#if thats not soulmate goals idk what is

[themenaceofalderaan]

part one, two, three, four, five

[sailoryooons]

Hali's Fic Superlatives

Welcome to my fic superlatives, where I hand out absolutely unasked-for awards to some of my favorite characters and stories from fics that I read this year. I was going to wait until the end of the year to do these, as I still have plenty of time to read, but honestly, if I don't do them now I'm going to forget that I planned to do them at all!

Please do not take these too seriously - I did not read a ton this year but I always tried to review what I did read! My goal next year is to try and read even more and give myself time to find new writers instead of just reading what I happen to see on my dash.

This list by no means was limited to what was written this year - some of these fics were written previously but I either read them this year or re-read them for joy and I felt like they went well on this list!

CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS OF THESE UNASKED-FOR AWARDS! YOU GET MY LOVE AND ADORATION SORRY THATS IT!

☾ Angsiest Fic: Aphelion by @eoieopda ☾ Funniest Fic: The Package Thief by @blog-name-idk ☾ Fave Supernatural Fic: Bump in the Night by @colormepurplex2 ☾ Fave Fantasy Fic: The Mark of Yun-Ki  by @ladyartemesia ☾ Fave Crack Fic: Cosmic Collision by @gimmethatagustd ☾ Fave Romance Fic: Amalthea by @daechwitatamic ☾ Fave World Building: Until Death by @kpopfanfictrash ☾ Fave Holiday/Special Occasion: I Wanna Hold Your Hand by @minisugakoobies ☾ Fave Horror or Thriller: Simply Meant to Be by @caelesjjk ☾ Fave Comfort Fic: Real Magic by @here2bbtstrash ☾ Fave Soulmates Fic: 5 Times You Don’t Believe In Soulmates by Min Yoongi Does by @vyduan ☾ Fave Polyamorous: Flowers of Fate by @/colormepurplex2  ☾ Fave A/B/O: One Day At A Time by @theharrowing ☾ Fave Mafia: Collateral by @/theharrowing  ☾ Fave Namjoon Fic: Love At First Bite by @raplinesmoon ☾ Fave Seokjin Fic: Amalthea by @/daechwitatamic  ☾ Fave Yoongi Fic: Three Tangerines by @kithtaehyung ☾ Face Hoseok Fic: Please by @anotherbtswriter ☾ Fave Jimin Fic: Don’t Go Insane by @/gimmethatagustd ☾ Fave Taehyung Fic: Of Ruin by @/daechwitatamic  ☾ Fave Jungkook Fic: Crybaby by @/here2bbtstrash  ☾ Couple Most Likely To Get Married: Darksided couple as written by @/eoiepda ☾ Best Dressed Character: Keena from Blackthorn by @sweetestofchaos ☾ Best Threesome: She, by Proxy by @ugh-yoongi ☾ Most Likely to Succeed: Yoongi from Best Served Cold by @/anotherbtswriter - trust me this man has GOALS lmao ☾ Best Best Friends: Yoongi and Jin from Ugh, Fuck by @/kithtaehyung sodgjdofgi does this count as friendship soifjsofij ☾ Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse: Taehyung from Collateral by @/theharrowing  ☾ Most Likely to Kill Each Other: Repeat Offense couple as written by @/gimmethatagustd

☾ Favorite Read of the Year: Of Ruin by @/daechwitatamic

While all of the chapters for Of Ruin are not yet posted, I’ve had the pleasure of being able to beta read this chapter ahead of the general public and it is absolutely the fic of the year for me. It is a robust story full of romance, action, intrigue, beautiful storytelling, and world-building, and it touches every single one of these categories above. It is a knockout. 

Thank you to all the amazing authors who wrote these works and had the bravery to put them into the world. If anything is tagged wrong, please do not hesitate to correct me!

[blacklegsanjiii]

Hii i wanted to share my thoughts on the soulmate for Oisín Sanji if thats alright

I voted for Zoro myself (even thought honestly they would all be sweet/funny) but i think the situation with Zoro is the funniest like-

imagine all your life till this point youve been training the be the greatest swordsman of them all and you has your eyes set on this one guy all this time and also in the back of your head youre aware he has a kid thats around your age (based on the wanted posters when they stopped updating) and you see it as someone to help you get closer to your end goal

Que you becoming a pirate and later meeting this pretty asshole of a cook who you quickly become head over heels for when he shows his spark when fighting, he's your equal and you havent had that since your best friend died

And then you find out he is the kid of your rival but somehow instead of it being heartbreaking it only makes it better because even in the time you didnt know, he takes care of your swords with so much love and care, he helps you get a proper swordsman diet like he has done it a thousand times already and- he has a swordsmans soulmate mark!!!

Idk i just think zosan for this would be very funny but at the same time very sweet (love sick Zorooo 💥💥 he loves his spicy boy friend)

But i also think it would give mihawk a giant headache so thats also funny

No, no I get it. Trust me. It is the funniest option but also gives Mihawk the largest headache-especially if Zoro never connects the dots fully until they meet up on Karai Bari. BUT BEFORE THAT???

Zoro who hasn't had a decent match since Kuina died. He's had his eyes set on Hawkeye since he was a kid and joined the dojo and wanted to be the best since. Not because Hawkeye was the best then-he wasn't but everyone knew he would be and he had a kid around his age and the kid has a twirly brow with a dumb name. Then the posters stop updating and Hawkeye becomes a warlord then Kuina dies. He takes Wado and leaves to fulfill his and Kuina's dreams. He becomes a bounty hunter because he needs the money and the roads and islands keep moving on him. He keeps his eyes out for the guy around his age who could be Mihawk's kid. Then he gets tied up in a marine base and is freed by a guy who wants him to become a pirate. He agrees. They get a crew, a navigator and then a liar/sharpshooter and when they get to this fish restuarant? Sure he loses to Mihawk and gets bisected and the prettiest guy he ever saw is yelling at him to give up his dream but he doesn't die. It's fine, it's fine~. He's alive and the blond guy is hot and he can kick ass and he doesn't use swords.

Also the blond guy's name is Sanji and Zoro doesn't use his name at all. He is whatever nickname Zoro calls him in that moment. He's an equal and Zoro tells him all about his plans to find Hawkeye's kid when it's time for a rematch and draw him out to a duel, twirly always laughs at him for it, keeps saying it's a one way ticket to dying. He says it with a dopey smile though. He cares for Zoro's swords when he's on bedrest and isn't allowed to move, doing so anyway despite Chopper's protests. Also they know they're so soulmates, Zoro's whole back covered in blue and fish. Sanji's shoulder braided like the hilt of Wado Ichimonji and just as beautiful. Zoro wishes he knew what Oisín's soulmark looks like because it would be so much easier to find him.

After Sabaody when he's on Kuriagana and wishing he could have been there for his captain but he's training against his dream, with the man who holds his dream and it's good. Even if ghost girl is there and he's away from his soulmate. When he asks Mihawk where his kid is and Perona is curious because he never came to warlord meetings with the kid. Mihawk is like 'yes, that was part of the deal I made becoming a warlord, they would stop updating his bounties. As for his current location, no idea.' because he has his own dream and he's not taking his father's mantle, doesn't want it. Zoro yells that he's no help and Mihawk asks if he wants to follow suit of the people who tried to take his son before him, just because he's stronger doesn't mean he's strong enough yet. Zoro takes massive offense to this.

When they get back together and are leaving Sabaody Zoro is absolutely complaining about this to Sanji despite saying he's stronger and Sanji is laughing his ass off again. Sanji points out that Zoro seems to be overlooking the fact the kid was raised by Mihawk and Zoro grumbles and just buries into his side. Of course after WCI and Wano Sanji is prickly, even to his soulmate, even after the death pact. Zoro is absolutely never letting Sanji out of his sight again so when they go meet Mihawk and the rest of the Guild on Karai Bari the crew is nervous. Except for the monster trio and Robin.

At some point either Mihawk or Sanji slip up, it's just habit as they cook together on the Sunny since Mihawk is the only one to get along with the Straw Hat pirates. They're chatting idly and the crew is there just to make sure and Sanji points at something and is like 'hand the salt over, dad' and Mihawk just hands it over 'Oisín, you're an adult, really?' before they both pause and sigh. The crew is absolutely losing it in different ways. Nami is pissed that Mihawk wasn't there for WCI, Zoro is pissed that Sanji hid being Oisín, Luffy is laughing really fucking hard and asking Zoro how he didn't know, Chopper and Usopp are despairing. Robin hums and asks Mihawk if he knew Zoro was Sanji's soulmate and Mihawk sighs long and loud and Sanji asks if Zoro was telling him the same shit he was telling him for their whole relationship, Mihawk says yes and that Zoro is a fucking moron.

Do I also have something utterly heart breaking and wrenching for acesan in Oisín!sanji? Yes. Was this fun to write? Yes.

[ex0toxin]

your vibes are immaculate and ur okuyasus are *chefs kiss* thats a beautiful lil man 👏 what's some of your favorite parts about josuke/okuyasu's dynamic? :0

discovered this in my drafts and i’ll put it under a cut bc its! VERY FUCKING LONG LMFAO

i think my favorite thing about the josuyasu dynamic is how different they are? like, on the surface they look similar with both of them being entrenched in japanese delinquent culture and aesthetics, but theyre super different in like every other angle!

for one, economic background: okuyasu, while enjoying a middle class life for his toddler years, was basically destitute and very lower class for most of his remembered experience bro lived in squalor the coal mines fr. josuke has lived comfortably middle/upper-middle class his entire life rlly well displayed in the shigechi arc where okuyasu says he'll be putting his lottery winnings into savings + josuke calls him boring and says he's gonna buy a nice new suit with a sexy silhouette like okay gayboy. josuke has NO long term goals or thinking, he just lives life by the day, whereas okuyasu who is shown to have very poor emotional impulse control, still thinks far into the future about when this money will get him out of a tight spot we love a king who thinks (not josuke)

life experience: okuyasu's mom bite the fucken dust FAST LMFAO + he helped his brother kill people + his father beat him + keicho was emotionally abusive + and then his dad turned into snot + ratio + L + rip bozo etc. okuyasu is extremely traumatized :/ he's had to deal with the crushing pressure of financial instability, his dad's abuse and then his dad's 'disability',(condition is probably a better word but disability is very adjecent? idk the nijidad arc has elder abuse vibes as well) and his brother's control issues and neuroticism, and then with the responsibility of all those lives on his hands from the arrow hunting like gawt DAM at least let him grow some fucking chest hair babe DKSAJNASJIFLF so he never grew up with anything stable, other than the longterm goal of solving the problem of his dad's goopification like . zoinks

josuke grew up very privileged, tho not to say he didn't/doesnt experienced social ostracization and bullying at the hadns of his peers and small community for being a biracial bastard w/ a single mom and dressing like a lil freak etc, but his grandpa and mom were a very tight knit support system for him. he's solidly middle class, never moved houses and uprooted himself, has generous spending money, etc. at the beginning of diu you can see he's a lot more bratty and uncaring and even a little selfish, with the callousness he showed towards okuyasu's "death" during the rhcp fight, the rage towards angelo (though justified lmfao pop off), and his overprotectiveness of his appearance. the dude definitely had some way different challenges compared to okuyasus literal murder accomplice shit

grief wise!! my friend noticed that once josuke and okuyasu met eachother, they became sort of "grief soulmates"!! here's what my friend wrote about it:

"the traumas that okuyasu has are all "historical" in some way, rooted pre-canon in deep ways, which can even extend to keichos death in a way because of how the causality works out, and it's the mirror opposite for josuke who has a completely grief-free life until canon starts and brings with it this change in status quo that caused him to develop these new experiences that ended up having claws

so @ the same time as josuke is learning that the world is sometimes awful in truly desperate ways, he's kinda on a 'downward' trajectory in terms of hope and idealism, okuyasu is on his way up because the same change in events actually mark an improvement for him !!! and so they end up meeting in the middle a bit and helping each other stabilise as mirror images

which is that josuke is reaching "out" for comfort, because it's home and closeness thats suddenly new and dangerous, which suits okuyasu well bc hes reaching in, because he has these new centres of comfort and stability in josuke and their friend network + more literally the infrastructure of the town canon connects him with"

basically theyre opposites when it comes to trauma, okuyasu's life is on an incline (kira's murderspree isnt exactly strange to him, even if its still upsetting) and josuke's is on the decline with his grampy drinking murder juice

uhmm another cool thing is personality wow like 4893583459738 words in and im just now remembering to talk about their actual chemistry instead of thematic parallels (i have diseases) but okuyasu being impulsive and brash all the time but when it comes to extremely upsetting things [ie keicho's death, his OWN death and revival] hes like like :/ #yikes. vc josuke who is at all times trying to be the COolest and Most Epic Guy but also has bonkers anger issues and shits himself when he gets one (1) insult <3 the Balance............

theres like so much i want to put in this manifesto im SWEATING LMFAO but my last point i wanna cover is why theyre friends in the first place!! josuke is a ficking loser with no friends mentioned until koichi (who i firmly believe is fucking insane and just pretends to be normal) and then oku + the others. josuke bc of his baggage has never had any homies so hes super independent!! and okuyasu who relied on keicho(not entirely out of choice but if i start talking about keicho im gonna be here for another 500000000 words) so like!!

idk oku immediately latching onto josuke as his next guidestone in place of keicho is so :) ! im gonna shut up now bc ive had this in the drafts since feb and i just need to close my laptop WKALSKJDLKAJDKS hopefully.... this is not just insane ramblings but if it is then. yea .

[neowinestainedress]

hiii i'm back hehehe glad it made your day cuz you deserve it since you made my day too!! 🥰

my next goals are 1) a happy fic and 2) a short fic. this made me tear up, i’m so happy you can see how much i love writing and i hope the same.

OH NOOO i forgot to write this when i wrote so long previously but hldbdldjd I REALLY ENJOYED LONG FIC SO YEAA I'M ALWAYS EXCITED WHEN I SEE WC MORE THAN 10K, pleaseee i live for it!!! but yeaa its your goals who am i to stop you, just wanna say the wc doesnt actually bother me as a reader cuz i love it. and for the emotions i dont really mind cuz i love a good fic with a lot of emotions! So as long as youre happy and satisfied with your writing thats the best a reader like me could get 🧡

it’s not a want it’s a NEED at this point (also it got nothing to do with the story but lately he’s feeding my delusion a bit too much so yeah). i might’ve written the man of my dreams in this fic… just maybe. no but it’s true that we don’t know him truly but it’s already a blessing to living at the same time. i think i came up with a good compromise between real him and obviously made up character, idk how to explain but the mix between the hopeless romantic – or loser (affectionative) – and the tease is just so haechan.

YES YES OMG I GOT IT AND I'M ALSO GLAD YOU GOT WHAT I MEAN like yesss we didnt know him much cuz lets admit it even how much we think we know a little bit of donghyuck by how the media show him, still we couldnt see it as whole and you really wrote a mix of haechan + hyuck characteristics so well. HE IS FEEDING US WITH THE DELUSIONAL WITH THE AMOUNT OF IGLIVE HE DID AND HIS BUBBLE SELCA CUZ YESS HE BE SENDING DIFFERENT VIBE OF SELCA ON IG AND BUBBLE AND IDK IF I LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM FOR THAT BUT YES WHATEVER AS LONG AS ITS LEE HAECHAN (we are down bad atp) and i could say that ever since i stan him, it's a little hard for me to read other members' fics cuz yes i could picture the scenes on my mind but i couldnt really get the feels and its probably because i didnt really catch up with others characteristics as well (or maybe cuz it's clear who do we picture the ml is)

i was unsure about her backstory for so long, because initially she wasn’t supposed to have one (not this heavy at least) but then it came to me out of nowhere and i felt it was more fitting of a reasoning for the way she behaved (especially her obsession with rules) than some tough break-ups.

tbh, I cried when its near the time fl said about her trauma cuz yea i lost someone i love too before so i definitely understand why she's doing that and i appreciate that you really think a lot into it and settle down with this because yes its more natural and convincing for her behaviour to be like that and since you've decided to how to do with haechan's. love your brain and ideas 🥺🥺

i literally wrote about a man that will never exist in real life, how do i bring him to life??

honestly there's no way for it and WE CRY TOGETHER. Like yea maybe there is, but they're probably other people soulmates naurrrr this sounds so depressing but yea not that im someone who want a real love irl too 😭😭 (nah tbh im still clueless of myself, idk if it's just me being so into haechan that i could never see other men or notㅡ but i used to have a crush few months back and i decided to confess to him so that i can move on so i think i really have issue on this but yea lets move on)

it’s a mix of mark barely being with his head on earth (they way he always tries to set mc up with anybody every time they go out when she’s sulking because she wants Haechan sends me) and mc and haechan being good at keeping it a secret (always in a corner, touches under the table, going to a place they know none of their friends will ever go)

yeaaa thats what i have on my mind too, idk for some reasons Mark really nailed this kind of characters cuz yess i could see him as the damn good looking attractive man but thw cute side of him is just hldbffjflf he is cute being clueless like that and can be frustrating too. just wanna confirm it so i can maybe sleep well after knowing how it really goes and thanks too for reassuring me that the fl and haechan really get the happy ending even after the story ends hldhfldjdld (that actually reminds me of how i always wonder of one of my questions in mind about if the characters in the story really end like you know they really disappear from the 'world' right after we reach the ending/last page of the book. the same thing as the 'and they live happily ever after' like do they still living after the story until they die or what. okay enoughㅡ)

i guess the long one? did you want haechan and the mc to get back together but at the same time you wanted to slap him for what he did?

that should be me i think HAHAHA my memory sometimes betrayed me but i do note that i have this one thing being so into detail writing til i wrote such a long essay 😆😆 yeaaa i really feel i need to give you the feedback altho i was late and taking this as the chance i could finally write to you last time.

i know it’s all fictional and those characters don’t exist but i wouldn’t have made it end that way if i didn’t know he could be a better man and keep on growing up, so you can sleep at night knowing they’re all happy.

I live to dream about fictional character to keep going. I feel like I could only love fictional character so thank you very much for writing this kind of stories, i mean you know not all characters need to be perfectly perfect from the start til the end (ALTHO HITS DIFFERENT IS!!! AND WE CHEER FOR IT) but some stories of course need characters where they are growing to be the better of themselves cuz we human is supposed to do that too.

last year i had a really bad burn out and i still have no idea how i managed to write the stories i had planned back then (and in fact i didn’t write two of one series) so i decided to don’t start anything because then i get mad at me.like i use writing as escapism and when i start a story and can’t give it an ending it reflects on me more than it should, so i’ve promised myself to don’t put too much on the plate.

awhh let me give you a hug!! 🥺🥺 nevertheless you still did well and you did thought of writing it, so the thought is what matter and we discuss it here too and i get what you really wanna write but you know sometimes even if we want to write it that way but if we feel it wont turn out like we wanted, might as well just write it short and keep it like that for the better. Cuz i do love it when writer wrote details for filler but if the filler doesnt bring the reader to somewhere it'll make it boring too. Saying this from writer side of me tho now i put a pause and resort to just being a reader for the time being. (i kinda slow-down since 2020 due personal reason and i feel like i need to do something else, tho i do hope i gain my love back for writing like i used to. maybe its a good things too like i just read now and see how writer structure their ideas and plots so yea 😊)

i’m also happy you understood the characters development because some comments drove me insane and made me doubt everything. i simply thing this ending was a clear cut, you either liked jeno or haechan and it’s obviously if she didn’t end up with who you were rooting for, you would’ve ended up disappointed. but to me this story was so much more than #teamjeno or #teamhaechan so i’m happy with my characters anyway (even tho sour!haechan you will never be like hits different!haechan)

I'm always in for a developing character in a story mostly because i'm also learning how to write again too so thanks to you too!! and yess i do read some of the feedbacks and just sigh, tho of course we know not all readers has the same preferences and all, they can be disappointed or happy, we could never know it. and as a someone who is happy with the ending, all i can say maybe if they give extra and careful look at some small details or think from other perspectives they could get what the story you tried to write. I mean of course we can't force everyone to love all of our stories, but yeaa dont worry i get what you mean and that series is really good altho yes sour!haechan could never be hitsdifferent!haechan!!

no don’t feel bad at all, i’m the chilliest person and i just love discussing about my stories but i don’t get mad when it takes more time to reply, i’m a late replier too so i can’t get mad at others.

going to expose my sign/mbti side again (before i stop my reply here for now) but yes as an infj (and pisces moon) i couldn't help feeling that way like i know you're chill with it and im someone who usually reply late to others type too, i know it's just me who think that way but yea i can't help what other people think of my action. and i feel the need to shower you with so much appreciation and love so yes i just did that hehe 💗💗💗💗 and i love you back!!! 🌻🌻

hiii! no yeah i got what you meant dw. I love writing a lot but sometimes it would be good for me to keep it shorter (around 20k it’s perfect) but I’m glad a lot of you read my things even when they are so long, it means the world to me

YES YES OMG I GOT IT AND I'M ALSO GLAD YOU GOT WHAT I MEAN like yesss we didnt know him much cuz lets admit it even how much we think we know a little bit of donghyuck by how the media show him, still we couldnt see it as whole and you really wrote a mix of haechan + hyuck characteristics so well. HE IS FEEDING US WITH THE DELUSIONAL WITH THE AMOUNT OF IGLIVE HE DID AND HIS BUBBLE SELCA CUZ YESS HE BE SENDING DIFFERENT VIBE OF SELCA ON IG AND BUBBLE AND IDK IF I LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM FOR THAT BUT YES WHATEVER AS LONG AS ITS LEE HAECHAN (we are down bad atp) and i could say that ever since i stan him, it's a little hard for me to read other members' fics cuz yes i could picture the scenes on my mind but i couldnt really get the feels and its probably because i didnt really catch up with others characteristics as well (or maybe cuz it's clear who do we picture the ml is)

His selfies lately are a menace I HATE HIM HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING unfortunately I’m down bad for other members too so I can read other fics (not that rn I have a lot of time to do that tbh) but yeah, he *pun coming* hits different.

tbh, I cried when its near the time fl said about her trauma cuz yea i lost someone i love too before so i definitely understand why she's doing that and i appreciate that you really think a lot into it and settle down with this because yes its more natural and convincing for her behaviour to be like that and since you've decided to how to do with haechan's. love your brain and ideas 🥺🥺

sometimes I feel like I put too much but building a lot around characters also helps me writing more easily, if I can vividly see the characters I can write them better.

honestly there's no way for it and WE CRY TOGETHER. Like yea maybe there is, but they're probably other people soulmates naurrrr this sounds so depressing but yea not that im someone who want a real love irl too 😭😭 (nah tbh im still clueless of myself, idk if it's just me being so into haechan that i could never see other men or notㅡ but i used to have a crush few months back and i decided to confess to him so that i can move on so i think i really have issue on this but yea lets move on)

my faith in men is honestly under ground so my hopes of finding a decent man are super low but I’ve got women so I’m fine (I say when my last two women crushes broke my heart)

yeaaa thats what i have on my mind too, idk for some reasons Mark really nailed this kind of characters cuz yess i could see him as the damn good looking attractive man but thw cute side of him is just hldbffjflf he is cute being clueless like that and can be frustrating too. just wanna confirm it so i can maybe sleep well after knowing how it really goes and thanks too for reassuring me that the fl and haechan really get the happy ending even after the story ends hldhfldjdld (that actually reminds me of how i always wonder of one of my questions in mind about if the characters in the story really end like you know they really disappear from the 'world' right after we reach the ending/last page of the book. the same thing as the 'and they live happily ever after' like do they still living after the story until they die or what. okay enoughㅡ)

mark’s cluelessly is my favorite part about him. I do the same, it sadden me so much to know I will never read about characters ever again, like all I have about them is what’s written in their stories and then ??? what comes after??? What will they do??? It happens with ff, books, movies, I wish some stories would never end

that should be me i think HAHAHA my memory sometimes betrayed me but i do note that i have this one thing being so into detail writing til i wrote such a long essay 😆😆 yeaaa i really feel i need to give you the feedback altho i was late and taking this as the chance i could finally write to you last time.

I mean you’re talking to someone that’s not able to keep anything short so I can’t tell you anything about the long comments hahah also I love these types of long feedback so they’re fine by me

I live to dream about fictional character to keep going. I feel like I could only love fictional character so thank you very much for writing this kind of stories, i mean you know not all characters need to be perfectly perfect from the start til the end (ALTHO HITS DIFFERENT IS!!! AND WE CHEER FOR IT) but some stories of course need characters where they are growing to be the better of themselves cuz we human is supposed to do that too.

No exactly like it’s fiction, nothing of this exists and I think people should be allowed to love CHARACTERS (made up, not real, ink on paper) even if they’re problematic or not perfect in every single way. Also extremely perfect characters are boring so… give me characters with flaws and depths and growth

awhh let me give you a hug!! 🥺🥺 nevertheless you still did well and you did thought of writing it, so the thought is what matter and we discuss it here too and i get what you really wanna write but you know sometimes even if we want to write it that way but if we feel it wont turn out like we wanted, might as well just write it short and keep it like that for the better. Cuz i do love it when writer wrote details for filler but if the filler doesnt bring the reader to somewhere it'll make it boring too. Saying this from writer side of me tho now i put a pause and resort to just being a reader for the time being. (i kinda slow-down since 2020 due personal reason and i feel like i need to do something else, tho i do hope i gain my love back for writing like i used to. maybe its a good things too like i just read now and see how writer structure their ideas and plots so yea 😊)

no yeah absolutely, with the jeno part I would have something to say for sure because there are some dynamics to explore but idk I’ll see if I ever feel like it. Also I agree because sometimes I get asked for sequels but there’s really nothing to say so I’m glad people would like to read more but I don’t think they get (if they never wrote) that plot and dynamics don’t come out of nowhere, also not everything needs a sequel. reading always helps to write so I really hope it brings your passion back, even if you have to take small steps, if it made you feel good I hope you can start again.

I'm always in for a developing character in a story mostly because i'm also learning how to write again too so thanks to you too!! and yess i do read some of the feedbacks and just sigh, tho of course we know not all readers has the same preferences and all, they can be disappointed or happy, we could never know it. and as a someone who is happy with the ending, all i can say maybe if they give extra and careful look at some small details or think from other perspectives they could get what the story you tried to write. I mean of course we can't force everyone to love all of our stories, but yeaa dont worry i get what you mean and that series is really good altho yes sour!haechan could never be hitsdifferent!haechan!!

THIS!!! and exactly not everyone can have the same preferences and that’s normal I only was sad for a few feedbacks because I genuinely couldn’t get their point (and it was about the fl not even about jeno or haechan) but at the end of the day I don’t go crazy over any of this, I’m here to talk about anything, positive and negative as long as people are polite, so if anyone wants to say why they didn’t like something I can offer my point of view as the writer, then I’m not a professional and I don’t get paid for this and I think people here tend to forget this too often (but not only for me, for every writer on this site) we don’t owe reader anything and even if I want to write something problematic all you have to do is skip it.

going to expose my sign/mbti side again (before i stop my reply here for now) but yes as an infj (and pisces moon) i couldn't help feeling that way like i know you're chill with it and im someone who usually reply late to others type too, i know it's just me who think that way but yea i can't help what other people think of my action. and i feel the need to shower you with so much appreciation and love so yes i just did that hehe 💗💗💗💗 and i love you back!!! 🌻🌻

INFX GANG LET’S GO I’m infp and pisces sun and I don’t usually like stereotypes but I perfectly fit into these lol. No I worry too much about what people think of my actions too but I also want people to know I’ll never judge them for anything, especially something so silly as a late reply. Thank you again for this talk, love you!!! 🌻

[zebrashavestrips]

oooooh all the q's

Hello anon! I’m guessing you mean the wlw + mlm asks so here it is!

1. describe your crush / partner.

I’m not really crushing anyone right now tbh, just hanging out with friends and trying new things.

2. describe your perfect date.

The simple answer, going to a brewery and playing board games. I love any competitive activity tbh but with the right vibes, we could also go walk around the streets and have deep talks. maybe lay down at the beach or a park and look at the sky.

3. describe your dream house.

I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS SOOOO MUCH but thats also because its a near life goal right now. Anyways room#1 a game/ hangout room to watch tv, read, play board or console games, and work lol cant forget about working. Then room#2 would be a guest room with a murphy bed to save space. Room#3 would be my bedroom with a closet with enough space to separate my clothes and gear. The livign room would have what i like to call a scream box, basically these like conference call soundproof phonebooths but could also be used to scream the stress. Bc i have a whole bunch of stuffed animals from family and friends, i want to build a claw machine to store them and thats like another gaming device in my house. The kitchen i actually havent thought that much about but i think i want a lot of counterspace and idk how else it would look like rn. The garage would store all my gear and the camper van i would use for adventures. I would also like a grass patch in the front but theres no more space in the bay area so the park will do. OHHH and a straight roof or patio to watch the skies.

4. describe your dream life.

i see my life with two lifestyles: one like a day job, where most of the week I'd work during the day and hang out with friends afterwards or chill at home and wind down; another full of adventure - hikes, climbing, camping, some day trips to hang out somewhere. some combination of that with friends and we kinda just keep doing that.

5. describe your ideal partner.

Someone to do most of my hobbies with, to challenge and grow together. Kinda someone that I can continuously learn from in any aspect. I really enjoy having people around me just doing our own things together so things like that.

6. morning cuddles or night cuddles?

Night cuddles

7. big spoon or little spoon?

Little spoon

8. hugs or kisses?

Hugs

9. walks on the beach or walks in the forest?

Walks in the forest

10. sitting on your partner’s lap or them on yours?

Them sitting on my lap

11. favourite lgbt movie?

Imagine me & you… soooo cute

12. favourite lgbt book?

I actually don’t really read that many books but I love a good enemies to lovers, fake dating, soulmates angst. I’m in the middle of We Are Okay by Nina Lacour. But I did read a lot of fanfic and there was this soulmate AU with a name tattooed on each wrist and you don’t know which one is a platonic soulmate and which one is a romantic soulmate.

13. favourite lgbt character?

Fictional, Laura Hollis. Real, Hayley Kiyoko

14. favourite lgbt ship?

The og hollstein! Ughhh I miss them so much

15. favourite lgbt song?

Oooo this is hard, I actually have a few… can I give top 3? Whatever, it’s my blog. Top 3 are sleepover by hayley kiyoko, kiss the boy by keiynan lonsdale, and sick of losing soulmates by dodie

16. what’s your favourite thing about your partner / crush?

I don’t have one to talk about

17. what’s the best thing to do with your partner / crush?

I don’t have one to talk about

18. how did you meet your partner / crush?

I don’t have one to talk about

19. what first attracted you to your partner / crush?

I don’t have one to talk about

20. what’s something that reminds you of your partner / crush?

I don’t have one to talk about

21. what’s your lgbt identity?

les be honest

22. when did you realise you’re lgbt?

After I broke up with my boyfriend in high school I started questioning my sexuality and the thoughts followed through in college. Tbh that phase in college really helped me realize I wasn’t into men like how I thought I was in high school.

23. do you fit any stereotypes for your sexuality?

obsessed with hayley kiyoko, carabiners oh so many carabiners, can’t sit in chairs properly, tucked shirt cuffed jeans, always short nails, super athletic, climbing, loves building things like I just helped my best friend move in so we had hella furniture to put together

24. have you ever been to pride?

I think I went twice? I remember who I went with the first time going but I don’t remember the second. All I recall was being able to buy a drink.

25. how did you / do you plan to come out?

Family wise, I came out to my sister first waaay back when, she kinda found out looking at pictures on my phone and asked me about it. My little brother is my best friend so I told him a bit after I started dating. I came out to my parents 2 years ago bc I was dating someone during the pandemic and I wanted to do a small trip to/with her. Their reactions were a lot better than I expected actually - a lecture about queer relationship and safe sex, and a Confucius quote… so not bad? My older brother knows that I know that he knows I’m gay but I never explicitly told him lol that’s just our dynamic.

26. do you remember the name of your first crush?

I do but I shall not say

27. how did you first kiss go?

My very first kiss was super sweet and awkward. This guy I dated in high school walked me home and as we were saying bye, we hugged and stood for what felt like 5 minutes before we did like a small kiss. And then he walked me closer to my door and left to catch the bus

28. what did you do on your first date?

My very first date was super basic, we went to watch a movie and have dinner, got dessert and talked at bart waiting to go home

29. who was the first person you came out to?

I think, like it’s been a long time, I think the first person or even people I came out to was my group of friends from high school on a camping trip after graduation

30. pick a question of your choice + answer it.

I’ve answered all these questions but these were fun. Thanks anon! Hope you have a good one!!

[diomedrian]

I think I need to understand that I can't make classics my main thing anymore, like I need to have a job and for a while I need to stop putting classics above everything and think a lot more reasonably what I can do with what I have and where I am instead of just pursuing it to the end of the universe yknow? This isn't me saying I love classics less now but that I have to think about these next few years as a thing of its own instead of just waiting years because waiting is stagnating, I can't live through months and years just hoping and waiting on the time I get to do the PhD and everything and waste what I have now yknow? I already lost so much to mental illnesses and bad undergrad and shitty parents...I can't really just. Wait. A minute more.

[oliviamillss]

reading dreams chart

im only going to use up to orb 3, for stronger accuracy lmao

**if you can’t be bothered to read it all, theres a summary paragraph at the bottom**

sun:

sun in 7th: strong emphasis on relationships. tends to copy others lingo/habits. extroverted. probably ‘needs’ others. only really shows his true self around his close friends/family/partners. 

sun at 19 degrees: a libra degree. (emphasis on this bc libra rules 7h), makes him a very charming, likeable, particularly popular guy.

sun opposite ascendant: inner conflict, probably doesn’t feel like people see him for his true self, may struggle showing true self. may feel misunderstood. may need approval/validation a lot.

sun square mars: hints to daddy issues. may struggle with a lot of built up anger and frustration, but it seems like he takes it out very positively, as you can see he is competitive, so i think he lets it out through gaming. probably very energetic, motivated.

sun square saturn: high expectations for himself. probably the type of person to think ‘i’m only good enough if i do this’. probably very hard on himself. also probably very insecure of himself, but doesn’t show it. another sun square masculine planet, more hinting to daddy issues.

moon:

moon in 7th: probably relies on close friends/family/partners a lot. loves to help people, esp people he’s close with (kinda mr beast vibes). probably very like ‘oh shit, he’s sad, i need to do everything within my power to cheer him up’ if that makes sense lmao

moon in virgo: looking after people!!! esp with the sun square saturn,, high expectations. probably a very much perfectionist, which also explains why he is competitive. may ‘always need to be right’. but virgo moons are actually so lovely omfg

moon at 9 degrees: sagittarius degree, likes to help people by optimism, and giving things to the person that they would want (im aware that sounds obvious lmao). probably feels a sense of achievement when cheers them up.

moon square pluto: probably hard time dealing with and growing from negative things that have happened, possibly struggles with letting things go. possibly self destructive (why did that one heatwaves part come to mind), possible trust issues + anxiety, probably very particular about who he lets close into his life, maybe quite protective. 

mercury:

mercury in 6th: likes to help people, probably not disappointed if he spends his time working with someone, may struggle with anxiety/depression. a quick learner, probably overthink every word because it wast the ‘perfect’ thing to say. 

mercury in leo: funny asf, and out there, also thinks his ideas/things to respond and say are the best, with the 6h and 7h placements, he is open to listen to others, but in the end he only really wants his one lmfao, good with conversation.

mercury at 1 degree: aries degree, another fire placement which emphasises the loud, out there kinda vibes.

mercury trine mc: career and reputation are strongly linked with what he says. (this is obv bc hes famous lmao). he’s smart, particularly with technology and its linked to his career. *im aware this sounds like im just describing him, this is exact so thats why its overly accurate*

mercury opposite neptune: daydreamer, probably has a lot of thoughts and ideas in his head, but they just dont come across right. probably zones out, may struggle with focusing. but very creative, has big and creative ideas. i havent mentioned it before but its come up too many times now, but he has a lot of placements, when manifested badly, creates a good manipulator

mercury square jupiter: optimistic, possibly thinks his ideas are the best (we’ve covered that before), can be really overly talkative or just nothing at all. (i rlly dont know much about this placement)

venus:

venus in 7th: he will have a beautiful relationship with his future partner. charming asfff, probably a good flirt. tends to love love. needs to be liked, sort of a pleaser. 

venus in virgo: the type of person to remember everything about the people he cares about. loves to help the people he cares about. probably sees the people he truly loves as ‘perfect’, which may end up being really bad if they’re toxic. 

venus in retrograde: struggles feeling loved, possibly feels like he doesn’t deserve love. probably the type to be like ‘how could you ever love me?’

venus square mc: attract people who take care of him. either has self-esteem issues, or is quite a dependant person. creative. may struggle finding people who support his career, or may have to change a few things about himself to be liked by others. 

venus trine jupiter: very likeable, and he’s veryyy lucky. he’s funny, and a generous person, probably very giving to his close friends and family. charismatic asfff, likely he will marry someone foreign. 

mars:

mars in 9th: more things hinting to attract(ing/ed to) foreigners. loves experiencing things with people he cares about. likes to learn more and more, possibly stubborn, makes sure his opinions are known.

mars in scorpio: that boy needs privacy in his life, doesn’t like being predictable. probably an overthinker. we’ve already known this but he’s definitely a top. probably could get anyone he wants, seductive asfff. also pretty spiteful.

mars at 17 degrees: leo degree, fame bitchesss

mars square ascendant: hates to lose, competitive. people may be intimidated by him at first, can’t really hide anger, pretty stubborn.

mars opposite saturn: really hard on himself. wants to be the best of the best, leader. stands up for himself. another placement hinting to daddy issues. harsh about his work, and himself in general, perfectionist. 

mars square uranus: anger may change a lot, a lot of energy, probably struggles to focus, doesn’t like to be the one who is being controlled/has restrictions. probably struggles with authority. outbursts of anger.

jupiter

jupiter in 3rd house: loves writing, and is actually pretty good at it. knows how to talk to people, how to persuade them, and how to manipulate them. good liar, knows how to sell his wants across, how to get what he wants.

jupiter at 4 degrees: cancer degree, cancer rules his 6h. he uses his luck/money to help others.

jupiter square neptune: big dreams, desire to escape the world as it is.

saturn:

saturn in 3rd: afraid of/ is often misunderstood. struggles to open up?, maybe he wasn’t listened to much growing up. hard on himself academically, feels like he isn’t smart enough. hard time expressing himself. maybe feels like noone really cares for what he has to say?

saturn at 16 degrees: cancer degree. idk what else to say abt it lmaoo

saturn square ascendant: quite serious, maybe struggle with the way he looks? possibly quite overwhelmed about his life,, feels like he has too much to do at times. fear of rejectionnn

saturn square uranus: maybe he doesn’t like change, tradition v change clashing. authority troubles. probably needs freedom, but feels unstable without what he’s used to. rebelling against norms. 

uranus: 

uranus in 12th: probably very curious about unexplainable things, maybe quite into conspiracy theories. two complete ends of the spectrum: fear change/need it, unpredictable things happen/ everythings the same. 

uranus at 14 degrees: taurus. taurus ruling 2nd, i guess it shows change in dream’s wealth.

uranus opposite north node (and conj south node): with exceptions, doesn’t like conflict. he is fine with joke conflict, but the second there’s an actual argument he tries to be the ‘peacemaker’ guy. technology is major in his life. also quite nervous about his career/future. 

neptune:

neptune in 12th: awful sleep schedule. overworking himself, never relaxing. vivid dreams. once again, this has come up loads and i just haven’t mentioned it: intuitive asf, george is the same. whether either are aware of it or not, they are super intuitive.

neptune at 2 degrees: taurus degree.

neptune sextile mc: creative, also likes helping others, empathy to the public. has big dreams career wise. 

pluto:

pluto in 10th: determined person, gets a lot of hate, but also a lot of love. trust issues, persuasion/manipulative abilities. leader leader leader. another hint to daddy issues, maybe privacy invading, maybe overprotective. don’t want to be controlled.

north node:

north node in 6th: overwork himself. but i think we can interpret this as his life goal to be working to help people. literally mr beast. just work hard, and give a lot away. humble.

chiron:

chiron in 9th: possible restriction from either his or his communities beliefs/religions. maybe he’s afraid of leaving where he is right now (sapnap moving to orlando, whenever its brought up its always george coming to orlando)

lilith:

lilith in sagittarius: need for truth. dislikes restrictions. hides emotions, uses humour to avoid them/ make people think they’re okay when they’re not. stubborn asf. 

lilith in 10th: tend to be sexualised/ reputations for being sexual. another placement hinting to daddy issues. really wants to be at the top, the most powerful. likes using his dominance/ power to seduce. motivateddd.

lilith conjunct pluto (exact omfg): typical ‘mystery’ guy. probably the mystery/scorpio vibes he pulls off attracts/ seduces people. the most dominant partner ever. sex is probably so intense and overwhelming

moon square lilith: possible mummy issues. his need for sex can change quick asf, from one end of the scale to another. struggles to open up. 

 i ought to mention!!

there’s a theory that the degree of your venus sign is the birthday of someone who is v important in your life. what’s dreams you may ask? 1. and when are george and sapnap’s birthdays? the 1st. they’re soulmates, your honour.

summary!!!

basically, dream has so much care and love for his friends and family, and probably relies on them a lot. he only shows his true self around them, and he (at least thinks) people don’t really understand him in the way his friends and family do. he is a social person, who’s very likeable and charming. he lovesss helping people, doing everything in his power to cheer others up, he remembers details about the people he loves. he is such a perfectionist, needing to succeed and win and everything, and is very competitive. he probably doesn’t think he’s ‘worthy’ if he’s bad at something. he sets very high expectations for himself. he is very hard on himself. if he wants to, he knows how to manipulate people. he has so so many placements for an amazing manipulator. he may struggle to express himself or open up, and may be hard on himself academically. maybe he doesn’t feel ‘listened to’. a lot of emotions like anger and sex drive may change rapidly for him. he over works himself a lot. a major theme in his life is tradition vs change. he is probably afraid of change, or finds it uncomfortable, or he may have some sort of attachment to traditional values/things, no matter how much he wants to change. he is also a peacemaker. he was born to be loved or hated, kinda like marmite but if the balance was more equal. he doesn’t like restrictions. he uses humour to hide his emotions.

im also thinking of doing a synastry reading between george and dream but idk yet lol

hope you guys enjoyed, this took ages lmao<3

[sparklingdust4612]

Prieta Melleen (the conception)

A/N: I was washing dishes and thinking of my soulmate Reylo fic, then I thought of Kylo dying but since they're soulmates, cant the soul find its other half to reside in? thats when the idea of body-mates began (while doing dishes, thank you very much) and then my thoughts drifted to Prim whose death devastated us and since I am me, I decide to write that asinine piece of idk-what-that-is garbage for my beloved @jhsgf82.

The title will make more sense once you read on.

Lets move to our story ;)

Post-MJ, Humour, rated M to be safe. No triggers except canon-ish violence (which is teeny weeny like Gale's willy). READ AT YOUR OWN RISK CUZ IDK WHAT THIS PIECE OF SHIT IS!!

"Katniss?" Prim asked, turning and looking at her frantic sister before the explosions went.

There was pain, so much pain, and screaming and it took Prim a while to realize her sister was screaming much louder than anyone who fell victim to the disguised bombs.

"Primrose!" Katniss wails and Prim screams as she feels herself being violently torn into two until the pain and noise is no more and there's a feeling. It feels like...flying?

Prim slams her eyes shut (which she shouldn't have done but she did) and prays for it all to be over, prays to whatever deity is out there to bring her back to her sister who she'll never leave again.

And then she floats, she floats for who knows how long until she finally feels well-rested and decides to face whatever the fuck it is head-on.

Well, whatever Prim thought she'd see after opening her eyes would never come close to what she actually is seeing.

It's dark but she can see. She's in somewhere that's obviously dark, warm, cozy, and well-lived. There is only a distant source of light and that's too high up.

That's when the sound of someone stomping hits her ears and she's instantly on high alert, years upon years with Katniss making it instinctive.

"Who are you?" she hisses, trying to sound as threatening as Katniss would but she doesn't know if she achieves her goal.

Stompy-feet comes close enough and she traces it's, his, features with her eyes because he looks famili-

"Peeta?" Prim gasps and Peeta jumps several feet in the air. It would be comical if Prim wasn't utterly done with the universe's bullshit by now.

"What are you doing here? Where are we? Katniss?" Prim asks, she's about to unload more questions but the sight of his wide, terrified eyes makes her clamp her mouth shut.

"Primrose? You're okay!" he sounds stunned and then excited as he pulls her in his arms.

"I don't know where we are Prim but I've been eying that light up there and I think it'll answer all our questions," Peeta says, pointing up at the small source of light.

"How do we get there?" Prim asks and Peeta thinks noisily because the fucking man literally talks to himself and considers it thinking.

"How do we get up there, Peeta? Hmm, this feels like a dream don't you think? I agree, so maybe we can fly up there and hope we find answers? Sounds valid enough but-" his loud thinking is cut-off by Prim leaping in the air and floating up.

She shrieks in excitement and is joined by a grinning Peeta who dampens her mood by saying, "Great minds think alike."

"Oh shut up, you walk loud, you talk loud, you think loud, you ogle loud," Prim says and Peeta's face looks like a lump of coal that's been sitting in the fire too long.

They both fly all the way and as soon as they're close, they realize there are two sources of light and they're small.

They don't have to say it because they're thinking the same thing. Let's peek.

Peeking from the two wasn't a good idea because as soon as they do, they see a mirrored ceiling and a sleeping Katniss, and focusing on the mirrored ceiling has them falling back down because two blue eyes are staring from the mirror, one more grayish, the other bluer.

"What the fuck!" Prim yells and Peeta gives her a nasty look.

"It looks like you're stuck in my body too now," Peeta calmly says and Prim's eyes fill with mischief.

"Does that mean no more crampy period?"

And Peeta groans, his face turning red once again.

"No, no no! This isn't happening!" he wails, sounding pathetic and utterly defeated.

"Cheer-up Peeta, we'll find a way to split up," and a flash of an image appears in her mind of Peeta's body split into two even pieces, running in two different directions and Prim gags.

"What was that?" she asks and Peeta gives her the stink eye.

"Well, sharing my body includes my fucking organs which includes my brain, and said brain has thoughts and feelings and memories you can now see," he grits out and Prim's smile turns maniacal.

"We'll find a way, at least until then, refrain from kissing or having intimate relations with my sister, yeah?" she says and Peeta looks so embarrassed he's ready to combust.

"How can we?" he wails, "my body doesn't have a library or computer in it."

There are a few minutes of blissful silence as the two contemplate what it means for them.

Peeta jumps and stares outside both windows feeling a rush of air so strong he closes his eyes. Opening them again, he finds himself in bed and Katniss beside him, holding his hand. There's no sign of Prim and Peeta breathes a sigh of relief.

Katniss wakes with a start, her bloodshot eyes lighting up for a minute before she kisses him and he melts. Tangling his hand in her hair he-

Peeta for god's sake stop eating her face and come down here! I told you not to do that! Ughhh! comes Prim's voice in his mind and he abruptly pulls away from the girl he's been in love with for more than a decade.

"I love you," he croaks before his eyes roll back and he finds himself inside his body, standing beside Prim once again.

"So if one of us goes there, we can have control of the body, thoughts, and everything. It's the perfect way to find out what happened to us!" Prim squeals before adding "Now to figure out how we'll tell Katniss."

And Peeta feels dizzy because this isn't fucking happening. He refuses to believe it.

And then Prim grins and it's so damn evil, purely devilish that Peeta prays it's nothing bad.

"So what do we call ourself?" Prim asks and Peeta rolls his eyes at her use of 'ourself'.

"Pri-" her words are cut off as Peeta ends what he was saying.

"-eta" and the miserable duo looks at each other and then tries to snag the last name.

"Mell-"

"-een" Prim ends and Peeta facepalms.

"Prieta Melleen, I like it!" she giggles and Peeta hopes he can wake up and find out it's all a nightmare.

"Come, fellow Prieta, let's decide who'll talk to Katniss about our...predicament," Prim says and Peeta can't stop himself from fainting this time.

A/N: And this is how Prieta Melleen came into being lol. This is me reversing the concept of soulmates (one soul, two bodies) to make it body-mates (one body, two souls+personalities). Idk if I'll write more of this but maybe if my brain concocts more body-bound duo's shenanigans, I believe I'll write them because in the end, the two love Katniss 😂

[blairwitchh]

i literally don't know what Snapped in me over the past year, maybe being alone so much idk but dude i don't even need to meet my soulmate or some bullshit like that... just having a relationship w/ someone where ur both each others number One person. thats the goal. i just wanna know what it feels like, both in the giving and the receiving, without feeling embarrassed or self conscious.

[many-gay-magpies]

@honeyseungz @loabivey so that uh. that mini au that you had like a very small rb thread about yesterday (well over a few days ago now that im posting this). well uh. um . actually you know what im just gonna let you read it yourselves

so. heeseung, jay, and sunoo are all brothers. wether its actual brothers or just "brothers" by blood bond or whatever idk. but, regardless, they're brothers. im thinking that like, at first they aren't vampires, theyre just regular dudes yknow? (and just a forewarning, a lot of this isnt gonna be as compliant with the enhaverse theorizing we've done so far, it's just a little brain worm i wanted to play around with, throwing a little bit of enhaverse crumbs in here and there)

but anyway. they're not vampires, im thinking theyre just like... adopted/found family brothers, probably orphans or something. regardless they love each other a lot and its great. personality-wise everything is super different, but just for plot conveniences, heeseung, jay, and sunoo are the yunmeng trio (heeseung as wwx, jay as jc, and sunoo as jyl respectively), and jungwon is lwj.

the three brothers meet jungwon, probably brought together by this Big Fantasy Evil, maybe something involving the vampire queen as a character? idk. there's some big evil shit going down, and the three brothers somehow end up with jungwon and HIS big bro, who im imagining is jake (basically the lan xichen in this situation—very soft, kind, gentle; the vibes are right). both of them are vampires, not that our three orphan bois know that. they get caught up in the danger, and vampire bros jake and jungwon coms to the rescue.

now, a little bit of personality-mapping here: jay is outwardly very loud, fun, temperamental, and sarcastic, generally very much like he is irl; but inside, he's intensely loyal, protective, and loving, with a HUGE soft spot for the people closest to him. sunoo is very sweet, sensitive, and kind—the walking hug of the three brothers, who is certainly not without his bite and wont hesitate to talk back to anyone who hurts them. aggressively and without mercy. also he makes them soup for comfort and is generally best boy. heeseung is very goofy, playful, free-spirited, and bright, but insecure and sensitive underneath it all; generally a loud annoying mess of a boy. pure chaotic neutral and a gremlin if there ever was one. jungwon, on the other hand, is... not. he's nervous, quiet, cautious to a fault and intensely righteous, always standing up for what's right and refusing to waver from his chosen path. very lawful good vibes. he, naturally, is more than a little put off when jay, sunoo, and heeseung's chaotic ass come crashing into he and his brother jake's once-peaceful (ish) lives. and it doesn't help that heeseung is a... huge flirt, and apparently deadset on making jungwon his friend. fuck.

jungwon... doesn't know what to do. and it would all be so much easier if heeseung were dumb or stupid or unattractive or just a total asshole—but he isnt any of those things. he's beautiful, smart, insanely witty with a brain faster than any jungwon's ever seen—he can't help but admire him. but on top of that, he's wreckless as hell, unpredictable, and pushy, and gives jungwon heart attacks way too much for his liking. he doesn't even have a heartbeat. he's fucking dead.

it eventually comes out that jake and jungwon are vampires; the brothers are surprisingly cool with it. not the craziest thing that's happened to them.

the five boys get closer, staying together as they fight their foe (which im becoming increasingly inclined to make the werewolves), and through a series of convoluted events, jungwon learns that heeseung is not only gorgeous, smart, talented, and funny as all get-out, but also sensitive, caring, insecure, and thoughtful... and heeseung, who's only goal had been to break through the nervous and straightforward outer shell of his young dongsaeng, does just that. and jungwon, naturally, starts to fall in love.

somewhere along the line, though, things go wrong—as they were bound to do in an au loosely based off of the untamed. something happens to heeseung; he's fatally wounded after saving jay's life, and disappears, nowhere to be found. his brothers eventually assume the worse; that he's gone forever. but the queen finds him, takes care of him, nurses him back to health. turns him.

when he comes back, nothing's the same. the war is still going, and his brothers thought he was dead—but he isn't. but he's... different. jungwon and jake are quick to realize that he's been turned, how, they dont know—but they talk to him, teach him, try to help him, jungwon especially. of course he does; he's in love. heeseung, of course, is dismissive; doesn't take it seriously. ill be fine, whats so bad about this? or, perhaps, he doesn't let on just how hard he's taking it; fearing vulnerability more than he fears being a vampire.

inevitably, though, heeseung's wrecklessness leads to doom—he lets his bloodlust overtake him, relishes in it, no matter how much jungwon had warned him against it, pleaded with him to take caution. he says it's usefull—says he can help them take out enemies, help them win this war. jungwon warns him that he could end up getting more than he bargained for. heeseung doesn't listen.

heeseung helps them win the war; practically wins it for them. hes happy, bitterly, until he isnt. he's happy, until he sees his brother—sees sunoo. blood-covered, pale-skinned, drained.

no.

heeseung is broken. jay even moreso. jay yells at him; yells and yells and yells and yells. curses him out, tells him he hates him, tells him he's nothing but cruel evil—he doesn't mean it, of course, but no one knows it then, not even him. now he is only angry; so, so angry. heeseung, wrought with guilt and shame and grief, flees—hides himself somewhere secluded, does the closest thing a vampire can possibly do to death, the equivalent of a thousand-year hibernation. none can find him, he's made sure of that. in his guilt and shame and anger he stews, asleep, for hundreds, thousands of years.

after the anger passes, jay is more than anything in mourning—for heeseung as well as for sunoo. he has a realization, that being that, when, inevitably, heeseung comes back, he doesn't want him to be alone: even if he'll have jungwon and jake, it won't be the same as having his brother. so jay pleads, cries, begs for jungwon to turn him—so that they can search for heeseung together, so that when heeseung comes back, he'll have jay waiting for him, too. so, reluctantly, jungwon gives in and turns jay—after which he helps him deal with his newfound immortality and vampiric status—helping him handle his bloodlust and helping him learn how to feed. over the centuries that heeseung is gone, jay, jungwon, and jake grow even closer (j line eyyy), inseparable as they search for heeseung and even outside of that. jungwon and jay are the closest, jay growing a colossal soft spot for the boy and not hesitating to take him under his wing and protect him with all he has (initially, sort of as a replacement for protecting heeseung, but eventually jay's affection for jungwon grows into something all it's own). to be clear, no love triangle bullshit here, only sickening-sweet platonic soulmates jaywon and a jungwon that is still achingly in love with heeseung.

(okay for anyone thats actually watched cql/read mdzs, yes i KNOW lwj and jc did not get along at all and kind of hated each other but. this is my au i do what i want, and if i want to add soft jaywon into the mix then im fucking going to, goddamnit)

OKAY TIME FOR SOME WACKY SIDE-PLOT MADNESS

so. sunghoon. how does he fit into all this? how does he end up being the one to trigger heeseung's "resurrection"? how does heeseung GET resurrected in the first place? well, not to worry, you're about to find out! and i am too because i'm just figuring this out as i go along baybyyyy

sunghoon, im thinking, is a friend of jake's (lets throw some jakehoon in here too bcs why not), either from before everything went to shit and heeseung went and isolated himself, or sometime during the numerous centuries jakewon spent looking for heeseung with jay. either way, sunghoon is this boy who jake is friends with and cares about a lot, and is also maybe kind of in love with. while jaywon spend most of their time looking for heeseung, jake spends his with sunghoon—finding himself often alone, now that his little bother is going off on his own adventures.

in a situation quite similar to heeseung's, sunghoon probably gets fatally injured somehow and is near death, but jake, not wanting him to die, decides to turn him instead. niki is also involved, and it's a sort of package deal, because before meeting jakewon, heeseung, and everyone, they were their own little thing; not unlike jay, heeseung, and sunoo's brother's triad. they were both probably orphans, niki being the much younger one, and as such sunghoon took him under his wing and never looked back. when jake turned sunghoon, niki was basically like "m8 what the fuck" and demanded he be turned too, not wanting his sunghoon-hyung to live on forever while he grew old and died. jake, also having a soft spot for niki, was like "fine alright" and turned him too. so, now their little vampire coven numbered five, and all was (moderately) well.

or not.

the thing was, jake hadn't anticipated how powerful sunghoon would be—there's nothing in life that anyone's found yet that would indicate a person's level of power once turned, so jake had... pretty much no way to see this coming. but, anyway, sunghoon was... really, really powerful. like, insanely powerful. all the abilities vampires were said to have in legends, the likes of which were previously reserved for just legends, he had them; flawless teleportation, mind control, shape-shifting, the whole bit. and on top of that, he was controlled—insanely good at monitoring himself and keeping tabs on his own instincts. one of the most self-sufficient, well-mannered vampires jake had ever seen. it was... frankly insane.

the problem? the queen. this is where she comes in, because she's played a part in all the boys' transformations, albeit indirectly—when jake and jungwon first turned, it was she who turned them. she could sense sunghoon's power, and she wanted it for herself. jake and jungwon had done well at avoiding her, even forgetting about her for a while; but what she wanted, she took, and take she did. it was sunghoon she took: luring him to her in small increments and then all at once, taking control of him, turning him into a mindless puppet. sunghoon had always prided himself in control, and without it, havoc wreaked: bodies dropping left and right, people being killed seemingly at random, their only purpose being to instill fear and paranoia.

now, niki had heard tales, before, from his hyungs but also from regular townspeople to whom the legend had gotten passed down, of heeseung, and how great and terrible he was. heeseung, the townspeoples' folktales said, had been insane, unstoppable: a mad genius far too gone for redemption. niki also knew from his hyungs' fond stories that heeseung, more than evil, was kind and caring; he was loyal, and powerful in his loyalty, and niki thought that if anyone could save his sunghoon-hyung, it was heeseung.

so niki went on a journey. without telling jaywon or anyone else (and thus causing quite the panic), he spent years searching for heeseung, everywhere jaywon had thought to look and everywhere they hadn't, and twice more for good measure. and, by some stroke of luck, either due to his own sheer force of will of something else entirely, niki found him: locked away in an old castle that never quite seemed to stay put, constantly phasing in between realities. it made sense why no one had found him before then—he didn't want to be found. desperately, in fact.

but niki, too, was desperate. he enacted a ritual that was said (by jake, so of course it was to be trusted) to wake any vampire that had gone into hibernation, and, miracles continuing to work for the bitter young boy, it worked. heeseung awoke—startled to find himself staring into the face of a very teary, very angry (visibly) sixteen-year-old.

confusion passed, things and motives were explained, and heeseung (although bitter at having been woken up, and still riddled with enough guilt to last 1500 lifetimes) attempted to patiently tell niki that he had no fucking idea how to help sunghoon whatsoever. niki pretty much said "well you better fucking find a way because you're not going back to sleep now, the world's about to fucking end. also jay and jungwon-hyung have been looking for you for literal centuries, do you know how pissed theyd be if i went out looking for you, found you, then came back empty-handed? really fucking pissed is how much. also sad. did i mention sad?" and heeseung, notoriously weak and also kind of (read: very) in love, is just like "...jungwon? jay?"

so niki brings heeseung back to the others, the return journey taking a long enough time that the two become significantly close to each other, heeseung's long-forgotten big brother instincts (tm) kicking in around the younger vampire. niki has to basically drag heeseung out of the castle by his teeth, because as much as he misses his brother and jungwon, he's still so incredibly guilty, and completely convinced that he isnt worth love or life whatsoever and that jay still hates his guts. and, jungwon... he doesn't even want to think about jungwon. how he failed him. how he let him down. but, niki slowly works through the insecurities, bit by bit: assuring heeseung that, no, even though jay will definitely rip him a new one once he sees him again, he'll also cry and hug him for at least 24 hours because he misses him like hell and heeseungie hyung you have no idea.

they weather a lot together. storms, mental breakdowns, bouts of blood-starvation so severe heeseung thinks he'll lose it again: but they're there for each other. they hunt, talk, keep each other warm, and in it, form an unbreakable bond. niki had heard tales of the legendary lee heeseung, who wiped out entire armies in two seconds flat and comforted his friends when they were sad and annoyed jay to the very ends of the earth: but what he's faced with is a man with more insecurities than niki has hairs on his head—and he has a lot of hairs on his head.

by the time they make it back to the coven's home, heeseung has grown sufficiently attached to the enigma that is niki, and has almost completely but it out of his mind that he's here for his old friends, too. he's only doing this for niki: it's a fact he's comfortable with. so when they reach the front steps he just... freezes.

i have a very clear image of it in my head—jungwon, jay, and jake sense niki's presence, in some weird vampire-y way. it's been around 10, 15 years since he left at this point, so of course they rush out to greet him, ready with scoldings and lashings about how stupid he had been (after, of course, making sure he's unharmed and alright)—but it all dies on their tongues as soon as they see who's with him.

frozen. everything is frozen.

i imagine it's a lot like lulu and artzyy's post. jungwon is the first to move, stepping forward and whimpering out a broken "hyung", and all heeseung's guilt and avoidance is forgotten in favor of cradling jungwon to his chest, holding him close and whispering reassurances into the crown of his head, wonnie, im so sorry, hyung's so sorry; i didn't mean to leave you for so long, i'm here now, its okay. and of course then jay comes in, crying and screaming about how the fuck is it okay, how can it ever be okay, how could you just not mean to leave us alone for 1500 years?! how the fuck do you just expect to waltz back into our lives like nothing ever happened and pretend its all okay?!? and then he hits him, and hurts him, tries to make him feel even an inkling of the hurt he was made to feel for the past fifteen hundred years—but then punching him turns into fisting hands into the back of his shirt and sobbing into his neck and holding him so tight he wouldn't be able to breath if he had the need to and please, please don't leave, why would you leave, you asshole, why did you leave?

so yeah. things happen. reunions are had, tears are shed. some indirect heewon love confessions probably happen later on in the form of very intense devotions of life and self and all that. "walking on the single-log bridge in the dark really isnt so bad" you know the whole shbang. meanwhile jay salty in the background just like "cant you just say you love each other like normal human beings jesus fucking christ"

jayseung's relationship (or the reigniting of it) is, well, rocky. they're both conflicted—jay even more than heeseung. because, the thing is, heeseung killed sunoo. as regretful as he is, that doesn't make it any easier to forget. but he's back, and alive, and in one piece, and he isn't leaving, and jay knows it wasn't really his fault, he wasn't in control—but he killed him. he killed their brother. and it WAS his own stupid fault for losing control in the first place, for not listening to jungwon, so what the hell is jay supposed to think? he flip-flops between being intensely grateful that heeseung is back and okay and finally with them again, and then remembering what he's done, giving him the cold shoulder and not speaking to him for hours on end. and all the while, heeseung is riddled with guilt, and shame, and grief he'd suppressed for far too long; niki's stubbornness combined with jungwon's unwavering support being the only things keeping him from bolting into oblivion all over again. all in all, it's a difficult time—but they get there. eventually.

naturally, they save sunghoon. what else is there to do? they defeat the queen, break her control over their friend—and then jakehoon have their own teary reunion, not unlike heewon's, and sungki have theirs, not unlike jayseung's (although with a... considerable decrease in cursing and conflicted emotions, and a lot more immediate sobbing). they're a mess—sunghoon is traumatized, heeseung is traumatized, jay and niki are traumatized, they're all just fucking traumatized. jayseung will probably take a long time to get back to the way they once were, if it's even possible—there'll always be an empty space there, something gone, something missing, and it's one that can't be filled. jungwon barely lets heeseung out of sight or touch alike, and heeseung isn't much better off. jay's always been the more touchy one out of the three of them; but after years of missing, of longing, there's plenty of time to be made up, and heeseung is just... so, so soft, and warm, and being held by him is the loveliest thing jungwon's ever known.

AND NOW A SUNOO THING, BECAUSE THE IDEA OF ENHA LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER AS OT6 WITH SUNOO JUST FUCKING DEAD DOES. NOT WORK FOR ME

so like. sunoo isn't dead, or he doesn't stay dead, or not the soulless-unmoving kind of dead anyway. you know how necromancy and fierce corpses exist in donghua and shit? well they exist here too because fuck you and also i said so. i made myself sad and now im making it happy again goddamnit.

anyway. after he dies, sunoo gets found by the queen, too, and because she's all-powerful and whatnot she fucking necromances him—figures he'll be useful later. as he is, though, he's basically nothing more than a puppet; like wen ning and song lan were when they were being controlled. his soul isn't... gone exactly, just imprisoned, prevented from being able to come forward and command his body.

so. sunoo is still partially alive, and the boys (jay, jake, jungwon, sunghoon, niki, and whatnot)... don't know that. i imagine that for pretty much the entirety of the centuries that heeseung is gone, sunoo's status as a necromanced fierce corpse goes entirely unknown to them, and it's only after heeseung is brought back by niki that he starts to resurface. i imagine they realize it in a sort of tense, action-filled scenario: the boys have gone to investigate another attack, thinking it's sunghoon, but as it turns out the queen has had TWO undead corpses running around doing her dirty work instead of one. and one of them is sunoo.

heeseung and jay, of course, are stunned. they cant believe it's real; it isn't real, it can't be—and yet.

a lot of angsty plot stuff happens—i dont have the energy or enough shits to give to figure out what. the thing is, the queen only kept sunoo this long and brought him out as a tactic to lure heeseung, make him weaker; and it probably worked. in the midst of both fighting against sunghoon and fighting to SAVE sunghoon, heeseung is bent on saving sunoo as well, and there's probably a lot of very angsty talk wherein there are disagreements about who's life, really, is more important in this situation, and if heeseung is just trying to make up for what he did to sunoo. regardless, heeseung ends up saving sunoo and bringing his soul back to the surface. what he doesn't expect is for sunoo to forgive him—fully and wholeheartedly. and it feels wrong, because no, you should be angry with me, you should hate me and want to hurt me like i hurt you; but sunoo is just... happy. happy that he's back, happy that heeseung is back, happy that they're all together again. and its conflicting, to say the least. even moreso because sunoo isnt stupid—he didnt just act like heeseung was an innocent who did no wrong; he knew he had been wreckless, knew he was at fault, and he forgave him still. loved him still. that was something heeseung... hadn't been prepared for.

like i said in the last part, they save sunghoon; how, im not sure, but they save him, probably with a fair bit of sunoo's help, and they're together again. only the tiny difference here is that sunoo is with them too. sunoo is back, and the gang has yet another undead bestie to teach the ropes of being a vampire to. things are awkward, obviously, especially between the original brother's trio of heeseung, sunoo, and jay; because sunoo is his usual sweet and kind self while jay believes that he should be more angry at heeseung for killing him, heeseung agrees, and jay has some very conflicted feelings about how self-depricating his hyung is being (because like... yeah you killed sunoo and im supposed to hate you but you're not supposed to hate yourself, you idiot, what the fuck?)

(also like. if we're gonna take some more crumbs from cql canon here im gonna go ahead and say sunoo's death was at least somewhat self-sacrificial, even if it was heeseung that ended up causing it in the end)

(i kind of love how jiang cheng-y i made enhaverse jay here to be honest)

(okay this has been in my drafts WAY too long because ive been waiting for some miraculous Other Detail i need to add to pop up in my mind, but honestly i can just add anything else i think of in a reblog afterwards, this bitch just needs to see the light of day)

[midoriyaizukustan-inactive]

SO uhh iideku soulmate au where the first words ur soulmate says to u r tattooed on ur wrist or like inner arm or smth idk is so fuckin funny like

so fucking midoriya gets called out during the explanation of the exam and hes Dying because holy shit he knew his words meant that the first meet w his soulmate wouldnt be meet-cute (necessarily) but he didnt know the words would be SHOUTED IN FRONT OF EVERYONE TAKING THE EXAM OHHHHH GOD

its so fucking funny you guys

anyway meanwhile iida has this fuckign garbled mess on his arm because midoriya a) stutters when he first talks to iida and b) iida TALKS OVER HIM WHEN MIDORIYA FIRST SPEAKS TO HIM

these disasters i cant believe them this is so fucking funny

so like the entrance exam goes w/o them talking abt it bc midoriya doesnt have time to be like "shut UP omfg ur my soulmate" esp cause he feels kinda bad bc iida's like "dont distract the other examinees!!" and he doesnt wanna prove him right abt him being a Delinquent because our boy is stubborn so yeah

honestly between registering his quirk and getting his hero costume together nd all that midoriya probably straight up......forgets he meets his soulmate sjkfnkjnkdjnksjkf

anyway first day of school rolls around tho and iida makes a beeline for midoriya the sec he enters the class and mido is like "oh fuck he figured out im his soulmate i hope this isnt awkward" bc what a first impression That would be on the whole class but iida just apologizes for being a presumptuous dick and then uraraka shows up and midoriya at this point thinks it would be v v v awkward to bring it up so he just DOESNT LMFAOOOO

to be fair tho midoriya isnt that confident yet and hes arnd all these new amazing people and pro heroes suddenly All The Time so hes kinda overwhelmed and just needs a got damn second

eventually tho people meet up with their soulamtes like kiri and baku and baku's like "YOURE THE REASON THAT FUCKING 'bakugo? can i call you bakubro then?' IS ON MY ARM FOR E V E R ???????" and kiri is like "ur the reason why That whole tangent is on my arm??" and bakugo freezes before going like "okay guess we both fucked up
" also yaoyorozu and jirou who just have simple "hi im momo" "OH MY GOD UR MY SOULMATE" and its v sweet im crying

anyway so eventually as people pair up and all that. the topic comes up during lunch w the izucrew bc its fun and its a new place and time in their lives so a lot of people r meeting their soulmates rn 

iida brings it up like "i have no idea what my soulmate is gonna say to me bc yall look at this" and he shows them his arm and midoriya squawks and kinda slides down his chair bc he cant believe his mumbling and being-talked-over got fucking recorded on iida's arm forever how embarrassing he cant decide who got it worse

anyway eventually they ask midoriya what his words are and mido is like "HHHHH" but he doesnt lie bc this isnt Angst come on

anyway its so fucking funny when he shows them all his arm and everyone fucking LAUGHS BECAUSE THEY REMEMBER IIDA SHOUTING AT HIM DURING THE PRESENTATION AND IIDA IS JUST LIKE "WAIT WHAT WHAT OH MY GOD IM SO SORRY" ITS SO FUCKING FJNKFJNKDJNKFJNKSDJNKFJNK

anyway then iida shows off his words again and uraraka gets a lil cheeky and says "yknow im not surpried now that i know deku is iida's soulmate bc only deku could say That out loud" and mido dies insides but not really

anyway iida catches him after class and they kinda plan a time to meet up and talk and potentially meet the family and see what kinda soulmates theyll be (platonic or romantic) and its just v cute and both are happy and ahhh my heart

god they are absolutely romcom goals i love them so much

okay and thats it thats the au its so cute and funny

anyway this is hilarious i love this au with these kids uwu

[calumcest]

i took a walk with my fame down memory lane (i never did find my way back) - chapter one

[ao3]

have i ever mentioned my britpop au? i don’t think i have :) this is quite literally the definition of self-indulgence like genuinely this is so self-indulgent that it probably counts as a deadly sin and i have literally no justifications for it 

before anybody comes for me for starting another chaptered fic: i have 50k of this lined up and i’m still going at the speed of light (as sam can attest to) fear not we’re going to get there with this one i promise also for anyone still waiting for the soulmate au thats going to get finished too once this is out of my system 

i have an inordinate number of people to thank for putting up with me/this fic so let us begin: @tirednotflirting​ deserves every single ounce of praise and love i have to offer for reading this whole thing, listening to me talk about it, bouncing ideas with me, being so patient and kind about it, coming up with such brilliant ideas and for just generally being an all-round sweetheart. @calumftduke​ also deserves excessive praise and thanks for reading a big old chunk of this and being so sweet about it. @killingangels​ genuinely breathed life into this fic and cheered it on to the place it is today thank u for diving into a britpop phase with me. @ashesonthefloor​ and @clumsyclifford​ listened to me whine about this fic even though neither of them care and i truly owe them for that. @kaleidoscopeminds lets me thirst over the gallaghers but keeps me in my place about it which is truly the vibe check i need and also listened to me talk about this fic over the past few weeks and is just generally such a joy to speak to. i’m certain i’ve forgotten someone my brain has not been switched on in weeks now but anyone who’s listened to me talk about this over the past few weeks deserves a ticket straight to heaven honestly 

quick bit of vocab: our kid is a term used by siblings in manchester. not sure why i don’t understand mancunian culture myself but the gallaghers are always saying it in interviews and my mancunian friend concurred that it is correct so idk what goes on up there 

warnings: heavy drug use (its oasis and blur in the ‘90s theres a lot of coke/weed/alcohol) and lots of swearing (including the c word because they’re british)

-

He’s here, in England, not in Sydney, and he’s twenty, not seventeen. That was then, and this is now.

But for a moment - just for a few seconds - he could have sworn that then and now were the same thing. Just for one moment, he could have sworn he’d seen Michael Clifford.

-

or: calum's in oasis and michael's in blur and it's the height of the 1990s britpop war

Liam had once asked Calum if he believed in fate. 

“D’you think it’s all real?” he’d said one day, out of the fucking blue. Calum, though, used to Liam beginning conversations in the middle after two long years of knowing him, had just looked at him. 

“Do I think what’s all real?” he’d asked. Liam had indicated up at the sky with his eyes and cigarette. 

“Fate, and all that,” he’d said, lifting the cigarette back to his lips. Calum had watched as his cheeks hollowed around it, turning potential answers over and over in his mind. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he’d said eventually, and Liam had raised his eyebrows and nodded as he’d exhaled a cloud of grey smoke that had blended in with the sky and the council houses. 

Calum thinks he probably should have known then. Maybe Liam had been trying to make a point, in that strange way he sometimes does - what are the odds you’d end up here, with us? Calum hadn’t given it a second thought at the time, just rolled his eyes and nudged Liam’s foot with his own and said Noel’s going to do his fucking nut if we’re not there in ten, and that had been that. The conversation never even crossed his mind again until it was too late, until fate had already had her way with Calum. 

In Calum’s defence, though, fate never showed her hand. She never threw him any hints, no flashing neon signs that said Calum, your destiny is this way. Fate came piecemeal, came in short snippets of conversations or flashes of familiar faces or, on occasion, Liam and Noel swearing loudly at each other as they stomp up the stairs in Calum’s house.

“I’m arsed,” Liam’s saying loudly, when he barges into Calum’s room. Noel’s hot on his heels, midway through a spiel he’s clearly prepared which Liam’s having none of, and he turns to Calum when they get through the door, an annoyed expression on his face. 

“Tell him he’s a prick,” he says. 

“Why?” Calum says, setting his magazine aside, because he needs to know what he’s supposed to be endorsing before he picks a side in an argument between the Gallagher brothers. 

“Our kid wants us to miss the match tonight and go to some fucking gig,” Liam grumbles, throwing himself down on Calum’s bed and picking up his magazine. 

“It’s not ‘some fucking gig’, Liam,” Noel says irritably. “It’s the fucking Boardwalk. We’ve got to hear what else is out there right now.” 

“I told you, I’m fucking arsed what else is out there right now,” Liam says, flicking about five pages on from the article Calum had been in the middle of reading. “I don’t write the fucking songs, do I? Go on your fucking own. You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” Noel rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, and Calum’s Gallagher Explosion Incoming senses start tingling, followed swiftly by his Peacekeeping Skill Set activating. 

“Look,” he says hurriedly, before Noel can say something that’ll lead to a couple of black eyes, mostly because neither of the brothers have ever cared much about collateral damage and Calum values his bruiseless skin. “What if we start the match, and if City look like they’re going to lose, we go to the gig?” Noel closes his mouth, and then opens it again, and then closes it again. 

“Fucking whatever,” Liam grumbles, which is the closest they’re going to get to acquiescence from him. Calum stares at Noel beseechingly, because this is the best idea he’s got and pretty much the only one he thinks Liam’ll agree to, and Noel rolls his eyes, sighs dramatically, but then nods reluctantly. 

“City won’t fucking lose,” he mutters, as he sits down in the chair at Calum’s desk. “Not to a bunch of Scousers.” 

“Lost to Liverpool not four weeks ago,” Calum reminds him, and Noel scowls. 

“That second goal was fucking offside,” he says. 

“Ref was a fucking wanker,” Liam chimes in, from where he’s lying on Calum’s bed, still thumbing through the magazine. “‘Ere, what’s this, then?” he adds, with a grin, and turns the magazine around, tapping on the page. It’s a picture of a (very pretty) boy spread across a motorbike, and Calum rolls his eyes, snatching the magazine out of Liam’s hands. 

“Fuck off,” he says, but Liam’s just laughing, head tipped back on the bed, all full lips and bright blue eyes and long, dark lashes. If Calum hadn’t been doing lines with Liam for half of last night, he could almost believe the angelic innocence the boy gives off. 

“Looks like our kid,” Noel says, sitting down on the chair at Calum’s desk. Liam raises his head far enough to give Noel a two-fingered salute, but he’s still grinning, and Noel’s grinning too when he flips Liam off in return. 

Fucking hell, Calum thinks. It’ll take more than his three O Levels to fucking understand those two. 

 -------

 City end up conceding three goals in the first twenty-five minutes, and Liam’s the one who stands up, voice already hoarse from screaming at the TV, and demands they go out. Noel, never one to resist pressing buttons that only he can find on Liam, makes a snide comment about it, and Calum, to keep the peace, makes a comment about United, giving both brothers something to spend the entire bus journey to the Boardwalk ranting about. 

Noel gets them in for free, because he knows someone who knows someone who’d been a roadie with a band who had been on tour with the Inspiral Carpets for like, half a second, or something. Calum doesn’t really care how they get in for free, whether Noel gets them in by knowing someone who knows someone or by hiring a hitman on the bouncer, as long as they do get in for free, because he’d rather save his money for weed. 

The band that’s playing are immediately declared to be boring little fuckers by Liam, who beelines for the bar and only has to flutter his lashes twice before the pretty girl behind the bar sidles up to him with a coy look on her face. To his credit, though, he doesn’t linger after getting the drinks, weaving through the crowd to Noel and Calum with a mixture of shouted insults and threats at anyone in his path, three overfull pints balanced precariously in his hands. 

“You’re paying me back for these,” is how he greets them again, taking a sip from Noel’s before handing it to him. Noel just rolls his eyes, turning back to the stage and raising the pint to his lips. 

“Am I fuck,” Calum says, taking the other beer out of Liam’s outstretched hand. Liam scowls, but lets him take it, taking a sip from his own glass. 

“I’ll just smoke your weed, then,” he says, like he doesn’t do that anyway. Calum just shakes his head and turns back to the stage, where a new band are setting up, fiddling with their amps and mic stands. 

“D’you even know who these pricks are?” Liam asks Noel. 

“Don’t even know if they’re worth knowing yet,” Noel says. Liam shrugs, like that’s a fair point, and then a squeal of feedback makes all three of them (and the rest of the crowd) jump, causing loud swearing from at least eight people in the vicinity as their drinks slosh over them. 

“Fucking hell,” Noel mutters, shaking his hands off. 

“Evening,” the lead singer says, voice deep and rich. “We’re Blur, and this is Popscene.” They immediately launch into something that’s all guitars and overdrive and beat, and Noel’s soon tapping his foot along in interest, spilled beer forgotten, as the singer starts jumping around enthusiastically. They’re not standing anywhere near the stage, and the distance and bright lights combined with the movement are making the singer look more translucent than opaque, which is making Calum’s head hurt. He chooses to focus on the bassist instead, because Noel’s kind of got a point that they should be listening to what else is around, although he’s probably just looking for more people to nick ideas off. 

By the third song, though, Calum realises he’s really stood far too far away to get any benefit from watching the bassist - he can’t even tell whether he’s using a plectrum or not, and his eyes are already starting to hurt from squinting - and lets his gaze wander across the stage. There’s a guitarist wearing glasses, which Calum’s pretty sure Liam’s going to have a comment about that’ll involve the words ‘fucking’ ‘not’ and ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, with maybe ‘cunt’ chucked in for good measure. The drummer’s so far back that all Calum can make out is a shadowy figure behind the kit, and when the singer stands still long enough for Calum to see more than just a hazy figure all he can vaguely make out is what looks like very pretty features and blonde hair. 

It’s the other guitarist, though, that makes Calum stop, his heart stilling in his chest for the briefest of moments. 

He looks so familiar, messy blonde hair sticking up at all sorts of angles that Calum’s only ever seen on one other person, that it makes Calum’s stomach lurch. He’s got his face down, focusing on whatever they’re playing, so Calum can’t really see - not that he’d be able to tell from this distance, anyway - but there’s something that’s so achingly known to Calum that it makes him swallow, mouth suddenly dry. Even the guitarist’s posture is familiar, a little tense, a lot focused, with an edge of something cool and relaxed. 

Calum’s so mesmerised by the guitarist, heart hammering in his chest, that he barely even realises three more songs have come to an end until the band all stop, gather together at the front of the stage and do an awkward half-bow-half-wave to the crowd. There’s a smattering of applause as they straighten up, and the lights are too bright for Calum to see properly, but he sees a flash of a smile that looks so much like one he hasn’t seen in almost four years that it makes something electric shoot through him before he’s even processed it, and then they’re turning around and heading off the stage. 

“Fucking shite,” Liam says, over the sound of the crowd’s growing murmurs. “Would’ve rather watched City fucking lose.” They all know he’s lying. Liam’d probably rather cut off his limbs one at a time than sit at home to watch City get thrashed. 

It reminds Calum where he is, though, as he takes a sip of his beer with slightly shaky hands. He’s in fucking Manchester, in a dingy bar with two of the biggest pricks he’s ever met in his life, watching shitty bands play mediocre songs to avoid having to watch his football team get massacred by Everton. It grounds him, shakes him out of it, makes him remember that he’s here, in England, not in Sydney, and he’s twenty, not seventeen. That was then, and this is now. 

But for a moment - just for a few seconds - he could have sworn that then and now were the same thing. Just for one moment, he could have sworn he’d seen Michael Clifford. 

 -------

 They stay to watch three more bands, and then Liam’s in a fucking mood and even Noel’s had enough of the music, so they head back to Noel’s flat to drink and get high. Liam and Noel bicker the whole way there, first about whether or not Liam should be paying for all the weed Noel buys that he smokes, then about whether or not Liam had actually slept over last night or whether he’d been at home, then about whether or not the shirt their mam had bought Noel for Christmas had been green or blue. Calum offers his input on all of them, siding with Noel twice and Liam once, but gets snapped at to shut the fuck up by the both of them each time, making him roll his eyes as he kicks stones along the pavement. 

(“Noel’s a fucking cunt,” Liam had said to him once, fuming, after a particularly nasty argument that had ended in every bag of frozen peas being dug out of the freezer. 

“Yeah,” Calum had said. “So are you, though, mate.” 

“Don’t call my brother a cunt,” Liam had said, and Calum had rolled his eyes, picking up the now-defrosted bag of peas on the table and taking them back into the kitchen, where Noel was nursing his own black eye. 

“What the fuck is his problem?” Noel had said furiously. 

“You’re both twats,” Calum had said with a shrug, tossing the peas back in the freezer.

“Hey,” Noel had said sharply. “That’s my fucking brother.” 

Calum’ll never pretend to understand them.) 

They spend the night lying on Noel’s living room floor, pleasantly drunk and so stoned that Liam and Noel forget to argue for about three hours. Calum drifts in and out of sleep, listening to Liam and Noel mumbling to each other and remembering to speak once every twenty minutes or so, until Noel nudges him at what must be about five in the morning. 

“What’d you reckon?” he says, looking thoughtful. 

“About what?” 

“That band, tonight.” They saw five bands, so Calum would be well within his rights to ask which one, but somehow, he knows. 

“Good,” he says. “Interesting. Sounded new, y’know?” 

“Yeah,” Noel says, rolling on his side to face Calum. He hums, like he’s thinking Calum’s words over. “Liam reckons they’re not rock ‘n’ roll enough.” Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Liam reckons the fucking Stones aren’t rock ‘n’ roll enough,” he says, and Noel snorts, and it sounds so fucking ridiculous that Calum giggles, which makes Noel burst out laughing, and soon they’re cackling on the floor, tears streaming down their faces as they gasp for breath and clutch at their stitches. Liam, who’s been sleeping soundly, looking peaceful and tranquil and not at all like the guy who’d threatened to knock Calum’s teeth out for suggesting City should have played a different formation not six hours ago, stirs and opens his eyes, blinking blearily. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he mumbles, and then rolls over, and goes back to sleep. Noel glances at Calum, flushed and panting from laughing, eyes bright and gleaming, and that one look is enough to make the both of them collapse in laughter again, cheeks and sides and throats hurting. 

The next morning, when Liam wakes Calum up by nudging him in the ribs and saying get up, lazy bugger, we’re late for work, that’s what Calum remembers from the night before. He remembers laughter, Noel’s living room going blurry around the edges, and the pleasant buzz of alcohol, weed and two of his best mates thrumming through his veins. He doesn’t remember the boy on guitar in the Boardwalk.

 ------- 

 The next time fate has her way with Calum is a good year and a half later. 

They’re recording their first album, which Noel seems to think means he’s recording his first album and everyone else is just there to complement his fucking genius. He’s not managed to stop being a cunt for about six months now, and, not one to let Noel beat him in anything, Liam’s getting equally insufferable. The studio is a fucking battleground, and Bonehead always takes Liam’s side and Tony’s just fucking useless, and Calum thinks to himself at least twice a day: is this really worth it? Maybe I should’ve just stuck with construction. 

They’re getting there, though, and when it’s good, it’s fucking good. They can all sense that there’s something there, something new and bold and, as Noel in all his endless humility declares it one night, groundbreaking. They’ve recorded Supersonic, a song that Noel somehow wrote in about half an hour, recorded a video for it on the roof of some warehouse in London, and there’s something about it that none of them can quite put their finger on, something that feels almost overwhelming, feels like it’s bigger than them. They’ve even been on the radio a few times, been playing bigger and bigger venues, got a contract and management and all that nonsense, and for all the flaws that combine to make up the Gallagher brothers, Noel’s got a fucking knack for songwriting and Liam’s voice is unlike anything Calum’s heard before. 

The problem is that lately, it’s been bad more than it’s been good. They’d done sessions at Monnow Valley which had sounded like absolute shit, too clean and thin, and with every day that passed and every track that couldn’t be used Noel got more and more frantic, snapping at everyone who dared speak to him. Liam, never one to resist a fight with his brother, had risen to the challenge, and the fallout had been messier and dirtier and involved more collateral damage than even Calum had expected. It had culminated in a trip to Amsterdam which had ended before it even began after a fight broke out on the ferry. Calum remembers seeing Liam zooming past, a happy grin on his face, heading right for the middle of the action, and then twenty minutes later zooming past again, bruised and bloody, still grinning, being chased by a policeman. It had ended in Liam being deported, handcuffs and all, and a screaming match between the brothers in which both of them quit and were fired by the other at least twenty-three times. 

Since that, though, things have got a little better. They’ve started recording in Sawmills in Cornwall with Noel as a co-producer, and Noel and Liam have started talking again, and everyone had breathed out a collective sigh of relief when Noel had announced he was going to head to the shops and Liam had wordlessly got up to join him. Slowly but surely, things have started looking up. 

It’s in the middle of one of those sessions that everything changes. 

“Eeyar, Calum,” Noel calls, from the corridor outside. “Your mam’s on the phone.” Calum sighs - fucking hell, what does his mum not understand about we’re recording an album and I’m twenty-two years old, I’ll call you when I fucking call you - but puts his bass aside and gets up grudgingly, trotting outside to see Noel holding out the receiver for him. 

“I want you back in in ten,” he says warningly, like he’s Calum’s dad and they’re eating dinner soon, and Calum rolls his eyes and flips him off, which is as good of a yes as Noel’s going to get. Noel sticks his tongue out at him and heads back into the studio, probably to yell at Bonehead from the soundboard for being too loud, or maybe too quiet, or maybe too middling. He’ll find something. 

“What?” Calum says, a little irritably, lifting the receiver to his ear. 

“Hello to you too, Calum,” his mum says smartly. “I haven’t heard from you in over a week.” Calum rests his arm against the wall, and his forehead against his arm, and stares at his shoes. 

“I’m recording an album, mum,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound too annoyed. “We’re busy.” She makes a small hmm, a you should have stayed in a real job kind of hmm, but doesn’t push it. 

“Are you eating well?” she asks, a stern undertone to her voice, like she knows Calum’s diet right now is entirely liquid. 

“Yes,” Calum lies. He gets another disapproving hmm for his trouble which sounds like it might be the prelude to a speech about how he should stop wasting his time and come home and do a proper job and eat some vegetables, so he decides to change tack. “How’s home?” 

“Oh, home’s good,” his mum says. “Janet next door’s got a new man, invited us to the wedding next month - can you imagine? A wedding in March? I said to her, I said ‘you’ll be wanting to move it to May’, and she said ‘oh, we want an indoor wedding anyway’.” Calum hums noncommittally, because he has absolutely no idea what that’s supposed to mean. What the fuck’s wrong with an indoor wedding in March? “Anyway, your dad and I have decided to go. Janet extended the invitation to you, too, but I said I didn’t know if you’d be back from your recording session.” 

“I don’t know either,” Calum says. “Noel’s being a right cunt about the whole thing.”  

“Calum,” his mum says reprovingly, like she wasn’t the one he picked the word up from in the first place. “Well, regardless, you’ll be home by April, won’t you? I told your dad you’d help fix the wall in the garden.” Calum groans, because that’s pretty much the last thing on the list of things he wants to do, including having Noel claw his eyeballs out for fucking up the bass on Supersonic again, and his mum tuts. “You’ve got experience in construction, Calum. You should put those skills to good use.” 

“I’ve never fixed a fucking wall, mum,” he says. 

“Well, the wall needs fixing,” she says, like that’s that. The wall needs fixing, so Calum’s got to suddenly develop the skills to do it. 

(For her, though, Calum’ll do it.) 

“What’s wrong with it?” he says, already mentally ringing up the cost of the bricks and mortar he’s going to need. “Looked fine last time I was home.” 

“I think the ivy must have loosened the cement,” his mum says. “I was watching TV the other night - I saw Michael on Top of the Pops, actually - and then-”

“Hang on,” Calum interrupts, because he only knows two Michaels, and one of them’s here in Cornwall with him. “Michael who?” 

“Michael Clifford,” his mum says, like it’s obvious. “Anyway, then I heard a huge crash outside, and I told your dad to go and take a look, and he said the wall had caved in. Just a bit, you know, near the shed, but-” she’s still talking, something about foxes and de-weeding the garden, but Calum’s not listening. 

Michael Clifford, she’d said, like it was simple and obvious. Like it stood to reason that she saw him on Top of the fucking Pops. Like it made sense that Calum’s childhood best friend, his fucking everything from the age of seven to seventeen, was on a British music show. 

“Michael Clifford?” he repeats, in the middle of whatever his mum’s saying. 

“Yes,” she says, sounding a little annoyed that Calum’s not listening to her impassioned speech about ivy. “Anyway, your dad said he’d need some help with it, and that it can wait until you’re back. But I want it done as soon as you are, because I don’t like the idea of Janet being able to see into our garden. Oh, that’s the chicken done. Call me in a few days, let me know how things are. Give the others my best. Love you.” She doesn’t even wait for a response, just hangs up, leaving Calum staring at the floor with a dial tone ringing in his ear and a name bouncing around in his mind. 

It can’t be him. She must have been mistaken. What the fuck would Michael Clifford be doing on Top of the Pops? What the fuck would Michael Clifford even be doing in Britain? The last Calum had heard from him, about a year and a half after he’d left Sydney, Michael had been sure about becoming a policeman. He’d seemed so dead set on it, had signed himself up for the academy and everything. Calum might not have heard from him in almost half a decade, but he’s pretty sure nobody would stray so far from ‘policeman in Sydney’ to end up at ‘musician in Britain’. No, he thinks, shaking his head and pushing himself off the wall with his arm, his mum must have been wrong. She hasn’t seen Michael since they’d moved from Sydney five years ago either, so it’s understandable that she’d mixed him up with someone else. 

But, a little voice says, as he heads back into the studio and is greeted with the sight of Liam sprawled across the sofa, laughing at something Noel’s just said, both of them looking far too high-spirited for Gallaghers, she watched Michael grow up. She knew his face better than you ever did. 

“‘Ere,” Liam says, interrupting the voice in Calum’s mind as it’s about to start reeling off a list of times Calum’s mum had spotted Michael in a crowd or down the road or in a photo before Calum had. “Noel says he’ll sprint around the house naked if Tony doesn’t fuck up his drums on this take. What d’you reckon?” 

“I reckon it’s a good thing Tony can’t fucking play drums then, isn’t it?” Calum says, as Liam drops his feet to the floor to make room for Calum on the sofa. Liam snorts, and Noel scowls, but his eyes are still lit up with amusement. 

“Well, I reckon you’re both cunts,” Noel tells them, and Calum grins, hoping they don’t see the way it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and reaches over for Liam’s beer to try and calm his churning stomach. 

 -------

 Calum can’t sleep that night. 

He’s usually so drunk that Liam’s gentle snoring doesn’t even register to him as he throws himself down on his bed, often fully-dressed, and falls right asleep, only waking up to fumble around for paracetamol in the middle of the night when his throbbing headache overpowers his exhaustion. He’s not used to lying there, stomach still unsettled, mind racing, staring blankly up at the ceiling, growing more and more frustrated by the noise of Liam sleeping. 

Liam rolls over in his sleep, mutters something under his breath, and then his breathing evens out again, and Calum times the minutes passing by the way he breathes in, out, in, out. The moonlight’s getting brighter - or maybe it’s the sun rising, he’s not sure - and eventually, when Liam rolls over again and smacks his lips in his sleep, Calum’s had enough. He gets up, pads out of the room and down the stairs, heading in the direction of the kitchen for a drink. 

He’s surprised, though, when he pushes the door open, to find Noel sat at the breakfast bar, a sheet of paper in front of him, still wearing the same clothes from the day before. He turns around at the noise of the door opening and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like a greeting to Calum, who grunts back at him as he grabs a glass out of the cupboard and fills it with water. 

“Can’t sleep?” Noel asks, and Calum raises his eyebrows over the glass of water he’s gulping down. 

“No,” he says, setting the glass down on the counter. “You?” Noel shakes his head. 

“‘S Bonehead’s fucking snoring,” he says, by way of an explanation, but Calum’s known Noel for five years now, and knows him better than that. 

“And that’s why you’re still dressed?” Calum says shrewdly. 

“Fuck off,” Noel mutters, raising a can of beer to his lips so he won’t have to say anything else. Calum sighs and shakes his head, but chooses not to push him on it, hopping up on the counter and swinging his legs. 

“You writing?” he asks, and Noel looks down at the sheet of paper under his hand, and shrugs. 

“Trying,” he says. Calum hums, and the two of them lapse into a comfortable silence for a while. 

It helps, Calum finds, to be with Noel. He’s never been a man of many words - neither him nor Liam have ever been particularly gifted in that area - but Calum knows he’s always safe with Noel, thrives in the quiet comfort of Noel’s presence. Noel never asks, never pushes, but he’s always there if Calum ever needs anything, and even though they never speak about it, they both know the same is true vice versa. 

(Calum can count on one hand the number of times he’s needed Noel, and can count on one finger the number of times Noel’s needed him.)

That’s not to say Noel doesn’t have his moments, though. He’s obstinate, brash, loud, arrogant, thinks his opinion is worth at least twelve times as much as anyone else’s, and takes himself far too seriously half the time. Calum’s had some of his most memorable arguments with Noel, edged out only slightly by how spectacular his arguments with Liam have been. Both of those, however, are eclipsed by how fucking nuclear the arguments between Noel and Liam are. The two of them bring out both the worst and the best in each other, grating at each other’s virtues and soothing each other’s flaws. They don’t know how to be happy unless they’re dancing along the line between love and hate, and Calum’s not sure it’d work any other way. He’s seen them in their brief, private moments of peace - Liam’s head on Noel’s chest, Noel’s arm wrapped around him, Liam murmuring something about a song or a memory that makes Noel snort, which in turn makes Liam’s lips curve up in a proud smile - but neither of their ships could sail anywhere without a restless sea to guide them. They need the fighting, need the bickering, even need the punches, to keep the wheels turning. A conversation’s not really begun if Noel and Liam haven’t called each other cunts at least twice, Calum thinks, and if Calum’s not been called upon by both of them to call the other a cunt within ten seconds of the inevitable argument breaking out. 

It had been an argument like that a year or so ago that had led to them traipsing to the Boardwalk to watch that band play. Calum remembers the energy they had, raw and a little off-kilter but something there all the same, remembers the lyrical shouting of the singer and the way he’d bounced all over the stage, but not as much as he remembers the guitarist. 

He’d looked so familiar, blonde hair and posture combining to make Calum’s heart ache like no music had ever quite managed to. It couldn’t have been him, though, he’d told himself. There was absolutely no way that Michael Clifford could have been playing in the fucking Boardwalk. Michael was in Sydney, back home, probably sunning himself on Bondi Beach and laughing at something Ashton was saying as Luke grinned at Ashton with wide blue eyes. Michael wasn’t in Manchester. 

Except, a little voice in his head says, maybe he was. Maybe Calum’s mum hadn’t mistaken some guy in a band on Top of the Pops for Michael. Maybe it was Michael. 

“D’you know that band we saw, a few years ago?” Calum says, out of the blue, before the thought to say the words has even crossed his mind. Noel looks up at him, thick brows furrowed. 

“Seen a lot of fucking bands,” he says, a little slowly, like he’s trying to figure out what Calum’s actually asking. Calum half-considers dropping the subject entirely, but Noel’s been in the business far longer than he has, and if anyone’s going to know, it’s him.

“The one in the bar. After the City match.” Noel purses his lips, brows creasing further, before nodding thoughtfully. 

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. They’re famous now, they are.” 

“Oh,” Calum says, and swallows. That’s not what he expected - or, he finds, wanted - to hear. 

“Yeah. Heard their first record. Or maybe it was their second, I don’t know. It wasn’t all that.” 

“What’re they called, again?” Calum asks, hoping the question sounds innocent, but Noel’s eyes narrow a fraction. 

“Blur,” he says. 

“Blur,” Calum repeats, testing the word out, letting it sit on his tongue. 

“Why?” 

“No reason,” Calum says. Noel looks at him for a moment, like he’s weighing up whether or not to say something, but then seems to let it go, shaking his head.

“You’re a fucking odd one, you are,” he says, which is the nicest thing he’s said to Calum in months. 

“Cheers,” Calum says, with a grin. “Good-looking, too.” 

“Don’t push it,” Noel warns, and Calum laughs, swinging his legs. 

“What’re you writing, then?” he asks. Noel looks back down at the sheet of paper. 

“Don’t know, really,” he says. “Just can’t seem to get it right.” 

“Want me to take a look?” Calum offers. 

“You?” Noel says sceptically. “You barely even play a fucking instrument.” 

“Bass is a fucking instrument, you prick,” Calum says, only half-incensed. 

“You’re up there with the fucking tambourine player,” Noel says, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his lips. 

“Fuck off,” Calum says, and Noel leans back in the chair, grinning. “You’re the one who bought him that fucking tambourine, anyway.” 

“Little twat might as well do something worthwhile,” Noel says, like Liam’s voice isn’t one of the two indispensable elements they’ve got. 

“At least I can play guitar,” Calum counters. Noel raises an eyebrow.

“Playing?” he says. “Well. If that’s what you want to call it.” Calum scowls and flips him off, and Noel just laughs and gives him a two-fingered salute in return.

“Go on, then,” he says, shoving the piece of paper to the edge of the breakfast bar. “Let’s see how much damage can be done to my genius.” Calum rolls his eyes but reaches over to pull the piece of paper towards him. There’s barely anything on there, just two lines: I can’t tell you the way I feel/Because the way I feel is oh so new to me. Fucking hell. 

“I’m off to bed,” Noel says, like he can sense the questions bubbling under the surface of Calum’s frown, and pushes himself back from the breakfast bar. Calum looks up, catches the brief look of don’t you dare fucking ask me what that’s about that flits across Noel’s face, just the most fractional chink in his armour, and nods, hopping off the counter and tucking the sheet of paper into his pocket. He should probably try and get some sleep too, if only because he’s going to have to be in the best frame of mind possible to deal with how insufferable Noel’s going to be tomorrow on three hours’ sleep. 

“I’m going to smother your brother if he’s not stopped snoring,” he tells Noel, following him out of the room. Noel snorts as he starts up the stairs, that strange mixture of derisive and fond that the Gallaghers manage so well. 

“You’ve got more of a fucking chance of him waking up a bird than you do getting him to stop snoring,” he says. Calum sighs, all long-suffering, like this is news to him, even though he’s been sleeping in rooms with Liam since they were seventeen and sixteen respectively.

“Good thing the tambourine player’s expendable, then,” he says, and Noel laughs, soft and quiet in the stillness of the night. 

“You’d be doing the world a fucking favour,” he says, but there’s a strong edge of pride and fondness that Noel only ever gets when talking about Liam, and Liam only ever gets when talking about Noel, and they never get when talking to each other. Calum thinks they’d probably both rather switch to being United fans than ever admit any semblance of love exists between the two of them, but it hums lowly beneath the surface, visible for anyone who bothers to look beyond the black eyes and hurled insults and weeks of refusing to even look at each other. No one can deny that the two of them fucking hate each other half the time, but without the push and pull of their relationship, without the back and forth and the give and take, the band couldn’t work. If the two of them ever lost that, if one of them ever pulled or pushed too hard, that’d be it. It should probably concern Calum more than it does that his entire career is poised on the knife’s edge that is Liam and Noel’s endless tug-of-war, but he's yet to lose the strangely settled feeling in his stomach every time Noel quits or fires Liam that tells him they'll be alright. You'll be alright. There are still better things to come. 

“You’re just saying that because you want to sing,” Calum retorts. 

“Nah,” Noel says with a grin, hand hovering over the door handle of his and Bonehead’s room. “I’m saying it because I want more royalties.” Calum rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning too. 

“I’ll see what I can do for you,” he promises. 

 -------

 As Calum had predicted, Noel’s a fucking nightmare the next day. 

He snaps at everyone who dares come within a ten metre radius of him, and, when everyone stops going into the same room Noel’s in, he specifically goes out of his way to find Liam to start an argument that ends in Liam complaining that one of his teeth is loose. 

(“It’s not fucking loose,” Bonehead says, and then decides to leave the room, presumably because he doesn’t want to deal with Liam’s moaning and whining. Calum can’t really blame him, and starts to shift surreptitiously towards the door himself.

“Since when are you a fucking dentist, you cunt?” Liam shouts after him, and Bonehead flips him off as he walks away. “You’re coming with me to the dentist, you are.” He’s rounded on Calum now, blocking the path to the door, and Calum sighs. 

“If we get more beer on the way back,” he bargains, and Liam nods.) 

That’s how Calum’s ended up in some posh dental surgery, spread out across a leather sofa and looking very incongruous in his oversized shirt and baggy jeans amongst the glass and the fancy-looking plants, waiting for Liam to come out of his appointment. It’s taking far longer than he’d expected - he’d thought it’d be a quick your tooth’s not fucking loose, you knob, you’ve definitely had worse, like everyone else had told him, but Liam’s been in there for a good fifteen minutes now, and Calum’s getting bored. 

The receptionist keeps making eyes at him, and Calum can’t tell whether they’re I want to fuck you eyes or whether they’re you look like you’re going to try and rob this dental surgery eyes, so eventually he picks up the nearest magazine off the coffee table and flicks it open to a random page just for something to look at that isn’t her. 

There’s a very pretty guy staring back at him when he looks down, blonde and blue-eyed and grinning inanely at the camera, and the caption reads BLUR: the cocky rebels you’re allowed to love. 

Blur. That’s what Noel had called the band from that bar in Manchester last night. They’re famous now, they are, he’d said.  

Calum barely even notices the way his heart speeds up as his eyes fly across the page, scanning the article for any mention of Michael before he really realises what he’s looking for. The author and the singer - Damon, apparently - keep referring to a Mike, an Australian Mike, which puts Calum right on edge, but Michael had never gone by Mike. He fucking hated it, corrected anyone who called him anything other than Michael, refused to respond to any teachers who tried to call him Mike, threw glowers at any classmates who did the same. He’d barely even let Calum call him Mikey in his most vulnerable moments, rubbing small circles on his back soothingly as he coaxed him to throw up all the cheap booze they’d nicked from the corner shop. 

Calum’s fingers are slick with sweat as he’s turning the page and his eyes are starting to water from how little he’s blinking, and he’s not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing, whether he wants Mike to be Michael or not. When he reaches the bottom of the second page, however, Calum’s heart stops. 

There’s a picture of the whole band. Damon’s standing second from the left, right arm holding his left bicep, head tilted upwards, looking lazy and effortlessly beautiful, like he fucking knows he’s worth looking at. It reminds Calum of Liam a little bit, the way he plays into the camera, the way he knows that with a small tilt of his chin and a slight lowering of his lashes he’ll have half the fucking nation on their knees for him. Maybe that’s just the way singers need to be, Calum thinks, eyes flitting to the ginger guy to Damon’s left, who looks a little uncomfortable, and then to the guy directly on Damon’s right; tall, broody-looking, dark hair swept across his face. To his right is a shorter dark-haired man, looking tense and on edge, and to his right is-

Michael Clifford. 

There’s no mistaking him. He’s got the same blonde hair still sticking up at all sorts of angles, the same sleepy, sea green eyes, the same pretty lips slightly parted in a pout. He’s holding himself confidently, miles away from the slightly scrawny teenager Calum had left behind, staring into the lens of the camera like it’s a challenge. Come on, Calum. Tell yourself I ever stopped mattering to you, go on. 

Calum doesn’t need to read the caption to know it’s Michael, knows it from the way he’s clutching his right wrist with his left hand, but does it anyway, one final, desperate grasp at a straw - from left to right: David Rowntree, Damon Albarn, Alex James, Graham Coxon, Michael Clifford. 

Michael Clifford. 

The words seem to sort of swim in front of Calum’s eyes, like they’re not really there, like his mind’s superimposed them on the article somehow, but the picture’s still there, clear as day. Michael, a hint of stubble on his jaw, face more angled and figure fuller and shoulders broader and God, he looks so fucking good that Calum’s stomach flips and drops and flips again. 

“-fucking hell, Earth to fucking Cal,” Liam says, sounding sort of muffled, and Calum nearly drops the magazine in shock, yanked back into reality so suddenly and jarringly by the sound of his voice. 

“What?” he says, looking up to see Liam with an irritated expression on his face, cradling one cheek in his hand. 

“Let’s fucking go,” Liam says, already halfway to the door. Calum stares after him for a moment, mind trying to process Liam wants to leave over the tangled jumble of Michael Michael Michael currently winding its way through every cell in his brain, before he jumps up, magazine still in his hand. 

“Sir,” the receptionist calls immediately, like she’s had her eye on him the whole time. “You can’t take the magazine with you.” Calum looks down at the magazine, and Liam turns around from the door, a slight tension in his posture that Calum recognises as the one he gets when he’s spoiling for a fucking fight. Christ, he’s not about to deck the fucking receptionist, is he? 

“Or what?” Liam says, a little menacingly. “You gonna fucking stop him?” 

“I just-” 

“What the fuck do you want with the fucking magazine, eh? Fucking paid enough for the appointment, buy yourself another." 

“C’mon,” Calum mutters, rolling the magazine up and hurrying over to Liam, putting a hand on the small of his back. “Let’s go.” Liam hesitates for a moment, like he’s torn between going to get beer or shouting at a receptionist, but eventually the alcohol seems to win in his mind, because he settles for throwing her one final glare and letting Calum guide him out of the door. 

“What’d they say?” Calum asks as they walk out, his hand still on Liam’s back, because he knows Liam better than to trust he won’t just change his mind on a whim and go storming back in to give the receptionist a piece of his mind for not wanting Calum to take a fucking magazine. 

“Don’t fucking know,” Liam mutters, pushing open the door to outside. Calum shivers a little when the cool late-February air hits him, and decides that Liam’s probably safe now, letting go of him to wrap his arms around himself as they head back to the car that’s been waiting for them. “Sounded like he said something about my flaps.” Calum snorts. 

“Bit forward of him,” he says, and Liam grins. 

“Why’d you take that fucking magazine, then, eh?” he says, rounding the car without looking into the road and flipping off the car that has to screech to a halt to avoid running him over. 

“What?” Calum says, a touch shiftily. “Oh. Saw a good article in it. Wanted to finish reading it.” Liam throws him a look over the top of the car, a look that’s unnervingly shrewd, but then shakes his head and ducks into the car. Calum does the same, taking a moment to tuck the magazine into his pocket and feeling it weigh down one side of him, unbalancing him just slightly. It’s kind of apt, he thinks as he gets into the car. Michael had always made him feel a little unbalanced, too. 

“Let’s get some fucking beer,” Liam announces, and Calum grins, trying not to think about the way the magazine feels pressed between him and the seat. 

“Let’s get some fucking beer,” he agrees.

 -------

 Calum doesn’t look at the magazine again until a good week later. 

He’s drunk, and maybe still a little high, which is the driving force behind the whole evening. They all are, because Liam had scored some great coke off some guy called Neville, which Calum had declared to be the funniest dealer name in all of history, leading Bonehead to admit that his weed dealer used to be called Barnaby. Noel had sided with Calum, claiming Neville was far worse than Barnaby, and, predictably, Liam had jumped straight in on Bonehead’s side, and after about two minutes of shouting Tony had mumbled something about not being drunk enough for this and slipped out of the room. 

“Fucking useless,” Liam says derisively, as Tony walks out. “I should fire him.” 

“I fired you two days ago,” Noel says, pointing at Liam with the card he’s using to cut up the coke. “You can’t be firing anyone.” 

“It’s my fucking band,” Liam says, incensed, like it’s not actually Bonehead’s band that Liam had wheedled his way into. 

“Who writes the fucking songs?” Noel counters. “You just play the fucking tambourine and look mardy.” 

“Fucking greatest frontman in the world, I am,” Liam says indignantly. 

“You’re too fucking high to find the front of the stage half the time,” Noel says contemptuously. 

“I know where the front of the fucking stage is,” Liam says, pointing at Noel with one hand and Calum with the other. “‘S between knobheads numbers one and two.” Noel rolls his eyes, too busy cutting lines to flip him off, so Calum does it on both of their behalfs, and Liam grins, swigging from his beer. 

“Save us a fucking line,” Bonehead says to Noel, who’s just bent down to hoover up at least four of the thin white lines on the table. 

“Get your fucking own,” Noel grumbles, like he’s the one who’d scored it, not Liam, but he lets Bonehead push him aside, slumping back against the sofa. 

“Greedy cunt,” Bonehead mutters, and Noel swats him upside the head, handing him the card. 

“We should have a fucking celebration,” Liam declares grandly, gesturing widely with his beer bottle. 

“For what?” Noel says. “Album’s not even fucking finished yet.” 

“Sounds fucking great, though,” Liam says. 

“Well, you’ve clearly not heard it then, have you?” Calum says with a snort, accepting the card Bonehead holds out to him and leaning over towards the coke. There’s not much left, but Liam’ll fucking do one if he doesn’t leave any for him. “Fucking hell, Noel. You a fucking vacuum?” Noel just grins and shrugs at him, cocaine clearly starting to settle into his veins, and Calum rolls his eyes, cutting two thin lines for himself and leaving enough for the same for Liam. 

“It’ll sound great once it’s mixed,” Liam insists, as Calum bends down.  

“That’s what you said last time,” Bonehead points out. 

“No I fucking didn’t,” Liam says, even though he’d literally spent about a week bouncing around saying it’ll sound fucking great when it’s mixed, just you fucking wait. It’ll be fucking biblical. Calum straightens, wincing slightly and pinching the end of his nose, and throws Liam a look. 

“You fucking did,” he says. Liam scowls at him, and motions for the card. “Come over here. No way you’ll reach the coke from over there.” Liam rolls his eyes but complies, heaving himself up and then throwing himself down next to Calum, making a noise of outrage when he sees how little is left for him. 

“What the fuck, Noel?” he demands, and Noel just cackles. Christ, he’s blitzed out of his fucking mind already. 

“We should fucking celebrate,” Noel says, like he hadn’t shot down Liam saying it not two minutes ago. 

“Celebrate what, you prick?” Calum says, wrinkling his nose as the bitter cocaine drips down his throat. Fucking grim. At least his mouth will be too numb to taste it soon. 

“Fucking all of it,” Noel says. “Us. Recording an album. The fact that we’re going to be number fucking one.” Calum snorts, but he’s starting to feel a little giddy, a little warmer, and he leans back with a grin. 

“Number fucking one,” he repeats, and Liam nods solemnly next to him. 

“Fucking right,” he says, like it’s what they’re owed. Calum catches Bonehead’s eye and grins, knows he’s thinking exactly what Calum’s thinking - yeah, us two fucking deserve it for putting up with the both of you. 

“Just wait ‘til we release Supersonic,” Calum says, shuffling up a little to rest his head on Liam’s shoulder. Liam’s arm comes around him, warm and comforting, and he squeezes Calum absent-mindedly as he hums contentedly. Calum lets his eyes flutter shut, euphoric and a little overheated, grinning to himself as he lets himself fantasise. Number fucking one, he thinks to himself. Fucking imagine. 

“Knock those Blur cunts off the top,” Noel says, and Calum’s eyes fly open. 

“What?” he says. 

“Their new song,” Noel says scornfully. “Fucking, what’s it? Girls who like boys who like girls who like boys, something like. Fucking shite.” 

“New song?” Calum echoes, mind trying to work around the cocaine to process what he’s being told. 

“Am I the only one who fucking listens to the radio?” Noel demands. “That’s our fucking competition, that is. We’ve got to knock them off the top spot.” 

“Competition,” Calum says slowly. Competition. Michael Clifford is his competition. 

And, fucking hell. Does Michael even know Calum’s his competition? Does Michael even know Calum’s in Oasis - does Michael even remember Calum? It’s been what, four fucking years now since the letters had petered out, since Calum had got too caught up in his new life of Liam and Noel and drugs and music and Michael had been too busy with his family and friends and the fucking police academy. Michael might not even recognise Calum, might not even remember his name. 

(Something tells him, though, even through the haze of drugs and alcohol, that they could never forget each other. After all, it says, who forgets their first kiss? Who forgets their first fuck? Who, it says, a little too knowingly for Calum’s liking, forgets their first love?) 

Liam seems to have sensed something’s up because he’s frowning, waving a hand in Calum’s face, and Calum blinks, shakes his head abruptly and sits bolt upright. He stopped loving Michael. He fucking did, no matter what the churning in his stomach might be telling him. That’s just the fucking booze.

“What the fuck’s up with you?” Liam says, sounding annoyed.

“Don’t feel great,” Calum says, which isn’t entirely untrue. The high’s too high, and the alcohol’s making his stomach clench and contract, and he’s sweating a little too much, and his hands are clammy, and- 

“Oh, fucking hell,” he says, a little faintly, and lurches to his feet, crashing into the bathroom next door and only just making it to the toilet bowl before he’s throwing up everything he’d ingested in the previous twenty-four hours. He’s glad he’s still high because it means he can’t quite taste the bile in his throat, can’t entirely feel the way his stomach’s heaving that he distantly registers is going to absolutely fucking kill tomorrow. 

Halfway through his retching someone appears behind him, kneeling down beside him and rubbing small circles on his back comfortingly. Calum feels fucking pathetic, slumped over the toilet bowl with tears leaking out of his eyes, someone making quiet, soothing sounds behind him, all because of fucking Michael Clifford. 

(That thought makes him retch once again.)

“Waste of fucking coke, that is,” the person says mildly when he’s finished, leaning up and flushing for him, and it’s Liam. Of course it’s Liam. No one else would willingly spend their short high in a tiny, cramped bathroom watching Calum throw up. Noel would probably lock him in and turn off the water supply, maybe grab a camcorder for good measure. 

Calum huffs out something that’s supposed to be a laugh but sounds like more of a sob as he sits back, wipes his upper lip and forehead and rests his head against the cool tile wall. Liam sits down opposite him, legs pressed against Calum’s because they’re both too fucking big for the bathroom on their own let alone together, and blinks at him. 

“Fuck brought that on?” he says, more curious than anything. Calum’s stomach lurches again, images of Michael smiling at him sleepily on a Saturday morning, of Michael with his head tipped back in detention, laughing at something Calum had said, and the picture of him in the magazine, so much older and yet so fucking familiar, flashing through his mind in rapid succession. 

“Probably just overdid it,” he says weakly. Liam gives him a hard stare. 

“A fucking baby would’ve had a hard time getting high on what you snorted,” he says. 

“Baby wouldn’t’ve drunk five fucking beers beforehand, though,” Calum says, coughing slightly and wincing as he tastes the echo of acid at the back of his throat. 

“Depends whose baby it is,” Liam says. “Pretty sure mine would.” Calum snorts, and lets his eyes flutter shut as he starts to come back to himself a little, shivering and wrapping his arms around himself as he realises how cold he is. Fuck, he’s all clammy. Gross. 

Almost as though he can read Calum’s thoughts, Liam nudges Calum’s knee with his own. 

“You’re fucking rank,” he says. 

“Cheers,” Calum says, not opening his eyes. 

“Take a fucking shower.” Calum pulls a face. He’s not in the fucking mood to shower. 

“Tomorrow,” he says. It’s not like Liam’s never done the same. 

“You’re fucking rank, ” Liam tells him again, like he’d not thrown up in the sink two nights ago and left it there overnight, but he puts his hand on Calum’s shin and pats it, and Calum offers him a weak smile. 

“You don’t have to stay,” he says. 

“What, go back in there and listen to our kid break his neck sucking his own cock? Don’t fucking think so,” Liam scoffs. “I’ll be fucking sober in five minutes, anyway, given the amount of coke you pricks left me.” Calum smiles again, a little less wobbly this time. 

“Sober?” he says. “You drank twice as much as me.” 

“Not all of us are fucking Aussies, though, are we?” Liam says, and Calum can hear the grin in his voice. “Might as well be a fucking southerner, you.” That makes Calum open his eyes a fraction, enough to glare at Liam. 

“Piss off,” he says. “You and your fucking Irish blood. I’d drink anyone else under the fucking table.” 

“Fucking right,” Liam says proudly. “Never met anyone who could outdrink me, let alone an Aussie.”

“You’ve never met any except me, you prick,” Calum says, and Liam grins. 

“Well, most of you fuckers are smart enough to stay where it’s warm and sunny and the birds are fit, aren’t you?” he says. “Only the stupid ones end up here.” Calum scowls, and kicks at Liam’s leg half-heartedly. 

“Fuck off,” he says. “Didn’t choose to move here, did I? Got dragged kicking and screaming.” 

“But you’re still here,” Liam points out, and Calum finds he doesn’t have an answer to that. At least, he thinks, not one he’s willing to give Liam. 

“You must miss it,” Liam says when Calum doesn’t answer, a little surprised, like the thought’s only just crossed his mind after five fucking years of friendship. Which, knowing Liam, is probably the case. 

“Australia?” Liam hums his assent. “Dunno. I guess. I miss Vegemite.” He hesitates, before adding: “Mostly miss my mates, though.” 

“Oh?” Liam says, cocking an eyebrow at him. “You still talk to them?” Calum shrugs, a little uncomfortably. After all, it had been him that had ignored the last letter Michael had sent him. He’s the one who hadn’t written back. 

“No,” he says. “Phone calls are too expensive, and none of us are fucked writing letters.” 

“Ah, well,” Liam says, stretching out on the tiles and sighing contentedly. “Just you fucking wait ‘til we’re number one. You’ll see them then. We’ll be touring Australia three times a year, and that.” Calum can’t help but snort. 

“Three times a year?” he says. “There’s only five fucking cities worth playing in.” Liam grins. 

“And you’d better have friends in all of them, mate,” he says. “Not bloody paying for hotels if I can help it.” 

“My mates are all in Sydney,” Calum says, and there’s a little tug in his chest as he realises that actually, that might not be true anymore. He doesn’t know what happened to Ashton and Luke, either. If Michael can go from police cadet in Sydney to fucking famous musician in the UK then Ashton and Luke are probably, like, astronauts, or something. Maybe he should check with the ASA. 

“What?” Liam says curiously, clearly seeing the expression on Calum’s face, and Calum hesitates.

He’s not sure whether he should tell Liam. What the fuck would he even say? My ex, sort of, is in the band Noel’s lining up as our competition? You know Blur? Yeah, I fucked one of the guitarists. Liam wouldn’t get it. Great, he’d say, eyes gleaming. Eeyar, you must have some good stories about him. You can embarrass him in the press. Or maybe, get in, mate. Infiltrate them, eh? Fucking good thought. Oi, that Damon’s alright, isn’t he? Maybe I’ll have it on with him. He wouldn’t understand the weight behind it, what Michael meant to Calum. Means to Calum. Fuck, he doesn’t know anymore. 

“I think a mate of mine might have moved over here,” Calum says eventually, when Liam raises an expectant eyebrow. It feels fucking weird calling Michael a mate. The word doesn’t feel quite complete in his mouth, like maybe there should be a soul prefixing it. 

“Oh aye?” Liam says, raising his other eyebrow too, like he knows what Calum might mean by ‘mate’. “Where’s he living?” 

“I don’t know,” Calum admits. Liam hums, like he’s thinking it over. 

“D’you want to know?” he says, in that strangely perceptive way he sometimes does. Calum shrugs, and hopes Liam doesn’t catch the tension in his shoulders. 

“Maybe,” he says. “Dunno. Depends.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Liam doesn’t ask him to. Instead, his emotional capacity probably filled for the night, he claps his hand on Calum’s thigh. 

“Want to see if we can get Noel to piss himself?” he says, eyes bright, and Calum can’t help but snort. 

“‘Course I fucking do,” he says, getting to his feet. Liam braces himself on the sink as he pulls himself up, a little unsteady, and grins. 

“Ten quid says he does,” he says, and Calum snorts. Noel had pissed himself once, three years ago, and Liam can’t fucking let go of it. 

“You don’t fucking have ten quid,” he says, following Liam out of the room, still feeling a little light-headed and woozy, but no longer nauseous. 

“Neither do you,” Liam counters, pushing open the door to the living room, and Calum has to concede there.

“How about the loser sucks the other’s dick, then?” he says, grinning, and Liam throws his head back as he laughs. 

“You’re on,” he says over his shoulder, eyes twinkling. 

“Who’s getting who to suck their dick?” Noel demands. 

“You’re helping me get Calum to suck my dick,” Liam tells him, throwing himself down on the sofa next to Noel and resting his head on Noel’s chest. Almost instinctively, Noel’s arm comes around him, holding him close. Calum could almost be fooled into thinking they’re in some sort of a truce, that the booze and cocaine have broken down the barrier of hatred between them and left only the underlying love, until Liam reaches forwards, picks up a bottle of beer and holds it to Noel’s lips with a wicked grin. 

“Drink up.”

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chapter two

[awsugar]

i usually say multiples of five for ask games but its emojis so i hope i counted right 🐰🍼🍪🌧💘💅🍓

thank you!!!! <3

do you believe in soul mates? yes i do. idk if i necessarily think everyone has a soulmate or meets them but i think there are people who are perfectly matched for each other written in the stars and the people who find theirs are very lucky and i believe this almost entirely bc of dan and phil 😔 i’ve never experienced two people who were so perfect for each other in every conceivable way before like they ARE soulmates so yes i believe in that

what is your favorite memory? thats hard and i have a terrible memory and most of the memories from my life i do have are BAD things for some reason but i will go with mcr at the shrine i think that really was the peak of my existence

cookie dough or cookies? umm cookies. cookie dough is good but it’s more about the fact of not wanting to wait until the cookies are done baking rather than wanting to eat the cookie dough more than the finished cookies. to me. cookie dough ice cream is my fave though.

favorite thing to do on rainy days? NAP if its raining i have to take a nap lol

3 ways to win your heart? make me laugh, have compatible music taste, have similar interests and life goals i guess

do you like being spoiled? yes very much so i want to be a sugar baby

one secret about yourself: hmmmm idk. if it’s a secret it’s probably a secret for a reason. this is lame but i have been slacking on my school work and no one knows that so i guess its a secret lol

[is-that-another-soulmate-au]

@mypureessence

Korrasami/wuko/oc insert soulmate au part idk at this point

"No, no, Tahn, here" Lee shifted his stance so it was closer inward "take a breath and imagine your fire not as a flame but as boiling water coursing through your veins" she then reached her hand to his face "now close your eyes and imagine it"

Tahn nodded and did as she told him, taking a deep breath before shifting his stance and punching out a blue flame just as he opened his eyes, his face turned from doubt to unfiltered glee as he punched out two more blue flames. Turning to Lee who was smiling ear to ear "I did it"

"Im so proud of you" she said only to be caught in a tight hug. Which was broken apart once Tahn realized his mistake and clearwd his throat.

"Sorry, captain"

"It is not a problem, you deserved a little hug for that. Now, everyone else, do just as Tahn did just then" she had been demonstrating fire basics for a good week and a half now and Tahn was the first to accomplish lighting a blue flame, but by the end of that week every single firebender in that room was capable of bending blue fire and blocking small explosions.

Lin was incredibly proud of her and went to say as much by asking her to join her for dinner that evening. But Lee's smile and excitement to say yes faded into a look of fear with an attempted mask of irritation "Im flattered, and I understand we're soulmates but we should really focus on work right now. I'm sorry."

Lin stuttered for a couple seconds, honestly shocked at the response "I figured you'd be excited to go out to eat as a celebration, it doesn't have to be a date"

Lee sighed "but you'd look at it as one"

"No, no I wouldn't, its just... two colleagues who happen to be soulmates going out to eat as a celebration for reaching a goal" Lin offered a hand "what do you say?"

Lee looked at her hand and then at Lin and let out a sigh "Lin, I appreciate the offer, but I have to decline. I'm sorry, maybe another time"

They managed to tiptoe around eachother until the day that Amon announced his demand for the probending tournament to be canceled. That day Lee marched into the council hall with Lin who interrupted the gavel drop Tarrlok was about to do.

"And what exactly does little mousey have to do with this?" Tarrlok mused

Lee smirked "firstly three tails, its Foxy, and this is what I have to do with it," she nodded to Lin and then Korra who both nodded back.

She tossed up a remote controlled bomb and Lin pulled out the remote for it, catching the council members off guard just as Lee jumped up onto Korra's palm, then Lin's shoulder and finally off Korra's head to light a blue flame as the small explosions started. She quickly engulfed the explosion with her own blue flame and slammed it onto the ground as she came back to the floor with a bang.

Lifting up the hand that deflected the explosion she crumbled a small box into ashes and stood, dusting off her jacket "With Lin's metal benders and my bomb squad, the arena will be perfectly safe."

That is certainly what they thought. The night of the championship came and Lee was about to do rounds on her floor with Tahn but was stopped by Lin grabbing her arm. "Lee, I know you've got this, but please... if anything happens to you and you can't get out, kick, flail, scream do anything you can to get the attention of my metal bendersz Tahn or myself"

Lee gave her a smile and a nod "alright, you got it chief" and with that they had separated and Lee went with Tahn to their floor.

She was expecting a quiet walk but Tahn had other plans "say, Captain Fox, I noticed you and Chief Beifong are soulmates" Tahn leaned forward while he was walking and gave her a look.

She flushed and cleared her throat at the mention of the obvious "you didn't notice, I announced it the first day of training with you lot"

"Right right, but I did notice that you've been avoiding being affectionate towards her, and I also spotted a gold speck in your other eye when I hugged you that one day"

Lee froze in place, she forgot that others could see it if they got close enough "that-"

"Was from a soulmate passed? I know, I have one too, and I was in a similar situation with you and the chief, only, He didnt back down and made me open up about why I was avoiding giving him love." Tahn reached out a hand "I know you care about her and you know she cares about you, she's never been gentle with any one as she is with you."

Lee sighed and looked up at him "I dont want to ask how they died for you, but do you mind me telling you?"

"Of course" and with that response she took his hand and then linked arms instead as they continued to walk

"The bar I worked at is owned by a father and son, and they pulled me and him off the street when we had nowhere to go. Things were okay, I already sang as a comfort and they taught me how to properly sing while teaching him tap dance. He was a nonbender and thats why is parents put him up for adoption like my parents did for me." She paused "thats how we met in the first place"

"At the orphanage?"

"Yeah, before it blew up with only him and I surviving on the slim chance that I managed to develop blue fire on a survival instinct." She took a breath "anyways, while we worked at the bar I earned the title white fox and him the title of black fox, for obvious reasons, there were and still are alot of people there that had a strong distaste for either me or him." Turning to Tahn she frowned "and there were many attempts on our lives, they assumed he was a firebender and I a nonbender and often times went for him first but we normally had body guards and what not."

"Except for one night" she looked at her feet "one night after we both turned 19 they let us have a night without a body guard to fool around. When we finished we went to sleep. I dont know all of what happened because its kind of blury, but all I remember was waking up to him covered in blood and attacking and killing the woman who hurt him." She released his arm to wrap herself in a self hug sort of move.

"I can still smell it" she whispered

"Smell what?" She shook his head to the question "I cant talk about it anymore, Im sorry"

"No no, youre okay, Im glad you managed to talk about that much, but you'll trigger a ptsd attack if you keep up, hey, would a hug be alright? You look like you need one"

She did need one, so she nodded and was wrapped in a tight hug, that somehow was just what she needed to relax. She smiled "thank you Tahn" he pulled back and gave her shoulder a pat.

"Anytime, I dont have a big elaborate story on how my soulmate passed, she was hit by a car and died in the hospital with me there holding her hand" he gave a sad smile "Im sorry about what happened to you Captain, but just know I'm always here to talk, and so is Lin."

And thats when it clicked in Lee's head. She was running from accepting the fact that she found Lin in an effort to never love her and lose her, but in that effort she was already failing. She already loved her and she could lose her either way. She nodded "I'll keep that in mind"

They managed to get to their separation point and Lee nodded to Tahn "stay safe and remember to keep an ear, eye, and nose open at all times"

"Yes captain" he nodded back and they went their separate ways

Walking down the hall she could still hear the championship going down and she smiled knowing Lin was there with Tenzin and she was safe. However when she passed a set of doors she felt a zing of electricity hit her fingertips and she turned quickly to open the doors and took an attack stance.

"Well well!" A man said while standing up from the small box he had in his hands "guess a little mouse found me, I wonder how you managed to, I was so quiet, and only firebenders can sense that electric shock I used just now" hs smirked but only his mouth was visible, so she couldn't read the rest of his expression. She just narrowed her eyes and coughed out a small bit of blue fire while not breaking her glare at him

"Ah! So youre not a little mouse" he chuckled "a little fox then, oh what a trickster you benders are" she lunged at him but he just dodged and spun around and out of the room "have fun blowing up dear, I have somewhere else to be" and with that he ran off.

She spun around when she heard a click and managed to deflect the explosion from the box he was by in time but it sent her back into a large filing cabinet the started to tip. "Shit" she yelped and went to run from it but it still fell and pinned her by her left leg. She screamed when it fell and a loud crack could be heard. Her eyes welled up with tears and she tried to get out but it was useless, she was pinned and her leg wasn't going to budge. "Lin! Tahn! Korra! Someone! Help!" She cried out, but it was a fruitless cry. There were very audible explosions happening elsewhere and they were preoccupied.

She turned to look at her pinned leg and quickly turned away from the sight, there was a good amount of blood pooling around and she bit her lip. She had to cauterize the wound soon or she'd bleed out before anyone had the chance to find her. "Okay Lee. You got this" she moved her hand down and took a breatj "this is gonna hurt" was all she whispered out before lighting a bright blue flame on her leg for a good ten seconds before extinguishing it and resting her head on her other arm. "Hury Lin"

By the time the whole Amon performance went down and everyone was safe and evacuated from the building Lin found Tahn helping a young lady calm down. "Tahn, where's Lee?"

Tahn looked up from the girl confused "what do you mean? I heard the explosions start and thought she had already joined you guys, wait-"

their eyes went wide "She's still in there" they said in unison and hurried towards the building

"Korra! Come with me! Lee might need a healer" Lin shouted as they reached the building. She lifted her leg and slammed it back down to locate her, once she did they were off, running up stairs and down a hall. Where they heard sobbing. "Lee!" Lin shouted as she slammed the doors open.

"L-Lin?" Lee's strained voice came from the floor.

When Lin's eyes finally settled on Lee they grew wider than before and she gasped "Lee!?"

Lee gave a half hearted chuckle "you found me" immediately after the words left her mouth Lee collapsed and blacked out to Lin, Korra and Tahn shouting her name.

She was set up with healers for a good two days before she woke up, the entire time Lin either stayed by her side or had Bolin watch her if she was busy, and Tahn took over the bomb squad as temporary captain. The morning before she woke up Tahn came to check on Lin and her.

"Chief?" Tahn called quietly, managing to get her attention enough that she turned to look at him "may I come in?" She nodded and he entered the room with a bowl of soup in his hands "here. You need to eat.. I also wanted to tell you something"

He sat down and set the bowl on the small table beside Lin "what is it?" She asked in a grumpy but attempted gentle voice.

"There's a reason she had walls up for you" Tahn said softly while looking at the sleeping Lee "Im sure you've seen that speck of gold in her eyes"

"Yes, I have"

"And you've seen my blue right?" With a nod as a response he continued "you both were meant to have another soulmate, she had met them and lost them. Just like I had known another soulmate but lost them. I lost mine to a car accident, but she... she had them killed right beside her while she slept."

"I- why didn't she just tell me?" Lin narrowed her eyes at Tahn "and why would she tell you?"

"Because I asked and I managed to put two and two together and show a connection with knowing" he sighed "Im not saying this to act like I know more about her, Im saying this so you understand why she's hesitant to let herself fall in love with you. Just, be patient with her, she'll come around"

Lee stirred in the bed and made a small whine "bright" she whispered

"Lee?" Lin whispered

"Lin?" Lee slowly opened her eyes to look at Lin and Tahn "I can't.. I can't feel my leg" she looked down "Oh my gods! Where's my leg!?" She sat up quick and held her head when it started to pound

"Woah now, easy there Captain, you were aleep for two days, let me get you some food and water"

"Tahn? What... what happened to my leg?"

"It was crushed under a filing cabinet and the healers couldnt save it" he frowned "Im sorry. I'll be right back with some food and water"

"Just get her water, I'll share the soup" Tahn nodded at Lin and headed out to get the water while Lin pushed some pillows behind Lee so she could sit comfortably.

"Lin... I.." Lee stared at her hands, trying to form her words "I'm sorry"

"Your apology is accepted, though Im not sure what you're apologizing for"

"For.. avoiding you as a soulmate? I don't.. I dont want to tell another person the whole thing, but I just... we had another and he.. he was" she held her chest while she tried to breathe

"Hey, hey, its okay, Tahn told me, you don't have to retell it. But Im glad you felt safe to try. And don't worry, I'll be patient with y-"

"Can you kiss me?" Lee blurted out

Lin blinked a couple times and stammered for a moment before managing out a "are you sure?"

"More sure than I've ever been, I know youre not too touchy feely and what not, but just once can y-!!" She didn't manage to rant much more because she was silenced by a pair of lips against her own.

Lin held her cheek when she pulled back and grinned. "You talk too much" and sealed the distance once more.

[glorywaited]

☽ /  @livelaughmuse​ :  💕           SHIPPING INTEREST CHECK !!   (  accepting -- no need to have interacted prior !!  )

i’ll do it for muses that i’m familiar with / are available or able to ship or whatever -- but kno i’m always open for literally anything with u because i love u n i’d die for u ♡ so if u ever have a muse that is just like /hey i want cass/ like u have permission to throw em at me always i’m stupidly easily enabled into ships i swear

LANCE

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

i tbh love cass n lance a lot but i think u kno that already dahskjm but id love to do anything in any verses we have or ykno im extremely weak for lance / cass / eugene ot3 in any verses -- especially childhood friends verse hdasjkmd but tbh i just...shes the strong scary lady to his beautiful himbo n thats such a good ship dynamic !! oh...another good ot3 with them too i just realise could be that one dark kingdom au we talked about too where cass grows up there as quirin’s kid !! look im just weak for these two n also that ot3 bhdasjkm im sry

ANDREW

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

literally give me all the exes things we’ve talked about n like all the verses tbh ?? also i’ve always wanted to do a verse that was based off a theory going around before s3 n ive talk about it before, but cass originally had saporian parents that were killed && cass finds out about that behind the door, so she ends up getting angry not about her mother but the terrible treatment of her people by corona n it’s still literally her being overshadowed by raps. but she takes the moonstone n actually goes to help the separatists && varian escape && take over corona for their people n i just rly love that ?? but also like going off that n them accidentally getting back together or starting something not based off lies maybe getting to kno him without the cover might be Neat ??

D’ARTAGNAN 

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

i like the princess cass thing we talked briefly about but also i’d be up for any other aus u might wanna do ?? i just love him n i think they’d have a fun dynamic tbh also uhhh they both love horses n i think thats rly great of them they can make fun of the other musketeers about it :’) but also her being there for him when treville dies oop 

CONSTANCE

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

PERHAPS them meeting while she’s a handmaiden n cass is also working as a handmaiden ?? but also my princess verse might be cute with her too ?? cass sneaking away one night for Freedom for a minute because she’s constantly surrounded by guards n ending up running into constance n mayhaps she doesnt find out shes a princess until later :’) but again im literally up for any aus u’d want because i just rly...rly love constance n i think theyd have a fun dynamic they have a lot of similarities 

FITZ

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

i’m weak for cass with huge nerds tbh n i just think theyd have an interesting dynamic if ur interested ?? but im still watching aos n i just absolutely adore him sm ??? but cass as an agent working with him like she’d be interested in the amazing things he does but shed be all ‘...but i dont rly care’ about it because shes stubborn n closed off n doesnt kno a whole lot about all that tech stuffs creation she just uses whats shes given n trained with dhbajkm

LUCIFER

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

idk i love lucifer hdajkmd i tbh think he’d be interesting with cass like just...those personalities im dhbajskd i also have a bunch of verses where she’s an immortal / goddess so theres that but also her main modern verse would work cause thats just....her being a detective so... ykno like canon i... but her working as a bodyguard there for him could be Interesting too

CHIDI

Have we discussed shipping before?: yes || no || sorta

My interest level overall: I’ve wanted this for so long || can’t wait || I think it’ll be fun || kinda feeling it || maybe with a lot of plotting || I need to think about it || not interested, sorry

How we should do this: jump right in || slow burn || pre-established || build up to it in a thread || anything goes

Dynamics I want to try out with our ship: friends to lovers || rivals to lovers || enemies to lovers || mutual pining || battle couple || childhood friends || high school sweethearts || star crossed lovers || long time lovers || old married couple || newlyweds || sickeningly sweet couple || secret lovers || fake dating/marriage || best friends hiding their feelings || arranged marriage || soulmates || other

like i said i just am weak for cass with huge nerds dbhasjkdm hed probably annoy her at first with his problems with making decisions but also like ?? hed grow on her a lot hes so sweet n caring n someone she’d need in her life ?? n when she opens up she’d be there for him, figure out those moments he’s overthinking or panicking n be there to calm him down. n it can be any au or verse u’d be up for or i can tbh make a verse for the goo.d pl.ace cause cass rly isn’t perfect n even before series n during series ends up putting herself n her own goals before others idk i think theyd balance each other pretty well n be able to teach each other some things ??

-- 

n tbh i’d be open for ur galav.ant ladies but it’s been forever since i watched it n hbadsjkdm but im open !! i love them...