one-night stand. confused? join the club.

➾ warnings: SMUT, risky unprotected sex (pls be safe!), one night stand, oral sex (m&f), cum fetish/ cum eating (m), creampies, public bj, impregnation kink, baby making dirty talk, switch jimin. 

➾ a/n: happy monday (at least for me)!!!! the smut is finally here u guys... i feel like im making up for lost time lmaooo ok but real talk there’s a lot more to come in the future. once again, i wanna express my undying love for @jimlingss. without her, half of what's in this fic would not exist c: 

love you guys. have a good week ahead 💓

The notifications are pouring in like crazy. Before this you didn’t even realise you had this many friends, but it seems like now everyone wants a piece of the congratulations-pie, everyone wants to share in on your good news.

Your sister has been calling and texting you non-stop to ask when your next checkup is, and if she can come along to see the ultrasound. Your mother has been leaving long, weepy voicemails begging you to call her back.

It’s all just too much, and its Monday again.

“Your performance has been awfully sub-par lately,” your manager sighs as she flips through your report. “I thought we went over this the last time we met? Where’s the analysis for the datasets I gave you last week?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll work harder,” you mumble under your breath, swallowing back the unfairness that tastes bitter in the back of your throat. Even though you’d spent what was remaining of your weekend churning out all the reports, it’s still not enough. Nothing will ever be enough for your slave driver of a manager.

“See that you do. You may go for now,” she dismisses you, and you leave her office.

You plop down at your desk with a heavy sigh, looking at your emails with no real motivation to do anything. Between the pressure at work and the whole mounting scandal of your supposed pregnancy, you are caught between a rock and a hard place. There’s no real solution to any of this. All you have to blame is yourself.

No, actually, your asshole boss is to blame. She sent you a set of painfully incomplete datasets last week, expecting you to get a full analysis out of them. When you wrote back to her that some data was missing, hence making it difficult for you to analyse, she just ignored your email.

Feeling your anger surge through our entire body, you pick up your mug and shove yourself out of your chair, muttering under your breath.

“What the fuck does she want me to do, magic the data out of thin air? Pull the data out of my ass?” Luckily everyone around you is too absorbed in their work to notice that you’re walking around and talking angrily to yourself.

You wash your cup with more vigour than necessary, scrubbing extra hard as you imagine that the surface of your cup is your boss’s face. You get back to your seat and set your cup down, breathing hard both from the exertion and the annoyance.

“I hit 200 mentions this morning,” Park Jimin remarks casually as he drops his briefcase on his desk and sinks into his chair. “I’ve never had this many notifications before.”

You shoot him an annoyed glare. “Not here!”

Gesturing for him to follow you, you scope out an empty meeting room and close the door.  He comes in and sits on the desk with his arms crossed.

“So what are we going to-“

“Let’s have a baby.”

Park Jimin gapes at you, and if the situation weren’t this dire, you’d laugh about how someone so handsome can get caught off guard too. You run your eyes over his body, from the way his thighs look thicker as he perches on the edge of the desk, his slim biceps that show through his white dress shirt, and his dashing good looks. Why nothave a baby with Park Jimin? At this point, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to you.

“You’re not thinking straight are you?” Jimin cautions with his hands up, as if trying to ward off a raging, charging bull. “What happened? Did your manager give you hell again? You’re always cranky on Mondays.”

“I’m cranky, am I?” Your voice has a slight edge to it. “I’ll tell you why I’m cranky alright. My sister is texting me every two seconds asking if I’ve set up an appointment with the doctor yet. My mother is calling me every four seconds to tell me what she thinks our baby’s name should be-“

“Wait- really? But you haven’t gotten a single call in the whole time that you’ve been here…”

“I’m not getting a moment’s peace,” you whirl around on him with a slightly manic look on your face, and Park Jimin’s eyes widen even more, and he gulps in fear. “Let’s just have this fucking baby already.”

Jimin knows well enough not to engage someone when they’re in full on panic mode, so he lets you take a few deep breaths before speaking. Over the past few months, he’s grown pretty familiar with what your likes and dislikes are, particularly your preference for drowning your sorrows in alcohol. So maybe the next thing that he suggests is not the most rational, but fuck it, at this point, does it even matter anymore?

“You know what? Let’s ditch work early today and go for drinks.” Jimin watches your expression change immediately, and his heart seizes in relief.

But then a frown crosses your face. “Oh but I can’t, I have that fucking dataset to analyse…”

“Fuck it.” You’re shocked when the expletive leaves his lips; the normally reserved Park Jimin who always does all his work and makes sure to cross his ‘t’s and dot his ‘i’s. “It’s Monday. Who wants to work on a Monday?”

*

It feels like the two of you are doing something illegal when you lean to the side and catch Park Jimin’s eye at exactly 5pm on the dot. You already decided that leaving at the same time from your seats would be far too inconspicuous, so the plan is for you to pretend to go to the ladies’ washroom, which is in one direction, and for him to leave for the men’s about 10 minutes later, then meet at the taxi stand and hail a cab to get the hell out of this place.

It’s a whole rendezvous, and since you left earlier, you reach the taxi stand first; panting even though you haven’t done that much physical exercise to justify it at all. The minutes are ticking by; any time now any one of your coworkers could walk by and see you waiting for a taxi and immediately know that you’re leaving work early. But it’s even worse still if they happen to catch you and Park Jimin hopping into a cab together, so you only pray that your brainless coworkers are tied to their desks.

Not a second later, Park Jimin appears, his hair ruffled and his eyes shining behind his glasses with mirth. His lips are quirked into an excited smile as he waves down a cab, opens the door for you and gestures you in. The simple act of his, done without much thought at all, actually makes your heart skip a beat as you get in.

You can’t help but obsessively check over your shoulder to see if any of your co-workers just so happen to be around. It’s only when you clear the near vicinity of your workplace that your shoulders sag with relief, and even more so when the cab screeches to a stop, signalling that you’ve arrived. Jimin pays the driver without a word, refusing to accept your money as you clamber out of the cab after him.

It’s not the typical scene you would have found yourself at in your younger days. This bar is a lot more lowkey, the lighting is dim despite the fact that they haven’t even reached happy hour yet. It’s hard to make out anyone’s face inside, and you nearly lose sight of Jimin were it not for the fact that his hand is tightly grasping yours.

“What would you like to start off?” Jimin asks as you reach the bar. He turns to see you struggling to get on the high chair in your skirt and heels, and he reaches to steady the back of the chair so that it doesn’t tip over.

“Shots.” You declare. “I need to get wasted, and fast.”

Giving you a raised eyebrow, but not protesting in the least, Jimin turns to order and in that moment, gives you a really nice glimpse of his side profile. Somewhere along the taxi ride he had taken off his glasses and pushed his hair back, and unbuttoned his dress shirt a little more. You have to tear your eyes away from him when the bartender presents you with a tray of tequila shots with salt decorating the rim, and some finger food to go along with it.

You grab one and he follows suit.

“What should we toast to?” Park Jimin asks.

“To our baby,” you say with a slight laugh, and though you can feel the slightly weird look that the bartender gives you, you don’t really give a fuck. All that matters is that the only other person in here who knows the truth is Park Jimin, and he gives you a shared smile as you clink glasses.

The alcohol burns as it slides down your throat, and you immediately reach for another to chase it down. The tray clears out pretty quickly as Jimin matches you shot for shot, and every time you put down your glass, reality gets further and further away, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“So tell me,” Jimin says as he reaches for the ketchup bottle and uncaps it, pulling the bowl of truffle fries closer to him. “Was this always your dream?”

You stop him as he’s about to pour ketchup all over the top of the fries like a savage instead of doing it the normal way, on the side. “Dude, order your own fries if you’re gonna ruin them like that!”

“What, how is that weird? I’ve always done that!”

“You belong in a mental institution,” you fix him with a glare. “Anyway, was whatalways my dream?”

Jimin just shrugs and gives in as he takes a few fries from the bowl to dip, like a civilized person. “This job.”

“Was working at a desk job for 9 hours straight always my dream? Uh, I think not,” you chew on your fries. “Which child ever had a dream like that? Did youhave a dream like that?”

“Me? I wanted to be a policeman,” Jimin grins as he raises his clenched fists. “You know all that idealistic shit children believe in. Making a difference in the world. Catching all the bad guys. Things like that.”

“So you don’t believe in those things anymore?”

“No, I still believe in them,” he raises another shot to his lips and downs it with a grimace. “I just realised that things aren’t so black and white. There are bad guys everywhere, but sometimes you just can’t catch them. Sometimes they’re the ones in positions of power over you and you gotta live like that.”

You reach for another shot, but the tray is empty. Jimin signals the bartender to bring you a second round of drinks; a gin and tonic for you and a coke with vodka for him. The alcohol has your senses buzzing pleasantly, it feels like there’s a disconnect between your brain and your mouth, but you don’t actively object to it either. It feels nice to be able to tell someone things like this.

“I gave up on having a dream long ago. Not everyone is lucky enough to do what they like in life, and I already accepted that I’m not one of those people. And it’s okay.” You turn in your chair so that you are facing Jimin directly, though you have a bit of trouble because it seems like your body is disconnected from your brain.

Jimin helps you with a hand on your thigh that sends shockwaves through your entire body. His daring touch makes your heart speed up, and when he positions your chair so that his thighs are on the outside of yours, you can barely breathe as you look him in the eye. And then he leans forward, slowly, bit by bit, until you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he only takes a whiff of your alcohol laden breath.

“Come on. I should see you home. We still have work tomorrow.” His words brook no resistance as he helps you off the chair with an arm around your waist, and the alcohol seems to have taken effect on you faster than usual today, because you’re only capable of sinking into him, feeling his firm body against yours.

A cab pulls up to the entrance of the bar, and Jimin shields your head as you get into the car, barely having control over your limbs. You mutter your address to the driver, and over the ride home, the bumps and turns actually help you to sober up a little, but then you begin to notice the little things like how Park Jimin’s thighs are actually pretty thick.

And when he stretches forward to pay the driver again, you notice how nice his biceps are.

When he walks in front of you leading you with one hand, you notice how tight his ass looks in his pants.

As he waits for you to unlock your door, you feel his breath on the nape of your neck, and just the feeling of having his body this close to yours is just-

“So um, goodnight, it was fun, I guess,” Park Jimin is stuttering and stumbling over his words as he scratches the back of his neck. “We should do it again sometime. Ditch work, I mean.”

Oh fuck it all to hell, you think to yourself as you grab Park Jimin by the collar and pull him into you, your lips meeting and immediately, you taste the sweetness of the coke on his tongue. Park Jimin lets out an adorable little grunt of surprise, but his hands still wrap around you anyway, one around your waist and the other inching down towards your hip.

“We- shouldn’t be doing this,” Park Jimin pants in between kisses as you bite his lips roughly, and watching them become swollen with your kisses gives you a strange satisfaction that you’ve never experienced with anyone else.

But his rationality is impeded by the alcohol rushing through his bloodstream, but even more so than that, the feel of your soft body against him. So Park Jimin forgets what he was going to say next as you make him walk backwards in the direction of your bedroom.

“But we’re doing it anyway,” you tell him with flushed cheeks, and his hands agree with you as they climb up your body, reaching for the zipper on the side of your skirt.

He pulls your skirt off impatiently, but you won’t let him get away with it so easily as you fiddle with the buttons of his dress shirt, finally prising them apart to get a good look at his sleek chest muscles and his toned abdomen.

“Shit,” you swear under your breath. “When the fuck did you get those?”

Park Jimin looks smug as he pushes his shirt off his body, feeling his abs tense as you straddle his lap. “What do you mean? I’ve always had these.”

“I thought you were just some skimpy little nerd,” you huff at him in slight annoyance. It’s almost a little rude of him to spring it on you like this, suddenly turning from the computer geek nerd into a hot walking sex god.

“A nerd hot enough for you to have a one-night stand with,” Jimin throws back at you with a proud smirk, and irritated with his sudden overconfidence, you shut him up by grinding against the bulge in the front of his now too tight dress pants.

“That doesn’t count, I was panicking,” you try to defend yourself weakly, but Jimin ignores you in favour of mouthing against your neck, kissing his way down to your bra cups, which he pulls down with his teeth. As if to prove his point that you are having a one-night stand with him right now.

Jimin is fumbling with your bra at the same time you are trying to undo the button of his pants, and the whole affair is desperate; the two of you are half-sober and everything is a blur. All you know is, the next thing his pants are off, his cock is leaking on his stomach, and the desire to take him in your mouth is undeniable.

Your hand grasps him at his base, and he bucks his hips into you immediately, curses falling from his swollen lips. A few good strokes, and then you can’t wait anymore, your lips close around his head and the saltiness of him spreads across your tongue.

“Ahhh, fuck,” Jimin’s hands tangle themselves in your hair. “I- gu-ess we’re not co-workers anymore?”

Your mouth is too full of cock to respond as you sink down on him deeper, loosening your throat as your tongue teases the underside of him. Saliva is already dripping from the corners of your mouth to run down your chin, and you belatedly realise that your bra is still on; Jimin hadn’t managed to get it off. With one hand you reach behind you and undo the clasp, shrugging the bra off in a single movement as Jimin swears as if he just witnessed a miracle (he’s never actually seen any of the girls he’s been with do this.)

You pull yourself off his cock for a moment to give yourself a breather, resting the head of him against your chin as you look up at him. “Just ask yourself, Park. Would a co-worker be sucking your dick like this?”

And then your mouth is back on him; you feel his hands in your hair and his thighs trembling beneath you. His cock is leaking in your mouth, it is thick in your throat as you bob up and down, the sounds of you choking around his cock are filthy and wet.

“Stop!” Jimin sounds out with a gasp, his abs trembling from the amount of effort it takes him not to blow his load. “It- it’s been a while. I don’t wanna cum yet, please.”

His pleading, whiny voice that’s filled with desperation makes you reconsider. Maybe he isn’t a sex god after all; he just happens to have a good body. You pull away from his cock and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, and Jimin pulls you forward to sit on his lap. His cock brushes against your stomach, and he can’t seem to keep his eyes off your breasts.

“Have you even done this before?” You mean it as a joke, but Park Jimin’s eyes widen in panic.

“What?! Of course I have!” He says defensively. “Let me eat you out and I’ll show you.”

He reaches for the waistband of your underwear, but you swat him away impatiently. “That’ll take too long. Just let me ride you and we can both cum.”

You push down your underwear in a single movement, not missing the way his eyes are drawn to how your arousal clings to the material. He helps you situate yourself on him with his hands around your waist, and you grab the base of his cock to start to guide him into you. But then, Park Jimin stops you.

“Make sure you’re wet enough?” He asks as he runs his fingers against your slit, though he pretty much already knows the answer just from seeing how soaked your panties were. He just wants to feel the evidence of your arousal for himself. His fingers come away sticky and soaked.

While Park Jimin is busy marvelling at how wet you are just from sucking his cock, you position the head of his cock at your entrance, and then you sink down slowly onto him. The stretch of him against your walls makes you dig your fingers into his shoulders, and likewise, Park Jimin’s fingers dig themselves into your waist as he moans out your name.

“F-fuck, you’re tight,” Jimin barely manages to get out as you stop with a few more inches to go. “You didn’t answer my question earlier on.”

“What is it?” You grit your teeth as you position yourself on your knees, trying to work yourself into taking his entire cock. It had been a while since you last had dick, let alone one as thick as Park Jimin’s, but you aren’t a quitter by any means.

“We- we aren’t co-workers anymore, huh?” Jimin groans again as you squeeze his cock with your walls.

“For fuck’s sake, Park,” you growl at him as you start bouncing on his cock, each slap satisfying as he bottoms out inside you. “We stopped being co-workers the minute I publicised our one-night stand.”

Your hands are on his chest for better leverage as your hips grind on his cock to get him as deep as possible, alternating between up and down movements and side to side movements. Park Jimin has his hands on your hips to help guide you, but he realises you don’t need guidance, so he just sits back to let himself enjoy the visual spectacle that’s unfolding in front of him. You, with your cheeks flushed and breasts loose and bouncing because of his cock, riding him as if your life depends on it. Jimin looks down to where his cock disappears inside you, where your sweet thighs are flexing and working to get the both of you off. But it’s not quite enough.

“Turn around,” he begs. “Wanna see your ass too.”

“God, you’re so fucking weird, Park,” but you do it anyway, letting his cock slide out of you as you turn around and fold your knees under you so that your back faces him.

Jimin spreads his thighs just enough so that they frame your ass perfectly, his hand pressing against your lower back so that you arch and press your ass against him even more. Then he spreads your cheeks with one hand and guides his cock back into your warm depths with the other, groaning when you push back onto him and sit on his cock fully. Now every time you bounce on his cock, your ass jiggles deliciously, and as an ass man, Jimin appreciates this view so much that he tries his best to take a mental picture of this whole view with his mind.

His cock sliding into your pussy so easily since you’re so wet, the fleshy globes of your ass against his thighs as you fuck yourself back onto his cock.

“I-I’m gonna cum,” he warns you with his cheeks hot and abs tensing.

“Just cum already,” you huff in impatience as you turn your head to catch a glimpse of his already fucked out look, lips swollen and his hands on your ass as his cock twitches inside you.

With your permission, Jimin lets himself go as he feels his balls tense, cock releasing inside your sweet, warm pussy and filling you up all the way with his cum. He continues to watch your ass bounce on his cock to milk him dry of every drop, his hips thrusting upwards in an effort to prolong his pleasure. Once he can feel that he’s given you every drop of cum in his body, he places his hands on your ass and pushes you forward with cheeks spread so he can see how well he filled your pussy.

His softening cock starts to slide out from you, and Jimin can see his cum start to leak from your pussy almost immediately. To your benefit, you are giving him the fucking show of his life as you arch your back and lean forward, guided by his hands as you lower your upper body to the bed.

“Shit, oh fuck it,” Jimin mutters to himself as he pushes himself into a sitting position, then with both hands grasping the back of your thighs, he flips you over till you are on your ass, then pulls you with legs spread closer to him. The sight of your cream filled pussy is just too tempting to resist, and Jimin licks through your soaked folds as he savours your taste mixed with his.

He barely hears you squeak out his name in surprise as he continues to devour your creamed pussy, tongue around your clit in circles and fingers dipping into your cunt to tease out more of his cum from your depths. To his pleasure, his cum leaks from you in an ever steady stream as he eats you out; your thighs are shaking around his head as you cry out your pleasure till you lose track.

When you beg him to stop, thighs quivering from overstimulation and clit raw and abused, he raises his head and gives you a quick kiss to your inner thigh, collapsing onto the bed in pure exhaustion. Post high, you are both wiped out, and that’s how the two of you, who are most certainly notco-workers anymore, fall asleep.

*

Everything is too bright. And everything hurts, your throat is dry and again, everything hurts. You forget that you aren’t in your prime time anymore; that drinking is a night of fun followed by a morning of regret.

Though this morning, you have a lot more to regret than just alcohol.

You wake up with an alien arm around your waist, and frustrated by the unwanted physical contact, you toss it away with an annoyed grunt. Your elbow strikes out in the same direction, only to hit a solid, warm body beside you, and then your eyes shoot open as you sit straight up in bed.

Only to find a very naked, very passed out Park Jimin sleeping beside you.

“Holy fucking shit,” the realisation of exactly what happened last night hits you, and dread punches you in the stomach.

“Is it morning already?” Park Jimin buries his face into your sheets, his blonde hair sticks out in every direction. “Five more minutes, mom.”

Irritated that he’s yet to come to his senses, you kick his stupid, bubble butt, and he jerks awake, opening his eyes blearily. Once he takes in your expression, he closes them immediately.

“Can’t say that’s the best thing to wake up to in the morning,” Jimin says with his face buried in the sheets again, his voice muffled. “Nothing kills my morning wood faster than-“

“Get the fuck up, Park,” you hiss at him, clutching the sheets to your chest. “Come to your fucking senses!”

At the tone of urgency in your voice, Park Jimin finally shakes himself awake; he blinks slowly until he takes in the whole situation: you and him, supposedly co-workers, waking up together in the same bed, naked.

“Holy fuck, did we just…” Park Jimin glances down at his cock that lies limp against the side of his thigh, and the sticky, dried essence left behind. “Oh my god. We fucked.”

“We arefucked,” you correct him.

*

It seems as if whoever is running things up in the divine realm really has it out for you. Nursing a hangover as you walk into work, you try your best not to make eye contact with Park Jimin, which is easier said than done considering that he sits right opposite you.

So this is how it feels when two colleagues actuallyhave a one-night stand.

You run a hand through your hair in frustration, unable to focus on any of your tasks this morning.

“Hey, _____- whoa, are you feeling okay?” Kim Taehyung does a double take as he passes by your desk. “You look a little, um… under the weather. You feeling alright? Is it… how’s the baby? How many months are you again?”

Your face only pales even further as he brings up the non-existent baby, and with that, a realisation that the both of you didn’t use protection last night. Park Jimin seems to have arrived at the same realisation, because he makes eye contact with you for the first time that morning as he peeks out the side of his computer.

“I’m- I’m alright,” you manage a forced smile, wanting nothing more than for him to just fuck off already so that you can begin to process all this in peace and figure out exactly how screwed over you are.

“Well, if you say so,” Kim Taehyung says with a doubtful frown. “You know, _____, we actually have really great benefits for mothers. Even unwed mothers. I’d love to sit down and go through them with you one day if you could spare me the time. Wait actually, can I see your baby bump? I always thought they were the cutest-“

“I have to throw up,” you say without hesitation, and you stand up and push past him on your way to the restroom.

It’s not entirely a lie, since you do spend a good ten minutes praying at the porcelain altar, but no one has to know it was because of alcohol intoxication. When you finally flush and then rinse out your mouth at the sink, you open the door of the restroom to find Park Jimin waiting with a worried look on his face.

“Are you okay?” He starts, but then Jeongguk walks by you and shoots you both an admiring look.

“Lovebirds alert!” He sings out in that highly irritating voice of his as he dances down the aisle.

“No, I want to fucking die,” you mutter under your breath as you stare daggers into Jeongguk’s back.

“I need to ask you something,” Park Jimin says urgently as he glances around for any eavesdropping ears. He grasps your hand and tugs you into the nearest meeting room, and once he makes sure that the doors are locked securely, he turns to you again. “We used a condom last night right? We are responsible, working adults. We wouldn’t forget something as basic as that.”

You sink down onto a chair with a glum look on your face. “Impossible. We couldn’t have used a condom. I don’t have any condoms in my house.”

Park Jimin makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “Well… then, you’re on birth control right?”

“It makes me gain weight like crazy. The only reason why I’m not a balloon right now is because I went off the pill years ago.”

There is a beat of silence as Park Jimin stares at you as if you’re pulling his leg. Then a random thought occurs to you that you could very well still end up being a balloon precisely becauseyou’re not on birth control right now.

“What about Plan B?” Jimin lights up, literally jumping out of his chair as he suggests it. “You could get it right now. I’ll drive you. We can say we’re going to the doctor’s for an appointment or something.”

The sobering reality sets in as you sit there in silence, and Park Jimin is still looking at you, waiting for your response. Only, you don’t quite know how to respond. The rational part of you should be jumping to your feet now and making him rush you to the nearest pharmacy, but then there’s a tiny voice in the back of your head that you can’t ignore.

This would solve all your problems.

Park Jimin is still waiting for your response, growing more and more antsy as the minutes tick by.

“Do you know how many people know about this baby?” You finally say.

Those were not the words Park Jimin was expecting to hear, and he does a double take. “Wh- what? What are you talking about?”

“Approximately 265 people,” you continue on, ignoring his cautious look. “Your family, my family, the whole company, my friends, my ex-boyfriend and his new wife-“

“You counted? Why would you do that?” Jimin groans as he runs his hands through his hair. “You didn’t have to remind me of how fucked we are and how many people we have to answer to. My Granny dug out my baby clothes from some godforsaken corner in the house and gave them to me last night.”

The mention of Jimin’s Granny fills you with guilt once more, and it makes the tiny voice grow a little louder, and you try to swallow back the awful feeling.

“Exactly. So why don’t we just… leave this up to chance. Just this once.” You keep glancing at Jimin to gauge his reaction, but the blonde haired man only stares back at you with the same serious expression on his face. “Plan B wouldn’t have worked anyway. I already ovulated this month.”

“Shit,” Jimin sighs as he collapses down into a chair. “So there’s an actual chance? That you could be pregnant right now? But I… I ate you out. Maybe I got most of it out from you.”

The both of you know that Jimin is simply grasping at straws now.

You just shrug silently as Jimin takes some time to let the reality of the situation sink in. Just then, your phone buzzes and you open the text from your sister who’s asking if she can accompany you to your ultrasounds. You groan audibly, and Jimin takes a peek over at your phone screen.

“Just this once,” he says, as if he’s really considering it as he watches the messages from your sister flood your screen. “But… will you be okay? If it really does happen, I mean. Are you okay with that?”

“I mean, I hate kids and all, if that’s what you’re asking.” You lock your phone and put it face down on the desk just so you don’t have to deal with that for a hot second. “But that aside, if it’s a cute kid, I guess I don’t mind. I mean… if the kid looked like you. I guess I don’t mind.”

You don’t know why it’s taking you so long to say what you really mean. It’s not like you to beat around the bushes like this, nor is it like you to be tripping over your own words like an idiot. But the gist of it still gets through anyway, by the look on Park Jimin’s face.

“I… I guess I wouldn’t mind either. Kids are cute.” Jimin says hesitantly, eyes constantly darting away from yours. “I mean, I’mcute. Obviously my kids would be cute.”

“Um. Okay then,” you say awkwardly, getting up and skirting around him to get to the door. “I guess… um… so… I’ll let you know. If anything happens.”

Jimin gets up with a resolute look on his face as he follows you to the door. “Yeah. Sure.”

*

The next Monday, everyone is off work for the afternoon because it’s the quarterly Healthy Lifestyle Day, where a poll is sent out to everyone to vote for the healthy bonding activity that their team should engage in. In actual fact, the poll is a scam since bowling wins every time, all because it’s well known that Bae Joohyun’s favourite pastime is bowling.

You endure the awful scents of sweat as you squeeze into your awful rented bowling shoes, grimace as you cram your fingers into the holes on the bowling ball, try not too hard to embarrass yourself as you bowl gutter after gutter. Your back is aching, face is sweaty and you are straight up not having a good time.

Bae Joohyun, on the other hand, is nailing strike after strike in her own lane, with her team of personal cheerleaders making a huge fuss every time she finishes her round. Those are the very group of people who are aiming for a promotion that year; the rest of you are just kind of milling about the other lanes and pretending to enjoy yourself.

You finish your round and plop down on the seat with a sigh, watching as Jeon Jeongguk takes his turn after you with a flourish as he launches his ball down the alley. It’s no secret that he too loves bowling, and he’s pretty good at it too, until Seokjin, one of those vying for a promotion, had to come over and tell him to tone down lest he beat Bae Joohyun’s score.

God forbid if that should happen.

Jeon Jeongguk is trying very hard to do his worst, and it’s actually kind of hilarious because you can literally see the veins in his neck as he strains, his body tensing as he shifts his posture so that his ball rolls into the gutter. The utter disappointment on his face as he strolls back, looking as if he’s about to cry.

“Better luck next time, Jeon,” you call out, feeling a little sorry for the boy with the bunny smile since it seems as if he really does enjoy bowling.

“Yeah, better luck next time!” Kim Taehyung yells out as he takes his time choosing his ball. He holds it in front of him and glances at you with a strange look on his face that immediately warns you to be on guard. “Hey, _____...”

“Yes?” Your voice is raised in suspicion, already not loving where this is going.

“I wanted to ask you this last week, but where is your bump?” Taehyung strokes the bowling ball with a reverence that makes you want to roll your eyes. Why the fuck do you work with weirdos? Taehyung eyes the bowling ball he’s carrying before he looks at you again. “Shouldn’t you be around this far along by now?”

You glance nervously at Jimin, who is in the other lane paired up with the Parenting team, laughing and smiling with this other girl who has long wavy hair that comes down to the middle of her back. But he’s currently too occupied with making her laugh, even helping her out with her bowling posture, to help you out of this hole, so you have to deal with this one yourself.

“The doctor said it’s a small baby,” you shrug as nonchalantly as you can, secretly marvelling at your own genius. “Some people don’t show until the 8thor 9thmonth, you know. It’s perfectly normal. Every pregnancy is different.”

You even sound knowledgeable to your own ears. Taehyung looks convinced by your story, but then he decides to put the bowling ball under his shirt for some inane reason, drawing more attention to himself as your coworkers start to notice.

“Hey Park! Look, I’m your girlfriend!” Taehyung yells and you stand up in horror.

“What the fuck, are you fucking high?” You hiss at him, trying to get him to take the ball out without dropping it on his own foot. “Stop fucking around! Bae Joohyun is here!”

Her name gets him to sober up a little, though it’s already too late because Namjoon from HR is strolling over with an amused look on his face, having sat out the bowling because of his injured finger (he’s always injuring some part of his body because of his clumsiness).

“Hey _____, how’s the baby? Don’t mind if I feel the bump? Is the baby kicking yet?” He says with an excited look on his face. “My sister felt her kicks early. It was the most magical thing.”

“Uh… no, not yet,” you laugh weakly and wave his hand away. “It’s a very small baby for now, so…”

“Oh come on, I’m sure there’s been a flutter or two here and there!” Namjoon insists with his eyes bright, and Taehyung nods vigorously.

“C’mon, just let us feel the bump?” Taehyung begs with his hands clasped together, and you glance around furtively. The two of them won’t seem to stop going on and on about this baby, but if you just let them touch your stomach maybe they’ll be satisfied. It can’t hurt, it’s not like they have ultrasounds for hands.

“Fine,” you sigh as you tense your stomach a little. You don’t have the flattest stomach, but it’s certainly not as pronounced as it should be this far into pregnancy. But it’s harmless, they won’t be able to feel anything, and-

“Oh my god, I think the baby just kicked!” Namjoon exclaims with his hand on your lower abdomen, and you frown in distress. “There! Right there! I felt it! Taehyung, did you feel it too?”

Namjoon removes his hand and urges Taehyung to take his place, which the latter does without hesitation. You’re just about to protest that this touchy feely session has gone on for a tad too long, but then Taehyung’s face lights up.

“You’re right! I felt it too! Oh my god ______, your baby kicked!”

He says this last sentence with a booming voice that echoes throughout the bowling alley, and you wish the ground would just open up and swallow you whole. More and more people are turning to look at you now, including total strangers not from your company, and even Jimin and the pretty girl he’s with are turning to you.

Namjoon and Taehyung are absolutely wrecking you today. Luckily Jeon Jeongguk doesn’t seem to be in the mood to join in, seeing as he’s seated on the far end of the sofa soaking up his own misery.

Your cheeks are burning as you feel the burrito from lunch announcing its presence, but you paste on a shaky smile and add on to your credibility with a nervous laugh. “Oh wow… um, that’s the baby, y-yeah it is! The kicks have been so tiny I barely noticed!”

Namjoon is literally clapping his hands with glee. “Where’s Park? He needs to witness this moment! He’s your baby daddy!”

Taehyung glances around till he catches a glimpse of Jimin and the pretty girl with the wavy hair, and then he grimaces. “Woah, looks like you got some competition huh? Better up your game, if you know what I mean. I saw them getting pretty up close and personal just now. Park was teaching her how to hold a bowling ball. I mean, who the fuck needs to learn that?”

“She can hold my balls if she wants,” Namjoon snickers, but then his face straightens when you glare at him. “It was a joke. Sorry. Please don’t report me to HR for sexual harassment.”

Sometimes you just want to quit your job. Not because of Bae Joohyun, but because of your fucking idiotic coworkers.

“Namjoon, you areHR,” you hiss at him with barely concealed patience.

Taehyung continues as if you’d asked for advice on your sex life with your non-existent baby daddy. “A little pregnancy sex never hurt anyone.”

You can’t quite concentrate on what he’s saying as you glance over at Jimin and his new girl turning their attention back to bowling, him picking out a ball and handing it to her, their hands brushing and the girl giggling. Your attention is focused on them, how Jimin stands behind her as she gets ready to bowl, the way she bends over and practically flashes the whole alley in her short skirt.

Meanwhile, Taehyung is still going on as if you’d asked about his sexual preferences. “Some men find it hot. I, in fact, would love to knock a chick up and then keep fucking her after. Something about that primal instinct, you know?”

When the girl hits five pins, she turns to Jimin with a squeal and raises her hands for a high five. Jimin returns it with a happy grin, but then somehow the whole affair escalates into a hug, and you frown.

“Shut up, Taehyung,” you are taking out your anger on him, but this stupid punk sure as hell deserves it anyway.

Taehyung holds up two hands at your sudden burst of anger. “Woah, I was only giving suggestions. Trying to help here.”

You leave him, still fuming and wanting nothing more than to get out of these fucking uncomfortable shoes. In actual fact, you have no idea why you’re this worked up. It’s not like you and Park Jimin have this exclusive agreement together. He’s free to flirt with anyone he likes.

But really, her? With the flippy hair and obnoxious voice? And while you’re supposed to be pregnant with his baby too? He’s practically cheating on you openly!! Never mind that you aren’t actually knocked up with his kid. It’s the principle of it all.

By the time you reach the counter to exchange your token for your locker key, your expression must have evolved into something truly frightening, because the poor girl manning the counter squeaks at you in fear when you bark out your locker number at her.

When you’re done changing your shoes, you head into the washroom for a bit to splash some water on your face so that you can cool down, and also to check if your period is here, but it’s not. A few minutes later when you leave, you find Park Jimin waiting outside, still in his bowling shoes, his cheeks flushed with exertion and his hair ruffled out of place.

“Are you okay?” He asks, then clears his throat. “I mean; did anything happen? While you were in there? Did your period come?”

You feel the urge to brush past him in annoyance. The whole of last week, the two of you had avoided each other; on one hand you were completely swamped with work, but on the other hand, there is also this awkwardness in between you that hadn’t existed before that fateful night. You still hadn’t directly addressed it yet, only skirted around the topic in hems and haws.

“No it didn’t,” you say, your voice small all of a sudden. “Who’s that girl in your lane?”

“Oh, Seulgi from Divorce Support,” Jimin says. “I was just teaching her how to bowl.”

There’s another awkward silence as the two of you avoid eye contact, and then you hear Seulgi’s high pitched voice calling Jimin’s name, asking him to come back and help her score another strike. Jimin is just about to respond back to her, but then you grab his collar and pull him into the secluded space just behind the female toilets, shutting him up with your lips on his.

His protests soon turn to muffled moans against you, and his hands come to circle your waist somewhat hesitantly, but the intention alone is enough for you. Breaking apart for air, you finally get a glimpse of how sinful Park Jimin looks, and flashbacks from that night revisit you once more. Plush, swollen lips parted mid gasp, cheeks red and flushed and his eyes that can’t stop devouring you whole.

“You should be teaching mehow to bowl,” you push him up against the wall for added emphasis. “I’m the one you knocked up, not her.”

Jimin gulps nervously as he feels your body press against him, and all the blood rushing down south that will soon make itself known against your lower belly. He tries to put a little bit of space in between your bodies so that he won’t embarrass himself, but you are relentless, pressing your breasts into his chest as your hand makes its way to the front of his pants.

“Yo-you aren’t really knocked up,” Jimin tries to protest weakly as you grab a handful of him, and he hardens immediately.

“I could be,” you shoot back. Aware that you don’t have much time, you pull down the zipper on his dress pants and reach inside to grope him lewdly over his underwear. “You knocked me up with your cock right here. Came inside me and filled me up so good.”

“Shit,” Jimin is panting harshly against your neck now, his hips twitching involuntarily as he feels himself soak the front of his underwear. “Wh-what’s got into you?”

“Your cum,” you say simply, watching his eyes widen again as you sink down to your knees, pulling his underwear the rest of the way down to expose the leaking head of his cock. In your previous one-night stand (the actual one), you regrettably didn’t have a chance to admire him properly, but now you’re going to make up for it.

His cock is thick from base to tip, the head of it already red and angry. You can feel your jaw ache just with the thought of deepthroating him all the way, yet you don’t even care if it’d make Park Jimin feel good.

Pushing his cock to lie flat on his belly, you give the underside a long, salacious lick that has Jimin gasping and sobbing already. You start from the bottom again and maintain eye contact as you kitten lick your way to his head again, and then you take him whole into your warm mouth, suckling him as his hands find their way into your hair.

“We- we can’t do this, we’re at work,” Jimin pants, his actions contradictory as his hip surge forward to chase the warmth of your mouth. All it does is showcase his less than ideal willpower when it comes to you.

“What would your Granny say? If she saw you flirting with another girl while the one you knocked up watches?” You squeeze his cock hard, causing Jimin to buck his hips with a groan.

“Pl-please don’t talk about my Granny when you’re sucking my cock,” Jimin protests as he pushes your head further down on his cock.

You let him push his cock down your throat, relaxing and breathing through your nose as you take him for a few seconds. Then you pull back with a wet, sloppy sound, his cock covered in your saliva and precum that drips onto your blouse as you swallow and breathe. “We aren’t at work right now. We’re at a bowling alley.”

And then your mouth is back on his cock, bobbing up and down as you give him the suck of his life, his taste salty on your tongue. One hand wraps around his girthy base as you suck the rest of him, and the other hand comes up to play with his balls. Jimin is all curses and breathy pants above you, his thick thighs trembling with pleasure as he struggles not to lose his balance, nor his load.

“Like it when I play with your balls like this, hmmm?” You pull yourself off his cock to watch the effect your words have on him, tugging on his balls that feel tight and heavy as you jerk him off with the other hand. “When was the last time you came, Minnie?”

The pretty column of his neck is drenched with sweat as he throws his head back against the wall, cock twitching in your grasp as Jimin struggles not to cum. The nickname makes his knees go weak and his voice is lost somewhere in his chest.

When he still doesn’t answer you, you turn and sink your teeth into his fleshy inner thigh, causing him to whine sharply.

“I’m waiting for an answer, Minnie.”

“L-last week,” he gasps out. “Wi-with you.”

“Someone’s been a good boy,” you resume your strokes of his cock as you lick his balls, causing his thighs to clench in response. “Are you sure you haven’t cum since? Didn’t stroke your cock like a dirty pervert and make a mess of yourself with your cum?”

“I-I promise, I didn’t!” Jimin peers down at you in the haze of his desperation and lust, only to see his precum coating your chin, red lipstick smeared all over, but yet you’ve never looked prettier.

Satisfied with his answer, and also how fucked out he looks within such a short span of you getting your mouth on his cock, you wrap your lips around his head again as you jerk the rest of him off, still cradling his balls with your other hand.

“I’m gonna cum,” comes Jimin’s half plea, half warning.

You double your efforts at jerking him off, opening your mouth to show him the head of his cock as it rests heavy on your tongue. That’s all it takes for Jimin to lose his load, his balls pulsing under your grasp as pretty white ropes of cum shoot decorate your tongue. Jimin can’t quite keep his eyes off the way your mouth fills with his seed, and the way you swallow down every drop of him, licking and cleaning his cock as if to make sure you get all of his cum.

When you make sure he’s clean, you press a light kiss to his oversensitive head. “Just remember. I was the one who sucked your cock and swallowed your cum today. Not Seulgi.”

Jimin reaches to tuck himself back into his pants, hands shaky and thighs still trembling. When you stand up and start to walk off without another word, he reaches for your waist to pull you back into him, wanting a taste of your lips after you swallowed his cum.

It’s bitter and sweet at the same time, and Jimin’s sinful moans only make your thighs clench together harder. When you pull apart, Jimin doesn’t let go of his arms around your waist.

“You have a thing for cum?” You raise an eyebrow at him, remembering him eating you out after he came inside you the last time as well. Most guys you’d been with in the past had no problem kissing you after eating you out, but turn it the other way around and they’d be utterly disgusted.

“It’s hot,” Jimin mutters as his eyes slide away from yours.

Recognizing the telltale signs of his embarrassment, you place your thumb on his chin to stop him from looking away. “It’s hot when you do it.”

Hearing you validate him makes him visibly relax in your arms. “What are we? I don’t think we’re coworkers anymore.”

There’s a brief pause as you are aware of how intimate this is, feeling the arousal still pooling in your underwear and feeling Park Jimin’s body warm against yours. There’s something about being in his arms like this that makes the rest of the world disappear.

“No, we aren’t,” you admit. “We… we could be something more. If you want.”

It’s your turn to be nervous now and you can feel your heart racing in your chest, already anticipating for the handsome golden boy to turn you down. Why would he want to be something more with you after all, when there are so many other pretty girls in the office for him to fuck around with?

“I want to. Be something more, that is.” Jimin smiles back, a cute little shy smile that makes your heart skip a million beats.

*

“_____! It’s been so long since I last saw you!” Granny welcomes you with a wide grin and comforting arms as she bundles you into her embrace. “You look so pretty! Glowing, as usual. Has our Jiminnie been treating you right? Hmmmm?”

Her tone rises into a slight warning as she glares over at her grandson, who is currently struggling with both your luggage a few feet behind.

“He’s been good, Granny,” you reassure her with a relaxed smile.

Granny invited the both of you to spend the long weekend at Jimin’s childhood home in the countryside which also now serves as a sort of vacation home for the Parks. You can’t even remember the last time you had a vacation, had the chance to pull out your flowy summer dresses and really let your hair down. Though this time, there’s another reason altogether for you to wear loose and flowy clothing.

You are ushered into the house to meet the rest of Jimin’s family; his parents and his brother welcome you as if you are already part of the family. They invite you to spectate a game of Wii Tennis, and it’s then that you realise that Jimin’s family are a bunch of heathens because they don’t wear the Wii remote strap while playing.

Jimin is paired up with his father, against his mother and brother. You are more than content to watch from the sides, nestled in beside Granny who feels as soft and comforting as your own mother. Her words, not so much, as she urges the Jimin and his brother to do better, why, if she joined the game she’d beat all their asses!!!

When Jimin’s side wins, the whole family claps and cheers as his mother stands up to give his father a kiss, and when they’re done, the whole family turns expectantly to you and Jimin.

“A kiss for the winner, that’s the prize!” Jimin’s mother says with a mischievous grin on her face.

Jimin fidgets on the spot, tips of his ears growing red as he protests. “Ma…”

“Oh come on, don’t be such prudes!” Granny chides the both of you. “You already did the nasty with each other. How else did my grandchild come into this world?”

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Jimin’s brother begins to chant with a shit eating grin on his face that reminds you of a certain co-worker.

Jimin is getting more and more embarrassed trying to fend his family off, but for you, it’s no big deal. It’s not like you and Jimin haven’t said or done more lewd things to each other. In a sense, Jimin’s Granny is right. The both of you already fucked. What is one tiny little kiss?

So with that, you pull a protesting, flustered Jimin closer to you and tiptoe to reach his lips, arms around him as you kiss him deeply, putting on a show for his family. Whoops and cheers celebrate the two of you, and though Jimin is stunned for a moment, he kisses you back just as passionately, letting his tongue meet your own as he tastes you.

When the two of you part for air, Jimin’s brother lets out a loud whoop, and Granny is still clapping. But poor little Jimin is as red as a tomato, and he tugs on your hand, mumbling something about showing you his room and retiring for the night.

You are still laughing and giggling over how embarrassed he is when Jimin closes his door behind the both of you, giving you a cute pout as he crosses his arms in indignance. But he’s too cute too pass up on, and you pinch his cheeks, squishing his face.

“Was my baby Jimin embarrassed?” You coo at him in a baby voice, grin lighting up your face as it gets him even more annoyed at you. Unfortunately for Jimin, (but luckily for you) he’s just that kind of person who gets even cuter when they are angry or upset.

“I’ve never kissed a girl in front of my Granny you know,” he turns his cheek at you as he goes to sit on his bed to continue sulking. “She’s seen me in my underpants when I was a kid!”

“So? I saw you in your underpants too,” you grin lewdly at him, laughing when he throws an arm over his face and groans in embarrassment.

When he hears your laughter, Jimin peeks out from behind his arm to see your face glowing and radiant, hair loose in waves around your face and looking… happy for the first time. Not stressed or worried about work, or in tears because Bae Joohyun humiliated you.

Just happy.

“You look really pretty like this,” Jimin admits in a small, shy voice.

You stop mid laugh to look at him properly. “Like what?”

“When you’re happy,” he clarifies. “When you laugh like that.”

“It’s when you make me laugh like this,” you look down at the pattern on his bedspread, tracing along it with your fingers. “I haven’t laughed like this in a long while. But ever since you came in, I… I don’t know. Mondays haven’t been so bad for me lately.”

The two of you are shy suddenly, and Jimin feels like he’s a teenager again, confessing to his crush in his childhood bedroom. Back then he always dreamed of bringing a girl back to his house and confessing to her, maybe even making out with her behind his parents’ back, but of course back then he wasn’t nearly cool enough to do any of that.

But seeing you look so soft and pretty in your dress that dips down at your neckline, giving him a good view of your cleavage, seeing you beside him on his bed, your attention focused on him solely makes him glad that all his childhood fantasies never happened, because he feels like they’re going to be fulfilled right now.

“Can I kiss you?” Jimin asks.

“Not shy anymore?” You tease him one last time before you lean in and capture your lips with his, and then Jimin is switching positions with you so that your hair fans out over his pillow, he is on top of you in between your legs.

“I want to do it properly,” Jimin scatters kisses down your neck and chest, one hand pinching your nipple through your thin dress. “The last time was rushed. And we were drunk. And we were still co-workers back then.”

Your strap slides off your shoulder sinfully as Jimin pleases himself by worshipping your breasts, kneading them and sucking your nipple through the material.

“I- I told you… we were never co-workers. From day one,” you retaliate against his teasing by pinching his nipple through his shirt with a devious smirk on your face.

“You mean we were fucked from day one?” Jimin grins back as he takes off his shirt in one smooth motion, baring his toned chest and slim abs for your viewing pleasure. Your hands are on him immediately, stroking his firm muscles and running your fingers over every inch of his beautiful skin.

Jimin hikes up your skirt, kissing his way up your thighs till he reaches your underwear. The scent of you is driving him insane, he can already see a wet spot on your panties even though he’s barely touched you. The thought of you getting so wet for him makes him even more eager to pleasure you, so he hooks his fingers into the side of your underwear, pulling it down to expose you to his gaze.

“I still owe you from the bowling alley,” he says when you tug at his hair impatiently, wanting to see his face, kiss his lips. With that as explanation, Jimin gives your core a sloppy lick before he seals his lips to you, French kissing your pussy and making sure he gets your clit with every stroke of tongue.

Your cries and moans are music to his ears; at this point he doesn’t even care if his family hears you anymore. Pulling your dress up to your waist so that you can see in between your thighs, the sight nearly sends you over the edge as you witness Park Jimin eating your pussy like a man starved, his chin glazed with your arousal as he laps everything up. His hands are on your inner thighs, opening you up for him even though your muscles spasm from the pleasure.

“Jimin- fuck! Please,” you are already begging as he assaults your clit with his tongue, circling it relentlessly. “Want your fingers. Please.”

“Want to feel me stretch you for my cock?” Jimin gives in with one finger first, slowly inserting it into you with care until you whine and thrash under his grasp in protest. “My baby wants more? What a greedy pussy you have.”

He embellishes this with a sharp spank on your clit, and your thighs twitch again as you cry out. Jimin gives you two fingers now, and the burn feels so good as he pumps in and out, his tongue occasionally flicking at your clit. Your arousal coats his fingers and his palm messily, starting to drip down onto his sheets, but Jimin figures that the both of you are going to get a lot messier before the night ends.

As you watch Jimin pleasure you with his fingers and tongue, all traces of the shy boy who was embarrassed to kiss you in front of his family are gone. The submissive side of him that gave in to your demands so easily at the bowling alley is also gone, in its place is a gentle but firm dominant who takes charge of your pleasure, and you love that he can switch between the two.

“Cum for me, let me see my baby cum on my fingers,” Jimin coaxes you as he speeds up his fingers, curling them to try and find that one rough spot inside you. “You made such a mess already.”

You can feel the edge right there, the knot so tight in your lower belly and just ready to burst. But words escape you, and all you can do is whine Jimin’s name. In response he wraps his thick plush lips around your clit, maintaining eye contact with you as he sucks,and then you come undone, legs going boneless as your back arches, clenching hard around his fingers as you ride out your orgasm.

Jimin helps you to calm down as he withdraws from your pussy, stroking your legs gently as he admires the glow on your face, your fucked out expression as you breathe deeply. His own cock is straining against his jeans, and he is dying to feel your pussy wrapped around him.

When you finally regain your senses and open your eyes, you see the uncomfortable looking tent in Jimin’s jeans, reaching for it immediately to give him his own release. Jimin shifts his body so that his thighs can fall open, and you pull his jeans off, revealing his thick thigh muscles that you straddle as you get his cock out of his soaked boxers.

“Wait,” Jimin stops you with a hand on your waist. “We need a condom. We still don’t know if… if you’re pregnant. From last time.”

Your cheeks heat up as you swallow back the guilt. After bowling, when you went home that night, your period had come, just one day late, but you didn’t tell Jimin. Upon the sight of blood staining your underwear, there was a strange sense of disappointment that bloomed in your chest, and it confused you so much that you didn’t have the bandwidth to even think about telling Jimin what this meant. You had to take time to process both the consequence of not being pregnant, as well as the unprecedented feelings of disappointment that came with it.

“Um… actually, my period came last week.” You say after taking a deep breath.

Jimin raises an eyebrow as he takes in the news. “So it means… you’re not pregnant.”

“I’m not,” you agree with him, and you want to keep going, but the words are just stuck in your chest.

“The first time we were risking it, but I was just thinking…” Jimin picks up on your hesitation, his own words coming out slowly. “If we should… if we should start trying. For real.”

Jimin is completely serious as he returns your gaze, biting his lip in uncertainty.

“You mean… try to get pregnant? Intentionally?” You’re aware that you’re just repeating his words, but some part of you needs to confirm it.

“Yeah,” Jimin says as he strokes your waist, and you’re fully aware of his cock twitching as he says his next words. “I want to have a baby with you.”

Your breath is sucked out of your chest as the impact of his words hit you, and arousal aside, you feel your stomach fill with butterflies.

“That is… if you want to as well,” Jimin scratches the back of his neck nervously. “I mean, I don’t want to pressure you into anything-“

“I want to,” you interrupt him, reassuring him with a grind of your hips. “I want to have your baby. We’re about three months late, but I think if we start trying real hard now, this baby will get made and we won’t be too far behind.”

Jimin’s cock twitches again, giving away how aroused he is, but he doesn’t give a fuck anymore. Hearing you say that has awakened a fantasy in him that he didn’t even know existed. No longer is he going for the low hanging fruit of just kissing a girl in his childhood bedroom. No, he’s going to make a baby in his childhood bedroom.

You pump him with a few strokes, watching the precum bubble up from his head and run down his girthy length, admiring how hard he is for you. His length feels so heavy in your palm, and your mouth waters as you remember how much better he felt in your mouth, how salty and thick his cum was as he released down your throat.

Just as you bend down to give yourself a repeat ride, Jimin stops you with a hand on your cheek, his own cheeks rosy and embarrassment creeping back in as he says, “You’ll get a mouthful of cum if you do that. As much as I want you to swallow my cum, you’re not getting pregnant that way.”

And then he’s back in charge as he flips you over, spreading your legs wide and resting them on his shoulders as your pussy leaks your arousal. Jimin uses the head of his cock to collect all your juices, teasing your clit before he prods at your entrance. The blunt head of him nudges in slowly, and the stretch makes the both of you moan.

Your legs are trembling, hands reaching out for something to hold on to as Jimin bottoms out inside you. You don’t remember him feeling so big inside you, stretching you out so good and going so deep that you can feel him at the base of your lower abdomen. When you look down, you realise that there is a small bump there, and Jimin is watching that exact spot as well.

“Feel so good and tight, my baby was made to take my cock,” he praises as he intertwines his hands with yours, forcing them above your head as he begins to thrust. His cock slides in and out of your drenched pussy easily, and your walls grip him so tightly that Jimin never wants this moment to end.

Jimin leans forward so that your thighs are pushed to your chest, making the fit even tighter around his cock. Your pussy is already clenching around him, and your breasts are bouncing, cheeks flushed red and lips swollen and shiny from his precum and saliva.

“Harder, fuck me harder Jimin,” you groan as he punishes you with his thrusts, every slap of his thighs against yours reminds you that the both of you are fucking to make a baby. Just watching the sweat drip off his chest, his abs tense and feeling his ass flex as he fucks into your pussy with the full intention of giving you a baby, hisbaby, makes your pussy cream uncontrollably around his cock.

“Does my baby like this?” Jimin gives a harsh thrust and bends your legs back till he can feel your cervix. “Fuck, you’re driving me fucking crazy. Wanna give you a baby so bad. You’re fucking asking for it, asking to get filled with cum.”

“I want it, Jimin,” you gasp as you feel him against the entrance of your womb; Jimin is giving you no mercy as he continues to aim his thrusts deep as he can go. “Want your baby. It’s all I ever wanted.”

Jimin lets your legs fall off his shoulders as he wraps his arms around your waist to pull you into him, as his thrusts increase in power and speed. Your legs wrap around him tightly as if to keep him from pulling out, so all Jimin can do his grind the head of his cock against your cervix, feeling himself twitch as his orgasm draws near.

“I’m not gonna last, cum with me please,” he begs, mouth open and kissing your neck as he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder.

“I’m close, just a little more, fuck,” you loosen your thighs a little so that Jimin can thrust a little more, and the movement of him brushing against your clit sends you into an orgasm, clenching hard around him as you cry out his name and your walls milk him dry for every drop.

Jimin groans as he feels his balls tighten up, filling you up with cum as he thrusts to get every drop right where it should be. “Take it all, take my cum and give me a baby. That’s what my girl wants right?”

“Yes, yes!” You whine as you feel the warmth of his cum in your pussy, his frenzied thrusts as he rides out the last of his orgasm, making sure he gives you everything he has.

Jimin’s face is still buried in your neck as his hips continue to fuck his cum into you, hearing the filthy squelch as he tilts your hips up so that not a single drop can escape. The leisurely thrusts feel intimate as you hug him close to you, feeling his soft breaths against your skin as your legs wrap around his waist, feeling him finally still with his cock still deep inside you. Everything is warm and sticky, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

A few minutes pass before you realise that Jimin is perfectly content to have his cock plug your pussy up with cum, and while the thought kind of turns you on, he’s heavy, and you nudge him off you with your knee. Jimin pouts as he settles beside you, still drawing you closer to him as he lifts one of your thighs to get a better look at the mess he made of you.

“It’s all coming out,” he says in a disappointed whine as his fingers scoop out the frothy white cum that spilled out of you because of his fucking, gently pushing it back into you. But he can’t resist a little taste, bringing his fingers to his lips for a second.

“Jimin! Stop stealing my baby batter,” you grab his wrist to stop him, shoving it back toward your thighs.

“That’s the least sexy word for cum I’ve ever heard,” he frowns disapprovingly at you. “Stay there, don’t move. You need to keep your hips up.”

Jimin pushes a pillow under your hips, and whilst you’re rendered immobile, he takes the chance to sneakily lap at your inner thighs, cleaning up some of the cum that he didn’t manage to push into you. You glare at him, reaching down to tug at his hair, but then-

“Stay safe, kids!” It’s his father’s voice from down the hallway.

“Why do they need to stay safe? She’s already having his kid!” You hear Granny’s voice a second later, and your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “No need to stay safe, Puppy! You heard me? It’s good for the baby!”

You glare at Jimin, then push your chin toward his door, expecting him to answer his Granny.

Jimin mouths a ‘what’ at you in exasperation, his lust filled brain unable to think of a single appropriate response for this situation. Finally, he forces a cheery tone as he shouts back, “we will, Granny! Night Granny!”

Your head falls back into the pillow with a groan at how lame he is.

You’re most definitely not looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.

[hanibalistic]

[ inhales ] did you miss me? 🎤

ok first of all, i’m sorry for disappearing-ish. 😭 wasn’t really gone, just wasn’t in the mood to read fics at all for like a month (again, what’s new at this point) because i was watching this anime. won’t be making promises i can’t keep anymore. i’ll just be popping in and out of here whenever i can read smthng. :D

OKAY. with that cleared up, [ clears throat ] i had to type this in my drafts before sending it through your ask BECAUSE my thoughts are everywhere.

SPOILERS FOR WHERE THE TRAIN NEVER STOPS BEYOND THIS POINT.

i started this fic while eating breakfast and i planned to type real-time reactions on my phone while i read it on my tab. i felt like i needed to send an extra long ask today since i hadn’t been around for so long and i thought i owed you one (?)

the only reactions i managed to type in were:

HA, jeongin in specs 🤓 and being the first person MC treated in the fic. i see what you did right there.

HE’S SO ADORABLE PLS. KOE USED DEVASTATE. IT WAS REALLY EFFECTIVE. 🥺🥺🥺

^ ya wrote this for urself didnt u? it’s my favorite scene so far.

“if i see you here again, i’ll kill you myself.” this had me laughing at breakfast my mom was looking at me weirdly

“what a pretty face, such a bright smile as well” your admiration for jeongin,,it’s seeping through.

i didn’t know why i stopped reading your fics (not just yours, skz fics in general) for like a month :( i love getting lost in the worlds you write :(

then i forgot i was writing typing reacs :D

somewhere along the line, i was spacing out while reading so i had to go over a few paragraphs over and over. mainly because i kept thinking what if the twilight train was real and i’d be one of the people treating other people there? and i thought of possibly meeting my friends, assuming i died before them. would they recognize me. then i’d get back to reading a few lines before spacing out again. which is why this took me more or less two hours to read. my attention span never fails to amuse me :D

yeah, this fic didn’t go the way i expected it to—and i mean this in the best way possible. unpredictable. wbk the theme was dark but i still expected it to be light??? it seemed lighthearted in the first few paragraphs (aka the scenes with jeongin). but when i was starting to read through, i was kind of getting what the story really was about and where it was headed. at some point i was thinking chan would let MC fix him up but he didn’t. though i kinda saw the plot twist with MC coming, i didn’t really acknowledge it until it finally happened and i thought “HA, knew it.” was still shocked tho. 🕳🚶🏻‍♀️

this fic was a lot to take in. i think a few lines are swimming in my subconscious and slowly changing my perspective on life without me knowing. true subliminal shit. i couldn’t write this directly after reading it because i was still taking in everything. i was thinking about it while doing my accounting assignment. am still thinking about it now and might be thinking about it for the rest of the day, at least.

where did the inspiration from this one come from? 🤔

hello (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*: ･ﾟi just got back from straining my eyes because of a class. i cannot believe it’s the first day of school and i already have to finish 4 chapters by wednesday (థ Д థ。) i am going to do it tomorrow anyway even though most of my classes are tomorrow and i will probably be very occupied. i want to play some genshin before i pass out.

anyway, now, where have you been (o￣∇￣)=◯)`ν゜)! it has been a long time since you last dropped by but that’s okay, i know you’re busy! have i missed you... hmm, no! but i did think about you from time to time, though – ̗̀ ( ꈍДꈍ ) ̖́ – i don’t really miss people, and you are like a friend i know i will talk to again eventually since you are always popping in and out anyway! i am kind of used to that, so i saved the missing for nobody (ゝ∀･)ﾉ you definitely do not owe me an ask, by the way, even though it is always welcomed ヽ(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ but tags under the work is fine too if it is more convenient for you!

now, a short response to your tags: yes, jeongin in specs. i have not stopped thinking about it, he has reinforced my affection. yes, he is adorable. yes, i absolutely did write that for myself. yes, my affection for jeongin is supposed to seep through, that is on purpose. sometimes you just kind of don’t want to read fanfics of a certain group or people, so that’s okay! you can always come back when you feel like it again ᕙ(＠°▽°＠)ᕗ

well, i did not mean for this piece to be an easy read! i can be, of course. it can definitely be a light read, but i was hoping it can leave a bit of an impression on people who read it because it is very important to me. from the concept of the twilight train (courtesy to an asmr video i watched) to the event that happened in the pic, and the message their dynamic conveyed; everything is just dear to me in the fic. i actually meant for it to go in a gradient scale—light-heartedly explain to the reader where they are and what they are, and lying to the reader about certain aspects of the characters through narration, before slowly sprinkling in certain darker elements, unless everything just explodes. i was hoping to mimic the idea of surprising a memory or a feeling, and then when you let it in, you explode (which is what happened in the story).

a lot of things pieced this together! the concept came from an asmr i watched of a man dying on a train and is pretending to be okay! i thought, hmm, what if the train is supposed to hold close-to-dying people? what if there is someone to help you? and there twilight train is! and the dark theme came from personal experiences that i am no longer mad about. the experience is not related to the message conveyed in the story, though. i just needed to vent and express myself a little, that’s all. consider this piece me giving people the choice to either to hear me vent or move away, since last time i did something to express my anger, i was punished for it. anyway! thank you so much for reading this fic! it is… well, not my favorite, but very dear to me nonetheless  ｡ﾟ(இ ‸ இ✿)ﾟ｡

[junionigiri]

Todochako Week 2019 - Day 1 - Mythology

for @todochaco

Rating: G

Notes: This fic (and all the others for Todochako week!) are collaborations with safri_riri from Twitter :) she did the wonderful fanart while I wrote the words. we hope u like this! btw their costume designs are inspired heavily by Hades and Persephone’s design in the LINE webcomic Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe (highly recommended pls read its so good!!!)

Ochako walks on fields filled with flowers of pink and gold. The sun kisses the bare skin of her shoulders. In the distance, a lazy river flows; pretty nymphs bathing in its cool waters, giggling and cracking jokes and just enjoying life.

The world above the ground is bright and sunny and beautiful; this is the only type of world she’d ever known ever since she was created. She breathes in the spring air, revels in the feel of it filling her lungs.

“Darling.” A goddess walks beside her. Regal; wheat-colored hair, dazzling purple eyes, every bit sparkling and intimidating. “Do not tell me you mean to go back to that wretched place.”

“Beloved mother,” Ochako says, trying to keep the smile on her face from showing. She regains her composure and faces him. “You know that I have to.”

Aoyama’s mouth twitches in disdain. “Awful and unforgivable, that’s what this whole arrangement is! Why must you agree to it? I can’t believe that I have to lose my one and only daughter just because of a bloody pomegranate!”

He twirls in his royal robes of white and gold, with sympathetic and angry red flowers sprouting beside him as he does. His royal subjects bathing in the river are compelled to stare at him in wonder. Ochako merely tries to keep it together as she keeps her eyes on her beloved queen mother.

“Still, promises are promises,” she manages to say quietly. “I must go back underneath the earth. My husband waits for me.”

Her chest twinges a bit saying that.  

“Humph! To have to return my pure daughter to the Dead King causes me such grief!” says Aoyama, turning to face her once more. Her mother always has such a difficult face to read, so Ochako wonders why there’s a knowing smile on his mouth when he looks at her cheeks, one after the other, and speaks to her again. “Tell the king of Hell, that terrible abductor, that I hope his kingdom freezes over!”

“Mother!” Ochako looks at him despairingly, begging for some reprieve. “Please do not judge him unfairly! He isn’t cold and terrible! He is good and just and kind, and--”

That smile on Mother’s face again. For someone who’s supposedly grieving, he’s looking awfully smug. This forces a waver in Ochako’s voice, especially when she thinks of the next thing she has to say.

“... and he tells me, he will never love anyone, like he does me,” she finishes. She feels her cheeks glow under the weight of his amused stare.

Aoyama sighs. “Words are wind, my love, and so are Hades’. No matter how sweet they sound. Do not trust him.”

A chasm appears in the earth to literally swallow Ochako whole. She gazes into it, and back to Mother, who tears up as he prepares to say goodbye once more.

She turns before she sees his grandiose and dramatic despairing, the wrath of the earth floating around him as he does. Ochako’s barely had her foot in the chasm when spring turns into fall, and the nymphs in the river begin to slip into quiet hibernation.

She jumps into the darkness and faces the ferryman, Deku--a fellow that’s probably too bright and sunny for his job, but one he takes seriously anyway. Ochako puts a coin in his hand and rides the boat through the mystic river.

“It’s, um, good to see you again, your highness,” Deku chirps a little too cheerily than he ought to be doing, in a river full of the dead. One of them glares at him from underwater, making him blush and force a grim look on his face. “So the land above is cold once more?”

“Yes. Such is the wrath of my queen mother.” She looks fearfully around the darkness, where ghosts and ghouls and such float. “The Underworld is doing well, it seems.”

“Yup! Our King works pretty hard to keep things in order! You know, judging the dead, punishing them, fixing the irrigation systems, things like that!”

“I see. It’s good to see that his highness managed well while I was gone.”

He seems to have completely given up being grim as they sail along the river, despite getting another pointed glare from the dead. With another bright smile incompatible with the setting, he says, “Oh, but don’t be down, my queen! His majesty thinks of you often as he governs us here!”

“Has he?” Ochako sighs dramatically. “I wonder if my king loves me as he says he does! My mother has warned me as much--”

They reach the end of the river. Deku alights and helps her off the boat. “Believe in our King. He waits for you to take his place by his side.”

Ochako nods, albeit uneasily, and leaves the ferryman at the edge of the river.

The Underworld is dark and grim and orderly. But she is the goddess of spring, and so flowers of all bright colors grow where her feet land. Fearlessly she makes her way through the mist and convoluted pathways, until she faces a great glass door, shining midnight blue.

Beyond which, her husband awaits.

And as she pushes the glass aside, she sees him. Tall, pale skin with blue scars and mismatched eyes, frost all around him. A sharp dark suit, a crown of twisted black metal on top of his pure silver hair. A mountain of scrolls and folders on his desk, the files of the dead souls awaiting judgment.  

He turns to her quite naturally. A genuine smile on his face, one that makes disembodied voices gasp and swoon all around him. “Persephone.”

Ochako stutters in her steps a bit, face frozen in a smile that feels unnatural. She shakes herself back to her senses subtly and steps forward and bows deeply. “Your highness. I have returned as promised.”

Amusement glints in his eyes as he watches her stand to her full height again. “It’s good to see you again, my love. Winter on earth cannot come soon enough.”

Someone from afar chokes--Ochako hears something that sounds suspiciously like dreeamy boy!!! in the voice of Bakugou the god of war, from far away. She tries not to lose her focus and dares herself to look up at the face of her, um… her husband. “It has been a long year indeed, my King.”

He pauses and regards her, an unreadable look in his eyes. “Is there anything wrong?”

With his doubt comes the cold; Ochako rubs the skin of her bare arms as the frost encompasses the room. “No, not at all, my King. I just… think of my mother.”

“Queen Demeter,” he says flatly with a huff. “What has my sister told you?”

She looks up at him fearfully. His eyes have become dark, his demeanor intimidating. Shadows seem to dance around him as he steps closer.

It’s hard to be dishonest, and so she closes her eyes and answers. “My mother has told me… she told me that words are wind, and so are yours, so… I cannot possibly trust--”

A cold hand clasps around her wrist. She is terrified and is powerless to open her eyes, but then she feels warmth around her, and hears him shift in front of her.

When she opens her eyes, she finds her small frame enveloped in his coat. He’s kneeling in front of her, eyes shining in the darkness.

He takes a deep breath and says, quite clearly. “Please, believe in me, my queen. Without you, my kingdom remains dark and my heart, as dead and empty as those I serve. I have loved no-one but you, and will love no-one else.”

Ochako is having a really hard time looking straight into his eyes. “H-Hades… I…”

He doesn’t move, staring right into her eyes, waiting patiently. To hear her affirmation, or perhaps to break his heart is to be determined.  

She bites her lower lip and swallows. “I… forgot my line…”

The air around them fills with groans in the next moment. “Really, Ochako-chan?! Just when it was getting good!”

“Sorry guys,” she whimpers as the lights switch on one by one. All around her, her classmates who have been pretending to be corpses at the edge of the stage get up and stretch.

From beyond the stage, Mina looks up at her, sighing as she fans herself with the script. “Anything wrong there, babe? You two are doing great so far, but you seem extra off just now? Kinda looking overheated there.”

Ochako sputters and shakes her head vehemently. “Wh-why would I be overheated, Mina-chan? It’s the opposite! It’s really cold up here!”

It is. They had Todoroki use his real ice instead of having the props team make imitation ones. The shivering parts of her acting were 100% real.

“You tell me, Ochako-chan. I’m just calling it as I see it,” Mina says with a wink that doesn’t make her feel any better. “In any case, I guess we can take a break for now. The two of you have been acting all morning, after all.”

With that, everyone disperses. Ochako takes a deep breath and releases it and begins to walk off the stage, trying not to slip on ice.

“Uraraka.”

“Todoroki-kun.” As distracting as the patch of blue that the make-up team placed over his scar is, she doesn’t miss the look of concern on his face as he walks beside her. “What is it? Oh--wait, I’m sorry, your coat…”

She begins to shrug off the coat, but he holds up two hands to stop her. “You can keep wearing it if you need to.”

“But…”

“You said you were cold. We aren’t doing our scenes in a while, anyway.”

“Oh,” she says with a bashful smile. “Yeah… Um, sorry for messing up the scene back there, Todoroki-kun. We should have been done for the day if I got it right.”

It’s hard to keep the feelings of embarrassment at bay, considering how many big mistakes she made in the past rehearsals despite her spending so many hours memorizing all the lines in Mina’s Greek mythology script. Compared to Todoroki-kun, who unexpectedly got into it very early on and delivers all his lines, angsty and lovey-dovey and everything else, without an ounce of hesitation. It’s unfair how talented Todoroki-kun is in many things without trying too hard!

Speaking of which, why was she cast in this role anyway? No-one was able to stop Mina-chan when they chose her idea for the cultural festival presentation, and no-one was also able to stop her from writing a script and consequently casting everyone in class. She doesn’t know what possessed her friend to cast Ochako in such a major role, and with Todoroki-kun as her leading man, and no-one bothered to give her a proper explanation for it.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Todoroki tells her as they walk out of the classroom and towards the nearby vending machine. “I think you did well in your other scenes.”

… just not the ones with Todoroki-kun as Hades the King of the Underworld declaring his love for her and such, was the eventual conclusion. She groans and leans her head against the cool glass of the vending machine. “Urgh, I’m sorry you had to be cast with me, Todoroki-kun! I am so not good at romantic scenes! I don’t usually think of lovey-dovey stuff or anything like that…”

Sure you don’t, her brain snarks. She hits her forehead lightly against the machine in retaliation.

“I understand what you mean,” Todoroki agrees. “I don’t think about romance a lot, either.”

She puffs her cheeks. “But… you’re good at this. That makes it more unfair…”

Todoroki hums, a neither here nor there sound that doesn’t really sound like he’s agreeing. “Do you want anything?”

She shrugs, and gestures for him to pick for her. He presses a button near her ear, and she feels the cold of his fingertips against it. She should be recoiling at the feel of it, but she feels her cheeks warm up at the action instead.

Stupid! Why is she getting worked up about pretending to be his wife and hearing his fake proclamations of love up close? She’s inconveniencing Todoroki-kun and the rest of her class by being so iffy about acting when she should just suck it up and be a goddamn professional about this.

She tries to straighten up and look at her leading man just as the machine drops two bottles for pick-up. “So… Todoroki-kun. If you don’t think about romance that often, how are you able to say those cheesy lines from the script so easily?”

“... was my acting cheesy?” His eyebrows shoot up in mild concern.

She actually doesn’t know. It probably was by the way Bakugou was reacting, but everyone else including her was too mesmerized by him saying those lines at all to notice. “No, you were fine,” she finally manages.

Taking note of her odd answer, Todoroki instead mulls over her question seriously. It takes him a while and a bit of staring at Ochako that makes her feel out of sorts.

After a few more beats of silence, he begins speaking. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m good at pretending either, but when I have to, I try to mean what I say when I’m saying the lines.”

Ochako stares at him dumbly. “Ah… y-you mean… like… even those lovey-dovey lines?”

He nods, not looking the least bit embarrassed about the things he said.

“You’re kidding, Todoroki-kun! I’m sure you’re super good at pretending, just that you didn’t realize it until now…”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But it’s not hard pretending to care about you, Uraraka.”

His eyes aren’t as intense as they were on the stage, with all the shadows and lighting effects making blue and onyx shimmer so intimately, but his gaze and simple words paralyze her all the same.

To her silence, he looks right into her eyes and smiles, much like a scoundrel. “In fact, most of the time, it’s surprisingly easy. Even the parts where I talk about how dark and empty my heart is without you and all that.”

In utter disbelief, she flushes a deep red and has to look away from his teasing gaze before she melts in an incoherent puddle on the floor. What kind of guy just says these things without blinking? It’s hard to force herself not to turn away to say, “I change my mind, Todoroki-kun. You’re a ham. An utter cheeseball. You’re horrible.”

He huffs in amusement. “You said I wasn’t.”

“Well you are, and you’re the worst,” Uraraka says, finally turning away and puffing her cheeks in annoyance. No way is she going to survive this conversation if she allows him to look at her like that.

She hears him chuckle, and feels something cool being pushed into her hands. She looks down at the drink he’s bought her, and ends up gaping right at it.

“This is--”

The door to the classroom opens, Mina’s bright pink head popping out from within. “Ah, here’s my gorgeous loveteam is at. You guys ready for another rehearsal?”

Ochako’s jaw is still hanging open as Todoroki tells her, “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

“All righty~ better get to it, then,” she says. She gives them both a cheesy grin and disappears back into the classroom.

Todoroki walks ahead and looks back at her, that little smile still on his infuriating pretty mouth. “That’s my treat, by the way. Please finish it before you go back.”

He leaves, and Ochako is left to stare incredulously at the bottle of pomegranate green tea in her hand.

Yeah… he’s an utter cheeseball.

Before she can stop herself, she’s smiling all giddy and stupid and she has to straighten herself out to get back to a semblance of functionality. She puffs her cheeks, chugs down the drink in pure determination, and heads back to the rehearsal space, where the director and her leading man are waiting for her.

[tsaritsa]

hiiii can you recommend royai fic? i may have read everything you've ever written so i need more content to consume. lmao

oh heck that’s a lot of fic to get through haha (also wow u even read the stuff i wrote when i was 11? ur braver than any us marine anon). i did a quick backtrack through ffn and ao3 and found some that should whet ur appetite! (i hope there’s some unfamiliar ones in here for everyone to discover and enjoy)

interlude, @capthawkeye​ | i am gonna rec this until the end of days bc it’s just that good. it’s got angst. it’s got post-sexytimes. it’s got some of the most in-character dialogue i’ve ever read. do me a favour: read it, and then come back and cry with me

midnight conversations, m.c.e. black | i genuinely don’t remember what happens in this fic but 11 year old me liked it and it had an interesting plot

of ballet and bullets, serenanna | part 4 of a series, but can be read alone. this is a v bittersweet fic for me bc the author died unexpectedly midway through writing. also has the bonus of an edwin b-plot too!

words that linger in the silence, blue-crystal-9 | mangahood, solid shit here. it’s the Good Kush. i love promised day shagging okay sue me

a coded confession over coffee, wargishboromirfan | little ditty but i love it

hellbound, @the-flame-and-hawks-eye​ | there’s a reason shay is known as the queen of angst royai round these parts and this fic is really the cherry on top of an already awfulgreat premise. i’m taking 94 years to get thru this bc i am not v good with violent stuff but it is well worth the time

an apple a day, kitsune moonstar | there’s 333 chapters of royai to work through. 300 and 30 fucking 3. 

under the influence, yellow mask | what i really miss about fic nowadays is that there’s this big push for canon (which i get, the series is awesome), but finding fics like this one are harder now and i honestly miss it. sometimes i want silly shenanigans with no worry about the overarching plot!

my body aches to breathe your breath, prodigy | it’s porn and prose and gorgeous and so very them

buried alive, @rizahawkaye​​ | another one i’m getting thru slowly. this premise is great, the characters are amazing and it’s a riza-centric story with the hovering royai angst just lingering at the back of every chapter

homefront, @hlwim​ | au where riza never goes to war and ends up caring for the elric bros post-trisha. what i really loved about this fic was the attention to detail for life in that era as well as the ever-growing tension as the elrics try to prepare for human transmutation under the watchful eye of riza

espionage, janieshi | cannot recommend this enough - one of my fave fics that looks at young!royai

what time takes, yellow mask | this is strictly more of an edwin fic than royai but it’s a big ensemble cast and when the focus is on royai it’s glorious. i will never be over her hand holding on to his in those final chapters, that shit breaks me every time

dinner for two, and subterfuge too, sceptick | fake dating! but real dating, kinda. roy is besotted when he shouldn’t be

the closed circle, hmmingbird | are u really a royai fan if u haven’t read this fic? maybe. but u should read it anyway. i love the fics where royai visits edwin post-promised day and the sexual tension is through the roof

first few desperate hours, sixpences | some killer angst post-transfer for team mustang. roy is pining; we’re all crying from feels

do you even have to ask?, @poppo911​ | the team mustang banter in this piece is gorgeous, and the whole scene in the library is to die for. i love my overt royai as much as the next gal, but this study in restraint is what we all need just as much

eyass, yellow mask | one of the few 03-canon fics that i genuinely enjoy from royai. angst ahoy! (but the good kind)

never break the chain, @capthawkeye​ | did u know we also have a smut queen ‘round these parts? her name is mar and she makes me feel things. it’s royai. but roy is now host to greed. greed has a thing about possessiveness. catch me swooning bc i’m all flustered and bothered

for your eyes only, @ohmytheon​ | roy? staring at riza? it’s more likely than u think (5 times, to be exact)

this is by no means a comprehensive list, not one meant to deliberately exclude the many many many royai authors out there who all produce incredible work. send in ur favs to me if u think i’ve missed one worth promoting, and u can also check out the fic tag on my sideblog too (most of it will be royai by default).

happy reading!

[pagesofangels]

What's your favorite chapter you've ever written? What fic is it from? Why do you love it? Copy and post it here!

Oooh, I have a lot of favorite scenes and chapters from all my years of fic writing. But my most recent favorite chapter is Chapter 1 from “The Thorn and Her Golden Rose”. It introduces the backstory, sets up some dynamics, and has some drunken sex. What more could you want? XD Besides I just…really love the language my co-author and I wrote in that scene, especially during the sex.

Because why not, I’m posting the entire first chapter here for anyone whose interested, especially for anyone who hasn’t heard of my Fem!Phantom writing before. Feedback appreciated! ^u^

~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1: A Night of Cards and Gin

“You always let me win, Nadir.” Erika tossed her cards onto the table. “I barely know how to play poker. Either you’re letting me win, or you’re sincerely that pathetic at cards.”

“Is it such a bad wish to lighten your mood, Erika?” The Persian sighed, abandoning his own cards as well. “It is the opposite of an easy task.” Or, one could say, perhaps even impossible. Besides, he knew too well how much his friend despised to be defeated.

He was long since used to her grimness, which had only grown in the last few months – ever since she took the young new tenor under her wing. Something about him had possessed Erika, and suddenly the Mirage that stalked the opera’s halls was dedicating her days to mentoring the lad.

“I’m surprised you made time to play a few hands. You are obsessed with that boy.”

“I am not obsessed,” Erika defended herself. “He is my student, and therefore it’s my duty to take his affairs into consideration.”

Nadir shook his head. “Erika, you forbid him to engage or see any young lady. That is not something one would do if not obsessed.”

“I simply refuse to let him participate with lowlifes,” Erika shrugged, gathering up the cards. “I plan to bring him up from the status of a beggar boy to a gleaming star.”

“While that may be a kind wish, Erika, what I’m concerned about is how you plan to do that,” Nadir said. How many innocents might suffer? Besides, could he sincerely trust she saw only a student and not a perverse obsession in that boy?

“I own this building and everyone in it, dear friend,” Erika said. “The right tug on the strings, and I can make them dance however I want.” She smirked at him as she rose to put away the playing cards. “You should know that. I convinced you I was worth being spared the fate of a harem girl.”

It was certainly useless to try and explain to Erika once again the Opera Populaire did not belong to her, let alone the people in it. Once the Mirage found power, she would hold onto it with claws and teeth.

Nadir shook his head. “You were no mere harem girl, Erika. You were the most exquisite and dangerous creature I had ever met…a genius. But aside from that, I owed you for Reza’s painless demise.” The Persian felt a sting in his heart, mentioning his son.

Erika turned her back on the Persian and shut her eyes. It still hurt to remember the little boy.

________

Nadir had taken her into his home in Mazandaran, despite knowing she was a woman. And a woman not of his faith, no less. His home was the only place she could shed the disguise of a man she had adopted to procure her position as the royal family’s assassin. His son, Reza – the poor, ill child – had taken a liking to her quite quickly. Only a child desperate for a mother would cling to someone like her in that way, or so she had thought at first.

Despite her better judgement, Erika had eventually found herself bonding with Reza. Often, she found herself playing the violin at the foot of the child’s bed when he had trouble sleeping. Other times, she quietly listened as he told her personal stories, his enthusiastic interests, his hopes for a future he would never see. Once or twice, she allowed the boy to sit in her lap while she read aloud from tomes of folklore and myth.

Neither she nor Nadir had ever mentioned it, but it almost became a domestic situation between the three of them. Erika had never had a proper family unit, and Nadir’s family had been shattered with the death of his wife. It was pleasant, finding herself the honorary member of a loving family.

But nothing pleasant ever lasts.

When Reza’s health had declined into a terminal stage, Erika and Nadir both had agreed on ending his suffering. Never before had Erika killed for mercy, but it was the hardest thing she had ever done.

She had made it quick and painless, staying with the oblivious young boy until the sleeping powder took effect. The strangulation was never felt on his part, but she would be haunted by the memory of his throat under her hands forever. Nadir had walked into the room to find her how she had hoped he wouldn’t: cradling his son’s body in her arms, tears falling from under her mask.

________

Erika shook her head to regain her composure. She set the cards atop her writing desk and said: “You didn’t need to come with me. You know that. They thought me dead, and likely still do. You could’ve stayed where you weren’t an outsider.”

Slowly, Nadir closed the gap between himself and Erika, laying his hands on her slender shoulders. He always felt a little hesitant to touch her, for pushing the Mirage over her edge would not be a wise decision. Yet, he longed so deeply to comfort her.

________

Reza had become isolated after falling ill. The poor child’s world shrank into a narrow window that was never able to peek beyond their garden. Thus, he became sad. That little mind desired to laugh and learn, but it was denied that joy. The police chief’s heart had wept, helpless against his son’s cruel fate. It bled watching a pure young soul fade together with its small body, slowly slaughtered by sickness.

And when all hope had at last been lost to Nadir, and he began silently counting Reza’s final days, he’d brought Erika into their home.

He’d discovered the true gender of the Shah’s young assassin by pure accident. He had found the Angel of Death in an obscure corner of the Shah’s palace. Erika had been sewing closed a gash in her side given to her by the last target she’d been assigned to. He caught her just as she was pulling a thread of catgut through her flesh using a needle of bone. The veil that always hid her face had been pulled aside in disarray. The bloodstained tunic she wore had been pulled up enough to expose the bindings around her chest. And like that, he finally understood why the Angel never spoke in more than a whisper.

One of them would have died by her hand that night had Nadir not sworn by his blood to hold her secret. After much internal debate, the police chief decided to keep this strange creature hidden in his home until her wound healed. It was a peace offering, proof he would cause her no harm if she caused him no harm. He would be the one to help her recoup, with no need to call a physician who would not hesitate to reveal the truth to the Shah.

The first weeks in his abode she was like an injured wild animal, eager to be released from her captivity once nursed back to health. Yet, as her interactions with his son became more frequent, her disposition became more relaxed. That was when Nadir came to know Erika, and not the Angel of Death.

Deep in his heart, the Persian knew it wasn’t any medicine that granted Reza a few more months. It was her presence. She gifted him happiness once again in that innocent mind; a mother he never knew. She would entertain him and play music for him, and even speak to him for hours. Who could have ever thought Mazandaran’s most feared assassin could unveil such a gentle face?

Gradually, Nadir came to realize his soul was still capable of adoration. He was a man already turning silver at thirty-eight, and he was separated from her in age by over a decade. Yet day-by-day she began to change in his eyes. The sharpness of her tongue and her dark forbearance began to hold an otherworldly allure.

That creature who was both a monster and a woman, an assassin and an artist…he loved her. He felt it when she played her violin at the windowsill on those dry, hot evenings. He felt it when he saw her sleep on the cushions in the parlor, her mask placed aside, and her half-missing face bared to the candlelight. When he could look upon her like that and say, truly, that he found her beautiful, he knew he loved her.

And he never uttered a whisper of it.

The Angel of Death’s secret couldn’t stay hidden forever. Weeks after Reza’s funeral, Erika was brought before the Shah to confirm his suspicions. Nadir had been forced to confess what he knew, under threat of his friend being forcefully disrobed in front of the royal court. She was given two options: a torturous execution, or imprisonment as one of the Shah’s concubines. Erika selected the latter to keep herself alive until nightfall. After sunset, she and Nadir carried out the plan they’d devised in the days before her summons. Nadir was only expected to have a horse waiting in the streets for her, and to have faith she’d make it out of the palace alive. But he had supplied a second mare for himself. Together, they rode across the desert sands until well into the dawn. They fled the city, fled Persia, with no intention of looking back.

________

A sad smile crept onto his smooth, brownish pink lips. “No, Erika. I had no choice but to follow you. I was banished.” The Persian gently squeezed his old friend’s shoulders from behind. “Yet had I not been, I still would have come with you.”

Nadir was the only human being Erika allowed physical contact with her. Had it been anyone else, her – rather violent – instincts would have activated from such sudden touch. “Banished?” she asked, standing there and allowing him to keep his hands on her. “For keeping a woman in your house? Or for denying the Shah another whore?”

Nadir sighed. Always so blunt in words, was she not? “Banished for treason,” he said, as if speaking about the weather outside. “After all, I do have royal blood in me.” His words held no pride. “He may have seen me as a threat.”

Erika chuckled, slowly removing his hands from her shoulders. “Don’t be so cocky,” she said, leaving to open a bottle of gin she kept on the countertop. “You? A political threat? Unlikely.”

“Well, likely not.” A tiny smile curled Nadir’s lips. “Yet, you know the Shah…he sees threats everywhere. Even in me.”

“Yes,” Erika agreed, pouring them two small glasses of the clear alcohol. “A pity he didn’t see enough of a threat in me.”

“He was a fool not to.”

“Care to join me for a drink?”

Nadir nodded, taking up a glass. “Certainly. My gratitude, old friend.”

Erika toasted her drink to him. “My pleasure.”

The Mirage was a notorious lightweight to any who had seen her drink. She always meant to limit herself to one glass, yet…not always. But that night, with a guest in her house, she intended to remain firm with herself.

“How has Paris been treating you?” she asked, taking her first sip.

Nadir raised his glass as well before draining it quickly. He did not drink often, preferring very much to remain sharp. After all, he alone had a hope of talking the Mirage out of her madness. He felt he needed to be her neutralizer.

“Ah,” he sighed with a small smile, lowering the glass. “Like one would suspect it to treat an unknown foreigner from the East. Yet, I cannot complain.”

“Well, as I am in your debt,” Erika paused to finish off her glass, “if you experience any kind of violent prejudice, contact me. I’ll take care of it for you.” She left her glass at her side, intending on keeping it empty the rest of the night.

Nadir sighed deeply. “Erika, I hope you do remember. You gave me your word, you shall never kill again.” Perhaps it was unwise to trust the word of the Mirage…but she was his only companion in that damnable city.

“Correction, I said I would never again assassinate an innocent,” Erika said. “I do not consider a racist an innocent.” She glanced at the bottle and held it out, offering without words to refill his glass. “You seem compelled to dampen my spirits today.”

“Those people simply do not understand it, Erika. I worry not about them. I have not met any discrimination which would truly impact my life for the worse,” Nadir assured her, unwilling for anyone to die. “Please, if only you drink with me, my friend.”

With a sigh, Erika refilled her own glass and set the bottle of gin between them. She stood on one side of the counter, and he on the other. Erika sipped on her second drink while brooding.

The warmth of her first glass was already starting to bring color to her ghostly pale cheeks. Perhaps being the daughter of an alcoholic gave her a certain susceptibility, but she didn’t mind.

“So, shall I tell you of my plans to promote my student to lead tenor?”

Nadir’s jade eyes would not leave Erika’s gaze as his rough hand took hold of the bottle to refill his glass. Not a drop of the clear liquid spilled over. “I most certainly would like to hear them,” he nodded, hoping no murder was involved.

“Simple,” she said. Another quick drink. “I get Carlo fired. Nothing a little blackmail can’t do. There’s no such thing as a secret to me.” She smirked at Nadir. “No bloodshed required.”

“Very well,” Nadir said, draining another glass. “Yet, I believe you do understand he shall not give up his career without a fight.” Not many people he had met in his life were as arrogant or stubborn as the star tenor. The man rivaled the Shah in terms of entitlement.

“He can fight all he wants,” Erika said. “I’ve gathered enough to soil his reputation. And even if I’m lying right now, I could make up something believable.” She downed the rest of her drink and shook her head to dispel a cloud of intoxication. Alright, that was certainly enough. “For example, I could tell you something right now and have you guessing the rest of your life if I was being truthful.”

Well, nothing less could be expected from her of all people. He tilted his head at her words. What was she speaking about? Alcohol was slowly blurring Nadir’s mind as well, making him dizzy. “Don’t make me curious and then silence yourself, my Erika. Pray tell.”

Erika’s laugh was a hum in the back of her throat. “I could tell you I sometimes want to strangle you in your sleep.” She hoisted herself onto the counter, sitting on its edge. “You see, because we are both a little over the edge of sober, and I’m always one to blur the lines of fiction and reality…you will always wonder. Wonder if that statement was true, and always wonder why. What could you possibly do to infuriate me to the point of murder?”

Nadir sighed yet again, draining another glass of was indeed a difficult companion at times. Ha…at times?He couldn’t remember a day when she was not. The Persian drummed his fingers into the wooden countertop. “Why am I not surprised? You want me to plead, don’t you, my dear old friend? Beg you not to leave me wondering? You always desire a helpless victim to be under your thumb in one way or another, you sick woman. And yet, I could never walk away…I could never abandon you.”

“Oh, you’re so dramatic.” Erika felt more of the drink go to her head. “And you never do what I want, either,” she playfully pouted. “Maybe that’s the reason I want to kill you so much. You’re the only person who doesn’t fall for my shit.”

Nadir chuckled, alcohol slowly dissolving his usual stern, almost grim, attitude. “The pot calls the kettle black, I see.”

She laughed a little too much. “God, I hate you.”

“You may hate me, Erika, but I love you.” The smile on Nadir’s face never faltered, as if he didn’t fully realize the gravity of his words. “I have always loved you. And no vile thing you could say, no harm you could cause me, shall ever tear you away from my heart.”

Erika rolled her eyes. “You think you’re so secretive, Nadir. You know nothing about being secretive.” She moved a little closer. “I’ve known since Mazandaran. That you love me, and I hate you.” She sighed. “You would make a terrible assassin. No secrets whatsoever.”

“No one is secretive when they stand before you, Erika. No secret remains hidden from you.” Nadir murmured, taking a step closer as well. His jade eyes pierced firmly into her dark brown ones. “Then good thing remains I’m not an assassin. Neither have I ever intended to be.”

Erika grinned and reached out to touch his shoulder. “No, but you are a thief. You’ve taken far too much of my headspace than I prefer, and without my consent. It interferes with my hobbies.”

“Your thinking of me is not something I can change, Erika,” Nadir said, grasping her hand and kissing it. He sensed no danger, with the world soaked in gin around him. “Though, I must admit, I’m glad to be bothering you and pulling you away from certain things.”

“You’re wicked,” Erika smirked, gently kicking him in the leg. “How am I supposed to get anything important done with you constantly in my mind?”

“That is not a question I can answer.” Nadir raised his hand and caressed a lock of her black hair, a boldness he would never show while sober. “Perhaps it may make you less violent.”

“Or more violent, at least in other ways,” Erika said, returning the kind gesture by exploring the texture of his facial hair. His eyes had always been such a beautiful, Eastern jade. Like the sacred dragon statues of China.

Her face was rosy and her eyes – just a little bit watery. She knew she was long gone, and she was afraid to get back on her feet. If she did, the dizziness would hit her full force. For the moment, all the rest of the world melted away. It was just her and her old friend, sharing an intimate moment. As someone who envied the beauty of others, Erika never liked touching the faces of others. But with her inhibitions gone, she was fine showing this level of affection to him. At least to him.

“Can you tell me why you tolerate me, Nadir?” she asked.

Had Nadir been sober, he would have realized just how astonishing that small gesture of Erika’s was. She did nothing, only stroked his stubby beard. She never touched other people’s faces, seemingly too jealous to feel them and not tear them off. She was touching his face without tearing his skin to shreds…it was a display of gentleness in her storm-like nature. He would never have expected. One could never tell just how bitter things sometimes were between the two.

The former Daroga’s skin was also flushing red from the heat which the alcohol inspired in his blood. “I have already told you, Erika. I love you. Nothing in this world could ever possibly part me from you.”

The more she gazed at him, the more she appreciated every aspect of his natural beauty. The bridge of his nose, the sharpness of his cheeks, the curve of his jaw. All were a brushstroke in the artwork that was his person. It’s a common saying that alcohol turns the world aglow, but Erika saw it as more of a truth serum, making things just as bright as they would be without the darkness of the world.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” she asked him with a tipsy smile.

Nadir must have been a madman indeed, for he may have fallen for the Devil herself. Still, even knowing this, he abandoned all defenses and treasured the sensation. May it cost him his head or not, he couldn’t tell – nor could he care.

“No, you have not. All you’ve ever called me is a great booby.” The Persian man let out a dizzy, rumbling laugh. “And you may do it again now, when I say that under your mask lies beauty this world is too shallow to understand.”

She grinned wider. “Why can you only tell me these things when we’re both drunk?” she teased. “Can’t you tell me how much you love me at a time when I’ll remember it the next day?”

Nadir chuckled, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “Well, my dear Erika, I certainly would if only I didn’t have to worry over being strangled for it.”

“Well, you’ve told me now,” Erika said, her arms snaking around Nadir’s shoulders, “and no one’s died yet.” Her fingers found their way into his thick mess of black hair. With a sigh, she rested her forehead against his.

The water in her eyes wasn’t from drunkenness anymore. “Damn it all, this is just cruel of you Nadir! I’ll wake up tomorrow assuming everyone on this planet wants me dead, you included. How could you make me feel so gleeful at a time I won’t be able to remember?”

“We are both drunk,” Nadir murmured, leaning down and pressing a ghostly kiss to her temple. His thumb sliding up and down her lean spine, feeling each vertebra through the skin. “That is why you have not strangled me yet.”

Nadir’s drunken smile faded as he saw the bitter tears suddenly spring from her foggy eyes. “Ah, my sweet Erika…forgive me for this. I swear to you, one day I will tell you when we both are sober. My heart will cease beating if I remain silent. Perhaps you will accept me, perhaps you will strike me down. I do not care either way. Just do not weep, my love…” His lips brushed against her eyelids, desperate to dry her tears as he squeezed her firmly to his chest.

“How often do you think you’ve told me, and neither of us remember?” Erika asked.

“Perhaps never, perhaps countless times…” Nadir sighed, his heart soaring high and sinking low at the same time.

“Well, come what may,” she said with a tearful smile, “no matter how I react come daylight, I want to remember tonight. I want us both to remember, whether we like it or not.”

Before he could answer, she softly pressed her lips against his own. Her senses were filled with everything she had adored about Persia: the lingering spices, the golden sand, the sweet waters of an oasis. He tasted like the scenery and was warm as the desert. She kept her fingers in his hair, keeping him close to her as she pulled away.

The kiss came as both a striking surprise and something completely expected in that moment. The Persian’s breathing hitched, in response to the thing he’d secretly yearned for through all those long years. She tasted so sweet, like honey and blood.

“Yes,” he breathed, “nothing matters tonight, beloved…nothing but you and I.” Pulling her into yet another passionate kiss, he eased her off the edge of the countertop.

She ran her hands down the length of his torso and softly moaned against his lips. He held her steady as she swayed on her feet, too drunk to stand on her own. Now, of course, she had to gaze up at him – which was a change that was almost comical. At least it was while drunk. The contact between them was heavenly, if a heaven should exist to compare it to.

“Do tell me, old friend,” she muttered, “just how will tonight be about us?”

Nadir wondered: in what corner of her mind did she find such false belief that she reeked of death? To Nadir, the scent of her was elegant and intoxicating. May it be tricks of drunkenness, love and desire, or may it be truth, he did not care. His dilated eyes found the gondola that gently rocked on the mirror-like lake not far away.

“Tonight, on this misty lake under blind night,” he whispered, leaning down and kissing her neck before sweeping her up into his arms, “we will become one, my friend…my love.” With a head spun by alcohol, even he became a poet.

With surprising steadiness for someone so dizzy, he carried Erika like a bride to the dock and placed her on the cushions of the small boat. He joined her, his weight bobbing the vessel as he climbed on top of her. He pulled her into a deep kiss yet again, his large hand on the back of her neck. Every tiniest fiber of his being felt on fire, desperate to be hers and to make her his.

Erika laughed as he settled himself over her. She laughed at the ones who had hurt her all those years ago, made her afraid of trusting a man with her safety and well-being. The last time a man had been over her she had been unwilling, petrified with terror as she could only let herself be violated. Now here she was, absolutely in a state of bliss, she and her partner at play together.

Erika marveled at the poetic nature of making love in the gondola. Not even she could have thought of it sober, let alone with gin in her veins. “Honestly, Nadir,” she panted between the meeting of their lips, “if this isn’t a sign of what you and I have wanted from each other…then we must be mad.”

Nadir kissed Erika’s forehead, pulling her even closer, longing more than anything to show her what it meant to love and be loved – to soar in extasy and wallow in passion. He yearned to make her forget the soul-wrecking past and surrender to their feelings. He wanted so much for her to embrace him, touch him, trust him with her body.

The Persian brushed his lips against her slender neck, tasting her skin, nibbling under her chin. “Yes… we are mad…and we have desired this from each other,” he whispered. A calloused hand slithered under her shirt, begging for closeness. For a moment, they ceased being the Daroga and the Mirage, they were nothing but a woman and a man.

She didn’t want to talk anymore. Erika pulled the pins from her hair, allowing it to fall across her shoulders. The metal pins were carelessly tossed aside, and Erika heard them quietly plunk into the black water.

A shiver ran through her as Nadir’s hand explored the skin pulled across her ribs and spine. For such a reserved man, it was a wonder he could be so effortlessly sensual. His wife had likely been the happiest woman in Persia. Not much information was known to her about the wife Nadir had lost, but she had always assumed she had been breathtaking in every sense. The fact he was now freely giving himself to someone like her…it meant the world. The universe.

With trembling fingers, she undid the buttons of her waistcoat and fearlessly bared her chest to him. She wasn’t afraid of being rejected, he had long since accepted nearly every aspect of her.

Nadir moaned at such sweet sight suddenly unveiled for his eyes alone, watching hungrily every button slip open, that lovely pale bosom spring bare. Such a contrast with her beautiful black hair now passionately loose. He caught Erika’s gaze, jade eyes glowing from passion, before leaning down and pressing light kisses to each of her breasts. Though his lips soon slithered up, tongue tracing her collarbones. He kissed her neck ardently and gently tugged on her dark locks from time to time.

The former Daroga did not even notice how his own hands tore his shirt and jacket away. Soon his scarred, warm mahogany skin was pressed against her cold naked torso. Caressing her breasts in each of his palms, he whispered: “You are so beautiful, my Erika,” and claimed her lips deeply.

Her whole body arched into his as he nipped at her neck. Their breath was being shared in the space between them, adding more silver mist to the air. The light of one-thousand candles lit Nadir’s face. The dancing shadows played across his body and the flames burned in his eyes. God, he was purely magnificent.

“As are you,” she said, and she gently pushed him back until she was able to climb into his lap, eagerly biting his neck as if she wanted to draw droplets of blood. Her hair fell over her back like a mourning curtain. Her hands traveled down his sides, coming to rest at his hips.

Nadir sat back on the cushions, gladly allowing Erika to straddle him. One arm wrapped around her waist to pull her closer. He tilted his head, allowing her to nibble on his neck. Gasping in delight, his fingers found her hair and tangled in those lush black locks only to slide down and grasp her thighs firmly.

A bit clumsily from both excitement and drink, Erika began to undo Nadir’s complicated belt buckle. His trousers were already tented out by his trapped erection. She could feel it throbbing under her palms, begging to be freed. “How…how long have you wanted to see me unclothed, Nadir?” she teased, kissing his face lovingly. “I’ve known of your affection since Mazandaran, but…how long have you wanted me?”

The tightness in Nadir’s pants was undeniable, aching and devious. He was longing to feel himself sink inside Erika’s warm moist core, to feel them two at last becoming one. “Does it matter now, my dearest? I will have you now,” the Persian purred. He returned the favor and undid her own trousers with the speed of an expert – all the while lightly biting down on her jawline.

Before long, Nadir’s pants (as well as the remainder of every scrap of their clothing) were tossed up onto the makeshift dock. Erika’s skin had gone from deathly white to rosy, making her look a bit more like a human being with a pulse. As soon as the two of them were perfectly bare, she pounced on him, nothing in her way to feeling his full coat of skin against hers. The air was crisp, but she felt the searing heat raging between his thighs.

“Or, rather, Nadir…” she whispered in his ear – as if they weren’t alone in a great cavern, “I will have you. Tonight, you’re mine.”

He could feel just how eager she was, no less than himself. “Then what are you waiting for, beloved?” Nadir whispered into her neck as he gripped her hips, bringing her entrance to the tip of his manhood. “Tonight, I am yours.”

Truth be told, she had been waiting for his permission. With it, she lowered herself onto him, finally solidifying the union they had wordlessly craved for years. She braced herself against him, reclining both of them onto the cushions as she took more of his length into her. She wasn’t afraid. She felt no shame, all she felt was the need to satisfy the two of them.

She caressed his face with the back of hand, looking boldly into his eyes as she began thrusting her hips. She opened her mouth to speak, but a small moan left it first.

“I still…hate you…you know?” She asked with a tease, her dark hair now falling over both of their faces.

Nadir allowed his back to be pressed against the cushions, a low hiss of delight leaving his throat once the grip of her womanhood sank around him. Heavens…it was such an overwhelming, blissful sensation! Their locked gazes let this burning feeling pulse with even more intimacy.

The Persian’s rough fingers brushed through her hair “And I…” he moaned faintly, replying in an equally playful tone, “still love you.” With those words, he wrapped his arm around Erika’s shoulders, pulling her close and kissing her passionately, other hand pressing on her lower back until her thrusts were forcing his entire length into her body.

Erika picked up her pace, clinging to him and panting into his neck. His fingers tugged on her hair, while hers sank into the cushions below him. Small sounds of pleasure fluttered from her throat. Friction began to build so she slowed her pace, wanting to stimulate herself a bit to make their lovemaking more comfortable. She bit down on the nape of Nadir’s neck. “Tell me how this feels for you,” it wasn’t a plea, it was a demand.

Nadir brushed his lips against her hair. With a much louder grunt, he lost control for a moment and threw his hips roughly into one of her thrusts. He groaned in pleasure when she picked up the pace afterwards. Long years had passed since he last knew such maddening bliss. He never had a woman after his wife’s death, and now he was with the one he loved like he never loved anyone before.

“You drive me insane!” he moaned. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he swiftly lifted her body and switched their positions. He laid atop her, nibbling her ear playfully before starting to thrust in a slow, torturous manner, stroking her pleasure spot with his hand while he kissed her fiercely.

She was surprised to suddenly find herself pressed against the gondola’s soft interior. Erika gave Nadir a mischievous look. He was still so full of surprises. “You bastard,” she sighed, rolling her eyes when she realized how teasingly slow he was moving inside her. He shut her complaining up with another long kiss.

She found it getting harder to breathe but wasn’t sure why. Alcohol often slowed her brain. That’s when she felt an intense shock go up her stomach and she realized Nadir’s experienced fingers had slipped between them, finding the folds between her legs and making quick work of them.

“Whatever you’re doing,” she said, biting her lower lip “…don’t stop.”

It was a stunning awareness he had. He suddenly found himself having the slightest hint of power over her for the first time since their first encounter. She always led, and he followed. This new…sensation…he beyond enjoyed it. At last, he was able to show just how much he loved and wished to spoil her.

A mischievous smile crept onto his lips, agape from groans and gasps of pleasure. Growing bolder from the approval Erika gave him, the strokes of his fingers went firmer. His thrusting became faster just for a moment. That sudden jolt in speed left her writhing in need under him when he slowed again. Licking his lips, he leaned down to kiss her neck fiercely.

She sank her fingers into the back of his neck with a desperate groan. One hand gripped his shoulder, digging into the soft flesh. She arched her hips into his thrusts, begging him to go deeper where she knew a hidden pleasure point was located.

“You…can do…better,” she panted. “I know…you can please a woman.” If she was going to submit, then she expected him to outperform her.

Nadir pressed their foreheads together, hissing when her claws dug into his back. Indeed, that was enough teasing and tormenting her. The thrusts remained slow, yet became deep and long, making sure to stab into her deep sweet spot each time. His hands had her shoulders in a vice grip, bracing himself so he could put as much force into each thrust of his hips as possible.

“Oh, God…” For a woman of no faith to call upon a deity likely meant she felt equal to one.

Erika was in a state of sublime ecstasy. For once, she wished to be no one else but herself. She wished to be nowhere else except beneath the one man she had ever longed for. His pace was perfect, his touches were perfect, his kisses were perfect, he was just…perfect. Such perfection, and he was making her whole with himself.

Erika ran her fingernails down Nadir’s scared biceps and down his back. She wanted to feel him in every crevasse of her body, even under her nails. Her jaw hung open with heavy breaths, each exhale carrying a whimper of overwhelming pleasure. She lolled her head back, shutting her eyes as she felt an orgasm mounting. “I hate…” she gasped, “I hate…that I love you.”

Nadir moaned lowly into her neck, the movements of his hips suddenly fast and firm. His length throbbed and swelled, the velvet walls of her womanhood like an addiction he couldn’t satisfy. His skin looked golden in the candlelight, glistening from sweat. It was like a dream come true. Overwhelming pleasure rippled through his nerves, boiling his blood beyond the point he could bear. The woman he loved in his arms, writhing and crying from rapture.

“I love… you…” Nadir groaned, clashing his lips on Erika’s desperately and pulling her close as he filled her burning core with his seed in another powerful movement.

The hot rush of his climax brought her to the edge of her own. She gripped his hips with her knees and rotated her hips, stimulating herself just a few more times while he was still hard. That was what she needed to at last reach her own orgasm. She broke off the kiss to take a sharp breath of air, her whole body tightening around Nadir’s member in an unbearable moment of melting bliss. When her body relaxed again, it felt weak. She hardly felt strong enough to speak.

Nadir collapsed on top of Erika, still inside her, breathing heavily, eyes closed as slowly, the Persian slipped into cloudy bliss of mind and complete limpness of body. He held his friend become lover close, lips pressed to her temple, heart beating against heart.

Erika finally released a breathless laugh, running her finger down the bridge of Nadir’s nose. “I’m hoping I won’t forget that when I’m sober.”

[waveridden]

FIC: the neon limelight

The story behind Neoscum is like something out of a movie. (Or, a day in the life of a rock band. 3.5k, gen)

AUcember || read on Ao3

#

In the front of Xanadu, the infamous semi-truck-turned-tour-bus, there is a letterboard hanging precariously from the top of the cabin. It’s a smaller version of the kind that you’ll see outside movie theaters and churches, the kind that would light up if it were plugged in. This board isn’t plugged in, and it’s held in place with a combination of nails and duct tape. The message is changed once a week, by a different member every time. This week, the letterboard reads in mismatched letters, “BALLS 2 THA WALL TILL U FALL.”

The letterboard is one of the many personal touches in Neoscum’s infamous tour truck. There’s a futon bolted to the wall, a bunk bed, a crow’s nest-style hammock, and entirely white leather seats. There are also Polaroids taped to the wall, which bassist Pox tells me are mostly her work. There are five or six for every stop on their tour so far, and every stop on all of their tours. All in all, the four walls of Xanadu are cluttered.

This kind of clutter wouldn’t be a surprise to any Neoscum fans - at least, not any fans who have seen the band’s social media. “They know we’re dirty,” says Pox, with an exaggerated wink. “If they follow us on Instagram, they know we’re dirty.”

“They know we don’t always do laundry,” adds Zenith, the band’s drummer. “They know a lot about us. We don’t have a great concept of TMI.”

“Or just a low threshold,” Pox says. “We’re comfortable with people seeing our true selves. If that means posting pictures of Zenith’s dirty laundry on Snapchat, then that’s what that means today.”

The band’s social media presence is a lot like the interior of Xanadu: a little cryptic, a little eclectic, incomprehensible until you look closely enough to see the pattern. Six days before the release of their fourth album Neon Americana, a fan discovered that the fourth word in each installment of the band’s Snapchat story from the last month spelled out the tracklist. It’s not clear which of the band’s members masterminded this long con, and none of them own up when asked. It’s this kind of mystery that defines Neoscum: flawless execution, but for no clearly comprehensible reason.

“Of course there’s a reason,” Pox says, when I ask her about the Snapchat story. “It’s not about who did it, it’s not about the tracklist. It’s about having fun and making people pay attention. Haven’t you ever wanted someone to pay attention to you?”

#

 The story behind Neoscum is like something out of a movie. Lead singer Dak Rambo was making a name for himself with country music, but he was small-time at best. Squirt Purpler, more commonly known by his stage name of Tech Wizard, was playing the keyboards in a live band on a Chicago stand-up comedy showcase. The two of them met and started recording independent experimental music. Before long, they reunited with Rambo’s old friend Zenith, a drummer from the Seattle punk scene, and met Pox, a bassist and songwriter who was shadow-writing pop hits. With the addition of Max Epstein, a folk guitarist making waves online, Neoscum was complete.

The musical tastes of Neoscum, much like the rest of the band, work despite having every reason not to. “You can go to twelve different record stores, and they’ll all have us sorted differently,” says Purpler. “I think it’s great. We’ve got a little bit of everything, we’re all over the place. Who needs to only be one thing?”

Neoscum’s first album, Death Race, charted as a metal album, a rock album, and an indie album. Their second album, ratcandy, landed firmly on the pop charts, and their third album Time To Kill A Dragon was a country album. With the release of Neon Americana, Neoscum have cemented themselves as both everything and nothing: the album was a blend of techno, R&B, and every other genre that the band had ever worked with. The album is more than two hours long, and tells the story of a road trip from coast to coast. Tracks blend seamlessly from one genre to the next, creating the image of a chaotic, cohesive nation. It received universal acclaim after its release.

“The album was Pox’s idea,” Zenith says. Pox is the one foreign member of the band, a transplant from across the pond. She’s infamously secretive with her personal life; the closest anyone has found to a hint about who she used to be is an online demo of a song dedicated to someone named Pandora. “The first tour we did, the one after Dragon came out, was the first time she’d ever seen most of the country. It was completely new to her, and I think she was enchanted by it.”

Pox is not the group’s only songwriter, but she is the mastermind behind album concepts. The whole group credits her with the idea for Neon Americana. There are rumors that she had a meticulous journal, keeping notes about every city she stopped in; there are rumors that she wrote the entire album on the tour. Pox doesn’t confirm or deny any of them, either publicly or when asked. Instead, she insists that the album is a collaboration, a meeting of the minds.

The one thing she does take credit for is the idea behind the tour. “I saw all the big cities last time,” she explains, twirling a lollipop between her fingers. Xanadu is in the middle of Kansas, between tour stops, and Pox is dipping into her secret sugar stash. I have to close my eyes whenever she wants candy, because I’m not allowed to see where she keeps it. “We went to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, all the places that everyone stops. And I wrote songs about them, we all wrote songs about them. But there’s only so much of a picture that the big cities paint. So when we started planning our second tour, I said that I wanted to see smaller towns. I want to go the places that nobody else goes.”

The tour, formally titled “The Small Town Neon Americana Neoscum Second Tour Extravaganza Party” and colloquially called “the second tour”, is entirely focused on small cities and small towns. There are no stops in New York, or in Los Angeles, or in Chicago. The biggest city that Neoscum is visiting will be Rochester, Minnesota. The venues are small, and the crowds are all enthusiastic. I’m joining them for two shows in Kansas, in towns that have never had big names perform before.

The band is all enthusiastic about the concept behind the tour, all for different reasons. “I never got to go to big concerts when I was a kid,” Purpler explains. “I lived just far enough outside of all the major cities that it was too far to drive for anything less than an emergency or a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I never saw any bands growing up. It means a lot to me that we get to give some small town kids that performance.”

For other members, it’s less personal: Rambo says, “I like driving. Anything that gets us driving is good. Those real small town ones, the ones where the pavement hasn’t been touched since 1984 and the grass looks like it’s going to crack if you touch it? That’s the good shit, baby. We’re seeing a lot of those lately, and I am loving it. Everything’s tiny, it’s the way this country is supposed to be, you know? It’s just us and those kids who get to see a cool band.”

And for Epstein, the quietest of the band? “There’s less stage fright in a bar than in a stadium.”

#

 The band’s first stop is in Josephine, Kansas, and they immediately start in on a whirlwind series of pre-show rituals. Rambo drives Xanadu to the outskirts of the town, to a sign that says the town’s population, and they all pile out of the truck to take a five-man selfie next to the sign. Once they’re inside city limits, Zenith starts playing ABBA - not on the truck’s high quality sound system, but on his phone’s speaker. He doesn’t stop until they pull up outside their venue: an outdoor amphitheater for an afternoon show. Epstein recites a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pox opens the door with her left hand and her eyes closed, and the band all take the amphitheater by storm.

They’re ruthlessly fast in their setup: Purpler talks to the venue coordinator while the rest of the crew makes sure everything is to their standards. Zenith and Epstein manage the band’s tech setup as Rambo and Pox manage the equipment. From start to finish, it takes them under thirty minutes to have everything in perfect shape.

“We don’t fuck around with these things,” Zenith says. He’s nearly as cryptic about where he came from as Pox is, but he at least has a traceable career. He has no last name to speak of, and he has never explained why he’s missing an eye. But he’s competent, both as a drummer and as the band’s self-proclaimed tech guy, and he has a reputation for being mysterious. “We’re here to do a show, we’re going to make sure it’s perfect. It’s not like it’s hard to be prepared, to get things done the way they’re supposed to be done.”

The amphitheater in Josephine is packed, not just with locals but from people in surrounding towns. There are teenagers and middle-aged men and elderly women, all sporting Neoscum merch. All of them are buzzing, talking about songs that they hope to hear and things that they hope to see. Neoscum is notoriously flashy with their concerts. It’s not unusual to see pyrotechnics, or costume changes, or people swapping instruments. One tour video, which went viral, showed Pox attempting to play Zenith’s drums with her feet in the middle of a show.

“We don’t plan anything for our actual shows,” Epstein tells me, five minutes before the curtains go up. “We have a set list, and we normally play all the same songs off of it, but if something seems unplanned, that’s because it probably is. None of us like playing by the rules, or doing things the same way every time. Not even me.”

Epstein is known for being the most relaxed of the band’s members. He’s the least likely to try and haggle with grocery store clerks (as Pox has done), share obscure knowledge of advanced physics (Zenith), get stuck on top of a telephone pole after a dare (Purpler), or win a blackjack jackpot (Rambo, Epstein’s maternal uncle). He’s the least spotlight-happy of all of them.

He’s also the most forthcoming about his personal life. Epstein graduated in the top quarter of his high school last and joined Neoscum not long afterwards. He has a sister, seven years younger, who recently received a kidney transplant. He says that his biggest inspirations are Bob Dylan and Yo-Yo Ma, and his uncle Dak. He’s the most likely of the band to be singing, humming, or playing his instrument in his spare time. He’s the mediator of debates and the filmer of shenanigans. He has a prosthetic left arm and right leg, and he refuses to let anyone call him “the disabled one” in the band.

Epstein says that his reputation as “the boring one” doesn’t bother him; if anything, it’s a relief. “Those guys are my family,” he says, echoing a sentiment that the whole band has shared at one point or another. “But they’re all kind of fucking crazy. I don’t want to be in the news for even the less weird things that they do. Except for that time Z got to be in the news for knowing thermonuclear physics, that was pretty cool.”

Sixty seconds before the curtains go up, Rambo goes around the band. He gives Pox a warm hug, Epstein a kiss on the left cheek, Zenith a kiss on the forehead, and Purpler a kiss on the right cheek. He looks at me and winks, and says something I can’t quite make out over the cheering crowd outside. I’ve only known Rambo for two hours, but I already understand the charismatic rock star allure that everyone claims he has. He seems more at ease on stage than he does off, and when the curtains rise, he shouts, “What the fuck is up, Kansas?”

Kansas lets him know what the fuck is up. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a man not even remotely cowed by thousands of people screaming at him.

#

 There is a list of rules in Xanadu, taped up next to the letterboard. “It’s for you,” Purpler explained, not long after I boarded the truck. “And for everyone who visits us, but it’s mostly for you right now.”

The rules are simple. Feet on seats are fine, but shoes on seats are not. Dropping food is okay as long as you clean it up. You never challenge someone to a fight if you wouldn’t actually fight them. You don’t talk about Lil Marco - the band’s nickname for the producer Big Marco who attempted to sue them after the release of Deathrace. You don’t say the word “Grammy,” because it’s a jinx, and nobody needs a Grammy anyways.

The list contains nearly forty rules, and I’m sworn to privacy about most of them. “Nobody needs to know the way we do things,” Rambo says. “Not really, you know? Fans get weird. Gotta keep some things a mystery.”

The last rule on the list is don’t say shit about other people’s shit in interviews. It’s obvious where the rule came from. On the drive from Josephine to Troy, I ask Rambo about the rule, and his lips thin. Rambo is a friendly, jovial man: before he was a rock star, he was a trucker, a country singer, and an unabashed sex worker. But there’s no humor on his face as he thinks through his response. “It was fucked that TMZ did what they did,” he says. “People are entitled to have secret personal histories if they want them. I don’t care that Morrows was up for reelection in Colorado, and I don’t care that they thought it would be okay. Digging up people’s stuff is - it makes it easy to forget that we’re people too. But we’re people too.”

Rambo is, of course, referring to a now-infamous exposé that TMZ published, revealing a link between Purpler and incumbent Colorado governor Fayglin Morrows. The connections aren’t especially clear, but it’s obvious that Morrows was a family friend to Purpler’s parents, who were killed in a hate crime when Purpler was four. The entire band followed their newest rule to a T, and none of them publicly discussed the article or the incident, including Purpler. Morrows went on to win reelection in Colorado, although the race was subject to a recount.

“It was hard for all of us,” says Zenith, “and by that I mean it was mostly hard for Tech, so we were all pissed. We were trying to keep him out of the limelight, trying to let him keep his past to himself.”

“I don’t think it matters where any of us are from,” says Purpler, in his only interjection into the conversation. “I know what I need to know about everything, and nobody else needs to know anything. We all know where the band’s politics stand, and we share the personal stuff that we want to.”

Neoscum is full of outspoken socialists: Epstein in particular has been vocally critical of healthcare reform policies, and the band has made a name for themselves by participating in protest marches. And nobody has to look any further than the band’s social media to see their openness about their personal life. But the band is firm when they put down boundaries. TMZ never issued an apology to Purpler, despite the influx of fan petitions and demands for one; the fans still stood by Purpler in his wish for privacy. He later thanked them for their support in a public statement, marking the first and only real time he addressed the TMZ article directly.

It’s clear from early on that the band’s “don’t say shit” rule applies while talking to me. Zenith and Pox almost form a protective barrier around Purpler with their bodies, and even Epstein comes down from his perch in the crow’s nest to watch me. They’re defensive of one another, and as soon as the conversation moves on, everyone relaxes. It’s hard to say if they do it intentionally or subconsciously, but the meaning is clear either way: they have each other’s backs, at all times.

#

 The pre-show rituals in Troy go the same as the rituals in Josephine. This performance is the same evening, at a bar called the Electric Cowboy Lasso-Swingin’ Doogie-Wrasslin’ Party Zone Gambling Hall and Microbrewery. Rambo seems to know everyone there, from the bartender to the regulars. “That’s just Dak,” Purpler says. “He’s always like this. He has friends everywhere.”

At the Josephine concert, Purpler and Zenith switched instruments for two songs. At the Troy concert, everyone stays where they’re supposed to until the second-to-last song, when Pox takes Max’s acoustic guitar and sits in the center of the stage to sing an acoustic ballad. It’s not a good fit for the trucker bar, but they’re all rapt and silent as she sings, and a fan’s video of the performance went viral the following day. (Eagle-eyed fans noticed that this was the song that she dedicated to the mysterious Pandora, but Pox hasn’t commented, and neither has the rest of the band.)

The most interesting part of the show comes afterwards. Strike happens in a neat fifteen-minute timeframe, and then the band is in the bar, drinking and laughing with the rest of the patrons. They’re patient and friendly with autographs and selfies, but before long, the fans clear out of the bar and leave only regular patrons. Rambo is introducing people by name to the band members, and before long they’re all piled into a corner booth, talking over each other. They eat food off of each other’s plates and poke each other and finish each other’s sentences. It lasts for several rounds and a couple of hours. “Family dinner,” Zenith calls it at one point, and it’s exactly that.

 #

 Rambo insists on dropping me back off at my office in Lawrence, even though I’ll get there in the wee hours of the night. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by staying up all night driving. The band goes to sleep in what seem to be normal places for them: Epstein in his crow’s nest, Pox in the passenger’s seat, Tech on the bottom bunk, Zenith on the futon. Only Rambo stays awake, and he answers my questions quietly, like his voice will wake them over the noise of the truck on the road.

“It’s impossible to describe what these people mean to me,” he says, in a candid moment. “You know, this job, it’s changed all of our lives. I’m never going to have to worry about where I’m going to stay the night again. Max, he got his sister’s operation paid for. Pox and Z and Tech, they all have opportunities to figure things out that they couldn’t have had two or three years ago. And we’re paying that forward. We’re doing these shows in little towns, it’s fucking great. Have you ever been to a small town? Some of them are awful, but some of them are just full of people who wanna be happy. And we make them happy.”

We reach Wichita at four in the morning. Rambo lets me out the back gate of the truck and tells me I’m always welcome back, as long as I’m not a dick to his people. For the next three days, I receive random texts from him: pictures of the band, videos from venues, and misspelled rough drafts of tweets that he wants me to correct. They taper off, and I’m left following along with the band through the news and through Twitter, just like the rest of the world.

My single day with Xanadu feels like a dream, an illusion of Polaroids and jokes that I only half-remember. I can’t help but wonder if that was intentional. I caught a glimpse of Neoscum as people, a fleeting glimpse that falls second to the truth that they project to the rest of the world. And then I, like the rest of the world, am paying attention to them. Just like they want me to.

Argus Armstrongman is an independent contributor to Lone Star Publications. You can follow him on Twitter @argus_asm or read more of his contributions here.

[sage-nebula]

4, 7, 9 (Revolutionary), 25.

4.) What is your favorite genre to write for?

HURT/COMFORT, hands down and bar none. Hurt/comfort is absolutely my jam, because—listen. I am really good with angst. I am skilled at coming up with really dark, angsty scenarios, and I absolutely have a thing where I like to put my favorite characters through some degree of emotional (and sometimes physical) torment. Like, it really depends on the characters, but you know that one text post that’s like, “I want to see Character A get hurt, and Character B get really angsty about it”? That’s me, right there. I like to do that. I wrote a 100k fic of my Yu-Gi-Oh! OTP where that text post basically sums them up for the duration of the fic. (Though trust me, the one getting hurt was plenty angsty about the situation.) It’s a good (though dramatic) time. I tend to be pretty good at that.

But that said … I’m of the opinion that there needs to be some emotional payoff, and that’s where the comfort comes in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wholly averse to tragedies; I have a few in mind, and there are some stories that I feel truly do earn their unhappy endings. Animorphs is one of those, ultimately, though there is at least one character that makes it out all right. But with that said, when I write … if I’m going to have my readers watch characters they love suffer for a while, then I want to reward them, so to speak, with those characters getting the comfort that they also deserve at some point down the line. I might have—or rather, did write 100k of my YGO OTP suffering, but I also reunited and gave them a happy ending at the end of it all. There was a whole lot of hurt, but it was rewarded with comfort. I loooooove angst, and I’m skilled at writing it, but I also like writing that comfort as well.

(And on that note? One of my very best friends @severalbakuras helped get me through writing my masters thesis by co-writing Keitor hurt/comfort with me over Discord. Don’t get me wrong, I was steadily working on my thesis, but I’d write my thesis while I waited for her reply, take a small break to shoot a reply back at her, and then return to my thesis. Knowing that I’d have some delicious Keitor hurt/comfort to look forward to when I opened up the Discord window really spiked some joy into my heart and helped get me through the thesis writing progress, so honestly … I just really, really love hurt/comfort. It’s magnificent.)

7.) When is your preferred time to write?

That’s … a complicated question. Honestly, I would prefer to write during the hours in which I’m supposed to be awake, i.e., anywhere between 1pm and 10pm. Unfortunately, my brain only likes to be at its most creative and awake between the hours of 3am and 7am, when I should have already been asleep for hours due to the fact that I work a full time job during the day. It’s … a curse, honestly, and it all comes down to my delayed sleep phase disorder / probable ADD and just … I just want to be diurnal, man. I’d give anything to be diurnal. But I’m nocturnal, and as such my best writing happens when it’s an ungodly hour of the night / morning and I should be asleep. C u r s e d.

9.) In Revolutionary, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?

Ooh … this one is a bit hard, because honestly, there are a few different scenes (or parts of scenes, at least) that come to mind, and I don’t … I don’t think I can pick just one. So at the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, it’s a toss-up between:

During the scene when the canon reality Paladins are on the bridge, and they’ve confronted this reality’s Paladins, they get into an argument over what Lotor and his team have decided to do with Voltron. Specifically:

“You said you needed Voltron,” he said, and once again his eyes were narrowed in Keith’s direction. Keith returned the stare in kind. “What could you possibly need Voltron for? The Galra Empire has already dominated half the universe. Zarkon’s ships are powerful enough to destroy any fleet. Why do you need Voltron at all?”

“You really are good at missing the obvious, aren’t you?” Ezor asked. Shiro glared at her.

“It’s to neutralize the threat,” Allura said, ignoring Ezor. “Zarkon wanted control of Voltron so that it could not be used against him. Now that he has it—”

“But wait,” Pidge said. “Wasn’t Zarkon obsessed with the Black Lion? He wanted it for himself. So if that’s the case, why’s he letting Keith fly it?”

“Zarkon’s not letting me do anything,” Keith said, disgusted. “We don’t answer to him, and he doesn’t have anything he didn’t already have before we found the Castle.”

Shiro looked back at Keith. “Then what are you doing with it?”

“My father and his Empire have ruled this universe for ten thousand years too long,” Lotor said. He smirked a little as all eyes turned to him. “We seek to change that via revolution.”

“Uhh, nu-uh, no way,” Lance said, and he raised one hand in a stop gesture toward Lotor. “There’s no way you can stand there and try to tell us that you’re the good guys when we’re the good guys. That’s not how this works.”

Lotor gave him a disdainful look. “I was under the impression that we were discussing a war, not a children’s game of Police and Rebels. Please feel free to rejoin the conversation when you’ve matured enough to understand that.”

[…]

“Voltron is a powerful weapon,” Keith said, feeling it best to change the subject to something Allura and the others could hopefully understand. “There are few things in the universe that can rival it, and it’s vital to taking down Zarkon. But all Voltron can do is defend and destroy, and we need to do so much—”

“Voltron is more than just a weapon,” Allura interrupted, and she glared at Keith. “It is a symbol of hope, of victory and eventual peace, and it inspires all who see it. The fact that you do not recognize that is proof enough that you do not deserve to have it.”

“While Voltron may indeed be the symbol you speak of,” Lotor said, “the fact remains, Princess Allura, that symbols do not win wars. Soldiers do. Your words are beautiful, but in the face of an Empire that has ruled for ten thousand years, they are easily crushed. And if you arm the revolution with nothing more than ideals and empty promises, then so, too, are they.”

“The promise of Voltron is not empty,” Allura said fiercely. “And giving people hope when they’ve had none for ten thousand years—giving them something to believe in when they’ve had nothing, is not—!”

“We are giving them something to believe in,” Keith said, and though she turned her scowl back to him, he didn’t back down. “Themselves. Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe, but it’s also only one weapon, or five if you count each Lion separately. Voltron can’t be everywhere at once. It’s not possible. While none of the Empire’s fleets can match Voltron in terms of raw strength, that won’t stop them from going back to planets we’ve brought to our side and crushing them while we’re on the other side of the universe trying to help someone else. So we’re teaching them—we’re training them so that they can defend and protect themselves. We’re giving them the strength they need to hit back against the Empire when Zarkon’s commanders come knocking on their doors. We’ll help them when we can, but we won’t always be able to. Voltron won’t always be there. They need to be able to believe in and defend themselves when the time comes.”

“That’s just an excuse to get out of helping people,” Lance said.

Fire lashed through Keith’s veins. “No, it’s not!”

I loved writing the entire scene on the bridge for a lot of reasons, not the least of which because having the canon reality Paladins confront this alternate reality where Lotor, Keith, Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Ezor were the Paladins of Voltron instead was a really exciting concept for me. But I really loved writing the above dialogue in particular because it reflects a lot of my feelings about the show, and the situation the characters are all in now. The counter to the idea that the canon reality Paladins are Always Right and that what they do is Always Good, the point that the freed planets being reliant on Voltron is a huge problem and leaves them vulnerable to the Empire, the idea that everyone shouldn’t rally behind a symbol instead of seeing Voltron as the weapon it is (and that said symbol can’t protect them even if they do rally behind it) and so on—being able to point that out in a way that felt natural was something I really enjoyed doing. Also, not for nothing, but I had posted a snippet of this while writing, and a friend of mine who happened to come across that post said that he read this line:

“While Voltron may indeed be the symbol you speak of, the fact remains, Princess Allura, that symbols do not win wars. Soldiers do. Your words are beautiful, but in the face of an Empire that has ruled for ten thousand years, they are easily crushed. And if you arm the revolution with nothing more than ideals and empty promises, then so, too, are they.”

in AJ LoCascio’s voice, which is honestly one of the greatest compliments I have ever received in my entire life. So I mean, that was also a huge boost, haha.

Apart from that, though, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have a delightful time with both Keitor scenes. Again, more specifically:

The scene in the training room, both before and after Lotor shows up—I enjoyed the way I wove in both Keith’s physical actions in the present, and how he sparred with the training bot, and also how he reflected on his own thoughts and feelings with regards to the canon reality Paladins and what that said about the life he had led in this reality. (It’s also, going by post-date, the first mention we get of Revender, and oh … I can’t wait to get to that backstory fic, which might be in three-parts so that I can show Keith’s, Acxa’s, and Lotor’s perspectives on what happens on that planet.) I was proud of myself for how I managed to make that flow. But then, once Lotor does show up … I had a lot of fun with Lotor narrating Keith’s actions as a way to needle him into opening up, haha. It’s a bit flirty and ridiculous, but it’s flirty and ridiculous in a way that I feel suits them, and that was a lot of fun to write. (Oh, but also, the way their almost-kiss was interrupted? Ezor purposefully jumping between them? Keith and Acxa playing around on the sofa? Keith tossing “Fun Police Beat Cop” in Zethrid’s face when she calls them out? Yeah, I loved writing all of that, too.)

And then, of course, the scene at the very end. I’ve mentioned it in another post elsewhere, but including all the photos on the wall in Keith’s room was done because I both wanted to show that Keith feels at home in this castle, as well as highlight the fact that he has relationships with all of the other Paladins, not just Lotor—that this alternate reality wasn’t created just so that Keith could be with Lotor, but that Keith is close with each of the girls as well. Moreover, in that scene I also got to show not only that Keith has no problems telling Lotor to get out if he feels annoyed regardless of his feelings for Lotor (like, he’s in love with Lotor, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit there and take being lectured about safety from someone who flies into suns, all right), but also … well, the ending scene showcased my headcanon for how they confess feelings for each other, which is basically:

“You are invaluable to me, Keith, not because of what you can do, but because of who you are,” Lotor went on, and though he had raised his voice a little to speak over Keith, Keith’s own voice died in his throat. “Your presence by my side has been instrumental in my—in oursuccess. Yes, you have aided me in battle. Your piloting abilities have natural grace few could ever dream of achieving. But I’ve come to value your companionship more than any of your skillsets. I want you by my side not only for what we can accomplish in our revolution, but also for the time we spend together outside of it.” Lotor paused, and then added more quietly, “There may be others who are capable of training the auxiliary teams or piloting the Black Lion, Keith, but they could never mean to me what you do. For that, above all else, I do not wish to lose you.”

Every nerve in Keith’s body felt electrified. His heart was bashing itself so forcefully against his ribcage that he was not only acutely aware of every rapid beat, but it was actually a little painful. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard, but—Lotor had said it. He said it. Keith did hear every word. And there were no traces of humor in his tone, there was no light of laughter in his eyes. The stare that bore into Keith’s own eyes was not only serious, but sincere. Lotor meant every word. And Keith, his hands shaking—Keith, his out of control heartrate making it a little harder to breathe—Keith—

Keith cupped Lotor’s face between his hands and pulled him down into a fervent kiss.

Lotor confesses like he’s living in a Jane Austen novel. Keith throws words out of the equation altogether and goes straight for action.

So … yes, I loved writing all of those scenes, haha. For different reasons, maybe, but they’re all my favorites. Sorry to ramble on forever, but out of them all, I really could not choose just one. ^^

25.) Have you ever cried while writing a story?

Mmm, I don’t think so. This is going to sound horrible, but even when I’m writing very tragic things, the idea that it could evoke feelings of sadness or tears from my readers makes me feel more excited to do it right and get it posted than anything else, haha. It’s my job to evoke emotion in the reader, and the thought that I could succeed at that makes me really happy (and then I’m ecstatic if I do succeed). So even when I’m writing really tragic, horrible things happening to characters I love, I don’t shed tears because I’m too focused on making sure that I execute it well enough to make others shed tears. Which, again, I know sounds horrible, but … it’s true, nonetheless.

That said, I can still recognize when the things I write are brutal, and I may still feel some pain over it (such as with the hurt/comfort that SB and I wrote over Discord together—that one got me right in the feelings at several different points), but I still don’t shed tears over it. It gets me, but not enough to make me cry.

Thanks for sending these in!

[arituzz]

nineteen firsts and one last

-SNOWBAZ-

Summary: It’s Simon’s nineteenth birthday. He’s not expecting anything unusual, just some messages from his tumblr friends. But Baz has different plans.

Word count: 3.7k

Rating: T

Tags: tumblr au, friends to lovers, distant relationship, first meeting

Ari: This is just an edit from last year’s fic, because I didn’t like the format. Happy 20th birthday, Simon ♡

SIMON

I wake up to the doorbell ringing. I look at the clock. 5:59 am. Fuck. Who could it be at this unholy hour? Probably my father, coming back home drunk after a night of partying. Damn, why didn’t he stay in the hotel, as usual?

The doorbell rings again. “I’m fucking coming, dad!” I yell.

I put on some clothes and go to the door. I open it, ready to scowl at my father but, instead, there’s a delivery girl looking at me through her pointy glasses.

“Good morning,” she says. “A packet for Simon Snow.”

“Uhm… that’s me,” I tell her, a little bewildered.

She gives me the packet and makes me sign a paper. I tell her thanks and make to go back inside. “Wait,” I shout before she leaves. “Next time, could you come, I don’t know, in the afternoon? When I’m not sleeping?”

“Sorry, the sender wrote specific instructions to deliver this on 21st June at precisely 5:59 am. He even paid an extra and called the company to make sure we followed the instructions. Sounded rather bitter. I wouldn’t risk my job,” she explains. Ha. Like dying her hair blue wouldn’t risk it. Though, I have to say it looks awesome on her dark skin.

“Oh, in that case… Thanks. Have a nice day,” I wish her.

“See you later!”

I close the door and go to the living room, to open the packet. It’s a basket full of fresh-baked cherry scones and some blocks of butter. There’s a card with a note. It reads:

Some like it hot (page 38)

5:59 am - First breakfast to your door

I’d bring it to your bed if I were there

Baz

(Gampire Chaz to my Craigon Rain)

Oh my God. Baz. Right, it’s my birthday. It’s nice of him that he remembered. Baz is my best friend on tumblr. Well, he is my best friend, period. Although I’ve never met him in person, I feel like we’ve known each other for years. And to think that we used to be at each other’s throats!

When I first read the book A Charmed Life, I became hugely obsessed with its characters—i.e. the protagonist, a half-dragon named Craigon Rain—so I created a tumblr blog to obsess about them. At that time, there were very few people in the fandom: gampire-chaz-loves-craigon-rain (Baz), rainchaz61 (Penny), tape-exists-and-im-glad-for-it (Agatha), trixiethelesbianpixie (Trixie), gampirhys (Rhys), so-noted-rainchaz (Niall), and craigonsnowrain (me). And we were like a little family.

But I hated Baz. And he hated me. We would make stupid competitions to see who had the most notes on their posts. I finally gave up because the fucker draws the most brilliant fanart. So I decided to befriend him and make some projects together.

A smile draws in my face as I eat the delicious over-buttered cherry scones. Just the way I like them.

I grab my cellphone to send a thank you message to Baz.

When I’m done with breakfast, I scroll down my dash on tumblr. No happy birthday message. Well, it’s still early. Not for Baz, though, he lives in England, so it must be the afternoon already.

I decide to watch TV for a while—I have nothing planned for today. The fact is that I don’t really have any friends in real life. I don’t know many people here in Nebraska, and the ones I know are complete idiots. So my plan is to stay in all day and read a freaking lot of Rainchaz fanfiction.

After a while, I turn off the TV and go to tumblr on my laptop. Oh, one notification: gampire-chaz-loves-craigon-rain mentioned you in a post.

I open the link and it’s a beautiful doodle of me and Baz, fighting a chimera—as in one of the book’s scenes. I’ve posted some pics of me before, so he has references. The post says:

“Do it. Fucking unleash. Now.” (page 5)

First doodle of you (and me)

Baz

I hit reblog and add:

“I can’t. It doesn’t work like that.”

BTW it’s fucking WONDERFUL!! tysm <3

I’m reading a smutty Rainchaz fic when the doorbell rings again. It’s not that I’m gay, I just love the characters so much. And the smut is great, I love it. The authors in this fandom are just brilliant.

I look at the clock. 7:59 am. It’s still too early for dad to come and I’m not expecting anyone. (Ever.)

I open the door and the same delivery girl brings another packet, this time smaller.

She smiles at me and says, “You know the procedure.” I sign the paper and she leaves with a “See you later!”

“Later,” I reply.

I go back into the apartment and open the packet. It’s a book. The book. A Charmed Life. I go to the first page and, holy shit, it’s signed by the author! It’s so difficult to get a signed copy, I’ve been trying for months, but the author is not very sociable. She wrote:

To Simon Snow,

May you fight your own battles and forge your own wings.

Cather Avery

Wow. It’s perfect.

There is also a card with a note that reads:

“It’s the good things that’ll drive you mad with missing them.” (page 11)

First signed copy of your favourite book.

(I miss you even though I’ve never met you)

Baz

Jesus Christ. This is the best birthday present of my life. I take a picture of it to post it on tumblr and add: @gampire-chaz-loves-craigon-rain I wish you were here so I could hug you into oblivion! Thank you, best b-day present ever <3

I grab my old copy of A Charmed Life—don’t want to ruin this one—and start running through its pages. With all these gifts I feel like re-reading it. Again. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it.

It’s a Young Adult fantasy novel about a very special chosen one. A chosen who doesn’t want to be chosen. Craigon Rain is the last half-human, half-dragon alive. He’s never met his mother—that’s where he got the dragon part. His father wants him to take part in a battle that’s not his own. A battle against the vampires. At first Craigon—the half-dragon—obeys his father’s orders until he meets Gampire Chaz, a teenage vampire who finds himself in the same situation as Craigon, but on opposite ends. The two boys fall in love, defying everything that’s been established by their families and it’s precisely their love the thing that saves them all.

I identify myself quite a lot with Craigon Rain—my name is Simon Snow, see the irony. I never met my mother either and I also think my father is the responsible of everything bad that happens in my life.

Baz identifies himself with the antagonist, Gampire Chaz—only because he’s got brown skin like him, and their middle names rhyme. The moron.

My phones buzzes and I leave the book on the table. Another tumblr notification: gampire-chaz-loves-craigon-rain mentioned you in a post.

I open the link. It’s an aesthetic with six pictures of us—separately, duh—and three pictures with vampires and dragons. It’s beautiful. Under the post, Baz has written:

“Strong. Graceful. Fucking ruthless.” (Page 14)

(You are)

8:59 am - First aesthetic of us!

Baz

I hit reblog and add: This is too much Baz. I can’t even!! tysm <3

I can’t believe any of my tumblr friends—we call ourselves raindrops—has wished me a happy birthday yet. Except Baz, sort of. I mean, he hasn’t said it explicitly. Penny lives in India and Agatha in France, I think they should have posted something by now… Now that I think of it I have no clue where Rhys, Niall and Trixie live… Well, Niall is clearly asian but that doesn’t mean that he lives in Asia. I don’t know.

I’m hungry. Thinking too much makes me hungry. Thinking makes me hungry. I go the kitchen to see if there’s anything to eat.

Nothing. Fuck. I’m gonna have to go buy something.

I go to the closest supermarket and buy some popcorn and a peanut butter cup ice cream. Perfect combination for fanfiction reading.

As I climb the steps to my apartment, I bump into the delivery girl from before.

“Hey, watch out,” she scowls and extends me yet another package.

I sign the paper and tell her, “later?”

“Later,” she answers, with a smile.

Once I’m inside, I open the packet—the third one today, and it’s only 9:59 am.

There are some papers inside the packet, a photo of a star, I think?

I read the note that Baz has left:

“Twinkle, twinkle little star!” (page 260)

9:59 am - First star

(These are official documents that prove that this star is named after you and is now yours.)

(Sorry I couldn’t give you the Universe, but this is a star-t.)

(Yes, I knew you wouldn’t understand shit of what the papers say.)

Baz

I’m at a loss of words. What the fuck. It must have cost him a fortune. Well, it must have cost his father a fortune. I guess they can afford it.

I send him a message on tumblr: got the star. what the actual fuck? speechless.

And then I add: why arent u replying to any of my posts? u ok?

Right after reading the first fic, halfway through my ice-cream, the doorbell rings again. 10:59 am. I’m guessing it’s not dad, just yet.

I open the door, and a familiar blond haired girl with the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen is standing there, looking bored.

“Agatha!” I scream.

“Happy birthday, Simon,” she smiles at me and kisses my cheek. “I’ve come to bring you your next gift.” She shows me what seems like a tattooer box.

I know what Agatha looks like and that she’s a professional tattooer. She’s posted several pics on raindrops faces day. And the rest, too. All except Penny. (She says she can’t be bothered to take a selfie.)

“Agatha!” I shout again. I still can’t believe it. “Come in,” I add.

We sit on the sofa and she gives me the next note. It reads:

“Flames and Blazes—The Art of Burning.” (page 203)

10:59 am - First tattoo

(This is a combined gift from Wellbelove and me)

(I made the design and she’s going to tattoo you)

(You actually asked for it, so it’s no surprise)

Agatha shows me the design. It’s a constellation. And there’s fire surrounding it.

“Simon,” she says. “This is going to hurt.”

“It’s wonderful, Agatha,” I say when it’s finished, looking at my back through the mirror. “You could’ve been gentler, though.”

“I was gentle, Simon, believe me,” she replies.

The doorbell rings again. I think that it has rung more in one day than in nineteen years.

“Lunch,” Agatha says, and goes for the door. She opens it. “Hi, Penny,” she says to the delivery girl.

What?

“Penny?” I ask, stupidly.

“Sorry, Simon, it was too fun seeing you all clueless,” she apologizes.

“I am still clueless,” I retort.

She takes me into her arms and gives me a tight hug. “Happy birthday Simon! Let’s have lunch. Where’s the dining room?”

“Uhm, here, in the living room. I eat in the living room.”

“Oh, your note,” Penelope says as she gives me the card.

“Because roast beef and Yorkshire pudding are fucking real as Rain.” (page 84)

11:59 - First roast beef and Yorkshire pudding from Watford

(Because you haven’t eaten real roast beef if it’s not from England)

(And Watford Restaurant serves the best one)

(Enjoy your meal)

Baz

We sit on the sofa and start eating our lunch. I’m so happy. It’s like we do this everyday. But I miss Baz. I miss him so much. Where the fuck is he?

We finish eating and Penny looks at her watch. “It’s 12:59,” she says. “Dessert is here,” she smiles wickedly.

“Open the door, Simon,” Agatha says.

I go for the door and open it.

Baz.

Baz is here. With a cake in his hands.

Baz is here. And I can’t hug him.

“Baz!” I say, grinning widely.

“Hey, Snow, happy birthday,” he says, and hands the cake to me. There’s a card on it, too.

“But he just stood there for as long as he could stand it. I don’t know how he resisted the pull; I felt like my intestines were going to burst out and wrap around him.” (page 167)

12:59 - First meeting

(I’m here.)

Baz

Baz looks like he’s trying to hide the huge smile that’s drawing in his face. But I can see it.

“Fuck, Snow,” he says, finally giving into the smile. “I wanted this to happen at 1:59 pm, but here you go.”

“What?” I ask

He takes out another card from the back pocket of his jeans and reads it.

“Trying not to crack a smile. Page 517.”

Then, he looks at his watch and adds, “ 1:01 pm, first smile. First real life smile from me to you.”

“The presents are getting better,” I say, trying not to smile from ear to ear.

We eat the cake on the sofa. Baz tried to oppose to it, but I don’t really have a table with nice chairs to sit down and chat while drinking tea. I’ve never had anyone come over.

We talk about our lives. Well, they talk about their lives and I listen. And look at Baz. His eyes are prettier than I had imagined. And oh my God, his skin. It reminds me of toffee. It has such an appetizing color it makes me want to taste it.

After a while, Baz leads us downstairs and into a cab that’s parked in front of my building.

The taxi drives for around twenty minutes before it comes to a stop. “We’ve arrived,” the driver anounces.

Baz tips him and gestures us to follow him. We enter a place called The Wavering Wood Cafe.

“Happy birthday!” Rhys, Niall, Trixie and other fellow raindrops I identify from tumblr say at the same time as I go through the door.

“Jesus,” I say. I’m stupefied. A surprise party. For me.

Baz hands me another card and our fingertips brush. He cracks an undecipherable smile and looks away.

I read the note.

“It feels like a party.” (page 40)

2:59 pm - First birthday party

(First of many to come)

Baz

I’m having a great time. It’s so fun talking to all my tumblr friends in real life. I finally got to meet Keris, Trixie’s girlfriend. She always posts pics of them together. (Penny finds it gross.) (But that’s personal. She doesn’t like Trixie.)

I keep giving glances towards Baz’s direction. I don’t know why I can’t stop staring at him.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes. It’s a tumblr post from Baz.

I open the link. It’s a fic. It’s called Snowbaz. Not Rainchaz. I read the summary:

“Because I’m disturbed.” (page 205)

“Ask anyone,”I think out loud, smiling. And then continue reading the summary:

3:59 pm - First fanfiction about us

Baz

I start reading the fic. It’s all fluff and love until the last part. Smut. I read it all. And love every word. Fuck.

I look at Baz. He’s already staring at me. I step towards him.

“Hey, Snow,” he says. “Ever tried a flaming shot?”

“I’m underaged, you know.”

“Not in my country,” he smirks.

“Okay, fine, give me a shot.”

“A flaming shot, Snow,” Baz says. “Here.”

He hands me a small glass of liquor and sets it on fire with a lighter. He does the same with his glass.

“To us,” he says.

“To us,” I reply.

He blows out the fire and drinks all the liquor. I mimic him. Ugh. I grimace.

“Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire,” Baz starts saying, looking directly into my eyes. “He’s constantly drawing you in. And you’re constantly stepping too close. And you know it’s not good—that there is no good—that there’s absolutely nothing that can ever come of it. But you do it anyway. And then…”

“Then you burn,” I finish. God, his eyes are fire.

“Page 177. 4:59 pm, first flaming drink.”

“First drink,” I correct.

He laughs and orders a couple more.

We have a couple more shots and talk about our favorite AUs. We talk more than we drink.

Suddenly Baz looks at his watch, and then back at me. With the same blazing eyes from before. He stays silent, just looking at me, for a moment. He looks hesitant.

I think he’s going to kiss me.

But he doesn’t. He keeps staring. Some minutes pass. I stare at my watch. 6:10 pm. Where’s my 5:59 pm gift?

“Simon…” Baz starts, flaming shot in his hand.

And then I kiss him.

We kiss for a long time. Then I let go and make him reach for me. And we kiss again.

After a while, we break the kiss and smile at each other. I’m grinning. I can’t help it.

“I was going to say You were the sun, and I was crashing into you,” Baz says. “But I guess the best quote for this is And then HE kisses ME.” He can’t hide his grin, either.

“Page 342,” I say. “6:10 pm, first kiss.”

“Shite, what time is it?” He asks, already looking at his watch.

“6:50 pm,” I answer, moronically.

“Let’s go have dinner, Simon. You and me, only.”

“Okay,” I say. And I follow him to the next room.

There’s a small table for two with two candles. It’s always fire with Baz.

We sit down and he takes out another card.

“You smell like something I’d gladly eat, page 421,” he says, staring at my eyes. “6:59 pm, first romantic dinner.”

I blush.

After dinner, we all go to a pub. It’s called The World of Mages.

It’s great and I’m so happy to be surrounded by friends and the person I like. Baz. That’s new. Liking boys. No, not boys. Only Baz. Wanting to kiss him over and over again.

He takes my hand and says, “Want to dance?”

I nod and smile at him. I’m crap at dancing but I don’t care.

Baz puts his hands on my waist and leads me through the song. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

“I should have known that this is what it would be like to dance with Craigon Rain. Fighting in place. Mutual surrender,” Baz whispers into my ear. “Page 508. 7:59 pm, first dance.”

I place both my arms around his neck and slump into him.

We’re still at the pub. Dancing. Well, at least I’m trying.

“What are we going to do?” I ask him. “You’re going to leave back to England.”

“I know,” he answers with a crack in his voice. “We’ll figure it out, little puff.”

“Baz,” I say. “What’s the next gift? I think I have a better idea.”

“Huh? I was going to take you for a drive…”

“I want to be your boyfriend. Your terrible boyfriend,” I say. “Page 390.”

Baz looks surprised. He places both his hands on my face and kisses me, tenderly. “Of course,” he says. And kisses me again.

“8:59 pm,” I say. “First boyfriend.”

And I kiss him again.

After the pub, we say goodbye to our fellow raindrops. There’s a lot of hugging and kisses on the cheek. God, I’m gonna miss them.

“We have to do this more often,” I say. Even though I’m broke. But I’ll find the money somehow.

They all agree.

Once they’re gone, it’s just me and Baz.

“Let’s go back to my apartment,” I tell him.

“What if your father is there?”

“At this time? Not likely. He must be out, drinking again.”

“Okay,” he says.

We go to my apartment and settle in my room. It’s full of constellations on the walls. Because I love astrology. Hence the tattoo.

“Baz, you haven’t seen it,” I say.

“Seen what?”

“The tattoo, idiot!”

I take my shirt off and show it to him. He places his fingertips on my back and starts tracing it. The touch sends shivers down my spine.

“So beautiful…” Baz says.

I turn around and look at him. I reach for his shirt and take it off. Eyes locked on his. I close the distance and kiss him. And then my hands go down. I can’t stop myself. I kiss every spot of his dark olive skin. And I want more. And I can see that he wants, too.

So I take more. I take it all. And I give it all. To him. To Baz.

“Because we match,” I say after a while. My head is resting on Baz’s chest. Our fingers laced. “Page 420.” I look at my watch. “10:58 pm, first time.”

“When did you start giving yourself birthday presents?” Baz asks.

“I think it was when I did this,” I answer. And I kiss him.

“God, I love you, Simon Snow.”

“I love you, Baz.”

“Fell in love, didn’t you?” He smiles.

“10:59 pm, first I love you,” I say.

I go with Baz to the airport. I’m sad that he has to go. But I’m happy that he came. And he’s going to move to the States with his aunt, Fiona, next year. So I just have to wait for a year. And I’m going to visit him soon. Maybe for his birthday.

He looks at me with watery eyes. He holds my hand so hard it hurts a little.

“I’ll come to England, in a couple of months,” I reassure him. “And then you’ll come back. We’ll be seeing each other a lot. You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

“When I come to live in America with Fiona, I’m going to haunt your door day and night.”

There’s a shout for all the passengers of the flight to Southampton Airport.

Baz kisses me, before letting go.

“Goodbye, Simon,” he says. “This is a first and a last goodbye. Because the next time I see you, I won’t let you go for anything in the world.”

“Go on, then,” I say. “Carry on, Baz.”

-FIN-

[xfilesnews]

FanWorks Wednesdays - ML

by Keva Andersen

We're taking another walk down X-Files fandom memory lane this week with an author who has been a fan of the show since that fateful day in 1993. Meet ML! She's a longtime writer with a fantastic body of work. ML writes with a mix of warmth, angst, humor and insight that's so fitting of our heroes. And with 150 works listed on Gossamer you've got a lot of reading to do.

The show didn't give Mulder much of a chance to rebound after learning about what really happened to Samantha in "Closure"  so ML takes that on in "Land of the Living." Mulder and Scully take some time away to sort things out and maybe, just maybe, finally get the chance to move on.  

I have a major soft spot for Scully angst, and the time when Scully was searching for Mulder in Season 8 always hits me right in the gut. "In the Bleak Midwinter" is a perfect example of that. We know Scully doesn't share her feelings well, and this story set during Christmas with her family makes me want to reach out and hug her. Bonus points for a more human depiction of big brother Bill, as well. 

I remember reading this one over and over when it first appeared on Ephemeral in 2001 and it still resonates today. I won't give away too much but "Age Cannot Wither" is an a/u that deals with "Requiem" and Scully's immortality in a very moving way.

We talked with ML about writing, fandom, and of course The X-Files.

How long have you been a Phile?

Since the Pilot. I’ve always liked science fiction and the premise was intriguing to me. I was hooked from the beginning by the stories. It took me a little longer to warm up to Mulder; I remember feeling a little sorry for Scully at first.

What was your first episode?  

The Pilot

How long have you been writing fic?  

Long ago, I wrote little vignettes for TV shows I liked for my own amusement.  I had no idea that I was writing fanfic. I think the first thing I wrote was inspired by the soap opera “Dark Shadows”. I didn’t even discover that there was such a thing as XF fanfic until S5, I think, when I finally had regular access to a computer. I read avidly for about a year, everything I could get my hands on. Then nearly at the end of S6, I started writing a story that ended up taking years to finish. I did manage to post a vignette for “Requiem” right after it aired, and it was promptly lost in the thousands of wonderful post-ep stories also posted. What a great summer for reading and writing that was!

What inspired you to start writing?  

The Samantha eps: “Sein und Zeit,” and “Closure.” That’s the story that took me years to finish (“Land of the Living” for those who are interested).

Who is your favorite XF character to write? 

I love The Lone Gunmen (and they didn’t die, by the way). I also enjoy taking a secondary character (a guest star, if you will) and doing a story from his or her POV.

Are there any XF characters you dislike or find too difficult to write?

I’m not too crazy about Diana Fowley, though not for the usual reason. I just find her kind of a blank. I’m going to have to tackle one from her POV one of these days. Same with Bill Scully Junior; on the show, he’s just angry, and I admire the authors who have fleshed out his character and made him more “human.”

Is there a story you're most proud of or that's a favorite? 

I love all my children! But I am fond of “Age Cannot Wither” and its sequel, “Nor Custom Stale.” I think they hold up fairly well.

With so many archives to choose from these days, where is the best place to find your work?

Most of my work is available at Gossamer. I will still post any new story on Ephemeral. I have a site that hasn’t been updated for a while:  www.invidiosa.com. I also post now on Dreamwidth, and my name there is ML_Griffonnage. There might be a few stories there that didn’t make it to Gossamer. I haven’t tried AO3 yet, but I’m thinking I may start putting some stories there. If I do, I’ll announce it on Dreamwidth and on any story I post to Ephemeral.

You've been well known in the fandom for a long time, do you still write for XF or have your skills been focused elsewhere?  

XF is the only fandom I’ve ever had the urge to write for. I still have that urge but RL gets in the way a lot more than it used to. I haven’t posted a story for a long time, but I have one in the works right now.

If you do still write XF fic, where does your inspiration come from after so many years?  If you're not, is there anything in particular that caused you to stop writing XF fic?  

I always seem to see something new when I watch XF – I especially like looking at Mulder and Scully through a secondary character’s eyes. Or, something in the news triggers a thought about XF. I stopped for a long time mostly due to lots of changes in my life that left me no time to think, and for me, writing starts with a lot of brain time, and then the words come.

Have you written your own original characters outside of fandom? 

Yes, but unseen by any eyes but my own (and likely to stay that way!)

Anything you’d like to share about your writing process? 

I’ll watch an ep over and over again to find a “hook” or a place to start to get into the story I want to tell. I almost always come up with a title first, which usually ties thematically to what I want to write. Sometimes I’ll hear a word or a phrase that triggers an XF memory or scene, and sometimes that’s all the inspiration I need.

What do you find most difficult about writing?  

Finding the time! As I mentioned above, I need a lot of brain time in order to write. Finding an hour or two to just sit and think, or doodle on a page, is in short supply these days.

Do you have a favorite author? (fanfic or published)  

My favorite authors outside of fandom are Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Contemporary authors are folks like Kate Atkinson, Lois McMasters Bujold, Charlaine Harris, Neil Gaiman, and Jim Butcher. Inside of fandom, there are literally too many to list whom I love. I’ve been lucky to become good friends with a few in RL so I’ll give a shout out to Donna, Jacquie LaVa, and Tess.

Is there any advice you'd give to aspiring writers? 

Read anything and everything you can get your hands on, both fanfic and non-fanfic. Write what you love. Ask someone you trust to read and give you feedback. Pay attention to the rules of grammar! Thank your feedbackers. And, be prepared for the characters to sometimes take the story places you hadn’t originally planned… 

Anything else you'd like to share that I missed?

I would just like to say thanks to the folks at X-Files News for keeping the flame alive!

Thanks to ML for chatting with us!

[tommyparkerr]

Just a Dream | Tom Holland x Reader

Hey loves! This is another little fic I wrote up on my vacation and wanted to post a little something extra for you since HIL Pt. 3 didn’t get done on time (and won’t get done until I get home)! So...enjoy!!

Also, I apologize for the last couple fics not having the ‘Keep Reading’ links. I don’t have a laptop with me and I guess the need to get new content out for you guys overpowers my need to make it more pleasing to the eye.

Words: 1.8k

Warnings: Cheating, crying, FLUFF (as always)!

-Masterlist-

(GIF credit to @tomandharrisongifs)

J U S T  A  D R E A M :

“Tom?” you called out as you walked through the door to his apartment. “I’m here! You said you wanted to talk to me about some-“

You cut yourself off as you heard the suggestive sounds coming from the living room. Slowly you crept closer and froze as you saw the extra presence in the room. You blinked a few times, just trying to digest the scene.

A leggy brunette was spread out on the couch, her dress pushed up to her thighs and her mouth hung open as a curly brown-haired boy kissed his way down her neck. Your curly brown-haired boy.

Tom.

You dropped the set of keys in your hands, the clatter causing Tom to freeze in his actions. But instead of stuttering and trying to excuse his way out of the situation, he only smirked at your pale face.

“Tom?” you managed to whisper. “I don’t-I don’t understand-“

“Ah, yes.” He grinned at the giggling girl beneath him before climbing off and walking toward you. You were too in shock to move away. “You’re right. I did need to talk to you about something. We’re over.”

You blinked. “What do you mean, we’re over?”

“I mean,” he said, poking your shoulder to push to back, “We. Are. Through.”

“But you said-“ you tried, tears welling up in your eyes.

“That I loved you?” He let out a dark laugh. “Of course I did. How else was I supposed to get you into bed?”

You shook your head disbelievingly. “No. I don’t believe you. I don’t-“

“Well you shouldn’t, should you? It never did work anyway.” You were still shaking your head and fighting tears when Tom pointed to the door you’d come in from. “Out. I never want to see you here—or anywhere else—again.”

“Tom, please-“ you choked out. His eyes flared.

“I don’t want to be with you, Y/N! Don’t you get it? I. Don’t. Love. You. Now, go! Get out!”

“No-“ you whispered, stumbling backwards.

“Out!”

XxX

You shot up with a start, your hair falling out of the bun you’d gathered it in and sticking to your sweaty neck. You cried for awhile into the darkness.

It was just a dream.

Chest heaving and cheeks wet with tears, you snatched your phone from your bedside and quickly dialed the number you knew by heart.

The phone rang once, then twice more before he picked up, his voice groggy and low.

“What the—Y/N, you do know it’s, like, 3:30 in the morning, right?”

You buried your face in the sleeve of Tom’s hoodie you’d stolen months ago and choked back a cry at the remembrance of his voice in your dream, of how sincere and angry and real he’d sounded when he told you he didn’t love you.

You knew it was just a dream, but sometimes dreams were hard to forget.

“Y/N?” He sounded a little more awake now that you hadn’t answered him, but still extremely groggy—not that you could blame him. He hadn’t gotten home until one o’clock because of some night shooting for work, so you doubted he’d been asleep for more than an hour. “S’everything okay?”

You started to nod then remembered he couldn’t see you. You swallowed and said as steadily as you could, “Yeah, I’m okay.” A pause, then, “I’m sorry for waking you.”

And it should’ve worked. You should’ve been able to fool Tom into thinking you just missed him or that you accidentally called. You should’ve, but there was one problem:

Your voice had cracked.

There was a rustling in the background before Tom’s concerned voice came back on. “Have you been crying, love?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” you insisted, but the scratchiness of your throat begged to differ.

“I’m coming over,” he announced.

“You don’t have to do that, Tom,” you tried, already knowing there was no way you’d convince him to stay home but half-heartedly fighting it anyway.

“Maybe not,” he replied. “But I am.” You sniffled and wiped your cheeks—there was no use in trying to hide your tears from him now. “I’m heading out the door. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

So for ten minutes you laid in bed with Tom’s hood pulled over your face to shield you from the moonlight, sobs racking your body with the hope that maybe if you got it all out now then there wouldn’t be anything left for when Tom got there. And for a little bit you thought that it’d worked; you were able to stop the flood when you heard someone enter your apartment and even sat up to wait, rubbing your eyes and tucking your hair behind your ears. But as soon as the fatigued, curly-haired boy appeared in your doorway, the tears started back up again as if they’d never stopped.

“Hey,” Tom whispered, rushing over so he could place you in his lap. “Shh, it’s okay, love. I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

You gripped the fabric of his gray T-shirt and let your tears soak it; you’d cried enough around him to know he didn’t care about you staining his shirts. He had one hand on your back as he rocked you back and forth, back and forth, the other undoing your bun and running its way through the loose strands of hair. Eventually your tears came to a complete stop, allowing the silence to be filled with Tom’s inevitable questions.

“Darling, talk to me. What happened?”

You pulled away from him and wiped your cheeks again, sniffling. “Nothing. I’m okay.”

“No, no, no,” Tom sternly said, though the worried creases around his eyes gave him away. “We’re not playing the ‘Call my boyfriend in the middle of the night crying but not tell him anything when he asks about it’ game.”

You bit the inside of your cheek and looked down at the duvet, letting your finger trace the delicate pattern. “If I ask you something, will you be completely honest with me?”

“Of course,” he said, his eyebrows pulling together.

“Does it bother you that I...well, we haven’t...uh, you know...?” Your cheeks were fiery red.

“What? That we haven’t slept together?” Tom filled in for you. You blushed even darker as you hesitantly nodded. “Have you not been listening to me at all, darling? It doesn’t bother me; it never has. I respect you too much to push you into anything you’re not comfortable with, and if you want to take it slow, we’ll take it slow. You hold all the cards, love, and deal them too.”

You scrunch your nose. “That makes it sound like I don’t respect you.”

“Okay, so maybe I’m not the best at analogies,” Tom awkwardly (adorably) chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “My point is that I only want you. And as long as I have that, I’ll never want—or need—anything else.”

“So you wouldn’t...I don’t know...leave me for someone who would give you that?” you slowly got out.

“You’re missing the point, darling,” he sighed. “I’m in love with you. I’m in love with your soul and your smile and the way you can turn any one of my bad days into a good one by doing nothing more than simply existing.” He brushed a piece of hair from your face, smiling softly. “I'm in love with your laugh and your eyes and how you can‘t go even a five minute car trip without listening to music.” His hand came under your chin to guide your gaze to his. “Y/N, I love you. I’m in love with you, and that means I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

You nodded quickly, adjusting yourself to cling around his neck as you blinked away your recurring tears. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“What could you possibly be sorry for?” Tom laughed, legitimately confused.

You shrugged. “For waking you up. For making you feel like you had to come over. For letting a dream shake me up this much.”

Tom frowned and pulled away just enough to make eye contact. “So that’s what this is all about? A dream?” You paused then nodded again, trying to look away but Tom’s hand preventing you from doing so. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” You were about to say no before a look from Tom stopped you. You took a deep breath. “You called me and said you needed to talk to me, so I went to your apartment and got in and-and I didn’t see you right away so I started looking and you were…” You swallowed. “You were on the couch with someone else and you were-you were kissing her and when you saw that I’d come you-you told me that we were over and that you didn’t-you didn’t love me anymore and that you never had and that you only ever wanted to get into my pants and then you were screaming at me to get out and so I-so I did,” you hurriedly stuttered, your voice breaking again.

Tom looked concerned. “But you know I’d never do that, don’t you, love?”

You bit your lip, dragging the silence on for a bit more. “I-I think so.”

“Y/N,” he said, searching your eyes, “I’m not leaving. Not now, not ever. As long as you’ll have me, I’m staying. Understand?”

You exhaled and wrapped your arms around his neck, resting your head in the crook of it. “Yeah,” you whispered in agreement. “Yeah, okay.”

His lips pressed against your temple. “I love you, darling,” he murmured. “You, and nobody else.”

You smiled softly. “What about poor old Tessa?”

He chuckled. “Okay, yes, I can’t forget about Tessa.”

“And your mum and dad?”

“And my mum and dad-“

“And Harry and Sam and Paddy and Haz-“

“All right, all right, all right,” Tom laughed, happy to see his girl slowly returning. “Yes, you caught me. I love a lot of people-“ You gave him a look, making him roll his eyes and grin. “-and dogs, but you’re the only one I’m in love with. Is that better?”

You giggled, leaning up to peck his lips. “Much.”

“Now let's go to bed, shall we, love?”

“You don’t have to stay-“

“But if I don’t stay, who will be there to hold you when you have another bad dream?” Tom said with a small smile, brushing your cheek. You blushed but returned his smile, leaning into his touch.

“I guess you’re staying, then,” you mumbled.

“I guess I am,” he chuckled, finding his way under your still warm covers and tucking the both of you in. He pulled you into his chest and kissed your forehead, smoothing his hand over your hair until you were falling back into slumber’s grasp. “Besides,” he whispered into the dark, “I always sleep better when I’m with you.”

XxX

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